Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Do
Speaker 1: we have a hashtag for this podcast? We do? What
Speaker 1: is it? It's called hashtag um blow the mind protest?
Speaker 1: Whoa protesting in a digital age? That's that's really I
Speaker 1: think that's gonna I don't know if we're going to
Speaker 1: have enough room for the rest of the tweet, but
Speaker 1: but it's it's it's pretty good. We'll try that out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll work on that. No, but this we we're talking
Speaker 1: about today, I'm pretty sure we get to own that hashtag.
Speaker 1: We don't know. I don't think anybody. It's not gonna
Speaker 1: be like when I tried to retake blow blew my mind. Yeah,
Speaker 1: from from from the rest of the twitter verse. But
Speaker 1: but yeah, we're talking in this podcast specifically about Occupy
Speaker 1: Wall Street and some of these other um social media
Speaker 1: enhanced protest movements that have taken hold in late two
Speaker 1: thousand ten and then throughout two thousand and eleven, ranging
Speaker 1: from um, you know, from the Arab Spring to uh
Speaker 1: to London to back in the US with the occupied stuff,
Speaker 1: and of course the occupied stuff is has led over
Speaker 1: into other countries as well. But we're talking about what
Speaker 1: is a modern protest? What is it really is the
Speaker 1: modern protests shaping up? I mean, uh, protests have always
Speaker 1: utilized advanced technology to whatever degree it's available. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just the way we work, um. And so it's
Speaker 1: no surprise that people are going to use modern technology,
Speaker 1: modern social media to to to fuel the movement. Um.
Speaker 1: But let's back up before we we get into two,
Speaker 1: into the technology things. Just talking about numbers because yeah,
Speaker 1: because when we're talking about hashtabs being heard around the
Speaker 1: world to a certain extent, we're talking about the number
Speaker 1: of people involved in that protest, because I mean, the
Speaker 1: the people of serving a protest are arguably as important
Speaker 1: as the individuals that are partaking in it, because it
Speaker 1: has to be seen to really take that effect. That's
Speaker 1: the whole point is to convey the importance of a
Speaker 1: topic and to put a little context behind that. Two.
Speaker 1: And we're talking about the hashtag occupy Wall Street, which
Speaker 1: showed up on July. Right, It is just this sort
Speaker 1: of idea linking to a blog about hey, we should
Speaker 1: occupy Wall Street there. Obviously there was uh no formal
Speaker 1: movement at that time or even intention. So the earth
Speaker 1: we live on is currently home to what seven billion people? Now,
Speaker 1: we just had the seven billion birth yea, like the
Speaker 1: last couple. Can you imagine being like, hey, I'm baby
Speaker 1: seven billion? Well my parents? Um, these billions and billions
Speaker 1: of people, uh, roughly spread across two hundred and forty countries,
Speaker 1: close to seven thousand languages around like documented documented languages, Yes,
Speaker 1: somewhere in the neighborhood of sixty and twelve uh, and
Speaker 1: more branches of religion, personal belief, ideology than you can
Speaker 1: shake a stick at. Yeah, twenty major. But you're right,
Speaker 1: there's there's uh quite a bit more than that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And we continue to grow, we continue to in some
Speaker 1: cases of splinter uh and and reorganize amid those groups. Um,
Speaker 1: So how are you going to get these people together?
Speaker 1: Because I was I was talking with my life the
Speaker 1: other day about a recent episode of This American Life
Speaker 1: where they're talking about junior high and how junior high
Speaker 1: is horrible, and how one of the things going on
Speaker 1: in junior high is that when you're young, you get
Speaker 1: along with everybody, but then as you get older. Uh,
Speaker 1: just within school you begin you become more judgmental, you
Speaker 1: become more perceptive to Uh, you know, who you want
Speaker 1: to be associated with and who you want to to
Speaker 1: identify with. You created this blueprint of reality. And you're right,
Speaker 1: and so by junior high it's already pretty complicated. So
Speaker 1: how do we ever agree on anything? How do we ever,
Speaker 1: how do we get out of high school mentality? Right?
Speaker 1: And Uh, Historically, wars are generally a pretty good way
Speaker 1: to do it. Um. I mean, wars have long brought
Speaker 1: together millions of individuals and pitched battles. It's thankfully, hopefully
Speaker 1: it seems to be going out of style in recent
Speaker 1: years and doing part well again because technology. Technology changed
Speaker 1: the way that we wage war. Uh. And then maybe
Speaker 1: there's something going on in the in our collective psyches
Speaker 1: as well. But the better angels of ourselves, we can hope.
Speaker 1: I've seen some interesting arguments of that that we you know,
Speaker 1: we live in a time where there's there's less war
Speaker 1: now than than ever before. So let's hope that keeps
Speaker 1: up until the big machine human war. But singularity, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's gonna bring us all together even more so,
Speaker 1: Like it's hard to put stats on some of these
Speaker 1: ancient battles, but for a DBC, the Persian army marched
Speaker 1: into the Battle of Thermipoly with between two hundred thousand
Speaker 1: and five hundred thousand men. More than two thousand years
Speaker 1: later and three the Soviet Union's Red Army suffered more
Speaker 1: than a million casualties of the Battle of Stalingrad. UH.
Speaker 1: And then we have other examples where we can see
Speaker 1: people converging UH for a cause that is not bloodthirsty
Speaker 1: and drenched in hardship. UH. January two thousand seven, an
Speaker 1: estimated sixty million Hindu pilgrims gathered at the convergence of
Speaker 1: the Ganges and Yamuna rivers in northern India for the
Speaker 1: um Are Kombla Mella Festival, huge festival. You've probably seen
Speaker 1: clips to this individual's bathing UH in the rivers and
Speaker 1: sort of an active purity, right, Yeah, in active purity.
Speaker 1: Sixty million people coming together for that, which is amazing, amazing.
Speaker 1: So protests also bring people together. And this is the
Speaker 1: and we just recorded a podcast about this, so it
Speaker 1: should already be in your iTunes folder or hanging out
Speaker 1: on the web for you to listen to. If you
Speaker 1: want a lettle more information about why we get into
Speaker 1: into the protest mentality. But once we are there, we
Speaker 1: can gather in in rather large numbers sometimes. And the
Speaker 1: reason why Occupy on All Street has I think some
Speaker 1: legs or has had legs at least over the past
Speaker 1: four months. We don't again know what its fate is now. Um.
Speaker 1: It has a classic earmarks of a protest. So we're
Speaker 1: talking about disenfranchised people, right check. Crappy economy check uh huh,
Speaker 1: and stagnating politics double check. Right. So pretty much this
Speaker 1: is pretty much a global situation right now. Right. So
Speaker 1: it's not just in the United States. Uh, you know
Speaker 1: a group of people in New York starting this. Uh,
Speaker 1: that's why it has, you know, such resonation all over
Speaker 1: the world. Um. And of course we've seen this before.
Speaker 1: We've seen it with Vietnam, right, Uh, a little bit
Speaker 1: different circumstances. But we have people who are saying that
Speaker 1: there are wrongs that need to be righted. We've seen
Speaker 1: it with the Arab Spring. Um. But the Arab Spring
Speaker 1: being just the the string of of protests and in
Speaker 1: many in some cases actual rebellion revolution situations that has
Speaker 1: just spread throughout various countries in the Middle East, ranging
Speaker 1: from we've seen for the protest and I ran Tunisia
Speaker 1: Egypt Um. I mean really, it points of the fact
Speaker 1: that people will put up with a lot of crap
Speaker 1: until it gets to the point where you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's a it's making them powerless in their day to
Speaker 1: day decisions on whether or not to buy groceries or
Speaker 1: you know, buy new shoes, or you know, it's hamstringing them.
Speaker 1: So yeah, we can put it with a lot of corruption,
Speaker 1: a lot of political who until that happens. All right,
Speaker 1: we're gonna take a quick break to hear a word
Speaker 1: from our sponsors, and then we're gonna really break down
Speaker 1: the question what is the largest protest of all time
Speaker 1: and what factor has made it that way? Yeah. This
Speaker 1: podcast is brought to you by Intel, the sponsors of
Speaker 1: Tomorrow and the Discovery Channel. At Intel, we believe curiosity
Speaker 1: is the spark which drives innovation. Join us at curiosity
Speaker 1: dot com and explore the answers to life's questions. All right,
Speaker 1: we're back largest protests. Uh. This is something that is
Speaker 1: sometimes very difficult to gauge because not every protest consists
Speaker 1: of individuals gathering in a in a square, and then
Speaker 1: it's hard to count sizes and and and you're gonna
Speaker 1: get into the wars of information and politics of information
Speaker 1: to where the protesters are may in some cases want
Speaker 1: to inflate the number because it sounds better, and then
Speaker 1: the people cracking down on the protests are likely to
Speaker 1: lower that number for obvious reasons. You know what I
Speaker 1: just occurred to me, Why don't they use the same
Speaker 1: technology that NASA does to count the constellations that they
Speaker 1: then applied to tracking dolphins. Well, true, that's that's true.
Speaker 1: You can do some sort of sophisticated data. But then
Speaker 1: if you're the people who has that in that technology,
Speaker 1: it's gonna tend to be the governmental forces, So they're
Speaker 1: not gonna necessarily want an accurate count anyway, not for
Speaker 1: public consumption. And then the other thing think back to
Speaker 1: in the other podcast we mentioned Mohamma Gandhi and the
Speaker 1: whole u uh. Some of the civil disobedience was going
Speaker 1: on there, with individuals protesting by showing up for work
Speaker 1: or by resigning from their positions. You get into protests
Speaker 1: of that nature and it becomes even more difficult to
Speaker 1: to gauge what the turnout is because they're protesting in
Speaker 1: ways and ruch, they're not visible when you're getting down
Speaker 1: into actual numbers though, and you can say like, well,
Speaker 1: this is the number of individuals that we know of
Speaker 1: the participated in this, and therefore this is a very
Speaker 1: large or the biggest protests. One of the big ones,
Speaker 1: according to Guinness Folk of World Records was it was
Speaker 1: the Iraq protest in Rome UH February two thousand three.
Speaker 1: The event drew a crowd of estimated three million people,
Speaker 1: and on the same day, protesters gathered in nearly six
Speaker 1: hundred cities in a coordinated global effort to express moral
Speaker 1: outrage against the US invasion of Iraq. So you had
Speaker 1: like one point three million protesters in Barcelona, Spain, between
Speaker 1: seven fifty thousand and two million in London, um. All told,
Speaker 1: according to BBC, between six and ten million people participating
Speaker 1: in a global protest, which is amazing because think about
Speaker 1: you know, when we talked about the civil rights movement,
Speaker 1: and we talked about Rosa Parks and how her refusal
Speaker 1: to give up a seat to a white person than
Speaker 1: uh spurred a one day boycott of the bus system,
Speaker 1: right um, And this was something that was in the
Speaker 1: works forever. I mean that this there were a lot
Speaker 1: of people working on this specific plan in other ones
Speaker 1: um for months and months and months, and then you
Speaker 1: have something like this, between six and ten million people protesting.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to wager a bit that it didn't
Speaker 1: take that long given the data that we know about
Speaker 1: when the Iraq War broke out and when the protests happened,
Speaker 1: um that people were mobilized. And so you can obviously
Speaker 1: point to when really one key factor in mobilizing all
Speaker 1: those people, which is the technology we have available today,
Speaker 1: which really does change the landscape of protesting. It's it's
Speaker 1: worth noting real quick before we get even more into
Speaker 1: the technological stuff that that's sometimes the protest is just
Speaker 1: as simple as a naked lady with a fur and
Speaker 1: some fake blood splider on her, you know, or a
Speaker 1: naked man or a naked man probably both, I guess.
Speaker 1: So you get all your demographics covered. But that's the
Speaker 1: shock tactic, that's like, hey, we want to we want
Speaker 1: to the media to cover this. Yeah, and then that's
Speaker 1: the thing like like Peter, no matter what you think
Speaker 1: about Peter, and and certainly there's some very some very
Speaker 1: contrary positions on on what Peter stands for and or
Speaker 1: how they carry out their protests, but their protests tend
Speaker 1: to uh to get attention, they do. And I will say,
Speaker 1: you know, I've I've certainly walked through a Peter protest.
Speaker 1: I was walking through one in Boston with my mom
Speaker 1: h when when we all lived there, um a number
Speaker 1: of years ago, and my mom had a fake fur
Speaker 1: colored line jacket on, and of course she was the target.
Speaker 1: The thing that stood out is that they said, I
Speaker 1: hope that you get cancer and die. Yeah, so I
Speaker 1: mean obviously fake blood. Uh no, they didn't, but that
Speaker 1: was in itself really very jarring. Obviously my mom um,
Speaker 1: she was actually kind of oblivious, just kind of like,
Speaker 1: what did I just say? And I was like nothing, um.
Speaker 1: But you know, there are effective ways to to really
Speaker 1: get at um at the psyche, right, and that's that's
Speaker 1: what protests are trying to do. So you can do
Speaker 1: it in numbers, or you can do it in an
Speaker 1: awful things that you say to pastors by yeah. And
Speaker 1: then of course there's there's art. There's music protests, songs protests.
Speaker 1: In our art episode that we did recently about your
Speaker 1: brain and are we mentioned, um, like the words of
Speaker 1: public Picasso talking about the Spanish Civil War and expressing
Speaker 1: that through art, prep expressing his outrage and varied emotions
Speaker 1: about this political situation through the expression of art, you know.
Speaker 1: And I'm thinking to um about the protests of the
Speaker 1: Iraq War. And obviously this is before Twitter and Facebook,
Speaker 1: and this isn't a question that we can answer today
Speaker 1: or anytime soon. But uh, you know, I do wonder
Speaker 1: how it would impact or would have impacted that protest.
Speaker 1: Do you think more people would have participated? Do you
Speaker 1: think that it would have attenuated it in some way
Speaker 1: because it might have taken focus away? Um, And we
Speaker 1: certainly know that the protests of late have been really
Speaker 1: effective because of these technologies. Yeah, it's it's real effective
Speaker 1: for a number of reasons. But I mean, I mean
Speaker 1: because a it's instant networking and social networking. It's it's
Speaker 1: the ability to throw something out with that hashtag occupy
Speaker 1: Wall Street and then everybody following that hashtag can instantly
Speaker 1: see what's up, real time information in all of it's
Speaker 1: effective and in some cases perplexing manner, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's the real time aspect of it. I think is
Speaker 1: really key because you can you could be like somebody
Speaker 1: suddenly somebody's tweeting, Hey, the police are cracking down. Uh,
Speaker 1: they're moving into this area and everybody knows. And it's
Speaker 1: also allowed certain groups to even It allows you this
Speaker 1: huge voice without necessarily having any huge investment in the megaphone,
Speaker 1: in the metaphorical megaphone or the real megaphone. You know. Um,
Speaker 1: like not quite a protest, but just consider with all
Speaker 1: the crack downs that have occurred on Wiki leaks, a
Speaker 1: lot of their continued momentum has taken place on Twitter,
Speaker 1: where they have continued to be able to speak out
Speaker 1: to all of these followers despite bank accounts and websites
Speaker 1: going down around the world. Yeah, I just I can't
Speaker 1: help but think about the protests in Iraq or the
Speaker 1: protests of the Iraq War and ten million people mobilized
Speaker 1: by via email. Right, that's a huge coordinated global effort.
Speaker 1: Just what it might have looked like with these different
Speaker 1: technologies that we used today. UM, where's people people were
Speaker 1: have been studying the the impact of social media on protests,
Speaker 1: UM and movements prior to all of this. I actually
Speaker 1: spoke to uh, this guy by the name of Dr
Speaker 1: Michael Best, who had Technologies and inter National Development the
Speaker 1: lab at the Georgie Institute of Technology. I thought. I
Speaker 1: spoke to him early two thousand eleven UM for an
Speaker 1: article on Discovery News called our Smartphones Worth It, and
Speaker 1: it ended up being a lot more interesting of an
Speaker 1: article then it sounds, because I got to discuss like
Speaker 1: how does it affect our daily lives? And and then
Speaker 1: by talking to Best, learned a little bit about how
Speaker 1: it was specifically being used by UM Nigerians leading into
Speaker 1: the two thousand eleven Nigerian election, and they were doing
Speaker 1: a lot of political organism organizing. They were planning activist
Speaker 1: meetings and flash mobs all leading up to the election
Speaker 1: that I was at least at that time slated to
Speaker 1: take place in April, and and at the time I
Speaker 1: thought it was really interesting. But then of course this
Speaker 1: turns out to be a major theme of two thousand
Speaker 1: and eleven UM as individuals are are tweeting about the
Speaker 1: various protests that they're involved in uh and and coordinating
Speaker 1: their movements. And in all of this, I also can't
Speaker 1: help but think another advantage of social media, and specifically Twitter,
Speaker 1: has to do with the people observing because I feel
Speaker 1: like with Twitter, one of the things people like about
Speaker 1: celebrities being on Twitter is that you're kind of as
Speaker 1: close to that celebrity as you are to the friend,
Speaker 1: the real life friend that you know on Twitter, Like
Speaker 1: there's there's this um, there's this closeness. Well, there's this
Speaker 1: idea that you're getting insights to how they're living in
Speaker 1: and you're all a part of the same information stream.
Speaker 1: So when you're observing like a real time protest taking
Speaker 1: place on Twitter and you're seeing updates about Occupy Wall
Speaker 1: Street or or the protests in Iran, well whatever it
Speaker 1: may be, I feel like the people observing it on
Speaker 1: Twitter end up feeling closer and a little more personally invested.
Speaker 1: It probably gives people a little bit more empathy, right movement,
Speaker 1: So if someone is sprayed with tear gas, right, and
Speaker 1: let's say that this was a uh the use was
Speaker 1: was just an indiscriminate response by police and that or
Speaker 1: that was how it was tweeted, right, then people are
Speaker 1: going to say, oh my, you know, the depth of
Speaker 1: injustice here is unbearable. Yeah, because you're getting real time
Speaker 1: data about this, right. I think it's like if you
Speaker 1: it's as if you were standing on the edges of
Speaker 1: a protesting crowd in real life, and even if you're
Speaker 1: not actively participating in it, you're gonna feel a little
Speaker 1: more like a protests, You're gonna feel more sympathetic to
Speaker 1: that cause just by virtue of being in close proximity
Speaker 1: to it, and the social media world of Twitter puts
Speaker 1: you on the edges of that crowd in a virtual sense.
Speaker 1: So I think that the same thing ends up happening. Well,
Speaker 1: it's real. It's such a game changer too for the
Speaker 1: government because now that you do have these so much
Speaker 1: information to share, it's very easy to document the missteps
Speaker 1: that the government might take or that a police force
Speaker 1: might take against protesters. So you know, obviously that sort
Speaker 1: of stuff came out before, but now it's it's pretty verifiable,
Speaker 1: particularly if you've got, you know, a cell phone video
Speaker 1: of it. Now. Of course, it's it's worth noting that
Speaker 1: that throughout these these various protests and on Twitter hasn't
Speaker 1: necessarily been the motivating force. It's not like Twitter was
Speaker 1: the like the real power of the movement necessarily. It
Speaker 1: certainly helped, and it was certainly a game changer, but
Speaker 1: take the Egyptian Revolution UM January through February two eleven. UM.
Speaker 1: So you know, Twitter and the various social media outlets
Speaker 1: are made a lot of headlines, but the television newspapers
Speaker 1: and telephone UM specifically like Al Jazeera UH continued to
Speaker 1: to be a major informer for the people even as
Speaker 1: the Egyptians the Egyptian government blocked internet connections in January.
Speaker 1: So UH, you know, it's worth noting that there are
Speaker 1: other media outlets and employ here uh. And then in
Speaker 1: some cases, UM, this was pretty interesting. This is from
Speaker 1: February two th eleven, following the uprisings in the Middle East,
Speaker 1: some individuals in China were arguing for a quote Jasmine revolution,
Speaker 1: and they were talking about on this overseas Chinese community
Speaker 1: news site boxing bo x u n. The Chinese government
Speaker 1: ended up blocking searches for Jasmine for the term jasmine,
Speaker 1: and they also the the website was hacked by a
Speaker 1: denial of service attack. So right, so that you see
Speaker 1: a little bit of this sort of digital virtual social
Speaker 1: media warfare. It ends up taking place like the basically
Speaker 1: the protest testing UH situation of the crowd of protesters
Speaker 1: and the riot control taking place in a vertu. Yeah,
Speaker 1: seeing it play out there. But and actually that's it's
Speaker 1: worth noting to the Jasmine Revolution really didn't have legs,
Speaker 1: right for that very reason that it was shut down. So,
Speaker 1: you know, looking to the future a bit, it would
Speaker 1: be very interesting to see how China and protesting uh
Speaker 1: take place in the future, giving technologies and also given
Speaker 1: the fact that you know, if you can shut down
Speaker 1: a protest that way, you can obviously have people go
Speaker 1: in and hack the other way. Uh. So, I don't know,
Speaker 1: just just interesting thought. With that many people in in
Speaker 1: one country, surely something will come out of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But I guess one of the things too, is that
Speaker 1: even even as as we've been increasingly digital, it seems
Speaker 1: like the idea of individuals gathering together to support a
Speaker 1: cause is just is going to remain a vital part
Speaker 1: of protests. Like I can't see I can't see protests
Speaker 1: going completely digital, you know, because it's kind of like
Speaker 1: on Facebook, for instance, for while, there there were a
Speaker 1: string of these things where it's like, uh, speak out
Speaker 1: against I don't know, something like child abuse by changing
Speaker 1: your your profile picture to a cartoon or something like.
Speaker 1: There was there was a there were stringy and and
Speaker 1: then finally people started saying, you know, this is this
Speaker 1: is kind of dumb because we're not doing anything. You're
Speaker 1: not actually doing anything for these causes. You're just it's
Speaker 1: not like you quit paying your taxes, right, right, right,
Speaker 1: It's not like you went out in the street and
Speaker 1: made yourself known. And we're I mean, there's something about
Speaker 1: people gathering in a space generally a space they're not
Speaker 1: really supposed to be in, um and speaking out as
Speaker 1: as as a group and saying, look at these individuals
Speaker 1: all piled here together, look at them, uh, look at us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's not to sound too or well in again,
Speaker 1: looking for the future and thinking about facial recognition software,
Speaker 1: it could be really problematic for people in the near
Speaker 1: future to congregate and um, I was just thinking about
Speaker 1: the app that came out for the Chicago bar scene
Speaker 1: using facial recognition software, which you can you know, go
Speaker 1: buy a bar and it basically is going to tell you, um,
Speaker 1: the age range of the people in there and the
Speaker 1: relative income, which, by the way, if you've ever just
Speaker 1: by looking at faces, yeah, from the facial recognition software,
Speaker 1: like you take a picture of people at the bar
Speaker 1: and then it yeah, because it's because it's indexing some
Speaker 1: sort of database that's basically saying, okay, well, I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know if someone's wearing pearls, maybe it's looking
Speaker 1: at that. I don't you know. But anyway, the point
Speaker 1: is that this is a software that could be used
Speaker 1: for crowds and you could start, you know, I ding
Speaker 1: certain people UM. You could tag them as a known protester.
Speaker 1: You could begin tracking them, and this is fascinating. I
Speaker 1: could see then a situation where say a protest movement
Speaker 1: begins to um gel together in a public space. They
Speaker 1: send a guy out with one of these devices. All
Speaker 1: he has to do is take a picture of analyze it,
Speaker 1: just a quick scan of the crowd, and then it
Speaker 1: will it will compare faces with the database. It will
Speaker 1: sort of judge, you know, the various socio economic status,
Speaker 1: any possible criminal histories, and then give them a readout
Speaker 1: with advice. On the next step. They could be like, oh,
Speaker 1: this has nothing to worry about. This is going to
Speaker 1: break down in a couple of hours, versus go ahead
Speaker 1: and shut this down now because this is going to
Speaker 1: get bad. Right so, right now, we think about protesters
Speaker 1: facing UM officers who might be armored with kevlar vests
Speaker 1: and plastic shields, and um, you know, instead of bullets,
Speaker 1: they might be hit by rubber bullets, which we've seen before. Um,
Speaker 1: you know you've got snatched squads that will come and
Speaker 1: snatch people. Um and sound cannon. We've talked about this
Speaker 1: to you in our Future of Pain podcast about how
Speaker 1: you can basically just scatter a bunch of people with
Speaker 1: an incredibly loud noises. Okay, so you have all of that,
Speaker 1: but maybe in the future, you know, you don't have
Speaker 1: of uh as much of a police presence, but you
Speaker 1: do have people in the crowd who are trying to
Speaker 1: shut it down by getting the data on the people
Speaker 1: and preventing them for future, you know, and from participating
Speaker 1: in future protests. It's very likely. Uh, this is yeah,
Speaker 1: this is kind of a tangent, but I can't help
Speaker 1: ever be reminded. I think it's a So it's like
Speaker 1: a DJ shadow track UM from an older album where
Speaker 1: he ended up sampling this this bit from a sermon
Speaker 1: who was taking place in the Woodstock era, and uh,
Speaker 1: the preacher giving this sermon was talking like he was
Speaker 1: describing outlandish lee like a situation where you had like
Speaker 1: hippies in uh in kind of a protest environment, and
Speaker 1: the police could not enter, they could not even like
Speaker 1: enter in to like control them, because the marijuana smoke
Speaker 1: was too thick that that it was just there was
Speaker 1: just this crowd of just out of control, sinful hippies
Speaker 1: and they were just just layed in drug smoke so
Speaker 1: that the police couldn't go in. And so the way
Speaker 1: to combat facial recognition software is just to have a
Speaker 1: big thick uh ganja cloud. Well, and according to this guy,
Speaker 1: according to that guy, yeah, I'm not suggesting that you're
Speaker 1: you're you're saying people should do that, but it is
Speaker 1: well but but no, I'm not suggesting people do that.
Speaker 1: But but you know, it just brought it to mind.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing about the facial recognition software. Um,
Speaker 1: everybody could just end up wearing masks, right, I mean
Speaker 1: that's the whole, the whole vif for Vendetta guy fox Man,
Speaker 1: that's true. That become increasingly a symbol really more of
Speaker 1: a symbol of these various movements in various groups like
Speaker 1: anonymous h etcetera, rather than just this movie based on
Speaker 1: this Alan More graphic novel. Yeah, yeah, you could you
Speaker 1: could dial down the protester profiling profiling by doing that.
Speaker 1: For so, in some cases it's illegal to wear a
Speaker 1: mask in public officially, so I can understand why. I
Speaker 1: was on Marto one day and someone had a mask
Speaker 1: on um, but I can't remember. It was maybe like
Speaker 1: Tigger or something. It was so disconcerting I thought, for sure,
Speaker 1: you know, no good will come with this. You know this? Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: when uh, for the Olympics it took place in China,
Speaker 1: Mexico sent a couple of Lucadors. They masked wrestlers, not
Speaker 1: to actually compete, but to just sort of I think
Speaker 1: they were doing the show. There's goodwill kind of thing.
Speaker 1: But they had to get special permission for them to
Speaker 1: wear their masks because they can't take their masks off.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's their identity, right, I mean right, And
Speaker 1: I mean there's no point in them going over there
Speaker 1: if they can't wear their mass they are their masks.
Speaker 1: So they had to get special permission from the Chinese
Speaker 1: government to to wear these things. Well. Oh, by the way,
Speaker 1: when I speak of MARTA, I'm talking about the train
Speaker 1: system we have here in Atlanta. Yes, okay, Anybody's like,
Speaker 1: what do you mean you are in Marta. Who's Marta? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the train system. Alright. So just just a little
Speaker 1: bit of food for thought. Um, the number one indicator
Speaker 1: civil unrest lack of money, right, yes, and then of
Speaker 1: course resources and political corruption. Now keep in mind that
Speaker 1: by thinking about two and a half billion more people, Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know, what do you think is gonna happen? Well,
Speaker 1: I think, as with any age in the past, there
Speaker 1: will continue to be protests, There will continue to be
Speaker 1: situations that are worth protesting about. Uh, and hopefully, like
Speaker 1: I said at the start of the podcast, will continue
Speaker 1: to engage in these type of group activities rather than
Speaker 1: open warfare. Yeah, absolutely, I mean, but it's it's a
Speaker 1: much better prospect for sure. So there you go. What
Speaker 1: do we have in our magic mailbox? I don't know
Speaker 1: where's the robot that's always taken breaks? Here you go,
Speaker 1: bring us some of that sweet listener mail. All right,
Speaker 1: here we go. We have one from a listener by
Speaker 1: the name of Jen. Jen writes in UH and says, Hello,
Speaker 1: Robert and Julie. I hope this finds you Well. I've
Speaker 1: been listening to your podcast for about half a year,
Speaker 1: and I've loved every single one. That's that's great. I
Speaker 1: even I haven't loved every single one. UM, I know
Speaker 1: I love every single one. I have loved all of them,
Speaker 1: from one I want to talk about. Okay, UM. I
Speaker 1: now look forward to my long commutes because I get
Speaker 1: to listen to your entertaining and insightful conversations. I think
Speaker 1: that's why your podcast really stands out for me. You're
Speaker 1: not just delivering information UH to your listeners, but you
Speaker 1: are actively engaging with it and picking apart of some
Speaker 1: quite complimented topics for us. Thank you for hours of entertainment.
Speaker 1: It takes my mind up of how much I'm standing
Speaker 1: on GAS as a graduate student researching medieval gender in
Speaker 1: women's history, which is pretty exciting. I particularly appreciated your
Speaker 1: October eleventh podcast on evolution of and the Orgasm war UM.
Speaker 1: I apologize for this being late. My pod broke and
Speaker 1: I only just replaced it, so I was listening to
Speaker 1: two months worth of podcast last week. Ideas about the
Speaker 1: nature of the female orgasm, especially in regard to its
Speaker 1: UH necessity or lack thereof, for conception, was a topic
Speaker 1: of interest for doctors, church officials, and court officials. Alike
Speaker 1: in the Middle Ages. In fact, it had rather tragic
Speaker 1: consequences for a number of women throughout the period. Um
Speaker 1: galenic medicine, The dominant theory throughout the Middle Ages held
Speaker 1: the female orgasm wasn't necessary requisite for conception. It was
Speaker 1: widely believed that women also produced sperm during intercourse, and
Speaker 1: it could only be released if the woman had enjoyed herself. Consequently,
Speaker 1: a woman in the Middle Ages who was the victim
Speaker 1: of a rape resulting in pregnancy had no legal recourses
Speaker 1: in many areas of Europe. Her pregnancy belied her enjoyment
Speaker 1: of the encounter, which inherently singled her consent to the act. Well,
Speaker 1: that was a bummer anyway, thank you once again for
Speaker 1: your wonderful podcast, and I'm sorry that my gratitude prompt
Speaker 1: need to tell you some really sad history. You guys
Speaker 1: rule best gen Well, that's awesome. That yeah, very interesting
Speaker 1: and certainly kind of sad, rather insight but I mean
Speaker 1: that's that's exploring anything about the Middle Ages. What's true true,
Speaker 1: But it is uplifting in the sense that if you
Speaker 1: think that the female orgasm is still a mystery, just
Speaker 1: look back down and say, ah, the understanding is is
Speaker 1: a little bit better there. Yeah, you gotta love the
Speaker 1: middle Age. So I'm excited that we have a listener
Speaker 1: who is steeped in medieval lore. Yeah, well, especially in
Speaker 1: gender issues. All right, Robot, hand me another one. Here
Speaker 1: we go, Um Jim right then and says, hi, guys,
Speaker 1: your mind. Slash Art show reminded me of an exhibit
Speaker 1: I saw a few years ago. I took my then
Speaker 1: eight year old son to the Moment in New York
Speaker 1: City on a school holiday. They had a really cool
Speaker 1: temporary exhibit. It contained something like sixty four small works
Speaker 1: of art in sequential order. The concept of this exhibit
Speaker 1: was that each work related to the to the next one,
Speaker 1: uh the one next to it. For example, a Rubik's
Speaker 1: cube was next to a drawing of a Rubik's cube,
Speaker 1: which was next to a drawing of a cube shaped building,
Speaker 1: which was next to a round building, et cetera. At
Speaker 1: one place, we came across a photo of rocks. Then
Speaker 1: there were rocks displayed as a sculpture. Then the rocks
Speaker 1: were on paper, Then there was paper, then shredded paper,
Speaker 1: then some scissors, ah, rock paper scissors. The exhibit came
Speaker 1: with a brochure which identified the works and artists, but
Speaker 1: there were no details about how the pieces related. This
Speaker 1: was up to the viewer. The last several items were
Speaker 1: a dangling bear light bulb that talked a set of
Speaker 1: phrases out of out of any meaningful context, a film
Speaker 1: projector a vintage photo from the balcony of a nine
Speaker 1: era movie theater, a sign that said the end. And
Speaker 1: finally you had to check the brochure for this one,
Speaker 1: but the rooms built in exit sign was the final piece.
Speaker 1: It was a really cool and fun to walk through
Speaker 1: the exhibit with my son and figure out the connections. Well,
Speaker 1: that's that's interesting. I've gotten to to look at some
Speaker 1: art with Nissan nephews and uh and it is interesting
Speaker 1: too to sort of prod young minds on and see
Speaker 1: them inspired by kind of figure out what art is about.
Speaker 1: And then, as we discussed in the podcast, it's one
Speaker 1: of the amazing things about art how it engages in
Speaker 1: their brain on both conscious and subconscious levels. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was that quote from Picasso, something like he you know,
Speaker 1: he could draw like Rembrandt, but it took him, but
Speaker 1: you know, his whole lifetime to draw like a child
Speaker 1: or think like a child. I guess that's what he
Speaker 1: was saying. Um, so, yeah, that's really cool And I
Speaker 1: love the idea that it's this cumulative work that you
Speaker 1: content like, your your perception is forced to reevaluate each
Speaker 1: piece that you're seeing as a whole. Pretty trippy. Yeah. Well, hey,
Speaker 1: if you have anything trip you would like to share
Speaker 1: with us, you can find us on Facebook and Twitter.
Speaker 1: We are blow the Mind on both of those and uh,
Speaker 1: we we find update both of those fees with all
Speaker 1: sorts of cool links, uh, both the stuff that we're
Speaker 1: working on and stuff we've done and you know, podcast stop,
Speaker 1: but also just cool things we find around the net.
Speaker 1: And certainly you guys are invited to share that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff as well. On more than one occasion, something
Speaker 1: you guys have shared with us has turned around and
Speaker 1: ended up being a podcast episode all and you can
Speaker 1: always send us your thoughts via email at blow the
Speaker 1: Mind at how supports dot com. Be sure to check
Speaker 1: out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join
Speaker 1: House to work staff as we explore the most promising
Speaker 1: and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.