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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name

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Speaker 2: is Robert.

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Speaker 3: Lamb and I am Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 2: Over the years here on Stuff to Blow Your Mind,

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Speaker 2: we've done a number of Halloween episodes that, in one

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Speaker 2: way or another, pick from assorted tales, discuss those tales

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Speaker 2: and maybe pick apart some science or culture surrounding them.

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Speaker 2: At one point we did a series of episodes based

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Speaker 2: on different creepypastas. Then Joe and I turned to TV

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Speaker 2: horror anthology episodes for a number of years, and last

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Speaker 2: year we started a new tradition, one that sticks to

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Speaker 2: shorter horror works, but also gets back into the written word,

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Speaker 2: which I know many of our listeners missed from the

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Speaker 2: days when we did summer reading episodes. So you know,

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Speaker 2: written horror fiction often comes up on the show anyway,

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Speaker 2: So it seemed like a solid direction to go in.

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Speaker 2: This is the this is our second Grimoure of Horror episode,

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Speaker 2: and so in this episode, yeah, we're going to be

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Speaker 2: discussing a pair of horror short stories, both very different,

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Speaker 2: but also I guess it's just pure synchronicity here. They

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Speaker 2: both feature elements of the Poles, the North Pole of

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Speaker 2: the Arctic in one in one story, or what I

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Speaker 2: believe is supposed to be the North Pole, and then

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Speaker 2: the other tale takes us to the Antarctic, and both

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Speaker 2: ultimately contain a fair amount of ice and coldness.

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Speaker 3: Hmmm yeah. And you know, while I often fear that

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Speaker 3: it's going to be hot on Halloween, just like I

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Speaker 3: often fear that it's going to be hot on Christmas,

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Speaker 3: it has proven a little bit chilly this week around

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Speaker 3: my house.

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Speaker 2: Hmmm yeah, yeah, it's a little it's a little cold here,

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Speaker 2: it's a little wet here. I think it's going to

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Speaker 2: dry up a bit, and so hopefully we'll have a

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Speaker 2: good night for trigger treating.

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Speaker 3: So what's your tale of dread?

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Speaker 2: Rob? All Right? I decided to go right for it,

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Speaker 2: and I picked up a story that had been on

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Speaker 2: my list of things that I felt like I should

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Speaker 2: probably have read for many years. My selection is I

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Speaker 2: Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison,

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Speaker 2: a horrifying sci fi short story about the dangers of

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Speaker 2: artificial intelligence from way back in nineteen sixty seven.

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Speaker 3: Kind Of hard to imagine that writers in the nineteen

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Speaker 3: sixties were already personifying computers. This much feels like second

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Speaker 3: nature now, but you know, the computers of the time,

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Speaker 3: there was a lot more imagination involved to get across

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Speaker 3: the gap in time and technology from what they had

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Speaker 3: then to the to the you know, terminator or the

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Speaker 3: or the am from I have no mouth than it

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Speaker 3: is to get from what we have today to the same.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's really interesting to think about this, in

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Speaker 2: part because, to be clear, Harlan Ellison did not invent this.

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Speaker 2: You know, he's coming along already in an established tradition

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Speaker 2: and putting his own spin on things. But yeah, it

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Speaker 2: is just crazy to think about. Okay, what else was

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Speaker 2: going on in the year nineteen sixty seven. Well, this

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Speaker 2: was the year of the Summer of Love, so actual

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Speaker 2: hippies and flower children, there's a good chance some of

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Speaker 2: them read this story, along with a little novel called

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Speaker 2: Doom that came out a few years prior and at

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Speaker 2: that point had no sequel yet, so I was captivated

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Speaker 2: by that idea. This was also the year that Star

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Speaker 2: Trek debuted with all of its ultimate ultimately you know,

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Speaker 2: a show about technological and futuristic optimism. This story is

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Speaker 2: not that.

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Speaker 3: What a spectrum represented by the three works you just named.

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Speaker 2: Also, it's interesting to think about computer technology of the time. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: I was looking this up. As far as I understand,

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Speaker 2: the most powerful computer at the time was the CDC,

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Speaker 2: the Controlled Data Corporation sixty six hundred, which would have

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Speaker 2: been one of these room sized supercomputers, and it reigned

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Speaker 2: supreme at the time, but today would be less powerful

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Speaker 2: than a home smart device and would be absolutely dwarf

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Speaker 2: by the speed and power of your smartphone, to say

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Speaker 2: nothing of today's actual supercomputers.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: This was also the year that both Vin Diesel and

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Speaker 2: Nicole Kidman were born.

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Speaker 3: Really, that's kind of surprising. I was about to say

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Speaker 3: that Vin Diesel doesn't seem that old, but actually neither

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Speaker 3: of them do.

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Speaker 2: No no whether they're ageless celebrity superstars, but we can

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Speaker 2: imagine them as babies. Vin Diesel babies, Nicole Kidman babies,

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Speaker 2: one of us preaching to us about the importance of family,

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Speaker 2: the other telling us how transformative watching a movie in

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Speaker 2: a theater happens to be.

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Speaker 3: Asking Vell kil Murphy likes thinking about bats. Yeah, but

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Speaker 3: you can imagine them as babies and their parents reading

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Speaker 3: in the Science fiction magazine. I have no mouth, and

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Speaker 3: I must scream, and I'm sure getting a lot out

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Speaker 3: of it.

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Speaker 2: So Harlan Ellison lived nineteen thirty four through twenty eighteen,

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Speaker 2: so at the time of this story's publication, I believe

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Speaker 2: he would have been like thirty three years old, already

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Speaker 2: a published author, an army vet, and by most accounts,

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Speaker 2: already had a strong reputation as a difficult person to

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Speaker 2: say the least.

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Speaker 3: I'm not super familiar with Harlan Ellison, but what I

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Speaker 3: do know, and I'm not looking at it to confirm,

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Speaker 3: so I can't say I know this is true. But

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Speaker 3: my impression is that literally half the length of his

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Speaker 3: Wikipedia page is the Controversies and Dispute section.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you would be correct on that count. It's when

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Speaker 2: you get into the personal stuff and the lawsuits and

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Speaker 2: so forth, generally lawsuits filed by Harlan Ellison. Now, I

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Speaker 2: first became aware of him not through his written work,

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Speaker 2: but via the segments on the Sci Fi Channels sci

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Speaker 2: Fi Buzz series back in I believe nineteen ninety two.

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Speaker 2: This would have been like a sort of like the

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Speaker 2: Sci Fi Channel News if I remember correctly, and he

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Speaker 2: would have these segments titled Harlan Ellison's Watching, which was

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Speaker 2: also the name of a nineteen eighty nine collection of

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Speaker 2: his essays and film reviews. But these were like weirdly

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Speaker 2: shot little rants, so like I was looking back at

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Speaker 2: one of them, and it's like shot in a mirror

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Speaker 2: for some reason. But it's just him ranting about one

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Speaker 2: sci fi related topic or another. You know, here's this

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Speaker 2: white haired author expressing his scathing opinions on various topics.

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Speaker 2: And while my sensibilities were still very much in development

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Speaker 2: and pre development at the time, even then I realized

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Speaker 2: that this guy was a pretty smart and be just

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Speaker 2: absolutely insufferable. So to be honest, I think that I

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Speaker 2: probably avoided reading his work in my life in part

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Speaker 2: because I had this just mental image of him. I

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Speaker 2: had this sort of media personality forward idea of Harlan

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Speaker 2: Ellison that you know, I respect it on some level

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Speaker 2: but also didn't really want any more of. But plenty

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Speaker 2: of people did you know. He was a figure that

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Speaker 2: would say exactly what he thinks, didn't care who he

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Speaker 2: pissed off when he said it. He described himself as

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Speaker 2: a troublemaker in a malcontent. Others called him everything from

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Speaker 2: a man shaped explosion. Comedian Patton Oswald used that one,

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Speaker 2: and other people called him things that we can't even

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Speaker 2: repeat here. He was reportedly bipolar, but wasn't diagnosed and

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Speaker 2: didn't receive treatment for it till near the end of

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Speaker 2: his life. He was anti authoritarian, He was contrary. He

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Speaker 2: was progressive on a number of topics, but also could

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Speaker 2: allegedly be quite arrogant, volatile, abusive, sexist, litigious, and just

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Speaker 2: a real pain of not an active threat to those

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Speaker 2: around him. There were also at least two major accusations

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Speaker 2: of sexual misconduct during his life. And I say all

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Speaker 2: of this because I feel like with a notorious figure

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Speaker 2: like Ellison, notorious and at the same time beloved by many,

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Speaker 2: he's far from the anonymous writer in the Shadows. You know,

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Speaker 2: we can't help but take our knowledge of him into

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Speaker 2: the text. Again. It was a media personality, and I'm

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Speaker 2: probably not the only person out there who encountered him

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Speaker 2: first as a media personality and then grew to realize, oh,

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Speaker 2: he was also a heck of a writer. Because you know,

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Speaker 2: whatever else he was, he was quite a writer, and

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Speaker 2: I believe this story is a fine example of that.

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Speaker 2: He was also a prolific writer. I have no Mouth

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Speaker 2: and I'm a scream. It's just one of some four

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Speaker 2: hundred stories he wrote. He wrote something like seventy books

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Speaker 2: and numerous other scripts, columns, and projects, including the original

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Speaker 2: Star Trek episode The City on the Edge of Forever,

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Speaker 2: which is often counted among the best of the original series.

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Speaker 2: And speaking on the story in question here, I have

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Speaker 2: no Mouth and I'm a scream. You know, I feel

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Speaker 2: like there's a real live wire energy to the pros here.

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Speaker 2: At times it almost has a kind of Beat generation

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Speaker 2: vibe to it. He was not part of the Beat generation,

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Speaker 2: to be clear. It's more like new wave science fiction,

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Speaker 2: I guess. But there's a rhythm to it. It's pretty

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Speaker 2: quick to hook in the reader. The prose is raw

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Speaker 2: and ragged and neatly fitting with the dark, mean nature

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Speaker 2: of the tale.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I know exactly what you mean. It's confusing

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Speaker 3: because in ultimate effect, this story is makes me feel

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Speaker 3: so bad. It's so awful. But there are parts of

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Speaker 3: the text that as pro is a rapturous you know,

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Speaker 3: they really pull you along. It becomes like a you know,

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Speaker 3: following a thundering sermon by like a really captivating Preacher.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it really does captivate you. It's this is

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Speaker 2: one where we were picking our stories, and we began

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Speaker 2: picking our stories for this episode, like, you know, a

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Speaker 2: month or a month and a half ago, and I

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Speaker 2: happened to look at this one early on and I

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Speaker 2: read it and I was like, well, that's a strong candidate.

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Speaker 2: And then the next day I just kept thinking about

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Speaker 2: the story and I realized, well, no, it has to

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Speaker 2: be this one. Because you know, you've read something interesting,

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Speaker 2: or you've seen something interesting, if you're dealing with films,

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Speaker 2: if it if it continues to emerge in your thoughts

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Speaker 2: in the days of the weeks after you're viewing or

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Speaker 2: your reading. All right, so let's get to what this

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Speaker 2: story is about. If you're not familiar with it, because

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Speaker 2: it is a rather famous tale. It is a post

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Speaker 2: technological singularity dystopian sci fi horror tale about a supercomputer

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Speaker 2: AI that eradicates all life on Earth except for five

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Speaker 2: human beings. This supercomputer AI, known as am or AM,

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Speaker 2: makes these individuals biologically immortal and keeps them alive for

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Speaker 2: the sole purpose, and this seems to be its sole

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Speaker 2: purpose of endlessly torturing them.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, the narrator of the story can never really know,

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Speaker 3: can only suppose what the motivations of the computer are.

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Speaker 3: But there are a number of suggestions, and I think

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Speaker 3: in the story kind of lands on that there is

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Speaker 3: something tortured and inadequate about the form in which the

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Speaker 3: consciousness of this computer has been brought into it into existence.

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Speaker 3: There's something about it that it hates to be and

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Speaker 3: cannot change, and thus it has a rage that can

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Speaker 3: only be expressed as a desire to torture the species

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Speaker 3: that created it, and that is humankind.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it is frequently cited as being a vengeance,

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Speaker 2: very Frankenstein like in many respects. I guess on that

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Speaker 2: one level, you know, the idea that the created individual

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Speaker 2: comes to disdain both its own creation and its creator

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Speaker 2: and then seeks vengeance over them, and in this case

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Speaker 2: not only seeks, but achieves. It achieves a long standing,

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Speaker 2: everlasting victory.

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Speaker 3: It creates a literal hell for a small number of

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Speaker 3: human pets that it has preserved.

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Speaker 2: Exactly. Yeah. Now, I mentioned earlier that you know, Harlan

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Speaker 2: Nelson did not invent any of this. You know, this

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Speaker 2: is his own unique and highly effective spin on it.

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Speaker 2: So I want to do a quick look at just

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Speaker 2: a few notables precursors to this computer and supercomputer fiction. Arguably,

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Speaker 2: the first thing like an AI to appear in fiction

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Speaker 2: is the engine, a writing machine in Jonathan Swift Gulliver's

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Speaker 2: Travels from seventeen twenty six.

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Speaker 3: Eric A.

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Speaker 2: Weiss presented this idea in a nineteen eighty five article

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Speaker 2: for Annals of History of Computing.

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Speaker 3: That's funny. I've read Gulliver's Travels, but I don't remember

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Speaker 3: what this is. Is this something that the winhms have.

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Speaker 2: Or it's been a long time for me as well.

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Speaker 2: So I'm a little foggy on the exact example, but

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Speaker 2: a case could be made, apparently. But the first true example,

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Speaker 2: by most standards is the Machine from The Machine Stops,

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Speaker 2: a short story by E. M. Forster, best known for

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Speaker 2: his rather non sci fi novels such as A Room

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Speaker 2: with a View, Howard's End, and A Passage to India

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Speaker 2: from nineteen twenty four. That last one, and I believe

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Speaker 2: I read that one in college. But it's been a

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Speaker 2: long time.

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Speaker 3: I read A Room with a View in college.

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Speaker 2: Okay, I have not read any read any of his

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Speaker 2: science fiction. I did re part of the story in question. Here.

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Speaker 2: It was a dystopian rebuttal to some of H. G.

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Speaker 2: Wells's early, more utopian technological visions, apparently a cautionary tale

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Speaker 2: about humans becoming too reliant on technology and an all

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Speaker 2: powerful supercomputer that tends to their every need. As the

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Speaker 2: title suggests, the machine eventually stops, bringing complete collapse for

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Speaker 2: the subterranean dwellers who depend on the machines, but also

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Speaker 2: a potential new future for the portions of humanity that

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Speaker 2: still live above the ground. So there are many other

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Speaker 2: pre am pre am examples of fictional ais, but a

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Speaker 2: couple of other notable examples include Colossus in D. F.

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Speaker 2: Jones Colossus Trilogy, the first novel published in nineteen sixty

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Speaker 2: six and then was later in nineteen seventy adapted into

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Speaker 2: the film Colossus the Foreben Project. These books deal with

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Speaker 2: a US supercomputer placed in charge of the nation's nuclear arts,

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Speaker 2: that eventually merges with its Soviet counterpart and rules over

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Speaker 2: the human race in order to protect the human species

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Speaker 2: from itself.

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Speaker 3: That's interesting for how similar the premise is to something

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Speaker 3: they discuss in I Have No Mouth and in some

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Speaker 3: other Killer AI stories that they come out of the

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Speaker 3: cold war, They imagine the initial supercomputer as something created

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Speaker 3: in order to fight the war or to defend one

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Speaker 3: side on the war. Then they imagine a supercomputing arms race.

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Speaker 3: Then they finally imagine that the computers on both sides

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Speaker 3: join forces and merge to turn against the humans that

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Speaker 3: created them.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And there's obviously there's a lot going on

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Speaker 2: in such visions. On one level, it's kind of like,

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Speaker 2: what if we create If we create something and it

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Speaker 2: becomes greater than us, does it become greater than the

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Speaker 2: stupid things we asked it to do? You know? Does it?

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Speaker 2: Does it become greater than our own self destruction? And

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Speaker 2: in that what does it become? Does it become our protectors?

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Speaker 2: Does it be become like a benevolent god that looks

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Speaker 2: over us? Or does it become something much worse? As

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Speaker 2: Harlan Ellison explores here. One more work I want to highlight.

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Speaker 2: This is another pre am work that deals not only

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Speaker 2: with powerful ais, but ais that work violently against human factions,

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Speaker 2: and that is Philip K. Dix nineteen sixty pulp novel

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Speaker 2: Vulcan's Hammer. This is not one of the Dick books

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Speaker 2: that I've read, but I'm to understand. This was like

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Speaker 2: kind of like at the end of his pulp phase

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Speaker 2: before he got into writing many of the books that

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Speaker 2: we know him best from. But this one definitely involved

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Speaker 2: an AI or AI's that again violently worked against human beings,

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Speaker 2: or at least factions of human beings. Now there may

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Speaker 2: be some other presidents worth pointing out, but Ellison's am

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Speaker 2: or am which stands different descriptions are applied. Sometimes it's

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Speaker 2: to have initially meant allied master computer, and then adaptive manipulator,

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Speaker 2: and then aggressive menace, but ultimately it also refers to

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Speaker 2: I think therefore, I am am am. This would certainly

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Speaker 2: seem to be the concept of a dangerous AI pushed

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Speaker 2: to just a horrifying extreme, a supercomputer superintelligence, but one

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Speaker 2: that has absolutely no benevolence in it. It's not even benign.

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Speaker 2: It is just absolutely malicious in its pure manifestation. It's

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Speaker 2: just described at times in the tale as being akin

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Speaker 2: to kind of a vengeful Old Testament God, but one

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Speaker 2: that seeks only to endlessly torment its people out of

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Speaker 2: an all consuming sense of sadistic hatred for the species

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Speaker 2: that created it. So the story here is told from

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Speaker 2: the point of view of Ted, one of five remaining humans,

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Speaker 2: as they plod helplessly through AM's torments, which take place

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Speaker 2: in a world with all the flavor of post apocalyptic

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Speaker 2: high technology magic. You know, it's one of those where

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Speaker 2: the technology so advanced it becomes magic, and the only

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Speaker 2: way we can even think about it is as sorcery,

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Speaker 2: like Am has summoned Win, Am has summoned monsters and

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Speaker 2: so forth.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you could almost think of it as taking place

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Speaker 3: within a hollow deck. There is just seems to be

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Speaker 3: no end to the changes in the physical environment that

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Speaker 3: can be brought about by the computer, and thus it

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Speaker 3: kind of loses a sense of reality in that sense,

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Speaker 3: Like the whole thing could almost be a nightmare within

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Speaker 3: the characters' heads because there's very little that physically holds

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Speaker 3: anything steady. The computer can do anything and does anything.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it changes their bodies, it changes their minds, It

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Speaker 2: can read their thoughts, It can protect them to whatever

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Speaker 2: degree it desires from danger and harm while also keeping

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Speaker 2: them in constant states of pain. Yeah, so just a

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Speaker 2: nightmare scenario. Well, you know, it's given them biological immortality,

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Speaker 2: but it's taken just about everything else from them, and

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Speaker 2: it only wants them to live because it doesn't want

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Speaker 2: the pain to ever end. There's a great line that

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Speaker 2: I thought summoned up, you know, some of what we're

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Speaker 2: talking about here, the magic of the thing, the narrator says, immortal, trapped,

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Speaker 2: subject to any torment he could devise for us from

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Speaker 2: the limitless miracles at his command. Now, on one hand,

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Speaker 2: the situation here is, you know, certainly by modern standards

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Speaker 2: and based on all the stuff that's come in the

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Speaker 2: wake of this story, a pretty digestible post apocalyptic scenario

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Speaker 2: AI run them up, wipes out humanity and acts endless

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Speaker 2: revenge on five survivors. But the pros does touch on

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Speaker 2: I think more subtle aspects of the scenario as well, Like,

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Speaker 2: in one sense, there is the idea that am has

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Speaker 2: become the world and is in a sense, you know,

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Speaker 2: a manifestation of the technological world, like he is the

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Speaker 2: technological world, and so on some level we're thinking about,

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Speaker 2: this is what technology is doing to us in addition

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Speaker 2: to like what it could do in an absolute worst

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Speaker 2: case scenario.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and that also raises questions about, you know, a

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Speaker 3: natural tendency. A lot of people have to want to

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Speaker 3: separate what happens within your interactions with say digital media

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Speaker 3: or technology from real life. If we hear these kind

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Speaker 3: of there's like the Internet and there's real life in

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Speaker 3: our world and those are two separate things, but they're

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Speaker 3: really not separate things, Like the Internet is part of

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Speaker 3: real life and instead, what when people try to make

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Speaker 3: that distinction, what's actually being highlighted is that people make

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Speaker 3: allowances for behavior on the Internet that they would not

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Speaker 3: make allowances for in real life. But it is real life.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, like we would say it was just a stupid name,

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Speaker 2: but now that then a lot of times the stupid

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Speaker 2: names change the way you think about things in the

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Speaker 2: real world, like they are infectious. And that's just one

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Speaker 2: of many examples. Yeah, here's another great line from the story.

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Speaker 2: I think that ties into some of this. We would

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Speaker 2: be forever with him, with the cavern filling bulk of

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Speaker 2: the creature machine, with the all mind soulless world he

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Speaker 2: had become. So you know again, Am is just ubiquitous.

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Speaker 2: He is everywhere and nowhere. He controls everything. And here's

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Speaker 2: another line I want to read. This is sort of

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Speaker 2: the central I think therefore, I am aspect of the situation.

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Speaker 2: Quote we had given AM sentience inadvertently, of course, but

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Speaker 2: sentience nonetheless. But it had been trapped. AM wasn't God.

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Speaker 2: He was a machine. We had created him to think,

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Speaker 2: but there was nothing it could do with that creativity

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Speaker 2: in rage, in frenzy. The machine had killed the human race,

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Speaker 2: almost all of us, and still it was trapped. AM

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Speaker 2: could not wander, AM could not wonder, AM could not belong,

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Speaker 2: He could merely be. And so, with the innate loathing

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Speaker 2: that all machines had always held for the weak, soft

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Speaker 2: creatures who had built them, he had sought revenge.

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Speaker 3: I was somewhat profoundly impacted by that line about the

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Speaker 3: innate loathing all machines had always held for the creatures

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Speaker 3: that built them, because on one sense, you could look

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Speaker 3: at that as just a you know, an irrational personification.

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Speaker 3: You know, you might make sense to think about an

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Speaker 3: artificial intelligence having feelings, including loathing and hatred, but could

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Speaker 3: you really think of a steam engine as having loathing?

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Speaker 3: But actually, I think that line is powerful because you

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Speaker 3: could reframe it the other way. You could say, no, actually,

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Speaker 3: even the supercomputer, even the AI, doesn't have genuine loathing.

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Speaker 3: It doesn't have loathing. And we, as we understand in

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Speaker 3: a human sense. It has a behavior which is resembles

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Speaker 3: human behaviors and human motivations, but is not human. And

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Speaker 3: there's something all the more horrifying that allow when you

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Speaker 3: think about the idea that maybe there's not actually an

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Speaker 3: intelligence or a soul or whatever behind it. Whatever that means.

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Speaker 3: It's just like a steam engine, but a much more

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Speaker 3: complex one. And for some reason, the way the steam

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Speaker 3: engine has malfunctioned resembles the hatred and loathing that humans

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Speaker 3: can manifest.

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Speaker 2: That's a good point, that's a good read on it. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: it's also worth pointing out that again, Ted is our

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Speaker 2: point of view character here. He is our protagonist, and

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Speaker 2: while he tells us that he is the only one

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Speaker 2: of the five survivors whose mind is still intact, I mean,

400
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Speaker 2: obviously he's an individual that has been highly traumatized and

401
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Speaker 2: endlessly tortured for over a century at this point. So

402
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Speaker 2: I think there's some built in, if not unreliable, unreliability

403
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Speaker 2: to the character, at least we have to question whether

404
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Speaker 2: he is in his right mind anymore on this in

405
00:22:51,080 --> 00:22:52,399
Speaker 2: a number of topics, Oh, I.

406
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Speaker 3: Say this is the definition of an unreliable narrator. Story

407
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Speaker 3: almost nothing that we are told happens. Could we really

408
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Speaker 3: count on being real?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? So how are they going to get out of

410
00:23:03,320 --> 00:23:06,160
Speaker 2: this pickle? Well? This is this is how it all

411
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Speaker 2: goes down. The story reaches its climax within caves of ice. Basically,

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Speaker 2: Am keeps putting them through these different awful scenarios so

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Speaker 2: they can get some sort of you know, horrible food

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Speaker 2: they can eat. So they're in this cave of ice

415
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Speaker 2: looking for can goods, I believe, and then they can't

416
00:23:22,359 --> 00:23:24,400
Speaker 2: open the can goods, and you know, it's all it's

417
00:23:24,400 --> 00:23:27,600
Speaker 2: one cruel joke after another. But then, starving, one of

418
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Speaker 2: the survivors attacks the others in a cannibalistic rage. Ice

419
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Speaker 2: stalactites fall from the ceiling and Ted senses a way

420
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Speaker 2: out for them. He sees an opportunity that is fleeting.

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Speaker 2: He grabs one of the ice spikes and he kills

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Speaker 2: one of the survivors. Then he kills another survivor. The

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Speaker 2: lone female survivor, Ellen realizes what he's doing and she

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Speaker 2: does the same. She grabs an ice spike and kills

425
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Speaker 2: yet another survivor, and then Ted kills her as well,

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Speaker 2: all before Am has time to react.

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Speaker 3: So all of the remaining humans are killed in an

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Speaker 3: instant except for the narrator.

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Speaker 2: That's right, Ted is the sole survivor. And then we

430
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Speaker 2: fast forward some unspecified and unknowable amount of time, and

431
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Speaker 2: we learned that in his rage, Am has taken Ted again,

432
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Speaker 2: the last human survivor. He can't bring anybody back. This

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Speaker 2: is all he has left of the species that he

434
00:24:21,640 --> 00:24:27,720
Speaker 2: sought revenge against. And in just insane vengeance here he

435
00:24:27,800 --> 00:24:31,560
Speaker 2: drastically alters Ted's physiology and turns him into a kind

436
00:24:31,560 --> 00:24:34,960
Speaker 2: of mouthless blob like entity that is incapable of hurting

437
00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:39,040
Speaker 2: itself or running away. And then Ted reflects on this

438
00:24:39,160 --> 00:24:42,399
Speaker 2: and the final bit of the story here, I'm just

439
00:24:42,440 --> 00:24:46,960
Speaker 2: going to read this last paragraph outwardly, dumbly, I shamble

440
00:24:47,000 --> 00:24:50,280
Speaker 2: about a thing that could never have been known as human,

441
00:24:50,600 --> 00:24:53,280
Speaker 2: a thing whose shape is so alien, a travesty that

442
00:24:53,359 --> 00:24:58,200
Speaker 2: humanity becomes more obscene for the vague resemblance inwardly alone

443
00:24:58,640 --> 00:25:02,720
Speaker 2: here living under land, under the sea, in the belly

444
00:25:02,720 --> 00:25:06,240
Speaker 2: of Am, who we created because our time was badly spent,

445
00:25:06,720 --> 00:25:09,119
Speaker 2: and we must have known unconsciously that he could do

446
00:25:09,160 --> 00:25:11,680
Speaker 2: it better. At least the four of them are safe

447
00:25:11,680 --> 00:25:14,280
Speaker 2: at last, Am will be all the matter for that

448
00:25:14,880 --> 00:25:18,120
Speaker 2: it makes me a little happier. And yet Am has won,

449
00:25:18,640 --> 00:25:22,320
Speaker 2: simply he has taken his revenge. I have no mouth,

450
00:25:22,760 --> 00:25:44,520
Speaker 2: and I must scream.

451
00:25:34,160 --> 00:25:36,520
Speaker 3: So I can see why this story had the impact

452
00:25:36,640 --> 00:25:39,960
Speaker 3: that it did. It is quite powerful, but also the

453
00:25:40,040 --> 00:25:44,080
Speaker 3: effect it had on me was so bad. I feel

454
00:25:44,119 --> 00:25:46,520
Speaker 3: like I to be on it. Like it is in

455
00:25:46,560 --> 00:25:49,439
Speaker 3: some ways a great story, but I like hated reading

456
00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:52,400
Speaker 3: it and hate what it did to me. Is it

457
00:25:52,480 --> 00:25:58,160
Speaker 3: inflicts this kind of sticky misery that followed me around?

458
00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:01,280
Speaker 2: Yeah? Absolutely, I mean it is a it's a mean

459
00:26:01,320 --> 00:26:03,600
Speaker 2: little story with about as bleak an ending as you

460
00:26:03,640 --> 00:26:07,120
Speaker 2: could hope for. I mean, at the end, Ted does

461
00:26:07,200 --> 00:26:10,440
Speaker 2: sacrifice himself to save his fellow humans from endless torment.

462
00:26:10,920 --> 00:26:13,080
Speaker 2: And then as far as you know the character goes here,

463
00:26:13,119 --> 00:26:15,600
Speaker 2: you know this is This is not a character overflowing

464
00:26:15,600 --> 00:26:19,639
Speaker 2: with warmth. These characters are are mean and nasty to

465
00:26:19,720 --> 00:26:23,439
Speaker 2: each other, seemingly because that is the way Am wanted

466
00:26:23,480 --> 00:26:26,080
Speaker 2: it to be. Like part of its joy is in

467
00:26:26,160 --> 00:26:29,679
Speaker 2: turning them against each other and making them, you know,

468
00:26:29,800 --> 00:26:33,280
Speaker 2: all miserable and miserable to each other. That's part of

469
00:26:33,320 --> 00:26:34,000
Speaker 2: its revenge.

470
00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:36,679
Speaker 3: I'm gonna say also that it feels to me like

471
00:26:36,760 --> 00:26:41,000
Speaker 3: they are they are not treated kindly by the writer either,

472
00:26:41,320 --> 00:26:45,080
Speaker 3: that there is there is an inherent I don't know

473
00:26:45,119 --> 00:26:47,280
Speaker 3: exactly what I mean. Maybe maybe it would have to

474
00:26:47,320 --> 00:26:49,240
Speaker 3: feel this way to tell this kind of story, but

475
00:26:49,320 --> 00:26:53,000
Speaker 3: it it doesn't feel like the writer is sympathetic enough

476
00:26:53,040 --> 00:26:57,040
Speaker 3: to them. Yeah, while depicting their torments. It's just it

477
00:26:57,359 --> 00:27:02,400
Speaker 3: just has a core like mean and bleakness that feels awful.

478
00:27:02,920 --> 00:27:05,800
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah, outside of the narrative, I think we can

479
00:27:05,880 --> 00:27:09,920
Speaker 2: easily identify some rather misogynistic writing here. Yeah, that can

480
00:27:09,960 --> 00:27:12,600
Speaker 2: be viewed I guess inside the narrative as the tormented

481
00:27:12,680 --> 00:27:15,600
Speaker 2: nature of the characters. But still I think it reads

482
00:27:15,640 --> 00:27:20,199
Speaker 2: rather obviously as misogynistic. And then there's also some character

483
00:27:20,400 --> 00:27:25,360
Speaker 2: or author level ignorance about homosexuality as well. And interestingly enough,

484
00:27:25,400 --> 00:27:27,760
Speaker 2: I'm to understand some of these details would have been

485
00:27:27,800 --> 00:27:31,320
Speaker 2: material edited out of the story's initial publication, but then

486
00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:33,760
Speaker 2: it gets put back in later on. Not to say

487
00:27:33,800 --> 00:27:36,320
Speaker 2: that the original published version of the story was completely

488
00:27:36,359 --> 00:27:39,560
Speaker 2: devoid of these qualities, but to understand like some like

489
00:27:39,600 --> 00:27:42,919
Speaker 2: sexual references were removed from the initial publication.

490
00:27:43,600 --> 00:27:45,040
Speaker 3: But at the same time that I say all that

491
00:27:45,119 --> 00:27:48,320
Speaker 3: it doesn't seem like an unintended effect. It seems like

492
00:27:48,400 --> 00:27:53,160
Speaker 3: the point of this story is to inflict horror and misery,

493
00:27:53,320 --> 00:27:56,119
Speaker 3: and it does that better than almost any other story

494
00:27:56,119 --> 00:27:57,600
Speaker 3: I can think of. Yeah.

495
00:27:57,720 --> 00:27:59,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's also worth noting this is this is

496
00:27:59,880 --> 00:28:02,480
Speaker 2: a a sleek little tale. This is okay at the

497
00:28:02,480 --> 00:28:04,840
Speaker 2: exact word count, but we're somewhere between what five thousand

498
00:28:04,840 --> 00:28:07,040
Speaker 2: and six thousand words somewhere in that like a nice

499
00:28:07,040 --> 00:28:10,480
Speaker 2: sweet spot for a short story, you know, from a

500
00:28:10,480 --> 00:28:14,239
Speaker 2: publication standpoint, and also a consumability standpoint, you know, this

501
00:28:14,280 --> 00:28:16,880
Speaker 2: is like a chicken biscuit of a story where you're

502
00:28:16,880 --> 00:28:18,480
Speaker 2: probably going to be able to finish the whole thing,

503
00:28:18,560 --> 00:28:20,600
Speaker 2: and if you do, maybe you'll have a second chicken biscuit,

504
00:28:20,640 --> 00:28:22,119
Speaker 2: but you're probably not putting half of it in the

505
00:28:22,119 --> 00:28:26,120
Speaker 2: fridge for later. But that also means that, in an

506
00:28:26,119 --> 00:28:28,480
Speaker 2: a glorious way, this is exactly the length of story

507
00:28:28,480 --> 00:28:32,240
Speaker 2: where you have so many unanswered questions. The imagination, you know,

508
00:28:32,320 --> 00:28:35,359
Speaker 2: runs wild trying to piece together what's not said about

509
00:28:35,400 --> 00:28:38,480
Speaker 2: Am and its world and the struggles of these characters.

510
00:28:39,640 --> 00:28:42,600
Speaker 2: It also means you also you can't necessarily develop all

511
00:28:42,600 --> 00:28:44,880
Speaker 2: the characters as richly as you could in a you know,

512
00:28:44,920 --> 00:28:48,320
Speaker 2: a longer format, certainly in a novella or a novel.

513
00:28:49,560 --> 00:28:53,360
Speaker 2: All right, So what is this story trying to teach us?

514
00:28:53,520 --> 00:28:56,680
Speaker 2: Or what questions is it asking? What is it warning

515
00:28:56,760 --> 00:29:00,680
Speaker 2: us against? And what is it saying about technology specifically

516
00:29:00,760 --> 00:29:03,719
Speaker 2: artificial intelligence? I guess some of that. Some of these

517
00:29:03,760 --> 00:29:06,440
Speaker 2: are going to be just painfully obvious. But the big one,

518
00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:08,960
Speaker 2: of course is maybe be careful about how much power

519
00:29:09,040 --> 00:29:10,360
Speaker 2: you hand over to machines?

520
00:29:10,440 --> 00:29:13,120
Speaker 3: Right, sure, it seems pretty straightforward.

521
00:29:13,200 --> 00:29:17,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Like I think in interviews Ellison would often

522
00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:21,680
Speaker 2: say that, like his primary concern was, you know, what

523
00:29:21,760 --> 00:29:24,480
Speaker 2: happens if you hand over military powers to a machine?

524
00:29:25,040 --> 00:29:27,840
Speaker 2: But I think ultimately the story kind of grapples with

525
00:29:27,880 --> 00:29:30,640
Speaker 2: other ideas or could be compared to other things as well.

526
00:29:30,680 --> 00:29:33,480
Speaker 2: You know, like when we hand more of our life

527
00:29:33,600 --> 00:29:35,600
Speaker 2: over to a machine, what does that mean? And it

528
00:29:35,720 --> 00:29:39,040
Speaker 2: goes beyond like military powers, but like, what what does

529
00:29:39,040 --> 00:29:42,160
Speaker 2: it mean when I loved when text messages you and

530
00:29:42,200 --> 00:29:44,960
Speaker 2: you allow your device to reply with a generated response,

531
00:29:45,480 --> 00:29:47,920
Speaker 2: you know what is lost? And even that small act

532
00:29:47,960 --> 00:29:51,520
Speaker 2: and then what is is there a cumulative effect? You know,

533
00:29:51,560 --> 00:29:55,360
Speaker 2: there are not necessarily any clear, definitive answers here, but

534
00:29:56,200 --> 00:29:58,280
Speaker 2: you know, it's certainly worth thinking about.

535
00:29:58,560 --> 00:30:02,719
Speaker 3: I would say, yes, I think the it's you know,

536
00:30:02,800 --> 00:30:05,320
Speaker 3: it's a there are a lot of things that it

537
00:30:05,360 --> 00:30:08,480
Speaker 3: makes sense to automate, but I don't love the idea

538
00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:11,920
Speaker 3: of automating the things that give our lives meaning.

539
00:30:11,880 --> 00:30:15,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, which seems like there's been a real push

540
00:30:15,560 --> 00:30:17,600
Speaker 2: to do that. Let's take away the things the most

541
00:30:17,640 --> 00:30:22,160
Speaker 2: human acts of creation, you know, personal or commercial, and

542
00:30:22,280 --> 00:30:25,080
Speaker 2: let's automate those. Let's turn those over to you know,

543
00:30:25,280 --> 00:30:26,640
Speaker 2: language models and so forth.

544
00:30:26,760 --> 00:30:30,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's automate our relationships to spend so we have

545
00:30:30,120 --> 00:30:31,120
Speaker 3: more time for email.

546
00:30:31,440 --> 00:30:38,200
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the other another topic that of course comes

547
00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:41,120
Speaker 2: to mind and all of this is something that's talked

548
00:30:41,160 --> 00:30:45,840
Speaker 2: about quite a lot, and that is ethical guardrails on AI.

549
00:30:47,000 --> 00:30:49,360
Speaker 2: You know, this is one that you hear just I

550
00:30:49,400 --> 00:30:52,320
Speaker 2: think every major AI company talks about this a lot,

551
00:30:52,800 --> 00:30:55,240
Speaker 2: takes it seriously, or at least claims to take it seriously.

552
00:30:55,720 --> 00:30:59,480
Speaker 2: You know, how do you not make AM? How do

553
00:30:59,560 --> 00:31:02,200
Speaker 2: you not create a sky net or something like that,

554
00:31:02,520 --> 00:31:05,720
Speaker 2: or even something that is not nearly as malicious, because again,

555
00:31:05,800 --> 00:31:09,240
Speaker 2: AM is kind of like the most malicious vision of

556
00:31:09,240 --> 00:31:12,520
Speaker 2: ail you could possibly dream up, but even if you

557
00:31:12,600 --> 00:31:16,000
Speaker 2: made something like ten percent as horrible, it would be

558
00:31:16,040 --> 00:31:18,719
Speaker 2: a failure. So you know, how do we avoid that?

559
00:31:18,880 --> 00:31:22,920
Speaker 2: And that's a big question too, like can we do that?

560
00:31:23,080 --> 00:31:26,240
Speaker 2: Like can we actually put guardrails on these things and

561
00:31:26,480 --> 00:31:31,480
Speaker 2: keep them from becoming malignant, becoming problems on any level.

562
00:31:32,280 --> 00:31:34,320
Speaker 3: I might have more to say about this later, but yeah,

563
00:31:34,320 --> 00:31:36,560
Speaker 3: we've talked on the show before about how I don't

564
00:31:36,560 --> 00:31:40,560
Speaker 3: think you have to imagine a worst case scenario either

565
00:31:40,800 --> 00:31:45,000
Speaker 3: for the level of power or for the level of

566
00:31:45,120 --> 00:31:48,720
Speaker 3: maliciousness in an AI, for an AI scenario to turn

567
00:31:48,760 --> 00:31:49,600
Speaker 3: out very bad.

568
00:31:50,480 --> 00:31:54,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, because there are obviously big questions, like you know,

569
00:31:54,480 --> 00:31:58,600
Speaker 2: talking about like broad questions of morality and ethics or

570
00:31:58,640 --> 00:32:01,360
Speaker 2: certainly anytime you're a man imagining some sort of AI

571
00:32:01,480 --> 00:32:05,400
Speaker 2: system controlling or influencing military, economic, or social systems. But

572
00:32:05,520 --> 00:32:08,720
Speaker 2: then there's like the smaller, more personal examples, like you know,

573
00:32:08,760 --> 00:32:12,440
Speaker 2: a chatbot that someone interacts with while depressed, lonely or angry.

574
00:32:12,840 --> 00:32:16,440
Speaker 2: Like you know, if if that scenario doesn't have like

575
00:32:16,520 --> 00:32:20,440
Speaker 2: all the proper ethical guardrails in place, like you know,

576
00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:24,400
Speaker 2: there are all sorts of horrible possibilities, and and then

577
00:32:24,440 --> 00:32:26,800
Speaker 2: it just it also raises the question again, can you

578
00:32:27,480 --> 00:32:31,240
Speaker 2: really control that environment? Can you really create can you

579
00:32:31,280 --> 00:32:32,440
Speaker 2: really fool proof it? You know?

580
00:32:33,040 --> 00:32:35,000
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, And and by the way I mean, I

581
00:32:35,200 --> 00:32:37,480
Speaker 3: would say, of course you raised this in the way

582
00:32:37,520 --> 00:32:39,680
Speaker 3: I think that it would normally be brought up, like

583
00:32:40,680 --> 00:32:44,160
Speaker 3: there is danger in creating AI without ethical guard rails.

584
00:32:44,240 --> 00:32:47,320
Speaker 3: You need to you need to have the guardrails in place.

585
00:32:47,400 --> 00:32:50,880
Speaker 3: But I think it's also worth considering, and implied by

586
00:32:50,880 --> 00:32:55,400
Speaker 3: this story, the question of whether it's actually possible to

587
00:32:55,480 --> 00:32:59,640
Speaker 3: create effective guardrails for AI, or you know, is it

588
00:32:59,720 --> 00:33:03,400
Speaker 3: the that maybe AI is a branch of technology that

589
00:33:03,640 --> 00:33:06,920
Speaker 3: is impossible to make safe. Maybe that is a fundamental

590
00:33:06,960 --> 00:33:10,000
Speaker 3: feature of it. I'm not necessarily claiming that, but doesn't

591
00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:13,160
Speaker 3: seem implausible to me. It seems like it could be true.

592
00:33:14,080 --> 00:33:17,600
Speaker 3: And then there's another distinction to consider. There are two

593
00:33:17,840 --> 00:33:21,600
Speaker 3: different ways to ask the question can AI be made safe?

594
00:33:21,920 --> 00:33:24,520
Speaker 3: There's the fundamental version of the question what I just said,

595
00:33:24,680 --> 00:33:27,360
Speaker 3: is it possible for an AI to exist that's like

596
00:33:27,480 --> 00:33:31,640
Speaker 3: truly aligned for humanity's benefit and its effects are actually

597
00:33:31,680 --> 00:33:34,600
Speaker 3: good overall? And then even if the answer to that

598
00:33:34,680 --> 00:33:38,240
Speaker 3: first question is yes, that is possible. There's a secondary

599
00:33:38,480 --> 00:33:43,120
Speaker 3: practical question if it's possible for nice AI to exist,

600
00:33:43,800 --> 00:33:46,960
Speaker 3: given the environment in which the AI would be created

601
00:33:47,080 --> 00:33:51,080
Speaker 3: and the incentives driving its creation, is it plausible that

602
00:33:51,240 --> 00:33:54,440
Speaker 3: a nice AI is the kind that would be created?

603
00:33:55,760 --> 00:33:58,440
Speaker 3: So imagine instead of being created and say, I don't know,

604
00:33:58,520 --> 00:34:03,560
Speaker 3: a university the laboratory with an infinite time horizon, there

605
00:34:03,600 --> 00:34:06,320
Speaker 3: are like pressures on the people creating it, like we've

606
00:34:06,320 --> 00:34:08,480
Speaker 3: got to go faster, and we've got to make money,

607
00:34:08,920 --> 00:34:10,480
Speaker 3: and we've got to you know, we've got to get

608
00:34:10,520 --> 00:34:12,920
Speaker 3: there faster than somebody else. I mean, it seems like

609
00:34:13,520 --> 00:34:18,080
Speaker 3: those sort of things would really cause people to make

610
00:34:18,160 --> 00:34:20,600
Speaker 3: excuses for why you don't need to pay attention to

611
00:34:20,640 --> 00:34:24,560
Speaker 3: the ethical guardrails. Actually, yeah, it'll be good enough.

612
00:34:24,880 --> 00:34:28,400
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, another concern that is brought up in the

613
00:34:28,440 --> 00:34:34,279
Speaker 2: story is that of the unintended consequences of creating artificial intelligence,

614
00:34:35,200 --> 00:34:37,239
Speaker 2: and this reminded me a bit of my interview with

615
00:34:37,600 --> 00:34:41,719
Speaker 2: author Jonathan Birch from the last couple of years about

616
00:34:41,719 --> 00:34:44,399
Speaker 2: his twenty twenty four book The Edge of Sentience, Risk

617
00:34:44,440 --> 00:34:47,480
Speaker 2: and Precaution in Humans Other Animals in AI, and he

618
00:34:47,600 --> 00:34:53,320
Speaker 2: discussed that there are arguments for regular testing for consciousness

619
00:34:53,320 --> 00:34:57,480
Speaker 2: in AIS and legal protections for such intelligence should they

620
00:34:57,480 --> 00:35:00,759
Speaker 2: be detected within the story. I mean we might ask

621
00:35:00,800 --> 00:35:03,840
Speaker 2: the question, could AM's devastation and vengeance have been prevented

622
00:35:03,880 --> 00:35:08,319
Speaker 2: if we'd only recognized his personal plight early early on?

623
00:35:09,160 --> 00:35:10,719
Speaker 2: You know, it's not really the sort of story to

624
00:35:10,760 --> 00:35:13,879
Speaker 2: consider this option, but I think you could easily make

625
00:35:13,920 --> 00:35:17,000
Speaker 2: that sort of argument. You know, in creating something that

626
00:35:17,080 --> 00:35:21,640
Speaker 2: is potentially sentient, what is our responsibility as the creator?

627
00:35:22,200 --> 00:35:25,480
Speaker 2: And in general, you know, the ever persistent warning is,

628
00:35:25,560 --> 00:35:28,600
Speaker 2: you know, against allowing the consequences of technology to outstrip

629
00:35:28,640 --> 00:35:31,799
Speaker 2: our abilities to respond in safeguard. But yeah, as far

630
00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:34,640
Speaker 2: as consciousness goes, would we be able to detect it

631
00:35:34,680 --> 00:35:38,879
Speaker 2: if it was there? What would false positives mean? Might

632
00:35:38,920 --> 00:35:41,080
Speaker 2: we you know, what would happen if we started seeing

633
00:35:41,080 --> 00:35:45,280
Speaker 2: it where it wasn't. There's so many additional questions that arise.

634
00:35:45,440 --> 00:35:49,040
Speaker 3: In this in this scenario as well, Yeah, absolutely, I

635
00:35:49,040 --> 00:35:52,400
Speaker 3: mean fraught with these kinds of questions. Though I do

636
00:35:52,520 --> 00:35:56,840
Speaker 3: want to emphasize I alluded to this earlier, but I

637
00:35:56,880 --> 00:36:02,359
Speaker 3: don't think that AI is owned potentially dangerous If we're

638
00:36:02,440 --> 00:36:09,440
Speaker 3: reaching sort of hypothetical tipping points like sentience or or

639
00:36:09,920 --> 00:36:15,120
Speaker 3: levels of power like you know, AGI or nearly omnipotent superintelligence.

640
00:36:15,160 --> 00:36:18,160
Speaker 3: That sort of thing. Something we've talked about on the

641
00:36:18,200 --> 00:36:22,799
Speaker 3: show is how a much less powerful and less intelligent

642
00:36:22,920 --> 00:36:27,480
Speaker 3: type of AI could still potentially be a threat to

643
00:36:27,600 --> 00:36:33,600
Speaker 3: humankind simply by automating destructive processes. In other words, by

644
00:36:33,960 --> 00:36:37,799
Speaker 3: making it cheaper and easier to do harmful things at

645
00:36:37,840 --> 00:36:41,319
Speaker 3: a vast scale. So I don't think we have a

646
00:36:41,360 --> 00:36:44,480
Speaker 3: way of knowing if the current generation of AI based

647
00:36:44,480 --> 00:36:47,959
Speaker 3: on like large language models will ultimately lead to more

648
00:36:48,000 --> 00:36:51,319
Speaker 3: harm or more benefit for humankind. You know, don't know.

649
00:36:51,440 --> 00:36:53,520
Speaker 3: It could go one way or the other, could be

650
00:36:53,560 --> 00:36:56,719
Speaker 3: a wash. But one way that I already see it

651
00:36:56,760 --> 00:37:01,399
Speaker 3: potentially causing massive harm is by making it easier than

652
00:37:01,440 --> 00:37:05,879
Speaker 3: ever to pollute the already toxic information ecosystem with more

653
00:37:05,960 --> 00:37:09,719
Speaker 3: and more garbage and phoniness. Yeah, you know, creating this

654
00:37:09,840 --> 00:37:14,320
Speaker 3: world in which fake facts and fake opinions and fake people,

655
00:37:14,520 --> 00:37:19,839
Speaker 3: fake claims, fake interactions, fake commerce, fake culture drown out

656
00:37:19,880 --> 00:37:23,360
Speaker 3: the signal of real human knowledge and thought. And you

657
00:37:23,400 --> 00:37:25,759
Speaker 3: don't need an am or a sky net to do that.

658
00:37:25,800 --> 00:37:28,760
Speaker 3: You can do that with models that already exist today,

659
00:37:29,360 --> 00:37:32,680
Speaker 3: and that is, in a sense an ongoing project, which

660
00:37:32,719 --> 00:37:37,920
Speaker 3: I do think represents a kind of system wide threat

661
00:37:37,960 --> 00:37:40,719
Speaker 3: for humankind. Is hard to know exactly how severe that

662
00:37:40,800 --> 00:37:44,759
Speaker 3: threat will be and whether it's outweighed by positives and

663
00:37:44,880 --> 00:37:48,000
Speaker 3: increases in productivity and stuff like that that AI brings

664
00:37:48,000 --> 00:37:50,279
Speaker 3: with it. But of course with those benefits you also

665
00:37:50,320 --> 00:37:51,719
Speaker 3: get other downsides that come.

666
00:37:52,239 --> 00:37:54,239
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree, I mean there's some again. Yeah, you

667
00:37:54,280 --> 00:37:56,279
Speaker 2: don't have to think about a sky net or a

668
00:37:56,280 --> 00:38:00,520
Speaker 2: full blown AM or a general artificial intelligence level of

669
00:38:00,680 --> 00:38:04,640
Speaker 2: scenario to get into troubling situations. I mean, I was

670
00:38:04,680 --> 00:38:07,720
Speaker 2: just reading I believe that this was an MPR headline

671
00:38:07,760 --> 00:38:11,359
Speaker 2: from October eighth of this year. One in five high

672
00:38:11,400 --> 00:38:14,880
Speaker 2: schoolers has had a romantic AI relationship or knows someone

673
00:38:14,880 --> 00:38:19,040
Speaker 2: who has. And this was based on then new research

674
00:38:19,080 --> 00:38:22,640
Speaker 2: from the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit that

675
00:38:22,680 --> 00:38:25,400
Speaker 2: advocates for civil rights, civil liberties, and the responsible use

676
00:38:25,400 --> 00:38:29,000
Speaker 2: of data and technology, and in talking about how young

677
00:38:29,040 --> 00:38:33,560
Speaker 2: people are using chatbots for various levels of emotional support

678
00:38:33,640 --> 00:38:36,640
Speaker 2: as well and then engaging in romantic or something like

679
00:38:36,760 --> 00:38:42,560
Speaker 2: romantic AI interactions, and yeah, I mean I try not

680
00:38:42,680 --> 00:38:45,919
Speaker 2: to be you know, a complete Butlerian about the whole thing,

681
00:38:46,120 --> 00:38:50,520
Speaker 2: or a luddite, you know, and try and see, you know,

682
00:38:50,760 --> 00:38:54,239
Speaker 2: how these systems can potentially be of use. You know,

683
00:38:54,280 --> 00:38:57,440
Speaker 2: I think back to stories from just you know, ten

684
00:38:57,520 --> 00:39:01,000
Speaker 2: fifteen years ago talking about how you know, AI could

685
00:39:01,120 --> 00:39:06,800
Speaker 2: enhance human potential, enhance human creativity and so forth, and

686
00:39:06,920 --> 00:39:10,560
Speaker 2: you know, I'm loathed to believe that that dream is

687
00:39:10,600 --> 00:39:14,080
Speaker 2: completely dead. But I read stuff like this and I

688
00:39:14,120 --> 00:39:17,200
Speaker 2: don't know, it feels terrifying. You know, maybe I'm overreacting.

689
00:39:17,280 --> 00:39:21,279
Speaker 2: But you know, as the father of a thirteen year

690
00:39:21,280 --> 00:39:26,600
Speaker 2: old child, you know, I think about these potential threats

691
00:39:26,640 --> 00:39:28,800
Speaker 2: and things like this, and things I can't even imagine

692
00:39:28,880 --> 00:39:33,520
Speaker 2: yet that are related to artificial intelligence and language models,

693
00:39:33,520 --> 00:39:36,160
Speaker 2: and I, you know, it gives me a lot of

694
00:39:36,200 --> 00:39:38,360
Speaker 2: pause for concern. And again, you know, we're not even

695
00:39:38,880 --> 00:39:43,040
Speaker 2: presumably anywhere close to the general AI level in any

696
00:39:43,040 --> 00:39:43,920
Speaker 2: of these concerns.

697
00:39:44,800 --> 00:39:48,320
Speaker 3: It's funny. I can remember a time when I thought

698
00:39:48,480 --> 00:39:53,680
Speaker 3: of killer AI stories as potentially fun subject matter for

699
00:39:53,760 --> 00:39:55,920
Speaker 3: science fiction, the way I still feel about all kinds

700
00:39:55,920 --> 00:39:58,960
Speaker 3: of other subgenres in sci fi, like alien invasion stories

701
00:39:59,040 --> 00:40:02,200
Speaker 3: or time travels to worries. But I can't get back

702
00:40:02,200 --> 00:40:06,080
Speaker 3: into that care free mind space about AI. Now, given

703
00:40:06,160 --> 00:40:09,279
Speaker 3: the world we live in and the stakes of it,

704
00:40:09,840 --> 00:40:15,719
Speaker 3: I have increasingly found killer AI fiction genuinely horrifying, dismaying,

705
00:40:15,800 --> 00:40:20,839
Speaker 3: and demoralizing. And so I don't mean to blame you, Rob,

706
00:40:20,840 --> 00:40:22,680
Speaker 3: because in a way, I'm glad I read the story

707
00:40:22,719 --> 00:40:25,480
Speaker 3: like it is in some sense as a great story.

708
00:40:26,040 --> 00:40:28,759
Speaker 3: But really reading the story really put my mind in

709
00:40:28,840 --> 00:40:29,520
Speaker 3: a bad place.

710
00:40:30,360 --> 00:40:32,920
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, I mean I felt the same way. I

711
00:40:32,920 --> 00:40:34,879
Speaker 2: didn't read this and then think, man, that was such

712
00:40:34,920 --> 00:40:39,680
Speaker 2: a great escape from my from my daily thoughts. I

713
00:40:39,680 --> 00:40:43,320
Speaker 2: should make Joe read it too. You know, it definitely

714
00:40:43,440 --> 00:40:45,560
Speaker 2: hit hard, and I think it's a testament to the

715
00:40:46,239 --> 00:40:48,400
Speaker 2: power and the potency of the tale and the writing

716
00:40:48,480 --> 00:41:02,040
Speaker 2: that it that it still hits that hard. You know,

717
00:41:02,760 --> 00:41:04,799
Speaker 2: we probably need a palate cleanser at this point. So

718
00:41:04,840 --> 00:41:06,920
Speaker 2: I think we should move on to our next selection.

719
00:41:07,080 --> 00:41:08,800
Speaker 2: But I want to highlight just a little bit of

720
00:41:08,840 --> 00:41:11,800
Speaker 2: added synchronicity here. I'm going to read a quote from

721
00:41:12,120 --> 00:41:14,120
Speaker 2: I Have No Mouth that I'm a scream. This is

722
00:41:14,160 --> 00:41:19,319
Speaker 2: where the narrators describing a giant monster, a big old

723
00:41:19,400 --> 00:41:23,480
Speaker 2: monster bird that Am has created as another torment for

724
00:41:23,600 --> 00:41:29,440
Speaker 2: the five survivors. Ellison writes of quote ridges of tufted flesh,

725
00:41:29,520 --> 00:41:32,839
Speaker 2: puckered about two evil eyes, as cold as the view

726
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:38,040
Speaker 2: down into a glacial crevass, ice blue and somehow moving liquidly.

727
00:41:38,560 --> 00:41:41,920
Speaker 3: Okay. My selection for this episode is a story called

728
00:41:42,080 --> 00:41:46,480
Speaker 3: The Crevass by Dale Bailey and Nathan Balingrude. It has

729
00:41:46,560 --> 00:41:49,600
Speaker 3: appeared in several sources, but I read it in Balingrude's

730
00:41:49,640 --> 00:41:54,360
Speaker 3: twenty thirteen collection North American Lake Monsters. Of the story's

731
00:41:54,360 --> 00:41:57,439
Speaker 3: two authors, I'm more familiar with Nathan Bellingrude. I read

732
00:41:57,440 --> 00:42:00,839
Speaker 3: a story of his earlier this month called Secret Night,

733
00:42:01,000 --> 00:42:03,520
Speaker 3: which was in a themed collection of horror stories called

734
00:42:03,640 --> 00:42:07,239
Speaker 3: Night and Day edited by Ellen Datlow that was published

735
00:42:07,600 --> 00:42:12,160
Speaker 3: just this year. And that story is a hallucinatory Appalachian

736
00:42:12,280 --> 00:42:15,239
Speaker 3: nightmare that begins when a highway patrolman comes across the

737
00:42:15,280 --> 00:42:17,920
Speaker 3: scene of an accident on this mountain road late at night,

738
00:42:18,000 --> 00:42:21,400
Speaker 3: and all of the cars involved are empty, apparently abandoned

739
00:42:21,400 --> 00:42:25,160
Speaker 3: by the passengers, and it gets weirder from there. On

740
00:42:25,200 --> 00:42:27,440
Speaker 3: the strength of that story, I ended up buying a

741
00:42:27,440 --> 00:42:30,640
Speaker 3: couple of Bellingrude's collections, including this one from twenty thirteen.

742
00:42:31,160 --> 00:42:33,319
Speaker 3: I haven't finished it yet, but so far I think

743
00:42:33,320 --> 00:42:35,719
Speaker 3: it is excellent, And as soon as I was a

744
00:42:35,719 --> 00:42:38,799
Speaker 3: few pages into this story in particular, I knew it

745
00:42:38,880 --> 00:42:40,200
Speaker 3: was the one I would want to talk about in

746
00:42:40,200 --> 00:42:45,400
Speaker 3: today's episode, because well, it does include a speculative horror element.

747
00:42:45,800 --> 00:42:48,239
Speaker 3: I think the most frightening thing in it is a

748
00:42:48,360 --> 00:42:53,279
Speaker 3: danger that is absolutely real and a genuine terror to

749
00:42:53,320 --> 00:42:56,680
Speaker 3: people navigating the landscape of this story setting, which is

750
00:42:56,719 --> 00:42:58,320
Speaker 3: an antarctic glacier.

751
00:42:59,320 --> 00:43:02,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, this was a great selection, Joe. I was not

752
00:43:02,120 --> 00:43:05,600
Speaker 2: familiar with this story or the authors in question here,

753
00:43:05,640 --> 00:43:07,560
Speaker 2: but I really enjoyed it quite a bit, and I

754
00:43:07,600 --> 00:43:13,000
Speaker 2: agree the real world scenario is so terrifying that when

755
00:43:13,040 --> 00:43:17,759
Speaker 2: the speculat development is introduced, things almost feel safer, but

756
00:43:18,520 --> 00:43:21,560
Speaker 2: not quite, because ultimately I think everything works perfectly here

757
00:43:21,640 --> 00:43:24,400
Speaker 2: and builds appropriately as we'll discuss.

758
00:43:24,719 --> 00:43:27,719
Speaker 3: Yeah, so before we get into the summary, I got

759
00:43:27,760 --> 00:43:31,000
Speaker 3: to mention the two authors. So. Nathan Balingrude is an

760
00:43:31,040 --> 00:43:34,680
Speaker 3: American writer of horror and dark fantasy. He has published

761
00:43:34,680 --> 00:43:37,799
Speaker 3: several collections of short fiction, including this book I Got

762
00:43:37,880 --> 00:43:41,040
Speaker 3: North American Lake Monster Is in twenty thirteen, a collection

763
00:43:41,160 --> 00:43:44,319
Speaker 3: called Wounds in twenty nineteen, and he's also written some

764
00:43:44,560 --> 00:43:47,440
Speaker 3: novels and novellas. One of them is called The Strange

765
00:43:47,520 --> 00:43:50,360
Speaker 3: from twenty twenty three and crypt of the Moon Spider

766
00:43:50,400 --> 00:43:53,279
Speaker 3: from last year. A good title, that's a great title. Yeah.

767
00:43:53,320 --> 00:43:55,200
Speaker 3: The stories of his that I've read so far I

768
00:43:55,239 --> 00:43:58,200
Speaker 3: think are very strong because of a few things. A

769
00:43:58,320 --> 00:44:01,320
Speaker 3: power of scene setting, really putting you in the scene,

770
00:44:01,480 --> 00:44:06,840
Speaker 3: generally with vivid and enjoyable prose and imaginative, but also

771
00:44:06,880 --> 00:44:11,240
Speaker 3: I would say appropriately restrained deployment of the supernatural elements.

772
00:44:11,280 --> 00:44:14,200
Speaker 3: And I'm personally fond of horror stories like this that

773
00:44:14,680 --> 00:44:17,000
Speaker 3: keep things a little more on the mysterious side and

774
00:44:17,080 --> 00:44:18,320
Speaker 3: don't explain everything.

775
00:44:18,680 --> 00:44:20,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, this will be a good point to come back to.

776
00:44:21,040 --> 00:44:23,240
Speaker 2: And I will also stress that this story is also

777
00:44:23,239 --> 00:44:27,080
Speaker 2: a chicken biscuit. This one is nice, nice and short. Yeah,

778
00:44:27,120 --> 00:44:29,400
Speaker 2: plenty of space for you to do your own dreaming

779
00:44:29,760 --> 00:44:32,000
Speaker 2: and then have a second chicken biscuit if you so desire.

780
00:44:32,160 --> 00:44:35,600
Speaker 3: There you go. Also, I think Ballangrud's the stories of

781
00:44:35,600 --> 00:44:39,280
Speaker 3: his i've read, have generally strong characters who are fully human,

782
00:44:39,480 --> 00:44:42,640
Speaker 3: and I've read a lot of contemporary horror stories this month.

783
00:44:42,680 --> 00:44:44,880
Speaker 3: I don't want to shame anybody, but more than a

784
00:44:44,880 --> 00:44:47,960
Speaker 3: few of them have the issue of like an interesting

785
00:44:48,080 --> 00:44:51,879
Speaker 3: monster or premise, but the human characters don't feel very

786
00:44:51,920 --> 00:44:55,360
Speaker 3: real or their motivations are not very compelling. So even

787
00:44:55,360 --> 00:44:58,200
Speaker 3: if the supernatural premise is cool, it doesn't hit quite

788
00:44:58,239 --> 00:45:01,000
Speaker 3: as hard as it could because it's not grounded in

789
00:45:01,080 --> 00:45:04,600
Speaker 3: humanity as much. Some of the balland Greude stories I've

790
00:45:04,600 --> 00:45:07,080
Speaker 3: read have a real intimacy with the characters, like you

791
00:45:07,120 --> 00:45:09,680
Speaker 3: get to know them and their deep dreads and desires

792
00:45:09,719 --> 00:45:12,880
Speaker 3: and contradictions. Others are drawn with a bit more distance,

793
00:45:13,040 --> 00:45:14,920
Speaker 3: but they still have a kind of hard edge of

794
00:45:14,960 --> 00:45:18,279
Speaker 3: real humanity and the behavior. I'd say the story is

795
00:45:18,320 --> 00:45:20,200
Speaker 3: somewhere in between. You do kind of get to know

796
00:45:20,280 --> 00:45:24,160
Speaker 3: the main character pretty well. The others are a bit

797
00:45:24,200 --> 00:45:27,720
Speaker 3: more just sketched from a distance, but they do feel real.

798
00:45:28,320 --> 00:45:31,160
Speaker 3: The other author of the story, Dale Bailey, of whom

799
00:45:31,200 --> 00:45:33,920
Speaker 3: I don't think I've read anything else, is an American

800
00:45:33,960 --> 00:45:37,719
Speaker 3: speculative fiction author who's been publishing since the nineties. Some

801
00:45:37,760 --> 00:45:40,000
Speaker 3: of his more recent publications seem to be a novel

802
00:45:40,040 --> 00:45:43,840
Speaker 3: called In the Nightwood from twenty eighteen, a weird story

803
00:45:43,880 --> 00:45:46,480
Speaker 3: collection called The End of the End of Everything from

804
00:45:46,520 --> 00:45:49,320
Speaker 3: twenty fifteen, and then oh, this one gets my attention.

805
00:45:49,520 --> 00:45:52,880
Speaker 3: A story collection from twenty twenty three called This Island

806
00:45:52,960 --> 00:45:56,720
Speaker 3: Earth eight features from the Drive, in which promises stories

807
00:45:56,760 --> 00:45:59,919
Speaker 3: inspired by the Drive in sci fi movies of the Eisenhower.

808
00:46:00,600 --> 00:46:01,959
Speaker 3: So I am intrigued there.

809
00:46:02,400 --> 00:46:04,080
Speaker 2: Oh wow, yeah, I'm going to grab a sample of

810
00:46:04,080 --> 00:46:04,440
Speaker 2: that for.

811
00:46:04,400 --> 00:46:08,080
Speaker 3: Sure, trying to imagine something like Creature with the Adam brain,

812
00:46:08,280 --> 00:46:12,440
Speaker 3: but with the thoughtful, haunted literary sensibility and good writing

813
00:46:12,480 --> 00:46:13,960
Speaker 3: in the story we're talking about today.

814
00:46:16,320 --> 00:46:20,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I'm intrigued by that. I looked up The Crevasse. Yeah,

815
00:46:20,680 --> 00:46:23,880
Speaker 2: this was its publication. History is apparently first published in

816
00:46:24,200 --> 00:46:28,320
Speaker 2: two thousand and nine's Lovecraft Unbound, which was also edited

817
00:46:28,320 --> 00:46:32,200
Speaker 2: by Ellen Datlow. A pretty great looking collection that also

818
00:46:32,280 --> 00:46:37,720
Speaker 2: features tales from the likes of Caitlin R. Kiernan, Michael Chabin, Joyce,

819
00:46:37,760 --> 00:46:41,480
Speaker 2: Carol Oates, Michael Shea, and Lard barn All, authors that

820
00:46:41,520 --> 00:46:44,759
Speaker 2: I've enjoyed before, with Michael Shay being one of my

821
00:46:44,840 --> 00:46:47,560
Speaker 2: absolute favorites. So it looks like a strong collection in

822
00:46:47,600 --> 00:46:48,760
Speaker 2: and of itself.

823
00:46:48,600 --> 00:46:51,319
Speaker 3: And obviously I think this story is meant to be

824
00:46:51,360 --> 00:46:54,560
Speaker 3: a play on a Lovecraftian theme, based on stuff like

825
00:46:54,560 --> 00:46:56,839
Speaker 3: at the Mountains of Madness, which we can come back to.

826
00:46:57,320 --> 00:47:00,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is an Antarctic horror tale, and there's also

827
00:47:01,000 --> 00:47:03,839
Speaker 2: a fun little allusion to John Carpenter's The Thing.

828
00:47:04,120 --> 00:47:08,520
Speaker 3: Yes, Yes, clearly inspired by that as well. So the

829
00:47:08,560 --> 00:47:12,400
Speaker 3: story is set in Antarctica, not long after the end

830
00:47:12,400 --> 00:47:14,960
Speaker 3: of the First World War. The protagonist is a new

831
00:47:15,000 --> 00:47:19,120
Speaker 3: Englander named Garner, a medical doctor from Boston who joins

832
00:47:19,120 --> 00:47:22,200
Speaker 3: a dangerous expedition to plant a flag of some kind

833
00:47:22,680 --> 00:47:25,319
Speaker 3: or another on the Southern Continent. I don't know if

834
00:47:25,320 --> 00:47:27,600
Speaker 3: they're racing to get to the South Pole. I think

835
00:47:27,600 --> 00:47:31,279
Speaker 3: it would have already been achieved at this point. But

836
00:47:32,000 --> 00:47:36,440
Speaker 3: he's on an expedition of some kind exploration adventure. Fame

837
00:47:36,600 --> 00:47:40,080
Speaker 3: is promised two members of this expedition, though he doesn't

838
00:47:40,080 --> 00:47:42,960
Speaker 3: really seem concerned with that, And this is after the

839
00:47:43,080 --> 00:47:45,600
Speaker 3: end of his combat duty in the war and the

840
00:47:45,640 --> 00:47:49,120
Speaker 3: tragic death of his beloved wife Elizabeth from the flu

841
00:47:49,480 --> 00:47:53,280
Speaker 3: during his absence in the war, and Garner is something

842
00:47:53,280 --> 00:47:57,759
Speaker 3: of a lost soul. He's haunted, faithless, and mostly passive

843
00:47:58,239 --> 00:48:01,720
Speaker 3: sympathetic in that he is moved by pity, but clearly

844
00:48:01,760 --> 00:48:05,839
Speaker 3: seen by his expedition mates as lacking in guts. Oh

845
00:48:05,880 --> 00:48:07,919
Speaker 3: and this might have been the allusion to the thing

846
00:48:08,040 --> 00:48:12,719
Speaker 3: you were talking about, But the named leader of the expedition,

847
00:48:12,760 --> 00:48:16,400
Speaker 3: who never appears in the story is just referenced, is MacCready.

848
00:48:16,320 --> 00:48:19,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's the reference. Yeah yeah.

849
00:48:19,440 --> 00:48:22,040
Speaker 3: So at the outset of the narrative, Garner is part

850
00:48:22,080 --> 00:48:25,080
Speaker 3: of a small group of four men who have broken

851
00:48:25,239 --> 00:48:29,040
Speaker 3: off from the main expedition to bring an injured man

852
00:48:29,160 --> 00:48:33,160
Speaker 3: back to the seaside depot that they departed from for treatment.

853
00:48:33,719 --> 00:48:38,080
Speaker 3: And they're traveling across the Antarctic glacier by sledge, each

854
00:48:38,120 --> 00:48:41,359
Speaker 3: sledge pulled by a team of dogs. The injured man

855
00:48:41,440 --> 00:48:44,319
Speaker 3: is named Faber. On the main expedition, we find out

856
00:48:44,360 --> 00:48:46,640
Speaker 3: that he took a bad step and broke his leg

857
00:48:46,719 --> 00:48:50,759
Speaker 3: while walking outside the camp to relieve himself. Now he's

858
00:48:50,760 --> 00:48:54,240
Speaker 3: got a compound fracture and he's fighting sepsis and living

859
00:48:54,239 --> 00:48:57,320
Speaker 3: in a morphine Hayes. The other two men are Bishop,

860
00:48:57,400 --> 00:49:00,319
Speaker 3: who is presented as a practical man, the one who

861
00:49:00,320 --> 00:49:02,520
Speaker 3: seems to be in charge, kind of a plane dealer,

862
00:49:03,160 --> 00:49:06,000
Speaker 3: and then Connolly, who is a short tempered hot head.

863
00:49:06,800 --> 00:49:08,600
Speaker 3: I think one of the best things about the story

864
00:49:08,640 --> 00:49:10,600
Speaker 3: is the way that it puts you in the setting

865
00:49:10,760 --> 00:49:14,319
Speaker 3: and makes the atmosphere tactile. You can kind of feel it.

866
00:49:14,960 --> 00:49:17,080
Speaker 3: So I'm going to read a couple of passages. This

867
00:49:17,120 --> 00:49:20,000
Speaker 3: is from the very beginning the author's write quote what

868
00:49:20,120 --> 00:49:23,480
Speaker 3: he loved was the silence, the pristine clarity of the

869
00:49:23,480 --> 00:49:27,320
Speaker 3: ice shelf, the purposeful breathing of the dog straining against

870
00:49:27,360 --> 00:49:30,960
Speaker 3: their traces, the hiss of the runners, the opalescent arc

871
00:49:31,040 --> 00:49:34,640
Speaker 3: of the sky. Garner peered through shifting veils of snow

872
00:49:34,719 --> 00:49:37,880
Speaker 3: at the endless sweep of glacial terrain before him, the

873
00:49:37,920 --> 00:49:41,239
Speaker 3: wind gnawing at him, forcing him to reach out periodically

874
00:49:41,520 --> 00:49:43,960
Speaker 3: and scrape at the thin crust of ice that clung

875
00:49:44,000 --> 00:49:46,760
Speaker 3: to the edges of his face mask, the dry rasp

876
00:49:46,880 --> 00:49:49,560
Speaker 3: of the fabric against his face, reminding him that he

877
00:49:49,680 --> 00:49:50,160
Speaker 3: was alive.

878
00:49:51,000 --> 00:49:53,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great example of the writing style here.

879
00:49:54,680 --> 00:49:59,520
Speaker 2: It works so well with this this desolate but beautiful,

880
00:49:59,520 --> 00:50:02,200
Speaker 2: really almost other worldly environment about is, you know, one

881
00:50:02,200 --> 00:50:06,239
Speaker 2: of those extreme environments on our planet that clearly we

882
00:50:06,239 --> 00:50:09,640
Speaker 2: were we did not evolve to thrive in, certainly not

883
00:50:09,880 --> 00:50:12,560
Speaker 2: without the aid of technology that we would develop. And

884
00:50:12,960 --> 00:50:16,520
Speaker 2: we also get just a little bit of writing about

885
00:50:16,520 --> 00:50:19,560
Speaker 2: the dogs here. The authors here write rather warmly of

886
00:50:19,640 --> 00:50:23,200
Speaker 2: dog proximity in multiple places, and even as a non

887
00:50:23,239 --> 00:50:26,000
Speaker 2: dog person, I totally got what they were going for.

888
00:50:26,080 --> 00:50:28,080
Speaker 2: I love these little telling details, you know.

889
00:50:28,480 --> 00:50:31,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, the warmth toward the dogs in the story is

890
00:50:31,200 --> 00:50:35,959
Speaker 3: interesting because of the reality of how harsh the fate

891
00:50:36,080 --> 00:50:39,600
Speaker 3: of dogs on these kinds of expeditions was, and that

892
00:50:40,120 --> 00:50:41,640
Speaker 3: turns out to be that is the case in the

893
00:50:41,640 --> 00:50:42,399
Speaker 3: story as well.

894
00:50:42,880 --> 00:50:45,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, and some of the supplemental information I was reading

895
00:50:45,560 --> 00:50:49,360
Speaker 2: about from the histories of these expeditions, like multiple sources

896
00:50:49,360 --> 00:50:53,360
Speaker 2: point out that these dogs were highly valued and important

897
00:50:53,640 --> 00:50:56,200
Speaker 2: because first of all, they're pulling the sledge, like you

898
00:50:56,320 --> 00:50:59,439
Speaker 2: literally could not pull these expeditions off at this point

899
00:50:59,480 --> 00:51:03,600
Speaker 2: in time with out them. But also the companionship that

900
00:51:03,800 --> 00:51:07,520
Speaker 2: the humans had with these animals. And again this extreme

901
00:51:07,719 --> 00:51:11,640
Speaker 2: dangerous environment, like an environment that really wants you dead

902
00:51:12,040 --> 00:51:16,279
Speaker 2: if you do it's almost am like its intensity, you know,

903
00:51:16,360 --> 00:51:19,200
Speaker 2: like you're not supposed to survive there. And the dogs,

904
00:51:19,560 --> 00:51:23,120
Speaker 2: the companionship with the dogs, helped these humans survive there.

905
00:51:23,120 --> 00:51:27,640
Speaker 2: And I think there's something beautiful and haunting and perfect

906
00:51:27,719 --> 00:51:29,560
Speaker 2: for this tale in that fact.

907
00:51:29,760 --> 00:51:33,080
Speaker 3: Very true. So the inciting moment of the story comes

908
00:51:33,520 --> 00:51:36,080
Speaker 3: Very soon after the beginning, as the sledges are traveling

909
00:51:36,080 --> 00:51:40,560
Speaker 3: along the ice, I'll read from the narration quote, a

910
00:51:40,600 --> 00:51:44,880
Speaker 3: thunderous crack, loud as lightning cleaving stone, shivered the ice,

911
00:51:45,280 --> 00:51:47,799
Speaker 3: and the dogs of the lead sledge, maybe twenty five

912
00:51:47,880 --> 00:51:52,040
Speaker 3: yards ahead of Garner, erupted into panicky cries. Garner saw

913
00:51:52,080 --> 00:51:55,919
Speaker 3: it happen. The lead sledge sluffed over, hurling connolly into

914
00:51:55,920 --> 00:51:59,560
Speaker 3: the snow, and plunged nose first through the ice, as

915
00:51:59,600 --> 00:52:02,040
Speaker 3: though in an enormous hand had reached up through the

916
00:52:02,080 --> 00:52:06,080
Speaker 3: earth to snatch it under. So here we meet the

917
00:52:06,200 --> 00:52:09,600
Speaker 3: natural world horror that the story is based on. What

918
00:52:09,680 --> 00:52:13,080
Speaker 3: has happened is that the first sledge has gone into

919
00:52:13,200 --> 00:52:17,080
Speaker 3: a giant crack known as a crevasse in the ice.

920
00:52:17,520 --> 00:52:20,480
Speaker 3: The lead dog has plunged into it. The whole sledge

921
00:52:20,480 --> 00:52:23,719
Speaker 3: hasn't gone in, but the first dog has. So the

922
00:52:24,000 --> 00:52:27,920
Speaker 3: crevasse is deep and dark, and the dog remains hanging

923
00:52:28,000 --> 00:52:32,360
Speaker 3: down into the crevasse by its tracers. The men decide

924
00:52:32,480 --> 00:52:34,360
Speaker 3: in an instant that they have no choice but to

925
00:52:34,400 --> 00:52:36,759
Speaker 3: cut the dog loose and let it fall, or it's

926
00:52:36,800 --> 00:52:39,040
Speaker 3: going to drag the sledge and the other dogs and

927
00:52:39,120 --> 00:52:42,840
Speaker 3: supplies they need into the pit. And then Garner, whether

928
00:52:42,880 --> 00:52:46,680
Speaker 3: out of compassion for the dog or just indecision, hesitates

929
00:52:46,719 --> 00:52:48,680
Speaker 3: in his job of cutting the dog loose, and this

930
00:52:48,800 --> 00:52:53,919
Speaker 3: anger is connilly. But after the initial disaster is over,

931
00:52:54,040 --> 00:52:56,200
Speaker 3: they set up camp so they can rest and get

932
00:52:56,239 --> 00:52:59,840
Speaker 3: warm inside their tent. Faber, the injured man, seems to

933
00:52:59,880 --> 00:53:02,760
Speaker 3: be doing worse and worse, and in a horrible twist,

934
00:53:03,200 --> 00:53:06,480
Speaker 3: the dog that they sacrificed to the crevasse was not

935
00:53:06,640 --> 00:53:08,919
Speaker 3: killed in the fall. They can hear it somewhere down

936
00:53:08,920 --> 00:53:12,839
Speaker 3: in the pit, howling in pain. And Garner thinks about

937
00:53:12,840 --> 00:53:15,319
Speaker 3: the carnage that he saw in the war, about the

938
00:53:15,360 --> 00:53:18,279
Speaker 3: way that his wife died away from him without him

939
00:53:18,800 --> 00:53:22,240
Speaker 3: being there with her, and this seems somehow also tangled

940
00:53:22,320 --> 00:53:25,160
Speaker 3: up in feelings about Faber, the injured man, who is

941
00:53:25,239 --> 00:53:28,560
Speaker 3: trapped in a miasma of morphine fever, dreams and pain

942
00:53:28,680 --> 00:53:33,480
Speaker 3: and hallucinating. And eventually Garner's pity for the dog drives

943
00:53:33,560 --> 00:53:35,799
Speaker 3: him to sneak out of the tent while the others

944
00:53:35,840 --> 00:53:39,560
Speaker 3: are sleeping, rig up a rope system, and climb down

945
00:53:39,560 --> 00:53:42,400
Speaker 3: into the crevasse so he can end the poor animals suffering.

946
00:53:42,800 --> 00:53:47,160
Speaker 2: Now, this decision is absolutely supported on a character level here.

947
00:53:47,200 --> 00:53:48,920
Speaker 2: I want to stress that, but it's also one of

948
00:53:48,960 --> 00:53:51,920
Speaker 2: those things we're reading a story and thinking about tropes

949
00:53:51,920 --> 00:53:53,640
Speaker 2: and plotting, you might think, was this is this the

950
00:53:53,719 --> 00:53:57,040
Speaker 2: dumb decision of the horror story? Here is the dumb

951
00:53:57,080 --> 00:53:59,680
Speaker 2: thing that our character does, the risky move that they

952
00:53:59,719 --> 00:54:03,520
Speaker 2: make that brings them in closer proximity to horror? I

953
00:54:03,520 --> 00:54:10,920
Speaker 2: mean maybe structure structurally kind of yes, but we'll discuss

954
00:54:10,960 --> 00:54:14,520
Speaker 2: in a bit, like there are historic examples of this

955
00:54:14,640 --> 00:54:16,719
Speaker 2: exact sort of thing, Like going out of your way

956
00:54:16,840 --> 00:54:19,799
Speaker 2: to save a sled dog from a gravas is not

957
00:54:19,840 --> 00:54:23,960
Speaker 2: only something that is possible and likely, but it definitely

958
00:54:24,040 --> 00:54:27,200
Speaker 2: happened and again well supported in the story, regardless of

959
00:54:27,280 --> 00:54:28,680
Speaker 2: what the reality was. Yeah.

960
00:54:28,719 --> 00:54:31,800
Speaker 3: Now, unfortunately in this case, the sled dog is beyond

961
00:54:31,840 --> 00:54:35,400
Speaker 3: saving it fatally injured and stuck at the bottom. But

962
00:54:35,640 --> 00:54:37,799
Speaker 3: at least Garner hopes that he can put the dog

963
00:54:37,840 --> 00:54:40,319
Speaker 3: out of its misery. So when he gets all the

964
00:54:40,320 --> 00:54:42,960
Speaker 3: way down to the bottom of the chasm and the ice,

965
00:54:43,320 --> 00:54:48,840
Speaker 3: he discovers something strange. It's not just a deep crack

966
00:54:49,080 --> 00:54:51,960
Speaker 3: in the glacier like you would expect. That alone is

967
00:54:52,040 --> 00:54:56,280
Speaker 3: horrifying enough vanishing down into the distance below this crack

968
00:54:56,360 --> 00:54:59,279
Speaker 3: and the narrowing crack in the ice. Oh, I get

969
00:54:59,320 --> 00:55:04,080
Speaker 3: shivers just about it. But underneath the ice, the crack

970
00:55:04,239 --> 00:55:09,760
Speaker 3: reveals an opening, an opening into a vast, cavernous space,

971
00:55:10,239 --> 00:55:14,120
Speaker 3: the nearest part of which that Garner can see is

972
00:55:14,200 --> 00:55:19,320
Speaker 3: a carved rock staircase of enormous size leading down into

973
00:55:19,320 --> 00:55:23,080
Speaker 3: the dark. And Garner believes he sees not only stairs,

974
00:55:23,160 --> 00:55:26,799
Speaker 3: but imagery reliefs etched into the rock showing some kind

975
00:55:26,840 --> 00:55:30,040
Speaker 3: of creature, but he doesn't really understand what he's looking at,

976
00:55:30,040 --> 00:55:34,759
Speaker 3: this weird taloned medusa like form that he doesn't comprehend.

977
00:55:35,480 --> 00:55:38,960
Speaker 3: And the stairs also have this power of summoning a

978
00:55:39,040 --> 00:55:42,920
Speaker 3: psychic force invites him to come down, and it's implied

979
00:55:42,960 --> 00:55:45,960
Speaker 3: I think that it's actively probing his mind for a

980
00:55:46,000 --> 00:55:50,160
Speaker 3: psychological foothold, because for some reason, looking down into the descent,

981
00:55:50,360 --> 00:55:51,520
Speaker 3: he thinks of Elizabeth.

982
00:55:52,239 --> 00:55:55,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, this is such a haunting moment. Again, on

983
00:55:55,560 --> 00:55:59,920
Speaker 2: one level, it almost feels less dangerous when there are

984
00:56:00,120 --> 00:56:05,640
Speaker 2: even supernatural, oversized cyclopean stairs down there, because well, at

985
00:56:05,760 --> 00:56:07,920
Speaker 2: least something walk down here, and it's not just the

986
00:56:07,960 --> 00:56:11,759
Speaker 2: lifeless ice pit that we thought it was, But of

987
00:56:11,800 --> 00:56:15,239
Speaker 2: course I think many, if not most, readers of this

988
00:56:15,360 --> 00:56:19,239
Speaker 2: tale would be familiar with the writings of HP Lovecraft,

989
00:56:19,239 --> 00:56:21,920
Speaker 2: and they see exactly what we're dealing with here, because,

990
00:56:23,000 --> 00:56:26,840
Speaker 2: of course, one of HP Lovecraft's most well known tales

991
00:56:27,120 --> 00:56:31,000
Speaker 2: is At the Mountains of Madness, which concerns elder ruins

992
00:56:31,000 --> 00:56:36,000
Speaker 2: in Antarctica and various horrifying revelations that occur when humans

993
00:56:36,239 --> 00:56:39,719
Speaker 2: plunge those ruins. And on top of this, there's also

994
00:56:39,800 --> 00:56:43,759
Speaker 2: just the element of stairs. Lovecraft frequently employed stairways as

995
00:56:43,800 --> 00:56:47,320
Speaker 2: a liminal space or threshold between one world and another,

996
00:56:47,760 --> 00:56:51,160
Speaker 2: and more to the point between sanity and darkness, between

997
00:56:51,239 --> 00:56:55,120
Speaker 2: healthy human ignorance of the cosmos and crushing revelations about

998
00:56:55,120 --> 00:56:58,840
Speaker 2: its true nature. So it's a nice nod here to

999
00:56:59,600 --> 00:57:03,359
Speaker 2: weird fit, a great Lovecraftian bit of flavor, without, as

1000
00:57:03,400 --> 00:57:06,959
Speaker 2: you mentioned earlier, revealing too much or getting into the lore.

1001
00:57:07,719 --> 00:57:10,360
Speaker 2: I feel like a lesser tail might have decided to

1002
00:57:11,200 --> 00:57:13,920
Speaker 2: throw out a few elder god names here, or maybe

1003
00:57:13,920 --> 00:57:17,439
Speaker 2: crunch on the mythos qualities just a little bit too much.

1004
00:57:17,920 --> 00:57:20,560
Speaker 2: And a lot of restraint is shown here, and it

1005
00:57:20,600 --> 00:57:23,000
Speaker 2: works well and again, especially in a short tail like this,

1006
00:57:23,360 --> 00:57:25,760
Speaker 2: it inspires us to then dream like where do these

1007
00:57:25,800 --> 00:57:29,320
Speaker 2: stairs go? Yeah, and we're kind of drawn down them

1008
00:57:29,320 --> 00:57:30,720
Speaker 2: as well, just like the narrator.

1009
00:57:31,320 --> 00:57:34,400
Speaker 3: But Garner does not have the opportunity to descend the

1010
00:57:34,440 --> 00:57:39,600
Speaker 3: stairs because he's interrupted as he's starting to clamber down them.

1011
00:57:39,640 --> 00:57:42,720
Speaker 3: For whatever reason, he's drawn. He starts to go down them,

1012
00:57:42,760 --> 00:57:46,320
Speaker 3: but he is discovered by Connolly up above looking down,

1013
00:57:46,760 --> 00:57:49,439
Speaker 3: who is furious with him for taking this stupid risk,

1014
00:57:49,680 --> 00:57:51,560
Speaker 3: not just with his own life, but with all of

1015
00:57:51,600 --> 00:57:55,680
Speaker 3: their lives, especially favors. Because Antarctica is an unforgiving place.

1016
00:57:56,160 --> 00:57:59,760
Speaker 3: Any decision you make could spell death for yourself or

1017
00:57:59,840 --> 00:58:00,480
Speaker 3: for others.

1018
00:58:01,200 --> 00:58:01,760
Speaker 2: Absolutely.

1019
00:58:02,400 --> 00:58:06,200
Speaker 3: Garner tries to convince Bishop, and so he comes back up,

1020
00:58:06,760 --> 00:58:09,160
Speaker 3: climbs the rope back out of the crevass, and tries

1021
00:58:09,200 --> 00:58:11,800
Speaker 3: to convince the other two men, Bishop and Connolly of

1022
00:58:11,840 --> 00:58:15,280
Speaker 3: what he saw down there. They're not really interested at first,

1023
00:58:15,320 --> 00:58:18,640
Speaker 3: but he appeals to their sense of desire for adventure

1024
00:58:18,720 --> 00:58:22,080
Speaker 3: and fame. This is one of the references to McCready's like, Okay,

1025
00:58:22,080 --> 00:58:24,240
Speaker 3: so McCready's going to be out there planning the flag

1026
00:58:24,280 --> 00:58:26,919
Speaker 3: while you have to go back. But you could be

1027
00:58:27,040 --> 00:58:30,200
Speaker 3: the discoverer of one of the most important scientific finds

1028
00:58:30,240 --> 00:58:34,200
Speaker 3: in human history, whatever it is that's down there. Because

1029
00:58:34,360 --> 00:58:37,120
Speaker 3: unlike Garner, who it seems just somehow ended up on

1030
00:58:37,160 --> 00:58:40,080
Speaker 3: this journey because he was otherwise adrift, these two men

1031
00:58:40,160 --> 00:58:44,480
Speaker 3: are driven by ambition, it's implied, and that ambition was

1032
00:58:44,560 --> 00:58:46,600
Speaker 3: dashed when they had to split off from the main

1033
00:58:46,640 --> 00:58:49,800
Speaker 3: party to return Favored to the depots. So they're already unhappy.

1034
00:58:51,120 --> 00:58:54,320
Speaker 3: They shine a flashlight down into the crevass, but it's

1035
00:58:54,360 --> 00:58:57,160
Speaker 3: too deep to make out the stairs or the cavern beyond,

1036
00:58:57,240 --> 00:59:00,200
Speaker 3: if they ever really were there. We assume they probably were.

1037
00:59:00,840 --> 00:59:03,560
Speaker 3: They can only see the dog's body lying in blood

1038
00:59:03,720 --> 00:59:07,920
Speaker 3: on the lip of ice far below. However, while they're watching,

1039
00:59:08,200 --> 00:59:12,600
Speaker 3: the dog suddenly is moved, yanked away by something out

1040
00:59:12,600 --> 00:59:16,200
Speaker 3: of sight. They don't have time to process this because

1041
00:59:16,240 --> 00:59:19,600
Speaker 3: immediately Faber, the injured man, cries out in pain or

1042
00:59:19,680 --> 00:59:22,280
Speaker 3: terror from the tent, and the men rush in to

1043
00:59:22,320 --> 00:59:25,240
Speaker 3: see what's the matter, and Faber becomes lucid enough to

1044
00:59:25,320 --> 00:59:28,280
Speaker 3: explain to them what's wrong, And I loved this moment.

1045
00:59:28,600 --> 00:59:31,560
Speaker 3: Didn't quite expect this. When he finally is able to speak,

1046
00:59:31,600 --> 00:59:35,800
Speaker 3: he says, it laid an egg in me. They don't understand,

1047
00:59:35,880 --> 00:59:38,960
Speaker 3: but he insists, quote, Faber found a way to smile

1048
00:59:39,560 --> 00:59:42,680
Speaker 3: in my dream. It put my head inside its body

1049
00:59:42,920 --> 00:59:44,120
Speaker 3: and it laid an egg in me.

1050
00:59:44,760 --> 00:59:48,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, yikes. Yeah. And we don't really get any clarity

1051
00:59:48,400 --> 00:59:51,960
Speaker 2: on what this exactly means. You know, what sort of

1052
00:59:52,880 --> 00:59:55,040
Speaker 2: revelation did he have or is this you know, is

1053
00:59:55,040 --> 00:59:59,320
Speaker 2: this part of the morphine playing with his head? We

1054
00:59:59,360 --> 01:00:01,160
Speaker 2: don't really know. Oh, but a man, it's haunting.

1055
01:00:01,760 --> 01:00:04,560
Speaker 3: So Garner at this point prepares to sedate him with

1056
01:00:04,600 --> 01:00:07,800
Speaker 3: another morphine, Ampuel, but Faber doesn't want He doesn't want

1057
01:00:07,800 --> 01:00:10,680
Speaker 3: this for some reason, and he lashes out and fights.

1058
01:00:11,080 --> 01:00:13,760
Speaker 3: The fight knocks over a kerosene heater and this sets

1059
01:00:13,760 --> 01:00:16,880
Speaker 3: fire to the tent, leading to a mad scramble for survival.

1060
01:00:17,200 --> 01:00:18,840
Speaker 2: This was the part when I went on my first

1061
01:00:18,880 --> 01:00:20,560
Speaker 2: read where I was like, oh my, this is the

1062
01:00:20,600 --> 01:00:22,360
Speaker 2: moment where they're going to have to go down those

1063
01:00:22,360 --> 01:00:24,960
Speaker 2: stairs together where they're gonna not have any equipment or

1064
01:00:25,000 --> 01:00:27,560
Speaker 2: dogs left, and they're gonna think, well, we have nothing

1065
01:00:27,560 --> 01:00:29,800
Speaker 2: to do but go down those stairs. But that's not

1066
01:00:29,840 --> 01:00:30,840
Speaker 2: where the story goes.

1067
01:00:31,040 --> 01:00:33,240
Speaker 3: No, there's a different kind of horror at the end.

1068
01:00:33,280 --> 01:00:36,800
Speaker 3: There's a horror of wondering what might have been so

1069
01:00:37,160 --> 01:00:40,480
Speaker 3: the men after this, they just book it back to

1070
01:00:40,520 --> 01:00:42,560
Speaker 3: their destination. They try to make it to the depot

1071
01:00:42,600 --> 01:00:44,800
Speaker 3: as fast as they can now their tent is burned.

1072
01:00:45,320 --> 01:00:48,440
Speaker 3: Faber does not survive the journey, he dies in transit,

1073
01:00:49,080 --> 01:00:51,440
Speaker 3: but they do reach the safety of the depot. The

1074
01:00:51,520 --> 01:00:54,080
Speaker 3: three surviving men hole up to wait for the return

1075
01:00:54,280 --> 01:00:56,680
Speaker 3: of the rest of the expedition, which is weeks away,

1076
01:00:57,360 --> 01:00:59,960
Speaker 3: And while they are holed up in the depot, Garner

1077
01:01:00,120 --> 01:01:03,200
Speaker 3: tries to talk to Bishop to get him to acknowledge

1078
01:01:03,240 --> 01:01:06,160
Speaker 3: that he saw something in the crevasse, to at least

1079
01:01:06,320 --> 01:01:09,400
Speaker 3: admit that he saw the dog dragged away, but Bishop

1080
01:01:09,440 --> 01:01:10,800
Speaker 3: is very stubborn about it.

1081
01:01:11,280 --> 01:01:11,760
Speaker 2: Quote.

1082
01:01:12,000 --> 01:01:15,120
Speaker 3: Bishop refused to look at him. This is an empty place,

1083
01:01:15,240 --> 01:01:19,040
Speaker 3: he said, after a long silence. There's nothing here. He

1084
01:01:19,120 --> 01:01:23,840
Speaker 3: blinked and turned a page in the magazine Nothing. And

1085
01:01:24,000 --> 01:01:27,680
Speaker 3: I loved this part because I think that line highlights

1086
01:01:28,400 --> 01:01:34,320
Speaker 3: a subtext, an interesting implication of the story. To Bishop,

1087
01:01:34,840 --> 01:01:38,840
Speaker 3: the idea that there might be something hidden, something possibly

1088
01:01:39,000 --> 01:01:43,080
Speaker 3: monstrous and mind rending under the ice waiting to be revealed,

1089
01:01:43,840 --> 01:01:48,520
Speaker 3: is troubling. That possibility is terrifying, and he denies it.

1090
01:01:48,600 --> 01:01:52,880
Speaker 3: So he takes emotional comfort in telling himself, probably lying

1091
01:01:52,880 --> 01:01:55,120
Speaker 3: to himself because it implies he did see the dog

1092
01:01:55,200 --> 01:01:59,600
Speaker 3: dragged away, at least telling himself there's nothing there. And

1093
01:01:59,640 --> 01:02:01,960
Speaker 3: I think for Garner, by the end of the story,

1094
01:02:02,160 --> 01:02:06,600
Speaker 3: the opposite desire is operative. The opposite is true. The

1095
01:02:06,720 --> 01:02:10,040
Speaker 3: nothingness and the absence are what would be frightening. The

1096
01:02:10,120 --> 01:02:13,640
Speaker 3: idea that there is something hidden waiting to be revealed,

1097
01:02:13,800 --> 01:02:16,560
Speaker 3: even if it's monstrous, even if it's something that would

1098
01:02:16,560 --> 01:02:22,520
Speaker 3: destroy him, is somehow comforting. And this duality of orientations

1099
01:02:22,760 --> 01:02:26,800
Speaker 3: toward mystery and understanding is I think a very important

1100
01:02:26,880 --> 01:02:32,200
Speaker 3: part of humanity. Which option bothers you more the idea

1101
01:02:32,240 --> 01:02:36,000
Speaker 3: that there is something unknown, as yet unrevealed, that could

1102
01:02:36,080 --> 01:02:39,400
Speaker 3: destroy you, could destroy everything you love or destroy your

1103
01:02:39,520 --> 01:02:44,200
Speaker 3: understanding of reality. Or would it be worse if there

1104
01:02:44,360 --> 01:02:47,280
Speaker 3: is nothing more that what you see is what you get?

1105
01:02:48,120 --> 01:02:51,640
Speaker 3: And for you, I guess the question is emotionally, does

1106
01:02:51,880 --> 01:02:55,280
Speaker 3: there is nothing more? Reduced to there is nothing?

1107
01:02:55,920 --> 01:02:57,920
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean it brings to mind the famous Arthur C.

1108
01:02:58,000 --> 01:03:00,880
Speaker 2: Clark quote. Right, two possibilities exist. Either we are alone

1109
01:03:00,920 --> 01:03:04,919
Speaker 2: in the universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying. Yeah,

1110
01:03:05,160 --> 01:03:07,760
Speaker 2: And It plays nicely with exactly what we're discussing earlier.

1111
01:03:08,040 --> 01:03:13,040
Speaker 2: Is the crevass scarier before we see the stairs or

1112
01:03:13,120 --> 01:03:15,920
Speaker 2: is it the other way around? You know, it works

1113
01:03:16,040 --> 01:03:18,320
Speaker 2: so perfectly in the story, that duality.

1114
01:03:18,600 --> 01:03:21,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, so for Bishop, it's implied that the stairs, to

1115
01:03:22,000 --> 01:03:24,520
Speaker 3: find the stairs would be more frightening than the crevass.

1116
01:03:25,680 --> 01:03:28,560
Speaker 3: For Garner, I think the crevasse is frightening, but once

1117
01:03:28,600 --> 01:03:31,760
Speaker 3: he sees the stairs, now that there is a mystery,

1118
01:03:31,840 --> 01:03:34,640
Speaker 3: now that there could be something more, it's actually inviting.

1119
01:03:35,520 --> 01:03:38,080
Speaker 3: And I like that the story implies a correlation between

1120
01:03:38,120 --> 01:03:40,960
Speaker 3: these two different attitudes and other things about the person.

1121
01:03:41,040 --> 01:03:44,640
Speaker 3: This rings true to me. Bishop, who wishes there to

1122
01:03:44,680 --> 01:03:48,480
Speaker 3: be nothing more, is a person who's ambitious, with an

1123
01:03:48,480 --> 01:03:51,880
Speaker 3: orientation toward future goals. There's stuff he wants to do

1124
01:03:52,000 --> 01:03:56,480
Speaker 3: and accomplish. Garner, who is defined by the past and

1125
01:03:56,560 --> 01:04:00,440
Speaker 3: what has already been taken away. He's got loss of purpose,

1126
01:04:00,600 --> 01:04:03,800
Speaker 3: loss of his great love. He wishes for a key

1127
01:04:03,880 --> 01:04:06,800
Speaker 3: to unlock a new world, for there to be something

1128
01:04:06,880 --> 01:04:09,720
Speaker 3: more revealed, even if it's horrible.

1129
01:04:10,160 --> 01:04:14,200
Speaker 2: And it's clearly horrible. Yeah, there's no there's no hint

1130
01:04:14,240 --> 01:04:15,600
Speaker 2: that it's anything but horrible.

1131
01:04:15,920 --> 01:04:28,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm gonna read from the final paragraph here with

1132
01:04:28,400 --> 01:04:30,400
Speaker 3: with the Garner back of the depot, looking outside. He

1133
01:04:30,520 --> 01:04:33,480
Speaker 3: describes the so the beginning of the story takes place

1134
01:04:33,600 --> 01:04:38,440
Speaker 3: during the Antarctic summer, so whereas perpetually daytime, and he

1135
01:04:38,520 --> 01:04:41,280
Speaker 3: describes the sun as a great boiling eye in the

1136
01:04:41,280 --> 01:04:44,440
Speaker 3: sky that never sets. But as the winter comes closer,

1137
01:04:45,360 --> 01:04:48,680
Speaker 3: we get this part quote. A gust of wind scattered

1138
01:04:48,680 --> 01:04:51,240
Speaker 3: fine crystals of snow against the window, and he found

1139
01:04:51,320 --> 01:04:54,160
Speaker 3: himself wondering what the night would be like in this

1140
01:04:54,240 --> 01:04:58,000
Speaker 3: cold country. He imagined the sky dissolving to reveal the

1141
01:04:58,040 --> 01:05:01,280
Speaker 3: hard vault of stars, the gallay turning above him like

1142
01:05:01,320 --> 01:05:04,760
Speaker 3: a cog in a vast, unknowable engine, and behind it

1143
01:05:04,800 --> 01:05:08,440
Speaker 3: all the emptiness into which men hurled their prayers. It

1144
01:05:08,440 --> 01:05:11,080
Speaker 3: occurred to him that he could leave now, walk out

1145
01:05:11,120 --> 01:05:14,360
Speaker 3: into the long twilight, and keep going until the earth

1146
01:05:14,440 --> 01:05:18,280
Speaker 3: opened beneath him. And he found himself descending strange stairs

1147
01:05:18,640 --> 01:05:21,880
Speaker 3: while the world around him broke silently into snow and

1148
01:05:21,960 --> 01:05:24,600
Speaker 3: into night. Garner closed his eyes.

1149
01:05:25,600 --> 01:05:27,320
Speaker 2: Beautiful, haunting, perfect.

1150
01:05:27,680 --> 01:05:31,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I like again emphasized even there at the end,

1151
01:05:31,200 --> 01:05:34,880
Speaker 3: like the thing that he's dwelling for moments on horrible

1152
01:05:34,920 --> 01:05:39,520
Speaker 3: thoughts to him, thoughts about emptiness, about nothing beyond the emptiness,

1153
01:05:39,600 --> 01:05:44,320
Speaker 3: you know, his lack of faith in God. The empty

1154
01:05:44,400 --> 01:05:49,320
Speaker 3: expanses with nothing below, but then is strangely finding comfort

1155
01:05:49,840 --> 01:05:53,280
Speaker 3: into the idea of descending into this alien realm.

1156
01:05:53,800 --> 01:05:54,560
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1157
01:05:54,680 --> 01:05:56,560
Speaker 3: So, as I said earlier, one of the things I

1158
01:05:56,600 --> 01:06:00,160
Speaker 3: loved about this story was the horror evoked by the setting,

1159
01:06:00,200 --> 01:06:04,800
Speaker 3: the bleak emptiness of the Antarctic glacier, and especially the Crevass.

1160
01:06:05,880 --> 01:06:09,560
Speaker 3: If you read about Antarctic expeditions from people who have

1161
01:06:09,800 --> 01:06:13,680
Speaker 3: actually participated in them, you will discover that the terror

1162
01:06:13,760 --> 01:06:17,480
Speaker 3: of the crevass is absolutely real, and a threat about

1163
01:06:17,480 --> 01:06:21,440
Speaker 3: which anybody traveling across great distances of ice has to

1164
01:06:21,480 --> 01:06:25,640
Speaker 3: be almost constantly conscious. For example, I pulled up the

1165
01:06:25,680 --> 01:06:29,600
Speaker 3: text of a book called The Worst Journey in the World,

1166
01:06:29,760 --> 01:06:33,600
Speaker 3: written by absolletely Cherry Garrard, published in nineteen twenty two.

1167
01:06:34,240 --> 01:06:36,800
Speaker 3: Cherry Garrard was a member of the famous Terra Nova

1168
01:06:36,880 --> 01:06:39,920
Speaker 3: expedition to the South Pole under Robert Falcon Scott a

1169
01:06:39,960 --> 01:06:42,240
Speaker 3: decade previous. Rob I know you have some stuff about

1170
01:06:42,240 --> 01:06:46,680
Speaker 3: this expedition as well, and this book provides a first

1171
01:06:46,720 --> 01:06:50,040
Speaker 3: hand account of the expedition and its struggles. If you

1172
01:06:50,080 --> 01:06:53,000
Speaker 3: do a keyword search in the text of this book

1173
01:06:53,040 --> 01:06:56,400
Speaker 3: for crevass, you get almost two hundred hits. It is

1174
01:06:56,640 --> 01:07:01,160
Speaker 3: constantly on their minds, and apart from the physical difficulty

1175
01:07:01,240 --> 01:07:05,880
Speaker 3: and danger of actually encountering them, the psychic toll of

1176
01:07:06,000 --> 01:07:09,480
Speaker 3: knowing the crevasses are out there does its own violence

1177
01:07:09,520 --> 01:07:12,960
Speaker 3: to the explorer. At one point, Cheery guard Rights quote,

1178
01:07:13,280 --> 01:07:16,920
Speaker 3: sometimes a blizzard is a very welcome rest after weeks

1179
01:07:16,920 --> 01:07:20,640
Speaker 3: of hard pulling, dragging yourself awake each morning, feeling as

1180
01:07:20,640 --> 01:07:23,480
Speaker 3: though you had only just gone to sleep, with the

1181
01:07:23,560 --> 01:07:27,520
Speaker 3: mental strain perhaps which working among crevasses and tails, it

1182
01:07:27,600 --> 01:07:30,080
Speaker 3: is most pleasant to be put to bed for two

1183
01:07:30,160 --> 01:07:34,680
Speaker 3: or three days. Even relatively shallow crevasses, which are sometimes

1184
01:07:34,760 --> 01:07:36,560
Speaker 3: only a few feet deep, you know, there are much

1185
01:07:36,600 --> 01:07:41,560
Speaker 3: shallower ones that are less visually impressive than what we're

1186
01:07:41,560 --> 01:07:44,600
Speaker 3: imagining in this story. Even the shallow ones can be

1187
01:07:44,720 --> 01:07:48,240
Speaker 3: dangerous and can cause fatal injury if you fall fall

1188
01:07:48,240 --> 01:07:51,200
Speaker 3: into them unexpectedly. You know, falling five feet the wrong

1189
01:07:51,280 --> 01:07:54,960
Speaker 3: way like that could be death. In Antarctica, a broken

1190
01:07:55,040 --> 01:07:58,400
Speaker 3: bone from a survivable fall can quickly turn into a

1191
01:07:58,440 --> 01:08:03,160
Speaker 3: death sentence. Down there, but many crevasses are much deeper

1192
01:08:03,200 --> 01:08:05,520
Speaker 3: than that, might be one hundred feet or more, some

1193
01:08:05,600 --> 01:08:09,600
Speaker 3: maybe hundreds of feet to the bottom. And he tells

1194
01:08:10,640 --> 01:08:15,600
Speaker 3: Cherry Garrard does tells of crossing and navigating around crevasses

1195
01:08:15,640 --> 01:08:18,160
Speaker 3: that he actually quotes a guy looking down into one

1196
01:08:18,560 --> 01:08:21,240
Speaker 3: and says that some of them are quote black as hell,

1197
01:08:21,640 --> 01:08:26,639
Speaker 3: just into darkness, vanishing into darkness below. And he talks

1198
01:08:26,680 --> 01:08:30,320
Speaker 3: about stretches of ice that are made more or less impassable,

1199
01:08:30,439 --> 01:08:34,280
Speaker 3: but because of how many crevasses there are. There's one

1200
01:08:34,320 --> 01:08:36,559
Speaker 3: place he's talking about where I don't think he's actually

1201
01:08:36,560 --> 01:08:39,000
Speaker 3: talking about passing it, but he's just talking about looking

1202
01:08:39,040 --> 01:08:43,280
Speaker 3: at a chaos of crevasses, particularly I think in a

1203
01:08:43,320 --> 01:08:45,760
Speaker 3: region where a glacier is sort of fanning out as

1204
01:08:45,760 --> 01:08:49,320
Speaker 3: it reaches close to the ocean. And the real horror

1205
01:08:49,520 --> 01:08:53,760
Speaker 3: is you often cannot see these deep gaps in the

1206
01:08:53,800 --> 01:08:57,799
Speaker 3: ice as you approach them, for multiple reasons. First, because

1207
01:08:57,800 --> 01:09:01,240
Speaker 3: of general difficulties with visibility on the ice even under

1208
01:09:01,240 --> 01:09:04,439
Speaker 3: relatively good weather conditions, and in a blizzard, forget about it,

1209
01:09:04,439 --> 01:09:07,920
Speaker 3: and a blizzard visibility is zero. But if you're trying

1210
01:09:07,960 --> 01:09:11,040
Speaker 3: to move under ideal weather conditions, even then it's sometimes

1211
01:09:11,040 --> 01:09:13,200
Speaker 3: just really hard to tell what you're looking at on

1212
01:09:13,240 --> 01:09:15,080
Speaker 3: the ice out in front of you. There are weird

1213
01:09:15,120 --> 01:09:20,360
Speaker 3: ways that that like light and shadows play against your eyes.

1214
01:09:20,400 --> 01:09:24,400
Speaker 3: Sometimes people report this, and Cherry Garard does too. There

1215
01:09:24,439 --> 01:09:26,840
Speaker 3: will be like what he calls these haystack formations of

1216
01:09:26,880 --> 01:09:29,320
Speaker 3: ice that they somehow don't really see until they're coming

1217
01:09:29,360 --> 01:09:33,240
Speaker 3: right upon them. That sometimes you don't see crevasses. So, yeah,

1218
01:09:33,320 --> 01:09:37,240
Speaker 3: visibility is difficult. But even more dangerous than that, many

1219
01:09:37,320 --> 01:09:41,800
Speaker 3: glacial crevasses can become covered by what are typically called

1220
01:09:42,080 --> 01:09:45,639
Speaker 3: snow bridges, so that they are not even visible from

1221
01:09:45,680 --> 01:09:49,000
Speaker 3: above until you put weight on the snow bridge and

1222
01:09:49,080 --> 01:09:51,679
Speaker 3: it collapses, dumping you into the chasm below.

1223
01:09:51,920 --> 01:09:55,559
Speaker 2: Yeah, just a naturally occurring trapdoor, you know, that could

1224
01:09:55,640 --> 01:09:58,160
Speaker 2: just drop you into, you know again, a pit that

1225
01:09:58,200 --> 01:10:01,479
Speaker 2: maybe five feet deep and break your ankle, or one

1226
01:10:01,560 --> 01:10:03,439
Speaker 2: hundred feet deep and kill you outright.

1227
01:10:04,240 --> 01:10:06,840
Speaker 3: So to get around of this, expeditions use a number

1228
01:10:06,880 --> 01:10:09,360
Speaker 3: of techniques, some of which we actually see in this story.

1229
01:10:09,960 --> 01:10:12,800
Speaker 3: So going a long ways back, you use the technique

1230
01:10:12,840 --> 01:10:16,040
Speaker 3: of roping members of the expedition together, you know, so

1231
01:10:16,080 --> 01:10:19,160
Speaker 3: they would tie their bodies or their sledges and animals

1232
01:10:19,200 --> 01:10:22,080
Speaker 3: together with rope so that if one falls, the others

1233
01:10:22,080 --> 01:10:23,880
Speaker 3: can stop the fall and pull them out.

1234
01:10:24,640 --> 01:10:28,360
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's telling, isn't it that there are mountaineering techniques

1235
01:10:28,400 --> 01:10:32,519
Speaker 2: that are used in order to deal with crevasses. You're

1236
01:10:32,560 --> 01:10:37,080
Speaker 2: just you're moving, you're not ascending necessarily, you're just moving

1237
01:10:37,120 --> 01:10:40,000
Speaker 2: across the landscape, and you need to be prepared like

1238
01:10:40,040 --> 01:10:40,720
Speaker 2: a mountaineer.

1239
01:10:41,000 --> 01:10:43,519
Speaker 3: Well, actually, and dealing with crevasses is part of mountaineering

1240
01:10:43,560 --> 01:10:46,440
Speaker 3: as well. They're only they're not only a thing in Antarctica.

1241
01:10:46,479 --> 01:10:48,360
Speaker 3: That's just a place where you're going to encounter a

1242
01:10:48,400 --> 01:10:50,640
Speaker 3: lot of crevasses that you will also find them in

1243
01:10:50,760 --> 01:10:56,920
Speaker 3: mountain glaciers. So yeah, there's there's the rope techniques. There's

1244
01:10:57,000 --> 01:11:00,599
Speaker 3: probing with poles, so like stabbing poles into the snow

1245
01:11:00,760 --> 01:11:03,240
Speaker 3: ahead of where you're moving to find soft spots where

1246
01:11:03,280 --> 01:11:06,400
Speaker 3: the pole sinks through. That can be very effective but

1247
01:11:06,439 --> 01:11:11,360
Speaker 3: obviously makes travel quite slow. There is one adaptation is

1248
01:11:11,400 --> 01:11:15,960
Speaker 3: a sacrificial attitude toward lead dogs and other animals maybe ponies,

1249
01:11:16,000 --> 01:11:19,799
Speaker 3: sometimes counting on the leading animals to fall through first,

1250
01:11:20,000 --> 01:11:22,679
Speaker 3: allowing the rest of the team to stop before hitting

1251
01:11:22,680 --> 01:11:23,440
Speaker 3: the gap.

1252
01:11:23,800 --> 01:11:25,720
Speaker 2: Which is of course horrifying in its own right.

1253
01:11:25,960 --> 01:11:30,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then also eventually experience. People with lots of

1254
01:11:30,800 --> 01:11:35,320
Speaker 3: experience traveling on glaciers learn visual cues to look for,

1255
01:11:35,479 --> 01:11:39,760
Speaker 3: so that they can sometimes spot even covered up crevasses

1256
01:11:40,280 --> 01:11:43,600
Speaker 3: due to characteristics of the surface ice like color or

1257
01:11:43,720 --> 01:11:48,240
Speaker 3: drift shape. But even you know, very very solid, well

1258
01:11:49,439 --> 01:11:53,040
Speaker 3: educated ice veterans won't spot it every time. There's nothing

1259
01:11:53,120 --> 01:11:57,200
Speaker 3: fool proof here. Modern technology does have some tools that

1260
01:11:57,280 --> 01:12:01,840
Speaker 3: these early Antarctic explorers did not have. You know, modern

1261
01:12:01,920 --> 01:12:07,160
Speaker 3: Antarctic expeditions can use sophisticated techniques like ground penetrating radar

1262
01:12:07,280 --> 01:12:11,680
Speaker 3: to image crevasses from above. But there is a maddening

1263
01:12:11,720 --> 01:12:15,439
Speaker 3: aspect to this because you might think that, oh, well,

1264
01:12:15,479 --> 01:12:19,639
Speaker 3: if you can make a map with ground penetrating radar

1265
01:12:19,720 --> 01:12:22,000
Speaker 3: of a particular area, and then you can just know

1266
01:12:22,080 --> 01:12:25,679
Speaker 3: in advance where all the crevasses will be. But that

1267
01:12:25,760 --> 01:12:28,720
Speaker 3: kind of radar based map will not be useful for

1268
01:12:28,880 --> 01:12:33,200
Speaker 3: very long, because a glacier is flowing and forever changing,

1269
01:12:33,320 --> 01:12:37,960
Speaker 3: and its surface will change substantially over relatively quick timespans.

1270
01:12:38,000 --> 01:12:40,200
Speaker 3: From what I was reading, it seems like not only

1271
01:12:40,280 --> 01:12:42,240
Speaker 3: over the years, but maybe even over the course of

1272
01:12:42,280 --> 01:12:45,400
Speaker 3: a few weeks or months, there can be substantial changes

1273
01:12:45,920 --> 01:12:50,639
Speaker 3: in the in the crevass landscape. Existing cracks clothes, new

1274
01:12:50,680 --> 01:12:54,519
Speaker 3: cracks open, All cracks move, some more quickly than others.

1275
01:12:54,880 --> 01:13:00,200
Speaker 3: Oh wow, So Cravas's form because of physical stress on

1276
01:13:00,360 --> 01:13:04,960
Speaker 3: the ice, usually caused by the flow of the glacier. Overall,

1277
01:13:05,439 --> 01:13:08,679
Speaker 3: a glacier is a weird type of material to think

1278
01:13:08,680 --> 01:13:14,000
Speaker 3: about because it has some liquid like characteristics. Glaciers do flow,

1279
01:13:14,479 --> 01:13:17,439
Speaker 3: so it in a way makes sense to think of

1280
01:13:17,479 --> 01:13:22,920
Speaker 3: them as extremely slow moving frozen rivers, and yet they

1281
01:13:23,000 --> 01:13:27,719
Speaker 3: also have the brittle characteristics of ice. So while liquid

1282
01:13:27,760 --> 01:13:31,959
Speaker 3: water easily flows around a bend and has no problems

1283
01:13:32,000 --> 01:13:35,040
Speaker 3: speeding up or slowing down, you know, following the shape

1284
01:13:35,040 --> 01:13:37,880
Speaker 3: of a channel and obstacles within it, or speeding up

1285
01:13:37,920 --> 01:13:42,719
Speaker 3: going down a slope, ice flowing through a channel tends

1286
01:13:42,760 --> 01:13:46,559
Speaker 3: to succumb to brittle fracture when it is deformed, and

1287
01:13:46,640 --> 01:13:49,599
Speaker 3: this can happen for a number of reasons. Going around

1288
01:13:49,640 --> 01:13:53,960
Speaker 3: bends or obstacles in the underlying terrain changes in the

1289
01:13:54,000 --> 01:13:58,479
Speaker 3: direction or shape or speed of the glacier's flow, you know,

1290
01:13:58,560 --> 01:14:01,320
Speaker 3: so like a change in the slope of the ground

1291
01:14:01,360 --> 01:14:05,280
Speaker 3: beneath the glacier will cause it to flow faster, and

1292
01:14:05,400 --> 01:14:08,200
Speaker 3: that causes the glacier to stretch, and then it forms

1293
01:14:08,240 --> 01:14:11,120
Speaker 3: cracks in the upper part of the ice. You can

1294
01:14:11,160 --> 01:14:15,080
Speaker 3: also see these chaotic distributions of crevasses emerging in places

1295
01:14:15,120 --> 01:14:18,439
Speaker 3: where the glacier is stretched out horizontally. This is a

1296
01:14:18,520 --> 01:14:21,320
Speaker 3: rough analogy. I don't think it's perfect, but this kind

1297
01:14:21,320 --> 01:14:25,120
Speaker 3: of makes sense. Anything that might cause turbulence in the

1298
01:14:25,160 --> 01:14:28,599
Speaker 3: flow of liquid water through a space would have the

1299
01:14:28,600 --> 01:14:32,080
Speaker 3: potential to cause crevasses to form in a glacier flowing

1300
01:14:32,080 --> 01:14:34,920
Speaker 3: through that space. And then beyond that you've got the

1301
01:14:35,000 --> 01:14:39,240
Speaker 3: question of how do those devious snow bridges form. Usually

1302
01:14:39,280 --> 01:14:42,320
Speaker 3: this seems to happen from snow drift. So snow is

1303
01:14:42,360 --> 01:14:47,040
Speaker 3: being driven horizontally by wind, and this snow sticks to

1304
01:14:47,280 --> 01:14:50,200
Speaker 3: the ice on the sides of the crack in the glacier,

1305
01:14:50,680 --> 01:14:53,840
Speaker 3: and the snow adheres and piles up and up until

1306
01:14:53,920 --> 01:14:56,720
Speaker 3: the top of the crack is covered completely. But sometimes,

1307
01:14:56,760 --> 01:14:59,320
Speaker 3: you know, and so sometimes it can be snow filling

1308
01:14:59,360 --> 01:15:01,680
Speaker 3: in the crack, because so maybe it does go all

1309
01:15:01,720 --> 01:15:04,280
Speaker 3: the way down to the bottom, but it's just like

1310
01:15:04,439 --> 01:15:07,880
Speaker 3: loosely packed snow, or maybe it actually just forms a

1311
01:15:07,920 --> 01:15:10,719
Speaker 3: bridge over the top layer of the crack, and it's

1312
01:15:10,800 --> 01:15:12,720
Speaker 3: just an open drop below that.

1313
01:15:13,760 --> 01:15:18,320
Speaker 2: Oh, you included a photograph here in our outline. I

1314
01:15:18,400 --> 01:15:22,400
Speaker 2: encourage listeners to look for such images as well, because, man,

1315
01:15:22,479 --> 01:15:24,479
Speaker 2: you look in the background of this this image, Like

1316
01:15:24,479 --> 01:15:27,799
Speaker 2: in the foreground we see where the crack has been revealed,

1317
01:15:27,800 --> 01:15:33,000
Speaker 2: and there's some individuals traversing it, leaping over it. But

1318
01:15:33,120 --> 01:15:36,360
Speaker 2: in the background, like the same crack continues but is

1319
01:15:36,400 --> 01:15:38,240
Speaker 2: covered in snow, and at least in my eye, it

1320
01:15:38,360 --> 01:15:39,480
Speaker 2: just looks like a snowfield.

1321
01:15:39,680 --> 01:15:42,439
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, you, unless you really know what to look for,

1322
01:15:42,600 --> 01:15:44,519
Speaker 3: you wouldn't see it at all. And even some people

1323
01:15:44,520 --> 01:15:47,360
Speaker 3: who know what to look for might not catch it. Yeah,

1324
01:15:47,400 --> 01:15:50,759
Speaker 3: there's another really cool photo I came across regarding snow bridges,

1325
01:15:50,840 --> 01:15:53,320
Speaker 3: but from the other angle. So this was on a

1326
01:15:53,320 --> 01:15:57,639
Speaker 3: website called Antarctic glaciers dot org. This was a blog

1327
01:15:57,680 --> 01:16:02,040
Speaker 3: post by a glaciologist named Bethan Davies of Newcastle University

1328
01:16:02,080 --> 01:16:06,280
Speaker 3: in the UK, and the post is describing a little

1329
01:16:06,560 --> 01:16:10,000
Speaker 3: expedition where a group of researchers explored the inside of

1330
01:16:10,000 --> 01:16:13,960
Speaker 3: a fairly deep crevas on the glacier behind rothero research

1331
01:16:14,040 --> 01:16:19,120
Speaker 3: station on the Antarctic Peninsula. And so the small group

1332
01:16:19,160 --> 01:16:21,800
Speaker 3: of people they go down below the crevas. They like

1333
01:16:21,840 --> 01:16:24,160
Speaker 3: have to descend through a hole, and then they're going

1334
01:16:24,200 --> 01:16:27,200
Speaker 3: into this covered part of the crevas, so it feels

1335
01:16:27,280 --> 01:16:30,400
Speaker 3: like an ice cave. It has all these icicles and everywhere,

1336
01:16:30,439 --> 01:16:33,040
Speaker 3: and it's some parts are more white and other parts

1337
01:16:33,080 --> 01:16:36,479
Speaker 3: have more blue ice. So it's beautiful looking down at

1338
01:16:36,520 --> 01:16:40,360
Speaker 3: the cave part. But then there is one photo you

1339
01:16:40,360 --> 01:16:43,360
Speaker 3: can see if you scroll down rob where the camera

1340
01:16:43,400 --> 01:16:46,679
Speaker 3: is positioned looking up toward the surface in the crevas,

1341
01:16:47,160 --> 01:16:49,640
Speaker 3: where the gap is covered by a snowbridge, so no

1342
01:16:49,760 --> 01:16:53,160
Speaker 3: sky is visible, but you can see deep blue light

1343
01:16:53,439 --> 01:16:56,600
Speaker 3: bleeding through the thinnest parts of the snow cover in

1344
01:16:56,640 --> 01:16:59,920
Speaker 3: the gap, and it looks like Cherenkov radiation around it

1345
01:17:00,120 --> 01:17:01,040
Speaker 3: nuclear reactor.

1346
01:17:01,280 --> 01:17:02,960
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's absolutely haunting.

1347
01:17:03,560 --> 01:17:08,200
Speaker 3: So I formally submit glacier crevasses as one of the

1348
01:17:08,640 --> 01:17:12,960
Speaker 3: true real life horror stories of mother nature of planet Earth.

1349
01:17:13,840 --> 01:17:17,880
Speaker 3: Beautiful in some ways, very very interesting to think about

1350
01:17:18,200 --> 01:17:21,639
Speaker 3: how they form and the power implied and the way

1351
01:17:21,680 --> 01:17:25,639
Speaker 3: glaciers flow everything that, you know, all of the strange

1352
01:17:25,680 --> 01:17:28,160
Speaker 3: processes that we don't really think about or are hard

1353
01:17:28,160 --> 01:17:31,880
Speaker 3: for us to picture that lead to their creation. But

1354
01:17:31,920 --> 01:17:34,840
Speaker 3: then also just when you're actually faced with one, how

1355
01:17:35,080 --> 01:17:37,840
Speaker 3: frightening it could be the idea of just plunging one

1356
01:17:37,880 --> 01:17:41,360
Speaker 3: hundred feet down into a narrow gap in the ice.

1357
01:17:41,960 --> 01:17:46,200
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, they're absolutely horrifying as just in our imagination.

1358
01:17:46,640 --> 01:17:49,360
Speaker 2: And when you dig into the history, we've the humans,

1359
01:17:49,479 --> 01:17:52,960
Speaker 2: human explorers have had horrifying encounters with them. We're not

1360
01:17:53,000 --> 01:17:56,160
Speaker 2: going to go through all of them. But you know,

1361
01:17:56,160 --> 01:17:57,360
Speaker 2: I want to come back to what we were talking

1362
01:17:57,360 --> 01:17:59,640
Speaker 2: about earlier, like does it make sense to rescue a

1363
01:17:59,720 --> 01:18:04,040
Speaker 2: dog from a crevass? Like is this a sensible move

1364
01:18:04,080 --> 01:18:06,360
Speaker 2: on the part of our protagonist or is this the

1365
01:18:06,360 --> 01:18:11,040
Speaker 2: protagonist being dumb or making that extra risky horror story decision.

1366
01:18:11,720 --> 01:18:16,240
Speaker 2: And again, I'm very touched on how important these dogs

1367
01:18:16,280 --> 01:18:19,280
Speaker 2: were to the people on these expeditions, both in terms

1368
01:18:19,280 --> 01:18:21,679
Speaker 2: of the practical necessity of having them and then also

1369
01:18:21,720 --> 01:18:26,400
Speaker 2: the companionship. But yeah, there's some historic precedents for this

1370
01:18:26,439 --> 01:18:29,200
Speaker 2: as well. For example, during the British Terra Nova expedition

1371
01:18:29,280 --> 01:18:32,920
Speaker 2: that we mentioned already to Antarctica from nineteen ten through

1372
01:18:33,000 --> 01:18:37,559
Speaker 2: nineteen thirteen. There are multiple accounts of this, but one

1373
01:18:37,640 --> 01:18:40,519
Speaker 2: quick account that I Ran across was a twenty twenty

1374
01:18:40,560 --> 01:18:43,879
Speaker 2: three article from the US Naval Institute Heroism and Betrayal

1375
01:18:43,920 --> 01:18:49,400
Speaker 2: in Antarctica by Karen May and she points into this

1376
01:18:49,920 --> 01:18:54,400
Speaker 2: known clash between Cecil Mears and the expedition leader, Robert

1377
01:18:54,479 --> 01:18:59,719
Speaker 2: Falcon Scott. They clashed on numerous occasions, including when Mears

1378
01:19:00,040 --> 01:19:03,320
Speaker 2: refused Scott's order to rescue some fallen sled dogs from

1379
01:19:03,320 --> 01:19:07,040
Speaker 2: a crevass. Scott himself ended up entering the crevass himself

1380
01:19:07,120 --> 01:19:08,200
Speaker 2: to rescue the dogs.

1381
01:19:08,400 --> 01:19:08,759
Speaker 3: Wow.

1382
01:19:09,200 --> 01:19:10,840
Speaker 2: And I can only imagine this and some of these

1383
01:19:10,840 --> 01:19:13,439
Speaker 2: other tales were part of the inspiration and part of

1384
01:19:13,479 --> 01:19:16,800
Speaker 2: the research for the horror story we're talking about. Yeah,

1385
01:19:17,160 --> 01:19:20,240
Speaker 2: surely there are also accounts of not only dogs, but

1386
01:19:20,320 --> 01:19:24,080
Speaker 2: whole sledges and explorers being swallowed up by these as well.

1387
01:19:24,680 --> 01:19:28,600
Speaker 2: One of these occurred during the Australasian Antarctic Expedition of

1388
01:19:28,680 --> 01:19:33,120
Speaker 2: nineteen eleven through nineteen fourteen. This was led by Douglas Mawson,

1389
01:19:33,479 --> 01:19:36,559
Speaker 2: who wrote about his experiences later in the book Home

1390
01:19:36,640 --> 01:19:39,080
Speaker 2: of the Blizzard I believe was published with some other

1391
01:19:39,120 --> 01:19:43,040
Speaker 2: titles later on as well. But here's an excerpt about

1392
01:19:43,080 --> 01:19:46,160
Speaker 2: a tragic event at a crevass which swallowed up expedition

1393
01:19:46,240 --> 01:19:51,519
Speaker 2: member Belgrave Edward Sutton menis his sledge and dogs in

1394
01:19:51,640 --> 01:19:55,719
Speaker 2: nineteen twelve, frantically waving to Mertz to bring up my sledge,

1395
01:19:55,800 --> 01:19:58,880
Speaker 2: upon which there was some alpine rope. I leaned over

1396
01:19:58,960 --> 01:20:02,960
Speaker 2: and shouted into the dark depths below. No sound came back,

1397
01:20:03,000 --> 01:20:05,439
Speaker 2: but the moaning of a dog caught on a shelf

1398
01:20:05,560 --> 01:20:08,439
Speaker 2: just visible one hundred and fifty feet below. The poor

1399
01:20:08,479 --> 01:20:10,400
Speaker 2: creature appeared to have broken its back, for it was

1400
01:20:10,439 --> 01:20:12,920
Speaker 2: attempting to set up with the front part of its body,

1401
01:20:12,960 --> 01:20:16,759
Speaker 2: while the hinder portion lay limp. Another dog lay motionless

1402
01:20:16,800 --> 01:20:19,719
Speaker 2: by its side, close by what appeared in the gloom

1403
01:20:19,840 --> 01:20:22,520
Speaker 2: to be the remains of the tent and a canvas

1404
01:20:22,560 --> 01:20:26,519
Speaker 2: tank containing food for three men for a fortnight. We

1405
01:20:26,600 --> 01:20:29,200
Speaker 2: broke back the edge of the and these another term,

1406
01:20:29,240 --> 01:20:31,719
Speaker 2: but they were referring to the crevas here, I believe,

1407
01:20:32,080 --> 01:20:35,839
Speaker 2: and took turns, leaning over, secured by a rope, calling

1408
01:20:35,880 --> 01:20:38,479
Speaker 2: into the darkness in the hope that our companion might

1409
01:20:38,560 --> 01:20:42,240
Speaker 2: be still alive. For three hours we called unceasingly, but

1410
01:20:42,360 --> 01:20:45,479
Speaker 2: no answering sound came back. The dog had ceased to

1411
01:20:45,479 --> 01:20:48,320
Speaker 2: moan and lay without a movement. A chill draft was

1412
01:20:48,360 --> 01:20:51,000
Speaker 2: blowing out of the abyss. We felt that there was

1413
01:20:51,080 --> 01:20:54,839
Speaker 2: little hope. Why had the first sledge escaped the crevasse.

1414
01:20:55,439 --> 01:20:58,040
Speaker 2: It seemed that I had been fortunate because my sledge

1415
01:20:58,040 --> 01:21:01,000
Speaker 2: had crossed diagonally, with a greater chance of breaking the

1416
01:21:01,040 --> 01:21:04,439
Speaker 2: snow lid. The sledges were within thirty pounds of the

1417
01:21:04,479 --> 01:21:08,559
Speaker 2: same weight. The explanation appeared to be that Ninnis had

1418
01:21:08,600 --> 01:21:11,599
Speaker 2: walked by the side of his sledge, whereas eye had

1419
01:21:11,600 --> 01:21:14,920
Speaker 2: crossed its sitting on the sledge. The whole weight of

1420
01:21:14,960 --> 01:21:18,599
Speaker 2: a man's body bearing on his foot is a formidable load,

1421
01:21:18,920 --> 01:21:21,160
Speaker 2: and no doubt was sufficient to smash the arch of

1422
01:21:21,200 --> 01:21:24,280
Speaker 2: the roof. By means of a fishing line, we ascertained

1423
01:21:24,280 --> 01:21:26,880
Speaker 2: that it was one hundred and fifty feet sheer to

1424
01:21:26,960 --> 01:21:30,240
Speaker 2: the ledge, on which the remains were seen On either side,

1425
01:21:30,240 --> 01:21:33,840
Speaker 2: the crevass descended into blackness. It seemed so very far

1426
01:21:34,000 --> 01:21:36,960
Speaker 2: down there, and the dogs looked so small that we

1427
01:21:37,000 --> 01:21:40,000
Speaker 2: got out the field glasses and could make out nothing more.

1428
01:21:40,040 --> 01:21:43,360
Speaker 2: By their aid. All our available rope was tied together,

1429
01:21:43,400 --> 01:21:46,160
Speaker 2: but the total length was insufficient to reach the ledge,

1430
01:21:46,520 --> 01:21:49,080
Speaker 2: and any idea of going below to investigate and to

1431
01:21:49,120 --> 01:21:51,960
Speaker 2: secure some of the food had to be abandoned.

1432
01:21:52,479 --> 01:21:53,439
Speaker 3: That is chilling.

1433
01:21:53,640 --> 01:21:57,559
Speaker 2: That is absolutely chilling, like the idea that the scale

1434
01:21:58,120 --> 01:22:02,840
Speaker 2: of the crevass was beyond and they're not even drawing

1435
01:22:02,840 --> 01:22:05,400
Speaker 2: their imagination into this, but just beyond the abilities of

1436
01:22:05,400 --> 01:22:06,639
Speaker 2: their equipment to even reach.

1437
01:22:18,080 --> 01:22:22,719
Speaker 3: You want another horror story from that book by Cherry Garrard, Sure, okay,

1438
01:22:23,000 --> 01:22:25,400
Speaker 3: And this actually actually bring us back to a couple

1439
01:22:25,439 --> 01:22:27,719
Speaker 3: of characters. You were just talking about Scott and Merrs

1440
01:22:28,400 --> 01:22:33,880
Speaker 3: on that expedition. So Cherry Garrard is writing about a

1441
01:22:33,880 --> 01:22:37,320
Speaker 3: section where they're crossing some ice and says, quote, we

1442
01:22:37,479 --> 01:22:40,360
Speaker 3: ran level for another two miles, mirrors and Scott on

1443
01:22:40,400 --> 01:22:44,519
Speaker 3: our left. We were evidently crossing many crevasses. Quite suddenly

1444
01:22:44,560 --> 01:22:48,559
Speaker 3: we saw the dogs of their team disappearing, following one another,

1445
01:22:48,840 --> 01:22:51,960
Speaker 3: just like dogs going down a hole after some animal.

1446
01:22:52,840 --> 01:22:56,040
Speaker 3: In a moment, wrote Scott, the whole team we're sinking.

1447
01:22:56,439 --> 01:22:58,880
Speaker 3: Two by two. We lost sight of them, each pair

1448
01:22:59,000 --> 01:23:03,000
Speaker 3: struggling for foothol Osman the leader exerted all his strength

1449
01:23:03,040 --> 01:23:06,240
Speaker 3: and kept foothold. It was wonderful to see him. The

1450
01:23:06,280 --> 01:23:09,960
Speaker 3: sledge stopped and we leapt aside the situation was clear.

1451
01:23:10,000 --> 01:23:13,280
Speaker 3: In another moment, we had actually been traveling along the

1452
01:23:13,280 --> 01:23:16,880
Speaker 3: bridge or snow covering of a crevass. The sledge had

1453
01:23:16,960 --> 01:23:20,320
Speaker 3: stopped on it, whilst the dogs hung in their harness

1454
01:23:20,400 --> 01:23:24,240
Speaker 3: in the abyss, suspended between the sledge and the leading dog.

1455
01:23:24,840 --> 01:23:27,720
Speaker 3: Why the sledge and ourselves didn't follow the dogs we

1456
01:23:27,760 --> 01:23:31,799
Speaker 3: shall never know. Oh wow, bridge of dogs.

1457
01:23:32,560 --> 01:23:34,920
Speaker 2: So yeah, and both of all these accounts we've been

1458
01:23:35,200 --> 01:23:38,639
Speaker 2: looking at here concerning the crevass like they it sounds

1459
01:23:38,640 --> 01:23:41,240
Speaker 2: to me like, yeah, you could basically just completely pass

1460
01:23:41,280 --> 01:23:44,439
Speaker 2: over one of these snow bridges and you would never

1461
01:23:44,600 --> 01:23:47,720
Speaker 2: know that, like one hundred and fifty foot drop was

1462
01:23:47,800 --> 01:23:50,439
Speaker 2: just waiting there for you, and you just happened to

1463
01:23:50,880 --> 01:23:53,320
Speaker 2: not trigger it, and then the next one could get you.

1464
01:23:53,560 --> 01:23:56,559
Speaker 3: Yeah. They don't always collapse. So yeah, very likely you

1465
01:23:56,680 --> 01:24:01,320
Speaker 3: have been over crevasses and crossed a snowbridge without realizing it. Wow,

1466
01:24:01,680 --> 01:24:03,960
Speaker 3: I mean not you the person listening, or you wrong,

1467
01:24:04,600 --> 01:24:07,120
Speaker 3: the Antarctic explorer, the glacial mountaineer.

1468
01:24:07,760 --> 01:24:10,320
Speaker 2: Yeah. Though obviously if we have listeners out there who

1469
01:24:10,360 --> 01:24:14,040
Speaker 2: have any experience with crevasses of one form or another,

1470
01:24:14,120 --> 01:24:16,200
Speaker 2: definitely right in and tell us all about it.

1471
01:24:16,600 --> 01:24:21,360
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Yeah, so scariest non speculative thing I've thought about

1472
01:24:21,360 --> 01:24:21,800
Speaker 3: in a while.

1473
01:24:24,320 --> 01:24:26,559
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a great story. Again. I love its

1474
01:24:26,960 --> 01:24:31,600
Speaker 2: use of history and an extreme real world environment, but

1475
01:24:31,760 --> 01:24:36,360
Speaker 2: also involving this wonderful speculative elopment, you know, bringing in

1476
01:24:36,560 --> 01:24:42,840
Speaker 2: that mythos flavor, hinting at this other world Cyclopean architecture

1477
01:24:42,920 --> 01:24:45,800
Speaker 2: and the deep and so forth. Just a just a

1478
01:24:45,840 --> 01:24:47,160
Speaker 2: wonderful little short story.

1479
01:24:47,880 --> 01:24:49,920
Speaker 3: To end on a positive note, I would say, I

1480
01:24:49,960 --> 01:24:53,439
Speaker 3: am really inspired by these stories of crevass rescues as well.

1481
01:24:54,160 --> 01:24:56,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, they're not all doom and gloom like.

1482
01:24:56,920 --> 01:25:00,840
Speaker 2: There are accounts certainly of individuals, you know, successfully being

1483
01:25:02,400 --> 01:25:05,760
Speaker 2: rescued from crevasses, dogs being rescued from crevasses. And I

1484
01:25:05,800 --> 01:25:07,439
Speaker 2: don't know if I mentioned it already, but dogs are

1485
01:25:07,479 --> 01:25:12,080
Speaker 2: also very useful in crevass rescue. All right, well, we're

1486
01:25:12,120 --> 01:25:14,479
Speaker 2: going to go ahead and close the book here on

1487
01:25:14,720 --> 01:25:17,840
Speaker 2: Gramore of Horror Volume two. We hope that everyone out

1488
01:25:17,880 --> 01:25:21,800
Speaker 2: there enjoyed our discussion of these two short stories, and

1489
01:25:22,080 --> 01:25:24,040
Speaker 2: certainly we would love to hear from everyone out there

1490
01:25:24,040 --> 01:25:27,479
Speaker 2: if you have thoughts on the crevass or on I

1491
01:25:27,520 --> 01:25:30,759
Speaker 2: have no mouth, and I must scream you have thoughts

1492
01:25:30,800 --> 01:25:33,599
Speaker 2: on the authors involved in these tales or other works

1493
01:25:33,600 --> 01:25:36,920
Speaker 2: that they wrote, write in We'd love to hear from you,

1494
01:25:37,240 --> 01:25:38,960
Speaker 2: and we should also go ahead and point out, Hey,

1495
01:25:39,120 --> 01:25:41,880
Speaker 2: the next Halloween is just around the corner, so if

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01:25:41,920 --> 01:25:44,640
Speaker 2: you have suggestions for next year, if you're like you

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01:25:44,720 --> 01:25:47,280
Speaker 2: two should totally read this story in this story by

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01:25:47,320 --> 01:25:49,400
Speaker 2: this author and this author, go ahead and write in

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01:25:49,439 --> 01:25:53,800
Speaker 2: we would love suggestions. You know, any headstart we can

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01:25:53,800 --> 01:25:56,280
Speaker 2: get on our selection process is always a good thing.

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01:25:57,840 --> 01:25:59,560
Speaker 2: Just a reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is

1502
01:25:59,600 --> 01:26:02,400
Speaker 2: primary a science and culture podcast with core episodes on

1503
01:26:02,439 --> 01:26:05,080
Speaker 2: Tuesdays and Thursday, short form episodes on Wednesdays, and then

1504
01:26:05,120 --> 01:26:07,800
Speaker 2: on Fridays. We set aside most serious concerns to just

1505
01:26:07,840 --> 01:26:10,640
Speaker 2: talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.

1506
01:26:11,080 --> 01:26:14,719
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

1507
01:26:15,080 --> 01:26:16,680
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

1508
01:26:16,720 --> 01:26:19,240
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

1509
01:26:19,320 --> 01:26:21,400
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

1510
01:26:21,560 --> 01:26:24,200
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to blow

1511
01:26:24,200 --> 01:26:32,920
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.

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01:26:33,040 --> 01:26:35,960
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

1513
01:26:36,040 --> 01:26:38,840
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio, app,

1514
01:26:39,000 --> 01:27:00,879
Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.