Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Noah.
Speaker 3: They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 3: super producer, Paul. Mission control decans. Most importantly, you are here,
Speaker 3: and that makes this the stuff they don't want you
Speaker 3: to know. Tonight's episode, let's call it a travel show. Recently,
Speaker 3: just off air, we were talking about some of our
Speaker 3: favorite children's books and I reread a book called Oh
Speaker 3: the Places You'll Go by Doctor Seuss. You guys remember
Speaker 3: that one indubitably Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's pretty cool.
Speaker 3: Right in the United States at least, it's often gifted
Speaker 3: to people to celebrate milestone occasions, graduations, weddings, funerals. But
Speaker 3: it got us thinking, what about the places you cannot visit?
Speaker 3: And you know, we love to travel. I don't know
Speaker 3: where to start this necessarily, but we, as everyone knows,
Speaker 3: Matt Nolan and I love going on the road. We're
Speaker 3: going to be on the road again soon, and we
Speaker 3: want to go to where.
Speaker 2: Places ben you are I think the most traveled of
Speaker 2: all of us, and it has been a long time
Speaker 2: since I've had to go through a customs somewhere of
Speaker 2: any country. Can you just describe basically what that process is, like, Oh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's uh, your mileage be very folks, But customs
Speaker 3: essentially you have to present documentation that allows you to
Speaker 3: physically enter this place, whatever that place may be, and
Speaker 3: then you'll typically get some questions depending upon how busy
Speaker 3: the customs agent is, depending upon how sensitive your country
Speaker 3: of origin is. Perhaps, yeah, what's their vibe? You know? Recently,
Speaker 3: recently I've had some very weird conversations at customs, and
Speaker 3: not weird and a bad way, just someone who just
Speaker 3: someone who was like having a boring day, and then
Speaker 3: we had a lively discussion, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: But ultimately that interaction, as you're saying it, it has
Speaker 2: a lot to do with the country you're attempting to
Speaker 2: get into and your country of origin and the relationship
Speaker 2: between those two bigger powers.
Speaker 4: Basically, absolutely, yeah, I think the relationship plays a huge.
Speaker 3: Role on Yeah, agreed, it's one hundred percent correct. We
Speaker 3: are going to do a passport episode in the future.
Speaker 3: It is something more people need to know about. Tonight,
Speaker 3: we are exploring the places in the world that you
Speaker 3: overwhelmingly cannot visit. You cannot go. We'll have some returning guests,
Speaker 3: some important updates, and most importantly, fellow conspiracy realists right
Speaker 3: to us. If you have visited any place mentioned in
Speaker 3: tonight's show, we would love to learn more, and we
Speaker 3: would like to if you are comfortable share your experiences
Speaker 3: with our fellow listeners. Here are the facts. First disclaimer,
Speaker 3: This episode a Western centric. We're focusing on what's sometimes
Speaker 3: called the Global West, and we're focusing on Earth. We're
Speaker 3: focusing on earthly places people for one reason or another,
Speaker 3: are not allowed to visit. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3: I think about that too. We're thinking about places you
Speaker 3: cannot go. No one's going to Venus, right, No living
Speaker 3: human being is all of a sudden going to just
Speaker 3: drop by Mercury for a long weekend. Pluto's kind of
Speaker 3: out of the cards.
Speaker 2: I just watched a video. Oh gosh, I can't remember this.
Speaker 2: The the scientist's name. He's He was a younger looking
Speaker 2: guy when we were coming up in Discovery and he
Speaker 2: I can't remember his name, he's so awesome. But he
Speaker 2: was telling a story about Jupiter and he was asked
Speaker 2: the question, well, could we just shoot a rocket like
Speaker 2: through Jupiter because it's just made out of gas, right,
Speaker 2: He's like, oh, interestingly, no, because it gets so and
Speaker 2: dents at the center. Uh it would you know, it
Speaker 2: would melt and it's you know, to be destroyed pretty quickly.
Speaker 2: He's like, but actually, we don't know what's at the
Speaker 2: center of Jupiter, which is still a mystery, which is
Speaker 2: still Sorry, that just blew my mind, you know. But
Speaker 2: but science doesn't know what's there.
Speaker 4: But can we send boys there to get more stupider?
Speaker 4: That's the question. No, it's just a dumb like a
Speaker 4: like a what do you call it, like a playground rhyme,
Speaker 4: you know, to get more stupid.
Speaker 3: It's like uh uh snakes and snails kind of thing, right,
Speaker 3: the no will you do the rhyme? Maybe, said Walt's
Speaker 3: jump roping. Perhaps m hmm. I think it's boys go
Speaker 3: to Jupiter to.
Speaker 4: Get more stupid or girls go to Mars and become superstars.
Speaker 3: Well that's good. I like that. There's a positive message.
Speaker 2: Oh guys, I just remember the scientist. It's Brian Cox, physicist.
Speaker 2: Awesome guy. He's like in his fifties, but he looks
Speaker 2: like he's twenty. You might get a picture in your
Speaker 2: head of him.
Speaker 3: He's not the old guy from succession.
Speaker 2: No, No, that's a different one.
Speaker 3: It would be cool if they were the same guy,
Speaker 3: but like it would be There's an interesting point there, right,
Speaker 3: because there is, if we're diplomatically putting it, there is
Speaker 3: a non zero likelihood that if you are listening now,
Speaker 3: you may one day physically visit the Moon or even Mars.
Speaker 3: The odds are kind of low, but you know, it's
Speaker 3: still a possibility. The main thing is the rest of
Speaker 3: the Solar System, all the stretches of outer space. You're
Speaker 3: probably not going to get there. That is a place
Speaker 3: you cannot go, even if all the other billions of
Speaker 3: people on Earth want you to. The technology is just
Speaker 3: not there, so we have to focus on Earth. It's big,
Speaker 3: it's not having the best time. It is super crowded
Speaker 3: now a nights people are all over the place. In fact, men,
Speaker 3: any of the places you cannot go are already populated
Speaker 3: by people pretty much just like you. And that that's
Speaker 3: where that's where we have to address the American dilemma.
Speaker 3: Isn't this nuts? Like we talked about passports in the past,
Speaker 3: and we're doing in the past, and we're doing an
Speaker 3: episode about that in the future, Noel, not to put
Speaker 3: you on the spot. You got a passport, I think
Speaker 3: most recently out of the three of us, are renewed
Speaker 3: to passport. Is that correct?
Speaker 4: Yeah, But it was like a passport from my childhood.
Speaker 4: I hadn't, you know, do a lot of traveling domestically,
Speaker 4: but hadn't left the country in many, many years since
Speaker 4: I was a kid, and I had lost that passport,
Speaker 4: did not have it, and I had to get one
Speaker 4: pretty quickly for an international trip that I needed to take,
Speaker 4: and I did go through like an expedited thing. And
Speaker 4: I think I actually got my passport physically the day
Speaker 4: of my flight, and.
Speaker 3: It was like super clutch. But it happens.
Speaker 4: And apparently in those situations like if you say you're
Speaker 4: traveling for a funeral or bereavement or something like that,
Speaker 4: they can expedite it. But I think because of COVID,
Speaker 4: the system was just so backlogged that it was very,
Speaker 4: very tricky for anyone to get help. And apparently you
Speaker 4: can write your congressman if you're in a jam or
Speaker 4: real situation like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is one thing that I was told.
Speaker 4: I'm like, cool, I'll put that in my back pocket.
Speaker 4: But it all worked out. I did not end up
Speaker 4: having to write my congressman.
Speaker 3: You could still write them, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: maybe they're lonely. Yeah, I'd love to hear it from
Speaker 3: sort of penpal kind of relationship. I did want to
Speaker 3: mention too though.
Speaker 4: On that trip, there was I hadn't dealt with customs
Speaker 4: in a long time, or to my memory, so I
Speaker 4: was so young. But there was a situation where it
Speaker 4: was really weird because you thought you were done and
Speaker 4: then you go through another country a little stopover, and
Speaker 4: then all of a sudden you got to do it again,
Speaker 4: and it sucked. And you have to plan that, you know,
Speaker 4: because it takes time. It's like, you know, you got
Speaker 4: to plan that into your your connection, and a lot
Speaker 4: of times it's very very clutch because you're like, you know,
Speaker 4: waiting to go through customs and then you're literally hauling
Speaker 4: ass to get onto your flight right before it leaves.
Speaker 3: Yeah. One time, one time I lost thirty six hours
Speaker 3: because I had to poop and I had almost spittake
Speaker 3: just a zero. I had to leave, like I cleared
Speaker 3: customs they call it. I had to go like there
Speaker 3: was a whole security thing. It was. It was weird.
Speaker 3: Now Matt never has to go through all go through poop.
Speaker 4: Mating customs also is a euphemism for pooping.
Speaker 3: That's actually really cool, right, we could use that one.
Speaker 3: You know, Matt's got an order of Malta passport, right,
Speaker 3: so you just sort of breeze through airports.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got free and clear and all the other stuff.
Speaker 2: I just gave them all my information in biometrics and
Speaker 2: I'm good to go.
Speaker 3: You're a liar. I didn't do any of that as
Speaker 3: of twenty twenty three. It's weird. So the US has
Speaker 3: a dilemma. It has a really strange discrepancy. It is
Speaker 3: by far the most culturally influential country in the modern
Speaker 3: world by any measure, any metric. Yet the people who
Speaker 3: live in that country, a little over half of them
Speaker 3: even own a working passport.
Speaker 2: Yeah I need just so you know, I need to
Speaker 2: get one for my son, and I need to update
Speaker 2: mine so that I'm right in that boat. I was
Speaker 2: doing research on this the other day and it looks
Speaker 2: like a fun process, he said sarcastically.
Speaker 3: Well, you can get through it, you know. It's it's
Speaker 3: better to plan ahead. And it also means this dilemma.
Speaker 3: It means the country that is quote unquote traveling the
Speaker 3: most culturally in terms of influence, is home to a
Speaker 3: bunch of people who just stay in the US and
Speaker 3: don't go outside. Not a part of the global culture.
Speaker 3: And there's nothing wrong with that. You know, there are
Speaker 3: two huge oceans. It's difficult to.
Speaker 4: Travel, and that is why a lot of people travel
Speaker 4: vicariously through others, you know, because there's a whole world
Speaker 4: of folks that are out there on the internet, over
Speaker 4: sharing on social media.
Speaker 3: It's literally their job.
Speaker 4: They are oftentimes treated to cruises, you know, fancy hotel stays,
Speaker 4: you know, things like that, all for the purposes of
Speaker 4: kind of creating this lifestyle image that folks can then
Speaker 4: either use as inspiration perhaps who I want to go
Speaker 4: to there, or just live through these people. Highly recommend
Speaker 4: the film Triangle of Sadness if you want to see
Speaker 4: this kind of world absolutely upended. It is the best
Speaker 4: sat tire of this type of thing that I think
Speaker 4: I've ever seen. Maybe one of the best satires I've
Speaker 4: ever seen period. It's just fantastic. Ben, You and I
Speaker 4: were talking about that with some colleagues yesterday.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, it slaps. Have you seen that when that
Speaker 3: triangle of sadness?
Speaker 4: Nope, it's about some social media influencers and others who
Speaker 4: are on this like ridiculously opulent yacht cruise in you know,
Speaker 4: some you know, gorgeous clear blue ocean and things happen.
Speaker 3: Woody Harrelson is the only American. I think.
Speaker 4: It's a Swiss, a Swiss film, and Woody Harrelson plays
Speaker 4: the captain and he's like a like a Trotskyan anarchist
Speaker 4: basically and basically on purpose. This isn't a spoiler. It's
Speaker 4: in the trailer, crashes the ship.
Speaker 3: And then it becomes the kind of kind of a
Speaker 3: Lord of.
Speaker 4: The Fly situation, and it is hilarious and sad and
Speaker 4: kind of action packed, kind of kicks.
Speaker 3: Ass on every level.
Speaker 4: And it really is just a razor sharp commentary on
Speaker 4: the kind of stuff we're talking about.
Speaker 3: Not employ it.
Speaker 2: I'm you're watching YouTube shorts with you know, random people
Speaker 2: providing unnecessary voiceover on travel videos. This lady went to
Speaker 2: the Giant's causeway. She liked that rock. She jumped over
Speaker 2: it and she almost tripped, but she didn't. Sorry.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there there is this need to experience the world,
Speaker 3: and if you are pretty much the majority of the
Speaker 3: United States, there are very difficult roadblocks to traveling the
Speaker 3: world physically. So we experience it vicariously. You know. We
Speaker 3: watch the YouTube shorts, We watched the Tier Point Noel,
Speaker 3: We watched the travel influencers on social media who will
Speaker 3: say out in Switzerland and now I'm mountain blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: Let uh. To me, that sounds a lot like telling
Speaker 3: burglars when you're not going to be out.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's true, or like having those cute little stick
Speaker 4: figures of every member of your family on the back
Speaker 4: of your STV, or like advertising some like luxury high
Speaker 4: end stereo you have in your car with a bumper.
Speaker 2: Stickerh the giant sticker says, I don't know self defense.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's right, that's very open please. Yeah, right, And
Speaker 3: so we have to be honest. For most people living
Speaker 3: in the United States in the modern day, the main
Speaker 3: way you travel outside of the borders of that country
Speaker 3: is to join the armed services or to work in
Speaker 3: a branch of government. And this is an American dilemma.
Speaker 3: It creates another issue, do it large parts to the
Speaker 3: actions of the American government. The world is chock full
Speaker 3: of places you cannot visit. Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 3: We open with a sharp focus on the West and
Speaker 3: keep that for a moment, right, Let's learn about the
Speaker 3: world's most quote unquote dangerous countries.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, as of twenty twenty three, the number one with
Speaker 4: the bullet or a bunch of them anyway, most dangerous
Speaker 4: country remains Afghanistan.
Speaker 3: And it's not terribly surprising.
Speaker 4: Considering, you know, if you paid attention to the news
Speaker 4: and global conflicts over the last decade, it's been number
Speaker 4: one for about well five years anyway, but still there's
Speaker 4: been stuff going on there for more than five years.
Speaker 4: It's been number one for about five years according to
Speaker 4: the Global Peace Index, which is a comprehensive tool that
Speaker 4: weighs lots of data about specific states and regions and
Speaker 4: assigned sort of a score to each one of these countries,
Speaker 4: referred to as a GPI.
Speaker 3: I'm not quite sure what that stands for, bend, you know,
Speaker 3: Global Peace Index. It's just to just go with that.
Speaker 3: They go with their own name. Okay, got it, that's cool.
Speaker 3: I get it to dummy, that's funny.
Speaker 2: Yeah, That Institute for Economics and Peace is a pretty
Speaker 2: strange thing. I'm looking at the website here and they
Speaker 2: instead of calling it number one, they rank it by
Speaker 2: like one is the best. So Afghanistan is currently ranked
Speaker 2: one sixty.
Speaker 3: Third, right, yeah, which is interesting because there are more
Speaker 3: than one hundred and ninety countries exactly. So, not for
Speaker 3: nothing do historians call Afghanistan the graveyard of empires. You know,
Speaker 3: for thousands and thousands of years, all sorts of apimals
Speaker 3: have made life terrible for people living in that part
Speaker 3: of the world. And it's got it's got a lot
Speaker 3: of problems, and a lot of those problems come from abroad.
Speaker 3: It's home to some of the world's most profitable opium fields.
Speaker 3: They hate women like they hate women existing. There's also
Speaker 3: a very unclean, very old normalization of abuse toward children,
Speaker 3: which you may you know, if you want to ruin
Speaker 3: your evening, you can look it up on your own.
Speaker 3: But it's unclean. And now a terrorist organization became a
Speaker 3: state power. It has at best a loose grasp on
Speaker 3: rule of law in the country. And right now as
Speaker 3: you listen, it's weird, right that this place would continue
Speaker 3: to be the world's most dangerous country by multiple metrics,
Speaker 3: But it has a higher number of deaths from war
Speaker 3: and terrorism than any other state in the world. That's
Speaker 3: pretty considerable, you know, thinking about Russia and Ukraine in
Speaker 3: an act of hot war, Afghanistan is still more dangerous.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that terrorist organization that now runs a state, remember,
Speaker 2: was American trained in part of one of the other
Speaker 2: conflicts that occurred in the country way back when. Wow,
Speaker 2: not that long ago actually, but forty years again.
Speaker 3: You know, the US has an outsize influence, right, So
Speaker 3: it's it's the kind of thing that makes you want
Speaker 3: to listen to a mortal technique more often. In short,
Speaker 3: if you are in Afghanistan, and if you're not yourself
Speaker 3: of Ghani, you messed up. You cannot go. If you
Speaker 3: talk to the US State Department, you can't go. If
Speaker 3: you are in other countries, other stands, they're going to
Speaker 3: tell you not to go to Afghanistan. And number two
Speaker 3: most dangerous country. I like that you pointed out the
Speaker 3: reverse ranking there, Matt. Number two most dangerous country Yemen.
Speaker 3: Yemen was in the news in the West for a
Speaker 3: little bit, but you don't hear about it as often now,
Speaker 3: which is a shame, because there is an ongoing humanitarian
Speaker 3: crisis and very powerful forces are waging proxy war in Yemen.
Speaker 4: Yes, Yemen is currently experiencing arguably the worst humanitarian crisis
Speaker 4: on the planet.
Speaker 3: More than five years.
Speaker 4: Of military conflict have forced more than four million people
Speaker 4: to leave their homes and put fourteen million people at
Speaker 4: serious risk of starvation and disease. Around eighty percent of
Speaker 4: the population of Yemen, which is twenty four million people,
Speaker 4: is absolutely in desperate need of humanitarian aid. And that
Speaker 4: proxy war that we were talking about between the KSA
Speaker 4: and Iran is ongoing. The country is for all intents
Speaker 4: and purposes, under siege. So while I probably wouldn't recommend
Speaker 4: going anyway, you can't.
Speaker 3: Go, you can't go, you can't go. Then there's Syria,
Speaker 3: speaking of things that the Western world sort of forgot
Speaker 3: about collectively, the Syrian Civil Wars started a little before
Speaker 3: March twenty eleven and it continues today. Kid you not.
Speaker 3: This is the second deadliest war of the twenty first century.
Speaker 3: Five point seven million people have been forced to evacuate
Speaker 3: Syria to leave, and more than six million got couldn't
Speaker 3: get out of the country, but had to leave where
Speaker 3: they lived, where they grew up. Iran, Russia, the Assad
Speaker 3: government and of course the US and Israel continue to
Speaker 3: beef in this place. We talked about it in the past, right,
Speaker 3: what's that? What's that? One? Port tartis something like the
Speaker 3: tartis bigger on the bigger on the side that on
Speaker 3: the outside. If only it were.
Speaker 4: Dragon Con weekend coming out of my brain is that's true?
Speaker 3: Dragon Con is a big deal here. If you travel
Speaker 3: to Syria, you have to understand there is little to
Speaker 3: no rule of law outside of the capital. If you
Speaker 3: go outside of the capital, you are on your own
Speaker 3: in a very dangerous way. And even people who are
Speaker 3: who grew up in Syria, you know their family might
Speaker 3: have been from Syria for centuries or millennia. If you
Speaker 3: get outside of the country and you try to go back,
Speaker 3: you're going to be in a tough spot. There's not
Speaker 3: really a customs you can clear, and that means it's
Speaker 3: another place you cannot go for now. And I guess
Speaker 3: at this point we got to talk about number four Russia.
Speaker 3: Of course, sadly, yeah, I guess you can't go there?
Speaker 3: Can We really not as Americans. We can't go to Russia. No,
Speaker 3: not even to visit those cool buildings from Tetris.
Speaker 2: Like Waite, really because I actually want to go to Russia.
Speaker 2: So this is this is terrible news.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: Is it because they won't allow Americans in or because
Speaker 2: it's dangerous to go?
Speaker 3: I think it's dangerous. And the tough part is getting out, okay,
Speaker 3: because you know you will have a target. If you
Speaker 3: are coming as an American, you will have a target
Speaker 3: on your back. Actually, if you're coming from any NATO
Speaker 3: member state, you will be under close scrutiny. There's a
Speaker 3: lot of speculation going on about the future of Russia
Speaker 3: behind closed doors. The most important elite entities in the world,
Speaker 3: the mining folks, the tech folks, the military, the banking folks.
Speaker 3: They're more or less gambling on what to do when
Speaker 3: this unsustainable situation burns down, which means you can't go.
Speaker 3: I guess if you're like Halliburton or something, or I
Speaker 3: guess if you like Join Wagner. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I okay.
Speaker 3: Oh, speaking of which, just sin surround the topic. Did
Speaker 3: you guys see, I was at.
Speaker 4: The gym the other day and I saw they do
Speaker 4: think that Wagner guy died in a plane crash.
Speaker 3: I don't think we rediscussed this. Yeah, the finger, right,
Speaker 3: the finger was the forensic evidence that got mentioned. I
Speaker 3: didn't see that specifically.
Speaker 4: It was just like literally a muted TV with a
Speaker 4: headline and I was just popped into my head just now.
Speaker 4: But that's wild. I bet he was assassinated. That sounds crazy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so maybe don't go to Russia. They don't take
Speaker 3: kindly to interlopers.
Speaker 2: Well, it's so weird because like the State Department right says, hey,
Speaker 2: travel advisory, don't go to Russia. It's dangerous, and they
Speaker 2: put that out in February of this year, twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: But then if you look anywhere else on the web,
Speaker 2: they are all these I guess travel agencies and even
Speaker 2: Russia's it's like, yeah, come on, come on over in Rush.
Speaker 2: Everything's fine, it's totally safe. Just don't go to you know,
Speaker 2: their a couple of regions in conflict. Don't go there,
Speaker 2: you know, and be careful about it. But when you
Speaker 2: know the US State Department is specifically saying, hey, Americans
Speaker 2: don't do.
Speaker 3: It, right, Yeah, And there's a reason. And of course
Speaker 3: the Department is always going to be overly cautious, right,
Speaker 3: that's their job. This takes us to another thing, like
Speaker 3: I love you bring this up, Matt, the idea travel advisories.
Speaker 3: There have been travel advisories about the United States to
Speaker 3: other countries. There was one that came out I think
Speaker 3: it was some other painful election and I want to
Speaker 3: say it was Germany issued a travel advisory to German
Speaker 3: nationals visiting Florida.
Speaker 4: Specifically, there should always be a travel advisory for Florida.
Speaker 3: I'm just kidding. We love you, Florida.
Speaker 4: But the travel advisory is certainly not the same as
Speaker 4: a travel ban, which is a real you know, political weapon,
Speaker 4: right in a way, like instituting a travel ban. I
Speaker 4: think we had we had a couple of those recently
Speaker 4: that we're kind of done as almost like a diplomatic
Speaker 4: middle finger, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah. It's fascinating because it would be political suicide to
Speaker 3: ban people in general from leaving the United States. It
Speaker 3: is meant to be an aspirational country, right, You are
Speaker 3: able to go and leave freely if you wish, unless
Speaker 3: you have committed some pretty heinous crimes. However, other countries
Speaker 3: not the same. You know, if you are a dual
Speaker 3: citizen of a place like Iran, they'll let you in,
Speaker 3: but getting out's the hard part. That's why you can't
Speaker 3: go to a lot of places. And I did learn
Speaker 3: one thing. I know we're going and long here. I
Speaker 3: did learn one thing interesting about the top five countries
Speaker 3: the top The fifth one is South Sudan. South Sudan
Speaker 3: is the youngest nation by far in the top five
Speaker 3: most dangerous countries, and it didn't exist until two thousand
Speaker 3: and eleven, which means this show is older than at
Speaker 3: least one country on the world map.
Speaker 2: This podcast is only two years younger than that.
Speaker 3: Country, right right, The audio is only two years younger
Speaker 3: twenty thirteen. It was there's a good gram podcast, Am
Speaker 3: I right? Classic? That is really good? Actually, yes, I
Speaker 3: think so, thank you fi pud Left Behind podcast. I
Speaker 3: ran over it, backed over it. So thankfully South Sudan
Speaker 3: is stabilizing and or wishing more stability for the place.
Speaker 3: But right now, make no mistake, you cannot go. That's
Speaker 3: just the top five quote unquote most dangerous countries. We're
Speaker 3: not counting the other heavy hitters. Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Somalia,
Speaker 3: Ukraine of course, and so on.
Speaker 2: Well, we're not even hitting all of the African nations
Speaker 2: that have been going through coups like recently, super recently,
Speaker 2: and they're on the list most of the African nations.
Speaker 2: If you go to that Vision of Humanity dot org
Speaker 2: that we're talking about, most African nations are on the
Speaker 2: lower half of that list, which is really just mess
Speaker 2: up and sad, especially given there's so many military coups
Speaker 2: occurring right now.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, you know what. On that point, let's pause for
Speaker 3: a word from our sponsor, and when we return, let's
Speaker 3: dive into that a little bit more.
Speaker 2: All right, and we're back. Uh yeah, let's before we
Speaker 2: move on, let's let's just focus a bit on African
Speaker 2: nations and what's going on right now with places like Niger, Burkina, Faso, Uh,
Speaker 2: what is it, Guinea Guinea Bassau, Uh, Gambia, Saotome, I
Speaker 2: don't I think that's how you say it, Sautom, I
Speaker 2: don't know. And princip yeah, and PRINCIPU and others there
Speaker 2: there are there have been so many stinking coups, military
Speaker 2: coups specifically juntas that take over a standing government in
Speaker 2: Africa in I don't know, let's say five years. If
Speaker 2: you're watching the news right now, then you can see
Speaker 2: Gabon is actively going through a coup in Niger. Weirdly enough,
Speaker 2: these Western powers we've been talking about haven't really acknowledged
Speaker 2: that the military junta taking over is a coup, which
Speaker 2: is weird. So if you look at reporting from Al
Speaker 2: Jazeera and some of the other outlets that are not Western,
Speaker 2: you know, specific or poised, people are just saying, Hey,
Speaker 2: what the heck has been going on over there? And
Speaker 2: why won't people talk about it like it's a coup.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know what to say about that. Besides,
Speaker 2: if there is a country going through a takeover from
Speaker 2: a military, we probably shouldn't visit, right.
Speaker 3: Hey, Matt, what is AFRICAM.
Speaker 2: Oh you want to talk about AFRICAM? Really? Okay, let's
Speaker 2: talk about AFRICAM. That is the US Africa Command. This
Speaker 2: is part of the Department of Defense. This is basically
Speaker 2: the United States military positioning for all of Africa based
Speaker 2: in Germany, which is kind of weird.
Speaker 3: Like a town in Maryland called Germany, or like actual Germany.
Speaker 2: No, no actual Germany where our young NULSEF. Brown was
Speaker 2: born when.
Speaker 3: I was a young German boy.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, very much. Oh but the reason why I
Speaker 2: wanted to bring them up specifically was to talk about
Speaker 2: a thing called Flintlock twenty twenty three. And I'm going
Speaker 2: to make another podcast recommendation right now to everybody out there,
Speaker 2: the intercept which is a really cool online publication that
Speaker 2: we've been looking at for a long time. They've got
Speaker 2: a podcast called Intercepted and they just conduct some awesome
Speaker 2: interviews with high level military officials, often trying to basically say, hey,
Speaker 2: how do you answer these questions that we have about
Speaker 2: you know, what's going on in Gabon right now or
Speaker 2: the Niger kup and what does that have to do
Speaker 2: with this thing that you hold every year called Flintlock,
Speaker 2: which is basically a military exercise for all of the
Speaker 2: African participants, let's say participating countries, partner countries.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, they get together and they do all kinds of
Speaker 2: anti terrorism drills, training, weapons, you know, education, all kinds
Speaker 2: of stuff like that. It's mostly tactics really that these
Speaker 2: groups of soldiers are learning. And the weird thing at
Speaker 2: least that Al Jazeera and the Interceptor pointing out is
Speaker 2: that these exercises have been going on for years. There
Speaker 2: was a there was one that just concluded back in
Speaker 2: oh gosh, I think March maybe of twenty twenty three
Speaker 2: March for April, and after Africam holds all of these
Speaker 2: flintlock exercises, the same trained military groups seemed to be
Speaker 2: involved in the coups against the governments of the countries
Speaker 2: in which they operate, which is, I don't know, weird.
Speaker 3: Yeah, coincidence, right, had an old statistics professor one time
Speaker 3: who told me the world functions on patterns. If you
Speaker 3: believe something is a coincidence, you must prove it to be.
Speaker 2: So yeah, well, I'm you know, I'm not trying to
Speaker 2: prove anything Africa.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but there are places, there are places there you
Speaker 3: cannot go, you know. And while we're being US centric
Speaker 3: for part of this, I think we can agree one
Speaker 3: one key thing that people need to understand, especially in
Speaker 3: the US, is that the world is very different. The
Speaker 3: people are largely the same, they're largely good, they want
Speaker 3: the same stuff. There are chaotic situations abroad, and when
Speaker 3: we look at this, I love that you're bringing up Africaan. Right,
Speaker 3: Because we're looking at this idea of the quote unquote
Speaker 3: most dangerous countries, we have to realize that's coming from
Speaker 3: a Western perspective, you know what I mean, that's that's
Speaker 3: very close to and I don't want to sound too
Speaker 3: like performedly woke or whatever, but that's very close to
Speaker 3: other ring right exactizing no question about it.
Speaker 2: African by the way, shows twenty nine military bases US
Speaker 2: military bases on the continent of Africa.
Speaker 3: And overall, the US effort is becoming increasingly competitive with
Speaker 3: other nations that are expanding their hegemonic influence like China. Right. Look,
Speaker 3: likely a lot of this is not big news to
Speaker 3: us playing along at home, especially if you live in
Speaker 3: some of the countries that have been mentioned. And here's
Speaker 3: hoping those countries become less dangerous in the future, not
Speaker 3: necessarily for tourists or just randoms drifting through customs, but
Speaker 3: more so for the innocent people who live there and
Speaker 3: have always lived there and are having children there. This
Speaker 3: right now is only the beginning of the places you
Speaker 3: cannot go. So we can categorize a couple of reasons
Speaker 3: why you cannot enter certain places and mainly it's because
Speaker 3: powerful forces, certain powerful forces have conspired or do conspire
Speaker 3: to prevent your entry, and maybe they didn't plan on it,
Speaker 3: maybe it was just an accident and they didn't think
Speaker 3: about the consequences of their actions. Some of these countries
Speaker 3: don't top the you know, global danger rankings. Some are
Speaker 3: just not even countries, they're just places that are bad
Speaker 3: to visit. But in each category we can find some
Speaker 3: compelling force preventing you from visiting in person. Obviously, political
Speaker 3: issues are the number one thing.
Speaker 4: For example, in the case of you know, we Westerners
Speaker 4: and the United States in particular, one of the biggest
Speaker 4: reasons that you can't visit a particular place is because
Speaker 4: of intergenerational on going political strife beefs.
Speaker 3: We talked about that at the top of the show.
Speaker 4: You know, when you might get a second glance, perhaps
Speaker 4: by a customs agents, you know, perhaps a bit of
Speaker 4: a roll of the eye, you know, or just a
Speaker 4: little bit more probing questions. Sometimes they're you know, we
Speaker 4: have these stigmas that are associated with folks from countries
Speaker 4: that we have traditionally been at odds with.
Speaker 3: And have you been have you ever been randomly selected
Speaker 3: at the TSA thankfully.
Speaker 4: No, I have not, for whatever reason, I don't know.
Speaker 4: Maybe it's just they like my crocs. But I have
Speaker 4: never been pulled.
Speaker 3: I have had. It's the funniest thing, man.
Speaker 4: The only time I've ever had my luggage pulled was
Speaker 4: because man, they're really eagle eye about these liquid things,
Speaker 4: you know, too much fluid ounces.
Speaker 3: I lost three bottles of hot sauce and a snow globe.
Speaker 3: No really, I'm really sad about that hot sauce. But no, no,
Speaker 3: I haven't.
Speaker 4: But again, you know, we think, Okay, we talked to
Speaker 4: actually the other day about how Islamophobia seems to be
Speaker 4: on the decline to some degree in this country, at
Speaker 4: least in terms of rhetoric and talking point talking points,
Speaker 4: you know, politically publicly, right, because there was a time
Speaker 4: where if you even looked remotely Islamic.
Speaker 3: You get pulled every time, you know, I mean, that
Speaker 3: was just it was just par for the course, that
Speaker 3: was what was happening.
Speaker 4: And but that goes in the opposite direction too, right
Speaker 4: for Americans entering other countries, we're gonna get messed with
Speaker 4: for similar reasons.
Speaker 2: It's really weird. I'm thinking about a place like Pakistan,
Speaker 2: that for a long time was a massive trade partner
Speaker 2: with the US, lots of strategic influence with the US
Speaker 2: there in Pakistan, and then it turns out, oh wait,
Speaker 2: they've been funding the you know, political enemies via terrorism
Speaker 2: of the United States, and now you know, Bin Lauden
Speaker 2: ends up in the country somehow weirdly, and then now
Speaker 2: it's things are weird and I don't I don't know.
Speaker 2: I just don't know enough about the specifics to imagine
Speaker 2: like could I actually go to Pakistan if I wanted to?
Speaker 2: Or is that actually really dangerous? And it makes me
Speaker 2: think about groups like isol or ISIS or ISS or
Speaker 2: whatever the heck it wants to be called now that
Speaker 2: we talked about so extensively for so long, and then
Speaker 2: it feels like it just kind of dropped away as
Speaker 2: a talking point anywhere.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting because the you know, for a time,
Speaker 3: to your point, Matt, Pakistan in the US were very
Speaker 3: buddy buddy, Prevez mush even Musharraf excuse me, even appeared
Speaker 3: with John Stewart on The Daily Show. And that's a
Speaker 3: weird interview. By the way, It did not age well,
Speaker 3: But of course John Stewart did a great job. We
Speaker 3: know to your point. Now, we know that there are
Speaker 3: these ongoing human created issues, the shadows of colonialists, resource extraction,
Speaker 3: the old conspiracies that are riddling this alphabet of evil
Speaker 3: dressed in the lamb's wool of the quote unquote greater good, Matt.
Speaker 3: I love theyre bringing up Padkistad because we know what happened.
Speaker 3: We know how the CIA found bin Laden. It was
Speaker 3: a vaccination scam. How are you going to do stuff
Speaker 3: like that and expect people to trust you later? You know,
Speaker 3: I don't think we can blame people outside of the
Speaker 3: United States for at some point concluding these Americans are
Speaker 3: bad medicine. That was an accidental joke. Bad medicine vaccinations. Sorry,
Speaker 3: please get vaccinated, do your boosters. And so. Because of this,
Speaker 3: because of these human creative political issues, countries like the DPRK,
Speaker 3: North Korea, uh Iran, Russia, Belarus, Venezuela, most of the stands.
Speaker 3: To be honest with you, they don't like the US
Speaker 3: Western vibe. And it's a shame because geographically speaking, these
Speaker 3: are beautiful places. Historic Russia and Iran, ancient cultures have
Speaker 3: birth some of the best literature on the planet. Right now, do.
Speaker 4: You think that's why there's so much strife, just because
Speaker 4: of the They just had a longer timeline to kind
Speaker 4: of develop.
Speaker 3: These kinds of beefs and these kinds of like, you know.
Speaker 4: Religious differences and schisms, and I just always you know,
Speaker 4: obviously it's also a very important location for many people
Speaker 4: of different faiths, so there's arguments to be had there.
Speaker 4: But it just got you, you know, they just really
Speaker 4: get the get the brunt of it in a lot
Speaker 4: of in a lot of ways.
Speaker 3: I like that question. That's that's a very good question.
Speaker 3: Is it a matter of timeline because the United States
Speaker 3: is quite a young country, right, could still count as
Speaker 3: an experiment, and maybe there are just more opportunities for misadventure.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't know. That's a really good question.
Speaker 3: I wonder who could answer that. I don't think it's
Speaker 3: it's not me. I don't know. Something to think about it.
Speaker 3: It's a good one. There's also this other idea, a
Speaker 3: world in the future without all this human drama. It's
Speaker 3: a world of amazing possibility. Imagine if just by virtue
Speaker 3: of being human, you could directly go and see in
Speaker 3: person all this awesome stuff that led to you existing
Speaker 3: you know, and it might inspire you to perhaps play
Speaker 3: a role yourself and expanding this noble experiment. And speaking
Speaker 3: of experiments, I suggest we pause for a word from
Speaker 3: our sponsor and return return to one of the strangest
Speaker 3: instances of places you cannot go, and we're back.
Speaker 4: So Ben, you and I discussed some of this kind
Speaker 4: of thing on a recent episode of Ridiculous History where
Speaker 4: we did kind of our first ever clip show, which
Speaker 4: is where we take some of the bits and bobs
Speaker 4: that we didn't get to in regular episodes. We often
Speaker 4: have so much to wonderful information coming to us from
Speaker 4: our research associates extraordinaire that we don't have time to
Speaker 4: get it all in, so we kind of bashed it
Speaker 4: all together and ended up with a whole episode on
Speaker 4: nukes and on nuclear stuff and nuclear places actually that
Speaker 4: you can visit. It was mainly the topic of our episode. Today,
Speaker 4: we're gonna talk more about this stuff you can visit
Speaker 4: for a good reason. Some of the places we reference
Speaker 4: in Ridiculous episode are places you probably shouldn't visit and
Speaker 4: places that people have had misadventures visiting and led to
Speaker 4: some very expensive concrete domes being built. For example, you
Speaker 4: just have to listen to that episode and find that out.
Speaker 4: But let's talk about Chernobyl. You guys, what a neat
Speaker 4: thing that's happened with that site, just how it's become
Speaker 4: this overgrown, psychedelic wildlife kind of flourishing ecosystem, you know,
Speaker 4: the site of one of the worst nuclear disasters in
Speaker 4: the history of the planet.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can. You cannot visit certain sites of mad
Speaker 3: experiments in the past, you know, nuclear testing to this point,
Speaker 3: it occurs occurred, i should say, across the world in
Speaker 3: remote places, sometimes targeting disadvantaged populations more than a half
Speaker 3: a century. And I love it. We're mentioning Chernobyl again
Speaker 3: because before the current conflict, you could go to Chernobyl,
Speaker 3: you could go see this wildlife haven, you know, and
Speaker 3: to that point, before the reactor went bust, you could
Speaker 3: go hang out in Fukushiba. You can still go to
Speaker 3: Fukushima now it is a safe place to go. The
Speaker 3: US Trinity site is also restricted. We talked about this.
Speaker 3: You can anybody in the world allowed into the United
Speaker 3: States can visit the Trinity nuclear test site on one
Speaker 3: day of the year, which is that that's such a
Speaker 3: strange thing, right, yeah, super weird. Yeah, we couldn't even
Speaker 3: figure out quite why.
Speaker 4: Ben, you sort of conjectured that, like maybe it has
Speaker 4: to do with budgets or something like that, But I
Speaker 4: don't know if that rings true to me. I think
Speaker 4: it's a good guess. But that's weird, man, And it
Speaker 4: seems like the demand would be so high, is it. Well,
Speaker 4: I guess there's a crowd if there's the one day.
Speaker 4: I mean, like if it were every day, that the
Speaker 4: man would probably beat his regular like any like visiting
Speaker 4: the Alamo. But yeah, it's just one day. It must
Speaker 4: be like people lining up for miles. But oh no, no, yeah,
Speaker 4: that's a good point. Update clarification. It appears that there
Speaker 4: are two days you guys. The there's the first Saturday
Speaker 4: in April, and then there's a second day, the third
Speaker 4: Saturday in October. This is coming from the National Park Service.
Speaker 4: I didn't know there were two days.
Speaker 2: Oh cool, we just doubled our time, guys, guys.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's do it. Let's let's let's go. Let's go
Speaker 3: hang out at Trinity. I hear at school. But other
Speaker 3: than those two days, you cannot go, right, and there
Speaker 3: are specific places, not countries, just places you're not going
Speaker 3: to visit. We did that episode on closed or secret
Speaker 3: Cities in Russia and that one, and then you know
Speaker 3: we're we're in the US South. We know about Oakridge.
Speaker 3: Oakridge was a secret nuclear city.
Speaker 2: Can I just point out this year, the first Saturday
Speaker 2: in April is April Fool's Day?
Speaker 3: Is that I'm failing? I'm not significant?
Speaker 2: Well, well that was the one day that you could visit, right,
Speaker 2: the first Saturday, the one day Trinity it's on the
Speaker 2: first Saturday in April. Well, it happens to be April first.
Speaker 3: Just that would be just some history buff Matt, did
Speaker 3: you watch did you see Oppenheimer? No? I think I
Speaker 3: haven't seen it yet. Yeah, okay, we'll miss it in
Speaker 3: the theaters.
Speaker 2: West has been trying to get me to go to
Speaker 2: the Imax over here for like a month.
Speaker 3: I don't know how long it's been out.
Speaker 4: But yeah, there's an Imax everything. Is it the seventy
Speaker 4: whatever giant millimeter print?
Speaker 2: It's the Mall of Georgia.
Speaker 3: That's what I forgot.
Speaker 4: You're close to the Mall of Georgia. That's that's a
Speaker 4: I love that place. Have you guys seen the latest
Speaker 4: Wes Anderson movie Asteroid City, is that what's called asteroids something?
Speaker 4: I feel like this little city that's based in the
Speaker 4: film is based around had to have been influenced by
Speaker 4: Trinity to some degree or Los Alamos, and it has
Speaker 4: a very similar vibe. And there are a few hilarious
Speaker 4: shots of like mushroom clouds kind of in the distance.
Speaker 3: It's a cute movie.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't say it's great, but it's it's cute, and
Speaker 4: the set design, of course, is worth the price.
Speaker 3: Of admission alone. I enjoyed it for sure. It's very
Speaker 3: just so you know, because it's a Wes Anderson film
Speaker 3: and it's got a message to it. There are other
Speaker 3: places you can't go, sometimes with good reason. Military test sites.
Speaker 3: There are too many to name. You cannot approach them
Speaker 3: unless they get a heads up that you're coming in,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. It doesn't matter who you are.
Speaker 3: If the Pope just shows up in the full outfit
Speaker 3: and walks toward Groom Lake, someone's going to shoot them.
Speaker 3: It's it's like, the rules are pretty strict on that stuff.
Speaker 3: You cannot go. And then there's there's one we mentioned
Speaker 3: previously a little bit Diego Garcia Diego Garcia is a
Speaker 3: bit confusing because it's a vestige of the old British Empire,
Speaker 3: back when the sun never set right on that archipelago.
Speaker 3: The this island is down in the Indian Ocean. It's
Speaker 3: technically a British territory, but the United States military runs
Speaker 3: it and you cannot go. Like if if you show
Speaker 3: up and you don't have a heads up, you don't
Speaker 3: have some sort of co sign, then you are going
Speaker 3: to be in deep water very quickly. Weirdly enough, weirdly enough,
Speaker 3: they have a kind of cool Fourth of July party
Speaker 3: on the base there. Yeah, for everybody, now the Americans, Okay,
Speaker 3: but there there are also things we've talked about, like
Speaker 3: western China, the weager population. You know, traveling to Tibet
Speaker 3: is going to be a little dicey, right. Kurtistown is
Speaker 3: also at the point where people don't even like to
Speaker 3: call it the country. It's a region. I think maybe
Speaker 3: we got to shout out one favorite North Sentinel Island.
Speaker 3: North Sentinel Island is the place you cannot go. The
Speaker 3: last guy who tried to go was a young Christian
Speaker 3: missionary and just like the other people who are not
Speaker 3: from that island he was murdered by by the people
Speaker 3: living there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, don't encroach on you know, indigenous people's unless you've
Speaker 2: got a really solid plan I guess.
Speaker 3: And a translator. Right. Yeah. Our natural question with this, ultimately,
Speaker 3: when we're talking about places you cannot go, our natural
Speaker 3: question is why why are their places that you cannot enter?
Speaker 3: You know, the US and the global West, to be
Speaker 3: absolutely fair, often treats people from other parts of the
Speaker 3: world as though they do not have an inherent right
Speaker 3: to travel, an inherent right to exist, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean. You don't have to look far to find
Speaker 3: harrowing war stories of people attempting to enter the US,
Speaker 3: you know, and not clearing customs, and it's not because
Speaker 3: of anything they did, It's because of who they are.
Speaker 3: And a country that prides itself on being aspirational, on
Speaker 3: being a place you want to visit, that country can
Speaker 3: be very tricky and very unfair to people who are
Speaker 3: trying to actualize that dream. So if we put a
Speaker 3: side space, we put a side time, travel, biological hazards,
Speaker 3: et cetera, et cetera. The question is why can you
Speaker 3: as a human being not go everywhere you please? In
Speaker 3: this wide, terrifying, beautiful world. Are these laws making the
Speaker 3: world better? I don't know, what do you think. Should
Speaker 3: everyone be able to go everywhere, like aside from you know,
Speaker 3: military test sites and nuclear stuff? Could Should you be
Speaker 3: able to wake up and say, Hey, I want to
Speaker 3: go insert country here.
Speaker 2: That sounds pretty entitled to me, just you know, saying yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't know, I guess.
Speaker 3: But I want to go. Matt, I wont to go
Speaker 3: as end of the world.
Speaker 2: If you want to go, find a way, you know,
Speaker 2: Like there's so many We've heard so many stories of
Speaker 2: people who visited Cuba when there was a complete travel
Speaker 2: ban on going to Cuba as an American. There's so
Speaker 2: many people who got to Cuba. And you just go
Speaker 2: to one other country and then you take you find
Speaker 2: a way to get into Cuba from that country because
Speaker 2: there's no problem getting in from that country. You just
Speaker 2: got to be careful about your visa or your passport
Speaker 2: or whatever you've got.
Speaker 4: I think I mentioned before, they're in that brief window
Speaker 4: when travel was open. My kid and their mom went
Speaker 4: to Cuba and then it like slammed closed again, and
Speaker 4: they said it was awesome, like really cool old cars
Speaker 4: everywhere and stuff. It's sounded like a delightful place to visit,
Speaker 4: But what was the beef that led to it closing again?
Speaker 3: Like whoa?
Speaker 4: I was confused about how abruptly that, you know, hey
Speaker 4: we're back and nope, no, we're gone.
Speaker 3: Aget. I think it's because the administrations of the US,
Speaker 3: they kind of change with the wind. So this is
Speaker 3: not making an argument for dictators or anything. But you know,
Speaker 3: the team passes the ball every four years, right, so
Speaker 3: they will react in different ways. In the US position
Speaker 3: against Cuba is a cold war thing for sure. I
Speaker 3: just don't know. That's awesome they got to go. You know,
Speaker 3: I was very jealous. They brought me some cool street art.
Speaker 4: There's a handmade kind of painted, a little pressed, really
Speaker 4: nice kind of paper, like handmade paper kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: Really cool. I got to get those frames to do
Speaker 3: list and speakin to do list. That's one of the questions.
Speaker 3: You know, of course, the idea of travel in the
Speaker 3: current global system is an expensive thing, right, It costs money,
Speaker 3: and so it is somewhat entitled to travel it all,
Speaker 3: you know, unless you are forced to do so. The
Speaker 3: question is these passports, these borders, these customs, are they
Speaker 3: making the planet a better place overall? Is it good
Speaker 3: to live in a world where you can't just go
Speaker 3: places because you want to check out the vibe. Is
Speaker 3: there a solid argument to support these current regimes or
Speaker 3: is it the same old argument from before? Are you
Speaker 3: doing evil in the name of some greater good? It's
Speaker 3: a question we can't answer, you know, and no, you
Speaker 3: got me thinking about the timeline of empires. That one's
Speaker 3: going to stay with me. I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 3: Matt Noel, can you solve it? Can? Should everyone just
Speaker 3: be able to do what they want across the world? God?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, probably not. Well, let us know. I'm timpted
Speaker 3: to agree. Let us know what you think. Folks. We
Speaker 3: can't wait to hear from you. As we said at
Speaker 3: the very top of tonight's show, if you have been
Speaker 3: to one of the places most people cannot visit, we
Speaker 3: would love to hear your story to the extent that
Speaker 3: you are comfortable sharing.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Hey, just in Atlanta. Anyone out there who has
Speaker 2: ever lived in or near a place in Atlanta called
Speaker 2: the Bluff?
Speaker 3: If you have bluffs the Yeah, you're bringing up a
Speaker 3: specific neighborhood, my friends, Yes, I am.
Speaker 4: I Am, there's a there's a there's a film about it.
Speaker 4: It's called Snow on the Bluffs. Yes, it's It's referenced
Speaker 4: in a lot of rap songs. It is a notorious
Speaker 4: place for scoring hard drugs.
Speaker 2: Well, it's one of those places, like you know, a
Speaker 2: part of a city, you know, a small, tiny, localized
Speaker 2: place that you probably shouldn't go to, but you're not
Speaker 2: banned from, right, And I'm interested in those kinds of
Speaker 2: places as well, Like what is that like?
Speaker 3: Shout out to Gary, Indiana, by the way. That's a
Speaker 3: heavy hitter on those questions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well yeah, And often it's small parts or small
Speaker 2: neighborhoods or something within a place, right, So.
Speaker 4: Oh man, he just made me think of something near
Speaker 4: my hometown in Augusta, Georgia, where I grew up in
Speaker 4: that's right on the border of South Carolina and Georgia.
Speaker 4: There is a community of a group, a very close
Speaker 4: knit group called Irish Travelers who live in a gated community.
Speaker 4: And if you go to that gated community, they will
Speaker 4: chase you out with weapons.
Speaker 3: They do not want anyone in there. There. This is
Speaker 3: a very specific group of folks who.
Speaker 4: Have their own thing going operate under a different set
Speaker 4: of rules than the rest of us, and there's there's
Speaker 4: stuff out there about them. There's a twenty twenty episode
Speaker 4: about it years ago. But now I have heard people
Speaker 4: that even approach the gates and they are driven out.
Speaker 3: So let's also let's also make some space at the
Speaker 3: very end to talk about the the other side of that, right,
Speaker 3: which is that there are wealthy neighborhoods all across the
Speaker 3: world where you cannot go. We can't go there, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean. There are all sorts of fences.
Speaker 3: The question is should those fences exist? Should they exist metaphorically, physically, ideologically?
Speaker 3: Is the world better with or without them? I think
Speaker 3: you might need some fences. I think maybe Robert Frost
Speaker 3: was right. I think good good fences neighbors I think goes.
Speaker 4: On to something hell, maybe even a three foot thick
Speaker 4: concrete dome.
Speaker 3: Every now and again, you get in situations we can't
Speaker 3: wait to hear from you, folks. We try to be
Speaker 3: easy to find online, that's right.
Speaker 4: Conspiracy Stuff is the name with which you can seek
Speaker 4: us out on the following social media platforms.
Speaker 3: Twitter, FKA, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.
Speaker 4: We are Conspiracy Stuff show on Instagram and Tech.
Speaker 2: Hey, are you gonna be in Las Vegas in September,
Speaker 2: like specifically, I don't know, in the twenties, the early twenties,
Speaker 2: like twenty one, twenty three, around that time. There's this
Speaker 2: thing happening called the iHeartRadio Music Festival, and we're gonna
Speaker 2: be hanging out over there near it doing some stuff adjacent.
Speaker 4: Oh, you can just meet up for for some ether
Speaker 4: hits at Circus Circus.
Speaker 3: I can't believe we're talking about this after we just
Speaker 3: said earlier on this specific episode, don't advertise your location.
Speaker 3: But yes, it's all.
Speaker 2: We're gonna be doing a thing.
Speaker 3: It's gonna be cool, it's gonna be a lot of fun.
Speaker 3: We can't wait to see everyone that's you know, we
Speaker 3: miss being on the road.
Speaker 2: Basically, find your way to the T Mobile Arena in
Speaker 2: Las Vegas and we'll be on the outskirts somewhere.
Speaker 4: Somewhere, just drifting through Bose Activation.
Speaker 3: Well, we know what. We'll give you more specific details
Speaker 3: as they arise, but it is a thing that's happening.
Speaker 4: So if any of you live in Las Vegas, hit
Speaker 4: us up and maybe we can you know, do a.
Speaker 3: Little a little meet up.
Speaker 4: The very least come to see us do our whatever
Speaker 4: the hell we're doing live podcast.
Speaker 3: We'll figure it out. You can also call us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you could call us too, But before you call us,
Speaker 2: this is a shout out directly to Kane Brown, who
Speaker 2: is going to be there. Uh, you should hang out.
Speaker 3: With us, all right.
Speaker 2: Just wanted you to hear that, Kane.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 2: Our number is what eight three three st d wyt K.
Speaker 2: It's a voicemail system. Give it a call. You got
Speaker 2: three minutes, Give yourself a cool nickname, and let us
Speaker 2: know if we can use your name and message on
Speaker 2: one of our listener mail podcasts. If you've got more
Speaker 2: to say than could fit in that tiny little message,
Speaker 2: why not instead send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 3: We are We are the people who read every email
Speaker 3: we get. We're conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2: Stuff they don't want you to know. Is a production
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.