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Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is

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Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

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Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A

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Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my

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Speaker 2: name is Nolan.

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Speaker 3: They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our

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Speaker 3: super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you

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Speaker 3: are here that makes this the stuff they don't want

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Speaker 3: you to know. With a returning special guest, doctor Vnkman

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Speaker 3: here if you are tuned in the evening, our Strange

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Speaker 3: News publishes Welcome to September twenty ninth, the last Strange

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Speaker 3: News of September twenty twenty five. We're coming back, and

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Speaker 3: we wanted to open the show with a very old

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Speaker 3: joke that we love that just came back into the zeitgeist.

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Speaker 3: As I was saying, quoting Jimmy Kimmel here.

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Speaker 4: Already joining our commentary already in progress from when we

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Speaker 4: were rudely interrupted, not us, but the Royal wey.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it only lasted a weekend and a day.

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Speaker 3: And it's still not a total re emergence or restitution because,

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Speaker 3: as we know, the syndication. Several of the syndication networks

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Speaker 3: that control various outfits regional distribution rights for Jimmy's show

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Speaker 3: still have refused to air his broadcast. But yeah, he

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Speaker 3: is officially back. Despite the protestations of Sinclair and Next Star.

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Speaker 2: I found out guys where you live, you could have

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Speaker 2: watched it live on ABC where I live. I was

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Speaker 2: unable to watch it anywhere live.

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Speaker 3: I was not allowed to because they Yeah, you would

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Speaker 3: have to do something crazy like go to the internet.

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Speaker 2: Well, on the Internet, I would have to do something

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Speaker 2: illegal to watch it or to buy I guess Hulu

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Speaker 2: Live plus Apple.

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Speaker 4: A lot of those services do have live TV streaming

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Speaker 4: almost like like not like a VPM, but like where

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Speaker 4: you can stream local television from other places.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but I pay good money for Infinity. I pay

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Speaker 2: good money for Expinity. You're one of those, Just like

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Speaker 2: with South Park, right was I was unable to watch

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Speaker 2: it through the exorbitant fees I pay to a giant

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Speaker 2: cable company.

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Speaker 3: And it Yeah, if anybody wants a regional map showing

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Speaker 3: you the coverage of Sinclair, which goes against trust laws.

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Speaker 3: By the way, the coverage of Sinclair, Next Star just

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Speaker 3: right to US conspiracy. iHeartRadio dot com. We can send

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Speaker 3: that map along your way. This shows I was thinking

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Speaker 3: of you map because this shows this map shows how

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Speaker 3: the Atlanta metro area isn't come by those those two behemoths,

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Speaker 3: but your neck of the woods.

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Speaker 2: Is, dude. I tuned into the live ABC feed just

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Speaker 2: online through Exfinity, and I was watching the news. You

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Speaker 2: guys know how those late night TV shows usually come

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Speaker 2: on like right after the news ends, and like with SNL,

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Speaker 2: it'll cut from the news directly into SNL. Well, I

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Speaker 2: sat there for a while, going what the hell is

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Speaker 2: going on? And it was just more news and I

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Speaker 2: had to read to find out, Oh, they just extended

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Speaker 2: out news coverage for an hour and a half.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's always good to get the news, but

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Speaker 3: it's always bad to have comedians be stifled, especially like

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Speaker 3: Jimmy Kimmel is many things, but controversial is not necessarily one.

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Speaker 2: Well.

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Speaker 4: I think we talked about this. I mean, the comment

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Speaker 4: itself didn't even raise an eyebrow in the general population

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Speaker 4: in terms of like Google search results for where Jimmy

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Speaker 4: Kimmel when the actual comment happened. It wasn't until he

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Speaker 4: was punished that people started searching for it, and I've

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Speaker 4: seen a lot of folks talking about how they couldn't

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Speaker 4: even quite figure out which one it was what he said,

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Speaker 4: because what he said was something to the effect of

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Speaker 4: the Trump camp is trying to do as much as

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Speaker 4: they can to prove that the killer wasn't one of

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Speaker 4: their own, not accusing him of being one of their own,

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Speaker 4: just saying that they were in a pr frenzy, to

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Speaker 4: make very clear that it was the opposition rather than

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Speaker 4: one of their own. And that was apparently the nail

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Speaker 4: on the coffin, But it wasn't actually him talking smack

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Speaker 4: about Kirk himself, which is what makes this whole thing

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Speaker 4: really scary.

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Speaker 3: The thing about escalating propaganda war was sometimes unexpectedly your

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Speaker 3: escalator stops and then you talk trash about it at

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Speaker 3: the United Nations.

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Speaker 2: Did you see the thing that allegedly the cameraman ran

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Speaker 2: up there and turned the escalator off, the cameraman that

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Speaker 2: was a part of the administration or I hadn't heard

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Speaker 2: that follow up.

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Speaker 4: I saw the video like a like a malfunction. What

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Speaker 4: are he's saying, Who's who's cameraman?

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Speaker 2: Well, guys, I don't I may be completely off base here,

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Speaker 2: But I heard I heard some rumors launching around about

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Speaker 2: how the teleprompter went out, and that was also something

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Speaker 2: that was done purposefully to make it seem as though

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Speaker 2: the UN is just out of sorts.

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Speaker 3: Right right, the idea again of a narrative war, and

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Speaker 3: I'm quite proud of that dumb escalator joke. So I hope, Dylan,

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Speaker 3: we can we can keep it the Yeah, the statements themselves,

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Speaker 3: we were talking about this a little bit on our

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Speaker 3: off air group chat. The statements themselves made by the

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Speaker 3: US President are directly in line with earlier statements by

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Speaker 3: folks like Vladimir Putin, big fan of our show, couldn't

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Speaker 3: have written it better himself. And so what we're communicating here,

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Speaker 3: of course, is a win for the late night show format.

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Speaker 3: It's a win for the freedom of speech the First Amendment.

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Speaker 3: But it's not a complete win because again, and what

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Speaker 3: we're describing here is common to so many people across

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Speaker 3: the United States who might have said, oh, I thought

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Speaker 3: Kimmel was back, Why can't I see it without giving

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Speaker 3: another company more money or going ar maybe on it.

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Speaker 3: So we're with you. We know a lot of stuff

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Speaker 3: happened in New York. We're recording on September twenty fourth,

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Speaker 3: so they are probably going to be updates to a

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Speaker 3: lot of the things we talk about in Tonight's Strange News.

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Speaker 3: We're going to go all over the place. We've got

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Speaker 3: some great hidden mysteries, We've got some weird AI updates

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Speaker 3: that I really love, some public pranking, some scary stuff.

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Speaker 3: But you know, guys, since we're talking a little bit

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Speaker 3: about the UN meeting in New York, why don't we

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Speaker 3: take a break for a word from our sponsors and

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Speaker 3: start there? Oh oh, do we want to shout out

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Speaker 3: Fat Bear Week first?

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Speaker 4: Well, it's fat Bear Week, so okay, coming anyway, let's

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Speaker 4: see what do you need to know? Fat Bear Week

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Speaker 4: twenty twenty five starts on September twenty third, which is yesterday.

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Speaker 4: Actually we record this and that's where fans are able

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Speaker 4: to vote daily for the fattest brown Bear, of which

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Speaker 4: there are multiple candidates to choose from, so you can

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Speaker 4: actually get in on the voting yourself. Just google Fat

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Speaker 4: Bear Week and it's a lot of fun.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, we mentioned this last year as well. We're super

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Speaker 3: into fat Bear Week. I love how we kind of

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Speaker 3: as a group we pick things that we get obsessed with.

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Speaker 3: This has nothing to do with anything. But remember we

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Speaker 3: were talking, I think a little off air about falconry.

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Speaker 3: Jillan and I are hoping to take a crew out

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Speaker 3: for a day of falconry, and we have decided that

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Speaker 3: we're going to start describing things that are not cool

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Speaker 3: as non falcon no falcon. Are you guys interested?

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Speaker 4: So not falcon or non falcon? I'm with it, man,

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Speaker 4: but yeah, vote for your favorite chunky boy over at

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Speaker 4: explore dot org slash fat Dash Bear Dash week.

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Speaker 3: And with that will pause for a word from our sponsors,

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Speaker 3: and then we'll return with some breaking news from New

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Speaker 3: York City. And we have returned. All right, this is

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Speaker 3: deep water, folks. The inboxes went crazy for us, I think,

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Speaker 3: as individuals right before the news released. But the United

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Speaker 3: States Secret Service has announced they dismantled what they call

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Speaker 3: an imminent telecom or telecommunications threat in the New York

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Speaker 3: tri state area. Here's what's happening. If we rewind back

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Speaker 3: to twenty twenty four, we see that there were a

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Speaker 3: lot of reports of the private homes of would be

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Speaker 3: politicians or election officials getting swatted. And I think we

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Speaker 3: all know what being swatted means, but do we want

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Speaker 3: to describe it for the audience.

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Speaker 4: That's when somebody calls in a swat team on you, basically, right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, makes a false statement too, something that well one.

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Speaker 4: Will lead to such activity.

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Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, any kind of fake crime report with the

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Speaker 3: intention of the people calling know that that crime did

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Speaker 3: not occur. They're attempting to trigger massive law enforcement response.

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Speaker 3: It's an escalation of the earlier prank of calling non

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Speaker 3: consensual pizza deliveries to an organization or person's house back

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Speaker 3: in the days where you didn't have to pay in

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Speaker 3: advance for the pizza.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, but it's not like calling and saying something

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Speaker 2: that would show you know, one cruiser to show up

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Speaker 2: right and knocking to normal like you okay. It's usually

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Speaker 2: the crime that stated there is something that requires a

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Speaker 2: swat team.

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Speaker 3: Right exactly. And this is this can be dangerous. They

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Speaker 3: were targeting a lot of politicians, right. This has been

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Speaker 3: ongoing for some time, including people outside of the Tri

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Speaker 3: state area, folks like Georgia's own Marjorie Taylor Green and

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Speaker 3: a lot of Republican officials Democratic officials as well. And

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Speaker 3: right before the big meeting at the United nations that

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Speaker 3: had so many problems with teleprompters and escalators. The US

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Speaker 3: Secret Service announced that it had started it had looked

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Speaker 3: into the swatting stuff, and it had been looking into

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Speaker 3: it for several months, and they ended up discovering something,

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Speaker 3: at least per their statements that they did not anticipate,

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Speaker 3: more than three hundred co located SIM servers and one

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Speaker 3: thousand SIM cards across multiple sites, a conspiratorial hidden network

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Speaker 3: that could do much more than carry out anonymous telephonic

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Speaker 3: threats on a burner. These could make genuine telecom attacks.

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Speaker 3: The big news here is that if this thing had

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Speaker 3: not been discovered, it could have relatively easily disabled cell

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Speaker 3: phone towers, creating denial of service attacks d dos, and

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Speaker 3: then allowing potential bad faith actors. We're dancing around the terrorists,

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Speaker 3: right or organized crime to communicate without the usual surveillance.

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Speaker 3: This is let's go to a statement from the Director

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Speaker 3: of the Secret Service, Sean Current. Sean said, the potential

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Speaker 3: for disruption to our country's telecommunications posed by this network

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Speaker 3: of devices cannot be overstated. The US Secret Services Protective

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Speaker 3: Mission is all about prevention, all right, fine, and this investigator,

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Speaker 3: I said all right, Fine, he didn't say. And this

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Speaker 3: investigation makes it clear to potential bad actors that eminent

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Speaker 3: threats to our protectees will be immediately investigated, tracked down,

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Speaker 3: and dismantled. This is scary stuff. This is real Halloween stuff,

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Speaker 3: or as we're talking about off air mister robots stuff.

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Speaker 3: The devices that they have found, everything they think is linked.

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Speaker 3: So far, they're all concentrated within thirty five miles of

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Speaker 3: the United Nations General Assembly, the big Mickey Mouse club

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Speaker 3: for world leaders.

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Speaker 2: Maybe it's part of that. Maybe it's just something benign,

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Speaker 2: and they're just trying to help all of the people

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Speaker 2: operating at the UN have their burner phones.

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Speaker 3: Sure you know who doesn't have a burner phone. Nobody

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Speaker 3: has to answer that. The Secret Service we learned about

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Speaker 3: something they had a pretty newly minted section of the

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Speaker 3: agency called the Advanced Threat Interdiction Unit, or at A

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Speaker 3: two brute. So they're conducting this investigation in kind of

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Speaker 3: an Avengers team up with Homeland Security, the DOJ, the

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Speaker 3: D and I, and of course local law enforcement like

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Speaker 3: the New York Police Department. The official statement of the

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Speaker 3: Secret Service, which you can find at Secret Service dot gov.

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Speaker 3: That's where most of the news is pulling their info

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Speaker 3: from the primary source here. Continues to hammer home that

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Speaker 3: this is an ongoing investigation and they are not giving

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Speaker 3: any details about who may have made this network. They're

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Speaker 3: not giving any details about how long they think this

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Speaker 3: network was active, and they're not giving any further detail,

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Speaker 3: like they haven't named any individual that they're going to

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Speaker 3: attempt to apprehend or prosecute.

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Speaker 2: Like, how the hell did they find it?

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Speaker 3: You know, well, collection methods are the secret sauce.

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Speaker 2: Right, It's one of those things I keep mentioning, I'm

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Speaker 2: rewatching mister Robot, and then things in the news keep

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Speaker 2: happening that are crazy reminiscent of something that would occur

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Speaker 2: in that show or did occur in that show. And

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Speaker 2: this is another one. Some apartment that has all this

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Speaker 2: stuff in it, that has all of these capabilities, Like

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Speaker 2: that's just randomly there. But it feels so odd and

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Speaker 2: so calculated.

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Speaker 3: Sure, yeah, especially you know, the disturbing part is we

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Speaker 3: saw a tip of an iceberg. Because it's an ongoing investigation,

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Speaker 3: the authorities, if they're competent, are not going to release

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Speaker 3: much more information until they have things five by five

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Speaker 3: and water tight. If you look at a different like.

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Speaker 3: We were diving deep into this and we want to

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Speaker 3: thank all our fellow listeners and old associates who reached

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Speaker 3: out about it. It may have been an existing underground

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Speaker 3: cell network meant entirely to provide untraceable services for things

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Speaker 3: like drugs, you know, human trafficking, arranging hits, which means

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Speaker 3: it may have been more of an avoidance measure rather

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Speaker 3: than an offensive measure. However, it had both of those

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Speaker 3: capabilities per the Secret Service, you know what I mean,

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Speaker 3: Just like you know, a hammer can hit a nail

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Speaker 3: and it can hit a skull.

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Speaker 2: Oh, this would be a devilishly smart thing for an

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Speaker 2: organized criminal syndicate to pull off. Really, I never would

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Speaker 2: have thought of that.

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Speaker 3: Super affordable too, by the way, And I.

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Speaker 4: Mean, could you argue or it might this enter into

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Speaker 4: the rhetoric of domestic terrorism and politically motivated terror attacks?

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Speaker 3: Well, we have apparently begun to define terrorism as anybody

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Speaker 3: that people in power do not care for.

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Speaker 4: So yes, that's what I'm I'm yes, And I was

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Speaker 4: trying to diplomatically say rhetoric. You know that For that reason,

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Speaker 4: it does feel like this is the kind of thing

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Speaker 4: that could get lumped in and used as a further

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Speaker 4: justification for tightening certain measures against privacy.

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Speaker 3: And let me amend this because when I'm saying the

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Speaker 3: equipment involved is affordable, I mean it's affordable for a

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Speaker 3: large organization. If you're Johnny Blue Jeans and you wake

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Speaker 3: up one day in Brooklyn and you say, I want

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Speaker 3: to get real weird with it, it would be a huge,

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Speaker 3: huge investment for you, and it would take a lot

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Speaker 3: of time. It would take a lot of hardware, and

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Speaker 3: would take a lot of technological acumen, a lot of

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Speaker 3: know how. So our questions still become what is the

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Speaker 3: end motive qui bono? Who benefits? As we always say,

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Speaker 3: what is the return on investment for whoever ponied up

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Speaker 3: the cheddar for this? It's right now with the information

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Speaker 3: we have in the public. It is a big leap

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Speaker 3: to assume it is a terror attack. I would say,

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Speaker 3: it's not a big leap to speculate on the possibility

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Speaker 3: of a criminal enterprise. It's definitely also not a big

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Speaker 3: leap to speculate about a surveillance apparatus. Because New York

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Speaker 3: is full of really weird, really fascinating stuff that people

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Speaker 3: have just accepted as normal, things get normalized so quickly.

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Speaker 3: It is weird that there's a gigantic window list building

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Speaker 3: in Manhattan. Shout out to the long Lines building. That's weird.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's weirder than neckties, which are themselves a

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Speaker 3: very strange thing.

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Speaker 2: Hey, and if you ever seen mister Robot, that building

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Speaker 2: makes an appearance as the place that is targeted initially

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Speaker 2: for attack. Did you talk Ben about how many of

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Speaker 2: these safe houses they found that had these networks in them?

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Speaker 3: Not the safe houses, but we did, Matt talk about

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Speaker 3: the equipment that has been recovered so far. Do you

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Speaker 3: want to talk about the number of safe houses?

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Speaker 2: I just found it on the CNN article you linked

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Speaker 2: to Ben at the bottom. Here it's naming multiple places.

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Speaker 2: I don't know how to say this Armunk, New York, Greenwich, Connecticut, Queens,

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Speaker 2: New York, right across the river in New Jersey, which

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Speaker 2: I think is the one that I heard you mentioned, Ben,

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Speaker 2: But they were circling New York City.

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Speaker 3: Right like state area.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's crazy to imagine it if you're honing

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Speaker 2: in on a target, or if you're operating in an area.

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Speaker 2: Just the idea that you could be in all of

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Speaker 2: those different places setting these things up, so it's not

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Speaker 2: an individual place, right, And that's why in my mind

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Speaker 2: I was seeing someplace where a bunch of servers were

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Speaker 2: set up to run these things. But it is that

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Speaker 2: it's just in all of these different places.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's there is photographic evidence released by secret service

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Speaker 3: and law enforcement, but that information is relatively limited. I

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Speaker 3: was trying to think of the best analogy for that.

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Speaker 3: What you're describing the encirclement the telecom siege here. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: and I would recommend looking at a map of US

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Speaker 3: military bases encircling the nation of Iran. That is another

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Speaker 3: very clear thing. And what both of those cases show

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Speaker 3: us is that there is likely not a single individual

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Speaker 3: play here. It is almost certainly impossible that one individual

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Speaker 3: could have conspired in this way. It has to be

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Speaker 3: a network. The question is what is this group? Is

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Speaker 3: this foreign state level actor or a foreign state level

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Speaker 3: actor through are proxy. Is this private criminal industry trying

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Speaker 3: to just getting bigger and bigger for their breeches. Did

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Speaker 3: they get to a point with trafficking or drugs or

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Speaker 3: racketeering when they said, oh, yeah, you know what if

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Speaker 3: we need to just shut down the cell phones and

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Speaker 3: vending's like, I gotcha. You know, we can shut down

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Speaker 3: the cell phones maybe fifteen minutes that's when you make

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Speaker 3: the call.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. It also says that they could have sent a

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Speaker 2: text message, like a secret text message, to every single

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Speaker 2: cell phone in the United States, within twelve minutes of

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Speaker 2: someone like taking the actions.

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Speaker 3: Pull in the switch. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because it's

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Speaker 3: still is a very limited time time window. The thing

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Speaker 3: about the infrastructure of the United States, the physical infrastructure

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Speaker 3: is incredibly vulnerable. We've explored that in the past, but

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Speaker 3: because the tele infrastructure is a more recent development, it

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Speaker 3: is a little bit more girded against against intrusion, which

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Speaker 3: is why you would have that very cinematic limited window

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Speaker 3: of time. It feels like Hollywood writing when they know

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Speaker 3: they only have forty five minutes out of an hour

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Speaker 3: program for commercials. But yeah, they wouldn't be able to

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Speaker 3: keep it down forever. And this has become red meat

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Speaker 3: to a lot of a lot of Politico's, a lot

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Speaker 3: of pundits because it's a scary thing. It's up there

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Speaker 3: with comparison we made earlier on this show, or Daily Zeitgeist,

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Speaker 3: where you get the worst good news an organization you

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Speaker 3: have never heard of, says hey, we've done a decade

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Speaker 3: long study and we're lowering the amount of rat feces

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Speaker 3: that will be allowed in Cereal, or they say, hey,

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Speaker 3: we're an acronym or an initialism that you have ever

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Speaker 3: heard of? Your tax dollars pay for us, and we have,

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Speaker 3: after intense research and a lot of hard work from

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Speaker 3: our officials, we have finally prevented the massive hippo driven

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Speaker 3: murders in East Saint Louis, Missouri. What yeah, you're like,

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Speaker 3: oh great, But also how much rat feces has have

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Speaker 3: I eaten? How many people have died in East Saint

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Speaker 3: Louis because of these hippos? And they're like, well less

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Speaker 3: now in both cases fewer.

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Speaker 2: Good, good, great, great?

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Speaker 4: Not nearly enough rat feces.

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Speaker 2: If you ask me find me now I can sleep.

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Speaker 3: It would be it would be for a microcosmic version

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Speaker 3: of it. Imagine if our one of our friends came

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Speaker 3: to us and said, guys, it's been you know, we've

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Speaker 3: been friends for twenty years, and I want to tell

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Speaker 3: you I'm off the quayludes. I just stop doing quaaludes.

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Speaker 3: And then we look around and say, oh great, But also, did.

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Speaker 4: Have did you have like a secret cache of them

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Speaker 4: that you were holding on too from the seventies.

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Speaker 3: We have so many questions, right, this is what these

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Speaker 3: stories tell us. We're spending some time on this one

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Speaker 3: because the questions that naturally follow from this story tell

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Speaker 3: us there is much more to come. Please read the

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Speaker 3: official statement of the Secret Service over at their website.

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Speaker 3: You can find some breaking news summaries of this from

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Speaker 3: regional regional journalistic outfits Fox five New York. They're all

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Speaker 3: over YouTube. Check that one out. I'd also like to

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Speaker 3: recommend the AP News article that published just oh yesterday

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Speaker 3: before we recorded. Shout out to journalist Mike Balsamo. A

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Speaker 3: massive telecom threat was stopped right as world leaders gathered

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Speaker 3: at you and headquarters in New York. And that is

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Speaker 3: where I get to the suspicious timing. It's right before

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Speaker 3: this happened. It was a months long investigation, right that

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Speaker 3: started with swatting and then began uncovering these individual nodes

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Speaker 3: of a network. So with that in mind, I got

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Speaker 3: to ask you guys about the timing. Does the timing

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Speaker 3: and the timing of the public announcement does it not

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Speaker 3: feel a little hinky, as our palchuk would say.

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Speaker 2: Uh, yeah, I'm trying to think of what it would

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Speaker 2: be distracting from it.

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Speaker 4: It's what wouldn't it be distracting?

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Speaker 2: There's just so much going on right now, is that right?

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Speaker 3: Or what the motivation would be? You know? I mean

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Speaker 3: these are wheels within wheels, right, hands and hands and

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Speaker 3: gloves and gloves. This is Matroshkadal for sure. And we

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Speaker 3: have to be careful not to spin out our if

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Speaker 3: thens two extravagantly, because you know, there's a world where

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Speaker 3: we could say, and I know for a fact that

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Speaker 3: foreign governments have internally been thinking about this. There's a

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Speaker 3: world where you could say, hey, the United States government

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Speaker 3: exposed and found this thing to make us feel safer

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Speaker 3: so that we didn't think about whatever thing they're doing,

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Speaker 3: you know what I mean, Like the kid who the

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Speaker 3: kid who lets their parents find a cigarette butt and says, yeah,

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Speaker 3: I'm smoking, so that the parents don't know they're actually

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Speaker 3: smoking weed. That kind of thing. It gets very conspiratorial

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Speaker 3: and paranoid very quickly. But anybody who is acquainted with

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Speaker 3: this milieu, we'd love to hear from you. There are

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Speaker 3: so many stories we're not going to have time to

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Speaker 3: get to right now. We do want to acknowledge that

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Speaker 3: we know the news about Errol Musk. We are just

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Speaker 3: going to mention it the answers out there. There's a

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Speaker 3: phenomenal and phenomenally disturbing New York Times investigation about this.

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Speaker 3: At the very end of this show will warn you

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Speaker 3: about squirrels. There's a PSA you need to hear. Someone

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Speaker 3: did a great con, an unsuccessful con trying to steal Graceland.

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Speaker 3: All of that more. But for now we're gonna pause

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Speaker 3: for word from our sponsors, and we'll be back with

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Speaker 3: more strange news.

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Speaker 2: And we've returned, Ben, I was looking more at this

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Speaker 2: mobile X company that was at the heart of you know,

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Speaker 2: the story you just talked about that offers those ten

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Speaker 2: dollars SIM cards that you can buy at Walmart in

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Speaker 2: other places.

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Speaker 3: This is why I'm excited to do an episode on

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Speaker 3: this one.

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Speaker 2: Dude. Oh yeah, for sure. I don't want to spoil

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Speaker 2: it too much, is there they're CEO. Mobile X's CEO

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Speaker 2: and founder, Peter Adderton just had a really interesting quote

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Speaker 2: here that I'd just like to read real fast. He says, quote,

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Speaker 2: our platform is designed to be easy to use and

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Speaker 2: cost effect qualities that can unfortunately, also attract occasional bad actors.

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Speaker 3: The Hammer company CEO says, well, we make good hammers.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Well, it's just it's interesting to think about

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Speaker 2: industries and organizations that produce goods that are known to

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Speaker 2: be used by bad actors. Right, you know it when

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Speaker 2: you're making a SIM card that's that cheap that you

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Speaker 2: know you can go pick up at Walmart and then

436
00:26:29,600 --> 00:26:32,199
Speaker 2: switch out hot swap with whichever one you've got in

437
00:26:32,240 --> 00:26:34,760
Speaker 2: your phone. That somebody's gonna be using that for probably

438
00:26:34,800 --> 00:26:38,719
Speaker 2: not great reasons, unless, of course it's just you know,

439
00:26:38,800 --> 00:26:41,240
Speaker 2: someone trying to gain access to a little phone time

440
00:26:41,280 --> 00:26:43,640
Speaker 2: and they don't have their Verizon account anymore. They can't

441
00:26:43,720 --> 00:26:46,440
Speaker 2: you know, they can't afford the exorbitant prices that are

442
00:26:47,119 --> 00:26:48,000
Speaker 2: offered other places.

443
00:26:48,119 --> 00:26:50,399
Speaker 3: Yeah, there are good use cases too, That's why we

444
00:26:50,520 --> 00:26:53,080
Speaker 3: rationalize the stuff. You know what I mean, a hammer

445
00:26:53,119 --> 00:26:56,280
Speaker 3: can build a house, right, or a person who needs

446
00:26:56,400 --> 00:27:00,119
Speaker 3: access to what is called a burner phone may be

447
00:27:00,119 --> 00:27:03,320
Speaker 3: in a situation in the US or abroad where they

448
00:27:03,359 --> 00:27:07,879
Speaker 3: don't have the right documentation to get a phone or

449
00:27:07,920 --> 00:27:10,320
Speaker 3: a regular phone, even if they can afford to do so.

450
00:27:10,680 --> 00:27:13,520
Speaker 2: Yep. Well, and we find ourselves, all of us, if

451
00:27:13,560 --> 00:27:16,320
Speaker 2: we are American citizens, and actually anybody citizen of any

452
00:27:16,359 --> 00:27:19,040
Speaker 2: country that's looking to get news out of the United States,

453
00:27:19,200 --> 00:27:22,560
Speaker 2: find ourselves in the situation where we like to know

454
00:27:22,600 --> 00:27:25,520
Speaker 2: what's going on. And we have this thing called the

455
00:27:25,520 --> 00:27:28,040
Speaker 2: free press that is supposed to be able to have

456
00:27:28,119 --> 00:27:31,119
Speaker 2: access to most things, especially things that the government does,

457
00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:36,080
Speaker 2: as this is a representative democracy. So when you see

458
00:27:36,119 --> 00:27:40,119
Speaker 2: things pieces of news coming out of AP news like

459
00:27:40,520 --> 00:27:45,160
Speaker 2: Pentagon steps up media restrictions now requiring approval before reporting

460
00:27:45,320 --> 00:27:50,200
Speaker 2: even unclassified information, you start to worry a little bit.

461
00:27:50,240 --> 00:27:53,400
Speaker 2: You think that's kind of strange. And guys, it got

462
00:27:53,440 --> 00:27:56,480
Speaker 2: me thinking back to that old film Good Morning Vietnam,

463
00:27:56,680 --> 00:28:00,800
Speaker 2: and to that scene where Airman's second class a cronauer

464
00:28:00,800 --> 00:28:03,840
Speaker 2: whose job it is to disseminate the news to all

465
00:28:03,920 --> 00:28:08,000
Speaker 2: of the US servicemen out there operating in Saigon ho

466
00:28:08,119 --> 00:28:12,040
Speaker 2: Chiman City, and that's his job report the news. But

467
00:28:12,119 --> 00:28:15,679
Speaker 2: before he can report anything to anyone, he has to

468
00:28:15,840 --> 00:28:19,200
Speaker 2: get that news approved. And we talked on the show

469
00:28:19,320 --> 00:28:22,280
Speaker 2: several times about that film and about that process and

470
00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:25,439
Speaker 2: what it means to disseminate official information while you're in

471
00:28:25,480 --> 00:28:28,640
Speaker 2: a war zone. You know, We've talked about the rationalizations

472
00:28:28,680 --> 00:28:30,880
Speaker 2: for that and maybe the need for some of that

473
00:28:31,040 --> 00:28:36,919
Speaker 2: control of information. But when you're talking about unclassified information

474
00:28:37,720 --> 00:28:40,920
Speaker 2: that's coming out from the Pentagon, about what the Pentagon

475
00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:44,240
Speaker 2: is doing, about what the United States military and government

476
00:28:44,680 --> 00:28:48,120
Speaker 2: is doing, it seems like we should know about that again,

477
00:28:48,200 --> 00:28:50,040
Speaker 2: because you know, we kind of pay for the whole thing,

478
00:28:50,320 --> 00:28:55,440
Speaker 2: and we we supposedly run the whole thing, we the people.

479
00:28:55,880 --> 00:28:58,080
Speaker 2: So it's just a bit strange when you hear something

480
00:28:58,120 --> 00:29:00,960
Speaker 2: like that coming out of the Pentagon. Wouldn't you say.

481
00:29:01,680 --> 00:29:05,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I would say, well, an unnamed source familiar

482
00:29:05,160 --> 00:29:10,120
Speaker 3: with the investigation would say yeah.

483
00:29:09,120 --> 00:29:11,760
Speaker 2: Well yeah. But let's say let's say you're working for

484
00:29:11,840 --> 00:29:15,760
Speaker 2: Reuters and you put out something like that. Now it

485
00:29:16,240 --> 00:29:20,080
Speaker 2: appears that that person won't be allowed in the Pentagon. Again,

486
00:29:20,640 --> 00:29:23,360
Speaker 2: it appears that that person won't be allowed any information.

487
00:29:24,160 --> 00:29:26,160
Speaker 2: So then they would have to have a mole inside

488
00:29:26,200 --> 00:29:29,320
Speaker 2: the Pentagon that leaks information out, that then leaks it out.

489
00:29:29,560 --> 00:29:33,680
Speaker 3: And that exists. That strategy exists only for a limited

490
00:29:33,720 --> 00:29:38,040
Speaker 3: amount of time, because history teaches us the next inevitable

491
00:29:38,120 --> 00:29:42,320
Speaker 3: step is going to be clamping down on those journalists

492
00:29:43,200 --> 00:29:46,120
Speaker 3: as such that you could be. I mean, we're not

493
00:29:46,240 --> 00:29:50,160
Speaker 3: there yet, but there is a world in which reporting

494
00:29:50,360 --> 00:29:55,960
Speaker 3: unapproved news becomes sore well, and you could be jammed

495
00:29:56,040 --> 00:30:00,000
Speaker 3: up for treason or anti American activities. And I think

496
00:30:00,120 --> 00:30:05,760
Speaker 3: it'll probably start with something like it was something it

497
00:30:05,880 --> 00:30:10,640
Speaker 3: was something like a defamation or libel or slander law

498
00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:14,080
Speaker 3: that gets broadly emphasized, similar to the UK stuff with

499
00:30:14,120 --> 00:30:17,560
Speaker 3: the protesters over at the over at the Epstein thing.

500
00:30:17,600 --> 00:30:20,280
Speaker 3: Oh and by the way, did you guys see the statue, oh,

501
00:30:21,000 --> 00:30:25,520
Speaker 3: friends and Jeffrey Epstein making the little hard hands on

502
00:30:25,560 --> 00:30:25,920
Speaker 3: the plaque.

503
00:30:25,960 --> 00:30:28,040
Speaker 2: It's pretty pretty solid.

504
00:30:28,640 --> 00:30:32,160
Speaker 3: That's that's still free speech, but it's also uh, it's

505
00:30:32,200 --> 00:30:36,880
Speaker 3: also exacerbating the moves to clamp down on the free press.

506
00:30:37,040 --> 00:30:38,640
Speaker 3: Well as the free press.

507
00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:40,320
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a good thing, for sure, it's in the

508
00:30:40,360 --> 00:30:43,400
Speaker 4: Constitution too, But like, what is it so many of

509
00:30:43,440 --> 00:30:46,960
Speaker 4: these lawsuits that that the president is putting forth seemed

510
00:30:47,040 --> 00:30:50,400
Speaker 4: and now some of the direct instruction that he's giving

511
00:30:50,440 --> 00:30:54,520
Speaker 4: to his Department of Justice to like go after dissenters,

512
00:30:54,920 --> 00:30:57,520
Speaker 4: go after political adversaries.

513
00:30:57,320 --> 00:31:02,200
Speaker 2: Perceived enemies right to the way I would put guys, Yeah,

514
00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:06,720
Speaker 2: it's it's that stuff's insane. We talked about access to

515
00:31:06,720 --> 00:31:10,200
Speaker 2: the White House, right, and the press credential, the Press

516
00:31:10,240 --> 00:31:12,600
Speaker 2: Club and all of the people that are that will

517
00:31:12,640 --> 00:31:16,800
Speaker 2: be shifting in and out of that, you know, that group.

518
00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:20,400
Speaker 2: And uh, just how that's again a method of controlling

519
00:31:20,440 --> 00:31:23,240
Speaker 2: information and you could use it that way if you

520
00:31:23,320 --> 00:31:26,440
Speaker 2: wanted to. You're in, You're in, You're in, but none

521
00:31:26,480 --> 00:31:28,920
Speaker 2: of you are allowed inside the room.

522
00:31:29,240 --> 00:31:31,920
Speaker 3: Oh did I mention this real quick? I? Uh when

523
00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:34,000
Speaker 3: when the news broke that they were going to allow

524
00:31:34,080 --> 00:31:37,720
Speaker 3: some podcasters in. I applied for press club credentials under

525
00:31:37,720 --> 00:31:40,280
Speaker 3: the current administration. They haven't gone back to me, So

526
00:31:41,160 --> 00:31:43,240
Speaker 3: I'll go ahead and reaping make sure it didn't go

527
00:31:43,280 --> 00:31:44,320
Speaker 3: to their spam box.

528
00:31:44,640 --> 00:31:47,760
Speaker 2: Good luck to you, indeed, sir. Uh. Let's gome back

529
00:31:47,760 --> 00:31:49,920
Speaker 2: to the story from AP News, written by Morgan Lee,

530
00:31:49,960 --> 00:31:52,600
Speaker 2: who was published on September twentieth, twenty twenty five. Here

531
00:31:52,640 --> 00:31:56,120
Speaker 2: it goes. The Pentagon says it will require credential journalists

532
00:31:56,120 --> 00:31:59,360
Speaker 2: at the military headquarters to sign a pledge to refrain

533
00:31:59,400 --> 00:32:03,120
Speaker 2: from reporting information that has not been authorized for release,

534
00:32:03,440 --> 00:32:08,280
Speaker 2: including unclassified information. Journalists who don't abide by the policy

535
00:32:08,360 --> 00:32:11,200
Speaker 2: risk losing credentials that provide access to the Pentagon under

536
00:32:11,200 --> 00:32:15,680
Speaker 2: a seventeen page memo distributed last Friday. As we're recording

537
00:32:15,720 --> 00:32:19,160
Speaker 2: this on Wednesday, September twenty fourth, that steps up media

538
00:32:19,200 --> 00:32:24,880
Speaker 2: restrictions imposed by the current administration. And then if you

539
00:32:24,920 --> 00:32:27,920
Speaker 2: look down to something that was written on x by

540
00:32:28,160 --> 00:32:31,840
Speaker 2: Defense Secretary Pete Hegsith, it gives you a sense of

541
00:32:31,880 --> 00:32:34,120
Speaker 2: why it's being done. And then we'll talk about this

542
00:32:34,200 --> 00:32:38,400
Speaker 2: statement quote, the press does not run the Pentagon, the

543
00:32:38,520 --> 00:32:41,520
Speaker 2: people do. The press is no longer allowed to roam

544
00:32:41,520 --> 00:32:44,440
Speaker 2: the halls of a secure facility, wear a badge and

545
00:32:44,560 --> 00:32:46,320
Speaker 2: follow the rules or go home.

546
00:32:47,480 --> 00:32:50,440
Speaker 4: Okay aka, so credentials revoked.

547
00:32:51,320 --> 00:32:55,000
Speaker 2: Yes, So let's talk about what the press is. The

548
00:32:55,040 --> 00:32:58,040
Speaker 2: press is supposed to be the people. It's supposed to

549
00:32:58,040 --> 00:33:01,080
Speaker 2: be the people's arm of the government a little bit.

550
00:33:01,080 --> 00:33:04,160
Speaker 4: But a lot of the rhetoric that's getting thrown around

551
00:33:04,320 --> 00:33:07,280
Speaker 4: is that they're not serving the interests of the people.

552
00:33:08,160 --> 00:33:10,960
Speaker 4: And therefore, like a lot of this FCC stuff, you know,

553
00:33:11,120 --> 00:33:14,840
Speaker 4: your license is at risk because you're no longer serving

554
00:33:14,880 --> 00:33:18,760
Speaker 4: the needs of your community as dictated by who.

555
00:33:19,440 --> 00:33:19,680
Speaker 3: Right.

556
00:33:21,400 --> 00:33:25,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does not bode well, gentlemen, does.

557
00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:28,480
Speaker 3: Not bode well, gentlefolk. Yes, agreed, This is the issue.

558
00:33:28,560 --> 00:33:33,840
Speaker 3: So here's why it's quite clever and quite purposeful for

559
00:33:33,960 --> 00:33:38,680
Speaker 3: the Pentagon to release this as a directive rather than

560
00:33:38,880 --> 00:33:42,880
Speaker 3: as a law. There is no criminal punishment. The consequence

561
00:33:43,360 --> 00:33:47,320
Speaker 3: no criminal punishment explicitly outlined in the memo. The consequence

562
00:33:47,440 --> 00:33:52,160
Speaker 3: is the revocation of credentials. And that hexith statement is

563
00:33:52,360 --> 00:33:56,000
Speaker 3: itself a bit misleading because it's saying we're a badge,

564
00:33:56,040 --> 00:33:58,040
Speaker 3: which you always have to do if you go to

565
00:33:58,080 --> 00:34:01,880
Speaker 3: the Pentagon, by the way, now the second largest office

566
00:34:01,880 --> 00:34:05,080
Speaker 3: building in the world, but wearing the badge thing. Yes,

567
00:34:05,400 --> 00:34:10,080
Speaker 3: you shouldn't be an extraneous person in that kind of

568
00:34:10,120 --> 00:34:13,680
Speaker 3: hall of power. But the idea of following the rules

569
00:34:13,719 --> 00:34:19,640
Speaker 3: so vaguely put, does not acknowledge that the rules get changed, right,

570
00:34:19,800 --> 00:34:22,319
Speaker 3: It does not acknowledge that the rules have just been

571
00:34:23,120 --> 00:34:28,880
Speaker 3: massively altered. So it also doesn't acknowledge what the specific

572
00:34:29,760 --> 00:34:32,520
Speaker 3: channels of approval would be. There are a lot of

573
00:34:32,600 --> 00:34:36,560
Speaker 3: factions in the Pentagon. So one guy may say this

574
00:34:36,840 --> 00:34:39,640
Speaker 3: is great, Please tell the American public. Run to the

575
00:34:39,640 --> 00:34:42,640
Speaker 3: New York Times, dude, get on the train and get

576
00:34:42,640 --> 00:34:46,000
Speaker 3: back to the office and publish this today. And another

577
00:34:46,040 --> 00:34:49,239
Speaker 3: person will say, well, I didn't authorize that I don't

578
00:34:49,280 --> 00:34:51,640
Speaker 3: want people talking about it. So what happens to the

579
00:34:51,719 --> 00:34:52,439
Speaker 3: journalists then?

580
00:34:52,640 --> 00:34:54,920
Speaker 4: Well, and can we also just say that, you know,

581
00:34:55,560 --> 00:35:00,359
Speaker 4: deplatforming certain individuals on the right by force is on

582
00:35:00,440 --> 00:35:02,480
Speaker 4: the left. You know, when it comes to like Twitter

583
00:35:02,520 --> 00:35:06,720
Speaker 4: and some big names losing their Twitter accounts, the President

584
00:35:06,719 --> 00:35:12,319
Speaker 4: included that's a slippery slope too. You know, there's absolutely

585
00:35:12,480 --> 00:35:16,000
Speaker 4: both sides to blame, and it seems like neither one

586
00:35:16,040 --> 00:35:19,680
Speaker 4: of the quote unquote sides are working in the best

587
00:35:19,719 --> 00:35:21,560
Speaker 4: interest of free speech.

588
00:35:21,719 --> 00:35:25,000
Speaker 3: Right because we're talking about private corporations. We're talking about

589
00:35:25,400 --> 00:35:29,040
Speaker 3: the high levels of government that we can argue the

590
00:35:29,480 --> 00:35:33,760
Speaker 3: private corporations, especially in social media channels, due to various

591
00:35:33,800 --> 00:35:37,200
Speaker 3: types of legislation. Here are the states. They don't have

592
00:35:37,280 --> 00:35:41,439
Speaker 3: the same personal liability. They build the hammer, and it's

593
00:35:41,520 --> 00:35:44,160
Speaker 3: not on them if someone uses the hammer for evil,

594
00:35:44,800 --> 00:35:47,600
Speaker 3: and I'm stay up with this hammer comparison because it's

595
00:35:47,640 --> 00:35:51,120
Speaker 3: working surprisingly well. The issue on the other side, to

596
00:35:51,160 --> 00:35:57,200
Speaker 3: your point there of a government entity that has protection

597
00:35:57,320 --> 00:36:02,879
Speaker 3: of the press enshrined within its is that they, by

598
00:36:02,880 --> 00:36:07,560
Speaker 3: their own account, hold an historic responsibility to allow the

599
00:36:07,600 --> 00:36:10,160
Speaker 3: news to be reported even if they don't like it. Now,

600
00:36:10,200 --> 00:36:13,520
Speaker 3: we know Uncle Sam has gone back and forth on

601
00:36:13,600 --> 00:36:18,239
Speaker 3: this over the years. You know, the various intelligence branches

602
00:36:18,280 --> 00:36:20,840
Speaker 3: of the US as well as parts of the Defense Department,

603
00:36:21,200 --> 00:36:24,080
Speaker 3: do have their fingers in journalistic pies and half for

604
00:36:24,120 --> 00:36:26,839
Speaker 3: a long time they write to editorial boards and say, hey,

605
00:36:26,880 --> 00:36:29,200
Speaker 3: don't tell a story, or tell it this way. I

606
00:36:29,239 --> 00:36:32,440
Speaker 3: think one of the most famous examples for US, of course,

607
00:36:32,520 --> 00:36:35,799
Speaker 3: is in the wake of the jfk assassination, when the

608
00:36:35,960 --> 00:36:40,520
Speaker 3: FBI reached out to every newspaper of note, even the rags,

609
00:36:40,840 --> 00:36:43,959
Speaker 3: and said, here's what happened. This is the official thing.

610
00:36:44,239 --> 00:36:46,440
Speaker 3: A lot of people are going to come to you,

611
00:36:46,480 --> 00:36:49,640
Speaker 3: maybe journalists, with their own pitches, and you need to

612
00:36:49,680 --> 00:36:52,960
Speaker 3: dismiss this specifically as a conspiracy theory. So the US

613
00:36:53,040 --> 00:36:57,439
Speaker 3: has always had a level of influence and control over

614
00:36:57,480 --> 00:37:00,759
Speaker 3: the press that is not reflected in the constitution.

615
00:37:01,080 --> 00:37:03,719
Speaker 4: Bit of a toe the line mentality when it comes

616
00:37:03,760 --> 00:37:10,000
Speaker 4: to certain extenuating circumstances that seem to trump those rights

617
00:37:10,239 --> 00:37:11,120
Speaker 4: as it exists.

618
00:37:11,640 --> 00:37:14,160
Speaker 2: Call them nine to eleven truthers. That'll do it. I

619
00:37:14,239 --> 00:37:16,840
Speaker 2: want to leave this section here with a couple more quotes,

620
00:37:16,840 --> 00:37:19,960
Speaker 2: so this one from the Society of Professional Journalists. Here

621
00:37:20,040 --> 00:37:23,879
Speaker 2: we go. This policy reeks of prior restraint, the most

622
00:37:23,880 --> 00:37:26,799
Speaker 2: egregious violation of press freedom under the First Amendment, and

623
00:37:26,960 --> 00:37:29,680
Speaker 2: is a dangerous step towards government censorship.

624
00:37:29,840 --> 00:37:32,759
Speaker 4: Well, we also know about the concept of catch and kill, right,

625
00:37:32,840 --> 00:37:35,720
Speaker 4: which is a form of prior restraint. But that also

626
00:37:35,800 --> 00:37:37,520
Speaker 4: is sort of like a quid pro quote thing where

627
00:37:37,520 --> 00:37:40,000
Speaker 4: it sometimes there's a strong arm aspect to it. Sometimes

628
00:37:40,040 --> 00:37:41,960
Speaker 4: it's like, you do a solid for me, get rid

629
00:37:42,000 --> 00:37:43,319
Speaker 4: of the story, and I'll help you out with a

630
00:37:43,360 --> 00:37:46,040
Speaker 4: source or something. Didn't mean to interrupt, But that's totally

631
00:37:46,040 --> 00:37:47,759
Speaker 4: what my mind goes towards.

632
00:37:47,960 --> 00:37:51,360
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh yeah. That quote does continue on. You

633
00:37:51,360 --> 00:37:53,640
Speaker 2: can find it on the ap article. But here's one

634
00:37:53,680 --> 00:37:55,880
Speaker 2: last one for Matt Murray, the executive editor at the

635
00:37:55,920 --> 00:37:59,279
Speaker 2: Washington Post. The Constitution protects the right to report on

636
00:37:59,320 --> 00:38:03,880
Speaker 2: the activities democratically elected and appointed government officials. Any attempt

637
00:38:03,920 --> 00:38:06,480
Speaker 2: to control messaging and curb access by the government is

638
00:38:06,520 --> 00:38:09,840
Speaker 2: counter to the First Amendment and against the public interest.

639
00:38:10,719 --> 00:38:12,759
Speaker 2: I just have to say I wholeheartedly agree with that,

640
00:38:12,800 --> 00:38:16,279
Speaker 2: and I'm just a guy with a journalism minor. You

641
00:38:16,280 --> 00:38:22,200
Speaker 2: know it gross stop it, and if and if they

642
00:38:22,200 --> 00:38:24,799
Speaker 2: don't stop it, something has to be done. Something must

643
00:38:24,840 --> 00:38:28,719
Speaker 2: be done. Something must be done. Reel rebel speaking of

644
00:38:28,719 --> 00:38:31,880
Speaker 2: getting something done. Guys, the US Federal Trade Commission and

645
00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:35,560
Speaker 2: seven different states are suing Live Nation and ticket Master

646
00:38:36,400 --> 00:38:39,440
Speaker 2: for tacitly allowing ticket brokers to scoop up millions of

647
00:38:39,440 --> 00:38:43,480
Speaker 2: concert tickets and sell them to fans add a significant markup.

648
00:38:43,400 --> 00:38:48,680
Speaker 4: Tacitly, all right, that's I don't understand why they would

649
00:38:48,719 --> 00:38:50,799
Speaker 4: do that, Like, it just seems like they're getting They're

650
00:38:50,800 --> 00:38:53,480
Speaker 4: not getting the extra money they're not getting. Are they

651
00:38:53,719 --> 00:38:56,640
Speaker 4: getting the markup? Are they benefiting from this financially in

652
00:38:56,680 --> 00:38:59,680
Speaker 4: some way? It just seems like such a bad pr

653
00:38:59,800 --> 00:39:02,040
Speaker 4: move and obviously a bit them in the ass. But

654
00:39:02,280 --> 00:39:04,960
Speaker 4: I don't understand the reasoning behind allowing it. Is it

655
00:39:05,000 --> 00:39:07,960
Speaker 4: too much infrastructure, it's too much work to combat it,

656
00:39:08,200 --> 00:39:09,040
Speaker 4: or what is it?

657
00:39:09,080 --> 00:39:13,839
Speaker 2: Matt, You've talked about in the past about this, right,

658
00:39:13,920 --> 00:39:17,120
Speaker 2: I think at least one other time when there was

659
00:39:17,160 --> 00:39:20,480
Speaker 2: a big lawsuit because of stuff going down, and because

660
00:39:20,520 --> 00:39:23,320
Speaker 2: of Ticketmaster's whole secondary market thing.

661
00:39:23,640 --> 00:39:27,560
Speaker 3: And our Ticketmaster episode which does deep into this. So

662
00:39:27,680 --> 00:39:30,840
Speaker 3: qui bono to your question, Noel, part of the benefit

663
00:39:31,120 --> 00:39:36,040
Speaker 3: comes from Ticketmaster's secret value proposition, which is, we will

664
00:39:36,040 --> 00:39:38,680
Speaker 3: play the bad guy to make you some more money,

665
00:39:38,680 --> 00:39:42,960
Speaker 3: so you can blame us for egregious fees or our

666
00:39:43,080 --> 00:39:46,120
Speaker 3: price fixing. And then you can also look with the

667
00:39:46,280 --> 00:39:50,799
Speaker 3: secondary market, similar to that network of servers and simcards

668
00:39:50,840 --> 00:39:55,480
Speaker 3: and circling the United Nations, there's an industry of scalping.

669
00:39:55,520 --> 00:39:59,360
Speaker 3: It's quite organized, right the days of the old guy

670
00:39:59,400 --> 00:40:02,680
Speaker 3: who is tickets for extra weed and a fish concert

671
00:40:02,719 --> 00:40:06,200
Speaker 3: in the parking lot. Those exist, but they're dwarfed by

672
00:40:06,680 --> 00:40:11,480
Speaker 3: what's happening here. So you could say Ticketmaster makes a profit,

673
00:40:11,600 --> 00:40:17,359
Speaker 3: makes a benefit by having a bunch of tickets pre scalped, right,

674
00:40:17,600 --> 00:40:20,560
Speaker 3: essentially pre scalped because of the way the bots and

675
00:40:20,600 --> 00:40:23,680
Speaker 3: the automation could work. And then that means the only

676
00:40:23,880 --> 00:40:27,680
Speaker 3: tickets that are available from that remaining pool. Let's say

677
00:40:27,719 --> 00:40:31,319
Speaker 3: they can scalps get all the general admission to continue.

678
00:40:31,360 --> 00:40:34,759
Speaker 3: Then the ticketmaster guys know that the only things the

679
00:40:34,800 --> 00:40:37,720
Speaker 3: average customer can buy are the more expensive ones. Supply

680
00:40:37,760 --> 00:40:40,360
Speaker 3: and demand kicks in, and so they raise the prices

681
00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:41,920
Speaker 3: of those remaining tickets.

682
00:40:41,719 --> 00:40:44,399
Speaker 4: Especially because the scalpers's almost what like it's like a

683
00:40:44,440 --> 00:40:50,560
Speaker 4: false a false demand that benefits them down the road

684
00:40:50,680 --> 00:40:53,359
Speaker 4: or very quickly in that they're able to then you know,

685
00:40:53,480 --> 00:40:57,440
Speaker 4: use that demand as a reason for raising the prices dynamically,

686
00:40:57,520 --> 00:41:00,439
Speaker 4: especially with this new way they've been doing it that's

687
00:41:00,480 --> 00:41:01,400
Speaker 4: been so unpopular.

688
00:41:01,840 --> 00:41:03,920
Speaker 3: Yeah. Literally, what I'm saying, we've got out throw to

689
00:41:04,000 --> 00:41:08,359
Speaker 3: Dylan here Tennessee, Pal Dylan's what's the skinny? What's the scoop? Oh?

690
00:41:08,400 --> 00:41:11,040
Speaker 4: Yeah, just reading an article about this, the FTC made

691
00:41:11,080 --> 00:41:14,040
Speaker 4: the point that they've been tripled dipping, so they've been

692
00:41:14,040 --> 00:41:17,359
Speaker 4: collecting fees when the ticket is first sold. Then they

693
00:41:17,400 --> 00:41:20,080
Speaker 4: collect a fee from both the reseller and the buyer

694
00:41:20,120 --> 00:41:22,839
Speaker 4: of the resold ticket. So but my question, I guess,

695
00:41:22,920 --> 00:41:25,560
Speaker 4: is like, it's not Ticketmaster that controls the secondary market.

696
00:41:25,560 --> 00:41:28,520
Speaker 4: This is on stuff like stub Hub or whatever. Ticketmaster

697
00:41:28,640 --> 00:41:31,200
Speaker 4: does have a resale market though, That's what I was wondering.

698
00:41:31,239 --> 00:41:32,960
Speaker 4: So that's that's got to only be part of the

699
00:41:32,960 --> 00:41:37,640
Speaker 4: portfolio here, because surely there would be something in place

700
00:41:37,680 --> 00:41:39,680
Speaker 4: that wouldn't allow you to put it back on the

701
00:41:39,719 --> 00:41:43,640
Speaker 4: Ticketmaster market jacked up to some absurd number.

702
00:41:43,920 --> 00:41:45,960
Speaker 3: Or is that not the case? Well, let's go back

703
00:41:45,960 --> 00:41:49,719
Speaker 3: to you, Matt. What has changed with this recent news?

704
00:41:50,239 --> 00:41:53,080
Speaker 2: Nothing really has changed. Just the big old suit, big

705
00:41:53,120 --> 00:41:56,040
Speaker 2: old suit. Ticketmaster and Live Nation reaped three point seven

706
00:41:56,080 --> 00:42:00,960
Speaker 2: billion of resale fees between twenty nineteen and twenty twenty four. Uh.

707
00:42:01,120 --> 00:42:04,080
Speaker 2: They control eighty percent of the primary ticketing markets for

708
00:42:04,200 --> 00:42:08,400
Speaker 2: major concerts and venues. Just remember that, Remember that eighty percent.

709
00:42:08,760 --> 00:42:12,360
Speaker 2: Here's a quote from Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino. He

710
00:42:12,560 --> 00:42:16,280
Speaker 2: was talking to the CNBC and Boardroom game Plan conference

711
00:42:17,040 --> 00:42:19,879
Speaker 2: and this guy, by the way, CEO of Live Nation,

712
00:42:20,160 --> 00:42:22,640
Speaker 2: is worth nine hundred and ninety seven point one million dollars.

713
00:42:22,960 --> 00:42:25,160
Speaker 2: This is what he had to say. Music has been

714
00:42:25,239 --> 00:42:28,120
Speaker 2: underappreciated in sports. I joke, it's like a badge of

715
00:42:28,160 --> 00:42:30,800
Speaker 2: honor to spend seventy grand for a Knick's court side seat,

716
00:42:30,960 --> 00:42:32,640
Speaker 2: and they beat me up if we charge eight hundred

717
00:42:32,680 --> 00:42:33,560
Speaker 2: dollars for Beyonce.

718
00:42:33,719 --> 00:42:37,479
Speaker 4: No I saw this, yucko, But this.

719
00:42:37,440 --> 00:42:41,600
Speaker 2: Is very interesting. The concept the guy you know, officially

720
00:42:41,680 --> 00:42:44,879
Speaker 2: making the executive decisions for a company that allows us

721
00:42:44,920 --> 00:42:49,400
Speaker 2: to go see our favorite artists, has that much money

722
00:42:49,400 --> 00:42:51,319
Speaker 2: and thinks that little of us.

723
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:53,319
Speaker 3: Right. I'd like to also, yeah, how much can a

724
00:42:53,320 --> 00:42:56,280
Speaker 3: banana be? Michael ten dollars. I'd like to also shout

725
00:42:56,280 --> 00:43:01,400
Speaker 3: out the even larger bands who have decided to issue

726
00:43:01,880 --> 00:43:04,840
Speaker 3: this racket or this conspiracy, like Pearl Jam. You know

727
00:43:04,840 --> 00:43:06,600
Speaker 3: what I mean. You all have to love Pearl Jam,

728
00:43:06,719 --> 00:43:10,799
Speaker 3: But ethically we can say they made a decision on

729
00:43:10,880 --> 00:43:13,560
Speaker 3: behalf of their audience, their supporters, and their fans when

730
00:43:13,600 --> 00:43:16,000
Speaker 3: they said we're not gonna mess with Ticketmaster, even though

731
00:43:16,000 --> 00:43:18,840
Speaker 3: it might mean we are losing some money. So everybody

732
00:43:18,960 --> 00:43:21,920
Speaker 3: check out our twenty nineteen episode the Ticketmaster Racket.

733
00:43:21,960 --> 00:43:23,880
Speaker 4: But the problem there too, and the problem with that

734
00:43:23,920 --> 00:43:26,440
Speaker 4: whole merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster is like Live

735
00:43:26,520 --> 00:43:28,920
Speaker 4: Nation owns all the venues, like all the ones that

736
00:43:28,960 --> 00:43:31,040
Speaker 4: are of a certain size that like a certain tier

737
00:43:31,080 --> 00:43:34,200
Speaker 4: of band could play. And I actually recently was really

738
00:43:34,280 --> 00:43:37,520
Speaker 4: lucky to get a ticket to see Radiohead in Europe

739
00:43:37,560 --> 00:43:40,480
Speaker 4: in December in Copenhagen, and they had this whole thing

740
00:43:40,480 --> 00:43:43,000
Speaker 4: where it was very fair. You had to sign up

741
00:43:43,040 --> 00:43:45,919
Speaker 4: through Radiohead's website to get on a list to maybe

742
00:43:46,000 --> 00:43:49,319
Speaker 4: get a code for a concert on this tour that

743
00:43:49,360 --> 00:43:51,480
Speaker 4: you said you could attend, and then you maybe get

744
00:43:51,480 --> 00:43:53,400
Speaker 4: that code or you don't, and if you do, you

745
00:43:53,480 --> 00:43:55,000
Speaker 4: have to show up at a certain time, get in

746
00:43:55,000 --> 00:43:56,799
Speaker 4: the queue, use the code, and then you buy the

747
00:43:56,800 --> 00:44:00,839
Speaker 4: tickets at face value, And it wasn't agreed priced at all,

748
00:44:00,960 --> 00:44:03,320
Speaker 4: but there was a certain fairness to the whole proposition

749
00:44:03,320 --> 00:44:05,480
Speaker 4: where if I hadn't gotten one, I wouldn't felt like

750
00:44:05,560 --> 00:44:07,799
Speaker 4: the bots were to blame. I would have just felt

751
00:44:07,800 --> 00:44:09,920
Speaker 4: like it was a crazy demand. But only certain bands

752
00:44:10,040 --> 00:44:14,479
Speaker 4: of that size and demand and like rarity, perhaps even

753
00:44:14,600 --> 00:44:17,080
Speaker 4: of performing can can do stuff like that.

754
00:44:19,160 --> 00:44:22,200
Speaker 2: Agreed. Hopefully we'll have some live nation ads right after

755
00:44:22,239 --> 00:44:24,160
Speaker 2: this because this section is done, We'll be right back

756
00:44:24,200 --> 00:44:28,920
Speaker 2: with more strange news.

757
00:44:30,480 --> 00:44:33,319
Speaker 4: And we've returned with our last segment of strange News.

758
00:44:33,320 --> 00:44:35,759
Speaker 4: We already talked about Fat Bear Week. I'm going to

759
00:44:35,840 --> 00:44:39,040
Speaker 4: just jump right in because we're running little long today. Guys,

760
00:44:39,480 --> 00:44:41,760
Speaker 4: do you think it's possible to get sued for talking

761
00:44:41,840 --> 00:44:44,560
Speaker 4: smack about a virtual pop band?

762
00:44:45,120 --> 00:44:47,959
Speaker 3: It was really interested when you brought this story to us, Noel,

763
00:44:48,320 --> 00:44:53,400
Speaker 3: because it's it's weird. It's a weird interrogation of the

764
00:44:53,440 --> 00:44:56,879
Speaker 3: line between a personality or a corporation.

765
00:44:57,080 --> 00:44:58,919
Speaker 4: That's exactly right, Ben, And this is a story coming

766
00:44:58,920 --> 00:45:03,040
Speaker 4: out of South Korea. An article by Coeway from BBC

767
00:45:03,200 --> 00:45:05,759
Speaker 4: dot Com says Accord in South Korea has ordered a

768
00:45:05,800 --> 00:45:08,080
Speaker 4: social media user to pay five hundred thousand and one

769
00:45:08,200 --> 00:45:11,120
Speaker 4: or around three hundred and sixty dollars American for defaming

770
00:45:11,160 --> 00:45:14,680
Speaker 4: a K pop boy band whose members are virtual characters.

771
00:45:15,680 --> 00:45:18,160
Speaker 4: There's a group called Plave, and I think this is

772
00:45:18,160 --> 00:45:22,640
Speaker 4: I think the term is virtual idols. They are a

773
00:45:22,680 --> 00:45:26,160
Speaker 4: kpop group that are voice and animated through MOCAP by

774
00:45:26,280 --> 00:45:29,880
Speaker 4: real performers who remain anonymous. They are characters, sort of

775
00:45:29,920 --> 00:45:33,399
Speaker 4: like Hotsunemiku is another great example of this. There are

776
00:45:33,440 --> 00:45:35,239
Speaker 4: no real people behind those, I believe, because that is

777
00:45:35,280 --> 00:45:38,319
Speaker 4: vocaloid technology, that is this sort of voice synthesis thing.

778
00:45:38,600 --> 00:45:42,120
Speaker 4: But there are individuals behind these characters, but nobody knows

779
00:45:42,120 --> 00:45:44,840
Speaker 4: who they are. So last year, the agency behind this

780
00:45:45,320 --> 00:45:48,520
Speaker 4: K pop group, virtual k group Plave, file a civil

781
00:45:48,520 --> 00:45:52,320
Speaker 4: suit against one social media user for talking smack basically

782
00:45:52,320 --> 00:45:55,360
Speaker 4: saying the band sucked and that the people behind the

783
00:45:55,600 --> 00:45:59,560
Speaker 4: characters might be ugly. We'll get into the specifics in

784
00:45:59,640 --> 00:46:03,719
Speaker 4: a minute. Play debut in twenty twenty three. They're one

785
00:46:03,719 --> 00:46:07,480
Speaker 4: of the most successful stories of this whole virtual idol scenario.

786
00:46:07,760 --> 00:46:10,760
Speaker 4: They have a million followers on YouTube and they regularly

787
00:46:10,840 --> 00:46:14,479
Speaker 4: post music and vlogs there. They have a song called

788
00:46:14,640 --> 00:46:18,120
Speaker 4: Way Number four Luv, which was nominated for Best Vocal

789
00:46:18,160 --> 00:46:20,440
Speaker 4: Performance and Song of the Year at the twenty twenty

790
00:46:20,480 --> 00:46:23,239
Speaker 4: four Mama Awards, and they also won a big prize

791
00:46:23,280 --> 00:46:26,480
Speaker 4: at these Soul Music Awards. So essentially what was said

792
00:46:27,320 --> 00:46:31,279
Speaker 4: in these comments that were posted online was conjectured that

793
00:46:31,320 --> 00:46:34,200
Speaker 4: the people behind the avatars quote could be ugly in

794
00:46:34,280 --> 00:46:38,640
Speaker 4: real life and gave off quote typical Korean man vibe energy.

795
00:46:39,239 --> 00:46:42,640
Speaker 4: That's according to The Korea Times. In the court case,

796
00:46:42,760 --> 00:46:45,520
Speaker 4: the defendant claimed the comments were actually aimed at the characters,

797
00:46:45,600 --> 00:46:48,360
Speaker 4: not the people behind them. However, the court didn't go

798
00:46:48,480 --> 00:46:50,720
Speaker 4: for this argument at all, saying that if an avatar

799
00:46:50,880 --> 00:46:55,319
Speaker 4: was widely recognized to represent someone real, even though completely anonymous,

800
00:46:55,440 --> 00:46:58,799
Speaker 4: then attacks on the avatar extended to tacks on the

801
00:46:58,840 --> 00:47:02,279
Speaker 4: real person and Ben had to scoot for a thing.

802
00:47:02,400 --> 00:47:04,719
Speaker 4: But he made a really good point earlier that this

803
00:47:04,880 --> 00:47:08,680
Speaker 4: is this whole story is about narrowing that gap between

804
00:47:08,719 --> 00:47:12,080
Speaker 4: what constitutes personhood, you know, and like, what if I

805
00:47:12,120 --> 00:47:15,680
Speaker 4: insult a cartoon, does that mean I'm insulting the person

806
00:47:15,719 --> 00:47:17,839
Speaker 4: that it was based on? And does that mean they

807
00:47:17,880 --> 00:47:21,840
Speaker 4: could accuse me of defamation? I Mean it's wild, Like

808
00:47:21,920 --> 00:47:24,279
Speaker 4: if I say something about Batman and there's a guy

809
00:47:24,320 --> 00:47:27,759
Speaker 4: who plays Batman in a movie. Is the association of

810
00:47:27,760 --> 00:47:30,840
Speaker 4: that character with the cartoon version extend to that person?

811
00:47:30,880 --> 00:47:33,319
Speaker 4: Of course, this isn't a different country. But as we've

812
00:47:33,360 --> 00:47:36,120
Speaker 4: talked about in the previous segments of today's episode, this

813
00:47:36,200 --> 00:47:39,560
Speaker 4: free speech stuff is getting a little dicey over here too.

814
00:47:39,920 --> 00:47:43,480
Speaker 4: So they asked for six point five million one each

815
00:47:43,800 --> 00:47:48,560
Speaker 4: per member, but the court, citing emotional distress that the

816
00:47:48,640 --> 00:47:51,760
Speaker 4: comments may have caused. However, the court granted a fraction

817
00:47:51,920 --> 00:47:54,319
Speaker 4: of this one hundred thousand and one per person. But

818
00:47:54,800 --> 00:47:57,840
Speaker 4: the precedent is pretty clear. What do you think about

819
00:47:57,840 --> 00:47:59,120
Speaker 4: this one, Matt, It's pretty wild.

820
00:48:00,239 --> 00:48:04,720
Speaker 2: It's just insane. It feels like it feels like life

821
00:48:04,760 --> 00:48:07,480
Speaker 2: is becoming too complicated and strange.

822
00:48:07,640 --> 00:48:11,120
Speaker 4: To even like parse it out. Like it's just it's wild.

823
00:48:11,239 --> 00:48:13,359
Speaker 4: I don't know. I'm just kind of marble mouthed about

824
00:48:13,360 --> 00:48:15,880
Speaker 4: this map because I see what you're pointing to, and

825
00:48:15,920 --> 00:48:19,520
Speaker 4: it is such a bigger sense of confusion and information

826
00:48:19,680 --> 00:48:22,760
Speaker 4: overload and metainis that I can't even put it into words.

827
00:48:23,480 --> 00:48:28,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, just that we're having to some you know, evaluating courts,

828
00:48:28,280 --> 00:48:30,680
Speaker 2: the kind of things that we're evaluating in courts and

829
00:48:31,120 --> 00:48:34,400
Speaker 2: figure out, oh is it okay for this? Is it bad?

830
00:48:34,400 --> 00:48:34,680
Speaker 2: For that?

831
00:48:34,760 --> 00:48:35,200
Speaker 4: Is it right?

832
00:48:35,239 --> 00:48:37,520
Speaker 2: For this is it? And we're dealing with stuff that

833
00:48:39,400 --> 00:48:42,520
Speaker 2: it so often exists in virtual worlds and and you know,

834
00:48:43,280 --> 00:48:45,840
Speaker 2: virtual representations. I just I don't know, it's so strange

835
00:48:45,840 --> 00:48:48,239
Speaker 2: to me, man. I think maybe I'm just getting too old.

836
00:48:48,520 --> 00:48:49,640
Speaker 2: I'm already too old for it.

837
00:48:50,360 --> 00:48:53,160
Speaker 4: Yeah, there there is that, And of course, like you know,

838
00:48:53,320 --> 00:48:55,960
Speaker 4: like my kids generation and I think your kids like

839
00:48:55,960 --> 00:48:58,000
Speaker 4: one generation, you're just Gen.

840
00:48:57,920 --> 00:49:00,439
Speaker 2: Alpha, right, I don't know the ten.

841
00:49:00,840 --> 00:49:03,040
Speaker 4: I think Gen Alpha then, yeah, for sure, and mine's

842
00:49:03,120 --> 00:49:06,360
Speaker 4: Gen Z. And there is of course this, you know,

843
00:49:07,040 --> 00:49:09,960
Speaker 4: this generation raised on the Internet. There's absolutely done a

844
00:49:10,040 --> 00:49:13,239
Speaker 4: number on certain brain functions, some for good, some for bad.

845
00:49:13,280 --> 00:49:15,600
Speaker 4: We've talked about this, like there is a certain creativity

846
00:49:15,640 --> 00:49:18,880
Speaker 4: and intuition and media savviness. I think that comes along

847
00:49:18,920 --> 00:49:21,440
Speaker 4: with that. But then they're also it does some other

848
00:49:21,680 --> 00:49:24,200
Speaker 4: not so great stuff too. But you can say that

849
00:49:24,239 --> 00:49:27,840
Speaker 4: about any generation and about any you know, consumption of media.

850
00:49:28,239 --> 00:49:33,200
Speaker 4: Though with the exponential improvement and increase of media transmission

851
00:49:34,200 --> 00:49:37,560
Speaker 4: and absolute quantity rather than quality of it, it just

852
00:49:37,880 --> 00:49:39,600
Speaker 4: I'm with you, man, I don't. I don't want you

853
00:49:39,640 --> 00:49:41,680
Speaker 4: to beat yourself up or say that it's about being old.

854
00:49:41,719 --> 00:49:44,440
Speaker 4: I think this is this is true for everybody. Nobody

855
00:49:44,520 --> 00:49:46,440
Speaker 4: can parse this stuff out, and that's why people start

856
00:49:46,440 --> 00:49:49,319
Speaker 4: like making their own little bubbles and fiefdoms because it

857
00:49:49,360 --> 00:49:50,520
Speaker 4: is just so overwhelming.

858
00:49:51,000 --> 00:49:54,359
Speaker 2: Yeah that makes sense, that makes sense. So yeah, but

859
00:49:54,400 --> 00:49:56,880
Speaker 2: it's weird. We like bifurcate ourselves in that way.

860
00:49:57,520 --> 00:50:01,959
Speaker 4: Our brains, our souls. Are you have you watched Alien Earth, Matt?

861
00:50:02,280 --> 00:50:03,399
Speaker 2: Not yet? Not yet?

862
00:50:03,480 --> 00:50:06,080
Speaker 4: Well, there's some good it's some people are into it,

863
00:50:06,160 --> 00:50:08,040
Speaker 4: some people are not. I'm absolutely into it. But it

864
00:50:08,080 --> 00:50:11,480
Speaker 4: has some interesting conversation of this bifurcation of soul and

865
00:50:11,480 --> 00:50:15,080
Speaker 4: what can happen, you know, when a soul and technology

866
00:50:15,160 --> 00:50:17,080
Speaker 4: kind of intersect, and what even is a soul? And

867
00:50:17,160 --> 00:50:22,880
Speaker 4: like what does that mean for corruption and the degradation

868
00:50:23,040 --> 00:50:25,359
Speaker 4: of quote unquote the soul? You know. I think it's

869
00:50:25,360 --> 00:50:27,920
Speaker 4: a very very interesting show, a little bit flawed in places,

870
00:50:27,920 --> 00:50:30,560
Speaker 4: but I really like it a lot and I think

871
00:50:30,560 --> 00:50:32,279
Speaker 4: it's worth a look. And everything No Holly does is

872
00:50:32,320 --> 00:50:35,000
Speaker 4: pretty kick ass. So yeah, we'll leave Allan for now.

873
00:50:35,440 --> 00:50:37,880
Speaker 4: Excited to chat more about this with Ben. So the

874
00:50:38,000 --> 00:50:40,200
Speaker 4: last story I'm going to bring today since we ran

875
00:50:40,200 --> 00:50:42,760
Speaker 4: a little along is uh. We love a good history mystery,

876
00:50:42,920 --> 00:50:46,120
Speaker 4: don't we. Yes, we love a good monolith, don't we?

877
00:50:46,239 --> 00:50:51,560
Speaker 4: Matt Exactly, I'm too mess From the from the monolith.

878
00:50:52,440 --> 00:50:55,640
Speaker 4: The researchers have apparently solved the mystery of some monolists

879
00:50:55,680 --> 00:50:58,160
Speaker 4: that I personally wasn't aware of in Armenia, known as

880
00:50:58,400 --> 00:51:02,960
Speaker 4: so cool dude. The dragon stone something called zartonk media

881
00:51:03,040 --> 00:51:05,279
Speaker 4: which rules and I'm sure that's an Armenian word, but

882
00:51:05,320 --> 00:51:06,839
Speaker 4: when I read it on paper it makes me think

883
00:51:06,880 --> 00:51:09,719
Speaker 4: of like a space lord or something. Reports that an

884
00:51:09,719 --> 00:51:14,560
Speaker 4: international team of researchers have done comprehensive research into Armenia's

885
00:51:14,600 --> 00:51:17,279
Speaker 4: dragon stones and believe they have found a link to

886
00:51:17,680 --> 00:51:22,480
Speaker 4: an ancient cult. These are known as vishaps, after the

887
00:51:22,640 --> 00:51:26,440
Speaker 4: Armenian word for dragon. They stand eighteen feet tall, typically

888
00:51:26,520 --> 00:51:30,360
Speaker 4: decorated with animal imagery depicting fish. And we're erected in

889
00:51:30,520 --> 00:51:34,160
Speaker 4: high altitude pastures, high places. We know all about those,

890
00:51:34,280 --> 00:51:39,480
Speaker 4: right lay lines, high places, et cetera. Archaeologists and I'm reading,

891
00:51:39,520 --> 00:51:42,920
Speaker 4: by the way, from Archaeology magazine directly here. This is

892
00:51:42,960 --> 00:51:45,560
Speaker 4: a piece. Yes again, I think this is a lyft

893
00:51:45,560 --> 00:51:47,400
Speaker 4: from that tzartonk media piece. So I'm just going to

894
00:51:47,480 --> 00:51:50,840
Speaker 4: read from here. Archaeologists have been unsure exactly when and

895
00:51:50,880 --> 00:51:54,160
Speaker 4: why they were created. Led by Vaje Gurzadayan and Arsen

896
00:51:54,360 --> 00:51:59,480
Speaker 4: BOBOI Heiken, Please forgive my pronunciations of yerevn State University,

897
00:51:59,520 --> 00:52:01,919
Speaker 4: the team an was one hundred and fifteen known vis

898
00:52:01,920 --> 00:52:05,160
Speaker 4: apps vish apps, vis apps you having vish apps, and

899
00:52:05,239 --> 00:52:09,040
Speaker 4: determined they were often located near springs, streams, and irrigation systems,

900
00:52:09,239 --> 00:52:11,760
Speaker 4: which led them to conclude they must have been associated

901
00:52:11,800 --> 00:52:15,839
Speaker 4: with ancient water cults and rituals that celebrated water as

902
00:52:15,880 --> 00:52:19,279
Speaker 4: a life sustaining force. They were often clustered at these

903
00:52:19,440 --> 00:52:23,359
Speaker 4: high altitudes around sixty two to eighty eight hundred feet

904
00:52:23,400 --> 00:52:27,080
Speaker 4: above sea level, and that they were likely placed symbolically

905
00:52:27,120 --> 00:52:30,360
Speaker 4: near sources of the snow melt that provide water for

906
00:52:30,400 --> 00:52:33,759
Speaker 4: agriculture communities in the valleys below. Yeah, you can read

907
00:52:33,760 --> 00:52:37,200
Speaker 4: the scholarly article about this in PJ Heritage Science.

908
00:52:38,040 --> 00:52:41,360
Speaker 2: It doesn't it kind of remind you of the nacerema

909
00:52:41,360 --> 00:52:42,839
Speaker 2: thing that we talked about in listener mail.

910
00:52:42,960 --> 00:52:47,359
Speaker 4: Absolutely all, bro, that's the point, right, Like all of

911
00:52:47,400 --> 00:52:51,000
Speaker 4: this stuff with enough remove, with enough separation from the

912
00:52:51,040 --> 00:52:54,120
Speaker 4: actual culture and what it meant to those people. It

913
00:52:54,200 --> 00:52:58,480
Speaker 4: all seems like anthropological craziness, things that you would study.

914
00:52:58,719 --> 00:53:00,200
Speaker 4: We just got to kind of crawl out of our

915
00:53:00,200 --> 00:53:04,120
Speaker 4: butts and realize that, like we are the modern cavemen

916
00:53:04,480 --> 00:53:07,080
Speaker 4: of whatever future, if it exists, is going to look

917
00:53:07,120 --> 00:53:09,880
Speaker 4: back on and think how quaint everything we did was.

918
00:53:10,040 --> 00:53:10,200
Speaker 4: You know.

919
00:53:10,480 --> 00:53:13,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, just talking about water cults, I think that term

920
00:53:13,120 --> 00:53:16,720
Speaker 2: in particular is so interesting to me, like to label

921
00:53:16,800 --> 00:53:18,200
Speaker 2: something a water cult.

922
00:53:19,200 --> 00:53:23,040
Speaker 4: But in the way it's being used here. Obviously, these

923
00:53:23,080 --> 00:53:26,880
Speaker 4: are offerings or these are structures honoring certain gods or

924
00:53:26,920 --> 00:53:31,200
Speaker 4: deities that they hoped would bestow favorable conditions right upon

925
00:53:31,320 --> 00:53:33,680
Speaker 4: them to allow their crops to flourish, or to allow

926
00:53:33,760 --> 00:53:38,960
Speaker 4: them to have drinking water, whatever it might be. That's religion, man, Yeah,

927
00:53:39,040 --> 00:53:40,760
Speaker 4: that's all. That's all it is. And it's even funny

928
00:53:40,760 --> 00:53:42,440
Speaker 4: that they label them water cults here. It's i think

929
00:53:42,480 --> 00:53:44,080
Speaker 4: because maybe they don't have a better name for it,

930
00:53:44,239 --> 00:53:46,839
Speaker 4: or it's it's considered maybe more of a pagan sort

931
00:53:46,880 --> 00:53:50,200
Speaker 4: of early sort of proto religion that's maybe not directly

932
00:53:50,239 --> 00:53:52,160
Speaker 4: tied to one of the big ones that we think

933
00:53:52,200 --> 00:53:54,800
Speaker 4: of today. That's why the term cult is so interesting,

934
00:53:54,800 --> 00:53:57,480
Speaker 4: because it often just gets thrown around out of laziness.

935
00:53:58,520 --> 00:54:00,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I just, you know, I'm so interested in

936
00:54:00,920 --> 00:54:03,719
Speaker 2: this kind of stuff because you you just imagine the

937
00:54:03,800 --> 00:54:08,600
Speaker 2: significance of someone choosing to not only get this particular

938
00:54:08,920 --> 00:54:11,359
Speaker 2: stone or one of these particular stones that are quite

939
00:54:11,480 --> 00:54:13,919
Speaker 2: large and heavy, to carve it in such a way

940
00:54:14,120 --> 00:54:16,680
Speaker 2: to place it in the ground as some kind of marker,

941
00:54:17,120 --> 00:54:20,080
Speaker 2: and then you know, all these years later us trying

942
00:54:20,080 --> 00:54:22,720
Speaker 2: to figure out the significance of it. I just wonder

943
00:54:22,719 --> 00:54:27,040
Speaker 2: how many things like that that we find are for

944
00:54:27,200 --> 00:54:31,080
Speaker 2: some kind of very specific general purpose that has nothing

945
00:54:31,080 --> 00:54:34,759
Speaker 2: to do with religion, has nothing to do with anything besides, Hey,

946
00:54:34,960 --> 00:54:37,920
Speaker 2: we're marking the levels of snow melt in this general area,

947
00:54:37,960 --> 00:54:41,160
Speaker 2: I understand, Or we're marking to where to go so

948
00:54:41,200 --> 00:54:42,120
Speaker 2: you can maybe see.

949
00:54:42,000 --> 00:54:44,120
Speaker 4: Maybe there's a functional aspect to it. Dude. That's a

950
00:54:44,120 --> 00:54:45,759
Speaker 4: really good point, and it doesn't come up here in

951
00:54:45,840 --> 00:54:49,800
Speaker 4: this research, but maybe there's like markers on it to

952
00:54:50,120 --> 00:54:52,319
Speaker 4: show what you know, I don't know's I think that's

953
00:54:52,320 --> 00:54:54,120
Speaker 4: a really interesting way of looking at It's like ben'z

954
00:54:54,120 --> 00:54:57,239
Speaker 4: always talking about how whatever future civilization discovers our civilization

955
00:54:57,320 --> 00:54:59,440
Speaker 4: is going to be really curious as to why we

956
00:54:59,480 --> 00:55:00,960
Speaker 4: worship the giant penises.

957
00:55:01,400 --> 00:55:05,560
Speaker 2: You know. Yeah, if anything sticks around, yeah.

958
00:55:05,560 --> 00:55:08,480
Speaker 4: Let's not be let's not be too to doom and

959
00:55:08,520 --> 00:55:10,960
Speaker 4: gloom about it. I do try to maintain a healthy

960
00:55:11,040 --> 00:55:16,919
Speaker 4: sense of optimism just despite conditions. I'll just quickly wrap

961
00:55:17,000 --> 00:55:18,560
Speaker 4: up with just a silly one that I thought was

962
00:55:18,840 --> 00:55:21,080
Speaker 4: just you know, maybe it's not silly. It's a salt.

963
00:55:21,680 --> 00:55:25,920
Speaker 4: But in surprise Arizona, a man is facing multiple charges

964
00:55:26,200 --> 00:55:29,800
Speaker 4: after he urinated in a movie theater during a screening

965
00:55:29,880 --> 00:55:33,239
Speaker 4: of the latest Demon Slayer movie, which probably slaps The

966
00:55:33,280 --> 00:55:35,239
Speaker 4: last one was awesome. I actually remember seeing that with

967
00:55:35,280 --> 00:55:38,000
Speaker 4: my kid when they were in their super anime weeb

968
00:55:38,120 --> 00:55:40,319
Speaker 4: cosplay phase, and it's the only time I've ever been

969
00:55:40,360 --> 00:55:42,480
Speaker 4: to one of those movies where the seats move and

970
00:55:42,520 --> 00:55:44,520
Speaker 4: it squirts you with water and stuff, and then I

971
00:55:44,600 --> 00:55:45,760
Speaker 4: just say, that is awful.

972
00:55:46,120 --> 00:55:46,920
Speaker 2: Don't do it.

973
00:55:46,920 --> 00:55:49,840
Speaker 4: It's awful. It's trying to like it's like tracking sort

974
00:55:49,880 --> 00:55:51,759
Speaker 4: of what's going on on the screen, but it's really

975
00:55:51,800 --> 00:55:53,960
Speaker 4: just jerking you around for an hour and forty five minutes,

976
00:55:53,960 --> 00:55:56,840
Speaker 4: and it's very patently undosant, So don't do it. I

977
00:55:56,840 --> 00:55:59,320
Speaker 4: will never forget that screening. But at least nobody peede

978
00:55:59,360 --> 00:56:02,040
Speaker 4: on me. But the seat sprayed me a little bit.

979
00:56:02,080 --> 00:56:05,120
Speaker 4: I mean, maybe this experience wasn't that different from mine.

980
00:56:05,640 --> 00:56:08,480
Speaker 2: On the Lonely Island podcast, Seth Myers told the story

981
00:56:08,600 --> 00:56:10,920
Speaker 2: a couple of weeks ago about he was going to

982
00:56:10,920 --> 00:56:12,480
Speaker 2: see a movie. He's really excited to go see it,

983
00:56:12,880 --> 00:56:16,239
Speaker 2: and he went and sat down and the trailers were playing,

984
00:56:16,360 --> 00:56:20,000
Speaker 2: the seats were moving, and he just was like, nope, no.

985
00:56:20,400 --> 00:56:22,640
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was with the kid and their friends. I

986
00:56:23,040 --> 00:56:25,319
Speaker 4: did not peace out, but boy did I want to.

987
00:56:25,360 --> 00:56:29,440
Speaker 4: It was a chore, an absolute chore. There's actually a

988
00:56:29,480 --> 00:56:32,319
Speaker 4: video of this though, and my buddy Jonesy over at

989
00:56:32,360 --> 00:56:35,360
Speaker 4: the Weird af News podcast he was talking about this story,

990
00:56:35,760 --> 00:56:37,600
Speaker 4: so shout out to him to check out his pod

991
00:56:37,640 --> 00:56:40,080
Speaker 4: if you're looking for some other interesting weird news stuff

992
00:56:40,320 --> 00:56:43,880
Speaker 4: daily content and how like, during the point where this happened,

993
00:56:44,239 --> 00:56:47,640
Speaker 4: this guy pissing in the middle of the theater caused

994
00:56:47,640 --> 00:56:51,120
Speaker 4: a stir and essentially people like tackled him and there

995
00:56:51,160 --> 00:56:54,520
Speaker 4: was like a struggle of some story. It apparently happened

996
00:56:54,600 --> 00:56:57,080
Speaker 4: during a really epic battle scene in the movie. So

997
00:56:57,120 --> 00:57:00,000
Speaker 4: if you watch the video, it's like this intense cinematic

998
00:57:00,239 --> 00:57:04,400
Speaker 4: fight music and you see the silhouettes of this conflict

999
00:57:04,440 --> 00:57:07,799
Speaker 4: sort of flashing across the screen. Wow, did I mention

1000
00:57:07,880 --> 00:57:09,799
Speaker 4: this took place in Surprise, Arizona?

1001
00:57:10,800 --> 00:57:12,399
Speaker 2: Surprise? Yeah, real joke. Right.

1002
00:57:13,400 --> 00:57:16,640
Speaker 4: He was arrested, this this dude la mille hull uh

1003
00:57:16,680 --> 00:57:20,040
Speaker 4: and booked on charges of indecent exposure, disorderly conduct, criminal

1004
00:57:20,120 --> 00:57:24,760
Speaker 4: damage and dad insulted injury refusing to provide a truthful name.

1005
00:57:25,760 --> 00:57:27,960
Speaker 4: Oh that's that' said. Another thing to unpack in and

1006
00:57:27,960 --> 00:57:31,040
Speaker 4: of itself, because have you has your algorithm started feeding

1007
00:57:31,040 --> 00:57:33,120
Speaker 4: you a lot of like body cam videos or like

1008
00:57:33,240 --> 00:57:36,480
Speaker 4: videos of people sort of like like given sas to

1009
00:57:36,560 --> 00:57:40,600
Speaker 4: cops because mine is. And a lot of times people

1010
00:57:40,640 --> 00:57:43,080
Speaker 4: will refuse to give a name, and they will maybe

1011
00:57:43,080 --> 00:57:45,720
Speaker 4: not give a false name, but they'll refuse to give

1012
00:57:45,720 --> 00:57:48,080
Speaker 4: a name. So is it only illegal if you give.

1013
00:57:47,960 --> 00:57:48,600
Speaker 2: A fake name?

1014
00:57:48,880 --> 00:57:52,480
Speaker 4: Because it's definitely not illegal to my understanding to refuse

1015
00:57:52,520 --> 00:57:53,600
Speaker 4: to identify yourself.

1016
00:57:54,280 --> 00:57:56,800
Speaker 2: Oh that's a weird one to unpack, That's what I mean.

1017
00:57:57,000 --> 00:57:58,880
Speaker 2: That's another one of those where.

1018
00:57:58,640 --> 00:58:01,000
Speaker 4: It's all about decorum, about how far do they want

1019
00:58:01,040 --> 00:58:01,480
Speaker 4: to take it.

1020
00:58:01,600 --> 00:58:04,760
Speaker 2: It depends on what you know. The officer you're interacting

1021
00:58:04,800 --> 00:58:09,040
Speaker 2: with officially is stopping you for and if you are

1022
00:58:09,080 --> 00:58:11,760
Speaker 2: actually being detained, and whether or not you're aware of that.

1023
00:58:11,920 --> 00:58:14,760
Speaker 2: There's all these things, and you know, if you're in

1024
00:58:14,840 --> 00:58:18,120
Speaker 2: the right as a citizen being detained in whatever way,

1025
00:58:18,680 --> 00:58:21,120
Speaker 2: you usually have to go to court to prove that

1026
00:58:21,240 --> 00:58:23,760
Speaker 2: you are in the right rather than just being right.

1027
00:58:23,920 --> 00:58:25,840
Speaker 4: Oh, of course, And that's of course an expense and

1028
00:58:25,880 --> 00:58:29,840
Speaker 4: an inconvenience and could might not go your way, not to.

1029
00:58:29,800 --> 00:58:32,240
Speaker 2: Mention putting yourself in danger in that moment if you're

1030
00:58:32,280 --> 00:58:36,920
Speaker 2: being argumentative, which is like crazy, because yeah, man is dangerous.

1031
00:58:37,000 --> 00:58:39,120
Speaker 4: It's very interesting that I keep getting fed all these

1032
00:58:39,240 --> 00:58:40,960
Speaker 4: and maybe it's because I linger on them a lot,

1033
00:58:41,040 --> 00:58:43,200
Speaker 4: and then and when I do, the algorithm thinks, and

1034
00:58:43,480 --> 00:58:46,160
Speaker 4: I'm it is entertaining, and I am glad to see

1035
00:58:46,200 --> 00:58:48,840
Speaker 4: people sticking it to the man. And usually the videos

1036
00:58:48,840 --> 00:58:53,280
Speaker 4: that I see, you know, do show the officer being

1037
00:58:53,320 --> 00:58:56,040
Speaker 4: in the wrong and the individual knowing their rights way

1038
00:58:56,080 --> 00:58:58,919
Speaker 4: more than the officer would hope that one would, so

1039
00:58:59,240 --> 00:59:02,200
Speaker 4: that there is something empowering about seeing those videos. But

1040
00:59:02,280 --> 00:59:04,200
Speaker 4: oftentimes the officer will still try to reach through the

1041
00:59:04,240 --> 00:59:05,880
Speaker 4: window and tase the person in the face.

1042
00:59:06,200 --> 00:59:09,560
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, yeah, we you know, we did that

1043
00:59:09,600 --> 00:59:13,840
Speaker 2: episode recently on Taser International, Right, we talked about a

1044
00:59:13,880 --> 00:59:16,520
Speaker 2: couple of specific cases where it's a kid, like a

1045
00:59:16,600 --> 00:59:19,920
Speaker 2: seventeen year old that is just a heart condition, you know,

1046
00:59:20,040 --> 00:59:23,680
Speaker 2: asserting that, Hey, you what's going on? Do you need like?

1047
00:59:23,720 --> 00:59:26,720
Speaker 2: Am I being detained? Am I being arrested? What's happening? Why? No,

1048
00:59:26,840 --> 00:59:28,760
Speaker 2: you don't have to do all that. What what's happening?

1049
00:59:28,880 --> 00:59:29,440
Speaker 2: In your taste?

1050
00:59:29,560 --> 00:59:31,760
Speaker 4: And that's the thing too, dude, where like all these

1051
00:59:31,800 --> 00:59:34,120
Speaker 4: court cases, we're really starting to see a test of

1052
00:59:34,160 --> 00:59:37,720
Speaker 4: like the speed of justice, where if so many of

1053
00:59:37,720 --> 00:59:40,560
Speaker 4: these things get challenged, then the system is going to

1054
00:59:40,640 --> 00:59:42,680
Speaker 4: get so clogged up, and then after a certain point

1055
00:59:42,720 --> 00:59:45,400
Speaker 4: it's almost like impossible to prosecute or to sorry to

1056
00:59:45,440 --> 00:59:48,120
Speaker 4: defend your position. And if it becomes just this matter

1057
00:59:48,200 --> 00:59:52,919
Speaker 4: of decorum shifting and all cops under certain instructions from

1058
00:59:52,960 --> 00:59:55,240
Speaker 4: the people over them, who have people over them, we

1059
00:59:55,280 --> 00:59:58,920
Speaker 4: have people over them, it just starts to become militarized policing.

1060
00:59:59,360 --> 01:00:01,480
Speaker 4: I mean, we're already and I'm not I'm sorry, I'm

1061
01:00:01,480 --> 01:00:03,240
Speaker 4: don't mean the soapbox at all. But I just think

1062
01:00:03,440 --> 01:00:05,360
Speaker 4: we're not that far off from it literally just being

1063
01:00:05,400 --> 01:00:08,000
Speaker 4: like kind of like a willy nilly cops can kind

1064
01:00:08,000 --> 01:00:10,600
Speaker 4: of do whatever they want to you without fear of repercussion.

1065
01:00:10,760 --> 01:00:13,640
Speaker 4: World had a little silly story here, not silly again

1066
01:00:13,800 --> 01:00:17,040
Speaker 4: gross Hopefully nobody got splashed, and of course we ended

1067
01:00:17,120 --> 01:00:20,320
Speaker 4: up with with talking about the impending doom of.

1068
01:00:20,240 --> 01:00:20,959
Speaker 2: The police state.

1069
01:00:21,240 --> 01:00:23,480
Speaker 4: So hey, that's fun at party is as Ben would say.

1070
01:00:23,520 --> 01:00:26,000
Speaker 4: So that's that's it for me, man, I'm tapped out.

1071
01:00:26,240 --> 01:00:28,920
Speaker 2: Well, that does it for this episode of Strange News.

1072
01:00:29,440 --> 01:00:32,600
Speaker 2: We hope you enjoyed. Maybe that's not the right term.

1073
01:00:32,600 --> 01:00:33,680
Speaker 4: We're enjoyable.

1074
01:00:34,720 --> 01:00:39,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, we had some fun while just reminiscing on the

1075
01:00:39,040 --> 01:00:43,160
Speaker 2: old times before things got so crazy and remembering that

1076
01:00:43,200 --> 01:00:45,280
Speaker 2: it's only got to get crazier. A baby, but we're here,

1077
01:00:45,640 --> 01:00:47,840
Speaker 2: we're here. Well, thanks so much for listening to this

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Speaker 2: episode of Strange News. If you're interested in contacting us

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01:00:51,480 --> 01:00:53,440
Speaker 2: to let us know what you think about any and

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01:00:53,480 --> 01:00:55,840
Speaker 2: all of this, you can do that. There are a

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01:00:55,960 --> 01:00:56,880
Speaker 2: myriad of ways.

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Speaker 4: There, sure are, Matt. You can find us the handle

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01:00:59,160 --> 01:01:01,760
Speaker 4: conspiracy Stuff. We exist on Facebook with our Facebook group

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01:01:01,760 --> 01:01:04,760
Speaker 4: here's where it gets crazy on xfka, Twitter and on YouTube,

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01:01:04,800 --> 01:01:08,760
Speaker 4: or we have videos for youtuberus and enjoy on Instagram

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01:01:08,800 --> 01:01:11,320
Speaker 4: and TikTok. However, we're conspiracy stuff. So Matt, I think

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Speaker 4: there's a phone number too.

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Speaker 2: There is a phone number. It is one eight three

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Speaker 2: three std WYTK. It's a voicemail system. You've got three minutes.

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Speaker 2: Give yourself a cool nickname and let us know if

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01:01:22,480 --> 01:01:24,360
Speaker 2: we can use your name and message on the air.

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01:01:24,880 --> 01:01:27,600
Speaker 2: Please do give us a call, find us on social media,

1093
01:01:27,640 --> 01:01:29,280
Speaker 2: and if you don't want to do those things, you

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01:01:29,280 --> 01:01:31,240
Speaker 2: can always send us a good old fashioned email.

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01:01:31,400 --> 01:01:34,760
Speaker 3: We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence

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01:01:34,800 --> 01:01:38,120
Speaker 3: we receive. Be well aware, yet out afraid. Sometimes the

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01:01:38,280 --> 01:01:42,480
Speaker 3: void writes back, we'd love to send you a random fact.

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01:01:42,560 --> 01:01:45,720
Speaker 3: We would love to send you some news about vicious

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Speaker 3: squirrel attacks that have sent two victims to the emergency room.

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Speaker 3: This is not a joke, says the flyer. More than

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01:01:53,000 --> 01:01:55,520
Speaker 3: five people have been attacked by a quote a very

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01:01:55,680 --> 01:01:59,640
Speaker 3: mean squirrel over the past few days, and that comes

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Speaker 3: to us San Raphael, California. Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.

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Speaker 2: Stuff they don't want you to know is a production

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01:02:25,600 --> 01:02:30,120
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

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Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.