Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2: A production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Speaker 3: Our colleague Nol is on an adventure, but we'll be
Speaker 3: returning shortly.
Speaker 2: They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 2: super producer, Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
Speaker 2: are you. You are here for now, and that makes
Speaker 2: this the stuff they don't want you to know. There's
Speaker 2: a reason that we say here for now because this
Speaker 2: episode is continuing part of our long term fascination. Matt.
Speaker 2: This is why for all the nuke fans, nuclear fans,
Speaker 2: if there is such a thing, fans of nuclear.
Speaker 3: Weapons, yeah, we're all big fans of those things.
Speaker 2: Just like trash can Man in the Stand. I recently
Speaker 2: reread the unabridged version of The Stand and Man that
Speaker 2: holds up despite some of Well, you could send us
Speaker 2: your opinions about Stephen King, we'd love to hear them.
Speaker 3: I still haven't read it once, but I am still
Speaker 3: thinking about our episode on the USS Liberty and the
Speaker 3: history of the country of Israel, and I am like
Speaker 3: kind of scared to do this topic just because it
Speaker 3: makes me feel nervous because we are talking about nuclear
Speaker 3: weapons and as we know, those things can end a
Speaker 3: lot of stuff quickly.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I was definitely dragging feet on this episode
Speaker 2: for a while too, because it's an older concept a
Speaker 2: lot of people aren't aware of unless you specifically look
Speaker 2: into nuclear war, nuclear proliferation. You know, it's strange because
Speaker 2: nuclear weapons are world enders potentially, they're so dangerous. They've
Speaker 2: only been deployed twice in combat by Uncle Sam in Japan,
Speaker 2: and just witnessing that made the entire world say, okay,
Speaker 2: let's try to avoid this even with our enemies. Because
Speaker 2: if one person or one nation launchers a nuke, other
Speaker 2: ones will launch nukes in turn, a domino effect will occur.
Speaker 2: It could in civilization, and that leads us to something
Speaker 2: called mad mutually assured destruction. It's a theory that so
Speaker 2: far still holds.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the only good thing that nuclear weapons have brought
Speaker 3: us is if you are a country and you have
Speaker 3: those weapons, other countries are a little bit less dickish
Speaker 3: to you. That's literally the good The good thing that
Speaker 3: has happened because the threat of those weapons and mutually
Speaker 3: assured destruction keeps other countries a little bit at bay.
Speaker 2: I remember, I remember studying with some of my edgier
Speaker 2: old professors who would talk about this, and there they
Speaker 2: presented a series of great metaphors regarding how the tension
Speaker 2: or as you said, the dictitionist builds as any other country,
Speaker 2: even an ally attempts to gain the BOB. But once
Speaker 2: they get the BOB, the tension eases because just having
Speaker 2: that means you are a participant now in mad It
Speaker 2: inherently ups your status in the world order. And that's
Speaker 2: why once any country gains the capability of a nuclear weapon,
Speaker 2: even if they don't really have the ability to launch
Speaker 2: it effectively or reliably like North Korea the DPRK, they're
Speaker 2: still not ever going to give it up. Think of
Speaker 2: the lessons of Libya and other countries stepped back their
Speaker 2: NWKE programs, it did not end well for them. In
Speaker 2: different countries, they all have their own rules or policies
Speaker 2: about how they could theoretically deploy one of these massive
Speaker 2: weapons of destruction. One country in particular refuses to even
Speaker 2: acknowledge whether they have these things in the first place.
Speaker 2: That is tonight's grand conspiracy, Israel and something called the
Speaker 2: Samson option.
Speaker 3: Even though most of the other powers in the world
Speaker 3: acknowledge it, we choose not to. It's very interesting.
Speaker 2: It's Joseph Heller, It's Catch twenty two. We'll get into
Speaker 2: it right after a word from our sponsors. Here are
Speaker 2: the facts. Okay, So, out of all the one hundred
Speaker 2: and ninety five or so countries on the planet recognized
Speaker 2: by the United Nations, only nine are known to have
Speaker 2: nuclear weaponry. They're most of the ones you expect. There
Speaker 2: are some odd balls in the mix, Pakistan, India and
Speaker 2: North Korea, and then of course the US, Russia, China, France,
Speaker 2: the UK, the winners of World War two, and and
Speaker 2: then Israel has nuclear weapons according to everybody on the
Speaker 2: planet except for the nation of Israel. They it's because
Speaker 2: they have a policy of deliberate ambiguity, which it's gonna
Speaker 2: sound so surreal if you've never heard of it. A
Speaker 2: lot of the a lot of like the international policy wonks.
Speaker 2: We call it the bomb and the basement. They never
Speaker 2: once submitted to having the bomb, but they also never
Speaker 2: once denied it. Instead, they have these these very old
Speaker 2: they're almost like catchphrases at this point. And I'm saying
Speaker 2: this with respect because it is quite a clever policy.
Speaker 2: They're saying. The biggest quote is if you ask them
Speaker 2: about nuclear weaponry, Hey, tell us about that. Tell us
Speaker 2: about that facility in Demona or whatever. First they, by
Speaker 2: the way, they told the US it was a textile factory.
Speaker 2: But now they say, Israel will not be the first
Speaker 2: country to quote introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East.
Speaker 2: But when they say introduce, they don't mean it the
Speaker 2: way everybody else means introduce when they speak English.
Speaker 3: That's so weird. They are they talking about, like Syria's
Speaker 3: attempts to get a nuclear weapon or some of the
Speaker 3: other countries in the Middle East that wanted to have
Speaker 3: nuclear weapons.
Speaker 2: And I'm holding my forehead the way I'm sure US
Speaker 2: ambassadors do when they're like, yeah, introduce, what do you mean, guys,
Speaker 2: what do you mean introduce? They mean to that point, Mett,
Speaker 2: they mean introduce as testing or formally acknowledging nuclear weapons,
Speaker 2: because the idea is that if they do so with
Speaker 2: so many enemies in the region, they'll exacerbate those countries
Speaker 2: push to get a new like Iran of course, or
Speaker 2: someun Arabia, et cetera. So they say it's it's kind
Speaker 2: of like a terrible, a terrible comparison a camera which
Speaker 2: what professor told me this but terrible comparison is imagine
Speaker 2: you go to somebody's house and it's the neighbor you
Speaker 2: don't like in your neighborhood, and you say, hey, is
Speaker 2: it true that you keep a secret child in the basement,
Speaker 2: And they say, well, we we're not gonna acknowledge that.
Speaker 2: We don't want to introduce it because you know, other kids,
Speaker 2: other people in the neighborhood would also want to have kids.
Speaker 3: Oh there are there are a lot of other there.
Speaker 3: We wouldn't be the first one to have a secret
Speaker 3: kid in the basement. So right, that's weird. That's weird.
Speaker 3: It is a strange policy position to have an unacknowledged
Speaker 3: nuclear arsenal but also be so adamant that another country
Speaker 3: in the region not have nuclear weapons, to the point
Speaker 3: where we find ourselves in this position today right where
Speaker 3: we have this massive conflict with Israel in the US
Speaker 3: attacking Iran right now to prevent them from having these
Speaker 3: nuclear weapons, and also seeing Iran didn't Iran attack that
Speaker 3: facility that you just mentioned, like the Demona facility at
Speaker 3: one point earlier this year, and then there have been
Speaker 3: further attempts to attack that facility. I guess we'll.
Speaker 2: Course, yeah, yeah, a compound if you want. Yeah. That's
Speaker 2: a great point, man, because we know that one of
Speaker 2: the ways Ally powers, as well as Russia and China,
Speaker 2: one of the ways that they try to prevent other
Speaker 2: countries from having nuclear weapons is through doing bilateral agreements
Speaker 2: or international agreements where they say, hey, we have the nukes,
Speaker 2: we're friends with you, so if something happens, you just
Speaker 2: call us up, man, and we'll come through. You just
Speaker 2: can't keep our guns at the house, right or you
Speaker 2: can't have your own guns, but will hang out at
Speaker 2: your house with ours. And it's so strange because also
Speaker 2: this surreal position, this woo do we have nukes? We
Speaker 2: don't know what knows. Western countries have also tolerated this,
Speaker 2: They've gone along with it. So you're never going to
Speaker 2: hear an official statement from Western governments that is not
Speaker 2: couched in pretending to play this game. That's why we'll
Speaker 2: hear experts say stuff like Israel is widely believed to
Speaker 2: have nukes when they say widely believed, they're saying, we
Speaker 2: know they have nukes, but we have to like play
Speaker 2: along with Graham.
Speaker 3: We can't absolutely just say it outright.
Speaker 2: It's one of the worst kept open secrets on the planet.
Speaker 3: It's it's just so strange, man, it's kind of strange.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't even know what to say about it. Why
Speaker 3: keep up the charade? Like the why? Why?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: Why?
Speaker 2: Their Their idea is that if they keep up this
Speaker 2: policy of ambiguity, then at least what the Israeli government
Speaker 2: is saying is that if they keep the policy of ambiguity,
Speaker 2: other nations won't be champion at the bit as much
Speaker 2: to get nuclear weapons.
Speaker 3: But doesn't it wouldn't it increase it though, because now
Speaker 3: you're talking about secrecy. Now you're talking about secret stuff
Speaker 3: happening in the dark rather than in the open. So
Speaker 3: then everybody has to assume what's occurring, right, and often
Speaker 3: we've found I think that countries' powers will assume that
Speaker 3: the enemy is doing even worse stuff than they actually are,
Speaker 3: out of a greater like to prepare for the worst, Right,
Speaker 3: that's always the goal.
Speaker 2: Right, hope for the best prepare for the worst. This
Speaker 2: thing is is a very flimsy fig leaf, and I
Speaker 2: think a lot of us can agree with that, especially
Speaker 2: because here's how bad of a secret. This is, how
Speaker 2: open this secret is. Despite this official stance, it is
Speaker 2: incredibly common for individual politicians and military leaders across the planet,
Speaker 2: including Israeli politicians and military leaders, talk very openly about
Speaker 2: their nuclear capabilities, even though you know, and quickly add,
Speaker 2: if they did exist, like, if they did exist, you know,
Speaker 2: we could put them on German subs, which just happened,
Speaker 2: by the way, we could put them in the air,
Speaker 2: we could put them on land. It's silly, but it
Speaker 2: does make a lot of sense. And then also, even
Speaker 2: though they don't don't have nukes, they're one of the
Speaker 2: countries that has consistently refused to sign the Treaty on
Speaker 2: Non Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, very very fine line. Oh.
Speaker 2: In another reason they won't confirm it, dude, is because
Speaker 2: if they confirm it officially, that also means they would
Speaker 2: have to confirm how they got the nuclear technology. And
Speaker 2: that's a sticky wicket.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean we can guess that it was the Americans, right,
Speaker 3: I mean, the Americans created them. And then pretty cushy
Speaker 3: hanging out together in ninety Wasn't nineteen forty eight the
Speaker 3: time when Israel formed, isn't it? Or is it a
Speaker 3: run around there? Yeah, so the timing works out pretty well.
Speaker 3: Just just say.
Speaker 2: It's interesting and you're close, dude. It's a story the
Speaker 2: Jedi won't tell you. Folks. Yes, Israel became independent in
Speaker 2: nineteen forty eight after the Arab Israeli War established that independence.
Speaker 2: The first prime minister, a guy named David Ben Gurion,
Speaker 2: always wanted nuclear capability. He saw that as a crucial
Speaker 2: step toward preventing another holocaust, another genocide, and they even
Speaker 2: sent operatives out across the world, including to the United States,
Speaker 2: to specifically recruit scientists. They vastly preferred Jewish scientists for
Speaker 2: a nuclear program. They were doing this before nineteen forty eight.
Speaker 2: But they also knew a lot of these folks who
Speaker 2: were their supposed allies, their supposed Western allies. They didn't
Speaker 2: want Israel to have a bomb. So it wasn't the
Speaker 2: US that helped them in the beginning. It was France
Speaker 2: Viva lat.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, that's the story, man. I just feel
Speaker 3: do you ever get the feeling that the official history
Speaker 3: stuff is just kind of put there in the same
Speaker 3: way to mislead people. And I know that doesn't mean
Speaker 3: rethink all of history or any of those any of that,
Speaker 3: and I don't mean I distrust all of history. I
Speaker 3: feel like with something this this secretive still today in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty six, it feels like maybe they would build
Speaker 3: an entire cover story for this entire thing.
Speaker 2: I understand that instinct, and I definitely agree that history
Speaker 2: is a conversation. But from what I've looked into the story,
Speaker 2: as we know, it was not the official story for
Speaker 2: quite some time as well, and parts of it have
Speaker 2: never been verified by France or by Israel. So I
Speaker 2: think this was the true conspiracy, and it's quite Yeah,
Speaker 2: It's clear that factions of the US government or scientists
Speaker 2: based in the US US Nationals definitely did want to help,
Speaker 2: but Eisenhower did not, to be very clear, So if
Speaker 2: there was assistance coming from the United States government in
Speaker 2: some sort of subterfuge or skulled duggery, then it was
Speaker 2: definitely not at the approval of the White House or
Speaker 2: the larger military like and France was only doing this,
Speaker 2: by the way, because these guys don't have altruism at
Speaker 2: this level. France is doing this because they are already
Speaker 2: the principal arm supplier for Israel, and Israel is playing
Speaker 2: a huge role in France's intel operations as their colonial
Speaker 2: control of North Africa starts to slip. So they're saying,
Speaker 2: if you keep snitching for us, right, and you keep
Speaker 2: buying our stuff, then maybe we can help each other
Speaker 2: out a little bit. Like they even let scientists from
Speaker 2: Israel's still hidden nuclear program roam around France's nuclear compound
Speaker 2: and they get asked whatever questions. It was a redditt ama,
Speaker 2: and they said, look if we can have because everybody's
Speaker 2: still trying to figure out nukes at this point, right,
Speaker 2: to make them better. So France's thinking was, as far
Speaker 2: as we know that, if we can get the smartest
Speaker 2: folks in Israel's nuclear program to hang out with us, right,
Speaker 2: to just be lunch room buddies, then all of the access,
Speaker 2: like all of the research they do, we will learn
Speaker 2: and so maybe we can even start building better nukes
Speaker 2: than the United States.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, you can imagine that. But all of this
Speaker 3: is under the guise of peaceful nuclear energy, right, That's
Speaker 3: how it got spun to the US population immediately after
Speaker 3: the bombs were dropped, like, here's the future energy source
Speaker 3: that we can all use. We need these things all
Speaker 3: over the place because eventually they'll be our main power source.
Speaker 3: And then you can see, you know, the United States
Speaker 3: had that whole program that we talked about several episodes ago,
Speaker 3: where the US would export essentially nuclear energy technology, know how, blueprints,
Speaker 3: all of that stuff. If you as a country said hey,
Speaker 3: we are just gonna pursue the peaceful nuclear energy. We're
Speaker 3: not gonna try and spin up a bunch of things, and.
Speaker 2: Our ambassadors did a pinky swear. Guys, this is so serious.
Speaker 2: It's all peaceful and so and you know, Matt, you
Speaker 2: and I have talked about this for years now. The
Speaker 2: issue is what makes that such I'll say it, what
Speaker 2: makes it such utter bulks, is that the same process
Speaker 2: of refinement that you use to make material for a
Speaker 2: nuclear power plant is the pretty much the same process
Speaker 2: used to make weapons. So imagine if the imagine if
Speaker 2: you knew how to build a washing machine for clothing, right,
Speaker 2: and you said, Okay, I know how to build a
Speaker 2: washing machine, and it's going to make my country way better.
Speaker 2: It's going to make my house way better. It just
Speaker 2: so happens that the exact process for building a washing
Speaker 2: machine is the process for building a bomb. And one
Speaker 2: of them will wash one of them cleans you know,
Speaker 2: you're under rus and the other one blows up the neighborhood.
Speaker 2: So you just gotta.
Speaker 3: Trust it's just lint en Richmond, that's all we're doing.
Speaker 3: Just it's some extra lint enrichment to U two thirty
Speaker 3: five lint.
Speaker 2: Right right right, And sometimes you know, plutonium, it's just
Speaker 2: another brand of detergents. You guys are tripping us.
Speaker 3: Or it's got those scent crystals in it, you know,
Speaker 3: just dump it in before it's fine.
Speaker 2: And then they're like, oh, okay, well can I look
Speaker 2: at the washing machine? Absolutely not, yeah, yeah, don't go
Speaker 2: in the basement where we keep the kid either. So this,
Speaker 2: I mean, it gets messy and messy.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: It's his story a tip for tats quid pro quos.
Speaker 2: And like you said, it's always advertised as peaceful nuclear research.
Speaker 2: Check out the amazing videos of the amazing propaganda pieces
Speaker 2: that the United States had on this for decades and
Speaker 2: also so the US at the same time to our
Speaker 2: earlier point about history. They're getting more and more mythed
Speaker 2: that Israel will not let anybody see their nuclear facility.
Speaker 2: And they're like, hey, guys, we got a bunch of spies.
Speaker 2: They're just gonna say, we got we got we know
Speaker 2: what's going on, Okay, we know what's in the basement.
Speaker 2: And they said, well, you don't have to inspect this
Speaker 2: because look, man, it's a textile factory. You already know
Speaker 2: how rugs work. Yeah, you need our rug technology. And
Speaker 2: then Britain conspired as well to supply nuclear material to Israel.
Speaker 2: And then they also were like, mm whelo, chap, I
Speaker 2: haven't heard a thing.
Speaker 3: God well, and everybody knows. Just going back to the
Speaker 3: non Proliferation Treaty of it all, you said, Israel is
Speaker 3: one of four countries of the nine that have never
Speaker 3: joined in with any with the nuclear non proliferation treaty stuff.
Speaker 3: Isn't it weird that there are nine countries that are
Speaker 3: acknowledged to have these things and around half of them decided, hey,
Speaker 3: it'd be a good idea to not make a bunch
Speaker 3: more of these, to be careful to allow international inspectors
Speaker 3: from the UN to come through that, you know, the
Speaker 3: International Atomic Energy Agency is a good thing, and let's
Speaker 3: all be above board. But there's still around half of
Speaker 3: the countries that say, nah, we don't want anything to do.
Speaker 2: With that exactly. Yeah, it's a huge deal in nuclear
Speaker 2: studies because it's the prisoner's dilemma in real life.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: It only works if everybody goes along, and if there's
Speaker 2: even one dissenting party, much less several, then the whole
Speaker 2: system is endangered. It's quite a fragile system, just like democracy.
Speaker 2: You know, it's a democracy of nine countries, several of
Speaker 2: which very much do not get along, right, so getting
Speaker 2: them to agree on anything is kind of tough.
Speaker 3: Democracy manifest from. I can't remember hearing it.
Speaker 2: I've remember heard it though, so okay. By nineteen sixty five,
Speaker 2: this nation is capable of creating weapons grade plutonium, and
Speaker 2: sometime around the Six Day War, shout out to the
Speaker 2: USS liberty. They were able to launch full scale weapons production,
Speaker 2: not deployment, but they were able to build the toys.
Speaker 2: And at this point, the larger public of the world,
Speaker 2: outside of the spoopy dupes and the experts that no
Speaker 2: one believes, the larger public, including the public of the
Speaker 2: nation of Israel, they don't know what's going on. They
Speaker 2: don't know all the way up until the nineteen eighties
Speaker 2: when an Israeli new technician with an awesome name Mordecai Vanunu.
Speaker 2: I almost want to sound effect like when we like
Speaker 2: an American dad. Did did you ever watch American Dad?
Speaker 3: I haven't seen that one.
Speaker 2: Oh it's okay, there's a character. There's a character named
Speaker 2: Ricky Spanish. We're not going to get into it. Shout
Speaker 2: out to the twelve people who are laughing now. But
Speaker 2: the Ricky Spanish character always comes with a sound cue,
Speaker 2: so he's like Ricky Spanish and then a little bit
Speaker 2: of Spanish guitar. So Bodekaiva New News sounds like it
Speaker 2: needs a sound cue at the end, you.
Speaker 3: Know, well it's this guy is just a dude doing
Speaker 3: his job, but he's he's seeing what's happening, and he's
Speaker 3: understanding it, and he's having a crisis because he's realizing that,
Speaker 3: oh my god, like we're doing all this stuff. Nobody
Speaker 3: knows what's happening here at this facility. So he gets
Speaker 3: his camera out and he takes photographs of stuff that
Speaker 3: shouldn't exist, at least officially.
Speaker 2: Not in a textile factory.
Speaker 3: That's for sure, same factory we were talking about at
Speaker 3: the very beginning of this.
Speaker 2: And that's where he's working. And he has, like you
Speaker 2: were saying, tons of photographs. And despite these photographs being
Speaker 2: widely published, first in British press and then around the world,
Speaker 2: the government of Israel has still never once acknowledged these capabilities.
Speaker 2: And that's why estimates even now in twenty twenty six
Speaker 2: on their capabilities vary so widely. Like if you you know,
Speaker 2: if you do a typical like Google or Wikipedias or
Speaker 2: you'll see it's estimated that Israel has something between ninety
Speaker 2: warheads or up to four hundred. That's a huge range,
Speaker 2: especially for things that are this dangerous. But also that
Speaker 2: is coming from expert research that is not just AI slop.
Speaker 2: The rest of the world. I mean, probably a few
Speaker 2: people know now, but the rest of the world for
Speaker 2: most of the time had no idea how many Israel
Speaker 2: actually possesses. And we still really don't, and you know,
Speaker 2: it's hard to talk about it. Part of the reason
Speaker 2: we have been so careful with this is because anti
Speaker 2: Semitism gets caught up in the mix so very easily.
Speaker 2: You know, a lot of racist. People are going, well, yes,
Speaker 2: of course the nation of what other nation would lie?
Speaker 2: And the answer is, folks, all of them, all of
Speaker 2: the nations will lie to you whenever it benefits them.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, for sure. That's that's definitely one thing we
Speaker 3: have discovered in all of our days, hours, minutes doing
Speaker 3: this research. I do want to put this out there
Speaker 3: just because it is. It's pretty easy to find if
Speaker 3: you look up the Demona Research Center or the Negev
Speaker 3: Nuclear Research Center. The full name if you want to
Speaker 3: dive into the research is the Shimon Perez Negev Nuclear
Speaker 3: Research Center. And you can see satellite footage of this
Speaker 3: place from years and years and years ago up until
Speaker 3: really recent satellite footage of the place, and that has
Speaker 3: been reported on in recent news where they're looking at
Speaker 3: new facilities. They call it this one thing that was
Speaker 3: being built there earlier this year, the big black box.
Speaker 3: Well that's what do you think that might be? Is
Speaker 3: what the world press says. But just to put out
Speaker 3: there that it exists. Right now, we are talking about
Speaker 3: the history of this place and the research there and
Speaker 3: all of the things and the reasons behind it. But
Speaker 3: it exists, and you can look at it now right now,
Speaker 3: if you want to mm hmm.
Speaker 2: And what you'll see here is similar in other countries.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: You can find a lot of nuclear facilities or suspected
Speaker 2: nuclear facilities in all these other nine countries we've mentioned.
Speaker 2: And you can also troublingly find facilities and would be
Speaker 2: nuclear powered countries or nuclear capable countries as well. This
Speaker 2: is another thing. Several of these countries that we're discussing,
Speaker 2: they have what they call a no first use policy.
Speaker 2: And here's the heart of our conspiracy tonight, folks. Israel
Speaker 2: is a little bit different. They have something called the
Speaker 2: Samson option. Let's say we take a break for a
Speaker 2: word from our sponsors. Here's where it gets crazy, all right,
Speaker 2: no first use. Let's get this out of the way.
Speaker 2: It's just what it sounds like. Everybody is essentially standing
Speaker 2: at the great, the Great Tombstone Arizona gunfight that is
Speaker 2: the modern world. And these nine guys have guns, and
Speaker 2: a lot of them say, we're not going to be
Speaker 2: the first guys to shoot because we see ourselves as
Speaker 2: the good guys.
Speaker 3: Well that's nice, love it, And theoretically nobody ever shoots
Speaker 3: because nobody's ever going to be a First, here's the
Speaker 3: problem talked about before. There's this thing called, well, a
Speaker 3: couple of things. One of them is called terrorism, which
Speaker 3: means theoretically, somebody could gain a hold get like get
Speaker 3: a nuke and set it off, and now none of
Speaker 3: the nine people holding the guns is the first one
Speaker 3: to shoot. Somebody else found a gun and shot. Now
Speaker 3: everybody can shoot, right, because everybody is able to and
Speaker 3: they're allowed to with their first no first rule. The
Speaker 3: other thing is the false flag potential there. Right, maybe
Speaker 3: somebody lets a nuke out so that it can go off,
Speaker 3: and now they get to use their nukes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's once you pop the seal. It's very easy
Speaker 2: for that domino effect to occur because some countries have
Speaker 2: a policy that says there will be repercussions up to
Speaker 2: and including us launching nukes if somebody else does it,
Speaker 2: because we, you know, because we're not just the good guys,
Speaker 2: but like every country, we're the main character. It's it's
Speaker 2: so it's similar to it's similar to something we brought
Speaker 2: up before. There is a world of difference between Google's
Speaker 2: old motto don't be evil and the other version be good.
Speaker 2: So no first use is not the same thing as
Speaker 2: saying we're never ever going to use this because we're
Speaker 2: the good guys. It just means that they have agreed
Speaker 2: that if any of the other eight countries, or even
Speaker 2: a rogue actor with a dirty bomb or a maybe
Speaker 2: one of those backpack nukes that we're working on for
Speaker 2: a while, if another actor launches those, then it's Katie
Speaker 2: bar the door. They are going to be heavy consequences.
Speaker 2: You will get that smoke. The nation of Israel does
Speaker 2: not have a first use policy. Instead, they have what
Speaker 2: we unofficially call the Samson option, and that is massive retaliation.
Speaker 2: We're talking about this a little bit off air. It
Speaker 2: speaks to the history of the region. It speaks to
Speaker 2: is regional and indeed international posture. They're saying, look, we
Speaker 2: don't care of a threat to our country has nuclear ability.
Speaker 2: If that, if any other country invades or these the
Speaker 2: phrase destroys much of Israel, or if it's an existential threat,
Speaker 2: we will use the nukes as a last resort. I
Speaker 2: know I'm cursing a lot on this episode tonight, folks,
Speaker 2: but it is scary stuff. Think of it like back
Speaker 2: in our neighborhood comparison. Think of it as saying like
Speaker 2: they know this is disproportionate response. They're saying, oh, you
Speaker 2: want to break into my house, fine, oh burn down,
Speaker 2: Oh goddamn neighborhood. Let's see who's crazier. You want to
Speaker 2: see crazy? That's what it is.
Speaker 3: Well, that's why it's called the Samson.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly.
Speaker 3: Anyone, break out your bibles, head on over to Judges
Speaker 3: sixteen if you want to, you just start with thirteen
Speaker 3: and learn the whole same since saga. But if you
Speaker 3: go to sixteen, you'll learn Samson's whole story is about
Speaker 3: just vengeance, kind of a little cycle of vengeance where
Speaker 3: he's killing Philistines, sometimes hundreds of Philistines, sometimes thousands of Philistines.
Speaker 3: Sometimes he is putting his hands on two pillars and
Speaker 3: bringing an entire temple down on himself and all of
Speaker 3: the Philistine leaders and soldiers, thousands of them that are there.
Speaker 3: Because gum, like literally, that's like the situation. It's exactly
Speaker 3: what you described, Ben. I will kill myself if it
Speaker 3: means it kills you two.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, you want to dance. That's wait, that's ah,
Speaker 2: that's Michael Keaton in something.
Speaker 3: But it's genuinely a scary it's a scary set of
Speaker 3: stories within the Bible, because it really does. I'm just
Speaker 3: looking through it, reading about it, and there's so many
Speaker 3: times where Samson just it says, the spirit of the
Speaker 3: Lord comes upon him, and then he just murders a
Speaker 3: ton of people. At one point he gets a donkey's
Speaker 3: jawbone and kills a thousand men. Good God, just an angry,
Speaker 3: angry dude with the spirit of the Lord. You know,
Speaker 3: he just rages out and kills a bunch of people,
Speaker 3: but he's venerated as some kind of hero. It's really
Speaker 3: it's messed up, man. And you know what, we never
Speaker 3: even learned the name of his mom throughout the entirety
Speaker 3: of the Bible. We know his dad's name, but his
Speaker 3: mom was just a woman who was considered a barren
Speaker 3: and an angel came to her and said, hey, you're
Speaker 3: gonna have a baby if you don't drink wine or
Speaker 3: eat anything unclean, and your congratulations. You have like a
Speaker 3: special boy. And he's gonna he's gonna have hair that
Speaker 3: connects him to the Lord and makes him crazy powerful,
Speaker 3: and he's gonna kill thousands of humans.
Speaker 2: It's crazy.
Speaker 3: Sorry, I don't mean to speak down about the Bible.
Speaker 3: It's just it's a wild story to base anything on.
Speaker 2: Well, he's also and also he's a judge. We got
Speaker 2: to put that care. That's why it's the Book of Judges, right,
Speaker 2: That's why he's in that part. It is. It is wild,
Speaker 2: and it definitely has that grand, almost theatrical gravitas that
Speaker 2: is common in some of these conversations, you know, and
Speaker 2: this is this is very scary, does match some of
Speaker 2: the biblical lore of this Judge Samson, because we see
Speaker 2: that most experts who have analyzed this, and experts with
Speaker 2: secret clearance right with access to classified research, they say
Speaker 2: that the Samson option, if deployed, would likely include deliberate
Speaker 2: strikes against non military targets similar to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Speaker 2: This would hit cities that means schools, that means hospitals,
Speaker 2: that means civilians. This is seen by everybody body else
Speaker 2: has a clear violation of international humanitarian law. So, despite
Speaker 2: you're hearing this right, folks, fellow conspiracy realist, despite not
Speaker 2: having nuclear weapons wish wish air quotes, the Israeli military
Speaker 2: and government have repeatedly reminded the Middle East and the
Speaker 2: world overall that anybody looking for smoke is welcome to
Speaker 2: fa fo on a nuclear level. And the rest of
Speaker 2: the world doesn't really agree with this. They don't see
Speaker 2: that as retaliation, they see that as a pre emptive
Speaker 2: nuclear strike. We also got to shout out Seymour Hirsch,
Speaker 2: who wrote a landmark book about this that popularize the
Speaker 2: term the Samson option, Israel's nuclear arsenal and American foreign policy.
Speaker 2: And it's all about how the US, which has a
Speaker 2: close relationship a troubled relationship with Israel, has gone back
Speaker 2: and forth on this on whether this is right, how
Speaker 2: this works, versus their relationship with other friendly nuclear powers
Speaker 2: like France or like the United Kingdom. And to be clear, folks,
Speaker 2: to be clear, obviously we're talking about a country. We're
Speaker 2: not talking about a people here, because the people of
Speaker 2: Israel didn't get to vote on this. But to be
Speaker 2: even more crystal clear, everybody hates this idea. Everybody in
Speaker 2: the room thinks this is a terrible, terrible idea because
Speaker 2: they know that if Israel were to bomb Ran with
Speaker 2: a nowp tonight, then before dawn of the next day,
Speaker 2: surrounding enemy nations would launch their own attacks in turn,
Speaker 2: which could in turn retrigger the Sampson option, leading to
Speaker 2: yet more nuclear attacks of course on military installations, of course,
Speaker 2: but then also on heavily occupied civilian areas. So in
Speaker 2: a very very very short period of time, the region
Speaker 2: could crumble into smoking wasteland. This is a dark wind, dude.
Speaker 3: Well yeah, well we've seen what some of the targets
Speaker 3: are for multiple countries against other countries, right, and we
Speaker 3: know it's military, it's infrastructure, and then it becomes population centers.
Speaker 3: There's the that's the way the targets go. You destroy
Speaker 3: communications and the ability for your enemy to like target
Speaker 3: things and prevent missiles from coming in. You prevent them
Speaker 3: from communicating with each other. You prevent them from being
Speaker 3: able to launch other things, right, you prevent them from
Speaker 3: being able to launch other military strikes, conventional military strikes.
Speaker 3: Then you turn off the power and the water and
Speaker 3: all these other things, and then you take out the
Speaker 3: city centers so nobody can rebuild. And it is just
Speaker 3: it's end of the world stuff. It's fallout stuff. It's
Speaker 3: the freaking silo, it's all those things. It's just and
Speaker 3: it's ready to go, and we keep humanity keeps putting
Speaker 3: itself in these positions where we're in a tinder box
Speaker 3: and ready ready for it to explode. And I don't know,
Speaker 3: man it because right now we've got multiple fronts where
Speaker 3: this could potentially set off. Right, the Middle East is
Speaker 3: definitely one, but we're also looking at your Ukraine and
Speaker 3: Russia right now, and how much forces are gathering there
Speaker 3: that are not just Ukraine and Russia, and how many
Speaker 3: nuclear weapons potentially are at play there. We're seeing it
Speaker 3: happen in the South trynes See and Taiwan and all
Speaker 3: these other things. Just the potential for something to go
Speaker 3: bad with one thing, and the Samson option just I
Speaker 3: don't know. I don't know if it's better or worse,
Speaker 3: or it feels like it's worse. Just that whole you know,
Speaker 3: come at us too hard and we're gonna nuke some
Speaker 3: stuff that it just feels horrifying. Man.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And there's reason, folks that I'm mentioning dark wind
Speaker 2: and the mats mentioning fallout because this domino effect, right,
Speaker 2: this mad cap doomsday scenario for the Middle East, it
Speaker 2: would inevitably affect other places that are not involved, just
Speaker 2: because of regional weather systems. So countries that were not
Speaker 2: directly involved, like Turkey would be a big one right
Speaker 2: right there kind of in the area. They could find
Speaker 2: their own citizens affected by radiation, so what would they do?
Speaker 2: And then if any other nuclear power deploys their own
Speaker 2: weapons against Israel because they have friends right who have
Speaker 2: been attacked, then it has to theoretically pull a Samson
Speaker 2: again and fire back. It's highly unlikely, let's say, virtually
Speaker 2: impossible that the US or European allies whatever bomb Israel,
Speaker 2: But China is an open question. And then we have
Speaker 2: to ask about what you know, Pakistan or India or
Speaker 2: North Korea?
Speaker 3: Well, Ben, do we really do we really think that
Speaker 3: the tracking capabilities, the technologies that exist right now are
Speaker 3: such that there is no way another country in that
Speaker 3: region has nuclear capabilities and it's just either unknown or
Speaker 3: somebody looked the other way, or they built an underground
Speaker 3: facility like Iran did, and they built it a long
Speaker 3: time ago and they've been refining materials, Like do we
Speaker 3: really think we can prove or know for sure that
Speaker 3: nobody else has nukes in the region.
Speaker 2: In terms of industrial capability like manufacturing capability, we're pretty
Speaker 2: confident just because of the chain of resource control. But
Speaker 2: in terms of like an individual thing maybe from the
Speaker 2: fall of the Soviet Union, or maybe like a rogue
Speaker 2: aq con type scientist, maybe somebody like the fall of
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union is a big concern. But then you
Speaker 2: know the idea that maybe and extreamist in an extremist
Speaker 2: faction or cabal in Pakistan could conspire. There are possibilities
Speaker 2: of individual things leaking out, But a great deal of
Speaker 2: time and energy is spent not just tracking down the
Speaker 2: chain of anything that could be used for manufacturing, but
Speaker 2: also trying to keep a close account on the number
Speaker 2: of nukes overall.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, and we know the human beings, Like it
Speaker 3: requires human beings with no how and training or understanding
Speaker 3: to be able to run facilities, right that might refine
Speaker 3: plutonium or uranium or whatever. And we've seen that state
Speaker 3: powers will murder those folks if they seem to pose
Speaker 3: a threat. Right. I guess all of that stuff makes sense.
Speaker 3: It just feels like there's so much money in a
Speaker 3: place like Saudi Arabia that has a sovereign wealth fund
Speaker 3: or you know, that's just one country. There are many
Speaker 3: countries in the region that have fast resources of money
Speaker 3: that could be used to pull an individual in or
Speaker 3: you know, to build a facility or to dig down
Speaker 3: and create something. I just I don't know it. The
Speaker 3: confidence maybe that especially Western powers feel or have the
Speaker 3: thing that you see like that. It's not necessarily bravado,
Speaker 3: but it's a confidence like we know everything that's happening
Speaker 3: at all times, that feeling that you get it. To
Speaker 3: my mind, it feels as though that is a posture
Speaker 3: more than a reality. But maybe I'm just completely off
Speaker 3: base there, and I think it's I think it's important
Speaker 3: to show that outwardly or to make people think that
Speaker 3: more so than it is.
Speaker 2: And this this is uh, this is a good point.
Speaker 2: This is why I'm drawing such a sharp distinction between
Speaker 2: manufacturing capability and individual warheads. So finding manufactor xuring capability
Speaker 2: is going to be a lot easier because they are
Speaker 2: much There are many more opportunities to get a peek
Speaker 2: into what's happening. Right, you have to build stuff, you
Speaker 2: have to assemble stuff. You can't make it all on
Speaker 2: your own domestically. That's why North Korea needed a q
Speaker 2: CON and some help from China. But if we talk
Speaker 2: about an individual warhead, then we're getting a lot closer
Speaker 2: to something like a needle in a haystack. That's why
Speaker 2: we talk about these extremist actors. You know, somebody's able
Speaker 2: to get the one thing from you know, I'm not
Speaker 2: trying to pick on Pakistan, but someone's trying to get
Speaker 2: the one thing from the stands somewhere, a former Soviet
Speaker 2: country or something, and they, perhaps because of their motivation,
Speaker 2: are not a rational actor, right, So they're not concerned.
Speaker 2: They don't give a tinker's damn about mutually short destruction.
Speaker 2: They just want to blow stuff up. They don't care
Speaker 2: about the consequences. That's one of the big ones. And
Speaker 2: I love the foreshadowing about just real quick point. I
Speaker 2: love the foreshadowing about the idea of posture versus practicality,
Speaker 2: because supporters of this policy are saying that not having
Speaker 2: Samson on the table is more dangerous than having it.
Speaker 2: And they're also they're also going to say, some supporters
Speaker 2: will say, we don't think Samson will ever be used.
Speaker 2: Its advantage, its edge is entirely because it is a posture,
Speaker 2: which I don't know if I entirely buy that, but
Speaker 2: that's what that's what a lot of people will say.
Speaker 2: And then more hawkish folks are going to say another
Speaker 2: thing that I don't fully agree with that I think
Speaker 2: is kind of propagandistic, more like military gung ho types
Speaker 2: are going to say, I support this poul See because
Speaker 2: if allies of Israel know that Samson is on the table,
Speaker 2: they're going to be more likely to assist Israel in
Speaker 2: a conflict, hoping to nip things in the butt before
Speaker 2: Samson gets activated again. I don't know if that we
Speaker 2: could count that as analysis or more like salesmanship and
Speaker 2: wishful thinking. That's just my take. Again, I might be
Speaker 2: off base.
Speaker 3: No, I hear you.
Speaker 2: I keep thinking.
Speaker 3: I keep thinking about the It was a country in Africa,
Speaker 3: the yellow cake from Niger maybe, and the aluminum tubes
Speaker 3: from or they got them in a different country. The
Speaker 3: stuff that was heading towards a rock that was a
Speaker 3: big deal was made out of Hey, we have to
Speaker 3: go in there and stop them from enriching uranium. And
Speaker 3: because they're trying to get the components you would need
Speaker 3: from all these other places. I think it was Jordan
Speaker 3: maybe where the aluminum tubes were. It makes me think
Speaker 3: that somebody is some watchdog, is looking at these things
Speaker 3: and they are paying attention. It does make me think
Speaker 3: that I don't know, man, I'm just gonna choose right now.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna choose to believe that we know everything that's
Speaker 3: going on in our the spoopy doupe. So the absolute best,
Speaker 3: the ones that are paying attention to this stuff, and
Speaker 3: it's all gonna be.
Speaker 2: Okay unless they get corrupted or out, or unless there's
Speaker 2: or unless you know, you use a a Belgian mining
Speaker 2: company as a front to get yellow cake of uranium
Speaker 2: from from the Democratic Republic of Conggo, which definitely happened,
Speaker 2: just like the British used a Norwegian proxy. Once you
Speaker 2: get private industry in there, man, you can do a
Speaker 2: lot of other fun Slight of hand magic tricks. Also
Speaker 2: shout out to most death in uh, that old Dave
Speaker 2: Chappelle sketch where he plays the president and they talk
Speaker 2: about finding yellow cake and most steps he just has
Speaker 2: he has yellow Angel's food cake and a napkin. It
Speaker 2: was right up there with that with whomever. I think
Speaker 2: they lied to Colon Powell too about the w MTS,
Speaker 2: But it's right up there with that moment where someone's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: aluminum tubes and that press conference look kind of silly.
Speaker 3: Those aluminum tubes. Again, like I I was pretty young.
Speaker 3: I was like a high schooler when all that was happening,
Speaker 3: and I never really saw the aluminum tubes they were
Speaker 3: talking about, or you know, what they looked like or
Speaker 3: how big they were. So I just imagine the aluminum tubes.
Speaker 2: I was aware of the Red Old's rap.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, rails, rap were things you might find in
Speaker 3: a bathroom. They are holding up the shower curtain like, oh,
Speaker 3: that's an aluminum.
Speaker 2: Tube that could build a nuke? Right now, what's in
Speaker 2: this soap? So it's uh, it is that there's a
Speaker 2: lot of back and forth and there are a lot
Speaker 2: of postures and public presentations. To be honest, undiplomatically, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of theater in this kind of stuff. And
Speaker 2: you could say that some of it's necessary. You could
Speaker 2: say that some of it just complicates the issue. But
Speaker 2: to put it diplomatically, critics refuse to hear any of
Speaker 2: the supporters arguments. They say, this is absolutely bonkers. The
Speaker 2: potential for disaster outweighs the advantages any advantages of posturing.
Speaker 2: But what would happen? What if it actually happened? We
Speaker 2: have to be clear with you folks, first off, yes,
Speaker 2: the nation of Israel can absolutely do this. They do
Speaker 2: have the capability. The policy of ambiguity is a ridiculous thing.
Speaker 2: But from their ideal perspective, they're saying, nobody really wants
Speaker 2: to reach this point. Thank goodness, we know that nuclear
Speaker 2: retaliation in their minds would remove the present threat, whatever
Speaker 2: that may be. And additionally, it would set an example
Speaker 2: of how anybody else thinking of an attack, because they
Speaker 2: would be thinking, holy crap, these guys weren't joking. They
Speaker 2: really will go Samson. And then they'll say okay. That
Speaker 2: would also give us a window of time to repair
Speaker 2: secure resources and civilians get assistance from our allies, and
Speaker 2: those allies are probably also going to bring in troops
Speaker 2: and munitions, humanitarian aid, etc. Will soldier on. But the
Speaker 2: ideal scenario, no matter how smart people think they are,
Speaker 2: man the ideal scenario seldom happens in real life. We'll
Speaker 2: see a domino effect. We'll see other we'll see allies
Speaker 2: of if it's another country that gets attacked, if it's
Speaker 2: Iraan that gets newked, we will see whatever allies are
Speaker 2: bound by pre existing agreements with Iran probably have to
Speaker 2: jump in and retaliate. On some level themselves. And then
Speaker 2: there's another thing with the dimension of proxies, right, and
Speaker 2: then they get Samson, and then those countries have other allies,
Speaker 2: or those proxies have other allies, or those terrorist groups
Speaker 2: have other allies, and then they get Samson, and all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, mad doesn't matter, right, because at each
Speaker 2: step nations that have treaties with Israel are also getting
Speaker 2: pulled in. It's got to think of like NATO and
Speaker 2: Article five. You know what I mean, so ugly, so quickly.
Speaker 2: I don't know, man, Do you want to take an
Speaker 2: ad break and talk about the aftermath here? No?
Speaker 3: But I think we should.
Speaker 2: We're back, folks, and you can tell again how creeped
Speaker 2: out we are by this. We hope you're creeped out
Speaker 2: by it too. We are being really diplomatic when we
Speaker 2: say the aftermath would be insane. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I keep thinking about Samson. Man in the story, the
Speaker 3: woman that he loves betrays him by accepting an offer
Speaker 3: of thousands of shekels in silver.
Speaker 2: From the Philistines.
Speaker 3: Right, Yes, to figure out what Samson's weakness is, like,
Speaker 3: how do we get the spirit of the Lord out
Speaker 3: of him so we won't murder a bunch of us
Speaker 3: when we try and capture him, and she tries over
Speaker 3: and over and over to get him to tell her
Speaker 3: what's going on, and then betray him, and he flwarts
Speaker 3: her a bunch of times, and finally he tells her,
Speaker 3: you just cut my hair, and they cut his hair.
Speaker 3: They come in, they capture him, and the first thing
Speaker 3: the Philistines do is the gouge's eyes out, And so,
Speaker 3: like you're imagining again, we're talking about a cycle of
Speaker 3: vengeance here, right, Samson gets vengeance on the Philistines. The
Speaker 3: Philistines want to get vengeance on Samson for murdering thousands
Speaker 3: of people. And then it just continues and continue. And
Speaker 3: the more I think about this, the concept of bringing
Speaker 3: the entire temple down on yourself, just despite all the
Speaker 3: other folks that wronged you. At one point, it's so
Speaker 3: I was gonna say selfish. I don't know, maybe that's
Speaker 3: the wrong word for it.
Speaker 2: But it's a pyrrhic victory as well. It's a victory
Speaker 2: that destroys the victory.
Speaker 3: Yes, And and how many people do you have to
Speaker 3: take with it? The people like people? How many people
Speaker 3: are in that temple to diagon or part of that
Speaker 3: feast to dagon are actually a part of people that
Speaker 3: cause Samson harm right, that he would enact an eye
Speaker 3: for an eye vengeance on And then how many are
Speaker 3: just there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, how many people, especially when we're talking about situations
Speaker 2: like this, how many people living in various Middle Eastern
Speaker 2: countries have been trying to leave? How many families have
Speaker 2: been trying to get out already, you know, for years,
Speaker 2: for decades, and they want no part of this conflict.
Speaker 2: When elephants make war, its the grass that suffers in
Speaker 2: the aftermath of this. Even in the most ideal scenario
Speaker 2: of the Samson option, thousands, hundreds of thousands of people
Speaker 2: would still die as as collateral damage, and the nation
Speaker 2: of Israel would become a pariaused state on a global level,
Speaker 2: another knock on effect that people might not think about
Speaker 2: because it's so unpleasant. There are other innocent people would
Speaker 2: never be affected by radiation because of where they live,
Speaker 2: who will still get killed because of the Samson option,
Speaker 2: particularly people of the Jewish faith or Jewish heritage in
Speaker 2: the diaspora across the planet. A massive wave of hate crimes,
Speaker 2: terrorist attacks, maybe persecution by their own governments that can happen. This,
Speaker 2: This can still happen in twenty twenty six. People of
Speaker 2: Jewish origin with no Israeli's citizenship, folks who have never
Speaker 2: been to Israel or thought about it, never practiced Judaism
Speaker 2: would still be targeted as representatives of a nation that
Speaker 2: they've never known. And then also, oh my gosh, what
Speaker 2: if you're one of the other eight nuclear powered countries
Speaker 2: you see, Sampson, Remember we were talking about new first use.
Speaker 2: You're going to start rethinking your own nuclear policy. You
Speaker 2: are going to have that oh crap, it can happen moment,
Speaker 2: and you might become more pacifistic, less warlike, but history
Speaker 2: proves you're probably going to become more hardline. You're going
Speaker 2: to take the safety off your gun, even if you
Speaker 2: don't pull the trigger.
Speaker 3: I keep thinking about Gaza and the things we've seen
Speaker 3: happening there exactly right as as vengeance, like acts of
Speaker 3: vengeance against a group that has wronged someone right and
Speaker 3: like absolutely done wrong and like it's horrible, right, one
Speaker 3: horrible action after another. We see that. But then I'm
Speaker 3: trying to imagine if there was another nuclear capable country
Speaker 3: in the region, like in Iran, would there be a
Speaker 3: pushback against the vengeance one way or the other. Right,
Speaker 3: would there be a balancing of some sort or would
Speaker 3: would it immediately turn into Samson option or you know,
Speaker 3: I'm imagining it might actually be an okay thing if
Speaker 3: there was a balancing force.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's something that's something people stay up all night
Speaker 2: thinking about and arguing about, right, and lose some of
Speaker 2: their careers over at times because people aren't sure the
Speaker 2: thing is. Nuclear weaponry is relatively new in the Great
Speaker 2: Grand scheme of things. It's one of the most dangerous
Speaker 2: things people have invented. Did very few countries have it,
Speaker 2: which means that we have a dearth of sample sizes
Speaker 2: we have, we have scant precedent for what would occur
Speaker 2: other than post World War two and mad We know
Speaker 2: that a bunch of countries would immediately Countries that have
Speaker 2: capability to get this stuff would immediately redouble their efforts
Speaker 2: to acquire the bob Just a few Republic of Koreas,
Speaker 2: South Korea, Japan, definitely, Latin America, South Africa, definitely, Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 2: To your point, this is one of the greatest conspiracies
Speaker 2: in all the modern history.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Sorry, Ben, I keep almost making a point, and
Speaker 3: then I miss it. The biggest The biggest point is
Speaker 3: it goes back to our discussion about how having a
Speaker 3: nuclear arsenal makes other countries listen to you and at
Speaker 3: least care that you have an opinion about something you
Speaker 3: as a country are doing. So I do under and
Speaker 3: that's all I mean by balancing force. I don't mean, hey,
Speaker 3: now we've got more nukes pointed at each other. It's
Speaker 3: just now we've actually we might actually have countries who
Speaker 3: give a crap what the other one says and what
Speaker 3: their opinion is of our actions, rather than hey, we
Speaker 3: can we have secret nukes that we can just kind
Speaker 3: of do what we want.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, once the nukes are in the public, that
Speaker 2: would that would potentially we're talking about balance. The reason
Speaker 2: those countries will listen to each other is because of
Speaker 2: mad Right. So if if other countries went nuclear gained
Speaker 2: that capability, That's why I'm saying with like, definitely Saudi
Speaker 2: Arabia for instance, right, or other very very wealthy, even
Speaker 2: the geographically smaller countries in the region, would have a
Speaker 2: do you have a stronger voice when you go nuclear? Right?
Speaker 2: That that is that is one of those very scant
Speaker 2: precedents we possess, but given the deep descent and historic
Speaker 2: ConFlat in the region, we cannot assume that our other
Speaker 2: precedents a balance of power would hold, because this would
Speaker 2: be a new animal, and the fate of the world
Speaker 2: is writing on it. Also, it may sound like we're
Speaker 2: picking on certain countries here, folks, Again, we assure you
Speaker 2: that we are talking only about governments and only about
Speaker 2: technology here. We're not necessarily talking We're not trying to
Speaker 2: put a personality read on any nation of millions of people.
Speaker 2: And we also need you to know that the Samson
Speaker 2: option itself is kind of unique, but it is far
Speaker 2: from the only terrifying nuclear doctrine. The United States historically
Speaker 2: has no problem bombing civilian populations with nukes. It happened twace.
Speaker 2: We also we explored the true story of another very
Speaker 2: scary thing, Russia's infamous dead Hand, which it's hard to
Speaker 2: say that without doing a heavy metal voice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a scary one. That sets off all of
Speaker 3: the missiles to strike all of the targets simultaneously to
Speaker 3: make sure your enemy can again, it's Samson like, to
Speaker 3: make sure your enemy cannot win this conflict.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Bernie down the house. We also, I mean Soviet plan, right,
Speaker 2: so we know that the Soviet Union dissolved. A lot
Speaker 2: of the experts still think dead hand is active in
Speaker 2: some capability. But because Russia is a kleptocracy now, it's
Speaker 2: really a big question of how much of how many
Speaker 2: of their warheads still work, you know, and how many
Speaker 2: just fell to misuse and corruption. Oh yeah, because once
Speaker 2: you build these things, there are such a pain in
Speaker 2: the ass to maintain. It's like how you know, any
Speaker 2: good gun owner knows that you need to train regularly
Speaker 2: and you need to always clean the mechanism. Right, That's
Speaker 2: like a nuclear warhead is that times a million, and
Speaker 2: if something goes wrong you die of radiation, sickness and exposure.
Speaker 2: So they're hard to they're hard to keep going. What's
Speaker 2: another example. What's another thing that's hard to keep going?
Speaker 2: Saltwater fish, an octopus in an aquarium.
Speaker 3: Drums man drums. It's hard to keep them things tuned correctly,
Speaker 3: especially if you're using them.
Speaker 2: But also if you just leave them humidity.
Speaker 3: Maybe yeah, yeah, if you just leave alone for a
Speaker 3: long time, though sound terrible, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think those are great examples. The octopus in the aquarium,
Speaker 2: the drums in the basement. Oh gosh, kids in the basement.
Speaker 2: It's it's crazy, because you know, there are there are
Speaker 2: other flash points. One that we mentioned a while ago
Speaker 2: that we didn't talked about here, just so you know.
Speaker 2: We mentioned South China see East Asian sphere. We mentioned
Speaker 2: Ukraine and Russia obviously the Middle East. Also Pakistan, India
Speaker 2: and China, who are so ready to rock and roll,
Speaker 2: like scary scary ready to rock and roll. What better
Speaker 2: time for what better time for a possible Chinese invasion
Speaker 2: of Taiwan or a Pakistan India conflict than when the
Speaker 2: entirety of the rest of the world is distracted in
Speaker 2: the Middle East. So this thing could, with the best
Speaker 2: of intentions, this Samson option could have, could create other
Speaker 2: conflicts a world away just because of the chaos. Yeah, we're.
Speaker 3: Keep getting this underlying feeling been that something really bad
Speaker 3: is going to happen here stateside before the election this year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for the midterms.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I'm trying very hard not to do too
Speaker 3: much tea reading, you know, and putting my own spin
Speaker 3: and bias on news stories that come out. But I
Speaker 3: swear man, I don't want to say some of the
Speaker 3: things I'm thinking out loud because it's weird, because it
Speaker 3: does make you feel when you're paying enough attention, it
Speaker 3: makes you feel like you can kind of almost see
Speaker 3: the future in a little bit, like in a small way.
Speaker 3: Do you ever get that ben where you're just reading
Speaker 3: some of the geopolitical things that are happening, and then
Speaker 3: you're just kind of going, Oh, somebody's preparing for X
Speaker 3: or X is going to match up really well with
Speaker 3: what why is doing over there?
Speaker 2: Uh oh, I'll say it. I will not be surprised
Speaker 2: if a false flag event occurs prior to the midterms,
Speaker 2: either on domestic soil or on an international sphere. I
Speaker 2: will definitely not be surprised if the current US regime
Speaker 2: attempts to invalidate the midterms. And I think democracy has
Speaker 2: ever been a fragile experiment. The United States is at
Speaker 2: Jenga tower right now, and we're halfway through the game,
Speaker 2: right so every block that gets pulled, and every time
Speaker 2: it's someone else's turn, we get a little closer to collapse.
Speaker 3: It keeps feeling to me like the group in charge
Speaker 3: right now is preparing to change leaders.
Speaker 2: Right. Yes, agreed, that's a good way to put it,
Speaker 2: and that is diplomatic. And in addition, that the global
Speaker 2: order is changing. America was once the United States was
Speaker 2: once the pre eminent superpower of the post World War
Speaker 2: two planet for better or worse. But now well, Uncle
Speaker 2: Sam is flagging, you know. It's got a dry cough,
Speaker 2: can't run as faster as long as he used to.
Speaker 2: He's running out of his toys. It's a diletent but
Speaker 2: not quite official war on Iran in partnership with Israel
Speaker 2: in Saudi Arabia. It's draining resources even now the US,
Speaker 2: even as the US population is suffering financial hardship from corruption, inflation,
Speaker 2: Kleptocras see a sharp decline in education, which happened way
Speaker 2: I don't know about you, guys. That happened way faster
Speaker 2: than I thought it would. NATO is in endangered, the
Speaker 2: UN is like the League of Nations, for Pete's sake,
Speaker 2: it's find itself more and more toothless. You don't see
Speaker 2: much about all of this combined in your local news
Speaker 2: shows or your local YouTube channel check out stuff they
Speaker 2: don't want YouTube, No, But I'm right there with you
Speaker 2: because I'm seeing things where it sound it feels not
Speaker 2: even conspiratorial, but it feels increasingly implausible to ignore what
Speaker 2: appear to be stronger and stronger correlations and connections. So
Speaker 2: maybe we're both bubbled, you know. And hey, if you're
Speaker 2: there with us, welcome to the bubble. Thanks for hanging out,
Speaker 2: dip in.
Speaker 3: What what a filthy bubble to be in? This is?
Speaker 3: This thing is gross.
Speaker 2: Bring more coffee, by the way, yes, bring more coffee.
Speaker 2: Freak a monster fort coffee for me and to you
Speaker 2: for Dylan. The world as we know it is, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's always been teetering on the edge lapse, though the
Speaker 2: good guys are more than capable of rationalizing very bad actions.
Speaker 2: This is the stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 3: I don't know how do we stop the cycle of vengeance?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 3: How do you? How do you? Is the only way
Speaker 3: to stop a cycle of vengeance? One one side of
Speaker 3: a conflict just decides Okay, that's enough.
Speaker 2: Do you mean in international affairs or just in general?
Speaker 3: I mean in general? I mean you could just take
Speaker 3: two people right that are continually doing each other wrong
Speaker 3: and then declaring vengeance, you know, for the previous action.
Speaker 3: It just goes on and on and on and on.
Speaker 3: It is like, I don't know if there's a philosophical
Speaker 3: answer to that and an actionable answer to something like that,
Speaker 3: or if it really is somebody has to give give
Speaker 3: in in a way and say we're finished here, there's
Speaker 3: no more of that.
Speaker 2: Well, it usually in that field, you know, reconciliation. Reconciliation
Speaker 2: in the Balkans is a good example in international affairs
Speaker 2: and on a peer to peer level or a person
Speaker 2: person level microcosm, both parties have to be have to
Speaker 2: be self aware enough without being self centered, to admit,
Speaker 2: to admit brongs and to give space to the other person.
Speaker 2: So oftentimes when you feel like you're arguing with another person,
Speaker 2: you know, you don't see yourself as a bad guy,
Speaker 2: they don't see themselves as the bad guy, but they
Speaker 2: will not accept you as being a good guy. Or
Speaker 2: then you know, now we're getting into personality stuff because
Speaker 2: they won't accept that you also, I don't want to
Speaker 2: use this phrase here because of the subject matter, but
Speaker 2: that you have a right to exist, and that's something
Speaker 2: that is really difficult for people and for nations, and
Speaker 2: this leads us to this leads us to a bright
Speaker 2: side though as well, because you know, the cynic will argue,
Speaker 2: or the nihilists will argue, or the AI program in
Speaker 2: some cases will argue that the ultimate way to end
Speaker 2: human conflict is to remove the problem of humanity.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: A lot of sci fi is about that. I don't
Speaker 2: think we're there yet. Good news, right, because we all
Speaker 2: have stuff to do later this week, so the week
Speaker 2: will continue. I think the US will solderraw on or
Speaker 2: I hope and we want. I don't know, Matt. I
Speaker 2: can't wait to hear from people around the world about this.
Speaker 2: From our fellow conspiracy realist. There's so many ways to
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