Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how stup
Speaker 1: works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Christian Seger and
Speaker 1: I'm Joe mcclormack, and we are here to do one
Speaker 1: of our I Guess quarterly Now listener mail episodes. Well,
Speaker 1: we receive a lot of feedback from from listeners. We
Speaker 1: get it on what we get via email, we get
Speaker 1: through social media, and uh, we don't have time on
Speaker 1: the episodes themselves really to get into the listener mail
Speaker 1: as much, and we get so much good content we
Speaker 1: decided to devote to the occasional episode to it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we really do get so much great correspondence from
Speaker 1: from all you guys out there that we don't have
Speaker 1: time to read it. Also, if you send us something
Speaker 1: and you you poured your heart out to us and
Speaker 1: we don't have time to read it today, please don't
Speaker 1: take that as a slide against you. We just get
Speaker 1: so much I think of stuff that there's no way
Speaker 1: for us to read it all. It would be a
Speaker 1: whole another podcast, not to like two to our own horn.
Speaker 1: But I actually probably have like a moment maybe you
Speaker 1: guys have this to like every day where I opened
Speaker 1: up the listener mail folder and feel a little guilty
Speaker 1: because I'm like, oh, I still haven't even like had
Speaker 1: a chance to go back and read like the last
Speaker 1: six of these, just because we're so slammed. Yeah. Indeed,
Speaker 1: often just being the heat of getting a stuff together
Speaker 1: for a podcast episode or some other kind of commitment
Speaker 1: around here, and I just have to make a mental
Speaker 1: bookmark to come back to this individual in their their comments.
Speaker 1: And then we've got that whole other folder of stalker mail,
Speaker 1: which you know, yeah, those that spend time on that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was definitely that is a thick folder and waterproof
Speaker 1: by necessity. All right, Well, let's call the robot over here, um,
Speaker 1: and let's see what what Carney has for us. All right,
Speaker 1: it looks like the first thing Carney has for us
Speaker 1: here is from our listener. No. Well, regarding the Chinese
Speaker 1: zodiac episode that Robert and I did, and we got
Speaker 1: a lot of great feedback on the Chinese zodiacs, is
Speaker 1: just one of them. It's Noel rights. Hi, guys, I
Speaker 1: know why so many dragon children were born in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty eight. Eight is a good luck number. And since
Speaker 1: the year was eighty eight. It was like a double
Speaker 1: good year, making a triple good year for having a
Speaker 1: baby dragon. Chinese culture has impacted Filipino culture with the
Speaker 1: melting pot of Asians in the Philippines. Even though my
Speaker 1: parents are Filipino relatives urged them to get married in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight instead of when they actually got married
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty seven. But I guess seven was a
Speaker 1: lucky enough number for them. In nineteen eight was booked
Speaker 1: for marriages. I guess booked no more marriages this year. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they probably like every every uh justice of the peace
Speaker 1: slash priest I guess was unavailable. Well, that makes sense.
Speaker 1: That goes that ties into some of the issues we
Speaker 1: were talking about with having these boom years for births,
Speaker 1: because that means more hospital beds are going to be
Speaker 1: filled for that birth year, and then that child as
Speaker 1: they grow older, like their their their year in school
Speaker 1: is always just going to be extra packed when they
Speaker 1: all enter the workforce, more competitors. This reminds me of
Speaker 1: the thing we were talking about in the office recently
Speaker 1: about the Zeka virus and how because so many people
Speaker 1: are being told that, you know, they shouldn't be having
Speaker 1: kids because of the Zeka virus, that there's going to
Speaker 1: be like a big jump in population, like say, eighteen
Speaker 1: twenty years from now. Yeah. Well, anyway, Noel continues, my
Speaker 1: parents also didn't choose to go for a dragon baby
Speaker 1: after they married. I was born in nineteen as a
Speaker 1: gold metal element of goat, gold goat, that's beautiful. That's like,
Speaker 1: that's the thing that would be condemned in the Bible
Speaker 1: or something. I don't I don't know what my metal is.
Speaker 1: I just know my my animal. You mean your element. Sorry,
Speaker 1: you could be like wood or metal, but gold is
Speaker 1: is why is it gold? Well, it gets very complicated,
Speaker 1: and it's important to to to reiterate that we didn't
Speaker 1: go into all the depth about the inner working of
Speaker 1: Chinese zodiac in that episode, but we did hear back
Speaker 1: in great depth from a out of our listeners on
Speaker 1: this subject. Anyway, Noel continues about the gold goat. She says,
Speaker 1: they are supposed to be ambitious and kind hearted, with
Speaker 1: a strong sense of responsibility and work, but sometimes too stubborn.
Speaker 1: Compared to the other goat elements, they seem more like
Speaker 1: a dragon, or maybe that's just me hoping to be
Speaker 1: like a dragon. I do not believe in astrology, but
Speaker 1: it's nice to have a mascot to cheer for your
Speaker 1: positive traits. Sincerely, Noel Uh and I like the sentiment
Speaker 1: of the inter here because this is something we talked
Speaker 1: about in the episode. It's my theory that you don't
Speaker 1: have to believe in astrology to be affected by it,
Speaker 1: Like you don't have to believe it taps into a
Speaker 1: true magical power or or has real predictive power over
Speaker 1: personalities for it to have some kind of significance to you,
Speaker 1: because we just we're always reaching out for meaning and
Speaker 1: significance in our life, and any kind of framework people
Speaker 1: come up with, even if there's no real magic to it,
Speaker 1: it's kind of easy to to feel like there's something
Speaker 1: to it. Yeah. Plus, I mean there have been studies
Speaker 1: we've we've talked about it on the show, and I
Speaker 1: think so much older episodes about how the research has
Speaker 1: has proven that just symbols in the world around us
Speaker 1: affect us subconsciously. So if you know, if the symbol
Speaker 1: for Coca Cola can do that to us, then certainly
Speaker 1: something is is culturally ingrained as gold goat. Certainly that
Speaker 1: can work. It's magic on us as well, especially if
Speaker 1: it's something that you're told from a very young age
Speaker 1: you are this thing. Yeah. Now, our listener, Elizabeth, who
Speaker 1: did grow up in the Chinese household, also got in
Speaker 1: touch with us about the Chinese Zodiac episode. Yes, uh
Speaker 1: she did, and and really she wrote a tremendous amount
Speaker 1: to us, really fleshed out her thoughts on it um
Speaker 1: and it shared some just extensive great thoughts on the
Speaker 1: zodiac episode, including some areas that we just didn't have
Speaker 1: time to explore as much, the cultural and mythological significance
Speaker 1: of the of the Chinese dragon, the intricacies of the
Speaker 1: Chinese zodiacal system, and extended thoughts on the shape of
Speaker 1: the traditional family. So we can't read it all here. Again,
Speaker 1: thanks Elizabeth for sharing it with us, But we did
Speaker 1: want to hit just a few key points that I
Speaker 1: think contribute to the episode. Yeah. One of them was
Speaker 1: that Elizabeth grew up reading books on the Chinese horoscopes
Speaker 1: by somebody named Theodora Allow and she recommends Lao's books
Speaker 1: if you're interested in in an introduction to the Chinese zodiac.
Speaker 1: But also she she's got great stories about how She
Speaker 1: also says she doesn't really ascribe to the Chinese zodiac,
Speaker 1: like she doesn't believe it has true magic power, but
Speaker 1: she sort of lives her life according to it anyway,
Speaker 1: almost as if like there's there's valence available there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I get that. Like it's like, uh, I dabbled in
Speaker 1: fung shue for like a year in her apartment, like
Speaker 1: when it got a book and everything, and was like, no, Kelly,
Speaker 1: the table has to go here, you know that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. But you know, I didn't actually believe in
Speaker 1: any kind of like symbolic magic or anything like that
Speaker 1: going on. It was just sort of a system to
Speaker 1: help you organize life. Yeah, I shouldn't have overstated. I
Speaker 1: didn't mean to say that she lives her life according
Speaker 1: to it, but she makes some decisions according to it,
Speaker 1: like like how she arranges the furniture in her house.
Speaker 1: She mentioned it really okay, Yeah, but she also had
Speaker 1: some really interesting, just individual points we wanted to highlight. Again.
Speaker 1: Her email was too long to read all of it,
Speaker 1: but one of them was about the dragon and the episode.
Speaker 1: We mentioned that the dragon is the only animal in
Speaker 1: the Chinese zodiac that's purely mythical. It has no real
Speaker 1: world equivalent, But according to Elizabeth, that's not exactly the case. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she says, quote. It's also not entirely true that the
Speaker 1: dragon has no real world equivalent the dragons real world
Speaker 1: animal is a sea horse, because seahorses were believed to
Speaker 1: be baby dragons because you know, they look like dragons
Speaker 1: and they lived in the law before. Yeah, I would
Speaker 1: have assumed that it was like a Komodo dragon like that.
Speaker 1: That seems like what would be the real world equivalent,
Speaker 1: but it probably the I have no idea what the
Speaker 1: actual natural habitat of a komodo is. Well, I can
Speaker 1: see where this would this would make sense because we
Speaker 1: just us a little bit about how the celestial dragon
Speaker 1: is kind of a composite of all these other animals,
Speaker 1: Like there's a little horse in there, there's a little
Speaker 1: potentially a little a clam in there as well, Chimera. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very much. So. I can imagine the sea horse making
Speaker 1: sense because you look at a sea horse, and a
Speaker 1: sea horse is really weird and itself looks kind of
Speaker 1: like a co laubrate. You know. The thing I'd say
Speaker 1: about the Komodo dragon is I think that may sort
Speaker 1: of conflate the ideas of the Western dragon with the
Speaker 1: Eastern dragon. Yes, I think the Eastern dragon or the
Speaker 1: Chinese dragon is less like a lizard than the dragon
Speaker 1: we get from from maybe Middle Eastern or European folklore. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. As while you're right having grown up in Singapore,
Speaker 1: which is something we're gonna talking about with another listener. Now,
Speaker 1: that's definitely true. So Elizabeth also shares a quote for me.
Speaker 1: My chart is four year snake, our monkey month, and
Speaker 1: I think day of the sheet, but like I said,
Speaker 1: that doesn't matter for names. But I'm also born in
Speaker 1: the US, which was founded in seventeen seventy six, the
Speaker 1: year of the Fire Monkey, which we were in again.
Speaker 1: So the result of my chart was that I had
Speaker 1: a crap town of fire and water. So I just
Speaker 1: wanted to share this bit just because I think it
Speaker 1: gives you an idea of what sort of deeper read
Speaker 1: of one zodiac would be. Yeah, this is preceding this.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth goes into a lot of detail about how it's
Speaker 1: not just the year, but as we mentioned in the episode,
Speaker 1: it's other elements of time that affect the things that
Speaker 1: are supposed to be true about you according to the
Speaker 1: you know, your horoscope, so it would be our of
Speaker 1: the day you're born, day, day of the week I
Speaker 1: think that you're born, and so forth. Hey, so I've
Speaker 1: got a question about that episode. Maybe now is a
Speaker 1: good time, because I don't I'm assuming you didn't cover
Speaker 1: it in in the episode itself. The photo that you
Speaker 1: guys used for one of the thumbnails on that of
Speaker 1: that like giant sculpture of like a robot fire monkey.
Speaker 1: Oh what's that all about? Okay? So that was that
Speaker 1: was a photograph of a sculpture, and that was actually
Speaker 1: on the now House Stuff Works Now article that I did.
Speaker 1: That tied in with ten yeah, talking about how they
Speaker 1: how some experts think that the year of the fire Monkey,
Speaker 1: which we're in now will impact the birth rate. And
Speaker 1: that's just a really cool Transformers statue of the fire Monkey. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was amazing. I was really impressed by the whole thing.
Speaker 1: So I was curious if they had like some I
Speaker 1: don't know, like other than like making a cool giant
Speaker 1: Transformer monkey, if there was some symbolism too. I did
Speaker 1: not read an artist's statement on it, but but yeah,
Speaker 1: you can really go nuts just looking at all the
Speaker 1: crazy cool artistic interpretations of the of the zodiac animals. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of great sculptures I've never seen before,
Speaker 1: but only I saw because you turned them up for
Speaker 1: for that episode. I do think this is also really
Speaker 1: cool that Elizabeth points out about seventeen seventy six being
Speaker 1: the year of the fire Monkey. Now she she tells
Speaker 1: us again that she grew up in a Chinese household,
Speaker 1: but in the United States, so she's a resident of
Speaker 1: the US. And this is another thing we talked about
Speaker 1: in the episode, is sort of the cross cultural uh
Speaker 1: impact of the Chinese zodiac. For example, we found that
Speaker 1: though this probably was not impacted by people choosing this
Speaker 1: on purpose, the Forbes list of Richest Americans also is
Speaker 1: overrepresents dragons, which is kind of strange because you wouldn't
Speaker 1: expect the Chinese zodiac to have any influence on American birthrates.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's just a coincidence. Who knows it could be.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to read one more quote from her,
Speaker 1: and this I think just expands nicely on some of
Speaker 1: the issues that we touched on in trying to you know,
Speaker 1: uh to in discussing why the dragon year birthrate spike
Speaker 1: is a modern phenomenon, Okay, she says being able to
Speaker 1: choose when you have kids as a luxury. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: a luxury of those who can afford it and are able.
Speaker 1: In modern times and with more modern medical care, there
Speaker 1: is more access to health resources and such. They give
Speaker 1: you in ability to care and make sure your offspring live,
Speaker 1: aside from things like the one child policy or the
Speaker 1: cultural revolution getting in the way. So there's just now
Speaker 1: engine all more ability to choose, whereas before you flat
Speaker 1: out and needed kids to live. China was also very confusion.
Speaker 1: So in that belief system, there is a responsibility to
Speaker 1: carry on the family name and line, so you try
Speaker 1: to have as many kids as possible so that one
Speaker 1: of them would survive into adulthood to take care of
Speaker 1: you an old age. And also since a lot of
Speaker 1: its rural, you had more help to work the field.
Speaker 1: Surviving is a bit more important than giving a damn
Speaker 1: when your kids are born or even sometimes what gender
Speaker 1: they are. Yeah, so thanks Elizabeth. This whole email was
Speaker 1: really great. Again, I regret that we couldn't read the
Speaker 1: whole thing, but but it was really awesome, So thanks
Speaker 1: for getting in touch. Okay, So this next one that's
Speaker 1: coming out of old Carney over here. It looks like
Speaker 1: it's directed to you guys about an episode you did,
Speaker 1: but I actually pulled it because it's connected with me personally,
Speaker 1: and I wrote this guy back. His name is Gary.
Speaker 1: Gary says, gentlemen, longtime listener, first time emailer. Where a
Speaker 1: Canadian family that moved to Singapore a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1: I recently listened to your podcast on moral ethical decisi
Speaker 1: Asians and heard you mentioned the type posen festival. Now
Speaker 1: we should quickly say what the context of that was
Speaker 1: in the episode. Yes, this was the New Year's episode
Speaker 1: and the particular study, which I think has actually come
Speaker 1: up in a couple of different podcast episodes. Um. Now
Speaker 1: over the years, I had to do with just how
Speaker 1: participating or even witnessing ritual pain uh can can have
Speaker 1: an impact on your on how much money you give
Speaker 1: to the poor, on how how kindly you treat your
Speaker 1: follow humans. So if you want to be a better person,
Speaker 1: do some ritual pain, Yeah, go for it. So this
Speaker 1: is what the festival is about. I'm assuming it has
Speaker 1: a connection to that. It has, Yes, that's I think
Speaker 1: that's one element one element of it. Yes, well, Gary
Speaker 1: says that festival is celebrated here in Singapore, and we
Speaker 1: attended last year. Uh, it was definitely something that blew
Speaker 1: our minds. My kids, they're eighteen has an eighteen year
Speaker 1: old daughter and a fourteen year old son, refused to
Speaker 1: attend this year. They were so freaked out by it. Additionally,
Speaker 1: and interestingly, they also felt that as observers we were
Speaker 1: some how intruding on a sacred pilgrimage and it didn't
Speaker 1: feel right for them to gawk. Perhaps a generational gap,
Speaker 1: But the view of my wife and I is that
Speaker 1: as they closed down the streets and advertise it, so
Speaker 1: they obviously want people to come out and attend and
Speaker 1: watch it and buy drinks and food, et cetera. So
Speaker 1: why not And he includes a link to the festival.
Speaker 1: He says, I can't speak for elsewhere, but here they
Speaker 1: parade several kilometers from one temple to another. This year
Speaker 1: they allowed live music here for the first time in
Speaker 1: for over forty years, and the participants increased. Not sure
Speaker 1: on the overall attendants, but it's interesting the number of
Speaker 1: people trying to get absolved of sins rose by having
Speaker 1: live music. For your information, live music was banned by
Speaker 1: Singapore forty two years ago, after the bands became competitive
Speaker 1: and started to fist fight each other. Singapore has a
Speaker 1: long memory. Below are some photos I took of the
Speaker 1: two of the festival I thought you might find interesting.
Speaker 1: If you are interested in posting them on your site,
Speaker 1: you have my permission. Thanks for shutting some light the
Speaker 1: moral decisions of the participants. And that's from Gary. So
Speaker 1: I wanted to read that one when it came in
Speaker 1: because I grew up in Singapore. Um, I I spent
Speaker 1: most of my high school years there, and it was
Speaker 1: just fascinating to me to kind of like, it's been
Speaker 1: over twenty years since I've been back to Singapore, but
Speaker 1: to read the experience of another expatriate over there right
Speaker 1: now kind of going through the same culture shock situation.
Speaker 1: I told Gary that I sympathized with this children. It
Speaker 1: was kind of the same way. I felt like it
Speaker 1: was uh like rude in some some circumstances to watch
Speaker 1: certain festivals that I didn't quite understand, you know. But um,
Speaker 1: the live music thing, I don't know that may be
Speaker 1: true on the legal books, but when I was there,
Speaker 1: which was not forty two years ago, I went to
Speaker 1: a lot of live music in fact, that's when I
Speaker 1: first got involved in the punk scene. Well maybe he
Speaker 1: just means live music associated with the festival. Yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: that's it. Yeah. So like quick short story, Uh, when
Speaker 1: I lived there, Rawlins band came and played there, and
Speaker 1: uh they played the festival. Uh no, no, but apparently
Speaker 1: there was some moh ing at the Ralins band show
Speaker 1: and some chairs got broken in the venue. And uh
Speaker 1: right after that mosh ing was was banned, or at
Speaker 1: least that's what we were told. So uh, then maybe
Speaker 1: like two or three months later, Fugazi played in Singapore
Speaker 1: and I went to that show and the wall of
Speaker 1: the show was lined with armed guards. They were all
Speaker 1: carrying rifles and they were supposed to be there to
Speaker 1: make sure that people didn't slam dance. Um. So it
Speaker 1: is a little strange. I definitely remember some of the
Speaker 1: odd governmental restrictions there what from from living there. And
Speaker 1: I also lived there when the whole mic faith thing
Speaker 1: happened as well too, so there was a lot of that.
Speaker 1: This was the caning incident. It was Yeah, I went
Speaker 1: to school with Mike Fae Um. So but why don't
Speaker 1: you guys respond and since it was the episode that
Speaker 1: you guys recorded. I guess my main response is, I mean,
Speaker 1: having never actually witnessed the procession, only having seen some
Speaker 1: you know, really cool photos from it and read about it. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, basically I can just apply my own experience
Speaker 1: encountering other cultures and especially like temples and the like.
Speaker 1: You know, it does between that weird space where you
Speaker 1: you certainly don't want to be a gawker, You don't
Speaker 1: want to be an ugly American in these these situations.
Speaker 1: You want to but you want to experience that. You
Speaker 1: want to see these things. And at the same time,
Speaker 1: you you know that you're an outsider and you can't
Speaker 1: possibly experience and and and understand it in the in
Speaker 1: the same way. So it is an odd place to
Speaker 1: find yourself. Yeah. Um, so I should say. Gary included
Speaker 1: a bunch of photos of this email of their experience
Speaker 1: at the festival, and now we may want to share
Speaker 1: some of them. Yeah, we could throw them on a
Speaker 1: post for sure, because they were They were stunning, Like
Speaker 1: the hooks embedded in these guys backs that were in
Speaker 1: the parade and everything. I never saw anything like that
Speaker 1: when I lived there. But it might I told Gary this,
Speaker 1: It might just have been because my parents probably you know,
Speaker 1: didn't want me to go down to something like that
Speaker 1: by myself, for the same obvious reasons of kind of
Speaker 1: being a cultural gawker. Yeah. I mean, one thing is
Speaker 1: important to keep in mind too about rituals of pain
Speaker 1: is that will they exist around the world and in
Speaker 1: various cultures, various religions. You find them in in Christianity,
Speaker 1: do you find them in Islam? You find them in Hinduism, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Uh So, Um, I actually did a gallery list on
Speaker 1: stuff to bull your mind dot come a while back, um,
Speaker 1: compiling some of these, so I'll make sure that we
Speaker 1: linked to that as well on the landing page for
Speaker 1: this episode. Yeah that sounds fun alright, Listener David writes
Speaker 1: in David says, so, just a note about solar sales
Speaker 1: from your Space Mirrors episode. You couldn't use a laser
Speaker 1: to push a solar sale. That would violate Newton's third
Speaker 1: law of motion and would be the same concept as
Speaker 1: saying you could pull yourself to the ceiling by tugging
Speaker 1: on your belt loops or blowing a sale with a fan.
Speaker 1: So anything the laser mounted on the ship shot out
Speaker 1: would get the same force back that would result and
Speaker 1: zero motion. And you responded to this, right, So I
Speaker 1: don't think the idea was that the laser was mounted
Speaker 1: on the ship, right, Yeah, So that the idea here
Speaker 1: is the laser would not be mounted on the ship,
Speaker 1: but rather would be mounted somewhere else, providing a new wind,
Speaker 1: a new solar wind, a laser wind for that vessel
Speaker 1: to sail on. UM And if anyone wants some more
Speaker 1: information about this concept, actually did an article on the
Speaker 1: subject years ago after interviewing Dr Gregory L. Matt Love.
Speaker 1: You can find this at Discovery dot com. The title
Speaker 1: of the article is our Solar Sales the Future of
Speaker 1: Space Travel. Matt laff is UM an expert in the field,
Speaker 1: and just it was just really nice guy to talk
Speaker 1: to on the topic. But yeah, I U exchanged a
Speaker 1: few different emails with David about this, uh and and
Speaker 1: I just wanted to make sure that anyone else listening
Speaker 1: UH didn't get that idea, Like maybe we didn't state
Speaker 1: it or I didn't state it as well as I
Speaker 1: could have. Also, David is a long haul trucker and
Speaker 1: listens to our show on the road. Yeah, so we
Speaker 1: definitely want to give a shout out to Dave and
Speaker 1: any other truckers out there listening to us right now.
Speaker 1: We've heard from a few of you over the years,
Speaker 1: and we're always glad to hear that we're able to
Speaker 1: help make those lengthy jaunts a little easier. My brother
Speaker 1: in laws a trucker, I wonder if he listens to
Speaker 1: the show. Cool. Oh, Carney is handing me another email
Speaker 1: here and it seems to be a covered in a
Speaker 1: blue luminescence. You know what that means. It's time for
Speaker 1: another Will of the Whisp story. Now. Way back last October,
Speaker 1: we did an episode about Will of the Wisp and
Speaker 1: about how it has It seems to have partially disappeared
Speaker 1: from the world. People don't seem to be reporting Will
Speaker 1: of the Whisp phenomenon as often as they used to,
Speaker 1: but we asked our listeners, have you seen a Will
Speaker 1: of the Whisp? Let us know and maybe maybe we
Speaker 1: can help collect enough stories that will give us more
Speaker 1: information about what it really is. We've heard from at
Speaker 1: least two or three people on this Yeah, we've heard
Speaker 1: several people to all those stories. And here's one more
Speaker 1: from our listener, Glenn. So Glenn says, I just listened
Speaker 1: to your Will of the Whisp podcast, and I wanted
Speaker 1: to share an experience I recently had with you. It's
Speaker 1: mid October, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and I'm on a date with
Speaker 1: a girl I was seeing for the first time. I
Speaker 1: decided to take her to this spot just southeast of
Speaker 1: Milwaukee and St. Francis. There's a condominium apartment along the
Speaker 1: lake shore that as a footpath running along the backside
Speaker 1: of the condos, following the lake shore. At the northernmost
Speaker 1: end of the path, there's a man made pond that's
Speaker 1: on a hill which is surrounded by breakwater that's been
Speaker 1: rocked off and diverted, so out to end it goes
Speaker 1: lake rocks, lakewater, then the hill, and then the pond,
Speaker 1: so it's fairly marshy as far as man made landscapes go.
Speaker 1: At the edge of the pond, there's some benches that
Speaker 1: look over the entire cityscape. Great view. So I take
Speaker 1: her there and as we were relaxing taking in the site,
Speaker 1: we can see a blue pulsating light down the hill,
Speaker 1: hovering just along the water line of the lake. It's
Speaker 1: a fairly intense light, almost comparable to a small flashing
Speaker 1: blue led. At first glance, I thought it may have
Speaker 1: been a person's cell phone, but the theory was quickly
Speaker 1: disproved when the light began to rise up maybe five
Speaker 1: or six feet off the ground and started to float
Speaker 1: its way up the hill toward us. It was very small,
Speaker 1: a little bigger than say, your standard issue firefly, which
Speaker 1: I love the idea of a standard issue firefly and
Speaker 1: check out of the armory anyway, Glenn goes on. But
Speaker 1: the light was much more dense and moved in a
Speaker 1: much different way than fireflies do, and it didn't share
Speaker 1: the yellow glow that a firefly has. It was very
Speaker 1: true blue. It gets to the top of the hill
Speaker 1: and then begins to float an undulating motion on a
Speaker 1: straight course from the west towards the lake to the east,
Speaker 1: about two yards away at eye level before it gets
Speaker 1: out over the lake and out of vision. And then
Speaker 1: he says, the person he was with got a little scared,
Speaker 1: so they decided to leave. Uh, And Glenn says, and
Speaker 1: as we're leaving, another one rises out of some brush
Speaker 1: off the side of the path. I've been searching for
Speaker 1: an explanation to this scene since that day, and after
Speaker 1: hearing your podcast and fairly certain it, I saw what
Speaker 1: these accounts claim to have also witnessed. I've returned to
Speaker 1: the location several times, but have never been lucky enough
Speaker 1: to see them again. Sorry for the length the email,
Speaker 1: not at all. I have a renewed excitement now, and
Speaker 1: it would seem that there has been some substance to
Speaker 1: what I saw that night. I will add that it
Speaker 1: did indeed rain a couple of days previous to my story,
Speaker 1: so maybe there is a correlation. Thanks for getting in touch, Glynn.
Speaker 1: I love these Will of the Whisp stories and I
Speaker 1: still have no idea what it is, and I love
Speaker 1: that it also gives us hope that whatever it is,
Speaker 1: it's still out there, it's still going on. We haven't
Speaker 1: squashed it by depleting our our wet lands. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1: So I think the final idea we arrived on in
Speaker 1: the episode is that one of the most likely explanations
Speaker 1: seemed to be possible chemo lumin essence just glowing chemical
Speaker 1: reactions from gases escaping from the ground under certain conditions.
Speaker 1: Though the way he's talking about the light being very concentrated,
Speaker 1: that doesn't seem to match exactly what he's saying here,
Speaker 1: because he makes it sound like it's like a floating
Speaker 1: dot rather than kind of a blue cloud. It sounds
Speaker 1: like to me, what or gone right? I mean Reich
Speaker 1: said it was blue right. I think for their particles
Speaker 1: of orgon there were I think you could probably find
Speaker 1: if Reich row alive today, he would easily find a
Speaker 1: direct connection between Will of the West and organ energy.
Speaker 1: You know, it wouldn't be unfounded because why not. Anyway,
Speaker 1: thank you very much for getting in touch, Glenn. That
Speaker 1: was really interesting. Hey, so it looks like we need
Speaker 1: to take a quick break, but we will be right
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Speaker 1: here's the thing. Not everybody has the budget, Not everybody
Speaker 1: has the coding expertise or the time and energy out
Speaker 1: there and do that. Yeah, we got a record podcasts.
Speaker 1: How am I supposed to put our site together? Uh,
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Speaker 1: And we're back. It looks like Carney has another message
Speaker 1: for us. Yeah, Kate writes in with the following quote.
Speaker 1: I recently started listening to your podcast and have really
Speaker 1: enjoyed it so far. I had a thought about your
Speaker 1: most recent episode Tooth, Mind and Soul. At the end
Speaker 1: of the podcast, you mentioned the study where they found
Speaker 1: a connection between more tweet teeth and better memory, and
Speaker 1: you discussed several potential reasons for that correlation. I was
Speaker 1: surprised that no one mentioned the possible socio economic reasons
Speaker 1: for this finding. For example, is it possible that people
Speaker 1: who have had access to good dental hygiene may have
Speaker 1: lived in better conditions overall that would promote better mental
Speaker 1: ability and thus have a memory boost as well. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, well, I feel like we may have touched
Speaker 1: on this a little bit because because that is certainly
Speaker 1: a huge thing that we have to keep in mind
Speaker 1: anytime we're looking at at dental health issues and dental hygiene,
Speaker 1: and especially any connection between we're all health, mental health,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Yeah, I would certainly guess that good dental
Speaker 1: hygiene has something to do with good nutrition, right, And
Speaker 1: I think that we had that in our notes and
Speaker 1: we may have spoken about it, uh like tangentially, but
Speaker 1: we never directly address the socio economic reasons tooth modification. Yeah.
Speaker 1: This is certainly like the solar sale issue that we
Speaker 1: already touched on like this scenaria, where I think we
Speaker 1: we did justice to the idea, but in you know,
Speaker 1: just in case. Yeah, it's good to just camera that home. Yeah. Okay,
Speaker 1: here's another short one. This is from Joyce. This is
Speaker 1: in reference to our Chinese Zodiac episode. So Joyce writes
Speaker 1: in says, just finish your Chinese Zodiac episode. Good show.
Speaker 1: Just something to add. The different zodiac signs have different compatibility.
Speaker 1: My family has a sheep mom and a dragon dad.
Speaker 1: They got married in nineteen eighty five and waited on
Speaker 1: purpose to have me nineteen eight seven rabbit because dragons
Speaker 1: and tigers nineteen eighty six don't get along. My parents
Speaker 1: are in no way firm believers, but it's so ingrained
Speaker 1: in the culture that they waited just in case. Yet
Speaker 1: again we're hearing this theme. We've heard this from several people. Now,
Speaker 1: like we hypothesized in the episode, you don't really have
Speaker 1: to believe it to to let it guide your actions somehow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we all live in the in the shadow of these
Speaker 1: various cultural constructs and symbols. Just one quick note on that.
Speaker 1: I remember when I when I was first learning about
Speaker 1: the Chinese zodiac from the place Mats, I found out
Speaker 1: that whatever I am, I think a tiger is not
Speaker 1: supposed to get along with whatever my dad was. I
Speaker 1: remember reading I remember reading into that and thinking, should
Speaker 1: I be having more family strife than I do? Uh?
Speaker 1: So it looks like that. This next one it's like
Speaker 1: covered and covered in blood. But I'll pull it out anyways.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's no DNA here that's really gonna implicate
Speaker 1: us in anything, right. Uh it says, hello, I've been
Speaker 1: listening to your show and stuff they don't want you
Speaker 1: to know, and notice the psychopath trend among both. I
Speaker 1: don't know if if if this person is speaking to
Speaker 1: our personality is or the topics we're covering, but yes,
Speaker 1: there there is that trend between all of us. This
Speaker 1: is a fascinating subject and I think I can give
Speaker 1: you a very nice fact if you read The Psychopath
Speaker 1: Inside Me by James Fallon, which is a fascinating book
Speaker 1: where half of it is references to research papers and
Speaker 1: the rest is a good mix of views of a
Speaker 1: psychopath about psychopathy and the biology. But there is a
Speaker 1: small section about female psychopaths. If there is a singular
Speaker 1: psychopath gene or if it is a cluster of them,
Speaker 1: most researchers leaned toward the ladder, but either way they
Speaker 1: are centered in the X chromosome, meaning that women have
Speaker 1: two while men have an X and a much shorter
Speaker 1: Y chromosome. If there is a defect in the X
Speaker 1: chromosome and women the other chromosomes take over, while men
Speaker 1: don't have this luxury. So for a woman to become
Speaker 1: a quote proper genetic lea flawed psychopath, both chromosomes have
Speaker 1: to be broken. Of course, not everybody has the same
Speaker 1: predictable brain structure, so there might be other reasons, but
Speaker 1: this isn't a noticeable trend. As a side note, it
Speaker 1: would be fun if you did a podcast about the
Speaker 1: men without most of their brains that can live normally.
Speaker 1: And he shares a link with us about that, uh
Speaker 1: and says otherwise, good job and interesting podcast. And his
Speaker 1: name is Johnson. I believe he's from Norway. I do
Speaker 1: want to throw in that James Fallon, who he mentions here.
Speaker 1: His work is indeed quite interesting. I got to see
Speaker 1: him at World Science Festival a few years back and
Speaker 1: he was actually doing a moth talk about about how
Speaker 1: in researching psychopaths he ended up identifying the same traits
Speaker 1: within himself. And I think you mentioned this to me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. Yeah, it has been like one of those
Speaker 1: like moments of stuff to blow your mind, serendipity that
Speaker 1: it like. I don't think we purposely chose it that way,
Speaker 1: but psychopaths have been coming up as like a tangent
Speaker 1: about specific topics we've been tackling, like M D M A.
Speaker 1: And I'm not quite sure what the conspiracy guys probably
Speaker 1: every topic. It's your influence, Christian. You keep bringing about
Speaker 1: psychopath I don't know what you're talking. I think, yes,
Speaker 1: I am probably the most the biggest psychopath. It definitely
Speaker 1: was my idea for us to do an episodes specifically
Speaker 1: about psychopathic children. But the M D M A thing
Speaker 1: was a coincidence. Yeah, I mean, it's just always an
Speaker 1: interesting topic and it's one where our understanding how it
Speaker 1: continues to evolve. I know I've I've covered it a
Speaker 1: number of times just on the blog posts. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: new studies identify, you know, the inner workings of the
Speaker 1: psychopathic brain. I think it's one of those things that
Speaker 1: like research seems to be like getting into a lot
Speaker 1: almost accidentally. Right, People aren't intentionally looking to go discover
Speaker 1: what makes the psychopathic brain work. There may be studying
Speaker 1: other things, but it keeps popping up and it's um,
Speaker 1: it's something that I think we're gonna have a very
Speaker 1: different like definition and understanding of maybe ten fifteen years
Speaker 1: from now. Yeah, yeah, all right, what's this one? Uh?
Speaker 1: This one comes to us from William. William Wrights is
Speaker 1: his high guys, longtime listener to stuff you should know,
Speaker 1: and I just moved over to stuff to blow your
Speaker 1: mind loving it. I have a little but I think
Speaker 1: important correction within your the Halloween costume costume made me
Speaker 1: do it episode. You take a moment to talk about racism,
Speaker 1: black face and our costumes can bring slight even inadvertent
Speaker 1: racist tendencies to the surface. My correction focuses on a
Speaker 1: digital undergrounds frontman Shock G. While trying very hard to
Speaker 1: consider racial issues. You both refer multiple times to the
Speaker 1: MC Humpty Hump as if that was his name, while
Speaker 1: in keeping with the respectful tone of the episode, and
Speaker 1: just in case he is a listener, uh, maybe an
Speaker 1: acknowledgment that his real em C name at the time
Speaker 1: was Shocked G and I believe still is today, uh
Speaker 1: and that the famous song was the Humpty Hump. Keep
Speaker 1: up the great work, man. I hope Shock G as
Speaker 1: a list that would be awesome. Um oh yeah, he's
Speaker 1: He's no Matthew Modine, but he's still pretty great. Yeah
Speaker 1: he's great. Uh oh yeah. So two things. First of all,
Speaker 1: Humpty Hump is an alter ego of Shock G and
Speaker 1: therefore I maintain that any reference to Shoot to Humpty
Speaker 1: Hump as an individual, um he is accurate, I believe
Speaker 1: within the narrative of that song as a character. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, Humpty Hump has his own origin story um
Speaker 1: about how he lost his nose and its thus replaced
Speaker 1: it with the with the signature, you know, Gratcho Mark's
Speaker 1: glasses and nose. However, I do I do agree that yes,
Speaker 1: we should have mentioned shock Gu specifically as the man
Speaker 1: behind the nose, and I think William is right to
Speaker 1: to write in about something like this just even though
Speaker 1: we were I guess technically wrong, but two white dudes
Speaker 1: sitting around talking about the issues of race and gender
Speaker 1: that we're being extrapolated out of Halloween costumes, there's always
Speaker 1: a potential for error. So I'm glad that he corrected
Speaker 1: us in this sense, because otherwise I think it would
Speaker 1: have just come off as kind of like white dude
Speaker 1: man splaining and I'd also like to mention I hope
Speaker 1: that shock g not humpty hump, got busy in a
Speaker 1: burger king bathroom. All right, Carney's handing us another message
Speaker 1: here and if I can, hope, if I can take
Speaker 1: it from him, he's running waving it around in circles. Ah,
Speaker 1: there it is. Okay. Oh, this is from our listener, Martin,
Speaker 1: and Martin is writing in with reference to one of
Speaker 1: the X Files episodes that Christian and I did. So. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he's not the only one who wrote about the
Speaker 1: specific thing, right, I think we received a couple of
Speaker 1: tweets about this too. Yeah, and so in the X
Speaker 1: Files episode, Christian and I were talking about Leonard Betts,
Speaker 1: the classic X Files character who gets his head cut off, survives,
Speaker 1: and then regrows his head because he's made of cancer. Yes,
Speaker 1: but but not before walking to the iodine store and
Speaker 1: saying give me all your the way he regress his
Speaker 1: head as by climbing into a bathtub full of iodine. Anyway, Mark,
Speaker 1: our listener Martin writes in about this and says, hey, eyes,
Speaker 1: I'm sure someone has already pointed this out. But a
Speaker 1: day or so before the X Files podcast, I watched
Speaker 1: an episode of Monumental Mysteries or Mysteries at the Monument
Speaker 1: something like that, which is a branch of the show
Speaker 1: Mysteries at the Museum Anyway. One of the monuments they
Speaker 1: visited in the episode was of a chicken without a
Speaker 1: head in the center of a town. The chickens name
Speaker 1: was Mike Miracle Mike Bond, James Bold. The story is
Speaker 1: that a farmer gathered up a couple of chickens to
Speaker 1: kill for dinner. After cutting off Mike's head, he let
Speaker 1: him run around while tending to the next victim. After
Speaker 1: doing his thing with chicken number two, he noticed that
Speaker 1: Mike was still going about as if nothing happened, so
Speaker 1: he spared him and went about making dinner or whatever.
Speaker 1: The next day, Mike was still alive, so he began
Speaker 1: feeding him with an eye dropper and kind of just
Speaker 1: letting the headless chicken do what headless chickens do. Oddly,
Speaker 1: even without a head, he would scratch and peck at
Speaker 1: the ground, walk around, and could bring and evidently functioned
Speaker 1: just fine. Most of this is because his brain stem
Speaker 1: was left mostly intact. But people were amazed by the
Speaker 1: headless little fella, and he went on tour, living headless
Speaker 1: for eighteen months. Unfortunately, one night at a hotel while
Speaker 1: on tour, Mike began to choke, which is evidently pretty
Speaker 1: common for a chicken without a head, and his owner
Speaker 1: couldn't locate his eye dropper in time to clear his airway,
Speaker 1: so he perished after eighteen months of headless life. The
Speaker 1: second how do you choke? I don't know. I guess
Speaker 1: he is an esophagus still, yeah, I mean, yeah, you
Speaker 1: still have the neck and everything. So we we did
Speaker 1: think about this, actually, I think I thought about mentioning
Speaker 1: this in the episode, but didn't because you had notes
Speaker 1: about it, for sure. Because the so we were talking
Speaker 1: about animals that can get their heads cut off and survive.
Speaker 1: For example, cockroaches can survive without a head for a
Speaker 1: long time. But the thing with this chicken was that
Speaker 1: it it sort of wasn't really without a head, and
Speaker 1: the relevant sense, it was without part of a head.
Speaker 1: So if the brain stem was left intact, that's a
Speaker 1: different kind of thing. This would be sort of like
Speaker 1: a person getting like the front of their head cut
Speaker 1: off or something, which would also be impressive. Yeah, it would.
Speaker 1: I mean, not that this is not interesting I really
Speaker 1: appreciate all of you who got in touch with us
Speaker 1: about Miracle Mike. I love that his name is Miracle
Speaker 1: Mike because it makes me think of magic Mike. And
Speaker 1: therefore I can't help but imagine a dream scenario and
Speaker 1: which you have a movie about a headless mail stripper.
Speaker 1: But I'm imagining Miracle Mike double XL. No, what I'm
Speaker 1: imagining is that song Pony, you know, with the Miracle
Speaker 1: Mike running around without a head back in at the ground.
Speaker 1: Jump on it my brain stem anyway. But Martin continues
Speaker 1: for referencing another episode, saying, the second odd thing was
Speaker 1: right before I listened to the Mirrors podcast thing that's
Speaker 1: talking about the one YouTube did on space mirrors. There's
Speaker 1: also an older stuff to Blowing my Hand episode just
Speaker 1: on mirrors. Oh well, I wonder it could be the
Speaker 1: one he talks about a sun gun. I think it
Speaker 1: was this so so, Martin says, I watched the new
Speaker 1: episode of Scorpion and go figure. They were chasing down
Speaker 1: some warlord who had acquired panels the Germans had planned
Speaker 1: to use on the sun gun. I won't go through
Speaker 1: the whole timeline of the episode, but both are really
Speaker 1: great shows and definitely worth watching. Anyway, I just thought
Speaker 1: there were some weird synchronicities worth sharing. Keep the awesome
Speaker 1: podcast coming. Thanks so much, Mike, even I thought not Mike,
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, Miracle Mike, Thanks so much, Martin, Miracle, Martin,
Speaker 1: I've never heard of Scorpion before. It sounds I don't
Speaker 1: know what it is. Yeah, I'm not familiar with it.
Speaker 1: I thought he was talking about the nineteen eighties glam
Speaker 1: band that would be the Scorpions. Is that right? They
Speaker 1: were just Yeah, that was a that was an interesting
Speaker 1: period of time in the history of music. Speaking of music,
Speaker 1: uh Ann Lee writes in with the following Robert, I
Speaker 1: am late to the podcasting scene and have been trying
Speaker 1: to work my way through the backlog of episodes. Almost
Speaker 1: every other episode I find myself thinking, has Robert played
Speaker 1: Silent Hill? How has he not played Silent Hill? Is
Speaker 1: he ever going to mention Silent Hill? Do you ever
Speaker 1: mentioned Silent Hill? Did I just not make it far enough?
Speaker 1: And yet I was certain you'd say something on the
Speaker 1: Uncanny Music episode, et cetera. If by some strange turn
Speaker 1: of fate, a man who loves monsters, grotesque and poigning
Speaker 1: imagery and the psychology of horror hasn't explored the Silent
Speaker 1: Hill series. I thought you'd be interested play Look up
Speaker 1: Silent Hill one through three, with the pinnacle being Silent
Speaker 1: Hill to perhaps considered an episode on horror gaming active
Speaker 1: participation versus passive watching, as in film and books as well.
Speaker 1: So I will say, yes, I have played the first
Speaker 1: three Silent Hills, and I can't remember the room was
Speaker 1: Silent Hill three or the one that came after Silent
Speaker 1: Hill three, but uh, yeah, I've seen I've played those,
Speaker 1: and I have seen the Silent Hill movie. And uh,
Speaker 1: I actually own the soundtrack to Silent Hill to. All
Speaker 1: the music for the entire franchise games and films I
Speaker 1: was composed by a Kira yama Oka. Uh and it's indeed,
Speaker 1: it's great stuff. A mixture of uncanny music, uh, some
Speaker 1: just wonderful sort of industrial noise and occasional J pop sensibility.
Speaker 1: Sound Hill was one of those things we get asked
Speaker 1: about a lot, like on periscope. People have asked about
Speaker 1: it multiple times, specifically about you know that Soulent Hill
Speaker 1: game that Gamma del Toro was working on. Is it
Speaker 1: pt is that way? Oh? Yeah, that's apparently, but then
Speaker 1: it's not. Yeah, I don't think it's happening, um, but
Speaker 1: they wanted to know what our thoughts were about it.
Speaker 1: I've watched like a game play, like somebody playing through it,
Speaker 1: but I don't have I think it's It was only
Speaker 1: available on PC or maybe PlayStation, so I wasn't able
Speaker 1: to play it. I've always been told I should play
Speaker 1: Silent Hill. I've never played any of the Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: they love horror, but I I was not playing that
Speaker 1: console generation when those games came out. Well, they've done
Speaker 1: HD remakes of at least one in two, so I
Speaker 1: would say just skip right to two because we have
Speaker 1: busy lives. When I have time for sling Hill Wind,
Speaker 1: they're fun. Salent Hill too, Salent Hill too is Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's fun, and I loved that it. It never really fleshed.
Speaker 1: My memory of it anyway, is that it never really
Speaker 1: fleshed out exactly what was happening. It left him and
Speaker 1: just content continual confusion and mystery about this place in
Speaker 1: the setting and the events that have transpired, and there's
Speaker 1: all sorts of just of just weird stuff in the background.
Speaker 1: I'm not steeped enough from the Laura. I don't know
Speaker 1: if they ever explained it fully. I think there was
Speaker 1: a second movie too, wasn't there There was? I know
Speaker 1: Lauren has seen it, Lauren Vocabam. We'll have to ask
Speaker 1: her about it. I know Kit Harrington I think was
Speaker 1: in it. Um really yeah, I think he was. I
Speaker 1: might be mixing mixing him up. Maybe somebody out there
Speaker 1: is going no, it wasn't. John Snow you know nothing.
Speaker 1: Christian's acre. Okay, we got another one here that's coming
Speaker 1: out and it is covered in tiny little pink pills.
Speaker 1: It says, I just listened to your series on m
Speaker 1: d m A. One thing not mentioned that has been
Speaker 1: researched is m d M A for Tonight's treatment. People
Speaker 1: have recorded that their TONIGHTUS goes away while using m
Speaker 1: d m A. Thank you for the podcast. I really
Speaker 1: enjoy the subject matter. I actually think TONIGHTUS would be
Speaker 1: a great standalone episode topic. I have TONIGHTUS myself. With
Speaker 1: all the research being done on causes and treatments, it's
Speaker 1: amazing how much is still unknown about the condition. Thank you, Stephanie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that would be fun. I actually wrote a brain stuff
Speaker 1: episode about Tonight's UM. You know, brain stuff is our
Speaker 1: general science kind of video series. So it's a real quick,
Speaker 1: like two or three minute explanation of how Ringing Year
Speaker 1: works is how we refer to it in that. But
Speaker 1: that's interesting. I have TONIGHTUS, so I'm curious. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know that. I didn't know that. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: from being in punk bands, um and not wearing proper protection.
Speaker 1: I have I Ringing Year pretty much all the time. Um,
Speaker 1: but it's one of those things where like I've lived
Speaker 1: with it for so long now that I can kind
Speaker 1: of tune it out, but in certain situations it comes
Speaker 1: on really strong. Yeah, like wow, M D M A.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, I don't know if i'd want
Speaker 1: to be a guinea pig for that. I wouldn't want
Speaker 1: to pull a John C. Lily and start testing on myself.
Speaker 1: But that's interesting, and TONIGHTUS would be one that's interesting
Speaker 1: because she's right, they haven't really nailed it down yet.
Speaker 1: I think that though there's several different theories as to
Speaker 1: why it happens, but they haven't. They don't have anything definitive.
Speaker 1: Now you know what you're doing this weekend? Yeah, dropping
Speaker 1: some M D M A and listening very delicately. Okay,
Speaker 1: we've got another This is just a real short one
Speaker 1: from our listener Eric in England. But this is in
Speaker 1: reference to, uh, to our X Files episode where Christian
Speaker 1: and I were talking about how it seems like they
Speaker 1: can never get the alien cloning invasion plan straight in
Speaker 1: the X Files. It's like they let let's just go,
Speaker 1: Like they still can't. Yeah, we were one episode away
Speaker 1: from the new series finishing and it's no better. Well,
Speaker 1: they keep giving different explanations of what's going on that
Speaker 1: seemed like they just couldn't possibly all fit together somehow. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so what Christian and I talked about was, well,
Speaker 1: maybe the deal is just that the Aliens haven't made
Speaker 1: up their mind. This is actually the plot of the
Speaker 1: show is that the Aliens are incredibly disorganized and cannot
Speaker 1: get it together and agree on a plan. Well, it
Speaker 1: comes back to Invader Zim, which I believe we talked
Speaker 1: about right recently, talk about that. This is exactly what
Speaker 1: Eric's comment is. So Eric writes in to say, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: great shows usual. Just check out Invader Zim for a
Speaker 1: great example of a disorganized invasion plan plus just a
Speaker 1: fun watch. Cheers Eric. So I've never seen Invader Zim
Speaker 1: and I don't know what he's talking about, but now
Speaker 1: I feel like I've got to check it out. Obama
Speaker 1: has also recommended this to me. She told me to
Speaker 1: watch it and it's I believe it's on Amazon Prime.
Speaker 1: So I had maybe it was a Nickelodeon show and
Speaker 1: it's just the whole, the whole run of it. As
Speaker 1: this tremendous friend of mine works on the Invaders Zim
Speaker 1: comic book too. Yeah, so I I should give it,
Speaker 1: give it a chance. It's got kind of like a
Speaker 1: Johann Vasquez vibe. It is. Yeah, Oh, I didn't know that. Okay, cool, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was his his deal, all right. Here's one more
Speaker 1: that touches on our recent coverage of psychedelics uh from Kristen.
Speaker 1: She says, big fan of the podcast and particularly enjoying
Speaker 1: the coverage of the use of psychedelics for therapeutic purposes.
Speaker 1: It touches on a subject I'm very passionate about. Ayahuasca
Speaker 1: was my first psychedelic a little over a year ago.
Speaker 1: After my first time using it, I quit my job
Speaker 1: in the corporate oil industry immediately upon trying ayahuasca. My
Speaker 1: life has taken a completely different path, and I've spent
Speaker 1: the last year working with different teachers psychedelics to explore
Speaker 1: myself in my connection to others in the world. Not
Speaker 1: to mention I had a lot of fun doing so.
Speaker 1: In the process, I started going to private meetings in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles in researchers homes to discuss tripped reports, share experiences,
Speaker 1: and collect data. I wish more people understood how psychedelics
Speaker 1: could impact our lives without it sounding like hippie nonsense.
Speaker 1: My mom is still convinced M D m A puts
Speaker 1: holes in your brain and that LSD is addictive. That's
Speaker 1: funny because right before we did the M D m
Speaker 1: A episode, Joe said to me, are you going to
Speaker 1: talk about the holes in the brain? Myth? And I
Speaker 1: had never even heard of that even with doing the research,
Speaker 1: but I was taught this in school when I was
Speaker 1: growing up. Your brain, Yeah, I am pretty sure from
Speaker 1: all the research we did for that double party, that's
Speaker 1: not true. That is true, uh, and that LSD is addictive.
Speaker 1: Thank you for taking up airtime exploring these substances and
Speaker 1: the benefits they can provide people with. I hope my
Speaker 1: mom gives it a listen, uh, and then she says,
Speaker 1: I went to a MAPS conference a while ago. We
Speaker 1: talked about MAPS in that episode. There are a group
Speaker 1: that works on the therapeutic applications of it uh and
Speaker 1: when she was there, she said, they discussed a really
Speaker 1: interesting study they're doing. They're using m d m A
Speaker 1: on people with autism. It was fascinating. I recalled Dr
Speaker 1: Alicia dan Forth telling a story about a patient that
Speaker 1: had issues making eye contact with people after his m
Speaker 1: d m A therapy. He was standing in line at Walmart.
Speaker 1: The cashier asked him how he was doing, and he said,
Speaker 1: for the first time ever in his life, he was
Speaker 1: able to make eye contact with and respond with good,
Speaker 1: how are you. I can't recall all the t details,
Speaker 1: but I'm pretty sure it was an older man who
Speaker 1: had been living with autism for a long time. Awesome work, Kristen, Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'm glad that Kristen liked this, and a lot
Speaker 1: of people seem to respond positively to those two episodes
Speaker 1: so much so that we're definitely talking about doing more
Speaker 1: on UM, not just psychedelics, but other kind of drugs
Speaker 1: and therapeutic applications. Yes, definitely, we definitely are going to
Speaker 1: hit some some more drug topics in the months ahead.
Speaker 1: Ayahuasca is on the top of my list personally not
Speaker 1: to take, but to go out for the show. I
Speaker 1: uh my first introduction to ayahuasca, I mean outside of
Speaker 1: reading Williams Burrows talking about it as the age was
Speaker 1: on Pete Holmes You Made It Weird podcast, he talked
Speaker 1: with a guest about her whole experience doing the sort
Speaker 1: of thing where you go, uh and you you pay
Speaker 1: money to like a tribe, I believe in order to
Speaker 1: be able to take it quote unquote legally. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: my understanding is that it's it's it's been slightly commercialized
Speaker 1: in recent years, so you can actually book travel to
Speaker 1: a resort type of place to engage in these uh
Speaker 1: these experiences. And we're living in william S Burrow's world now.
Speaker 1: Not only that he just came up in the In
Speaker 1: the Right orgon episode he built himself an organ accumulator
Speaker 1: to write in huh um. I will mission mentioned as
Speaker 1: well there were a pair of older episodes of Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind that I did with the Julie
Speaker 1: Douglas uh title of the Scientist and the Shaman, and
Speaker 1: that goes that those episodes go into some of these
Speaker 1: issues as well, particularly the use of psilocybin and diahuasca. Cool. Well,
Speaker 1: while in the meantime, while we're putting those together, maybe
Speaker 1: Kristen and others who are interested in this canna go
Speaker 1: back and listen to those. Yeah, you just go to
Speaker 1: stuff to Blow your Mind dot com and type in drugs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean seriously, I think there are all those episodes
Speaker 1: and in blog poster our tag at the drugs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we try, We try to tag him pretty well with
Speaker 1: our metadata. All right. Uh, this next one comes in
Speaker 1: from linked In, of all places linked Yeah, you're kidding. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's about a headless chicken. No, but I
Speaker 1: had to share it because it's a nice, nice little
Speaker 1: bit of listener mail. But it also came to me
Speaker 1: personally through LinkedIn. Was like one of two times that
Speaker 1: LinkedIn has been helpful. Yeah, LinkedIn is the one social
Speaker 1: media network that makes me feel like an old man,
Speaker 1: Like I feel like I just totally don't understand what's
Speaker 1: going on here. It makes you feel like an old man.
Speaker 1: It makes me feel like a little kid. Really makes
Speaker 1: me feel like I'm on there with all these adults
Speaker 1: doing their adult things, and I'm like, hey, I've been
Speaker 1: endorsing you for stuff all. I think we all, I
Speaker 1: think all three of us are on there right Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: look yeah, so hey adds to your network? Do you
Speaker 1: want to hire us? But but Melanie wrote in on
Speaker 1: LinkedIn and said, thanks for accepting, even though we actually
Speaker 1: haven't done business together. Devouring your podcasts since Joe Rogan
Speaker 1: commented on it, looking forward to listening and reading more.
Speaker 1: Thanks for the warning about polar bear livers that was
Speaker 1: from our Danger Foods episodes. Could have had that for
Speaker 1: lunch yesterday. And she also thought it was on email
Speaker 1: and recommended that we we potentially do an episode on
Speaker 1: color and color blindness. Oh yeah, we've gotten some good
Speaker 1: feedback about the Dangerous Foods episode. I've been emailing back
Speaker 1: and forth with one listener named Mary, who has been
Speaker 1: contacting us about her experiences in Iceland. First, she got
Speaker 1: in touch with us about the Pink Snow, Blue Snow episode,
Speaker 1: the episode we did about All the Weird Snow where
Speaker 1: she was talking about the colors of glaciers that she
Speaker 1: had seen in Iceland and what was exactly the cause
Speaker 1: of them. And we found out that we had been
Speaker 1: to one of the same glacier lagoons like she and
Speaker 1: her fiance at the time had been there when she
Speaker 1: was in Iceland, and I had been there with my
Speaker 1: wife Rachel when we were there. And if you ever
Speaker 1: get a chance to see a glacier in real life,
Speaker 1: it's worth it because it is a very strange, uh,
Speaker 1: different kind of thing to see if you're not used
Speaker 1: to it. I still can't get over that you went
Speaker 1: to Iceland and you guys didn't go to the Blue Lagoon.
Speaker 1: Of all the lagoons and glaciers, you didn't go to
Speaker 1: the weird uh Silica sex pond. Another thing Mary mentioned
Speaker 1: is that she actually ate the shark from the Dangerous
Speaker 1: Foods episode. Yes, she she ate it while she was there,
Speaker 1: chased it with some kind of unknown clear liquor, and
Speaker 1: that that's it. And so I gotta I gotta respect
Speaker 1: her power and honor. Well. To her point about us
Speaker 1: doing something about color blindness, again, I think i'm brain stuff.
Speaker 1: I didn't write it. Maybe you did. Um, there's a
Speaker 1: color blindness episode. In fact, we did it because our
Speaker 1: colleague Ben Boland has a certain kind of color blindness, uh.
Speaker 1: And so that's why we covered it, so maybe if
Speaker 1: we did an episode on that topic, we could bring
Speaker 1: Ben and he could be our guinea pig. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: could give him M D M A in ayahuasca and
Speaker 1: see how it affects color blindness. All right, it looks
Speaker 1: like we have one last email here from Carney. All right, Carney,
Speaker 1: what if we got here? Ah? This is from our
Speaker 1: listener Catherine, and it's in reference to our episode that
Speaker 1: Robert and I did for New Year's about science and
Speaker 1: moral behavior. And Catherine writes, hey, guys, I started listening
Speaker 1: to your podcast, asked after getting all caught on your
Speaker 1: brother and sister podcasts and now slowly chipping away at yours.
Speaker 1: Yesterday I was listening to your episode Moral Behavior, and
Speaker 1: I got so excited. For my psychology undergraduate, I conducted
Speaker 1: a study on this exact topic. My thesis was titled Shame,
Speaker 1: Guilt and Religiousness in Adolescent sexual Offenders. And I can't
Speaker 1: resist an opportunity to talk about it, which is basically
Speaker 1: never because people think it's super boring. I was looking
Speaker 1: for a link between religion and adolescent offenders and their
Speaker 1: feelings of shame and guilt, which are commonly closely tied
Speaker 1: to moral behavior. Because I was dealing with children and
Speaker 1: I was a lowly undergrad student, it was difficult to
Speaker 1: conduct my study and ended up with a total sample
Speaker 1: size of seven, which doesn't make my results very reliable. Uh.
Speaker 1: We we admire your work. Anyway, That sounds like a
Speaker 1: larger sample size than Mahomewich worked with. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: possible anyway, Catherine continues, However, I did find that at
Speaker 1: at least among that sample size of seven, and she
Speaker 1: says how I did find that there was no connection
Speaker 1: between religion and the moral feelings of the participants, but
Speaker 1: was more connected to their own intrinsic feelings about themselves
Speaker 1: and their offenses. Anyway, if you ever can't sleep, I'll
Speaker 1: be more than happy to assist with a copy of
Speaker 1: the paper. Keep up the great work. Love listening to
Speaker 1: your podcast. It makes my monotonous day so much more enjoyable. Well,
Speaker 1: that is too kind, Catherine, and thank you for sharing
Speaker 1: this with us, you know, on the subject of content
Speaker 1: that puts one to sleep. Um, we're talking about this earlier.
Speaker 1: I don't know if we've actually mentioned it on the podcast,
Speaker 1: but we had one listener write in at least one
Speaker 1: at least one. Yeah, well, I've heard from other How
Speaker 1: Stuff Works podcasts they've heard similar things to that people
Speaker 1: listen to the podcasts while falling asleep. But the one
Speaker 1: individual in particular thought that the music should be tweaked.
Speaker 1: Our excellent music by our producer Noel should be tweeked
Speaker 1: so as to allow them to gently move into into
Speaker 1: slumber at the end of the episode. Yeah, I'd love
Speaker 1: to hear from more of you if you fall asleep
Speaker 1: to to our episodes. I never really thought that the
Speaker 1: k of our voices would be something that would knock
Speaker 1: people out. Now, I think that from now on, all
Speaker 1: of our episodes should each be an MP three file
Speaker 1: that's about three hours long, where we talk for the
Speaker 1: normal amount of time, and then the rest of the
Speaker 1: file is just waves coming, just seegulls every now and
Speaker 1: the rain patterns. Yeah. Well, you know one thing that
Speaker 1: I took away from this last one that you read,
Speaker 1: and it seems like a common theme with what our
Speaker 1: letters throughout the entire episode. Today, there's been a lot
Speaker 1: of cross pollination between the shows here at How Stuff Works. Lately,
Speaker 1: it seems like a lot of people are listening to
Speaker 1: us and jumping to other shows are listening to other
Speaker 1: shows and jumping over to us. I hear that all
Speaker 1: the time. I hear from people who started with stuff
Speaker 1: you should know and then moved on to stuff you
Speaker 1: missed in history class and to us. Yeah. Well, and
Speaker 1: and if so, I guess if there are people out
Speaker 1: there that are listening and they're unfamiliar, I guess with
Speaker 1: the larger world of what we operate, and you know,
Speaker 1: there's there's a lot more here at how stuff works. Uh.
Speaker 1: And the best way to kind of find out what
Speaker 1: all those other shows are is if you go to
Speaker 1: stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Just scroll to
Speaker 1: the bottom of any page. They're all lists it. They're
Speaker 1: including Joe's other show, Forward Thinking. Yeah, I mean, they're
Speaker 1: all great shows and there's no stuff to blow your mind.
Speaker 1: But no, I mean, but they're great. I can't imagine
Speaker 1: that on car Stuff that they're gonna talk about ayahuasca
Speaker 1: anytime soon. You know, I do want to mention Car
Speaker 1: Stuff has been putting some great stuff on Facebook recently,
Speaker 1: like they've been at least a couple of different things
Speaker 1: that have had to share to the Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind Facebook page because uh, Scott Benjamin is great
Speaker 1: about bringing out these like really weird things from automotive
Speaker 1: history that even appeal to me, like the least automotively
Speaker 1: inclined person in the office. Probably, I'd say you and
Speaker 1: I could compete for being for being the lowest on
Speaker 1: the car guys scale. Yeah, and so it appears that
Speaker 1: stuff appeals to us. Then if you're at all interested
Speaker 1: in I guess done that show before. I'm not a
Speaker 1: car person really at all, but those guys are a
Speaker 1: lot of fun to talk what they have you on
Speaker 1: to talk about. We talked about, um, pony cars, you know,
Speaker 1: like that style of car that's somewhere between like a
Speaker 1: muscle car and like a sedan, So like a Ford
Speaker 1: Mustang or a Dodge Challenger, stuff like that cars in
Speaker 1: death Proof. Yes, actually, um, and it has a pony
Speaker 1: in it. Well, they're called pony cars because they're named
Speaker 1: after the Mustang. So it's like not a Mustang, ak
Speaker 1: not a full grown horse that is a pony. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: so that's a good segue for us to just remind
Speaker 1: people in general to visit stuff to blow your mind
Speaker 1: dot com, which is where you're gonna find everything by
Speaker 1: the three of us. That's where we write things, we blog,
Speaker 1: there's videos by us or that we host, and they're
Speaker 1: all the podcasts are there as well. Yeah, and there's
Speaker 1: even there even links out to all the other House
Speaker 1: of Work shows as well, so that can be your
Speaker 1: first stop on a continuing health Stuff Works journey. And
Speaker 1: I just wanted to remind you out there again. If
Speaker 1: you've gotten in touch with us and we didn't have
Speaker 1: time to read your email today, I'm sorry that we
Speaker 1: couldn't get to it today, but please right in in
Speaker 1: the future. We we love getting all of the feedback
Speaker 1: that we get from you all and and the wonderful
Speaker 1: things you contribute, and hopefully we'll be able to read
Speaker 1: it in a future listener mail. So yeah, we're open
Speaker 1: to emails about new episodes, old episodes, whatever you have
Speaker 1: to share with us. Uh. So, there are some other
Speaker 1: ways that you can get in touch with us too, right,
Speaker 1: I mentioned them at the top. We do the social
Speaker 1: media's were on Facebook, we're on Twitter, We're on Tumbler.
Speaker 1: You can write to us there or you can follow
Speaker 1: us there and see all the weird science stories that
Speaker 1: we post throughout the week. It's not just our own stuff.
Speaker 1: We also do periscope every Friday at noon Eastern Standard time.
Speaker 1: So if you want like a more intimate setting to
Speaker 1: sit down and talk to us and ask us some questions,
Speaker 1: were usually around for about twenty or thirty minutes on
Speaker 1: those those slots. And if you want to get in
Speaker 1: touch with us the old fashioned way, simply shoot us
Speaker 1: an email at blow the Mind at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com. We're more on this than thousands of other topics.
Speaker 1: Is it how stuff works dot com. Blavet joined the
Speaker 1: foot pro