Speaker 1: Really really.
Speaker 2: No, really, Hello everybody, Welcome to really No Really. I'm
Speaker 2: Jason Alexander. I'm here with my best friend Peter Tilden.
Speaker 2: And you may ask why am I speaking so quietly?
Speaker 3: Because there's a golf game in the other room? What
Speaker 3: are you talking about? What are you doing this for?
Speaker 4: It's a theme. I'm on theme. Our theme today? Are
Speaker 4: really today has to do with quiet?
Speaker 1: Does it not? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Well, so I'm setting a tone. I'm not allowed to
Speaker 4: set a tone.
Speaker 3: Wow, you're like magic. It's like working with magic anyway.
Speaker 3: Today is about the quiet, Yes, because because we found
Speaker 3: out there's a quiet zone in the United States. It's
Speaker 3: thirteen thousand square miles lard no Wi Fi?
Speaker 1: What?
Speaker 3: No Wi Fi? No cell phones? And we wanted to
Speaker 3: find out from a guy who visited and wrote about it.
Speaker 3: Are the people there happier because we talked about technology
Speaker 3: and cunning back on your cellphone? Every week I get
Speaker 3: to another article about on Fridays, do quiet Friday for
Speaker 3: four hours? And I go shut up?
Speaker 4: Where do you get Wait a minute, where do you
Speaker 4: get an email? Who's sending you an email about quiet Fridays?
Speaker 3: I was in radio for many years. Authors send me stuff,
Speaker 3: I get stuff all.
Speaker 4: And they would send you a thing saying, hey, respect
Speaker 4: quiet Friday.
Speaker 3: Well, somebody wants to come on the show to promote
Speaker 3: quiet to be healthier so you can have better mental hygiene.
Speaker 3: And that show went off the air. I can't believe
Speaker 3: that is what a top picture was on for years. Anyway,
Speaker 3: can we get to this?
Speaker 4: Can I ask one another question? Thirteen thousand square miles
Speaker 4: in the United States?
Speaker 1: Is a quiet let's get let's get you? Did you
Speaker 1: add a zero thirteenth? I believe.
Speaker 4: I believe one hundred and thirty square miles thirteen thousand
Speaker 4: square miles. If you read at a stand behind me,
Speaker 4: you read a thank you quyat where there's no technology,
Speaker 4: no cell phones, no nothing, thirteen thousand.
Speaker 1: Where is this place?
Speaker 3: I don't know, but I'm yearning to get there. It's
Speaker 3: two and a half hours out of Washington. Stephen Curzy,
Speaker 3: our guest visited there, wrote a book about it, has
Speaker 3: moved about it. Stephen, thirteen thousand square miles, right.
Speaker 5: Right, that's the correct size.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I need floating. I need a minute.
Speaker 4: Oh, let's take a moment of quiet gloating thirteen thousand
Speaker 4: square miles and located where exactly, Stephen.
Speaker 6: So it covers three states, West Virginia, Virginia, and a
Speaker 6: little bit of Maryland as well.
Speaker 1: I well, it must be quiet because I've never heard
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 3: A lot of people never heard of it. And that's
Speaker 3: because explain what's there. It's our surveillance. Is there are
Speaker 3: our telescopes and our listening devices for the country our station.
Speaker 1: Correct.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So maybe I can go back to the beginning
Speaker 6: of why was established. So back in the nineteen fifties,
Speaker 6: the United States was investing big in this new science
Speaker 6: of radio astronomy. It's listening to those radio ways that
Speaker 6: are coming in from the deep reaches of space. And
Speaker 6: to establish a radio astronomy observatory, you got to put
Speaker 6: it in a really radio quiet place, just like you
Speaker 6: got to put an optical astronomy preservatory in a really
Speaker 6: dark place. And this area of West Virginia a kind
Speaker 6: of circled around Green Bank, West Virginias and the Appalachian Mountains.
Speaker 6: There it was deemed one of the quietest places on
Speaker 6: the eastern United States and the most suitable place for
Speaker 6: hosting this first National Radio Astronomy Reservatory.
Speaker 3: So you're saying it's listening to the stars, it's also
Speaker 3: listening to Brenda in her bathroom in Colorado.
Speaker 1: Correct, well in a sense.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: So around the same time that the US was creating
Speaker 6: this National Radiostromium Servatory, the US Navy was also active
Speaker 6: out there in the Appalachian Mountains to establish a very
Speaker 6: secretive listening post where to this day, the National Security Agency,
Speaker 6: which is kind of like the intelligence armor of the
Speaker 6: Department of Defense, operates its own collection at about a
Speaker 6: half dozen radio antennas which are actively swooping up millions
Speaker 6: of phone calls, messages, emails, everything every single second.
Speaker 5: Essentially.
Speaker 6: It's been called the large just eavesdropping bug in the
Speaker 6: United States. So, yeah, there's this quiet zone for two reasons,
Speaker 6: one for listening to the stars and also for listening
Speaker 6: to this amazing Wow, And.
Speaker 4: You were complaining about the rumba gathering information on another show.
Speaker 1: What's cool about this?
Speaker 3: We've talked about tech and how teenagers are are ruined
Speaker 3: and destroyed by tech and the fact that we underestimate
Speaker 3: our screen time by one hundred percentage, which makes sense.
Speaker 3: But I don't need to see my screen time.
Speaker 1: I get it.
Speaker 3: I get what I'm doing here, but Steven. The fascinating
Speaker 3: thing about him before he went into the quiet zone.
Speaker 3: God rid if he traveled all over the world, He's
Speaker 3: written articles for a lot of magazics. Gave up his
Speaker 3: cell phone, so he didn't have a cell phone for
Speaker 3: ten years.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I it was back in two thousand and nine
Speaker 6: when I last had a cell phone, and I just
Speaker 6: kind of threw it away. I can just remember the
Speaker 6: clinking sound of it landing inside.
Speaker 5: The garbage camp.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I've been living in Cambodia and I was traveling around
Speaker 6: Asia and I just decided I wanted to take a
Speaker 6: break from this device that wasn't going to work anyways
Speaker 6: while I was traveling. When I got back to the US,
Speaker 6: I didn't want to spend money on this fancy news
Speaker 6: smartphone that everybody was pressuring me to get. And that
Speaker 6: turned in two weeks, turned into months, turned into this
Speaker 6: philosophical aversion to a culture of constant connectivity where were
Speaker 6: forced to always be looking at this device.
Speaker 5: And having an honest all the time and being available
Speaker 5: for everybody all the time.
Speaker 6: I've just rejected that, and eventually that desire to live
Speaker 6: that way led me to Green Bank, West Virginia where
Speaker 6: it's quiet, not just naturally but by law.
Speaker 4: And now we know why we had so much trouble
Speaker 4: getting him to return a call.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the guy goes, never.
Speaker 4: Never had a phone, can't brother, I thought, can't be bothered.
Speaker 4: I love that one guy writing about clients. So was
Speaker 4: this like an when they established this thirteen thousand square
Speaker 4: mile was this an imminent domain thing? Did Brenda and
Speaker 4: green Bank get to say, I'm not so happy about this?
Speaker 4: Or was it imposed on people in a sense?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean any remote communities that doesn't have a
Speaker 6: whole lot going on economic wise would be thrilled to
Speaker 6: have this huge investment of federal dollars. But at the
Speaker 6: same time, when you're the person whose farm is getting
Speaker 6: paved over to build this new astronomy observatory and to
Speaker 6: have these new devices being erected in your out pasture
Speaker 6: or whatever, you're not going to be the most sprilled.
Speaker 6: So there were some cases of eminent domain being used
Speaker 6: to take farmers lands. The astronomy observatory it covers like,
Speaker 6: it's over two thousand acres in that patch of green Bank,
Speaker 6: West Virginia.
Speaker 4: So when we say a quiet zone, do we mean
Speaker 4: merely technologically quiet, or is it like no fireworks, no
Speaker 4: radios after ten o'clock. Is it really restricted in that
Speaker 4: way as well?
Speaker 6: No, it's not. It's only restricted in the radio noise sense.
Speaker 6: Radio noise which is given off by your microwave oven
Speaker 6: or are your smartphone, or even by starting up your
Speaker 6: gasoline car, which is why on the observatory itself, you're
Speaker 6: only supposed to have diesel engines beyond a certain point
Speaker 6: because they don't have a spark plug inside that's going
Speaker 6: to give off that radio wave. If you think about it,
Speaker 6: radio noise tends to be associated or to come with
Speaker 6: actual audible noise, like a big factory making a lot
Speaker 6: of noise is probably going to have a lot of
Speaker 6: radio pollution coming off of it as well, So it
Speaker 6: tends to be naturally quiet and radio quiet places I
Speaker 6: would go.
Speaker 3: So there's still a dog barking, see I've missed mesophonia,
Speaker 3: which means background.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 3: It's like, if I'm talking to you right now, I'm fine.
Speaker 3: But if there's a cadence of like scratching or my
Speaker 3: dog like walks around with his nails on the wooden floor,
Speaker 3: it drives me out of my mind.
Speaker 1: I can't control it. It's like.
Speaker 3: It's horrible, especially if there's a cadence to it. So
Speaker 3: I can't imagine in a quiet zone, if there's a
Speaker 3: like dogs walking around barking, do they tell the dog
Speaker 3: to shut up? Or it doesn't matter because it's not electromagnetic.
Speaker 6: It doesn't matter if the dog has an electric blanket.
Speaker 5: That's malfunctioning.
Speaker 1: What is wrong with you? What does that mean?
Speaker 5: This?
Speaker 3: What is this condition? He's gonna need a Google time
Speaker 3: check that giggle on yeah, yeah, Google time check. Yeah
Speaker 3: I have If I have a disability, why are you laughing?
Speaker 3: Why is it funny?
Speaker 1: What is it? If your dog is walking around?
Speaker 3: You can't If I hear nooid, Lauren, If I'm sitting
Speaker 3: and talking in the front seat of the car to
Speaker 3: somebody and somebody's in the back of the car talking,
Speaker 3: I lose my mind. And I don't do it intentionally.
Speaker 3: It's not like Oh Lee's. It's that other noise is
Speaker 3: so disruptive that it drives It actually drives me, drives me.
Speaker 1: So if I do this, yeah, I'm going to kill yes.
Speaker 4: For the rest of this interview. You won't be able
Speaker 4: to focus, You won't be able to function. This is
Speaker 4: making you crazy. You can't even understand.
Speaker 3: Let me saying I can see the emails flying and
Speaker 3: now telling stations shut when you punch Jake, that sound
Speaker 3: I could do you.
Speaker 1: Punch show you thirty years. I never know this about
Speaker 1: you because you don't ask.
Speaker 3: But that's a whole other show, a concern for other
Speaker 3: people from a big star from Seinfeld.
Speaker 1: So I heard big star everything else, Like that's that's
Speaker 1: because you.
Speaker 3: Don't hear that offer big says, you don't hear that off.
Speaker 1: Oh he has me so phony.
Speaker 4: Do they have television in the in the in the
Speaker 4: quiet zone.
Speaker 6: Yeah, they're just clarifying some misnumbers, like there's there's internet
Speaker 6: in the quiet zone. It's not the land when the
Speaker 6: internet ends, it's just supposed to be, you know, plugged
Speaker 6: in internet. There's television. It's just supposed to be plugged in.
Speaker 4: And the ring so they can see, they can see
Speaker 4: run reruns a popular show.
Speaker 3: Oh here we go, here we go. So yes, you
Speaker 3: couldn't walk on me. They could stream if they needed to.
Speaker 3: They could stream a show. It wouldn't be wireless, but
Speaker 3: they would stream it on a hard wire. What are
Speaker 3: you trying to get at is even in the quiets
Speaker 3: Gorge George stands yet No.
Speaker 1: First of all, they can't yell it out. It's a
Speaker 1: quiet zone.
Speaker 4: They're allowed to yell no, nor yellow.
Speaker 1: George in the quiet zone. I'm going quiet.
Speaker 3: But let's get to it. So the people there limited
Speaker 3: limited tech. I mean, after looking at the book, there
Speaker 3: is some Wi Fi. There are people who don't adhere
Speaker 3: to the worlds even though you're supposed to do. You
Speaker 3: can get fined whatever. But by way, so there are people.
Speaker 3: So this is an area where supposedly there's no real
Speaker 3: available Wi Fi signals a tech, but people are gaming
Speaker 3: the system. Sometimes I can't get a Wi Fi signal
Speaker 3: with my house well, and I use a very prominent provider.
Speaker 1: Yes, how do they pull that off?
Speaker 3: It's still not ideal because you still have to use
Speaker 3: a desktop, et cetera. But give us an overview of
Speaker 3: these people about are they happier with face to face
Speaker 3: or are they doing face to face? Does it look like Maybury?
Speaker 3: There is everybody ever kno and board games? Are they
Speaker 3: all playing inside? And it's lotti dot I'm really happy
Speaker 3: because I'm not being judged online.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's a great question because when you first go
Speaker 6: into the town. A lot of journalists have gone there
Speaker 6: and written articles about it.
Speaker 5: You do get that Mayberry feeling.
Speaker 6: There's some quaint general stores, and people say things like
Speaker 6: never had self service, never had Wi Fi, we don't
Speaker 6: miss it. But then the longer you stay there, you
Speaker 6: kind of start to see, oh, that family actually does
Speaker 6: have Wi Fi at their home.
Speaker 5: It's just kind of.
Speaker 6: Hidden in the closet, and they don't want to tell
Speaker 6: the Observatory about it because they don't want to get
Speaker 6: in trouble. Or you start, you know, kind of discovering
Speaker 6: this culture and this history of quirky characters who've been
Speaker 6: attracted to a super quiet place to kind of get
Speaker 6: away from the all so they can go just like
Speaker 6: the observatory, like the astronomers did. They wanted to go
Speaker 6: to a place where they were quiet, could get away
Speaker 6: from all the noise of society. There's lots of quirky
Speaker 6: characters who are out there who have been trying to
Speaker 6: get away from them all for various reasons.
Speaker 1: With face to face, do you see a difference.
Speaker 3: Is there an overall difference that people are a bit
Speaker 3: happier because the tech is limited.
Speaker 1: Let's put it that way.
Speaker 6: Yeah, there was actually an Italian researcher who did a
Speaker 6: study where he interviewed a bunch of people around Pocahontas County.
Speaker 6: So Green Bank is in this county, which is the
Speaker 6: size of a island. It's a state of sized county
Speaker 6: called Pocahontas. They interviewed a bunch of people there and
Speaker 6: also in a neighboring county where it doesn't have these
Speaker 6: same quiet restrictions, and he found that people in the
Speaker 6: quiet zone do you report being measurably happier and they
Speaker 6: have less stress and they're less you know, freaked out,
Speaker 6: I guess by having their devices all the time. There
Speaker 6: was another researcher from the University of Illinois who went
Speaker 6: out there and he found whereas in popular culture we
Speaker 6: have this idea around dead zones, dead zones being places
Speaker 6: that are lifeless or it's kind of like a glitch
Speaker 6: in the matrix, it's this place that you want to avoid,
Speaker 6: these dead zones, but rather than it being a lifeless place,
Speaker 6: the quiet zone, it's actually full of people who are
Speaker 6: just more intentional about when they want to be online
Speaker 6: and offline, and they can kind of re seize control
Speaker 6: over this aspect of her lives that some many of
Speaker 6: us had lost because we're always teethered.
Speaker 1: It's interesting.
Speaker 3: I've read about a teenager who and they venture out,
Speaker 3: they go to visit friends who are not in the
Speaker 3: cuind zone, et cetera, and she has computers and all
Speaker 3: of that. She comes back and said, I really missed
Speaker 3: being outdoors and doing a lot of the stuff that
Speaker 3: I did at home in the quiet zone.
Speaker 1: She wasn't done enamored with it being outside. Being outside. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was okay, and it's great. She went unlike a
Speaker 1: room springer, and she did.
Speaker 3: And by the way, the Amish only used different sex
Speaker 3: use it differently, but they use it for commerce rather
Speaker 3: than they leave it outside of the house.
Speaker 1: There's all kinds of rules.
Speaker 3: Because they don't want to be They don't want the
Speaker 3: community to be absorbed into the outside community. And oddly enough,
Speaker 3: a large percentage ofones could stay. So there must be
Speaker 3: something to that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, there's a strong sense of community of knowing everybody
Speaker 6: there in Green Bay. In part that's because there's just
Speaker 6: not a whole lot of people there. So it's a
Speaker 6: Rhode Island sized county where there's only about eight thousand people.
Speaker 6: It's one of the most sparsely populated counties east of
Speaker 6: the Mississippi River, which makes.
Speaker 5: It a really quiet place.
Speaker 6: Naturally in a great place to have this radio astronomy observatory.
Speaker 6: That also means that you're going to start seeing the
Speaker 6: same people on a lot of the same events.
Speaker 4: So now all we've heard so far is that people
Speaker 4: go to this place, they say either they were there
Speaker 4: and they enjoy it and they stay, or they'll go
Speaker 4: there specifically for it. So is you've lived there, Peter
Speaker 4: reference to Mayberry. Is it all sunshine and light or
Speaker 4: is there like an under barrel lead to the Quiet Zone?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 6: I mean it's not just radio scientists and NSSAY operatives
Speaker 6: who've been attracted to the Quiet Zone. There's been a
Speaker 6: whole host of like various groups over the decades, over
Speaker 6: the past half century that this place has been around,
Speaker 6: that have been attracted to this place.
Speaker 5: And not all of them have been the most savory characters.
Speaker 3: Oh really, well, listen to the Neo Nazi encampment there right.
Speaker 6: One of our country's most well known at one time,
Speaker 6: the pre eminent Neo Nazi formation of the National Alliance,
Speaker 6: which was founded by this guy named William Pierce who
Speaker 6: wrote the Turner Diaries, which has been a key motivating
Speaker 6: text for the far right.
Speaker 5: Timothy McVeigh actually had.
Speaker 6: That copy had the copy of that book in his
Speaker 6: getaway car from Oklahoma City after perpetuating that bombing there.
Speaker 6: So it's been a real motivating text. And he was
Speaker 6: operating out there from the quiet Zone just just south
Speaker 6: of Koream Bank for several decades.
Speaker 5: So you got neo Nazis out there. There's a strong
Speaker 5: back to.
Speaker 6: The lander hippie movement that has been attracted to this
Speaker 6: super quiet place. You can imagine they want to get
Speaker 6: away from culture and from the economy and to kind
Speaker 6: of live off the land, so they've been.
Speaker 5: Attracted to this place.
Speaker 6: A more recent is actually these people who believe they
Speaker 6: have something called electromagnetic hypersensitivity. You two are probably familiar
Speaker 6: with the show called Better Call Saul. Sure, Yeah, I
Speaker 6: remember the character Chuck McGill who he's yeah, yeah, he's
Speaker 6: made ill by Wi Fi, by sales service, by the lights.
Speaker 5: Inside the buildings that he goes inside. So there's many.
Speaker 6: People who believe they have this this illness, and one
Speaker 6: hundreds of them have gone out to Greenbank.
Speaker 1: So do you here's that is that a sister a misophone?
Speaker 3: Do be condescending which means talking down to So my
Speaker 3: question for you is this.
Speaker 1: You have all those people.
Speaker 3: Escaping the electromagnetic fields and cell phones and lights, and
Speaker 3: they're there. I had heard, first of all, somebody committed
Speaker 3: suicide there, shot herself in the head, right wall speeder
Speaker 3: who went there for that reason to get away. So
Speaker 3: that got some attention aside from hippies to hippies dying
Speaker 3: mysteriously there. So the town has some stuff going on,
Speaker 3: but the electromagnetic thing has never been proven medically. I
Speaker 3: looked that up. I heard that in the quiet zone.
Speaker 3: Now somebody got small, aren't in the real estate that
Speaker 3: they put out advertising saying, hey, escape the world of
Speaker 3: electromatic come here, and the real estate value started going
Speaker 3: up because it's like like Jimmy Buffett Land for seniors.
Speaker 1: Come here.
Speaker 3: We'll charge your premium because we have margat readers at
Speaker 3: five there they advertise.
Speaker 1: No I don't have come come to us. Here's what
Speaker 1: we don't have.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we don't have beautiful don't computer there is, we
Speaker 4: don't have cell phones, we don't have pools. We have
Speaker 4: only one bathroom, we only have and there's no clubhouse,
Speaker 4: and we charge you more for that.
Speaker 1: Is that brilliant? It's brilliant.
Speaker 3: We provide nothing, and that's because you asked for it.
Speaker 3: That is that accurate that people are actually moving there
Speaker 3: and that the real estate has been inflated?
Speaker 5: Absolutely? Yeah.
Speaker 6: I talked to one of the biggest real estate agents
Speaker 6: there in the county and he said, yeah, we get
Speaker 6: a call pretty regularly from the electro sensitives or some
Speaker 6: people who say we want to grou sensitive.
Speaker 1: It's a group these things. Wow.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and they cater to that.
Speaker 6: So now like this is probably the only real estate
Speaker 6: agency in the in the world that actually has like
Speaker 6: a little icon or whatever on that property listing saying
Speaker 6: in the quiet zone.
Speaker 3: You know, if a family summarize this, what I'm thinking about,
Speaker 3: and I'm just getting this for the first time, is
Speaker 3: you got neo Nazis there, who I'm sure want to
Speaker 3: be away from interracial mixing. So they're there because it's
Speaker 3: predominantly white and law enform you threw that away. It's
Speaker 3: predominantly white, the quiet zone.
Speaker 5: It's I mean, it's an apalasia.
Speaker 3: I would assume I would assume, and that's why the
Speaker 3: Neo Nazis moved there. They're not going to move a
Speaker 3: place they go, Hey, let's go to a Benetton at
Speaker 3: a place where it's one.
Speaker 1: Of the Rodriguez family who can't go to the quiet zone.
Speaker 3: Yes, what I'm just saying, my observation is if the
Speaker 3: Neo Nazis moved there to get away from the iterator, Okay,
Speaker 3: then you got the people who want to get away
Speaker 3: from the lights and the Wi Fi signal, and then
Speaker 3: you get hippies who want to get away.
Speaker 4: It's really about escape. Hippies went on with the sixties.
Speaker 4: There's a new what he called, you called them hippies.
Speaker 4: He's not right about every.
Speaker 1: All right, you want to read those without quiet. He
Speaker 1: doesn't know it.
Speaker 3: It's fascinating that all these people go to a place
Speaker 3: to escape something, and yet it's really about what's internal.
Speaker 3: It's not about what's on the outside. Right, So these people,
Speaker 3: are they happier or do they get there and go
Speaker 3: wait a minute, I'm here now, but I'm really going
Speaker 3: it's an escape culture rather than a let's live life culture.
Speaker 1: It's kind of fascinating.
Speaker 6: It's kind of like that joke. No matter where I
Speaker 6: go there, I am right. If you're bringing something with
Speaker 6: you to the quiet zone, it's still going to be
Speaker 6: there when you go to the quiet zone.
Speaker 5: So if that's some kind of.
Speaker 6: Internal paranoia about people following you, or some kind of
Speaker 6: extreme paranoia about other races or dislike of other races,
Speaker 6: if it's the belief that you are being physically harmed
Speaker 6: by various things around you, that's still probably.
Speaker 5: Going to follow you into the quiet zone. And that's
Speaker 5: been the case.
Speaker 6: You mentioned the woman with a chess electromagnetic hypersensitivity who
Speaker 6: killed herself. Obviously she didn't find what she was looking
Speaker 6: for in the quiet zone. It wasn't quiet enough for her,
Speaker 6: even in the quietest place in America. So you have
Speaker 6: to wonder is there anywhere that would have been quite
Speaker 6: enough for her?
Speaker 3: She was as a Harvard and also a Wall Street
Speaker 3: I mean, this was a highly educated, really successful woman, right.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's right, Yeah, yeah, she was. She went to
Speaker 6: Vasar College and then she went to Harvard Business School.
Speaker 6: She was like one of the earlier classes of women
Speaker 6: to graduate from Harvard Business School. And then she was
Speaker 6: like caring for disabled animals, rescuing cats and dogs, straight cats,
Speaker 6: and dogs in the Charlottesville area of Virginia until she
Speaker 6: herself felt disabled by this onset of electromenic persensitivity, and
Speaker 6: then she started going out to greenback.
Speaker 4: Steven, I know that that's not necessarily your particular area
Speaker 4: of research, but as far as just anecdotally, and this
Speaker 4: is a true thing. So I have carbal tunnel in
Speaker 4: my right hand, and I find when I touched my
Speaker 4: fingers to the screen of my phone, it triggers or
Speaker 4: I feel that it triggers the carpal tunnel. So so
Speaker 4: I don't know if that qualifies as electromagnetic whatever, but
Speaker 4: as far as you know is because Peter said anecdotally,
Speaker 4: this has never been proven to be a real thing.
Speaker 1: Anecdotally from your experiences, it seemed to be a real thing.
Speaker 4: Do most people who claim to suffer from that, who
Speaker 4: come to the quiet zone, do they improve?
Speaker 6: Generally, they say they improve, and sometimes they say they
Speaker 6: improve enough to where they can leave the quiet zone
Speaker 6: for either permanently or like going out and coming back in.
Speaker 6: I mean, I found anecdotally that the more I thought
Speaker 6: about electromagnetic sensitivity, and the more I was like looking
Speaker 6: into it, the more I started to wonder.
Speaker 5: If I had it.
Speaker 6: You know, there's a whole coincidences. I'd be working on
Speaker 6: my computer and a message might come through, and right
Speaker 6: at that moment, or right before the message came through,
Speaker 6: I man have like a weird feeling or like a
Speaker 6: pain or something.
Speaker 5: And then it's like, oh, were they connected somehow?
Speaker 6: Your brain starts making these fantastical leaves between this being
Speaker 6: the cause of this, and then when I stopped thinking
Speaker 6: about it, it didn't happen as much. It's like when you're
Speaker 6: obsessed with a certain number or a name or whatever,
Speaker 6: you start seeing that number everywhere.
Speaker 3: So Jason noticed. Jason made fun of me.
Speaker 1: But I can't.
Speaker 3: I'm to your stoneface for his little whatever illness or
Speaker 3: whatever thing.
Speaker 1: Mine is a physical thing, yours. This is a physical,
Speaker 1: imagined thing.
Speaker 4: So no, so Steve, I mean they created a whole
Speaker 4: zone for me. I don't hear the mesophonia phony. Oh
Speaker 4: you know, you know what, there's a whole there's a whole,
Speaker 4: thirteen thousand square mile place in America where people can't
Speaker 4: tap Laurie.
Speaker 3: We're gonna get emails from everybody who has meso phony.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm sure it's a real thing. I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: So oh, now see this is when he comes. And
Speaker 3: now I've got a call tonight and then maybe a
Speaker 3: small gift, and then we'll do it again. Then we'll
Speaker 3: bring it up again to make fun before we go.
Speaker 3: I don't know it'll be a gift. Are you still phoneless?
Speaker 3: Have you still maintained that life? Do you find it
Speaker 3: a better life?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 6: I still don't have a cell phone. It's been it's
Speaker 6: been like twelve or three teen years now, I guess,
Speaker 6: and from everything I've experienced and read, I believe that
Speaker 6: my life is no worse and is in many ways
Speaker 6: better because I don't have a cell.
Speaker 3: You've missed at least three book deals. I guarantee it. Guaranteed.
Speaker 3: They couldn't get you on the phone. They said, if
Speaker 3: we can't get Stephen, the deadline.
Speaker 1: I don't know where he.
Speaker 3: Is linger on that for a second. He's joking. Maybe
Speaker 3: that's about well, Stephen, Thank you. Stephen is an award
Speaker 3: winning journalist. He's been in The New Yorker, the Economists.
Speaker 3: The book is The Quiet Zone, unraveling the mystery of
Speaker 3: the town suspended in Silence. And I don't know about technology,
Speaker 3: Steven seemcause he seemed happier than a normal human being,
Speaker 3: the regular person.
Speaker 1: He seem happier. He's the hair seems like it hasn't been.
Speaker 3: Looks like he had an electromagnetic incident with the hair.
Speaker 4: It doesn't seem I'm not one to judge people's hair,
Speaker 4: but I'm just saying I observe.
Speaker 1: But because you don't care what you think, No.
Speaker 4: He seems Listen, I'm looking at the forehead. It's either
Speaker 4: he's carefree head, there's botox.
Speaker 1: I don't know which.
Speaker 3: But he's got to look how many books he's got
Speaker 3: so a lot of Obviously he's a reader, reading rather.
Speaker 1: Than say, watching television shows.
Speaker 3: Well, how are you going to go back to the
Speaker 3: client zone ever to check it out and do an
Speaker 3: update or no?
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's continually fascinating to me. I'm going
Speaker 6: to keep on tracking the creep in of noise that
Speaker 6: is happening in the clientsele. More and more people are
Speaker 6: getting cell phones and smartphones and Wi Fi what it.
Speaker 5: Used to be.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you for being with us.
Speaker 5: Thanks for having me guys, it's been great to speak
Speaker 5: with you.
Speaker 1: It's been fantastic. I'm going back to that again. It's going.
Speaker 3: We ended our interview with Stephen at the Quiet Zone,
Speaker 3: and apparently the takeaway is that people do appear happier
Speaker 3: what this episode. My take on this and the I'm gonna
Speaker 3: get your take is I'm doing everything wrong. It's always wrong.
Speaker 3: I'm using my computer too much, I'm on the phone
Speaker 3: too much.
Speaker 1: Give this up. It's like mindfulness.
Speaker 3: It used to be mindfulness where you gave up the Buddhists,
Speaker 3: you give up your ego, and you give up your possessions.
Speaker 3: This is for profit for somebody, like the MC mindfulness
Speaker 3: movement is like a good example to Marie Condo. My
Speaker 3: wife is like going around the house saying, I love
Speaker 3: your shirt, goodbye, I love you desks that goodbye.
Speaker 1: I'm going what are you doing? First of all, that's
Speaker 1: not right. It's supposed to be does this bring me joy?
Speaker 4: If the answer is yes, you keep it.
Speaker 3: Apparently a lot of my stuff in the house did
Speaker 3: not give her joy, So she's thrown out my crap.
Speaker 3: My sense is in a couple of years from now,
Speaker 3: they're gonna find all my crap in Recondo's basement. There's
Speaker 3: gonna be a big house sale, and she's full of it.
Speaker 3: So I said to my wife at the time, still
Speaker 3: my wife. Yeah, I was gonna say class at the time.
Speaker 3: I said to my yeah, wait, wow, that could have
Speaker 3: cost you money. Yeah, So I said to my if
Speaker 3: you know what, she's full of it. She's going to
Speaker 3: have a store selling product she should never never, not
Speaker 3: Marine condo. She's about giving stuff away six months in
Speaker 3: the Marie Condo stores. Get rid of your crap to
Speaker 3: make room for my crap. And now she had a baby,
Speaker 3: another baby, like I think her third, and she's saying
Speaker 3: my house is a mess, and it's okay because I'm
Speaker 3: doing so again mcmindfulness. I should give up my stuff,
Speaker 3: I should give up the phone for this amount our
Speaker 3: hour nonsense. I like chaos, I like noise. I like
Speaker 3: to be part of insanity.
Speaker 1: So I'm not giving I'm not giving up. If I
Speaker 1: tap my pen, not that kind of my head explode.
Speaker 1: What do you mean? You like noise?
Speaker 3: Not that kind of noise. But I like I like chaos,
Speaker 3: I like the phone going off, I love emails. I
Speaker 3: want to be part of that. I'm not giving that up.
Speaker 3: I think it's that movement to be better, to find
Speaker 3: your true self, and your true self means less social media.
Speaker 4: That's your pursue, all right. I have many responses to you. First,
Speaker 4: first and foremost, MS Condo if you're listening. His name
Speaker 4: is Peter Tilden. I enjoyed your book, I enjoyed your podcast,
Speaker 4: I enjoyed your your programming. And I believe in the
Speaker 4: system that you have created. I think it's wonderful. My
Speaker 4: partner has some issues. So if there's any legality to
Speaker 4: be sought here, his name is Peter Tilden.
Speaker 1: Say you throw Mario Marie Kondo out.
Speaker 3: You want me to show you the article that I
Speaker 3: just pulled. It said her house is meant right, Lauri,
Speaker 3: her house is messy. Now she admits that her house
Speaker 3: is messy. If you ride that, you just where the
Speaker 3: sales product. That's where it went from.
Speaker 4: Oh wow, this will all be cut out, all be
Speaker 4: cut out.
Speaker 3: What did I say that was legally jeopardize us? Thanks
Speaker 3: right for pointing it out, by the way, Yeah, it
Speaker 3: may not be a legal jeopardy.
Speaker 1: It was it was. It was. It was.
Speaker 4: It was condescending, which means to talk down. So here
Speaker 4: in mind telling me that here's my take on the whole.
Speaker 4: Let me ask you a question. First of all, at
Speaker 4: the end of every week. I didn't answer this, but
Speaker 4: a message comes up at the end of every week
Speaker 4: saying your stream use for the week is up or
Speaker 4: down from the week right for it?
Speaker 1: Does that happen to you? What is your emotional res
Speaker 1: such as singles you out to do that? I don't know.
Speaker 4: I don't know everybody, I don't know your business. What
Speaker 4: when you What is your emotional reaction to hearing that
Speaker 4: it went up or down?
Speaker 3: I don't even care because you don't care seriously, and
Speaker 3: are you going to alter your Oh wow, I'm an
Speaker 3: hour up?
Speaker 1: Who years I get I'm embarrassed when mine goes up?
Speaker 4: I go, I'm I feel like I'm I'm wasting my life.
Speaker 1: What have I done? There's no thing I'm doing on
Speaker 1: the script other my computer is one thing?
Speaker 3: My boy, So what have you changed? But what have
Speaker 3: you changed now that you're not active?
Speaker 4: When that happens, I go, I actively go. Okay, I
Speaker 4: can't use this app as much this week. I can't
Speaker 4: use that app as much this week. What I'm saying is,
Speaker 4: I don't need to go to a quiet zone. I
Speaker 4: don't need to have rules imposed on me. I can
Speaker 4: self regulate myself.
Speaker 3: You're an amazing I can let me if I don't
Speaker 3: want to use my cell phone.
Speaker 4: I don't need to be like White Steven. I don't
Speaker 4: need to throw it away. I put it down, I
Speaker 4: walk away. The fact that it's next to me right
Speaker 4: now is not indicative of anything.
Speaker 3: Excuse me, I don't know if we have a remote
Speaker 3: Do you ever remember remote camera, Laurie or anything? Look
Speaker 3: at the table here, mister, I can give up stuff.
Speaker 3: Has a cell phone a foot from his elbow. Mine
Speaker 3: is nowhere to be found, So that.
Speaker 1: Kind of nowhere to be found.
Speaker 4: If I frisk you right now, I'm not going to
Speaker 4: find your cell phone on you.
Speaker 1: No, I don't really want it. I was just asking
Speaker 1: the hypothetic. I haven't been touched in a wall.
Speaker 6: He is.
Speaker 4: My Next thing I want to know is when I
Speaker 4: because this caught me? Since when do neo Nazis want
Speaker 4: to be quiet? Aren't they like propagandizing? Aren't they Don't
Speaker 4: they have these next them on the four chans or
Speaker 4: eight chans or twelve chans or whatever chan they're on.
Speaker 1: Aren't they always put it? Or is it just I
Speaker 1: think he moved there a while ago.
Speaker 3: I think this was Steven moved there only, but he
Speaker 3: said there's a there's a whole group. I don't know
Speaker 3: that it's still I don't know it's still there, but
Speaker 3: I guess I think they liked it because it was
Speaker 3: in the middle of nowhere and they're not scrutinized.
Speaker 1: Okay, I just think I don't understand it.
Speaker 4: I didn't understand, and I also don't understand if I
Speaker 4: may seems like a very nice guy.
Speaker 1: I liked him.
Speaker 4: I enjoyed the conversation. Guy doesn't have a cell phone,
Speaker 4: Guy isn't wired in anything comes, guy lives in the
Speaker 4: quiet zone, writes a book. When's he doing He's on
Speaker 4: a podcast, on television, on radio, on streaming, hawking the
Speaker 4: book on all the things that people deal with in
Speaker 4: a in a unwired way. That's where he's promoting the
Speaker 4: Oh see, if you unplug and unwire, read my book
Speaker 4: and I'll promote this thing. Do you hear any sort
Speaker 4: of I don't want to use the word hypocritical.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it applies.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure, but I'm just saying it struck me
Speaker 4: a little odd.
Speaker 1: Guys, that's where the man would promote.
Speaker 5: I'm still here. I hear this.
Speaker 1: I didn't mean him.
Speaker 4: I meant the hippies, right, the hippies from the sixth
Speaker 4: meant that they're the ones.
Speaker 1: It's not Stevens. Stephen doesn't. That wouldn't be Steve. I
Speaker 1: don't think he's mine.
Speaker 5: Should I him there? All? Right? What do I go?
Speaker 1: What's he gonna do? Call me names on a not
Speaker 1: plugged in machine? That's right.
Speaker 3: He would never know. He wouldn't ask like the homage. Well,
Speaker 3: thank you for being Stevens. Thank you for being with
Speaker 3: us against Stephen's book word winging journalists, the Quiet Zone
Speaker 3: or unraveling the Mystery of the Council.
Speaker 1: Would you live there? How long would you last there? Seriously?
Speaker 1: How long would you?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 3: You know what's funny and in all honesty? Yeah, like
Speaker 3: people go, you're so hyper, you're neurotic. Yeah, you go
Speaker 3: in a vaca. You can never know, you have no
Speaker 3: intention A day or two on vacation. If I'm really away, yeah,
Speaker 3: second day, I don't care if somebody daughter said to
Speaker 3: be dead. When I get back home, I can completely unplug.
Speaker 1: I honest to god, I traveled.
Speaker 3: Do you want to do something called the contest? Does
Speaker 3: that ring a bell?
Speaker 1: Oh? Sure. Yeah.
Speaker 3: See who can do without their phone the longest? Without
Speaker 3: their phone? Without their phone for the longest.
Speaker 4: I'm going to lose, you know why, because of the
Speaker 4: two of us, who probably.
Speaker 1: Has more business calls and emails to dealing up in
Speaker 1: meet Google Home? Did we do anything to see you?
Speaker 3: I probably lost? So you're throw in a towel already.
Speaker 3: Anything that we missed today, mister Google heim or that
Speaker 3: needs to be corrected?
Speaker 1: Absolutely, yes, of course of first, yeah.
Speaker 7: Well I wanted to get in on the misoponia that
Speaker 7: you have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, I can't wait to hear that.
Speaker 7: People with mesoponia are affected emotionally by common sounds that
Speaker 7: can make them angry and have other sorts of feelings.
Speaker 1: These sounds could be breathing, yawning, chewing.
Speaker 7: Now, I'm not a doctor, although I could play one online.
Speaker 7: It also could be something called hyper accusives, which makes
Speaker 7: everyday sounds them much louder than they should.
Speaker 1: So for neither have decided.
Speaker 4: So yes, if I hear a baby cry, that is
Speaker 4: a thing, and nails on a chalkboard, that's a thing. Emotionally,
Speaker 4: I understand it. Rain it will be a positive emotion.
Speaker 4: He's talking about if the dog is walking across the floor.
Speaker 1: He can't. He can't put it, get it together. That's
Speaker 1: gonna sound him. He can't get it together because that's
Speaker 1: like mesophonia or the or the hyper thing that you described,
Speaker 1: or is it just Peter. Well, I'm sure it's just Peter.
Speaker 7: But hypercutes people suffer from hypercuses can't be affected by
Speaker 7: a barking dog.
Speaker 4: A bar and a barking dog, yes, sure those are
Speaker 4: Those can be highly annoying sounds. But click click, click
Speaker 4: click to be in the newstonolium for ten seconds.
Speaker 3: You know what else is currently getting to be an
Speaker 3: annoying center?
Speaker 1: What else you got from?
Speaker 7: But also, Jason, I'm not done diagnosing Peter yet.
Speaker 1: Yes, limty of things that he made. Oh you're not.
Speaker 1: You're not kidding, brother.
Speaker 7: He might have phonophobia, which is also called sono, which
Speaker 7: is makes some sounds, especially louder sounds, make you fearful
Speaker 7: or anxious.
Speaker 3: So I don't know if that doesn't that doesn't sound.
Speaker 3: It's just rhythmic sounds in the background. They have a
Speaker 3: cadenced and driving crazy.
Speaker 1: I think that's anybody else has anybody he has He's
Speaker 1: not Look what no you don't do she does.
Speaker 4: He plays, Please, he's on.
Speaker 1: He's public service. Here.
Speaker 3: Before you get involved in a business or anything with anybody,
Speaker 3: vet the background, really care, really go deep before you
Speaker 3: have an association.
Speaker 1: It's legal. What what what a spersion? Are you? Her judgment?
Speaker 1: Much more judgment?
Speaker 4: Do you want to believe that the sound of your
Speaker 4: dog's nails clicking and klus anoliu for ten seconds is
Speaker 4: the reason you can't focus or hold it together?
Speaker 1: God bless you. I support you. Put him up to
Speaker 1: him up to I don't listen.
Speaker 4: He's nodding to you because you have to say you
Speaker 4: really have the same thing he's paid to.
Speaker 1: No, he's not, he's not.
Speaker 3: Come here, Come here, come here, come here. Tell Jason
Speaker 3: or can you go on Mike? Can you say yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: so tell Jason.
Speaker 5: Yeah. It's it's unbearable, unbearable. If someone's tapping.
Speaker 4: If someone's taps, unbearable, unbearable, and you focus on that
Speaker 4: instead of the person talking.
Speaker 1: You just found a new partner for the Really Really podcast.
Speaker 3: You know what's really funny. It was just I just
Speaker 3: thought about calls. When he said tapping for our school,
Speaker 3: we did a benefit and the benefit was the world's
Speaker 3: best tap tap dancers, three of them.
Speaker 1: So I thought you couldn't.
Speaker 4: I was gonna put my no, wait a minute, seriously,
Speaker 4: if you so, if you're watching the tap dancers, you
Speaker 4: know that's the thing you're supposed to be even that,
Speaker 4: so it doesn't matter if it's back rhythmic.
Speaker 3: Usually it's background. But constant tapping like a drum solo
Speaker 3: is fine. But that kind of tapping. I don't understand
Speaker 3: tap dancing to begin with. That you go to school
Speaker 3: to learn. I can't tell bad from good tap dancing,
Speaker 3: and then you have to buy the shoes and you
Speaker 3: have to go every Thursday. And anybody who's out there
Speaker 3: with kids are tap dancing. God blessed.
Speaker 4: I just that was the first kind of can you
Speaker 4: tap innt? I was better when I was younger. But
Speaker 4: I can show us.
Speaker 3: Can we get a camera and Jason speaking with my
Speaker 3: sneakers on the rugs? You want to see how you
Speaker 3: do it? I want to see how good you are. No,
Speaker 3: and everybody does the same line the seal. They do
Speaker 3: the stuff, the front stuff, and then you do the
Speaker 3: side stuff. We're going it's like the same routine.
Speaker 4: No, they're not, have you ever seen like Gregory Huh
Speaker 4: Hines Savings Book, Okay, Sandman slide that night, that night,
Speaker 4: Charles Honey Coles.
Speaker 1: These are wow.
Speaker 3: These you go deep. You know who's that night? Who
Speaker 3: tamped ins at night? Who Gregory Hines and Saving over. Yeah,
Speaker 3: even though they're the best lem by the time, it's
Speaker 3: the third guy doing it, it's a little bit run.
Speaker 4: You know what the if those two were the starters,
Speaker 4: I would not want to be guy number three because
Speaker 4: we got at a route.
Speaker 1: You got anything else? Google before we go? I do not.
Speaker 3: Is it just just third casting excursions on my mess
Speaker 3: So listen, what do you say you want to go?
Speaker 4: Should we go to Green Bank, West Virginia and see
Speaker 4: what it's like you want to go?
Speaker 1: Is that in your next vacation spot?
Speaker 3: And we go together for your COVID We want to
Speaker 3: go somewhere for my birthday for COVID.
Speaker 4: There's eight thousand people in thirteen. I'm just saying, this
Speaker 4: is the safest COVID zone in America.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's let's say we're going to go be a
Speaker 3: We're going next week live from Greek Thank you, Laura,
Speaker 3: Come in for a second, Come in for a second.
Speaker 3: I just want Lauria to be involved in this from thee.
Speaker 1: Can we take Laurie when we go to the quiet zone.
Speaker 3: Laurie on a scale of one to ten, how mean
Speaker 3: was Jason to me with the misofonia?
Speaker 1: And be honest, you are me there? Thank you.
Speaker 8: It is a very real thing. So you have to
Speaker 8: be very careful with some people. My friend, if you
Speaker 8: slurp soup, yeah, goes nuts. If there's a she'll go
Speaker 8: insane in a restaurant. She has to be seated away.
Speaker 8: And she loves she's going to Tokyo. She loves you
Speaker 8: walk around the stone, Yeah, things like that.
Speaker 1: A lot of slurping is yeah, a lot of slipping.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So is this where the water torture thing comes in?
Speaker 1: Is the dripping?
Speaker 3: That sound of dripping, well, dude, if there's if there's
Speaker 3: a dripping, aust I lose Lily and I can't control it.
Speaker 3: I don't want to not funny. I'm so glad that
Speaker 3: you said that. I want to do an episode on mesoponia.
Speaker 3: Can I say, who has face blindness?
Speaker 1: Sure? You're my wone for his wife, I say, Brad,
Speaker 1: not severe?
Speaker 3: But but and then Jason introduced me to a guy
Speaker 3: who had face blindness, who doesn't remember he sees you
Speaker 3: and then he has no idea. It's you the next time,
Speaker 3: which sounds like a BS thing, but it's really.
Speaker 4: Now right up there, and you know with the home
Speaker 4: means it funny.
Speaker 1: I think that I for our show, I make fun
Speaker 1: of you. Now I'll take it. This is the this
Speaker 1: is the Don Rickles. But Who's I'm a nice god?
Speaker 1: This is he kills everybody's.
Speaker 3: Misogynistic races that it's but I'm a nice No, I
Speaker 3: actually and I think I actually knew that.
Speaker 4: You know that I adore you, and I know you
Speaker 4: have many things that I always make fun of you
Speaker 4: because that's what we do.
Speaker 1: We make fun of each other.
Speaker 4: I know you make fun of my height, my hair,
Speaker 4: my stomach, my my failed career, my should I keep
Speaker 4: going funny to give god.
Speaker 3: Next episode, we'll see it. We don't know what it is,
Speaker 3: but what's the difference. It'll be marginally good.
Speaker 1: This has been really really jas really no really Now
Speaker 1: really For more really No Really, go to really no
Speaker 1: Really dot com.
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