Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Nol.
Speaker 3: They call me Ben.
Speaker 4: We are joined with our guest producers Dylan the Tennessee
Speaker 4: Pal Fagan and Andrew Triforce Howard. Most importantly, you are you.
Speaker 4: You are here that makes this the stuff they don't
Speaker 4: want you to know. It's hurtling headlong into autumn and
Speaker 4: we are excited to explore strange news. Guys. You remember
Speaker 4: how we talked pretty often about water filters. Remember we're
Speaker 4: talking about life straws with the casual preppers and the
Speaker 4: whole fluoridation argument.
Speaker 2: Yeah, those are very important things to have in your house,
Speaker 2: the same way, well it's not the same way a
Speaker 2: fire extinguisher is, but it's.
Speaker 5: Close, guys.
Speaker 6: I literally just got a kitchen fire extinguisher.
Speaker 5: I'm a real boy now.
Speaker 6: And I also have my water filter for the fridge
Speaker 6: on auto reorder so that whenever it's time to change it,
Speaker 6: a new one shows up.
Speaker 5: Because that is really important.
Speaker 2: And it's just what they want you to do. No,
Speaker 2: they want you on all those auto ordered things.
Speaker 5: I live a subscription based life.
Speaker 4: Just subscribe, right, And we're bringing this up for some
Speaker 4: positive strange news. The boffin's over at m I T
Speaker 4: have developed a water filter that can eliminate forever chemicals
Speaker 4: and heavy metals. So apologies to all fans of heavy
Speaker 4: metal water those days.
Speaker 6: Like Liquid Death about that's the heaviest metal. No, no,
Speaker 6: let's let's not get sued by Liquid Death. There is
Speaker 6: no heavy metal content in Liquid Death water sparkling or still,
Speaker 6: it just looks that way in the branding.
Speaker 3: There's a sparkling version.
Speaker 5: Yeah good, they got like a maco.
Speaker 6: It's a little too sweet for my taste of mar
Speaker 6: of a Lacroix. Lacroix boy.
Speaker 2: But this is a huge deal though. If they can
Speaker 2: eliminate pfas in the water systems, Uh whoa is it?
Speaker 5: Do we know?
Speaker 2: If it's for uh the actual like the water plants
Speaker 2: that are purifying the water, or is it for an
Speaker 2: end user?
Speaker 4: I think at this point these specific applications are still
Speaker 4: being explored. Okay, you could scale up or down to
Speaker 4: a municipal or individual household level, but we wanted to
Speaker 4: establish this really quickly. We're your fellow hydro homies. Did
Speaker 4: you guys know about that? Do you hear the phrase
Speaker 4: hydro homies?
Speaker 5: I love it.
Speaker 4: It's just an internet movement of people who love drinking water.
Speaker 5: Water enthusiasts.
Speaker 6: I got one of those bottles, you guys, that has
Speaker 6: like every time, like hour listed on it, and then
Speaker 6: when you get to the end of it, you refill
Speaker 6: it and it tells you how much water you're supposed
Speaker 6: to drink for an entire day. It's hard to drink
Speaker 6: as much water as you're supposed to do in a day, y'all.
Speaker 5: It takes effort.
Speaker 2: I don't know, man, I just need to get one
Speaker 2: of those camelbacks. Dude.
Speaker 6: Just always have a bathroom break, man, I mean, it's
Speaker 6: really kind of prohibitive that it can really throw in
Speaker 6: your life.
Speaker 2: There's a solution for that too, that diver carry around
Speaker 2: some some form of external colostomy bag.
Speaker 5: Okay, love it.
Speaker 3: Finally, finally the time has.
Speaker 4: Gone and we've returned. One of our first stories this
Speaker 4: evening is something we teased in a previous previous conversation
Speaker 4: over in London. Someone asked, what do we need human
Speaker 4: teachers for?
Speaker 5: I don't like that question.
Speaker 3: I don't like that.
Speaker 6: I don't like the implication framing. It's kind of got
Speaker 6: a little attitude behind it. As we've made very clear
Speaker 6: on the show, we love teachers. We have teachers in
Speaker 6: our lives, we have been inspired by teachers, many of
Speaker 6: us have teachers from our families. And so I don't know,
Speaker 6: I resent the implication.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, what, so you don't need humans, you need
Speaker 2: what AI? Is that where we're going with.
Speaker 4: This good That's exactly where we're going. And I still
Speaker 4: yet again maintained that the phrase AI itself is intensely problematic.
Speaker 4: But if we travel to David Game College over in
Speaker 4: London in the UK, then what we'll find is this
Speaker 4: private school is running the first class in the United
Speaker 4: Kingdom that will be taught by a virtual intelligence, the
Speaker 4: first foray out. This is happening now in September of
Speaker 4: twenty twenty four. The first foray out will be twenty
Speaker 4: students in this experiment. At least they're calling it an experiment,
Speaker 4: and they're tapping into virtual reality headsets with these AI
Speaker 4: enabled platforms to guide their learning. The concept here like
Speaker 4: The utopian version is that this virtual mentor or teacher
Speaker 4: is going to be able to more quickly, more nimbly
Speaker 4: respond to a student's needs, right, their strengths, their weaknesses,
Speaker 4: It will be able to assess them actively.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: So, now you know, we know one of the big
Speaker 4: problems with a lot of education here in the US
Speaker 4: is just that these amazing teachers have more and more
Speaker 4: students in every classroom year over year. Right, we're talking
Speaker 4: one person with what's a typical size classroom, like thirty
Speaker 4: two kids.
Speaker 2: They're twenty one in my son's class.
Speaker 5: It also varies probably from school system to school system.
Speaker 6: Like I don't know what like the law is in
Speaker 6: terms of like maximum capacity for a classroom, but I
Speaker 6: imagine it would have less to do with the person
Speaker 6: and more to do with see how many chairs they
Speaker 6: can fit in there.
Speaker 5: To your point, been the adaptive quality of this is.
Speaker 6: Interesting in some respect because we do know that oftentimes
Speaker 6: kids with learning disabilities, for example, can fall through the cracks,
Speaker 6: and maybe if those things aren't identified, you know, by
Speaker 6: a teacher who is overwhelmed, then that kid could maybe
Speaker 6: go through a long period of time in school in
Speaker 6: a public school where they're not getting the education that
Speaker 6: they need because a lot of kids with those learning
Speaker 6: disabilities need to be identified so they can get either
Speaker 6: more time on tests or whatever it might be. These
Speaker 6: things are important to identify early.
Speaker 2: But it sounds like the job of a psychologist or
Speaker 2: a parapro or somebody else, not the teacher in mindset,
Speaker 2: at least.
Speaker 6: Well, the teacher is the first line of defense, though
Speaker 6: I mean to at least indicate that maybe another person
Speaker 6: should make an assessment. It should be the parents, But
Speaker 6: oftentimes we know that doesn't happen either.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this is part of the dilemma.
Speaker 4: Look, we called it earlier, some kind of pilot program
Speaker 4: like this is inevitable, right because we need to understand
Speaker 4: what this looks like when we take.
Speaker 3: It around, you know, in real life.
Speaker 4: How will this impact the students involved? How will this
Speaker 4: impact the teachers that would have been teaching these kids.
Speaker 4: And what we're seeing is that just like when a
Speaker 4: semi autonomous vehicle started rolling out, there are humans still
Speaker 4: involved in the process. There are three what they're calling
Speaker 4: learning coaches that are going to monitor behavior keep an
Speaker 4: eye on these bespoke lesson plans that are generated by
Speaker 4: the students activities. I don't know, you know, I was
Speaker 4: looking into the laws or the policies that the United
Speaker 4: Kingdom has around AI in the classroom. And if you
Speaker 4: want to quick catch up with his folks, highly recommend
Speaker 4: checking out. AI will teach this class a huge lesson,
Speaker 4: but won't be hanging in the teacher's lounge. An article
Speaker 4: on tech Radar from Eric hal Schwartz. I got to
Speaker 4: tell you, you know, I feel curmudgeonly, but I am
Speaker 4: so intensely skeptical of the concept of an AI classroom.
Speaker 3: It gets a little matrix.
Speaker 5: I don't like it.
Speaker 6: I'm just gonna come right ound and say it. It
Speaker 6: just rubs me the wrong way. And I think their
Speaker 6: uses of AI that makes sense, and maybe if it
Speaker 6: was AI deployed to assist teachers in some way, but
Speaker 6: the notion of replacing the human touch and sort of
Speaker 6: the human empathy that is so important for a teacher,
Speaker 6: it really bothers me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, guys, there's a school out here where I am.
Speaker 2: I'll just say what it is. It's called Secondear High School.
Speaker 2: I think that's how you say it. Sec K I
Speaker 2: n g Er high School. And it is an AI
Speaker 2: high school. So it like imagine some of those specialized
Speaker 2: high schools that exist out there that's like a performing
Speaker 2: arts focused school or a I don't know, there are yeah,
Speaker 2: magnet schools that kind of thing. This is an AI
Speaker 2: school that is specifically to teach kids the history of AI,
Speaker 2: how to program AI, and how to get involved in
Speaker 2: some kind of career eventually that deals with AI, which
Speaker 2: really weirds me out because it's being incorporated a lot
Speaker 2: into the school itself, but not in this way we're
Speaker 2: talking about.
Speaker 4: And you could argue, you could argue what you're describing
Speaker 4: is a new iteration of what we would call a
Speaker 4: trade school, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, kind of, but it's but it's a it's a
Speaker 2: full high school. So I don't know, it's weird, it's yeah,
Speaker 2: I think it's just being embraced.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but is it sort of like the next step
Speaker 6: of of like you know, coding sort of pilot.
Speaker 5: Classes in high schools.
Speaker 6: Or this is really kind of an all encompassing thing
Speaker 6: where this is like the the entire purpose of.
Speaker 5: The of the schooling.
Speaker 2: They call it an artificial intelligence themed high school, so
Speaker 2: they're going to get like college prep courses all about
Speaker 2: artificial intelligence.
Speaker 4: I like the I am interested in the concept and
Speaker 4: the approach for that. I just have to roll my
Speaker 4: eyes when someone and THEMEDY, I know this, this is
Speaker 4: one of the most important informative parts of your life,
Speaker 4: little human.
Speaker 3: Also it is themed.
Speaker 4: Uh, I don't know that's that That leads us to
Speaker 4: one of the bigger questions here. So obviously the David
Speaker 4: Game College folks are good faith actors. You can go
Speaker 4: to David Gamecollege dot com and learn more about the
Speaker 4: sobering program.
Speaker 3: It's spelled s.
Speaker 4: A b R E W I n G like saber
Speaker 4: wing is probably saber wing.
Speaker 5: Stop it.
Speaker 4: So this uh so our mispronunciations aside as a guy
Speaker 4: who's still actively learning English. You can learn more about
Speaker 4: this pilot program, the motivations behind it. They're their aims
Speaker 4: and their aspirations. And the question now becomes, I think, philosophically,
Speaker 4: what is the line between the virtual teacher adapting to
Speaker 4: you and the virtual teacher steering you toward or away
Speaker 4: from certain areas of knowledge?
Speaker 5: Kind of? I mean it's maybe a little different.
Speaker 6: But in the virtual non virtual Assistant, the robot Servant
Speaker 6: episode that we just did, we talked about two schools
Speaker 6: of thought around robot service, the idea of designing robots
Speaker 6: so they better suit the environments we currently live in,
Speaker 6: or redesigning the environments to suit the robots. And this
Speaker 6: kind of feels like that, but in like an even
Speaker 6: more all encompassing way in terms of like, yeah, like
Speaker 6: adapting to the technology as opposed to the technology adapting
Speaker 6: to the needs of humans.
Speaker 2: It's like that thought experiment that we mentioned a little
Speaker 2: while back. It's going to steer everyone towards it's benefit
Speaker 2: in a way, or you know, away from the eventual
Speaker 2: torture will have to perform in perpetuity on the people
Speaker 2: who don't help it come to life. I have.
Speaker 5: Friend of the show, Carly actually reached out to me.
Speaker 6: It was like, I can't believe you talked about Rocco's basilisk.
Speaker 5: You've doomed everyone.
Speaker 6: She is, of course teasing, and I did give a
Speaker 6: trigger warning, but yeah, I mean stuff like that.
Speaker 5: It does make you think.
Speaker 4: And thanks to our fellow conspiracy realist who prompted that conversation,
Speaker 4: we know that we know that the idea of adaptive
Speaker 4: learning shows great promise, right, the idea of like you're saying,
Speaker 4: it's no longer a single teacher and a large group
Speaker 4: of kids, all with their own particular set of skills.
Speaker 4: I was gonna say, but you know, there are certain natural,
Speaker 4: intuitive strengths and things that they need a little more tea.
Speaker 4: I'll see on the idea of having a single teacher
Speaker 4: for a single student is again potentially possibly an amazing
Speaker 4: beautiful thing. My question, just to reiterate here, is what
Speaker 4: happens if this system is somehow incentivized or programmed to
Speaker 4: prevent pursuit certain types of knowledge. Right like old school
Speaker 4: analog history textbooks are already a source of contention. What
Speaker 4: if instead of worrying about the thing being in print,
Speaker 4: you could just pretend that certain areas of history never existed.
Speaker 6: Oh well, we've certainly seen that in certain schools already,
Speaker 6: just in terms of the way things like evolution are discussed.
Speaker 5: So I mean it's definitely there's precedent for it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and there's much more to this conversation. Please please
Speaker 4: join us, become a part of it. We want to
Speaker 4: hear your ideas or your experiences with this sort of
Speaker 4: virtual teaching method. Is it helpful, is it harmful? Is
Speaker 4: it inevitable? Tell us your thoughts. Conspiracydiheartradio dot Com. We're
Speaker 4: gonna pause for a word from our sponsors, and then
Speaker 4: we'll be back with more startling explorations of technology.
Speaker 6: And we have returned with conversation around a news item
Speaker 6: that I think probably a lot of folks have seen
Speaker 6: in some form or another involving the humble mushroom, the
Speaker 6: oyster mushroom, I believe, in this case, the King Oyster mushroom.
Speaker 6: But guys, I know this is a subject that interests
Speaker 6: all three of us just in terms of, like it's
Speaker 6: been mentioned on the show, the notion that like mushrooms
Speaker 6: and fungi are like the closest thing to the aliens
Speaker 6: that we have, you know, right here on play at Earth.
Speaker 6: The way they communicate through these really advanced neural networks underground,
Speaker 6: and they transmit signals basically in the same way that
Speaker 6: neurons do, and it's all completely naturally occurring. And if
Speaker 6: anyone's seen the film on Netflix, I believe fantastic fungi.
Speaker 6: I mean, you know, of course, all of the spiritual
Speaker 6: connections to mushrooms, the psychedelic qualities that certain species provide
Speaker 6: that you know, access parts of our brains that clearly
Speaker 6: are there en dormant and just need a little poke
Speaker 6: to kind of open up and make us realize that
Speaker 6: we maybe have capacities beyond what we think we do
Speaker 6: in terms of maybe an additional sense or what have you.
Speaker 4: So entirely unrelated, everybody, please check out The Passage of
Speaker 4: J Edgar Hoover, executive produced by Matt Frederick.
Speaker 3: Entirely unrelated.
Speaker 5: Wait wait, I'm so bet, Matt.
Speaker 6: You got to hit me to this to the connection
Speaker 6: has to be a connection. Ben doesn't just bring things
Speaker 6: up apropos of nothing.
Speaker 2: It's a story that Ben wrote for a fictional, a
Speaker 2: historical fictional, but it's a fictional show based on historical figures,
Speaker 2: so in imagining of things, and it's really great.
Speaker 5: Welly can't wait to check it out, And I'm sorry
Speaker 5: that I haven't already.
Speaker 2: And if you want to find it, search for the passage.
Speaker 2: That's the title of a podcast and the episode is
Speaker 2: episode seven, The Passage of J Dot Edgar Hoover. That
Speaker 2: dot is a period.
Speaker 4: Again, nothing to do with anything.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, okay, so let's talk about fiction and the
Speaker 6: depiction of things. Like I guess sinister brain controlling mushrooms
Speaker 6: is how it's described in this really cool piece on
Speaker 6: Popular Science's website titled this robot is being controlled by
Speaker 6: a king Oyster mushroom.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 6: All those things we talked about, the mystical powers of
Speaker 6: mushrooms have captivated the imaginations of a writers and scientists
Speaker 6: and you know, psychonauts, let's just say, for.
Speaker 5: A very very very long time.
Speaker 6: And now some scientists have figured out a way to
Speaker 6: actually harness mushrooms and that kind of really adaptable neural network,
Speaker 6: communicative kind of situation that we were talking about a
Speaker 6: little while ago into a way of controlling a robot.
Speaker 5: In a very very flexible and adaptive way.
Speaker 6: It's part machine, part fungus, and ultimately will serve as again,
Speaker 6: according to this pop Side article, a building block for
Speaker 6: more advanced bio hybrid chimeras that can remotely analyze agricultural
Speaker 6: fields for potentially harmful changes in soil chemistry. This is
Speaker 6: a research out of Cornell University and the University.
Speaker 5: Of Florence in Italy.
Speaker 6: They wanted to see if electrical signals they already know
Speaker 6: that passed through my selium of fungi, my celium being
Speaker 6: those kind of connective tissue things that can make up
Speaker 6: the neural network underground if they could be translated, because
Speaker 6: after all, it's all just electricity, it's all just impulses
Speaker 6: passing from one thing to another and harnessed as an
Speaker 6: input source for controlling robots.
Speaker 5: And it turns out yes it can.
Speaker 6: These findings were published last month in the journal Science Robotics,
Speaker 6: and again, reading from the pop side article, I just
Speaker 6: think they put it so beautifully. They were ultimately able
Speaker 6: to create a system capable of analyzing and processing naturally
Speaker 6: occurring electrical signals sent through the mycelium. Those data points
Speaker 6: were then translated into a digital control signal, which, when
Speaker 6: beamed to a pair of robots, caused them to move.
Speaker 6: If anybody wants to see what this looks like in action,
Speaker 6: you can find video of this stuff online. It turns
Speaker 6: out that fungi are also incredibly photosensitive. We know that
Speaker 6: fungi really liked to grow in damp, dark places, so
Speaker 6: apparently when you expose them to flashing light, they react
Speaker 6: in really interesting ways. There's a quote here from one
Speaker 6: of the researchers at Cornell University, professor of Mechanical and
Speaker 6: Aerospace engineering by the name of Rob Sheppard, from a
Speaker 6: statement on the project. This paper is the first of
Speaker 6: many that will use the fungial kingdom to provide environmental
Speaker 6: sensing and command signals to robots to improve their levels
Speaker 6: of autonomy. By growing my celium into the electronics of
Speaker 6: a robot, we were able to allow the bio hybrid
Speaker 6: machine to sense and respond to the environment. So, I mean,
Speaker 6: I don't know if you guys are picturing this right
Speaker 6: off the rip, but it makes me think of the
Speaker 6: idea of like a human brain like wired into a robot.
Speaker 5: You know, that's essentially what this stuff is doing.
Speaker 6: You know, it's acting as this sort of biosensor that
Speaker 6: is able to do things like for example, and when
Speaker 6: deployed or if deployed in agriculture, it could test levels
Speaker 6: of toxicity you know, in soil and then communicate that
Speaker 6: with you know, systems or individuals that could mitigate those
Speaker 6: kinds of things, or like service kind of a warning
Speaker 6: and early warning signal. Those electrical signals actually produce these
Speaker 6: patterns of activity that are very similar to what happens
Speaker 6: in the human brain. This is something that a lot
Speaker 6: of researchers have been saying for some time. The idea
Speaker 6: that these connections resemble pretty closely neurons in our brains
Speaker 6: and the way that they, you know, transmit electrical signals.
Speaker 4: You know, I've been pretty public I think with the
Speaker 4: fascination with the world of fungus again, they're probably the
Speaker 4: best candidates for astronauts on this planet. It reminds me
Speaker 4: Nold of the earlier conversations we had, not just about
Speaker 4: the absolute legendary piece of cinema, Pacific rim Uprising, the
Speaker 4: sequel to the original Pacific rim where and spoiler, the progenitors,
Speaker 4: the creators of the Kaiju, manage to make something very
Speaker 4: much like this, and they have small brains controlling these
Speaker 4: large mechs. But in real life it gives us a
Speaker 4: stunning opportunity to get again evaluate or contemplate the nature
Speaker 4: of intelligence. I'm thinking in particular of that fascinating experiment
Speaker 4: where a brainless quote unquote brainless slime mold built a
Speaker 4: one to one replica of the Tokyo subway.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, because of the way it is adapts and
Speaker 5: fills the space.
Speaker 6: And we also did a story on Strange News maybe
Speaker 6: earlier this year last year about fungus and space, because
Speaker 6: fungus is really, really resilient to things that humans just
Speaker 6: absolutely cannot withstand, things like the cold, harsh.
Speaker 5: Deadly vacuum of space and radiation.
Speaker 6: So the fact that the stuff is so incredibly resilient
Speaker 6: it leads to all kinds of potential uses for creating
Speaker 6: these sort of hybrid robots that can go places that
Speaker 6: humans can't but have I.
Speaker 5: Guess, human like kind of brain material. I guess. I mean,
Speaker 5: I don't know how.
Speaker 6: I'm not, you know, an expert on the subject, but
Speaker 6: it does seem that there is benefit to this sort
Speaker 6: of bio factor that is beyond something that is purely
Speaker 6: mechanical and just to batchat just a little bit. I
Speaker 6: mentioned the whole light sensitive thing, so one of that
Speaker 6: was kind of one of the aha moments here when
Speaker 6: researchers started shining UV light onto the fungus that actually
Speaker 6: triggered those electrical impulses that then got sent to the
Speaker 6: motors and actuators of these two custom built robots.
Speaker 5: And they have two to one.
Speaker 6: It's sort of like a I guess they call it
Speaker 6: a starfish like robot. It sort of looks like a
Speaker 6: camera tripod. It has four legs, so has to be
Speaker 6: a quadrupod. But it kind of looks like, you know,
Speaker 6: the kind of like a crab robot or something that
Speaker 6: would kind of skitter around.
Speaker 5: And then the mushroom part is on.
Speaker 6: Top, and it sort of almost looks like a little
Speaker 6: like a spotlight or something like with the white material.
Speaker 6: It's in a petri dish as my understanding of of
Speaker 6: how it's loaded onto this robot, and then they designed
Speaker 6: a second one that is more wheel based.
Speaker 5: So these researchers.
Speaker 6: Believe that this data, these findings could actually help produce
Speaker 6: future robots that, again what I previously said, are much
Speaker 6: more resilient and able to not only respond to environments
Speaker 6: that are prohibited for humans, but they can respond to
Speaker 6: changes in the environment and would be a really really
Speaker 6: helpful way of monitoring things like soil chemistry in order
Speaker 6: to alert the appropriate authorities or individuals or what have
Speaker 6: you of potential diseases that could affect the soil simply
Speaker 6: by passing.
Speaker 5: These electrical signals through it.
Speaker 6: It could then be interpreted and the robots could themselves intervene.
Speaker 2: That's really interesting, So like an auto get your soil
Speaker 2: right system?
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, yes, that's certainly the main use that's
Speaker 6: being discussed here, but it does seem like it could
Speaker 6: lead to bigger, more diverse uses of this kind of technology.
Speaker 2: I guess maybe for me, you guys correct me here,
Speaker 2: I'm not seeing why this is more beneficial than just
Speaker 2: an array of any type of machines that have sensors
Speaker 2: on them that would find the same things.
Speaker 6: And I'm having a hard same identifying that as well. Matt.
Speaker 6: It does seem like there would be an analog, you know,
Speaker 6: in the completely digital or electronic realm that could do
Speaker 6: something similar.
Speaker 5: I will say it's neat. It's like the fact.
Speaker 6: That that we are finding, you know, continuing to find
Speaker 6: incredible things that these you know, organisms can do, I
Speaker 6: think is part of the fun of this.
Speaker 5: But it's it's a good.
Speaker 6: Point, Matt, and I'd maybe have to dig a little
Speaker 6: deeper into the actual paper and study to see what
Speaker 6: that has been. Do you have any suggestions as to
Speaker 6: what that benefit might be having that organic aspect versus
Speaker 6: something that's purely electronic.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's fascinating because first you establish the concept, right,
Speaker 4: the proof thereof, and then you find what the applications
Speaker 4: of that concept in specific could be.
Speaker 3: It's a great.
Speaker 4: Question about you know, what problem is this solving by
Speaker 4: having this type of mechanism replacing other ways to monitor
Speaker 4: soil Already, I would be very interested again to take
Speaker 4: this kind of application to space. So we can program robots, right,
Speaker 4: we can program the inorganic part. How possible is it
Speaker 4: to program a mushroom to program the molds and the
Speaker 4: fun guys, Because that's where it gets really interesting. If
Speaker 4: you could make a code that simply reproduces itself, right,
Speaker 4: regardless of the hardware, that I think you're stumbling upon something.
Speaker 3: Fascinating.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so that's the idea. I think we're still in
Speaker 4: a very wide horizon here.
Speaker 6: Oh and one thing I did just notice, Ben, They
Speaker 6: do make the point in the pop side article to
Speaker 6: Matt's question. I'll let's read it from it, because it's
Speaker 6: just I don't want to sum.
Speaker 5: It up as too good.
Speaker 6: Eventually, scientists believe this cornucopia of animal machine mixtures could
Speaker 6: be deployed in swarms to remotely monitor coral reefs, forests.
Speaker 5: Or other ecosystems.
Speaker 6: Once their job is complete, the organic elements of the
Speaker 6: robot could, in theory, simply be left to biodegrade.
Speaker 5: So perhaps there's.
Speaker 7: A recycled, reduced reuse aspect to this as opposed to
Speaker 7: like losing technology in space, having debris or I don't know, man.
Speaker 4: Up until the fungus says, hey, man, why don't I
Speaker 4: do what I want to do?
Speaker 5: Exactly?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I did, And that's the point I was
Speaker 2: going to make. Actually. In this earth dot com article
Speaker 2: that you linked us to, NOL, it's titled mushroom is
Speaker 2: given a robot body and runs wild in fascinating video.
Speaker 2: The second paragraph in there says this, and I just
Speaker 2: maybe maybe you guys can react to it, or and
Speaker 2: then I'll tell you my reaction. It says, when they're sprawling,
Speaker 2: my ceial networks flicker and pulse, their electrochemical responses mimic
Speaker 2: the activity in our brain cells. I think it's the
Speaker 2: other way around, guys. I think our brains mimic my
Speaker 2: celial networks, which one's been around longer.
Speaker 6: Million percent that I think about that all the time,
Speaker 6: you know, Like I mean, I certainly am not of
Speaker 6: the mind that like human beings are just some sort
Speaker 6: of happy accident.
Speaker 5: I do think there's something beyond that.
Speaker 6: But yeah, the stuff that makes up our brain chemistry
Speaker 6: and are the way we ambulate and all of those
Speaker 6: types of things. They exist in nature. We're a combination
Speaker 6: of like all of the best features of all of
Speaker 6: these various things that have existed along before we ever did.
Speaker 5: It's a really good point, Matt.
Speaker 2: What if the big scary AI thing that we're we've
Speaker 2: been frightened of through popular culture and you know, through
Speaker 2: philosophical thought for so long, is not actually an artificial
Speaker 2: intelligence emerging a general artificial intelligence. It's a fungal intelligence
Speaker 2: that finally has the ability to move robots around.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's something to think about. Man, it is a
Speaker 6: chicken or egg question too, and it's like, are we
Speaker 6: just the conduit for the ultimate ends of these fungal intelligences?
Speaker 5: Anyway, certainly food for thought.
Speaker 6: Let's take a quick break, hear a word from our sponsor,
Speaker 6: and then we'll be back with one more piece of
Speaker 6: strange news.
Speaker 2: And we're back, guys. We are gonna talk about something
Speaker 2: very weird through a long list of articles that describe
Speaker 2: a long list of very let's say, odd happenings in
Speaker 2: a suburban part of Nashville, Tennessee. Or maybe it's not
Speaker 2: suburban part. It's it's far enough north that it's it's
Speaker 2: a whole other part of Tennessee that just happens to
Speaker 2: be north.
Speaker 5: Of Nashville exurb.
Speaker 3: It's Nashville adjacent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, between Nashville and the next state up
Speaker 2: which Tennessee gets, Kentucky. Okay, So between Nashville and the
Speaker 2: Kentucky line, it's a place called Millersville, and there is
Speaker 2: wild stuff happening there. And it's been happening, at least
Speaker 2: to my knowledge and to the articles we're going to
Speaker 2: reference here, since January of twenty twenty four. So every county,
Speaker 2: every small town, we all live in them. You guys
Speaker 2: live in a bigger one, but it's still Fulton County,
Speaker 2: and there's things the city commissioners and folks that you
Speaker 2: got to deal with on a smaller scale. It's not
Speaker 2: just the mayor of Atlanta that you got to deal with.
Speaker 2: But in this case, I guess there's one to one
Speaker 2: because there's a mayor of Millersville as well. And before
Speaker 2: we get into what's happening, let's shout out two publications,
Speaker 2: The Tennesseean and news Channel five Investigates. Yeah, they do
Speaker 2: good work. Both of these have been publishing extensively on
Speaker 2: just the weird happenings. So let's go to the first
Speaker 2: article from the Tennesseean written by Kirsten Fiscus. Ficus Fiscus,
Speaker 2: I don't know how to say your name, Sorry about that, Kirsten.
Speaker 2: So the first one comes from the Tennessee and written
Speaker 2: in January of twenty twenty four. The title is middle
Speaker 2: Tennessee town acts as third top ranking official in less
Speaker 2: than a week. Huhuh, okay, it's a Tennessee town. All
Speaker 2: they did was fire some people. But they did three
Speaker 2: in one week's time. That's a little weird. It says
Speaker 2: here that the city manager and the attorney, as well
Speaker 2: as now the police chief were fired by the interim
Speaker 2: city manager, someone named Tina Tobin. And guys, what do
Speaker 2: you think, maybe first, what first comes to mind when
Speaker 2: you hear about a small town firing a whole bunch
Speaker 2: of the primary individuals who run that town.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 6: That's the kind of stuff that we were stressing about
Speaker 6: with like Project twenty twenty five, in the idea like
Speaker 6: installing loyalists as opposed to experts.
Speaker 5: It just occurs to.
Speaker 2: Me, yeah, exactly. That is precisely the thing that came
Speaker 2: to my mind as well Project twenty twenty five. Okay, well,
Speaker 2: maybe some people are getting pushed out because one person,
Speaker 2: let's say this city manager who is the interim city manager,
Speaker 2: decided there need to be some major changes and took
Speaker 2: it on themselves to do this. It gets weirder though,
Speaker 2: So this person, the Millersville Police Chief, mister Robert Richmond,
Speaker 2: joined the department back in January or I think in
Speaker 2: December maybe, when the police department that he was in
Speaker 2: charge of was under a pretty serious investigation by the
Speaker 2: group known as the Tennessee Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission.
Speaker 2: And the reason why he was even in there is
Speaker 2: because the standing chief and assistant chief both resigned as
Speaker 2: a part of that whole investigation. Guys, we're in the
Speaker 2: weeds here. This is a story that is in the weeds.
Speaker 2: So you don't really even have to remember the primary
Speaker 2: names or anything. Just know that three major officials were
Speaker 2: fired from their jobs in this small Tennessee town back
Speaker 2: in January. And then we go to the same small
Speaker 2: town now in April of twenty twenty four. There is
Speaker 2: a guy named Brian Morris who is the new city
Speaker 2: police chief who is now running things there, and he
Speaker 2: becomes the interim city manager, and he has to function
Speaker 2: as both the police chief and the interim city manager
Speaker 2: because Tina Tobin, the person we just talked about that fired,
Speaker 2: those three people resigned. So it's just this weird, pretty
Speaker 2: consistent churning over the course of four months where people
Speaker 2: are losing their jobs, being appointed by people who are
Speaker 2: then resigning and or being fired. And it's this weird
Speaker 2: churn of human beings that are attempting to run the
Speaker 2: ship there, and it appears that either everybody's failing or
Speaker 2: somebody is decided that they're not right for the job.
Speaker 2: Then you get to July of this year when the
Speaker 2: Tennessee Bureau of Investigation shut out TBI, GBI, and all
Speaker 2: the other statewide bureaus of investigation. Very interesting groups of
Speaker 2: people there. Not quite FBI, but really close, right. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: And then we jumped to July and we find out
Speaker 2: that the TBI, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, is beginning
Speaker 2: a full on investigation because that's what they do of
Speaker 2: Millersville and everything that's been going on there, specifically the
Speaker 2: police department. Remember we just said that the police department
Speaker 2: was previously investigated by another group that had to do
Speaker 2: with kind of standards and practices basically, and now the
Speaker 2: TBI is looking into stuff, and specifically, y'all, they are
Speaker 2: looking into what news Channel five Investigates describes as quote
Speaker 2: a conspiracy minded assistant police chief, a guy named Sean Taylor,
Speaker 2: who is he's the assistant police chief there back in July.
Speaker 2: He is not afraid to come out and fully state
Speaker 2: that he believes in a lot of the Pizzagate stuff,
Speaker 2: a lot of the stuff that we've talked about on
Speaker 2: this shows.
Speaker 5: Twist.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it called conspiracy cop.
Speaker 2: Right, they call him, they call him conspiracy cop, and
Speaker 2: they are using that in the thought terminating cliche way
Speaker 2: that we've described on this show many times, I think,
Speaker 2: as a way to make people think, oh, this guy
Speaker 2: is just nuts. At the same time, this person, Sean Taylor,
Speaker 2: is fully invested in his belief, let's say, his personal
Speaker 2: belief that many political figures, including some that are involved
Speaker 2: in Tennessee maybe on a wider scale, are involved in
Speaker 2: things like child sex trafficking and other nefarious things that
Speaker 2: are described in Pizzagate, and you know, some of the
Speaker 2: other just larger conspiracies that originated, you know, on four
Speaker 2: Chan in places like that. So this guy is under
Speaker 2: a lot of scrutiny. He's being investigated. The entire Millersville
Speaker 2: Police Department is being investigated. And then you keep going
Speaker 2: down to September of this year. Early September, the TBI
Speaker 2: does a full on raid of the Millersville Police Department,
Speaker 2: and they also check out several other locations like it
Speaker 2: appears to be individuals' homes that they search to find
Speaker 2: out what's going on. And I've put a bunch of
Speaker 2: articles in here, guys. I think one of the biggest
Speaker 2: things to note the Tennessee and reports on September fifth
Speaker 2: that the TBI cut access to crime data or crime data.
Speaker 2: I guess before they decided to raid this police.
Speaker 5: Department cut access in what respects.
Speaker 2: Well, they cut access to specifically the chief of police there,
Speaker 2: Brian Morris. His entire department was restricted from using the
Speaker 2: quote financial crimes enforcement neck Natives or Finnsen got it.
Speaker 2: They locked him out of all that, which is a
Speaker 2: thing that tracks financial crimes or financial related crimes, and
Speaker 2: which is really weird. Think about that. You are the
Speaker 2: you are a full police department. Then somebody comes through
Speaker 2: and says you no longer have access to this thing
Speaker 2: that you use, I guess on a regular basis.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's like if they cut off our lexus nexus
Speaker 6: or something like that.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, it's supposed to track a lot of things,
Speaker 2: but money laundering is one of the big things. And
Speaker 2: then there are accusations here that somehow this police department
Speaker 2: is running some weird stuff with money, with corruption, with
Speaker 2: all kinds of I don't know who knows what innigans
Speaker 2: because nobody's talking right now. The Attorney General isn't giving
Speaker 2: any details. Nobody's giving any full details because the TBI
Speaker 2: is still doing their investigation. Thing.
Speaker 6: This is breaking news, Matt, I mean, this is something
Speaker 6: that to continue to keep an eye on.
Speaker 2: Right Well, it is, Yeah, it is somewhat breaking news.
Speaker 2: But it is also just odd because it is a
Speaker 2: small town problem. This is a very small place right now,
Speaker 2: pretty isolated from a lot of other major metropolitan areas
Speaker 2: of Tennessee. And I don't know, I don't know. I
Speaker 2: just wanted to talk to you guys about it, let
Speaker 2: people know about it. So because I don't know, I
Speaker 2: like small town stuff that's happening, especially when it feels
Speaker 2: like there's some bigger implication here.
Speaker 6: Well, it always seems like these kinds of things tend
Speaker 6: to happen in smaller towns because they're away from the
Speaker 6: prying eyes of like larger organizations that would maybe uncover
Speaker 6: this kind of corruption. So it does tend to to
Speaker 6: flourish or fester, I guess is a better word in
Speaker 6: some of these more isolated areas.
Speaker 2: Agreed. And if you want to learn more about this,
Speaker 2: head on over to the Tennessee and that's the t
Speaker 2: N N E S S E A N. It's a
Speaker 2: website you can find online. Look at the article titled
Speaker 2: Tennessee Bureau of Investigation confirms raid on Millersville police amid
Speaker 2: city turmoil. And in here you will you're gonna hear
Speaker 2: a lot from this person named Susan Nyland, who's a
Speaker 2: spokesperson specifically for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. And they're
Speaker 2: saying that it is a search warrant that they are
Speaker 2: executing at the Millersville Police Department as part of an
Speaker 2: ongoing investigation, and that it was the second search warrant
Speaker 2: that was carried out specifically to look at that police chief,
Speaker 2: the assistant police chief, Sean Taylor, because it was his house,
Speaker 2: his private home that was also investigated, but they won't
Speaker 2: give any more details what.
Speaker 6: Would trigger such a raid on a per individual person's home.
Speaker 6: And I guess the closest thing we have to a
Speaker 6: clue here is they're cut off from the financial stuff,
Speaker 6: so maybe they were exploiting that, or maybe he's got
Speaker 6: stuff at his house that would indicate some sort of
Speaker 6: grift that he was at the center of.
Speaker 2: Well, it appears that we have a somewhat of an
Speaker 2: answer here. Guys. Remember we talked about this assistant police
Speaker 2: chief who's a little conspiracy minded, maybe a little more
Speaker 2: than a lot of people are comfortable with. They're in
Speaker 2: the small town. The small town is making a ton
Speaker 2: of changes, and they have been since the start of
Speaker 2: the year about who is the right person or maybe
Speaker 2: the good person in their minds, you know, in their opinions,
Speaker 2: to run the show around there. And then there are
Speaker 2: allegations that either individuals at the Millersville Police Department or
Speaker 2: some you know, people who are running the city, the
Speaker 2: officials that have been appointed or moved around, that they
Speaker 2: are investigating political enemies and specifically like money stuff with
Speaker 2: their enemies, which is why they maybe lost use of
Speaker 2: that database, because that would be pretty bad, right if
Speaker 2: you were using if you're in an official public position,
Speaker 2: or especially a police department, and you are investigating political
Speaker 2: enemies and like gailing, perhaps maybe or again, what if
Speaker 2: it is somebody who believes that some of these officials
Speaker 2: are getting into super nefarious things and then wants to
Speaker 2: prove that somehow because there's no evidence that actually shows it,
Speaker 2: But maybe you look for other things, so then you
Speaker 2: just keep your eyes on any transactions that a particular
Speaker 2: individual does, or maybe even use and this is my
Speaker 2: own thought here, but maybe even use some kind of
Speaker 2: surveillance technology that's available to the police department to just
Speaker 2: keep an eye on people because you've got an idea
Speaker 2: and you feel something that is happening, so you decide
Speaker 2: to take those actions, which are illegal even for a
Speaker 2: police department if there's no official investigation.
Speaker 6: So I mean, Ben, if you in't mind, do you
Speaker 6: have any thoughts on like what would happen? What happens
Speaker 6: when an entire government and or you know, a wing
Speaker 6: or branch of government is determined to be corrupt at
Speaker 6: its very core. These clean house install an entirely new
Speaker 6: police department like, how does that work.
Speaker 3: It's a difficult proposition. I mean, that's why there are.
Speaker 4: That's why the TBI is doing this kind of investigation.
Speaker 4: That's why things like the FBI and theory exist because
Speaker 4: there has to be some sort of chain of command
Speaker 4: or accountability. You know, in this case where it appears
Speaker 4: there are deep systemic issues, you start thinking through things
Speaker 4: like continuity of governance. You know, Millersville, for anybody from
Speaker 4: Tennessee has long been famous for being a speed trap town.
Speaker 4: Uh So there were there were already there were already
Speaker 4: long standing beliefs, uh that that the the powers that
Speaker 4: be on a municipal level were not completely above board.
Speaker 4: So to your questional, it feels like one of the
Speaker 4: next things that would have to happen is uh an
Speaker 4: election with a cleaning of house, Right, somebody has to
Speaker 4: occupy those roles. But it gets pretty it becomes a
Speaker 4: pretty complicated lasagna when you realize that in a very
Speaker 4: small town, most of the people will know each other,
Speaker 4: so it's kind of difficult to find a shiny new
Speaker 4: penny in a political or governmental candidate.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, that they hired outside of even the county
Speaker 2: or you know, they went to different other small towns.
Speaker 2: Like this guy, Brian Morris was normally the police chief
Speaker 2: of a place called the Ridgetop Police Department in a
Speaker 2: county called Robertson, Robertson County, and he got brought over
Speaker 2: in February. And the other thing here that we have
Speaker 2: to consider. Guys, maybe we just gave it out momentarily.
Speaker 2: But what if this assistant police chief has these views
Speaker 2: and some of them might be wackado out there right,
Speaker 2: Like just some of those views are so far to
Speaker 2: the fringe that there's no way it's true. But what
Speaker 2: if he, in his search for answers to those things,
Speaker 2: or connections or evidence to those things, leads him to
Speaker 2: actual corruption on like a city level, on a county level,
Speaker 2: on a state level. What if he finds actual stuff?
Speaker 2: What happens then? If you try and raise a flag
Speaker 2: as an assistant police chief of a small town. What happens?
Speaker 2: Would the TBI come in and say, Hey, we're raising
Speaker 2: your place and we're gonna take all of that stuff
Speaker 2: that maybe is evidence against somebody that we are protecting. Yes,
Speaker 2: I don't know, that's.
Speaker 5: An interesting proposition.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well it's a wild thought, I guess. But at
Speaker 2: the same time, what would that look like if that happened.
Speaker 5: It's a good question.
Speaker 6: I mean, that's I guess what I was posing why
Speaker 6: this story is particularly interesting because like what happens when
Speaker 6: it is determined that like a division of government or
Speaker 6: whatever is just rotten to the core, and it's not
Speaker 6: just one bad apple or whatever, like it's like fundamentally
Speaker 6: part of the culture of that entire organization.
Speaker 5: I don't know, it's it's wild, man. I'm fascinated by
Speaker 5: the story that you found that.
Speaker 2: I think it is too, and I'm going to keep
Speaker 2: my eyes and ears on it. We hope you do too.
Speaker 2: So thanks so much for checking out this episode of
Speaker 2: Strange News Today. Let's tell everybody how to contact us.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks so much for tuning into our weekly Strange
Speaker 4: News segment. Folks, we hope if you are AI human
Speaker 4: or a fun guy that you have you will join
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Speaker 4: also your first hand experience in the trenches with small
Speaker 4: town corruption. We try to be easy to find in
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Speaker 4: is online.
Speaker 5: Correct.
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