Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from How Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot Com. Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb, I'm Christian Sea,
Speaker 1: and I'm Joe McCormick. In today, we're coming at you
Speaker 1: with some listener mail. That's right, Carney, our mail bot
Speaker 1: is currently go undergoing routine self virus scanning, so he's
Speaker 1: kind of in a dormant state, but he's still able
Speaker 1: to print out listener mails, your listener mails first to
Speaker 1: sort through and read. So he's just continuing to to
Speaker 1: sport out this massive pile of a dot Matrix printer.
Speaker 1: And guys, I know this is an inconvenience, but it
Speaker 1: really does make sense because when Carney gets infected with malware,
Speaker 1: it is a bad scene. Yeah. I actually heard that
Speaker 1: somebody hacked into Carney through the Internet of Things in
Speaker 1: order to commit a di DOS attack. Really yeah, against
Speaker 1: what against what I believe is the targets Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind dot com. Yeah, they turned our own
Speaker 1: listener mail robot against us. That's vile. Yeah, it's just
Speaker 1: real despicable guys, these hackers, and not quite as well
Speaker 1: as the people who sees the baby monitors but it's close,
Speaker 1: all right. Well, well, without further ado, let's see what
Speaker 1: we've got here. We haven't done one of these in
Speaker 1: a few months, and we've received a lot of listener mail,
Speaker 1: a ton, yeah, of some wonderful stuff, and sadly, you know,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna be able to get to all of
Speaker 1: it here, and we're not able to directly respond to
Speaker 1: a lot of it. But we do appreciate all the
Speaker 1: wonderful takes, all the wonderful tidbits, all the wonderful bits
Speaker 1: of feedback that you send in on each and every week. Okay,
Speaker 1: And first off, our listener, Kelly writes to us on
Speaker 1: Facebook in response to our episode about being eaten by
Speaker 1: a giant spider, And just a note on that episode,
Speaker 1: We did have to publish that one twice because first
Speaker 1: time it came out maybe that was during our di
Speaker 1: Dos attack. I don't know, Uh, something happened with the publishing.
Speaker 1: And so if you saw that episode show up twice, uh,
Speaker 1: or if you had a problem with it the first time,
Speaker 1: you might want to check that that second version of
Speaker 1: it anyway, right, Uh, So, Kelly writes, Hi, guys, I
Speaker 1: just listened to your giant spider episode. I was never
Speaker 1: skittish with spiders. My friend even had the sweetest tarantula
Speaker 1: that like to cuddle more than a puppy. Somehow I
Speaker 1: doubt that, but okay, I was always the designated quote
Speaker 1: spider remover of our family because I thought we had
Speaker 1: a great symbiotic relationship. And Kelly, you are exactly right.
Speaker 1: Humans and spiders peas in a pod. The we're friends.
Speaker 1: They're not our enemies. But Kelly, Kelly does have a
Speaker 1: little case of friendly fire to mention to us. Here,
Speaker 1: Kelly writes about a decade ago, I woke up with
Speaker 1: the left side of my face so swollen. Just by
Speaker 1: looking out the corner of my eye, I could see
Speaker 1: my cheek. I sleep stumbled into the bathroom to find
Speaker 1: huge bloody sores from my forehead down to my nose.
Speaker 1: I got an appointment of my doctors that day. He
Speaker 1: informed me that I'd been attacked by a brown recluse
Speaker 1: in my sleep, and also let me know that if
Speaker 1: I hadn't come in so quickly, the venom would have
Speaker 1: likely eaten through my skin and muscle and started to
Speaker 1: ulcerate my skull. Wow, that sounds horrible. Months of medication later,
Speaker 1: plus a few glycolic face peels to soften the scarring
Speaker 1: from ulceration. I'm almost normal. I do refer to myself
Speaker 1: as Scarface to give myself more street cred. By the way,
Speaker 1: and we get some pictures, you can still see my
Speaker 1: spider scars on my forehead and nose, although they're blessedly
Speaker 1: just a fraction of the original sizes. Well, I hope
Speaker 1: you out there listening will not take this as justification
Speaker 1: for global spider panic. We still stand firmly against spider panic.
Speaker 1: But if you can avoid being bitten on the face
Speaker 1: by a brown recluse, that is something to to do.
Speaker 1: I grew up in New England and that the brown
Speaker 1: recluse was like always the um the scariest thing that
Speaker 1: you could run into up there. Like we don't have
Speaker 1: scorpions or you know, poisonous snakes or anything like that,
Speaker 1: but about like a New Hampshire county with a shotgun.
Speaker 1: Well those, yeah, I mean I guess technically, yeah, I
Speaker 1: was always on the lookout with more than two legs?
Speaker 1: Is the scar Yeah, is a brand reclusive problem down
Speaker 1: here in the sound? Yeah, yeah, you could brown problem
Speaker 1: if they do exist down here. Well, one, it only
Speaker 1: takes one to be a problem, right, It really gets
Speaker 1: in that whole scenario, like to to what extent is
Speaker 1: it an actual problem, just to the perceived threat of
Speaker 1: the brown. Yeah. For example, I I follow on Twitter
Speaker 1: a spider researcher who named Catherine who I believe she
Speaker 1: works out of Canada. But she does a whole thing
Speaker 1: on Twitter that I've seen never do before, which is
Speaker 1: just like hashtag not a brown recluse, which is going
Speaker 1: through people's pictures that they put on Twitter and say, look,
Speaker 1: I found a brown recluse in my house. And she's like,
Speaker 1: that's a wolf spider. So you know, it's easy to
Speaker 1: to get too worked up about a spider that's basically brown. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I thought you were going to say, I follow spider
Speaker 1: on Twitter. That would be great. I would love to
Speaker 1: see a spider's Twitter account. It's just like it's all
Speaker 1: fake news exactly. Okay, what else has Carney got for us? Well,
Speaker 1: we received an awful lot of email related to our
Speaker 1: Only Child Syndrome podcast episode. Yeah, we got there was
Speaker 1: a lot of mails, So thank you all for sending that.
Speaker 1: A lot of people telling us their experiences being an
Speaker 1: only child, or being a parent of an only child.
Speaker 1: There were so many that we couldn't possibly read them all,
Speaker 1: but we did pull one or two for today's episode. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this one that I'm about to read actually comes
Speaker 1: from someone who has some experience with the one child
Speaker 1: policy in China. Okay, so this bit of listener mail
Speaker 1: here is from Betty. Betty rights in and says, Hi, guys,
Speaker 1: just listen to the Only Child Syndrome podcast, which was great,
Speaker 1: and I thought i'd share some experiences from growing up
Speaker 1: in China as an only child in the nineties. Growing up,
Speaker 1: we all knew the one child policy was out of
Speaker 1: the norm from a global and historical standpoint, but since
Speaker 1: almost every kid we ever met was an only child,
Speaker 1: not having siblings just felt like the norm and very
Speaker 1: few people found it weird. And of course, my friends
Speaker 1: and acquaintances from school ranged in personalities just like everyone
Speaker 1: else in the world. I can't speak for other only children,
Speaker 1: but I was raised in a way that would have
Speaker 1: been pretty difficult to result in spoiled bratness. I had
Speaker 1: to do many household chores every day from age six
Speaker 1: to moving out of college. I was a default laborer
Speaker 1: for all home reno and home improvement projects. Renovation not
Speaker 1: not going to reno. Uh. If I wanted to buy
Speaker 1: anything like toys or games, it was limited to my
Speaker 1: Chinese New Year money, which was like ten to twenty
Speaker 1: bucks a year, or I had to do extra chores
Speaker 1: to earn it. When I turned six, team my parents
Speaker 1: also told me to get a job. In addition, it
Speaker 1: was mandatory to do well in school. Of course, at
Speaker 1: the time, I did not appreciate doing all those things,
Speaker 1: but in retrospect it kind of worked out. By the
Speaker 1: time I moved out for college, I knew how to cook, clean, dow, laundry,
Speaker 1: and all kinds of other household tests. I knew how
Speaker 1: to get a job, got a job, and already had
Speaker 1: money saved up from it. And I was the go
Speaker 1: to handy person my dorm because I was one of
Speaker 1: the only few, one of the few people who knew
Speaker 1: how to use power tools and fixed broken equipment. I
Speaker 1: live in Canada now, but whenever anyone discovers that I
Speaker 1: am an only child, their first reaction is, oh, I
Speaker 1: would have never guessed. But from what I can tell,
Speaker 1: it's nearly impossible to guess if a person as an
Speaker 1: only child anyway, since who they are largely depends on
Speaker 1: how they were raised and what kind of environment they
Speaker 1: grew up in with things have been different if I
Speaker 1: had siblings, It's possible, but my parents wanted to raise
Speaker 1: me as a capable, hard working, independent person, and there's
Speaker 1: no reason they wouldn't have wanted the same for all
Speaker 1: their children if they had had the opportunity to do more.
Speaker 1: Thanks again for the great podcast, Betty. Yeah, that definitely
Speaker 1: thank you, first of all, Betty for sharing the experience
Speaker 1: with us. But that seems to line up with what
Speaker 1: we uh, the conclusions we came to in that episode,
Speaker 1: which is it seems like only child syndrome is not
Speaker 1: a psychological issue. Uh, it's more of like a sociological
Speaker 1: factors how you were raised, what type of home you're
Speaker 1: raised in, what tree you were raised in, what the
Speaker 1: norms were there. You know, everybody I know who fits
Speaker 1: the stereotype of the only child is actually an oldest child. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't think I mentioned that on that episode, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I have the same experience. Yeah, yeah, the the episode.
Speaker 1: In the episode, we explore the idea that only children
Speaker 1: are spoiled or they're lonely. I mean all the various ideas,
Speaker 1: they just won't go away culturally despite all of the
Speaker 1: evidence to the contrary for like over a hundred years now,
Speaker 1: because of just that one guys bad methodology and a
Speaker 1: psychological report. Yeah, but this is a great bit of
Speaker 1: listener feedback though, because it it highlighted both the just
Speaker 1: just the the only child aspect as well as the
Speaker 1: one child's policy a bit. I think it's always interesting
Speaker 1: to get a different perspective on that. Yeah. So this
Speaker 1: next letter comes from someone who wants to talk to
Speaker 1: us about an episode from I think it's over a
Speaker 1: year go, but this is a really interesting message, so
Speaker 1: I wanted to address it now. It's from the episode
Speaker 1: that Robert and I did on the Unlanguaged Mine and
Speaker 1: Feral Children. Uh, and if you haven't heard that, please
Speaker 1: go back and listen to it. We had I wouldn't
Speaker 1: say fun with that episode, but it was very educational
Speaker 1: for us learning about this sort of history behind that,
Speaker 1: and we got a lot of good feedback about Yeah. Yeah, so, uh,
Speaker 1: she says, Hello, Robert and Christian. My name is Candice.
Speaker 1: I just recently discovered your podcast and have been going
Speaker 1: through the archives. I stumbled upon and listened to the
Speaker 1: two episodes titled The un Language Mind. I found the
Speaker 1: information you presented and your perspectives fascinating. Those two episodes
Speaker 1: resonated with me because I am a teacher of the
Speaker 1: deaf and heart of hearing and have come into contact
Speaker 1: with Unfortunately, multiple students born into hearing homes without access
Speaker 1: to American Sign language. Several of these students resulted in developmental, social, behavioral,
Speaker 1: and academic delays because of the lack of language. One
Speaker 1: student in particular, who I have been working with for
Speaker 1: the past three years, is the closest I have come
Speaker 1: to a feral child. He was not locked away in
Speaker 1: a room, but he did miss the critical periods for
Speaker 1: learning language. When he entered the school system in kindergarten,
Speaker 1: it was clear that he had no language, no respect
Speaker 1: for social norms or rules, or any desire to communicate
Speaker 1: with other humans in a truly meaningful way. To communicate
Speaker 1: his needs, he resorted to pointing, mimicking, gesturing, and violence.
Speaker 1: Multiple other team members and myself have been punched, kicked,
Speaker 1: cut bitten, scratched, and had our hair pulled by this student.
Speaker 1: He has thrown feces at our staff and urinated on
Speaker 1: classroom floors intentionally. However, with intense language, academic, and social intervention,
Speaker 1: the student has improved and matured by leaps and bounds.
Speaker 1: He is now functioning in a classroom with typically hearing
Speaker 1: peers while using an a s L interpreter. He is
Speaker 1: still learning to express himself in a s L and
Speaker 1: is using two to four word phrases. He now values
Speaker 1: relationships with adults and peers and under dance how to
Speaker 1: nurture and keep those relationships, and is currently eight years old.
Speaker 1: Thank you for shedding light on this difficult subject and
Speaker 1: informing the public of a humans dire need for language.
Speaker 1: So that's really interesting to me because I know it's
Speaker 1: been a while since we did those episodes, but I
Speaker 1: don't remember coming across specific examples of children, uh, in
Speaker 1: present day scenarios where they were they unless they were
Speaker 1: like totally neglected, but in this situation because they're deaf,
Speaker 1: it makes it even more difficult. Yeah, it's been a
Speaker 1: long time since we we looked at the research to
Speaker 1: data there, but yeah, I don't remember a specific case
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, but this was really fascinating. Thank you
Speaker 1: for sharing it with this Candice and I'm really glad
Speaker 1: to hear that this this kid is is getting so
Speaker 1: it sounds like world class treatment and help so that
Speaker 1: he can adapt better with his peers. It is amazing.
Speaker 1: You know. One thing I actually recently was thinking about
Speaker 1: your episode on The Unlanguaged Mind because of a movie
Speaker 1: I just saw. They came out. Did y'all see Arrival yet? Yes?
Speaker 1: In Arrival they we're not talking about the one with
Speaker 1: was it with the Sheen in it? Right? Not? Martin.
Speaker 1: Charlie Sheen was in a movie called The Arrival. I
Speaker 1: know you're talking about heron silver in it that I've seen.
Speaker 1: There's actually two of those. Those are about the aliens
Speaker 1: with the backward legs. This is just Arrival without of
Speaker 1: the in front of right, the one with Amy Adams Whittaker. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's about It's a movie about language in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways. And they discussed the sapire warf hypothesis, which
Speaker 1: actually plays into the plot. I don't want to give
Speaker 1: anything away, but they talked about the sapiar warf hypothesis
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, yes, the un language Mind.
Speaker 1: Arrival is a movie that I feel like is made
Speaker 1: for us and for listeners who like stuff to blow
Speaker 1: your mind. Like it's like such a great sci fi
Speaker 1: movie that really latches onto real world concepts and we're
Speaker 1: dealing with ideas, Yeah, and works them really well into
Speaker 1: the story. I really enjoyed it was. Yeah, I was
Speaker 1: so impressed. The one based on the novel by Ted Sang. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a short story, I think, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you'd love it. You gotta check it out. Cool, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's on our on our list, So I will, I will.
Speaker 1: I definitely look forward to seeing that one because I
Speaker 1: actually I am just finishing reading finally The Three Body Problem,
Speaker 1: which which deals with some similar themes, you know, communication
Speaker 1: with an alien uh species and what the what what
Speaker 1: the what the the the ramifications of that communication might be.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, we should all go back and watch
Speaker 1: those Charlie Sheen movies. I didn't realize there's more than one.
Speaker 1: Should we watched The Wraith? Did that have Charlie Sheen
Speaker 1: in it? I don't know, but that is but The Arrival, Wow,
Speaker 1: that movie had an effect on me. Yes, The Wraith,
Speaker 1: it does have Charlie Sheen and I just looked it up. Okay,
Speaker 1: he plays like a guy. I think he gets killed
Speaker 1: in a drag racing accident or something, and he comes
Speaker 1: back for it. Is it Soultaker? Essentially? It sounds very
Speaker 1: soul Taker. Soul Taker might be a remake of the
Speaker 1: Wraith sense like, we need to do some coverage on
Speaker 1: both of these. This this reminds me, Actually, it's a
Speaker 1: good opportunity to point out casually that we've been doing
Speaker 1: some Facebook Live experiments where we've been showing movie trailers
Speaker 1: of movies related to the episodes that we're doing that week.
Speaker 1: So if you're on Facebook and you have time to
Speaker 1: watch Facebook Live, you can hear us talk. You guys
Speaker 1: did one about spiders, right, Giant spider movies. That was
Speaker 1: the the second one. And we're a bit disrupted by
Speaker 1: various holiday occurrence is right now, but we'll hopefully get
Speaker 1: right back into the back of the regular routain with that. Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna take a quick break and when we come back,
Speaker 1: we will hear from our listener Jen. With the holidays
Speaker 1: almost here, you don't have time to go to the
Speaker 1: post office traffic parking. It's gonna be packed and everyone's
Speaker 1: gonna be mailing off gifts and packages, so you need
Speaker 1: to do what we do. You need to go to
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Speaker 1: It's easy and it's convenient. Here at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com, we use stamps dot com and we need
Speaker 1: to send out the odd bit of merchandise or correspondence,
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Speaker 1: our promo code stuff That's Stuff. For this special offer,
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Speaker 1: before you do anything else, click on the microphone at
Speaker 1: the top of the homepage and type in stuff that
Speaker 1: stamps dot com inter stuff and start mailing things. So
Speaker 1: our listener Jin got in touch with us over Facebook,
Speaker 1: and she's responding to our episode. The episode Robert and
Speaker 1: I did a while back about Undead Jenes, so brief
Speaker 1: refresher from that episode. Some researchers made public a paper
Speaker 1: on a pre publication server claiming to show that some
Speaker 1: certain genes in the bodies of dead animals were still
Speaker 1: transcribe being RNA after the organisms died, meaning that you'd
Speaker 1: have whole body death right organismal death. The organism is dead,
Speaker 1: but on the molecular level, some life, or some version
Speaker 1: of life is still going on. The genes are still
Speaker 1: encoding for for RNA. And so Jen gets in touch
Speaker 1: with us about this. She says, hey, guys, I love
Speaker 1: your podcast and finally had time to listen to last
Speaker 1: week's Undead Jeans episode. As a molecular biologist, I was
Speaker 1: really excited for an episode right in my wheelhouse. There
Speaker 1: were a couple of things that stuck out to me
Speaker 1: while listening that made me go hunt down the paper.
Speaker 1: I assume you left out some detail to keep things
Speaker 1: more accessible to amateur nerds versus those of us who
Speaker 1: do things for a living. But I noticed in the
Speaker 1: paper that they have left some glaring holes. I'd even
Speaker 1: venture to guess that these holes could be the reason
Speaker 1: while we're reading the article from a depository depository and
Speaker 1: not a high impact journal. But I digress. The main
Speaker 1: point I wanted to make, while acknowledging that you, as
Speaker 1: the host, may already be aware, is that RNA is
Speaker 1: a extremely sensitive to degradation. The notion that you can
Speaker 1: plunge a fish into an icy death pool and then
Speaker 1: just PLoP it back into some normal seventy ish degree
Speaker 1: fahrenheit tank and then come back days later and get
Speaker 1: good quality RNA is literally unbelievable to me. Have you
Speaker 1: ever had a fish go belly up and not noticed
Speaker 1: right away? I don't know if I remember fish going
Speaker 1: belly up? Do you guys keep fish tanks right now?
Speaker 1: But luckily, so far, so good, nothing's died. So I
Speaker 1: had that experience as a kid. Yeah, Jen says, it
Speaker 1: gets stink stinky fast. Do you agree? Yeah, my dad
Speaker 1: collected like exotic fish in a tank. Yeah, she's right,
Speaker 1: all right. So she says, of course, the authors did
Speaker 1: not give any data about the RNA integrity, and she
Speaker 1: says a standard thing would be a one to tend
Speaker 1: scoring system. So she says, my guess is that what
Speaker 1: they are seeing as an upregulation, and that was their
Speaker 1: term of, you know, RNA transcription appearing to take place.
Speaker 1: So my guess is what they're seeing is as an
Speaker 1: upregulation of new genes. May actually be transcripts that are
Speaker 1: for some reason fairly stable but in low abundance, so
Speaker 1: they're missed in freshly dead samples but seem to appear
Speaker 1: in longer dead samples only because more abundant transcripts have
Speaker 1: fallen away due to degradation. So does that make sense
Speaker 1: what she's saying, Like, there's all this RNA there, some
Speaker 1: are not very common but fairly stable. When you test
Speaker 1: the organism right after death, you don't see a bunch
Speaker 1: of these. But then when all the other RNA decays
Speaker 1: and these fairly stable RNA molecules are left, that's what
Speaker 1: you have left. And it makes it look like more
Speaker 1: of this is being created after death. So it sounds
Speaker 1: like more research is required. Yes, uh, And she says
Speaker 1: it could be that or some other factors she hasn't considered,
Speaker 1: but anyway, she says, I know that their claim is
Speaker 1: that these are truly new RNA molecules, so degradation is
Speaker 1: not a factor. But that is a huge leap for
Speaker 1: which they do not provide support. I just wanted to
Speaker 1: add a large dose of skepticism on top of the
Speaker 1: healthy bit we should always have. This concept is still fascinating,
Speaker 1: but the study is too flawed to add to the
Speaker 1: conversation in a meaningful way. Anyway, Love what you guys
Speaker 1: are doing, and always look forward to what you have
Speaker 1: in store next. Have a great day, Jen, Thank you
Speaker 1: so much. Jen. This is the kind of email I
Speaker 1: love to get because it's from an actual expert who
Speaker 1: has some some direct knowledge of the kinds of research
Speaker 1: that we covered in the episode. So uh, those of
Speaker 1: you out there who heard that episode, please take Jen's
Speaker 1: considerations into into consideration. I wasn't when when thinking about
Speaker 1: this research. I wasn't on that episode, but I I
Speaker 1: love UH messages like this because I think it's so
Speaker 1: important for us to critically evaluate the um the sources
Speaker 1: that we're bringing into the episodes that we do and
Speaker 1: and some people have asked us this before, and it's
Speaker 1: worth reminding we are not experts in these fields that
Speaker 1: we talk about, right. We we do the research, we
Speaker 1: immerse ourselves in it, and we try to bring it
Speaker 1: to you the listener in the best most accessible way possible.
Speaker 1: But we're not always able to, for instance, like a
Speaker 1: judge whether or not the r N a methodology of
Speaker 1: this study. Right, we don't have the knowledge of a
Speaker 1: working microbiology exactly. Yeah, and so I really like to
Speaker 1: hear that kind of feedback. All right. We have another
Speaker 1: bit of listener mail here. This one comes to us
Speaker 1: from Kristen and she is responding to our episode on
Speaker 1: a Chinese practice of ghost marriages though the right of
Speaker 1: minghome that we discussed. Yeah, yeah, that was an interesting episode. Uh,
Speaker 1: Chinese and also sometimes Japanese practice. We we got a
Speaker 1: lot of email about it. Uh. One in particular that
Speaker 1: I remember that's not on here was from a man
Speaker 1: in Taiwan letting us know that the red envelope practice
Speaker 1: that we mentioned, he was totally unaware of it, yet
Speaker 1: his wife, who was also Taiwanese, was aware of it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We also heard from a few different people who are
Speaker 1: in the Church of Latter day Saints because we discussed
Speaker 1: the celestial marriage practice a little bit and its comparisons
Speaker 1: to this, uh, this Chinese practice of ghost marriages. And
Speaker 1: that's where this particular listener comes in. She writes it
Speaker 1: and says, I really love the recent episode about the
Speaker 1: Chinese practice of ghost marriages. The entire time, I listener
Speaker 1: was absolutely fascinated. When I got to the end of
Speaker 1: the podcast and you mentioned, uh, the Church of Latter
Speaker 1: Day Say It's my eyes almost rolled out of my head.
Speaker 1: I'm a recent transplant to Salt Lake City from Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. I'm Jewish, and it has been incredibly difficult
Speaker 1: to adjust a living in the city that is the
Speaker 1: seat of the letter the Church of Latter Day Saints.
Speaker 1: So the uh the writer here Christian. She goes on
Speaker 1: to talk about how essentially by thinking about this uh,
Speaker 1: this Chinese model and then the and the some of
Speaker 1: the ideas wrapped up in UH in the in the
Speaker 1: right of man hun, it forced her to reconsider these
Speaker 1: practices that were much more immediate and some of the
Speaker 1: belief systems who were much more immediate um in utah uh.
Speaker 1: She she summarized and says, when I got to the
Speaker 1: part of the podcast discuss saying uh the LDS, I
Speaker 1: initially rolled my eyes and scoffed. I began to write
Speaker 1: it off as quote, just some other weird things that
Speaker 1: Mormons do unquote and as the podcast ended, well it
Speaker 1: struck me. I sat there an hour, fascinated, open minded,
Speaker 1: and ultimately understood the purpose of ghost marriages and had
Speaker 1: a respect for the practice. But as soon as the
Speaker 1: word Mormon was mentioned, I became dismissive and closed minded,
Speaker 1: ready to let my own bias get in the way
Speaker 1: of furthering my understanding. And I really analyzed, analyzed why
Speaker 1: that was an inappropriate reaction to have. How could I
Speaker 1: sit there and listen to the entire show with an
Speaker 1: open mind but justify being so dismissive at the end.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that you do a podcast that is all
Speaker 1: about information, and you do a great job of pushing
Speaker 1: your audience to open their minds and hearts to other
Speaker 1: cultures and beliefs. I believe you guys initiated and epiphany
Speaker 1: in me I really needed to have and ultimately will
Speaker 1: help help me as I continue to learn about the
Speaker 1: ld S faith and enjoy living in this beautiful melting
Speaker 1: pot of a city. That again, for the great show
Speaker 1: and for leading by example on being open minded. High
Speaker 1: fives Kristen. I really appreciate that. Um I especially I
Speaker 1: guess like something that's worth highlighting for the listeners is like,
Speaker 1: sometimes we approach these episodes and maybe have our own
Speaker 1: either misconceptions about cultures or we're just totally unfamiliar with
Speaker 1: them because their lifestyles outside of our territory. I guess
Speaker 1: it's the best way to put it. And for this
Speaker 1: episode in particular, I was really fortunate in that I
Speaker 1: have a friend who is who is Mormon, who's a
Speaker 1: member of the Church of Latter day Saints. He really
Speaker 1: role modeled for me that there were a lot of
Speaker 1: misconceptions about that faith, and so when we approached this episode,
Speaker 1: I just thought of him in the back of my
Speaker 1: head the whole time, and and and how he would
Speaker 1: approach talking to me about it, and that was very
Speaker 1: helpful to me. So it's always it's always nice to
Speaker 1: have people in your life like that. But then again,
Speaker 1: when we approach episodes like this another one we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about later, we Robert and I did the episode
Speaker 1: on combat stems in the military. I don't have of
Speaker 1: any experience in the military, and it's it's completely outside
Speaker 1: of my uh lifestyle experience, but it was really nice
Speaker 1: to hear that people who were in the military and
Speaker 1: did have experiences using these drugs in the field. Uh,
Speaker 1: seemed to resonate with what we what we talked about
Speaker 1: in that episode. Yes, so much of what we cover here,
Speaker 1: especially when it is a psychological or cultural in nature.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's about it's about putting trying to
Speaker 1: put ourselves in another person's worldview and another person since
Speaker 1: experience and uh, and that can that can be challenging
Speaker 1: at times. But I also think that's that's one of
Speaker 1: the core mission statements of the show, right, But it's
Speaker 1: about finding ways to open ourselves up to alternate modes
Speaker 1: of of sense experience and of end of reality perception. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, we're a science podcast, but uh, but but
Speaker 1: I feel like that's a core aspect. Ever, Like, if
Speaker 1: you know, we're called stuff to Blow the Mind, Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind, I feel like if I could change the title,
Speaker 1: it would probably be more like stuff to expand your
Speaker 1: mind or a slow motion explosion of the mind, rather
Speaker 1: than just sort of the the pop that the name implies.
Speaker 1: I definitely agree. Um, And to that point. Actually, we
Speaker 1: received another email that's related to that episode about ghost marriages,
Speaker 1: and this time it was from somebody who belongs to
Speaker 1: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. His
Speaker 1: name is Michael, and he says, hey, guys, I just
Speaker 1: finished listening to the episode on ghost marriages, and I
Speaker 1: found it fascinating. I've never heard of this practice before
Speaker 1: your episode. I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ
Speaker 1: of Latter Day Saints, and I want to applaud your
Speaker 1: accurate description of celestial marriages. An interesting point about ceilings
Speaker 1: is that they are only performed in elds temples like
Speaker 1: the one near you. He means, us in Sandy Springs, Georgia.
Speaker 1: So for those of you who aren't from the Atlanta era,
Speaker 1: Sandy Springs is a suburb that's what north of the
Speaker 1: city by about thirty minutes, he says. A temple is
Speaker 1: a building that is not open for worship on Sunday.
Speaker 1: It is only open during specific hours of the week.
Speaker 1: And we believe that ordinances may be performed for those
Speaker 1: who have died as well as the living. We believe
Speaker 1: that those who have died then have the opportunity to
Speaker 1: accept the ordinance performed on their behalf by those who
Speaker 1: are alive. That is a reason that our church is
Speaker 1: big on doing family history and provide services such as
Speaker 1: He lists a website here called family search dot org
Speaker 1: in order to learn about our ancestors and perform ordinances
Speaker 1: for all who did not have an opportunity to perform
Speaker 1: them in this life. It's an amazing topic. I would
Speaker 1: be happy to answer any questions that you have about
Speaker 1: this practice. I enjoy the show. Thank you for the
Speaker 1: information that you are able to beam to my mind
Speaker 1: as I commute to and from work. If only we
Speaker 1: could literally use beams, well, we might get there soon.
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's some new Uh. Can we use
Speaker 1: em drives? Now that that's been announced, can we start
Speaker 1: beaming information to people's brains with them drives? Speaking of
Speaker 1: being critical of research, that's the thing that I ever
Speaker 1: end up talking about that. I'll be very curious to
Speaker 1: say what skeptical scientists say in response. So, now that
Speaker 1: the md I have paper has been published, Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to thank Michael um I think for
Speaker 1: both Robert and I going into that. I mean, we
Speaker 1: researched that practice, but certainly we had not experienced it before,
Speaker 1: so we were doing our best to try to represent it.
Speaker 1: And it's encouraging to hear that we we didn't offend anybody. Yeah, alright,
Speaker 1: we're gonna take a second break, and when we come back,
Speaker 1: we're going to dive into more listener mail riches. Brought
Speaker 1: to us, of course by Carney. Hi. I'm Lauren Vogelbauma,
Speaker 1: host of the new House to works Now podcast. Every week,
Speaker 1: I'll be bringing you three stories from our team about
Speaker 1: the weird and wondrous developments we've seen in science, technology,
Speaker 1: and culture. Fresh episodes will be out every Monday on iTunes, Spotify,
Speaker 1: Google Play Music, and everywhere else that fine podcasts are found. Carney,
Speaker 1: what have you got for us next? Oh? Well, it
Speaker 1: looks like we are getting some of the massive mail
Speaker 1: bag that we got in response to the episode Robert
Speaker 1: and I did on Fire. Oh yes, yes, World before Fire.
Speaker 1: So Robert and I did a couple of episodes on
Speaker 1: Fire about how sort of the conditions on Earth, the
Speaker 1: geological conditions and atmospheric conditions that make Earth the fire
Speaker 1: planet and as far as we know, uniquely the fire planet.
Speaker 1: When you guys were researching, did you only listen to
Speaker 1: Ngay Momstein's Fire and Ice. I don't know what you're
Speaker 1: talking about, but just a continuous loop of of what
Speaker 1: Metallica's fight fire with nice? Nice? Okay, that's better. Oh man,
Speaker 1: I remember that one. You know, my favorite Metallica song
Speaker 1: back in the day was four Horsemen. Yeah we're really
Speaker 1: and yeah I love Master Ofpuppets. I don't know where
Speaker 1: we're going with this, but okay, okay, uh yeah. So anyway,
Speaker 1: we we heard from several people, and I'm gonna try
Speaker 1: to get a few messages about this couple of episodes
Speaker 1: because we got a ton. But we heard from Julian
Speaker 1: one who said, hey, there, Robert and Joe might ears
Speaker 1: just had the awesome pleasure of being completely enveloped and
Speaker 1: soothed by your latest episode. That's embarrassing but also doing
Speaker 1: some um some SMR. I hope not. But okay, So
Speaker 1: Julian says the episode was a world without fire. Uh
Speaker 1: please excuse my strange intro. Somewhere in this episode you
Speaker 1: mentioned that wildfires can occur outside of hot, dry climates
Speaker 1: like the jungle. I figured i'd write in and fill
Speaker 1: you in on a recent fire we had here. I
Speaker 1: live in Belize in Central America, and last year we
Speaker 1: had a hurricane passed just south of us. The jungles
Speaker 1: here are too lush in the atmosphere too humid to
Speaker 1: have a wildfire from an unchecked camp fire or spark. However,
Speaker 1: when this hurricane passed over, it did some damage to
Speaker 1: the vast jungles. Although never strong enough to completely knock
Speaker 1: down everything, hurricanes do damage to the canopy, breaking off
Speaker 1: the tops of trees and high branches and leaving a
Speaker 1: blanket of dead foliage on the canopy. And this is
Speaker 1: what happened last year. After several weeks, the dead foliage dried,
Speaker 1: and it is believed that a lightning strike ignited this,
Speaker 1: causing a forest fire on top of the jungle. A
Speaker 1: strange and scary event, indeed, but it does happen, and
Speaker 1: this sort of connects to I definitely didn't see it
Speaker 1: in the jungles, but we talked about the ideas of
Speaker 1: crown fires, right, the fires that become very hot and
Speaker 1: spread from the tops of trees. Picking up with Julian's email,
Speaker 1: another thought that came to my mind during this episode
Speaker 1: came after you guys mentioned how a civilization or life
Speaker 1: form would ever be able to advance without fire for cooking, smelting,
Speaker 1: metal works, etcetera. I immediately thought to myself, we have
Speaker 1: fire to thank for our advancement as a species. But
Speaker 1: is there an element? Is there a substance or a
Speaker 1: certain reaction like fire that another species on another planet
Speaker 1: has used and thanked for its advancements that we have
Speaker 1: yet to discover or may never discover at all due
Speaker 1: to differing planetary and atmospheric conditions. Uh. This is sort
Speaker 1: of one of the questions we talked out, and so
Speaker 1: Julian says, really wish I could have gotten this to
Speaker 1: you in time for your second episode on the topic.
Speaker 1: Thanks for the great podcast you guys do. I know
Speaker 1: you must hear this plenty, but I have to mention
Speaker 1: it as well. You guys do amazing work. It's always
Speaker 1: a joy listening to you. And also, Julian ads that
Speaker 1: we must pass on the praise to Christian. Oh that's
Speaker 1: thank you, Julian. I hope that my voice also soothes Julian,
Speaker 1: you are you are incredibly soothing. I try. I was
Speaker 1: just going to mention in relation to this, uh, this
Speaker 1: letter that we here in Georgia have been what is
Speaker 1: the terminology that they're using, like red alert or we've
Speaker 1: had smoke conditions. So just last week we were in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: the city was enveloped in smoke. Yeah, you couldn't even
Speaker 1: really walk outside. It was like a beautiful day, dude.
Speaker 1: That was the thing. I was gonna work on my
Speaker 1: front porch. But you go outside and it's just breathing
Speaker 1: in this yeah awful fume. Yeah yeah. And uh and
Speaker 1: this apparently came from fires up in northern Georgia. There
Speaker 1: were forest fires because it's been so dry, so very
Speaker 1: very much related to what he was talking about in Belize.
Speaker 1: It sounds like, uh, well different there because it's not
Speaker 1: naturally dry there, but that the dead foliage can become
Speaker 1: dry if it gets all ripped off of the trees
Speaker 1: due to a hurricane. So quick personal aside on this.
Speaker 1: Uh So, they've been telling us here in Georgia that
Speaker 1: we should be, you know, concerned about the possibility of
Speaker 1: fires just starting in like your yard or something like that.
Speaker 1: It's not the weekend to have a bonfire. I have. Um,
Speaker 1: there's a house that's empty behind me. You guys know this.
Speaker 1: I think I've told you, and there's been some people
Speaker 1: squatting in it. Just the other night they started a
Speaker 1: bonfire in the backyard of this house. And I was
Speaker 1: really worried, like I don't want to rat out on
Speaker 1: these folks, you know, like they it's cold out, they
Speaker 1: need a place to stay. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: I also don't want them to start a fire that
Speaker 1: burns the neighborhood down. I mean, put that it, put
Speaker 1: it in a barrel. That's why we have barrels, right,
Speaker 1: steel drum. Yeah, yeah, but this is like a like
Speaker 1: concern for a lot of people in the area right now. Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: Like I said, we've got a bunch of email about
Speaker 1: the fire episodes because we asked. We asked the listeners, like,
Speaker 1: could you think of another chemical reaction alternative to fire
Speaker 1: that could take place on one of these worlds where
Speaker 1: fire is not permitted? That pops into my mind is plasma?
Speaker 1: Did you guys talk about that at all? Well? Plasmas?
Speaker 1: What do you mean? I mean, like, plasma is a
Speaker 1: phase of matter. But how would you create um? Couldn't
Speaker 1: you use plasma for some of the same things that
Speaker 1: you use fire for? How would you create it? That's
Speaker 1: the problem. Yeah, But I guess you'd have to imagine
Speaker 1: an alien civilization where they have access to it, And
Speaker 1: that's the that's the one of the problems is that
Speaker 1: increasingly you have to employ a rather robust imagination factor
Speaker 1: to fill in the gaps, uh, to make up for
Speaker 1: the lack of fire. But anyway, we postulated that the idea.
Speaker 1: We don't know that it's true, but we said, you know,
Speaker 1: it could be that you can't have advanced civilization in
Speaker 1: this universe without a planet that allows for fire. And
Speaker 1: we talked about one paper where a guy makes this case. Um,
Speaker 1: and so one listener got in touch with us. Our
Speaker 1: listener named Tapan got in touch with us to say
Speaker 1: that essentially this idea that you might need fire as
Speaker 1: a necessary pre requisite to advance technology. And the main
Speaker 1: idea we had there is that you can't create metal
Speaker 1: tools without fire as far as we know. Uh. Tapan says,
Speaker 1: we essentially should be more open minded. So I so
Speaker 1: I sent to Pan a list of modern technologies and
Speaker 1: was like, okay, well, I want to see your imagination.
Speaker 1: How could you come up with these things without fire
Speaker 1: or metal tools? And to Pan's responses were interesting to me.
Speaker 1: So for instant long distance communication, the suggestion was sound
Speaker 1: travels through all solids, not just metal. So I'm trying
Speaker 1: to imagine like wooden or stone telephone wires. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but maybe okay. But then I said, what about rapid
Speaker 1: land transportation? Japan says, wouldn't spring catapults with landing pair
Speaker 1: shoots like woven out of natural materials? Okay? I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: what about video recording and playback? That's got you gotta
Speaker 1: have metal tools for that, right Uh? And to Pan
Speaker 1: suggests a record movement using a fast solidifying semi solid Oh. Okay,
Speaker 1: so like gel type materials. Maybe maybe so the the
Speaker 1: if you're recording, say a roadrunner running across the street,
Speaker 1: you would have to have it run through the gel
Speaker 1: and then you would have like this gel material I
Speaker 1: don't know what we're using, vast would only playback if
Speaker 1: you were within proximity of the gel. Okay. So uh.
Speaker 1: For aviation, the suggestion was, of course a hang glider,
Speaker 1: but of course a hang glider doesn't gain altitude on
Speaker 1: its own. Um. For optics and astronomy, to Pan suggested,
Speaker 1: I thought this was smart water lenses. That's actually I
Speaker 1: could see that being a possibility. Um maybe maybe who knows.
Speaker 1: For radio depends suggest loudspeakers, I don't know about that one. Uh.
Speaker 1: For computers, we get the suggestion of a difference engine
Speaker 1: built with wood, which you could build. I guess the
Speaker 1: question there would just be size, Like you could build
Speaker 1: a giant wooden structure that works to essentially be a
Speaker 1: binary difference engine computer. I think to do that, you know,
Speaker 1: to make even a simple computer, you might need a
Speaker 1: structure the size of a state or something. I mean,
Speaker 1: it would be gigantic. In the three body problem, it's
Speaker 1: it's brought up at one point that you could you
Speaker 1: could have a computer where it's basically individuals setting around
Speaker 1: waving flags. Yeah, I mean, any any anything you can
Speaker 1: use in nature to create a consequential series of on
Speaker 1: off switches could be turned into a computer. Giant Turing machine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just gonna be so big. You know the thing
Speaker 1: about semiconductors, as you can pack them into this tiny space. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then of course with district needed power grids, I
Speaker 1: was like, how would you get that? Well, Japan reminds
Speaker 1: me any container with electrolyte will transmit electrons, So maybe
Speaker 1: you could have like a salt water pipe based power
Speaker 1: grid or something like Well, this came up in our
Speaker 1: Frankenstein episode to talking about voltaic batteries. Yeah, um huh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's interesting. Uh So anyway, I I'm not buying it yet.
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not convinced that you can get to
Speaker 1: advance technologies without fire and metal tools. But but I
Speaker 1: really really admire the imagination in these responses. I think
Speaker 1: they're very smart, even if maybe implausible. Well, this is
Speaker 1: how we get cool movies like Arrival, right, is like
Speaker 1: these thought experiments. All right, So this next one comes
Speaker 1: to us from Chris, who works at the JPL for NASA,
Speaker 1: and this is related to our episode about the Osiris
Speaker 1: REX mission that recently launched. Chris says, Hi, gentlemen, while
Speaker 1: listening to your recent episode on the Ossiris REX mission,
Speaker 1: I was thrilled to hear you mentioned the three sites
Speaker 1: gold Stone, Canberra, and Madrid. I know I'm pronouncing Canberra
Speaker 1: around because we got got emails about that. In the
Speaker 1: fire episode, I mentioned Canbra. Is that Yeah, it's Canbra,
Speaker 1: Canbra all right, sorry, but I pronounced it Canberra Okay.
Speaker 1: That will be receiving signals and data. These three sites
Speaker 1: make up the Deep Space Network d s N, which
Speaker 1: is a system of thirteen antenna's managed by NASA's Jet
Speaker 1: Propulsion Laboratory. The cool thing about the DSN is that
Speaker 1: every spacecraft American or otherwise otherwise further away than the
Speaker 1: Moon talks to the Earth through these antennas. Voyager phones home,
Speaker 1: it's calling the d s N. Juno sends a picture
Speaker 1: through the d s N. The d s N is
Speaker 1: one of NASA's oldest continuous programs, but it doesn't get
Speaker 1: a lot of love because it's like the cup holder
Speaker 1: in your car. You're so used to it being there,
Speaker 1: you don't really notice it unless it stops working. But
Speaker 1: really it's fascinating and exciting, both for its storied history
Speaker 1: they supported the Apollo program and it's importance to modern
Speaker 1: day space exploration. I do have one correction to make.
Speaker 1: You said that the antenna can talk to spacecraft up
Speaker 1: to the size of a pizza box box. That fact,
Speaker 1: TOID is actually as small as a pizza box, and
Speaker 1: it's meant to illustrate how powerful and precisest equipment is.
Speaker 1: Imagine aiming at something that small just one mile away,
Speaker 1: let alone a billion. Our DSN operators do that twenty
Speaker 1: four hours a day, three d and sixty five days
Speaker 1: a year. Anyways, thanks for the fantastic podcast for making
Speaker 1: me a little smarter every day and for mentioning one
Speaker 1: of my favorite NASA projects. I would love to hear
Speaker 1: a future podcast on the DSN itself, because I think
Speaker 1: there's lots of good material there, or even the history
Speaker 1: of the Jet Propulsion Lab, which is, in my humble opinion,
Speaker 1: the coolest NASA center. Keep up the great work. Is
Speaker 1: there really a coolest NASA center? So all cool? In
Speaker 1: my heart? They do yeah, and and we at how
Speaker 1: stuff works. Just have a general fondness I think for
Speaker 1: NASA and and love doing stories related to it. I
Speaker 1: will say Robert and I are looking into doing an
Speaker 1: episode related to the history of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Speaker 1: because we're talking about doing an episode on Jack Parsons,
Speaker 1: who was instrumental in starting the JPL and coincidentally thought
Speaker 1: himself to be a magician occultist. Have you not heard
Speaker 1: of Jack Parsons? No, I don't know anything about this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is awesome, a lot of fun uh in there,
Speaker 1: we're we're talking about to put it together, right. So
Speaker 1: he was interested in getting in touch with the outer
Speaker 1: horrors through space exploration. So I don't know if he
Speaker 1: and he had a really interesting history parallel to l
Speaker 1: Ron Hubbard. Yeah, I guess the question we're sort of
Speaker 1: asking is, at this point, do we want to do
Speaker 1: an episode just on Jack Parsons, his science and his
Speaker 1: uh extra scientific beliefs, or is it something in which
Speaker 1: he is a part if we're like looking at more
Speaker 1: of connections between modern scientific investigations and sort of new
Speaker 1: age ideas. So we're still figuring that one out if
Speaker 1: you're interested in the meantime. Once upon a time, when
Speaker 1: I first started at How Stuff Works, I think my
Speaker 1: first video I ever did here for our Stuff of
Speaker 1: Genius channel was all about Jack Parsons. So I did
Speaker 1: a little four minute Jack Parsons video. I'm sure if
Speaker 1: you google Stuff of Genius Jack Parsons that should come up, alright. So,
Speaker 1: in discussing our episode on combat Stems combat steems better
Speaker 1: Warriors through Chemistry, we discussed how you know, so often
Speaker 1: in our video games there's all this horrific violence, military
Speaker 1: combat going on, and to them, for the most part,
Speaker 1: you don't have to deal with the psychological effects. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes, like in a game like x COM,
Speaker 1: you can have characters that end up panicking and they
Speaker 1: run off or they there's a friendly fire incidents something
Speaker 1: like that, but for the most part it's easily dealt with.
Speaker 1: So we reached out to all of our gamer listeners
Speaker 1: and said, hey, do you have any examples of games
Speaker 1: that actually take PTSD into account in any way, shape
Speaker 1: or form, and we heard back from some people. So
Speaker 1: this one came to us from Matt listener. Matt writes
Speaker 1: and it says, Hi, Robert and Christian love the podcast.
Speaker 1: It keeps me company and informed on the way to
Speaker 1: work on your combat STEMS episode. You wondered if there
Speaker 1: are video games, specifically shooters to deal with PTSD. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure about shooters, but there is an excellent game
Speaker 1: called Darkest Dungeon where the toll the that the horrors
Speaker 1: of adventuring take on your mind is just as dangerous
Speaker 1: as the monsters. Based on discussions on past episodes, I
Speaker 1: feel this game is right up your alley. Picture a
Speaker 1: side scrolling dungeon crawl said in a love crafty in
Speaker 1: Hamlet and drawn in the style of the hell Boy comics.
Speaker 1: Stress comes into play during each mission and between missions,
Speaker 1: your characters developed quirks, agrophobia, I fear of the dark,
Speaker 1: fear of blood, holy ravings that need to be addressed.
Speaker 1: You keep a stable of about fifteen adventures on hand,
Speaker 1: but if you run out of gold for treatments, sometimes
Speaker 1: you find you've got to send in a group of paranoid,
Speaker 1: abusive drunks, send them into a dungeon and hope for
Speaker 1: the best. Enjoy and keep up the awesome work. Matt
Speaker 1: in Toronto And uh, yeah this. I have not played this,
Speaker 1: but I had to look it up after receive the email,
Speaker 1: and it came out from It was published by Red
Speaker 1: Hook Studios and it looks like it's available for Windows, H, Linux, UM,
Speaker 1: PlayStation four and PlayStation Vita. If anyone out there has
Speaker 1: those systems I do not. Yeah. And also in relation
Speaker 1: to that, we received I would say a good dozen
Speaker 1: emails of people recommending a game to us called spec
Speaker 1: Ops the line, which apparently also incorporates in some way
Speaker 1: or another dealing with PTSD in battle. But almost all
Speaker 1: of our listeners who recommended this to us said that
Speaker 1: it's like a it's a really important twist as part
Speaker 1: of the games story, so they didn't want to reveal
Speaker 1: to us how it played into it. They all recommended
Speaker 1: the game entirely they said. They said that it was
Speaker 1: really great, So, yeah, that maybe something that I'll looked
Speaker 1: to play down the lip. Yeah, I looked this one up.
Speaker 1: It came out, and it sounds like it was probably
Speaker 1: maybe a little ahead of its time, or you know,
Speaker 1: maybe it's it's it's trying to make So what is
Speaker 1: it a shooter? It is. It is a shooter. It's
Speaker 1: a third person shooter and it was developed by Yeager
Speaker 1: Development for two K games. Uh to Interact make a
Speaker 1: Battle Born and u uh Borderlands. Yeah, so it it
Speaker 1: sounds to me from materials I was looking at about
Speaker 1: it and I have not played it that yeah, that
Speaker 1: it was just maybe a little to advance for what
Speaker 1: people really want to I guess people wanted the escapist
Speaker 1: call of duty and shoot everything without consequences kind of
Speaker 1: game point play, and this was developing something a little
Speaker 1: more deeper and maybe maybe a little less fun in
Speaker 1: the process. Well that was what we were asking for.
Speaker 1: I don't know about the less fun part, but what
Speaker 1: I was saying in the episode was I would think
Speaker 1: it would be a more immersive storyline and so and
Speaker 1: it it definitely sounds like from everybody who's played this
Speaker 1: that they think so, so it sounds like it's worth
Speaker 1: checking out. Yeah, you guys might have mentioned this in
Speaker 1: the episode, but it does certainly make me think that
Speaker 1: exactly that concept runs counter to what I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people are trying to get out of a
Speaker 1: video game experience. I mean, I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people are like they want a rush without actually having
Speaker 1: to experience any lasting trauma or anything. It's kind of
Speaker 1: the same way as like a horror movie or a
Speaker 1: roller coaster or something like that, something to to, you know,
Speaker 1: give you adrenaline, focus and get the get the high,
Speaker 1: get the experience, get the relaxation benefits you get out
Speaker 1: of that, but without actually having to do anything dangerous
Speaker 1: or scary. It's funny that you mentioned this because I
Speaker 1: was thinking about the episode that you guys did on Tetris. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that came up. Yeah, And and uh, I've been uh
Speaker 1: lately playing a lot of the shooter game Destiny. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you guys have played this before. Uh no, No,
Speaker 1: it's like an mm O slash first person shooter. This
Speaker 1: is the one whatever. It has like weird faceless film
Speaker 1: its yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, uh and I have found
Speaker 1: that even though I'm kind of bored with the game
Speaker 1: itself in the storyline, that I'm just repetitively playing it,
Speaker 1: almost like I would play like a puzzle game like
Speaker 1: Tetris solely just to kind of calm down. Like I'll
Speaker 1: play it for like thirty or forty minutes. It's totally mindless.
Speaker 1: I don't really get anything, Like, I don't even get
Speaker 1: like any adrenaline high out of it. It's just kind
Speaker 1: of like put the bullets in the heads, it's flow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the whole thing with with Tetris. I mean, suppose
Speaker 1: we talked about this in our episode. Is creating a
Speaker 1: state of a task that's um that's just challenging enough
Speaker 1: to keep you engaged, but also easy enough that it
Speaker 1: never becomes frustratingly simplified reality too one with definite definite goals,
Speaker 1: definite limits, clear clear goals, clear achievable goals that you
Speaker 1: can just essentially a set of parameters where you can
Speaker 1: just continually achieve success over and over without it becoming
Speaker 1: too easy to be boring. Yeah, and certainly, as we
Speaker 1: discussed in those episodes, Tetris is a game that never
Speaker 1: becomes too easy and inevitably becomes too hard. I think
Speaker 1: that that's probably what I think. Bungee are the developers
Speaker 1: of this game, and that's kind of how they've figured
Speaker 1: out to keep you addicted to it, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. It's like there's always some like next stage
Speaker 1: to get to with it, and there's not too much
Speaker 1: thinking involved. The thing that's weird to me is like
Speaker 1: it you know, we talked about this in the Combat
Speaker 1: Stems episode that like you and I, mainly if we're
Speaker 1: playing shooters, we don't we like them to be fantastic
Speaker 1: or sci fi, and this is like very sci fi
Speaker 1: aliens people don't really die that can reincarnate as like
Speaker 1: digital forms of their bodies. But like there's something inherently
Speaker 1: weird about like calming down while just like blowing away
Speaker 1: like fifty year sixty aliens. You know, I don't know
Speaker 1: about you, guys. I I fail to see the appeal
Speaker 1: of these military shooter again. I know they're very popular,
Speaker 1: but I cannot see what's all that fun. A lot
Speaker 1: of people love them. My brother really likes playing them,
Speaker 1: but like we said in the episode, for for me
Speaker 1: personally has to be some kind of uh fantastic element
Speaker 1: involved in it for me to not feel like I'm
Speaker 1: just replicating like horrific real world violence. Yeah, I do
Speaker 1: have to say that I haven't played one in a while,
Speaker 1: but I used used to really enjoy playing World War
Speaker 1: two aviation simulators with my dad. Uh And but I
Speaker 1: wonder if that has more to do with your love
Speaker 1: of planes. I think so, Well, the thing is too
Speaker 1: they're the planes, and then there's that distance from the
Speaker 1: human reality because it's ultimately it was ultimately like these
Speaker 1: breathtaking digital models of planes interacting with each other. And yes,
Speaker 1: it's representing encounters that would end we end in human
Speaker 1: deaths and casualties and sometimes bombing incidents. But but still
Speaker 1: there was a there was a it was a little
Speaker 1: more removed. Um that being said, I know we have
Speaker 1: some listeners out there who play an early end of
Speaker 1: these military stimulation games, So I would I would love
Speaker 1: to hear you guys. I don't want to, you know,
Speaker 1: just completely judge you guys, and you're the games you're into.
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear your feedback on it and how
Speaker 1: you think about it. There's got to be something to
Speaker 1: it that that I feel like I'm missing because they're
Speaker 1: so incredibly popular. But also related to that episode, we
Speaker 1: got a letter from Joseph and he has personal experience
Speaker 1: in the military and wanted to weigh in on what
Speaker 1: we talked about with combat stimulants and other drugs in
Speaker 1: the military. He says, I'm writing in response to your
Speaker 1: questions posed at the end of Combat Stems is a
Speaker 1: four year veteran of the Marine Corps. I found it
Speaker 1: extremely interesting. First off, I'd like to say that I
Speaker 1: loved your fallout references and that you approached the subject
Speaker 1: of PTSD, killing, etcetera very well and I think everyone
Speaker 1: will be happy with it. My experience with drugs in
Speaker 1: the military, specifically the Marine Corps, is one of deep
Speaker 1: involvement in at every marine I ever knew was part
Speaker 1: of it. Drugs are in the culture. We promote heavy
Speaker 1: drinking and even heavier use of stimulants. One drug you
Speaker 1: didn't cover was nicotine, which I think has an impact
Speaker 1: second only to caffeine. That's a really good point. I
Speaker 1: didn't even think about that during the episode. Possibly a
Speaker 1: third of all Marines I ever met smoked or dipped,
Speaker 1: and during deployments or training operations that grew to easily
Speaker 1: half and not without good reason. Deployments and training operations
Speaker 1: are exhausting. Hell, even normal days in state side are exhausting.
Speaker 1: An average day would begin at oh five hundred, waking
Speaker 1: up than exercising with the platoon at oh six hundred.
Speaker 1: After that we would work until often as late as
Speaker 1: seventeen thirty, but it could go longer. That's roughly a
Speaker 1: twelve hour day, and doing that five days a week
Speaker 1: is exhausting to cope with. Even that, Caffeine is impossible
Speaker 1: to avoid, and nicotine is hard to say no to. Hell,
Speaker 1: I dare to say I owe my life to Copenhagen
Speaker 1: twenty four hours, no sleep, driving thirty five miles per
Speaker 1: hour on a desert road, with more than a little
Speaker 1: more than candlelight, no exaggeration to see the vehicle in
Speaker 1: front of me. It's impossible without nicotine and caffeine. A
Speaker 1: common breakfast among the Marines was something called an m
Speaker 1: R E, a cigarette and a can of Monster. Of course,
Speaker 1: if you could get it, which I could, Adderall was
Speaker 1: a godsend. We did talk about Adderall in that episode.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's clear from the message, but
Speaker 1: does that mean does that mean sanctioned by the military
Speaker 1: authorities or illicit use of adderall. So we talked about
Speaker 1: this in the episode. It depends. I think for pilots
Speaker 1: it may be sanctioned, but adderall for marines I don't
Speaker 1: think would be right. It's I think what you're encountering
Speaker 1: here is is likely similar to what you're encountering in
Speaker 1: so many lines of work that are not even military based.
Speaker 1: Is that you have you know, individuals within these uh
Speaker 1: these lines of work that have access to it, and
Speaker 1: then that access is shared, and ultimately you're talking about
Speaker 1: a brain boosting power up that that improves focus, that
Speaker 1: improves energy. Uh yeah, it's gonna get used. Uh yeah.
Speaker 1: And so maybe like a culture of permission, even if
Speaker 1: it's not explicitly on the situation. Yeah. Um. And going
Speaker 1: back to what he says, he says with that with adderall,
Speaker 1: one could easily work eighteen hours days, pass out and
Speaker 1: keep going. Personally, I could keep this up for a
Speaker 1: week before I began to feel tired. Now I was
Speaker 1: no pilot, he says, just a dumb guy. You don't
Speaker 1: sound like a dumb guy from this message, man, But
Speaker 1: uppers are the savior of the modern military. Painkillers are
Speaker 1: also very commonplace. There's a running joke that the longer
Speaker 1: you're in the more pain killers you take in the morning.
Speaker 1: Concerning steroids, I know a few guys who were on them,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't to make them better killers. They just
Speaker 1: like to look big. Did it help in fights, absolutely,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't the purpose because they were illegal under
Speaker 1: the Uniform Code of Military Justice. I didn't partake, but
Speaker 1: if I could have legally, I definitely would have, because
Speaker 1: not being extremely strong is not something your buddies take well. Okay,
Speaker 1: so Joe a stuff. Actually there's a lot more to
Speaker 1: his letter here, but I don't think we have time
Speaker 1: for it in this episode to read the whole thing.
Speaker 1: Suffice to say, he provides us a look at a
Speaker 1: day in the life of a marine. He also talks
Speaker 1: about PTSD and and uh. He liked our reference to
Speaker 1: minimaxing again video game terminology in terms of being in service.
Speaker 1: I also want to throw in here that we received
Speaker 1: some feedback from few listeners who pointed out some World
Speaker 1: War Two era uses of meth amphetamine. In particular, I
Speaker 1: think Panza's chocolade came up, as well as a stucco tabletin,
Speaker 1: and those were on the German side of Yeah, and there,
Speaker 1: but there are some other examples from World War Two
Speaker 1: as well, So that's something we might come back and
Speaker 1: look at in more detail at some point. Uh really
Speaker 1: look at sort of the the the World War chemical
Speaker 1: rise of methamphetamines. It might also be interesting to look
Speaker 1: at drugs at the top of the Nazi chain. I
Speaker 1: know there's a lot of interesting stuff now about about
Speaker 1: like Hitler and top Nazi commander is in their and
Speaker 1: their drug use habits. Yeah, yeah, Herman Goring pills and uh,
Speaker 1: I seem to recall talk of intravenous methem fetamine used
Speaker 1: by Adolf Hitler. Is that right? I I can't vow
Speaker 1: for the better remember seeing some speculation on that at
Speaker 1: least worth revisiting in the future. Okay, we got one
Speaker 1: more for you, and it is one coming in from
Speaker 1: our listener Stephanie, in response to the episode we did
Speaker 1: way back, Christian and I did a two parter about
Speaker 1: the failings of forensic science. Yeah, a lot of people
Speaker 1: wrote into us and actually asked for more, So maybe
Speaker 1: that's something will revisit in the future. But if you
Speaker 1: recall that was a while ago. The basic idea was
Speaker 1: that um that there is a lot of research now
Speaker 1: indicating that some of the major uses of forensic science
Speaker 1: in the justice system in the United States have been
Speaker 1: not so great that sometimes in valid methodologies. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: some methods used to produce evidence that supposedly scientifically solid
Speaker 1: evidence to defend people or convict people is actually just
Speaker 1: based on you know, mythology of the culture of the
Speaker 1: fire investigator or something like that. So there's a bunch
Speaker 1: of stuff like that, and that's what we talked about
Speaker 1: in the episode. There's a bunch more we could have
Speaker 1: talked about, but anyway, here's where Stephanie comes in. She says, Hi, Fellas,
Speaker 1: I'm catching up on your recent podcasts, and the ones
Speaker 1: regarding forensic failings caught my attention. I'm an experimental psychologist
Speaker 1: and I graduated from the University of Wyoming with an
Speaker 1: emphasis in psychology and law. Needless to say, it is
Speaker 1: a fascinating and fruitful area of research, some of which
Speaker 1: focused specifically on the failures of eye witness memory. And
Speaker 1: we did mention that in the episode. How bad eye
Speaker 1: witness memory is, She says, since you mentioned the Innocence
Speaker 1: Project and that's a uh an advocacy group that we
Speaker 1: mentioned in the episode. She says, since you mentioned the
Speaker 1: Innocence Project, I'm sure you already know that over seventy
Speaker 1: of their exonorees were originally incriminated using eyewitness test money.
Speaker 1: If you haven't already, I recommend reading quote Picking Cotton
Speaker 1: by Jennifer Thompson, a rape victim who misidentified her attacker
Speaker 1: and Ronald Cotton, the man she misidentified and who spent
Speaker 1: roughly eleven years in prison while innocent. To be fair,
Speaker 1: there are some procedures that may assist in lowering systemic
Speaker 1: causes of misidentification. Some of these, and again the Innocence Project,
Speaker 1: has a website containing great information, include the following lineups.
Speaker 1: Selecting fillers for lineups that actually match the description of
Speaker 1: the eye witness. There are cases where people of different
Speaker 1: races were used as fillers, which only serve to highlight
Speaker 1: the suspect. Also, having the lineup administered by someone who
Speaker 1: do who does not know who the suspect is as
Speaker 1: having verbal and nonverbal clues, may lead the eyewitness to
Speaker 1: an individual. The instructions given during a lineup are also
Speaker 1: crucial and eye witness her victim, as in the case
Speaker 1: of Jennifer Thompson, is under a great deal of pressure
Speaker 1: to identify the attacker. Saying something as simple as the
Speaker 1: perpetrator may not be in the lineup can help relieve
Speaker 1: that pressure and give the eye witness permission to not
Speaker 1: select someone. The Innocence Project also suggests getting confident statements
Speaker 1: from the eye witnesses having him her rate his or
Speaker 1: her level of confidence in the selection of the individual
Speaker 1: from the lineup. However, research indicates that the confidence one
Speaker 1: feels does not always positively correlate with accuracy. This holds
Speaker 1: up from a lot of stuff I've read where people
Speaker 1: will sometimes misidentify someone in eye witness testimony and say, yep,
Speaker 1: that was him, I know it. And also we've done
Speaker 1: brain stuff episodes on how confident people think they are
Speaker 1: about things, and they often report themselves as feeling very
Speaker 1: confident in things when they have the least amount of
Speaker 1: expertise or actual confidence participating those I forget. There's a
Speaker 1: terminology for are you talking about the dunning Kruger Effe's
Speaker 1: dunning cruer. Yeah, that has to do with like, the
Speaker 1: lower your level of skill in a particular task is
Speaker 1: the higher you rate your skill I could see your
Speaker 1: relation here. Possibly you don't know how little you know
Speaker 1: about how to do it, but anyway, uh So, continuing
Speaker 1: with Stephanie's email, she also mentions photographs. Photographic lineups, she
Speaker 1: says should also follow the same suggested procedure as in
Speaker 1: person lineups. Additionally, however, the pictures should be shown consecutively
Speaker 1: rather than concurrently as we often see on TV. This
Speaker 1: reduces the chance that the eyewitness will make a relative judgment,
Speaker 1: meaning one individual looks the most like the perpetrator, so
Speaker 1: that must be the guy. As an aside, my dissertation,
Speaker 1: which I hope to publish soon, was on the accuracy
Speaker 1: or inaccuracy as I found, of memory in the elderly.
Speaker 1: It was formatted after Steve Chechi's famous mouse trap study
Speaker 1: in response to the daycare scandals of the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 1: in which he asked children simple questions, some of which
Speaker 1: were implausible. Over the course of many weeks, he found
Speaker 1: that children would start to form memories of the events
Speaker 1: specified in the questions. Similarly, I found that after only
Speaker 1: a few weeks of asking those over the age of
Speaker 1: sixty five similar questions, I had them telling me their
Speaker 1: memories of events that did not actually happen to them,
Speaker 1: e g. They were struck by lightning while riding a
Speaker 1: bike in a rainstorm. So this ties into the Satanic
Speaker 1: Panic episodes that we did well back. But both that
Speaker 1: and our episodes where we've been recently talking about how
Speaker 1: memories are formed and how we're every time we're recalling
Speaker 1: a memory, we're rewriting that memory. I also have read
Speaker 1: separately about totally different research along these lines, where the
Speaker 1: experiments where if you can just get people to say
Speaker 1: they did something, over time, they will start to remember
Speaker 1: having actually done it. So you get some students to say, like,
Speaker 1: just read these prepared statements, you know, I have fallen
Speaker 1: in love with a dictionary. Um, And then later you
Speaker 1: ask them like do you remember falling in love with
Speaker 1: the dictionary? And they'll be like, yeah, yeah, that I
Speaker 1: guess that did happen. It's heartbreaking. Did you guys watch
Speaker 1: Making a Murderer? Yes? No I didn't. I don't want
Speaker 1: to say anything, but it's related to that. Well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so anyway that the whole thing is Yet again, this
Speaker 1: comes up over and over on the show. Our memories
Speaker 1: are just not as good as we think they are.
Speaker 1: We're really really prone to to false memory implantation and recall. Um.
Speaker 1: But anyway, so Stephanie continues evidence that protocols must be
Speaker 1: put in place to prevent, to the best of our abilities,
Speaker 1: faulty eyewitness identification. I could go on. There are many suggestions,
Speaker 1: including areas such as interviews and even protecting eye witnesses
Speaker 1: from the suspecting court. I'd be happy to assist should
Speaker 1: you want to do an episode on eyewitness memory. Keep
Speaker 1: up the good work. So thank you, Stephanie. UH and
Speaker 1: that is that was an awesome message. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: certainly a topic that we're interested in, and I think
Speaker 1: that there's going to be more and more research coming
Speaker 1: out in contemporary academic glitter nature. That's finding newer and
Speaker 1: better ways to do forensic science, but also that's evaluating
Speaker 1: the methodologies that are currently in place. Sure, hopefully we'll
Speaker 1: return to it in the future. All right, Well, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't want to cause any alarm here, but Carney
Speaker 1: appears to have finished his self virus scan. He appears
Speaker 1: to have rebooted and may have rebooted in uh in
Speaker 1: combat mode, So we might need to clear out of here.
Speaker 1: What are these pop ups saying we have to import
Speaker 1: a credit card number before we can properly load the
Speaker 1: operating system. Who. I wouldn't argue with him right now though,
Speaker 1: better better pull out to either of you have some
Speaker 1: jet that I can take. Um, I think Carney has
Speaker 1: some jet, but I don't know if you want him
Speaker 1: to administer it. I don't know, Psycho Jetta. All right, Hey,
Speaker 1: if you want to check out the episodes that we
Speaker 1: talked about here, look up old episodes, new episodes, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Head on over to stuff of All your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: That is the mothership. That's where you'll find all the
Speaker 1: podcast episodes we've evercord it. You will find videos, you'll
Speaker 1: find blog posts, and you will find links out to
Speaker 1: our varied social media accounts. Yeah. In fact, those social
Speaker 1: media accounts are where some of these letters that we
Speaker 1: read today come from. So if you want to reach
Speaker 1: out to us on those that's your uh, your your poison.
Speaker 1: Reach out to us on Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler or I
Speaker 1: don't know. It would be tough to write us a
Speaker 1: long letter on Instagram, but you can give it a try. Uh.
Speaker 1: We are available on all those platforms as Blow the Mind,
Speaker 1: And if you want to get in touch with us
Speaker 1: directly by email. As always, you can hit us directly.
Speaker 1: I just said directly, you can email us. That blow
Speaker 1: the mind. At how stuff Works on dot com for
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