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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 I Heart Brady. Hello, welcome back to the show.

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

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Speaker 1: me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer

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Speaker 1: Lexus code named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you.

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Speaker 1: You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't

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Speaker 1: want you to know. It's one of our favorite times

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Speaker 1: of the week, our weekly listener male segment where we

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Speaker 1: hear from the best part of the show, which is

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Speaker 1: you and your fellow conspiracy realist. We're gonna go to

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Speaker 1: some weird places here, some of our favorite places to go.

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Speaker 1: We're going to crack some questions about the mysterious Chinese

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Speaker 1: balloon that caused such a ruckus in the past few weeks.

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Speaker 1: We're going to ask uh. We'll bandy back and forth

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Speaker 1: about politics and religion, but not in the way you

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Speaker 1: expect maybe, so don't turn off the show yet. UH.

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Speaker 1: And before we do any of that, UH, I think

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Speaker 1: we wanted to. I wanted to share an excellent response.

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Speaker 1: We got to our Skepticism, Part two episode where we

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Speaker 1: we talk about the tricky business of using empathy and

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Speaker 1: sincerity to speak with someone that you feel may have

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Speaker 1: gone off the cognitive rails. Yes, we got a message

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Speaker 1: from a certain a g w M. We'll call this

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Speaker 1: person a g w another government worker. This person says,

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Speaker 1: I've been listening to your podcast for a number of years.

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Speaker 1: Always meant to send a response, but you know, work

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Speaker 1: gets busy. You asked about input dealing with conspiracy theorists.

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Speaker 1: And before we get too much further in this message,

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Speaker 1: we should mention that it's written in a very particular way. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it is a shout out to a g w UH

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Speaker 1: for reading in this excellent piece of correspondence, kind of

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Speaker 1: in the format of a an official government memo, Yes,

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Speaker 1: with headings like this Emergency Management and Government. I left

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Speaker 1: the classroom about seventeen years ago and joined the state

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Speaker 1: government as a training specialist. My section of the department

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Speaker 1: is emergency management preparedness. A few challenges of communication. Okay,

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Speaker 1: I guess that means that there were Okay, wait, now

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Speaker 1: these are specific challenges we're about to talk about. Is

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Speaker 1: that the way I'm to understand this, Yeah, I think

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Speaker 1: the the headings here are examples of sometimes communication was challenge.

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Speaker 1: So here's the first one, COVID fall. We were part

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Speaker 1: of a national of all exercise. Oh interesting. A number

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Speaker 1: of states and federal agencies participated. The exercise worked the

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Speaker 1: emergency plan that had been developed and updated after the

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Speaker 1: H one N one swine flew outbreak. It was a

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Speaker 1: challenging week. We relied on the national stockpile system to

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Speaker 1: be a major part of the process and getting needed

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Speaker 1: medical supplies. We did learn a number of things we

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Speaker 1: needed to improve, but when it got bad, the playbook

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Speaker 1: had changed at higher levels of government. So does that

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Speaker 1: mean when COVID actually hit, things had changed. I think

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Speaker 1: I think so, because you know, most governments weren't really

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Speaker 1: prepared for something of that magnitude, right, so they kind

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Speaker 1: of had to go jazz improvisation with it. Next heading

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Speaker 1: California Canyon Hermit's Peak Wildfire Wow started in the state

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Speaker 1: e O C. As we dealt with many fires and chaos.

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Speaker 1: What different folks said and what they heard kept us busy.

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Speaker 1: In the two events above and so many situations, it's

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Speaker 1: a challenge to get information out to the public. There's

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Speaker 1: a challenge of politics, government private companies. In every After

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Speaker 1: Action Report or a a R, we find there is

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Speaker 1: one major problem communication. The next heading is New Mexico

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Speaker 1: Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. I am a

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Speaker 1: federal grant funded state employee with the Department of Homeland

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Speaker 1: Security and Emergency Management. I've had various background checks in

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Speaker 1: my life. My dad was in Army with a high

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Speaker 1: security clearance, as well as my mom and husband. I've

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Speaker 1: had to operate under for your situational awareness, not for

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Speaker 1: public distribution, et cetera, as well as observing freedom of

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Speaker 1: information acts and Sunshine Law. What I know and what

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Speaker 1: I can share to just about anyone can be different,

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Speaker 1: even if it is open source material. As a trainer,

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Speaker 1: I am one of the folks for the department who

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Speaker 1: gets asked questions, mostly in community preparedness trainings. Your podcast

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Speaker 1: is so helpful in one staying up to date on

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Speaker 1: the newest conspiracies and to hearing what your listeners are

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Speaker 1: concerned about. Oh, oh, guys, guys, Department of Homeland Security

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Speaker 1: is listening in and taking cues. Uh the oh dear, Okay,

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Speaker 1: they're listening right now. Thanks for tuning in, all right? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: thanks for thanks for coming to the show. Let's move

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Speaker 1: on here. A g W says, I have to filter

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Speaker 1: what I tell friends, my family, people at an event,

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Speaker 1: et cetera. Family reunions are fun. In one, my brother

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Speaker 1: in law started very aggressive and then I worked in government,

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Speaker 1: But after talking a bit, he came to realize that

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Speaker 1: at least my discipline had some value. At another family reunion,

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Speaker 1: one family member understood what I do and another asked

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Speaker 1: questions for better understanding. Well, that's good talking about that

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Speaker 1: kind of stuff. That's what we So we said in

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Speaker 1: our Skeptics episode talk a questions. Listen, your family is

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Speaker 1: doing the right thing there. So you continue with the question,

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Speaker 1: how do I change folks minds? First, it again depends

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Speaker 1: on who I'm talking with. If it's a first time

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Speaker 1: caller venting frustration, I listen. For some I can find

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Speaker 1: out what the big frustration for them is and improve

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Speaker 1: the situation in some way. For some, it really is

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Speaker 1: just listening. I always try to remember that each person

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Speaker 1: deserves dignity. Wow, that's a really good viewpoint to have.

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Speaker 1: I think a really great summation of kind of the

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Speaker 1: broad strokes of what we talked about on the episode

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Speaker 1: and also talking about a government worker whose jobs is

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Speaker 1: to listen really put a new spin on the idea

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Speaker 1: of a listening station, doesn't does. I guess we all

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Speaker 1: have a little listening station in our heart and should

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Speaker 1: try to try to use it when we can. And yes, uh,

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Speaker 1: A g W ends with this one. It's it's rather personal,

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Speaker 1: but I think we can take something away from this,

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Speaker 1: they say. I can also share the story of my spouse.

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Speaker 1: When we first met, they had the idea that only

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Speaker 1: Hispanics were Catholic. Meeting a Catholic Scottish Irish person from

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Speaker 1: New Mexico, he was a tad confused. They would be

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Speaker 1: considered very conservative, full gospel Christian. Over the past forty years,

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Speaker 1: we've both shifted in beliefs, but I would say more

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Speaker 1: him than me. It was by me asking questions for

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Speaker 1: understanding and clarifications signed another government worker. Nice, I mean,

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Speaker 1: this feels like the right way to to navigate these things. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And and especially you know, if you work in government

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Speaker 1: in the US or abroad, you run into stuff like

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Speaker 1: what A GW is talking about here. Something might not

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Speaker 1: necessarily be top secret, but you, as as part of

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Speaker 1: your job, are constrained from talking about it or commenting

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Speaker 1: on it. It always reminds me we brought this up

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Speaker 1: a while back. I think it always reminds me of

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Speaker 1: when Wiki leaks hit the scene, and there was all

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Speaker 1: this stuff that was now publicized, all these cables and

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Speaker 1: all these reports and memorands, memorandum whatever, h and people

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Speaker 1: who are not in government could just be a few

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Speaker 1: clicks away from this information. But various government agencies had

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Speaker 1: to put out warnings to their employees that it was

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Speaker 1: very catch twenty two is very hell oresque. They had

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Speaker 1: to say, Okay, we know this is out here on Google,

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Speaker 1: but you still have to treat it like it's secret.

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Speaker 1: And if you're not clear to read it, you can't.

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Speaker 1: It was it was always it was a weird honor system.

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Speaker 1: But also family reunions can always always be tough. And

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Speaker 1: there's something that I think this was really impressive. There's

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Speaker 1: something a g W talks about, um that line that

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Speaker 1: stands out when the brother in law starts starts off

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Speaker 1: a conversation by saying, oh, you work for the government, huh.

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Speaker 1: As if as if everybody from you know, your local

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Speaker 1: comptroller on up has a direct line to the joint

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Speaker 1: chiefs and and whomever the president is. Which one big web,

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Speaker 1: one big web, you gotta get in contact with the

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Speaker 1: special agent in charge. That's appreciate. I talked to which

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Speaker 1: the acronym for that is the sack? Did they say

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Speaker 1: S A C Or did they like they say, we

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Speaker 1: gotta call the sacks? Get the sack on the phone. Uh,

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Speaker 1: this is I gotta say the thing that stood out

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Speaker 1: to me, guys in this And I know I'm silly

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Speaker 1: and a bit rabbit holy right here, but just talking

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Speaker 1: about that national exercise in the fall of about some

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Speaker 1: large outbreak using the H one N one swine flew

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Speaker 1: outbreak as the model. Um, come on, I just want

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Speaker 1: to know more. Look, if if you worked, how about

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Speaker 1: this anyone out there that can hear this message. If

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Speaker 1: you've been a part of some national level exercise in

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Speaker 1: your country dealing with some kind of terrible thing that

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Speaker 1: may happen in the future, and you've been a part

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Speaker 1: of it recently, why don't you let us know about it,

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Speaker 1: tell us all about it everything you can without you know,

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Speaker 1: putting yourself in danger. We want to know because I

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Speaker 1: want to start tracking those things. Guys. When when are

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Speaker 1: the national preparedness events and what are they about? And

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Speaker 1: has there ever been one that you were aware of

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Speaker 1: or that you participated in that surprised you, you know,

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Speaker 1: if I think it's safe to say, if the four

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Speaker 1: of us, if Doc Knowell you met myself, actually the

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Speaker 1: five of us you're listening along at home as well,

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Speaker 1: if we were in one of those exercises that got

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Speaker 1: weirdly specific, it would be creepy, right like if you're

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Speaker 1: doing a game plan, even just a tabletop kind of

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Speaker 1: walk through of something like a very specific type of

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Speaker 1: plane crashing into an outback steakhouse in Omaha while a

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Speaker 1: specific manager is is on shift. I mean, I don't

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Speaker 1: know how specific these things get. But for a lot

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Speaker 1: of people, it's true that learning about preparedness exercises for

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Speaker 1: diseases or for natural disasters have always seemed sussed to

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Speaker 1: a certain percentage of the population. When something like that

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Speaker 1: does happen in real life, you know what I really

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Speaker 1: want to hear specifically, were you a part of the

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Speaker 1: I guess war games maybe that uh that we're taking

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Speaker 1: place or supposed to take place on September eleven. I

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Speaker 1: don't know if you guys remember reading about that, but

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Speaker 1: Austin dot com long time ago reign with an AP

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Speaker 1: news story written by John Lumpkin about some kind of well,

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Speaker 1: let me just read this first statement quote in what

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Speaker 1: the government describes as a bizarre coincidence. One U S

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Speaker 1: intelligence agency was planning an exercise last September eleven in

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Speaker 1: which an air and aircraft would crash into one of

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Speaker 1: its buildings. But the cause wasn't terrorism. It was to

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Speaker 1: be a simulated accident. Mm hmmm. It's again weirdly specific, right,

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Speaker 1: depending on your perspective, and it guess to be fair,

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Speaker 1: we have to admit that a lot of those kind

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Speaker 1: of exercises don't make the news when the thing they're

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Speaker 1: preparing for doesn't occur. Right. It's it's kind of linking

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Speaker 1: the it's putting the red string between the dots based

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Speaker 1: on timeline, you know. Um. But still as creepy as

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Speaker 1: it sounds and as messed up as its hound, it's

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Speaker 1: honestly better than the alternative of not being prepared. Not

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Speaker 1: to sound too like eagle scout about it, but imagine

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Speaker 1: how much worse some of those things would be if

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Speaker 1: something happened and nobody in the government had any idea

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Speaker 1: or had never thought about that. It was just they

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Speaker 1: just said, oh, well, we didn't plan on satellites coming down.

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Speaker 1: We just thought they stayed up there are bad Sorry. Uh,

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Speaker 1: but like that, that kind of stuff can happen. And

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Speaker 1: then also, gosh, this is the coffee talking here. Also

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Speaker 1: we have to consider that it's not outside of the

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Speaker 1: realm of possibility that some shady stuff occurs and is

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Speaker 1: called an exercise. That's why when geopolitical tensions get above

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Speaker 1: a certain threshold, you hear these uh stories that make

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Speaker 1: the news where it's like, oh, the US is conducting

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Speaker 1: exercises outside of so and so country just over the border,

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Speaker 1: or you know, China is conducting what it calls military

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Speaker 1: exercises in insert disputed area of the sea. You know

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Speaker 1: what I mean. Like, I think maybe governments play a

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Speaker 1: little bit fast and loose with the term exercise sometimes,

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Speaker 1: according to the coincidence, American Airlines Flight seventies seven, the

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Speaker 1: Boeing seven sixty seven that was hijacked and crashed into

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Speaker 1: the Pentagon, took off from Dullus at eight ten am

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Speaker 1: on September eleven, fifty minutes before the exercise was to begin. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the exercise was from the National Reconnaissance Office, and it

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Speaker 1: was in the Pentagon, was being run from the Pentagon. Okay, guys,

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Speaker 1: it's fine, everything's fine, all right, right to us, Right

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Speaker 1: to us if you can. That's it, guys, I'm sorry,

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Speaker 1: we need to take a break. I'm going down a

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Speaker 1: rabbitable my and we have returned. This is, uh is

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Speaker 1: one piece of correspondence we've received about something and a

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Speaker 1: lot of our fellow listeners found interesting, fascinating, and a

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Speaker 1: little bit disturbing. This conspiracy realist has asked that we

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Speaker 1: do keep their identity anonymous, and we're gonna talk a

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Speaker 1: little bit about this. We'll share this correspondence, throw the

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Speaker 1: ball or balloon back and forth as it were, and uh,

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Speaker 1: then we're I think we're going to have to do

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Speaker 1: an episode on this because there's been a lot of

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Speaker 1: misinformation coming out already. Here is what we received. HI

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Speaker 1: love you all and the podcast. I know you will,

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Speaker 1: But sooner rather than dot dot dot, can we discuss

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Speaker 1: this by balloon incident? I witnessed the balloon fly by

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Speaker 1: or fly over here in South Carolina and your Myrtle Beach.

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Speaker 1: I witnessed the military fly around it. This was our

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Speaker 1: last chance to take it down before it drifted out

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Speaker 1: to sea, and we did. But what was China's goal?

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Speaker 1: They must have known that we would detect it. Was

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Speaker 1: it a gentle testing of the waters? Does it have

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Speaker 1: anything to do with NATO country sending our tanks to Ukraine?

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Speaker 1: Why would China do something so easily detectable unless it

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Speaker 1: was a distraction, And and we're gonna We're gonna again

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Speaker 1: keep the anonymity as best we can here. This source

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Speaker 1: posted a lot of pretty great photos of the balloon

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Speaker 1: from their vantage point in South Carolina. And if you

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Speaker 1: look at the photos, you can see a white dot

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Speaker 1: in most of them. But if you look at the

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Speaker 1: one that ends with nine oh four, then you can

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Speaker 1: see a little bit the undercarriage there, which is where

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Speaker 1: all the goodies are, all the surveillance stuff in the basket. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: in the in the gondola of the point right. And

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Speaker 1: so for anybody somehow doesn't know, uh. Up until about

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Speaker 1: February four, there was a high altitude balloon operated by

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Speaker 1: China over North American airspace and it took the tour.

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Speaker 1: It went over Alaska, blew through western Canada, and like

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Speaker 1: our source has got all the way to South Carolina

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Speaker 1: before someone did anything. The official position of the Chinese

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Speaker 1: government is metal doesn't uh. The official position of the

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Speaker 1: Chinese government is that this was a civilian meteorological research

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Speaker 1: airship that just got blown off horse because, as you know,

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Speaker 1: with hot air balloons, even if they're really fancy high altitude,

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Speaker 1: unless you put a way to steer on there, you're

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Speaker 1: kind of at the mercy of the wind. Uh. This

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Speaker 1: thing did ultimately get shot down off the coast of

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Speaker 1: South Carolina. The US government's reasoning for waiting so long

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Speaker 1: is apparently they didn't want to shoot it down over

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Speaker 1: a civilized area for a number of reasons. Again, Meadow

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Speaker 1: is not buying this story, and I think a lot

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Speaker 1: of us listening today are not buying it because he's

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Speaker 1: important to be skeptical even as a dog. Yes, be

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Speaker 1: skeptical in all things, except whether or not you are

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Speaker 1: you are a good girl, which Meadow is. She's not

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Speaker 1: a good girl. I just got that she's a villain.

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Speaker 1: So here here's some of this stuff. Before we answer

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Speaker 1: this specific question or attempt to answer it, post possibilities

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Speaker 1: of what we can say is that it makes sense

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Speaker 1: that the US would have waited till it was off

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Speaker 1: of a coast to shoot it down because there would

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Speaker 1: always be the likelihood that debris from the balloon could

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Speaker 1: fall onto a populated area, right, which would be a

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Speaker 1: pr disaster. Uh. There's also the possibility that the that

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Speaker 1: the methods used to pop the balloon to bring it

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Speaker 1: down could adversely affect a civilian area. So a lot

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Speaker 1: of the reason for waiting really came down to safety.

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Speaker 1: As we're recording today, the debris has been recovered. Well.

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Speaker 1: The waiting also has to do with because this is

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Speaker 1: a complex political, geopolitical move to shoot it down or not? Right, Yeah, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And and this is the thing we're I was talking

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Speaker 1: about this um list of folks I think on on

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Speaker 1: Twitter or Instagram. The issue is like a lot of

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Speaker 1: people got excited and it became what are pal Robert

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Speaker 1: Evans called kind of a mini culture war. Right. But

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Speaker 1: the thing about this high altitude surveillance craft is that

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Speaker 1: a lot of governments have them, and a lot of

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Speaker 1: them are legitimately just meteorological research. Like a lot of

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Speaker 1: people who are experts in weather are cooperating around the

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Speaker 1: world to launch these things on a regular schedule, and

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Speaker 1: they want the balloons up in the air. Because they

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Speaker 1: share their research, they can all learn more. Uh you know,

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Speaker 1: spoiler alerte humans still are sure how world weather works

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Speaker 1: know a little bit about it, right, But there's a

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Speaker 1: reason that your local meteorologist is a brilliant person who

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Speaker 1: can't elite predicts stuff with certitude past a certain number

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Speaker 1: of dates. There's just too many variables, right, and so

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Speaker 1: we need those balloons. But the idea, the other issue

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Speaker 1: is for high altitude spycraft, like spy surveillance kind of stuff,

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Speaker 1: if you can see it with the unaided i the

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Speaker 1: way that so many people across the North American continent could,

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Speaker 1: then it probably means someone screwed up, right, because you know,

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Speaker 1: like the high altitude surveillance blimps that Uncle Sam is

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Speaker 1: messing with, you're not gonna notice them, you really know.

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Speaker 1: And I mean this was flying at a low enough

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Speaker 1: altitude that like there were sightings from civilians, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this appears to be iPhone shots of the thing. Well yeah,

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Speaker 1: and in no shade on the fine folks of the Carolinas,

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Speaker 1: but there's some pretty trigger happy folk out there. I

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Speaker 1: would have thought maybe somebody, you know, would have taken

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Speaker 1: a show at it themselves. I think some people did. Uh.

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Speaker 1: I have one friend that I can't identify who said

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Speaker 1: they were familiar with Montana and they were telling me,

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Speaker 1: I know, I I know several people in Montana just

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Speaker 1: had to give it literally had to give it a shot. Right.

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Speaker 1: It was a long shot, but they said why not maybe?

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Speaker 1: Uh And if they did the math, they would realize

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Speaker 1: that the kind of firearms they have have no chance

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Speaker 1: of reaching that sort of thing. That's why the US

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Speaker 1: had to deploy the F twenty two Raptor to shoot

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Speaker 1: it down. And the F twenty two Raptor is it's

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Speaker 1: bad medicine. It's not something you want to see out

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Speaker 1: in the sky. It can like wax F sixteens. It's

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Speaker 1: you might even say it's it's a little bit of overkill.

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Speaker 1: But they needed something that could get to that altitude.

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Speaker 1: Another question people were asking, very reasonable question, is why

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Speaker 1: why was it shot down? Why didn't someone just white

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Speaker 1: in the US, with all its toys just try to

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Speaker 1: capture it in flight? Right? The problem is the altitude

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Speaker 1: is too high for something like a helicopter to humming

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Speaker 1: bird over you know. Uh. And now, as we said,

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Speaker 1: the US has retrieved it, and you can you can

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Speaker 1: see plenty of footage of sailors picking up pieces of

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Speaker 1: it out of the Atlantic. I think specifically one of

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Speaker 1: them is Exclusive Ordinance Disposal Group to UM. But that's

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Speaker 1: the set up here. So maybe we ask ourselves here,

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Speaker 1: and let's crowdsources too. We need your help, fellow listeners.

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Speaker 1: What was the balloon actually doing that a satellite could not.

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Speaker 1: That's a good question. It was my understanding that it

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Speaker 1: was monitoring strategic sites, you know, which is vague and

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Speaker 1: don't of itself, but I believe eve it was potentially

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Speaker 1: looking for military sites of weapons deployment, of long range

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Speaker 1: weapons deployment. Okay, that makes and maybe satellites, you know,

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Speaker 1: can capture swaths of information, but a lower flying surveillance

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Speaker 1: balloon might be able to get more granular detail. I

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Speaker 1: don't know. I'm just posing some possibilities that are crossing

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Speaker 1: my mind. You know, those are really good ones, because

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Speaker 1: I guess we could also say maybe maybe being closer

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Speaker 1: to the ground than a satellite, it's able to bypass

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Speaker 1: some kind of atmospheric interference of some sort. Possibly, UM.

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Speaker 1: I mean, Matt, what do you think have you called

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Speaker 1: g jim ping lately I have yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: who is he doing? How's his mom? And then Jenny

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Speaker 1: I call him Jenny. Uh No, he's good, he's good

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Speaker 1: doing this thing, you know. Uh A little little, a

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Speaker 1: little cranky about this though, probably. I mean it's a

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Speaker 1: it embarrassing more than anything, isn't it. This is just

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Speaker 1: testing how we would respond to the balloon being in

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Speaker 1: our airspace, and we kind of failed the test, and

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Speaker 1: we shot that sucker down because now you know the

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Speaker 1: messaging coming from China as well, we will now respond

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Speaker 1: in kind to anything flying over our airspace. H Is

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Speaker 1: that true? Yeah? Yeah, so the conversation has happened, then

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Speaker 1: this is essentially that's the diplomatic response, is like okay,

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00:25:27,160 --> 00:25:30,399
Speaker 1: all right, then, well now we know what's next. You

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Speaker 1: teach people how to treat you, right, Yes, I learned

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Speaker 1: that from somebody one time. Jeez. Well that's someone should

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Speaker 1: practice it more often, I think. But the the I

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Speaker 1: just have this image of that texting with g and saying,

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Speaker 1: hey man, how are you doing? Haven't talked to him?

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Speaker 1: It's like, oh, you know, just doing my thing, and no, no,

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00:25:53,800 --> 00:25:56,320
Speaker 1: he's all specific. I refer to it as just he's

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Speaker 1: doing his thing. I see like the three dots in

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Speaker 1: the chat as Matt's type says that balloon though, and

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00:26:06,680 --> 00:26:12,480
Speaker 1: then she responds La mao hashtag yollo, I love it, um.

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Speaker 1: I hope that conversation is happening, and I hope we

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Speaker 1: can all still get through Chinese customs. But this does

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00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:25,600
Speaker 1: seem like embarrassment. But also again, people aren't publicly confirming

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Speaker 1: other than the Chinese government. People aren't publicly confirming what

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Speaker 1: this would have been doing up there. I mean, do

396
00:26:34,720 --> 00:26:38,359
Speaker 1: you raise some excellent points. Also, the satellite thing is,

397
00:26:38,800 --> 00:26:41,159
Speaker 1: you know, one of the first stumbling blocks on the

398
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Speaker 1: idea of surveillance here. Um. But we do know that

399
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Speaker 1: there was a lot of misinformation. It got politicized very quickly,

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Speaker 1: and it continues to escalate because, believe it or not, folks,

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Speaker 1: this is not the first balloon of its sort that

402
00:27:00,359 --> 00:27:05,720
Speaker 1: has made it over the US border. According to a

403
00:27:05,840 --> 00:27:10,800
Speaker 1: couple of recent interviews, this has happened four times total.

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00:27:11,280 --> 00:27:14,960
Speaker 1: The one that occurred just recently was the fourth one.

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Speaker 1: It's happened at least three times during the previous presidential administration,

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Speaker 1: and the US General confirmed that the intelligence and security

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00:27:24,760 --> 00:27:28,840
Speaker 1: community did not know about those three as they were

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00:27:28,920 --> 00:27:33,359
Speaker 1: taking place, and they only put together the pieces after

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Speaker 1: the fact. They call it a domain awareness gap because

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Speaker 1: governments loved terms like that. So there's a domain awareness gap. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And even people in the intelligence community, at least when

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Speaker 1: they're speaking publicly, seem a little bit baffled by this.

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Speaker 1: They're saying things like, Okay, we know that China has

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00:27:57,680 --> 00:28:02,080
Speaker 1: you know, first in class espionage capabilities, So why is

415
00:28:02,160 --> 00:28:06,600
Speaker 1: this so clumsy and clunky? They knew it would be detected.

416
00:28:07,400 --> 00:28:10,760
Speaker 1: Maybe this is kind of like you know, a faint

417
00:28:11,080 --> 00:28:14,760
Speaker 1: like in fencing, right or in basketball. You want to

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00:28:14,840 --> 00:28:18,399
Speaker 1: see how the other party reacts. So maybe this is

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00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:22,840
Speaker 1: a way to learn more about how the US controls

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00:28:22,960 --> 00:28:27,320
Speaker 1: or monitors its airspace. Maybe this is a good way

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Speaker 1: to I mean, look, if they have a live feed

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00:28:30,640 --> 00:28:32,720
Speaker 1: on that bad boy when the when the F twenty

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Speaker 1: two came up, then they learned a lot about the

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00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:38,800
Speaker 1: F twenty two, right, So so maybe that is worth

425
00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:43,720
Speaker 1: one busted balloon. But when we're talking about escalation, I

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Speaker 1: want to shout out three journalists at the New York

427
00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:50,320
Speaker 1: Times who just published this very recently today as we

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00:28:50,360 --> 00:28:56,960
Speaker 1: record February Julianne Barnes, Edward Wong, and Helene Cooper. They

429
00:28:57,000 --> 00:29:00,640
Speaker 1: have verified that the government of China is sending spy

430
00:29:00,680 --> 00:29:05,200
Speaker 1: balloons over military sites, not just across the US, but

431
00:29:05,360 --> 00:29:09,840
Speaker 1: across the planet. And here's where I think we get

432
00:29:09,840 --> 00:29:13,880
Speaker 1: our answer. Because they're closer to Earth, it's easier for

433
00:29:13,920 --> 00:29:19,520
Speaker 1: them to evade conventional radar. So maybe there's this Goldilock zone.

434
00:29:19,680 --> 00:29:24,200
Speaker 1: We're not altitude oologists, we're not experts on how high

435
00:29:24,440 --> 00:29:27,600
Speaker 1: or low things should be. But maybe there's this kind

436
00:29:27,640 --> 00:29:32,000
Speaker 1: of balancing act you have to play between staying low

437
00:29:32,120 --> 00:29:35,280
Speaker 1: enough to evade radar, but staying high enough that people

438
00:29:35,320 --> 00:29:39,760
Speaker 1: on the ground won't say, oh, holy smokes, that's not

439
00:29:39,840 --> 00:29:47,160
Speaker 1: the Goodyear blimp. You know, yeah, hang on um. So

440
00:29:47,320 --> 00:29:52,000
Speaker 1: maybe this is a practice run. Maybe like Cosmos two nine,

441
00:29:52,200 --> 00:29:54,880
Speaker 1: the Russian spy satellite we talked about earlier this week.

442
00:29:55,360 --> 00:30:00,640
Speaker 1: Maybe this is all about gathering data for are some

443
00:30:01,360 --> 00:30:06,680
Speaker 1: operation in the future. We're just not clear on what

444
00:30:06,800 --> 00:30:09,840
Speaker 1: that operation might be, what the motivations might be. But

445
00:30:10,120 --> 00:30:13,600
Speaker 1: we appreciate this letter, Anonymous. I think we are going

446
00:30:13,680 --> 00:30:18,080
Speaker 1: to do a full episode about this, because the one

447
00:30:18,240 --> 00:30:21,480
Speaker 1: certitude we have is that there's going to be more

448
00:30:21,640 --> 00:30:25,480
Speaker 1: stuff like this or based on it. On the way.

449
00:30:25,920 --> 00:30:27,760
Speaker 1: Speaking of on the way, we're going to pause for

450
00:30:27,800 --> 00:30:32,080
Speaker 1: a word from our sponsors, Big Balloon, and we'll be

451
00:30:32,120 --> 00:30:41,160
Speaker 1: back with more messages from you. Guys were back. But

452
00:30:41,240 --> 00:30:43,880
Speaker 1: I just want to ask, what would happen if you

453
00:30:44,560 --> 00:30:48,040
Speaker 1: had a balloon that was that deep blue color of

454
00:30:48,040 --> 00:30:51,040
Speaker 1: the sky, like straight up sky blue. Okay, that's the

455
00:30:51,080 --> 00:30:55,360
Speaker 1: color of the balloon itself, and the all of the components,

456
00:30:55,440 --> 00:30:58,760
Speaker 1: everything on there is painted that same sky blue color.

457
00:30:59,560 --> 00:31:02,400
Speaker 1: Do you think it could be completely hidden up there

458
00:31:02,480 --> 00:31:05,000
Speaker 1: in the sky. We've talked about that with like dazzle

459
00:31:05,080 --> 00:31:09,000
Speaker 1: camouflage and some of the preported purported uses of glitter

460
00:31:09,160 --> 00:31:12,720
Speaker 1: even for camouflaging ships on the horizon line and stuff

461
00:31:12,720 --> 00:31:14,560
Speaker 1: like that. So I'm wondering if there might be some

462
00:31:14,640 --> 00:31:17,520
Speaker 1: sort of reflective quality that might even do the job

463
00:31:17,600 --> 00:31:20,920
Speaker 1: better than a than a sky blue paint job. Oh,

464
00:31:21,040 --> 00:31:26,520
Speaker 1: vanta black. Vanta black is like the darkest thing. It

465
00:31:26,600 --> 00:31:29,920
Speaker 1: swallows almost all visible light, so much so that it

466
00:31:29,960 --> 00:31:33,520
Speaker 1: doesn't reflect. So you could maybe paint something vanta black

467
00:31:33,560 --> 00:31:35,960
Speaker 1: and put it up and it would look blue. I

468
00:31:35,960 --> 00:31:40,080
Speaker 1: don't know, I don't know. It's a good question. It's

469
00:31:40,080 --> 00:31:43,800
Speaker 1: a great questions, Matt uh, and I have another great question,

470
00:31:44,280 --> 00:31:50,720
Speaker 1: uh from a listener. Call me Bobo. Well, I ever,

471
00:31:50,840 --> 00:31:52,760
Speaker 1: that's a great name and fun to say. So what

472
00:31:52,800 --> 00:31:55,280
Speaker 1: I used to call my grandpapa, my my, my, my

473
00:31:55,400 --> 00:31:58,480
Speaker 1: nana and Bobo now that's from better call salt. But

474
00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:03,120
Speaker 1: Bobo is this great question? Listen to the opening of

475
00:32:03,120 --> 00:32:05,760
Speaker 1: The Skeptic Part two episode. I thought you were going

476
00:32:05,840 --> 00:32:08,200
Speaker 1: to bring up an idea that I've been thinking about recently,

477
00:32:08,240 --> 00:32:09,880
Speaker 1: but apparently we didn't quite get to it. So we're

478
00:32:09,880 --> 00:32:13,720
Speaker 1: gonna get to it today, Um, with some nudging from Bobo.

479
00:32:14,680 --> 00:32:18,880
Speaker 1: Is politics a new religion? People seem to identify with

480
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:22,760
Speaker 1: one side of the other so strongly that zella seems

481
00:32:22,760 --> 00:32:25,880
Speaker 1: an apt word to describe them. Could future historians in

482
00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:28,800
Speaker 1: a thousand years look at this time in American culture

483
00:32:28,800 --> 00:32:33,479
Speaker 1: and interpret our politicians as gods? I doubt you'd get

484
00:32:33,480 --> 00:32:36,760
Speaker 1: an episode out of it. You'd be surprised, Bobo, but

485
00:32:36,840 --> 00:32:42,400
Speaker 1: it may leave you and your friends to some interesting conversations. Okay, Bobo,

486
00:32:42,680 --> 00:32:45,520
Speaker 1: we uh, we see you and uh and we raise you. Well,

487
00:32:45,520 --> 00:32:46,920
Speaker 1: we don't raise you. We're just gonna meet you right

488
00:32:46,960 --> 00:32:48,680
Speaker 1: where you are. We doesn't have to be a game

489
00:32:48,680 --> 00:32:51,160
Speaker 1: of one upsmanship. No. We we certainly talked about this

490
00:32:51,240 --> 00:32:53,880
Speaker 1: all the time. We have an episode that may have

491
00:32:54,160 --> 00:32:57,880
Speaker 1: just hit or at least a classic episode about the

492
00:32:57,920 --> 00:33:00,720
Speaker 1: idea of money being a new religion. We've talked about

493
00:33:00,840 --> 00:33:04,920
Speaker 1: sports being treated as religion. Um And throughout history we

494
00:33:05,080 --> 00:33:08,960
Speaker 1: see examples of whether you know, politicians are kind of

495
00:33:08,960 --> 00:33:12,680
Speaker 1: our modern stand ins for gods in certain sense, and

496
00:33:12,760 --> 00:33:17,240
Speaker 1: definitely people like celebrities and sports figures and the concept

497
00:33:17,280 --> 00:33:21,280
Speaker 1: of money and capitalism itself. Um. So, I mean, you know,

498
00:33:21,320 --> 00:33:23,920
Speaker 1: a thousand years it would have to like there would

499
00:33:23,920 --> 00:33:26,240
Speaker 1: have had to be some apocalyptic event where there would

500
00:33:26,240 --> 00:33:29,480
Speaker 1: be you know, all human knowledge was kind of wiped away,

501
00:33:29,520 --> 00:33:32,040
Speaker 1: so there would be very little like context. They'd have

502
00:33:32,080 --> 00:33:35,440
Speaker 1: to be viewing this almost like cold right. Uh, that's

503
00:33:35,480 --> 00:33:37,360
Speaker 1: that's that's the way I'm I'm interpreting it, like some

504
00:33:37,400 --> 00:33:40,120
Speaker 1: sort of apocalyptic event that may be wiped out you know,

505
00:33:40,280 --> 00:33:42,880
Speaker 1: the record, you know, of of all of this evolution

506
00:33:42,920 --> 00:33:44,560
Speaker 1: that led us to be in the situation we're in,

507
00:33:44,840 --> 00:33:49,000
Speaker 1: with these politicians wielding so much power and commanding such

508
00:33:49,120 --> 00:33:52,240
Speaker 1: kind of cult like uh zelotry, you know, on on

509
00:33:52,240 --> 00:33:55,880
Speaker 1: one side or the other. But um, I think the

510
00:33:55,920 --> 00:33:59,440
Speaker 1: answer would would likely be yes. You know who is

511
00:33:59,520 --> 00:34:02,000
Speaker 1: this resident? Is he like the king of the gods?

512
00:34:02,040 --> 00:34:04,760
Speaker 1: I mean, if you think about the way uh, politics

513
00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:07,440
Speaker 1: is laid out in America anyway, there's a hierarchy that's

514
00:34:07,560 --> 00:34:11,120
Speaker 1: very similar to what you would see in pantheons of gods,

515
00:34:11,120 --> 00:34:13,600
Speaker 1: you know, in ancient Greek culture or Roman culture, where

516
00:34:13,600 --> 00:34:16,160
Speaker 1: you have kind of the head honcho and your zeus

517
00:34:16,480 --> 00:34:19,320
Speaker 1: you know, or whomever that the top dog might be,

518
00:34:19,640 --> 00:34:21,840
Speaker 1: and then you have your lesser gods and gods that

519
00:34:22,080 --> 00:34:25,920
Speaker 1: represent certain facets of society, you know, like uh, the

520
00:34:26,200 --> 00:34:28,440
Speaker 1: god of the forge or you know, the God of

521
00:34:28,480 --> 00:34:31,640
Speaker 1: the hearth, Goddess of the hearth or whatever. In our situation,

522
00:34:31,719 --> 00:34:34,520
Speaker 1: we have the head of Agriculture and the Department of

523
00:34:34,560 --> 00:34:37,520
Speaker 1: Agriculture and stuff like that. So I think this is

524
00:34:37,520 --> 00:34:41,279
Speaker 1: a very interesting conversation, um, and not to mention the

525
00:34:41,320 --> 00:34:45,480
Speaker 1: whole side conversation of how religion is such a huge

526
00:34:45,640 --> 00:34:48,719
Speaker 1: part of politics and how that is one of the

527
00:34:48,719 --> 00:34:53,000
Speaker 1: biggest guiding forces as to which side folks ultimately choose.

528
00:34:54,600 --> 00:34:59,080
Speaker 1: I yield my time, please, Uh. We may break, but

529
00:34:59,120 --> 00:35:02,360
Speaker 1: we will not. Then we will not yield very brittle,

530
00:35:02,520 --> 00:35:08,400
Speaker 1: but we don't bend very often, so brittle bro Anyway,

531
00:35:08,480 --> 00:35:13,439
Speaker 1: the these are excellent points, because I'd like to take

532
00:35:13,480 --> 00:35:16,799
Speaker 1: it a little bit further, Bobo, and pose it to

533
00:35:16,840 --> 00:35:23,960
Speaker 1: you that religion is the first form of politics, ultimately,

534
00:35:24,120 --> 00:35:28,719
Speaker 1: like the first form of an organized political body. You know,

535
00:35:29,200 --> 00:35:32,880
Speaker 1: from quite some time the majority of human history, religion

536
00:35:33,040 --> 00:35:37,120
Speaker 1: and affairs of the state were inseparable, right, That's where

537
00:35:37,120 --> 00:35:41,080
Speaker 1: we get divine rights of a monarchy, the absolute rule

538
00:35:41,160 --> 00:35:45,239
Speaker 1: of an emperor. And furthermore, if we consider those historical

539
00:35:46,120 --> 00:35:49,959
Speaker 1: state leaders and in sort of the context of their time,

540
00:35:50,000 --> 00:35:52,960
Speaker 1: if we consider them the way that people are supposed

541
00:35:53,000 --> 00:35:55,920
Speaker 1: to consider them during their heyday, then yes, they are

542
00:35:56,000 --> 00:35:59,920
Speaker 1: religious figures. And if we fast forward to the modern

543
00:36:00,160 --> 00:36:03,280
Speaker 1: and we look back at a bunch of older nations,

544
00:36:03,840 --> 00:36:06,040
Speaker 1: I feel like maybe we dunked on China a little

545
00:36:06,040 --> 00:36:08,920
Speaker 1: bit in this week's Listener Male segment. So here's a

546
00:36:09,000 --> 00:36:12,200
Speaker 1: nice thing about China. Uh it is such an ancient

547
00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:17,080
Speaker 1: civilization that, if you go back far enough, their emperors,

548
00:36:17,719 --> 00:36:23,520
Speaker 1: their politicians, if you will, are considered mythological uh demi

549
00:36:23,560 --> 00:36:29,319
Speaker 1: god like figures and taken as such seriously. This this

550
00:36:29,480 --> 00:36:33,600
Speaker 1: to me is kind of a fingers on a hand situation.

551
00:36:34,120 --> 00:36:38,680
Speaker 1: It's an inversion, right, because politics as a genre of

552
00:36:39,200 --> 00:36:42,920
Speaker 1: religion has now become something that most people in the

553
00:36:42,960 --> 00:36:45,960
Speaker 1: modern day think of in the opposite way. They say,

554
00:36:46,000 --> 00:36:53,200
Speaker 1: let's keep religion out of politics. But religion created or

555
00:36:53,320 --> 00:36:56,560
Speaker 1: became the framework for early politics. So I would say

556
00:36:56,760 --> 00:36:59,440
Speaker 1: it has already been a religion, and there's a total

557
00:36:59,480 --> 00:37:03,120
Speaker 1: backlash to the concept of taking religion out of politics.

558
00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:06,680
Speaker 1: You have one side that maybe is all about separating

559
00:37:06,760 --> 00:37:09,040
Speaker 1: church and state, which is you know, in the Constitution.

560
00:37:09,239 --> 00:37:12,400
Speaker 1: But then you have another side that is really always pushing, pushing,

561
00:37:12,440 --> 00:37:15,360
Speaker 1: pushing to get God back in the classroom, you know,

562
00:37:15,480 --> 00:37:20,080
Speaker 1: and and and have certain um political committees start with,

563
00:37:20,239 --> 00:37:22,920
Speaker 1: you know, saying what the Pledge of allegiance, which includes

564
00:37:23,000 --> 00:37:25,239
Speaker 1: one nation under God. So there are all these kind

565
00:37:25,280 --> 00:37:28,040
Speaker 1: of contradictions within that. But that's a really good point.

566
00:37:28,120 --> 00:37:31,040
Speaker 1: Then it's it's it's uh ironic, is it? Like a

567
00:37:31,120 --> 00:37:34,439
Speaker 1: lot of more sets version of ira forget Sometimes it's

568
00:37:34,640 --> 00:37:37,520
Speaker 1: used so incorrectly so often, But I think maybe it

569
00:37:37,640 --> 00:37:42,719
Speaker 1: is that what beget politics as we know it is religion,

570
00:37:43,040 --> 00:37:45,880
Speaker 1: and it was sort of a way of you know,

571
00:37:46,040 --> 00:37:50,440
Speaker 1: codifying things that once relied on religious deities, you know,

572
00:37:50,719 --> 00:37:53,600
Speaker 1: with mortals, so we can actually have an impact. And

573
00:37:53,840 --> 00:37:57,239
Speaker 1: you know, we can't exactly control the weather, the seasons,

574
00:37:57,600 --> 00:38:00,239
Speaker 1: there are things that we can do to predictably, you know,

575
00:38:00,360 --> 00:38:03,879
Speaker 1: survive without having to worry about whether the gods are

576
00:38:03,880 --> 00:38:07,360
Speaker 1: mad at us or not. Yeah, and uh, a couple

577
00:38:07,360 --> 00:38:11,520
Speaker 1: of other things to think about in this regard the

578
00:38:11,600 --> 00:38:16,120
Speaker 1: lord's spiritual of Parliament in the United Kingdom, they serve

579
00:38:16,200 --> 00:38:21,239
Speaker 1: in the House of Lords. Their qualification is not their politics.

580
00:38:21,680 --> 00:38:24,280
Speaker 1: It's that they are bishops in the Church of England.

581
00:38:24,560 --> 00:38:27,000
Speaker 1: And it's been that way for a while. So that

582
00:38:27,120 --> 00:38:32,120
Speaker 1: religious aspect again, we see the legacy of how religion

583
00:38:32,200 --> 00:38:35,880
Speaker 1: creates politics. And we've said it in the past multiple times.

584
00:38:35,920 --> 00:38:38,800
Speaker 1: But just and this is just my opinion, quick and dirty.

585
00:38:39,640 --> 00:38:42,600
Speaker 1: What I see is the social evolution of the human species.

586
00:38:42,800 --> 00:38:45,400
Speaker 1: You start with the family. That's the first group that

587
00:38:45,480 --> 00:38:49,600
Speaker 1: hangs together, that becomes the tribe. They are a bunch

588
00:38:49,640 --> 00:38:53,320
Speaker 1: of families that are kind of interrelated, hopefully not too

589
00:38:53,400 --> 00:38:56,120
Speaker 1: inter related, not to habsburg E about it. And then

590
00:38:56,280 --> 00:39:02,920
Speaker 1: that evolves into the church. Right then the church says, Okay,

591
00:39:02,960 --> 00:39:06,000
Speaker 1: I know we're not all related, but we all agree

592
00:39:06,080 --> 00:39:09,279
Speaker 1: on this same belief and that's why we're together. And

593
00:39:09,320 --> 00:39:12,800
Speaker 1: then from the church comes the state. That's the politics,

594
00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:15,840
Speaker 1: the body politic, and that says, Okay, I know we

595
00:39:15,880 --> 00:39:18,680
Speaker 1: aren't all related, and I know we don't all believe

596
00:39:18,760 --> 00:39:21,880
Speaker 1: the same things, but we all live in the same place,

597
00:39:22,200 --> 00:39:25,680
Speaker 1: and therefore we can agree that our interest aligned. And

598
00:39:25,800 --> 00:39:29,239
Speaker 1: from there the part where humanity is now we see

599
00:39:29,239 --> 00:39:34,399
Speaker 1: the rise of the corporation, right, the technocracy, the neo feudalism,

600
00:39:34,800 --> 00:39:37,400
Speaker 1: which is on the way, which you could argue is

601
00:39:38,040 --> 00:39:43,239
Speaker 1: more the worshiped deity than religion even you know what

602
00:39:43,320 --> 00:39:45,839
Speaker 1: I mean, Like that's really more of interest if we're

603
00:39:45,840 --> 00:39:49,279
Speaker 1: being honest about it too. Politicians on either side, then

604
00:39:50,000 --> 00:39:52,720
Speaker 1: which which church you go to or which God's you worship?

605
00:39:52,840 --> 00:39:58,680
Speaker 1: You know. But big scale war often is a result

606
00:39:58,760 --> 00:40:02,400
Speaker 1: of of of the logical differences you know, in terms

607
00:40:02,440 --> 00:40:05,280
Speaker 1: of um you know, our relationship with the Middle East,

608
00:40:05,320 --> 00:40:08,880
Speaker 1: and and in certain more extreme sets you know that

609
00:40:09,000 --> 00:40:12,399
Speaker 1: that are associated with perhaps Islam or whatever it might be,

610
00:40:12,680 --> 00:40:18,239
Speaker 1: that is at its heart a religious difference there that's

611
00:40:18,280 --> 00:40:20,759
Speaker 1: causing a lot of those problems. If there's been sure

612
00:40:20,760 --> 00:40:23,319
Speaker 1: there's other things wrapped up in it, but at a

613
00:40:23,320 --> 00:40:27,120
Speaker 1: certain level of of hard line. That's what's most important.

614
00:40:27,640 --> 00:40:32,200
Speaker 1: M The following might be offensive to some people who

615
00:40:32,239 --> 00:40:36,480
Speaker 1: are very closest, but again, this is just the the

616
00:40:36,520 --> 00:40:41,719
Speaker 1: objective consensus that we see throughout history. Most wars and

617
00:40:41,880 --> 00:40:47,040
Speaker 1: conflicts seem to be based on control of resources and

618
00:40:47,200 --> 00:40:52,640
Speaker 1: framed through any number of ways. My God says this

619
00:40:53,239 --> 00:40:56,879
Speaker 1: water is mine and is supposed to be mine, and

620
00:40:57,040 --> 00:41:01,480
Speaker 1: you are wrong for disagreeing with and you don't follow

621
00:41:01,480 --> 00:41:04,600
Speaker 1: my religion, therefore it's bad. And so there's a lot

622
00:41:04,640 --> 00:41:08,800
Speaker 1: of almost like ancient versions of pr but it comes

623
00:41:08,840 --> 00:41:11,840
Speaker 1: down to the resources. And that's not to say, you

624
00:41:11,880 --> 00:41:17,240
Speaker 1: know that people don't believe wholeheartedly that there are theological

625
00:41:17,560 --> 00:41:22,759
Speaker 1: doctrinal reasons for their conflicts. It's just historically what we

626
00:41:22,840 --> 00:41:27,320
Speaker 1: see happen in conflicts when they end is a balance

627
00:41:27,760 --> 00:41:32,680
Speaker 1: of resources. They move somewhere, there's an exchange. War is transaction,

628
00:41:33,480 --> 00:41:36,960
Speaker 1: as are most things. Um, I don't know this is

629
00:41:37,000 --> 00:41:38,839
Speaker 1: so this is so fascinating because you know what this

630
00:41:38,880 --> 00:41:43,600
Speaker 1: makes me think, Well, Matt Bobo, if what we're saying

631
00:41:44,040 --> 00:41:46,520
Speaker 1: lines up, and we may be wrong because this is

632
00:41:46,520 --> 00:41:50,360
Speaker 1: an abstract conversation, then is it not possible that anything

633
00:41:51,360 --> 00:41:54,400
Speaker 1: could be mad lived in for what we call religion.

634
00:41:55,120 --> 00:42:00,439
Speaker 1: Like if someone if someone really really loves Star Wars, right,

635
00:42:01,080 --> 00:42:04,160
Speaker 1: you could claim that, or you could claim like the

636
00:42:04,239 --> 00:42:07,200
Speaker 1: Jedi belief system is your religion. If you really, if

637
00:42:07,200 --> 00:42:11,560
Speaker 1: you really love a certain band in somebody's mind, could

638
00:42:11,640 --> 00:42:17,480
Speaker 1: that religion. Yeah, I mean fandom at a certain level

639
00:42:18,000 --> 00:42:21,000
Speaker 1: is a stand in for religion. And I mean you

640
00:42:21,040 --> 00:42:23,520
Speaker 1: don't go to church. You go to cons you know,

641
00:42:23,760 --> 00:42:27,080
Speaker 1: to worship at the altar of Star Wars or Disney

642
00:42:27,280 --> 00:42:30,040
Speaker 1: or the Marvel Universe or whatever, which is all now

643
00:42:30,080 --> 00:42:37,120
Speaker 1: owned by one company, which is funny. Yeah, the altar

644
00:42:37,239 --> 00:42:39,719
Speaker 1: of the mouse. Yeah. I don't know if this will

645
00:42:39,760 --> 00:42:41,440
Speaker 1: make it to YouTube, but this is what we do.

646
00:42:41,560 --> 00:42:43,879
Speaker 1: We hail the mouse to make the ears right. Yeah,

647
00:42:44,960 --> 00:42:48,080
Speaker 1: we gotta work on it. We got, you know, district yourself.

648
00:42:50,840 --> 00:42:53,400
Speaker 1: But that's a great point about fandom too, And and

649
00:42:53,480 --> 00:42:57,520
Speaker 1: maybe I think maybe what makes it different in this

650
00:42:57,560 --> 00:43:03,319
Speaker 1: case to Bobo's question, is when you have politics being

651
00:43:03,360 --> 00:43:08,880
Speaker 1: treated like religion, with all the tribalism, all the doctrinal stuff,

652
00:43:09,280 --> 00:43:11,839
Speaker 1: then you end up in a place where you make

653
00:43:12,040 --> 00:43:17,600
Speaker 1: real world decisions based on matters of faith and belief.

654
00:43:18,200 --> 00:43:20,600
Speaker 1: You know what I mean than hard facts. I just

655
00:43:20,640 --> 00:43:23,720
Speaker 1: googled prostrate to make sure that I was using it correctly,

656
00:43:23,800 --> 00:43:26,359
Speaker 1: and I was. But all I'm getting our pictures of

657
00:43:26,520 --> 00:43:30,719
Speaker 1: prostates as though people who are searching for prostates just

658
00:43:30,960 --> 00:43:38,080
Speaker 1: misspell it so often. Get your prostate checked. Okay, it's important,

659
00:43:38,320 --> 00:43:40,920
Speaker 1: but also prostrate yourself to the god so you don't

660
00:43:40,960 --> 00:43:44,600
Speaker 1: get prostate cancer. Web m d says, we have prostrate cancer.

661
00:43:45,400 --> 00:43:47,759
Speaker 1: Prostrate is when you basically get down on all man

662
00:43:47,880 --> 00:43:50,200
Speaker 1: hands and knees. Right, yeah, well I think it's really

663
00:43:50,640 --> 00:43:54,680
Speaker 1: on the ground, face down and then doing the ears

664
00:43:55,400 --> 00:44:01,400
Speaker 1: the Micky years, thou shalt not look upon my mouse. Sorry, no, no,

665
00:44:01,560 --> 00:44:04,400
Speaker 1: this is this is important stuff. We're half choking because

666
00:44:04,400 --> 00:44:07,120
Speaker 1: it is so absurd, and it's exactly the kinds of

667
00:44:07,160 --> 00:44:11,120
Speaker 1: things you see in works of fiction like Gulliver's Travels,

668
00:44:11,239 --> 00:44:15,719
Speaker 1: you know, or ur and the way that religion and

669
00:44:15,840 --> 00:44:19,640
Speaker 1: politics kind of intersect and become bastardized, and what once

670
00:44:19,760 --> 00:44:21,960
Speaker 1: was sort of a functional thing to kind of get

671
00:44:22,000 --> 00:44:25,200
Speaker 1: a job done sort of balloons out of control and

672
00:44:25,320 --> 00:44:28,000
Speaker 1: takes on a bizarro life of its own and then

673
00:44:28,000 --> 00:44:31,520
Speaker 1: floats over South Carolina and then and then you know,

674
00:44:31,640 --> 00:44:33,480
Speaker 1: Jimbo and the trailer park has got to shoot it

675
00:44:33,520 --> 00:44:35,960
Speaker 1: down with his forty odd six. Is that a thing?

676
00:44:36,239 --> 00:44:38,919
Speaker 1: That's the type of gun? Right? I got close enough

677
00:44:40,360 --> 00:44:43,680
Speaker 1: the other day been in an episode you referred to

678
00:44:44,680 --> 00:44:49,200
Speaker 1: Justin Trudeau as or you you warned everyone against viewing

679
00:44:49,239 --> 00:44:53,520
Speaker 1: Justin Trudeau as a golden calf right and as a

680
00:44:53,600 --> 00:44:56,239
Speaker 1: thing of worship, a thing to be treated as in

681
00:44:56,880 --> 00:45:01,239
Speaker 1: an idol or something that would save you. Right. Um.

682
00:45:01,239 --> 00:45:03,360
Speaker 1: I thought that was really interesting that we just talked

683
00:45:03,360 --> 00:45:06,839
Speaker 1: about that. Well, yeah, we have to remember that up

684
00:45:06,840 --> 00:45:13,240
Speaker 1: to now, every politician that we can prove existed, whatever

685
00:45:13,360 --> 00:45:16,880
Speaker 1: political system we're talking about, they have all been human.

686
00:45:17,719 --> 00:45:20,600
Speaker 1: The ones that we can prove existed have all been

687
00:45:20,840 --> 00:45:23,880
Speaker 1: human in positions of power. Is that going to be

688
00:45:23,960 --> 00:45:28,080
Speaker 1: the case for the rest of our lives? I don't know.

689
00:45:28,400 --> 00:45:31,400
Speaker 1: I mean, they're you know, I'd like to see chat

690
00:45:31,440 --> 00:45:35,040
Speaker 1: GPT tackle a state of the Union. That might be fun.

691
00:45:35,520 --> 00:45:41,120
Speaker 1: I wonder what what place the psychological drive we call

692
00:45:41,200 --> 00:45:45,280
Speaker 1: religion has going forward, you know, and and for many people,

693
00:45:45,880 --> 00:45:50,920
Speaker 1: many many people, uh religious or spiritual beliefs are you know,

694
00:45:50,960 --> 00:45:55,200
Speaker 1: at the core of your identity, and so we if

695
00:45:55,239 --> 00:46:00,680
Speaker 1: we talk about removing religion from politics and is a problem.

696
00:46:00,719 --> 00:46:02,080
Speaker 1: I don't have an answer for it. I don't know

697
00:46:02,120 --> 00:46:05,719
Speaker 1: if anyone does. If you talk about removing religion from politics,

698
00:46:06,120 --> 00:46:10,320
Speaker 1: then how do we square with the humanity of people

699
00:46:10,360 --> 00:46:13,719
Speaker 1: in politics, people who have spiritual beliefs? You, I mean,

700
00:46:13,760 --> 00:46:17,160
Speaker 1: you can't tell somebody or I guess you shouldn't tell

701
00:46:17,239 --> 00:46:22,000
Speaker 1: somebody that, hey, based on where you go once or

702
00:46:22,040 --> 00:46:26,640
Speaker 1: twice a week and what you believe, like your specific

703
00:46:26,760 --> 00:46:29,239
Speaker 1: rules about how to be nice to people and how

704
00:46:29,280 --> 00:46:32,800
Speaker 1: to be decent. Based on that, you can't have this job.

705
00:46:33,239 --> 00:46:37,320
Speaker 1: Is removing religion or the existence of something like religion

706
00:46:37,320 --> 00:46:41,520
Speaker 1: from politics. Is that too close to removing humanity from politics?

707
00:46:42,520 --> 00:46:46,840
Speaker 1: I don't know. Ice coman. No. No, that's the problem

708
00:46:46,920 --> 00:46:53,920
Speaker 1: with politics. It is sort of inherently inhumane because of

709
00:46:53,960 --> 00:46:57,359
Speaker 1: all of the rigamarole and all of the bureaucracy. It

710
00:46:57,440 --> 00:47:00,920
Speaker 1: doesn't really think about people as much as much as

711
00:47:00,960 --> 00:47:04,279
Speaker 1: it does processes, you know, and larger. I mean, you know,

712
00:47:04,360 --> 00:47:06,759
Speaker 1: you the job of the politicians to sort of sell

713
00:47:06,840 --> 00:47:09,880
Speaker 1: you a line about no, no, it's all about the people,

714
00:47:09,920 --> 00:47:12,000
Speaker 1: and we're here to affect change. But then when the

715
00:47:12,040 --> 00:47:15,279
Speaker 1: rubber actually hits the road. Uh, you really have to

716
00:47:15,360 --> 00:47:18,960
Speaker 1: kind of dig pretty deep to justify that you've actually

717
00:47:19,000 --> 00:47:21,719
Speaker 1: done that, you know what I mean, because it really

718
00:47:21,800 --> 00:47:24,680
Speaker 1: ultimately is about things that don't really have to do

719
00:47:24,760 --> 00:47:27,160
Speaker 1: with people at all. They have to do with money

720
00:47:27,160 --> 00:47:30,040
Speaker 1: and corporations and war, which I guess you know, at

721
00:47:30,040 --> 00:47:31,320
Speaker 1: the end of the day, you could argue that the

722
00:47:31,360 --> 00:47:34,200
Speaker 1: point of government is to protect people, you know, to

723
00:47:34,239 --> 00:47:36,960
Speaker 1: protect people from foreign invaders and to make sure that

724
00:47:37,000 --> 00:47:40,880
Speaker 1: people ultimately can survive. But there's a drift, there's a

725
00:47:40,920 --> 00:47:43,200
Speaker 1: mission creep, as you like to say, Ben over time,

726
00:47:43,239 --> 00:47:47,200
Speaker 1: where the people become much less the focus. I think

727
00:47:47,239 --> 00:47:50,400
Speaker 1: the solution is clear now that we're we're entering the

728
00:47:50,440 --> 00:47:55,400
Speaker 1: parliamentary procedure part of stuff they don't want you to know. Uh, gentlemen,

729
00:47:55,920 --> 00:48:01,239
Speaker 1: fellow conspiracy realists as well. I motion that we all

730
00:48:01,360 --> 00:48:04,440
Speaker 1: vote for code named Doc Holiday to be in charge

731
00:48:04,440 --> 00:48:08,560
Speaker 1: of politics. Sure, just the idea politics, Yeah, just the idea.

732
00:48:09,200 --> 00:48:13,680
Speaker 1: Let's have some let's outsource it and even swimming, even

733
00:48:13,760 --> 00:48:16,880
Speaker 1: the REX, all the rec centers and everything. That's a lot. Yeah,

734
00:48:17,080 --> 00:48:20,720
Speaker 1: like the new religions. Are you Sony, Microsoft? Are you PC?

735
00:48:20,960 --> 00:48:23,960
Speaker 1: Are you a Nintendo? Which virtual environment do you live

736
00:48:23,960 --> 00:48:26,920
Speaker 1: in and God do you worship? Now I'm turning against myself.

737
00:48:27,280 --> 00:48:30,000
Speaker 1: I want to I want to issue an objection to

738
00:48:30,080 --> 00:48:34,200
Speaker 1: my earlier statement because we all know that Doc Holiday

739
00:48:34,280 --> 00:48:38,560
Speaker 1: is an Xbox supporter, uh and therefore is biased against

740
00:48:38,600 --> 00:48:43,120
Speaker 1: the people of Sody. I'm on TPS, I'm on Team PlayStation,

741
00:48:43,360 --> 00:48:45,960
Speaker 1: have been my whole life. Honestly, I don't even know

742
00:48:46,000 --> 00:48:48,120
Speaker 1: what an Xbox looks like. Then, how are you going

743
00:48:48,160 --> 00:48:51,160
Speaker 1: to be represented in this government? Exactly? It looks like

744
00:48:51,200 --> 00:48:53,600
Speaker 1: a box. It's kind of rectangular. Do you have an

745
00:48:53,719 --> 00:48:57,920
Speaker 1: X on it somewhere? Huh? Okay, cool, I've got imagination, fellas,

746
00:48:57,960 --> 00:49:00,560
Speaker 1: I can, I can, I can use the context clues. Uh.

747
00:49:00,719 --> 00:49:04,040
Speaker 1: Misplay video games with you guys? Um we should we

748
00:49:04,080 --> 00:49:06,200
Speaker 1: should get on that soon? Or do you want to

749
00:49:06,239 --> 00:49:10,719
Speaker 1: go bowling at some point? It'll be great if you're

750
00:49:10,760 --> 00:49:13,800
Speaker 1: ever feeling about that. Yeah, everybody, if you're ever feeling

751
00:49:13,840 --> 00:49:17,279
Speaker 1: bad and you happen to be in Atlanta, you can

752
00:49:17,480 --> 00:49:22,040
Speaker 1: always go bowling with us and or me specifically, because

753
00:49:22,040 --> 00:49:25,200
Speaker 1: I used the little gutter blockers like a child. I

754
00:49:25,239 --> 00:49:27,080
Speaker 1: would love it. I might need him. I have the

755
00:49:27,080 --> 00:49:31,000
Speaker 1: opposite of nominative determinism. I am terrible at bowling. It's like,

756
00:49:31,360 --> 00:49:34,080
Speaker 1: if I'm ever good at bowling, I'm accidentally good. It's

757
00:49:34,080 --> 00:49:36,360
Speaker 1: sort of like how I'm accidentally good at darts, Like

758
00:49:36,400 --> 00:49:38,520
Speaker 1: I'm only good at darts if I have no concept

759
00:49:38,600 --> 00:49:40,640
Speaker 1: of what the rules are of the game, then I

760
00:49:40,680 --> 00:49:44,000
Speaker 1: just kind of somehow magically, you know, rain Man my

761
00:49:44,040 --> 00:49:46,719
Speaker 1: way into dart supremacy. But yeah, same with bowling. At

762
00:49:46,719 --> 00:49:48,680
Speaker 1: the moment I start to care or try to use

763
00:49:49,000 --> 00:49:52,800
Speaker 1: correct form, it all goes out the window. Yeah. Oh

764
00:49:52,880 --> 00:49:56,520
Speaker 1: and uh, Doc Holidays, actually is that true? Doc? You

765
00:49:56,640 --> 00:49:59,920
Speaker 1: just got a new bowling ball. Always one step ahead

766
00:50:00,000 --> 00:50:04,000
Speaker 1: of us, tell you what? Man also shout out shout

767
00:50:04,040 --> 00:50:07,560
Speaker 1: out to everybody who is actually good at bowling. Sounds

768
00:50:07,600 --> 00:50:10,759
Speaker 1: like Doc is uh shout out, of course to our

769
00:50:11,239 --> 00:50:14,920
Speaker 1: good friend of the show, Pam Peacock, who has started

770
00:50:14,960 --> 00:50:18,719
Speaker 1: a Star Trek themed bowling league. I was going to

771
00:50:18,920 --> 00:50:23,000
Speaker 1: join it, but unfortunately travel out of the way. Thank

772
00:50:23,040 --> 00:50:26,759
Speaker 1: you to bo Bo, Thank you to anonymous, Thank you

773
00:50:26,800 --> 00:50:30,359
Speaker 1: to A. G. W Right. Is that the moniker we're

774
00:50:30,400 --> 00:50:34,080
Speaker 1: going about? That? So what what do we tell people? Uh?

775
00:50:34,160 --> 00:50:37,439
Speaker 1: If they want to join up with stuff they don't

776
00:50:37,480 --> 00:50:40,160
Speaker 1: want you to know and become part of the show.

777
00:50:39,920 --> 00:50:41,839
Speaker 1: How do they how do they do it? Do they

778
00:50:41,840 --> 00:50:45,000
Speaker 1: have to run in an election? No? Just prostrating yourself,

779
00:50:45,680 --> 00:50:53,840
Speaker 1: prostrating your prostrate. Not castrate, sorry, castrate yourselves and send

780
00:50:53,920 --> 00:50:58,600
Speaker 1: us your severed genitalis to j. You can however, find

781
00:50:58,680 --> 00:51:03,759
Speaker 1: us on Facebook, on YouTube, and on Twitter at Conspiracy

782
00:51:03,880 --> 00:51:06,399
Speaker 1: Stuff On Facebook, we do still have a Facebook group

783
00:51:06,400 --> 00:51:09,600
Speaker 1: where people you know bandy about conversation around the episodes.

784
00:51:09,719 --> 00:51:12,719
Speaker 1: We also have a book you can buy in textual

785
00:51:12,800 --> 00:51:17,120
Speaker 1: form with wonderful illustrations by the homie Admiral Turbo Nick Benson.

786
00:51:17,120 --> 00:51:19,200
Speaker 1: And you should also check out on Instagram. He's selling

787
00:51:19,239 --> 00:51:22,600
Speaker 1: some prints I think still that are amazing prints of

788
00:51:22,640 --> 00:51:24,600
Speaker 1: some of his art that he did for the Stuff

789
00:51:24,600 --> 00:51:26,360
Speaker 1: That It Wants You to Know book, So check that

790
00:51:26,400 --> 00:51:29,879
Speaker 1: out on his Instagram. His link in the bio goes

791
00:51:29,920 --> 00:51:32,480
Speaker 1: to his website which has all of his amazing work

792
00:51:32,600 --> 00:51:34,680
Speaker 1: right that you can buy for yourself. Uh. You can

793
00:51:34,719 --> 00:51:40,120
Speaker 1: also find us on Instagram and TikTok at Conspiracy Stuff Show.

794
00:51:40,440 --> 00:51:43,439
Speaker 1: Oh yes, do you like calling people? Well, you can

795
00:51:43,480 --> 00:51:47,200
Speaker 1: call us and leave a voicemail at one eight three

796
00:51:47,280 --> 00:51:51,319
Speaker 1: three st d w y t K. You've got three

797
00:51:51,360 --> 00:51:53,600
Speaker 1: minutes when you call in, give yourself a cool nickname,

798
00:51:53,640 --> 00:51:55,799
Speaker 1: and say whatever you want. If you've got more to

799
00:51:55,880 --> 00:51:58,439
Speaker 1: say than you can fit in that three minutes, why

800
00:51:58,440 --> 00:52:01,040
Speaker 1: not instead send us a good old fashion email. We

801
00:52:01,160 --> 00:52:23,439
Speaker 1: are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they don't

802
00:52:23,440 --> 00:52:26,000
Speaker 1: want you to know. Is a production of I heart Radio.

803
00:52:26,320 --> 00:52:28,560
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i

804
00:52:28,640 --> 00:52:31,560
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

805
00:52:31,560 --> 00:52:32,400
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.