WEBVTT - STBYM Listener Mail: All Reason Departs 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:06.520 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:10.000 --> 0:00:12.000 Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind a 0:00:12.119 --> 0:00:14.440 listener mail. My name is Robert Lamb. 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:16.960 And I am Joe McCormick, and today we're going to 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:19.560 be reading back some messages that came into the Stuff 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:22.840 to Blow Your Mind email address. If you have never 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:25.079 gotten in touch before, this is a great time to 0:00:25.160 --> 0:00:28.640 try it. You can email us at contact at Stuff 0:00:28.680 --> 0:00:31.520 to Blow your Mind dot com. Whatever kind of message 0:00:31.520 --> 0:00:34.280 you want to send is fair game. We always appreciate 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:36.400 if you have something interesting to add to a topic 0:00:36.400 --> 0:00:38.519 we've talked about on the show. If you want to 0:00:38.560 --> 0:00:40.879 suggest something you would like us to talk about in 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:42.559 the future, if you want to suggest a movie for 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:46.879 Weird House Cinema, general feedback of course, factual corrections if 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:50.560 that ever comes up. Whatever you want, it's all fair game. 0:00:50.760 --> 0:00:54.840 Contact at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Rob 0:00:55.000 --> 0:00:57.280 you just got in off the road, anything anything to 0:00:57.320 --> 0:00:58.920 report from wherever you went? 0:00:59.200 --> 0:01:03.080 Oh yeah, yeah, the family and I just traveled to 0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:05.760 Denver and back. So first time in Denver. Got to 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:10.280 experience some of the great outdoors there, some of the 0:01:10.360 --> 0:01:13.199 offerings in the city itself, you know, went to miow Wolf, 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:15.840 went to their excellent art museum, went to the excellent 0:01:16.120 --> 0:01:20.600 science museum. Actually got several really good ideas for the 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:24.880 show from their science museum. So stay tuned for the 0:01:24.920 --> 0:01:26.000 future on that one. 0:01:26.520 --> 0:01:28.800 Okay, do you want to kick things off with some 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:31.440 of these messages in response to the Star Wars. 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:33.480 Series, Let's do it. Yeah. 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:38.160 Okay. This first message is from Kenna. It's in response 0:01:38.200 --> 0:01:41.680 to our discussion from Star Wars Week about the planet Hawth. Now, 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:45.679 in that episode, we did an extended segment, among other things, 0:01:45.760 --> 0:01:49.680 about the infamous ton Toon sleeping bag scene from the 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:53.840 Empire Strikes Back. So in this scene, Han Solo cuts 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:56.800 open the body of this animal called a ton Toon 0:01:56.920 --> 0:01:59.720 in the movie. It's a fictional creature in the Star 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:02.800 Wars universe. It looks kind of like a part goat, 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:06.240 part theropod dinosaur, and he cuts it open in the 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:09.840 belly so that he can cram an unconscious Luke Skywalker 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:13.600 inside the animal to protect Luke from freezing to death. 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:16.399 And in the episode we talked about whether this would 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:19.600 work in reality and about some real life cases of 0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:23.400 people crawling inside dead animals to try and survive. The cold, 0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:28.280 it has been done. This first message is from Kenna. 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:38.560 Subject horses are wet. Kenna says, Hi, Robert, Joe and 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:42.360 JJ love the show and have unusual life experience to 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:45.400 share with you. It may, however, be too gross, so 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:48.680 apologies in advance to whoever's turn it is to skim 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:52.239 the mailbag. Yeah, so warning folks has some animal gutting 0:02:52.280 --> 0:02:54.880 details to follow. If you can't stand that, maybe skip 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:55.760 ahead a few minutes. 0:02:57.400 --> 0:02:59.160 All right, the folks who couldn't handle it have left 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:00.760 the room. Continue. 0:03:01.400 --> 0:03:06.240 I am a veterinary pathologist's assistant, meaning that dead cows 0:03:06.280 --> 0:03:09.400 and horses are my job. I think I know why 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:13.240 the hapless hunters in Idaho could not fully hide within 0:03:13.320 --> 0:03:17.080 their horses the ribs and now this refers back to 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:19.720 one of the real life cases of hiding inside an animal. 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:21.920 We talked about the couple of hunters who got lost 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:25.239 while out hunting in Idaho. They were trapped in a blizzard. 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:29.720 They got soaking wet, so they survived by killing their horses, 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:32.360 cutting them open, and crawling the inside. But one part 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:35.320 of the story is one of the guys who had 0:03:35.320 --> 0:03:38.600 this experience described it there being a lot less room 0:03:38.760 --> 0:03:41.400 inside the horse than they expected. I think they first 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:43.800 thought that they could get two guys inside one horse, 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:46.200 and you couldn't even get one hole guy in there. 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:51.120 Yeah, and horses are huge animals, obviously, and especially when 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:53.320 you're around a big one, you might well think, oh, yeah, yeah, 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:55.160 this room for two in there. There's room for two 0:03:55.200 --> 0:03:55.600 on top. 0:03:56.960 --> 0:03:59.080 But no, it couldn't even get the whole one regular 0:03:59.120 --> 0:04:02.280 sized guy in there. Legs were sticking out, which yeah, 0:04:03.160 --> 0:04:07.240 sounds unpleasant in multiple ways. But anyway, so now Kenna 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:09.920 has an answer for us. The ribs could be a 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:13.480 problem here. Kenna says, see, in my experience, the easiest 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:16.520 way to remove the organs of any animal for inspection 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:20.400 is to remove the back leg, open the abdomen, and 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:24.040 remove the digestive tract. This takes us upwards of thirty 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:27.280 minutes because we have to look for anomalies, so probably 0:04:27.360 --> 0:04:30.479 much less time. If you are desperate, you can do 0:04:30.560 --> 0:04:33.080 it with no tools but a knife, and you could 0:04:33.160 --> 0:04:35.719 keep the leg on if all you cared about was 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:39.320 the warm body cavity. However, you need tools such as 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:42.280 a saw or a really long pair of hedge tremors 0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:45.520 to open the ribs. It is very hard to remove 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:48.919 the lungs of any animal without getting through those best 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:52.080 case scenario, you can slowly get pieces of them out 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:55.240 through the diaphragm, but the inside of a horse's rib 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:58.599 cage is generally not very roomy and may not be 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:04.560 worth the effort. Cows, especially dairy cows or mature breeding females, 0:05:04.920 --> 0:05:09.279 have very widely set ribs. I am five four and chubby, 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:12.200 but by experience I can get most of me in 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:15.400 there to take samples. And if you have a buddy 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:18.160 to help you turn the turn the body over, you 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:21.520 could get a large flap of leather to cover whatever 0:05:21.640 --> 0:05:26.560 sticks out. Wow, cows. Cows do tend to be wetter 0:05:26.800 --> 0:05:30.600 than horses, however, because of all the roomen. Oh, I 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:33.359 guess that's the that's the fermentation stomach, isn't it. 0:05:33.440 --> 0:05:34.040 Yeah. 0:05:35.160 --> 0:05:39.080 Finally, Kenna says, I recommend a shovel to make a long, 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:42.400 gross story very short. If you must be ton toon wrapped, 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:45.560 the cow is probably better than a horse. Thanks for 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:48.200 years of things I can talk about at work, Kenna. 0:05:49.160 --> 0:05:51.760 All right, well, this is again, as I said before, 0:05:51.800 --> 0:05:56.039 this is exactly the sort of real world field reportings 0:05:56.200 --> 0:05:59.640 that we love to see on stuff to blow your mind, listener, male. 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:02.719 Absolutely. I mean most of what we talk about on 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:04.960 the show is just stuff that we learn about by 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:07.960 reading about it. So anybody who has life experience that 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:10.080 can inform, you know, from your work or from your 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:13.560 personal life, whatever it is that can inform the subjects 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:15.760 we've talked about, we love to get that kind of feedback. 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:19.200 Yeah, I know we're returning to a subject that we've 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:21.320 talked about at least this is like the third time now, 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:23.920 because it's a good camp on a previous listener mail 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:26.440 as well, I believe. But on one hand, it seems 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:29.760 like there should be a country western song about this, yeah, 0:06:30.040 --> 0:06:32.040 or it should be just a common feature you know, 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:35.040 that will at least come up in passing. And then 0:06:35.240 --> 0:06:37.839 this leads me back to something else that I've mentioned before, 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:41.080 and that is that episode of The X Files where 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:44.560 there's an invisible elephant. If memory serves, there is a 0:06:44.600 --> 0:06:47.560 scene where there is an autopsy performed, or a necropsy 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:51.200 rather on an elephant, and I think like Moulder and 0:06:51.240 --> 0:06:53.919 Scully are both standing inside the elephant, or maybe just 0:06:53.960 --> 0:06:56.640 one of them. 0:06:56.440 --> 0:06:58.640 You know, I don't remember. I did see that episode 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:03.000 on my ex files journey, but I don't remember that scene. 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:07.599 Yeah, you had episode that's the worst of the X 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:08.520 Files just about so. 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:11.360 I think it's not just an elephant if I remember right, 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:13.600 it's like a whole zoo of invisible animals. 0:07:13.640 --> 0:07:16.520 Oh wow, yeah, oh how could that not be great? 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:19.520 The whole zoo. And it's not one of the top episodes. 0:07:20.560 --> 0:07:23.400 M hmm, it's one of the few. The backstory here, 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:26.160 as I've mentioned before, as a as a when I 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:28.640 was a young person catching the X Files, X Files 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:31.920 and television, I only caught like two episodes. This was 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:35.440 before you could you know, the DVR stuff and so forth, 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:37.080 So it was just like, when can I catch it 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:39.640 on you know, whatever episode is being served up to 0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:42.720 me by fate. I saw the up maybe I saw 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:46.160 three episodes. I remember seeing episode about the dude in 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:49.520 the toilet, and then about the dude toilet the toilet monster, 0:07:49.560 --> 0:07:51.880 and then the dude who's stretchy and comes up through 0:07:51.920 --> 0:07:54.480 the toilet. I think they both are toilet. 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:56.640 I thought, I'm thinking of the same thing. Well maybe 0:07:56.640 --> 0:07:58.520 then I don't know who the dude in the toilet is. 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:01.080 The creature in the port of like at the bottom 0:08:01.120 --> 0:08:01.720 of the toilet. 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:05.880 Oh oh oh, I see, yes there is. You're the 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:10.320 Flukeman and I think Tombs two different creatures who both 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:12.240 come through sewage plumbing. 0:08:12.400 --> 0:08:14.480 Up through the toilet. Okay, yeah, but then. 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:17.640 There's Flukeman is the more direct toilet monster. 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:18.000 Yeah. 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:21.360 The Tombs is just stretchy and he goes all all 0:08:21.440 --> 0:08:21.720 kinds of. 0:08:21.720 --> 0:08:24.920 Places, including toilet. Yeah, but there's no toilet in the 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:27.720 Zoo Animal. And I and as I remember the Zoo 0:08:27.720 --> 0:08:31.679 Animal episode, the Invisible Elephant Elephant episode is the last 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:34.040 one I saw, and that one kind of maybe made 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:36.920 me push pause in catching X Files episodes. 0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:40.080 Oh man, I need to go. File says it's there's 0:08:40.120 --> 0:08:43.600 such a range. The best episodes are like the best 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:46.240 TV ever made, and the worst episodes are some of 0:08:46.280 --> 0:08:51.400 the worst. It's really incredible. Okay, do you want to 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:54.240 pick the next one to read? You take your pick, 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:55.280 go go with whatever you like. 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:58.280 All right, let's see. Well, there's more Tonton material here 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:01.080 we could Uh yeah, there's one from Annel here titled 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:06.640 ton Ton Montana, and Daniel says, hi, fellas are e 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:10.040 your recent discussion of the Tonton Sleeping Bag and the 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:12.600 Lost Hunters. I wanted to bring up Jack London's nineteen 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:16.040 oh eight short story to Build a Fire, firstly because 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:17.480 it had a lot in common with the story of 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:20.080 the Hunters, except with a dog instead of a horse 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:23.280 and a very different ending for both men and animal, 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:26.600 but also because it contains this sentence quote he remembered 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:28.760 the story of the man caught in a storm who 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:32.280 killed an animal and sheltered himself inside the dead body 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:35.880 and thus was saved. I think it was possible that 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:38.400 they were inspired by a similar sort of folk tale 0:09:38.880 --> 0:09:41.920 or the short story itself and later the Tontan or 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:43.760 it all might have been mixed into the story and 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:47.600 potentially their memories by the sort of Well, it would 0:09:47.640 --> 0:09:51.080 just make sense logic that memory often relies on thanks 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:52.240 and love from Daniel. 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:56.160 Thank you so much, Daniel. Yeah, this came up because 0:09:56.679 --> 0:09:59.200 the guys who were the hunters who got lost and 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:04.080 ended up crawling inside their horses. In one retelling of 0:10:04.080 --> 0:10:06.880 the story, they actually mentioned that they got this idea 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:10.760 from talking about the Empire strikes back, so they had 0:10:10.800 --> 0:10:14.560 Tonton consciousness when they got in those horses. But it's 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:17.200 entirely possible they could have been inspired by I don't 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:20.040 know earlier stories like this. I wasn't aware of this. 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:22.760 I think I've read this story before, but it's been 0:10:22.800 --> 0:10:24.679 so long I don't remember this detail at all. 0:10:24.840 --> 0:10:27.680 Same I read this so long ago, and I remember 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:29.680 I remember more of the stuff that had to do 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:33.160 with just like the challenges of building a fire. I 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:35.280 should go back and read my Jack London again, because 0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:38.960 he wrote some pretty great tales and dabbled in some 0:10:39.000 --> 0:10:40.520 sci fi. I don't know that I've ever read any 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:44.600 of his science fiction. But it's not all dogs and survivalism. 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:48.560 Well, he wrote kind of a dystopian political novel, didn't 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:51.800 He sort of a prefiguring an idea of sort of 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:52.880 future fascism. 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:55.480 Okay, yeah, I haven't read that one. I've only read 0:10:55.480 --> 0:10:59.360 the ones they would assign you in school, which were great. 0:10:59.440 --> 0:11:02.000 But yeah, it's been a long time. 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:04.640 I haven't read this book either, so I don't know 0:11:04.679 --> 0:11:06.719 for sure. I just have read about it. I think 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:09.319 it's it's called something like The Iron Heel or something, 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:13.000 so can't vouch for it. Haven't read it, but yeah, 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:16.000 be worth interesting checking out what kind of ideas he 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:16.480 had about that. 0:11:16.559 --> 0:11:18.000 Yeah, or even in to build a Fire? How did 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:19.720 they climb how does the guy climb inside a dog 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:24.960 where it is you know, too dark to read quite true? 0:11:25.000 --> 0:11:27.720 And maybe I'm missing some of the implications there. 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:30.160 Maybe like they put feet inside the dog. I mean 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:32.720 basically you could use even a large dog only for 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:34.880 you know, as a handwarm or something. 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:36.280 Yeah. 0:11:36.440 --> 0:11:37.800 Yeah, we'll have to go back and reread it. 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:42.160 All right, I'm going to read this next message from Scott, 0:11:42.320 --> 0:11:45.600 subject line Contradictions in the Syth. This is about the 0:11:45.640 --> 0:11:48.280 other topic we covered on Star Wars Week, where we 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:52.840 looked into the Sith rule of two and general Sith 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:58.120 psychology questions, questions about power and succession within the Sith order, 0:11:58.200 --> 0:12:01.040 of which there are usually only two participants at any 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:04.760 given time, and the contradictions that arise from that. So 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:07.920 we're getting some more contradictions on that subject from Scott. 0:12:13.480 --> 0:12:16.720 Scott says, Hi, Robert and Joe, your recent explorations of 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:20.240 Sith's psychology reminded me of a long standing puzzle I've 0:12:20.240 --> 0:12:24.520 had with this order. The rule of two summarizes the 0:12:24.640 --> 0:12:29.240 master apprentice relationship, which persists even as roles change and 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:33.080 individual Sith come and go, as a very long term 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:36.160 strategy for undermining the Jedi through the dark side of 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:39.560 the force. The theory behind this is that, since the 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:43.920 Sith work through harnessing anger, any larger group tends to 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:48.800 splinter into internal descent and infighting, which is just barely 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:53.840 controlled in a two person relationship. Maybe two is plenty 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:58.280 three is a crowd when it comes to sith. What's 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:02.960 the original two's company? Yeah, so two is just barely 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:06.920 not too much, Scott says. The problem I see with 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:09.720 this is that whether this rule of two is a 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:14.480 conscious plan or simply evolved after other strategies failed, it 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:19.160 can't be a plan on behalf of anybody, for by definition, 0:13:19.559 --> 0:13:22.720 there are no other Sith or other peoples to do 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:26.840 it on behalf of, Nor can it actually serve each 0:13:26.920 --> 0:13:30.760 sith lord's own personal goals, even if each of the 0:13:30.800 --> 0:13:34.280 two Sith imagines that they will somehow be an exception 0:13:34.440 --> 0:13:37.559 to the generalization that they will eventually be overthrown by 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:41.320 the apprentice. Their apprentice, in turn, a sober view of 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:44.760 the history of their order would suggest that this is unlikely, 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:47.920 so that in practice, each Sith is on a kind 0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:52.640 of suicide mission. But while most suicide attackers act in 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:56.240 defense of a larger group who are or are imagined 0:13:56.280 --> 0:13:59.640 to have been treated unjustly, and who it is hoped, 0:13:59.679 --> 0:14:03.440 will have have better lives. After the individual self sacrifice, 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:07.720 the Sith act on behalf of nobody, either in reality 0:14:07.920 --> 0:14:11.440 or in their own self understanding. Indeed, the very idea 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:14.760 of a Sith lord is a contradiction in terms, because 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:18.400 they are not usually a lord of anything significant, at 0:14:18.440 --> 0:14:22.560 most a single apprentice, and the apprentice over no one else. 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:26.600 In other words, while the Sith purport to extol the 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:31.640 self and individual desire and anger, in fact they sacrifice 0:14:31.760 --> 0:14:35.960 everything personal in the name of an abstract principle. They 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:39.560 accept their role and almost certain death, simply to spite 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:44.080 the Jedi. This may exemplify the master and slave dialectic 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:48.280 described by the German philosopher Hegel. The master seeks to 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:51.840 dominate the slave, but this means that the master defines 0:14:51.960 --> 0:14:56.200 himself and his value in terms of the slave, and 0:14:56.360 --> 0:14:59.600 in a sense exists as a master for and in 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:02.920 vertuble you of having a slave. So if the ultimate 0:15:03.000 --> 0:15:06.400 plan of the Sith is to destroy the Jedi, dominating 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:09.280 them and enslaving the rest of the universe, then the 0:15:09.320 --> 0:15:13.640 Sith only value themselves in terms of this conquest and domination, 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:18.400 rather than to serve their personal desires. This doesn't necessarily 0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:21.600 mean that Lucas's vision of the Sith is inconsistent. For 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:25.560 perhaps it simply means that the Sith philosophy is inconsistent, 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:29.480 and that the Sith themselves don't and perhaps can't, truly 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:33.960 understand what scythism is and what they are doing. They 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:37.680 are lords only in their imagination, and they are actually 0:15:37.760 --> 0:15:42.960 slaves to the abstract principle of hatred. Rather than being selfish, 0:15:43.160 --> 0:15:46.640 Scythism is more like a virus, or, as Joe suggested 0:15:46.680 --> 0:15:49.600 at the end of your last episode, a kind of parasite. 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:54.440 It only superficially purports to promote the self, but actually 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:58.360 is the most self renouncing philosophy possible. It tricks the 0:15:58.440 --> 0:16:02.920 individual Sith promise to fulfill their personal desires, only to 0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:07.240 both frustrate these goals and ultimately erase them, replacing them 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:11.040 with the impersonal goal of the Sith order. This is 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:14.760 self destructive in the deepest possible way, not because it 0:16:14.800 --> 0:16:19.040 will inevitably be defeated by good, but because even if, 0:16:19.200 --> 0:16:22.880 and insofar as it succeeds in attaining its goal, it 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:26.480 has defined itself in terms of this singular goal, before 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:29.840 which everything else, and in particular are all personal and 0:16:29.920 --> 0:16:35.280 selfish goals, must be sacrificed. Palpatine ultimately has hollowed himself 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:39.080 out of all desires except to destroy the Jedi and 0:16:39.160 --> 0:16:42.560 stay in power to keep them down. Anakin slash Vader 0:16:42.680 --> 0:16:45.760 must lose his beloved Padme to become a Sith, and 0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:49.280 only eventually rejects the Sith by caring once again about 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:55.280 something personal to him. His son Luke Scott. Well, that's 0:16:55.320 --> 0:17:00.320 really interesting. Yeah, thanks a lot, Scott. I obviously you 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:02.920 know this can feel kind of silly because we're talking 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:05.600 about a fictional world with these fictional beings in it. 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:09.800 But obviously you know their behavior patterns are somewhat mirrored 0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:12.520 by some people in the real world, so I think 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:17.600 there's some applicable philosophy and psychology to examine here. I 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:20.920 thought it was interesting that you brought in Hegel's Master 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:24.639 Slave Dialectic, which is also sometimes translated as the Lord 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:30.240 Bondsman dialectic or the master Servant dialectic. I'm not deeply 0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:32.320 read on Hegel, so this is an idea I only 0:17:32.359 --> 0:17:35.359 know about secondhand. You know, from reading other summaries, I 0:17:35.359 --> 0:17:38.040 apologize if I'm failing to do this justice in some way. 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:43.560 But the interesting thing about it is that, so the 0:17:43.720 --> 0:17:47.560 point of Hagel's argument is originally about like what shapes 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:52.280 the emergence of consciousness and independence and the self. So 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:55.439 originally it's kind of a descriptive thing about the world 0:17:55.520 --> 0:17:59.520 and about how selves emerge. What this concept that he 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:02.840 calls self consciousness or that's usually translated from the German 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:07.280 to be self consciousness. But the way I understand it, 0:18:07.400 --> 0:18:11.680 this dialectic also has sort of normative implications about why 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:15.879 domination of other people is not just morally wrong but 0:18:16.119 --> 0:18:20.560 self destructive. So in this dialectic, Hegel argues that a 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:26.359 person can't really have a free and self sufficient identity 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:32.320 unless they are recognized by another free and self sufficient mind. 0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:35.399 So our ability to be a free person and a 0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:39.960 self sufficient person comes from being perceived and recognized as 0:18:39.960 --> 0:18:43.479 a person by other free and self sufficient people. And 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:47.800 this creates this contradiction in human behavior because humans in 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:50.440 a desire to be free and self sufficient are sort 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:54.280 of driven into conflict with one another, and people often 0:18:54.359 --> 0:18:58.400 end up thinking that they can become maximally self sufficient 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:02.240 and empowered by dominating other people. So I make other 0:19:02.240 --> 0:19:04.840 people do what I want instead of what they want, 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:07.679 and that is liberating to me. It helps me enact 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:12.360 my will. But Hagel suggests that when you dominate another person, 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:16.520 you both define your identity in terms of that person 0:19:16.560 --> 0:19:20.199 you're dominating. You believe yourself to be valuable because you 0:19:20.240 --> 0:19:23.920 are victorious over them in some way, but you also 0:19:24.320 --> 0:19:28.480 devalue them and make them unfree through your domination, So 0:19:28.600 --> 0:19:31.439 your relationship with them is not real, like you're not 0:19:31.600 --> 0:19:36.960 getting real recognition from them. It's only recognition by compulsion 0:19:37.080 --> 0:19:41.480 and not mutual recognition among equals. So while it feels 0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:45.760 like dominating a person could make you strong, it actually 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:49.320 makes you hollow and dependent and without self sufficiency. 0:19:50.680 --> 0:19:54.080 That's interesting. Yeah, And you know, certainly we can apply 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:59.959 that understanding to various real world contexts, but also reward 0:20:00.200 --> 0:20:03.920 to apply it to this this fantasy scenario as well 0:20:04.000 --> 0:20:08.080 of a master and apprentice engaged in a two person 0:20:08.680 --> 0:20:10.200 secret order of darkness. 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:13.720 Well, also, I mean the broader Sith goal being one 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:19.120 clearly of domination. Like the Sith is a domination oriented ideology. 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:21.600 It's all about what is best in life. It's crush 0:20:21.680 --> 0:20:24.480 your enemies, see them driven before you hear the lamentation. 0:20:24.600 --> 0:20:28.000 It's dominating people. And I'm not saying that I think 0:20:28.040 --> 0:20:30.639 George Lucas had Hegel in mind or anything, but I 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:34.080 do think it's interesting that Scott brought this in because 0:20:34.080 --> 0:20:36.040 it does bring me back to something we talked about 0:20:36.080 --> 0:20:38.840 in the Star Wars episodes, and I think Scott alludes 0:20:38.880 --> 0:20:41.800 to this in the email too, the fact that we 0:20:41.880 --> 0:20:47.119 never really see the Sith Lords enjoying themselves or having 0:20:47.200 --> 0:20:51.439 much of an identity or finding fulfillment in anything except 0:20:51.600 --> 0:20:55.480 in the act of exerting power and inflicting cruelty. It 0:20:55.480 --> 0:20:57.920 seems like that's the only thing they really like to do. 0:20:59.080 --> 0:21:00.919 And I sort of mention in that in the in 0:21:01.000 --> 0:21:03.080 the episode as a joke, like we never see the 0:21:03.080 --> 0:21:06.320 Sith Lords having fun, uh, but I think there may 0:21:06.520 --> 0:21:08.720 there might be something kind of interesting at work there, 0:21:08.800 --> 0:21:11.680 Like it's not just morally wrong to be a Sith Lord, 0:21:11.720 --> 0:21:14.920 of course it is. It is wrong to inflict cruelty 0:21:14.960 --> 0:21:19.159 and domination over other people, but beyond the moral wrongness 0:21:19.160 --> 0:21:22.320 of it, it also sucks like it leaves the Sith 0:21:22.400 --> 0:21:26.880 lord with some without some core essence of self sufficiency 0:21:26.920 --> 0:21:27.679 and identity. 0:21:28.520 --> 0:21:32.680 Yeah. Yeah, the end up being cold, hollow people and 0:21:32.840 --> 0:21:37.639 in some cases arguably no longer completely people either, you know, 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:41.280 either they've become partially machine or they've become uh, you know, 0:21:41.520 --> 0:21:45.040 some other in some other like very visible and metaphoric way, 0:21:45.880 --> 0:21:51.000 their physical bodies have been transformed. And yeah, I think 0:21:51.040 --> 0:21:53.880 it's it's it's it's telling uh. And then of course, 0:21:53.880 --> 0:21:55.880 you know this idea that all they want is domination, 0:21:56.080 --> 0:21:58.800 like that is the heart of the Sith. Though. One 0:21:58.800 --> 0:22:01.600 of the great things that is Lord, especially in the prequels, 0:22:02.160 --> 0:22:05.720 is the idea that this ascension, the ascension of the Sith, 0:22:06.240 --> 0:22:08.960 it may be cloaked in all these other rationales, you know, 0:22:09.480 --> 0:22:12.200 especially when you know, carrying down the Jedi order and 0:22:12.240 --> 0:22:14.679 talking about everything that's wrong and corrupt about the Jedi, 0:22:15.960 --> 0:22:19.400 but the Sith are not here to simply bring about 0:22:19.400 --> 0:22:22.080 the end of corruption. That is that is maybe that's 0:22:22.080 --> 0:22:24.720 how they mask their true ambitions, but it is not 0:22:24.800 --> 0:22:25.640 their true ambition. 0:22:26.000 --> 0:22:31.159 The latter to sithhood is full of pretextual goals and motivations, 0:22:31.200 --> 0:22:32.959 and then once you get to the top, all there 0:22:33.000 --> 0:22:35.200 really is is domination. Yeah. 0:22:35.320 --> 0:22:47.000