Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey you wasn't the Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick,
Speaker 1: and we find ourselves here. This is you know, every
Speaker 1: year people ask, hey, how do you get all the
Speaker 1: episodes into the vault so they can one day become
Speaker 1: Vault episodes. Well, today's the day. It's it's ongoing. Uh.
Speaker 1: Carney has been loading the episodes from into the vault
Speaker 1: all day and then at the end of that effort,
Speaker 1: there was, of course in a New Year's Eve party.
Speaker 1: So Carney is pretty worn out. Man. I am so
Speaker 1: sick of the sound Carney makes when he's backing up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a bit annoying, but you know, he
Speaker 1: has to back up, especially when he's carrying the heavier loads,
Speaker 1: such as, uh, the episode in the Ark of the Covenant.
Speaker 1: But but I'm glad that has been filed away in
Speaker 1: the vault as well. Yeah, but we're just gonna have
Speaker 1: to get it back out again when those top top
Speaker 1: men show up to look at it. Uh. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's been a fun year and we're about
Speaker 1: to enter into a new year for stuff to blow
Speaker 1: your mind. I think it's gonna be pretty exciting. We
Speaker 1: already have some some some pretty fabulous topics lined up there.
Speaker 1: So of course other topics we've been meaning to get
Speaker 1: to Allen that are now going to be twenty nineteen episodes,
Speaker 1: like you know, you know what I realized as we
Speaker 1: never did Science of Highlander too. I know it's we
Speaker 1: We've been trying all year twenty nineteen. It must happen.
Speaker 1: Because I want to lie and say it's our most
Speaker 1: requested episode. I don't think that's true. It's the most
Speaker 1: requested by by by us. But um, and then we
Speaker 1: have a lot of sway over what gets done. We
Speaker 1: just we just need to make an effort to it
Speaker 1: to both see it again. Um. But I also want
Speaker 1: to do Highlander two because there are other movie based
Speaker 1: episodes that I would love to to cover. I would
Speaker 1: love to really just dig into uh David Cronenberg video drume,
Speaker 1: for example, I was rewatching parts of that for an
Speaker 1: episode we're gonna recording that you know where we only
Speaker 1: like marginally mentioned video drum. But there's so much meat
Speaker 1: on the bone there well, especially in the digital age,
Speaker 1: the way. Basically, I think we're living in a world
Speaker 1: where we have all become Max Wren, brainwashed by media
Speaker 1: and turned into killing machines that are doing the bidding
Speaker 1: of the people who create our media. Yeah, indeed, I
Speaker 1: think they're they're I think the metaphor is even stronger now.
Speaker 1: But today we're doing the listener mail thing. Carney is
Speaker 1: is going to be roused just enough so that he
Speaker 1: might deliver some listener mail to us, and we once more.
Speaker 1: Another month passes, and we have a number of great
Speaker 1: bits of listener correspondence to refer to here. Alright, so
Speaker 1: we already mentioned the Ark of the Covenant. Maybe we
Speaker 1: should look at some mail on the subject of the
Speaker 1: ark now, if you haven't heard it. We did a
Speaker 1: couple of episodes in November. I think was it November.
Speaker 1: When do we do those episodes? I believe it was
Speaker 1: the first week in December because it ended up accidentally
Speaker 1: corresponding with Hanukah this year. Okay, Well, anyway, we're talking
Speaker 1: about the legendary artifact, the r of the Covenant as
Speaker 1: it has appeared in of course in the Bible, but
Speaker 1: in Indiana Jones movies and then in these scientific interpretations
Speaker 1: where people are sort of practicing what we called bronze punk,
Speaker 1: where they look back to legends and myths from the
Speaker 1: Bronze Age and say, what what if actually people were
Speaker 1: using some kind of science or technology here. Uh. And
Speaker 1: so Amelia gets in touch with us in response to
Speaker 1: these episodes, she says, Hey, Rob and Joe, your Ak
Speaker 1: of the Covenant episodes are officially two of my all
Speaker 1: time favorites as an unabashed lover of ancient history, both
Speaker 1: academic and pseudo scientific. I was glued to my earbuds.
Speaker 1: Your discussion of the mutilated Dagon statue and subsequent plagues
Speaker 1: got me thinking, now, remember the story here, the ideas
Speaker 1: that the Philistines. There's a story told in the Bible
Speaker 1: where the Philistines took the arc from the ancient Israelites.
Speaker 1: They took it to the temple of Dagon, their god.
Speaker 1: But then the arc did a bunch of mischief while
Speaker 1: it was among the Philistines. It destroyed the statue of
Speaker 1: their god Dagon, and it in it up, giving them
Speaker 1: what the original translation into English called immrods in their
Speaker 1: secret parts. Right. And we had a lot of fun
Speaker 1: in that episode looking at various theories regarding what those
Speaker 1: immerrods could have been. Now, we always need to be clear,
Speaker 1: we're not necessarily advocating the idea that this is like
Speaker 1: a record of a historical event that actually needs explanation.
Speaker 1: But what could these people haven't have had in mind?
Speaker 1: So Amelia continues, Why would the ark myth choose mice
Speaker 1: and quote immerrods in the philistines secret parts as a
Speaker 1: specific punishment related to the defiling of their patron God?
Speaker 1: Could these two plagues have had particular significance relating to
Speaker 1: Dagon's role in Philistinian culture? And this is a great
Speaker 1: question because so many of the answers were looking at
Speaker 1: it from the modern perspective. They were saying, Hey, we
Speaker 1: know that mice and uh and in certain swellings, we
Speaker 1: can we can sort of build a plague theory out
Speaker 1: of that bubonic plague theory. But indeed, like, what is
Speaker 1: the original context? Yeah? So yeah, and what would this,
Speaker 1: what with this imagery have meant to the people who
Speaker 1: compose this story, so Amelia continues. In college, I took
Speaker 1: a class on Biblical legs of Jesus, which refers to
Speaker 1: critical and scholarly analysis of the ancient texts Exa Jesus
Speaker 1: uses historically relevant, social and mythological lenses to interpret obscure
Speaker 1: Biblical passages. One of the first things you learn from
Speaker 1: Biblical Legs of Jesus is that the Old Testament is
Speaker 1: riddled with allusions to Sumerian mythology. I won't bog down
Speaker 1: this email with specific cases, but the overall effect is
Speaker 1: a vivid illustration of an era fraught with interfaith lore.
Speaker 1: The Abrahamic nomads of the Old Testament did not likely
Speaker 1: operate within the metaphysical monotheism which characterizes later Christian theology.
Speaker 1: In modern terms, we may interpret the Jews devotion to
Speaker 1: Yahweh using a contemporary Christian concept of one all powerful,
Speaker 1: existent deity, but Exajesus studies suggests this conclusion may be faulty.
Speaker 1: For the Hebrews of the Bronze Age Fertile Crescent, Yahweh
Speaker 1: more likely stands as the supreme God nested within a
Speaker 1: culture of Sumerian devised polytheism. You alway is not the
Speaker 1: only God, but he is the true God, and his
Speaker 1: communication with his children of Abraham elicits an important cultural
Speaker 1: shift in humanity's philosophy on relation to the divine. I
Speaker 1: remember picking up on this as a kid in um
Speaker 1: in Sunday school class, because when you're reading those Old
Speaker 1: Testament stories, it's clear that there are other gods and
Speaker 1: they are doing stuff, and yeah, you know, certain people
Speaker 1: may explain them away as oh within other really demons,
Speaker 1: but now in the text they really come off as
Speaker 1: God's Oh yeah, I think this is absolutely clear. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is one of the many cases where the Bible
Speaker 1: as a whole, the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament
Speaker 1: both represent multiplicities of theologies. You know, they're the writers
Speaker 1: who are writing the different books and passages, and even
Speaker 1: the stories that were compiled into these books had different
Speaker 1: points of view, and so some of them may have
Speaker 1: only believed that one God existed. But I think it's
Speaker 1: a clear, strong strain of thinking in many books of
Speaker 1: the Hebrew Bible that there are other gods. It's just
Speaker 1: that there's only one God worth worshiping. There's only one
Speaker 1: God that that matters, or only one God that's worthy,
Speaker 1: and that is the God of Israel. And so I
Speaker 1: think Amelia makes a great point about us, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: bringing our sort of uh, bringing one theological context to
Speaker 1: an ancient, ancient text, without realizing that it might not
Speaker 1: actually be appropriate. Uh So, anyway, she continues, Assuming this
Speaker 1: theory is correct, the Hebrew people were well versed in
Speaker 1: the religious lore of their geographical heritage. In this case,
Speaker 1: Dagon presents as one in a series of older rival entities,
Speaker 1: which Yahweh's superiority lays low. Joe notes in your second
Speaker 1: episode that Daygone, despite his fishy reputation, was worshiped as
Speaker 1: a god of grain and possible sexual fertility. Taking this
Speaker 1: into consideration, a plague of mice notorious defilers of grain
Speaker 1: seeds past in present is humorously self evident. More disturbing
Speaker 1: is the notion that the immrods in the philistines secret
Speaker 1: parts may not be hemorrhoids or tumors in the anus,
Speaker 1: but growths on the genitalia. Robert mentioned some studies leaning
Speaker 1: in this direction regarding a syphilis outbreak, but whether or
Speaker 1: not the Ark of the Covenant employed syphilitic biowarfare, the
Speaker 1: idea of a disfiguring disease which ravages the genitals of
Speaker 1: those whose patron is a fertility god smacks of poetic irony. Again,
Speaker 1: I think this is a very good point. I think
Speaker 1: that you know, we mentioned this in the episode, like,
Speaker 1: is this story about what the Arc did to the Philistines?
Speaker 1: Is it supposed to be funny? I think the outcomes
Speaker 1: and punishments that they specify for the for the Philistines,
Speaker 1: they came up with those because they were supposed to
Speaker 1: be funny and like humiliating. I can't help but imagine
Speaker 1: the Ark of the Covenant on an open mic stage
Speaker 1: with the brick Wall behind it, kind of staring into
Speaker 1: members of the audience. Yes, and so I mean even well,
Speaker 1: one funny thing you point out there is the brick wall.
Speaker 1: You know, often you watch the Brick Wall comedian and
Speaker 1: the people in the audience are laughing, But we're today
Speaker 1: like this isn't funny? What's going on? So humor definitely
Speaker 1: gets lost, even across a single generation or two. You know,
Speaker 1: you look at the stand up comics of the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 1: not always funny anymore. Obviously, some amount of humor is
Speaker 1: lost between the Bronze Age and now and lost in translation,
Speaker 1: so it can be difficult to tell is it supposed
Speaker 1: to be funny or not. I think it probably is.
Speaker 1: I think this is supposed to be kind of like
Speaker 1: in the Miller's Tail when the guy gets the hot
Speaker 1: iron in his butt. Anyway, coming back to UH to
Speaker 1: finish Amelia's email, she says, in short, Yahweh and his
Speaker 1: sacred Arc don't mess around. If this interpretation has legs,
Speaker 1: it seems Yahweh not only punishes, but take pain, but
Speaker 1: takes pains to customize his outrage to the deity in question.
Speaker 1: For people whose history is riddled with oppression and assault,
Speaker 1: this sort of justice would hold special significance, possibly even
Speaker 1: dark humor. And then she adds some words of thanks
Speaker 1: and so thank you Amelia. Yeah, this makes a great point,
Speaker 1: and I think this really adds to to our consideration
Speaker 1: of where these stories come from and what they might
Speaker 1: have meant. Yeah, and you know, some night out might
Speaker 1: out there might think, well, I like the idea of
Speaker 1: the ARC using humorless laser beams to smite its enemies
Speaker 1: rather than humor. But we have to remember too that
Speaker 1: that far more than than than than laser beams. Humor
Speaker 1: is a power that can topple gods and topple uh
Speaker 1: tyrannical rule, etcetera. I believe even reading the name of
Speaker 1: the rose by and burn of Eco. Absolutely, yeah, and
Speaker 1: that is that's one of the big themes in the book,
Speaker 1: the power and the danger of comedy. Uh, to to
Speaker 1: threaten the power of a divine being. Nothing is more
Speaker 1: terrifying to the narcissist and the tyrant than the laughter
Speaker 1: that people are unable to contain at him, Right, I mean,
Speaker 1: this is the this is the agel power of the
Speaker 1: you know, the the Emperor's new clothes, etcetera. All right, well,
Speaker 1: as long as we're talking about the arc, we have
Speaker 1: another bit of listener mail here that comes to us
Speaker 1: from David. David says, Hello, Robert and Joe. I enjoyed
Speaker 1: the latest podcast, as I do most of your episodes,
Speaker 1: although as I wow, you know, I mean, we cover
Speaker 1: a lot of different topics here. I we realized that
Speaker 1: that every episode is not going to be for every listener.
Speaker 1: Of course, he continues, although as I have a mild
Speaker 1: case of misophonia at the front sequence, as you begin
Speaker 1: to almost whisper, I did begin to feel slightly enraged.
Speaker 1: Well well, but but you know it's this is another
Speaker 1: case where some some listeners may have a problem with whispering.
Speaker 1: We know for a fact that multiple listeners will put
Speaker 1: us on as they're going to sweep. So you know,
Speaker 1: it kind of goes both ways. I can't please everybody,
Speaker 1: can't be everybody's dream come true. Anyway, he continues, I
Speaker 1: thought you might like to read some observations that I
Speaker 1: have made over multiple viewing of Raiders of the Lost Dark,
Speaker 1: all right, because we did. We talked about Raiders of
Speaker 1: the Lost Dark at length in those episodes. We got
Speaker 1: a little carried away at one point. I think we
Speaker 1: just basically accidentally turned it into a movie crush episode
Speaker 1: for about ten in it. So sorry about that. It
Speaker 1: was not on purpose, but you know it was a
Speaker 1: little bit on purpose, alright, So he continues, So he
Speaker 1: has several different areas he focuses on here. First of all,
Speaker 1: the idea that Indie has no effect on the outcome.
Speaker 1: He says, quote, this is something you touched on and
Speaker 1: was brought up, brought to popular culture in the TV
Speaker 1: show Big Bang Theory. It is that despite Indiana Jones's effort,
Speaker 1: nothing he does stops the Nazis from accomplishing their goal
Speaker 1: and in fact helps them. Whilst this is true, that
Speaker 1: is not the point of the movie for me. He
Speaker 1: is not meant to succeed. He is coming up against
Speaker 1: one of the greatest military forces of all time, and
Speaker 1: to have him defeat them would be ridiculous. This was
Speaker 1: the point I made in the episode that the genius
Speaker 1: of the climax of Raiders of the Lost Art is
Speaker 1: that Indie is victorious in the end, not by fighting.
Speaker 1: There's not a fight scene at the end of the movie.
Speaker 1: He doesn't beat down the enemy and throw him off
Speaker 1: a cliff or something. Instead, Indie is victorious at the
Speaker 1: end by realizing what the arc means. That's his that's
Speaker 1: his victory, is that the Nazis don't understand what the
Speaker 1: arc means, and Indie finally does right. And I think,
Speaker 1: you know, I also going to go maybe off on
Speaker 1: a limb here a little bit and say that I
Speaker 1: think our expectation that Indy should absolutely save the day
Speaker 1: and should be a real, you know factor in this scenario,
Speaker 1: that this is perhaps a poisoning of the well brought
Speaker 1: on by our just obsession with superhero movies and also
Speaker 1: epic narratives saying the Lord of the Rings and I
Speaker 1: love a good superhero movie. I love uh, I love
Speaker 1: you know. Blade two is one of my favorites. I
Speaker 1: also enjoyed some of the recent Marvel films as well,
Speaker 1: But in those films, the superhero absolutely has to save
Speaker 1: the day. That is the trope. You can't have just
Speaker 1: a small story or even a you know, a very
Speaker 1: exciting story that sort of taking place uh in the
Speaker 1: foreground or the background of larger events. Likewise, in an
Speaker 1: epic fantasy like Lord of the Rings, it is about
Speaker 1: the individuals who do the key things that save the world. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's that these modern Marvel movie
Speaker 1: writers have read T. S. Eliot's critique of Hamlet, and
Speaker 1: they're like, Okay, we don't want to have an ineffectual
Speaker 1: hero the way Hamlet is, who's just indecisive and doesn't
Speaker 1: ultimately fix anything. So we've we've got to go in
Speaker 1: the opposite direction and instead of have these like boring
Speaker 1: perfect do everything right here. Don't get me started ranting
Speaker 1: on Marvel movies. Well again, and I'm not hating on them.
Speaker 1: I enjoy some of them as as well. To Actually
Speaker 1: I like the Iron Man movies. Oh yeah, the third
Speaker 1: one especially, I really doug the shame Black one. Uh yeah.
Speaker 1: So on one hand, I think part of it is
Speaker 1: you can't look to a move to every movie and
Speaker 1: expected to accomplish the same things that a superhero film does.
Speaker 1: So certainly one can't look to every film and expected to,
Speaker 1: you know, have exactly the same beats as a superhero
Speaker 1: film and have the protagonist engage in the overall narrative
Speaker 1: and exactly the same way. I have to say that
Speaker 1: I enjoy many a story where the the hero or
Speaker 1: the protagonist doesn't really change the outcome of events, or
Speaker 1: it's just a smaller story and you get the sense
Speaker 1: of something larger, something more epic, taking place that they
Speaker 1: may have limited interaction with. You know. The kind of
Speaker 1: story I love even more is the one where the
Speaker 1: ostensible hero is actually quite ineffectual and it is the
Speaker 1: sidekick or some other ally who has to do all
Speaker 1: the actual work. Of course, I guess it's the don
Speaker 1: Keyxote model. But a great example of this is Big
Speaker 1: Trouble and Little China. Absolutely, Jack Burton is just not
Speaker 1: very useful in Wang is the real hero, right, But
Speaker 1: then at the same time he does have at least
Speaker 1: one key moment to shine. Uh And and this comes
Speaker 1: back to a discussion that then I know that I
Speaker 1: believe we we've had with Lauren Vogelbaum talking about stories, films, etcetera,
Speaker 1: or even in a short stories as well, where there's
Speaker 1: a lack of agency in the character, where you reach
Speaker 1: a point where it's just stuff happening to that individual
Speaker 1: and they're not actually like going beyond at least like
Speaker 1: India is doing something. He's saving his own life and
Speaker 1: the life of Marion towards the end, and and then
Speaker 1: there's some arguments for some other things that are going
Speaker 1: on there as well, but it doesn't become just a
Speaker 1: like a psychedelic freak out of the arc, which you
Speaker 1: know very well could have been because you're dealing with
Speaker 1: the Ark of the Covenant anyway, David continues. So the
Speaker 1: next point that he touches on is the idea that
Speaker 1: Bellock saves Hitler. Okay, so Indie's rival in the movie
Speaker 1: the French Guy, Yeah, fabulous character. In the movie, the
Speaker 1: Nazi commanders are there to obtain the arc and take
Speaker 1: it to Hitler. There is a scene near the end
Speaker 1: where Bellock convinces them to open the arc on the
Speaker 1: island instead of in front of Hitler. The reason is
Speaker 1: obviously because of Bellock's own want to have the glory
Speaker 1: and his chat with God. This is the holy It's
Speaker 1: a radio for speaking to God. But if the Nazi
Speaker 1: commanders would have been more insistent, Hitler and probably all
Speaker 1: of his major party members in generals would have been extinguished.
Speaker 1: I have never noticed this before, but that's an extremely
Speaker 1: good point. It makes Bellock even worse as a villain
Speaker 1: because we could have killed Hitler in the thirties, but
Speaker 1: Belloc Bellock prevents it. Yeah, yeah, it's it's an interesting read.
Speaker 1: I had not thought of that, but it was just
Speaker 1: been a longer movie. If it was just at the
Speaker 1: end of it, somebody else, Um, who's Indie's boss? Uh?
Speaker 1: Was his name? Marcus Brody Dentdno, Elliott, Yeah, it would have.
Speaker 1: It would have kind of sucked. At the end of
Speaker 1: the movie. Was just Brody reading a newspaper and reading, Oh,
Speaker 1: the Ark of the Covenant just took out all the
Speaker 1: the leadership of the Third Reich. Interesting role credits wouldn't
Speaker 1: have been the same. Yeah, okay. The next point, Nazis
Speaker 1: don't act like Nazis, David says. What we know from
Speaker 1: history is that the Nazis never showed restraint when taking
Speaker 1: historical artifacts. However, when looking for the arc they do.
Speaker 1: They have found the map room and other buildings the
Speaker 1: snake room, and we hear they have been digging for months.
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't they just dig out the buildings from the
Speaker 1: map It took Solo's team of a few hours to
Speaker 1: access the room. That was correct. If they did this,
Speaker 1: then in a few months they would have found it. Uh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that might be a good point. Like the Nazis or
Speaker 1: the villains of the movie, but the movie actually doesn't
Speaker 1: make them bad enough. Yeah, it's I mean, it's it's
Speaker 1: weird looking back on storybook Nazis, like it occurring at
Speaker 1: just the right time in history where it was I
Speaker 1: guess far far enough away from the Second World War,
Speaker 1: but also uh, you know, further removed from our our
Speaker 1: current struggles in the world. I mean, it's always been important,
Speaker 1: I think, to to remind everyone of how awful the
Speaker 1: Third Reich was, how awful the Nazis were, and that
Speaker 1: there were no there were no heroes among the Third Reich.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I feel like it has
Speaker 1: become more important somehow to remind people of that today.
Speaker 1: And part of that is because we are getting further
Speaker 1: and further away from the Second World War, We're getting
Speaker 1: into a time where there are fewer uh you know,
Speaker 1: actual there are fewer people carrying the actual flame of
Speaker 1: that of that that whole world that we have we
Speaker 1: thought we'd move beyond. Oh yeah, like maybe at the
Speaker 1: time this movie was made, there was you could feel
Speaker 1: more confident that, well, Nazism some is something the world
Speaker 1: is now just done with, so you can make cartoonish
Speaker 1: historical Nazi characters. Now it's somehow feels a little more
Speaker 1: serious to have Nazi characters. Yeah, yeah, it's it's certainly
Speaker 1: become a more complicated thing to tackle on your films.
Speaker 1: In fact, I can't think of of anything recently that
Speaker 1: is really, you know, struck a similar chord. I guess
Speaker 1: there are, I mean, there was like a zombie. There's
Speaker 1: Nazi zombie films that are coming out, so but I
Speaker 1: haven't seen them. Perhaps we'll hear from listeners on this
Speaker 1: whole topic. Alright, Next point where roof access hatches common
Speaker 1: in ancient buildings. All three buildings that we see access
Speaker 1: had roof access points and no indication that there are
Speaker 1: traditional doors. I am unsure, but I believe there is
Speaker 1: reference to the city being covered by a sandstorm. That
Speaker 1: would mean that in the operation time of the city,
Speaker 1: the ground level would be fairly consistent, both internal and
Speaker 1: external to the buildings. The map room shows this also.
Speaker 1: So why would they have a rooftop access in more
Speaker 1: modern times? I would believe we would for this, Uh,
Speaker 1: we would have this for maintenance. But would this city. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good point. Why do all these buildings have
Speaker 1: openings in the roofs? I mean, I can think of
Speaker 1: archaeological sites where there are ancient structures that have opening
Speaker 1: and openings in the roofs. I think of like some
Speaker 1: of the structures of like the ancestral Pueblo peoples of
Speaker 1: of New Mexico. You know, sometimes there will be like
Speaker 1: the entrance to a building is in the center of
Speaker 1: the rooftop. I don't know if that kind of thing
Speaker 1: is common in ancient Egypt or not. Well, I guess
Speaker 1: one thing that that I that I do think about
Speaker 1: is the fact that many of these the ancient structures
Speaker 1: we've talked about on the show, you know, ziggurats for instance.
Speaker 1: You know, part of the point of building a structure
Speaker 1: like that was to have access to the top. In
Speaker 1: some fashion, because you are building a sacred mountain, You're
Speaker 1: building a holy place, and the peak of that place
Speaker 1: is kind of the point. It's it's like building skyscrapers today.
Speaker 1: Of course, you're going to have either a restaurant, hopefully
Speaker 1: one that revolves. You can have a restaurant. You're gonna
Speaker 1: have a tourist location, or just like some super swank
Speaker 1: penthouse for Vladimir Putin to live in. You know, whatever
Speaker 1: the angle is, like, the top of the thing is
Speaker 1: not only important, it's kind of the point. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: see what you're saying. Um, that's where you're gonna summon Gozer.
Speaker 1: But is that also where you need to get into
Speaker 1: the building from? But you could access the building, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is the whole plot of Escape from
Speaker 1: New York. Remember the snake Pliskin lands on the top
Speaker 1: of the World Trade Center, and then that is how
Speaker 1: he enters, uh, the penal island of New York City.
Speaker 1: So I think what you're saying is that the ancient
Speaker 1: Egyptians anticipated they would need to architecturally justify the plot
Speaker 1: of Escape from New York. Yes, okay, I believe that's
Speaker 1: what's happening. I don't know these are just some ideas
Speaker 1: I don't know to what extent, you know, looking to
Speaker 1: the zigarade, if this holds up, you know, across all cultures.
Speaker 1: Perhaps by the time of this, uh Hollywood, ancient Egyptian structure. Uh,
Speaker 1: they were just like, oh, well, Ruth's a ruth. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Well, thanks for getting in touch, David. These
Speaker 1: were these were some great points to discuss and some
Speaker 1: stuff I'd never thought about before. Even though I still
Speaker 1: hold that I think Raiders is probably the best action
Speaker 1: adventure movie. I guess it depends on what else you count,
Speaker 1: and you know, comparing like older and recent ones, that
Speaker 1: can be kind of difficult. More recently, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I feel like it's kind of hard to beat Fury Road, right.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that one was terrific, The Mad Max film. Uh,
Speaker 1: that's that's probably the best pure action adventure film that
Speaker 1: that I've seen. It's come out in recent years. So anyway, yes,
Speaker 1: always happy to talk about Rags of the Lost Arc. Alright, Well,
Speaker 1: on that note, as we leave the Ark of the
Speaker 1: Covenant behind us, let's take a quick break and when
Speaker 1: we come back, we'll dive into even more listener mail.
Speaker 1: Thank thank Alright, we're back all right. This next mail
Speaker 1: came I think from an episode we did about the
Speaker 1: concept of scientific reductionism, whether scientific disciplines all reduce ultimately
Speaker 1: to h if you have a perfect understanding of them,
Speaker 1: can they be perfectly reduced to lower level understandings of
Speaker 1: physical reality? Like can chemistry ultimately be explained entirely by physics?
Speaker 1: And can biology ultimately be explained entirely by chemistry? Or
Speaker 1: at each level, are there genuinely new and unique properties
Speaker 1: that emerge that you could not predict or understand just
Speaker 1: by having a perfect understanding of the science underlying them.
Speaker 1: Uh So anyway, Peter says, thank you for the distilled
Speaker 1: awesomeness of your show. It makes my daily workouts and
Speaker 1: exercise for my mind as well as my body. I'm
Speaker 1: writing to point out that someone. Uh, And he asks
Speaker 1: U Weinberg. I think he's sorry about Steven Weinberg, who
Speaker 1: we talked about in that episode, who holds to a
Speaker 1: theory about reductionism, that everything can be deduced to fundamental physics. Uh.
Speaker 1: And he's pointing out that he thinks Weinberg is wrong
Speaker 1: and is the best type of wrong, is provably wrong.
Speaker 1: Via mathematics the mathematician Girdle proof and Ice talking about
Speaker 1: Kurt Girdle there proved that not all truths that exist
Speaker 1: in a mathematical system can be proved with the fundamental
Speaker 1: axioms of that system. If there are fundamental physical laws
Speaker 1: to the universe, you can't use them to deduce all
Speaker 1: the possible behaviors of that system of truths that can
Speaker 1: exist in the system. Based on the inside of Girdle's theorem,
Speaker 1: I think that emergence is pretty much undeniable. It's provably
Speaker 1: true in very simple mathematical systems. How much more true
Speaker 1: must it be in our universe if it is governed,
Speaker 1: as Weinberg holds by fundamental laws? You know this make Oh?
Speaker 1: Thank you, Peter. Yeah, that's an interesting thought. I don't
Speaker 1: know if I've heard uh Girdle applied to physics to
Speaker 1: like the things in the world before. Girdle is usually
Speaker 1: applied to UH logical or mathematical systems, and he's correct
Speaker 1: about what. I think he's correct about what Girdles uh
Speaker 1: incompleteness proofs show, which is that no system like no
Speaker 1: system of numbers or anything like that that follows a
Speaker 1: set of formalized rules can uh can possibly be used
Speaker 1: to prove all the things that are true about that system? Interesting,
Speaker 1: They're always going to be things that are true about
Speaker 1: a system that you can't prove using the rules of
Speaker 1: that system, and uh, and so yeah, I haven't thought
Speaker 1: about how that applies to physics. That that is interesting.
Speaker 1: There's been a subject I've been wanting to come back
Speaker 1: to for a while, which is a question, a sort
Speaker 1: of meta scientific question about the philosophy of science, which
Speaker 1: is the question are there really universal physical laws? It
Speaker 1: certainly is a helpful convention to say that there are
Speaker 1: such a thing as laws of physics, but there are
Speaker 1: some very there's some interesting philosophical work that says, you know,
Speaker 1: even though we get consistent results and experiments, can we
Speaker 1: necessarily say from that that there is such a thing
Speaker 1: as a physical law? So anyway, I think that's worth
Speaker 1: coming back to in the future. Oh, certainly. But but
Speaker 1: before we go on, Carney has just alerted me that
Speaker 1: the ARC episodes have just burnt through their their their
Speaker 1: their their wooden crating, because we have another listener mail
Speaker 1: that relates to the ARC that I can't get to Earthika.
Speaker 1: This one comes to us from Kristen, and she says, Hi,
Speaker 1: Robert and Joe, I really enjoyed last week's episodes on
Speaker 1: Greek Fire. That was a vault episode we did h
Speaker 1: and the Ark of the Covenant. In response to your
Speaker 1: request for peaceful uses of the flamethrower, I present the
Speaker 1: flame weeder. Last summer, I intern on an organic farm
Speaker 1: and witnessed firsthand the wonders of this device. Farmers will
Speaker 1: plant seeds like carrots and take a couple of weeks
Speaker 1: that take a couple of weeks to germinate. Then a
Speaker 1: few days before they are due to sprout, the farmers
Speaker 1: will incinerate the weeds that have grown with blasts of
Speaker 1: fire him a large portable blowtorch. Not only is it
Speaker 1: super cool, it lets farmers weed quickly without spraying any pesticides.
Speaker 1: I would recommend doing a YouTube search. It is pretty
Speaker 1: awesome to watch now. Kristen is actually not the only
Speaker 1: person who got in touch to let us know about this.
Speaker 1: I remember back when the episode came out, somebody else
Speaker 1: linked us to this and they were like, here, here's
Speaker 1: how you use a flamethrower for peace. Oh see, I
Speaker 1: don't remember that one. I remember people I think there
Speaker 1: was something using flamethrowers against rampaging mice or something in Australia.
Speaker 1: But but but yes, somehow I missed this, uh when
Speaker 1: when anyone else mentioned it to us. It reminds me
Speaker 1: of the scene in uh Miyazaki's Nausica Value of the
Speaker 1: Wind where they're going around through the Value of the winds,
Speaker 1: food crops, and like burning the bits of spores from
Speaker 1: the poison jungle that have spread there. Now. Of course,
Speaker 1: Kristen also has some comments on the immrods in the
Speaker 1: Secret Parts. Right, that's right, she says, on the topic
Speaker 1: of em rods, I would propose that him roy it
Speaker 1: would be a more effective curse than many people would realize.
Speaker 1: It seems pretty effective, Yeah, she says. I'm an occasional
Speaker 1: sufferer from this curse due to severe ibs. In modern times,
Speaker 1: they are simply uncomfortable and obnoxious, but it is possible
Speaker 1: they could have been very dangerous. For ancient people's chronic
Speaker 1: hemorrhoids bleed and can lead to open fissures. With and
Speaker 1: without germ theory or antibiotics and infection would have been
Speaker 1: very likely. Death by hemorrhoids. What a way to go. Thanks,
Speaker 1: so much for all the awesome podcasts and happy holidays.
Speaker 1: This does remind me I remember hearing. I'm convinced they
Speaker 1: always I always felt like they sounded potentially dangerous to
Speaker 1: me because I would have at some point, maybe this
Speaker 1: when I was in high school, like somebody had like
Speaker 1: a second or third hand story of an uncle who
Speaker 1: died from exploding gangrenous hemorrhoids. I don't know, I don't
Speaker 1: know that they. I did not see an actual medical
Speaker 1: paper on this. This was again second or third hand,
Speaker 1: but this was the story that was going around, and
Speaker 1: so it was enough to make me, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: from Earth from a very early point to consider hemorrhoids
Speaker 1: as a potential explosive death scenario. Wow, well that does
Speaker 1: not sound true. But um okay, how about one about
Speaker 1: our Vault episode on dangerous Foods. Oh yes, this comes
Speaker 1: from our listener, Melanie. Melanie writes, Hi, Joe and Robert,
Speaker 1: I'm listening to your Vault episode on Dangerous Foods. When
Speaker 1: you mentioned the toxicity of uncooked or undercooked kidney beans,
Speaker 1: I just had to write in and share my story.
Speaker 1: One time I decided to make a triple beans summer
Speaker 1: salad from scratch with dry beans. I thought that simply
Speaker 1: soaking the beans overnight was enough to get them to
Speaker 1: the softer texture that we're used to when they come
Speaker 1: out of the can. I didn't know they also had
Speaker 1: to be cooked. When I ate my beans salad for
Speaker 1: lunch the next day, it seemed a little crunchy to me,
Speaker 1: but I figured I just hadn't soaked them long enough
Speaker 1: and continued to eat it. A couple of hours later,
Speaker 1: I started having a lot of stomach discomfort, bloating, and
Speaker 1: feelings of nausea. It's so happens that I was starting
Speaker 1: my very first day of an internship with a couple
Speaker 1: of my classmates. We were in pharmacy school. Go figure,
Speaker 1: so I talked to them about it, but we couldn't
Speaker 1: figure out what was wrong. When the day was over,
Speaker 1: I sat in my car in the parking lot for
Speaker 1: about an hour because I was too nervous that I
Speaker 1: would get sick during my drive home. When I finally
Speaker 1: mustered up the courage to start the forty five minute commute,
Speaker 1: I made it about ten minutes down the highway before
Speaker 1: I had to pull over and release my stomach contents
Speaker 1: on the side of the Highway. I called my husband,
Speaker 1: who did some online searching at home to find very
Speaker 1: quickly that uncooked beans are in fact toxic to humans,
Speaker 1: as you mentioned in the podcast. It was a lesson learned,
Speaker 1: and I haven't been able to think of beans the
Speaker 1: same way ever since. I am a fairly new podcast listener,
Speaker 1: and I love your show. Is that very entertaining to
Speaker 1: me during my long commutes to and from work. I
Speaker 1: hope your long commutes to and from work, Melanie, do
Speaker 1: not continue to involve uncooked being intestinal distress. I'm sorry
Speaker 1: to hear that. All right, Well, I think the perfect
Speaker 1: email to follow that one up is this email received
Speaker 1: from Ellen, which touches on our farting episode that we
Speaker 1: aired I think at some point in the last year,
Speaker 1: but also the fartonomicon, the fardonomicon yes uh, and also
Speaker 1: with some certain tie into our episode on ticks and
Speaker 1: UH and related organisms. So Ellen writes, I just listened
Speaker 1: to this episode referring to the fartonomicon and loved it
Speaker 1: so much. I listened to it a second time right
Speaker 1: after to make notes. It was great. I'm glad you
Speaker 1: enjoyed it. The skid at the end is, of course
Speaker 1: reason enough to to listen to it twice. She says,
Speaker 1: just a note about farts. I was recently diagnosed with
Speaker 1: lime lime disease, and in the antibiotic protocol to cure
Speaker 1: my lime, I went from being one of the gasiest
Speaker 1: humans ever to now barely farting. One of the symptoms
Speaker 1: to lime is fibro mayalgia, which I was never diagnosed
Speaker 1: uh to to having. But when I googled, it realized
Speaker 1: that one of the fibros symptoms is excessive gas. It
Speaker 1: would be interesting to know different diseases that have gas
Speaker 1: involved and how I cured my flatulence while curing my line.
Speaker 1: Just an idea for you if you want to do
Speaker 1: another fart episode. As you asked about people who don't fart,
Speaker 1: I went from farting two hundred times a day too
Speaker 1: maybe twice. Thanks Ellen. Now I would have to assume
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I would have to assume that
Speaker 1: what happened here during the antibiotic protocol is that the
Speaker 1: antibiotics cut down your gut bacteria load. Like they they
Speaker 1: were harmful to the populations of gut floor you have,
Speaker 1: which are what helped produce a lot of the gases
Speaker 1: that come out of you during farting right right, or
Speaker 1: it just simply created a magical circle into which the
Speaker 1: the demon Lord toots for real zes could not pass. Oh,
Speaker 1: they were like holy antibiotics. They've been blessed by a priest.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, see a little cross in each one, you know.
Speaker 1: Speaking of exorcisms and whatnot, we did hear from a
Speaker 1: number listeners about laws against exorcism and UH and witchcraft
Speaker 1: in Canada, and actually I think a few different individuals
Speaker 1: shared stories about it on in our Facebook group. Our
Speaker 1: Facebook group is UH the Stuff to Blow your Mind
Speaker 1: discussion module. You can find it on Facebook. You have
Speaker 1: to you have to apply to join, but basically to
Speaker 1: gain access, all you have to do is know the
Speaker 1: name of this podcast. That's the only question. It's a
Speaker 1: pretty low bar, but you'd be surprised how many people
Speaker 1: apply and either don't know that information or forget to
Speaker 1: input it. Well. I think that's just an indication that
Speaker 1: there are a lot of scammers on Facebook or trying
Speaker 1: to join all groups to spam them with you know,
Speaker 1: work from home and makes a week. Yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 1: we have nothing nothing of that. But we don't have
Speaker 1: any of that kind of riff raff in our discussion module.
Speaker 1: It's just all listeners to the show posting about episodes
Speaker 1: and sharing stuff about squirrels. Yeah. Ever since our squirrel episodes,
Speaker 1: we have had a heck of a squirrel takeover on
Speaker 1: supplemental digital content there. Yeah, I hope people aren't getting
Speaker 1: tied tired of it. They probably are. They probably are
Speaker 1: getting tired of squirrels. I don't know. I think there
Speaker 1: may be some new territories being uncovered. I feel like
Speaker 1: there is a certain amount of repetition, but every now
Speaker 1: and then it's just some new angle that I hadn't
Speaker 1: thought of. Well, maybe we should mention a couple of
Speaker 1: emails we got about squirrels and and related interspecies carnivory.
Speaker 1: Let's do this one from Benjamin. Wait. I think this
Speaker 1: is not quite squirrels, but it's close. Benjamin says, Hey, guys, first,
Speaker 1: let me say thank you for doing what you do.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be able to make my hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: mile round trip commute without you guys. That sounds rough, uh,
Speaker 1: Benjamin writes, I just listened to the podcast about animals
Speaker 1: eating their own feces and loved it, even though I
Speaker 1: definitely considered skipping it at first. However, after listening to
Speaker 1: the stuff you were saying about rabbits, I had to
Speaker 1: write in wait, this is not squirrels, this is rabbit's
Speaker 1: eating poop. That's okay. Yeah, that's another animal episode that
Speaker 1: I think resonated with a lot of people and produced
Speaker 1: a number of field reports. Yes, so, Benjamin writes, it
Speaker 1: reminded me of this time I was in college walking
Speaker 1: to class and saw a bird dive combing the ground
Speaker 1: out of the corner of my eye. Intrigued, I walked
Speaker 1: over to get a closer look and saw that there
Speaker 1: was a rabbit on the ground being attacked by this bird.
Speaker 1: But the rabbit didn't seem to be phazed and continued
Speaker 1: to go about its business Reluctantly. I got closer and closer,
Speaker 1: and I noticed the rabbit had a live baby bird
Speaker 1: on the ground in front of it. This is squirrel territory.
Speaker 1: It became clear the rabbit was trying to eat this
Speaker 1: little bird. After about twenty minutes of this airborne avian
Speaker 1: assault from what I assume was the mother, the rabbit
Speaker 1: finally hopped away. When I walked over to the still
Speaker 1: alive baby bird to get a closer look at what happened.
Speaker 1: It was to my horror that the rabbit had eaten
Speaker 1: the legs off of this little bird. Definitely blew my mind.
Speaker 1: Thought we had a classic case of binicula on our hands.
Speaker 1: Thought you might be interested, and was curious if this
Speaker 1: is common? Uh this from Benjamin Nicula, by the way,
Speaker 1: is a bunny dracula that is in some what a
Speaker 1: young adult or children's books herbivorous though I believe, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I've never think well, I haven't either, but
Speaker 1: I think bunicular just sucks. The sucks vegetables in some way.
Speaker 1: It sounds fun. I had not heard of it before,
Speaker 1: but our our our colleague, Lauren Vogelbaum, has a binocular
Speaker 1: shirt that she wears to work. Well, assuming this story
Speaker 1: is true, I don't know how to explain it. I
Speaker 1: do not know if carnivari is common in rabbits. I
Speaker 1: have never heard about that before. But then again, I
Speaker 1: hadn't heard about it in squirrels until we decided to
Speaker 1: dive into squirrel horror. So who knows. Oh, By the way,
Speaker 1: minor squirrel slash scug update from my household, Um, it
Speaker 1: has been been decreed that the word scuggie is okay,
Speaker 1: like Scuggy puts kind of a you know, a fun
Speaker 1: twist on scug Oh yeah, right. The Bonnie didn't like
Speaker 1: scug because it sounded like you were insulting the squirrel. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she said, you know, I can't quite put a finger
Speaker 1: on it, but it just it sounds demeaning to the
Speaker 1: to the squirrel. But then I would occasionally talk about
Speaker 1: going out to feed the scuggies and uh, and then
Speaker 1: that she said, that sounds all right, So I'm sticking
Speaker 1: with that scuggy. Okay, yeah, I guess it does have
Speaker 1: that kind of sound, But as far as I know,
Speaker 1: skug has no negative connotations whatsoever. All right, let's take
Speaker 1: one more break and we'll be right back. Okay, we're
Speaker 1: back now. A number of listeners got in touch with
Speaker 1: us about our follow up episode on the object Omu Mua.
Speaker 1: We talked not too long ago about how there had
Speaker 1: been some subsequent research on the first interstellar visitor object
Speaker 1: in our solar system that we know about, an object
Speaker 1: that seemed to have come from another star and another
Speaker 1: stellar system somewhere out there in the galaxy, passed through
Speaker 1: our solar system earlier last year and uh, and there
Speaker 1: have been some study since then, one of which sort
Speaker 1: of said, you know, it meets a lot of the
Speaker 1: characteristics of what we would expect for a light sale
Speaker 1: alien probe, but of course we you know, did not
Speaker 1: conclude that yes, it is aliens, though the object does
Speaker 1: continue to remain very interesting and has gotten arguably even
Speaker 1: more into sting. So anyway, here is our first message.
Speaker 1: This is from our listener Greg. Greg says, Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: just finished the new Omu Mu episode and really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: But one thing stuck out that you guys mentioned in
Speaker 1: Passing but didn't really explore. A mumua passed the Sun
Speaker 1: inside the orbit of mercury. This seems like an incredible
Speaker 1: cosmic hole in one in my book, did this trajectory
Speaker 1: allow mumua to gain velocity using the Sun's gravity? What
Speaker 1: are the odds of a random object flying into the
Speaker 1: Solar system that would have such a perfect trajectory? Thanks,
Speaker 1: and keep up the great work. Well, I don't know
Speaker 1: how to calculate the odds of an object being like that,
Speaker 1: though part of the argument people have made that it
Speaker 1: was some sort of targeted probe is that, uh, is
Speaker 1: that they thought at least it was very uncommon that
Speaker 1: we would encounter a piece of interstellar debris of this
Speaker 1: size in these characteristics, because it would it would make
Speaker 1: it seem like debris of this kind is much more
Speaker 1: common than had previously been assumed. Um. Now, I think
Speaker 1: even since we did the episode, I saw at least
Speaker 1: a headline for an article that some new candidates for
Speaker 1: interstellar debris had been sighted within the Solar System. So
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's correct. I didn't look deeply
Speaker 1: into that, but if so, that would make it seem well, yeah,
Speaker 1: the issue is just that interstellar debris is much more
Speaker 1: common than we thought it was. Right. And then, I mean,
Speaker 1: it goes without saying that if something from from outside
Speaker 1: of our Solar system enters our Solar System, it cannot
Speaker 1: help but interact with the gravitational pull of our Sun.
Speaker 1: Oh right, And that that's the other thing he says.
Speaker 1: You know, would this did it get a speed boost
Speaker 1: from the Sun's gravity? Yeah? Absolutely. I mean anything that
Speaker 1: passes into the Sun's gravity, well like that, it gets
Speaker 1: a tremendous boost in speed as it goes into its
Speaker 1: par helion, you know where it's passing closest to the
Speaker 1: sun and it's good. Yeah. I don't remember what Umu
Speaker 1: MUA's peak speed was, but it was around when it
Speaker 1: was you know, slingshotting around the sun like that, right.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's kind of like you know, a
Speaker 1: log on a stream and the stream is hit the
Speaker 1: rapids and things are speeding up, like part part of
Speaker 1: it is just that that those are the waters in
Speaker 1: which it is moving. You know. So is if it's
Speaker 1: intentional or or if it's accidental, which of course is
Speaker 1: the more likely scenario. Uh, the the interaction is going
Speaker 1: to be the same. Yes, So the answer is yes,
Speaker 1: it got it definitely got a speed boost from the
Speaker 1: sun as it went around the sun like that. As
Speaker 1: to what the odds are that it would have that
Speaker 1: trajectory as just a random piece of junk that was unguided,
Speaker 1: I have no idea of knowing what those odds would be,
Speaker 1: and I would I would suspect that you can't really
Speaker 1: calculate what those odds are because you don't have enough
Speaker 1: information to write. I mean, that still seems to be
Speaker 1: that's an open question, that's very mution discussion, like what
Speaker 1: are the odds of these objects? But good question, Greg.
Speaker 1: All right, we have another Muamua listener mail, as one
Speaker 1: comes to us from Robin, Hi, Robert and Joe. Just
Speaker 1: a quick thought after listening to your latest update on
Speaker 1: a muumua you mentioned looking for signals of advanced technology,
Speaker 1: looking for something like a dicen sphere. This spirit of thought,
Speaker 1: what a dark matter is dycens feares? Follow me for
Speaker 1: a moment. Here, Large objects in the universe, like galaxies,
Speaker 1: behave in a way that makes it seem like there's
Speaker 1: a lot of matter out there, a lot of mass
Speaker 1: that we cannot see. Thus, dark matter something out there
Speaker 1: affecting things, something we cannot detect. Okay, now the dicense
Speaker 1: here part. Imagine a efficient dicense fear, somehow capturing and
Speaker 1: converting the from nefarious use by dastardly aliens all electromagnetic radiation.
Speaker 1: We would then have the mass of a star affecting
Speaker 1: everything nearby as usual, but invisible in electro in in
Speaker 1: the e M spectrum, we cannot see it. And so
Speaker 1: follows my far fetch conclusion. What if dark matter is
Speaker 1: a bunch of dycens fears out there, a bunch of
Speaker 1: e M invisible stars we cannot detect but which still
Speaker 1: exert the gravitational influence. Perhaps a bit far out in
Speaker 1: the ort is a theory, but food for thought. In
Speaker 1: any case, Thanks for another thought provoking episode and keep
Speaker 1: up the great work. Now, I love this as sort
Speaker 1: of a sci fi scenario for alien technology, but I think,
Speaker 1: uh uh, you know, I could be wrong, but I
Speaker 1: think this can't be the case. And I think the
Speaker 1: reason is that Dyson's fears would necessarily, according to the
Speaker 1: laws of physics, have an e M signature. They would
Speaker 1: be detectable by the electromagnetic radiation they produced. Now you
Speaker 1: might say, wait a minute. I thought the whole point
Speaker 1: of a dicensphere is that it absorbs all of the
Speaker 1: light that a sun puts out and it makes that
Speaker 1: into useful energy. Well yeah, okay, but then what happens
Speaker 1: to that energy? Energy doesn't disappear, it gets used to
Speaker 1: do work, and then it gets released as waste energy,
Speaker 1: which is heat. So you would be able to see
Speaker 1: the infrared heat coming off of these dicense fhares. They
Speaker 1: would appear like dark objects that you know, we're not
Speaker 1: producing light, but they're producing a kind of light, which
Speaker 1: is the infrared radiation that indicates exhaust heat, and of
Speaker 1: course the dicens fear would put out a heck of
Speaker 1: a lot of exhaust heat. I mean, just imagine all
Speaker 1: of the energy coming off of a star getting converted
Speaker 1: into heat that's radiating into space. Because we're talking about
Speaker 1: a hypothetical civilization here that had to turn to enslaving
Speaker 1: stars in order to meet their energy demands. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: you know they're they're they're really playing some high powered
Speaker 1: video games. Right. Then again, maybe it's some kind of
Speaker 1: you know, exotic matter thing that we don't even understand. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that seems unlikely, but who knows. That's a great question anyway, Robin,
Speaker 1: all right, this next piece of mail comes to us
Speaker 1: from our listener Pat. Pat says, Hi, guys, my memory
Speaker 1: was jogged when I heard your discussion about to Serve Man,
Speaker 1: and this was in our horror Anthology episode at the
Speaker 1: end of October, specifically your speculation on chirality and whether
Speaker 1: aliens might need differently handed molecules as food. The author
Speaker 1: James Blisch adapted Star Trek the original series episodes into
Speaker 1: collected short stories during the nineteen sixties and seventies, but
Speaker 1: he also wrote an original Star Trek novel called Spock
Speaker 1: Must Die. The plot revolves around a transporter accident that
Speaker 1: creates a duplicate version of Spock, who, like all such
Speaker 1: sci fi mirror beings, is also morally reversed. He's a
Speaker 1: bad guy. The problem is that both Spots are physically
Speaker 1: identical Vulcans have perfect bilateral symmetry, so much of the
Speaker 1: tension of the story comes from not knowing which of
Speaker 1: them to trust. One of the Spots barricades himself in
Speaker 1: Sick Bay, and when the story all resolves itself, the
Speaker 1: reason he chose Sick Bay is revealed. He was mirror Spock,
Speaker 1: and sick Bay was the only place on the ship
Speaker 1: where he could manufacture the correctly handed molecules to ingest
Speaker 1: he couldn't gain sustenance from the ship's normal food. Love
Speaker 1: the show keep blowing my mind regards that's awesome. I
Speaker 1: didn't expect there to be, because that was the thing
Speaker 1: we talked about. It is like the idea that some
Speaker 1: an alien creature would not be able to eat any
Speaker 1: food on Earth, even if it depended upon you some
Speaker 1: sort of similar organic matter, right, that our entire biosphere
Speaker 1: might be somewhat poisonous to them in a nesting and
Speaker 1: so here's an example of some science fiction that that
Speaker 1: that definitely tackles this scenario. All Right, we have a
Speaker 1: bit of listener mail here that this one is pretty
Speaker 1: exciting because this might be our first bit of listener
Speaker 1: mail related to our new podcast Invention. Invention for those
Speaker 1: of you are not aware, this is the new show
Speaker 1: that Joe and I are putting out. It publishes every Monday.
Speaker 1: You can find the website for this podcast at invention
Speaker 1: pod dot com. And we recently dropped an episode of
Speaker 1: the of this show on the Guillotine into the Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind feed And I also made sure
Speaker 1: that the landing page for that episode of Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind for the Guillotine episode has links out
Speaker 1: to the different places you can subscribe to it. Now,
Speaker 1: if you like our show, you want to help us out,
Speaker 1: don't just listen to an episode of Invention, click that
Speaker 1: subscribe button. That is what will really help us out,
Speaker 1: and we'll help you out to keep getting episodes in
Speaker 1: the future for your enjoyment and edification. Exactly. So Christie
Speaker 1: rights corruption, and so Christie right in and says at
Speaker 1: the end of the Vending Machine podcast. It was mentioned
Speaker 1: in so many words if there were an online equivalent
Speaker 1: to reaching your arm up the vending machine to cheat
Speaker 1: it or steal from it. This made me think of
Speaker 1: the idea of the vending machine double prize. Every now
Speaker 1: and again, you put your money in the vending machine,
Speaker 1: then get two treats by accident. I don't know if
Speaker 1: this has happened to anyone, but I think the online
Speaker 1: equivalent would be when some something you buy online is defective.
Speaker 1: Usually the company you buy you buy it from lets
Speaker 1: you keep it and then send you a new functional product,
Speaker 1: kind of like a double prize if you can live
Speaker 1: with one defective product. Anyways, I always enjoy listening to
Speaker 1: the Invention and Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast on
Speaker 1: a weekly basis. You can't have been listening to Invention
Speaker 1: on a weekly basis all that long. Well, by that
Speaker 1: when we're reading this, there have been what three episodes,
Speaker 1: and by the time this episode publishes, they will be
Speaker 1: what four or five episodes. So so now is a
Speaker 1: great time to get into Invention because you can you
Speaker 1: can really start bending them, get in on the ground floor,
Speaker 1: like one of those pyramid schemes. Yea Pyramid future episode
Speaker 1: of invention. Um we we. We've also heard from some
Speaker 1: people just recommending topics for invention. I know we've heard
Speaker 1: it the other day. This may have been on the
Speaker 1: discussion module, which against stuff, but you mind discussion module
Speaker 1: is also a fine place to talk about invention. But
Speaker 1: someone said, hey, do one on soap, and that sounds fabulous.
Speaker 1: I'd love to do an episode on soap. Yeah, so Christie.
Speaker 1: I think this is a really good point because part
Speaker 1: of what we were raised in the vending machines episode
Speaker 1: is just from my own anecdotal personal experience as a child.
Speaker 1: I was commenting that I never would have stolen from
Speaker 1: a store that had humans operating it. But I didn't
Speaker 1: see I didn't feel like there was any problem trying
Speaker 1: to reach up into a vending machine to steal something
Speaker 1: out of it, which I don't think I ever accomplished,
Speaker 1: but it seemed like a fruitful use of time. And
Speaker 1: if this is a generalizable distinction, people make like they're
Speaker 1: more comfortable trying to steal from a machine than they
Speaker 1: would be trying to steal from anything that has a
Speaker 1: visible human involved. Does that also extend online commerce? And
Speaker 1: the more that I think about it. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it probably does, right, because people are all the time.
Speaker 1: I mean, even people who would never like shoplift from
Speaker 1: a store that has humans operating it, they will i
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe claim that they didn't get a package
Speaker 1: when they did or something like that from Amazon, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, especially the Amazon being such a colossal engine
Speaker 1: of product delivery. I feel like there'll be occasional situations
Speaker 1: by that where yeah, they just say, hey, keep the
Speaker 1: original even though it's defective, and you're stuck, like she said,
Speaker 1: with one functional product and one maybe slightly dysfunctional product.
Speaker 1: But I guess there are probably people out there that
Speaker 1: try and gain the system, and then likewise, I'm sure
Speaker 1: Amazon has a whole fraud department to deal with that.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying I I do that. By the way,
Speaker 1: even though when I was a kid, I would have
Speaker 1: reached step into the vending machine, I don't do that
Speaker 1: with online commerce, but I have I've heard tell of
Speaker 1: people doing such a thing. Now. Speaking of the vending
Speaker 1: machine episode, we also and I apologize I don't remember
Speaker 1: the individual's name offhand, but it was on the discussion
Speaker 1: module and they brought up that there is an automat
Speaker 1: seeing in Dark City, we discussed it. We discussed that absolutely. Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: I kind of forgot about that, But this is just
Speaker 1: another reason. I just I find myself really wanting to
Speaker 1: rewatch Dark City as well, uh, to see that automatic scene,
Speaker 1: but also just see all the other spectacular weirdness in
Speaker 1: that particular motion picture. Yeah. I haven't watched it in
Speaker 1: a while, but I remember it was one of my
Speaker 1: favorites back in the day. It's a great movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh, I think the individual that brought up Dark
Speaker 1: City on in the discussion module, I think they also
Speaker 1: mentioned that they had visited an automat in New York
Speaker 1: City at some point, um or it almost visited, or
Speaker 1: something to that effect. So yeah, the call is still
Speaker 1: out there for anyone who has had it. Really, if
Speaker 1: you've had any experience with a weird vending machine, or
Speaker 1: or if you you've encountered vending machines of the past
Speaker 1: and have tales to tell of them, we would love
Speaker 1: to hear hear from you about that. But either way,
Speaker 1: if you haven't yet, go check out and invention click subscribe.
Speaker 1: All right, maybe one last one here. This came to
Speaker 1: us from Drew Drew says, Hey, guys, I was just
Speaker 1: listening to part one of your episode on illusory truth,
Speaker 1: and that was the pair of episodes we did about
Speaker 1: the psychological phenomenon where once you have been exposed to information,
Speaker 1: even if that information is false, you're more likely to
Speaker 1: believe it later on. Basically, it's like a conditioning you
Speaker 1: to information makes it seem more believable even when it's
Speaker 1: like obviously untrue. But anyway, Drew says, in that episode,
Speaker 1: you brought up how people tend to find more humor
Speaker 1: in a joke when they're already familiar with it. I
Speaker 1: can't help but wonder if the rise in popularity of
Speaker 1: Internet memes can be partly attributed to the same idea.
Speaker 1: If you were looking at a trending meme without any context,
Speaker 1: it might come across as nonsensical and you wouldn't give
Speaker 1: it a second thought, whereas if you're already aware of
Speaker 1: the meme, you may be more likely to find it
Speaker 1: funny because you already know the punchline. Anyways, I love
Speaker 1: the podcast, and I hope you guys can continue to
Speaker 1: do it for a long time to come. Thanks. I
Speaker 1: think so. I think that would that would why here.
Speaker 1: But I find that especially with memes, memes like any
Speaker 1: punch punch line, any joke. Uh, there's there's kind of
Speaker 1: I think there's a there's a curve right Uh there.
Speaker 1: You hear it and then you hear it again and
Speaker 1: maybe it's a little funny, but then there's going to
Speaker 1: be a dropping off point, like you can only see
Speaker 1: a particular memes so many times, particularly I'm thinking like
Speaker 1: gift responses on Facebook, uh where where you've seen it
Speaker 1: so many times you can predict that it will be
Speaker 1: dropped into somebody's comments feed and it loses all comedic value.
Speaker 1: You know. This makes me think about a book that
Speaker 1: that I've recently been reading is by you You ever
Speaker 1: heard of Amusing Ourselves to Death? By Neil Postman. No,
Speaker 1: he's this cultural critic, this guy he wrote a book
Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties about about how television was changing
Speaker 1: American culture. He basically had this idea that a lot
Speaker 1: of what culture is is determined by the dominant forms
Speaker 1: of media within it, and so there are some inherent
Speaker 1: differences between cult tears where information exchanges dominant dominated by
Speaker 1: say like printed text versus television or something like that. Uh,
Speaker 1: and of course this was the eight so it was
Speaker 1: before the Internet. But the Internet I think preserves a
Speaker 1: lot of the elements of television that he was talking about.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I agree with his theory or not,
Speaker 1: but basically his theory was that one of the effects
Speaker 1: of a television based culture is that it becomes that
Speaker 1: knowledge is not so much understanding things, but knowing of things.
Speaker 1: So knowledge becomes not so much having a deep understanding
Speaker 1: or comprehension it it becomes about like recognizing that something
Speaker 1: is a thing and that this I I sort of
Speaker 1: get the feeling that I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 1: if he's right overall, but I see this in trends
Speaker 1: in humor, where, like so much modern humor and television
Speaker 1: humor seems to be the mere recognition of a thing
Speaker 1: that one has encountered before becomes the basis of a joke,
Speaker 1: you know, like all those move vies, like the parody
Speaker 1: movies that just like put characters from other movies in
Speaker 1: them and that's the joke. It's like, oh, there's Napoleon
Speaker 1: Dynamite in the background. Now they that that that does
Speaker 1: That does make sense. This also makes me think that
Speaker 1: we we definitely have to do video drupe at some
Speaker 1: point in the in the future because you're already doing
Speaker 1: the research for it. Well, UH, just to clarify again,
Speaker 1: I'm finding that book very interesting, but I'm certainly not
Speaker 1: endorsing it to something that I necessarily where I necessarily
Speaker 1: agree with this final conclusion. I haven't finished it yet,
Speaker 1: and I don't fully know what I think, but it's
Speaker 1: it's certainly provoking thought, alright, but it will tune in
Speaker 1: in the future to find out more, all right, So
Speaker 1: there you have it. I think all the episodes are
Speaker 1: moved into the vault. Um, we've knocked out the first
Speaker 1: listener mail episode and really the first episode of Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind for twenty nineteen. So UH, we
Speaker 1: hope you have enjoyed the ride, and we hope that
Speaker 1: you will remain with us as we continue to explore
Speaker 1: uh this weird and wonderful world of our us. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, head on over to stuff to Blow your
Speaker 1: Mind dot com. That is the mothership. That's where you'll
Speaker 1: find all the podcast episodes, links to our social media accounts,
Speaker 1: UH store where you can buy some cool merchandise to
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Speaker 1: Rate and review us wherever you have the power to
Speaker 1: do so, and again subscribe to Invention, rate and review
Speaker 1: Invention as well. Uh and that will really help us
Speaker 1: out huge Thanks as always to our excellent audio producers
Speaker 1: Alex Williams and Tarry Harrison. If you would like to
Speaker 1: get in touch with us directly to let us know
Speaker 1: feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest topic
Speaker 1: for the future, or just to say hi, you can
Speaker 1: email us at blow the Mind at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
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