Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Noah.
Speaker 3: They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 3: super producer Lexus code named Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly,
Speaker 3: you are you. You are here. That makes this the
Speaker 3: stuff they don't want you to know. It's the beginning
Speaker 3: of February. It's actually the day after Valentine's Day, so
Speaker 3: hope everything worked out for all those who celebrate. We
Speaker 3: are going to hear some amazing correspondence from our friends
Speaker 3: around the world. Before we do any of that, however,
Speaker 3: we have a special announcement from an anonymous listener who
Speaker 3: reached out to us. As you know, fellow conspiracy realist,
Speaker 3: we like to release classic episodes every week. We recently
Speaker 3: released a classic episode on asymmetrical warfare called the ghost
Speaker 3: Net from twenty eighteen, and in that episode we played
Speaker 3: a bit of a prank on our fellow conspiracy realist.
Speaker 3: We had not heard anything about this prank for years
Speaker 3: and years and years until quite recently. As a matter
Speaker 3: of fact, last night before we recorded this episode, we
Speaker 3: in how much context should we give here, guys?
Speaker 4: I don know, man, I think I think you pretty
Speaker 4: much just set the tone. But it was more like
Speaker 4: the wee hours of the morning. It was like, what
Speaker 4: three forty five am Standard time Eastern Center.
Speaker 2: Time came through in my phone like one something I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 4: Okay, should we just read it?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Why don't you open it up?
Speaker 5: Matt.
Speaker 2: Right, here's a dramatic reenactment of the email. Hey, guys,
Speaker 2: I've listened to your show for over a decade. Now
Speaker 2: I like to listen to the podcast as I fall asleep.
Speaker 2: In the last episode, your jokes about Google's assistant caused
Speaker 2: multiple devices in my house to go off. Multiple people
Speaker 2: were woken up. The assistant would not stop freaking repeating
Speaker 2: that they didn't understand you executed random commands. I have
Speaker 2: to be at work in four hours and I'm not
Speaker 2: gonna get another second of sleep. My boyfriend is not
Speaker 2: able to go back to sleep. I'll never listen to
Speaker 2: another episode. I'm freaking furious. Fuck you guys, freking idiots.
Speaker 2: I can't convey the absolute insane level of outried hatred.
Speaker 2: I have for you fting morons right now, few me,
Speaker 2: here's my phone number.
Speaker 3: And then four minutes later we receive another missive from
Speaker 3: a non this like, seriously, you guys up these no loop,
Speaker 3: inconsiderate pieces of I hope you have flat tires, wet
Speaker 3: socks every second of every day for the rest of
Speaker 3: your lives. Uttered nincompoops, nimrods, buffoons, knuckle draggers. I hope
Speaker 3: you all's day tomorrow is as as ours will be. Facts.
Speaker 4: Wow, that's flowery talk. Oh wow, I really.
Speaker 2: Hope we bleeped all those those a lot of bleeps.
Speaker 4: Oh, my goodness, points for creativity on the swears. First
Speaker 4: of all, I mean my goodness.
Speaker 3: Best Valentine's Day card ever.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you, I mean a ten year listener and
Speaker 4: this is all it takes.
Speaker 3: Oh man, Well, you know, exercise and empathy is important.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it stinks that that happened. Let's just really quickly
Speaker 2: talk about something we discussed off air. Well, we made
Speaker 2: this episode what do we call these things home assistance?
Speaker 3: Yeah, in twenty eighteen, because we all listen back to
Speaker 3: the episode to find the specific code for so spoilers
Speaker 3: for anybody tuning into that this stuff Anonymous is referencing
Speaker 3: occurs about twenty four minutes and thirty seconds in, and
Speaker 3: it's pretty quick.
Speaker 2: Well, and Google Home had come out two years prior
Speaker 2: to this episode releasing originally, right, this was a brand
Speaker 2: new technology, a new piece of hardware that not a
Speaker 2: lot of people had yet when we released that episode.
Speaker 2: And I guess it's proliferated enough now that there's way
Speaker 2: more of a chance that something like this could happen.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, I think the fact that we didn't
Speaker 4: hear a peep about it for lo those many years
Speaker 4: speaks to that very thing. Granted, we haven't heard many peeps.
Speaker 4: This is the only very loud peep that we've heard,
Speaker 4: but yeah, they're just everywhere now. And I can totally
Speaker 4: understand how someone would be annoyed by this, But you know,
Speaker 4: this isn't how we talk to our friends of ten years.
Speaker 2: I love that this person put their phone number at
Speaker 2: the end after signing purpose or.
Speaker 4: Is it just like an automatic No, No, you're right
Speaker 4: they did put it by hand, because it wasn't in
Speaker 4: the reply. It's so funny.
Speaker 3: It feels like an impulsive reaction to something very unpleasant,
Speaker 3: which unfortunately also proves our point about the growing ubiquity
Speaker 3: of those devices and the fact that they are indeed
Speaker 3: always listening.
Speaker 2: Very true even while you're asleep and listening to this show. Emrods.
Speaker 4: I haven't heard that one in a while. Income poops either.
Speaker 4: Knuckle draggers is a fun one. That's a nice sent
Speaker 4: in a very rich imagery. This guy's got a potential
Speaker 4: career as a poet, second career. Hope you made it
Speaker 4: work on time, though, I truly, I mean, we're being
Speaker 4: a little silly about this because it is kind of funny,
Speaker 4: but also like we never intended to, you know, to
Speaker 4: do any harm, and I think none of us remember
Speaker 4: this bit was even in there. Frankly, it's not like
Speaker 4: writ large in the name of the episode, or like
Speaker 4: you know, inherent within the topic of ghost Nat and Green.
Speaker 2: Well, guys, should we celebrate by going to the phone lines? Well, yeah,
Speaker 2: let's let's let's do here we go, let's hear a
Speaker 2: message from Rob Rob.
Speaker 6: Hello, gentlemen, you can call me Rob. I'm from Central
Speaker 6: Illinois on the way to work. Just heard something about
Speaker 6: Operation Overmatch. This was put forth by mad Dog Matdow
Speaker 6: and I think that you guys would be really interested
Speaker 6: in finding out more about this. I am intrigued. Has
Speaker 6: to do with next generation weaponry being green live with
Speaker 6: billions and billions of extra dollars added to our budget
Speaker 6: to make basically a bunch of gay guns and stuff
Speaker 6: by the Wars of tomorrow today. It's really out uplifting
Speaker 6: and uh, you know, I'm sure it hasn't happy. I
Speaker 6: think somewhere around the corner wanted to fill you guys
Speaker 6: in and wish you the best. It is rainy and
Speaker 6: cold here in the Midwest, and it's such as usual
Speaker 6: the armpit of America, Central Illinois. Love you, guys, Thanks
Speaker 6: for all you to keep on keeping on.
Speaker 5: Good day, good day, and good day to you, sir,
Speaker 5: oh most certainly, I hope you're having a good day
Speaker 5: in the place that you live that you seem to
Speaker 5: dislike so much.
Speaker 3: Now he put a woohoo in there, Yeah.
Speaker 2: There was a woo Who I heard it all right, So, guys,
Speaker 2: Operation Overmatch brought to us by mad Dog Madow. Is
Speaker 2: that a gamer tag that I'm not aware of? Or
Speaker 2: is he referring to Rachel Madow.
Speaker 3: I was thinking I was wondering the same thing Matt
Speaker 3: is is it Rachel Maddow? But even more so, gamer
Speaker 3: tag kind of makes sense given that nature of this.
Speaker 2: Right, Hey, there we go.
Speaker 4: Also, if you say it with enough of a draw,
Speaker 4: it sounds like you're saying madow madaw.
Speaker 2: Yes, so ray guns, guys? Is that on the way?
Speaker 2: Is that real? What is Operation Overmatch? Is this an
Speaker 2: actual thing? Well? It is, And when you search around,
Speaker 2: you're gonna get really confused because there's also Project Overmatch,
Speaker 2: which is not the same thing.
Speaker 4: Similar Overwatch, which is definitely not the same thing.
Speaker 2: Nope, excellent game.
Speaker 3: There's also Overmatch, which is I think I think a
Speaker 3: new feature on Tender Is there?
Speaker 2: Really?
Speaker 4: It's like speed dating.
Speaker 2: They give you way too.
Speaker 4: You gotta pay extra. No, it's.
Speaker 2: Okay. So let's talk about what Operation overmatches? Do you
Speaker 2: guys remember a long time ago we talked about something
Speaker 2: called America's Army is a video game.
Speaker 4: To be confused with America's Armbit exactly.
Speaker 2: America's Army a video game that was created by the
Speaker 2: US Army to essentially train and recruit folks to be
Speaker 2: in the Army. Recruit folks to be in it, and
Speaker 2: train them to function within it once they're there. So
Speaker 2: the development organization, the game developers that created that game
Speaker 2: also reportedly, starting in twenty seventeen, we're working on a
Speaker 2: different type of game, a different type of combat simulation
Speaker 2: that they titled Operation Overmatch. And in this simulation, at
Speaker 2: least in the beginning in twenty seventeen, when it was started,
Speaker 2: according to the US Department of Defense, they recruited like
Speaker 2: one hundred people initially who were combat veterans, people who
Speaker 2: already have seen combat. They got them to try out
Speaker 2: this new simulator and within that simulator test out like
Speaker 2: prototype weapons, theoretical weapons that the US Armies are in
Speaker 2: d side and you know, probably DARPA and other organizations
Speaker 2: connected to the Pentagon, what they would spend their time
Speaker 2: and money on to develop. Basically, if these new types
Speaker 2: or family, this new family of weapons functioned really well
Speaker 2: for these actual members of the armed forces in that simulation,
Speaker 2: then maybe they would work really well in an actual
Speaker 2: field of battle. Right. Fascinating concept. Fascinating concept. But I
Speaker 2: haven't seen anything written anywhere that says Operation Overmatch, this
Speaker 2: concept of testing out prototype weapons in a virtual environment
Speaker 2: has moved in any way to a real environment. I
Speaker 2: don't know if you guys have seen anything. I haven't
Speaker 2: seen anything written about that.
Speaker 4: Well, I don't understand why would it. Isn't it sort
Speaker 4: of meant to be the sort of like virtual program.
Speaker 2: Or so Operation Overmatch Action is a simulated environment. Does
Speaker 2: that make sense? What the way that Rob was speaking
Speaker 2: about it made it seem as though it's actually testing
Speaker 2: things like regulars and future weapons prototypes. So the question here,
Speaker 2: I think is has it moved since twenty seventeen when
Speaker 2: the project was beginning from the virtual environment to the
Speaker 2: real environment or.
Speaker 3: Is it a thing where the game players rating or
Speaker 3: experience with This just enables the real world version of
Speaker 3: the project to be greenlit under a different name, so
Speaker 3: that it's like no longer attached to Operation Overmatch.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, you guys remember that Robin Williams movie Toys
Speaker 4: from the nineties. Oh lord, Yes, Well there's a whole
Speaker 4: thing where the company wouldn't make war toys. And then
Speaker 4: like the creator of the company dies and his brother
Speaker 4: comes in to run it, and he's this like war
Speaker 4: hawkish general and they make all these crazy war things.
Speaker 4: And as part of the movie where there's kid's playing
Speaker 4: video games and they're actually like controlling real war machines,
Speaker 4: you know, like perhaps that's something like there were these
Speaker 4: This is pivoting to maybe being a remote controllable you know,
Speaker 4: video game operation of drones or something I don't.
Speaker 3: Know, or shot injurs game. Just get in front of
Speaker 3: the emails if we don't mention an injuries game unclear.
Speaker 2: Just I see the connections there. The what did they
Speaker 2: call it? They've got a really great name for it.
Speaker 2: They talk about it here early synthetic prototyping, Early synthetic prototyping.
Speaker 2: So again like what the name says, right, it's early
Speaker 2: stages prototyped weapons. Theoretically a laser gun. Let's say, like,
Speaker 2: what if we could make a laser gun? How would
Speaker 2: that work? How would it function if you're in a
Speaker 2: cover situation, right, and you're firing at someone who's you know,
Speaker 2: X yards away and they're elevated in their position. Would
Speaker 2: it actually work in that way or would it not?
Speaker 2: Would that weapon be good if it was attached to
Speaker 2: an APC, right, or some kind of vehicle. Would that
Speaker 2: weapon be better if it was in a helicopter? Right?
Speaker 2: This is me spitballing and imagining what it would be
Speaker 2: like is. I've played a lot of video games, and
Speaker 2: I've played with a lot of different weird weapons in
Speaker 2: virtual environments.
Speaker 3: I wonder if they do loop crates someone.
Speaker 2: I doubt it.
Speaker 3: Do, but that might be too much fun. I mean,
Speaker 3: it does make sense, though it doesn't it just from
Speaker 3: a procedural standpoint or the order of operations of development,
Speaker 3: because now you're potentially saving a lot of time and
Speaker 3: money because you don't have to actually physically build out
Speaker 3: the thing. You just have to build software that represents it.
Speaker 3: And then maybe maybe it's a faster way to identify
Speaker 3: like perks or problems or stumbling blocks before you actually
Speaker 3: get to, you know, creating your handheld rail.
Speaker 2: Gun or whatever. Well, think about how much money you
Speaker 2: would spend in the R and D phases to create
Speaker 2: something like a functional handheld laser weapon, a ray gun
Speaker 2: or whatever you want to call it, a rail gun
Speaker 2: that could actually be attached to a jeep, you know,
Speaker 2: or a hum vy or something like that. That's we're
Speaker 2: we're talking millions, if not billions of dollars to research, develop,
Speaker 2: and then produce that thing. And if you find out
Speaker 2: it doesn't work, by running the simulation a bunch of times.
Speaker 2: Oh god, this simulation. I can't have another sleepless night
Speaker 2: guys thinking about how I'm not real. Okay, I don't know,
Speaker 2: you're super real. You're super real.
Speaker 4: Definitely keeps it real.
Speaker 2: When keeping it real goes wrong.
Speaker 3: I don't like people playing on my phone.
Speaker 4: Nobody does. And don't change the radio in my car
Speaker 4: when I'm driving.
Speaker 2: Okay, sorry, we have Okay, let me just put this
Speaker 2: out there. There's a lot. Actually, there's not that much
Speaker 2: to discuss here. It's you can find a bunch of
Speaker 2: cool writing on it back from twenty seventeen. I would
Speaker 2: recommend the Atlantics piece titled The Video Game That Could
Speaker 2: Shape the Future of War by Aiden Dobkin, that was
Speaker 2: written in October twenty six, twenty seventeen. You can find
Speaker 2: that and read it right now. It's a cool look
Speaker 2: at it. You can also find a lot of official
Speaker 2: writing from the DoD on their website, on National Defense's
Speaker 2: website and Army Dot Mill, the official website of the
Speaker 2: US Army, very very cool stuff. You can learn more
Speaker 2: about the developers as well. It's called the Army Game
Speaker 2: Studio And I'm going to read you, guys really quickly,
Speaker 2: how they describe it on Army Dot Mill. The Army
Speaker 2: Games Studio located at the US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command,
Speaker 2: Aviation and Missile Centers, Software Simulations, Systems, Engineering and Integration Directorate.
Speaker 4: Take a breath, good Gravy, I can see you turning blue.
Speaker 2: It's best known for creating America's Army, the official video
Speaker 2: game of the US Army.
Speaker 4: Do you guys remember when I say that text When
Speaker 4: I was at like TJ Max and they had these
Speaker 4: like Army like branded toys, you know, like there were
Speaker 4: tanks and aircraft carriers, and it was like official US
Speaker 4: Army merch. I wonder if that's part of this like
Speaker 4: similar kind of program. This is very unusual.
Speaker 2: Well, this one is specifically for for like training purposes.
Speaker 2: This one, so America's Army is for training and recruitment
Speaker 2: kind of thing. This one is specifically for prototyping with
Speaker 2: active soldiers. Mostly active soldiers, right, people who have actually
Speaker 2: you know, they know what it's like to take fire
Speaker 2: from an elevated position. So when they're in the game,
Speaker 2: they're like, Okay, this is these are the tactics I
Speaker 2: would use the guys that I'm with, and how we
Speaker 2: would position ourselves and then with these new weapons, what
Speaker 2: can we do right? The other thing to look up
Speaker 2: if you have some time is Project over Match. This
Speaker 2: one has to do with the Navy, and this one
Speaker 2: is all about data collection and data sharing when operating
Speaker 2: on the high seas. Or it's a little more sush.
Speaker 2: You can find a great article in Popular Mechanics that
Speaker 2: was written last year in April titled Everything we Know
Speaker 2: about Project Overmatch, the Navy's secret maritime program. I would
Speaker 2: highly recommend you check it out. This is what the
Speaker 2: article says, quote. The project is part of the Pentagon's
Speaker 2: multi billion dollar joint All Domain Command and Control effort,
Speaker 2: which is intended to establish seamless communication and give warships
Speaker 2: better awareness of adversaries at sea. Cool. Basically, they want
Speaker 2: to have a better understanding of where the other ships
Speaker 2: and submarines are right, and planes and probably spacecraft because
Speaker 2: space is now one of the domains that is included
Speaker 2: in that all domain what title. Weird stuff, guys, But
Speaker 2: I think it's time to take a break, hear a
Speaker 2: word from our sponsor and contemplate everything we've learned. Thank you, Rob,
Speaker 2: I will not sleep tonight. We'll be right back.
Speaker 4: And we've returned with another piece of listener mail, this
Speaker 4: one with zero swears. Zero swears in this one from
Speaker 4: Scurvy Earl, which is a really great nickname. And I
Speaker 4: know we say all the nicknames are great, but they
Speaker 4: really are. Most of them are truly, truly creative. So
Speaker 4: we'll jump right in. Hey boys, scurvy Earl here, I
Speaker 4: have some thoughts about the US healthcare system I wanted
Speaker 4: to share. Have you ever noticed how doctors really only
Speaker 4: tree symptoms and never the root cause? Why, yes, scurvy Earl,
Speaker 4: I do believe we have. I'll give you an example.
Speaker 4: Say you go to your primary care physician because you've
Speaker 4: been dealing with a bad bout of depression. The doctor
Speaker 4: is going to probably ask you a few vague questions,
Speaker 4: then go right into prescribing some meds. We got some
Speaker 4: lexapro that I'll fix you right up in no time.
Speaker 4: Might make the giggle stick stop working, but we got
Speaker 4: cialis for that too. Or say you've been feeling super
Speaker 4: low energy and find out your thyroid isn't functioning properly.
Speaker 4: This is actually very close to home for me, Scurvy Earl,
Speaker 4: because I've been through this exact situation, and I am,
Speaker 4: in fact taking said meds for the rest of my life.
Speaker 4: Bad news. You got hypothyroidism. Not sure why, but there's
Speaker 4: some thyroid compounds you'll have to take for the rest
Speaker 4: of your life. But your thyroid will be purring like
Speaker 4: a kitten in no time. I don't know what my
Speaker 4: thyroid's doing. I don't really ever hear it purring much.
Speaker 4: But I'm being hyperbolic, he says, But you get it.
Speaker 4: I think the cause of this issue is multi dimensional.
Speaker 4: Let's start with the hospitals. Institutions are here to help people,
Speaker 4: but also, and maybe more importantly, to the board, to
Speaker 4: make a stupid amount of money. IU Health, the largest
Speaker 4: healthcare conglomerate in my dear home state of Indiana, had
Speaker 4: a profit just shy of one billion dollars in twenty
Speaker 4: twenty two. That's one billion left over after all operating expenses.
Speaker 4: Hospitals aren't allowing doctors the time to sit with a
Speaker 4: patient and dig a little deeper into the health story.
Speaker 4: You go to an appointment and the doctor talks with
Speaker 4: you five to ten minutes fifteen tops, then they are
Speaker 4: off to the next patient. Because number of patient appointments
Speaker 4: a day equals dollars in the piggy bank. Then there's
Speaker 4: the whole relationship between ordering providers, hospitals, and drug reps.
Speaker 4: It always has rubbed me the wrong way whenever I
Speaker 4: see reps creeping around the medical offices slash hospitals, same
Speaker 4: vibes I get with lobbyists to be honest man man
Speaker 4: after our own heart, my own bias, no doubt. Also,
Speaker 4: I think that the schools of medicine don't teach the
Speaker 4: new doctors new ways of practicing medicine, just doing the
Speaker 4: same old thing that's always been done, because that's just
Speaker 4: how it goes. Then my final point is the general
Speaker 4: stereotype of holistic healthcare and homeopathic medicine. Most people, physicians
Speaker 4: and general public alike view this type of medicine as
Speaker 4: either quack new agy or just for hippies. Because of
Speaker 4: these stereotypes, there doesn't seem to ever be funding to
Speaker 4: do some high level research into some of the medical
Speaker 4: claims that homeopathic practitioners believe in. In my opinion, seems like
Speaker 4: a bit of a conspiracy between healthcare and pharmaceutical companies
Speaker 4: to keep the population medicated instead of cured. Why cure
Speaker 4: someone when you could have a lifelong consumer of your products. Anyway,
Speaker 4: big fan of the show, Cuba, great work, guys, Midwest
Speaker 4: sends its best, Scurvy Earl, oh Man, Bang Bang Bang
Speaker 4: bang bag. This is stuff we've talked about over the years,
Speaker 4: and you know, we certainly have done episodes on big pharma,
Speaker 4: the cozy relationship between pharmaceutical reps and the healthcare system.
Speaker 4: The idea like do cures exists that they're keeping from us.
Speaker 4: Maybe that's like a bit, you know, on the extreme
Speaker 4: end of the spectrum. But I just think all of
Speaker 4: our eyes are lighting up with one after the other
Speaker 4: of these points that Scurvy Earl here is making.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's weird because in a lot of other countries
Speaker 2: that one billion dollar profit the scurvy Earl, and we
Speaker 2: do hope you get that scurvy taking care of At
Speaker 2: some point, Earl, that profit would not exist, right, You
Speaker 2: would have operating expenses that would be paid in tax dollars. Generally,
Speaker 2: that's how we function correct me if I'm wrong, there
Speaker 2: anybody out there listening. But I think that's how it
Speaker 2: works most of the world over. You pay in collectively
Speaker 2: and you get healthcare.
Speaker 4: And we pay plenty. Let me tell you in terms
Speaker 4: of taxes here in this country and are always you know,
Speaker 4: railing online what exactly we get and we don't know
Speaker 4: where it goes in terms of what government projects it's funding,
Speaker 4: you know, what military pursuits, what have you. And we
Speaker 4: certainly do not feel that it goes to providing quality
Speaker 4: of life, you know, guarantees for our loved ones, you know,
Speaker 4: and our families.
Speaker 2: And the response is, well, do you want ray guns
Speaker 2: or do you want to take care of that problem
Speaker 2: you're having with your thyroid? You know, I'm just joking.
Speaker 3: That's like, yeah, there's a scurvy earl. You're absolutely correct.
Speaker 3: This is something that we have, we have clocked for years,
Speaker 3: and it's something that global experts largely agree on. You know,
Speaker 3: we can't blame anybody who perhaps is a little bit
Speaker 3: too credulous about some hyperbolic cure because the reality is
Speaker 3: from a from a budgetary standpoint, it makes sense that
Speaker 3: a large for profit entity would rather have someone subscribe
Speaker 3: to a service than by a one time cure, you know,
Speaker 3: make your quality of life something like a monthly Netflix bill.
Speaker 3: We do have to say we've heard from some people
Speaker 3: on the inside of what we'd loosely call big pharma,
Speaker 3: and they have made the point that especially for some
Speaker 3: very high value, widespread diseases or conditions, if a pharmaceutical
Speaker 3: company did have a cure, logically they would probably bring
Speaker 3: it to market because it would be an absolute windfall
Speaker 3: for them. But it does seem that there is a
Speaker 3: lot of the question is how much emphasis does a
Speaker 3: system put on preventative care versus treating something after the fact? Right, Like,
Speaker 3: there's not to the point, there's not a lot of
Speaker 3: impetus in privatized insurance systems for preventative care. There's a
Speaker 3: lot of lip service for it, but it doesn't it
Speaker 3: doesn't get widely supported. And without going to political everybody
Speaker 3: should check out Project twenty twenty five because one of
Speaker 3: the big things for Project twenty twenty five is the
Speaker 3: unprecedented acceleration of privatized healthcare for people who would ordinarily
Speaker 3: be on Medicare in the United States. And I feel like,
Speaker 3: you know, I feel like even just say medicare kind
Speaker 3: of makes people's eyes glaze over and turns it into
Speaker 3: a snoozefest. But it is a really important thing.
Speaker 2: Is it? Project twenty twenty five the one that's just
Speaker 2: trying to push Republican younger Republican candidates into like local
Speaker 2: positions and move them up the ladder in governmental positions.
Speaker 3: And give them marching orders on behalf of the Heritage
Speaker 3: Foundation and one of the primary planks there is to
Speaker 3: make all Medicare enrollment default to privatized plans. I know,
Speaker 3: I know, right again, it's bad news. People don't talk
Speaker 3: about it because it's boring. But this idea of prescribing
Speaker 3: a medicine that treats a symptom but then also creates
Speaker 3: a symptom like that excellent what was it, lexapro sialis,
Speaker 3: and then that thing that treats a symptom creates a
Speaker 3: side effect that has to be treated with something else
Speaker 3: that creates.
Speaker 4: A side effect for every ill and even a pill
Speaker 4: for the pills.
Speaker 3: Ills and ill with every pill. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3: It is I think a known problem, and it's weird
Speaker 3: because we get into this kind of black box situation,
Speaker 3: Like obviously we don't want to think of people working
Speaker 3: in these industries as sort of like ghoulish monsters planning
Speaker 3: to keep folks sick and addictive. But you could say
Speaker 3: it's part of the larger move we see throughout the
Speaker 3: West to rob people of the right to ownership society
Speaker 3: and make everyone an unending subscriberber.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well it all it's all competition, right guys. I mean, ultimately,
Speaker 2: that's what it comes down to. Each one of those
Speaker 2: consultants we're talking about, this shows up. They're competing against
Speaker 2: the other consultants from the other drug companies, right and
Speaker 2: all the healthcare organizations are competing against the other ones
Speaker 2: to get more business.
Speaker 4: And that's why it you know, I mean it should
Speaker 4: be public. Let me see whatever. Look, we're not here
Speaker 4: to propose a new system exactly, but it does feel like,
Speaker 4: you know, and whatever big government being what it is,
Speaker 4: you know, it can be its own problem. But it
Speaker 4: does feel like when you have that marketplace mentality. Well
Speaker 4: you're talking about, Matt, the competition, you know, the rivalries,
Speaker 4: all of that stuff, and the very accurately depicted in
Speaker 4: the email lobbying esque kind of pharma reps, it's not
Speaker 4: in the best interest of the consumer. But then people
Speaker 4: that are proposing to the system say, no, this is
Speaker 4: exactly what makes it in the best interest of the consumer,
Speaker 4: because this competition yields better quality stuff. But I just
Speaker 4: don't buy that, man, I just don't.
Speaker 2: But to Men's point, they're each individual person, as you're saying,
Speaker 2: we're not aligning anybody individually. Each individual person is just
Speaker 2: competing in their own lane, right, So they're not doing
Speaker 2: anything wrong, especially in their own eyes. They're just they're
Speaker 2: doing the thing they're supposed to do, and they're doing
Speaker 2: it as best as they can.
Speaker 4: So are the Nazis. I'm being a jerk, but I'm
Speaker 4: just saying, following orders, you know, you're part of the system. Look,
Speaker 4: I'm not saying health caver reviders are like Nazis. I'm
Speaker 4: just saying it's like a it's a slippery slope, you know,
Speaker 4: if you're saying, I was just doing what I was told.
Speaker 4: But it's impossible to be a part of the system
Speaker 4: if you don't play by those rules. So I don't know.
Speaker 3: I read this old Turkish proverb recently that I had
Speaker 3: never encountered before, and it said the forest is dwindling
Speaker 3: because the trees keep getting chopped down, and they keep
Speaker 3: voting for the axe because the axe has a wooden handle.
Speaker 3: I think it's one of them.
Speaker 4: Oh wow, yeah.
Speaker 7: That's good, be right, But It is true though, that
Speaker 7: when we're talking about these systemic problems, we're talking about
Speaker 7: things that don't necessarily have an easy instant fix, and
Speaker 7: that's what people want.
Speaker 3: We want an easy instant fix, and we have to
Speaker 3: look at the stakes that people look. Every time I
Speaker 3: hear a politician of any stripe touting the benefits of
Speaker 3: things that seem clearly against the interest of the public,
Speaker 3: one of my first questions is who's funding them? Right,
Speaker 3: who pay for that campaign, what fundraisers are they going to?
Speaker 3: And quite often we have to admit, in the US,
Speaker 3: privatized healthcare has a lot of pull. They invest a
Speaker 3: lot of the money they take from the premiums and
Speaker 3: the various like employer dependent deals, they take a lot
Speaker 3: of that profit and they put it right back into
Speaker 3: DC and they've had excellent results with that. The problem
Speaker 3: is those excellent results for those companies do not seem
Speaker 3: to bear or do not seem to translate into excellent
Speaker 3: results for the American public using those healthcare plans.
Speaker 4: Also, when we see the results of things like what
Speaker 4: happened with Purdue Pharma, you know, and we know that
Speaker 4: they were put how hard they were pushing, and how
Speaker 4: hard those reps were pushing, and how susceptible the healthcare
Speaker 4: system and the providers were to being pushed in that way.
Speaker 4: That makes us extra suspicious of this kind of stuff continuing.
Speaker 4: I don't know, that's it.
Speaker 2: I yield my time, get THEMN booster shots, boys steal
Speaker 2: my coffee.
Speaker 3: And went every quarter. Hey, you can subscribe for Booster plus.
Speaker 2: Booster Max. It is weird because we do in the
Speaker 2: United States, We really do have this like leveled system
Speaker 2: for health care. It depends on what you can afford initially, right,
Speaker 2: and then what can you afford over time? And then
Speaker 2: you have to decide, now, what can I afford? What
Speaker 2: do I think I can afford? How healthy do I
Speaker 2: think I'm gonna be in the next year? How healthy
Speaker 2: is my family gonna be? It should be okay, I
Speaker 2: think I can exist on this level this year. But
Speaker 2: you're literally gambling and that something comes up and then
Speaker 2: you're trapped in debt for the rest of your life.
Speaker 2: But not only are you trapped, all of the people
Speaker 2: that come after you and your family lion are trapped
Speaker 2: in that medical debt because it don't go away unless
Speaker 2: you do a really cool thing like did you hear
Speaker 2: about New York's awesome move they made. There's a nonprofit
Speaker 2: that was working with the City of New York and
Speaker 2: they erased the medical debt of tens of thousands of people.
Speaker 2: It was incredible.
Speaker 4: I'm wondering. I've been counseled by when my mother passed away,
Speaker 4: by some folks who are smarter than me, saying that
Speaker 4: they couldn't come after me for her medical debt because
Speaker 4: of the way we out with her estates and whatever. Again,
Speaker 4: this is above my pay grade. But yeah, I hope
Speaker 4: I don't need to rethink that, because she definitely passed
Speaker 4: away with you know, some some medical debt.
Speaker 3: You shouldn't be culpable for that.
Speaker 2: No, But it depends. That's the scary thing. I think.
Speaker 2: It depends what state are you in, how good of
Speaker 2: an estate planner slash you know, whoever's dealing with finances
Speaker 2: at the end of someone's life, how much information was collected,
Speaker 2: and how much was preemptively set aside right for when
Speaker 2: that occurs, if you're caught unawares in a situation like that,
Speaker 2: especially if someone gets very sick right and then is
Speaker 2: very sick and needs to be hospitalized for a long time.
Speaker 2: It can be a horrible situation for an entire family. Man,
Speaker 2: I'm obviously emotionally right going through that with someone who's sick,
Speaker 2: but then the bills that can come afterwards, it can
Speaker 2: destroy an individual or a family.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, Absolutely, am I supposed to like reach out to
Speaker 4: my mom's debtors, Like.
Speaker 2: I'm overstating. I'm overstating on purpose, like.
Speaker 4: A hyperbolically in my head about.
Speaker 2: This, because they, depending on the situation, they can pull
Speaker 2: that and then if you don't have a good attorney
Speaker 2: or somebody who's on your side that is really good
Speaker 2: with money, then you can get raked.
Speaker 3: Basically, what they try to do is they try they
Speaker 3: use intimidation.
Speaker 4: And it goes down. Well, if you just give us this,
Speaker 4: we'll leave you alone.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 3: It has already been sold sold to a party, so
Speaker 3: they're on commission. They're sleep so gross, so gross, you guys.
Speaker 4: It's like mafioso tactics. It's bad.
Speaker 2: You're safe, man.
Speaker 4: Yes, this is all I think on Mike, because this
Speaker 4: is this is our country. This sucks. It's like that
Speaker 4: we have to worry about this stuff, you know. Not
Speaker 4: not to mention the treatment aspect that is subpar in
Speaker 4: the first place, then you have to deal with all
Speaker 4: of this crazy amount of rapacious debt.
Speaker 3: I'd love to hear from everybody who has been in
Speaker 3: these similar situations, because this is definitely predatory.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: We've outlined several circumstances in which this is which encounter
Speaker 3: provable predatory conspiracies. Right, it's so easy to lose ourselves
Speaker 3: in the noise of like political affiliation or these ideologies
Speaker 3: of you know, what is or is not correct behavior,
Speaker 3: But the reality of it is that the system is broken.
Speaker 3: I likewise yield my time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got it to say.
Speaker 4: I'm on the edge of being emotional about this stuff
Speaker 4: now that we've gone the full gamut with it.
Speaker 3: Oh, we've got a nice one we can end on.
Speaker 4: I think that's probably a good idea. Why don't we
Speaker 4: take a quick break and then we'll come back with
Speaker 4: a nice one.
Speaker 3: And we have returned. First, we're going to hear from
Speaker 3: JBB thirteen fifty one, just a quick note, an excellent
Speaker 3: response to our conversation about the cozy relationship cartels have
Speaker 3: with us hardware. Don't worry, guys, this is not the
Speaker 3: nice one yet. This is just an important announcement. Our
Speaker 3: pal JBB, who is the creator of a podcast called
Speaker 3: Federal Bites, noticed something that I realized we didn't point
Speaker 3: out the ATFS operation Fast and Furious, also known as
Speaker 3: the gun Walking scandal. We had talked about this in
Speaker 3: previous episodes, but we didn't mention the conspiracy that JBB
Speaker 3: points out, which is even today there are long running
Speaker 3: questions over whether the DEA and the Sonola drug cartel
Speaker 3: made a secret conspiratorial deal to run hardware. Because one
Speaker 3: of our big questions, of course, was yes, it is
Speaker 3: technically possible to have a huge network of people right
Speaker 3: going through gray market buying, buying heavy and convenient to
Speaker 3: purchase hardware, knowing there's a certain rate of attrition and
Speaker 3: counting on a certain percentage of those folks to get
Speaker 3: away and move the hardware. But that's so many moving parts,
Speaker 3: it just seems somewhat implausible, Right, It'd.
Speaker 4: Be more likely there'd be a direct conduit, right.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's that would be the easier way to
Speaker 3: do it. If we asked chat GPT, chat GPT with
Speaker 3: us to make friends with the DEA, Right.
Speaker 4: The red button who cares.
Speaker 3: Right escally in an unpredictable way, never let them see
Speaker 3: you coming. So we just wanted to say shout out
Speaker 3: to JBB on that we have talked about fast Furious
Speaker 3: in the past, but we definitely want to draw attention
Speaker 3: to that in the conversation whenever you're hearing this news,
Speaker 3: because it is a piece that needs to be there.
Speaker 3: So thank you JBB. Here's the fun one, A bit
Speaker 3: of a conversation. Dear Ben, Nol and Matt. Hello, my
Speaker 3: name is Emma and I'm a twenty three year old
Speaker 3: new nurse and recent college graduate. Congratulations, Emma, nurses are
Speaker 3: the good nurses are some of the good guys, as
Speaker 3: we say, so, thank you for helping save the world.
Speaker 3: Emma says, I'm a huge fan of the podcast. I'm
Speaker 3: extremely passionate about politics. I love learning. I have begun
Speaker 3: to try to spark my own change by writing to
Speaker 3: my congress folks when I feel particularly moved on a
Speaker 3: subject such as the mental health field. While I wish
Speaker 3: I had a cool conspiracy to inform you all of
Speaker 3: I come with questions how did you all come to
Speaker 3: be as informed as you are? The more I listen,
Speaker 3: I realize how big the world truly is. And there's
Speaker 3: so many things I don't know. I aspire to make
Speaker 3: systemic change in the healthcare world someday using my own
Speaker 3: experiences as a nurse and hopefully someday as a doctor.
Speaker 3: Don't worry, Emma, You're going to get there. I am
Speaker 3: truly inspired by the research you do for your show
Speaker 3: and wish to continue on and expanding my own worldview,
Speaker 3: be those conspiracies or whatnot. I understand you all are
Speaker 3: busy and just appreciate you taking the time to read
Speaker 3: my email. Thank you so much for the wonderful content
Speaker 3: you provide. We'll call you nurse Emma. So one thing.
Speaker 3: First off, thank you so much for the kind note.
Speaker 3: I'm pretty confident, at least in my reply here. How
Speaker 3: did you all come to be as informed as you are?
Speaker 3: I am one of the least informed people I have
Speaker 3: ever met. There's so much stuff I have no idea.
Speaker 4: About, Like, well, I got to know what you don't know?
Speaker 4: But I mean it's his repetition, is what does it?
Speaker 3: Just as Emma heard the conversation we have where all
Speaker 3: three of us tried with middling success to understand how
Speaker 3: magnets work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Wow, you're.
Speaker 4: Making self deprecating then, and I do appreciate it, but
Speaker 4: I would argue that you're much more informed than you
Speaker 4: give yourself.
Speaker 2: What for listen to this week's Strange News episode and
Speaker 2: hear me attempt to describe the large Hadron collider in
Speaker 2: particle physics. Good luck understanding any of that, because I
Speaker 2: don't understand it. But the cool thing, Emma. Honestly, just
Speaker 2: to be serious about this, we have been tremendously lucky
Speaker 2: for over ten years, and for Ben and I much
Speaker 2: longer than that. We have been tasked with learning things
Speaker 2: to then take that information. And I was going to say,
Speaker 2: regurgitate it, speak speak what we have learned into a
Speaker 2: camera or microphone. Right, That's been our job to take
Speaker 2: in information and say it back, particularly in a way
Speaker 2: that is more easily understandable than very complicated maybe jargon
Speaker 2: that would exist within a specific set of knowledge. Right,
Speaker 2: we are.
Speaker 4: Professional novices, exactly.
Speaker 3: I think that it reminds me too of one of
Speaker 3: the one of the things that always stayed with me is,
Speaker 3: you know, the mark of great understanding of something, and
Speaker 3: many human areas have said this. The mark of great
Speaker 3: understanding of something is to be able to explain it
Speaker 3: in an understandable way, in a simple, uncomplicated way. And
Speaker 3: so a lot of what we have done is I
Speaker 3: think most important thing we could say. In any field
Speaker 3: of study, any industry, any personal interest, the main differentiator
Speaker 3: between the great learners and the dabblers is that you
Speaker 3: must be passionately, unendingly curious. Yes, you should be incredibly
Speaker 3: excited when you don't know something, and the world is
Speaker 3: both understandable and worth understanding. Stole our life from our.
Speaker 4: Exactly, So flick with it.
Speaker 2: It's so slick with it.
Speaker 4: And the moment you think you know everything is the
Speaker 4: moment you're kind of of no use to anybody because
Speaker 4: you don't. It's not possible, and uh, you're probably going
Speaker 4: to come off as insufferable, and you just you're doing
Speaker 4: you're shooting yourself in the foot by closing yourself off
Speaker 4: to new experiences and new perspectives, you know. So I
Speaker 4: just I think we always talk about two about being
Speaker 4: self aware, and again, like I was saying a minute ago,
Speaker 4: knowing what you know and knowing what you don't know
Speaker 4: and what you have left to learn, and just being
Speaker 4: a lifetime learner and just always being open to new
Speaker 4: perspectives and new experiences, and we're very lucky we get
Speaker 4: to do this. We're grateful that. We're grateful to you
Speaker 4: for listening and for first of all, speaking so kindly
Speaker 4: and highly about what we do. And it means the
Speaker 4: world to hear that.
Speaker 3: I thought this was a nice book end given.
Speaker 4: YEA give an emotion a little different way.
Speaker 2: Now. Yeah, we're just a bunch of curious little cat
Speaker 2: boys and we're just out here batting away.
Speaker 4: You know, I know that come out. I'm like a
Speaker 4: dog with a ball.
Speaker 3: This is the this is the fun horrible joker.
Speaker 2: That's great. This this is.
Speaker 3: The funniest thing to ema or one of the most
Speaker 3: fun things I should say. Uh, when we hang out
Speaker 3: with our cohort, you can ask anybody what's one weird
Speaker 3: unusual fact you heard this week, and it'll be any
Speaker 3: number of things. And the four of us doc holiday
Speaker 3: and all that. Myself, we all come from pretty different
Speaker 3: backgrounds and so we have a we have different worldviews,
Speaker 3: we have different areas of expertise, and we I think
Speaker 3: it's safe to say, I don't know how often it
Speaker 3: happens for you guys, I think it's safe to say
Speaker 3: we often lean on each other and say like, hey,
Speaker 3: what do you think about this? Or what is this thing?
Speaker 3: And we do that with everybody. I don't know if
Speaker 3: you can do that with everybody you meet, if you
Speaker 3: can without falling into platitudes, If you can treat everyone
Speaker 3: you meet as a teacher, then you're gonna find they
Speaker 3: have something to teach you. And then that is the
Speaker 3: best way to be informed, especially if you disagree with
Speaker 3: some of those people.
Speaker 4: And the three of us each have our own kind
Speaker 4: of flavor that we bring to the conversation and the
Speaker 4: our own particular little realms of curiosity. There's a lot
Speaker 4: of overlap, sure, but I mean, I think the reason
Speaker 4: that it's fun that we have all three of us
Speaker 4: on the show is that we're able to kind of
Speaker 4: have this holistic representation and maybe a lot of questions
Speaker 4: that folks in the audience have because we're asking the
Speaker 4: same questions you are.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 3: There you go, And I think it's appropriate to have
Speaker 3: to have us end on this email. Emma, I'm keeping
Speaker 3: my time here pretty short tonight because you are a
Speaker 3: healthcare professional, right and the pandemic has proved to us
Speaker 3: something that was obvious to healthcare professionals well before the
Speaker 3: rest of the world caught on, which is that it's
Speaker 3: often a thankless job, right and unfortunately the good guy
Speaker 3: jobs are often thankless jobs. So with that, I want
Speaker 3: you to know everybody working in the medical field in
Speaker 3: any capacity, we are grateful that you are here, and
Speaker 3: we know you have war stories. Dudes, tell us tell
Speaker 3: us the stuff inside the medical industry that they don't
Speaker 3: want you to know. I got to tell you. One
Speaker 3: of the biggest hospitals in Atlanta, Georgia is Grady. Grady
Speaker 3: Hospital has a bit of a reputation. It's one of
Speaker 3: the top burn wards in the country.
Speaker 4: Is Shady Grady. Nobody calls it that. I think I
Speaker 4: maybe made that up. Maybe someone's called also used.
Speaker 3: To be home to one of the most surreal McDonald's
Speaker 3: that I've ever visited, and I've been to a lot
Speaker 3: of McDonald's.
Speaker 4: But also, can we point out that it's weird that
Speaker 4: in the United States there are McDonald's and hospitals that's
Speaker 4: a little weird.
Speaker 3: Like next to it. But it's like I was in there.
Speaker 4: Are the Children's hospital in fact, and there was a
Speaker 4: McDonald's for the longest and maybe it's still there, but
Speaker 4: it's a little you know.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I was in line behind people, probably should
Speaker 3: have still been in the hospital.
Speaker 1: So having these.
Speaker 3: Friends in Grady, I got to tell you one thing
Speaker 3: you will find, Emma, as your continue to pursue the
Speaker 3: field of medicine, your sense of humor is going to change.
Speaker 3: I don't want to spoil it too much, but get ready,
Speaker 3: your sense of humor is going to take a turn.
Speaker 3: And speaking of taking a turn, we're going to turn
Speaker 3: the page on tonight's program. We will be back next
Speaker 3: evening with even more stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 3: Thank you to Emma, Thank you to Scrivy Earl, thank
Speaker 3: you to Rob, thank you to JBB, and of course
Speaker 3: thank you to Anonymous. We hope that you join the
Speaker 3: show with us in the future. We try to be
Speaker 3: easy to find.
Speaker 4: Online, correct Wendo. You can find us at the handle
Speaker 4: Conspiracy Stuff on Facebook, x FKA, Twitter and YouTube, where
Speaker 4: there's tons of great video content coming at you every
Speaker 4: single week. You can find it to the handle Conspiracy
Speaker 4: Stuff Show. However, on Instagram and Dick doc.
Speaker 2: We do a quick spin on the words of our
Speaker 2: initial emailer. Here in this episode, we cannot convey the
Speaker 2: absolute insane levels of outright love we have for you,
Speaker 2: you fantastic human. We hope you have full tires and
Speaker 2: dry socks every second of every day for the rest
Speaker 2: of your lives. Wow, that was really nice.
Speaker 6: Man.
Speaker 2: Hey, if you want to call and say something nice
Speaker 2: or mean, I guess call one eight three three STDWYTK.
Speaker 2: That's our voicemail system. You've got three minutes. Give yourself
Speaker 2: a cool nickname and let us know if we can
Speaker 2: use your name and message on the air. If you've
Speaker 2: got more to say than can fit in that message,
Speaker 2: why not instead send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 3: We are the people who read every single email we
Speaker 3: get conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2: Stuff they don't want you to know. Is a production
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