1
00:00:03,800 --> 00:00:05,000
Speaker 1: From peat Fish Productions.

2
00:00:05,040 --> 00:00:05,680
Speaker 2: It's the gist.

3
00:00:05,760 --> 00:00:08,440
Speaker 3: I'm Mike Pesca today on the show. In the Spiel,

4
00:00:08,600 --> 00:00:13,680
Speaker 3: we tackle this ponderable cities getting it wrong, thus thrusting

5
00:00:13,720 --> 00:00:17,640
Speaker 3: the citizenry into the position of wondering can government ever

6
00:00:17,840 --> 00:00:21,599
Speaker 3: get it right? But first, there's a guy named Peter

7
00:00:21,720 --> 00:00:25,319
Speaker 3: McIndoe who was born in rural Arkansas went on to

8
00:00:25,400 --> 00:00:28,800
Speaker 3: start a movement. And this movement was we think tongue

9
00:00:28,840 --> 00:00:29,280
Speaker 3: in cheek?

10
00:00:29,480 --> 00:00:30,320
Speaker 1: Is he serious?

11
00:00:30,800 --> 00:00:34,239
Speaker 3: There are guys who are serious about stupider things than

12
00:00:34,240 --> 00:00:38,559
Speaker 3: Peter macindo's movement. Peter McIndoe sought to convince us and

13
00:00:38,640 --> 00:00:41,720
Speaker 3: the world that birds weren't real. It was the birds

14
00:00:41,840 --> 00:00:44,440
Speaker 3: Aren't Real movement. They would show up in different cities,

15
00:00:44,560 --> 00:00:47,159
Speaker 3: they would have rallies and mostly young people would come

16
00:00:47,200 --> 00:00:49,760
Speaker 3: out and try to claim that birds aren't real. They're

17
00:00:49,760 --> 00:00:54,320
Speaker 3: replaced by the government, huge conspiracy. I think it's a joke,

18
00:00:54,680 --> 00:00:57,520
Speaker 3: could be a mass improv movement. But like I said,

19
00:00:57,600 --> 00:00:59,440
Speaker 3: I would have thought that about the lizard people in

20
00:00:59,480 --> 00:01:03,600
Speaker 3: the flatter if those flat earthers and lizard people weren't real.

21
00:01:03,800 --> 00:01:05,720
Speaker 3: I mean, lizard people aren't real, but the people who

22
00:01:05,760 --> 00:01:08,560
Speaker 3: believe in lizard people are the most wonderful people of

23
00:01:08,600 --> 00:01:13,080
Speaker 3: the world, and they're real. Peter McIndoe got support, he

24
00:01:13,160 --> 00:01:17,560
Speaker 3: got attention, and then Peter McIndoe died, and he's with

25
00:01:17,640 --> 00:01:18,119
Speaker 3: me now.

26
00:01:18,319 --> 00:01:22,640
Speaker 2: Hello, Peter, glad to be joining you from beyond the dead. Mike,

27
00:01:22,680 --> 00:01:23,520
Speaker 2: thanks for having me.

28
00:01:23,920 --> 00:01:27,200
Speaker 3: Sorry, sorry about your death. So it's all birds except

29
00:01:27,240 --> 00:01:29,280
Speaker 3: the North American tufted tip mouse.

30
00:01:29,440 --> 00:01:30,200
Speaker 1: Do I have that right?

31
00:01:30,520 --> 00:01:33,919
Speaker 2: You know, there are many different sects of belief within

32
00:01:34,040 --> 00:01:37,960
Speaker 2: the bird truth universe. You know, it's we respect all

33
00:01:37,959 --> 00:01:39,640
Speaker 2: of them. I do think that bird is a robot, though,

34
00:01:39,640 --> 00:01:42,520
Speaker 2: I think every bird in North America, all twelve billion,

35
00:01:42,720 --> 00:01:43,360
Speaker 2: are robots.

36
00:01:43,360 --> 00:01:47,080
Speaker 3: As a matter of fact, I've seen signs at your

37
00:01:47,200 --> 00:01:50,880
Speaker 3: rallies that say reject the Saint Louis Cardinals, which is true.

38
00:01:51,280 --> 00:01:53,360
Speaker 3: That's say big bird or a picture of big bird

39
00:01:53,400 --> 00:01:54,480
Speaker 3: equal big lie.

40
00:01:54,560 --> 00:01:55,600
Speaker 1: That's also true.

41
00:01:56,640 --> 00:02:01,120
Speaker 3: Should I choose my fandom based on rejecting mascots? Does

42
00:02:01,120 --> 00:02:05,120
Speaker 3: that do anything to oppose the Philadelphia Eagles unless they're

43
00:02:05,120 --> 00:02:07,600
Speaker 3: playing the Arizona Cardinals, And then I don't know who

44
00:02:07,640 --> 00:02:08,919
Speaker 3: to root for one hundred percent.

45
00:02:09,080 --> 00:02:11,600
Speaker 2: I mean, it's really just about what control do we

46
00:02:11,639 --> 00:02:14,680
Speaker 2: as the civilian have. We have control over where we,

47
00:02:14,880 --> 00:02:19,480
Speaker 2: you know, spend our money, where we offer supports. And

48
00:02:19,600 --> 00:02:22,680
Speaker 2: the more that we you know, blindly go along and

49
00:02:22,720 --> 00:02:25,760
Speaker 2: support these bird mascot teams, the more that we accept

50
00:02:25,760 --> 00:02:29,160
Speaker 2: the propaganda that the government has forced upon us by

51
00:02:29,360 --> 00:02:33,560
Speaker 2: making us cheer for the concept of a bird. You know,

52
00:02:33,600 --> 00:02:36,679
Speaker 2: it's like a massive public humiliation ritual. They want to

53
00:02:36,720 --> 00:02:38,880
Speaker 2: put the bird in the middle of the field and

54
00:02:38,919 --> 00:02:42,960
Speaker 2: then have everyone applauding and cheering for it. So, I mean,

55
00:02:43,000 --> 00:02:46,360
Speaker 2: I do think it's wise to go for teams without

56
00:02:46,360 --> 00:02:48,960
Speaker 2: the bird mascot if you care about, you know, your

57
00:02:49,000 --> 00:02:50,000
Speaker 2: purity on this earth.

58
00:02:50,680 --> 00:02:54,920
Speaker 3: Now, there were birds and then the government, you tell me,

59
00:02:55,080 --> 00:02:59,200
Speaker 3: because you know you're in on this, the government systematically

60
00:02:59,280 --> 00:03:01,880
Speaker 3: killed them or they were killed and then replaced with

61
00:03:01,960 --> 00:03:03,040
Speaker 3: these surveillance spots.

62
00:03:03,720 --> 00:03:05,920
Speaker 2: Oh, it's a great question. So it's a great question.

63
00:03:07,160 --> 00:03:11,000
Speaker 2: There were twelve billion birds in the American skies before

64
00:03:11,080 --> 00:03:14,679
Speaker 2: the nineteen fifties. Around then, Alan Dolister, the director of

65
00:03:14,720 --> 00:03:18,359
Speaker 2: the CIA, decided, Hey, there's twelve billion birds up here.

66
00:03:18,360 --> 00:03:21,120
Speaker 2: We could kill them, swap them out, replace them with

67
00:03:21,200 --> 00:03:24,640
Speaker 2: surveillance drone replicas in disguise designed to splay on the

68
00:03:24,639 --> 00:03:26,880
Speaker 2: American people. So what they did is they got to

69
00:03:26,960 --> 00:03:30,160
Speaker 2: a plane, a bunch of planes actually from a wonderful

70
00:03:30,200 --> 00:03:32,160
Speaker 2: company called Boeing who's been up to all kinds of

71
00:03:32,160 --> 00:03:36,800
Speaker 2: good things this year. And Boeing helped them fly over

72
00:03:37,160 --> 00:03:40,680
Speaker 2: the entire country almost like a large lawnmower, spraying a

73
00:03:40,680 --> 00:03:45,200
Speaker 2: poisonous toxin down onto birds which would then make them

74
00:03:45,360 --> 00:03:48,720
Speaker 2: very sick, was contagious. They'd fall on the ground and

75
00:03:48,800 --> 00:03:53,640
Speaker 2: pretty much disintegrate upon landing. As this was happening, you know,

76
00:03:53,720 --> 00:03:56,600
Speaker 2: for every bird that fell, a drone rose, and the

77
00:03:56,720 --> 00:04:01,440
Speaker 2: drones over the course of a forty year, systematics filled

78
00:04:01,440 --> 00:04:03,520
Speaker 2: diskuies to the point where we're by two thousand and one,

79
00:04:03,600 --> 00:04:06,680
Speaker 2: upon the signing of the Patriot Act, these guys are

80
00:04:06,680 --> 00:04:09,600
Speaker 2: filled with twelve billion birds, and the American people are

81
00:04:09,640 --> 00:04:10,320
Speaker 2: none the wiser.

82
00:04:11,680 --> 00:04:15,080
Speaker 3: And the presence of all these birds spying on us,

83
00:04:15,120 --> 00:04:17,080
Speaker 3: what intel has it revealed?

84
00:04:18,080 --> 00:04:21,039
Speaker 2: Well, I mean it's been a long process, you know,

85
00:04:21,160 --> 00:04:23,799
Speaker 2: with the birds, our real movement that it's been around

86
00:04:23,800 --> 00:04:26,360
Speaker 2: since the nineteen seventies, and we're always looking for evidence

87
00:04:26,400 --> 00:04:28,880
Speaker 2: and proof to show the people what's going on, you know,

88
00:04:28,920 --> 00:04:31,719
Speaker 2: because I think like we intuitively have a mix of

89
00:04:31,800 --> 00:04:37,080
Speaker 2: like prophetic dreams and no things passed down from other activists.

90
00:04:37,560 --> 00:04:40,240
Speaker 2: But it's important to show the cold audience, you know,

91
00:04:40,279 --> 00:04:43,279
Speaker 2: the people that may not be already identifying with the

92
00:04:43,320 --> 00:04:50,640
Speaker 2: truth what's going on. So we've talked with ex CIA agents, specifically,

93
00:04:50,720 --> 00:04:55,080
Speaker 2: this man named Eugene Price rest in Peace, who talked

94
00:04:55,080 --> 00:04:57,240
Speaker 2: with us, sat down and said, listen, I worked for

95
00:04:57,279 --> 00:05:01,520
Speaker 2: the CIA in the seventies. I did this, and I

96
00:05:01,600 --> 00:05:03,880
Speaker 2: worked on the program. I worked on the bird Room

97
00:05:04,000 --> 00:05:08,240
Speaker 2: surveillance program, and I am drenched in guilt. He said,

98
00:05:08,279 --> 00:05:11,960
Speaker 2: every day he feels extremely guilty about what they did,

99
00:05:11,960 --> 00:05:15,599
Speaker 2: specifically just killing twelve billion birds, and how he was

100
00:05:15,680 --> 00:05:19,360
Speaker 2: complicit in turning America into the surveillance state, you know.

101
00:05:20,360 --> 00:05:21,800
Speaker 2: So it was a great interview. We got him to

102
00:05:21,800 --> 00:05:24,400
Speaker 2: sit down on camera with us, and I think that

103
00:05:24,520 --> 00:05:27,880
Speaker 2: was some of the most compelling evidence in convincing the public.

104
00:05:29,160 --> 00:05:31,280
Speaker 3: Also, I have noticed, and I don't know if your

105
00:05:31,360 --> 00:05:34,039
Speaker 3: movement has picked this up, but there are signs out

106
00:05:34,080 --> 00:05:36,240
Speaker 3: there by people who know the truth, and they've appeared

107
00:05:36,279 --> 00:05:38,360
Speaker 3: over the years. For instance, the lyrics to free bird.

108
00:05:38,480 --> 00:05:40,919
Speaker 3: If I leave here tomorrow, will you still remember me?

109
00:05:41,279 --> 00:05:45,360
Speaker 3: That exactly parallels what happened to the birds and other

110
00:05:45,520 --> 00:05:47,880
Speaker 3: Leonard Skinner lyrics. I mean, they're kind of an err

111
00:05:47,880 --> 00:05:50,640
Speaker 3: attex for this movement. Can you smell that smell?

112
00:05:50,680 --> 00:05:50,840
Speaker 2: There?

113
00:05:51,480 --> 00:05:55,279
Speaker 3: A there's a slight different odor to the robotic birds

114
00:05:55,320 --> 00:05:56,600
Speaker 3: than to the real birds.

115
00:05:56,440 --> 00:05:59,560
Speaker 1: For the people who were there, whose life span spans

116
00:05:59,600 --> 00:06:00,000
Speaker 1: the time.

117
00:06:00,320 --> 00:06:02,479
Speaker 3: I do think that there are a lot of and

118
00:06:02,520 --> 00:06:04,120
Speaker 3: I don't know how much of this, you know, it

119
00:06:04,320 --> 00:06:06,919
Speaker 3: just occurs to me. Once you open my eyes to it.

120
00:06:07,000 --> 00:06:08,279
Speaker 3: I began to see it everywhere.

121
00:06:08,880 --> 00:06:13,480
Speaker 2: It starts unraveling. You start seeing, oh, why is why

122
00:06:13,560 --> 00:06:16,640
Speaker 2: why do the presidents not talk? They tweet on the

123
00:06:16,680 --> 00:06:19,880
Speaker 2: bird app and then the tweets are covered on the

124
00:06:19,920 --> 00:06:24,280
Speaker 2: bird logo media on NBC with a with a peacock

125
00:06:24,360 --> 00:06:24,760
Speaker 2: right in our.

126
00:06:24,720 --> 00:06:26,560
Speaker 1: Face at peacock right right.

127
00:06:26,880 --> 00:06:30,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really egregious. It's really egregious. And the more

128
00:06:30,120 --> 00:06:32,160
Speaker 2: that you see, the more you tug on that little string,

129
00:06:32,240 --> 00:06:34,000
Speaker 2: the more it all unravels.

130
00:06:35,720 --> 00:06:35,920
Speaker 1: Yeah.

131
00:06:35,960 --> 00:06:37,880
Speaker 3: And then for people who are like, oh, there are

132
00:06:37,920 --> 00:06:40,800
Speaker 3: no conspiracies, you list a bunch in the beginning of

133
00:06:41,320 --> 00:06:44,480
Speaker 3: the book, and some of them are bird related, right,

134
00:06:44,560 --> 00:06:47,520
Speaker 3: not just uh, Operation mocking Bird. But I don't know

135
00:06:47,560 --> 00:06:50,120
Speaker 3: if you know Project artichoke, which was trying to get

136
00:06:50,120 --> 00:06:51,960
Speaker 3: people to become assassins.

137
00:06:52,000 --> 00:06:53,760
Speaker 1: That was originally named Project Bluebird.

138
00:06:54,320 --> 00:06:56,920
Speaker 2: Mm hmmm, No, that that That's the thing is. It's

139
00:06:56,960 --> 00:06:59,560
Speaker 2: not all out there. It's not a new crazy concept

140
00:06:59,560 --> 00:07:02,599
Speaker 2: you can google, folks. You know, it's really not you want,

141
00:07:02,920 --> 00:07:05,320
Speaker 2: I mean, the thought that the government would do something

142
00:07:05,560 --> 00:07:10,120
Speaker 2: dastardly and devious in the realm of avian beings, it's

143
00:07:10,240 --> 00:07:13,600
Speaker 2: right there in on paper. There's proof. Also if you think, oh,

144
00:07:13,600 --> 00:07:15,920
Speaker 2: the government would never do something like this, the government

145
00:07:15,960 --> 00:07:22,120
Speaker 2: would never kill something, the government, the American government killing something,

146
00:07:22,320 --> 00:07:26,280
Speaker 2: killing an innocent thing, killing something and replacing it with surveillance.

147
00:07:27,400 --> 00:07:30,080
Speaker 2: There are far, far, far worse things that the United

148
00:07:30,120 --> 00:07:32,760
Speaker 2: States government has done. They're on Wikipedia. You can look

149
00:07:32,800 --> 00:07:36,480
Speaker 2: them up right now. MK ultra operation paper clip. You

150
00:07:36,480 --> 00:07:40,280
Speaker 2: know these aren't these are conspiracies, folks. This is you know,

151
00:07:40,520 --> 00:07:44,160
Speaker 2: it's what our country was founded on. Really, yes, and

152
00:07:44,160 --> 00:07:47,600
Speaker 2: and unless you want to live in a you know,

153
00:07:47,800 --> 00:07:52,840
Speaker 2: patriotic delusion about uh, you know, the the altruistic nature

154
00:07:52,960 --> 00:07:56,440
Speaker 2: of our government, it's important to do your own research,

155
00:07:56,800 --> 00:07:59,600
Speaker 2: you know, maybe live in reality a little bit, and

156
00:07:59,600 --> 00:08:01,560
Speaker 2: then you'll though how to react to a lot of

157
00:08:01,560 --> 00:08:03,160
Speaker 2: things that are about to happen in the future that

158
00:08:03,240 --> 00:08:04,120
Speaker 2: may not be very good.

159
00:08:04,640 --> 00:08:07,160
Speaker 3: So I'm not going to do the cliched and scene,

160
00:08:07,360 --> 00:08:10,840
Speaker 3: but I will ask Magataz that was that was fun,

161
00:08:11,000 --> 00:08:13,480
Speaker 3: That was great. We could go on forever, and you

162
00:08:13,560 --> 00:08:17,040
Speaker 3: did for years and years. I'm not gonna say never

163
00:08:17,160 --> 00:08:20,520
Speaker 3: breaking character. But you founded this movement, you committed to

164
00:08:20,560 --> 00:08:22,760
Speaker 3: the movement. But I sensed in our back and forth

165
00:08:23,720 --> 00:08:26,600
Speaker 3: you weren't one hundred and two percent trying to sell

166
00:08:26,640 --> 00:08:29,160
Speaker 3: me on this. I think if you were, you'd probably

167
00:08:29,360 --> 00:08:31,800
Speaker 3: adopt a different persona that was a little off and

168
00:08:31,880 --> 00:08:32,680
Speaker 3: a little crazy.

169
00:08:33,120 --> 00:08:37,199
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the thing that was the persona for four

170
00:08:37,280 --> 00:08:40,720
Speaker 2: years that I really embodied. You know. I started Birds

171
00:08:40,720 --> 00:08:45,160
Speaker 2: Aren't Real in Arkansas and became very almost obsessed with it,

172
00:08:45,240 --> 00:08:48,680
Speaker 2: with the idea of method acting this character as much

173
00:08:48,720 --> 00:08:50,600
Speaker 2: as I could. You know, so here in our conversation

174
00:08:50,679 --> 00:08:52,960
Speaker 2: it's a bit tongue in chic. It's a bit butt uh,

175
00:08:53,000 --> 00:08:56,839
Speaker 2: buy right, Bud. You know, back in the day, I

176
00:08:57,480 --> 00:09:00,120
Speaker 2: would talk with journalists, I would talk with people who

177
00:09:00,160 --> 00:09:04,000
Speaker 2: were really just trying to decipher is this movement real?

178
00:09:04,440 --> 00:09:07,680
Speaker 2: Is what this guy is talking about? Serious? You know?

179
00:09:07,880 --> 00:09:10,439
Speaker 2: Not that they were considering birds may not be real,

180
00:09:10,720 --> 00:09:12,719
Speaker 2: but they thought that I thought the birds weren't real.

181
00:09:12,800 --> 00:09:14,559
Speaker 2: And then I was claiming I belonged to a movement

182
00:09:14,600 --> 00:09:17,280
Speaker 2: that had been around since the fifties. And then we

183
00:09:17,320 --> 00:09:19,959
Speaker 2: started growing a real movement in real life, you know,

184
00:09:20,000 --> 00:09:22,800
Speaker 2: the thousands started joinings. Then the media is calling me saying, hey,

185
00:09:22,840 --> 00:09:26,880
Speaker 2: who are you? What's going on? And you know, I

186
00:09:26,920 --> 00:09:32,559
Speaker 2: would spend sometimes hours on the phone with journalists, break

187
00:09:32,679 --> 00:09:36,520
Speaker 2: breaking down, you know, and you know, sometimes going into

188
00:09:36,520 --> 00:09:39,080
Speaker 2: fits of rage because of how little the media understood

189
00:09:39,480 --> 00:09:40,319
Speaker 2: what was going on.

190
00:09:40,840 --> 00:09:43,440
Speaker 3: Were you trying to literally fool them or was it

191
00:09:43,520 --> 00:09:46,840
Speaker 3: more you were trying you were happy enough that if

192
00:09:46,840 --> 00:09:50,880
Speaker 3: they got it enough to present your supposed character and

193
00:09:50,920 --> 00:09:54,160
Speaker 3: information as a bit of a bit, because if it

194
00:09:54,280 --> 00:09:57,880
Speaker 3: was a bit, then people might cot into it, and

195
00:09:57,920 --> 00:10:00,199
Speaker 3: the right people, the kind of people who would come

196
00:10:00,200 --> 00:10:02,880
Speaker 3: out to a rally and be mostly young people quote

197
00:10:02,960 --> 00:10:07,120
Speaker 3: unquote in on the joke play acting, it would become

198
00:10:07,160 --> 00:10:11,440
Speaker 3: almost like a spontaneous improv everywhere type Right, So is

199
00:10:11,440 --> 00:10:13,000
Speaker 3: that what you were looking for, where you're looking for

200
00:10:13,160 --> 00:10:14,640
Speaker 3: really really fooling people?

201
00:10:15,360 --> 00:10:18,640
Speaker 2: The answer is yes. The answer is both of those.

202
00:10:18,760 --> 00:10:21,560
Speaker 2: I was trying to accomplish, and that's what we were

203
00:10:21,559 --> 00:10:23,520
Speaker 2: able to do. You know, the idea was a bit

204
00:10:23,559 --> 00:10:27,040
Speaker 2: of a rorshack test for boomers and gen z or

205
00:10:27,040 --> 00:10:31,520
Speaker 2: for people that may not be as literate on meme culture,

206
00:10:31,840 --> 00:10:37,120
Speaker 2: you know, or as aware of pranks and absurdist late

207
00:10:37,160 --> 00:10:40,680
Speaker 2: Internet humor. You know a lot of people forty plus

208
00:10:40,760 --> 00:10:43,440
Speaker 2: or not, and so you know, they would see the

209
00:10:43,480 --> 00:10:46,880
Speaker 2: idea rorshack test immediately go, oh my god, this country

210
00:10:47,679 --> 00:10:50,440
Speaker 2: is going to shit. This is you know, things are

211
00:10:50,480 --> 00:10:53,040
Speaker 2: falling apart, conspiracies are sweeping the nation. We need to

212
00:10:53,040 --> 00:10:56,400
Speaker 2: talk about this. Whereas if you're someone that you know

213
00:10:56,440 --> 00:10:58,280
Speaker 2: kind of grew up on Twitter, you see this like, oh,

214
00:10:58,320 --> 00:11:01,560
Speaker 2: this is clearly some messing around, you know. And so

215
00:11:02,520 --> 00:11:05,600
Speaker 2: that created a really interesting duality where we had this

216
00:11:05,720 --> 00:11:08,360
Speaker 2: improv everywhere type audience and we'd go hold rallies. I

217
00:11:08,360 --> 00:11:10,800
Speaker 2: had a birds on real Vans satellites on the top,

218
00:11:11,400 --> 00:11:15,360
Speaker 2: covered in decals, riddled with typos. We'd go around holding

219
00:11:15,480 --> 00:11:18,160
Speaker 2: rallies and you know, we'd have hundreds of people show up,

220
00:11:18,520 --> 00:11:21,360
Speaker 2: not people that actually believe birds weren't real, but people

221
00:11:21,360 --> 00:11:24,200
Speaker 2: who understood the wink of it all. You know, they

222
00:11:24,240 --> 00:11:27,040
Speaker 2: they understood the twinkle in the twinkle in the eye

223
00:11:27,480 --> 00:11:31,960
Speaker 2: to every deadpan thing. Yeah, but it was and the wink.

224
00:11:32,240 --> 00:11:34,840
Speaker 3: The wink was built in there though, to give people

225
00:11:34,960 --> 00:11:35,800
Speaker 3: the out.

226
00:11:37,280 --> 00:11:40,520
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, there's an interesting game. You know, that's a

227
00:11:40,559 --> 00:11:46,160
Speaker 2: delicate place to strike because it's really easy to make

228
00:11:46,200 --> 00:11:49,400
Speaker 2: people uncomfortable, for instance. You know, it's really it's really

229
00:11:49,440 --> 00:11:51,320
Speaker 2: really easy to kind of throw people up in the air.

230
00:11:51,600 --> 00:11:54,000
Speaker 2: What's hard is to you know, give them that wink

231
00:11:54,040 --> 00:11:56,000
Speaker 2: and let them know this was a joke, which then

232
00:11:56,080 --> 00:11:59,480
Speaker 2: makes that makes the rest of it kind of unlocks it.

233
00:11:59,480 --> 00:12:02,080
Speaker 2: It makes it valuable, you know. I know Andy Kaufman

234
00:12:02,120 --> 00:12:05,200
Speaker 2: had this great performance where he's on stage and he's

235
00:12:05,240 --> 00:12:08,120
Speaker 2: bombing the stand up set and it's so awkward in

236
00:12:08,120 --> 00:12:12,120
Speaker 2: the room and everyone's so uncomfortable, and then he starts

237
00:12:12,200 --> 00:12:15,120
Speaker 2: crying and wheezing. But then somebody rolls out congas and

238
00:12:15,160 --> 00:12:16,880
Speaker 2: his wheezing is on the rhythm of the congress, and

239
00:12:16,920 --> 00:12:19,440
Speaker 2: he starts playing the congas to the wheezing, and it's

240
00:12:19,440 --> 00:12:22,320
Speaker 2: this unspoken reveal to the audience that it was all

241
00:12:22,360 --> 00:12:25,559
Speaker 2: planned from the beginning, you know, without even saying anything,

242
00:12:25,840 --> 00:12:28,160
Speaker 2: and the audience, you know, erupts an applause, they get it,

243
00:12:28,200 --> 00:12:30,800
Speaker 2: you know. So it's a similar kind of game of

244
00:12:30,840 --> 00:12:34,160
Speaker 2: okay if you if you're looking at it almost like

245
00:12:34,240 --> 00:12:37,160
Speaker 2: a trapeze artist. You can throw somebody up in the air.

246
00:12:37,360 --> 00:12:39,000
Speaker 2: It's really easy to do that, or easy to make

247
00:12:39,000 --> 00:12:41,200
Speaker 2: somebody uncomfortable or question something. But the hard thing to

248
00:12:41,240 --> 00:12:43,400
Speaker 2: do is to catch them. You know. That's the hard

249
00:12:43,400 --> 00:12:44,520
Speaker 2: part of trapeez.

250
00:12:44,160 --> 00:12:46,840
Speaker 3: So you don't and from what I understand, you didn't

251
00:12:46,880 --> 00:12:47,920
Speaker 3: know about Kandy Kaufman.

252
00:12:48,120 --> 00:12:50,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, that's right now. You know, I have

253
00:12:50,600 --> 00:12:53,280
Speaker 2: this biography on my shelf right here. I become obsessed

254
00:12:53,320 --> 00:12:55,640
Speaker 2: with them. But yeah, whenever I was, I think it

255
00:12:55,679 --> 00:12:59,000
Speaker 2: was on an interview with The Daily Beasts in twenty

256
00:12:59,080 --> 00:13:03,320
Speaker 2: nineteen or something. And you know, during these interviews, you know,

257
00:13:03,440 --> 00:13:05,440
Speaker 2: right now, I think you know now that I talk

258
00:13:05,480 --> 00:13:08,320
Speaker 2: about this after coming out of character, six seven years

259
00:13:08,360 --> 00:13:10,760
Speaker 2: after the project, I like joking around about it. But

260
00:13:11,120 --> 00:13:13,320
Speaker 2: in that day I decided the funniest thing I could

261
00:13:13,360 --> 00:13:16,360
Speaker 2: do was be as serious as possible, you know, like

262
00:13:16,400 --> 00:13:19,360
Speaker 2: that that that the concept of the character was the joke,

263
00:13:19,640 --> 00:13:21,840
Speaker 2: and that if I were to, you know, do micro jokes,

264
00:13:21,840 --> 00:13:23,800
Speaker 2: would kind of you ruin the point. So I would

265
00:13:23,840 --> 00:13:27,120
Speaker 2: be in these interviews and be like almost on the

266
00:13:27,200 --> 00:13:30,120
Speaker 2: virgin's ears and talking about something that really matters to me.

267
00:13:30,400 --> 00:13:33,360
Speaker 2: And if they were to say, okay, but what are

268
00:13:33,440 --> 00:13:35,920
Speaker 2: you joking, It's like, what are you talking about? Like

269
00:13:36,000 --> 00:13:37,959
Speaker 2: why why would you call me and accuse me of that?

270
00:13:38,120 --> 00:13:47,160
Speaker 3: You know, there are clear antecedents for uh, some of

271
00:13:47,200 --> 00:13:51,719
Speaker 3: the ideas that you based the birds aren't real aesthetics

272
00:13:51,760 --> 00:13:55,480
Speaker 3: on and claims on. And you know, we listed a

273
00:13:55,520 --> 00:13:58,959
Speaker 3: bunch of them in the beginning. But Q, there's a

274
00:13:59,000 --> 00:14:00,640
Speaker 3: lot of que in there. Maybe you could tell me.

275
00:14:01,280 --> 00:14:03,520
Speaker 1: What sort of Q inspirations there were.

276
00:14:03,800 --> 00:14:08,120
Speaker 3: That van that's definitely Caesar Sayak and his van with

277
00:14:08,240 --> 00:14:10,720
Speaker 3: like a thousand memes pasted to it, right.

278
00:14:11,040 --> 00:14:13,719
Speaker 2: Caesars, I've actually never heard of Caesar Sayak. There's the

279
00:14:13,840 --> 00:14:18,120
Speaker 2: van was actually inspired by. There's a conspiracy called a

280
00:14:18,240 --> 00:14:21,320
Speaker 2: Stephen King killed John Lennon. If you look that up,

281
00:14:21,320 --> 00:14:23,760
Speaker 2: there's a man. It's really just a man who thinks

282
00:14:23,760 --> 00:14:28,000
Speaker 2: that Stephen King, the author killed John Lennon. And so

283
00:14:28,200 --> 00:14:31,600
Speaker 2: he has made a van covered. Indeed he actually has.

284
00:14:31,720 --> 00:14:34,120
Speaker 2: He is like a fleet of these vans covered and

285
00:14:34,160 --> 00:14:37,120
Speaker 2: Decal's explaining this, you know, and it really.

286
00:14:36,920 --> 00:14:38,520
Speaker 1: Is you gotta Caesar.

287
00:14:38,640 --> 00:14:43,080
Speaker 3: Sayak was the guy who mailed or like in effective

288
00:14:43,160 --> 00:14:46,720
Speaker 3: pipe bombs to all these public officials, and his van

289
00:14:46,960 --> 00:14:51,000
Speaker 3: was covered in right wing memes. This is around twenty eighteen, Like, oh,

290
00:14:51,120 --> 00:14:54,600
Speaker 3: he obviously read that story. But Stephen maybe the Stephen

291
00:14:54,680 --> 00:14:57,680
Speaker 3: King guy was based on Sayak? Maybe side these things

292
00:14:57,760 --> 00:15:01,520
Speaker 3: all perpetuate themselves crazy.

293
00:15:01,120 --> 00:15:05,120
Speaker 2: Right, Wow, Yeah, I just looked up this van. I'm

294
00:15:05,160 --> 00:15:08,280
Speaker 2: seeing I'm seeing it now. We actually had real similar

295
00:15:08,280 --> 00:15:10,040
Speaker 2: design to this, and I think that, you know, we

296
00:15:10,120 --> 00:15:11,960
Speaker 2: researched conspiracy vans a lot.

297
00:15:13,880 --> 00:15:15,320
Speaker 1: Decal design maker.

298
00:15:15,480 --> 00:15:19,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think that's the thing. When you really

299
00:15:19,040 --> 00:15:21,560
Speaker 2: put yourself in the mindset of someone who truly believes

300
00:15:21,560 --> 00:15:23,720
Speaker 2: something is the case they're trying to get out to

301
00:15:23,840 --> 00:15:26,840
Speaker 2: anyone who will listen, they will cover whatever they have

302
00:15:26,960 --> 00:15:28,760
Speaker 2: in it. You know, they'll wear the T shirts, will

303
00:15:28,800 --> 00:15:33,120
Speaker 2: get their van, and it really and the maximalist design

304
00:15:33,240 --> 00:15:36,840
Speaker 2: is really interesting too. There's not much aestheticssibility going on there.

305
00:15:36,880 --> 00:15:40,000
Speaker 3: But you know Sayak and you know he was like,

306
00:15:40,120 --> 00:15:42,680
Speaker 3: damn it, I got a four inch by three inch

307
00:15:42,760 --> 00:15:45,680
Speaker 3: space that's just white. What do I do with it?

308
00:15:45,680 --> 00:15:48,360
Speaker 3: It's like one of those overly tattooed guys. It's very

309
00:15:48,400 --> 00:15:50,720
Speaker 3: hard to cover up the old tattoo with the new tattoo.

310
00:15:51,120 --> 00:15:51,960
Speaker 1: And then one off hiss.

311
00:15:52,280 --> 00:15:55,400
Speaker 3: It's like, wait a minute, Obama, he just changes his mind.

312
00:15:55,760 --> 00:15:59,120
Speaker 3: Obama is not a Kenyon. He's he believes in Reverend

313
00:15:59,200 --> 00:15:59,920
Speaker 3: Jeremiah White.

314
00:16:00,080 --> 00:16:01,920
Speaker 1: What do I do? How do I address that on

315
00:16:01,960 --> 00:16:02,440
Speaker 1: my van?

316
00:16:04,840 --> 00:16:06,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's your billboard to the world, you know, in

317
00:16:06,840 --> 00:16:09,520
Speaker 2: his mind. It's like the I mean, I mean from

318
00:16:09,560 --> 00:16:11,480
Speaker 2: really putting myself in the mindset of a conspiracy theorist,

319
00:16:11,480 --> 00:16:13,320
Speaker 2: and why the van made sense was like, well, I'm

320
00:16:13,360 --> 00:16:16,480
Speaker 2: censored on the internet, you know, like they can't censor

321
00:16:16,560 --> 00:16:19,920
Speaker 2: me in physical reality, like I you know, it was

322
00:16:19,960 --> 00:16:23,200
Speaker 2: like a real almost triumphant move. It's like, all right,

323
00:16:23,240 --> 00:16:25,960
Speaker 2: well go gotcha. Government, Like you can't stop these stickers

324
00:16:25,960 --> 00:16:26,960
Speaker 2: on my van, you know.

325
00:16:28,360 --> 00:16:32,120
Speaker 3: But right, government is nothing, can have no say in

326
00:16:32,280 --> 00:16:34,920
Speaker 3: a motor vehicles on the roads.

327
00:16:36,680 --> 00:16:39,160
Speaker 2: Exactly. You asked about QAnon, though, which is a really

328
00:16:39,160 --> 00:16:41,880
Speaker 2: interesting thought. I think a lot of people ask us

329
00:16:41,920 --> 00:16:43,720
Speaker 2: about qan on which is interesting because birds aren't really

330
00:16:43,720 --> 00:16:51,440
Speaker 2: started before QAnon, but two years before, which I mean,

331
00:16:51,480 --> 00:16:54,680
Speaker 2: to your point is interesting because QAnon, I guess or

332
00:16:54,720 --> 00:16:56,640
Speaker 2: the you know, millions of people are parts of q

333
00:16:56,840 --> 00:16:59,680
Speaker 2: and on now or were, but all those people were

334
00:16:59,720 --> 00:17:02,160
Speaker 2: exist things a year prior, two years prior. You know,

335
00:17:02,160 --> 00:17:05,080
Speaker 2: it's like what were they doing then? What was what

336
00:17:05,200 --> 00:17:07,000
Speaker 2: led them to that? You know, you don't go from

337
00:17:07,040 --> 00:17:13,159
Speaker 2: being totally normal chilling normal life too. I'm you know,

338
00:17:13,640 --> 00:17:15,800
Speaker 2: dedicating my life to the thought that democrats are eating

339
00:17:15,800 --> 00:17:17,840
Speaker 2: are eating babies and like in my basement talking about

340
00:17:17,840 --> 00:17:22,240
Speaker 2: that all day on forums. And yeah, I think I

341
00:17:22,280 --> 00:17:26,359
Speaker 2: grew up around I know I did actually around people

342
00:17:26,440 --> 00:17:28,840
Speaker 2: that now are part of QAnon. You know, I go

343
00:17:28,920 --> 00:17:32,119
Speaker 2: on my my Facebook from back in the day, and

344
00:17:32,200 --> 00:17:34,600
Speaker 2: I really only used Facebook in my early teenage years

345
00:17:34,960 --> 00:17:37,439
Speaker 2: and then logged off for you know, ten years. And

346
00:17:37,440 --> 00:17:39,040
Speaker 2: I remember I got on a few years ago, like

347
00:17:39,040 --> 00:17:40,960
Speaker 2: what's going on Facebook? And it was all these people

348
00:17:40,960 --> 00:17:43,520
Speaker 2: from my hometown on there. You know, they were my

349
00:17:43,560 --> 00:17:47,920
Speaker 2: only friends, and it was crazy. It's like actual q

350
00:17:48,160 --> 00:17:52,240
Speaker 2: and on theories, real conspiracies everywhere, And that became one

351
00:17:52,280 --> 00:17:55,880
Speaker 2: of one of my biggest inspiration sources, was just Facebook.

352
00:17:55,960 --> 00:18:00,000
Speaker 2: But yeah, I think it was just that fringe right

353
00:18:00,600 --> 00:18:04,680
Speaker 2: conspiracy crowd in Arkansas that I really took a lot

354
00:18:04,680 --> 00:18:08,000
Speaker 2: of inspiration from unintentionally for this, but I guess just

355
00:18:08,000 --> 00:18:09,919
Speaker 2: like anyone says inspiration from their real life.

356
00:18:10,920 --> 00:18:14,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the real conspiracy theorists, and I've talked to

357
00:18:14,600 --> 00:18:16,200
Speaker 3: a lot of people who've chronicled them.

358
00:18:16,280 --> 00:18:17,119
Speaker 1: And when we.

359
00:18:17,160 --> 00:18:19,760
Speaker 3: Wrote a book about the flat earthers, there's off and

360
00:18:19,760 --> 00:18:23,679
Speaker 3: then after there's it's usually occasion by some horrible crime.

361
00:18:24,080 --> 00:18:26,320
Speaker 3: They delve into a community. First it was four chan,

362
00:18:26,359 --> 00:18:28,760
Speaker 3: then it was eight chan, and there's this thing going

363
00:18:28,840 --> 00:18:32,359
Speaker 3: on where the joke or the fact that it is

364
00:18:32,440 --> 00:18:35,560
Speaker 3: a joke kind of helps the people who are the

365
00:18:35,640 --> 00:18:39,040
Speaker 3: true believers. And so you have this mix because before

366
00:18:39,080 --> 00:18:41,359
Speaker 3: you were talking about you know, people my age or

367
00:18:41,640 --> 00:18:43,240
Speaker 3: people your age, not my age.

368
00:18:43,280 --> 00:18:43,960
Speaker 1: People who are.

369
00:18:43,880 --> 00:18:48,760
Speaker 3: Younger immediately recognize this as a parody. But you know, parody,

370
00:18:48,800 --> 00:18:51,600
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna say becomes reality. But there are people

371
00:18:51,680 --> 00:18:55,320
Speaker 3: who are generally they hate Joe Biden. They actually do

372
00:18:55,359 --> 00:18:58,040
Speaker 3: hate Joe Biden, and they know that QAnon isn't real,

373
00:18:58,080 --> 00:19:00,480
Speaker 3: but they love putting the memes out there, or they

374
00:19:00,560 --> 00:19:04,320
Speaker 3: love putting Pepe the Frog out there without necessarily believing

375
00:19:04,320 --> 00:19:06,720
Speaker 3: all the Pepe the Frog stuff, or they call themselves

376
00:19:06,760 --> 00:19:10,119
Speaker 3: gropers and sometimes they're called shit posters, So there is

377
00:19:10,160 --> 00:19:13,000
Speaker 3: the ability to say I'm in on the joke, but

378
00:19:13,119 --> 00:19:18,560
Speaker 3: also to perpetuate the joke. I know that it was

379
00:19:18,600 --> 00:19:21,600
Speaker 3: probably that didn't happen with birds Aren't Real. Maybe it did,

380
00:19:21,640 --> 00:19:24,840
Speaker 3: but my question is analyze that. What's the role of

381
00:19:25,359 --> 00:19:27,960
Speaker 3: people who are there for the humor or there for

382
00:19:28,040 --> 00:19:33,520
Speaker 3: the lulls, right, but also do provide some wind beneath

383
00:19:33,560 --> 00:19:35,080
Speaker 3: the conspiratorial wings.

384
00:19:36,680 --> 00:19:38,760
Speaker 2: That's a great point. I don't know if you looked

385
00:19:38,760 --> 00:19:42,199
Speaker 2: into Pepe the Frog at all, you're that phenomena. Have

386
00:19:42,240 --> 00:19:44,879
Speaker 2: you looked into that? R? Yes, yes, yeah, really interesting.

387
00:19:44,920 --> 00:19:48,200
Speaker 2: I think is kind of the similar eraror that you're

388
00:19:48,240 --> 00:19:51,919
Speaker 2: talking about. Yeah, it's just this image of a frog,

389
00:19:52,040 --> 00:19:55,399
Speaker 2: this cartoon that was a joke originally but then became

390
00:19:55,560 --> 00:19:59,960
Speaker 2: co opted and became a symbol that represented something entirely different.

391
00:20:00,480 --> 00:20:02,040
Speaker 2: I think that was a big fear with birds Aren't

392
00:20:02,040 --> 00:20:03,760
Speaker 2: Real of mine, honestly, and that was the reason why

393
00:20:03,800 --> 00:20:06,040
Speaker 2: I came out of character as well. So I wanted

394
00:20:06,080 --> 00:20:10,720
Speaker 2: there to be something researchable, concrete somewhere where someone could

395
00:20:10,760 --> 00:20:13,600
Speaker 2: say this, I made this up in Memphis. This has

396
00:20:13,760 --> 00:20:18,680
Speaker 2: not been around for fifty years, you know, and I

397
00:20:18,720 --> 00:20:21,360
Speaker 2: did feel, gosh, I guess that was twenty twenty two,

398
00:20:21,359 --> 00:20:24,480
Speaker 2: a sense of responsibility, I think gratefully though, I was

399
00:20:24,520 --> 00:20:27,280
Speaker 2: able to see how a lot of people interpreted the idea.

400
00:20:27,280 --> 00:20:29,119
Speaker 2: It's hard to tell on the internet, right, especially when

401
00:20:29,160 --> 00:20:31,440
Speaker 2: people are kind of in character with you in the comments.

402
00:20:31,760 --> 00:20:33,840
Speaker 2: It's a bunch of numbers. You don't really know who

403
00:20:33,840 --> 00:20:37,360
Speaker 2: your audience is or how your idea is impacting people.

404
00:20:37,640 --> 00:20:39,359
Speaker 2: You know, I think that all the time, but you know,

405
00:20:39,400 --> 00:20:41,119
Speaker 2: people I see with big numbers, you don't really know

406
00:20:41,200 --> 00:20:46,760
Speaker 2: your audience, especially when you're operating in this satirical tongue

407
00:20:46,800 --> 00:20:49,400
Speaker 2: in chek world, you know. So we started holding these

408
00:20:49,480 --> 00:20:53,080
Speaker 2: rallies and I almost let out a big sigh of

409
00:20:53,160 --> 00:20:56,840
Speaker 2: relief in twenty nineteen or so when I saw that

410
00:20:57,080 --> 00:20:59,760
Speaker 2: everyone showing up was totally tongue of cheek. They totally

411
00:20:59,760 --> 00:21:02,000
Speaker 2: got it, totally got the bit. And I mean, I

412
00:21:02,040 --> 00:21:04,200
Speaker 2: think it was because we planted a series of winks

413
00:21:04,240 --> 00:21:06,760
Speaker 2: throughout our work to where, you know, if you were

414
00:21:06,800 --> 00:21:10,960
Speaker 2: the media looking for a sensationalized piece on you know,

415
00:21:11,359 --> 00:21:15,240
Speaker 2: on whatever publication, you would report on its reel. But

416
00:21:15,280 --> 00:21:17,200
Speaker 2: if you go three clicks deep, you can read about

417
00:21:17,200 --> 00:21:20,119
Speaker 2: our history and see, Okay, when the government decided to

418
00:21:20,200 --> 00:21:22,359
Speaker 2: kill all the birds, Alan Dalls was pissed because birds

419
00:21:22,359 --> 00:21:24,359
Speaker 2: were pooping on his car in the parking lot and

420
00:21:24,400 --> 00:21:25,760
Speaker 2: it really didn't help him out a lot, and he

421
00:21:25,760 --> 00:21:27,840
Speaker 2: had like a real personal vendetta against these things. He

422
00:21:27,880 --> 00:21:30,200
Speaker 2: called them flying demons and you know, wanted to get

423
00:21:30,280 --> 00:21:31,919
Speaker 2: rid of them. And it's like it clearly gets to

424
00:21:31,960 --> 00:21:37,560
Speaker 2: this absurd points deep down, and we tried to plant

425
00:21:37,720 --> 00:21:41,960
Speaker 2: that wink and everything. But yeah, I mean, I remember

426
00:21:42,480 --> 00:21:45,200
Speaker 2: the rallies were really being a good validator. And the

427
00:21:45,280 --> 00:21:48,760
Speaker 2: last rally that we held at Washington Square Park in

428
00:21:48,760 --> 00:21:50,960
Speaker 2: New York City, there were about three thousand people there

429
00:21:51,400 --> 00:21:57,080
Speaker 2: and it was like this perfect massive, improvisational, immersive theater

430
00:21:57,640 --> 00:22:02,240
Speaker 2: sort of experience where everyone was in character together for

431
00:22:02,400 --> 00:22:06,720
Speaker 2: you know, two hours, being a raving bird mob.

432
00:22:07,680 --> 00:22:11,400
Speaker 3: Don't you think some percent of a q Andon rally

433
00:22:11,880 --> 00:22:19,000
Speaker 3: or a conspiracy theory online are people who are telling

434
00:22:19,040 --> 00:22:22,760
Speaker 3: themselves essentially that yeah, I know, ques not real, but

435
00:22:23,000 --> 00:22:26,560
Speaker 3: it's fun. If pokes the people I want to poke,

436
00:22:26,760 --> 00:22:30,000
Speaker 3: it gets them upset. Plus there is community to it.

437
00:22:30,280 --> 00:22:33,000
Speaker 3: Maybe a certain group of people show up with their friends.

438
00:22:33,160 --> 00:22:36,920
Speaker 3: See the wackier people inside the community, and that propels

439
00:22:36,960 --> 00:22:40,320
Speaker 3: them along. I think that you're getting at not just

440
00:22:40,400 --> 00:22:45,520
Speaker 3: the human dynamics that exposes the dearth of depth of

441
00:22:45,760 --> 00:22:48,600
Speaker 3: conspiracy theories, but you're also even though you're kind of

442
00:22:48,600 --> 00:22:52,000
Speaker 3: an anti conspiracy theory, you're also a conspiracy theory, like

443
00:22:52,200 --> 00:22:54,879
Speaker 3: you're operating on a lot of the same human dynamics

444
00:22:54,920 --> 00:22:57,760
Speaker 3: that they are, even if you have a metacognition. My

445
00:22:57,840 --> 00:23:01,800
Speaker 3: point is that not everyone within the actual harmful conspiracy

446
00:23:01,840 --> 00:23:06,560
Speaker 3: theories don't have at least that self concept that, oh,

447
00:23:06,560 --> 00:23:08,560
Speaker 3: it's all a big joke and we're here for the lull.

448
00:23:09,400 --> 00:23:12,679
Speaker 2: I think that's a very very good point. Yeah, I have,

449
00:23:13,200 --> 00:23:15,320
Speaker 2: I guess, gotten to talk with a lot of people

450
00:23:15,320 --> 00:23:18,080
Speaker 2: throughout the years who are in those communities, and I

451
00:23:18,080 --> 00:23:20,960
Speaker 2: think you nailed it when you said they get community

452
00:23:21,160 --> 00:23:22,600
Speaker 2: out of it. I certainly think there was a bit

453
00:23:22,640 --> 00:23:25,920
Speaker 2: of trolling, you know, but when you commit your life

454
00:23:25,960 --> 00:23:28,960
Speaker 2: to something right, commit your life, which is which is

455
00:23:28,960 --> 00:23:31,560
Speaker 2: what these people do their entire public persona, it's all

456
00:23:31,560 --> 00:23:34,760
Speaker 2: they talk about with their families, you know, it completely

457
00:23:35,240 --> 00:23:38,840
Speaker 2: encompasses them. I think that that happens when you hit

458
00:23:38,840 --> 00:23:40,639
Speaker 2: the nail on the head. They get community from this

459
00:23:40,840 --> 00:23:43,320
Speaker 2: not just community, but they get a sense of purpose,

460
00:23:43,840 --> 00:23:46,800
Speaker 2: right I have, I have a direction in my life.

461
00:23:46,840 --> 00:23:50,439
Speaker 2: My days are not for nothing and meaning, you know,

462
00:23:50,480 --> 00:23:53,159
Speaker 2: you get a sense of identity, you know, like these

463
00:23:53,200 --> 00:23:55,960
Speaker 2: are like some of the most core human needs, the

464
00:23:56,160 --> 00:23:58,000
Speaker 2: things that I'm looking for every day, you know. And

465
00:23:58,080 --> 00:24:00,280
Speaker 2: I think that it's certainly, you know, when you get

466
00:24:00,280 --> 00:24:03,440
Speaker 2: into birds aren't real. There are certainly parallels of why

467
00:24:03,480 --> 00:24:06,760
Speaker 2: people would join a meta fake movement and why people

468
00:24:06,800 --> 00:24:09,479
Speaker 2: would join a real conspiracy theory, because maybe it has

469
00:24:09,600 --> 00:24:11,760
Speaker 2: less to do with the truth that you're believing, but

470
00:24:11,880 --> 00:24:14,400
Speaker 2: more so the belonging or the sense of belonging that

471
00:24:14,400 --> 00:24:15,600
Speaker 2: that belief provides.

472
00:24:19,440 --> 00:24:22,919
Speaker 3: Do you think the standard way we diagnose them by we,

473
00:24:23,119 --> 00:24:26,879
Speaker 3: I mean, let us say people who are affiliated with

474
00:24:28,119 --> 00:24:32,560
Speaker 3: the Democratic Party, the very rational parts of the Republican Party,

475
00:24:32,640 --> 00:24:38,160
Speaker 3: the mainstream, the establishment universities, most TV networks other than Fox.

476
00:24:38,200 --> 00:24:41,000
Speaker 3: Do you think the way they die The New York Times,

477
00:24:41,200 --> 00:24:44,879
Speaker 3: Washington Post, the way they diagnose the problem of misinformation

478
00:24:45,040 --> 00:24:46,040
Speaker 3: and disinformation.

479
00:24:46,480 --> 00:24:49,320
Speaker 1: They're worried about it. They think that there are conspiracies.

480
00:24:49,560 --> 00:24:53,120
Speaker 3: I've read a lot of reporting, including reporting on what

481
00:24:53,160 --> 00:24:56,240
Speaker 3: you've done, that understands a lot of where the scholarship is.

482
00:24:56,480 --> 00:25:00,600
Speaker 1: But are they getting anything wrong or missing some major factors.

483
00:25:01,359 --> 00:25:03,399
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great question. I mean I've spent a

484
00:25:03,440 --> 00:25:06,120
Speaker 2: lot of time with I guess like disinformation experts over

485
00:25:06,160 --> 00:25:08,120
Speaker 2: the past couple of years, since I came out out

486
00:25:08,119 --> 00:25:10,960
Speaker 2: of character, got invited to the fact Checking conference and

487
00:25:12,080 --> 00:25:14,720
Speaker 2: in Germany last year, and just got to meet people

488
00:25:14,720 --> 00:25:17,800
Speaker 2: and see that people don't know how to stop this problem.

489
00:25:18,200 --> 00:25:21,000
Speaker 2: It's almost a scary thing. You know, we need a

490
00:25:21,000 --> 00:25:23,400
Speaker 2: new approach to this. Clearly the approach we're going off

491
00:25:23,400 --> 00:25:26,000
Speaker 2: of is not working, and it does seem like a

492
00:25:26,040 --> 00:25:29,320
Speaker 2: generally powerless, hopeless thing. You know, I'm sitting down with

493
00:25:29,359 --> 00:25:31,760
Speaker 2: these people from Meta or Twitter who are trying to

494
00:25:31,840 --> 00:25:35,280
Speaker 2: like control like rampant awful things online. They see the

495
00:25:35,280 --> 00:25:38,480
Speaker 2: worst stuff online, not just conspiracy theories, but horrible criminal things,

496
00:25:38,920 --> 00:25:40,760
Speaker 2: and you know, they're sitting there like we have no

497
00:25:40,800 --> 00:25:43,120
Speaker 2: idea what to do, Like we're all all the fact

498
00:25:43,240 --> 00:25:46,080
Speaker 2: checkers are in therapy for PTSD and for like they're

499
00:25:46,119 --> 00:25:49,639
Speaker 2: going through insane things every It's a brand new problem.

500
00:25:49,680 --> 00:25:52,320
Speaker 2: The world's never had this problem before, you know, so

501
00:25:52,400 --> 00:25:54,280
Speaker 2: how do you solve it? I think that a big

502
00:25:54,320 --> 00:25:56,879
Speaker 2: thing the media is missing is addressing it on a

503
00:25:56,960 --> 00:26:00,720
Speaker 2: level of like I was saying, belief versus is belonging

504
00:26:00,800 --> 00:26:05,560
Speaker 2: by telling people, Hey, your truth is wrong and you

505
00:26:05,600 --> 00:26:09,080
Speaker 2: should believe in this truth, which clearly is not going

506
00:26:09,119 --> 00:26:12,000
Speaker 2: to help anyone, you know. I think that there's also

507
00:26:12,040 --> 00:26:17,640
Speaker 2: an there's an expectation of people to abandon their belief

508
00:26:17,720 --> 00:26:21,160
Speaker 2: systems in a way that I think is unrealistic and

509
00:26:21,960 --> 00:26:25,760
Speaker 2: that we need to adjust the expectation and think about, Okay,

510
00:26:25,760 --> 00:26:28,520
Speaker 2: what's a way that we can you know, play these

511
00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:32,639
Speaker 2: play this game smarter, you know, go about it from

512
00:26:32,880 --> 00:26:34,480
Speaker 2: you know, if our goal is to live in a

513
00:26:34,520 --> 00:26:37,800
Speaker 2: shared reality with others, and what's the most you know,

514
00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:41,439
Speaker 2: productive means to get there. And I think there is

515
00:26:41,480 --> 00:26:48,040
Speaker 2: a way to validate people's core sense of identity and

516
00:26:48,359 --> 00:26:53,760
Speaker 2: self while criticizing, you know, something above that. For instance,

517
00:26:53,800 --> 00:26:58,639
Speaker 2: you know, you can't you can validate someone's religious belief system,

518
00:26:58,800 --> 00:27:01,000
Speaker 2: you know, if it's not hey full or something awfully.

519
00:27:01,040 --> 00:27:04,320
Speaker 2: And I think that a mistake that I see establishment

520
00:27:04,320 --> 00:27:06,359
Speaker 2: media making a lot or even just people in our lives,

521
00:27:06,960 --> 00:27:09,600
Speaker 2: are you know, expecting people to abandon their religion and

522
00:27:09,640 --> 00:27:13,399
Speaker 2: their political party at the same time, which is like

523
00:27:13,440 --> 00:27:15,520
Speaker 2: when you say it like that, it's like, oh, of

524
00:27:15,560 --> 00:27:18,600
Speaker 2: course people aren't doing that, you know, especially when they're

525
00:27:18,600 --> 00:27:20,920
Speaker 2: just being told it, you know. And so I think

526
00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:23,159
Speaker 2: that there are different types of approaches.

527
00:27:23,800 --> 00:27:27,080
Speaker 3: When you were deep into this was everyone you knew

528
00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:29,520
Speaker 3: and who was in on it. Were they sending you

529
00:27:29,640 --> 00:27:33,960
Speaker 3: every research, every bit of scientific or even just popular

530
00:27:34,000 --> 00:27:37,159
Speaker 3: research showing crows could do this or magpies can do that,

531
00:27:38,200 --> 00:27:40,880
Speaker 3: the repository of all interesting bird facts.

532
00:27:41,560 --> 00:27:44,600
Speaker 2: I feel like I know everything about birds. I feel

533
00:27:44,600 --> 00:27:47,400
Speaker 2: like I know everything about not only birds, but also

534
00:27:47,600 --> 00:27:50,479
Speaker 2: real bird drone surveillance that happens. Whenever I had made

535
00:27:50,560 --> 00:27:52,320
Speaker 2: up this idea, I thought this is the most absurd

536
00:27:52,440 --> 00:27:56,080
Speaker 2: possible thing, you know, But if you look up bird

537
00:27:56,119 --> 00:28:01,040
Speaker 2: drone surveillance, India, bird drown surveillance, Chrya, they're doing it.

538
00:28:01,119 --> 00:28:03,720
Speaker 2: They're like openly, you know, it's certainly not twelve billion

539
00:28:03,760 --> 00:28:07,520
Speaker 2: of it. I'm certainly not every bird. But it is interesting,

540
00:28:07,560 --> 00:28:10,679
Speaker 2: how I guess, with how technology has developed, that is

541
00:28:10,800 --> 00:28:11,840
Speaker 2: a real thing.

542
00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:14,119
Speaker 1: Now do you like birds?

543
00:28:14,560 --> 00:28:17,720
Speaker 2: Oh? I love birds. I love birds. That's something a

544
00:28:17,760 --> 00:28:21,760
Speaker 2: lot of people common misconception is I think birds are awesome.

545
00:28:21,920 --> 00:28:24,560
Speaker 2: I think birds are a fascinating special creature.

546
00:28:26,080 --> 00:28:28,360
Speaker 1: Did you start off liking birds? Oh?

547
00:28:28,480 --> 00:28:31,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've always This is great. I've never had this conversation,

548
00:28:31,800 --> 00:28:34,040
Speaker 2: but I'm glad it's gonna go out of the public.

549
00:28:34,119 --> 00:28:38,280
Speaker 2: I love birds. I've always loved birds. I you know,

550
00:28:38,280 --> 00:28:41,240
Speaker 2: there was a chickadee in our backyard in Ohio growing

551
00:28:41,320 --> 00:28:43,320
Speaker 2: up before I moved to Arkansaw that I just, you know,

552
00:28:43,560 --> 00:28:47,280
Speaker 2: loved and got a little chickade stuffed animal. Believe it

553
00:28:47,360 --> 00:28:50,200
Speaker 2: or not, So maybe maybe it's been deep in my

554
00:28:50,240 --> 00:28:52,600
Speaker 2: subconscious that the thought of a fake bird since I

555
00:28:52,680 --> 00:28:54,960
Speaker 2: had that little chickeny stuffed animal. Who knows.

556
00:28:55,400 --> 00:28:57,360
Speaker 1: How did you make money while you were in the

557
00:28:57,360 --> 00:28:58,280
Speaker 1: throes of doing this?

558
00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:01,160
Speaker 2: That's a great question. Have you heard of OnlyFans?

559
00:29:05,720 --> 00:29:07,240
Speaker 1: You're addressed up in a bird outfit?

560
00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:14,640
Speaker 2: No, birds aren't real. We sold t shirts. We sold merchandise.

561
00:29:14,800 --> 00:29:17,320
Speaker 2: You know which is funny? It is it is almost

562
00:29:17,320 --> 00:29:20,640
Speaker 2: similar to how a real conspiracy group, you know, would

563
00:29:20,720 --> 00:29:24,440
Speaker 2: run the I think when it gets down to it,

564
00:29:24,480 --> 00:29:29,280
Speaker 2: if you identify with an idea enough and there's an

565
00:29:29,280 --> 00:29:33,160
Speaker 2: opportunity to represent it, you will. If it feels like,

566
00:29:33,800 --> 00:29:35,920
Speaker 2: I don't know, a good representation of a part of

567
00:29:36,000 --> 00:29:37,960
Speaker 2: your personality that you want to express to people on

568
00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:41,160
Speaker 2: the billboard. That is a T shirt. You know, it's like,

569
00:29:41,200 --> 00:29:43,920
Speaker 2: here's who I am. I'm you know, here's my beliefs.

570
00:29:43,920 --> 00:29:47,840
Speaker 2: And if your beliefs are meta and ironic and sort

571
00:29:47,880 --> 00:29:53,200
Speaker 2: of reflecting a culture of lunacy with lunacy, I don't

572
00:29:53,240 --> 00:29:55,080
Speaker 2: know because I've thought about it. People really love the

573
00:29:55,120 --> 00:29:57,920
Speaker 2: shirts and it allowed us to do this as a

574
00:29:58,080 --> 00:30:00,600
Speaker 2: job for six years, believe it or not.

575
00:30:00,760 --> 00:30:03,520
Speaker 3: You know, see, if you were a real conspiracy, you

576
00:30:03,640 --> 00:30:07,800
Speaker 3: probably have less compunction about direct fundraising and just ripping

577
00:30:07,840 --> 00:30:11,520
Speaker 3: off your followers. And that's the reason that real conspiracies

578
00:30:11,640 --> 00:30:13,719
Speaker 3: have have more momentum behind them.

579
00:30:14,280 --> 00:30:16,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, we never asked our followers for money. Maybe we

580
00:30:16,960 --> 00:30:19,840
Speaker 2: should have. Maybe that would have turned it into a frenzy.

581
00:30:20,000 --> 00:30:22,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, commit to you think you're committed to the bit

582
00:30:22,520 --> 00:30:26,160
Speaker 3: This would be great set up. Put the monthly recurring payment,

583
00:30:27,320 --> 00:30:29,800
Speaker 3: show your show your alpha burder.

584
00:30:30,240 --> 00:30:31,440
Speaker 1: There are three levels.

585
00:30:31,440 --> 00:30:34,000
Speaker 3: We got the bald eagle, we got the golden eagle,

586
00:30:34,200 --> 00:30:36,360
Speaker 3: we got the parrin falcon.

587
00:30:37,200 --> 00:30:40,800
Speaker 2: Which tier are you? Yeah? That is funny though, you.

588
00:30:40,680 --> 00:30:42,960
Speaker 3: Know, if you're if you're a current student, you could

589
00:30:43,000 --> 00:30:44,320
Speaker 3: donate a chickadee level.

590
00:30:49,400 --> 00:30:52,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, we did have a like a boots on the

591
00:30:52,480 --> 00:30:55,920
Speaker 2: ground activism network we called it, you know, not not

592
00:30:56,160 --> 00:30:58,640
Speaker 2: people that pitched in money, but people that we would

593
00:30:58,640 --> 00:31:01,160
Speaker 2: send stickers to. You know, we wanted to start chapters.

594
00:31:01,200 --> 00:31:03,160
Speaker 2: That was a big part of spreading this idea.

595
00:31:03,200 --> 00:31:03,400
Speaker 3: You know.

596
00:31:03,440 --> 00:31:05,520
Speaker 2: Now and now the movement has millions of followers, but

597
00:31:05,520 --> 00:31:07,520
Speaker 2: at the beginning, it was very difficult to get anyone

598
00:31:07,560 --> 00:31:09,760
Speaker 2: to care about it on social media. You know, we

599
00:31:09,760 --> 00:31:11,880
Speaker 2: were in Arkansas, We didn't have any connections or we

600
00:31:11,920 --> 00:31:13,959
Speaker 2: didn't know anybody or have any money to do anything,

601
00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:15,720
Speaker 2: you know, so we're like, how do you get an

602
00:31:15,760 --> 00:31:17,560
Speaker 2: idea out there into the world. And we thought that

603
00:31:17,640 --> 00:31:20,960
Speaker 2: a big part of marketing that people are missing in

604
00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:24,880
Speaker 2: the modern day is the physical space, is planting, you know,

605
00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:28,480
Speaker 2: baits and lures for people to be messengers to the

606
00:31:28,520 --> 00:31:31,640
Speaker 2: internet for you know, we didn't have an audience necessarily,

607
00:31:31,640 --> 00:31:33,720
Speaker 2: but a lot of people did, and if we could

608
00:31:33,880 --> 00:31:36,320
Speaker 2: bait those people into posting about us, then boom, we're

609
00:31:36,360 --> 00:31:39,600
Speaker 2: into the zeitgeist. And so you know, we started these chapters, right,

610
00:31:39,640 --> 00:31:42,000
Speaker 2: we want fifty chapters in every state, you know, and

611
00:31:42,040 --> 00:31:43,800
Speaker 2: even if they just had a couple people at them.

612
00:31:43,960 --> 00:31:46,479
Speaker 2: We would send them activism kits, you know, so we'd say, hey,

613
00:31:46,520 --> 00:31:49,200
Speaker 2: here's fifty stickers. If you put these up this month

614
00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:51,719
Speaker 2: and take pictures of them, we'll send you fifty for you,

615
00:31:51,760 --> 00:31:53,120
Speaker 2: and then fifty more to put up, you know, and

616
00:31:53,160 --> 00:31:56,560
Speaker 2: it would It started the snowball effects where the more

617
00:31:56,560 --> 00:31:59,120
Speaker 2: stickers that would up, the more people joined the local groups.

618
00:31:59,320 --> 00:32:02,080
Speaker 2: And then before we knew it, you know, we had

619
00:32:02,920 --> 00:32:05,640
Speaker 2: thousands of people in chapters across the US, and fifty

620
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:07,800
Speaker 2: of them, you know. So that's when we got the

621
00:32:07,880 --> 00:32:10,200
Speaker 2: van and thought, okay, we're going to hire a minister

622
00:32:10,560 --> 00:32:12,960
Speaker 2: of the Bird Brigade, that's what we called it. And

623
00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:15,840
Speaker 2: we got you know, we hired our dear friend Claire,

624
00:32:15,880 --> 00:32:17,880
Speaker 2: who wore a cloak and would get on zoom meetings

625
00:32:17,880 --> 00:32:19,680
Speaker 2: with the fifty leaders of the chapters and they would

626
00:32:19,680 --> 00:32:21,840
Speaker 2: all hold candles and discuss, you know the future of

627
00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:25,840
Speaker 2: the movement. And I think that it was that real

628
00:32:26,040 --> 00:32:29,640
Speaker 2: world efforts that really boosted this. You know, I think

629
00:32:29,680 --> 00:32:32,160
Speaker 2: birds are Reel is considered like a very Internet thing,

630
00:32:32,480 --> 00:32:36,280
Speaker 2: you know, but the I guess method to get to

631
00:32:36,400 --> 00:32:40,160
Speaker 2: the Internet was very much reality. Yeah, using physical space.

632
00:32:41,720 --> 00:32:46,040
Speaker 3: Now, the one constant of almost all conspiracy theories, and

633
00:32:46,200 --> 00:32:49,920
Speaker 3: the author of the Flat Earth book bore this out

634
00:32:50,320 --> 00:32:51,640
Speaker 3: is anti Semitism.

635
00:32:52,120 --> 00:32:53,160
Speaker 1: But I'm sure you knew that.

636
00:32:53,240 --> 00:32:55,440
Speaker 3: But I'm sure you didn't want to seem so real

637
00:32:55,600 --> 00:32:58,400
Speaker 3: as to lease your content with any of that.

638
00:32:59,320 --> 00:33:02,640
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, but you're right. No. I mean, I've researched

639
00:33:02,680 --> 00:33:06,719
Speaker 2: a lot of conspiracy theories throughout the day, and it

640
00:33:06,800 --> 00:33:09,719
Speaker 2: is it kind of always astounds me how many of

641
00:33:09,760 --> 00:33:12,920
Speaker 2: them go down to anti Semitism. Yeah, I mean, you know,

642
00:33:12,960 --> 00:33:15,080
Speaker 2: you go even the goofy ones like oh flat Earth,

643
00:33:15,360 --> 00:33:18,320
Speaker 2: you know, what's what's going on with flat Earth? You

644
00:33:18,400 --> 00:33:20,920
Speaker 2: look into that, and a lot of these have yeah,

645
00:33:21,240 --> 00:33:22,600
Speaker 2: hateful roots. It's wild.

646
00:33:24,120 --> 00:33:26,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's always two steps to the Jews.

647
00:33:27,920 --> 00:33:31,120
Speaker 3: I want to ask you specifically about Fox, because Fox

648
00:33:31,520 --> 00:33:32,960
Speaker 3: did you were on their show?

649
00:33:33,000 --> 00:33:34,560
Speaker 1: You were on the Jesse Water Show. There was a

650
00:33:34,600 --> 00:33:35,400
Speaker 1: guest host there.

651
00:33:36,480 --> 00:33:40,960
Speaker 3: But they also put together a documentary about you, and

652
00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:43,200
Speaker 3: I have to say I didn't pay the premium to

653
00:33:43,360 --> 00:33:46,880
Speaker 3: watch it, but was the tone I sensed? Yeah, I

654
00:33:47,000 --> 00:33:50,640
Speaker 3: just sensed that the tone was they were talking about

655
00:33:50,640 --> 00:33:54,800
Speaker 3: you as if you guys were nuts. But did they

656
00:33:54,840 --> 00:33:57,080
Speaker 3: think you believed it or what did you think they

657
00:33:57,120 --> 00:33:58,120
Speaker 3: thought of your movement.

658
00:33:59,280 --> 00:34:01,360
Speaker 2: It's a great question. Yeah. I mean Fox reached out

659
00:34:01,400 --> 00:34:03,240
Speaker 2: to me and said, hey, Fox Nation wants to do

660
00:34:03,280 --> 00:34:06,480
Speaker 2: a documentary about the Birds Aren't Real movement, Not even

661
00:34:06,480 --> 00:34:08,239
Speaker 2: the movement, but the conspiracy they said, And it was

662
00:34:08,320 --> 00:34:11,200
Speaker 2: part of a conspiracy series they were doing where there's

663
00:34:11,239 --> 00:34:13,680
Speaker 2: flat Earth, there was JFK, and there's birds Aren't Real,

664
00:34:13,800 --> 00:34:16,080
Speaker 2: you know. And I mean that was honestly great news

665
00:34:16,080 --> 00:34:18,719
Speaker 2: for me. Whenever I was planning birds Aren't Real. It's

666
00:34:18,719 --> 00:34:22,440
Speaker 2: exactly what I wanted was not to be not to

667
00:34:22,480 --> 00:34:26,640
Speaker 2: compete with satire groups or think of ourselves as comedy,

668
00:34:26,640 --> 00:34:28,200
Speaker 2: but to think about it as this idea we were

669
00:34:28,200 --> 00:34:31,120
Speaker 2: trying to see in society, so it would be you know,

670
00:34:31,160 --> 00:34:34,160
Speaker 2: we were our competition was flat Earth, you know, as

671
00:34:34,160 --> 00:34:36,879
Speaker 2: an idea. So when people thought of conspiracy, they think

672
00:34:36,920 --> 00:34:40,080
Speaker 2: of oh, JFK, the bird robot thing and flat Earth.

673
00:34:40,120 --> 00:34:43,239
Speaker 2: You know, we wanted to be in that because if

674
00:34:43,239 --> 00:34:46,680
Speaker 2: you're there, that idea never goes away. You know, it's

675
00:34:46,719 --> 00:34:48,359
Speaker 2: not like flat Earth was viral and then goes away.

676
00:34:48,360 --> 00:34:52,200
Speaker 2: You know, it's just this word of mouth concepts to

677
00:34:52,360 --> 00:34:56,479
Speaker 2: fixture and culture forever. But yeah, when Fox News reached

678
00:34:56,480 --> 00:34:59,120
Speaker 2: out to us. I thought, Okay, they must know this

679
00:34:59,200 --> 00:35:01,560
Speaker 2: is satire, but I'm just gonna play it straight with them,

680
00:35:01,560 --> 00:35:03,359
Speaker 2: even though I came out of character two years ago.

681
00:35:03,480 --> 00:35:05,160
Speaker 2: Their Fox News would be fun to fuck with them,

682
00:35:05,600 --> 00:35:10,960
Speaker 2: And so I went in and it was very odd.

683
00:35:11,120 --> 00:35:13,640
Speaker 2: They didn't seem to know that I was a character,

684
00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:16,719
Speaker 2: or they didn't seem to have done their research necessarily,

685
00:35:17,280 --> 00:35:19,759
Speaker 2: and I was just really messing with them, you know.

686
00:35:19,800 --> 00:35:21,799
Speaker 2: And there was this one guy on set that was like, oh,

687
00:35:21,840 --> 00:35:24,760
Speaker 2: it's an improp. It's like improv, but he wasn't the producers,

688
00:35:24,760 --> 00:35:28,360
Speaker 2: and the producers were feeling very strange about it. So

689
00:35:28,520 --> 00:35:30,560
Speaker 2: I was able to really just be like a total

690
00:35:30,600 --> 00:35:33,640
Speaker 2: freak in the Fox News documentary, which was really fun.

691
00:35:34,080 --> 00:35:35,640
Speaker 2: And that's when they ended up saying, Hey, we want

692
00:35:35,640 --> 00:35:38,040
Speaker 2: to promote this documentary. Can you come on Jesse Waters,

693
00:35:38,239 --> 00:35:41,520
Speaker 2: you know and talk to our host live? And I

694
00:35:41,560 --> 00:35:43,400
Speaker 2: was shocked because I had never thought I'd be on

695
00:35:43,440 --> 00:35:45,719
Speaker 2: live news again after I had, you know, vomited on

696
00:35:45,800 --> 00:35:49,600
Speaker 2: Live News and you know, done a variety of different stunts.

697
00:35:50,200 --> 00:35:54,600
Speaker 2: But they invited me on and I'm sitting down with

698
00:35:54,680 --> 00:35:58,200
Speaker 2: their hosts in the studio and he looks over at

699
00:35:58,200 --> 00:35:59,759
Speaker 2: me before the cameras turn on, and he goes, okay,

700
00:35:59,800 --> 00:36:03,160
Speaker 2: wait one question before would the movement was started in

701
00:36:03,239 --> 00:36:08,240
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy or nineteen sis seventy six? And I was like, oh,

702
00:36:08,280 --> 00:36:11,239
Speaker 2: he doesn't know. He doesn't know it's twenty seventeen, Like

703
00:36:11,320 --> 00:36:13,360
Speaker 2: he has no idea. It's like, oh my gosh. So

704
00:36:13,400 --> 00:36:14,680
Speaker 2: I just looked him straight in the eyes and said,

705
00:36:14,719 --> 00:36:18,280
Speaker 2: oh no, it's nineteen seventy six, soh okay, and wrote

706
00:36:18,320 --> 00:36:22,040
Speaker 2: it down and then the entire interview was totally serious,

707
00:36:22,440 --> 00:36:25,840
Speaker 2: totally serious, saying okay, how do you believe this? What's

708
00:36:25,880 --> 00:36:28,720
Speaker 2: going on? And I was I was stunned. I was stunned.

709
00:36:29,600 --> 00:36:30,080
Speaker 1: Yeah.

710
00:36:30,280 --> 00:36:32,880
Speaker 3: I think he was interviewing it as if, by the way,

711
00:36:32,880 --> 00:36:34,560
Speaker 3: who do you remember who the guest host was?

712
00:36:34,640 --> 00:36:35,360
Speaker 1: It wasn't Jesse.

713
00:36:35,880 --> 00:36:38,120
Speaker 2: I it wasn't Jesse. I was so disappointed. And that

714
00:36:38,200 --> 00:36:40,400
Speaker 2: was this guy named Pete, A guy named Pete.

715
00:36:40,760 --> 00:36:43,480
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Pete Hesse Pete. Hegeth that guy. Yeah, he's

716
00:36:43,520 --> 00:36:44,680
Speaker 1: on the morning show now.

717
00:36:44,920 --> 00:36:47,239
Speaker 3: And I think he was conducting it as if he

718
00:36:47,280 --> 00:36:49,520
Speaker 3: said to himself, look, this is a crazy guy. I

719
00:36:49,520 --> 00:36:51,719
Speaker 3: think he's crazy. I meet him like a third of

720
00:36:51,760 --> 00:36:54,560
Speaker 3: the way by saying, yeah, there's some drum surveillance, sure,

721
00:36:54,680 --> 00:36:57,920
Speaker 3: because you know not, you can't just discount the fact

722
00:36:57,920 --> 00:37:00,279
Speaker 3: that the government is in surveillance all the t time

723
00:37:00,280 --> 00:37:03,040
Speaker 3: for that audience. But also, I think and he didn't

724
00:37:03,080 --> 00:37:04,840
Speaker 3: keep you on for that long. It was a short segment.

725
00:37:04,920 --> 00:37:07,799
Speaker 3: I think he was like, all right, Uh, Fox News

726
00:37:07,880 --> 00:37:09,799
Speaker 3: Nation is promoing this documentary.

727
00:37:09,960 --> 00:37:11,960
Speaker 1: I'm not going to rebut it or embarrass anyone at

728
00:37:11,960 --> 00:37:12,400
Speaker 1: the network.

729
00:37:12,480 --> 00:37:16,479
Speaker 3: So he gave you a yeah, Now do you think

730
00:37:16,520 --> 00:37:20,560
Speaker 3: I didn't watch a documentary? What was the tone of that?

731
00:37:20,640 --> 00:37:24,360
Speaker 3: Did they mock the idea or did they credit the idea?

732
00:37:24,480 --> 00:37:26,480
Speaker 1: How far? It was probably somewhere in between.

733
00:37:26,239 --> 00:37:29,400
Speaker 2: Right, It was somewhere in between. It seemed like the

734
00:37:29,400 --> 00:37:31,279
Speaker 2: people in the editing room knew it, knew it was

735
00:37:31,320 --> 00:37:34,640
Speaker 2: a joke, but the producers didn't. And so the interviews

736
00:37:34,680 --> 00:37:36,719
Speaker 2: are very serious and everything was serious. But then they

737
00:37:36,719 --> 00:37:39,960
Speaker 2: would have a cheezy sound effect, you know or whatever.

738
00:37:40,760 --> 00:37:42,960
Speaker 2: But I was watching the other ones about real conception.

739
00:37:42,960 --> 00:37:47,080
Speaker 2: That's my question. How different they did it the way? Yeah,

740
00:37:47,200 --> 00:37:49,000
Speaker 2: they did it the same way. They're like, oh, this

741
00:37:49,080 --> 00:37:51,680
Speaker 2: is a preposterous idea, you know.

742
00:37:53,320 --> 00:37:55,319
Speaker 3: Right, and then the question is why are they doing

743
00:37:55,360 --> 00:37:59,040
Speaker 3: it? Is Fox specifically, it's because not to get two nefarious.

744
00:37:59,080 --> 00:38:02,000
Speaker 3: I'm sure some of there are audience is exactly like us,

745
00:38:02,200 --> 00:38:04,880
Speaker 3: just curious about it. Some of their audience is curious

746
00:38:04,920 --> 00:38:05,960
Speaker 3: and that not so good.

747
00:38:05,760 --> 00:38:09,560
Speaker 2: Way right right, And that's the thing I mean, I

748
00:38:09,560 --> 00:38:13,560
Speaker 2: I know, you know different people who their only thing

749
00:38:13,640 --> 00:38:16,160
Speaker 2: is Fox News, you know, that's all they watch. You know.

750
00:38:16,520 --> 00:38:18,600
Speaker 3: Oh, after you did it, did you hear from people

751
00:38:18,600 --> 00:38:20,719
Speaker 3: who Yeah, that's what I was gonna ask you.

752
00:38:21,360 --> 00:38:25,120
Speaker 2: Yes, I did, I did. I had some distant family members.

753
00:38:25,239 --> 00:38:27,280
Speaker 2: Oh I always saw you pop up on Fox News,

754
00:38:27,360 --> 00:38:33,799
Speaker 2: you know, uh, which is which is very funny.

755
00:38:33,840 --> 00:38:35,440
Speaker 1: So you could be for a while.

756
00:38:35,800 --> 00:38:38,160
Speaker 3: The book, the book is very funny, and I think

757
00:38:38,160 --> 00:38:43,399
Speaker 3: it's probably the capstone to this caper. You could and

758
00:38:43,480 --> 00:38:46,800
Speaker 3: you are invited to talk about disinformation from a perspective

759
00:38:46,840 --> 00:38:49,120
Speaker 3: that almost no one else has. But do you think

760
00:38:49,160 --> 00:38:51,719
Speaker 3: you're going to iterate and do another thing in the

761
00:38:51,719 --> 00:38:54,960
Speaker 3: field of comedy and improv that might be not disinformation

762
00:38:55,080 --> 00:38:56,600
Speaker 3: y or do you think you're going to stay in

763
00:38:56,640 --> 00:38:59,680
Speaker 3: the world of disinformation but not you know, try to

764
00:38:59,680 --> 00:39:03,120
Speaker 3: do an exact replication of conspiracy theory.

765
00:39:03,160 --> 00:39:04,520
Speaker 1: But this time with Woodchucks.

766
00:39:06,600 --> 00:39:10,640
Speaker 2: So two answers to that. One is that we have

767
00:39:10,680 --> 00:39:14,279
Speaker 2: a big other project planned and it'll be coming out.

768
00:39:15,280 --> 00:39:17,319
Speaker 2: I can't really say, maybe in a few months, maybe

769
00:39:17,400 --> 00:39:21,560
Speaker 2: next year, but I could not be more excited about

770
00:39:21,600 --> 00:39:24,440
Speaker 2: the project, and believe it or not, I can promise

771
00:39:24,480 --> 00:39:26,799
Speaker 2: you it will be much bigger than Birds Aren't Real.

772
00:39:26,960 --> 00:39:28,919
Speaker 2: So it feels like we're at the beginning of something

773
00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:31,800
Speaker 2: right now and I'm excited for you for you to see.

774
00:39:32,040 --> 00:39:35,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, Birds Aren't Real was founded by I guess you

775
00:39:35,680 --> 00:39:38,440
Speaker 3: could call him the sentinel Chicken of the movement. He

776
00:39:38,680 --> 00:39:43,000
Speaker 3: alerted us early on to this phenomenon by Peter McIndoe

777
00:39:43,120 --> 00:39:44,799
Speaker 3: his new book with Connor.

778
00:39:44,480 --> 00:39:46,399
Speaker 1: Gaidos's Birds Aren't Real.

779
00:39:46,560 --> 00:39:49,280
Speaker 3: The True Story of mass Avian Murder and the largest

780
00:39:49,280 --> 00:39:54,400
Speaker 3: surveillance campaign in US history. Peter, congratulations on your resurrection

781
00:39:54,719 --> 00:39:56,320
Speaker 3: and the book and the movement.

782
00:39:56,600 --> 00:39:59,200
Speaker 2: Thanks, thank you so much. Mike, thanks for having me.

783
00:40:07,680 --> 00:40:08,520
Speaker 1: And now the shpiel.

784
00:40:08,520 --> 00:40:10,920
Speaker 3: I was reading about a nineteen eighty six clearance of

785
00:40:10,960 --> 00:40:12,879
Speaker 3: an urban encampment.

786
00:40:12,440 --> 00:40:12,759
Speaker 1: I e.

787
00:40:12,800 --> 00:40:16,839
Speaker 3: A shantytown, overseen by then San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein.

788
00:40:17,560 --> 00:40:19,960
Speaker 3: What she did was she saw that dozens of people

789
00:40:19,960 --> 00:40:23,160
Speaker 3: were sleeping outside in tents and makeshift shelters. Had been

790
00:40:23,160 --> 00:40:26,600
Speaker 3: going on for five years. The citizenry was complaining, so

791
00:40:26,640 --> 00:40:29,759
Speaker 3: she went in and took down the tents and makeshift

792
00:40:29,800 --> 00:40:32,960
Speaker 3: shelters and put everyone in a hotel. Was it hard?

793
00:40:33,200 --> 00:40:36,160
Speaker 3: Didn't seem that hard. Did it solve the problem? Did

794
00:40:36,200 --> 00:40:39,040
Speaker 3: solve the problem of those people in that shanty town.

795
00:40:39,160 --> 00:40:40,360
Speaker 1: The San Francisco.

796
00:40:39,960 --> 00:40:42,359
Speaker 3: Chronicle interviewed a four year old girl who lived there.

797
00:40:42,440 --> 00:40:45,920
Speaker 3: She is now thriving and credits the mayor for intervening. Quote,

798
00:40:46,080 --> 00:40:47,920
Speaker 3: we got a new life because of that move. The

799
00:40:47,920 --> 00:40:50,040
Speaker 3: mayor had us all make and I am still grateful

800
00:40:50,040 --> 00:40:52,920
Speaker 3: for that. This woman grew up to be a veterinary technician,

801
00:40:52,920 --> 00:40:55,839
Speaker 3: a successful manager, married with four children, and today lives

802
00:40:55,840 --> 00:40:59,080
Speaker 3: in Paco's quote a tiny village where there's fresh mountain

803
00:40:59,080 --> 00:41:03,040
Speaker 3: air and it's safe. Now what Mayor Feinstein did, First

804
00:41:03,040 --> 00:41:04,920
Speaker 3: of all, it wasn't immedia. She was mayor for a while.

805
00:41:04,960 --> 00:41:08,640
Speaker 3: The chantatown was there five years. It certainly doesn't represent

806
00:41:08,719 --> 00:41:11,400
Speaker 3: a long term solution, But then again, every city has

807
00:41:11,480 --> 00:41:14,000
Speaker 3: fire departments and they put out all the fires, and

808
00:41:14,040 --> 00:41:16,560
Speaker 3: that's not a long term solution. And yet they still

809
00:41:16,560 --> 00:41:19,960
Speaker 3: do it. They don't let those particular people catch fire

810
00:41:20,160 --> 00:41:22,560
Speaker 3: or the houses next to that one house on fire,

811
00:41:22,960 --> 00:41:26,640
Speaker 3: even if it's not a quote long term solution, because

812
00:41:26,800 --> 00:41:32,200
Speaker 3: we don't embark on short term solutions instead of long

813
00:41:32,320 --> 00:41:36,600
Speaker 3: term solutions. We embark on short term solutions as a

814
00:41:36,600 --> 00:41:41,920
Speaker 3: solution to short term problems. And that is the thesis

815
00:41:42,239 --> 00:41:45,600
Speaker 3: of today's shpiel. What happens when you don't do it,

816
00:41:45,760 --> 00:41:48,880
Speaker 3: when you don't even commit to these short term solution

817
00:41:49,040 --> 00:41:52,720
Speaker 3: Maybe because that's not a long term solution. Some will say,

818
00:41:52,960 --> 00:41:56,880
Speaker 3: maybe because trying to aspire to the long term solution

819
00:41:57,080 --> 00:42:01,360
Speaker 3: creates so many complications in achieving the short term solution

820
00:42:01,440 --> 00:42:05,759
Speaker 3: that no solution is made. What about when you stupidly

821
00:42:05,800 --> 00:42:09,719
Speaker 3: allow the problems of small towns or large cities or

822
00:42:09,800 --> 00:42:12,920
Speaker 3: huge municipalities too fester. I think what you do then

823
00:42:13,520 --> 00:42:16,279
Speaker 3: is you invite the idea that there are no solutions.

824
00:42:16,280 --> 00:42:18,880
Speaker 3: So this is this is a defense of the short

825
00:42:18,960 --> 00:42:22,120
Speaker 3: term solution. The low hanging fruit that is so often

826
00:42:22,160 --> 00:42:24,759
Speaker 3: derided is not the solution to all that ails us. Yes,

827
00:42:24,800 --> 00:42:26,839
Speaker 3: but it could be the solution to that thing, that

828
00:42:26,880 --> 00:42:30,479
Speaker 3: one thing that's telling us right now, let us take

829
00:42:31,040 --> 00:42:34,680
Speaker 3: pot shops, weed shops in New York. Little math here.

830
00:42:35,320 --> 00:42:39,640
Speaker 3: In May of this year, the New York Times reported

831
00:42:39,880 --> 00:42:43,480
Speaker 3: that there were two thousand rogue headshops. Do you know

832
00:42:43,480 --> 00:42:46,080
Speaker 3: how many legal ones there were in New York as

833
00:42:46,080 --> 00:42:48,759
Speaker 3: opposed to the two thousand operating without licenses?

834
00:42:48,800 --> 00:42:50,520
Speaker 1: This is from a May article eighty five.

835
00:42:51,320 --> 00:42:54,200
Speaker 3: Then a few months later Kurbed had an updated figure

836
00:42:54,680 --> 00:42:57,359
Speaker 3: there were fifty seven legal weed shops in New York

837
00:42:57,840 --> 00:43:01,640
Speaker 3: and twenty nine hundred illlegal ones. New York Times slightly

838
00:43:01,680 --> 00:43:05,120
Speaker 3: tweaked a few months after that its numbers. The estimated

839
00:43:05,600 --> 00:43:11,759
Speaker 3: licensed retailers sixty two unlicensed two thousand, nine hundred. This

840
00:43:11,840 --> 00:43:14,960
Speaker 3: isn't like, oh, half the pot shops are illegal. This

841
00:43:15,160 --> 00:43:18,879
Speaker 3: is sixty two out of twenty nine hundred. That would

842
00:43:18,920 --> 00:43:22,839
Speaker 3: be just a little over two point two percent. New

843
00:43:22,920 --> 00:43:27,080
Speaker 3: York didn't legalize weed, really, They just illegalized, arresting anyone

844
00:43:27,160 --> 00:43:29,680
Speaker 3: for it, and then they did nothing. Well, now they're

845
00:43:29,719 --> 00:43:32,960
Speaker 3: closing down a couple of dozen of the illegal shops,

846
00:43:33,080 --> 00:43:35,800
Speaker 3: but they're not really putting the legal ones online any quicker.

847
00:43:36,440 --> 00:43:38,320
Speaker 1: Even if the overall goal.

848
00:43:38,239 --> 00:43:41,280
Speaker 3: Was good, You know, we shouldn't be spending resources locking

849
00:43:41,360 --> 00:43:43,920
Speaker 3: up pot smokers or growers. I agree, with that, but

850
00:43:43,960 --> 00:43:47,719
Speaker 3: that's not an actual policy. That's an opinion. Maybe it's

851
00:43:47,760 --> 00:43:49,719
Speaker 3: even a law, but it's not a policy. Now, the

852
00:43:49,719 --> 00:43:53,360
Speaker 3: governor did just fire Chris Alexander, the executive director of

853
00:43:53,360 --> 00:43:57,000
Speaker 3: the Office of Cannabis Management, and she did so because

854
00:43:57,040 --> 00:44:00,399
Speaker 3: there was no policy. And that's on her too. When

855
00:44:00,400 --> 00:44:04,640
Speaker 3: you follow up trying to get a huge policy change,

856
00:44:04,880 --> 00:44:08,760
Speaker 3: right the legalization of pot, and you address that change,

857
00:44:08,760 --> 00:44:12,560
Speaker 3: you do change the law, but you change a policy.

858
00:44:12,960 --> 00:44:16,200
Speaker 3: No pot, that's policy. It was enforced with a lack

859
00:44:16,280 --> 00:44:18,840
Speaker 3: of a policy. There's no policy. Now they're just not

860
00:44:18,960 --> 00:44:22,600
Speaker 3: arresting people who sell pot. Well, you endanger the future

861
00:44:22,760 --> 00:44:26,920
Speaker 3: idea of policy writ large, I get the impression that

862
00:44:27,040 --> 00:44:29,520
Speaker 3: when it came to pot, the reformers had a slogan

863
00:44:29,560 --> 00:44:31,960
Speaker 3: and they had an agenda item, they had an end goal.

864
00:44:32,080 --> 00:44:35,960
Speaker 3: They just didn't have a plan. These weren't serious people.

865
00:44:36,440 --> 00:44:40,680
Speaker 3: Or maybe the elected officials or the bureaucrats who agreed

866
00:44:40,719 --> 00:44:43,759
Speaker 3: with their plan, maybe even campaigned on their plan, never

867
00:44:43,840 --> 00:44:46,920
Speaker 3: really had a plan. They just had a stance or

868
00:44:46,960 --> 00:44:51,040
Speaker 3: a platform. Again, not serious and right now pot Gallup

869
00:44:51,200 --> 00:44:54,560
Speaker 3: has been doing polls. Seventy percent of Americans now believe

870
00:44:54,600 --> 00:44:56,919
Speaker 3: that marijuana should be legal. But what do you do

871
00:44:57,000 --> 00:44:59,799
Speaker 3: with the next big change that is a heavier lift?

872
00:44:59,840 --> 00:45:02,839
Speaker 3: Right when it's pulling at sixty percent or even at

873
00:45:02,920 --> 00:45:06,280
Speaker 3: forty five percent, But you still think it's a good policy.

874
00:45:06,400 --> 00:45:08,759
Speaker 3: Government needs to work and needs to show that it

875
00:45:08,840 --> 00:45:12,080
Speaker 3: does work in order to change things that people are

876
00:45:12,080 --> 00:45:16,160
Speaker 3: a little nervous about. Another New York example subway breaks.

877
00:45:16,680 --> 00:45:20,279
Speaker 3: They're open to the public, you know, like Linux, but

878
00:45:20,440 --> 00:45:23,359
Speaker 3: for subways. I don't know how a city chooses to

879
00:45:23,800 --> 00:45:27,680
Speaker 3: have open access to breaks but not bathrooms. But here

880
00:45:27,719 --> 00:45:30,400
Speaker 3: we are, and like the f train veering off the tracks,

881
00:45:30,440 --> 00:45:31,040
Speaker 3: there we go.

882
00:45:33,280 --> 00:45:36,080
Speaker 1: Hello, thank you for writing the New York City subway.

883
00:45:36,280 --> 00:45:40,200
Speaker 1: We at the MTA, we think of our writers as partners,

884
00:45:40,520 --> 00:45:44,200
Speaker 1: as clients. That's why we give all of you access

885
00:45:44,360 --> 00:45:46,799
Speaker 1: to the breaks. Now you might think, WHOA, that's not

886
00:45:46,880 --> 00:45:50,480
Speaker 1: a great idea, but you would be surprised. It's worse

887
00:45:50,560 --> 00:45:53,360
Speaker 1: than not a great idea. It's one of the most

888
00:45:53,360 --> 00:45:57,239
Speaker 1: horrible ideas any municipality has ever adopted. As CBS Local

889
00:45:57,280 --> 00:45:58,600
Speaker 1: News reports.

890
00:45:58,440 --> 00:46:00,680
Speaker 4: Police are looking for this man wearing a T shirt

891
00:46:00,719 --> 00:46:03,560
Speaker 4: saying swag Don't Come Cheap. He's seen in this grainy

892
00:46:03,600 --> 00:46:07,280
Speaker 4: surveillance video surfing the northbound two train at the fourteenth

893
00:46:07,320 --> 00:46:10,440
Speaker 4: Street in some of the Avenue Subway station on Tuesday.

894
00:46:10,560 --> 00:46:13,319
Speaker 4: Police say he rode several stops before he pulled the

895
00:46:13,360 --> 00:46:14,440
Speaker 4: emergency brakes.

896
00:46:15,000 --> 00:46:15,720
Speaker 1: Who is to blame?

897
00:46:15,840 --> 00:46:18,640
Speaker 3: It's those damn kids, says the head of the MTA,

898
00:46:18,880 --> 00:46:19,680
Speaker 3: Jano Lieber.

899
00:46:19,920 --> 00:46:22,200
Speaker 1: I've got to convince her that the kids. It's most

900
00:46:22,239 --> 00:46:24,360
Speaker 1: the kids who are messing around that way. This is

901
00:46:24,440 --> 00:46:26,560
Speaker 1: really unfair to other riders and it creates risk.

902
00:46:27,080 --> 00:46:29,239
Speaker 3: But you heard the stats and they're the same there

903
00:46:29,280 --> 00:46:32,680
Speaker 3: for twenty twenty three, same stats this year, seventeen hundred

904
00:46:32,719 --> 00:46:36,480
Speaker 3: times they pulled the brakes. Thirty made sense. I'll say

905
00:46:36,480 --> 00:46:38,360
Speaker 3: the same thing I said about legal pot shops.

906
00:46:38,440 --> 00:46:41,240
Speaker 1: It's not like half of them don't work. Ninety percent

907
00:46:41,320 --> 00:46:42,000
Speaker 1: don't even work.

908
00:46:42,520 --> 00:46:45,720
Speaker 3: More than ninety eight percent of the time someone pulled

909
00:46:45,719 --> 00:46:49,320
Speaker 3: the brakes. It was a mistake, it was a prank.

910
00:46:49,280 --> 00:46:51,440
Speaker 5: And it was dangerous. There have been a couple of

911
00:46:51,640 --> 00:46:56,560
Speaker 5: very big trained derailments. Then this report on WCBS. They

912
00:46:56,600 --> 00:46:59,640
Speaker 5: hit up a professor, an NYU professor. Now this guy

913
00:46:59,640 --> 00:47:01,920
Speaker 5: couldn't come in the studio. Is too busy working on

914
00:47:02,040 --> 00:47:05,920
Speaker 5: complex solutions to almost intractable problems, so they wire them

915
00:47:06,000 --> 00:47:09,319
Speaker 5: up remotely. It's a bad connection. It's obviously a fake background.

916
00:47:09,640 --> 00:47:13,399
Speaker 5: But anyway, they needed him because only this professor could

917
00:47:13,400 --> 00:47:18,399
Speaker 5: deliver the flaming arrow of insight to pierce this vexing conundrum.

918
00:47:18,719 --> 00:47:23,640
Speaker 2: Professor Katsuo Kirbyashi is the Chair of Mechanical and Aerospace

919
00:47:23,719 --> 00:47:27,440
Speaker 2: Engineering at the NYU tande In School of Engineering.

920
00:47:28,000 --> 00:47:30,680
Speaker 6: One solution is that and we eliminated that kind of

921
00:47:30,680 --> 00:47:33,320
Speaker 6: the system, and they should get rid of this kandid

922
00:47:33,360 --> 00:47:39,200
Speaker 6: direct access for these people to activate the emergency break eliminate.

923
00:47:38,760 --> 00:47:40,040
Speaker 1: The emergency brakes.

924
00:47:40,440 --> 00:47:45,200
Speaker 3: Well there you go, Thank you, tenured Professor katsu Glad

925
00:47:45,520 --> 00:47:48,040
Speaker 3: we could all tap into his expertise. I don't know

926
00:47:48,080 --> 00:47:50,960
Speaker 3: how many years of instruction, learning and study it took

927
00:47:51,040 --> 00:47:51,560
Speaker 3: him to the side.

928
00:47:51,600 --> 00:47:53,239
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe you shouldn't just let any puts

929
00:47:53,280 --> 00:47:56,560
Speaker 1: pull the emergency brakes, because we have shown they will.

930
00:47:57,440 --> 00:48:00,719
Speaker 3: We have hard problems. We've always had hard prods problems

931
00:48:00,760 --> 00:48:04,440
Speaker 3: in San Francisco. Kevin Fagan who wrote about that Dianne

932
00:48:04,440 --> 00:48:07,400
Speaker 3: Feinstein cleaning up the camp, you know, he acknowledged this

933
00:48:07,520 --> 00:48:10,920
Speaker 3: situation has gotten much worse. They were twenty five hundred

934
00:48:10,920 --> 00:48:13,399
Speaker 3: to four thousand homeless people every night in nineteen eighty six,

935
00:48:13,440 --> 00:48:17,640
Speaker 3: and in San Francisco today it's eight thousand, so it's doubled.

936
00:48:18,280 --> 00:48:21,680
Speaker 3: But then again, San Francisco used to spend in nineteen

937
00:48:21,719 --> 00:48:24,560
Speaker 3: eighty six thirty million dollars a year, so with inflation

938
00:48:24,680 --> 00:48:26,799
Speaker 3: that would be ninety million dollars. You know what their

939
00:48:26,800 --> 00:48:29,839
Speaker 3: budget is on the homeless now, six hundred and fifty

940
00:48:29,880 --> 00:48:33,799
Speaker 3: million dollars, and they have seventeen thousand beds of supportive

941
00:48:33,800 --> 00:48:38,120
Speaker 3: housing and thirty eight hundred shelter beds. But still nothing

942
00:48:38,200 --> 00:48:41,680
Speaker 3: gets to the root cause or the long term solution.

943
00:48:42,080 --> 00:48:42,680
Speaker 1: Of course you can.

944
00:48:42,800 --> 00:48:45,360
Speaker 3: You have to change the laws of San Francisco at

945
00:48:45,440 --> 00:48:49,759
Speaker 3: most coastal cities to look more like Houston, which homeowners

946
00:48:49,800 --> 00:48:54,120
Speaker 3: and the political class has historically been against. It's the

947
00:48:54,160 --> 00:48:58,240
Speaker 3: only long term solution. Sometimes the short term solution does something,

948
00:48:58,600 --> 00:49:01,680
Speaker 3: saves a four year old's life, shows the people in

949
00:49:01,719 --> 00:49:05,560
Speaker 3: the city that something can be done. We have always

950
00:49:05,640 --> 00:49:09,840
Speaker 3: had very hard problems, but by so pathetically addressing or

951
00:49:09,920 --> 00:49:13,400
Speaker 3: managing the less hard problems, we don't just fail to

952
00:49:13,440 --> 00:49:16,680
Speaker 3: solve those specific problems, we do create the greater problem

953
00:49:17,000 --> 00:49:21,040
Speaker 3: of hopelessness. Cynicism a disbelief that anything can be done.

954
00:49:21,080 --> 00:49:25,520
Speaker 3: Some problems are in fact extremely complex and intractable.

955
00:49:24,880 --> 00:49:28,160
Speaker 1: But lots really aren't subway breaks.

956
00:49:28,880 --> 00:49:32,719
Speaker 3: Let's be a tiny bit more practical, attentive, and intelligent

957
00:49:33,200 --> 00:49:38,040
Speaker 3: un the solvable problems. Else we squander the will to

958
00:49:38,200 --> 00:49:45,680
Speaker 3: tackle the big ones. And that's it for today's show.

959
00:49:45,719 --> 00:49:49,400
Speaker 3: Cory Warra produces the gist. Joel Patterson's the senior producer,

960
00:49:49,560 --> 00:49:55,560
Speaker 3: Leo Baum interns with us baumb It reminds me of

961
00:49:55,600 --> 00:50:04,799
Speaker 3: the lyrics to What's Happening Baumba. Michelle Pesca is the

962
00:50:05,719 --> 00:50:10,160
Speaker 3: special projects Quarternate Tricks of Peachfish productions.

963
00:50:10,400 --> 00:50:14,000
Speaker 1: To advertise, go to advertisedcast dot com. Slash the gist.

964
00:50:14,000 --> 00:50:15,920
Speaker 1: Super dupery, dupery Thanks for listening.