Speaker 1: Welcome Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, you, welcome to Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and
Speaker 1: I'm Joe McCormick, and we're coming at you with some
Speaker 1: listener mail today. A really good crop this month, I believe. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think one of the key reasons is, you know,
Speaker 1: on one hand, people send a nice listener mail, but
Speaker 1: also our robot, our mail bot, Carney has had more
Speaker 1: free time to uh to to properly collect it and
Speaker 1: assemble it and present it to us. That's right. That's
Speaker 1: because Carney quit social media. That's right. He got off Facebook,
Speaker 1: got off Twitter, stopped scrolling, he listened to our episode
Speaker 1: on Bummer and uh now he's he's bummer free. Uh though,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, he has in fact turned into
Speaker 1: a manual social media robot of his own uh and
Speaker 1: no behavior modification. Instead, he just rolls around the world,
Speaker 1: delivering messages directly between people by shouting them them at you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it it takes a little longer, but but he never stops.
Speaker 1: That's the cool thing, you know. It's like the he's
Speaker 1: like the monster and it follows. He just makes a
Speaker 1: straight line from from cinder to recipient and he'll get there.
Speaker 1: Most of the time he just zips up and says
Speaker 1: like yes or heart or or just presents the proper
Speaker 1: emoji in place of, you know, actual emotional investment. He
Speaker 1: also deals in um in memes quite a lot as well.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well, I can't fix everything at once. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: I think we should jump right into it with a
Speaker 1: for this first one is not a single bit of
Speaker 1: listener mail, but it is a theme we got. So
Speaker 1: let's start by talking about our episode on The Tingler.
Speaker 1: This was about fear and about the nineteen fifty nine
Speaker 1: William Castle movie The Tingler. Super fun episode. I really
Speaker 1: enjoyed that one. Yeah, and hopefully we inspired more than
Speaker 1: a few people to actually go check this film out,
Speaker 1: you know, for the first time, or to revisit it
Speaker 1: and admire its weirdness. Absolute camp classic. It is wonderful.
Speaker 1: But I wanted to start up front. We usually, if
Speaker 1: we get any corrections, we try to put these upfront
Speaker 1: most often, and so I'm doing that right now. In
Speaker 1: our episode on The Tingler, in talking about the influence
Speaker 1: of our gut flora on our brains. Specifically, we were
Speaker 1: talking about the ways and the evidence that changes in
Speaker 1: gut flora could have an effect on animal fear response,
Speaker 1: including perhaps human fear response. I mentioned an estimate that
Speaker 1: the number of microbial cells in our bodies around ten
Speaker 1: times the number of human cells in our body. Now,
Speaker 1: this used to be a commonly cited figure, but several
Speaker 1: listeners got in touch to point out that the more
Speaker 1: recent and probably more accurate estimates have revised that number down,
Speaker 1: so it's probably closer to a two to one or
Speaker 1: a one to one ratio. But even on the lowest end,
Speaker 1: that fact remains about as astonishing to me. On the
Speaker 1: conservative estimate by sheer cell count, only half the cells
Speaker 1: in your body are human cells. Yeah, and and that
Speaker 1: is that is amazing to consider. The Tingler, of course,
Speaker 1: uh involved for anyone who didn't listen to that episode,
Speaker 1: and easy reminder, uh. It involved a plot line about
Speaker 1: this weird centipede like creature that resides along all of
Speaker 1: our spines and when we when we fear, when we
Speaker 1: when we really gripped by intense fear, it constricts around
Speaker 1: our spinal column and if we don't scream to to
Speaker 1: you know, to drive it back into seclusion. It will
Speaker 1: like snap our spine in half, right, when the fear
Speaker 1: starts flowing, you get those spines cracking. Right. But of course,
Speaker 1: the one of the whole weird aspects of the whole
Speaker 1: plot was there's a thing living inside you that's not you.
Speaker 1: And of course the more we we we know about
Speaker 1: the human body and uh, the microbiome, we know that
Speaker 1: that is a reality. Like you said, half of our
Speaker 1: selves are not our own. Half of we are half
Speaker 1: Tingler at all times. Except the only way I might
Speaker 1: argue with that is that maybe those cells are best
Speaker 1: thought of as you, even though they don't share you,
Speaker 1: say your d n A. And they are bacterial cells,
Speaker 1: not mammal cells. In what sense are they not you?
Speaker 1: If they share body space with you, if they have
Speaker 1: control over your feelings and your thoughts and your behaviors.
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's kind of hard to argue that
Speaker 1: those bacterial cells aren't you in some way. This is
Speaker 1: another reason we we really need to do the fly
Speaker 1: yeah show. You know, probably the Cronenberg version, that's version
Speaker 1: as opposed to Vincent Price, uh is that's the one
Speaker 1: that I'm I'm most attracted to. But you get into
Speaker 1: a lot of this in that film as well, like
Speaker 1: the idea of your genetic identity being disrupted by the
Speaker 1: by an interloper, in human interloper that flies into the
Speaker 1: telepod with you. But of course we already have so
Speaker 1: many interlopers that are just part of the package that
Speaker 1: are I guess going. They have to be attract and
Speaker 1: we assembled by the computers that are maintaining the telepods.
Speaker 1: To begin with, it's okay, we're all brundle fly. Okay,
Speaker 1: do we want to look at our next email about
Speaker 1: the Tingler? I think this one starts off being in
Speaker 1: response to a question we asked in that episode, which
Speaker 1: was could having a sort of imaginary personification of your
Speaker 1: fear response be helpful in overcoming your irrational fear response?
Speaker 1: Liken thinking of it as some kind of animal that
Speaker 1: you have to contend with that's separate from you. Uh,
Speaker 1: does that give you some kind of power over it?
Speaker 1: And our listener Anna got in touch with several thoughts.
Speaker 1: But first off, I think that's what she's talking about,
Speaker 1: all right, She writes, Hi, Robert and Joe, I've been
Speaker 1: listening to your podcast for a while now and really
Speaker 1: enjoyed other podcasts I listened to. I find interesting when
Speaker 1: I am listening to them, but then I move on.
Speaker 1: But with yours, I find myself having lots of thoughts
Speaker 1: about the topic you were discussing. Oh no, in one
Speaker 1: of your recent podcasts that you were discussing anxiety and
Speaker 1: if it could be personified it would be easier to
Speaker 1: deal with. I suffer from some anxiety myself, and one
Speaker 1: analogy I found useful was the image of a smoke alarm.
Speaker 1: The smoke alarm is there to go off if there
Speaker 1: is a fire, but often goes off if you burn
Speaker 1: or toast, or forget to put the fan on above
Speaker 1: the stove. The smoke alarm responds the same whether it
Speaker 1: is a major disaster or a minor incident. I find
Speaker 1: this useful way of describing my anxiety to others. I
Speaker 1: often forget to put the fan on above the oven
Speaker 1: and the smoke alarm comes off. I keep a broom
Speaker 1: nearby so I can poke the button on the smoke
Speaker 1: alarm with the broomstick. Perhaps I should imagine poking my
Speaker 1: anxiety with a broomstick. I think that's a really good analogy.
Speaker 1: You also discussed why you enjoy horror films and this
Speaker 1: reminded me of something I read in a Newal gaming book.
Speaker 1: It was in the introduction to the Coraline and Other
Speaker 1: Stories book. He was saying it was a shame that
Speaker 1: modern children's literature wants to avoid scaring children, but some
Speaker 1: of the best children's stories are scary. He quoted Ogden
Speaker 1: Nash quote. Where there is a monster, there is a miracle.
Speaker 1: He says. A world in which there are monsters and
Speaker 1: ghosts and things that want to steal your heart is
Speaker 1: a world in which there are angels and dreams, and
Speaker 1: above all, a world in which there is hope. And
Speaker 1: from there she goes on to make a reading recommendation
Speaker 1: that we may come back to in a future episode,
Speaker 1: but she closes out by saying, keep up the great work. Annah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh so this is a really interesting thought. Now, Robert,
Speaker 1: I think you've sort of covered that idea on the
Speaker 1: show before, right this. I think this was before I
Speaker 1: came on the show. But you did something a long
Speaker 1: time ago about children children's like scary kids stories. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's an older episode on that about because there was
Speaker 1: there was a study about like terrifying elements and children's literature.
Speaker 1: It would be interesting perhaps to look at it again
Speaker 1: and see if there's gon't have been any new scholarship
Speaker 1: on it. Uh, And of course there are all there's
Speaker 1: always the you know, observations of like the horrific aspects
Speaker 1: of not only like Grimm's fairy Tales, like that's a standard,
Speaker 1: but you know you expect it from the brothers Grim
Speaker 1: But then you look at Disney films as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the you know, at a ton of replexing, lye
Speaker 1: traumatic moments that occur in those films. Yeah, it's um,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's interesting. Of course, the whole argument about
Speaker 1: like you know, you've got to have the monster so
Speaker 1: you can have the angels. Um. I think maybe that's
Speaker 1: part of it. I mean, that's also kind of a
Speaker 1: theological argument for the existence of horrible things in the
Speaker 1: world that sometimes people take issue with. So I don't know, well,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know if you should take like
Speaker 1: the angels thing literally there, because like I sometimes have
Speaker 1: the thought, obviously, we want a better world, you know,
Speaker 1: you want pain to be taken away and like more
Speaker 1: good things to happen to more people all the time.
Speaker 1: But there is a part of you that says like
Speaker 1: if I never faced any kind of pain or any
Speaker 1: kind of struggle or anything, something about that seems very
Speaker 1: scary in itself. There's a kind of like brave New
Speaker 1: World is kind of quality to that that there's some
Speaker 1: part of us I do think that yearns for struggle,
Speaker 1: and that would maybe feel like life was meaningless if
Speaker 1: everything was always good and happy. I've been thinking about
Speaker 1: about some of this recently, I mean, particularly with with
Speaker 1: with say horror and uh in dystopia. You know, at
Speaker 1: times we have like just extremely grim models of this,
Speaker 1: and I feel I feel like, you know, obviously, fiction
Speaker 1: is always going to speak to the time in which
Speaker 1: it is created. It's going to speak to the experience
Speaker 1: of the people that created and and I don't mean
Speaker 1: to like, you know, make a you know, to to
Speaker 1: over inflate that and try and make an outrageous overstatement
Speaker 1: of the obvious here, But but you know, I think
Speaker 1: I feel like at times, maybe the horror is dwelt
Speaker 1: on in times and by people you know who do
Speaker 1: not who who have the privilege of not having to
Speaker 1: confront uh such horrors head on. But then what happens
Speaker 1: is later on, in a more horrific time, or a
Speaker 1: time when the horror is more obvious to us. We
Speaker 1: still have those same stories to look back on, and
Speaker 1: they don't always match up, you know, they don't always
Speaker 1: deliver what we need to either make sense of the
Speaker 1: world that is occurring around us or to escape from it. Um.
Speaker 1: And then the other thing I was thinking of two
Speaker 1: is the the idea of you know, personifying anxiety, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, and about how it often seems like I
Speaker 1: often feel like, you know, there's there is the shape
Speaker 1: of of the anxiety that must be filled with something,
Speaker 1: you know, and if if I'm not worrying about this thing,
Speaker 1: like something else is going to fill that shape. And
Speaker 1: I think that's just part of of like how we evolved,
Speaker 1: you know, like we evolved to be a being that
Speaker 1: would always encounter that shape. That shape would be there,
Speaker 1: perhaps very physically in the form of a predator or
Speaker 1: just you know, in the form of the you know,
Speaker 1: the hurdle of surviving in a in a hostile world.
Speaker 1: And as we remove ourselves from that world of just
Speaker 1: pure survival, you know, we have we still have that
Speaker 1: shape in our lives and it will be filled with something.
Speaker 1: It cannot remain a vacuum Um, it may fill up
Speaker 1: with paper tigers if that's all it has in your life,
Speaker 1: or it just may fill up with dreads about things
Speaker 1: that may occur or certainly will occur in your future. Um.
Speaker 1: And then yeah, I guess we have to poke it
Speaker 1: with a broomstick. That's the only thing to do, or
Speaker 1: we'll wait. I'm I'm not sure. Were you suggesting that
Speaker 1: it's possible that the that that shape could be filled
Speaker 1: in with sort of fictional exercises as well, like that
Speaker 1: this is a value of scary or or challenging scenarios
Speaker 1: and so yeah, I think so, I mean there, I
Speaker 1: try to think of times where I've I've done that
Speaker 1: either like consciously subconsciously, and I think I have. But
Speaker 1: they were often sort of simpler times in my life too,
Speaker 1: where not to say the world was simpler, but maybe
Speaker 1: I was just more oblivious, you know, to the you know,
Speaker 1: the dangers of saying you know, geopolitical situations or you know,
Speaker 1: or less um, you know, if it's familiar with you know,
Speaker 1: the state of my own privilege, that sort of thing. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, you just sort of lump a horror
Speaker 1: film in there, like imagine this and uh and then
Speaker 1: I don't know. I feel like later on I reached
Speaker 1: a point where it's like, oh, I don't have to
Speaker 1: imagine that that like this is this is all real,
Speaker 1: and that's what gets sucked into the into the vacuum
Speaker 1: of the shape. If that's making sense, all right. We
Speaker 1: also have another Tingler related a bit of a listener
Speaker 1: mail here, and this one comes to us from Jonathan.
Speaker 1: Jonathan Rites, thanks for choosing a film that dates back
Speaker 1: to my generation. I was eight when I saw The
Speaker 1: Tingler in the theater. I wasn't sitting in a vibrating seat,
Speaker 1: but at the moment when the creature walks across the
Speaker 1: projection screen, the theater momentarily shut off its emergency floor lights.
Speaker 1: What frightened me, though, were the sudden screams from the audience,
Speaker 1: multiplied by the screams on the soundtrack. Those live screams
Speaker 1: seem chilling at the time. I'm not proud to say
Speaker 1: that I thought this was the best horror film I
Speaker 1: had ever seen, and going to the movies to watch
Speaker 1: Saturday matinee horror films was a regular part out of
Speaker 1: my life. In the years since, I've experienced way too
Speaker 1: much cortisol to enjoy horror anymore. Amazing how you can
Speaker 1: create such a fascinating episode on such an unlikely topic.
Speaker 1: Oh thanks Jonathan. Yeah, that's great that we got to
Speaker 1: hear from someone who was actually there for not only
Speaker 1: The Tingler, but other horror matinee films. I need to
Speaker 1: I need to write Jonathan back and ask him, you
Speaker 1: know what, what are some more memorable entries from the
Speaker 1: Horror Mountain matinee that he remembers seeing turning off the
Speaker 1: exit lights. I envied the people who got to have
Speaker 1: the experiences before, like insurance demands on theaters would prevent
Speaker 1: those kinds of stunts, right opposed from like whatever kind
Speaker 1: of like gimmicky insurance. Uh that William Castle might have
Speaker 1: been proclaiming to the film. Alright, So we next are
Speaker 1: going to turn to a message from our listener Cody
Speaker 1: about our episode on the asteroid twenty nineteen okay, which
Speaker 1: passed very close to the Earth not too long ago.
Speaker 1: Cody writes, Hey, guys, just listen to your episode about
Speaker 1: the nineteen okay. I actually work in the field of
Speaker 1: planetary defense. Amazing. Uh, So sometimes we ask for messages
Speaker 1: like this and sometimes we get them. Cody continues, and
Speaker 1: there is unfortunately quite a lot of misinformation on this subject,
Speaker 1: mostly spread by academicians and journalists who don't actually work
Speaker 1: in this field or sit on any policy discussions. So
Speaker 1: let me get this out of the way. The nuclear
Speaker 1: option is, by leagues, the better tool available to us.
Speaker 1: So let me explain why, with the caveat that these
Speaker 1: are my personal opinions on the subject as someone who
Speaker 1: works in this field, not the position of any particular organization. Alright,
Speaker 1: so we're gonna get a nuclear nuclear weapon in space, advocate, right,
Speaker 1: and really the first like pro nuclear weapon argument, I
Speaker 1: think we've really properly entertained on this show. What about
Speaker 1: this is good, you know, finally finding a good use
Speaker 1: for nuclear weapons that isn't killing people. Okay, uh, Cody continues.
Speaker 1: Every asteroid that is ever going to hit the Earth
Speaker 1: is going to go through a very long period of
Speaker 1: having a vanishingly small probability of doing so. This is
Speaker 1: because the probability of an impact is calculated by taking
Speaker 1: the ratio of the cross section of its probable location
Speaker 1: when it passes Earth. With errors factored in, this looks
Speaker 1: like a big ellipse with the Earth inside. To the
Speaker 1: cross section of the Earth itself. For asteroids detected foreign advance,
Speaker 1: this ratio is close to zero i e. A very
Speaker 1: large number divided by a relatively small number. This is
Speaker 1: still true for asteroids that will strike the Earth. This
Speaker 1: is just how errors factor into the calculation of probability.
Speaker 1: The really dangerous aspect of this is that at the
Speaker 1: time scales that would be required for something like a
Speaker 1: gravity tractor to work, the probability you would calculate for
Speaker 1: an impact is you guessed it basically zero. So who
Speaker 1: in their right mind is going to spend the billions
Speaker 1: of dollars required on such a mission when there's almost
Speaker 1: an absolute certainty from an accountant's perspective that it's a
Speaker 1: waste of money. This is also true of any painting
Speaker 1: or mirror or solar sale venture that's been proposed. We
Speaker 1: just don't have infinite money to play those kinds of
Speaker 1: games on asteroids that were not certain are even going
Speaker 1: to strike the Earth. Now, by the time we are
Speaker 1: much more certain of an impact, like let's say we
Speaker 1: have calculated a five percent chance, the only remaining tools
Speaker 1: that stand a chance of working are a kinetic impact
Speaker 1: or or a nuclear standoff. Explosion, nobody actually contemplates blowing
Speaker 1: it up in this field. At that point, the cost
Speaker 1: of the mission still controls the equation. Here, a kinetic
Speaker 1: pusher will be moving at the same speed as a
Speaker 1: nuclear device when it reaches the asteroid, and pound for pound,
Speaker 1: a nuclear device just delivers more energy for the cost
Speaker 1: of delivering it to the asteroid. Let's not forget the
Speaker 1: US does not currently possess any vehicle capable of delivering
Speaker 1: a kinetic impact or of sufficient mass to be relevant
Speaker 1: to anywhere in the Solar System. We need a Saturn
Speaker 1: five to just to even try the expanse version of
Speaker 1: space travel isn't here yet. As for elegance, nuclear winds
Speaker 1: there too. Since any kind of explosion next to an
Speaker 1: asteroid causes the near part of the asteroid to heat
Speaker 1: up and blow off for quite a while, you're not
Speaker 1: just pushing it, you're turning the asteroid into a rocket.
Speaker 1: As for turning the asteroid into a radioactive asteroid, I'm
Speaker 1: sorry to say, everything in space is already radioactive, and
Speaker 1: an asteroid we'd be trying to deflect would find our
Speaker 1: attempts to make it radioactive cute by comparison to what
Speaker 1: the Sun already does love the episode. And yes, there
Speaker 1: are actually people working very hard on this problem. Cody. Well,
Speaker 1: this is great. I mean we you know, we we
Speaker 1: we knew there were people working on this problem, and
Speaker 1: we celebrate them. And it's great to actually hear from
Speaker 1: someone like this. So you know, keep up the great work, Cody,
Speaker 1: because we need it. This is this is, as I've
Speaker 1: said in multiple times, like this is one of the
Speaker 1: those those few endeavors that can actually you know, have
Speaker 1: the potential to save the earth. Uh um and uh
Speaker 1: and we should absolutely celebrate it, acknowledge it, and end
Speaker 1: above all things funded. This is a really great example
Speaker 1: of how firsthand knowledge of working with a problem in
Speaker 1: a field can inform your decisions better than just thinking
Speaker 1: about the problem. And you know, from an abstract point
Speaker 1: of view for not very long can because like a
Speaker 1: lot of these astrophysicists that you talk about would say, okay,
Speaker 1: you know, like the gravity tractor sounds like a great idea,
Speaker 1: and it is a great idea except for the considerations
Speaker 1: that Cody mentions here, right, the idea of calculating the
Speaker 1: probability of an impact far enough in advance for it
Speaker 1: to work. It seems like we would have to have
Speaker 1: the ability to predict with much greater accuracy than we
Speaker 1: can right now whether something would hit us way away
Speaker 1: in advance. And I don't know what it would take
Speaker 1: for that kind of accuracy to come online. Maybe we
Speaker 1: just can't ever expect that it would, I guess, unless
Speaker 1: we want to go, you know, put gravity tractors on
Speaker 1: all kinds of things, which, as it points out, nobody's
Speaker 1: going to show out the money to do, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah it is. So it does make a I think
Speaker 1: a strong argument for this being the far more practical
Speaker 1: choice as well. Alright, well, on that note, let's take
Speaker 1: a quick break, and when we come back, we will
Speaker 1: roll into some bummer email than alright, we're back, So
Speaker 1: the next batch of emails is going to concern our
Speaker 1: episodes on social media the bummer business model, as so
Speaker 1: dubbed by Jarren Lanier. And we got quite a few
Speaker 1: of these, so we might try to roll through some
Speaker 1: of them pretty quickly. But but well, well, I guess
Speaker 1: we'll stop to comment wherever we can, right, and just
Speaker 1: reminder every everybody. Bummer was Lanier's acronym for what behaviors
Speaker 1: of users modified and made into an empire for rent um,
Speaker 1: which which which? Which is nice and eloquent, But then
Speaker 1: when you get down to it, like bummer just feels appropriate.
Speaker 1: So now I just refer to all social media as
Speaker 1: bummer just in my daily conversations. I'm probably really annoying
Speaker 1: some people in the process. But anyway, first we heard
Speaker 1: from Hannah Hannah Wrightson and says, hello, I'll just listen
Speaker 1: to the social media bummer episode, and I thought it
Speaker 1: would shy. I'm in As a junior in college, I
Speaker 1: took a substance abuse class, and our semester long project
Speaker 1: was to give up something we were addicted to for
Speaker 1: the semester. A lot of my classmates chose coffee, soda,
Speaker 1: and one or two even chose cigarettes. I chose Facebook.
Speaker 1: When my classmates found out, many of them seemed surprised.
Speaker 1: Most of them said they could never give up Facebook,
Speaker 1: and some even admitted to being addicted to Facebook, like oh,
Speaker 1: I'll quit cigarettes, but Facebook, Yeah, so she continues. For
Speaker 1: the first week or so, it was really hard. I
Speaker 1: found myself to be grouchy and bad tempered, almost like
Speaker 1: I was kicking a chemical habit. I guess I kind
Speaker 1: of was in a way, because social media is primed
Speaker 1: to reward our brains in a way that encourages more
Speaker 1: usage of social media. However, I found something interesting after
Speaker 1: and after the initial withdrawal. I found I was actually
Speaker 1: much happier without social media. After the semester ended, I
Speaker 1: created a new account, but found that I didn't really
Speaker 1: want to use it anymore, and found that it actually
Speaker 1: made me anxious and sometimes even depressed. The same is
Speaker 1: true of other social media platforms, include Instagram. I find
Speaker 1: that I am happier and less anxious and generally more
Speaker 1: productive without them. I still stay in touch with all
Speaker 1: my close friends, many of whom live out of state,
Speaker 1: and I feel that I actually feel more connected to
Speaker 1: those around me without the use of these platforms. Just
Speaker 1: thought i'd chime in with my two cents. Keep up
Speaker 1: the good work. Well thanks for sharing, Hannah. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: have to agree. When I got out of my personal accounts,
Speaker 1: I've I felt a lot better. I felt a lot
Speaker 1: better in so many ways. I still have to have
Speaker 1: work accounts for the show and others, but you know,
Speaker 1: I use them less and I don't use them for
Speaker 1: personal things that I just log in when I have to.
Speaker 1: Basically and Uh, yeah, and I totally identify with this experience. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh, for anyone who is you know out there
Speaker 1: is just toying with the idea. I think we've mentioned
Speaker 1: this before in previous episodes. I can't stress enough the
Speaker 1: value of if you're not going to delete your accounts,
Speaker 1: delete your shortcuts, delete your apps, because I mean one
Speaker 1: way of describing it is like, oh, it makes it
Speaker 1: harder for me to find it, like I have to
Speaker 1: work more to log in. And I think that's absolutely
Speaker 1: key because you're destroying those sort of automatic responses, you know,
Speaker 1: where we all find like your fingers just kind of
Speaker 1: move on their own. It's almost like a wig board
Speaker 1: experience of suddenly you're you're in Facebook, suddenly you're scrolling
Speaker 1: in Facebook, and then you're you know, you're, you're you're
Speaker 1: feeling the roller coaster of of of emotions that is
Speaker 1: going to happen, that initial surge followed by that that
Speaker 1: downward trend. Yeah. Well, one more thing I can say
Speaker 1: that sort of came up when I was emailing back
Speaker 1: and forth with the listener who got in touch about
Speaker 1: his social media experiences. I will say that if you
Speaker 1: find yourself wanting to pull back from the most negative
Speaker 1: aspects of social media, but unable to delete your accounts
Speaker 1: for some reason. Maybe you need them to stay in
Speaker 1: touch or to coordinate on certain issues, or you need
Speaker 1: them for work or whatever. I would say that probably
Speaker 1: the best thing you can do is do everything in
Speaker 1: your power to not consume any algorithmically recommended content on
Speaker 1: these platforms. That means, if you're on Facebook, don't ever
Speaker 1: scroll the feed, Just don't scroll, don't click on anything
Speaker 1: that is recommended or suggested. Know exactly what you're going
Speaker 1: to on the site and go there and just go
Speaker 1: to that. The same thing applies to other sort of
Speaker 1: semi social media platforms. Don't just scroll, don't click recommended
Speaker 1: videos on YouTube. If you're gonna watch a video on YouTube,
Speaker 1: know what you're gonna watch, and then go watch that
Speaker 1: and just that. Likewise, if you're you're thinking of yourself, Oh,
Speaker 1: I wonder what John Hodgman is the tweeting about, just
Speaker 1: go go to his Twitter page. Yeah, don't depend upon
Speaker 1: the stream, the scroll, et cetera. Yeah, don't let it
Speaker 1: decide what you see next. Of course, that's a lot
Speaker 1: easier said than done. I mean, these platforms are designed
Speaker 1: to be very enticing with the automatic recommendation of the
Speaker 1: content you see next. Sometimes you might not even realize
Speaker 1: you're doing it, but you clicked the next video that
Speaker 1: was recommended, or you started scrolling. So it can be
Speaker 1: hard to catch yourself. But to whatever extent it's it's
Speaker 1: in your power to do this. Don't let it tell
Speaker 1: you what to see next. Yeah, it's a continuing struggle,
Speaker 1: and it's a continuing struggle for us. So yeah, we
Speaker 1: encourage you all to just hang in there. Okay. This
Speaker 1: next one is from our listener, Sarah. Sarah says, Hi, guys,
Speaker 1: I just listen to the social media as a bummer episode.
Speaker 1: Coming on the heel of a week long social media cleanse.
Speaker 1: One of the main reasons I still use Facebook is
Speaker 1: to keep up to date with my roller Derby team.
Speaker 1: In fact, because of deleting the app, I missed a
Speaker 1: skate park meet up someone was trying to organize for
Speaker 1: extra practice. In that way, social media directly connects me
Speaker 1: to real life social activities. At the same time, I
Speaker 1: do often find myself scrolling mindlessly, particularly in situations like
Speaker 1: the bus or other times I don't really know anyone.
Speaker 1: It keeps me from talking to new people and meeting
Speaker 1: strangers because it becomes something to turn to in moments
Speaker 1: I could just talk to the person next to me.
Speaker 1: I find it hard to balance these two opposing forces.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to be better about how long I'm on
Speaker 1: the app, but there is a fear that I won't
Speaker 1: see posts I truly do care about, like a Friends
Speaker 1: May your Life announcement or a street festival. I want
Speaker 1: to go to the Friends Shares anyway, keep up the
Speaker 1: good work. I'm a graduate student in genetics and have
Speaker 1: incorporated your podcast into the assignments of a science and
Speaker 1: society class i'm designing. Thanks Sarah, and Sarah also taunts
Speaker 1: us for being uh initially unable to pronounce jarn Lanier's
Speaker 1: last name as Linear because she points out that we
Speaker 1: are in Atlanta, which is just a little bit south
Speaker 1: of Lake Lanier. Yeah, I have to have been. I'd
Speaker 1: never put those two together, you know, I reading his
Speaker 1: name over and over again, I never thought of Lake Lanier. Um,
Speaker 1: And even after I started saying his name correctly, I
Speaker 1: did not associate it with Lake Lanier. Uh So, one
Speaker 1: thing I will say is that this is one of
Speaker 1: the insidious things about platforms, especially Facebook. That Facebook, more
Speaker 1: than all the others I think is the problem here
Speaker 1: because it has it has captured many elements of life
Speaker 1: where it's now just expected that people will be on Facebook. Well,
Speaker 1: it's the model of of disruption, right, instead of disrupting
Speaker 1: a particular market or area of commerce, it's the disruption
Speaker 1: of social interaction, which is is even more insidious. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's I think part of their business model is they
Speaker 1: want people to schedule events on Facebook as and to
Speaker 1: get people to only schedule events through Facebook, so that
Speaker 1: you will be in exactly the situation you'll be worried.
Speaker 1: Oh if I don't log on to Facebook, I'm going
Speaker 1: to miss things that I want to go to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I can see where there's definitely this is a
Speaker 1: great example if there's a value in it, at the
Speaker 1: very least sustaining a certain you know, percentage of the
Speaker 1: population that is not on Facebook and is and and
Speaker 1: and informs people I'm not on Facebook as if nothing
Speaker 1: else to keep this from being the predominant way of
Speaker 1: communicating with each other, you know, I mean it already
Speaker 1: is I've been in the same boat. I've missed stuff
Speaker 1: in real life because I got an invite on Facebook,
Speaker 1: and I never logged into Facebook and never saw it. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking too about say more official things like like
Speaker 1: like school related stuff like thankfully. Uh, you know, I
Speaker 1: get a lot of different communications from my son's school,
Speaker 1: but like Facebook is not the primary uh connection point,
Speaker 1: Like they're still depending on on emails, on on text
Speaker 1: messages and uh and robo calls. You know, it's weird
Speaker 1: to say something nice about robo calls, but at least
Speaker 1: it's not bummer uh in this in this instance anyway.
Speaker 1: Uh So, yeah, it's I I would be far more
Speaker 1: afraid of a situation where everyone is like, oh, make
Speaker 1: sure you've signed up for Facebook so you can get
Speaker 1: updates about your child. Oh man, one more thing. I
Speaker 1: just had a quick thought about the idea of always
Speaker 1: being able to scroll the feed when you're just otherwise
Speaker 1: idol and you're not doing anything. I think there could
Speaker 1: actually be other risks to this too, not just taking
Speaker 1: you out of the moment, out of your surroundings. I
Speaker 1: think this could be establishing bad habits in the brain.
Speaker 1: I just finished reading a book by by the computer
Speaker 1: scientist Cal Newport called Deep Work. It's a it's a
Speaker 1: book that's sort of it's one of the most self
Speaker 1: helpy books I think I've actually enjoyed, but it is.
Speaker 1: It was full of a lot of interesting ideas about
Speaker 1: the value of sustained attention and focus and how a
Speaker 1: lot of our our business and technological world is sapping
Speaker 1: our ability to stay focused on long, deep intensity uses
Speaker 1: of attention. And one of the things he talks about
Speaker 1: is the way that you can always just look at
Speaker 1: your phone whenever you're bored sort of trains your brain
Speaker 1: to have extremely low tolerance for low intensity stimulation. And
Speaker 1: so this also, he thinks, makes us worse at focusing
Speaker 1: on tasks because we have learned that whenever we're feeling like,
Speaker 1: you know, less than peak stimulation, you just look at
Speaker 1: something else. Right, we're potentially forgetting how to be bored,
Speaker 1: and how to how to roll with being bored, how
Speaker 1: to use our imaginations. And I should say, with more
Speaker 1: and more uh people using their phones at the urinal
Speaker 1: and in the bathroom of public bathrooms, we're not reading
Speaker 1: the stall walls and the other wall above the y.
Speaker 1: There's so much, you know, sharpie based ingenuity that is
Speaker 1: just not being appreciated anymore. All right, Let's look at
Speaker 1: this next email. And also I'll also have that that
Speaker 1: perhaps there has been a drop off in the quality
Speaker 1: of of of of restroom graffiti since more people probably
Speaker 1: have phones than have sharpies. Well, I think there's been
Speaker 1: a drop off in quality of all literature. That's one
Speaker 1: of it. No, I don't know if that's true. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna be that negativity bias guy. Okay, let's look
Speaker 1: at this next email. This one comes from case Son. Waiter,
Speaker 1: are you gonna do this? Robert? Sure? I'll read this one, um, dear,
Speaker 1: stuff to blow your mind cast. I just recently listened
Speaker 1: to your social media as a Bummer a podcast and
Speaker 1: wanted to share my experience. I actually just deleted my Facebook, Twitter,
Speaker 1: and Instagram a little over a month ago, while I
Speaker 1: am still on Snapchat occasionally. I have seen an overall
Speaker 1: improvement in my life. I have been having more meaningful conversations,
Speaker 1: connecting with others better, and focusing on life improvements. I've
Speaker 1: been working out and have seen a general increase in
Speaker 1: curiosity and desire for understanding. I have the feeling I
Speaker 1: won't be getting back on social media until I see
Speaker 1: some changes for the better within it. Keep exploring reality, Cason. Well,
Speaker 1: thanks Kayson. Uh do you want to go straight onto
Speaker 1: this next one from Nathan to do you want to
Speaker 1: read this? This is from Nathan. Friends, your show keeps
Speaker 1: me company through the challenging bouts of boredom at work.
Speaker 1: Thank you for your efforts. I felt the need to
Speaker 1: respond to your recent social media episode after listening. Depression
Speaker 1: has been a big part of my life in the past,
Speaker 1: and I took a hard look at the way Facebook
Speaker 1: affected my mood and deleted my account after saying goodbye
Speaker 1: to my friends. I had had that account for a decade,
Speaker 1: registering while in UNI when Facebook was still closed to
Speaker 1: the general public and only available to students. I had
Speaker 1: watched the many ways it changed during the period and
Speaker 1: was very unimpressed with the direction things were headed. Afterwards,
Speaker 1: have again to more carefully dissect other areas of my
Speaker 1: life to extract more fulfillment, ultimately moving across the country
Speaker 1: and setting up my life in an area I knew
Speaker 1: to be heavily community oriented with much better weather. I
Speaker 1: then said about fixing the variety of things that caused
Speaker 1: the bouts of depression, and I can say I am
Speaker 1: I am mostly stable person. Now with a much better
Speaker 1: handle on my mood and life in general. I was
Speaker 1: recently informed by my ESSO that you can now use
Speaker 1: Facebook Messenger without needing a Facebook account, so I have
Speaker 1: the light version of Messenger to keep in contact with
Speaker 1: friends and events. I obviously also use Instagram and read it,
Speaker 1: but delete the apps off my phones every time I
Speaker 1: finished using them, which has reduced my mindless scrolling to
Speaker 1: almost zero. I engage in local community through volunteering and
Speaker 1: in person gatherings. Life without Facebook is bliss. I encourage
Speaker 1: anyone who is able to delete their accounts to do so.
Speaker 1: It has literally turned my life around. Nathan. Wow, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks for getting in touch Nathan. That that really hits home. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's take a look at this next one. That is
Speaker 1: a response just a short response to our episode on
Speaker 1: the Bones of the Plumed Serpent ur geom Oology episode
Speaker 1: about ketzel Koadal. This is from there. Our listener, Bridget
Speaker 1: Bridget says, I enjoyed the show overall, but I really
Speaker 1: emailed to respond to your Godzilla comments near the end
Speaker 1: of the episode. I love the Japanese Godzilla movies. I
Speaker 1: went over two hours out of my way to see
Speaker 1: shin Godzilla in the theater. That's that's that. I also
Speaker 1: agree that the bureaucracy going on in the movie added
Speaker 1: to it. This isn't to say I didn't enjoy Big
Speaker 1: G rampaging through the city. I hope Toho does a sequel. Also,
Speaker 1: if you're fans of the Radioactive Dino, there is a
Speaker 1: great book called The Godzilla Fact Sorry I did not
Speaker 1: underline I'm on my phone. That's okay, bridget. It has
Speaker 1: a lot of history about Big G, Tohoe, actors, directors, producers,
Speaker 1: special effects and so on. Awesome, Yeah, shin Godzilla. We've
Speaker 1: we've mentioned before a recent Japanese Godzilla movie that is
Speaker 1: just enthralling. Uh so much of it is bureaucratic response
Speaker 1: to what is going on. And weirdly enough, the thing
Speaker 1: that it that I've seen recently that reminded me the
Speaker 1: most of is the HBO mini series Chernobyl. Oh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know a lot of lineups here, you know, especially radiation.
Speaker 1: Radiation does play into the sort of the origin of
Speaker 1: of Godzilla as a as a fictional um you know, contemplation.
Speaker 1: But uh, but you know, both both films have a
Speaker 1: lot of like meetings about what is happening and our
Speaker 1: on our in our very enthralling. I give a slightly
Speaker 1: higher rating to Chernobyl for for a few different reasons,
Speaker 1: but but yeah, Shin Godzilla is terrific. All right Now,
Speaker 1: we already did a whole listener mail episode that was
Speaker 1: just responses to our five part series on psychedelics with
Speaker 1: the special focus on psilocybin, and uh we a lot
Speaker 1: of people got in touch with their thoughts and experiences
Speaker 1: after that one. We got some other really good mail
Speaker 1: on that, so I didn't think we could ignore it,
Speaker 1: so I think we will take a look at a
Speaker 1: few more emails that came in about the psychedelic series, right,
Speaker 1: so yeah, so the next few emails are are definitely
Speaker 1: going to deal with psychedelic substances, so just bear that
Speaker 1: in mind. Yeah, uh, should I do this? First one
Speaker 1: from Zerich here hit us with the Zerik email. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is from Zerreg. Zeric says, hey, guys, this was
Speaker 1: a really wonderful series on psychedelics. I really loved it,
Speaker 1: and I hope you have the chance to dedicate more
Speaker 1: future episodes to some more specific topics in the area,
Speaker 1: though at least a short break is probably in order. Uh,
Speaker 1: it might be a while before we come back to
Speaker 1: it in any deep way. Yeah. Um, I'll resist the
Speaker 1: urge to make nine thousand comments and suggestions. But one
Speaker 1: thing that's particularly interesting to me is the relationship between
Speaker 1: classical psychedelics and serotonergic antidepressants such as S sr eyes,
Speaker 1: snur eyes, etcetera. Without boring you with too much neurobiology,
Speaker 1: psychedelics seemed to induce the changes that antidepressants induce over
Speaker 1: weeks or months in just one experience or day. Rather
Speaker 1: than serotonin being the happiness chemical, it would seem that
Speaker 1: these drugs antidepressant effects are more about decreasing it than
Speaker 1: increasing it. Though, as you rightly pointed out, serotonin does
Speaker 1: a ton of diverse things at different receptors, in different
Speaker 1: parts of the brain and in different contexts. Either it's
Speaker 1: a long term elevation with an s s R I
Speaker 1: that causes down regulation of the excessive serotonin signaling, or
Speaker 1: a one time massive stimulation with the classical psychedelics that
Speaker 1: does it, but the result is apparently similar. What remains
Speaker 1: unclear and intriguing to me is exactly what the relationship
Speaker 1: between those mood effects and the sensory gating effects that
Speaker 1: make psychedelics so unique and interesting. Is some think that
Speaker 1: what they have in common is just the idea that
Speaker 1: it's a kind of global reboot of the brain slash mind.
Speaker 1: So I think the answer is probably a lot more
Speaker 1: interesting than that. Here's one idea for a related topic.
Speaker 1: What would a world with normalized psychedelic use actually look like?
Speaker 1: Paullen talks about this a little, but I wish he'd
Speaker 1: explored it a bit more. Should we take the medical route,
Speaker 1: the spiritual and or religious route, a totally secular legalization
Speaker 1: as in a free for all, or something else. Maybe
Speaker 1: they're not mutually exclusive. My instinct is that it would
Speaker 1: be better if psychedelics were not bound to medical, religious,
Speaker 1: or capitalistic institutions, but I don't really know what that
Speaker 1: would look like. I also think it's very important that
Speaker 1: they be introduced and used in safe, educated, enlightening contexts,
Speaker 1: though I don't have a ton of confidence in our
Speaker 1: society's ability to do this kind of thing. Are there
Speaker 1: any precedents? What should the age limit be? Compared to
Speaker 1: Pollen's idea about psychedelics being wasted on the young? Keep
Speaker 1: doing what you're doing, I'm only twenty four, but I've
Speaker 1: been listening to the show for something like ten years
Speaker 1: and it's been a rewarding and consistent part of my life.
Speaker 1: I'm a graduate student in neuroscience currently, and I definitely
Speaker 1: give the show credit for inspiring and motivating me to
Speaker 1: this point and some psychedelics as well. Best Zarek, Well,
Speaker 1: thanks so much THEREK was always delighted to hear, especially
Speaker 1: from from long term listeners, like that, Yeah, really really
Speaker 1: nice to hear that we may have helped inspire you
Speaker 1: to go into the sciences. Now that the part I I,
Speaker 1: you know, react to the most here, of course, It's
Speaker 1: just that that question what would normalize psychedelic use actually
Speaker 1: look like? Um? And I do agree with the with
Speaker 1: his read that it would be better if corporations, um,
Speaker 1: you know, the large religious organizations and in the medical
Speaker 1: industry didn't have you know, a complete strangle hold on
Speaker 1: these substances. But it is difficult to imagine what it
Speaker 1: would look like. I mean, really, I think that the
Speaker 1: models you have to compare it to are the more
Speaker 1: you know, traditional societies such as you know, Amazonian cultures, etcetera,
Speaker 1: or more or ancient societies that we often don't have
Speaker 1: a completely clear picture of how, how or what specific
Speaker 1: psychedelics were involved in their their daily life. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it does make me think about how even though,
Speaker 1: as we discussed in the episode, from a physiological point
Speaker 1: of view, psychedelics are relatively very safe compared to most
Speaker 1: other recreational drugs that people take, and not to say
Speaker 1: there are no risks, but like compared to uh, you know,
Speaker 1: cocaine and stimulants and opioids and all that kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: that the risks are very low. But I don't At
Speaker 1: the same time, I don't think that means that there
Speaker 1: couldn't be really damaging, unhealthy uh systems of use for them.
Speaker 1: I just wonder what if if there was like a
Speaker 1: an industry controlling psychedelics the same way that there's an
Speaker 1: industry controlling tobacco or alcohol somehow that I don't I
Speaker 1: don't know. It's something about that seems like it could
Speaker 1: go to a very bad place. I don't know exactly
Speaker 1: how right. I mean, we've we've we've seen what happens
Speaker 1: when say somebody like say that the CIA tries to
Speaker 1: use a psychedelic for their own purposes, uh, and it's like,
Speaker 1: that's not an enlightened vision of the future. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't think that, you know, ultimately, it's
Speaker 1: not something that that really showed a lot of promise
Speaker 1: from mind control in the long run, and so you
Speaker 1: didn't see programs like mk ultra continue. But but yeah,
Speaker 1: you would hate to see it, you know, controlled by
Speaker 1: a corporation. You would hate to see it controlled by
Speaker 1: like a you know, a religious um organization that was
Speaker 1: using it for more nefarious purposes or ultimately trying to
Speaker 1: use it for the same thing that that MK ultra
Speaker 1: was interested in the Giltra project, interested in controlling people
Speaker 1: through them. Uh, you know, it should be used for
Speaker 1: personal liberation. Uh, you know, I believe that is the stronger,
Speaker 1: more pervasive argument made by uh, you know people throughout
Speaker 1: the decades and most recently in Michael Pollan's book. Um,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's a very this is a very
Speaker 1: imperfect analogy. But I think to something like like yoga
Speaker 1: for instance, like a yoga practice can be very good
Speaker 1: for one's body and state of mind. You can also
Speaker 1: injure yourself through it. If if a teacher doesn't know
Speaker 1: what they're doing, they could potentially help you injure yourself. Um. Likewise,
Speaker 1: you can make comparisons though to more like thoroughly regulated
Speaker 1: practices such as medicine. So yeah, it's it's kind of
Speaker 1: uncharted territory because the price the more primal examples that
Speaker 1: we can look to in the past you had it
Speaker 1: was the domain of the shaman, and the shaman kind
Speaker 1: of fulfilled you know, multiple roles in in a particular society.
Speaker 1: Though above all they were a healer and and in
Speaker 1: Western society, and most of our our healer roles or
Speaker 1: are rather tightly control you know, it's certainly medical healing, uh,
Speaker 1: some of the more you know, various other therapeutic practices
Speaker 1: as well. So it's one of these things where we
Speaker 1: would have to sort of create a new um, a
Speaker 1: new class of of of healer in our society. You
Speaker 1: would really have to bring back some form of shamanism.
Speaker 1: But then who controls the shamans? Right it are they
Speaker 1: a part of some uh you know, larger religious institution
Speaker 1: where they are they corporate in nature? We get back
Speaker 1: to these same problems again. Yeah, whether it's religious organizations,
Speaker 1: corporations and business or governments. I mean the world is
Speaker 1: full of institutions that are inherently interested in promoting their
Speaker 1: own power and control. And uh, and yeah, it seems
Speaker 1: like all kinds of you know, cultural practices or substances
Speaker 1: are seized one way or another by one of these
Speaker 1: institutions primarily. And yeah, it is hard to imagine. I
Speaker 1: think this is a really tough question. I don't know
Speaker 1: if if we have a good answer for it. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, one thing that Poland gets into in the
Speaker 1: book is he talks about going out and finding a
Speaker 1: essentially a shaman, essentially a psychedelic guide to to take
Speaker 1: him on this experience. And he talked a little about how,
Speaker 1: you know, some of the people he scouted, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it was it was an easy pass. You know, it
Speaker 1: was like that I just I don't this is not
Speaker 1: the right person. But other people he was very impressed with. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess that's part of it. Is like
Speaker 1: even if it's completely you know, unregulated in the way
Speaker 1: that it's going to be, it is currently you know,
Speaker 1: largely unregulated. And since it is you know completely uh
Speaker 1: you know underground, you're gonna have uh, you know, it's
Speaker 1: just going to be the market of of of Shaman's
Speaker 1: maybe it's a review based or is just word of mouth.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but but but I guess that's a
Speaker 1: section of the book where he does get into the
Speaker 1: question a little bit. So anyway, yeah, kind of rambling there,
Speaker 1: but especially since I have no answer. Uh so, you know,
Speaker 1: the short answer, though, is it's an open question. All right,
Speaker 1: I guess we need to take a break, but when
Speaker 1: we come back, we'll do a few more of these
Speaker 1: Psychedelic listener mails and then go on to a few
Speaker 1: other topics than Alright, we're back. So here's a short
Speaker 1: one in response to our Psychedelics episode. This is from
Speaker 1: our listener, Tatiana. Tatiana says, hey, guys, short time binge listener,
Speaker 1: love the show, especially enjoyed the five part series on psychedelics.
Speaker 1: Do you guys have any plans to delve deeper into
Speaker 1: talking about the self? I know you guys referenced Alan
Speaker 1: wattson the Psychedelic series once or twice. Maybe you've already
Speaker 1: done an episode on him. But like I said, short
Speaker 1: time listener, I don't think we have no never he
Speaker 1: comes up from time to time, you know, because he
Speaker 1: had something to say about a lot of these a
Speaker 1: lot of the issues that we talked about on the show,
Speaker 1: but but never like a real like Alan Watts themed episode.
Speaker 1: He would be interesting to cover. Yeah, he's uh, kind
Speaker 1: of like Terrence mckinna. He's one of those people who's
Speaker 1: a very captivating public speaker. I find listening to his
Speaker 1: talks is just kind of magical. He's He's definitely an
Speaker 1: individual who I've I've heard more than I've I've read.
Speaker 1: Uh and and I still smile whenever I hear a
Speaker 1: sample from Alan Watts pop up in a mix sort
Speaker 1: of electronic track or even occasionally an industrial track. I
Speaker 1: bet he is. His lectures are one of the most
Speaker 1: highly sampled of any Yeah, I would, I would, I
Speaker 1: would bet so it's like him and Blade on her.
Speaker 1: But his voice is very musical and very whimsical. But
Speaker 1: wise Yeah, yeah, he sounds like a wizard. But anyway, so, uh,
Speaker 1: she continues. I think his book The Taboo Against Knowing
Speaker 1: Who You Are would be an excellent follow up to
Speaker 1: the series and mail bag. The book eloquently sums up
Speaker 1: those ineffable experiences on psychedelics into a cohesive theory about
Speaker 1: the nature of reality and existence at least to me.
Speaker 1: I firmly believe so so many people could benefit from
Speaker 1: understanding Watt's worldview. And I'm tired of sounding like a
Speaker 1: hippie to people when I tried to explain it. Please,
Speaker 1: you guys have much better words than I. I I don't
Speaker 1: know about that, but oh. She also says she subscribed
Speaker 1: to Invention. Good work, Tatiana. Everybody should follow your lead
Speaker 1: and subscribe to Invention. Yeah. I would love to do
Speaker 1: an episode on Watts in the future. And uh, and
Speaker 1: I've I've given up trying to not sound like a hippie.
Speaker 1: I think that's probably just what it's going to be
Speaker 1: like for the duration. All Right, you want to do
Speaker 1: this next email? This one? I know this one, got
Speaker 1: your got your anten, I poked up. This one comes
Speaker 1: to us from the home dad abroad. That is how
Speaker 1: this listener identifies themselves. Hey, those of the blown mind.
Speaker 1: Although I am painfully aware that none of my emails
Speaker 1: have elected enough interest to make it on a listener
Speaker 1: mail episode, it is still my hope that they were
Speaker 1: read and may have sparked some type of response around
Speaker 1: the office. Regardless of the past, I do have a
Speaker 1: question that I would love to have addressed through a
Speaker 1: means which would expose others to the possibility. Extending out
Speaker 1: from previous and controversial set of episodes delving into the
Speaker 1: bicameral mind. You yourselves have occasionally brought up the idea
Speaker 1: of the bicameral mind hypothesis when discussing many other topics. However,
Speaker 1: it has largely been in jest, or at least in
Speaker 1: a lightened hearted manner um. I would say that it's
Speaker 1: sometimes come up in a lighthearted or addressful manner in
Speaker 1: in other episodes, but I think when we I would argue,
Speaker 1: when we discussed them originally, you know, we we gave
Speaker 1: it a lot of serious consideration. Yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 1: would say it's still one of those things that I'm
Speaker 1: not convinced by the idea like it, you know, it
Speaker 1: it asks you to accept a lot, though I think
Speaker 1: he makes a really interesting case. So it's one of
Speaker 1: those that I'm not convinced to buy, but I take
Speaker 1: seriously and remain interested in and would always be open
Speaker 1: to evidence for though I'm not super hopeful that evidence
Speaker 1: for it will ever show up. Alright, Your recent episode
Speaker 1: on Psychedelics and the following feedback episode often referred to
Speaker 1: experiences on psychedelics encompassing in some case a sense of
Speaker 1: ego loss, and in other cases as having encounters with God.
Speaker 1: In many of Your Your and other criticisms of Julian
Speaker 1: Jane's ideas, there has been the claim that, even if
Speaker 1: his ideas are correct, there is no way to test
Speaker 1: for an older form of mental structure in which the
Speaker 1: subconscious mind speaks to the conscious mind as a disconnected being,
Speaker 1: since we are not built that way. And yet here
Speaker 1: exists substances which allow one to view themselves from without,
Speaker 1: substances that seem capable of freeing God from the confines
Speaker 1: of our deep unconscious selves for us to examine an
Speaker 1: even question. Additionally, as we know, ego loss is the
Speaker 1: separation from the sense of self, which defines our own
Speaker 1: conscious awareness of who we are. In James book and
Speaker 1: other works, he relates the idea of the God voice
Speaker 1: coming from within and describes humans as experiencing the world
Speaker 1: from a surface perspective, with longer term planning coming from
Speaker 1: that personal God voice or the God voice of a
Speaker 1: stronger personality like that of a leader priest. To spell
Speaker 1: it out from a quick surface vantage point, that there
Speaker 1: would seem to be distinct similarities between the effects of
Speaker 1: psychedelics and the hypothesized functioning of the bicameral mind. To
Speaker 1: further argue this relationship, psychedelic experiences don't seem to be
Speaker 1: burdened by language, but instead by imagery and visualizations that
Speaker 1: are open to interpretation. This is much like the non
Speaker 1: linguistic side of the brain, which is still capable of
Speaker 1: communication even with a severed corpus colossum, only through visual means. Anyway,
Speaker 1: there is a question in there somewhere the home data abroad. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's an interesting idea. I don't know if I'm fully
Speaker 1: following all the way, but but I see some of
Speaker 1: the connections you're making there. Yeah. And um, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: Terence Terence McKenna, who had discussed in Psychedelics episodes a bit.
Speaker 1: You know, he actually references Jane's work a few times,
Speaker 1: once in Food of the Gods, but also in some
Speaker 1: of his other writings and talks that I've been looking at. Um.
Speaker 1: But in a nutshell, mckinneth thought that the concept was
Speaker 1: very interesting. I mean, James and McKenna both were contemplating
Speaker 1: the same thing, right, The emergence of the modern mind
Speaker 1: from its more primal predecessor. And as we've discussed, this
Speaker 1: is a shift that that did occur over the course
Speaker 1: of our evolution. I mean the details of it in
Speaker 1: the you know, the exact mechanism of it or or
Speaker 1: what we're so so many people were trying to figure out.
Speaker 1: But I mean, certainly the consciousness, the state of mind
Speaker 1: that we have today is not the state of mind
Speaker 1: that are you know, are more ancient ancestors had. At
Speaker 1: least you can get into discussions about where the change occurs,
Speaker 1: how gradual the changes. But certainly, uh, I think we
Speaker 1: can we can state, uh, you know, on a quickly
Speaker 1: that that the way that we think now is not
Speaker 1: the way that our pre human ancestors thought. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, one thing that McKenna and Jane's both have
Speaker 1: in common is that they posit a sort of point
Speaker 1: of shift with with a with a cause that can
Speaker 1: be identified through which modern consciousness in humans came into play,
Speaker 1: as opposed to a lot of other people would probably
Speaker 1: assume that the way the human mind is now is
Speaker 1: something that sort of gradually and continuously evolved over time.
Speaker 1: There wasn't like a point of shift where something changed
Speaker 1: in a really important way, right, But even in a
Speaker 1: more gradual scenario, you do end up like contemplating, like, well, okay,
Speaker 1: is is everybody at the same rate in this race
Speaker 1: towards modern consciousness? Or is it You're gonna have a
Speaker 1: situation where some people are are more h you know,
Speaker 1: modern le conscious than others. Yeah, it is weird. I
Speaker 1: mean it's hard to imagine, you assume, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, is there even a way to measure levels
Speaker 1: of consciousness? That seems it seems hard to do. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: um so, Yeah. Then mckinna does bring up James's work
Speaker 1: in some of his own writings. McKenna's main criticism, though,
Speaker 1: was that Jane's rarely considered hallucinatory substances in his hypothesis. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, it comes up a time or two in
Speaker 1: Jane's key work, but really almost in passing. And you know, granted,
Speaker 1: James tend to tended to focus on the areas and
Speaker 1: languages of of of his own expertise, and was rather
Speaker 1: upfront about that, like, you know, pointing out that he
Speaker 1: did not speak Mandarins so he or read Mandarin, so
Speaker 1: he did not explore Chinese culture. For examples of the
Speaker 1: bicameral mind. UM. And mckinna was, of course laser focused
Speaker 1: on the on the role of psychedelics in their role
Speaker 1: in the past, the present, in the future of our species.
Speaker 1: So he seems to have admired a lot about bicameralism,
Speaker 1: but felt that, you know, that this was a glaring
Speaker 1: hole in the overall work. Um, which I mean, I
Speaker 1: I kind of agree with McKenna on on that, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean too well. I mean, he yeah, he's naturally
Speaker 1: got a very hallucinogen centric view, right, and and I
Speaker 1: mean it's a strong case to be made for the
Speaker 1: use of these substances in various ancient societies. And if
Speaker 1: you're trying to form a model of uh, you know,
Speaker 1: like James's model, uh, it does seem that you should
Speaker 1: incorporate hallucogens in there in some way, shape or form.
Speaker 1: But anyway, UM, I guess the other way you could
Speaker 1: look at it is if someone, some enterprising person out
Speaker 1: there wanted to, you know, create a combined theory of
Speaker 1: like McKinnon bicameralism, um. You know, that would that would
Speaker 1: be interesting. I'd probably read that if you put it
Speaker 1: in essay form now I do think the email are
Speaker 1: too an approximation basically identified. My you know, main issue
Speaker 1: with with the bicameral mind hypothesis, and would also somewhat
Speaker 1: apply to the mckinna hypothesis, is that to whatever extent
Speaker 1: the case they pers and already lines up with known evidence.
Speaker 1: It's one of those things that I won't I'm not
Speaker 1: going to say it's impossible to have, you know, better evidence.
Speaker 1: That people use the word prove, I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: know if prove is ever a very useful word in
Speaker 1: like historical scientific theories, because you're not dealing with like
Speaker 1: a mathematical proof, but if you're just talking about like
Speaker 1: presenting you know, really conclusive evidence for some kind of
Speaker 1: historical hypothesis, and that is sometimes done in you know,
Speaker 1: physical historical sciences like paleontology and stuff. I won't say
Speaker 1: it's impossible, but I will say I imagine it's going
Speaker 1: to be very hard, even if one of these theories
Speaker 1: happens to be correct, to find the evidence that would
Speaker 1: show that it was correct. You could you can kind
Speaker 1: of like tinker around at the margins, you know, and
Speaker 1: say like, oh, here's something that would kind of fit
Speaker 1: with what with what chains or what McKenna was saying.
Speaker 1: But unfortunately, as like fun and interesting as these theories
Speaker 1: can be, I think there's it's very likely there's just
Speaker 1: always going to be the evidence gap. They're like, how
Speaker 1: do you go farther with it? Now? One key difference
Speaker 1: between mckinna and UH and James is of course that
Speaker 1: that James was primarily interested in the past, but but
Speaker 1: mckinna was also extremely interested in the future. So I
Speaker 1: think that like the other side of of mckinna's writings, Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, concerned the question of where are we going
Speaker 1: from here? And how could psychedelic substances play a role?
Speaker 1: How how many they have not only played a role
Speaker 1: in the evolution of consciousness, how could they play a
Speaker 1: role in the necessary continued evolution of consciousness? Could they
Speaker 1: help us reach a place that we need to achieve
Speaker 1: in order to avoid the essentially, you know, the catastrophes
Speaker 1: of the modern age and and ultimately even like leave
Speaker 1: the planet and become a planetary species something that he said,
Speaker 1: he argues is is incompatible with our current state of consciousness? Yeah,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, yeah, And I mean he he had a
Speaker 1: lot of resting metaphors about that kind of thing, like
Speaker 1: he remember one talk of his I listened to where
Speaker 1: he talked about the the brain being a computer that's
Speaker 1: running an operating system, and that operating system is culture. Uh,
Speaker 1: and that you know that psychedelics are like a way
Speaker 1: of wiping the hard drive, like erasing the operating system
Speaker 1: and getting back to the deeper level of the machine,
Speaker 1: which obviously was the thing that he was like Advocating
Speaker 1: metaphors like that can be really compelling, but they also
Speaker 1: show that McKenna was not just concerned Yeah, like you're saying,
Speaker 1: like Jane's with coming up with the theory that explains
Speaker 1: some mysteries about the past and about the human mind,
Speaker 1: but was he was an advocate for a worldview He
Speaker 1: was like human humanity should be more like this. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: Though it doesn't make it brings them back to our
Speaker 1: previous email talking about who who will be the masters
Speaker 1: of the psychedelic substances? If you're making an argument that
Speaker 1: um that that a psychedelic evolution is necessary for in
Speaker 1: a planetary trap all um an interplanetary culture, Uh, I
Speaker 1: mean interplanetary travel is a megaproject generally best left to
Speaker 1: major institutions that can control people, or at least, you know,
Speaker 1: can control massive projects. Uh So, if you're going with
Speaker 1: that argument, maybe, uh, the psychedelics should be in in
Speaker 1: uh in control of of like you know, corporate or
Speaker 1: or governmental shamans. I don't know, I don't particularly like
Speaker 1: that that idea, but if you're if you're lumping uh,
Speaker 1: you know, psychedelics and space travel together, Uh, it sounds
Speaker 1: like that's where you would place the trust. All right. Next,
Speaker 1: I think we're gonna look at a couple of messages
Speaker 1: from our episode about Surviving a Great Falls is an
Speaker 1: episode where we talked about stories of people surviving falling
Speaker 1: from extremely great heights, such as out of an airplane,
Speaker 1: and like, what do these stories tend to have in common? Uh? So?
Speaker 1: The first one is in response to what we mentioned
Speaker 1: about how being bigger is worse when you're falling, even
Speaker 1: though it increases your surface area, which should increase your
Speaker 1: drag through the air. Why does gravity win out over
Speaker 1: drag as you get bigger? Like? How come? I think
Speaker 1: it was Haldane who said, you know, the mouse will
Speaker 1: survive a fall down a mind shaft, but a horse
Speaker 1: will splat uh, will splash or something. This is from
Speaker 1: our listener, Jeremy. Jeremy says, Hi, Robert and Joe, big
Speaker 1: fan of the show. Just a quick comment on the
Speaker 1: episode about surviving a fall. The reason why if you're bigger,
Speaker 1: gravity wins over air resistance is because mass goes up
Speaker 1: on the cube, but surface area only goes up on
Speaker 1: the square. Kind regards Jeremy short to the point, and
Speaker 1: I think that's correct. I think that's a similar problem
Speaker 1: you encounter when you imagine organisms getting bigger and bigger
Speaker 1: and having more of a problem dissipating heat from their bodies, right,
Speaker 1: because as they grow, as they get up there, their
Speaker 1: their mass goes up in a cubic way, which means
Speaker 1: they're going to have more and more heat issues inside
Speaker 1: the body. But the surface area on which to dissipate
Speaker 1: that heat only goes up on a square. All right.
Speaker 1: Just when comes to us from Phil, Greetings, Robert and Joe.
Speaker 1: I just finished listening to your episode how to Survive
Speaker 1: a Great Fall. It reminded me of the two thousand
Speaker 1: nine TV remake of Day of the Triffids. Towards the
Speaker 1: beginning of the film, a massive solar eruption renders everyone
Speaker 1: on a particular flight blind, including the pilots, save for
Speaker 1: one man played by Eddie Izard, who happens to be
Speaker 1: napping at the time. As the plane goes down, Iszard
Speaker 1: takes this opportunity to grab as many flotation devices as
Speaker 1: possible and pat himself within the airplane bathroom. The plane
Speaker 1: crashes and Izard finds himself to be the sole survivor.
Speaker 1: Based on what I learned in the podcast from anecdotal evidence,
Speaker 1: this seems like he could be a viable option for survival,
Speaker 1: albeit a just wanted to share this tidbit as I
Speaker 1: believe I've heard you guys mentioned both Iszard and Day
Speaker 1: of the Triffids in the past, and it seems to
Speaker 1: tie in neatly with the episode. Hope you both found
Speaker 1: this interesting. Keep up the great work, Phil. I have
Speaker 1: to admit I have I've never read nor seen any
Speaker 1: of that adaptations of Day of the Triffids, but I
Speaker 1: know that I should. I know that this is uh.
Speaker 1: This is a key hole in my like my sci
Speaker 1: fi key hole key hole that is, it is a
Speaker 1: It is a is a notable hole in my viewing history,
Speaker 1: but also potentially a way that I might unlock new
Speaker 1: thoughts and ideas if I were just to finally view it.
Speaker 1: Good save there. Okay, this next one comes from our
Speaker 1: listener Josh. This is also about falling out of an airplane.
Speaker 1: Robert and Joe just finished listening to your episode on
Speaker 1: how to Survive a Great Fall. As always, it was fantastic.
Speaker 1: Leve all your work and your podcast is what got
Speaker 1: me started on podcast in general. I'm running today about
Speaker 1: a personal connection to the idea of landing on snow safely.
Speaker 1: In the nineteen fifties, my grandfather was in the army
Speaker 1: and based out of Alaska. His unit was on ski
Speaker 1: patrol across Alaska, watching for Russian activity. The belief of
Speaker 1: his commanders at the time was that if the Russians
Speaker 1: were to attack Alaska, they could have troops jump out
Speaker 1: of a plane at low altitude with no parachute and
Speaker 1: land on the snowpack fairly safely. They estimated any such
Speaker 1: Russian unit would be fifty combat effective after no parachute.
Speaker 1: After a no parachute jump onto a snow pack. I
Speaker 1: suppose what they would give up in casualties they would
Speaker 1: gain in the surprise advantage of not having big targets
Speaker 1: hanging in the air. I wish I could provide more
Speaker 1: details with My grandfather is long passed, and I just
Speaker 1: remember the story he told us when we were young.
Speaker 1: Thanks for all you do, Josh. I was looking for
Speaker 1: evidence of this. I couldn't find anything to back up
Speaker 1: the idea that the Russians would actually intentionally jump out
Speaker 1: of planes without parachutes. But I did find other references
Speaker 1: on the Internet to this rumor as like being shared
Speaker 1: by members of the American Armed forces. Uh so it
Speaker 1: does look to me like at least some American you know,
Speaker 1: military leaders thought this. Well you could imagine it being,
Speaker 1: you know, something that would be factored into the Cold
Speaker 1: War competition of just saying like, okay, here's something that
Speaker 1: is feasible. Maybe they are doing it, or I mean,
Speaker 1: it could also be something where the Russians, uh where
Speaker 1: either side really could have could have just put it
Speaker 1: out there as a as a bit of false information
Speaker 1: to discuss this before. It's like the Russians have psychic assassins,
Speaker 1: Well we need psychic assassins. Actually nobody had psychic assassins.
Speaker 1: But it's just like one of those uh, pointless excitations
Speaker 1: of the other side's fomo about certain war powers. Maybe
Speaker 1: we should be throwing people out of airplanes into snow banks. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, if the enemy is doing it, then we
Speaker 1: need to look into it as well. All right, here's
Speaker 1: another one. This one comes to us from Cindy, Hi, Robert,
Speaker 1: and Joe. This is the third time I have written.
Speaker 1: I know you guys get tons of emails, so you
Speaker 1: can't right back. So I'm going to trust it when
Speaker 1: you say that you still read all of them. You
Speaker 1: may already be aware of this book or even own
Speaker 1: it already, but if not, I highly recommend it. It
Speaker 1: is quite simply awesome, and it is well written as well.
Speaker 1: I believe it would be up at least one of
Speaker 1: your alleys. I think it would be up both of
Speaker 1: our alleys. Uh. The book is titled Paperbacks from Hell
Speaker 1: by Grady Hendricks and Uh. I have not picked up
Speaker 1: a copy of this yet, but it is a subtitle
Speaker 1: The Twisted History of seventies and eighties Horror Fiction, and
Speaker 1: it seems to be to revolve entirely or around like
Speaker 1: the amazing, often skull based artwork that you find on
Speaker 1: these old paperbacks, paperbacks that just that enraptured me when
Speaker 1: I was a child, and still whenever I encounter them,
Speaker 1: either in a used bookstore, uh on a like, or
Speaker 1: if I'm on Amazon just looking around at old books,
Speaker 1: or if I am at a beach house and I
Speaker 1: find one of these squirreled away, I instantly geek out.
Speaker 1: So this does look amazing, all right. We got a
Speaker 1: couple of emails about our episode on the Electric micro Bland.
Speaker 1: This first one was from Jamie. It includes a photo.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry that you out there can't see it. We'll
Speaker 1: try to describe it. Jamie says, Hey, guys, just listen
Speaker 1: to your episode on the Electric micro Bland and heard
Speaker 1: you talking about the garden gnome with light up eyes.
Speaker 1: Now this was something I think we didn't talk about
Speaker 1: having seen. We just proposed, right, yeah, that it must exist. Okay,
Speaker 1: Jamie's got the inside scoop. Jamie says, my sister in
Speaker 1: law has a fear of garden gnomes. So one day
Speaker 1: when I was in a local grocery store and happened
Speaker 1: upon this electric garden gnome, I had to take a
Speaker 1: photo to share with her, and now I can share
Speaker 1: it with you too. Imagine looking out into your garden
Speaker 1: to see these glowing eyes staring back at you. Thanks
Speaker 1: for another show, Jamie, and Jamie attaches a photo that
Speaker 1: is a regular sort of I don't know your stone
Speaker 1: colored garden noome with the beard and the cute little
Speaker 1: stubby fingers, except has these nightmare welding goggle eyes with
Speaker 1: with the it's got the look inside of like the
Speaker 1: highly reflective backing with the powerful led bowl. But I
Speaker 1: don't know. It looks like it would shine through your soul. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it looks like it looks like the dead lights. That's
Speaker 1: what they looked like. Um. It is a horrifying gnome
Speaker 1: if I've ever seen one, But I'm glad that Jamie
Speaker 1: sent it in. Do you want to do this? Next
Speaker 1: one from Kegan? Should we close out here? Sure, let's
Speaker 1: do it. Hi, Robert and Joe, I've been listening to
Speaker 1: your podcast for a bit more than a year and
Speaker 1: a half now, occupying my time at a variety of
Speaker 1: jobs between parking rental cars and working on governmental contracts.
Speaker 1: I love listening to your insights on into all the
Speaker 1: all the different topics and thought experiments you cover, But
Speaker 1: one that I particularly love is when Robert gets into
Speaker 1: Dungeons and Dragons creatures and either their feasibility in the
Speaker 1: real world creatures that may have inspired them, or just
Speaker 1: how this topic could make a great dungeon creature adventure.
Speaker 1: I'm curious, Robert, have you ever thought about doing a
Speaker 1: more D and D related episode or possibly starting up
Speaker 1: a personal podcast delving into such things, possibly a Facebook
Speaker 1: group that homebrews based on your episodes. Uh. Dungeons and
Speaker 1: Dragons is a hobby close to my heart and bring
Speaker 1: in bringing real world inspirations into it or getting into
Speaker 1: interesting real world topics because of it makes me just giddy.
Speaker 1: Your most recent episode, Electric microbe Land, is already giving
Speaker 1: me a few ideas for a news that can shoot
Speaker 1: out wires to either drain its enemies or pump them
Speaker 1: full of electricity and use this ability to heal its neighbors,
Speaker 1: regardless of whether you decide to make something separate or
Speaker 1: interject a reference every once in a while. Thanks for
Speaker 1: bringing a favorite hobby of mine into such an amazing podcast, Robert,
Speaker 1: and thank you for asking so many questions when it
Speaker 1: comes up. Joe, keep on rolling strong, Keagan, Oh well,
Speaker 1: thanks Keegan. Um Yeah, I mean I love talking about
Speaker 1: you know, the Dungeons and Dragons mythos, So you know,
Speaker 1: to whatever extent we can incorporate more entries from the
Speaker 1: Monster Manual in the future, I would I would love
Speaker 1: that we have talked about potentially doing an episode on
Speaker 1: like Dungeons and Dragons and role playing in sort of
Speaker 1: the psychology of it. I've kind of done a little
Speaker 1: uh uh in nosing around for potential sources on that UM.
Speaker 1: But I can say, you know, without a shadow of
Speaker 1: doubt that that more monsters will come up on the
Speaker 1: show in the future. I'm not sure which ones, but
Speaker 1: there's just so many great monsters in the in the
Speaker 1: in the Monster Manual, no doubt. I keep getting envious
Speaker 1: that this is gonna be like the saddest, nerdiest statement
Speaker 1: anybody has ever made. But it's that I've always wanted
Speaker 1: to play D and D. Yeah, I mean, it's it
Speaker 1: can be hard to find, you know, the right opportunity
Speaker 1: to I went for like what twenty years or more
Speaker 1: without playing probably more probably like twenty five years between
Speaker 1: playing it in UM like junior high and then playing
Speaker 1: it again as an adult. So it's but it's it's
Speaker 1: still there. It's it's thriving it's uh, and you know
Speaker 1: you can. It's more it's more publicly accessible and acceptable
Speaker 1: these days. I feel I've been around people playing it,
Speaker 1: and I may have mentioned this on the show before,
Speaker 1: but something that always struck me about it is that,
Speaker 1: maybe more so than any other activity I'd ever witnessed,
Speaker 1: it seemed like a thing that could be magical if
Speaker 1: you have the right group, but that one person can
Speaker 1: easily completely ruin it. Yeah, I mean it is a
Speaker 1: social my my philosophy on it anyway, is it it
Speaker 1: is a social communal exercise and and and as such, Yeah,
Speaker 1: everybody has to be kind of on the same wavelength.
Speaker 1: Everyone has to You've got to have the group has
Speaker 1: to have a certain vibe for it to work. So
Speaker 1: I've talked to people who are like, yeah, I tried it,
Speaker 1: and I felt like the d M was a bit
Speaker 1: Tyranne Nicole or you know, some people were taking it
Speaker 1: serious and some people were goofy about it, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, that's that is one of the challenges. You
Speaker 1: gotta find the right group. You got to find a
Speaker 1: you know, a group that you fit in with, either
Speaker 1: in you know, in real life, in a physical gaming setting,
Speaker 1: or even if you're doing something remote, which a lot
Speaker 1: of people do these days. All right, we have one
Speaker 1: last email, and it brings us back, as all things should,
Speaker 1: to the Sacred Mountain. Right, let's go up that slope.
Speaker 1: This is from Kyle. Kyle says, Hi, guys, I'm still
Speaker 1: at work, but couldn't resist your call to mountaineers as
Speaker 1: I have a personal story to share related to your
Speaker 1: Sacred Mountain episodes. So I'll make this a quick one.
Speaker 1: I hiked to Everest base camp in fifteen and had
Speaker 1: a very strange experience the night before we arrived at
Speaker 1: base camp over five thousand meters or seventeen thousand feet,
Speaker 1: I woke in the middle of the night and completely
Speaker 1: believed time was running backwards, a feeling that is difficult
Speaker 1: to describe the way it involved, a panic sensation as
Speaker 1: though I would lose my prog rest by having to
Speaker 1: rewind my previous grueling day of hiking, possibly backwards, and
Speaker 1: a feeling of total helplessness. I remember walking back and forth,
Speaker 1: practicing walking, checking that time was indeed working. I think
Speaker 1: I convinced myself time was okay when I saw somebody
Speaker 1: else walking perfectly normally, not backwards, to the toilet, not
Speaker 1: what I would call a toilet. I think the strange
Speaker 1: experience lasted about five to ten minutes or uh he
Speaker 1: sugg maybe minus ten minutes, so not exactly quick. The
Speaker 1: next day I was fine, relatively as I was already
Speaker 1: suffering minor headaches from that altitude. I asked around in
Speaker 1: the morning and most of the experienced hikers and locals
Speaker 1: thought it was a weird one too. A Serba recommended
Speaker 1: that lots of garlic and from memory, I think this
Speaker 1: affects dilation of blood capillaries. Definitely required fact checking. It
Speaker 1: seemed to help anyway, as I did not experience any
Speaker 1: more hallucinations over the next week or so. On the
Speaker 1: way down side, note, just imagine the smell of a
Speaker 1: nineteen year old guy who has not showered properly in
Speaker 1: two weeks, heavily eating garlic with daily strenuous activity. I
Speaker 1: was almost proud. I was nineteen years old at the time,
Speaker 1: traveling with some friends from the Raise and Give Society
Speaker 1: from the University of Leeds, UK, with no mental illness
Speaker 1: and was relatively fit. To date, I have not experienced
Speaker 1: any similar reality bending episode, and in the end it
Speaker 1: had caused me no harm, though I confess I am
Speaker 1: tempted sometimes double checked the bedside clock if I stir
Speaker 1: in the night. I've never emailed you guys before, though
Speaker 1: you have accompanied me in my headphones for many years now,
Speaker 1: I believe, even perhaps on my Himalayan hike before my
Speaker 1: phone died, and writing in has been on my perpetual
Speaker 1: to do list. So I would like to say thank
Speaker 1: you to the whole team. I recommend you and your
Speaker 1: other podcasts whenever in conversation. Uh, and I drop a
Speaker 1: fact theory explanation for our weird universe that you guys
Speaker 1: have armed me with all the best. Kyle, Oh, well
Speaker 1: that's not that's great to hear. I mean, the the
Speaker 1: last part the trials and the mountains informative to hear.
Speaker 1: But but I can see that that was that was
Speaker 1: an ordeal. Yeah, well, I mean it was part of
Speaker 1: what we're talking about, like this question about the effects
Speaker 1: of altitude on possible hallucinations, especially in people who didn't
Speaker 1: experience hallucinations in other contexts. Yeah, that's interesting. And then
Speaker 1: also like the I assume the effects of like all
Speaker 1: that um that hiking and climbing on the mental state,
Speaker 1: you know it reminds me of you know, we we've
Speaker 1: discussed dreams again recently, but when you've when I've been
Speaker 1: in the water on a boat or in the surf,
Speaker 1: and then you have that sensation of remaining in it
Speaker 1: and it kind of affects your your your mental state
Speaker 1: and even your dreams. I wonder if that's playing a
Speaker 1: role here to this idea of of marching forward and
Speaker 1: that being a rate of passage through time. Has an
Speaker 1: interesting uh, interesting bit of listener mail there. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: there's still more. That's the sad part. We we were
Speaker 1: not able to get to all of it. There's an
Speaker 1: excellent fatberg a listener mail. We're just going to have
Speaker 1: to hold till next time. But let's let's try not
Speaker 1: to forget that, right, But we're gonna put it. We're
Speaker 1: gonna put it away in the fat bird cooler and
Speaker 1: we'll return to it in the meantime. Hey, everybody there,
Speaker 1: there are plenty of other episodes of Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind over at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot
Speaker 1: com and if you want to look up invention, that's
Speaker 1: it Invention pod dot com. Those are the I guess
Speaker 1: you could say the twin mother ships that you can
Speaker 1: check out Those are the O and OH websites for
Speaker 1: our show. But of course you can find our shows
Speaker 1: just about anywhere wherever you get your podcast, and we
Speaker 1: we asked that wherever you do get them, if there's
Speaker 1: a way to rate, review and subscribe to our shows,
Speaker 1: just do that. That's a great way to have help us.
Speaker 1: And of course just tell folks about it about these
Speaker 1: shows in the real world. That also helps big time.
Speaker 1: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer, Maya Cole.
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other to suggest
Speaker 1: topic for the future to maybe have your mail featured
Speaker 1: on future listener Mail episode, you can email us at
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