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Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is

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Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

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Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A

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Speaker 1: production of My Heart Radio, May the Fourth be with You.

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Speaker 1: My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They call

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Speaker 1: me Ben. We are joined as always with our super

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Speaker 1: producer Paul Mission controlled decades. Most importantly, you are you,

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Speaker 1: You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't

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Speaker 1: want you to know. Your favorite conspiracy QUARANTINEAM is back

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Speaker 1: live and in full effect. Gentlemen, This is part four

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Speaker 1: of our continuing series on the coronavirus pandemic and fellow

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Speaker 1: conspiracy realists. As we said in earlier episodes, we will

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Speaker 1: likely need to create more updates in the future. Since

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Speaker 1: our last COVID up so published on April fift many

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Speaker 1: many strange things have come to pass. One of the

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Speaker 1: most interesting trends I saw recently is that world leaders

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Speaker 1: are going missing. Yeah, it's true. UM as we record today,

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Speaker 1: no one's entirely sure what's going on in North Korea?

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Speaker 1: UH is Supreme Leader Kim John Un actually dead, possibly

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Speaker 1: recovering from heart surgery. Maybe he didn't have surgery at all. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: or maybe just taking a little little sabbatical from from

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Speaker 1: public life to avoid contracting the virus. M Yeah, I mean, Ben,

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Speaker 1: we were just talking about how, you know, they've kind

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Speaker 1: of made a big to do about trotting him out

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Speaker 1: at some public some events where he's visited a fertilizer plant,

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Speaker 1: I believe, And you mentioned finding the footage to be

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Speaker 1: a little on the fishy side. Yeah, It's not unusual

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Speaker 1: for authoritarian governments to have back pocket footage of earlier

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Speaker 1: appearances and then put it out as though it is current.

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Speaker 1: It's also very strange that the Supreme Leader missed the

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Speaker 1: largest holiday in the country, uh, and then just showed

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Speaker 1: up at a fertilizer factory. So I'd love I don't

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Speaker 1: know about you, guys, it's a real shordinger's kim. If

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Speaker 1: we're making dumb jokes, I'd love to hear. I'd love

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Speaker 1: to hear uh from you listeners, what do you what

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Speaker 1: do you all think is happening? Also, the President of Nicaragua,

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Speaker 1: Daniel Orteca, has disappeared. Uh. They think that that's probably

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Speaker 1: more health concern related, because he's he's been notoriously concerned

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Speaker 1: with his health after suffering some heart complications, so possibly

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Speaker 1: hold up in a bunker of some variety, similar to

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Speaker 1: Kim John jun There there was an attempted coup in Venezuela.

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Speaker 1: At least eight people were killed when that went through

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Speaker 1: or failed. Let's say there's all kinds of weird stuff happening,

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Speaker 1: sort of a minor coup though right, only eight, I

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Speaker 1: mean could have been worse. Yeah, the the guy in

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Speaker 1: large of that, the guy says he's in charge of it,

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Speaker 1: was an ex U S. Green Beret. I've got did

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Speaker 1: a piece on that for Strange News Daily, but it

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Speaker 1: sounds like, Okay, it's weird because, uh, we don't have

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Speaker 1: to get in the weeds on it. But the US

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Speaker 1: is saying they had nothing to do with it, and uh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: who do you believe, right, I mean, everything's topsy turvy,

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Speaker 1: cats and dogs sleeping together. Oil dropped to a negative

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Speaker 1: number people are paying to sell oil, which is weird. Uh.

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Speaker 1: The Navy confirmed that UFO footage we talked about that

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Speaker 1: I think or the Pentagon confirmed it. That's correct, and

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Speaker 1: that footage has been uh actually it hasn't been debunked,

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Speaker 1: but it's been shown. Several of them have been shown

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Speaker 1: to probably be weather balloons from a physics perspective on

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Speaker 1: a couple of videos that have become more and more

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Speaker 1: popular over the last couple of days, which is disheartening

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Speaker 1: but also good to know. I guess yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: the ugly true ruth is always more preferable, right, even

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Speaker 1: even if it's not as cool as what we wish

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Speaker 1: it would be. In short, folks, a lot of stuff

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Speaker 1: has happened. This is what we know to be true

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Speaker 1: as of today, May fourth. As you said, May the

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Speaker 1: fourth be with you as we record this podcast. We're

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Speaker 1: going to we're gonna look at some facts. We're gonna

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Speaker 1: dive into the multitude of things just off the edge

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Speaker 1: of the mainstream media map today. What better or more

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Speaker 1: somber way to start today's episode then with the facts.

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Speaker 1: So here are the facts about COVID nineteen statistics. We

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Speaker 1: did something interesting here, so we've got the most up

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Speaker 1: to date estimates right to get a sense of the spread,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna give you the numbers from last Friday and

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Speaker 1: the numbers from today, May fourth. So what's going on?

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Speaker 1: Maybe in the global sense, and then maybe we can

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Speaker 1: dive into the US. Yeah, globally, there have been an

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Speaker 1: estimated three million, three thousand, two hundred and forty six

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Speaker 1: cases of coronavirus across the entire planet um as of

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Speaker 1: this past Friday. Today there are three million, six hundred

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Speaker 1: twenty eight thousand, eight hundred and fifty one cases. There

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Speaker 1: were officially two hundred thirty four thousand, seven hundred to

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Speaker 1: deaths on Friday. Now we're looking at two hundred and

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Speaker 1: fifty one thousand and nine deaths. Thankfully, there is good

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Speaker 1: news here. As a Friday a million, about a million

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Speaker 1: and fifty thousand people had recovered as a Friday, and

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Speaker 1: today we're looking at around one million, one hundred and

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Speaker 1: eighty four thousand people who have reported to have recovered,

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Speaker 1: which is really great. Well, it's funny too that that's

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Speaker 1: not the number that you see trotted out nearly as

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Speaker 1: much as you would think it should be. I mean,

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Speaker 1: that really is the silver lining there. That's quite a

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Speaker 1: large number of folks that have recovered. Yeah, it's it's

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Speaker 1: number that I personally wish would be reported more often.

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Speaker 1: It's it's just it doesn't show up in a lot

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Speaker 1: of news content here in the US. We see that

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Speaker 1: on Friday, this country had an estimated one million, nine thousand,

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Speaker 1: three four cases. Now that numbers jumped over the weekend,

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Speaker 1: it's more like one million, one hundred eighty four thousand

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Speaker 1: and twenty. And the number is just ticking up as

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Speaker 1: we record. By Friday, sixty three thousand, eight hundred seventy

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Speaker 1: one people had passed away. That number is now jumped

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Speaker 1: to sixty nine thousand, two and twenty. I want to

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Speaker 1: take just a second here, because we're throwing a lot

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Speaker 1: of numbers at you, and those can sound you know,

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Speaker 1: you can get number fatigue or get desensitized to it.

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Speaker 1: But what we're what we're telling you is that thousands,

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Speaker 1: thousands of people died just Saturday and Sunday. I have

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Speaker 1: coined a new term, you guys, number numbness. There we go. Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: let's just stay in that numbness just for a moment,

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Speaker 1: because I just want to talk about Fulton County and Georgia,

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Speaker 1: where our office is located. You know, we're officially open now,

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Speaker 1: our our state Georgia is open, and we are seeing

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Speaker 1: cases in Fulton County specifically continue to rise and they

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Speaker 1: haven't fallen, and we are now open. So I would

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Speaker 1: just say the three of us are um feeling a

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Speaker 1: little extra cautious now, even even though our state has

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Speaker 1: decided to open up, and there are several of the

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Speaker 1: other states that have opened up at least partially. Um So,

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Speaker 1: even though it seems like that just that concept that

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Speaker 1: a state could be thinking about reopening right now makes

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Speaker 1: you feel a little better, but the numbers are not

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Speaker 1: bearing out uh positivity here well. And you know, one

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Speaker 1: thing that I believe we mentioned on the previous episode is,

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Speaker 1: you know the idea of quote unquote opening back up

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Speaker 1: the economy, thinking about it like a big picture. Sure

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Speaker 1: there can be announcements and officially we can be open,

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Speaker 1: but it's ultimately up to people and their comfort level

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Speaker 1: as to how they deal with that opening up. And

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Speaker 1: I was pretty shocked over the weekend in Georgia to

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Speaker 1: see that people seem to have taken this announcement by

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Speaker 1: our governor as a sign that everything is mainly just

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Speaker 1: cool again. I live very close to a big park

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Speaker 1: and I walked there, you know, for my daily exercise,

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Speaker 1: and and walk there over the weekend and there were

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Speaker 1: just tons of groups of people with no masks, just

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Speaker 1: hanging out in large numbers. And we're seeing images like

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Speaker 1: that rolling in from places like Central Park in New

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Speaker 1: York and Brooklyn, you know, and a Prospect Park. And

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Speaker 1: I really feel like, while I think many of us

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Speaker 1: and and our friends take this kind of stuff with

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Speaker 1: a grain of salt, and well, I it's up to

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Speaker 1: me whether I decide to you know, go back and

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Speaker 1: return to normal or not. I think the very announcement

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Speaker 1: of things like this is enough for some people to

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Speaker 1: just decide that, Okay, everything's cool again. We don't have

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Speaker 1: to social distance anymore. And that couldn't be farther from

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Speaker 1: the truth, right. Yeah, At the risk of sounding cold,

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Speaker 1: given what we know about that two week time period,

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Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna give it another two weeks at least.

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Speaker 1: I am not champion at the bit uh to be

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Speaker 1: the beta tester here. Uh. And you know, again, like

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Speaker 1: to that point about personal responsibility of personal rights, it

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Speaker 1: carries on a on a larger on a larger scale

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Speaker 1: here because the US has no coherent federal pandemic policy,

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Speaker 1: it does go down to the states, and that's I

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Speaker 1: think that's that's something that will keep this process happening

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Speaker 1: for a while. It's lengthening what we would do, you know,

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Speaker 1: as opposed to other countries that have the authority legally

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Speaker 1: to lock it down like immediately. This is I don't know,

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Speaker 1: this is this is a trade off, you know. Um,

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Speaker 1: we will say that there is a good sign though,

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Speaker 1: because here in the US, despite these openings, a hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifty five thousand, seven thirty seven people had contracted

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Speaker 1: COVID nights are contracted coronavirus and recovered as a Friday,

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Speaker 1: and today that number has jumped by almost thirty thousand.

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Speaker 1: A hundred and eighty one thousand, nine one people today

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Speaker 1: are officially recovered. Recent studies from South Korea seem to

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Speaker 1: confirm that you cannot recontract this brand of coronavirus after

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Speaker 1: you've already had it, which is why people are getting

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Speaker 1: the antibody test. But I've been hearing other things though,

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Speaker 1: I've I've heard other studies coming out of China saying

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Speaker 1: that they've seen cases or people have recontracted it or

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Speaker 1: tested negative and then tested positive. Do you think that's

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Speaker 1: more a case of false false negatives and then getting

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Speaker 1: a new test that that that is more accurate or

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Speaker 1: gives you a more accurate result. Yeah, it's likely the

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Speaker 1: the efficacy of the Chinese produced testing kits, especially in

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Speaker 1: the early days, is not super great. It's not near

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Speaker 1: a hundred percent. So there have been multiple countries, uh,

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Speaker 1: and institutions can plaining about receiving broken test kits. There

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Speaker 1: was one country I can't remember who it was, but

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Speaker 1: there was a leader of one country I think of

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Speaker 1: the African continent who said the Chinese tests were bad

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Speaker 1: because he just just to test the test. He administered

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Speaker 1: it to a goat and the goat tested positive for

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Speaker 1: COVID nineteen. Uh. Animal lovers, Uh, you'll be glad to

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Speaker 1: know the goat is fine. M hmm. Well, it's a

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Speaker 1: great point about accuracy there, because the tests and the

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Speaker 1: ability to test accurately. That reflects directly in the numbers

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Speaker 1: that we just spoke about, right, And there are issues

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Speaker 1: with these numbers that we we've talked about already in

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Speaker 1: the show. Mm hmm. Yeah. New numbers might arrive even

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Speaker 1: as we're recording this, indicating spikes in some countries or

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Speaker 1: drops and others, and numbers need to be updated for accuracy.

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Speaker 1: And you hit the nail on the head, Matt, that

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Speaker 1: is a huge problem. Are these numbers accurate? It depends

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Speaker 1: on who you ask. The government of China, and not

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Speaker 1: to pick on China too much, this happened in other places,

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Speaker 1: but the government of China is currently taking a ton

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Speaker 1: of heat internationally because people just don't believe their numbers.

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Speaker 1: And you know, it's an understandable skepticism because those numbers

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Speaker 1: keep changing. Yeah. Earlier this month, authorities in Wuhan, where

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Speaker 1: the pandemic began, revised the death toll of that city

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Speaker 1: by more than fifty percent um while the government in

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Speaker 1: Beijing has continuously denied that there had been any cover

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Speaker 1: ups in their handling of the virus, and the Department

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Speaker 1: of Homeland Security is reporting a claim that China covered

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Speaker 1: up the severity of the virus from the start in

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Speaker 1: order to better look out for their population by hoarding supplies.

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Speaker 1: And you know, I mean, in our very first episode

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Speaker 1: about this, before it really hit us at home, I

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Speaker 1: think it was very clear that there was at the

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Speaker 1: very least a minor cover up in the way they

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Speaker 1: him with some form of sedition or you know, spread

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Speaker 1: rumor mongering. I believe it was. So I think there's

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Speaker 1: no question that they definitely were approaching it with some level,

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Speaker 1: whether you could say it with skepticism or outright desire

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Speaker 1: to cover it up. They certainly didn't jump right on

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Speaker 1: it right, Yeah, I agreed. And there are also you know,

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Speaker 1: there are so many ways, devious ways to gen these

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Speaker 1: them to go, if you want it to seem less extreme,

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Speaker 1: or as some have proposed, if you're a government that

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Speaker 1: wants it to seem more extreme. Like what counts What

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Speaker 1: counts as a COVID death is a death only COVID

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Speaker 1: related if the person who died had previously tested positive

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Speaker 1: for coronavirus in a in a test administered biomedical professional.

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Speaker 1: It's tricky, especially in countries like um, you know a

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Speaker 1: lot of Sub Saharan African countries and the US where

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Speaker 1: there aren't a lot of tests. They're in short supply.

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Speaker 1: We know COVID can cause heart attacks. Uh do you

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Speaker 1: know do people who die of a heart attack after

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Speaker 1: having contracted coronavirus do they get listed as a COVID

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Speaker 1: death or do they get listed as a victim of

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Speaker 1: a heart attack, especially if they have you know, problematic uh,

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Speaker 1: pre existing conditions, whether it be obesity or sedentary lifestyle

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Speaker 1: or any number of of of of factors that can

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Speaker 1: contribute to having a heart attack exactly. And and then

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Speaker 1: we have to ask about the indirect fallout, which um,

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Speaker 1: you know some people aren't thinking about. And what we

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Speaker 1: mean by indirect fallout is what happens to people who

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Speaker 1: die because something about the pandemic made their life impossible

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Speaker 1: or dangerous. Like if you have to your point about

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Speaker 1: chronic medical condition, what if you die because your hospital

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Speaker 1: infrastructure is overwhelmed and you cannot obtain say insulin or

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Speaker 1: something that you need to live. Is that a COVID

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Speaker 1: related death? I mean, in this conversation, it sure sounds

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Speaker 1: like it is. But they didn't die from COVID. They

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Speaker 1: died from UH an overwhelmed system, That's right. Daniel Weinberger,

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Speaker 1: who's an associate professor of epidemiology at the Yale School

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Speaker 1: of Public Health, commented that quote the assignment of causes

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Speaker 1: of death is more of an art than a science

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Speaker 1: because it really is sort of in the eye of

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Speaker 1: the beholder UH in the same way that the testing

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Speaker 1: is and also in the same way that you can

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Speaker 1: categorize UH. For example, the way our president is pushing

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Speaker 1: the line of well, per capita, our deaths are actually

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Speaker 1: pretty good. And he sort of got railed a bit

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Speaker 1: because he referred to our death toll as being really strong.

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Speaker 1: I believe was the term he used in terms of

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Speaker 1: like positivity and spinning it. Because you're right, Ben, I mean,

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Speaker 1: there are so many ways to spin this, and with

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Speaker 1: so many different numbers and so much change happening so quickly,

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Speaker 1: it really is something that and be quite misleading if

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Speaker 1: you don't look at the root cause or don't actually

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Speaker 1: look at the numbers in a more holistic way. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it goes down to our understanding of something called excess death.

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Speaker 1: This is kind of cold, but excess death is a

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Speaker 1: term describing the number of deaths in you know, a

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Speaker 1: given amount of time that occur in excess of the

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Speaker 1: normal established death rate. So researchers over at Yale found

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Speaker 1: fifteen thousand, four hundred excess deaths in the US from

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Speaker 1: March one through April four. That's the early the early

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Speaker 1: stages of coronavirus really kicking into high gear. Uh. During

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Speaker 1: that time, only about half that many deaths have been

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Speaker 1: attributed to COVID. Then this means, if we can look

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Speaker 1: at this, we can trust some of these numbers. The

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Speaker 1: death's the death toll that's official is probably much lower

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Speaker 1: than what's actually happening. How much higher we don't know,

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Speaker 1: and that should scare people, that should that should frighten you.

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Speaker 1: The projections also are not set in stone, UH They're

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Speaker 1: they're not mandates. Instead, there are a seriously there like

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Speaker 1: a decision tree, their fluid branches of if then decisions.

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Speaker 1: And we we have to remember that every choice policymaker

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Speaker 1: or an institution UH makes during this time is going

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Speaker 1: to move the prediction in a different direction. And of course,

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Speaker 1: if you've been watching the news in the US or abroad,

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Speaker 1: you know that there are quite a few disagreements domestically

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Speaker 1: and internationally. Yeah, you've likely seen on the news some

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Speaker 1: of the protests that have been occurring. Michigan, I believe,

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Speaker 1: is one of the major places that these protests have

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Speaker 1: been occurring, but there have been smaller ones across the States. UM.

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Speaker 1: A lot of times you will see these reported on

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Speaker 1: with a bunch of individuals who are brandishing weapons. Who

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Speaker 1: are you know, they air to just protest their inability

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Speaker 1: to work. Generally, it has been about getting back to work,

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Speaker 1: like open up, like remove these restrictions so that we

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Speaker 1: can work. And that is a valid thing, you know that,

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Speaker 1: Like we've we've been talking about earlier today about Georgia

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Speaker 1: opening up, it's a valid concern for a lot of people.

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Speaker 1: But there's also the overall dangers and we're having to

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Speaker 1: I mean, we're we're obviously disagreeing at the core about this,

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Speaker 1: but we're attempting to find a path I think, or

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Speaker 1: at least it feels like we're trying to find a

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Speaker 1: path where we're gonna be able to open up more

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Speaker 1: of the economy while still staying quarantine to an extent um.

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Speaker 1: There's another thing here that we really have to think

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Speaker 1: about is if a lot of people cannot pay rent

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Speaker 1: and they have no income, they can't pay for bills,

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Speaker 1: what do we do. And so far, as we talked

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Speaker 1: about in previous episodes, the answer has been give a check,

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Speaker 1: you know, for a certain amount of money to each

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Speaker 1: individual um. But that's only gonna take you so far. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: because the landlords have to pay rents as well in

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Speaker 1: terms of a mortgage right or taxes. And we know

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Speaker 1: that other countries, such as our neighbors to the north, Canada,

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Speaker 1: have approached the situation much differently. They're they're issuing payments

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Speaker 1: to people. UH. I think in some cases, in some

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Speaker 1: areas they're instituting rent freezes. But I don't think it's

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Speaker 1: a country wide thing. You know, if we look at

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Speaker 1: the international sphere, the way I kind of thought about

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Speaker 1: this is, UH, China versus everybody and the US is

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Speaker 1: sort of a Charlie Day like wildcard from Always Sunny

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Speaker 1: in Philadelphia. China is UH, make no mistake taking the

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Speaker 1: opportunity presented by covid UH to conspire and expand on

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Speaker 1: some longstanding geopolitical goals, and it is getting ugly. There

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Speaker 1: was actually there was a report that came out recently

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Speaker 1: that was internal. It leaked UH from Chinese intelligence, the

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Speaker 1: Ministry of State Security, writing to top Beijing leaders, including

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Speaker 1: the President uh Ji Jumping. They said that global anti

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Speaker 1: Chinese sentiment is at its highest since the Tianamen Square

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Speaker 1: crackdown in nine and they're preparing for everything up to

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Speaker 1: and including armed conflict between the US and China. That

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Speaker 1: means literally war. They're they're not declaring it, but they're saying, hey,

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Speaker 1: heads up, well yeah, and and it wasn't helped by

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Speaker 1: are the is the leak to document you're talking about

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Speaker 1: the Five Eyes report there, because there was a there

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Speaker 1: was a allegedly a leaked five Eyes report that came out,

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Speaker 1: essentially confirming some of the beliefs that have been floating

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Speaker 1: around out there that that China did take some of

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Speaker 1: the actions that it had been accused of previously, of

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Speaker 1: kind of covering up the virus that we mentioned, you know,

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Speaker 1: earlier in the show. Um it. It certainly didn't help

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Speaker 1: that that came out at the time when these tensions

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Speaker 1: are continuing to rise, because then it makes you know,

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Speaker 1: I'm I'm assuming I don't know about a ton of

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Speaker 1: this stuff, but it's going to embolden the United States

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Speaker 1: to feel like we're in the right to, uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: not only defend ourselves, but to prevent China from taking

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Speaker 1: some of these bigger steps that you're talking about. Ben Yep,

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Speaker 1: there's a there's another story that hasn't got a lot

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Speaker 1: of play here in the US. Uh, you know, we

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Speaker 1: don't want to make this myopically about just the U

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Speaker 1: S and China. China has also been increasing its attempts

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Speaker 1: to influence Australia in a major way, and they're getting

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Speaker 1: help from Australia's billionaire mining class. Like there's a guy

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Speaker 1: named Andrew Forrest who recently snuck a Chinese official into

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Speaker 1: a think of it like a federal level government press

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Speaker 1: conference after the Australian government had already declined to speak

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Speaker 1: with the guy or have him speak. So it's sort

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Speaker 1: of like for a perspective, it's similar to say, um

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Speaker 1: Elam Musk or Warren Buffett or someone crashing White House

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Speaker 1: press conference and bringing you know, one of their international

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Speaker 1: buddies in and saying, hey, can you just can you

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Speaker 1: just speak here? I know that you guys aren't super

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Speaker 1: great friends with Tehran, but can this diplomat that I

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Speaker 1: just brought in speak here? It's it's stunning, uh. And

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Speaker 1: he's doing it because of mining interests in agreements he

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Speaker 1: has in uh in China. Yeah. Yeah. And just to

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Speaker 1: connect it back up to the five Eyes thing as

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Speaker 1: a refresher course, five eyes or five intelligence agencies of

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Speaker 1: English largely English speaking countries, the United States, Canada, the

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Speaker 1: United Kingdom, Um, Australia and New Zealand, and it's all

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Speaker 1: of those intelligence agencies working together and they're in Australia.

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Speaker 1: It's interesting that that was that was the next thing. Australia. Uh, well,

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Speaker 1: we'll see what's going on there. Yeah. And at this point,

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Speaker 1: you know, we said the US is a wild card. Honestly, Uh,

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Speaker 1: what else is there to say? It's losing massive ground internationally.

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Speaker 1: It's policies often seem from the outside looking in self contradictory, disparate, mercurial. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And that's because, you know, a lot of states are

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Speaker 1: taking their own paths. The line between business and government

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Speaker 1: has eroded, and we have to be honest, it is

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Speaker 1: difficult to keep track of all the conspiratorial narratives out there.

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Speaker 1: They keep growing. Some are more plausible than others. What

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Speaker 1: do we mean. We'll tell you afterword from our sponsor.

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Speaker 1: Here's where it gets crazy. Let's start with the big

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Speaker 1: businesses and billionaires. Oh the devil b oh Bill, Mr Gates,

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Speaker 1: big business billionaires and Bill Oh god, quadruple b oh.

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Speaker 1: There's too many. Yes, Bill Gates. You may have heard

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Speaker 1: quite a few headlines about his foundation, the Bill and

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Speaker 1: Melinda Gates Foundation. Yeah. The idea is that they teamed

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Speaker 1: up with a you know, with a cadre of fellows,

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Speaker 1: super wealthy supervillains, and they ran a simulation back in

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Speaker 1: October where they predicted sixty five million deaths due to

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Speaker 1: COVID nineteen. Here's the thing that actually happened. There was

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Speaker 1: actually an exercise was called Event to oh one. I

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Speaker 1: think we mentioned it briefly in a previous episode. It

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Speaker 1: was hosted by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security,

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Speaker 1: and it did focus on emergency prepared witness in the

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Speaker 1: event of a severe pandemic, but it did not deal

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Speaker 1: with COVID Night Team, and it did not make real

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Speaker 1: life predictions about death tolls. It did deal with a coronavirus,

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Speaker 1: but not this kind because as we said earlier, uh,

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Speaker 1: there there are multiple kinds of coronavirus, just like there

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Speaker 1: are multiple um genres of music with drums, multiple kinds

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Speaker 1: of cancer, multiple flavors of ice cream. Yeah. Yeah, And

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Speaker 1: just so you know, if you want to delve deep

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Speaker 1: into this, you can just use quotations in your search

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Speaker 1: and do event to zero one and you'll find all

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Speaker 1: kinds of stuff. There's you know, you can see the

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Speaker 1: official documents, the the results, the videos that are put

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Speaker 1: out there, people speaking about it. Um it is. It

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Speaker 1: does feel very creepy, especially if you've been watching this

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Speaker 1: season of Westworld with that giant computer simulation that runs

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Speaker 1: the entire planet UM, it feels like, hey, maybe maybe

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Speaker 1: Bill and Melinda have access to some giant simulated machine

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Speaker 1: that's gonna eventually tell each human what their life cycle

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Speaker 1: is going to be. If anyone has it, it's them, though,

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Speaker 1: I mean I would say, well, unless it's our next

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Speaker 1: set of happy billionaires, the Koke Brothers. So the idea

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Speaker 1: here is that the Koke Brothers UH and similar super

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Speaker 1: hard right wing um neo feudalists are financing the protests

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Speaker 1: that we've been seeing. What what do you call that

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Speaker 1: when you call crisis actors of some kind or we're like,

429
00:26:39,200 --> 00:26:42,359
Speaker 1: like not sock puppets. That's exclusively online. But it is

430
00:26:42,400 --> 00:26:45,560
Speaker 1: the idea that there is in some way financing this

431
00:26:46,080 --> 00:26:50,320
Speaker 1: UH to create kind of a a bit of a

432
00:26:50,400 --> 00:26:55,600
Speaker 1: push so that their pals and the corporations they have

433
00:26:55,760 --> 00:27:00,440
Speaker 1: staken don't suffer further economic catastrophe because of this endemic.

434
00:27:00,840 --> 00:27:03,600
Speaker 1: And there has been a lot of catastrophe going around

435
00:27:03,840 --> 00:27:06,840
Speaker 1: in the business world, and make no mistake there. I

436
00:27:06,840 --> 00:27:08,399
Speaker 1: don't know if you guys saw the news about J

437
00:27:08,560 --> 00:27:11,040
Speaker 1: Crew that just came out that they're going to be

438
00:27:11,560 --> 00:27:14,720
Speaker 1: going in there. They filed Chapter eleven bankrupts. You didn't

439
00:27:14,760 --> 00:27:17,480
Speaker 1: see that, Yeah, and made Well it's one of the

440
00:27:17,640 --> 00:27:19,800
Speaker 1: one of their brands. But yeah, they're going to be

441
00:27:19,840 --> 00:27:22,879
Speaker 1: closing a ton of stores. And you know that's just

442
00:27:22,960 --> 00:27:27,120
Speaker 1: one company, one clothing retailer, and that's gonna be happen

443
00:27:27,119 --> 00:27:29,400
Speaker 1: a lot more in the near future. Yeah, the only

444
00:27:29,480 --> 00:27:35,040
Speaker 1: question is how extreme that trends will become. This is interesting.

445
00:27:35,160 --> 00:27:39,439
Speaker 1: So are they protest puppet masters? It's true that a

446
00:27:39,520 --> 00:27:42,040
Speaker 1: lot of the well, it's true that I would say

447
00:27:42,040 --> 00:27:46,480
Speaker 1: the majority of those protests are reopened are you know,

448
00:27:46,560 --> 00:27:50,560
Speaker 1: are purposely designed to appear as though they are grassroots,

449
00:27:50,960 --> 00:27:53,399
Speaker 1: and the question is whether they're being astro turf. There

450
00:27:53,400 --> 00:27:55,439
Speaker 1: were a couple of people on Reddit who did some

451
00:27:55,480 --> 00:28:01,920
Speaker 1: fantastic research into the powers behind the front organizations right

452
00:28:02,080 --> 00:28:06,920
Speaker 1: Open Michigan, Open Maryland. Uh. So, you know, it's understandable

453
00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:11,119
Speaker 1: that people might think the Koch brothers are behind this. Again,

454
00:28:11,440 --> 00:28:14,520
Speaker 1: remember they they ran point on the Tea Party protest

455
00:28:14,600 --> 00:28:18,040
Speaker 1: that back in oh nine in but this one actually

456
00:28:18,080 --> 00:28:22,119
Speaker 1: seems to be not true. Their main political arm for

457
00:28:22,160 --> 00:28:26,120
Speaker 1: the Koch Brothers is an organization called Americans for prosperity,

458
00:28:26,600 --> 00:28:30,760
Speaker 1: beautiful name right, chef's kiss. Uh. They rejected the in

459
00:28:30,920 --> 00:28:37,200
Speaker 1: person protest, they said. Their CEO specifically said, the question

460
00:28:37,280 --> 00:28:38,920
Speaker 1: is what is the best way to get people back

461
00:28:39,000 --> 00:28:41,000
Speaker 1: to work. We don't see protests is the best way

462
00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:43,080
Speaker 1: to do that. She went on to say the choice

463
00:28:43,120 --> 00:28:47,560
Speaker 1: between full shutdown and immediately opening everything is a false choice.

464
00:28:47,960 --> 00:28:50,960
Speaker 1: So they didn't actually, you know a lot of times

465
00:28:50,960 --> 00:28:54,280
Speaker 1: they get rightly vilified, but they didn't actually do this one.

466
00:28:54,640 --> 00:28:58,000
Speaker 1: Someone else did and we found out who. Yeah, and

467
00:28:58,120 --> 00:29:04,800
Speaker 1: it can apparently be traced back to Betsy DeVos UM,

468
00:29:04,920 --> 00:29:08,000
Speaker 1: So don't be fooled by the slightly different names. Here.

469
00:29:08,040 --> 00:29:12,680
Speaker 1: We've got Indiana Citizens Against Excessive Quarantine, and then we

470
00:29:12,720 --> 00:29:17,120
Speaker 1: also have Operation Gridlock Tennessee and other groups that are

471
00:29:17,240 --> 00:29:22,520
Speaker 1: bankrolled by powerful people. Um. They are the opposite of grassroots.

472
00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:26,719
Speaker 1: The Michigan Freedom Fund UM was founded by Greg McNeely,

473
00:29:27,040 --> 00:29:31,200
Speaker 1: a political advisor to the Divos family UM, who has

474
00:29:31,240 --> 00:29:35,560
Speaker 1: provided financial support to that organization. But that you know,

475
00:29:35,920 --> 00:29:37,600
Speaker 1: but this is one of those things where it doesn't

476
00:29:37,640 --> 00:29:41,760
Speaker 1: mean Betsy Divos did it right, It just means there

477
00:29:41,760 --> 00:29:46,280
Speaker 1: are connections there. Just pointing that out, remember that, Yeah, Yeah,

478
00:29:46,440 --> 00:29:50,360
Speaker 1: you're being fair, uh that that is true, but it

479
00:29:50,440 --> 00:29:54,800
Speaker 1: does appear to be some astroturfing. There is a possibility

480
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:58,720
Speaker 1: that some of those protesters are in fact paid to protests.

481
00:29:58,760 --> 00:30:02,520
Speaker 1: So it's a dig in more um. But don't don't

482
00:30:02,600 --> 00:30:06,440
Speaker 1: let the easy headlines fool you, especially when there are

483
00:30:06,640 --> 00:30:10,080
Speaker 1: frankly other things to worry about. I'm not saying they're worse,

484
00:30:10,360 --> 00:30:12,600
Speaker 1: but I'm saying the protests are not the only thing

485
00:30:12,640 --> 00:30:15,480
Speaker 1: going on. Let's talk about tech companies, you guys. Let's

486
00:30:15,480 --> 00:30:19,880
Speaker 1: talk about surveillance. Let's talk about tracking apps. They're blowing

487
00:30:19,960 --> 00:30:23,040
Speaker 1: up in countries around the world, and I would say

488
00:30:23,080 --> 00:30:28,040
Speaker 1: there is a genuine I don't I don't know the

489
00:30:28,160 --> 00:30:31,880
Speaker 1: correct wording here, but there is good reason to want

490
00:30:31,920 --> 00:30:36,360
Speaker 1: to have tracking apps when you're inside a pandemic. There

491
00:30:36,400 --> 00:30:38,960
Speaker 1: there is a genuinely good reason to have that because

492
00:30:38,960 --> 00:30:41,800
Speaker 1: you want to see or to be able to predict

493
00:30:42,080 --> 00:30:45,160
Speaker 1: whether or not someone is at risk of spreading the

494
00:30:45,280 --> 00:30:47,640
Speaker 1: virus to someone else, or whether or not the individual

495
00:30:48,200 --> 00:30:50,960
Speaker 1: is going to be, you know, at risk of getting it.

496
00:30:51,080 --> 00:30:54,040
Speaker 1: What they're calling contact tracing, right, Like that's like like

497
00:30:54,080 --> 00:30:56,960
Speaker 1: the big, you know thing that's going to have really

498
00:30:57,000 --> 00:30:59,760
Speaker 1: help stem the tide of this, uh, this this disease

499
00:31:00,200 --> 00:31:04,040
Speaker 1: is being able to somehow systematically figure out exactly who's

500
00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:07,160
Speaker 1: been in contact with whom and then trace that back

501
00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:10,240
Speaker 1: to the source and then you know, institute proper testing.

502
00:31:10,440 --> 00:31:12,680
Speaker 1: That's really the only way to kind of get a

503
00:31:12,720 --> 00:31:16,040
Speaker 1: handle on this. Yeah, the motivation is smart. It's something

504
00:31:16,080 --> 00:31:20,120
Speaker 1: that probably should be done. The problem is, in our

505
00:31:20,240 --> 00:31:23,640
Speaker 1: world of big data, all of this stuff just becomes

506
00:31:23,720 --> 00:31:28,320
Speaker 1: another data set, uh, to to track people, to control

507
00:31:28,560 --> 00:31:31,560
Speaker 1: in a certain way, or the at least to have

508
00:31:31,720 --> 00:31:34,959
Speaker 1: the information about the individual and then apply it to

509
00:31:35,040 --> 00:31:38,080
Speaker 1: massive groups and and you know, continue going upwards. It's

510
00:31:38,120 --> 00:31:40,920
Speaker 1: one of these things we said, Um, whatever the intentions

511
00:31:40,920 --> 00:31:44,719
Speaker 1: behind these things are, once you let the badger out

512
00:31:44,760 --> 00:31:47,040
Speaker 1: of the bag, it's really hard to put it back in,

513
00:31:47,560 --> 00:31:51,120
Speaker 1: even when conditions get better. So what happens post Corona

514
00:31:51,320 --> 00:31:54,960
Speaker 1: once these things have been put into place? Yeah, yeah,

515
00:31:54,960 --> 00:31:58,520
Speaker 1: it's an excellent question. Let's go country by country. Talked

516
00:31:58,520 --> 00:32:00,440
Speaker 1: about in this past, but we have more detail else now.

517
00:32:01,080 --> 00:32:05,040
Speaker 1: So a lot of our fellow listeners in Australia have

518
00:32:05,120 --> 00:32:09,000
Speaker 1: written in thank you so much to talk about something

519
00:32:09,200 --> 00:32:12,920
Speaker 1: called COVID Safe. It's an app and it uses bluetooth

520
00:32:13,280 --> 00:32:16,440
Speaker 1: to record, uh, you know, to keep a record rather

521
00:32:16,640 --> 00:32:19,080
Speaker 1: of other people with the app who have been in

522
00:32:19,120 --> 00:32:22,480
Speaker 1: close proximity to you or your phone within the past

523
00:32:22,520 --> 00:32:25,880
Speaker 1: twenty one days. It's modeled on a Singapore's earlier app.

524
00:32:26,360 --> 00:32:29,600
Speaker 1: The info remains on the phone until the user, who

525
00:32:29,800 --> 00:32:33,280
Speaker 1: until a user test positive for COVID, decides to upload it,

526
00:32:33,520 --> 00:32:37,440
Speaker 1: and then that information is used to trace the contacts

527
00:32:37,480 --> 00:32:43,040
Speaker 1: of that infected person. It collects a lot of data.

528
00:32:43,320 --> 00:32:47,040
Speaker 1: The government says that only state health officials will have

529
00:32:47,200 --> 00:32:53,240
Speaker 1: access to it. But uh, you know that there's so

530
00:32:53,520 --> 00:32:56,360
Speaker 1: what does that mean? You know what I mean, there's

531
00:32:56,400 --> 00:32:59,320
Speaker 1: no time limit. Just as a fun aside here, we

532
00:32:59,480 --> 00:33:02,480
Speaker 1: we had a listener from down under a right to

533
00:33:02,600 --> 00:33:07,520
Speaker 1: us and whenever you sign up for this service, COVID Safe,

534
00:33:07,760 --> 00:33:11,440
Speaker 1: you get a specialized pin It was like a pin number,

535
00:33:11,800 --> 00:33:15,240
Speaker 1: and the pin number that he was assigned was six

536
00:33:15,280 --> 00:33:18,720
Speaker 1: six six zero zero one. And he found that to

537
00:33:18,760 --> 00:33:24,400
Speaker 1: be amusing. Uh. Yeah, and yeah, and so let's go.

538
00:33:24,840 --> 00:33:29,920
Speaker 1: We mentioned Singapore, right, Uh, Singapore's app is the basis

539
00:33:29,960 --> 00:33:33,560
Speaker 1: for the Australia app. Uh. This one had about of

540
00:33:33,600 --> 00:33:37,240
Speaker 1: the population and Singapore started using it since Uh, it's

541
00:33:37,440 --> 00:33:42,760
Speaker 1: launch in April. But the issue here is one of

542
00:33:43,120 --> 00:33:46,960
Speaker 1: not just privacy but efficacy because the number of coronavirus

543
00:33:47,000 --> 00:33:49,760
Speaker 1: cases during that time shot up from one thousand to

544
00:33:49,800 --> 00:33:53,320
Speaker 1: more than sixteen thousand. So it's still a good diagnostic tool,

545
00:33:53,440 --> 00:33:56,360
Speaker 1: it's just the question is how effective is it at

546
00:33:56,520 --> 00:34:00,440
Speaker 1: stopping COVID. And then you have New Zealand, UM and

547
00:34:00,520 --> 00:34:03,960
Speaker 1: as that country comes out of it's hard lockdown, it's

548
00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:07,520
Speaker 1: also going to launch a contact tracing app, but it's uh,

549
00:34:07,640 --> 00:34:09,879
Speaker 1: the details are a little scarce, so we're not quite

550
00:34:09,880 --> 00:34:12,120
Speaker 1: clear on how that's going to work. Radio New Zealand

551
00:34:12,360 --> 00:34:15,600
Speaker 1: has reported that it will update people's details with the

552
00:34:15,640 --> 00:34:20,080
Speaker 1: Department of Health so they can be contacted directly, but

553
00:34:20,120 --> 00:34:22,200
Speaker 1: beyond that, very little is known of the stage and

554
00:34:22,200 --> 00:34:24,719
Speaker 1: and just to piggyback off of that really quickly, even

555
00:34:24,800 --> 00:34:29,080
Speaker 1: here in Georgia, uh, the Department of Health is doing

556
00:34:29,400 --> 00:34:33,359
Speaker 1: a an outreach kind of situation where they're going door

557
00:34:33,360 --> 00:34:37,160
Speaker 1: to door and UM offering uh that uh what is

558
00:34:37,200 --> 00:34:41,000
Speaker 1: it called the h antibody tests so people can see

559
00:34:41,239 --> 00:34:44,239
Speaker 1: if they have contracted it. But obviously those it takes

560
00:34:44,239 --> 00:34:46,280
Speaker 1: a long time to do that kind of outreach because

561
00:34:47,080 --> 00:34:51,000
Speaker 1: it's very hands on very one on one just just

562
00:34:51,040 --> 00:34:53,120
Speaker 1: to take it back to New Zealand really quickly. This

563
00:34:53,239 --> 00:34:57,719
Speaker 1: is one of the first countries to declare that they

564
00:34:57,760 --> 00:35:03,600
Speaker 1: eradicated coronavirus within within their country's boundaries. That was a

565
00:35:03,600 --> 00:35:06,160
Speaker 1: little They made that announcement I think on the thirtieth

566
00:35:06,320 --> 00:35:08,719
Speaker 1: of April, but then it was found that there were

567
00:35:08,760 --> 00:35:12,440
Speaker 1: several cases that actually arose after they made that announcement.

568
00:35:12,719 --> 00:35:15,520
Speaker 1: But it is one of the first places where the

569
00:35:15,600 --> 00:35:20,200
Speaker 1: heavy restrictions on travel with like to New Zealand as

570
00:35:20,280 --> 00:35:23,720
Speaker 1: well as away from New Zealand. It really did seem

571
00:35:23,800 --> 00:35:28,799
Speaker 1: to stop the virus in its tracks pretty well, like

572
00:35:28,920 --> 00:35:33,920
Speaker 1: Madagascar in pandemic, but also in New Zealand. Isn't like

573
00:35:34,040 --> 00:35:37,560
Speaker 1: a super densely populated country. I mean, I think we

574
00:35:37,640 --> 00:35:40,360
Speaker 1: said like in a previous no, it was a ridiculous

575
00:35:40,400 --> 00:35:44,200
Speaker 1: history episode. We were talking about exploding pants because of

576
00:35:44,600 --> 00:35:47,000
Speaker 1: a chemical that was used to eradicate a type of

577
00:35:47,360 --> 00:35:52,280
Speaker 1: weed that was killing off grass that cows would feed on. Um.

578
00:35:52,440 --> 00:35:56,239
Speaker 1: The number of sheep I think out number humans in

579
00:35:56,360 --> 00:35:59,560
Speaker 1: New Zealand. Yeah, it's about six to one. Is the

580
00:35:59,640 --> 00:36:02,520
Speaker 1: number gets thrown around. Uh, but they have a ton

581
00:36:02,560 --> 00:36:06,960
Speaker 1: of people coming in through that country. But to your appointment, Matt,

582
00:36:07,239 --> 00:36:10,040
Speaker 1: that obviously was a smart move for them to institute

583
00:36:10,080 --> 00:36:13,520
Speaker 1: that so quickly and effectively that a travel man. One

584
00:36:13,600 --> 00:36:17,640
Speaker 1: of the things that you might you need to know,

585
00:36:18,000 --> 00:36:23,799
Speaker 1: fellow listeners is this New Zealand also is currently harboring

586
00:36:23,960 --> 00:36:27,919
Speaker 1: a lot of people have gotten in on Golden ticket passports.

587
00:36:28,160 --> 00:36:31,799
Speaker 1: That's where you get citizenship just based on an investment

588
00:36:31,960 --> 00:36:35,080
Speaker 1: that you make and you're you're essentially you're buying citizenship.

589
00:36:35,360 --> 00:36:37,400
Speaker 1: And right before this hit, as it was hitting, some

590
00:36:37,440 --> 00:36:39,680
Speaker 1: of the people who were in the know ducked off

591
00:36:39,680 --> 00:36:43,000
Speaker 1: to New Zealand where they already lived on property that

592
00:36:43,040 --> 00:36:46,640
Speaker 1: they have bought um months or years ago, specifically for

593
00:36:46,719 --> 00:36:50,760
Speaker 1: its isolation and it's potable water. Neil Gaiman is uh

594
00:36:50,920 --> 00:36:53,359
Speaker 1: is currently in New Zealand, but I think he just

595
00:36:53,400 --> 00:36:58,360
Speaker 1: got caught there, uh, you know, with bad luck. But

596
00:36:58,480 --> 00:37:01,080
Speaker 1: Neil's fine, And I don't think he was part of

597
00:37:01,120 --> 00:37:06,799
Speaker 1: the billionaire elite escape plan uh than most of us yea,

598
00:37:07,120 --> 00:37:10,000
Speaker 1: or is he? Because you know, one thing New Zealand

599
00:37:10,080 --> 00:37:14,800
Speaker 1: can't do is uh stock is change its proximity to China.

600
00:37:15,400 --> 00:37:19,000
Speaker 1: China is probably the most solid example of how extreme

601
00:37:19,080 --> 00:37:22,359
Speaker 1: these apps can be and they can become this way,

602
00:37:22,520 --> 00:37:25,279
Speaker 1: it's the hardcore one. This app is mandatory. It is

603
00:37:25,360 --> 00:37:28,160
Speaker 1: tied to your I D. It governs where you can

604
00:37:28,320 --> 00:37:32,120
Speaker 1: go through QR scanners and A and a color system.

605
00:37:32,360 --> 00:37:35,440
Speaker 1: If you're clear, you're green. If you're yellow or amber,

606
00:37:35,680 --> 00:37:38,359
Speaker 1: you need to isolate. If you're red, you've either been

607
00:37:38,400 --> 00:37:41,680
Speaker 1: confirmed positive or you've been in close contact with someone

608
00:37:41,920 --> 00:37:44,920
Speaker 1: who has tested positive. So that means that unless you

609
00:37:44,960 --> 00:37:49,239
Speaker 1: stay inside all of the time, you could turn red

610
00:37:49,360 --> 00:37:51,520
Speaker 1: at any time. And you need this app by the

611
00:37:51,520 --> 00:37:55,120
Speaker 1: way to travel anywhere you needed to get into venues. Uh.

612
00:37:55,160 --> 00:37:59,759
Speaker 1: And now those restrictions are starting to ease, But that

613
00:38:00,080 --> 00:38:03,640
Speaker 1: is real black mirror stuff. It's happening now that this

614
00:38:03,680 --> 00:38:06,560
Speaker 1: can happen. It's not Blade Runner. People can do this

615
00:38:06,640 --> 00:38:09,880
Speaker 1: to you now, Ben. Do you think the infrastructure of

616
00:38:09,960 --> 00:38:14,160
Speaker 1: this was in some ways helped by the Sesame credit

617
00:38:14,360 --> 00:38:18,600
Speaker 1: situation that was sort of being tested. Yeah, that's a

618
00:38:19,280 --> 00:38:22,600
Speaker 1: that's a great question. I I assume that they have

619
00:38:22,719 --> 00:38:25,840
Speaker 1: some of the same architecture they would have to uh,

620
00:38:26,000 --> 00:38:28,640
Speaker 1: and it stems from some of the some of the

621
00:38:28,680 --> 00:38:34,080
Speaker 1: same ideology and goals. Definitely. Um. Yes, Sesame credit still

622
00:38:34,080 --> 00:38:36,200
Speaker 1: in full effect. That's a very good point. And I

623
00:38:36,200 --> 00:38:38,399
Speaker 1: will say this is a hot take, and I'm half

624
00:38:38,480 --> 00:38:41,040
Speaker 1: joking when I say this, but I can't think of

625
00:38:41,080 --> 00:38:45,720
Speaker 1: another situation than this that has had more uh net

626
00:38:45,760 --> 00:38:50,920
Speaker 1: positives from being a totalitarian government because they can actually

627
00:38:51,040 --> 00:38:54,080
Speaker 1: force you to behave and force you to do what's

628
00:38:54,120 --> 00:38:57,640
Speaker 1: best for uh the masses as opposed to the individuals

629
00:38:57,880 --> 00:38:59,960
Speaker 1: like we're seeing with all the people just coming out

630
00:39:00,040 --> 00:39:03,160
Speaker 1: on mass based on the concept of opening back up

631
00:39:03,200 --> 00:39:07,880
Speaker 1: the economy. I would just say, there's there's less manipulation

632
00:39:08,040 --> 00:39:11,239
Speaker 1: required and you can be a little more straightforward when

633
00:39:11,280 --> 00:39:14,960
Speaker 1: you're authoritarian. Yeah, you don't have to worry about the

634
00:39:15,000 --> 00:39:18,480
Speaker 1: Overton window. You don't have to uh you know, have

635
00:39:18,640 --> 00:39:24,719
Speaker 1: offline conversations with your pals in the media. India, France, Israel, Germany,

636
00:39:24,880 --> 00:39:30,520
Speaker 1: the United Kingdom, uh South Korea. Everybody has either instituted

637
00:39:30,520 --> 00:39:33,160
Speaker 1: a system like this or they're planning to do so.

638
00:39:33,840 --> 00:39:38,520
Speaker 1: Israel's having some difficulties because of the privacy concerns. Now,

639
00:39:38,600 --> 00:39:41,680
Speaker 1: we've talked a lot about these tracking apps and other countries,

640
00:39:41,960 --> 00:39:45,840
Speaker 1: but what about the good old United States? Apple Pie,

641
00:39:46,360 --> 00:39:51,839
Speaker 1: bald Eagles freedom in all caps, underlined, highlighted, a couple

642
00:39:51,880 --> 00:39:54,759
Speaker 1: of exclamation marks to really make it pop. We'll tell

643
00:39:54,800 --> 00:40:03,960
Speaker 1: you after a word from our sponsor. Okay, Now, to

644
00:40:04,000 --> 00:40:07,040
Speaker 1: be fair, we aren't just talking about the U s here.

645
00:40:07,560 --> 00:40:12,399
Speaker 1: What we're about to discuss are It's really a baseline

646
00:40:13,000 --> 00:40:15,760
Speaker 1: version of an app that will be instituted or can

647
00:40:15,960 --> 00:40:20,680
Speaker 1: be instituted in any country that chooses to adapt it.

648
00:40:20,760 --> 00:40:24,600
Speaker 1: So let's let's jump to on April tenth, when Apple

649
00:40:24,640 --> 00:40:26,680
Speaker 1: and Google announced that they were going to be working

650
00:40:26,719 --> 00:40:30,279
Speaker 1: together and using the smart the smartphone tech for you know,

651
00:40:30,360 --> 00:40:34,600
Speaker 1: both Apple iPhones iOS stuff as well as Android operated

652
00:40:34,640 --> 00:40:38,640
Speaker 1: phones to help track COVID and the spread of COVID

653
00:40:38,680 --> 00:40:41,520
Speaker 1: in the same way we've been discussing before. Just like

654
00:40:41,719 --> 00:40:44,239
Speaker 1: the one, the first one that we talked about in Australia,

655
00:40:44,360 --> 00:40:47,600
Speaker 1: COVID Safe, this version is going to use Bluetooth or

656
00:40:48,000 --> 00:40:51,520
Speaker 1: the Bluetooth four point oh low energy. Um, they're gonna

657
00:40:51,600 --> 00:40:54,520
Speaker 1: use that tech to keep track of mobile phones and

658
00:40:54,600 --> 00:40:58,359
Speaker 1: proximity just which phones come into close contact with each other.

659
00:40:58,800 --> 00:41:02,560
Speaker 1: And that's really all you're talking about here. That's everything

660
00:41:02,600 --> 00:41:04,960
Speaker 1: that this app is meant to do. Is this an

661
00:41:05,000 --> 00:41:08,719
Speaker 1: advancement of the website that Google was supposedly working on that.

662
00:41:08,760 --> 00:41:13,160
Speaker 1: Trump kind of prematurely announced early on saying that developers

663
00:41:13,160 --> 00:41:16,120
Speaker 1: at Google were hard at work creating some kind of database,

664
00:41:16,200 --> 00:41:19,880
Speaker 1: and then turned out that they barely had begun work

665
00:41:19,920 --> 00:41:22,040
Speaker 1: and it wasn't really as much of a thing as

666
00:41:22,080 --> 00:41:23,279
Speaker 1: he may be made it out to be. As this

667
00:41:23,280 --> 00:41:26,640
Speaker 1: sort of the next gen of that announcement, this is

668
00:41:26,680 --> 00:41:30,719
Speaker 1: an evolution of of that. Yes, correct Early on it was,

669
00:41:31,280 --> 00:41:32,960
Speaker 1: you know, people were touting that it was going to

670
00:41:33,080 --> 00:41:37,880
Speaker 1: use GPS technology to trace, to actually trace where people

671
00:41:37,920 --> 00:41:41,480
Speaker 1: were going once they've you know, contracted COVID nineteen. As

672
00:41:41,520 --> 00:41:44,960
Speaker 1: of right now, as of today on May four, the

673
00:41:45,000 --> 00:41:47,880
Speaker 1: official word is that it's just going to be using

674
00:41:48,239 --> 00:41:52,000
Speaker 1: bluetooth data in proximity and it won't be collecting GPS

675
00:41:52,120 --> 00:41:57,120
Speaker 1: data or location services data much less of real time. Yeah,

676
00:41:57,239 --> 00:42:00,360
Speaker 1: so this has brought up these grave can turn So,

677
00:42:00,719 --> 00:42:02,399
Speaker 1: I mean, here's how it works, right, It keeps track

678
00:42:02,440 --> 00:42:03,959
Speaker 1: of who you know, and then let's say you test

679
00:42:04,000 --> 00:42:07,360
Speaker 1: positive for COVID nineteen, and then it uses that information

680
00:42:07,400 --> 00:42:10,560
Speaker 1: to go back and tell everybody that you plausibly could

681
00:42:10,600 --> 00:42:13,000
Speaker 1: have run into and then also helps to try to

682
00:42:13,040 --> 00:42:16,680
Speaker 1: trace when you may have contracted it. And how. But

683
00:42:16,880 --> 00:42:19,520
Speaker 1: as you can imagine, not everybody is happy with this.

684
00:42:19,680 --> 00:42:23,200
Speaker 1: The two big questions how effective will this actually be?

685
00:42:23,600 --> 00:42:28,160
Speaker 1: And then secondly, how does it affect what's left of privacy? Yeah.

686
00:42:28,280 --> 00:42:31,280
Speaker 1: Jennifer Grantick from the A c l U, who heads

687
00:42:31,360 --> 00:42:36,000
Speaker 1: up their surveillance and cybersecurity program, notes that contact tracing

688
00:42:36,400 --> 00:42:38,560
Speaker 1: is only one piece of the puzzle, which which I

689
00:42:38,560 --> 00:42:41,400
Speaker 1: think is fair, saying that it can't be fully effective

690
00:42:41,560 --> 00:42:45,960
Speaker 1: quote until there is widespread, free and quick testing and

691
00:42:46,120 --> 00:42:50,760
Speaker 1: equitable access to healthcare. I think the that healthcare piece

692
00:42:50,800 --> 00:42:55,080
Speaker 1: has been something that really has been highlighted by this pandemic.

693
00:42:55,360 --> 00:42:59,440
Speaker 1: How disparate, Uh, the availability of healthcare is depending on

694
00:42:59,480 --> 00:43:02,000
Speaker 1: who you are and who you work for and the

695
00:43:02,040 --> 00:43:05,360
Speaker 1: economic strata that you find yourself in. Uh, it's really

696
00:43:05,800 --> 00:43:08,960
Speaker 1: pointed a glaring finger. Can a finger be glaring? I

697
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:11,480
Speaker 1: don't know, but just at that problem in our country,

698
00:43:11,600 --> 00:43:15,360
Speaker 1: there really is no Uh. I'm I was about to

699
00:43:15,400 --> 00:43:18,080
Speaker 1: say universal healthcare, which is true, but there really is

700
00:43:18,120 --> 00:43:21,440
Speaker 1: no equitable access to healthcare in this country. I can

701
00:43:21,600 --> 00:43:25,000
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone would argue with that too hard. No,

702
00:43:25,080 --> 00:43:29,120
Speaker 1: absolutely not. I mean, that's a reality. It's here. Let's

703
00:43:29,160 --> 00:43:31,719
Speaker 1: look at how this will roll out, despite the fact that,

704
00:43:32,280 --> 00:43:35,319
Speaker 1: to Jennifer Grant's point, the US does not have the

705
00:43:35,360 --> 00:43:38,880
Speaker 1: infrastructure to get the most use out of this. Companies

706
00:43:39,000 --> 00:43:41,040
Speaker 1: Google and Apple are planning to roll this out in

707
00:43:41,080 --> 00:43:45,200
Speaker 1: two phases. First, they're releasing software this month to let

708
00:43:45,239 --> 00:43:49,160
Speaker 1: public health authorities build and release apps on Android and

709
00:43:49,440 --> 00:43:52,319
Speaker 1: on Apple. And then in the coming months they'll move

710
00:43:52,360 --> 00:43:56,000
Speaker 1: to phase two. Phase two is where Google and Apple

711
00:43:56,239 --> 00:44:01,279
Speaker 1: build this function directly into the operating system. You heard

712
00:44:01,320 --> 00:44:04,000
Speaker 1: that right, It's being built into the OS on your phone.

713
00:44:04,239 --> 00:44:06,560
Speaker 1: Doesn't matter if you download the app, it doesn't matter

714
00:44:06,680 --> 00:44:08,600
Speaker 1: if you love or hate the app. It will be

715
00:44:08,719 --> 00:44:12,319
Speaker 1: on your OS. No one sure what happens, uh to

716
00:44:12,440 --> 00:44:15,440
Speaker 1: all that surveillance, all that data once it's gathered, Does

717
00:44:15,480 --> 00:44:18,520
Speaker 1: it just vanish? Post COVID. Google recently made an announcement

718
00:44:18,520 --> 00:44:20,640
Speaker 1: about this, or I think Google and Apple jointly made

719
00:44:20,680 --> 00:44:24,600
Speaker 1: an announcement. Yeah, they independently sent out a couple of

720
00:44:24,920 --> 00:44:29,000
Speaker 1: sent out announcements about this thing. So here's the big

721
00:44:29,200 --> 00:44:34,279
Speaker 1: takeaway that they keep pushing on that concept that they're

722
00:44:34,320 --> 00:44:37,080
Speaker 1: not going to collect location data using this. It's not

723
00:44:37,080 --> 00:44:39,560
Speaker 1: gonna be used for this at all, And they're not

724
00:44:39,600 --> 00:44:42,839
Speaker 1: going to be using the data collected for targeted advertising.

725
00:44:43,400 --> 00:44:48,440
Speaker 1: And I think the most positive thing going here is that, well,

726
00:44:48,480 --> 00:44:52,719
Speaker 1: it's positive and negative. It's positive for privacy, it's negative

727
00:44:52,800 --> 00:44:57,560
Speaker 1: for the effectiveness of the app because each individual person

728
00:44:58,400 --> 00:45:01,600
Speaker 1: is going to have to upload it or confirm that

729
00:45:01,680 --> 00:45:06,520
Speaker 1: they have tested positive for coronavirus. So it's not as

730
00:45:06,520 --> 00:45:11,480
Speaker 1: though you're going it's going to automatically upload when when

731
00:45:12,360 --> 00:45:16,920
Speaker 1: let's say, Matt, when I contract coronavirus, I get tested,

732
00:45:17,080 --> 00:45:19,160
Speaker 1: I find out, you know, through the test that I

733
00:45:19,239 --> 00:45:22,240
Speaker 1: have definitely contracted it. It's not going to then connect

734
00:45:22,320 --> 00:45:25,279
Speaker 1: my phone, my device to my identity and upload that

735
00:45:25,320 --> 00:45:28,839
Speaker 1: I am coronavirus positive. I have to then go in

736
00:45:29,280 --> 00:45:32,880
Speaker 1: through the gooey or through the app and then upload

737
00:45:32,960 --> 00:45:36,919
Speaker 1: or confirm my test, which, because there's each coronavirus test

738
00:45:36,960 --> 00:45:41,120
Speaker 1: will have a number essentially generated associated with it. Um

739
00:45:41,200 --> 00:45:44,359
Speaker 1: you have to confirm that. Then that gets sent out

740
00:45:44,400 --> 00:45:47,680
Speaker 1: to everybody that has come into contact with my phone

741
00:45:48,120 --> 00:45:50,560
Speaker 1: over the course of you know, whatever that time window is,

742
00:45:50,840 --> 00:45:54,279
Speaker 1: let's say two weeks, like Ben and Nol and my

743
00:45:54,320 --> 00:45:56,719
Speaker 1: wife and all of my friends that I've talked to,

744
00:45:56,800 --> 00:45:58,960
Speaker 1: which I haven't really seen anybody in the past two weeks,

745
00:45:59,000 --> 00:46:01,359
Speaker 1: but they would all get note ified that perhaps they

746
00:46:01,440 --> 00:46:07,000
Speaker 1: came into contact with someone would not identify me with coronavirus. Yeah, yeah,

747
00:46:07,000 --> 00:46:08,960
Speaker 1: that's correct. So you can see how there's an effort

748
00:46:09,000 --> 00:46:13,720
Speaker 1: towards anonymity here. Uh. And you know, you can believe

749
00:46:13,880 --> 00:46:16,359
Speaker 1: Google and Apple when they say when they say they

750
00:46:16,400 --> 00:46:18,960
Speaker 1: won't ask for certain things or they won't share them

751
00:46:18,960 --> 00:46:23,000
Speaker 1: if they get them, because you know, a company is

752
00:46:23,080 --> 00:46:25,239
Speaker 1: able to get rid of that if they want, they

753
00:46:25,239 --> 00:46:29,040
Speaker 1: are able to avoid collecting certain things. Uh. They can

754
00:46:29,120 --> 00:46:32,200
Speaker 1: do whatever they want with it unless they are legally

755
00:46:32,280 --> 00:46:35,800
Speaker 1: compelled to do or not do something. And that brings

756
00:46:35,880 --> 00:46:37,799
Speaker 1: us to one of the big worries, which is the

757
00:46:37,840 --> 00:46:41,279
Speaker 1: government big brother. Let's say that Google and Apple are

758
00:46:41,280 --> 00:46:43,680
Speaker 1: acting in good faith. Let's say that they have, you know,

759
00:46:44,200 --> 00:46:50,400
Speaker 1: an app called, uh, I don't know, called America Breathe

760
00:46:50,400 --> 00:46:55,600
Speaker 1: Easy or something, and that's too long about America Breezy

761
00:46:55,680 --> 00:46:58,440
Speaker 1: there we go, Yeah, America Breezy. And so they have

762
00:46:58,480 --> 00:47:02,640
Speaker 1: America Breezy and they're collecting this data and their their

763
00:47:02,680 --> 00:47:05,800
Speaker 1: plan is to chunk it like to brick it afterwards,

764
00:47:05,880 --> 00:47:10,680
Speaker 1: but legislation requires them to hand it over. You see

765
00:47:10,840 --> 00:47:13,600
Speaker 1: big Brother. Whether that's the US or whether that's it

766
00:47:13,960 --> 00:47:17,319
Speaker 1: doesn't matter whichever country, Nepal, Bhutan, it doesn't matter. Big

767
00:47:17,360 --> 00:47:20,480
Speaker 1: Brother is there and is able to use this opportunity

768
00:47:20,680 --> 00:47:25,399
Speaker 1: to get sweeping surveillance powers. It is naive, extremely so

769
00:47:25,520 --> 00:47:29,280
Speaker 1: to assume that every country granting itself sweeping surveillance powers

770
00:47:29,520 --> 00:47:31,879
Speaker 1: is actually going to give them up after this is over,

771
00:47:32,200 --> 00:47:35,760
Speaker 1: after it normalizes. In fact, if you know, some people

772
00:47:35,840 --> 00:47:39,120
Speaker 1: might call this too far out there to tinfoil hattie,

773
00:47:39,160 --> 00:47:42,520
Speaker 1: but it is plausible that several of these capabilities for

774
00:47:42,560 --> 00:47:47,160
Speaker 1: widespread monitoring already existed. A global pandemic is just the

775
00:47:47,280 --> 00:47:50,960
Speaker 1: perfect opportunity that happened along. And now governments can go

776
00:47:51,040 --> 00:47:54,160
Speaker 1: public with stuff they already had. Now tech companies can

777
00:47:54,200 --> 00:47:59,520
Speaker 1: go public with stuff they already had. I am personally demite.

778
00:47:59,600 --> 00:48:04,200
Speaker 1: I'm personally certain that's that's the case. In the US,

779
00:48:04,320 --> 00:48:06,360
Speaker 1: the n s A, as we know, as you know,

780
00:48:06,520 --> 00:48:09,040
Speaker 1: long time listeners, the n s A and various other

781
00:48:09,120 --> 00:48:13,359
Speaker 1: organizations here including five Eyes, can do way more than

782
00:48:13,680 --> 00:48:17,040
Speaker 1: um that is publicly admitted. Yeah, we we know this,

783
00:48:17,280 --> 00:48:20,359
Speaker 1: I mean, we absolutely know this from what we know

784
00:48:20,400 --> 00:48:24,240
Speaker 1: about the giant data facilities. That were built in Utah

785
00:48:24,520 --> 00:48:26,319
Speaker 1: and what the n s A was using them for

786
00:48:26,480 --> 00:48:29,120
Speaker 1: because people leaked information about it and we found out

787
00:48:29,160 --> 00:48:31,400
Speaker 1: about that. I think about how long ago that was

788
00:48:31,480 --> 00:48:34,160
Speaker 1: Ben when we were talking about that, and how we've

789
00:48:34,200 --> 00:48:37,920
Speaker 1: just kind of forgotten or at least just choosing to

790
00:48:38,200 --> 00:48:40,640
Speaker 1: not think about it because it makes me feel a

791
00:48:40,640 --> 00:48:43,960
Speaker 1: little better when I don't think about it. Um. Yeah,

792
00:48:44,040 --> 00:48:46,200
Speaker 1: you make a great point, and I'm trying very hard

793
00:48:46,239 --> 00:48:51,680
Speaker 1: to stay positive here, so maybe not. We'll we'll have updates,

794
00:48:51,680 --> 00:48:54,200
Speaker 1: by the way, in a future episode very soon on

795
00:48:54,400 --> 00:48:57,960
Speaker 1: Julian Assan, Jean Edward Snowden. Don't think they are forgotten?

796
00:48:58,440 --> 00:49:01,319
Speaker 1: Uh and maybe that Russians by you know, I think

797
00:49:01,400 --> 00:49:05,160
Speaker 1: she got back, she's out of prison. But you're right.

798
00:49:05,520 --> 00:49:09,719
Speaker 1: Will these remain post pandemic? The answers this, unless there

799
00:49:09,760 --> 00:49:15,240
Speaker 1: are specific sunset laws put into place, then absolutely. Unlike

800
00:49:15,320 --> 00:49:19,320
Speaker 1: tech companies, the government has yet to issue any official

801
00:49:19,400 --> 00:49:22,560
Speaker 1: statement about this to the public, which means that for

802
00:49:22,680 --> 00:49:25,719
Speaker 1: right now, unless something changes, if privacy is Elvis in

803
00:49:25,800 --> 00:49:28,720
Speaker 1: America is a building, than Elvis has left the building.

804
00:49:30,200 --> 00:49:35,680
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Well, okay, here's the positive. If there

805
00:49:35,880 --> 00:49:39,719
Speaker 1: is ever a pandemic of some sort or even an

806
00:49:39,760 --> 00:49:43,239
Speaker 1: outbreak that is more isolated to one section of one

807
00:49:43,320 --> 00:49:47,000
Speaker 1: country or you know, a cluster of countries. You could

808
00:49:47,080 --> 00:49:51,319
Speaker 1: use this infrastructure to help from the jump, and that

809
00:49:51,360 --> 00:49:56,120
Speaker 1: could be a good way of perhaps avoiding the the

810
00:49:56,239 --> 00:49:59,719
Speaker 1: economic downturn that we're experiencing right now. If that was

811
00:49:59,800 --> 00:50:02,880
Speaker 1: the and it was only being used for positive means

812
00:50:02,920 --> 00:50:06,239
Speaker 1: to trace a you know, an outbreak like this, that

813
00:50:06,360 --> 00:50:08,960
Speaker 1: that's the one silver lining I can imagine. But that's

814
00:50:08,960 --> 00:50:13,479
Speaker 1: the thing, privacy versus safety, right, or liberty versus safety. Yeah,

815
00:50:13,520 --> 00:50:16,479
Speaker 1: and thinking speaking of things people have more or less

816
00:50:16,480 --> 00:50:19,879
Speaker 1: forgotten about, how about the election that's coming over right?

817
00:50:20,120 --> 00:50:23,319
Speaker 1: It just seems so bottom of mind given everything that's

818
00:50:23,320 --> 00:50:25,880
Speaker 1: going on, which is messed up to say the least.

819
00:50:25,920 --> 00:50:29,640
Speaker 1: But yeah, there still are increasing concerns swirling around whether

820
00:50:29,640 --> 00:50:33,560
Speaker 1: the government will use COVID as a way to essentially

821
00:50:33,960 --> 00:50:39,960
Speaker 1: change the nature of or delay elections. Um, this is

822
00:50:40,000 --> 00:50:43,320
Speaker 1: spreading through all political walks of life in the US,

823
00:50:43,360 --> 00:50:47,799
Speaker 1: and there's a handful of potential concerns. Does mandatory mail

824
00:50:47,840 --> 00:50:52,239
Speaker 1: in voting constitute a poll tax? That's interesting. Does mandatory

825
00:50:52,280 --> 00:50:56,080
Speaker 1: in person voting constitute a health risk? Two sides of

826
00:50:56,080 --> 00:50:59,400
Speaker 1: the same coin, will the November presidential election be delayed

827
00:51:00,520 --> 00:51:04,319
Speaker 1: or not happened? I mean they delayed bonnaru, So I mean,

828
00:51:04,520 --> 00:51:06,839
Speaker 1: who's to say they can't delay the election? You know?

829
00:51:07,520 --> 00:51:11,560
Speaker 1: Or dragon con right? Right? Uh? It certainly does not

830
00:51:11,760 --> 00:51:14,680
Speaker 1: seem out of the realm of possibility, and it seems

831
00:51:14,760 --> 00:51:16,800
Speaker 1: like the kind of thing that could be very easily

832
00:51:16,880 --> 00:51:21,040
Speaker 1: justified as a very reasonable measure to take to to

833
00:51:21,120 --> 00:51:25,120
Speaker 1: keep people safe. But is there nefarious intent behind it?

834
00:51:25,280 --> 00:51:29,240
Speaker 1: That's the thing, right right? What is the intent? And also,

835
00:51:29,560 --> 00:51:31,640
Speaker 1: this is an interesting one, this one that's gained a

836
00:51:31,640 --> 00:51:35,680
Speaker 1: lot of popularity recently. It's the concept of the distraction.

837
00:51:36,160 --> 00:51:39,640
Speaker 1: What if instead of being under reported COVID numbers, the

838
00:51:39,719 --> 00:51:43,480
Speaker 1: death rates, the um the contraction rates, What if they're

839
00:51:43,480 --> 00:51:47,560
Speaker 1: actually being inflated? If so, why? This argument is pretty

840
00:51:47,560 --> 00:51:50,520
Speaker 1: popular in various groups. The The idea here is that

841
00:51:50,600 --> 00:51:53,239
Speaker 1: a great deal of the COVID worry is, either in

842
00:51:53,360 --> 00:51:58,080
Speaker 1: part or in full, an intentional effort by media in

843
00:51:58,160 --> 00:52:02,320
Speaker 1: various governments to distract the public from other pressing issues,

844
00:52:02,520 --> 00:52:06,120
Speaker 1: such as, you know, an election, or to allow a

845
00:52:06,200 --> 00:52:11,120
Speaker 1: government more breathing room to institute massive surveillance capabilities without

846
00:52:11,160 --> 00:52:15,680
Speaker 1: all the debate, conversation, and criticism that would normally happen.

847
00:52:15,760 --> 00:52:18,120
Speaker 1: I mean, this is an interesting one. We noted the

848
00:52:18,200 --> 00:52:22,640
Speaker 1: inherent opportunism. There's no question that people are taking advantage

849
00:52:22,680 --> 00:52:26,359
Speaker 1: in tremendously unethical ways. But you know, when we talk

850
00:52:26,400 --> 00:52:28,880
Speaker 1: about this, we have to ask ourselves the same question

851
00:52:28,920 --> 00:52:34,319
Speaker 1: you ask whenever you see a government messing up. Is

852
00:52:34,360 --> 00:52:39,040
Speaker 1: this out of ingenious design? Ingenious insidious design? Or is

853
00:52:39,080 --> 00:52:42,400
Speaker 1: this out of you know, garden variety and competence, the

854
00:52:42,480 --> 00:52:46,359
Speaker 1: kind you can encounter at UH street corners and all

855
00:52:46,400 --> 00:52:50,560
Speaker 1: you can eat buffets the world over. I I don't know, um,

856
00:52:50,920 --> 00:52:54,680
Speaker 1: I really, you know, if we if we walked through it,

857
00:52:55,040 --> 00:52:58,120
Speaker 1: I think we can find arguments for both sides. But

858
00:52:59,160 --> 00:53:02,080
Speaker 1: as far as inflating the numbers, one of the other

859
00:53:02,200 --> 00:53:05,480
Speaker 1: arguments would be that the numbers are being inflated to

860
00:53:05,719 --> 00:53:10,080
Speaker 1: prevent them from reaching uh a catastrophic point. I don't know, well,

861
00:53:10,080 --> 00:53:11,719
Speaker 1: I mean, what do you think? What do you guys think?

862
00:53:13,360 --> 00:53:17,080
Speaker 1: What the narrative I've seen floating around is that the

863
00:53:17,160 --> 00:53:21,800
Speaker 1: numbers are being inflated to cause enough fear in people

864
00:53:22,320 --> 00:53:26,960
Speaker 1: to self quarantine even if there are you know, if

865
00:53:26,960 --> 00:53:30,640
Speaker 1: there are orders from your let's say your state's governor

866
00:53:30,800 --> 00:53:34,520
Speaker 1: or the president himself that you have to quarantine. Not

867
00:53:34,640 --> 00:53:37,520
Speaker 1: everybody is going to listen to that, but if the

868
00:53:37,600 --> 00:53:41,320
Speaker 1: death toll and the numbers are scary enough, then people

869
00:53:41,360 --> 00:53:44,240
Speaker 1: will do it because they feel like they're protecting themselves

870
00:53:44,280 --> 00:53:48,560
Speaker 1: and their families. Um, that's the narrative I've seen floating around.

871
00:53:48,600 --> 00:53:53,080
Speaker 1: I do not I do not believe this to be true. Um,

872
00:53:53,239 --> 00:53:57,239
Speaker 1: though I do know psychologically that would be correct. Right.

873
00:53:57,360 --> 00:53:59,800
Speaker 1: It's like, psychologically you would have an effect on p

874
00:54:00,040 --> 00:54:03,359
Speaker 1: well if you if you made the numbers higher than

875
00:54:03,400 --> 00:54:05,319
Speaker 1: they were, and you made it more scary, you get

876
00:54:05,360 --> 00:54:08,920
Speaker 1: everyone to comply the way the majority of people, at

877
00:54:09,000 --> 00:54:11,480
Speaker 1: least in the United States have been complying. That would

878
00:54:11,520 --> 00:54:14,839
Speaker 1: be a pretty generous and magnanimous use of that kind

879
00:54:14,840 --> 00:54:17,880
Speaker 1: of inflating though, I would say, right, like, well, with

880
00:54:17,960 --> 00:54:20,840
Speaker 1: the best with the best interest of people's health and mind.

881
00:54:21,160 --> 00:54:23,919
Speaker 1: We're talking also about versions of it that are much

882
00:54:23,960 --> 00:54:27,400
Speaker 1: more self serving, you know, right, Yeah. The the nefarious

883
00:54:27,440 --> 00:54:30,879
Speaker 1: part to that, generally, to that narrative, is that the

884
00:54:30,920 --> 00:54:36,200
Speaker 1: economy is being crashed purposefully to either bring in you know,

885
00:54:36,320 --> 00:54:40,239
Speaker 1: to to kill cash essentially, or to cause a revolution.

886
00:54:41,200 --> 00:54:44,000
Speaker 1: Within the United States and abroad. Oh, I love it,

887
00:54:44,080 --> 00:54:48,080
Speaker 1: you know, uh Iran. Just before the attempted the latest

888
00:54:48,080 --> 00:54:50,880
Speaker 1: attemptive Venezuelan coup, Iran went in and cleaned out some

889
00:54:50,920 --> 00:54:54,040
Speaker 1: of their gold bars because oil countries are in a

890
00:54:54,480 --> 00:54:58,880
Speaker 1: in a fix right now. So this speak of narrative,

891
00:54:58,920 --> 00:55:01,040
Speaker 1: this brings us to something that I know a lot

892
00:55:01,080 --> 00:55:05,480
Speaker 1: of us were hoping to hear on today's episode as this. Recently,

893
00:55:05,560 --> 00:55:09,200
Speaker 1: the current President of the United States made international headlines

894
00:55:09,239 --> 00:55:12,399
Speaker 1: when he stated that he had proof, proof positive of

895
00:55:12,440 --> 00:55:17,400
Speaker 1: some sort that convinced him this coronavirus did indeed come

896
00:55:17,520 --> 00:55:22,080
Speaker 1: from a laboratory, that same laboratory that we mentioned way

897
00:55:22,120 --> 00:55:27,080
Speaker 1: back in our first COVID episode. But keep in mind

898
00:55:27,120 --> 00:55:30,960
Speaker 1: this contradicts several other findings, including those from some US

899
00:55:31,080 --> 00:55:36,760
Speaker 1: departments and intelligence agencies. When asked to describe this proof

900
00:55:36,880 --> 00:55:40,239
Speaker 1: or to speak more about it, the President said, this

901
00:55:40,280 --> 00:55:42,520
Speaker 1: is this is a quote. He said he wasn't allowed

902
00:55:42,560 --> 00:55:46,360
Speaker 1: to uh that, you know there that could be taken

903
00:55:46,360 --> 00:55:49,680
Speaker 1: to mean there were security concerns. Right. If there is

904
00:55:49,719 --> 00:55:53,359
Speaker 1: something more to this story, it could fundamentally alter our

905
00:55:53,480 --> 00:55:57,200
Speaker 1: understanding of the situation. And again, if that sort of

906
00:55:57,200 --> 00:56:00,680
Speaker 1: proof does exist. Going public with it could exposed the

907
00:56:00,760 --> 00:56:05,240
Speaker 1: US intelligence apparatus at play. You know, spies could get compromised,

908
00:56:05,560 --> 00:56:08,640
Speaker 1: people would learn about tech that maybe they weren't supposed

909
00:56:08,680 --> 00:56:12,160
Speaker 1: to know about. UM. But that would be that like,

910
00:56:12,320 --> 00:56:16,799
Speaker 1: that's the if we're making an assumption, right, if we're

911
00:56:16,800 --> 00:56:21,000
Speaker 1: assuming that there is something real there, then that would

912
00:56:21,040 --> 00:56:24,480
Speaker 1: be the first reason not to reveal it. But no

913
00:56:24,520 --> 00:56:28,040
Speaker 1: one else has confirmed this. There's no second second source

914
00:56:28,120 --> 00:56:30,920
Speaker 1: coming out in agreen with it at this point. Yeah,

915
00:56:30,960 --> 00:56:34,920
Speaker 1: And I would just say we have seen similar statements

916
00:56:35,480 --> 00:56:42,280
Speaker 1: UM like this that appeared that appeared to be UM

917
00:56:42,320 --> 00:56:45,040
Speaker 1: akin to, Hey, I've got some really important information, but

918
00:56:45,120 --> 00:56:47,799
Speaker 1: I can't tell you about it yet. Yeah, I've got

919
00:56:47,800 --> 00:56:50,319
Speaker 1: a I got a girlfriend. You wouldn't know her. She's

920
00:56:50,360 --> 00:56:52,640
Speaker 1: in AA, she goes to a different school. She's from Canada.

921
00:56:52,840 --> 00:56:56,600
Speaker 1: She's I swear she's real though, she's absolutely absolutely real.

922
00:56:57,120 --> 00:57:00,040
Speaker 1: Her name is Tess. And that's not to say that

923
00:57:00,280 --> 00:57:03,480
Speaker 1: the president isn't. Maybe maybe he does have some kind

924
00:57:03,480 --> 00:57:05,640
Speaker 1: of highly classified thing. But I totally agree with you

925
00:57:05,680 --> 00:57:09,279
Speaker 1: Ben about how it's Uh, it seems like it just

926
00:57:09,280 --> 00:57:13,279
Speaker 1: seems like a poor move UM in general. And we're

927
00:57:13,360 --> 00:57:16,680
Speaker 1: waiting to hear more as that story develops. But again,

928
00:57:17,040 --> 00:57:20,240
Speaker 1: to be absolutely fair, if it is true, then that

929
00:57:20,480 --> 00:57:23,120
Speaker 1: is a powder keg of a of a development. There,

930
00:57:24,200 --> 00:57:27,320
Speaker 1: one last one, one last one. Today, as we've just

931
00:57:27,360 --> 00:57:30,560
Speaker 1: sort of skimmed across a wide variety of things, you

932
00:57:30,760 --> 00:57:34,840
Speaker 1: may have heard that a book by UH fiction author

933
00:57:34,960 --> 00:57:41,480
Speaker 1: Dean Koontz predicted coronavirus, The Eyes of Darkness. Uh. You know,

934
00:57:41,560 --> 00:57:45,720
Speaker 1: if you read one of the paperback editions now you'll

935
00:57:45,760 --> 00:57:48,680
Speaker 1: see that it's a story about something called Wuhan four

936
00:57:48,840 --> 00:57:53,680
Speaker 1: hundred coronavirus, a pandemic that spreads across the world. However,

937
00:57:54,360 --> 00:57:56,680
Speaker 1: that's not what it originally said. If you look at

938
00:57:56,720 --> 00:58:01,160
Speaker 1: the first printing, it was called gork four hundred, and

939
00:58:01,160 --> 00:58:07,080
Speaker 1: they changed it. Yeah, oh, talk about opportunism. No, they

940
00:58:07,080 --> 00:58:11,400
Speaker 1: didn't change it to wuhan. Okay, okay, well still still

941
00:58:11,440 --> 00:58:14,240
Speaker 1: it's still somewhat predicting it, or at least some clever

942
00:58:14,600 --> 00:58:18,240
Speaker 1: you know, copy editor predicted it. He's got a lot

943
00:58:18,240 --> 00:58:20,120
Speaker 1: of eyes of books, a name a book called Eyes

944
00:58:20,160 --> 00:58:22,640
Speaker 1: of the Dragon as well. Is that that's Stephen King,

945
00:58:22,720 --> 00:58:26,320
Speaker 1: I think, isn't it? Now it's Dean Kutz. Let's see,

946
00:58:26,400 --> 00:58:30,720
Speaker 1: Eyes of the Dragon is by Stephen King. Your damn right, Ben,

947
00:58:31,640 --> 00:58:35,320
Speaker 1: Twilight Eyes? Okay, he made Twilight Eyes? Is that the

948
00:58:35,360 --> 00:58:38,400
Speaker 1: only other eyes book he has? I don't know. He's

949
00:58:38,440 --> 00:58:40,480
Speaker 1: got a lot of books. He does have a lot

950
00:58:40,520 --> 00:58:45,360
Speaker 1: of books. I remember Hideaway, Remember Hideaway, Ben, That was

951
00:58:45,680 --> 00:58:50,480
Speaker 1: about a Satanic worship Satan worshiping serial killer, and there

952
00:58:50,520 --> 00:58:54,560
Speaker 1: was a movie where Jeremy Sisto played that character. Jeremy

953
00:58:54,600 --> 00:59:01,919
Speaker 1: Sisto famously played the unhinged boyfriend of Air on six

954
00:59:01,920 --> 00:59:04,720
Speaker 1: ft Under. He's kind of like a cookie artist guy.

955
00:59:05,120 --> 00:59:07,040
Speaker 1: He was also in Clueless, I want to say, but

956
00:59:07,280 --> 00:59:09,320
Speaker 1: that guy always played like kind of an unhinged character.

957
00:59:09,320 --> 00:59:12,400
Speaker 1: But that was an interesting movie. Um, that's so crazy

958
00:59:12,440 --> 00:59:15,080
Speaker 1: that they that they changed that. I wonder what their

959
00:59:15,120 --> 00:59:18,880
Speaker 1: motivation was for changing the text. Well, originally the virus

960
00:59:19,360 --> 00:59:22,959
Speaker 1: I believe in the first printing from eighty one it

961
00:59:23,120 --> 00:59:26,920
Speaker 1: was I think a Russian town. Maybe that's incorrect. I

962
00:59:26,920 --> 00:59:28,360
Speaker 1: want to say it was a Russian town where the

963
00:59:28,400 --> 00:59:32,280
Speaker 1: virus originated. That Gorky Gorky Park is a famous Russian

964
00:59:32,720 --> 00:59:35,760
Speaker 1: uh amusement park. I believe that is as a place

965
00:59:35,800 --> 00:59:39,560
Speaker 1: you can visit still where Um, it's sort of been

966
00:59:39,640 --> 00:59:46,760
Speaker 1: ravaged by radio activity from Drenobyl, I believe. Yeah. Yeah.

967
00:59:46,800 --> 00:59:49,200
Speaker 1: So it came out in one it was gorky, and

968
00:59:49,200 --> 00:59:51,640
Speaker 1: then when it was released again in nineteen eighty nine,

969
00:59:51,760 --> 00:59:55,800
Speaker 1: it was changed to wuhan. So so that's I don't know,

970
00:59:55,960 --> 00:59:59,240
Speaker 1: myth busted. It's just it's interesting to think about, Dean.

971
00:59:59,520 --> 01:00:02,520
Speaker 1: If it sneen, keep it up, man, Let's let us

972
01:00:02,560 --> 01:00:06,200
Speaker 1: know about your next projects, uh speaking, things that are next.

973
01:00:06,920 --> 01:00:08,960
Speaker 1: This is this is our show for today, and we

974
01:00:09,000 --> 01:00:10,800
Speaker 1: have to leave it to you. What do you think

975
01:00:10,920 --> 01:00:12,840
Speaker 1: is going to happen next? Are we going to see

976
01:00:12,880 --> 01:00:14,920
Speaker 1: a spike in deaths? Are we going to see a

977
01:00:15,120 --> 01:00:18,439
Speaker 1: decline in deaths? Are we going to see that these

978
01:00:18,560 --> 01:00:22,160
Speaker 1: numbers and the origin story of coronavirus are in fact,

979
01:00:22,800 --> 01:00:27,480
Speaker 1: uh fabrications? I don't know. Yeah, yeah, we're gonna We're

980
01:00:27,520 --> 01:00:31,600
Speaker 1: just gonna have revelation after revelation. I'm pretty sure every week,

981
01:00:31,640 --> 01:00:35,160
Speaker 1: every day moving forward, and there's gonna be a ton

982
01:00:35,200 --> 01:00:37,360
Speaker 1: for us to talk about, especially once all of us

983
01:00:37,400 --> 01:00:42,240
Speaker 1: have our iOS or Android devices, letting us know all

984
01:00:42,240 --> 01:00:45,280
Speaker 1: the people we've come into contact with coronavirus. And and

985
01:00:45,320 --> 01:00:47,120
Speaker 1: as it stands right now, I don't believe any of

986
01:00:47,200 --> 01:00:50,520
Speaker 1: us have gotten the test, whether an antibody test or

987
01:00:50,920 --> 01:00:53,600
Speaker 1: you know, a test to see if we're currently infected.

988
01:00:53,960 --> 01:00:56,919
Speaker 1: Because I think in here in Atlanta, we are pretty

989
01:00:57,000 --> 01:01:00,000
Speaker 1: lucky that a few places are making those tests available,

990
01:01:00,240 --> 01:01:03,920
Speaker 1: and the criteria for getting one has started to loosen

991
01:01:04,320 --> 01:01:06,280
Speaker 1: in the past few weeks, where you can you know,

992
01:01:06,880 --> 01:01:09,160
Speaker 1: that promise that the President made early on where anyone

993
01:01:09,200 --> 01:01:11,080
Speaker 1: who wants a test can get a test is starting

994
01:01:11,080 --> 01:01:14,120
Speaker 1: to be a little more true, but still not you know,

995
01:01:14,440 --> 01:01:17,520
Speaker 1: as true as it maybe should be, I would say,

996
01:01:18,320 --> 01:01:23,040
Speaker 1: in a positive and scary thing. Um, waffle houses reopened

997
01:01:23,080 --> 01:01:27,520
Speaker 1: in Georgia and Guys. I went to one. I walked

998
01:01:27,560 --> 01:01:30,040
Speaker 1: into a waffle house and picked up my to go order.

999
01:01:30,960 --> 01:01:35,080
Speaker 1: It was pretty scary, but they were actually they were.

1000
01:01:35,120 --> 01:01:38,520
Speaker 1: It was not crowded, but they were taking a lot

1001
01:01:38,600 --> 01:01:41,760
Speaker 1: of steps, I would say, to to make me feel

1002
01:01:41,760 --> 01:01:45,040
Speaker 1: safe as the customer, as well as keep their employees safe.

1003
01:01:45,120 --> 01:01:48,760
Speaker 1: It was actually it was great. What did you get? Uh?

1004
01:01:48,840 --> 01:01:54,400
Speaker 1: You know all star special? Dude? Come on, it does

1005
01:01:54,480 --> 01:01:58,800
Speaker 1: with some pecans in it. Baby. Yeah. So uh, hopefully

1006
01:01:58,840 --> 01:02:02,000
Speaker 1: everybody knows this, but here in the American South, a

1007
01:02:02,240 --> 01:02:05,520
Speaker 1: waffle house closing down is a huge deal. In fact,

1008
01:02:05,840 --> 01:02:11,560
Speaker 1: for a while, FEMA unofficially used used waffle house closures

1009
01:02:11,600 --> 01:02:15,840
Speaker 1: as a measure of disaster severity from the waffle House Index.

1010
01:02:16,600 --> 01:02:18,680
Speaker 1: One last little update, by the way, I don't know

1011
01:02:18,680 --> 01:02:21,520
Speaker 1: if you guys saw this, but Billboard magazine recently put

1012
01:02:21,560 --> 01:02:26,120
Speaker 1: out an article saying Missouri governor says concerts can resume Monday.

1013
01:02:26,280 --> 01:02:29,440
Speaker 1: Missouri Governor Mike Carson has given the okay for concerts

1014
01:02:29,480 --> 01:02:32,880
Speaker 1: to begin again as early as Monday, as long as

1015
01:02:33,040 --> 01:02:38,000
Speaker 1: UH certain social distancing measures are taken. I don't know

1016
01:02:38,000 --> 01:02:42,360
Speaker 1: how you do that at a concert properly. That does

1017
01:02:42,400 --> 01:02:45,480
Speaker 1: seem tough. Well, let's keep an eye on Missouri and

1018
01:02:45,520 --> 01:02:47,760
Speaker 1: see what happens in the next two or three weeks

1019
01:02:47,800 --> 01:02:49,440
Speaker 1: with it. And we also want to hear what's happening

1020
01:02:49,480 --> 01:02:52,080
Speaker 1: in your neck of the Global woods. Let us know

1021
01:02:52,200 --> 01:02:54,240
Speaker 1: do you think COVID is overblown? Do you think it's

1022
01:02:54,240 --> 01:02:58,440
Speaker 1: all underestimated? And let us know what you think life

1023
01:02:58,600 --> 01:03:01,760
Speaker 1: post pandemic will be like. You can tell us about

1024
01:03:01,760 --> 01:03:04,240
Speaker 1: it on Instagram, You can find us on Facebook. You

1025
01:03:04,280 --> 01:03:07,680
Speaker 1: can talk to us on Twitter where we are conspiracy

1026
01:03:07,760 --> 01:03:12,720
Speaker 1: stuff on Twitter and Facebook, and conspiracy Stuff Show on Instagram.

1027
01:03:12,760 --> 01:03:15,800
Speaker 1: If you wish you can find us as individual human people.

1028
01:03:16,080 --> 01:03:20,240
Speaker 1: UM follow our quarantine adventures. Uh. You can find me

1029
01:03:20,280 --> 01:03:23,200
Speaker 1: exclusively on Instagram. I am at how Now Noel Brown

1030
01:03:23,760 --> 01:03:27,280
Speaker 1: and until the Black Bag gets me. You can find

1031
01:03:27,320 --> 01:03:30,040
Speaker 1: me on Twitter where I'm Ben Bolling hs W. You

1032
01:03:30,080 --> 01:03:34,080
Speaker 1: can find me on Instagram where I am at Ben Bulling.

1033
01:03:34,160 --> 01:03:38,080
Speaker 1: I'm getting back into painting again. I guess I'll just Uh,

1034
01:03:38,240 --> 01:03:41,640
Speaker 1: it'll be very on brand for me to paint some badgers,

1035
01:03:41,720 --> 01:03:44,280
Speaker 1: so maybe I'll send those along to you guys online.

1036
01:03:44,760 --> 01:03:48,200
Speaker 1: Nice And you can always find me at Dean Coont's

1037
01:03:48,280 --> 01:03:51,880
Speaker 1: official on Instagram. I'll be there just showing you all

1038
01:03:51,920 --> 01:03:55,360
Speaker 1: the books that I've got, really great books hideaways, one

1039
01:03:55,400 --> 01:04:00,840
Speaker 1: of them also devoted just check it out, oh hey,

1040
01:04:00,880 --> 01:04:04,320
Speaker 1: and another one about eyes Noel for you my work

1041
01:04:04,640 --> 01:04:07,840
Speaker 1: from the Corner of his Eye. Thanks Dean. And if

1042
01:04:07,840 --> 01:04:09,880
Speaker 1: you don't want to find me on Instagram again Dean

1043
01:04:09,960 --> 01:04:12,800
Speaker 1: Coon's Official. You can always give me a call as

1044
01:04:12,840 --> 01:04:14,880
Speaker 1: well as the rest of the guys here. Our number

1045
01:04:15,000 --> 01:04:18,440
Speaker 1: is one eight three three S T D W y

1046
01:04:18,560 --> 01:04:21,400
Speaker 1: t K. You can leave a message, tell us how

1047
01:04:21,440 --> 01:04:24,200
Speaker 1: you're doing, what you're thinking, something you want us to cover,

1048
01:04:24,400 --> 01:04:27,000
Speaker 1: something you want us to stop doing there. There have

1049
01:04:27,080 --> 01:04:29,320
Speaker 1: been a few messages coming our way lately that have

1050
01:04:29,440 --> 01:04:32,880
Speaker 1: been like, hey, you're pronouncing this wrong. Stop doing that.

1051
01:04:33,720 --> 01:04:36,200
Speaker 1: So you can do that, that's fine, It doesn't hurt

1052
01:04:36,240 --> 01:04:38,920
Speaker 1: us that much. Maybe our feelings a little bit, but

1053
01:04:39,320 --> 01:04:41,200
Speaker 1: we'll be okay. And if you don't want to do

1054
01:04:41,240 --> 01:04:43,160
Speaker 1: any of that stuff, you can send us a good

1055
01:04:43,160 --> 01:04:46,520
Speaker 1: old fashioned email where we are conspiracy at i heeart

1056
01:04:46,600 --> 01:05:07,160
Speaker 1: radio dot com. Yeah. Stuff they don't want you to

1057
01:05:07,200 --> 01:05:09,960
Speaker 1: know is a production of I heart Radio. For more

1058
01:05:10,000 --> 01:05:12,760
Speaker 1: podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,

1059
01:05:12,840 --> 01:05:15,720
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.