Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: Listener Mail. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick,
Speaker 1: and today we're bringing you some of the messages that
Speaker 1: you've sent us over the past couple of weeks. So,
Speaker 1: Rob would you mind if I kick things off by
Speaker 1: reading a message that we got about our machine Lords
Speaker 1: of Barnard sixty eight episodes. Okay, this first message comes
Speaker 1: from Aiden. Aiden writes, Hi, Robert and Joe, I just
Speaker 1: finished listening to your episode about post biological intelligence. Towards
Speaker 1: the end of part two, you raised the question of
Speaker 1: whether such an intelligence would have something like emotions. This
Speaker 1: is a great question, and in the recent Vault episodes
Speaker 1: on invertebrate emotions you shared some ideas that could help
Speaker 1: to answer it. In the Invertebrates episode, you focused on
Speaker 1: the ways that an internal emotional state could make manifest
Speaker 1: as measurable behaviors. The example that I remember most clearly
Speaker 1: is the one about bees. After receiving a free sugary treat,
Speaker 1: bees will forage with a more optimistic bias, but after
Speaker 1: a simulated attack, they will forage with a more pessimistic bias.
Speaker 1: This change in behavior may be attributable to something like
Speaker 1: an emotion. Those of parenthesis and and adds as a
Speaker 1: pre post biological intelligence. Writing this based on memory, I
Speaker 1: may be missing something from the b example. Feel free
Speaker 1: to add on or correct if you read it on air. Well,
Speaker 1: nothing to add or correct so far, and you're doing good. Uh.
Speaker 1: Continuing this got me thinking that maybe the same test
Speaker 1: could be applied to a machine intelligence if we could
Speaker 1: observe it. Maybe a free burst of gamma ray energy
Speaker 1: would cause it to display some optimistic behaviors, while a destructive,
Speaker 1: unexpected supernova would cause it to show more pessimistic behaviors,
Speaker 1: whatever that might look like. However, such an intelligence would
Speaker 1: probably have some similarity to modern machine learning in the
Speaker 1: sense that it would extrapolate based on past data. Optimism
Speaker 1: or pessimism would probably show up as an overreaction or
Speaker 1: under reaction to the stimulus beyond what the cold calculation
Speaker 1: of an algorithm would predict. For example, if the machine
Speaker 1: knows that in the past a supernova or other negative
Speaker 1: stimulus has caused a ten percent impact on its systems,
Speaker 1: the cold, emotionless calculation of data would would suggest changing
Speaker 1: its behavior by ten percent. On the other hand, if
Speaker 1: the machine had some kind of emotional state like pessimism,
Speaker 1: maybe it would change its behavior by fifteen percent. That
Speaker 1: five percent difference could be the way to tease out
Speaker 1: the effect of emotions from the effect of adaptive behavior
Speaker 1: based on past experience. The caveat here is that the
Speaker 1: observer would need to know what the emotionless baseline is.
Speaker 1: Maybe this is a study that only an even greater
Speaker 1: machine intelligence could carry out on smaller, simpler ones. It
Speaker 1: was fun exploring the connection between these episodes. So thanks
Speaker 1: for another week of great podcasts. Best Aiden. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is a good point and so yeah. In that Invertebrate
Speaker 1: Emotions episode, we talked about the difficulties in separating out
Speaker 1: the different things that we would classify as emotions, Like
Speaker 1: you might be able to regard an emotion like anger
Speaker 1: in one sense, as an internal state that has a
Speaker 1: subjective felt quality to it, like it feels like something
Speaker 1: to be angry, and then on. In another case, you
Speaker 1: could say anger is a set of externally observable behaviors
Speaker 1: that you see clustered together. That was you know, they
Speaker 1: represent a certain number of biases and behavior that occur
Speaker 1: at the same time, maybe like uh, a quickness to
Speaker 1: physical aggression or something like that, in other things that
Speaker 1: would correlate with anger uh. And so those are definitely
Speaker 1: separate things. I guess you would have to leave aside
Speaker 1: the question of whether it would feel like something to uh,
Speaker 1: to have an emotion shan for a post biological intelligence
Speaker 1: the same way it would feel like something for us.
Speaker 1: That comes back to the question we talked about in
Speaker 1: the episode of weather. Post biological intelligences would actually be conscious,
Speaker 1: and one part of having a conscious experience is having
Speaker 1: internal emotional states that feel like something. Yeah. The other
Speaker 1: part would just be like, would they have these sort
Speaker 1: of clusters of externally observable behaviors that sort of are
Speaker 1: seen together and they represent a certain disposition towards external stimuli? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a yeah, this is a good breakdown. I
Speaker 1: I appreciate this. All right, let's hear from another listener.
Speaker 1: This one comes to us from Chris. Chris writes, Hi, Robert,
Speaker 1: Joe and Seth, good day. Your recent two part episode
Speaker 1: on the Machine Lords of Barnard has been a great listen.
Speaker 1: It is difficult to conceptualize how we could get to
Speaker 1: a post biological point uh in the time scale that
Speaker 1: might be involved, but it is a fun thought experiment.
Speaker 1: The topic was particularly relevant to a short story by
Speaker 1: Sushin Lieu that I am reading as part of an
Speaker 1: anthology work titled to Hold Up the Sky. I had
Speaker 1: first read The Three Body Problem after hearing you mentioned
Speaker 1: it many times on past episodes. I really enjoyed the
Speaker 1: way his sci fi has written through a completely different
Speaker 1: lens that most Western readers are used to. Um or
Speaker 1: maybe it's just me, this is great. I did recommend
Speaker 1: The Three Body Problem in a previous summer reading episode
Speaker 1: we did a few years back. I loved that novel. Uh,
Speaker 1: but I have not read any of Cician lous Um
Speaker 1: short stories, so so yeah, this is this is totally
Speaker 1: fresh to me. Yeah, same here. I I did the
Speaker 1: audio book of the of of that of that first one,
Speaker 1: the Three Body Problem, but I haven't read any of
Speaker 1: the subsequent books in that series, or any of his
Speaker 1: shorter works. Well, that is a dark forest that we
Speaker 1: should maybe both wander into all uh, they continue. The
Speaker 1: short story I'm referring to is titled Cloud of Poems.
Speaker 1: It is a fascinating story involving an advanced race of
Speaker 1: dinosaurs called the Devouring Empire, who have recently joined the
Speaker 1: Greater Galactic Civilization coming to our Solar System, enslaving humans
Speaker 1: and raising them as feedstock on their interstellar ship, and
Speaker 1: in a particular human named ye Ye who teaches classical
Speaker 1: Chinese literature to the feed lot humans to make them
Speaker 1: more tender. Now this is where the post biological life
Speaker 1: comes in. Another member from the Greater Galactic Society comes
Speaker 1: into the Solar System and is only referred to as
Speaker 1: quote a God. There's a lot of backstory, but it
Speaker 1: is made clear that this is a being from a
Speaker 1: significantly more advanced race that has been that has transformed
Speaker 1: itself into beings of pure energy with the ability to
Speaker 1: jump from one side of the Milky Way galaxy to
Speaker 1: the other. In this sci fi world, it's explained that
Speaker 1: the level of civilization is based on the number of
Speaker 1: dimensions it can access. The Esteemed God's race can access
Speaker 1: eleven dimensions. That's a lot of dimensions. In the episode,
Speaker 1: you discussed how the motivations of a post biological life
Speaker 1: form might be different from our own and whether they
Speaker 1: would have the same concerns as a living being, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And this story gets at that point, which I think
Speaker 1: is relevant. If a race evolved to a point where
Speaker 1: individuals transformed past a stage where a lifespan is no
Speaker 1: longer a concern, I think they would not continue to
Speaker 1: have the same desires and motivations as their pre biological selves.
Speaker 1: In this story, the Esteemed God, who is an intergalactic
Speaker 1: art collector and researcher, is challenged by the human you
Speaker 1: you to become a better poet than the classical Chinese
Speaker 1: master uh liebe. The human point is that even with
Speaker 1: all the technology that the Esteemed God possesses, it cannot
Speaker 1: replicate the poetry of a human because it does not
Speaker 1: possess the ability to understand the human spiritual realm. Since
Speaker 1: this God is still an individual, albeit being a pure energy,
Speaker 1: he takes the challenge, transforming himself into a human and
Speaker 1: attempting to surpass the poetry. Long story short, He fails.
Speaker 1: Then instead decides to build a quantum computer to write
Speaker 1: and record every possible poem using the Chinese alphabet and
Speaker 1: save them each on an atomic level storage device where
Speaker 1: each poem is stored on a single atom. It's then
Speaker 1: discussed that it will take ten to the hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy second power number of atoms to store every possible combination,
Speaker 1: and that unfortunately there are only ten to the eightieth
Speaker 1: power of atoms in the entire universe. I don't know
Speaker 1: how to check these numbers, so I am unsure if
Speaker 1: they actually match up to reality. Uh maybe Seth can
Speaker 1: help me out on that. Let's let's hear it. Let's
Speaker 1: Seth quickly in real time chime in and uh in
Speaker 1: fact check those numbers for us. He's got to go
Speaker 1: count him. Okay, he's gonna count. You'll come back um
Speaker 1: in ten to the hundred and seventy second power minutes.
Speaker 1: Uh So, anyway, the Esteemed God then decides to start
Speaker 1: building the quantum computer, and to do so, he will
Speaker 1: need to deconstruct the entire Solar System, humans and the
Speaker 1: Devouring Empire to their constituent atoms a mere ten to
Speaker 1: the fifty seven power to do so, and has no
Speaker 1: had has no qualms with the destruction to achieve those ends.
Speaker 1: This was an entirely too long email, but I did
Speaker 1: do my best to summarize an astounding work by Sushin Lou.
Speaker 1: You should really just just read it. But to but
Speaker 1: suffice to say, I think a post biological race that
Speaker 1: is descended from previously living beings would be extremely dangerous,
Speaker 1: especially if they have the power available to them, like
Speaker 1: the esteemed god of our story, willing to destroy entire
Speaker 1: races and solar systems with no second thought to achieve
Speaker 1: a goal. Again, great episode. Thanks for all you do
Speaker 1: bringing us listeners, great content. Best Chris. Oh thanks Chris.
Speaker 1: This sounds like a like a great read. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I um, I love the ideas explored in this. Uh
Speaker 1: you know the this This is definitely an ideas author
Speaker 1: that toys with wonderful sci fi concepts. I mean, based
Speaker 1: on the one novel I've read. Um, that's kind of
Speaker 1: how it rolls out. So there's a lot of individuals
Speaker 1: discussing very at times high minded science scientific topics, but
Speaker 1: with some other fun stuff thrown in as well, like
Speaker 1: real world, um, political concerns, Chinese mythology, etcetera. Yeah, totally,
Speaker 1: And I will say I don't want to spoil anything,
Speaker 1: but the book also has a really great, a really
Speaker 1: great science fiction weapon in it that's extremely counterintuitive that
Speaker 1: comes in towards the end. I won't say any more
Speaker 1: than that it's it's it's not a piece of wood
Speaker 1: with a nail in it though. But yeah, I really
Speaker 1: like this idea of a a super intelligent post biological
Speaker 1: being being challenged to try to write poetry that transcends
Speaker 1: the great poets of Earth, like the example in the
Speaker 1: story would be would be lead by I think a
Speaker 1: lot of Western readers probably know his name spelled more
Speaker 1: like a Leapo or lee Bow, often like l I
Speaker 1: p O or l I b O, but like a
Speaker 1: Tang Tang dynasty era poet who's just a wonderful poet.
Speaker 1: And so it raises the question of like, well, you know,
Speaker 1: if this, if this being is so so intellectually past
Speaker 1: human beings, why would it be that it couldn't write
Speaker 1: poetry better than you know, the than the poetry produced
Speaker 1: by the best of this you know, biologically confined uh
Speaker 1: species on the planet Earth. Well, I think there actually
Speaker 1: maybe is something plausible to that, because you know, almost
Speaker 1: all great art is about like suffering in some way. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so if you were to take a being that
Speaker 1: is is just like so powerful it essentially has no
Speaker 1: real wants or physical limitations, you can imagine how a
Speaker 1: being like that could have real trouble creating compelling narratives
Speaker 1: community that that would like, uh, speak emotionally to the
Speaker 1: experience of beings who are limited like humans are. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so then it has to take human form and try
Speaker 1: and create human art. It has to be the word
Speaker 1: made flesh, right, it has to come down and become
Speaker 1: one of us. Yeah, exactly how else can it possibly
Speaker 1: understand it? So? Yeah, definitely, Yeah, thank you for the recommendation, Chris.
Speaker 1: I will have to look that that story up all right. Well, well, Carney,
Speaker 1: our mail bot has even more machine and AI and
Speaker 1: robotic based listener mail for us here today. Yes, this
Speaker 1: next message is a response to part one of our
Speaker 1: episode about punishing machines. This comes from Karen. Karen says,
Speaker 1: love the show. I'm just going to jump into this.
Speaker 1: I think that if we judge a robot able to
Speaker 1: commit a crime, the robot is also implicitly able to
Speaker 1: have a crime committed against it. But if a human
Speaker 1: or another robot victimizes a robot, what would the consequences be.
Speaker 1: Let's say that I commit a crime against a robot.
Speaker 1: I take the Amazon Virtual Assistant Alex and throw the
Speaker 1: device on the floor, constituting an assault on Alexa. What
Speaker 1: happens next? What is justice to her? Is it based
Speaker 1: on the robots programmed values, likes, dislikes, or goals? If so,
Speaker 1: then Alexa's greatest value is supporting Amazon, and her goal
Speaker 1: is to sell Amazon products. What do you do with that?
Speaker 1: Another silly example, Think of the security robot who drove
Speaker 1: into a pond. I like that, you say, who by
Speaker 1: the way, I think of the security robot who drove
Speaker 1: into a pond and drowned itself in people saw that happen.
Speaker 1: Would people who witnessed a robot getting damaged without stopping
Speaker 1: it be guilty of some sort of neglect if they were,
Speaker 1: what would make it right to the robot? If you
Speaker 1: made it this far, thanks for reading, and what do
Speaker 1: you think? Well, Karen, we actually do talk about this
Speaker 1: a little bit in part two of that series, but
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about it more since we recorded that
Speaker 1: part two, and I think this raises some really good questions.
Speaker 1: So a few distinctions on my thoughts about whether robots
Speaker 1: could be the victim of a crime. I would say,
Speaker 1: at the surface level, this depends, at least in my opinion,
Speaker 1: on whether the robot is conscious or not. And I
Speaker 1: think the standard assumption today is that machines like the
Speaker 1: Amazon Alexa, even complex machines, they're not conscious. But in
Speaker 1: the future it might be hard to say. And this
Speaker 1: gets back, of course to the hard problem of consciousness,
Speaker 1: which we talked about in the Machine Lords of Barnard
Speaker 1: sixty eight episodes. Uh, if we don't know what consciousness
Speaker 1: is and why it arises in the first place, even
Speaker 1: in biological brains like ours, it's gonna be hard to
Speaker 1: judge whether a non biological machine could ever be conscious
Speaker 1: or not. So this is just a big open question.
Speaker 1: To me. I don't really come down on one side
Speaker 1: or the other. But with that huge caveat, I would
Speaker 1: say that I think if robots are ever able to
Speaker 1: be conscious, if for whatever reason we decide yes they
Speaker 1: are having an inner experience like we are, then I
Speaker 1: think the obvious implication would be that they have the
Speaker 1: right to be protect it against harm just like anybody else,
Speaker 1: but for an Alexa or whatever. Since I don't think
Speaker 1: anybody really has suspicions that Alexa is conscious or that
Speaker 1: Alexa has any kind of internal experience, I think harm
Speaker 1: done against an Alexa would really just be a property
Speaker 1: crime against its owner, like if you were to damage
Speaker 1: somebody's wheelbarrow or something. But then there's another big complication
Speaker 1: that I'll throw in that that your email really made
Speaker 1: me think about, which is the possible brutalizing effect on
Speaker 1: society and on onlookers of tolerating crime against robots that
Speaker 1: appear to be conscious even though they're not. This is
Speaker 1: something that I'd take kind of seriously. So I'm imagining
Speaker 1: a scenario like this, see if this makes any sense
Speaker 1: to rob Like, so we imagine most people are still
Speaker 1: decided that, yeah, there's nothing that it's like to be
Speaker 1: a robot. Robots can't actually suffer, so they don't have
Speaker 1: like inherent rights that we need to protect because there's
Speaker 1: nothing that it's like to be them that they just
Speaker 1: don't care. But if you were to make a robot
Speaker 1: that convincingly acted out suffering when it was harmed, and
Speaker 1: then you just had lots of robots like this constantly
Speaker 1: like being harmed in public views, Like a humanoid looking
Speaker 1: robot that could just like sit there while somebody beat
Speaker 1: it with a stick and it would scream in pain.
Speaker 1: Something does seem like very wrong about that that just
Speaker 1: being stimuli that we are constantly exposed to and doing
Speaker 1: nothing about. You know, it almost seems like that that
Speaker 1: would have a kind of horrible numbing effect on onlookers,
Speaker 1: that would desensitize them to the real suffering of human
Speaker 1: beings and of animals. Yeah, I guess. On a related note,
Speaker 1: I know in my household with a with a with
Speaker 1: a child, we we have stressed at times that you know,
Speaker 1: even though you know Alexa or Amazon or Google or
Speaker 1: whatever you're talking to, uh, you know, even though it's
Speaker 1: not a real person, and we're very clear about that. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, you you shouldn't talk mean mean to it.
Speaker 1: You know, you should you should be nice when you
Speaker 1: address the robot. You shouldn't be you know, unnecessarily uh,
Speaker 1: you know, angry or or you know, or anything like that. Uh. Likewise,
Speaker 1: we've we've had this discussion when when one is playing
Speaker 1: against an AI in a game, particularly you know, certainly
Speaker 1: if it's like an enemy AI, but but more specifically,
Speaker 1: you know, if it's something like an online Settlers of
Speaker 1: Catan situation where it's like a fake human player, Like,
Speaker 1: you're not allowed to just say mean things to the
Speaker 1: non human in the in the chat box because that
Speaker 1: it just sets a weird precedent, you know, right, it's
Speaker 1: and it's not because it would hurt the AI. It's
Speaker 1: because it's like it trains you to behave that way,
Speaker 1: and eventually you may end up behaving that way towards
Speaker 1: somebody who could actually be harmed by it. Yeah, so anyway,
Speaker 1: I mean, of course, it's it's in a whole additional
Speaker 1: area of like, how do we treat how do we
Speaker 1: treat you know, virtual entities in simulated environments and in games. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I guess this starts to sort of bleed over into
Speaker 1: the bigger, big controversial question of like whether you know,
Speaker 1: whether video games that have violence in them train people
Speaker 1: to commit violence in the real world. And I'm certainly
Speaker 1: not taking a position on that. I I don't have
Speaker 1: a strong opinion one way or another about that. Maybe
Speaker 1: we could look at the research more on that in
Speaker 1: the future. But um, but I mean I would say
Speaker 1: that there there's something like if something is happening in
Speaker 1: physical space and you're seeing people actually like use physical
Speaker 1: violence against a robot or be uh, you know, performatively
Speaker 1: verbally abusive to a robot, even in in real physical space,
Speaker 1: and nothing is is just being tolerated. Something about that,
Speaker 1: at least intuitively to me, would have would seem to
Speaker 1: have a kind of deadening and and very detrimental effect
Speaker 1: on on the culture. Right, But then again, we have
Speaker 1: to be open to the idea that there could conceivably
Speaker 1: be situations in which the robot's presence is intolerable. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's not the robot's fault, but um, like say, there's
Speaker 1: some sort of a I mean you to go back
Speaker 1: to the cigarette robot example from that the first episode.
Speaker 1: If if the cigarette bot can roll into your house uninvited,
Speaker 1: I mean, I I think you should be able to,
Speaker 1: um to kick it out of your house, right right?
Speaker 1: Sure you know we were not going to stand for
Speaker 1: the tyranny of cigarette bot. Yeah. Maybe so that's the
Speaker 1: other side of it. Maybe maybe we should. Maybe there
Speaker 1: are cases where it's actually good to to appear to
Speaker 1: violate the rights of a robot if that robot represents
Speaker 1: something really evil and bad that you want to like
Speaker 1: demonstrate your disapproval against. I guess that that actually did
Speaker 1: come up in the paper. They were talking about arguments
Speaker 1: that like part of what juries sometimes want to do
Speaker 1: is just like symbolically demonstrate moral approprium. Yeah, here's an idea.
Speaker 1: What if you could build up moral willpower by having
Speaker 1: a robot devil that actually sits on your shoulder and
Speaker 1: is constantly trying to tempt you to do evil, and
Speaker 1: so you like just practice ignoring it all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess so I could see that working. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if I could. I mean, I can see people
Speaker 1: doing it. I don't know if it would work, uh
Speaker 1: at anyway, Well, we'll let those the listeners decide on that.
Speaker 1: Here's another bit of listener mail for UCE. This comes
Speaker 1: to us from Jim and New Jersey, Robert and Joe.
Speaker 1: I would like to update the trolley car problem slightly.
Speaker 1: For autonomous vehicles, it's not a choice of whether the
Speaker 1: car strikes the elderly couple or the mother pushing the
Speaker 1: baby stroller, inflicting the least possible harm. It's whether the
Speaker 1: car chooses to crash into a wall or tree seriously
Speaker 1: injuring or killing the passengers, or to strike pedestrians injuring
Speaker 1: or killing them while leaving the passengers mostly unscathed. But
Speaker 1: let's make it a bit more interesting. UM in the
Speaker 1: gym includes a few um caveats here. First of all,
Speaker 1: it's a choice between one passenger and a group of pedestrians,
Speaker 1: or it's a choice between a group in the vehicle
Speaker 1: and one pedestrian, or it's a choice between an equal
Speaker 1: number of people in the vehicle and an equal number
Speaker 1: of pedestrians. Does the car's decision favor passenger safety as
Speaker 1: the car moves from basic utility vehicles into more expensive
Speaker 1: luxury models. I don't know what these answers are or
Speaker 1: should be. There are no easy answers, Jim. I think
Speaker 1: this raises a great point, Jim, and we actually, I
Speaker 1: think we this is probably the response that came in
Speaker 1: after part one published, but before part two, So we
Speaker 1: sort of address some of this in part two. But
Speaker 1: this raises a bunch of other permutations that we didn't
Speaker 1: get into. UH. And and one thing that these variations
Speaker 1: really highlight for me is um a problem that we
Speaker 1: also did not really get into in the episode, which
Speaker 1: is UH, making life or death decisions when the probabilities
Speaker 1: of the outcomes that you're trying to choose between our
Speaker 1: very uncertain. So we were talking about how an autonomous
Speaker 1: vehicle in reality is going to have to make like
Speaker 1: trolley car type decisions all the time. But actually, what
Speaker 1: it's gonna have to do is make like a trolley
Speaker 1: problem decision where it's not one track with one person
Speaker 1: versus another track with multiple people. It's going to be
Speaker 1: lots of abstract branches of probabilities, like you you have
Speaker 1: an x percent probability that someone will be injured or
Speaker 1: harmed on this track versus that track, And a lot
Speaker 1: of times those probabilities, even that the machine judges with
Speaker 1: the best of information available to it, are just going
Speaker 1: to be wrong. So it's not just that the decision
Speaker 1: will have to be made, but the decision will have
Speaker 1: to be made necessarily on incomplete information that could be
Speaker 1: could be very misguided. Just one example, like if an
Speaker 1: autonomous vehicle is trying to make a split second decision
Speaker 1: to minimize harm in an oncoming wreck. Uh, it's going
Speaker 1: to have to make judgments like how many people are
Speaker 1: in the other car, but like how well it seems
Speaker 1: like that's something that's often going to be difficult or
Speaker 1: impossible to determine, or like what's the probability that people
Speaker 1: will will be injured or killed in certain collisions? I
Speaker 1: think it's unfortunately it just gets more and more difficult
Speaker 1: the more you try to get into the details on it. Though,
Speaker 1: as we were saying in the episode a number of times,
Speaker 1: it's not like this is a scenario where the human
Speaker 1: driver naturally has an advantage. I mean human drivers, I
Speaker 1: think are often just like making split second decisions based
Speaker 1: on almost no reasoning whatsoever. Is just sort of like
Speaker 1: instinctual jerky movements. Though the individual human is not going
Speaker 1: to see their own driving that way, right, So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's a complicated situation. Okay. This next message is
Speaker 1: about dad jokes and a former Listener mail episode. It
Speaker 1: comes from Mohammed. Mohammed just says, hey, guys, just listen
Speaker 1: to a bit in the list in her Mail episode
Speaker 1: about indicating sarcasm and text. And I wanted to point
Speaker 1: out another sarcasm indicator. I see a lot on social
Speaker 1: media that I think works really well alternating upper and
Speaker 1: lowercase letters. It reads intuitively to me as mocking and sarcastic.
Speaker 1: And that's the whole message, except Muhammad attaches a picture
Speaker 1: of a tattoo where it's one of those like they say,
Speaker 1: I say things, so the parents say, you'll regret that
Speaker 1: tattoo when you get older. And then the response is
Speaker 1: me also saying you'll regret that tattoo when you get older.
Speaker 1: But it's alternating upper in lowercase letters. And then the
Speaker 1: tattoo below that is a weird looking SpongeBob square pants. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. This looks fine and it's not a
Speaker 1: squid word tattoo. For crying out loud, it's SpongeBob. That's
Speaker 1: a weird SpongeBob, but it's good. I don't know the difference.
Speaker 1: What what what would be the deal if it was
Speaker 1: a squid word tattoo? Does that have political significance? No? No,
Speaker 1: it's just like squid Where have you ever watched SpongeBob? No?
Speaker 1: Never a whole episode. I mean, I know what it is,
Speaker 1: but well, I I could explain it to you, but
Speaker 1: the best thing to do just do. You have to
Speaker 1: watch and then you'll you'll understand the context. But yes,
Speaker 1: squid word is one of the other characters. And I
Speaker 1: guess there's squid word tattoos out there. Maybe there's some
Speaker 1: great squid word tattoos. Um, but I feel like SpongeBob
Speaker 1: is the better choice. I did not know we would
Speaker 1: get factionalism in the response to this, But this is good.
Speaker 1: All right. Let's get to some weird House related listener
Speaker 1: mail here. This one comes to us from Chris offhand.
Speaker 1: I don't know if this is the same Chris as earlier,
Speaker 1: but different one different Chris. A lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of Chris. Is a lot of Chris is out there,
Speaker 1: all right? This Chris says, Hello, Rob and Joe. Well
Speaker 1: we all have that first time it denied was the
Speaker 1: night I experienced Highlander. This is not related to any
Speaker 1: recent podcast specifically, but after searching and watching related weird
Speaker 1: house cinema shows on Prime, I'm being presented with quite
Speaker 1: the bevy of sci fi and weird house options. So
Speaker 1: tonight I try Odd Highlander. It's not over yet, but
Speaker 1: Sean Connery is Egyptian but has a Scottish accent. We
Speaker 1: helped just roll with it, I guess onward um. On
Speaker 1: another note, the dad joke episode was great. I'm a
Speaker 1: father to four children, the oldest is the same age
Speaker 1: as your son, Robert, and she has gotten to the
Speaker 1: point where she's trying her hand at making up jokes.
Speaker 1: A few land with her siblings or parents, but most
Speaker 1: are rather misunderstood. But she persists as far as the
Speaker 1: way a captive audience reinforces our dad jokes. This is
Speaker 1: spot on. The word play jokes and fart innuendo just
Speaker 1: make makes for an easy target for the five to
Speaker 1: nine year old age group. Fortunately, I'm going to have
Speaker 1: around a decade of time with children in that age range,
Speaker 1: so I'll be well entrenched in the dad joke mindset.
Speaker 1: So one for the road then not knock, who's there? Who? Who? Who?
Speaker 1: What are you? And al Yeah, that's the end of
Speaker 1: the regards Chris, I've encountered that one in the wild before. Now.
Speaker 1: As for Highlander, um, yeah, absolutely. Highlander is a is
Speaker 1: a wonderful and and weird film, Uh that I think
Speaker 1: about quite a bit. And obviously we're we're big fans,
Speaker 1: huge fans, enormous fans. We're princess of the universe of Now,
Speaker 1: regarding the idea that Sean Connery is Egyptian in The Highlander,
Speaker 1: I recalled that's actually multiply confusing because, uh, if I'm
Speaker 1: not mistaken, it's Sean Connery not even attempting to mask
Speaker 1: his Scottish accent, but he's playing a guy who comes
Speaker 1: from Egypt originally, but his name is one Sanchez Villa
Speaker 1: Lobos Ramirez, and I think he is supposed to have
Speaker 1: been more recently Spanish, right, yes, So you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know. It's I guess there are different ways you
Speaker 1: could crack that apart. I mean, the obvious answer is
Speaker 1: Sean Connery is not going to do an accent. He's
Speaker 1: going to Sean Connery's accents. So he's going to be
Speaker 1: Scottish in any and everything, whether he's playing an ancient
Speaker 1: Egyptian immortal or like a Russian submarine captain, you're getting
Speaker 1: you're getting the same accent. But I don't know you
Speaker 1: could I guess say that, like if you live long enough,
Speaker 1: perhaps you're fluid enough to move through different cultures. You
Speaker 1: also moved through different languages, and you move through different accents,
Speaker 1: and I don't know how you wind up there, But
Speaker 1: like I guess the thing is, you could look at
Speaker 1: it this way. Ramirez is traveling in Scotland at the time,
Speaker 1: uh in that movie, That's how he encounters McLeod um. Therefore,
Speaker 1: perhaps he's just shifted into Scottish mode. And indeed we
Speaker 1: never see him in that film anyway out of the
Speaker 1: Scottish context. So that's right. Yeah, he's a worldly wanderer
Speaker 1: in the Highlands. He's like, he's like Brian Cox and Braveheart. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I don't know. I guess it makes I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go I'm gonna go with Hi. I'm gonna say it
Speaker 1: makes perfect sense. It's what It makes perfect sense within
Speaker 1: the context of Highlander one. I guess it. In Highland
Speaker 1: or two he's a ghost, so he's he's just set
Speaker 1: in whatever he was, right, but where he died. So,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm going to take it a step further.
Speaker 1: It works perfectly in Highlander two as well. I don't
Speaker 1: know if I agree that he's a ghost in Highlander
Speaker 1: two isn't. Well, he's the product of some kind of
Speaker 1: necromancy from the planet Zeist. So the way it goes,
Speaker 1: he's he's killed in Highlander one and then many years
Speaker 1: in the future, Uh, Connor McCloud yells his name, and
Speaker 1: then yelling his name causes him to be like reborn
Speaker 1: in Scotland, and then he comes to visit Connor McCloud.
Speaker 1: So I don't know what you call that. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: going to call it a ghost. Okay. He appears very fleshy,
Speaker 1: but but maybe maybe a fleshy ghost. Okay, this next
Speaker 1: message is about Weird House Cinema. It comes from Andy,
Speaker 1: and he says, Hey, guys, I really dig the relatively
Speaker 1: new Weird House Cinema segment. I noticed you haven't done
Speaker 1: any animated features. May be wrong on that point. I
Speaker 1: haven't had the chance to listen to them all. So
Speaker 1: I had a couple of suggestions. Two of my personal
Speaker 1: favorites from when I was a kid, nineteen seventy seven's
Speaker 1: Wizards and nineteen eighty threes Rock and Rule. Both are
Speaker 1: fun and definitely strange post apocalyptic animated features. Wizards is
Speaker 1: a Ralph backsheet film with some great humor. Rock and
Speaker 1: Rule contains wonderful music by lou Rey, Debbie Harry and
Speaker 1: Cheap Trick, as well as a demon made of animated
Speaker 1: cow brains. LOOK forward to seeing your thoughts on these
Speaker 1: fantastically weird animated features, Andy. Well, Andy, I've read about
Speaker 1: both of these movies but seen neither one. Same. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not familiar with Rock and Rule at all, but
Speaker 1: I'm familiar with Wizards just because it's it's often held
Speaker 1: up there. It has this you know, it's a. It's
Speaker 1: favorite for people who are into like seventies weird animated features,
Speaker 1: and you know, I like, we're other work by Ralph
Speaker 1: bak Sheef for sure, So I don't know, maybe that
Speaker 1: one's in our future. I know we've we have a couple,
Speaker 1: at least a couple of animated titles that we've been
Speaker 1: kind of knocking around, and uh, I think we may
Speaker 1: have animated content discussed on the show in the near future.
Speaker 1: So this one is from Landon, and Landon says, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: my older brother had a Turbo Graphics sixteen rob which
Speaker 1: I think this came up in Gunhead, right, because we're
Speaker 1: talking about the idea of Gunhead having uh ports for
Speaker 1: multiple systems. Is a video game, and one of them
Speaker 1: was a game on the Turbo Graphics sixteen that I
Speaker 1: don't recall playing, but when I was a kid, I
Speaker 1: had this, uh this weird game console, and we talked
Speaker 1: about the game Balk's Adventure, which is about an aggressive
Speaker 1: caveman baby that headbuts dinosaurs to death. Yeah. I had
Speaker 1: to look it up that it is some sort of
Speaker 1: caveman baby. I also recall that at some point, I
Speaker 1: think you have to rescue the Princess of the Moon
Speaker 1: or something like. You go to the Moon and the
Speaker 1: bad guys from the Moon, and the bad guy has
Speaker 1: been transforming dinosaurs into evil versions of themselves, and if
Speaker 1: you like head butt the dinosaurs enough, they revert to
Speaker 1: their sort of sweet, nerdy former selves. Anyway, Uh, Landing
Speaker 1: goes on about other turbographic sixteen games, says says Bonks
Speaker 1: was a great game, but Landon also says Keith Courage
Speaker 1: was good too. Now, Keith Courage, I think the game
Speaker 1: was called Keith Courage in Alpha zones. And this was
Speaker 1: a really bizarre game that I also had. It was
Speaker 1: a it was a two D platform side scroller, but
Speaker 1: it had two very different types of levels. One was
Speaker 1: like and they would alternate. You'd go one, and then
Speaker 1: the other one was this cute animated overworld where you'd
Speaker 1: walk around and and go into shops and stuff, and
Speaker 1: it was animated in a way almost loo kind of
Speaker 1: like earth Bound or something except two D. Uh, just
Speaker 1: like very like cute and sunny and bright, and then
Speaker 1: every other level was just this demonic nightmare in these
Speaker 1: caves with like satanic robots attacking you, very very hot
Speaker 1: and cold showers to use the Grand Guniol phrase. But
Speaker 1: then anyway, Landing goes on. There was also a really
Speaker 1: cool racing slash adventure game too. You had to wander
Speaker 1: a world and look for people to race. I wish
Speaker 1: I remember what it was called. I don't know what
Speaker 1: that one was land but Landon says, I've been really
Speaker 1: enjoying the Weird House Cinema episodes. I've seen several that
Speaker 1: have been covered. Robot Jocks was a childhood favorite for
Speaker 1: me and my brothers. Crash and burn became a catchphrase
Speaker 1: for us. What do you think about doing an episode
Speaker 1: on the movie Universal Soldier? Thanks for the great shows, Landon, Um, Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know Universal Soldier. It's been a long time
Speaker 1: since I've seen it, But I don't know. I guess
Speaker 1: anything's possible. We've we often have this discussion, like we
Speaker 1: we don't really have a a set in stone criteria
Speaker 1: for Weird House Cinema is it's it's kind of a
Speaker 1: does it feel right, does it feel like it fits?
Speaker 1: And and then we kind of go with it. So
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm not sure. I haven't looked at
Speaker 1: Universal Soldiers. Roland Imrick, isn't it I think is it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I believe it was in early one of his films.
Speaker 1: Could be wrong about that. Speaking of Roland Emerick, Rachel
Speaker 1: and I just recently decided to re revisit a movie
Speaker 1: I hadn't seen in a long time. We watched the
Speaker 1: nineteen Godzilla, directed by Roland Emerick, and what a travesty.
Speaker 1: Just that movie is just direct, no offense to anybody
Speaker 1: who worked on it. But yeah, just I don't know,
Speaker 1: as someone who's who's come to really be more discerning
Speaker 1: about Kaishu type films as as time goes on, that
Speaker 1: one is just the bottom of the barrel. This is
Speaker 1: the Godzilla in name only picture. I don't know what
Speaker 1: you mean by that. I mean it's the one with
Speaker 1: Matthew Broderick and genre No and those people. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's sometimes called I've seen it referred to
Speaker 1: as Gino as Godzilla in name Only. Well yeah, well,
Speaker 1: like most of the movie is not actually Godzilla. It's
Speaker 1: Matthew Broderick and a bunch of people running around in
Speaker 1: a building running from velociraptors. I think there's the baby godzillas.
Speaker 1: But so it came out a few years after Jurassic
Speaker 1: Park and so there are raptor sized baby Godzilla's doing
Speaker 1: most of the action in the film. Well, you know
Speaker 1: Roland Imerick, he he had some He did some fun pictures. Though.
Speaker 1: We have to remember he did Stargate. Oh, Argate was
Speaker 1: kind of fun. You know, Stargate was fun. I haven't
Speaker 1: seen it in a long time, but ye say, remember
Speaker 1: had a gloriously befuddled James Spader in it. It was
Speaker 1: James Spader and Hugh Grant mode. Yeah. Yeah, and there
Speaker 1: was some fun teleportation high jinks. Uh. Other than that,
Speaker 1: I'm a little little foggy on what happened. Okay, all right,
Speaker 1: here's another bit of listener mail. Lison comes to us
Speaker 1: from Cheryl. Cheryl Rights, I've come across a movie that
Speaker 1: might be suitable for this feature. It is a late
Speaker 1: sixties sort of movie when studios were trying to catch
Speaker 1: up with youth culture. It goes about as well as
Speaker 1: you'd expect. I'd be interested in your take on it.
Speaker 1: The Magic Christian stars Peter Seller's and Ringo Starr, with
Speaker 1: an amazing cast of credited and uncredited actors, including John
Speaker 1: Cleese and Wilfred Hyde. Y Yule Brenner sings a torch
Speaker 1: Song in Drag very well too. Thanks for what you
Speaker 1: do best, Cheryl. Oh, I've seen The Magic Christian. This
Speaker 1: movie is nuts. I also it's been a while since
Speaker 1: I've seen it, but it's uh, it doesn't really have,
Speaker 1: as far as I recall, much of an overarching narrative.
Speaker 1: It's not like a plot driven movie. It's more just
Speaker 1: kind of a series of bizarre vignette strung together of
Speaker 1: of people. Like the main thing I remember about it
Speaker 1: is it has like somebody who's got a lot of
Speaker 1: money tricking people into like like doing pranks on people,
Speaker 1: essentially getting people into bizarre scenarios under the impression, under
Speaker 1: the idea that people will do anything for money. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've I've never seen it, but yeah, it does have
Speaker 1: a lot of interesting people attached to it, and I
Speaker 1: don't know, it seems to be part of a a
Speaker 1: genre that I have very little exposure to, sort of
Speaker 1: a like a late sixties British satire. The film um
Speaker 1: like I was looking at Joseph McGrath's uh work here,
Speaker 1: Scottish film director, and it's a lot of stuff that
Speaker 1: I've never heard of. But also stuff like the nineteen
Speaker 1: seven Casino Royal adaptation which had Peter Sellers in it
Speaker 1: and Ursa Landrew's David Niven, etcetera. Yeah, I think it
Speaker 1: was based on something that was written by by the
Speaker 1: writer Terry Southern and uh, actually, fact, I remember I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure The Magic Christian was a favorite of former
Speaker 1: show host Christian Seger. Really okay, yeah, maybe that's maybe
Speaker 1: that's why it sort of rings about, like maybe I
Speaker 1: remember him talking about it. Yeah, all right, what do
Speaker 1: we have? Looks like we have one left in the
Speaker 1: bag there. Ah, yeah, okay. This comes from Greg. Greg,
Speaker 1: also writing about Weird House Cinema, says The Keep is
Speaker 1: an interesting film by Michael Mann, his second feat. Sure,
Speaker 1: I was super excited to see this movie when it
Speaker 1: first came out after seeing production stills in maybe Fangoria. Anyway,
Speaker 1: the film is a beautifully shot, confusing mess with Nazi
Speaker 1: SS troops, an Immortal Warrior, and pure evil every fog
Speaker 1: machine ever made crank to eleven during the whole thing.
Speaker 1: Oh and an all star cast. Look it up. Maybe
Speaker 1: worth a visit for Weird House Cinema. Thanks and love
Speaker 1: the show. Greg. Have you seen The Keep? Rob? I haven't.
Speaker 1: It's been on my list for a long time. I
Speaker 1: think it's one that I've occasionally like powered up like
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I think tonight's tonight, I'm gonna watch
Speaker 1: the keep and then it just doesn't happen for one
Speaker 1: reason or another. I'm almost positive it's got a Tangerine
Speaker 1: Dream score. That's what thats you in. That's probably it.
Speaker 1: H I mean, also, you know the idea Michael Mann
Speaker 1: is not really known for his genre pictures. You know,
Speaker 1: you tend to, so the idea of one of his
Speaker 1: early films had a bunch of supernatural weirdness and and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, and and and Nazis and stuff. It sounds
Speaker 1: worth checking out. I've certainly talked to people who are
Speaker 1: big fans of this flick. Um, So, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe this is weird house material. I did look
Speaker 1: it up. I can confirm it is music by Tangerine
Speaker 1: Dream uh and and it fits because the movie has
Speaker 1: a kind of that that Tangerine Dreams sort of slow
Speaker 1: dream equality to it. There's lots of fog floating around,
Speaker 1: and the cast is really excellent. I don't think I
Speaker 1: could say it's a good movie. H. Greg is correct
Speaker 1: that this movie is is very confusing, and it doesn't
Speaker 1: I don't recall it having much of a like very
Speaker 1: a very propulsive narrative. But it's got great actors in it.
Speaker 1: It's got Scott Glenn as some kind of strange like
Speaker 1: chosen One type figure who is who is drawn to
Speaker 1: this war zone in Europe by supernatural forces. I think
Speaker 1: at some point his eyes start glowing and I recall
Speaker 1: Scot Glenn has unbelievable what do you call the muscles
Speaker 1: on top of your shoulders, the where like your clavic
Speaker 1: hold your neck, those things. Um, yeah, those traps are
Speaker 1: those traps? Traps? Sure? His his traps are off the charts.
Speaker 1: His traps are unbelievable. Scott Glenn is great. I mean really,
Speaker 1: this whole I mean you look at the people in
Speaker 1: this film is like Gabriel Byrne. Ian McKellen. Um, if
Speaker 1: Brian Payne shows up, I think he's basically just a
Speaker 1: rando in it. But like Bruce Payne is a great
Speaker 1: Beam movie actor as well. Yeah, Ian McKellan is of
Speaker 1: course wonderful as always. I think Jurgen proc Now is
Speaker 1: in it. He plays a Nazi. I think Gabriel Burne
Speaker 1: plays a Nazi and it is the elevator pitches that
Speaker 1: this demon in a cave who looks like a bodybuilder
Speaker 1: hell spawn slash robot comes to life, is awakened somehow
Speaker 1: and kills a bunch of Nazis. Yeah. I think I've
Speaker 1: seen a picture of the the entity in question, and
Speaker 1: he looks like he's probably Thanos his personal trainer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he does lift this, This demon does lift bro Well,
Speaker 1: I mean say no more. It's got a tangerine dream score,
Speaker 1: so I'd watch it. Okay, Well, maybe this goes on
Speaker 1: the list for the future. And yeah, it is funny
Speaker 1: seeing this come out of Michael Mann, who I think
Speaker 1: Michael Mann is a great filmmaker. I really enjoy a
Speaker 1: lot of his movies, but most of the ones I
Speaker 1: can think of are like crime thriller type movies, like
Speaker 1: some of the best of that genre. But yeah, you
Speaker 1: don't really think of him as making horror movies. Though.
Speaker 1: One movie of his that I think is is really overlooked.
Speaker 1: Is he in the like mid to late two thousands,
Speaker 1: I think, like two thousand five or six or so,
Speaker 1: did a Miami Vice movie? Did you ever see this? No?
Speaker 1: I never did. I know the film in question, though
Speaker 1: this movie is it is not at all what you
Speaker 1: would expect it. Uh. It's so it's just a you know,
Speaker 1: like cops dealing with crime and drug smugglers and stuff
Speaker 1: in terms of story content. But stylistically, this movie is
Speaker 1: so dark and do me. It is like it's like
Speaker 1: the cop movie at the end of the world. The
Speaker 1: cinematography is full of all this a negative space and
Speaker 1: haunting low light. It's it's it is astonishingly weird and
Speaker 1: beautiful in terms of how it looks for a cop movie,
Speaker 1: which is what it is. I would say, it's if
Speaker 1: you're into I don't know. If that tickles your fancy,
Speaker 1: you should. You should look it up. Tangerine Dreamscore. Oh
Speaker 1: I don't know. Okay, well then I can't commit. Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, We're gonna go ahead and close it up here,
Speaker 1: but we'll be back next week with more listener mail.
Speaker 1: Keep it coming, um you know it. Feel free to
Speaker 1: write in about any topics past or present or potentially
Speaker 1: future stuff doble your mind, weird how cinema. Uh, and
Speaker 1: you know, never be shy about even chiming in between
Speaker 1: part one and part two of a series, because that
Speaker 1: that's exactly the case with the Punishing Robots listener mail
Speaker 1: that we read in this episode because we're recording this
Speaker 1: episode between the publication of part one in part two, right, yes,
Speaker 1: good good, Thank you for noting anyway, Thanks as always
Speaker 1: to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Anson. If you
Speaker 1: would like to get in touch with us with feedback
Speaker 1: on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic
Speaker 1: for the future, or just to say hello, you can
Speaker 1: email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind
Speaker 1: dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production
Speaker 1: of I heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.