Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind Listener mail.
Speaker 2: My name is Joe McCormick. My co host Robert Lamb
Speaker 2: would normally be here with me, but he is out
Speaker 2: on the day that I'm recording this, so today's episode
Speaker 2: is going to be solow. We read back listener mail
Speaker 2: every Monday, so if you would like to get in touch,
Speaker 2: go ahead and give it a shot. You can reach
Speaker 2: us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 2: All types of messages are welcome, but we especially appreciate
Speaker 2: feedback to recent episodes. If you have something fascinating to
Speaker 2: add to a topic we have talked about. I'm going
Speaker 2: to kick things off today with responses to our series
Speaker 2: on the illusion of control, which is a psychology concept,
Speaker 2: a type of cognitive illusion in which, in many cases,
Speaker 2: people believe they have more control over outcomes than they
Speaker 2: actually do. And this first message comes from Lauren. Lauren says, Hi, Robin, Joe.
Speaker 2: This response pertains to the comment made about light switches
Speaker 2: and cookies in the kitchen. Yeah, so for context, this
Speaker 2: was something that came up in part three of the
Speaker 2: series when we were talking about magical thinking and its
Speaker 2: relationship to control heuristics, which are mental shortcuts we use
Speaker 2: to judge whether we had influence over an outcome or not.
Speaker 2: And Rob was talking about how even normal direct physical
Speaker 2: causation can feel kind of alien and maybe even kind
Speaker 2: of magical if we don't recall consciously willing in action
Speaker 2: before doing it. Then the example was absent mindedly turning
Speaker 2: on a light when you go into the kitchen at
Speaker 2: night for a cookie. So you flip the switch as
Speaker 2: you enter the room, but it could suddenly occur to you.
Speaker 2: I don't remember intending to do that. Then troll heuristic
Speaker 2: doesn't really give you the green check, because you did
Speaker 2: take the action and the outcome happened, but you don't
Speaker 2: remember consciously intending the outcome in advance. Anyway, back to
Speaker 2: Lauren's message. In the single room restroom at work, they
Speaker 2: took out the light switch near the entrance two months
Speaker 2: ago and replaced it with a flat piece of plastic
Speaker 2: to cover the electrical gap. They installed sensor lights that
Speaker 2: automatically go on when you enter. This irked me for
Speaker 2: two reasons. First, I didn't like no longer having control
Speaker 2: over whether the light was on or off, and I
Speaker 2: felt mildly insulted that my freedom of choice had been
Speaker 2: taken from me. Did they not trust us to decide?
Speaker 2: The second reason the whole situation annoys me is the
Speaker 2: fact that I still lift my hand to turn on
Speaker 2: the light upon entry every time, even when the lights
Speaker 2: are flickering their way on as I move my arm.
Speaker 2: Maybe humans, led by a pervasive, occasionally subconscious desire for
Speaker 2: control and an inability to cope with the loss or
Speaker 2: lack of it, delude themselves into believing they have it.
Speaker 2: Thanks for making an extremely interesting and enjoyable podcast, Lauren, Well,
Speaker 2: thank you so much, Lauren. Yeah, as for automatic lights
Speaker 2: in the bathrooms, I don't know, I can see exactly
Speaker 2: what you're saying, but I would kind of feel like
Speaker 2: that's got to be more hygienic, right, You're forced to
Speaker 2: touch fewer things while you're in the bathroom. I don't know, so. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The idea that some amount of the illusion of control
Speaker 2: is driven by wishful thinking or by a desire for
Speaker 2: control is something that came up casually in these episodes
Speaker 2: but was not explored as like a major hypothesis in
Speaker 2: the literature that we were looking at. So the main
Speaker 2: explanatory models we talked about were Ellen Langer's skill chance
Speaker 2: confusion hypothesis and then Suzanne Thompson's favorite hypothesis of the
Speaker 2: imprecise control heuristic what I was just talking about a
Speaker 2: minute ago. So remember the the control heuristic was the
Speaker 2: idea that we usually make judgments of whether we can
Speaker 2: control an outcome or not by using a shortcut that
Speaker 2: asks a few questions, and those questions would be did
Speaker 2: I intend an outcome? Did I take an action? Did
Speaker 2: I get the intended outcome or at least in part
Speaker 2: or intermittently? And was the action connected in some way,
Speaker 2: most often by temporal proximity. You know, there's a time relationship.
Speaker 2: Was the action connected to the outcome? And if these
Speaker 2: criteria are met, we usually think we had control over
Speaker 2: the outcome. And this system works fine most of the time,
Speaker 2: but it can get us really confused when results are
Speaker 2: mixed or when the connection between action and outcome is ambiguous,
Speaker 2: especially in contrived artificial scenarios with hidden mechanisms of causation
Speaker 2: and manipulative patterns of feedback like a slot machine. And
Speaker 2: I think in the episode Rob and I both thought
Speaker 2: it seemed like the control heuristic explanation made a lot
Speaker 2: of sense, and there's pretty good evidence for it. But
Speaker 2: also it's absolutely true that illusions of control could arise
Speaker 2: from a combination of different factors and confusions of the
Speaker 2: control heuristic might be only one part of the equation.
Speaker 2: Wishful thinking or a desire for control could play a
Speaker 2: part as well, and that would dovetail nicely with some
Speaker 2: experimental findings that we did talk about in the episode,
Speaker 2: such as the finding that people who are highly motivated
Speaker 2: to get a certain outcome show more illusions of control
Speaker 2: over the process of getting that outcome. So the example
Speaker 2: we talked about would be if you enter a lottery
Speaker 2: and the prize is a sandwich, people who are currently
Speaker 2: hungry apparently show more illusions of control over the lottery
Speaker 2: than people who aren't hungry. So I definitely think you're
Speaker 2: onto something with the hypothesis that in some situations wish
Speaker 2: full thinking or motivated reasoning could play a part in
Speaker 2: causing these illusions, And I guess that's to invoke cliche.
Speaker 2: More research is needed. Be good to see more studies
Speaker 2: on that anyway, Thank you, Lauren. All Right, this next
Speaker 2: message is from Anna Anna says, Hello, Robert, Joe and JJ.
Speaker 2: In your first episode about the Illusion of control, you
Speaker 2: talked about the buttons that you pressed to cross the road.
Speaker 2: I just wanted to mention the brilliant design of the
Speaker 2: crosswalk buttons in Australia. They are specially designed for people
Speaker 2: with different abilities. They're positioned at a level so that
Speaker 2: people in wheelchairs can press them. The button is a
Speaker 2: large silver button that is easy to press, so people
Speaker 2: with arthritis can easily press them. This is also helpful
Speaker 2: if your hands are full, because you can press it
Speaker 2: with your elbow. Also, they make a special noise when
Speaker 2: it's time to cross. This is for people who are
Speaker 2: vision impaired. When you're waiting, there's a slow beeping and
Speaker 2: when you cross, there is a fast trill of beeps.
Speaker 2: I think some of these are now implemented in other countries,
Speaker 2: but from memory, they were invented in Australia. I seem
Speaker 2: to remember an article praising Australian innovation and inclusiveness that
Speaker 2: mentioned these buttons. Yeah, in the States, we have some
Speaker 2: crosswalks that have set ups basically like this, but not
Speaker 2: all crosswalks are like that. You know, it varies and
Speaker 2: it goes on. I also wanted to mention a tangential
Speaker 2: topic related to the illusion of control, which is the
Speaker 2: idea that if you have one piece of good luck,
Speaker 2: somehow that luck will continue and you need to harness
Speaker 2: that luck because it will only last a short time.
Speaker 2: Like if you have a particular piece of luck, like
Speaker 2: you get a very good parking space, someone will say
Speaker 2: something like you should go out and buy a lottery ticket.
Speaker 2: I guess this could also be chalked up to the
Speaker 2: idea of good omens, and she specifies not the excellent
Speaker 2: book by Neil Gamon and Terry Pratchett. This can be
Speaker 2: a good thing. Say, if you're going to a job
Speaker 2: interview and you park on a street that has the
Speaker 2: name of your best friend or a particularly lucky sounding name,
Speaker 2: you will feel this is a sign. Then you will
Speaker 2: be more relaxed and confident in the interview, and that
Speaker 2: will increase your chances of getting the job. Anyway. Thanks
Speaker 2: for all the great work, Anna well, thank you, Anna. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I totally agree. I think, much like with the beneficial
Speaker 2: side of the illusion of control, little lucky feelings like
Speaker 2: this can be a net positive in our lives, even
Speaker 2: if they are strictly speaking, illusions and not predictive of
Speaker 2: external outcomes. So we talked about this a little bit
Speaker 2: in the episodes, and I would stand by this idea.
Speaker 2: I think it can be a good thing sometimes for
Speaker 2: people to wear their lucky charm, even though I don't
Speaker 2: believe that lucky charms are literally efficacious in changing your luck.
Speaker 2: So I don't believe the charm would change the external
Speaker 2: chances of a good or bad outcome. The thing it
Speaker 2: probably actually does is help you regulate your emotions, which
Speaker 2: in turn could actually lead to a better outcome, just
Speaker 2: like the example you give. So if you go into
Speaker 2: a job interview more relaxed and confident because you are
Speaker 2: wearing your lucky charm, this could literally improve the impression
Speaker 2: you make and your chances of getting the job. Even
Speaker 2: though the lucky charm isn't actually magic, it's just helping
Speaker 2: you control your own feelings and your own behavior. So
Speaker 2: I think that's a great point. Na, thanks for getting
Speaker 2: a touch. This next message, still about the illusion of control,
Speaker 2: is from Renata. Renata says, Hi, Joe and Rob, one
Speaker 2: of my job responsibilities is testing software, and the illusion
Speaker 2: of control crops up all the time in my work.
Speaker 2: One thing I've encountered several times and seeing others get
Speaker 2: stuck on too, is trying to figure out the elaborate
Speaker 2: steps it takes to reproduce a bug when the bug
Speaker 2: in fact occurs due to factors that are not in
Speaker 2: my control. For example, there might be a bug that
Speaker 2: only happens at a certain interval or after a delay
Speaker 2: because of system processing time. But what sometimes I end
Speaker 2: up doing is coming up with totally irrelevant steps that
Speaker 2: just happen to take the exact amount of time you
Speaker 2: need to wait to see the bug. Another example is
Speaker 2: similar to an elevator door close button, where we may
Speaker 2: introduce a button knowing that it doesn't do much, but
Speaker 2: it makes users feel more in control, for example, a
Speaker 2: button that refreshes information even though it automatically refreshes every
Speaker 2: few seconds. The illusion of control also reminds me of
Speaker 2: the self help industry manifestation and the law of attraction
Speaker 2: prey on a combination of the illusion of control and
Speaker 2: confirmation bias. I think the authors you cited who critiqued
Speaker 2: the illusion of control are probably right that as humans,
Speaker 2: we are generally bad at knowing the probability of an outcome.
Speaker 2: And therefore we estimate our control in correctly. But the
Speaker 2: illusion of control is apparently much easier to exploit than
Speaker 2: the illusion of non control, so it ends up being
Speaker 2: a bias we see in the real world that causes
Speaker 2: harm more often. And then Ranata ends the message with
Speaker 2: some kind words about the show and by attaching a
Speaker 2: picture of a couple of pet rats. I gotta say,
Speaker 2: these rats are very cute. In the picture, They're kind
Speaker 2: of smooshed together on top of each other, so I'm
Speaker 2: trying to figure out are they like cuddling or are
Speaker 2: they climbing over one another to get your attention? Unclear?
Speaker 2: Let's see regarding your comments about illusions of control. So
Speaker 2: with illusions of control and beliefs about manifestation or the
Speaker 2: law of attraction or other types of magical thinking, this
Speaker 2: got me wondering where the line is between the normal, healthy,
Speaker 2: empowering optimism and feelings of self efficacy that we talked about,
Speaker 2: which may in some cases even encompass what are objectively illusions,
Speaker 2: maybe thinking you have a bit more control over an
Speaker 2: outcome than you actually do. Where's the line between that
Speaker 2: and these beliefs in things like manifestation or whatever. You
Speaker 2: would call a theory of literal psychic control over outcomes,
Speaker 2: which in most cases I would judge the latter personally
Speaker 2: to be not just mistaken but fairly toxic, associated with
Speaker 2: the just world fallacy, just generally bad epistemic values and
Speaker 2: connections to other false belief formation and so forth. Maybe
Speaker 2: it's just a matter of degree, like how strong are
Speaker 2: your illusions of control? But I'm a little bit tempted
Speaker 2: to think there's a qualitative difference here and not just
Speaker 2: a quantitative one. I kind of wonder if it is
Speaker 2: literally the presence of a model or a concept like
Speaker 2: manifestation or the law of attraction or whatever it is
Speaker 2: x externally socially validated model that explains and justifies the
Speaker 2: workings of this principle, and the existence of this socially
Speaker 2: reinforced model can turn normal, healthy, motivating, empowering minor illusions
Speaker 2: of control into full blown delusions with all of these
Speaker 2: toxic consequences. I don't know, that's just a guess, and
Speaker 2: I'd be curious what listeners think, Like, how do you
Speaker 2: go from minor illusions of control that are mostly harmless,
Speaker 2: you know for the most part, and can help us
Speaker 2: achieve our goals. How do you go from that to
Speaker 2: thinking that you can literally will yourself to win the
Speaker 2: lottery if you just focus and stay positive. I think
Speaker 2: that's actually a very consequential question about the thing about
Speaker 2: software testing. I don't know if I've ever considered this before,
Speaker 2: but yeah, software testing and bug hunting could function like
Speaker 2: a really devious skinner box where the trigger for the
Speaker 2: buzug is not clear and consistent. It's been a while
Speaker 2: since I read the history of the operant conditioning research,
Speaker 2: so I hope I'm remembering this correctly, But what I
Speaker 2: recall is that conditioning is pretty straightforward when the reinforcement
Speaker 2: is consistent. So the rat presses a button, it gets
Speaker 2: a food pellet. It's the same type of food pellet
Speaker 2: every time it learns to press the button when hungry.
Speaker 2: But the variation was that you could really drive test
Speaker 2: animals crazy and make them addicted to the conditioned behavior
Speaker 2: by inserting some randomness and unpredictability into the reward allocation,
Speaker 2: giving us the notion of intermittent variable rewards, which are
Speaker 2: little rewards, little fleeting bursts of pleasure that come at
Speaker 2: variable time intervals or variable levels of quality with a
Speaker 2: somewhat ambiguous relationship to your inputs, so it's not one
Speaker 2: hundred percent predictable which of your inputs will produce the
Speaker 2: best reward and with what reliability and intermittent variable rewards
Speaker 2: are what you get on slot machines or on your
Speaker 2: social media app of choice. And we've talked about this
Speaker 2: on the show and before. It's been several years now,
Speaker 2: but this is one of the reasons I had to
Speaker 2: pretty much completely get off of social media years ago.
Speaker 2: I know it works for some people, but for me,
Speaker 2: I realized it was just way too addictive, way too
Speaker 2: easy for it to completely monopolize my time and attention.
Speaker 2: And while it had control of my attention, it was
Speaker 2: busy rapidly installing malware on my brain. So I don't
Speaker 2: want to be too preachy as the anti social media guy,
Speaker 2: and I'm sure lots of people do genuinely have a
Speaker 2: healthier relationship with it, but I had to get off,
Speaker 2: and I'm extremely glad I did. And if you find
Speaker 2: yourself having the same kind of relationship with it that
Speaker 2: I did, I would recommend the same. But anyway, thank
Speaker 2: you so much, which we're not a very interesting email,
Speaker 2: A lot to think about all right. This next message
Speaker 2: is from Calvin. Calvin says, Hello, Rob, Joe, and JJ.
Speaker 2: Greetings from Chicago. I've been listening to the show daily
Speaker 2: for several years, starting with the episode on the First Monster,
Speaker 2: or about the Loewen Minch. Yeah, it's been a while
Speaker 2: since we did that episode. That was where we talked
Speaker 2: about this truly fascinating thirty five thousand year old mammoth
Speaker 2: ivory artifact. It's a little statuette from Paleolithic Germany called
Speaker 2: the loewen Minch, which means lion man or lion person,
Speaker 2: and we were talking about it because it appears to
Speaker 2: depict a human body with a lion head, and at
Speaker 2: the time this was the earliest or one of the
Speaker 2: earliest known artistic depictions of a creature not existing in nature,
Speaker 2: and this led to us talking more generally about the
Speaker 2: idea of when and how it was that humans first
Speaker 2: imagined not just existing predators, but synthetic monsters, predators purely
Speaker 2: of the imagination, based often on combinations of pieces of
Speaker 2: anatomy from other creatures. I should flag that I think
Speaker 2: I've read in the meantime since that episode that there's
Speaker 2: some dispute about whether the loan minch is best interpreted
Speaker 2: as a human body with a lion head, or maybe
Speaker 2: whether maybe it's supposed to depict something else like a
Speaker 2: bear or something more strictly found in nature. Don't know
Speaker 2: the answer there, but whatever this particular artifact is based on,
Speaker 2: it's obviously not the first time in history some human
Speaker 2: imagined a monster. It would just be like our first
Speaker 2: extant piece of evidence for it. And the historical emergence
Speaker 2: of an imaginative capacity to dream up nonexistent beings and
Speaker 2: creatures is a really really interesting subject to me, like,
Speaker 2: where does that capacity come from? What powers it? Anyway,
Speaker 2: back to Calvin's message, Calvin says, You've given me so
Speaker 2: much great content that helped me get through many boring
Speaker 2: work days. Glad to hear that, Calvin. So Calvin says,
Speaker 2: I've never really felt like I had anything to contribute
Speaker 2: or write in about until I was listening to the
Speaker 2: Illusion of Control series. My experience with the Illusion of
Speaker 2: Control comes from playing the original Pokemon Red, Blue Green
Speaker 2: games as a child. It was a well known quote
Speaker 2: fact among my friend group that if you threw a
Speaker 2: poke ball and Presston held the B button that the
Speaker 2: precise moment the poke ball hit you would greatly increase
Speaker 2: the chances of a successful capture. Now I know the
Speaker 2: chances of catching a Pokemon is really just a dice
Speaker 2: roll with modifiers for various statistics of the Pokemon. But
Speaker 2: at the time, I pressed bee every time, and if
Speaker 2: the Pokemon broke out of the ball, it was because
Speaker 2: I didn't time it right. Even after realizing that this
Speaker 2: wasn't really part of the game mechanic, I still press
Speaker 2: to be every time for a long while, even when
Speaker 2: playing later generation games. It just never felt right to
Speaker 2: not press it. It was like I just couldn't leave
Speaker 2: it to chance if there was even the slightest possibility
Speaker 2: that I was having some kind of impact. Anyway, I
Speaker 2: just want to thank you for all you do and
Speaker 2: for giving me a great list of movies from Weird
Speaker 2: House Cinema. I know a lot of people prefer to
Speaker 2: watch the movie and then listen to the episode, but
Speaker 2: I like to listen first and then watch. Well, thank
Speaker 2: you so much, Calvin. Yeah, the Pokemon thing is a
Speaker 2: great example. Again, It's like when the mechanisms and the
Speaker 2: feedback are ambiguous, there's so much room to think we're
Speaker 2: exerting control when we're not so Yeah, thanks Calvin. Okay,
Speaker 2: this next message comes from Cindy. It is about our
Speaker 2: Vault episodes on heart removal and heart burial. Cindy says, Hi,
Speaker 2: Robert and Joe, I thought you'd get a kick out
Speaker 2: of this. I listened to part one of Because It
Speaker 2: Is My Heart on February tenth and remembered that it
Speaker 2: was an earlier aired two part series. So I searched
Speaker 2: for part two to listen to it again and noticed
Speaker 2: that I had never finished. I wondered aloud, why did
Speaker 2: I stop part way through the episode? I pressed play,
Speaker 2: and I was immediately transported back to that fateful day
Speaker 2: almost a year ago, exactly when the vivid description of
Speaker 2: the most teutonicus funerary process caused me to press stop. Yeah. So,
Speaker 2: for those who don't remember, and Cindy, I'm very sorry
Speaker 2: to subject you to this a third time. The most
Speaker 2: Teutonicus translates to the German custom, and it was a
Speaker 2: solution used in medieval Europe for transporting dead bodies back
Speaker 2: home from far away lands. If, for example, a rich
Speaker 2: German warrior died while away in the Crusades, untreated of course,
Speaker 2: the body would be subject to horrible decomposition during travel,
Speaker 2: so the German custom was to remove the flesh from
Speaker 2: the bones before transport back home, sometimes by boiling. I
Speaker 2: think we called this making a crusader bone broth in
Speaker 2: the episode, and then you would of course take the
Speaker 2: clean bones home to the family. Crypt Cindy's message goes
Speaker 2: on this time around. I only had to take a
Speaker 2: break once, but managed to power through the rest of
Speaker 2: the episode. I can't say it was extremely enjoyable, but
Speaker 2: it was very enlightening and interesting. Smiley face emoji. I
Speaker 2: choose to be boiled in one of my favorite liquids,
Speaker 2: maple syrup, if that was an option. Thanks for covering
Speaker 2: all sorts of topics, even the ones that make us
Speaker 2: mentally squirm. Keep up the excellent work. Cheers, Cindy. Well,
Speaker 2: thank you so much. Cindy. Does maple syrup boil or
Speaker 2: would it start to kind of like cook and caramelize?
Speaker 2: It's got a lot of sugar. I don't know how
Speaker 2: that works. Uh yeah, thank you, Cindy. Okay, this very
Speaker 2: last message is about Weird House Cinema. It's from Andy.
Speaker 2: Andy says Hi, Robert and Joe loved the show, and
Speaker 2: as always, thank you and your excellent audio producer JJ
Speaker 2: for all the work that goes into it. Your weird
Speaker 2: house cinema episode on Flash Gordon took me back to
Speaker 2: my youth, where I first saw the film on my
Speaker 2: dad's pirated Betamax cassette. I hadn't watched it in probably
Speaker 2: thirty years until you inspired me to seek it out again.
Speaker 2: Just a few minutes in I saw a familiar face
Speaker 2: which escaped your analysis. Munson, doctor Zarkov's beleaguered and rationally
Speaker 2: fearful associate, was played by William Hootkins, best known as
Speaker 2: Jack Porkins, hero of the Rebellion and the first casualty
Speaker 2: of the audacious assault on the Death Star Trench. Though
Speaker 2: I'm not happy about it, I disagreed with your reading
Speaker 2: of the plane crash scene this is in Flash Gordon.
Speaker 2: It seems clear to me that Munson does not escape,
Speaker 2: and is indeed crushed to death by the airplane as
Speaker 2: it crashes through his laboratory. I suppose it's his cinematic
Speaker 2: penance for failing to board Doctor Zarkov's dicey homebrew rocket Flash,
Speaker 2: and Dale must not have noticed him or else they'd
Speaker 2: have been far more distraught. Doctor Zarkov, however, is so
Speaker 2: consumed by his need to see his mission fulfilled that
Speaker 2: he seems not to care. All in all, it seems
Speaker 2: an ignominious end for one who gave his life to
Speaker 2: the cause of galactic freedom. Thanks again, and keep up
Speaker 2: the good work. Andy. Thank you for bringing this up. Andy. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I didn't even think about the actor. Though he did
Speaker 2: look familiar to me, I didn't make the connection. But
Speaker 2: now that I had a chance to go back and
Speaker 2: peek at his filmography, I realized that William Hootkins is
Speaker 2: not only Porkins from the original Star Wars. He was
Speaker 2: also in Raiders of the Lost Ark. In one of
Speaker 2: my favorite scenes, he's one of the two Army intelligence
Speaker 2: officers who sort of come to give Indy his mission
Speaker 2: to retrieve the Ark or the beginning of the movie.
Speaker 2: I've said this on the show before, but that scene
Speaker 2: is so good, I think specifically from a screenwriting and
Speaker 2: filmmaking point of view, it's one of the most efficient
Speaker 2: and powerful exposition scenes in movie history. So it's like
Speaker 2: very short, but it quickly and convincingly tells us so
Speaker 2: much about the characters, about the significance of the arc,
Speaker 2: the stakes of the coming conflict. It infuses the whole
Speaker 2: story with the sense of mystery and power and magic
Speaker 2: and all that. It's great, great scene. But also I
Speaker 2: think William Hootkins is He's the later in the movie.
Speaker 2: He's the guy at the end who assures us that
Speaker 2: further investigation of the arc has been assigned to top men.
Speaker 2: All right, I think that's going to be it for
Speaker 2: today's mail bag. Thank you so much to everyone who
Speaker 2: wrote in. If you are new to the show, Stuff
Speaker 2: to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and culture
Speaker 2: podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Monday,
Speaker 2: we read back listener mail on episodes like this. On Wednesdays,
Speaker 2: we have a short form scripted podcast called The Artifact
Speaker 2: or The Monster Fact or maybe even there are new
Speaker 2: forms emerging. On Fridays, we do a special series called
Speaker 2: Weird House Cinema where we just watch and discuss weird movies,
Speaker 2: good or bad, well known or obscure. We do them
Speaker 2: all huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer
Speaker 2: JJ Posway. If you would like to get in touch
Speaker 2: with us with feedback on this episode or any other
Speaker 2: to suggest a topic for the future, or just to
Speaker 2: say hello. You can email us at contact at stuff
Speaker 2: to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.