Speaker 1: Welcome to the show, fellow conspiracy realist. This evening, we're
Speaker 1: returning to you with a very oh gosh, oh Matt,
Speaker 1: I'm always just so fascinated by this one. Real life superpowers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've all dreamt about it. We've been thinking about
Speaker 2: it since we picked up that first comic book. What
Speaker 2: if any of this could really be true? It? Could
Speaker 2: I do it?
Speaker 1: Literally? Any of it like a picture? You know, some
Speaker 1: not all X Men have the same level of powers
Speaker 1: in the Marvel universe. There are Omega level mutants, and
Speaker 1: there's everybody else. But even like the nerdiest X Man
Speaker 1: like Cipher, who just knows every language, even that's really
Speaker 1: cool power. So for quite some time you and I
Speaker 1: were were just compelled to look through all the reports
Speaker 1: of extraordinary abilities across the real world and determine whether
Speaker 1: or not any of them are true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, could there be a real life night Crawler? And
Speaker 2: could he be me?
Speaker 1: And does he BAMF? Does he BAF? Is the question?
Speaker 1: What does the band?
Speaker 2: Does that mean?
Speaker 1: BAMF is the automotive pya, it's the it's the sound
Speaker 1: effect when night Crawler teleports, it's BAF BAMF.
Speaker 2: So unfamiliar with with all these like terms you know
Speaker 2: that are used. I thought I really thought it was
Speaker 2: just some kind of slang term. I didn't understand it.
Speaker 1: It was just a weird Twitter acronym. Well, at this point,
Speaker 1: this is coming to us from twenty eighteen as the
Speaker 1: humans reckon the calendar. So tune in, let us know
Speaker 1: what you think, and then let us know what sound
Speaker 1: effect your superpower would have. From UFOs to psychic powers
Speaker 1: and government conspiracies, history is riddled with unexplained events. You
Speaker 1: can turn back now or learn this stuff they don't
Speaker 1: want you to know.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Noman.
Speaker 1: They call me Ben. We are joined with our super
Speaker 1: producer Paul Deckett. Most importantly, you are here, and that
Speaker 1: makes this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: sequel episode to an episode that I think we all
Speaker 1: enjoyed much earlier when we did it for the first time.
Speaker 1: How long ago was that.
Speaker 3: I was gonna ask the same thing? A couple of.
Speaker 1: Years, It seems like it was a while back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was our episode on real life Superpowers. Now, as
Speaker 1: we live in the age of superhero movies, the comic
Speaker 1: book movie renaissance, you could call it. We know that
Speaker 1: more and more people are familiar with the concept of
Speaker 1: the extraordinary abilities that we call superpowers, and there are
Speaker 1: a few that even if you hate Marvel and DC
Speaker 1: movies and comic books in general, there are a few
Speaker 1: of these abilities that are totally familiar to everyone, like
Speaker 1: flying without the need of a plane, a helicopter, a
Speaker 1: glider or so on. Right, that's that's one of the
Speaker 1: oldest ones, right, absolute even in ancient myths, gods can fly.
Speaker 3: You know, I've never thought about this until now, but
Speaker 3: since most of the superheroes that fly don't have any
Speaker 3: kind of wing structure support, I conjecture that it is
Speaker 3: a psychic based ability. It is almost like a telekinetic
Speaker 3: ability control themselves.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's absolutely right, because I went through a phase
Speaker 1: a while back when I would ask people what three
Speaker 1: superpowers they could have, and I think we've all had
Speaker 1: this conversation off air.
Speaker 3: I think we did in the last Superpowers episode.
Speaker 1: We probably did. Yeah, And that's flying is one that
Speaker 1: people don't think through all the way because flying sounds
Speaker 1: cool unless it's a physical thing like swimming. Because if
Speaker 1: you can just because you can swim doesn't mean you
Speaker 1: can swim across town. It would have to be something
Speaker 1: that doesn't exert muscle energy.
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 3: But I think that tele kinesis now would fold a
Speaker 3: lot of things into itself. Right, tell kinesis you could
Speaker 3: make yourself fly and then you have that one checked
Speaker 3: off the list, and you could also, you know, throw
Speaker 3: knives at people in the air.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I disagree on both counts. Guys. All you have
Speaker 2: to do is master the matrix, and once you've got
Speaker 2: that down, you can do anything.
Speaker 1: Well, that's just bending the code.
Speaker 3: Did you take the red pillar? The blue pill?
Speaker 2: The red pill? Dude?
Speaker 3: You know that's like a weird like neo Nazi thing
Speaker 3: getting red pilled.
Speaker 1: It gets a massage. Yeah.
Speaker 2: It stands for a lot of things now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but specifically I heard that it was sort of
Speaker 3: like a way the alt right are able to explain
Speaker 3: the way they started believing that the Jewish people controlled
Speaker 3: the universe.
Speaker 1: It also stands for the in cell stuff, the involuntarily
Speaker 1: celibate movement.
Speaker 2: Well, I take the red pill for other reasons, all
Speaker 2: you groups out there, and it has to do with
Speaker 2: the matrix.
Speaker 1: The original reason. Yeah, talk about being misused, but the
Speaker 1: writers of the Matrix are pissed about that. One. Another
Speaker 1: skill that people are familiar with would be the idea
Speaker 1: of extraordinary strength. As we explained in the last episode
Speaker 1: on real life superpowers, these come in these strength. Powers
Speaker 1: come in two real life variations. The first is hysterical strength,
Speaker 1: which is a real thing. A parent sees their child
Speaker 1: run over by a car with a heavy weight on them,
Speaker 1: and they are able to in a way that does
Speaker 1: damage them. They are able to temporarily lift much more
Speaker 1: weight than they could normally. The second, and perhaps more
Speaker 1: disturbing one is a genetic mutation that's been found in
Speaker 1: to date one cow and one boy in Europe, and
Speaker 1: it's a mutation that removes the limits on their ability
Speaker 1: to build muscle mass. And these are just a few
Speaker 1: of the powers we covered in our previous episode. Each
Speaker 1: each case in that episode and in this one, each
Speaker 1: of these cases have been scientifically verified. And while no
Speaker 1: one can fly unaided yet, our species is capable of
Speaker 1: some pretty amazing things, and so many in fact, that
Speaker 1: we decided to do this long awaited sequel because we
Speaker 1: found powers that didn't make it into the first episode.
Speaker 1: If you have not checked out Real Life Superpowers Part one.
Speaker 1: Please go ahead and do so now because you will
Speaker 1: want the context to this, and honestly, you won't want
Speaker 1: to miss the first powers we discovered in that one,
Speaker 1: because these other powers are a little different. So go
Speaker 1: ahead and pause this now, give that one a listen
Speaker 1: and come back. We'll wait.
Speaker 2: Okay, you're done listening to the Avengers episode. Cool?
Speaker 3: Good The Avengers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that. Last episode is basically the Avengers.
Speaker 1: Right, We've got a supersite, super strength.
Speaker 2: Temperature, and regulation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's always my fair massive endurance. So those are
Speaker 1: the Avenger level powers. This one is maybe for fans
Speaker 1: of comic books out there, and please write to us
Speaker 1: and let me know if you get this reference. This
Speaker 1: is more the Great Lakes Avengers episode to deep cut.
Speaker 1: You can also google Great Lakes Avengers if you want
Speaker 1: to chuckle.
Speaker 3: I can kind of put it together in my head.
Speaker 3: Is it sort of just like the workaday Joe Avengers
Speaker 3: kind of like doing their stuff out words?
Speaker 2: No, No, this is a this is a superhero team.
Speaker 1: It's their job.
Speaker 3: But they're out in the Great Lakes, so I'm picture
Speaker 3: of them being like good old Salt of the Earth
Speaker 3: types you know, perhaps.
Speaker 1: I like where's at but you gotta you gotta check those.
Speaker 1: I think you will enjoy reading about Great Lakes.
Speaker 2: I look forward to it. Not too many spoilers, but
Speaker 2: definitely search the thing that Ben told me to search,
Speaker 2: which is doormn one one word door man.
Speaker 3: Is he literally a door man like an hotel?
Speaker 1: Well, I don't. I don't want to spoil it for
Speaker 1: the listeners, so I'm not going to say it on air,
Speaker 1: but I think everybody writes in will will enjoy the
Speaker 1: Google search.
Speaker 3: How have I not heard of this? Is this like
Speaker 3: a parody? No, it's a real thing.
Speaker 1: But I get I'm not going to I'm looking at
Speaker 1: it right now and it's yeah, please, we'll check this out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's see if it Let's see if it's a correct comparison.
Speaker 1: So here are the facts. Most of those extraordinary abilities
Speaker 1: that we discussed today fall into a few distinct categories.
Speaker 2: Yeah, first, you got the kind of what we spoke
Speaker 2: about before, some kind of genetic mutation that allows the
Speaker 2: human body, for one reason or another, from some small
Speaker 2: change at the genetic level to allow just a tiny,
Speaker 2: a minuscule amount of human beings on the planet to
Speaker 2: do something greater than we usually could. We're talking about
Speaker 2: what people who can see colors. Most people can't see
Speaker 2: tetrachromats exactly.
Speaker 1: That one the kind of the opposite of being colored
Speaker 1: efficient or color blind. They're all women due to the
Speaker 1: way the genetic expression works, and they can see way
Speaker 1: more colors than we will ever ever get to see.
Speaker 2: Yeah, can't even fathom them. Even if you're looking at
Speaker 2: one of those massive color wheels, it's not on there.
Speaker 1: They can also determine imperfections in colors that we would
Speaker 1: otherwise think are the same. So, if anything, it's kind
Speaker 1: of an irritating superpowerful. Can you imagine being a tetrachromat
Speaker 1: and trying to paint your house?
Speaker 2: Ooh yeah, that'd be crazy.
Speaker 1: And so Second, and this is good news for a
Speaker 1: lot of us listening here. Second, there are learned superpowers,
Speaker 1: such as people with blindness who have learned to practice echolocation.
Speaker 1: We all know what echolocation is, right, It's like how
Speaker 1: a lot of bats get around, or dolphins, dolphins more particularly, right.
Speaker 1: I think dolphin would be the more correct use of it,
Speaker 1: wouldn't it.
Speaker 2: I know bats are right up in there.
Speaker 1: And so are a couple of people who have gone
Speaker 1: full on daredevil in. And then there are people like
Speaker 1: you mentioned in the beginning, Matt, people who have learned
Speaker 1: to control otherwise involuntary bodily functions through meditation.
Speaker 2: That's pretty awesome. It's kind of like the matrix.
Speaker 1: It is kind of like the matrix.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 1: And there's one there's a thing that I thought would
Speaker 1: interest you particularly, knowl There's a fascinating audio file that
Speaker 1: we will get to later in today's show. It's it's weird.
Speaker 3: I can't wait.
Speaker 1: I don't even know if it's useful, but I think
Speaker 1: it's cool. I think I think we'll all like it.
Speaker 2: Not fil e as in an audio file at Phil right.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, he can make audio files with his head,
Speaker 1: which would actually be incredibly useful for us.
Speaker 3: He's got like a little USB drive right at his
Speaker 3: temple and he just pops in a stick and then hands.
Speaker 2: It to you. Forty eight K waves whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, uh nerds. But third, there are there are people
Speaker 1: who have already acquired certain extraordinary abilities through kind of
Speaker 1: the Iron Man Batman route. They've used technology, or what's
Speaker 1: known as wetwear biohacking, to give themselves a couple of
Speaker 1: extra things that you would not ordinarily have as a
Speaker 1: member of this species. And this is interesting, this third one,
Speaker 1: because this technology and biohacking, coupled with genetic research, forms
Speaker 1: the basis of current superpower research. And without spoiling things
Speaker 1: just yet, we're going to end by looking at the
Speaker 1: future in this episode, So stay tuned because we want
Speaker 1: to hear what you think about some of the strange
Speaker 1: and I think earlier we described as potentially huge, but
Speaker 1: I'll just I'll say what it is, potentially catastrophic changes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's just a couple of decades out from now. So
Speaker 1: enough preface, right, let's get to the powers. That's why
Speaker 1: we're all here. We'll briefly describe them and we'll follow
Speaker 1: up with some speculation on their usefulness.
Speaker 2: Yeah, some of them are more usable than others. So
Speaker 2: what's first, Ben.
Speaker 1: Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 2: Oh, oh, that should always be first.
Speaker 1: Well, it's a little I think it's weird because it's
Speaker 1: a little early in the episode. Right, So super throws,
Speaker 1: super throwing. We've all thrown stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, most of us. You can huck a I don't know,
Speaker 2: a cantalope fairly far, which is difficult to do because
Speaker 2: my hand isn't big enough to palm a cantelope. But
Speaker 2: it's fun to attempt to throw in really far after
Speaker 2: it's gone bad.
Speaker 3: You've got above average sized hands, I would say, Man, really, yeah,
Speaker 3: oh thanks dude, and a problem.
Speaker 2: Man, Can I be your lawyer?
Speaker 1: That's worth it? That's worth it. God, that character is
Speaker 1: so creepy, but I love them, I know.
Speaker 3: So who are you talking about.
Speaker 1: We're talking about Charlie's uncle in Always Sunny. Yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: it's very worried about the size of his hands and
Speaker 1: what qualifies as art. Oh boy, So this super throwing
Speaker 1: maybe a thing. Some people will tell you it is.
Speaker 1: And it all goes back to polydactly, which is the
Speaker 1: fancy word for being born with extra digits or one
Speaker 1: extra digit on your hand or.
Speaker 2: On your feet, fingers and or toes.
Speaker 1: Fingers and toes. Yeah, not like a little baby hand
Speaker 1: growing out of your regular hand. And so it's the
Speaker 1: second most common congenital hand disorder. And what we're talking
Speaker 1: about specifically is something called radial polydactyle. So, for everyone
Speaker 1: who's seen our new logo, what you're gonna tell people
Speaker 1: do it? No, we shouldn't spoil the beans. No, it's
Speaker 1: too late. We've said too much. Spoil the beans. Spoil
Speaker 1: the beans, spoil the beans. I like it. So this
Speaker 1: this radial polydactyle stuff one in every three thousand live berths.
Speaker 1: And when this occurs, you'll see something where it looks
Speaker 1: like someone has an extra pinky maybe or even more
Speaker 1: extra digits, And.
Speaker 2: So it goes off that side of the hand, not
Speaker 2: not on the side of the thumb, off the.
Speaker 1: It can go okay either way. But but the thing
Speaker 1: that's crazy about it is that many, many more people
Speaker 1: have been born with this condition than you might imagine.
Speaker 1: Often people when they're when they're born with extra tiny
Speaker 1: fingers or something, there's no way for the doctors to
Speaker 1: tell whether those are going to be functional later in
Speaker 1: life or just awkward looking, so you kind of have
Speaker 1: to just wait. So well, often they get cut off
Speaker 1: at birth. Oh so it's quite possible that you know,
Speaker 1: some of us listening may have been born with that
Speaker 1: condition and the doctor just snipped off that extra thumb jeez,
Speaker 1: because they didn't know if it was going to be
Speaker 1: just hanging around.
Speaker 3: You wouldn't leave a mark, though, some kind of telltale sign, right.
Speaker 1: Good question. Look, would it leave a line of a
Speaker 1: scar right here along the base of your hands under
Speaker 1: your pinky. The thing is it would have that cut
Speaker 1: would have occurred so early that the scar would become imperceptible.
Speaker 3: You know, it's kind of cool. There's a lot of
Speaker 3: stuff in folklore and various cultures from around the world
Speaker 3: about how extra digits and toes are actually a sign
Speaker 3: of some kind of providence. I suppose, like, like you know,
Speaker 3: they're have a red places saying that Atam, you know
Speaker 3: of Adam and Eve fame who possibly had six fingers,
Speaker 3: And in the Chaco Canyon area of New Mexico, the
Speaker 3: ancient Pueblo culture have all kinds of cave paintings of
Speaker 3: six fingers and six toad sandals and things like that.
Speaker 3: And it's this polydactyle has been considered to be revered
Speaker 3: as some kind of great prophet or some kind of
Speaker 3: great warrior, or some kind of imbued with some kind
Speaker 3: of power.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's considered auspicious. The highest rate of occurrence is
Speaker 1: in the Indian subcontinent, But if you think about it,
Speaker 1: one out of three thousand people is pretty common as
Speaker 1: far as these sorts of conditions go. And this means
Speaker 1: that most cultures through antiquity would have been familiar with it.
Speaker 1: In some cultures it was seen as a sign of
Speaker 1: the devil or demonic origin, but in other cultures it
Speaker 1: was seen as a very very auspicious thing. In the
Speaker 1: case of Antonio Alfonseca, it was a weird piece of
Speaker 1: trivia that always got included with descriptions of his career
Speaker 1: as a baseball pitcher. You see, Antonio was born with
Speaker 1: six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot.
Speaker 1: He had a great sinker, the type of pitch who
Speaker 1: was known for his teammates called him el Bulpo or
Speaker 1: the polpo, the octopus, and he was he was uh.
Speaker 1: It was called this because of his six fingers on
Speaker 1: each hand. And yes, we know that's not technically correct,
Speaker 1: that's twelve digits. But he did not have these removed
Speaker 1: at birth, unlike a lot of other people. And so
Speaker 1: when he was pitching, people began to credit his pitching
Speaker 1: ability to some sort of perceived better grip on the ball.
Speaker 2: Interesting and certainly be different than the standard, sure, sure.
Speaker 1: But then also we could say the same thing about
Speaker 1: someone who sit friends since had fused fingers and only
Speaker 1: had three fingers, right, they would have a different grip
Speaker 1: as well. But the problem is that his extra digit
Speaker 1: was if you look at it, it's kind of an
Speaker 1: extra pinky and it didn't seem to at least from
Speaker 1: what he said, it didn't seem to come into contact
Speaker 1: with the ball when he's actually holding it. So usefulness,
Speaker 1: I don't know. We'll have to wait for a polydactyl
Speaker 1: person to maybe take up piano or some other instrument
Speaker 1: like maybe a sitar or a harp, something with a
Speaker 1: lot of strings. And additionally, for it to be a
Speaker 1: benefit to them, they'd need extra digits to work independently
Speaker 1: like their other fingers, and that's not as common as
Speaker 1: just straight up polydactyl cases. So there you go.
Speaker 2: There you go a little bit more on alfon Seca.
Speaker 2: He played for the Braves for I think one or
Speaker 2: two seasons. I definitely remember seeing his name floating around
Speaker 2: in the Braves roster for a while. Oh wait it
Speaker 2: was yeah, it was two thousand and four. Okay, so
Speaker 2: it was a single season, two thousand and four. But
Speaker 2: you probably remember him if you do, if it is
Speaker 2: ringing your head from his years with the Florida Marlins.
Speaker 2: That's right. Look, I have a very limited baseball memory,
Speaker 2: but I actually do. I looked up his name and
Speaker 2: I saw his face. I was like, oh, yeah, I
Speaker 2: do remember this. Yeah, I don't remember that part. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's really interesting. I don't remember him being like amazing though.
Speaker 1: No. No, he was just a competent pitcher. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the thing. It's not. It's not as if he were
Speaker 1: like the Lebron James of pitching or something, you know,
Speaker 1: but it was just a I think it was a
Speaker 1: good story for slow news days often.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Are there any more impressive examples of super throwing of
Speaker 3: super throwing?
Speaker 1: No, but there are examples of There are examples of
Speaker 1: things that you could call super catching.
Speaker 3: A little line interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we've we've shown one that's we're kind of
Speaker 1: debunking that one. It's possible, for instance, that you know,
Speaker 1: we're all familiar with the film Gadiga. It's possible that
Speaker 1: there could be in the future a polydactyl person who
Speaker 1: is just an amazing piano player. Oh, I imagine is
Speaker 1: that one scene in Gadigo where you see that they've
Speaker 1: grown people to have extra fingers?
Speaker 3: I mean surely they don't have the same amount of
Speaker 3: dexterity in their extra digits as they do in there.
Speaker 1: I mean you know what I mean, like not in
Speaker 1: most cases. This is just saying yeah, not in most cases.
Speaker 1: Most cases, it's kind of it's kind of just hanging there.
Speaker 1: It's not a it's not an again, it's not a
Speaker 1: digit that could move independently. You know, and even for
Speaker 1: most people, if you've ever tried it, most people cannot
Speaker 1: raise their ring finger by itself. Have you Have you
Speaker 1: ever tried to do that?
Speaker 2: I cannot do that.
Speaker 1: It's like a it's a learned skill.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you have to just practice a muscles and this
Speaker 2: is the best I give you.
Speaker 1: It's like, whoa, that's really good, Matt.
Speaker 2: No, it's not good. Actually that's yeah.
Speaker 1: Let us know if you could do that, send send
Speaker 1: proof because I don't want to be too cynical, but.
Speaker 2: I won't let hands physically.
Speaker 1: I don't know anyone who can do it. You know.
Speaker 1: Here's here's something that's a little bit more useful, but
Speaker 1: it takes us to a really dark time in human history.
Speaker 1: The Black Plague, right fun, Yeah, one of the uh,
Speaker 1: one of the greatest hits in the stories of pandemics,
Speaker 1: you know, so waves of disease. The Black Plague is
Speaker 1: an umbrella term for several distinct waves of disease that
Speaker 1: completely Paul, you might have to edit me here, that
Speaker 1: completely fkp Europe in ways that still echo today. That's
Speaker 1: one of the disasters that, when portrayed in film, is
Speaker 1: actually not exaggerated, is maybe softened a little bit because
Speaker 1: they have to have their main characters in the fictional
Speaker 1: story lived to the end of the story or live
Speaker 1: through part of it, and most people didn't. It was terrible.
Speaker 1: It was so bad. It fundamentally changed the course of
Speaker 1: human history, and it also provided a certain segment of
Speaker 1: the population with a superpower. It turns out that evolutionary
Speaker 1: pressures applied to the Black Blade may have resulted in
Speaker 1: immunity to HIV for about ten percent of the current
Speaker 1: European descended population, which counts you guys as well. So
Speaker 1: it's quite possible. I mean, don't go gambling on this one,
Speaker 1: don't bet on it, because your odds are not great.
Speaker 1: But it's possible that we in the studio and you
Speaker 1: out there listening, we could be immune to HIV, not
Speaker 1: HIV resistant, not less likely to get it straight up
Speaker 1: immune to the disease.
Speaker 3: Wait, is there a connection between the plague and HIV?
Speaker 1: I'm glad you asked. Yeah, it's a mystery, but there's
Speaker 1: some pretty good science behind it. So the individuals who
Speaker 1: currently now carry this genetic immunity to HIV have a
Speaker 1: mutation known as CCR five dash A thirty two, and
Speaker 1: this prevents the HIV virus from entering the cells of
Speaker 1: the immune system.
Speaker 3: And that's Creden's clear Outito revival five.
Speaker 1: Right, right America thirty two. Yeah, and this immunity made
Speaker 1: national news in two thousand and seven, which I think.
Speaker 1: Let's see, Matt, this was like right before we started
Speaker 1: working together, correct, And I remember we talked about this
Speaker 1: years ago. There was an individual who was having a terrible,
Speaker 1: terrible time in life. This person was infected with HIV
Speaker 1: and additionally they had leukemia. Luckily, they were in a
Speaker 1: place that had a European approach to modern medicine, so
Speaker 1: they didn't die due to a bank account problem. They
Speaker 1: received a bone marrow transfusion and this not only treated
Speaker 1: his leukemia, it also, to everyone's surprise, cured him of HIV.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's incredible and he went.
Speaker 1: They didn't believe it for the first couple of years.
Speaker 1: Five years later, he still doesn't have HIV. They don't
Speaker 1: really know what's going on until they figured out it
Speaker 1: appears that the bone marrow donor carried that immunity, that
Speaker 1: mutation and successfully transferred this to the leukemia patient. In
Speaker 1: following years, other patients in similar situations exhibited the same results.
Speaker 1: And to your question, for a long time, scientists couldn't
Speaker 1: understand how this could work at all, because not only
Speaker 1: did the mutation develop way before the rise of a
Speaker 1: but if the Black Plague was bubonic plague, if it
Speaker 1: was bacterial in nature, it wouldn't make much sense because
Speaker 1: HIV is a virus. It's viral in nature. So two
Speaker 1: professors who worked on this, Christopher Duncan and Susan Scott,
Speaker 1: wrote a book called Return of the Black Death, which
Speaker 1: is a great book. I'd also recommend if you're interested
Speaker 1: in light reading Norman Canters In the Wake of the Plague.
Speaker 1: These professors said that the concepts of the Black Death
Speaker 1: were were incorrect and that the plague sweeping through Europe
Speaker 1: from thirteen forty seven to sixteen sixty were in fact,
Speaker 1: a continuing series of epidemics of a lethal viral hemorrhagic
Speaker 1: fever that used this CCR five that we're talking about
Speaker 1: as an entry port into the immune system. So it's
Speaker 1: kind of like this mutation shuts the door for both
Speaker 1: this virus and HIV to get in. And around the
Speaker 1: time time that the plague hit, according to their mathematical models,
Speaker 1: the mutation occurred in about one out of twenty thousand people,
Speaker 1: and pressure from the plague alone brought this number up
Speaker 1: to something more like one in ten or ten percent.
Speaker 1: So again, that's amazing. That is an incredibly powerful thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's incredible and earned through the death of millions.
Speaker 2: Now we just have to figure out how to transfer
Speaker 2: that into everybody.
Speaker 1: Right right exactly, And there have been some promising breakthroughs
Speaker 1: in HIV research just this year as we record this.
Speaker 1: Of course, the origins of HIV remain a contested topic,
Speaker 1: which I think we did an episode on.
Speaker 2: Here's another awesome thing. Let's say you're traveling somewhere in
Speaker 2: the world where you may have to worry about contracting malaria.
Speaker 2: There are several places in the world where this is
Speaker 2: a real danger. Here is a very strange thing, and
Speaker 2: maybe it's just it's just something that has come through
Speaker 2: evolution to the human body because of the way another
Speaker 2: thing functions within the human body, and that's sickle cell anemia.
Speaker 2: If you happen to have that, it appears to, or
Speaker 2: seems to in many cases, you probably have some form
Speaker 2: of inborn resistance to malaria. Pretty pretty sweet, right, that's
Speaker 2: a cool thing. Having sickle cell anemia. Not good at
Speaker 2: all because this is a very dangerous medical medical condition
Speaker 2: and there are a lot of side effects from having it,
Speaker 2: and it's not fun whatsoever. However, it's some weird little
Speaker 2: trade off of having a weakness you also have this
Speaker 2: superpower and or well maybe it's it's both, I.
Speaker 1: Guess yeah, and it's We can go into the science
Speaker 1: of it maybe in a in a different episode it
Speaker 1: just without going to in the weeds. The way it
Speaker 1: works is that the effect that sickle cell anemia has
Speaker 1: on your red blood cells that it makes them abnormally shaped,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't doesn't provide protection against infection by the
Speaker 1: malaria parasite. Instead, it prevents the disease from taking hold
Speaker 1: after the organism, or in this case, the person has
Speaker 1: been infected so it's still a bad condition. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: in the right circumstances, at least according to evolution, it's
Speaker 1: better to have sickle cell anemia than malaria.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 1: So that's strange. That's I would say the HIV immunity
Speaker 1: is a little bit less dangerous to have since there's
Speaker 1: not such a trade off. Or I guess the trade
Speaker 1: off was surviving. Again, I can't you. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: think of a word stronger than horrific. One of the
Speaker 1: worst things that happened in history, Yeah, the plagues. But
Speaker 1: that's that's that's a useful one. We're trying to vary
Speaker 1: between the useful and unuseful. I found one that I
Speaker 1: thought I wanted to hear. You guys take on. You
Speaker 1: remember seven? Did you guys? Like seven?
Speaker 2: The film?
Speaker 1: The film? No, just the number, if you remember that number.
Speaker 3: It's a great one about Lucky number seleven.
Speaker 1: What's that?
Speaker 3: Oh, it's a movie with Yeah, what's his name, Diehard?
Speaker 3: Bruce Willis. I have seen assassin named sleven. Oh, it's
Speaker 3: called Lucky Number sleven. Oh, geez.
Speaker 2: In this one, I think we're talking about a serial murderer. Well,
Speaker 2: he's a torturist, maybe a torturer. He doesn't necessarily kill
Speaker 2: all the time, but he has someone else do the killing.
Speaker 2: Without spoiling too much of the movie seven.
Speaker 1: Or well, it's past the statute of limitations.
Speaker 3: Right, it's Kevin Spacey, you guys, who is.
Speaker 1: Not building the movie? Okay, let's go ahet. You want
Speaker 1: to do a spoiler countdown for everybody?
Speaker 2: Three?
Speaker 3: Two, it's Kevin Spacey.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's Kevin Spacey. He appears in the very last
Speaker 1: act of the film, uncredited because he did not want
Speaker 1: to quote ruin the surprise. But one of the ways
Speaker 1: in this story, one of the ways that he gets
Speaker 1: away with all these horrific acts that are meant to
Speaker 1: echo the ten Commandments or the violation thereof, is that
Speaker 1: the seven Deadly Sins. Yes, thank you, that's the name
Speaker 1: of the movie. Yes, good save he gets away with
Speaker 1: or he's not apprehended for a while because he has,
Speaker 1: through a very painful process, removed his own fingerprints. It
Speaker 1: turns out some people just don't have fingerprints genetically.
Speaker 3: And just for the record, you guys, I wanted to
Speaker 3: throw that Kevin Spacey bit out there in case you
Speaker 3: watched the movie. For the first time, not knowing that
Speaker 3: he was in it, and then you would have been
Speaker 3: super pissed by the end of it when he came out,
Speaker 3: and you're like, I didn't want to watch a Kevin
Speaker 3: Spacey movie. That guy sucks. So I saved you from
Speaker 3: that moment. So you're welcome.
Speaker 2: But in this case, he plays the villain that you're
Speaker 2: rooting against doesn't matter. So in some way maybe it's
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 1: Know, and I don't think he's getting much money for
Speaker 1: that film. I think that's mainly Brad Pitt and the
Speaker 1: other guy. But yeah, Morgan Freeman, Morgan Freeman.
Speaker 3: Can he also a bit of a me too guy?
Speaker 3: Didn't he do some bad stuff too?
Speaker 1: Morgan Freeman?
Speaker 3: Yeah, there was a me too moment for Morgan Freeman.
Speaker 1: Oh I heard that. I'll look that up.
Speaker 2: As Michael Ja said at the Emmys just the other night,
Speaker 2: Hello to all of you famous rich people in Hollywood
Speaker 2: who haven't been caught yet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, true, too, true, So lack of fingerprints. In two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven, there's a Swiss woman in her late
Speaker 1: twenties who ran into a really irritating Kafka esque problem.
Speaker 1: She could prove who she was in every way, in
Speaker 1: every way that mattered, except for one. Customs agents at
Speaker 1: the US border could not confirm her identity because despite
Speaker 1: the fact that everything in her passport matched, including her
Speaker 1: photograph and all that jazz, all that slow jazz, when
Speaker 1: the agent scanned her hand, they found out she had
Speaker 1: no fingerprints. And it turns out, instead of being some
Speaker 1: master criminal or some insane sadist, she has an extremely
Speaker 1: rare genetic condition known as a dermatoglyphia lack of fingerprints.
Speaker 1: We're just we're throwing out the fancy words today.
Speaker 2: A dermatoeglifia A d E r M A t O
Speaker 2: g l y p h I A A dermatoglifia.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go. That's a nice voice for that, Matt.
Speaker 1: So this condition mainly makes immigration and travel so such
Speaker 1: a pain in the ass that one dermatologist researching it,
Speaker 1: doctor named Peter Eiden, called it the immigration delay disease.
Speaker 1: Nice so usefulness. It could have been useful in the
Speaker 1: days before we're GPS tracking and DNA testing, like you
Speaker 1: could have been a master thief or of some sort,
Speaker 1: maybe in the forties through the fifties or sixties. Definitely,
Speaker 1: so that the heyday of that fingerprintless crime mob as
Speaker 1: coming gone.
Speaker 2: If you had that coupled. Oh, it's a it's a
Speaker 2: terrible disease that a lot of people suffer with where you.
Speaker 1: Lose all of your hair, alopecia.
Speaker 2: Alopecia in your entire body. If you had alopecia, and oh,
Speaker 2: I've already lost it in the outline and there's no
Speaker 2: way I'm gonna be able to say it again.
Speaker 1: A dermatoglyphia, thank you.
Speaker 2: If you had both of those in the nineteen thirties, forties,
Speaker 2: really anytime before the nineteen sixties, Yeah, you were You
Speaker 2: could have been a master thief.
Speaker 1: Dare to dream, dare to dream. So the next one
Speaker 1: is really the next one's a weird one. It's super strange,
Speaker 1: and I think it warrants it's an episode.
Speaker 2: So well, why don't we Why don't we hear a
Speaker 2: quick word from our sponsor before we get into it?
Speaker 1: Okay, Imagine a world in which humans might be able
Speaker 1: to smell with the sophistication of a dog, run with
Speaker 1: the burst of a cheetah, stay underwater as long as
Speaker 1: a seal or a whale, or sleep with one half
Speaker 1: of each brain at a time, or a Heck, how
Speaker 1: about just we're growing a limb, or you know, growing
Speaker 1: an extra one just for funsies. That would be That's
Speaker 1: the world comic books present to us when we think
Speaker 1: of human animal hybrids. And we're still pretty far off
Speaker 1: from that sort of stuff, but we're closer than you
Speaker 1: might think.
Speaker 3: We're talking about some island of doctor Moreau type stuff.
Speaker 3: Ben more like some Sabertooth stuff.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Ideally it would be Sabertooth, but you gotta go through
Speaker 1: Moreau to get the saber tooth.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, you gotta break a few eggs to make
Speaker 3: a cheat up.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Did you ever read the actual book?
Speaker 3: No, but I saw the incredible film and the documentary
Speaker 3: about the.
Speaker 1: About mar Val Kilm totally insane. Well, in the.
Speaker 2: Oh Man, there's his voice.
Speaker 1: There's so many stories about Marlon Brando without getting too
Speaker 1: far into him. The thing that's interesting about the book
Speaker 1: is that when the book was written, the the doctor,
Speaker 1: the namesake of the film and the namesake of the story,
Speaker 1: he is using purely surgical methods, so he's not using
Speaker 1: any genetic methods to increase the cognitive abilities of these animals,
Speaker 1: these hybrids, these chimaras he's instead just cutting them up
Speaker 1: so they walk like men.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sort of like that movie Tusk. Did you see
Speaker 3: that horrible monstrosity. It's a Kevin Smith movie where he
Speaker 3: turns a podcaster into a walrus. It's awful.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't make any sense to me, Like the
Speaker 1: motivation of the guy. The the fact that spoiler alert
Speaker 1: three two one, the fact that the the protagonist and
Speaker 1: Tusk or the main character also loses his mind, but
Speaker 1: nothing's really done to his mind other than you know,
Speaker 1: intense psychological torture, like he's a lot lobotomized or anything.
Speaker 3: I don't know, man, I'd lose my mind if I
Speaker 3: was turned into a walrus.
Speaker 1: I think I think I would have the presence of
Speaker 1: mind to ask for some people to help me with surgery,
Speaker 1: to at least get me closer back closer to my
Speaker 1: original form, you.
Speaker 2: Know what I mean, being in a wildlife part.
Speaker 1: This fight. You know. Sometimes I feel sometimes directors or
Speaker 1: screenwriters get carried away with one image and it's just
Speaker 1: they'll like spend hours try and rationalize that image that's
Speaker 1: for a different show. That's for a different show, I'm sure,
Speaker 1: But yeah, like that, like like Moreau on the Way
Speaker 1: to Sabertooth. We're already this is the biggest spoiler. We
Speaker 1: as a species are already quite capable of making several
Speaker 1: types of human animal highhybrids, but in many cases it
Speaker 1: might be more accurate to call it an animal human hybrid.
Speaker 1: In twenty seventeen. Just last year, scientists announced that they
Speaker 1: had created the first successful ones, and they weren't entirely
Speaker 1: accurate in that claim. Their project proved that human cells
Speaker 1: can be introduced to a non human organism and they
Speaker 1: can grow within that organism. But what they what they
Speaker 1: didn't say, is they were doing legitimate ethical science. In
Speaker 1: decades before this experiment in twenty seventeen, people have been
Speaker 1: doing plenty of legitimate unethical science. There are all these
Speaker 1: rumors we covered in earlier shows about a so called
Speaker 1: human z which is genetically speaking, completely possible where it's
Speaker 1: close enough, you know what I mean. It would be
Speaker 1: probably very hard to bring it to term, and the
Speaker 1: creature would live a very cursed and happy life probably,
Speaker 1: but it's technically possible, just not ethically advisable. And in
Speaker 1: China there's this I guess you would call it a
Speaker 1: story by two researchers because there's not a lot of
Speaker 1: proof to back it up. Right before the Cultural Revolution,
Speaker 1: there was a successful experiment with a human chimpanzee hybrid
Speaker 1: and they had a female chimpanzee carrying essentially human fetus.
Speaker 1: It was about three months pregnant. But then all the
Speaker 1: research was destroyed along with the individual. So and then
Speaker 1: that's say of going into the Russian experiments, which were
Speaker 1: much have much better documentation. And then in two thousand
Speaker 1: and three, the first successful human animal hybrid was made
Speaker 1: in a lab in Shanghai. Some scientists fused human cells
Speaker 1: in rabbit eggs and they created the embryos of new
Speaker 1: creature that would be half rabbit, half human, never born again.
Speaker 1: These things officially have never been born. You.
Speaker 2: And the whole point of that study, at least back
Speaker 2: in the day, according to San Francisco Gate, was to
Speaker 2: create a essentially a place where you could grow human
Speaker 2: stem cells. Yes, yeah, within the rabbit creature that they're
Speaker 2: creating human rabbit thing.
Speaker 1: And that's why when they destroyed the embryos, they harvested
Speaker 1: the stem cells, right exactly. Yeah. So in the present day,
Speaker 1: we started really really going into this with pigs we've
Speaker 1: made pigs that are technically chimaras, organisms that are part
Speaker 1: human part animals. The scientists at the Salk Institute found
Speaker 1: that they could inject a certain type of human cell,
Speaker 1: things called pluripotent cells stem cells with unlimited changeable potential.
Speaker 1: They could implant these cells, and if they allowed the
Speaker 1: cells to develop to a specific degree, these cells could
Speaker 1: survive in pig embryos. They had to find sort of
Speaker 1: a Goldilocks zone to put this alien, alien organic material in,
Speaker 1: and they went on to create one hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: six embryos chmeric embryos that survived. Each only had about
Speaker 1: one in one hundred thousand human cells, is their ratio. Currently,
Speaker 1: we're capable of making sheep that are about point zero
Speaker 1: one percent human cells. The ultimate goal here is not
Speaker 1: to make a race of pig people or sheepfolk. It's
Speaker 1: to use these animals as a harvesting ground for organs,
Speaker 1: which means within our lifetimes, if any of us needs
Speaker 1: to get a heart transplant, we may well end up
Speaker 1: with the heart of a pig.
Speaker 2: Which is currently what happens now. If you get a
Speaker 2: valve replacement, it can be bovine, it can be poresine.
Speaker 2: It can be from some other animals. A lot of
Speaker 2: times it's a bovine valve.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean so we're already doing that, but it's
Speaker 2: not a human hybrid version of it, or a full
Speaker 2: on human one that was grown inside of a cow.
Speaker 2: It's really interesting stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's it's interesting. Though Ethically that would be
Speaker 1: less egregious to a lot of people than using a
Speaker 1: human heart, right.
Speaker 2: Sure, well, yeah, I guess it depends. It depends.
Speaker 1: But then growing an animal and dedicating its entire life
Speaker 1: to having its organs harvested a lot of people to
Speaker 1: have problems with that. They would also maybe talk about
Speaker 1: those problems while they were eating a hamburger.
Speaker 2: Yeah it yeah, I agree, it does. It is an
Speaker 2: interesting thing. It feels like maybe they're going about it
Speaker 2: the wrong way, but I see the leap here. Who
Speaker 2: am I to say, by the way, old boy Matt
Speaker 2: over here trying to tell science what to do. But
Speaker 2: it does feel like we're getting closer to a point
Speaker 2: where we'll be able to grow an organ almost like
Speaker 2: three D print and organ out of genetic material, rather
Speaker 2: than having to grow one physically in a creature.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, we are getting closer. The problem is making
Speaker 1: the moving parts. Yeah, you know what I.
Speaker 2: Mean, absolutely, But yeah, it just feels in a way
Speaker 2: just that it's still even happening in twenty seventeen. I'm fascinated.
Speaker 1: I know, it feels like a sort of sorcery, doesn't
Speaker 1: it to mold living material in that manner? And also
Speaker 1: this could make an episode all its own because this
Speaker 1: doesn't even touch on This doesn't even touch on what
Speaker 1: the nature of humanity is like? Is it a simple
Speaker 1: ratio of cells? Is it once once more than half
Speaker 1: of the cells in the animal's body by weight or whatever.
Speaker 1: Once those once they reach over fifty one percent, does
Speaker 1: that animal become human? That's a good question, right once?
Speaker 1: Or is it just the type of cells? If all
Speaker 1: of its cells are human, but it has the brain
Speaker 1: and the nervous system of a different animal, is it
Speaker 1: not human? You know what I mean? Where the line
Speaker 1: is it at the brain? Is it at the ratio?
Speaker 1: What makes what makes a living thing human? Or what
Speaker 1: makes it sentient? Right? Like this, this is a question
Speaker 1: that we will eventually as a species have to answer.
Speaker 3: It's like do animals have souls right right?
Speaker 1: Or do they have legal rights?
Speaker 3: What even is a soul? What even our legal rights?
Speaker 1: How do we define this stuff? You know?
Speaker 2: Conspiracy at HowStuffWorks dot com. Send in your thoughts.
Speaker 3: And are there any shaman or lawyers out there? Let
Speaker 3: us know what you think or both if.
Speaker 1: You're If you're a shaman lawyer, I would love to
Speaker 1: love to hear your what what would that be? Litigious divinations?
Speaker 1: That's genius, man, We could do that, right we We
Speaker 1: also aren't mentioning, you know, Matt, We are not mentioning
Speaker 1: how scientists have grown an ear on the body of
Speaker 1: a mouse.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's I mean, that's something we can do.
Speaker 1: As an ear replacement. Oh no, it's true, it's true.
Speaker 1: Done it Would you do that? Would you if you
Speaker 1: were missing an ear? Would you take a ear grown
Speaker 1: from a wrote it?
Speaker 3: It's irreplaceable, That's.
Speaker 2: What That's what I was feeling. Thank you.
Speaker 1: No, uh, we we come up with these live folks.
Speaker 1: Let us know we're working live for you. But these
Speaker 1: these are so far just pretty much organic things. Right.
Speaker 1: I propose that we pause for break from our sponsor
Speaker 1: and come back and we talk about technology. All right,
Speaker 1: So we are back. The four of us are definitely
Speaker 1: not extraordinary time travelers. But what we could be is biohackers.
Speaker 1: What the hell are biohackers, you may be asking, Well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's people who already have an Apple Watch that monitors,
Speaker 2: you know, their heart rate, how much they sleep, exactly
Speaker 2: what they're eating, what their bowel movements look like, and everything.
Speaker 2: But they just want to know more about what their
Speaker 2: bodies do, and they want to have a little bit
Speaker 2: more of a more apps that they can use in
Speaker 2: the real world, more applicable things. What you call wetwear, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: except instead of just wearing it on your wrist, why
Speaker 2: not put it in your wrist or in your head?
Speaker 3: Yeah, your brain?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, m We have the We have the means,
Speaker 1: like in the old, the old beginning of the six
Speaker 1: Million Dollar Man television show, which I've never seen them.
Speaker 1: Just seeing the YouTube clip of the intro, I thought
Speaker 1: that was cool. We have the means to build ourselves
Speaker 1: faster and stronger. And wetwear, yes, is implanted within your body,
Speaker 1: so technically like a pacemaker would be wetwear. This stuff
Speaker 1: is already much more familiar to us, so much more
Speaker 1: common than we think. The folks we call biohackers today
Speaker 1: are making these implants themselves and often in many cases,
Speaker 1: implanting them in themselves without medical supervision all the time,
Speaker 1: which drives some people just bananas. And they you know,
Speaker 1: you you can give yourself certain abilities. Yeah, we'll probably
Speaker 1: do an episode on this too, but.
Speaker 2: Like crazy abilities.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, the ones we have, the ones that we
Speaker 1: found and listed, are maybe not super amazing, but they're
Speaker 1: they're getting there right now. They're there to prove a point,
Speaker 1: like their ability you can insult things to monitor your
Speaker 1: temperature pretty much an Apple watch.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, you're right, you're right, you're right.
Speaker 1: It's inside the ability to sense magnetic north? Though, is
Speaker 1: that one is actually a patch?
Speaker 2: Yeah, to sense magnetics magnetic north. That's cool.
Speaker 1: Well, all it does is they recommend that you put
Speaker 1: the patch high on your chest and then you get
Speaker 1: like a like a buzzy itch thing when you're facing
Speaker 1: magnetic north.
Speaker 2: Isn't that nice? Just every time you look north?
Speaker 1: And who doesn't want yet another unscre agible itch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that could be amazing if you're lost
Speaker 2: in the woods.
Speaker 1: True, that's a really good point as long as yeah, no, no,
Speaker 1: that's really it's good.
Speaker 2: It's really good we're a desert.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Then the idea of implanting all kinds of stuff
Speaker 1: in your fingertips, right, I think we did we talk
Speaker 1: about this another who is no only I think maybe
Speaker 1: you and I were talking about this stuff, right, the
Speaker 1: one where you can sense magnetic fields if you're close
Speaker 1: to them.
Speaker 3: Oh, you mean, like the with the radio quiet zone
Speaker 3: and stuff like. People that have sensitivity to electromagnetic fields.
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, they could do that. I wonder if they
Speaker 1: would be the type to have that implant though.
Speaker 3: No, Well, they would probably want something to shield them
Speaker 3: from said transmissions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe detecting them would help them do that. But
Speaker 1: some some biohackers have put small sensors in their fingertips,
Speaker 1: or even put magnets in their fingertips, which seems neat
Speaker 1: but really inconvenient on a dated basis.
Speaker 2: Just if you if there's an on off switch somewhere
Speaker 2: in your neck maybe or in your upper arm, then cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's the other question, right. I mean, currently
Speaker 1: these implants are capable or they're more like proof of
Speaker 1: concept things. Yeah, no one's magneto yet, is what we're saying.
Speaker 2: Well, at least magneto hasn't shown up in the middle
Speaker 2: of New York City or Gotham or wherever else Magneto
Speaker 2: can show up. Please don't show up in Gotham, Magneto.
Speaker 2: That would be really cross world and weird. Actually, it
Speaker 2: might read might help help the DC universe.
Speaker 1: So maybe maybe it will, but uh, actually it would
Speaker 1: help them out a lot, at least in the film adaptations.
Speaker 1: But this is just the beginning of something, you know,
Speaker 1: And that's that's the argument they're making. They're paving the way.
Speaker 1: They see themselves as pioneers who are the vanguard for
Speaker 1: something that may become much more common and much more
Speaker 1: powerful in the future.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it does feel like at some point, and
Speaker 2: you listening out there, what do you think about this,
Speaker 2: But it does feel like we're getting closer and closer
Speaker 2: within the next few hundred years of becoming a lot
Speaker 2: more of a synthetic species. Yeah, transhumanism, right, Yeah, And
Speaker 2: I don't think that necessarily means biohacking in the way
Speaker 2: that it's being pursued right now. I think it's going
Speaker 2: to mean something completely different, much more synthetic than an
Speaker 2: synthetic addition to a biological entity.
Speaker 1: I see what you mean. Yeah, Yeah, something human plus right, yeah,
Speaker 1: or is Noah, you've all Harari calls it homodeis anyway,
Speaker 1: so speaking some of you completely different. This is when
Speaker 1: we put in just because I don't know, it's an ability?
Speaker 1: Is it extraordinary? We're talking about globe luxation two words,
Speaker 1: globe space luxation, lux at io it what is this exactly?
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, you should go ahead and search
Speaker 2: it on YouTube. That's probably the best way to do this.
Speaker 2: It is safe for work, it's fine. Yeah, you'll be okay.
Speaker 2: It's the thing where you've got eyes and then you
Speaker 2: could do this other thing where the eyes kind of
Speaker 2: go pop out a little bit or push out.
Speaker 3: You mean, just like bug out or literally pop out
Speaker 3: and hang by the optic nerve.
Speaker 2: No, and you don't pop them out, but they just
Speaker 2: kind of the partially partially bug go out.
Speaker 1: They're bugging Yeah, yeah, they're bugging out.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 1: There's a Guinness Book of World Records measurement for this
Speaker 1: for the degree to which people can lux eight perhaps
Speaker 1: would be the word to make their eyes pop out
Speaker 1: of their skulls.
Speaker 2: Ooh, maximum luxation.
Speaker 1: I think that could be a T shirt. But that's
Speaker 1: the question, you know, is it useful. It doesn't seem
Speaker 1: particularly useful. It's interesting, but.
Speaker 3: I mean like it could psych out your enemy. Sure,
Speaker 3: you know, if you were like in a street fight
Speaker 3: or something. That's what I just thought of when you
Speaker 3: said that. Yeah, Matt, it's like you have achieved maximum
Speaker 3: luxation and that's like you know your opponent and then
Speaker 3: it causes the guy you're fighting against to freak out
Speaker 3: and then you punch him in the nuts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like the Maori practice of hakka, you know, the
Speaker 1: ritualized dance.
Speaker 2: Oh if you could, if you could hakka and a
Speaker 2: luxeate and now you're onto something haka luxation.
Speaker 1: So while we're talking about eyes, m M, this is
Speaker 1: what we found that's very interesting. We have a couple
Speaker 1: more guys. It's I guess we would call it super
Speaker 1: record reading. It's a very very very specific type of
Speaker 1: super site. You see, there's a medical diagnostician in Philadelphia
Speaker 1: named doctor Arthur Linkin, and doctor l over here can
Speaker 1: do something very weird. He can identify the music on
Speaker 1: a phonographic on a vinyl record just by looking at
Speaker 1: the grooves on its surface. He doesn't have to listen
Speaker 1: to it. He can look at it and he it's
Speaker 1: like he can hear the music.
Speaker 2: Wow, he doesn't even have to feel it or anything,
Speaker 2: because it's just such a tactile medium. With the grooves interview,
Speaker 2: I thought in my head when we were looking into
Speaker 2: this it, I like, I would imagine him feeling the grooves, yeah,
Speaker 2: and almost knowing that way, but just by sight. That's impressive.
Speaker 1: Well. The claim was tested and verified by James Randy Wow,
Speaker 1: who depending on what side of the fence you fall
Speaker 1: on on our show, you either love or hate yeah,
Speaker 1: or in my case, pity. But the now he's done
Speaker 1: important things, I just feel bad for him. But doctor
Speaker 1: Lincoln has a couple of caveats for this. He says
Speaker 1: he can only identify post Beethoven classical music if it's
Speaker 1: fully orchestrated. He cannot identify spoken word recordings or the
Speaker 1: works of contemporary classical composers who are relatively unknown. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like he has to already be somewhat familiar
Speaker 1: with the song.
Speaker 3: I don't know about this, because I mean I always
Speaker 3: have been fascinated by, you know, cutting records and like
Speaker 3: what that entails and the fact that it is somehow
Speaker 3: physically making that sound because you can like have the
Speaker 3: record player the electronics turned off, and you can turn
Speaker 3: the record, rotate it under the needle and you'll still
Speaker 3: actually hear a faint you know, recreation of the sound.
Speaker 3: I would want to know a little bit more about that,
Speaker 3: but I don't know. Like it's sort of like looking
Speaker 3: at a wave form of audio, right, so you could
Speaker 3: maybe identify the peaks and valleys of what a waveform
Speaker 3: looked like and be able to correlate it to a
Speaker 3: particular piece of music if you knew it super well. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you could say, here's those stabs of dun dut dut duh,
Speaker 3: because those are the peaks, and then it gets quiet
Speaker 3: and you could identify that. But I don't know that
Speaker 3: the grooves on a record quite correlate in that same way. Listeners,
Speaker 3: let let us let me know if I'm wrong. But
Speaker 3: I don't know. Maybe maybe it's just a matter of
Speaker 3: familiarizing yourself with it and just learning the language of
Speaker 3: what the grooves look like.
Speaker 1: But I think that's what it has to be. Because
Speaker 1: there's a great article on him in the La Times
Speaker 1: from nineteen eighty seven about the test that Randy gives him,
Speaker 1: and they have a different they have like various records.
Speaker 1: Let me see they had They had some controls, like
Speaker 1: they had two different recordings of Stravinsky's Las Acre du
Speaker 1: pretem and an Alice Cooper recording and has spoken word recording,
Speaker 1: and then they had other stuff that fit into what
Speaker 1: he should be able to read, like the Planets by
Speaker 1: Holst eighteen twelve, overture by Tchaikowsky, Mozart symphonies, and a
Speaker 1: couple of other things. And here's here's the way he
Speaker 1: does this. He's a very very near sighted guy, super
Speaker 1: thick glasses. So they shuffle the recordings. He takes one
Speaker 1: off the pile, he takes his glasses off, He places
Speaker 1: his eye at the edge of the recording and slowly
Speaker 1: rotates it.
Speaker 2: Hmmm.
Speaker 1: As he's watching it, he's slowly rotating it, and.
Speaker 3: He's looking at it like straight on, like a cross.
Speaker 1: They're they're not, I haven't seen video of it. Yeah, interesting,
Speaker 1: but they just said the edge of it. And then
Speaker 1: he said when he made his guess, he said, I
Speaker 1: think that this is Beethoven's sixth Symphony. However, there's an
Speaker 1: extra movement in here that I can't understand. Is it
Speaker 1: a strange recording? And Randy says, you know, I can't
Speaker 1: tell you. We got this whole test thing going on. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So the guy keeps reading it, reading this record, and
Speaker 1: then he says, yes, it is the sixth Symphony, but
Speaker 1: it also contains an additional overture that I will guess
Speaker 1: is the Prometheus overture. He was correct, wow, just from
Speaker 1: looking at this stuff.
Speaker 2: And then he did he also he figured out that
Speaker 2: one thing he was looking at he was like, oh man,
Speaker 2: this thing is Sherman or He's like, this thing is
Speaker 2: really weird. It's like disorganized, it's like gibberish. I don't
Speaker 2: understand what's happening in this record? What is this thing?
Speaker 2: And it turned out to be an Alice Cooper record.
Speaker 1: Yes, that was he He didn't say that's totally Alice Cooper,
Speaker 1: but he did say it was jibberish. Yeah. And then
Speaker 1: he was also able to differentiate between like the nationalities, yeah, orchestras,
Speaker 1: which is just insane. I'm tempted to think, I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe he just spent so much time, like as we
Speaker 1: said earlier, maybe you spent so much time listening to
Speaker 1: records and memorizing their movements and stuff.
Speaker 2: But it does mean he's looking at records.
Speaker 1: A whole lot a ton.
Speaker 3: At the very least, it's a very interesting way to
Speaker 3: pass the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And also he said he listens to them too. Do
Speaker 3: you think he enjoys music or is he's just sort
Speaker 3: of like this highly neurotic record viewer.
Speaker 1: I don't know. He I think he has to listen
Speaker 1: to them because then his because then his mind is
Speaker 1: associated two senses to kind of confirm what's happening. So
Speaker 1: he's watching the thing and in his head he's hearing
Speaker 1: the song.
Speaker 3: But see, my thing is this, like if I knew
Speaker 3: what record, if I knew intimately the look of a
Speaker 3: particular record, I could tell because there's thick lines between
Speaker 3: the songs, right, and there's only like some records you
Speaker 3: can't fit enough on one side that there's a lot
Speaker 3: of empty space in the center, right, So there's like
Speaker 3: a portion of the vinyl in the interior that's blank
Speaker 3: and a smooth So I would argue that if you
Speaker 3: just memorized the look of a record, like in terms
Speaker 3: of how many tracks were on each side and how
Speaker 3: much empty space there was and what it looked like,
Speaker 3: you could have like a signature in your head of oh,
Speaker 3: this is what the planet looks like. This is what
Speaker 3: Houses of the Holy by led Zeppelin looks like. You know,
Speaker 3: you could totally file that away in your mind without
Speaker 3: actually being able to interpret magically through sight, you know,
Speaker 3: the sound of the look of the records.
Speaker 1: But that's I mean, the only that's that's where I
Speaker 1: think I'm at as well, the only, And that's what
Speaker 1: Randy concluded, by the way, something like that, but a
Speaker 1: little more. The language uses a little different, but it's
Speaker 1: more or less the same thing. The big test then
Speaker 1: would be whether doctor Linkin could look at a record
Speaker 1: from a song you never heard and then sing along.
Speaker 1: That would be that would be showing this ability. He
Speaker 1: would be a human record play.
Speaker 3: That would be the next level. That would be sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, But there is another form of supersite that
Speaker 1: is a lot more useful. This is very interesting, But
Speaker 1: I don't think I don't think super record reading qualifies
Speaker 1: for Avenger level, but supersite just might.
Speaker 2: Okay, so super site, now we're not we aren't necessarily
Speaker 2: talking like eagle Vision or laser site or cyclops stuff
Speaker 2: going on in this in this world, in this version
Speaker 2: of our superheroes. We're talking about a will just supersite,
Speaker 2: amazingly good seeing Veronica Cedar Sider of Stuttgart, Germany. She
Speaker 2: holds the record of having the absolute best eyesight in
Speaker 2: the world. So I have I'm terribly nearsighted. I don't
Speaker 2: know about you guys, if you have any of that
Speaker 2: stuff going on, but my visual acuity is nowhere near
Speaker 2: twenty twenty, which is considered average good, that's what human
Speaker 2: vision should be. But she has been measured around twenty.
Speaker 1: Two twenty slash two, yeah.
Speaker 2: Not twenty twenty twenty two. This means she can identify
Speaker 2: people from more than a mile away. Yeah, she can
Speaker 2: identify tiny little people.
Speaker 1: So would be a great sniper.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, that's exactly what it is.
Speaker 1: And that's strange because surely there's a genetic component to that.
Speaker 1: But how do we how do we find that gene
Speaker 1: how do we isolate it? How do we expel us it?
Speaker 1: I was looking ardently too, for someone with super speed,
Speaker 1: like a flash. Yeah, like a flash. So not in
Speaker 1: Hussain Bolt, who is very fast over short distances, but
Speaker 1: someone who's very fast running at one type of speed.
Speaker 1: But it was looking for something that was just super
Speaker 1: speed in general, and the closest I could find was
Speaker 1: what we I guess we could call super reflexes. There's
Speaker 1: a there's a guy who holds a very very specific
Speaker 1: record for this in the Guinness Book of World Records,
Speaker 1: which is admittedly not the not the most solid source.
Speaker 1: But his name is Isau Machi and he is from Chiota, Tokyo, Japan.
Speaker 1: He is fast enough with his sword that he can
Speaker 1: cut BB pellets in half and the let's see, I
Speaker 1: think there's.
Speaker 2: A video you can watch of this. I remember seeing
Speaker 2: this on Reddit slash videos.
Speaker 1: And that says that that to me, it seems to
Speaker 1: indicate that his reaction time is much much quicker than
Speaker 1: the average bear or the average sword wielding bear. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: so this this seems neat. Now this is a question
Speaker 1: for the audience. Is this something that has learned or
Speaker 1: is this something genetic? You know what I mean? Aside
Speaker 1: from the technique you have to learn to wield a sword.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are a lot of proper techniques that take
Speaker 2: a long time to learn that I think he's yeah,
Speaker 2: probably had to have mastered to be able to do this.
Speaker 1: But like, okay, here's the question. If you were playing
Speaker 1: Whack a mole or something. Would he be the world
Speaker 1: champion of that too? Would he just be like maybe
Speaker 1: because he would react so quickly.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's a good question.
Speaker 2: We should put him in front of on those machines.
Speaker 1: We should write to him. He set the record in
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen. He's probably still around. Oh yeah, and you
Speaker 1: know what I Betty replies to emails very quickly. Oh
Speaker 1: that was not worth it. But these are some of
Speaker 1: the powers we collected today, and yes, some of them
Speaker 1: may seem more useful than others. But it leads us
Speaker 1: to a big question that I don't think we quite
Speaker 1: answered in our first episode of this series, and that
Speaker 1: question is why does this actually matter? Right so far,
Speaker 1: it sounds pretty inspiring or at least interesting through various means,
Speaker 1: certain parts of the human population, As you said, Matt,
Speaker 1: very small parts of the human population have acquired fascinating
Speaker 1: and at times supremely useful abilities, and people will even
Speaker 1: argue that certain things, their genetic disadvantages, are themselves extraordinary abilities.
Speaker 1: I'm partially colorblind, but if someone was like Ben, what
Speaker 1: are you going to do with this amazing ability to
Speaker 1: not see all the colors. I would shrug because it's
Speaker 1: it seems relatively useless, right, But at this point, there's
Speaker 1: no threat of an ascendant superhuman class, right, a race
Speaker 1: of superior.
Speaker 2: People, thank goodness.
Speaker 1: Kind of there's kind of not the billionaires, but there is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the thing. There is a threat of this happening
Speaker 1: because as we speak, as we record today, in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: three countries have been conducting extensive research on human enhancement
Speaker 1: projects that touch on almost every single ability we mentioned
Speaker 1: in this series, with the exception except for globe luxation, yes,
Speaker 1: and maximum luxation thank you. Yes, the Pentagon is not
Speaker 1: as concerned with that yet. But we know for a
Speaker 1: fact that not only three countries doing this, but they
Speaker 1: have been doing it for years, for possibly decades, well,
Speaker 1: definitely decades now it's twenty eighteen. Back in the nineties
Speaker 1: and late eighties, the US, particularly the Pentagon, began investing
Speaker 1: huge amounts of money and research in the creation of
Speaker 1: super soldiers, individuals enhanced through technology, drug use, and nowadays,
Speaker 1: in the future the very near future, genetic alteration to
Speaker 1: make them impervious to pain with superhuman stamina, super strength reflexes.
Speaker 1: That put is how Machi to shame and even superhuman
Speaker 1: intellect and no need to sleep. But here's the frightening thing.
Speaker 1: The US government claims that they started doing this because
Speaker 1: China and Russia, for the Soviet Union at the time,
Speaker 1: were already operating enhanced human programs for similar purposes to
Speaker 1: build super soldiers. And the implied threat here is that
Speaker 1: other nations do this without following the same ethical constraints
Speaker 1: as the US does in theory on paper, but you
Speaker 1: know whatever.
Speaker 2: That is really freaky, especially when you think about some
Speaker 2: of the efforts that Germany was making back in the
Speaker 2: day to you know, make the uber bench and actually
Speaker 2: I guess non genetic manipulation, but some breeding stuff that
Speaker 2: was going on and some of the there was some
Speaker 2: creepiness going on in Germany. And to think that it's
Speaker 2: spread out amongst all these other superpowers, now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, because the Soviet Union in China survived World
Speaker 1: War Two but Germany did not, just a lot of
Speaker 1: its scientists. Yeah. So yeah, and then even in the
Speaker 1: recent years, you know, news came and went about China's
Speaker 1: alleged eugenics program for basketball players, which has a surprising
Speaker 1: amount of sand to it. So that's the conclusion today.
Speaker 1: The scary thing is the superpowers themselves want superpowers, and
Speaker 1: they're not going to stop researching them. People, most likely
Speaker 1: soldiers and analysts with extraordinary abilities, are on the way,
Speaker 1: and the only debate now is who will get them
Speaker 1: and how these powers will be used. People who are already
Speaker 1: arguing this violates the Geneva conventions, but there's not really
Speaker 1: I mean, there's not really a compelling way to stop this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, even to get it on the books anywhere. If
Speaker 2: it's happening beneath the black budget of let's say a
Speaker 2: Pentagon or some other you know, more secretive budget.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. I mean, what do you think
Speaker 1: is it already I this is just my opinion, but
Speaker 1: I feel like it's already gone too far, and the
Speaker 1: possible medical benefits are so attractive and have the potential
Speaker 1: to help so many people that they will always be
Speaker 1: used as a rationalization to build like these unsleeping, unfeeling
Speaker 1: murder machines.
Speaker 2: I think it's not needed anymore. For the same reason
Speaker 2: that I don't understand the biohacking, wetwear stuff. All of
Speaker 2: that kind of research has been switched over to artificial intelligence.
Speaker 2: And drones and robotic that because you don't need a human,
Speaker 2: you don't need to breed a human, you just build
Speaker 2: a thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you don't think it's sort of an extension
Speaker 3: of like extreme body modification culture and kind of fads
Speaker 3: or whatever, like the idea of being the complete architect
Speaker 3: of your own physicality.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, I see that. I see that. I'm
Speaker 2: speaking specifically to superpowers, the national countries, the superpowers trying
Speaker 2: to create super human soldiers.
Speaker 3: Oh sure, I'm just saying it seems like the time
Speaker 3: for that is past.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, it's still there, and it's creepy that
Speaker 2: they're doing it. They're probably still doing it because why
Speaker 2: would you stop. It's just there's probably not as much
Speaker 2: money going into it as there is going into the
Speaker 2: AI cheap drones kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Well, it also depends on the nature of the military.
Speaker 1: So one of the greatest resources that the military of
Speaker 1: China has is a massive population. So is it at
Speaker 1: what at what point is it more cost effective to
Speaker 1: modify those people versus manufacturing a drone. It's a weird
Speaker 1: way to think about it.
Speaker 3: It's a good way to think about it. It's brutal
Speaker 3: not good. It's I mean, yeah, because to some and
Speaker 3: at some point in some society, perhaps the cost of
Speaker 3: human life is cheaper than the cost of good tech.
Speaker 1: And then there's also the AI problem, which is right now,
Speaker 1: most of what we think of as AI is not
Speaker 1: a machine consciousness. It's something that is able to solve
Speaker 1: certain problems very well or maybe find certain patterns right
Speaker 1: very quickly.
Speaker 2: Think about it this way, though, to grow an effective
Speaker 2: combat ready human being, it takes what fifteen to eighteen years.
Speaker 1: Hmm, yeah, that's a good point too.
Speaker 2: So to make a you could mass produce a drone
Speaker 2: I mean pretty easily and pretty cheaply at this point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we have to be privy to some numbers
Speaker 1: that would be pretty frightening, yeah, to make the call
Speaker 1: on that. But I bring up the AI because would
Speaker 1: it be better to enhance. So AI doesn't have the
Speaker 1: capability and in some cases it's ethically constrained from making
Speaker 1: some decisions, right, It doesn't have the ability to make
Speaker 1: all the nuances of analysis that a human can at
Speaker 1: this point. So if we're warmongers, right, if we're war leaders,
Speaker 1: do we make an imperfect AI, or do we bend
Speaker 1: the rules of ethics and hook someone up such that
Speaker 1: through implants they can communicate directly with a drone or
Speaker 1: with a machine. And then, hey, while we're in their brain,
Speaker 1: why don't we put in an implant that we'll be
Speaker 1: able to deliver systemized instructions to them or turn off
Speaker 1: emotional reactions, both of which are.
Speaker 3: Possible, or you know, explode it they try to run away.
Speaker 1: Both, you know what I mean. Make it a one
Speaker 1: stop shop. Let's just let's go for it. I could
Speaker 1: see that happening, and I could see people signing up
Speaker 1: to don't jay at the korams and so on, don't
Speaker 1: listen to him.
Speaker 3: Well, what do you think? Let us know, there's a
Speaker 3: lot to chew on here. This has been a fun one, Ben,
Speaker 3: You're right. These were a little different than the ones
Speaker 3: in our part one episode. And I get the connection
Speaker 3: to the Great Lakes Avengers now because some of their
Speaker 3: powers are a little, shall we say, underwhelming. But wrapped
Speaker 3: up in some of these slightly useless and underwhelming powers
Speaker 3: are a lot of good thought experiments and interesting ideas,
Speaker 3: and the notion of what it means to be human,
Speaker 3: I think is really at the forefront of these discussions.
Speaker 3: So I'm really into it and I thought it was
Speaker 3: a fun one.
Speaker 2: Yes, and that's the end of this classic episode. If
Speaker 2: you have any thoughts or questions about this episode, you
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