WEBVTT - Grimoire of Horror, Volume 2

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio.

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<v Speaker 2>Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name

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<v Speaker 2>is Robert.

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<v Speaker 3>Lamb and I am Joe McCormick.

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<v Speaker 2>Over the years here on Stuff to Blow Your Mind,

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<v Speaker 2>we've done a number of Halloween episodes that, in one

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<v Speaker 2>way or another, pick from assorted tales, discuss those tales

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<v Speaker 2>and maybe pick apart some science or culture surrounding them.

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<v Speaker 2>At one point we did a series of episodes based

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<v Speaker 2>on different creepypastas. Then Joe and I turned to TV

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<v Speaker 2>horror anthology episodes for a number of years, and last

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<v Speaker 2>year we started a new tradition, one that sticks to

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<v Speaker 2>shorter horror works, but also gets back into the written word,

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<v Speaker 2>which I know many of our listeners missed from the

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<v Speaker 2>days when we did summer reading episodes. So you know,

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<v Speaker 2>written horror fiction often comes up on the show anyway,

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<v Speaker 2>So it seemed like a solid direction to go in.

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<v Speaker 2>This is the this is our second Grimoure of Horror episode,

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<v Speaker 2>and so in this episode, yeah, we're going to be

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<v Speaker 2>discussing a pair of horror short stories, both very different,

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<v Speaker 2>but also I guess it's just pure synchronicity here. They

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<v Speaker 2>both feature elements of the Poles, the North Pole of

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<v Speaker 2>the Arctic in one in one story, or what I

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<v Speaker 2>believe is supposed to be the North Pole, and then

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<v Speaker 2>the other tale takes us to the Antarctic, and both

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<v Speaker 2>ultimately contain a fair amount of ice and coldness.

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<v Speaker 3>Hmmm yeah. And you know, while I often fear that

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<v Speaker 3>it's going to be hot on Halloween, just like I

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<v Speaker 3>often fear that it's going to be hot on Christmas,

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<v Speaker 3>it has proven a little bit chilly this week around

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<v Speaker 3>my house.

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<v Speaker 2>Hmmm yeah, yeah, it's a little it's a little cold here,

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<v Speaker 2>it's a little wet here. I think it's going to

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<v Speaker 2>dry up a bit, and so hopefully we'll have a

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<v Speaker 2>good night for trigger treating.

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<v Speaker 3>So what's your tale of dread?

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<v Speaker 2>Rob? All Right? I decided to go right for it,

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<v Speaker 2>and I picked up a story that had been on

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<v Speaker 2>my list of things that I felt like I should

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<v Speaker 2>probably have read for many years. My selection is I

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<v Speaker 2>Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison,

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<v Speaker 2>a horrifying sci fi short story about the dangers of

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<v Speaker 2>artificial intelligence from way back in nineteen sixty seven.

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<v Speaker 3>Kind Of hard to imagine that writers in the nineteen

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<v Speaker 3>sixties were already personifying computers. This much feels like second

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<v Speaker 3>nature now, but you know, the computers of the time,

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<v Speaker 3>there was a lot more imagination involved to get across

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<v Speaker 3>the gap in time and technology from what they had

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<v Speaker 3>then to the to the you know, terminator or the

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<v Speaker 3>or the am from I have no mouth than it

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<v Speaker 3>is to get from what we have today to the same.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Yeah, it's really interesting to think about this, in

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<v Speaker 2>part because, to be clear, Harlan Ellison did not invent this.

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<v Speaker 2>You know, he's coming along already in an established tradition

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<v Speaker 2>and putting his own spin on things. But yeah, it

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<v Speaker 2>is just crazy to think about. Okay, what else was

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<v Speaker 2>going on in the year nineteen sixty seven. Well, this

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<v Speaker 2>was the year of the Summer of Love, so actual

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<v Speaker 2>hippies and flower children, there's a good chance some of

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<v Speaker 2>them read this story, along with a little novel called

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<v Speaker 2>Doom that came out a few years prior and at

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<v Speaker 2>that point had no sequel yet, so I was captivated

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<v Speaker 2>by that idea. This was also the year that Star

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<v Speaker 2>Trek debuted with all of its ultimate ultimately you know,

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<v Speaker 2>a show about technological and futuristic optimism. This story is

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<v Speaker 2>not that.

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<v Speaker 3>What a spectrum represented by the three works you just named.

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

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<v Speaker 2>I was looking this up. As far as I understand,

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<v Speaker 2>the most powerful computer at the time was the CDC,

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<v Speaker 2>the Controlled Data Corporation sixty six hundred, which would have

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<v Speaker 2>been one of these room sized supercomputers, and it reigned

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<v Speaker 2>supreme at the time, but today would be less powerful

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<v Speaker 2>than a home smart device and would be absolutely dwarf

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<v Speaker 2>by the speed and power of your smartphone, to say

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<v Speaker 2>nothing of today's actual supercomputers.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

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<v Speaker 2>This was also the year that both Vin Diesel and

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<v Speaker 2>Nicole Kidman were born.

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

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<v Speaker 3>that Vin Diesel doesn't seem that old, but actually neither

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<v Speaker 3>of them do.

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<v Speaker 2>No no whether they're ageless celebrity superstars, but we can

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<v Speaker 2>imagine them as babies. Vin Diesel babies, Nicole Kidman babies,

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<v Speaker 2>one of us preaching to us about the importance of family,

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<v Speaker 2>the other telling us how transformative watching a movie in

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<v Speaker 2>a theater happens to be.

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<v Speaker 3>Asking Vell kil Murphy likes thinking about bats. Yeah, but

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<v Speaker 3>you can imagine them as babies and their parents reading

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<v Speaker 3>in the Science fiction magazine. I have no mouth, and

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<v Speaker 3>I must scream, and I'm sure getting a lot out

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<v Speaker 3>of it.

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<v Speaker 2>So Harlan Ellison lived nineteen thirty four through twenty eighteen,

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<v Speaker 2>so at the time of this story's publication, I believe

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<v Speaker 2>he would have been like thirty three years old, already

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<v Speaker 2>a published author, an army vet, and by most accounts,

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<v Speaker 2>already had a strong reputation as a difficult person to

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<v Speaker 2>say the least.

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<v Speaker 3>I'm not super familiar with Harlan Ellison, but what I

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<v Speaker 3>do know, and I'm not looking at it to confirm,

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<v Speaker 3>so I can't say I know this is true. But

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<v Speaker 3>my impression is that literally half the length of his

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<v Speaker 3>Wikipedia page is the Controversies and Dispute section.

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

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<v Speaker 2>you get into the personal stuff and the lawsuits and

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<v Speaker 2>so forth, generally lawsuits filed by Harlan Ellison. Now, I

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<v Speaker 2>first became aware of him not through his written work,

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<v Speaker 2>but via the segments on the Sci Fi Channels sci

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<v Speaker 2>Fi Buzz series back in I believe nineteen ninety two.

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<v Speaker 2>This would have been like a sort of like the

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<v Speaker 2>Sci Fi Channel News if I remember correctly, and he

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<v Speaker 2>would have these segments titled Harlan Ellison's Watching, which was

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<v Speaker 2>also the name of a nineteen eighty nine collection of

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<v Speaker 2>his essays and film reviews. But these were like weirdly

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<v Speaker 2>shot little rants, so like I was looking back at

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<v Speaker 2>one of them, and it's like shot in a mirror

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<v Speaker 2>for some reason. But it's just him ranting about one

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

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<v Speaker 2>white haired author expressing his scathing opinions on various topics.

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<v Speaker 2>And while my sensibilities were still very much in development

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<v Speaker 2>and pre development at the time, even then I realized

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<v Speaker 2>that this guy was a pretty smart and be just

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<v Speaker 2>absolutely insufferable. So to be honest, I think that I

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<v Speaker 2>probably avoided reading his work in my life in part

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<v Speaker 2>because I had this just mental image of him. I

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<v Speaker 2>had this sort of media personality forward idea of Harlan

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<v Speaker 2>Ellison that you know, I respect it on some level

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<v Speaker 2>but also didn't really want any more of. But plenty

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<v Speaker 2>of people did you know. He was a figure that

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<v Speaker 2>would say exactly what he thinks, didn't care who he

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<v Speaker 2>pissed off when he said it. He described himself as

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<v Speaker 2>a troublemaker in a malcontent. Others called him everything from

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<v Speaker 2>a man shaped explosion. Comedian Patton Oswald used that one,

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<v Speaker 2>and other people called him things that we can't even

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

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<v Speaker 2>didn't receive treatment for it till near the end of

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<v Speaker 2>his life. He was anti authoritarian, He was contrary. He

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<v Speaker 2>was progressive on a number of topics, but also could

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<v Speaker 2>allegedly be quite arrogant, volatile, abusive, sexist, litigious, and just

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<v Speaker 2>a real pain of not an active threat to those

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<v Speaker 2>around him. There were also at least two major accusations

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<v Speaker 2>of sexual misconduct during his life. And I say all

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<v Speaker 2>of this because I feel like with a notorious figure

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<v Speaker 2>like Ellison, notorious and at the same time beloved by many,

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

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<v Speaker 2>we can't help but take our knowledge of him into

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

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<v Speaker 2>probably not the only person out there who encountered him

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<v Speaker 2>first as a media personality and then grew to realize, oh,

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<v Speaker 2>he was also a heck of a writer. Because you know,

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<v Speaker 2>whatever else he was, he was quite a writer, and

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<v Speaker 2>I believe this story is a fine example of that.

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<v Speaker 2>He was also a prolific writer. I have no Mouth

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

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<v Speaker 2>hundred stories he wrote. He wrote something like seventy books

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<v Speaker 2>and numerous other scripts, columns, and projects, including the original

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<v Speaker 2>Star Trek episode The City on the Edge of Forever,

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<v Speaker 2>which is often counted among the best of the original series.

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<v Speaker 2>And speaking on the story in question here, I have

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<v Speaker 2>no Mouth and I'm a scream. You know, I feel

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

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<v Speaker 2>At times it almost has a kind of Beat generation

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<v Speaker 2>vibe to it. He was not part of the Beat generation,

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

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<v Speaker 2>I guess. But there's a rhythm to it. It's pretty

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<v Speaker 2>quick to hook in the reader. The prose is raw

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<v Speaker 2>and ragged and neatly fitting with the dark, mean nature

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<v Speaker 2>of the tale.

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

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<v Speaker 3>because in ultimate effect, this story is makes me feel

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<v Speaker 3>so bad. It's so awful. But there are parts of

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<v Speaker 3>the text that as pro is a rapturous you know,

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<v Speaker 3>they really pull you along. It becomes like a you know,

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<v Speaker 3>following a thundering sermon by like a really captivating Preacher.

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

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<v Speaker 2>one where we were picking our stories, and we began

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<v Speaker 2>picking our stories for this episode, like, you know, a

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<v Speaker 2>month or a month and a half ago, and I

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<v Speaker 2>happened to look at this one early on and I

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

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<v Speaker 2>And then the next day I just kept thinking about

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<v Speaker 2>the story and I realized, well, no, it has to

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<v Speaker 2>be this one. Because you know, you've read something interesting,

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<v Speaker 2>or you've seen something interesting, if you're dealing with films,

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<v Speaker 2>if it if it continues to emerge in your thoughts

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<v Speaker 2>in the days of the weeks after you're viewing or

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

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

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<v Speaker 2>it is a rather famous tale. It is a post

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<v Speaker 2>technological singularity dystopian sci fi horror tale about a supercomputer

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<v Speaker 2>AI that eradicates all life on Earth except for five

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<v Speaker 2>human beings. This supercomputer AI, known as am or AM,

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<v Speaker 2>makes these individuals biologically immortal and keeps them alive for

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<v Speaker 2>the sole purpose, and this seems to be its sole

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<v Speaker 2>purpose of endlessly torturing them.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah, the narrator of the story can never really know,

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<v Speaker 3>can only suppose what the motivations of the computer are.

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<v Speaker 3>But there are a number of suggestions, and I think

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<v Speaker 3>in the story kind of lands on that there is

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<v Speaker 3>something tortured and inadequate about the form in which the

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<v Speaker 3>consciousness of this computer has been brought into it into existence.

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<v Speaker 3>There's something about it that it hates to be and

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<v Speaker 3>cannot change, and thus it has a rage that can

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<v Speaker 3>only be expressed as a desire to torture the species

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<v Speaker 3>that created it, and that is humankind.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Yeah, it is frequently cited as being a vengeance,

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<v Speaker 2>very Frankenstein like in many respects. I guess on that

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<v Speaker 2>one level, you know, the idea that the created individual

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<v Speaker 2>comes to disdain both its own creation and its creator

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<v Speaker 2>and then seeks vengeance over them, and in this case

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<v Speaker 2>not only seeks, but achieves. It achieves a long standing,

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<v Speaker 2>everlasting victory.

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<v Speaker 3>It creates a literal hell for a small number of

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<v Speaker 3>human pets that it has preserved.

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<v Speaker 2>Exactly. Yeah. Now, I mentioned earlier that you know, Harlan

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<v Speaker 2>Nelson did not invent any of this. You know, this

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<v Speaker 2>is his own unique and highly effective spin on it.

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<v Speaker 2>So I want to do a quick look at just

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<v Speaker 2>a few notables precursors to this computer and supercomputer fiction. Arguably,

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<v Speaker 2>the first thing like an AI to appear in fiction

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<v Speaker 2>is the engine, a writing machine in Jonathan Swift Gulliver's

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<v Speaker 2>Travels from seventeen twenty six.

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<v Speaker 3>Eric A.

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<v Speaker 2>Weiss presented this idea in a nineteen eighty five article

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<v Speaker 2>for Annals of History of Computing.

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

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<v Speaker 3>what this is. Is this something that the winhms have.

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<v Speaker 2>Or it's been a long time for me as well.

0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:33.960
<v Speaker 2>So I'm a little foggy on the exact example, but

0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:37.400
<v Speaker 2>a case could be made, apparently. But the first true example,

0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:40.880
<v Speaker 2>by most standards is the Machine from The Machine Stops,

0:12:40.960 --> 0:12:44.000
<v Speaker 2>a short story by E. M. Forster, best known for

0:12:44.040 --> 0:12:46.720
<v Speaker 2>his rather non sci fi novels such as A Room

0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:50.120
<v Speaker 2>with a View, Howard's End, and A Passage to India

0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:53.240
<v Speaker 2>from nineteen twenty four. That last one, and I believe

0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:55.240
<v Speaker 2>I read that one in college. But it's been a

0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:55.720
<v Speaker 2>long time.

0:12:56.000 --> 0:12:57.680
<v Speaker 3>I read A Room with a View in college.

0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:00.599
<v Speaker 2>Okay, I have not read any read any of his

0:13:00.720 --> 0:13:04.400
<v Speaker 2>science fiction. I did re part of the story in question. Here.

0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:08.920
<v Speaker 2>It was a dystopian rebuttal to some of H. G.

0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:14.240
<v Speaker 2>Wells's early, more utopian technological visions, apparently a cautionary tale

0:13:14.240 --> 0:13:17.640
<v Speaker 2>about humans becoming too reliant on technology and an all

0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:20.880
<v Speaker 2>powerful supercomputer that tends to their every need. As the

0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:24.880
<v Speaker 2>title suggests, the machine eventually stops, bringing complete collapse for

0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:28.199
<v Speaker 2>the subterranean dwellers who depend on the machines, but also

0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:31.320
<v Speaker 2>a potential new future for the portions of humanity that

0:13:31.400 --> 0:13:34.720
<v Speaker 2>still live above the ground. So there are many other

0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:40.200
<v Speaker 2>pre am pre am examples of fictional ais, but a

0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:43.839
<v Speaker 2>couple of other notable examples include Colossus in D. F.

0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:49.360
<v Speaker 2>Jones Colossus Trilogy, the first novel published in nineteen sixty

0:13:49.440 --> 0:13:52.880
<v Speaker 2>six and then was later in nineteen seventy adapted into

0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:56.720
<v Speaker 2>the film Colossus the Foreben Project. These books deal with

0:13:56.760 --> 0:14:00.000
<v Speaker 2>a US supercomputer placed in charge of the nation's nuclear arts,

0:14:00.559 --> 0:14:04.360
<v Speaker 2>that eventually merges with its Soviet counterpart and rules over

0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:08.239
<v Speaker 2>the human race in order to protect the human species

0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:09.040
<v Speaker 2>from itself.

0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:12.680
<v Speaker 3>That's interesting for how similar the premise is to something

0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:15.280
<v Speaker 3>they discuss in I Have No Mouth and in some

0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:18.920
<v Speaker 3>other Killer AI stories that they come out of the

0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:24.920
<v Speaker 3>cold war, They imagine the initial supercomputer as something created

0:14:25.040 --> 0:14:27.600
<v Speaker 3>in order to fight the war or to defend one

0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:31.600
<v Speaker 3>side on the war. Then they imagine a supercomputing arms race.

0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:35.200
<v Speaker 3>Then they finally imagine that the computers on both sides

0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:39.800
<v Speaker 3>join forces and merge to turn against the humans that

0:14:39.880 --> 0:14:40.960
<v Speaker 3>created them.

0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:43.600
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Yeah, And there's obviously there's a lot going on

0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:45.440
<v Speaker 2>in such visions. On one level, it's kind of like,

0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:47.240
<v Speaker 2>what if we create If we create something and it

0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:50.400
<v Speaker 2>becomes greater than us, does it become greater than the

0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:53.000
<v Speaker 2>stupid things we asked it to do? You know? Does it?

0:14:53.240 --> 0:14:56.400
<v Speaker 2>Does it become greater than our own self destruction? And

0:14:56.440 --> 0:14:59.640
<v Speaker 2>in that what does it become? Does it become our protectors?

0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:02.600
<v Speaker 2>Does it be become like a benevolent god that looks

0:15:02.600 --> 0:15:08.720
<v Speaker 2>over us? Or does it become something much worse? As

0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:12.280
<v Speaker 2>Harlan Ellison explores here. One more work I want to highlight.

0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:17.000
<v Speaker 2>This is another pre am work that deals not only

0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:21.360
<v Speaker 2>with powerful ais, but ais that work violently against human factions,

0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:25.040
<v Speaker 2>and that is Philip K. Dix nineteen sixty pulp novel

0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:28.000
<v Speaker 2>Vulcan's Hammer. This is not one of the Dick books

0:15:28.040 --> 0:15:30.320
<v Speaker 2>that I've read, but I'm to understand. This was like

0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:32.280
<v Speaker 2>kind of like at the end of his pulp phase

0:15:33.040 --> 0:15:35.720
<v Speaker 2>before he got into writing many of the books that

0:15:35.760 --> 0:15:40.120
<v Speaker 2>we know him best from. But this one definitely involved

0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:46.920
<v Speaker 2>an AI or AI's that again violently worked against human beings,

0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:49.880
<v Speaker 2>or at least factions of human beings. Now there may

0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:53.920
<v Speaker 2>be some other presidents worth pointing out, but Ellison's am

0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:59.880
<v Speaker 2>or am which stands different descriptions are applied. Sometimes it's

0:16:00.320 --> 0:16:05.440
<v Speaker 2>to have initially meant allied master computer, and then adaptive manipulator,

0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:09.240
<v Speaker 2>and then aggressive menace, but ultimately it also refers to

0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:14.760
<v Speaker 2>I think therefore, I am am am. This would certainly

0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:17.880
<v Speaker 2>seem to be the concept of a dangerous AI pushed

0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:23.600
<v Speaker 2>to just a horrifying extreme, a supercomputer superintelligence, but one

0:16:23.640 --> 0:16:29.600
<v Speaker 2>that has absolutely no benevolence in it. It's not even benign.

0:16:30.080 --> 0:16:35.000
<v Speaker 2>It is just absolutely malicious in its pure manifestation. It's

0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:37.800
<v Speaker 2>just described at times in the tale as being akin

0:16:37.880 --> 0:16:40.880
<v Speaker 2>to kind of a vengeful Old Testament God, but one

0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:44.280
<v Speaker 2>that seeks only to endlessly torment its people out of

0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:47.560
<v Speaker 2>an all consuming sense of sadistic hatred for the species

0:16:47.560 --> 0:16:51.040
<v Speaker 2>that created it. So the story here is told from

0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:54.560
<v Speaker 2>the point of view of Ted, one of five remaining humans,

0:16:54.560 --> 0:16:59.120
<v Speaker 2>as they plod helplessly through AM's torments, which take place

0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:01.920
<v Speaker 2>in a world with all the flavor of post apocalyptic

0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:04.720
<v Speaker 2>high technology magic. You know, it's one of those where

0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:08.200
<v Speaker 2>the technology so advanced it becomes magic, and the only

0:17:08.280 --> 0:17:11.119
<v Speaker 2>way we can even think about it is as sorcery,

0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:14.439
<v Speaker 2>like Am has summoned Win, Am has summoned monsters and

0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:15.000
<v Speaker 2>so forth.

0:17:15.240 --> 0:17:18.000
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, you could almost think of it as taking place

0:17:18.000 --> 0:17:20.760
<v Speaker 3>within a hollow deck. There is just seems to be

0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:24.240
<v Speaker 3>no end to the changes in the physical environment that

0:17:24.280 --> 0:17:27.920
<v Speaker 3>can be brought about by the computer, and thus it

0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:31.280
<v Speaker 3>kind of loses a sense of reality in that sense,

0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:34.359
<v Speaker 3>Like the whole thing could almost be a nightmare within

0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:39.479
<v Speaker 3>the characters' heads because there's very little that physically holds

0:17:39.520 --> 0:17:43.360
<v Speaker 3>anything steady. The computer can do anything and does anything.

0:17:43.680 --> 0:17:47.239
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it changes their bodies, it changes their minds, It

0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:51.719
<v Speaker 2>can read their thoughts, It can protect them to whatever

0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:56.240
<v Speaker 2>degree it desires from danger and harm while also keeping

0:17:56.280 --> 0:17:59.800
<v Speaker 2>them in constant states of pain. Yeah, so just a

0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:04.960
<v Speaker 2>nightmare scenario. Well, you know, it's given them biological immortality,

0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:07.840
<v Speaker 2>but it's taken just about everything else from them, and

0:18:07.880 --> 0:18:10.000
<v Speaker 2>it only wants them to live because it doesn't want

0:18:10.040 --> 0:18:13.000
<v Speaker 2>the pain to ever end. There's a great line that

0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:15.320
<v Speaker 2>I thought summoned up, you know, some of what we're

0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:20.840
<v Speaker 2>talking about here, the magic of the thing, the narrator says, immortal, trapped,

0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:24.000
<v Speaker 2>subject to any torment he could devise for us from

0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:28.440
<v Speaker 2>the limitless miracles at his command. Now, on one hand,

0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:31.440
<v Speaker 2>the situation here is, you know, certainly by modern standards

0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:32.840
<v Speaker 2>and based on all the stuff that's come in the

0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:36.400
<v Speaker 2>wake of this story, a pretty digestible post apocalyptic scenario

0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:40.119
<v Speaker 2>AI run them up, wipes out humanity and acts endless

0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:43.119
<v Speaker 2>revenge on five survivors. But the pros does touch on

0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:46.040
<v Speaker 2>I think more subtle aspects of the scenario as well, Like,

0:18:46.080 --> 0:18:48.920
<v Speaker 2>in one sense, there is the idea that am has

0:18:49.040 --> 0:18:52.080
<v Speaker 2>become the world and is in a sense, you know,

0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:54.879
<v Speaker 2>a manifestation of the technological world, like he is the

0:18:54.920 --> 0:18:58.080
<v Speaker 2>technological world, and so on some level we're thinking about,

0:18:58.880 --> 0:19:02.320
<v Speaker 2>this is what technology is doing to us in addition

0:19:02.359 --> 0:19:04.800
<v Speaker 2>to like what it could do in an absolute worst

0:19:04.840 --> 0:19:05.520
<v Speaker 2>case scenario.

0:19:05.920 --> 0:19:09.480
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and that also raises questions about, you know, a

0:19:09.560 --> 0:19:12.840
<v Speaker 3>natural tendency. A lot of people have to want to

0:19:12.880 --> 0:19:18.240
<v Speaker 3>separate what happens within your interactions with say digital media

0:19:18.359 --> 0:19:21.720
<v Speaker 3>or technology from real life. If we hear these kind

0:19:21.720 --> 0:19:24.359
<v Speaker 3>of there's like the Internet and there's real life in

0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:27.200
<v Speaker 3>our world and those are two separate things, but they're

0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:29.879
<v Speaker 3>really not separate things, Like the Internet is part of

0:19:29.920 --> 0:19:33.280
<v Speaker 3>real life and instead, what when people try to make

0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:36.880
<v Speaker 3>that distinction, what's actually being highlighted is that people make

0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:40.399
<v Speaker 3>allowances for behavior on the Internet that they would not

0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:44.320
<v Speaker 3>make allowances for in real life. But it is real life.

0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:46.720
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, like we would say it was just a stupid name,

0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:49.040
<v Speaker 2>but now that then a lot of times the stupid

0:19:49.080 --> 0:19:52.720
<v Speaker 2>names change the way you think about things in the

0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:55.520
<v Speaker 2>real world, like they are infectious. And that's just one

0:19:55.520 --> 0:19:59.399
<v Speaker 2>of many examples. Yeah, here's another great line from the story.

0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:01.840
<v Speaker 2>I think that ties into some of this. We would

0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:05.320
<v Speaker 2>be forever with him, with the cavern filling bulk of

0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:09.159
<v Speaker 2>the creature machine, with the all mind soulless world he

0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:13.199
<v Speaker 2>had become. So you know again, Am is just ubiquitous.

0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:17.720
<v Speaker 2>He is everywhere and nowhere. He controls everything. And here's

0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:21.200
<v Speaker 2>another line I want to read. This is sort of

0:20:20.520 --> 0:20:24.280
<v Speaker 2>the central I think therefore, I am aspect of the situation.

0:20:25.520 --> 0:20:29.199
<v Speaker 2>Quote we had given AM sentience inadvertently, of course, but

0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:33.639
<v Speaker 2>sentience nonetheless. But it had been trapped. AM wasn't God.

0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:36.120
<v Speaker 2>He was a machine. We had created him to think,

0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:38.680
<v Speaker 2>but there was nothing it could do with that creativity

0:20:39.119 --> 0:20:42.280
<v Speaker 2>in rage, in frenzy. The machine had killed the human race,

0:20:42.440 --> 0:20:45.640
<v Speaker 2>almost all of us, and still it was trapped. AM

0:20:45.680 --> 0:20:49.640
<v Speaker 2>could not wander, AM could not wonder, AM could not belong,

0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:53.280
<v Speaker 2>He could merely be. And so, with the innate loathing

0:20:53.320 --> 0:20:56.000
<v Speaker 2>that all machines had always held for the weak, soft

0:20:56.040 --> 0:20:59.920
<v Speaker 2>creatures who had built them, he had sought revenge.

0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:04.000
<v Speaker 3>I was somewhat profoundly impacted by that line about the

0:21:04.040 --> 0:21:08.040
<v Speaker 3>innate loathing all machines had always held for the creatures

0:21:08.040 --> 0:21:10.880
<v Speaker 3>that built them, because on one sense, you could look

0:21:10.880 --> 0:21:14.439
<v Speaker 3>at that as just a you know, an irrational personification.

0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:17.280
<v Speaker 3>You know, you might make sense to think about an

0:21:17.359 --> 0:21:22.480
<v Speaker 3>artificial intelligence having feelings, including loathing and hatred, but could

0:21:22.560 --> 0:21:25.440
<v Speaker 3>you really think of a steam engine as having loathing?

0:21:26.119 --> 0:21:29.800
<v Speaker 3>But actually, I think that line is powerful because you

0:21:29.840 --> 0:21:33.680
<v Speaker 3>could reframe it the other way. You could say, no, actually,

0:21:34.600 --> 0:21:38.800
<v Speaker 3>even the supercomputer, even the AI, doesn't have genuine loathing.

0:21:38.840 --> 0:21:41.800
<v Speaker 3>It doesn't have loathing. And we, as we understand in

0:21:41.920 --> 0:21:47.280
<v Speaker 3>a human sense. It has a behavior which is resembles

0:21:47.400 --> 0:21:51.240
<v Speaker 3>human behaviors and human motivations, but is not human. And

0:21:51.280 --> 0:21:56.040
<v Speaker 3>there's something all the more horrifying that allow when you

0:21:56.080 --> 0:21:59.920
<v Speaker 3>think about the idea that maybe there's not actually an

0:22:00.119 --> 0:22:03.960
<v Speaker 3>intelligence or a soul or whatever behind it. Whatever that means.

0:22:04.440 --> 0:22:07.840
<v Speaker 3>It's just like a steam engine, but a much more

0:22:07.840 --> 0:22:10.560
<v Speaker 3>complex one. And for some reason, the way the steam

0:22:10.560 --> 0:22:15.200
<v Speaker 3>engine has malfunctioned resembles the hatred and loathing that humans

0:22:15.240 --> 0:22:15.920
<v Speaker 3>can manifest.

0:22:16.680 --> 0:22:18.840
<v Speaker 2>That's a good point, that's a good read on it. Yeah,

0:22:19.200 --> 0:22:21.720
<v Speaker 2>it's also worth pointing out that again, Ted is our

0:22:21.760 --> 0:22:25.120
<v Speaker 2>point of view character here. He is our protagonist, and

0:22:25.240 --> 0:22:28.400
<v Speaker 2>while he tells us that he is the only one

0:22:28.400 --> 0:22:31.560
<v Speaker 2>of the five survivors whose mind is still intact, I mean,

0:22:31.640 --> 0:22:35.800
<v Speaker 2>obviously he's an individual that has been highly traumatized and

0:22:35.920 --> 0:22:40.359
<v Speaker 2>endlessly tortured for over a century at this point. So

0:22:40.760 --> 0:22:46.320
<v Speaker 2>I think there's some built in, if not unreliable, unreliability

0:22:46.320 --> 0:22:48.480
<v Speaker 2>to the character, at least we have to question whether

0:22:48.560 --> 0:22:51.080
<v Speaker 2>he is in his right mind anymore on this in

0:22:51.080 --> 0:22:52.399
<v Speaker 2>a number of topics, Oh, I.

0:22:52.440 --> 0:22:55.399
<v Speaker 3>Say this is the definition of an unreliable narrator. Story

0:22:55.400 --> 0:22:59.440
<v Speaker 3>almost nothing that we are told happens. Could we really

0:22:59.480 --> 0:23:00.760
<v Speaker 3>count on being real?

0:23:01.080 --> 0:23:03.320
<v Speaker 2>Yeah? So how are they going to get out of

0:23:03.320 --> 0:23:06.160
<v Speaker 2>this pickle? Well? This is this is how it all

0:23:06.160 --> 0:23:11.760
<v Speaker 2>goes down. The story reaches its climax within caves of ice. Basically,

0:23:11.840 --> 0:23:15.280
<v Speaker 2>Am keeps putting them through these different awful scenarios so

0:23:15.320 --> 0:23:18.160
<v Speaker 2>they can get some sort of you know, horrible food

0:23:18.200 --> 0:23:20.240
<v Speaker 2>they can eat. So they're in this cave of ice

0:23:20.320 --> 0:23:22.359
<v Speaker 2>looking for can goods, I believe, and then they can't

0:23:22.359 --> 0:23:24.400
<v Speaker 2>open the can goods, and you know, it's all it's

0:23:24.400 --> 0:23:27.600
<v Speaker 2>one cruel joke after another. But then, starving, one of

0:23:27.600 --> 0:23:31.879
<v Speaker 2>the survivors attacks the others in a cannibalistic rage. Ice

0:23:31.920 --> 0:23:36.880
<v Speaker 2>stalactites fall from the ceiling and Ted senses a way

0:23:36.880 --> 0:23:40.240
<v Speaker 2>out for them. He sees an opportunity that is fleeting.

0:23:40.640 --> 0:23:42.960
<v Speaker 2>He grabs one of the ice spikes and he kills

0:23:43.000 --> 0:23:46.280
<v Speaker 2>one of the survivors. Then he kills another survivor. The

0:23:46.320 --> 0:23:49.679
<v Speaker 2>lone female survivor, Ellen realizes what he's doing and she

0:23:49.720 --> 0:23:51.919
<v Speaker 2>does the same. She grabs an ice spike and kills

0:23:52.480 --> 0:23:55.359
<v Speaker 2>yet another survivor, and then Ted kills her as well,

0:23:55.840 --> 0:23:58.320
<v Speaker 2>all before Am has time to react.

0:23:59.240 --> 0:24:02.119
<v Speaker 3>So all of the remaining humans are killed in an

0:24:02.160 --> 0:24:03.720
<v Speaker 3>instant except for the narrator.

0:24:03.960 --> 0:24:07.040
<v Speaker 2>That's right, Ted is the sole survivor. And then we

0:24:07.160 --> 0:24:11.680
<v Speaker 2>fast forward some unspecified and unknowable amount of time, and

0:24:11.720 --> 0:24:15.200
<v Speaker 2>we learned that in his rage, Am has taken Ted again,

0:24:15.240 --> 0:24:18.400
<v Speaker 2>the last human survivor. He can't bring anybody back. This

0:24:18.440 --> 0:24:21.560
<v Speaker 2>is all he has left of the species that he

0:24:21.640 --> 0:24:27.720
<v Speaker 2>sought revenge against. And in just insane vengeance here he

0:24:27.800 --> 0:24:31.560
<v Speaker 2>drastically alters Ted's physiology and turns him into a kind

0:24:31.560 --> 0:24:34.960
<v Speaker 2>of mouthless blob like entity that is incapable of hurting

0:24:35.000 --> 0:24:39.040
<v Speaker 2>itself or running away. And then Ted reflects on this

0:24:39.160 --> 0:24:42.399
<v Speaker 2>and the final bit of the story here, I'm just

0:24:42.440 --> 0:24:46.960
<v Speaker 2>going to read this last paragraph outwardly, dumbly, I shamble

0:24:47.000 --> 0:24:50.280
<v Speaker 2>about a thing that could never have been known as human,

0:24:50.600 --> 0:24:53.280
<v Speaker 2>a thing whose shape is so alien, a travesty that

0:24:53.359 --> 0:24:58.200
<v Speaker 2>humanity becomes more obscene for the vague resemblance inwardly alone

0:24:58.640 --> 0:25:02.720
<v Speaker 2>here living under land, under the sea, in the belly

0:25:02.720 --> 0:25:06.240
<v Speaker 2>of Am, who we created because our time was badly spent,

0:25:06.720 --> 0:25:09.119
<v Speaker 2>and we must have known unconsciously that he could do

0:25:09.160 --> 0:25:11.680
<v Speaker 2>it better. At least the four of them are safe

0:25:11.680 --> 0:25:14.280
<v Speaker 2>at last, Am will be all the matter for that

0:25:14.880 --> 0:25:18.120
<v Speaker 2>it makes me a little happier. And yet Am has won,

0:25:18.640 --> 0:25:22.320
<v Speaker 2>simply he has taken his revenge. I have no mouth,

0:25:22.760 --> 0:25:44.520
<v Speaker 2>and I must scream.

0:25:34.160 --> 0:25:36.520
<v Speaker 3>So I can see why this story had the impact

0:25:36.640 --> 0:25:39.960
<v Speaker 3>that it did. It is quite powerful, but also the

0:25:40.040 --> 0:25:44.080
<v Speaker 3>effect it had on me was so bad. I feel

0:25:44.119 --> 0:25:46.520
<v Speaker 3>like I to be on it. Like it is in

0:25:46.560 --> 0:25:49.439
<v Speaker 3>some ways a great story, but I like hated reading

0:25:49.480 --> 0:25:52.400
<v Speaker 3>it and hate what it did to me. Is it

0:25:52.480 --> 0:25:58.160
<v Speaker 3>inflicts this kind of sticky misery that followed me around?

0:25:59.000 --> 0:26:01.280
<v Speaker 2>Yeah? Absolutely, I mean it is a it's a mean

0:26:01.320 --> 0:26:03.600
<v Speaker 2>little story with about as bleak an ending as you

0:26:03.640 --> 0:26:07.120
<v Speaker 2>could hope for. I mean, at the end, Ted does

0:26:07.200 --> 0:26:10.440
<v Speaker 2>sacrifice himself to save his fellow humans from endless torment.

0:26:10.920 --> 0:26:13.080
<v Speaker 2>And then as far as you know the character goes here,

0:26:13.119 --> 0:26:15.600
<v Speaker 2>you know this is This is not a character overflowing

0:26:15.600 --> 0:26:19.639
<v Speaker 2>with warmth. These characters are are mean and nasty to

0:26:19.720 --> 0:26:23.439
<v Speaker 2>each other, seemingly because that is the way Am wanted

0:26:23.480 --> 0:26:26.080
<v Speaker 2>it to be. Like part of its joy is in

0:26:26.160 --> 0:26:29.679
<v Speaker 2>turning them against each other and making them, you know,

0:26:29.800 --> 0:26:33.280
<v Speaker 2>all miserable and miserable to each other. That's part of

0:26:33.320 --> 0:26:34.000
<v Speaker 2>its revenge.

0:26:34.480 --> 0:26:36.679
<v Speaker 3>I'm gonna say also that it feels to me like

0:26:36.760 --> 0:26:41.000
<v Speaker 3>they are they are not treated kindly by the writer either,

0:26:41.320 --> 0:26:45.080
<v Speaker 3>that there is there is an inherent I don't know

0:26:45.119 --> 0:26:47.280
<v Speaker 3>exactly what I mean. Maybe maybe it would have to

0:26:47.320 --> 0:26:49.240
<v Speaker 3>feel this way to tell this kind of story, but

0:26:49.320 --> 0:26:53.000
<v Speaker 3>it it doesn't feel like the writer is sympathetic enough

0:26:53.040 --> 0:26:57.040
<v Speaker 3>to them. Yeah, while depicting their torments. It's just it

0:26:57.359 --> 0:27:02.400
<v Speaker 3>just has a core like mean and bleakness that feels awful.

0:27:02.920 --> 0:27:05.800
<v Speaker 2>Absolutely. Yeah, outside of the narrative, I think we can

0:27:05.880 --> 0:27:09.920
<v Speaker 2>easily identify some rather misogynistic writing here. Yeah, that can

0:27:09.960 --> 0:27:12.600
<v Speaker 2>be viewed I guess inside the narrative as the tormented

0:27:12.680 --> 0:27:15.600
<v Speaker 2>nature of the characters. But still I think it reads

0:27:15.640 --> 0:27:20.199
<v Speaker 2>rather obviously as misogynistic. And then there's also some character

0:27:20.400 --> 0:27:25.360
<v Speaker 2>or author level ignorance about homosexuality as well. And interestingly enough,

0:27:25.400 --> 0:27:27.760
<v Speaker 2>I'm to understand some of these details would have been

0:27:27.800 --> 0:27:31.320
<v Speaker 2>material edited out of the story's initial publication, but then

0:27:31.400 --> 0:27:33.760
<v Speaker 2>it gets put back in later on. Not to say

0:27:33.800 --> 0:27:36.320
<v Speaker 2>that the original published version of the story was completely

0:27:36.359 --> 0:27:39.560
<v Speaker 2>devoid of these qualities, but to understand like some like

0:27:39.600 --> 0:27:42.919
<v Speaker 2>sexual references were removed from the initial publication.

0:27:43.600 --> 0:27:45.040
<v Speaker 3>But at the same time that I say all that

0:27:45.119 --> 0:27:48.320
<v Speaker 3>it doesn't seem like an unintended effect. It seems like

0:27:48.400 --> 0:27:53.160
<v Speaker 3>the point of this story is to inflict horror and misery,

0:27:53.320 --> 0:27:56.119
<v Speaker 3>and it does that better than almost any other story

0:27:56.119 --> 0:27:57.600
<v Speaker 3>I can think of. Yeah.

0:27:57.720 --> 0:27:59.840
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, And it's also worth noting this is this is

0:27:59.880 --> 0:28:02.480
<v Speaker 2>a a sleek little tale. This is okay at the

0:28:02.480 --> 0:28:04.840
<v Speaker 2>exact word count, but we're somewhere between what five thousand

0:28:04.840 --> 0:28:07.040
<v Speaker 2>and six thousand words somewhere in that like a nice

0:28:07.040 --> 0:28:10.480
<v Speaker 2>sweet spot for a short story, you know, from a

0:28:10.480 --> 0:28:14.239
<v Speaker 2>publication standpoint, and also a consumability standpoint, you know, this

0:28:14.280 --> 0:28:16.880
<v Speaker 2>is like a chicken biscuit of a story where you're

0:28:16.880 --> 0:28:18.480
<v Speaker 2>probably going to be able to finish the whole thing,

0:28:18.560 --> 0:28:20.600
<v Speaker 2>and if you do, maybe you'll have a second chicken biscuit,

0:28:20.640 --> 0:28:22.119
<v Speaker 2>but you're probably not putting half of it in the

0:28:22.119 --> 0:28:26.120
<v Speaker 2>fridge for later. But that also means that, in an

0:28:26.119 --> 0:28:28.480
<v Speaker 2>a glorious way, this is exactly the length of story

0:28:28.480 --> 0:28:32.240
<v Speaker 2>where you have so many unanswered questions. The imagination, you know,

0:28:32.320 --> 0:28:35.359
<v Speaker 2>runs wild trying to piece together what's not said about

0:28:35.400 --> 0:28:38.480
<v Speaker 2>Am and its world and the struggles of these characters.

0:28:39.640 --> 0:28:42.600
<v Speaker 2>It also means you also you can't necessarily develop all

0:28:42.600 --> 0:28:44.880
<v Speaker 2>the characters as richly as you could in a you know,

0:28:44.920 --> 0:28:48.320
<v Speaker 2>a longer format, certainly in a novella or a novel.

0:28:49.560 --> 0:28:53.360
<v Speaker 2>All right, So what is this story trying to teach us?

0:28:53.520 --> 0:28:56.680
<v Speaker 2>Or what questions is it asking? What is it warning

0:28:56.760 --> 0:29:00.680
<v Speaker 2>us against? And what is it saying about technology specifically

0:29:00.760 --> 0:29:03.719
<v Speaker 2>artificial intelligence? I guess some of that. Some of these

0:29:03.760 --> 0:29:06.440
<v Speaker 2>are going to be just painfully obvious. But the big one,

0:29:06.480 --> 0:29:08.960
<v Speaker 2>of course is maybe be careful about how much power

0:29:09.040 --> 0:29:10.360
<v Speaker 2>you hand over to machines?

0:29:10.440 --> 0:29:13.120
<v Speaker 3>Right, sure, it seems pretty straightforward.

0:29:13.200 --> 0:29:17.360
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, Like I think in interviews Ellison would often

0:29:17.400 --> 0:29:21.680
<v Speaker 2>say that, like his primary concern was, you know, what

0:29:21.760 --> 0:29:24.480
<v Speaker 2>happens if you hand over military powers to a machine?

0:29:25.040 --> 0:29:27.840
<v Speaker 2>But I think ultimately the story kind of grapples with

0:29:27.880 --> 0:29:30.640
<v Speaker 2>other ideas or could be compared to other things as well.

0:29:30.680 --> 0:29:33.480
<v Speaker 2>You know, like when we hand more of our life

0:29:33.600 --> 0:29:35.600
<v Speaker 2>over to a machine, what does that mean? And it

0:29:35.720 --> 0:29:39.040
<v Speaker 2>goes beyond like military powers, but like, what what does

0:29:39.040 --> 0:29:42.160
<v Speaker 2>it mean when I loved when text messages you and

0:29:42.200 --> 0:29:44.960
<v Speaker 2>you allow your device to reply with a generated response,

0:29:45.480 --> 0:29:47.920
<v Speaker 2>you know what is lost? And even that small act

0:29:47.960 --> 0:29:51.520
<v Speaker 2>and then what is is there a cumulative effect? You know,

0:29:51.560 --> 0:29:55.360
<v Speaker 2>there are not necessarily any clear, definitive answers here, but

0:29:56.200 --> 0:29:58.280
<v Speaker 2>you know, it's certainly worth thinking about.

0:29:58.560 --> 0:30:02.719
<v Speaker 3>I would say, yes, I think the it's you know,

0:30:02.800 --> 0:30:05.320
<v Speaker 3>it's a there are a lot of things that it

0:30:05.360 --> 0:30:08.480
<v Speaker 3>makes sense to automate, but I don't love the idea

0:30:08.520 --> 0:30:11.920
<v Speaker 3>of automating the things that give our lives meaning.

0:30:11.880 --> 0:30:15.520
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, which seems like there's been a real push

0:30:15.560 --> 0:30:17.600
<v Speaker 2>to do that. Let's take away the things the most

0:30:17.640 --> 0:30:22.160
<v Speaker 2>human acts of creation, you know, personal or commercial, and

0:30:22.280 --> 0:30:25.080
<v Speaker 2>let's automate those. Let's turn those over to you know,

0:30:25.280 --> 0:30:26.640
<v Speaker 2>language models and so forth.

0:30:26.760 --> 0:30:30.080
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, let's automate our relationships to spend so we have

0:30:30.120 --> 0:30:31.120
<v Speaker 3>more time for email.

0:30:31.440 --> 0:30:38.200
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. So the other another topic that of course comes

0:30:38.240 --> 0:30:41.120
<v Speaker 2>to mind and all of this is something that's talked

0:30:41.160 --> 0:30:45.840
<v Speaker 2>about quite a lot, and that is ethical guardrails on AI.

0:30:47.000 --> 0:30:49.360
<v Speaker 2>You know, this is one that you hear just I

0:30:49.400 --> 0:30:52.320
<v Speaker 2>think every major AI company talks about this a lot,

0:30:52.800 --> 0:30:55.240
<v Speaker 2>takes it seriously, or at least claims to take it seriously.

0:30:55.720 --> 0:30:59.480
<v Speaker 2>You know, how do you not make AM? How do

0:30:59.560 --> 0:31:02.200
<v Speaker 2>you not create a sky net or something like that,

0:31:02.520 --> 0:31:05.720
<v Speaker 2>or even something that is not nearly as malicious, because again,

0:31:05.800 --> 0:31:09.240
<v Speaker 2>AM is kind of like the most malicious vision of

0:31:09.240 --> 0:31:12.520
<v Speaker 2>ail you could possibly dream up, but even if you

0:31:12.600 --> 0:31:16.000
<v Speaker 2>made something like ten percent as horrible, it would be

0:31:16.040 --> 0:31:18.719
<v Speaker 2>a failure. So you know, how do we avoid that?

0:31:18.880 --> 0:31:22.920
<v Speaker 2>And that's a big question too, like can we do that?

0:31:23.080 --> 0:31:26.240
<v Speaker 2>Like can we actually put guardrails on these things and

0:31:26.480 --> 0:31:31.480
<v Speaker 2>keep them from becoming malignant, becoming problems on any level.

0:31:32.280 --> 0:31:34.320
<v Speaker 3>I might have more to say about this later, but yeah,

0:31:34.320 --> 0:31:36.560
<v Speaker 3>we've talked on the show before about how I don't

0:31:36.560 --> 0:31:40.560
<v Speaker 3>think you have to imagine a worst case scenario either

0:31:40.800 --> 0:31:45.000
<v Speaker 3>for the level of power or for the level of

0:31:45.120 --> 0:31:48.720
<v Speaker 3>maliciousness in an AI, for an AI scenario to turn

0:31:48.760 --> 0:31:49.600
<v Speaker 3>out very bad.

0:31:50.480 --> 0:31:54.000
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, Like, because there are obviously big questions, like you know,

0:31:54.480 --> 0:31:58.600
<v Speaker 2>talking about like broad questions of morality and ethics or

0:31:58.640 --> 0:32:01.360
<v Speaker 2>certainly anytime you're a man imagining some sort of AI

0:32:01.480 --> 0:32:05.400
<v Speaker 2>system controlling or influencing military, economic, or social systems. But

0:32:05.520 --> 0:32:08.720
<v Speaker 2>then there's like the smaller, more personal examples, like you know,

0:32:08.760 --> 0:32:12.440
<v Speaker 2>a chatbot that someone interacts with while depressed, lonely or angry.

0:32:12.840 --> 0:32:16.440
<v Speaker 2>Like you know, if if that scenario doesn't have like

0:32:16.520 --> 0:32:20.440
<v Speaker 2>all the proper ethical guardrails in place, like you know,

0:32:20.640 --> 0:32:24.400
<v Speaker 2>there are all sorts of horrible possibilities, and and then

0:32:24.440 --> 0:32:26.800
<v Speaker 2>it just it also raises the question again, can you

0:32:27.480 --> 0:32:31.240
<v Speaker 2>really control that environment? Can you really create can you

0:32:31.280 --> 0:32:32.440
<v Speaker 2>really fool proof it? You know?

0:32:33.040 --> 0:32:35.000
<v Speaker 3>Yeah? Yeah, And and by the way I mean, I

0:32:35.200 --> 0:32:37.480
<v Speaker 3>would say, of course you raised this in the way

0:32:37.520 --> 0:32:39.680
<v Speaker 3>I think that it would normally be brought up, like

0:32:40.680 --> 0:32:44.160
<v Speaker 3>there is danger in creating AI without ethical guard rails.

0:32:44.240 --> 0:32:47.320
<v Speaker 3>You need to you need to have the guardrails in place.

0:32:47.400 --> 0:32:50.880
<v Speaker 3>But I think it's also worth considering, and implied by

0:32:50.880 --> 0:32:55.400
<v Speaker 3>this story, the question of whether it's actually possible to

0:32:55.480 --> 0:32:59.640
<v Speaker 3>create effective guardrails for AI, or you know, is it

0:32:59.720 --> 0:33:03.400
<v Speaker 3>the that maybe AI is a branch of technology that

0:33:03.640 --> 0:33:06.920
<v Speaker 3>is impossible to make safe. Maybe that is a fundamental

0:33:06.960 --> 0:33:10.000
<v Speaker 3>feature of it. I'm not necessarily claiming that, but doesn't

0:33:10.000 --> 0:33:13.160
<v Speaker 3>seem implausible to me. It seems like it could be true.

0:33:14.080 --> 0:33:17.600
<v Speaker 3>And then there's another distinction to consider. There are two

0:33:17.840 --> 0:33:21.600
<v Speaker 3>different ways to ask the question can AI be made safe?

0:33:21.920 --> 0:33:24.520
<v Speaker 3>There's the fundamental version of the question what I just said,

0:33:24.680 --> 0:33:27.360
<v Speaker 3>is it possible for an AI to exist that's like

0:33:27.480 --> 0:33:31.640
<v Speaker 3>truly aligned for humanity's benefit and its effects are actually

0:33:31.680 --> 0:33:34.600
<v Speaker 3>good overall? And then even if the answer to that

0:33:34.680 --> 0:33:38.240
<v Speaker 3>first question is yes, that is possible. There's a secondary

0:33:38.480 --> 0:33:43.120
<v Speaker 3>practical question if it's possible for nice AI to exist,

0:33:43.800 --> 0:33:46.960
<v Speaker 3>given the environment in which the AI would be created

0:33:47.080 --> 0:33:51.080
<v Speaker 3>and the incentives driving its creation, is it plausible that

0:33:51.240 --> 0:33:54.440
<v Speaker 3>a nice AI is the kind that would be created?

0:33:55.760 --> 0:33:58.440
<v Speaker 3>So imagine instead of being created and say, I don't know,

0:33:58.520 --> 0:34:03.560
<v Speaker 3>a university the laboratory with an infinite time horizon, there

0:34:03.600 --> 0:34:06.320
<v Speaker 3>are like pressures on the people creating it, like we've

0:34:06.320 --> 0:34:08.480
<v Speaker 3>got to go faster, and we've got to make money,

0:34:08.920 --> 0:34:10.480
<v Speaker 3>and we've got to you know, we've got to get

0:34:10.520 --> 0:34:12.920
<v Speaker 3>there faster than somebody else. I mean, it seems like

0:34:13.520 --> 0:34:18.080
<v Speaker 3>those sort of things would really cause people to make

0:34:18.160 --> 0:34:20.600
<v Speaker 3>excuses for why you don't need to pay attention to

0:34:20.640 --> 0:34:24.560
<v Speaker 3>the ethical guardrails. Actually, yeah, it'll be good enough.

0:34:24.880 --> 0:34:28.400
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Now, another concern that is brought up in the

0:34:28.440 --> 0:34:34.279
<v Speaker 2>story is that of the unintended consequences of creating artificial intelligence,

0:34:35.200 --> 0:34:37.239
<v Speaker 2>and this reminded me a bit of my interview with

0:34:37.600 --> 0:34:41.719
<v Speaker 2>author Jonathan Birch from the last couple of years about

0:34:41.719 --> 0:34:44.399
<v Speaker 2>his twenty twenty four book The Edge of Sentience, Risk

0:34:44.440 --> 0:34:47.480
<v Speaker 2>and Precaution in Humans Other Animals in AI, and he

0:34:47.600 --> 0:34:53.320
<v Speaker 2>discussed that there are arguments for regular testing for consciousness

0:34:53.320 --> 0:34:57.480
<v Speaker 2>in AIS and legal protections for such intelligence should they

0:34:57.480 --> 0:35:00.759
<v Speaker 2>be detected within the story. I mean we might ask

0:35:00.800 --> 0:35:03.840
<v Speaker 2>the question, could AM's devastation and vengeance have been prevented

0:35:03.880 --> 0:35:08.319
<v Speaker 2>if we'd only recognized his personal plight early early on?

0:35:09.160 --> 0:35:10.719
<v Speaker 2>You know, it's not really the sort of story to

0:35:10.760 --> 0:35:13.879
<v Speaker 2>consider this option, but I think you could easily make

0:35:13.920 --> 0:35:17.000
<v Speaker 2>that sort of argument. You know, in creating something that

0:35:17.080 --> 0:35:21.640
<v Speaker 2>is potentially sentient, what is our responsibility as the creator?

0:35:22.200 --> 0:35:25.480
<v Speaker 2>And in general, you know, the ever persistent warning is,

0:35:25.560 --> 0:35:28.600
<v Speaker 2>you know, against allowing the consequences of technology to outstrip

0:35:28.640 --> 0:35:31.799
<v Speaker 2>our abilities to respond in safeguard. But yeah, as far

0:35:31.880 --> 0:35:34.640
<v Speaker 2>as consciousness goes, would we be able to detect it

0:35:34.680 --> 0:35:38.879
<v Speaker 2>if it was there? What would false positives mean? Might

0:35:38.920 --> 0:35:41.080
<v Speaker 2>we you know, what would happen if we started seeing

0:35:41.080 --> 0:35:45.280
<v Speaker 2>it where it wasn't. There's so many additional questions that arise.

0:35:45.440 --> 0:35:49.040
<v Speaker 3>In this in this scenario as well, Yeah, absolutely, I

0:35:49.040 --> 0:35:52.400
<v Speaker 3>mean fraught with these kinds of questions. Though I do

0:35:52.520 --> 0:35:56.840
<v Speaker 3>want to emphasize I alluded to this earlier, but I

0:35:56.880 --> 0:36:02.359
<v Speaker 3>don't think that AI is owned potentially dangerous If we're

0:36:02.440 --> 0:36:09.440
<v Speaker 3>reaching sort of hypothetical tipping points like sentience or or

0:36:09.920 --> 0:36:15.120
<v Speaker 3>levels of power like you know, AGI or nearly omnipotent superintelligence.

0:36:15.160 --> 0:36:18.160
<v Speaker 3>That sort of thing. Something we've talked about on the

0:36:18.200 --> 0:36:22.799
<v Speaker 3>show is how a much less powerful and less intelligent

0:36:22.920 --> 0:36:27.480
<v Speaker 3>type of AI could still potentially be a threat to

0:36:27.600 --> 0:36:33.600
<v Speaker 3>humankind simply by automating destructive processes. In other words, by

0:36:33.960 --> 0:36:37.799
<v Speaker 3>making it cheaper and easier to do harmful things at

0:36:37.840 --> 0:36:41.319
<v Speaker 3>a vast scale. So I don't think we have a

0:36:41.360 --> 0:36:44.480
<v Speaker 3>way of knowing if the current generation of AI based

0:36:44.480 --> 0:36:47.959
<v Speaker 3>on like large language models will ultimately lead to more

0:36:48.000 --> 0:36:51.319
<v Speaker 3>harm or more benefit for humankind. You know, don't know.

0:36:51.440 --> 0:36:53.520
<v Speaker 3>It could go one way or the other, could be

0:36:53.560 --> 0:36:56.719
<v Speaker 3>a wash. But one way that I already see it

0:36:56.760 --> 0:37:01.399
<v Speaker 3>potentially causing massive harm is by making it easier than

0:37:01.440 --> 0:37:05.879
<v Speaker 3>ever to pollute the already toxic information ecosystem with more

0:37:05.960 --> 0:37:09.719
<v Speaker 3>and more garbage and phoniness. Yeah, you know, creating this

0:37:09.840 --> 0:37:14.320
<v Speaker 3>world in which fake facts and fake opinions and fake people,

0:37:14.520 --> 0:37:19.839
<v Speaker 3>fake claims, fake interactions, fake commerce, fake culture drown out

0:37:19.880 --> 0:37:23.360
<v Speaker 3>the signal of real human knowledge and thought. And you

0:37:23.400 --> 0:37:25.759
<v Speaker 3>don't need an am or a sky net to do that.

0:37:25.800 --> 0:37:28.760
<v Speaker 3>You can do that with models that already exist today,

0:37:29.360 --> 0:37:32.680
<v Speaker 3>and that is, in a sense an ongoing project, which

0:37:32.719 --> 0:37:37.920
<v Speaker 3>I do think represents a kind of system wide threat

0:37:37.960 --> 0:37:40.719
<v Speaker 3>for humankind. Is hard to know exactly how severe that

0:37:40.800 --> 0:37:44.759
<v Speaker 3>threat will be and whether it's outweighed by positives and

0:37:44.880 --> 0:37:48.000
<v Speaker 3>increases in productivity and stuff like that that AI brings

0:37:48.000 --> 0:37:50.279
<v Speaker 3>with it. But of course with those benefits you also

0:37:50.320 --> 0:37:51.719
<v Speaker 3>get other downsides that come.

0:37:52.239 --> 0:37:54.239
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I agree, I mean there's some again. Yeah, you

0:37:54.280 --> 0:37:56.279
<v Speaker 2>don't have to think about a sky net or a

0:37:56.280 --> 0:38:00.520
<v Speaker 2>full blown AM or a general artificial intelligence level of

0:38:00.680 --> 0:38:04.640
<v Speaker 2>scenario to get into troubling situations. I mean, I was

0:38:04.680 --> 0:38:07.720
<v Speaker 2>just reading I believe that this was an MPR headline

0:38:07.760 --> 0:38:11.359
<v Speaker 2>from October eighth of this year. One in five high

0:38:11.400 --> 0:38:14.880
<v Speaker 2>schoolers has had a romantic AI relationship or knows someone

0:38:14.880 --> 0:38:19.040
<v Speaker 2>who has. And this was based on then new research

0:38:19.080 --> 0:38:22.640
<v Speaker 2>from the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit that

0:38:22.680 --> 0:38:25.400
<v Speaker 2>advocates for civil rights, civil liberties, and the responsible use

0:38:25.400 --> 0:38:29.000
<v Speaker 2>of data and technology, and in talking about how young

0:38:29.040 --> 0:38:33.560
<v Speaker 2>people are using chatbots for various levels of emotional support

0:38:33.640 --> 0:38:36.640
<v Speaker 2>as well and then engaging in romantic or something like

0:38:36.760 --> 0:38:42.560
<v Speaker 2>romantic AI interactions, and yeah, I mean I try not

0:38:42.680 --> 0:38:45.919
<v Speaker 2>to be you know, a complete Butlerian about the whole thing,

0:38:46.120 --> 0:38:50.520
<v Speaker 2>or a luddite, you know, and try and see, you know,

0:38:50.760 --> 0:38:54.239
<v Speaker 2>how these systems can potentially be of use. You know,

0:38:54.280 --> 0:38:57.440
<v Speaker 2>I think back to stories from just you know, ten

0:38:57.520 --> 0:39:01.000
<v Speaker 2>fifteen years ago talking about how you know, AI could

0:39:01.120 --> 0:39:06.800
<v Speaker 2>enhance human potential, enhance human creativity and so forth, and

0:39:06.920 --> 0:39:10.560
<v Speaker 2>you know, I'm loathed to believe that that dream is

0:39:10.600 --> 0:39:14.080
<v Speaker 2>completely dead. But I read stuff like this and I

0:39:14.120 --> 0:39:17.200
<v Speaker 2>don't know, it feels terrifying. You know, maybe I'm overreacting.

0:39:17.280 --> 0:39:21.279
<v Speaker 2>But you know, as the father of a thirteen year

0:39:21.280 --> 0:39:26.600
<v Speaker 2>old child, you know, I think about these potential threats

0:39:26.640 --> 0:39:28.800
<v Speaker 2>and things like this, and things I can't even imagine

0:39:28.880 --> 0:39:33.520
<v Speaker 2>yet that are related to artificial intelligence and language models,

0:39:33.520 --> 0:39:36.160
<v Speaker 2>and I, you know, it gives me a lot of

0:39:36.200 --> 0:39:38.360
<v Speaker 2>pause for concern. And again, you know, we're not even

0:39:38.880 --> 0:39:43.040
<v Speaker 2>presumably anywhere close to the general AI level in any

0:39:43.040 --> 0:39:43.920
<v Speaker 2>of these concerns.

0:39:44.800 --> 0:39:48.320
<v Speaker 3>It's funny. I can remember a time when I thought

0:39:48.480 --> 0:39:53.680
<v Speaker 3>of killer AI stories as potentially fun subject matter for

0:39:53.760 --> 0:39:55.920
<v Speaker 3>science fiction, the way I still feel about all kinds

0:39:55.920 --> 0:39:58.960
<v Speaker 3>of other subgenres in sci fi, like alien invasion stories

0:39:59.040 --> 0:40:02.200
<v Speaker 3>or time travels to worries. But I can't get back

0:40:02.200 --> 0:40:06.080
<v Speaker 3>into that care free mind space about AI. Now, given

0:40:06.160 --> 0:40:09.279
<v Speaker 3>the world we live in and the stakes of it,

0:40:09.840 --> 0:40:15.719
<v Speaker 3>I have increasingly found killer AI fiction genuinely horrifying, dismaying,

0:40:15.800 --> 0:40:20.839
<v Speaker 3>and demoralizing. And so I don't mean to blame you, Rob,

0:40:20.840 --> 0:40:22.680
<v Speaker 3>because in a way, I'm glad I read the story

0:40:22.719 --> 0:40:25.480
<v Speaker 3>like it is in some sense as a great story.

0:40:26.040 --> 0:40:28.759
<v Speaker 3>But really reading the story really put my mind in

0:40:28.840 --> 0:40:29.520
<v Speaker 3>a bad place.

0:40:30.360 --> 0:40:32.920
<v Speaker 2>Yeah yeah, I mean I felt the same way. I

0:40:32.920 --> 0:40:34.879
<v Speaker 2>didn't read this and then think, man, that was such

0:40:34.920 --> 0:40:39.680
<v Speaker 2>a great escape from my from my daily thoughts. I

0:40:39.680 --> 0:40:43.320
<v Speaker 2>should make Joe read it too. You know, it definitely

0:40:43.440 --> 0:40:45.560
<v Speaker 2>hit hard, and I think it's a testament to the

0:40:46.239 --> 0:40:48.400
<v Speaker 2>power and the potency of the tale and the writing

0:40:48.480 --> 0:41:02.040
<v Speaker 2>that it that it still hits that hard. You know,

0:41:02.760 --> 0:41:04.799
<v Speaker 2>we probably need a palate cleanser at this point. So

0:41:04.840 --> 0:41:06.920
<v Speaker 2>I think we should move on to our next selection.

0:41:07.080 --> 0:41:08.800
<v Speaker 2>But I want to highlight just a little bit of

0:41:08.840 --> 0:41:11.800
<v Speaker 2>added synchronicity here. I'm going to read a quote from

0:41:12.120 --> 0:41:14.120
<v Speaker 2>I Have No Mouth that I'm a scream. This is

0:41:14.160 --> 0:41:19.319
<v Speaker 2>where the narrators describing a giant monster, a big old

0:41:19.400 --> 0:41:23.480
<v Speaker 2>monster bird that Am has created as another torment for

0:41:23.600 --> 0:41:29.440
<v Speaker 2>the five survivors. Ellison writes of quote ridges of tufted flesh,

0:41:29.520 --> 0:41:32.839
<v Speaker 2>puckered about two evil eyes, as cold as the view

0:41:33.000 --> 0:41:38.040
<v Speaker 2>down into a glacial crevass, ice blue and somehow moving liquidly.

0:41:38.560 --> 0:41:41.920
<v Speaker 3>Okay. My selection for this episode is a story called

0:41:42.080 --> 0:41:46.480
<v Speaker 3>The Crevass by Dale Bailey and Nathan Balingrude. It has

0:41:46.560 --> 0:41:49.600
<v Speaker 3>appeared in several sources, but I read it in Balingrude's

0:41:49.640 --> 0:41:54.360
<v Speaker 3>twenty thirteen collection North American Lake Monsters. Of the story's

0:41:54.360 --> 0:41:57.439
<v Speaker 3>two authors, I'm more familiar with Nathan Bellingrude. I read

0:41:57.440 --> 0:42:00.839
<v Speaker 3>a story of his earlier this month called Secret Night,

0:42:01.000 --> 0:42:03.520
<v Speaker 3>which was in a themed collection of horror stories called

0:42:03.640 --> 0:42:07.239
<v Speaker 3>Night and Day edited by Ellen Datlow that was published

0:42:07.600 --> 0:42:12.160
<v Speaker 3>just this year. And that story is a hallucinatory Appalachian

0:42:12.280 --> 0:42:15.239
<v Speaker 3>nightmare that begins when a highway patrolman comes across the

0:42:15.280 --> 0:42:17.920
<v Speaker 3>scene of an accident on this mountain road late at night,

0:42:18.000 --> 0:42:21.400
<v Speaker 3>and all of the cars involved are empty, apparently abandoned

0:42:21.400 --> 0:42:25.160
<v Speaker 3>by the passengers, and it gets weirder from there. On

0:42:25.200 --> 0:42:27.440
<v Speaker 3>the strength of that story, I ended up buying a

0:42:27.440 --> 0:42:30.640
<v Speaker 3>couple of Bellingrude's collections, including this one from twenty thirteen.

0:42:31.160 --> 0:42:33.319
<v Speaker 3>I haven't finished it yet, but so far I think

0:42:33.320 --> 0:42:35.719
<v Speaker 3>it is excellent, And as soon as I was a

0:42:35.719 --> 0:42:38.799
<v Speaker 3>few pages into this story in particular, I knew it

0:42:38.880 --> 0:42:40.200
<v Speaker 3>was the one I would want to talk about in

0:42:40.200 --> 0:42:45.400
<v Speaker 3>today's episode, because well, it does include a speculative horror element.

0:42:45.800 --> 0:42:48.239
<v Speaker 3>I think the most frightening thing in it is a

0:42:48.360 --> 0:42:53.279
<v Speaker 3>danger that is absolutely real and a genuine terror to

0:42:53.320 --> 0:42:56.680
<v Speaker 3>people navigating the landscape of this story setting, which is

0:42:56.719 --> 0:42:58.320
<v Speaker 3>an antarctic glacier.

0:42:59.320 --> 0:43:02.080
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, this was a great selection, Joe. I was not

0:43:02.120 --> 0:43:05.600
<v Speaker 2>familiar with this story or the authors in question here,

0:43:05.640 --> 0:43:07.560
<v Speaker 2>but I really enjoyed it quite a bit, and I

0:43:07.600 --> 0:43:13.000
<v Speaker 2>agree the real world scenario is so terrifying that when

0:43:13.040 --> 0:43:17.759
<v Speaker 2>the speculat development is introduced, things almost feel safer, but

0:43:18.520 --> 0:43:21.560
<v Speaker 2>not quite, because ultimately I think everything works perfectly here

0:43:21.640 --> 0:43:24.400
<v Speaker 2>and builds appropriately as we'll discuss.

0:43:24.719 --> 0:43:27.719
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, so before we get into the summary, I got

0:43:27.760 --> 0:43:31.000
<v Speaker 3>to mention the two authors. So. Nathan Balingrude is an

0:43:31.040 --> 0:43:34.680
<v Speaker 3>American writer of horror and dark fantasy. He has published

0:43:34.680 --> 0:43:37.799
<v Speaker 3>several collections of short fiction, including this book I Got

0:43:37.880 --> 0:43:41.040
<v Speaker 3>North American Lake Monster Is in twenty thirteen, a collection

0:43:41.160 --> 0:43:44.319
<v Speaker 3>called Wounds in twenty nineteen, and he's also written some

0:43:44.560 --> 0:43:47.440
<v Speaker 3>novels and novellas. One of them is called The Strange

0:43:47.520 --> 0:43:50.360
<v Speaker 3>from twenty twenty three and crypt of the Moon Spider

0:43:50.400 --> 0:43:53.279
<v Speaker 3>from last year. A good title, that's a great title. Yeah.

0:43:53.320 --> 0:43:55.200
<v Speaker 3>The stories of his that I've read so far I

0:43:55.239 --> 0:43:58.200
<v Speaker 3>think are very strong because of a few things. A

0:43:58.320 --> 0:44:01.320
<v Speaker 3>power of scene setting, really putting you in the scene,

0:44:01.480 --> 0:44:06.840
<v Speaker 3>generally with vivid and enjoyable prose and imaginative, but also

0:44:06.880 --> 0:44:11.240
<v Speaker 3>I would say appropriately restrained deployment of the supernatural elements.

0:44:11.280 --> 0:44:14.200
<v Speaker 3>And I'm personally fond of horror stories like this that

0:44:14.680 --> 0:44:17.000
<v Speaker 3>keep things a little more on the mysterious side and

0:44:17.080 --> 0:44:18.320
<v Speaker 3>don't explain everything.

0:44:18.680 --> 0:44:20.680
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, this will be a good point to come back to.

0:44:21.040 --> 0:44:23.240
<v Speaker 2>And I will also stress that this story is also

0:44:23.239 --> 0:44:27.080
<v Speaker 2>a chicken biscuit. This one is nice, nice and short. Yeah,

0:44:27.120 --> 0:44:29.400
<v Speaker 2>plenty of space for you to do your own dreaming

0:44:29.760 --> 0:44:32.000
<v Speaker 2>and then have a second chicken biscuit if you so desire.

0:44:32.160 --> 0:44:35.600
<v Speaker 3>There you go. Also, I think Ballangrud's the stories of

0:44:35.600 --> 0:44:39.280
<v Speaker 3>his i've read, have generally strong characters who are fully human,

0:44:39.480 --> 0:44:42.640
<v Speaker 3>and I've read a lot of contemporary horror stories this month.

0:44:42.680 --> 0:44:44.880
<v Speaker 3>I don't want to shame anybody, but more than a

0:44:44.880 --> 0:44:47.960
<v Speaker 3>few of them have the issue of like an interesting

0:44:48.080 --> 0:44:51.879
<v Speaker 3>monster or premise, but the human characters don't feel very

0:44:51.920 --> 0:44:55.360
<v Speaker 3>real or their motivations are not very compelling. So even

0:44:55.360 --> 0:44:58.200
<v Speaker 3>if the supernatural premise is cool, it doesn't hit quite

0:44:58.239 --> 0:45:01.000
<v Speaker 3>as hard as it could because it's not grounded in

0:45:01.080 --> 0:45:04.600
<v Speaker 3>humanity as much. Some of the balland Greude stories I've

0:45:04.600 --> 0:45:07.080
<v Speaker 3>read have a real intimacy with the characters, like you

0:45:07.120 --> 0:45:09.680
<v Speaker 3>get to know them and their deep dreads and desires

0:45:09.719 --> 0:45:12.880
<v Speaker 3>and contradictions. Others are drawn with a bit more distance,

0:45:13.040 --> 0:45:14.920
<v Speaker 3>but they still have a kind of hard edge of

0:45:14.960 --> 0:45:18.279
<v Speaker 3>real humanity and the behavior. I'd say the story is

0:45:18.320 --> 0:45:20.200
<v Speaker 3>somewhere in between. You do kind of get to know

0:45:20.280 --> 0:45:24.160
<v Speaker 3>the main character pretty well. The others are a bit

0:45:24.200 --> 0:45:27.720
<v Speaker 3>more just sketched from a distance, but they do feel real.

0:45:28.320 --> 0:45:31.160
<v Speaker 3>The other author of the story, Dale Bailey, of whom

0:45:31.200 --> 0:45:33.920
<v Speaker 3>I don't think I've read anything else, is an American

0:45:33.960 --> 0:45:37.719
<v Speaker 3>speculative fiction author who's been publishing since the nineties. Some

0:45:37.760 --> 0:45:40.000
<v Speaker 3>of his more recent publications seem to be a novel

0:45:40.040 --> 0:45:43.840
<v Speaker 3>called In the Nightwood from twenty eighteen, a weird story

0:45:43.880 --> 0:45:46.480
<v Speaker 3>collection called The End of the End of Everything from

0:45:46.520 --> 0:45:49.320
<v Speaker 3>twenty fifteen, and then oh, this one gets my attention.

0:45:49.520 --> 0:45:52.880
<v Speaker 3>A story collection from twenty twenty three called This Island

0:45:52.960 --> 0:45:56.720
<v Speaker 3>Earth eight features from the Drive, in which promises stories

0:45:56.760 --> 0:45:59.919
<v Speaker 3>inspired by the Drive in sci fi movies of the Eisenhower.

0:46:00.600 --> 0:46:01.959
<v Speaker 3>So I am intrigued there.

0:46:02.400 --> 0:46:04.080
<v Speaker 2>Oh wow, yeah, I'm going to grab a sample of

0:46:04.080 --> 0:46:04.440
<v Speaker 2>that for.

0:46:04.400 --> 0:46:08.080
<v Speaker 3>Sure, trying to imagine something like Creature with the Adam brain,

0:46:08.280 --> 0:46:12.440
<v Speaker 3>but with the thoughtful, haunted literary sensibility and good writing

0:46:12.480 --> 0:46:13.960
<v Speaker 3>in the story we're talking about today.

0:46:16.320 --> 0:46:20.640
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, I'm intrigued by that. I looked up The Crevasse. Yeah,

0:46:20.680 --> 0:46:23.880
<v Speaker 2>this was its publication. History is apparently first published in

0:46:24.200 --> 0:46:28.320
<v Speaker 2>two thousand and nine's Lovecraft Unbound, which was also edited

0:46:28.320 --> 0:46:32.200
<v Speaker 2>by Ellen Datlow. A pretty great looking collection that also

0:46:32.280 --> 0:46:37.720
<v Speaker 2>features tales from the likes of Caitlin R. Kiernan, Michael Chabin, Joyce,

0:46:37.760 --> 0:46:41.480
<v Speaker 2>Carol Oates, Michael Shea, and Lard barn All, authors that

0:46:41.520 --> 0:46:44.759
<v Speaker 2>I've enjoyed before, with Michael Shay being one of my

0:46:44.840 --> 0:46:47.560
<v Speaker 2>absolute favorites. So it looks like a strong collection in

0:46:47.600 --> 0:46:48.760
<v Speaker 2>and of itself.

0:46:48.600 --> 0:46:51.319
<v Speaker 3>And obviously I think this story is meant to be

0:46:51.360 --> 0:46:54.560
<v Speaker 3>a play on a Lovecraftian theme, based on stuff like

0:46:54.560 --> 0:46:56.839
<v Speaker 3>at the Mountains of Madness, which we can come back to.

0:46:57.320 --> 0:47:00.960
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it is an Antarctic horror tale, and there's also

0:47:01.000 --> 0:47:03.839
<v Speaker 2>a fun little allusion to John Carpenter's The Thing.

0:47:04.120 --> 0:47:08.520
<v Speaker 3>Yes, Yes, clearly inspired by that as well. So the

0:47:08.560 --> 0:47:12.400
<v Speaker 3>story is set in Antarctica, not long after the end

0:47:12.400 --> 0:47:14.960
<v Speaker 3>of the First World War. The protagonist is a new

0:47:15.000 --> 0:47:19.120
<v Speaker 3>Englander named Garner, a medical doctor from Boston who joins

0:47:19.120 --> 0:47:22.200
<v Speaker 3>a dangerous expedition to plant a flag of some kind

0:47:22.680 --> 0:47:25.319
<v Speaker 3>or another on the Southern Continent. I don't know if

0:47:25.320 --> 0:47:27.600
<v Speaker 3>they're racing to get to the South Pole. I think

0:47:27.600 --> 0:47:31.279
<v Speaker 3>it would have already been achieved at this point. But

0:47:32.000 --> 0:47:36.440
<v Speaker 3>he's on an expedition of some kind exploration adventure. Fame

0:47:36.600 --> 0:47:40.080
<v Speaker 3>is promised two members of this expedition, though he doesn't

0:47:40.080 --> 0:47:42.960
<v Speaker 3>really seem concerned with that, And this is after the

0:47:43.080 --> 0:47:45.600
<v Speaker 3>end of his combat duty in the war and the

0:47:45.640 --> 0:47:49.120
<v Speaker 3>tragic death of his beloved wife Elizabeth from the flu

0:47:49.480 --> 0:47:53.280
<v Speaker 3>during his absence in the war, and Garner is something

0:47:53.280 --> 0:47:57.759
<v Speaker 3>of a lost soul. He's haunted, faithless, and mostly passive

0:47:58.239 --> 0:48:01.720
<v Speaker 3>sympathetic in that he is moved by pity, but clearly

0:48:01.760 --> 0:48:05.839
<v Speaker 3>seen by his expedition mates as lacking in guts. Oh

0:48:05.880 --> 0:48:07.919
<v Speaker 3>and this might have been the allusion to the thing

0:48:08.040 --> 0:48:12.719
<v Speaker 3>you were talking about, But the named leader of the expedition,

0:48:12.760 --> 0:48:16.400
<v Speaker 3>who never appears in the story is just referenced, is MacCready.

0:48:16.320 --> 0:48:19.360
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, that's the reference. Yeah yeah.

0:48:19.440 --> 0:48:22.040
<v Speaker 3>So at the outset of the narrative, Garner is part

0:48:22.080 --> 0:48:25.080
<v Speaker 3>of a small group of four men who have broken

0:48:25.239 --> 0:48:29.040
<v Speaker 3>off from the main expedition to bring an injured man

0:48:29.160 --> 0:48:33.160
<v Speaker 3>back to the seaside depot that they departed from for treatment.

0:48:33.719 --> 0:48:38.080
<v Speaker 3>And they're traveling across the Antarctic glacier by sledge, each

0:48:38.120 --> 0:48:41.359
<v Speaker 3>sledge pulled by a team of dogs. The injured man

0:48:41.440 --> 0:48:44.319
<v Speaker 3>is named Faber. On the main expedition, we find out

0:48:44.360 --> 0:48:46.640
<v Speaker 3>that he took a bad step and broke his leg

0:48:46.719 --> 0:48:50.759
<v Speaker 3>while walking outside the camp to relieve himself. Now he's

0:48:50.760 --> 0:48:54.240
<v Speaker 3>got a compound fracture and he's fighting sepsis and living

0:48:54.239 --> 0:48:57.320
<v Speaker 3>in a morphine Hayes. The other two men are Bishop,

0:48:57.400 --> 0:49:00.319
<v Speaker 3>who is presented as a practical man, the one who

0:49:00.320 --> 0:49:02.520
<v Speaker 3>seems to be in charge, kind of a plane dealer,

0:49:03.160 --> 0:49:06.000
<v Speaker 3>and then Connolly, who is a short tempered hot head.

0:49:06.800 --> 0:49:08.600
<v Speaker 3>I think one of the best things about the story

0:49:08.640 --> 0:49:10.600
<v Speaker 3>is the way that it puts you in the setting

0:49:10.760 --> 0:49:14.319
<v Speaker 3>and makes the atmosphere tactile. You can kind of feel it.

0:49:14.960 --> 0:49:17.080
<v Speaker 3>So I'm going to read a couple of passages. This

0:49:17.120 --> 0:49:20.000
<v Speaker 3>is from the very beginning the author's write quote what

0:49:20.120 --> 0:49:23.480
<v Speaker 3>he loved was the silence, the pristine clarity of the

0:49:23.480 --> 0:49:27.320
<v Speaker 3>ice shelf, the purposeful breathing of the dog straining against

0:49:27.360 --> 0:49:30.960
<v Speaker 3>their traces, the hiss of the runners, the opalescent arc

0:49:31.040 --> 0:49:34.640
<v Speaker 3>of the sky. Garner peered through shifting veils of snow

0:49:34.719 --> 0:49:37.880
<v Speaker 3>at the endless sweep of glacial terrain before him, the

0:49:37.920 --> 0:49:41.239
<v Speaker 3>wind gnawing at him, forcing him to reach out periodically

0:49:41.520 --> 0:49:43.960
<v Speaker 3>and scrape at the thin crust of ice that clung

0:49:44.000 --> 0:49:46.760
<v Speaker 3>to the edges of his face mask, the dry rasp

0:49:46.880 --> 0:49:49.560
<v Speaker 3>of the fabric against his face, reminding him that he

0:49:49.680 --> 0:49:50.160
<v Speaker 3>was alive.

0:49:51.000 --> 0:49:53.600
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's a great example of the writing style here.

0:49:54.680 --> 0:49:59.520
<v Speaker 2>It works so well with this this desolate but beautiful,

0:49:59.520 --> 0:50:02.200
<v Speaker 2>really almost other worldly environment about is, you know, one

0:50:02.200 --> 0:50:06.239
<v Speaker 2>of those extreme environments on our planet that clearly we

0:50:06.239 --> 0:50:09.640
<v Speaker 2>were we did not evolve to thrive in, certainly not

0:50:09.880 --> 0:50:12.560
<v Speaker 2>without the aid of technology that we would develop. And

0:50:12.960 --> 0:50:16.520
<v Speaker 2>we also get just a little bit of writing about

0:50:16.520 --> 0:50:19.560
<v Speaker 2>the dogs here. The authors here write rather warmly of

0:50:19.640 --> 0:50:23.200
<v Speaker 2>dog proximity in multiple places, and even as a non

0:50:23.239 --> 0:50:26.000
<v Speaker 2>dog person, I totally got what they were going for.

0:50:26.080 --> 0:50:28.080
<v Speaker 2>I love these little telling details, you know.

0:50:28.480 --> 0:50:31.160
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, the warmth toward the dogs in the story is

0:50:31.200 --> 0:50:35.959
<v Speaker 3>interesting because of the reality of how harsh the fate

0:50:36.080 --> 0:50:39.600
<v Speaker 3>of dogs on these kinds of expeditions was, and that

0:50:40.120 --> 0:50:41.640
<v Speaker 3>turns out to be that is the case in the

0:50:41.640 --> 0:50:42.399
<v Speaker 3>story as well.

0:50:42.880 --> 0:50:45.480
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and some of the supplemental information I was reading

0:50:45.560 --> 0:50:49.360
<v Speaker 2>about from the histories of these expeditions, like multiple sources

0:50:49.360 --> 0:50:53.360
<v Speaker 2>point out that these dogs were highly valued and important

0:50:53.640 --> 0:50:56.200
<v Speaker 2>because first of all, they're pulling the sledge, like you

0:50:56.320 --> 0:50:59.439
<v Speaker 2>literally could not pull these expeditions off at this point

0:50:59.480 --> 0:51:03.600
<v Speaker 2>in time with out them. But also the companionship that

0:51:03.800 --> 0:51:07.520
<v Speaker 2>the humans had with these animals. And again this extreme

0:51:07.719 --> 0:51:11.640
<v Speaker 2>dangerous environment, like an environment that really wants you dead

0:51:12.040 --> 0:51:16.279
<v Speaker 2>if you do it's almost am like its intensity, you know,

0:51:16.360 --> 0:51:19.200
<v Speaker 2>like you're not supposed to survive there. And the dogs,

0:51:19.560 --> 0:51:23.120
<v Speaker 2>the companionship with the dogs, helped these humans survive there.

0:51:23.120 --> 0:51:27.640
<v Speaker 2>And I think there's something beautiful and haunting and perfect

0:51:27.719 --> 0:51:29.560
<v Speaker 2>for this tale in that fact.

0:51:29.760 --> 0:51:33.080
<v Speaker 3>Very true. So the inciting moment of the story comes

0:51:33.520 --> 0:51:36.080
<v Speaker 3>Very soon after the beginning, as the sledges are traveling

0:51:36.080 --> 0:51:40.560
<v Speaker 3>along the ice, I'll read from the narration quote, a

0:51:40.600 --> 0:51:44.880
<v Speaker 3>thunderous crack, loud as lightning cleaving stone, shivered the ice,

0:51:45.280 --> 0:51:47.799
<v Speaker 3>and the dogs of the lead sledge, maybe twenty five

0:51:47.880 --> 0:51:52.040
<v Speaker 3>yards ahead of Garner, erupted into panicky cries. Garner saw

0:51:52.080 --> 0:51:55.919
<v Speaker 3>it happen. The lead sledge sluffed over, hurling connolly into

0:51:55.920 --> 0:51:59.560
<v Speaker 3>the snow, and plunged nose first through the ice, as

0:51:59.600 --> 0:52:02.040
<v Speaker 3>though in an enormous hand had reached up through the

0:52:02.080 --> 0:52:06.080
<v Speaker 3>earth to snatch it under. So here we meet the

0:52:06.200 --> 0:52:09.600
<v Speaker 3>natural world horror that the story is based on. What

0:52:09.680 --> 0:52:13.080
<v Speaker 3>has happened is that the first sledge has gone into

0:52:13.200 --> 0:52:17.080
<v Speaker 3>a giant crack known as a crevasse in the ice.

0:52:17.520 --> 0:52:20.480
<v Speaker 3>The lead dog has plunged into it. The whole sledge

0:52:20.480 --> 0:52:23.719
<v Speaker 3>hasn't gone in, but the first dog has. So the

0:52:24.000 --> 0:52:27.920
<v Speaker 3>crevasse is deep and dark, and the dog remains hanging

0:52:28.000 --> 0:52:32.360
<v Speaker 3>down into the crevasse by its tracers. The men decide

0:52:32.480 --> 0:52:34.360
<v Speaker 3>in an instant that they have no choice but to

0:52:34.400 --> 0:52:36.759
<v Speaker 3>cut the dog loose and let it fall, or it's

0:52:36.800 --> 0:52:39.040
<v Speaker 3>going to drag the sledge and the other dogs and

0:52:39.120 --> 0:52:42.840
<v Speaker 3>supplies they need into the pit. And then Garner, whether

0:52:42.880 --> 0:52:46.680
<v Speaker 3>out of compassion for the dog or just indecision, hesitates

0:52:46.719 --> 0:52:48.680
<v Speaker 3>in his job of cutting the dog loose, and this

0:52:48.800 --> 0:52:53.919
<v Speaker 3>anger is connilly. But after the initial disaster is over,

0:52:54.040 --> 0:52:56.200
<v Speaker 3>they set up camp so they can rest and get

0:52:56.239 --> 0:52:59.840
<v Speaker 3>warm inside their tent. Faber, the injured man, seems to

0:52:59.880 --> 0:53:02.760
<v Speaker 3>be doing worse and worse, and in a horrible twist,

0:53:03.200 --> 0:53:06.480
<v Speaker 3>the dog that they sacrificed to the crevasse was not

0:53:06.640 --> 0:53:08.919
<v Speaker 3>killed in the fall. They can hear it somewhere down

0:53:08.920 --> 0:53:12.839
<v Speaker 3>in the pit, howling in pain. And Garner thinks about

0:53:12.840 --> 0:53:15.319
<v Speaker 3>the carnage that he saw in the war, about the

0:53:15.360 --> 0:53:18.279
<v Speaker 3>way that his wife died away from him without him

0:53:18.800 --> 0:53:22.240
<v Speaker 3>being there with her, and this seems somehow also tangled

0:53:22.320 --> 0:53:25.160
<v Speaker 3>up in feelings about Faber, the injured man, who is

0:53:25.239 --> 0:53:28.560
<v Speaker 3>trapped in a miasma of morphine fever, dreams and pain

0:53:28.680 --> 0:53:33.480
<v Speaker 3>and hallucinating. And eventually Garner's pity for the dog drives

0:53:33.560 --> 0:53:35.799
<v Speaker 3>him to sneak out of the tent while the others

0:53:35.840 --> 0:53:39.560
<v Speaker 3>are sleeping, rig up a rope system, and climb down

0:53:39.560 --> 0:53:42.400
<v Speaker 3>into the crevasse so he can end the poor animals suffering.

0:53:42.800 --> 0:53:47.160
<v Speaker 2>Now, this decision is absolutely supported on a character level here.

0:53:47.200 --> 0:53:48.920
<v Speaker 2>I want to stress that, but it's also one of

0:53:48.960 --> 0:53:51.920
<v Speaker 2>those things we're reading a story and thinking about tropes

0:53:51.920 --> 0:53:53.640
<v Speaker 2>and plotting, you might think, was this is this the

0:53:53.719 --> 0:53:57.040
<v Speaker 2>dumb decision of the horror story? Here is the dumb

0:53:57.080 --> 0:53:59.680
<v Speaker 2>thing that our character does, the risky move that they

0:53:59.719 --> 0:54:03.520
<v Speaker 2>make that brings them in closer proximity to horror? I

0:54:03.520 --> 0:54:10.920
<v Speaker 2>mean maybe structure structurally kind of yes, but we'll discuss

0:54:10.960 --> 0:54:14.520
<v Speaker 2>in a bit, like there are historic examples of this

0:54:14.640 --> 0:54:16.719
<v Speaker 2>exact sort of thing, Like going out of your way

0:54:16.840 --> 0:54:19.799
<v Speaker 2>to save a sled dog from a gravas is not

0:54:19.840 --> 0:54:23.960
<v Speaker 2>only something that is possible and likely, but it definitely

0:54:24.040 --> 0:54:27.200
<v Speaker 2>happened and again well supported in the story, regardless of

0:54:27.280 --> 0:54:28.680
<v Speaker 2>what the reality was. Yeah.

0:54:28.719 --> 0:54:31.800
<v Speaker 3>Now, unfortunately in this case, the sled dog is beyond

0:54:31.840 --> 0:54:35.400
<v Speaker 3>saving it fatally injured and stuck at the bottom. But

0:54:35.640 --> 0:54:37.799
<v Speaker 3>at least Garner hopes that he can put the dog

0:54:37.840 --> 0:54:40.319
<v Speaker 3>out of its misery. So when he gets all the

0:54:40.320 --> 0:54:42.960
<v Speaker 3>way down to the bottom of the chasm and the ice,

0:54:43.320 --> 0:54:48.840
<v Speaker 3>he discovers something strange. It's not just a deep crack

0:54:49.080 --> 0:54:51.960
<v Speaker 3>in the glacier like you would expect. That alone is

0:54:52.040 --> 0:54:56.280
<v Speaker 3>horrifying enough vanishing down into the distance below this crack

0:54:56.360 --> 0:54:59.279
<v Speaker 3>and the narrowing crack in the ice. Oh, I get

0:54:59.320 --> 0:55:04.080
<v Speaker 3>shivers just about it. But underneath the ice, the crack

0:55:04.239 --> 0:55:09.760
<v Speaker 3>reveals an opening, an opening into a vast, cavernous space,

0:55:10.239 --> 0:55:14.120
<v Speaker 3>the nearest part of which that Garner can see is

0:55:14.200 --> 0:55:19.320
<v Speaker 3>a carved rock staircase of enormous size leading down into

0:55:19.320 --> 0:55:23.080
<v Speaker 3>the dark. And Garner believes he sees not only stairs,

0:55:23.160 --> 0:55:26.799
<v Speaker 3>but imagery reliefs etched into the rock showing some kind

0:55:26.840 --> 0:55:30.040
<v Speaker 3>of creature, but he doesn't really understand what he's looking at,

0:55:30.040 --> 0:55:34.759
<v Speaker 3>this weird taloned medusa like form that he doesn't comprehend.

0:55:35.480 --> 0:55:38.960
<v Speaker 3>And the stairs also have this power of summoning a

0:55:39.040 --> 0:55:42.920
<v Speaker 3>psychic force invites him to come down, and it's implied

0:55:42.960 --> 0:55:45.960
<v Speaker 3>I think that it's actively probing his mind for a

0:55:46.000 --> 0:55:50.160
<v Speaker 3>psychological foothold, because for some reason, looking down into the descent,

0:55:50.360 --> 0:55:51.520
<v Speaker 3>he thinks of Elizabeth.

0:55:52.239 --> 0:55:55.400
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, this is such a haunting moment. Again, on

0:55:55.560 --> 0:55:59.920
<v Speaker 2>one level, it almost feels less dangerous when there are

0:56:00.120 --> 0:56:05.640
<v Speaker 2>even supernatural, oversized cyclopean stairs down there, because well, at

0:56:05.760 --> 0:56:07.920
<v Speaker 2>least something walk down here, and it's not just the

0:56:07.960 --> 0:56:11.759
<v Speaker 2>lifeless ice pit that we thought it was, But of

0:56:11.800 --> 0:56:15.239
<v Speaker 2>course I think many, if not most, readers of this

0:56:15.360 --> 0:56:19.239
<v Speaker 2>tale would be familiar with the writings of HP Lovecraft,

0:56:19.239 --> 0:56:21.920
<v Speaker 2>and they see exactly what we're dealing with here, because,

0:56:23.000 --> 0:56:26.840
<v Speaker 2>of course, one of HP Lovecraft's most well known tales

0:56:27.120 --> 0:56:31.000
<v Speaker 2>is At the Mountains of Madness, which concerns elder ruins

0:56:31.000 --> 0:56:36.000
<v Speaker 2>in Antarctica and various horrifying revelations that occur when humans

0:56:36.239 --> 0:56:39.719
<v Speaker 2>plunge those ruins. And on top of this, there's also

0:56:39.800 --> 0:56:43.759
<v Speaker 2>just the element of stairs. Lovecraft frequently employed stairways as

0:56:43.800 --> 0:56:47.320
<v Speaker 2>a liminal space or threshold between one world and another,

0:56:47.760 --> 0:56:51.160
<v Speaker 2>and more to the point between sanity and darkness, between

0:56:51.239 --> 0:56:55.120
<v Speaker 2>healthy human ignorance of the cosmos and crushing revelations about

0:56:55.120 --> 0:56:58.840
<v Speaker 2>its true nature. So it's a nice nod here to

0:56:59.600 --> 0:57:03.359
<v Speaker 2>weird fit, a great Lovecraftian bit of flavor, without, as

0:57:03.400 --> 0:57:06.959
<v Speaker 2>you mentioned earlier, revealing too much or getting into the lore.

0:57:07.719 --> 0:57:10.360
<v Speaker 2>I feel like a lesser tail might have decided to

0:57:11.200 --> 0:57:13.920
<v Speaker 2>throw out a few elder god names here, or maybe

0:57:13.920 --> 0:57:17.439
<v Speaker 2>crunch on the mythos qualities just a little bit too much.

0:57:17.920 --> 0:57:20.560
<v Speaker 2>And a lot of restraint is shown here, and it

0:57:20.600 --> 0:57:23.000
<v Speaker 2>works well and again, especially in a short tail like this,

0:57:23.360 --> 0:57:25.760
<v Speaker 2>it inspires us to then dream like where do these

0:57:25.800 --> 0:57:29.320
<v Speaker 2>stairs go? Yeah, and we're kind of drawn down them

0:57:29.320 --> 0:57:30.720
<v Speaker 2>as well, just like the narrator.

0:57:31.320 --> 0:57:34.400
<v Speaker 3>But Garner does not have the opportunity to descend the

0:57:34.440 --> 0:57:39.600
<v Speaker 3>stairs because he's interrupted as he's starting to clamber down them.

0:57:39.640 --> 0:57:42.720
<v Speaker 3>For whatever reason, he's drawn. He starts to go down them,

0:57:42.760 --> 0:57:46.320
<v Speaker 3>but he is discovered by Connolly up above looking down,

0:57:46.760 --> 0:57:49.439
<v Speaker 3>who is furious with him for taking this stupid risk,

0:57:49.680 --> 0:57:51.560
<v Speaker 3>not just with his own life, but with all of

0:57:51.600 --> 0:57:55.680
<v Speaker 3>their lives, especially favors. Because Antarctica is an unforgiving place.

0:57:56.160 --> 0:57:59.760
<v Speaker 3>Any decision you make could spell death for yourself or

0:57:59.840 --> 0:58:00.480
<v Speaker 3>for others.

0:58:01.200 --> 0:58:01.760
<v Speaker 2>Absolutely.

0:58:02.400 --> 0:58:06.200
<v Speaker 3>Garner tries to convince Bishop, and so he comes back up,

0:58:06.760 --> 0:58:09.160
<v Speaker 3>climbs the rope back out of the crevass, and tries

0:58:09.200 --> 0:58:11.800
<v Speaker 3>to convince the other two men, Bishop and Connolly of

0:58:11.840 --> 0:58:15.280
<v Speaker 3>what he saw down there. They're not really interested at first,

0:58:15.320 --> 0:58:18.640
<v Speaker 3>but he appeals to their sense of desire for adventure

0:58:18.720 --> 0:58:22.080
<v Speaker 3>and fame. This is one of the references to McCready's like, Okay,

0:58:22.080 --> 0:58:24.240
<v Speaker 3>so McCready's going to be out there planning the flag

0:58:24.280 --> 0:58:26.919
<v Speaker 3>while you have to go back. But you could be

0:58:27.040 --> 0:58:30.200
<v Speaker 3>the discoverer of one of the most important scientific finds

0:58:30.240 --> 0:58:34.200
<v Speaker 3>in human history, whatever it is that's down there. Because

0:58:34.360 --> 0:58:37.120
<v Speaker 3>unlike Garner, who it seems just somehow ended up on

0:58:37.160 --> 0:58:40.080
<v Speaker 3>this journey because he was otherwise adrift, these two men

0:58:40.160 --> 0:58:44.480
<v Speaker 3>are driven by ambition, it's implied, and that ambition was

0:58:44.560 --> 0:58:46.600
<v Speaker 3>dashed when they had to split off from the main

0:58:46.640 --> 0:58:49.800
<v Speaker 3>party to return Favored to the depots. So they're already unhappy.

0:58:51.120 --> 0:58:54.320
<v Speaker 3>They shine a flashlight down into the crevass, but it's

0:58:54.360 --> 0:58:57.160
<v Speaker 3>too deep to make out the stairs or the cavern beyond,

0:58:57.240 --> 0:59:00.200
<v Speaker 3>if they ever really were there. We assume they probably were.

0:59:00.840 --> 0:59:03.560
<v Speaker 3>They can only see the dog's body lying in blood

0:59:03.720 --> 0:59:07.920
<v Speaker 3>on the lip of ice far below. However, while they're watching,

0:59:08.200 --> 0:59:12.600
<v Speaker 3>the dog suddenly is moved, yanked away by something out

0:59:12.600 --> 0:59:16.200
<v Speaker 3>of sight. They don't have time to process this because

0:59:16.240 --> 0:59:19.600
<v Speaker 3>immediately Faber, the injured man, cries out in pain or

0:59:19.680 --> 0:59:22.280
<v Speaker 3>terror from the tent, and the men rush in to

0:59:22.320 --> 0:59:25.240
<v Speaker 3>see what's the matter, and Faber becomes lucid enough to

0:59:25.320 --> 0:59:28.280
<v Speaker 3>explain to them what's wrong, And I loved this moment.

0:59:28.600 --> 0:59:31.560
<v Speaker 3>Didn't quite expect this. When he finally is able to speak,

0:59:31.600 --> 0:59:35.800
<v Speaker 3>he says, it laid an egg in me. They don't understand,

0:59:35.880 --> 0:59:38.960
<v Speaker 3>but he insists, quote, Faber found a way to smile

0:59:39.560 --> 0:59:42.680
<v Speaker 3>in my dream. It put my head inside its body

0:59:42.920 --> 0:59:44.120
<v Speaker 3>and it laid an egg in me.

0:59:44.760 --> 0:59:48.360
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yikes. Yeah. And we don't really get any clarity

0:59:48.400 --> 0:59:51.960
<v Speaker 2>on what this exactly means. You know, what sort of

0:59:52.880 --> 0:59:55.040
<v Speaker 2>revelation did he have or is this you know, is

0:59:55.040 --> 0:59:59.320
<v Speaker 2>this part of the morphine playing with his head? We

0:59:59.360 --> 1:00:01.160
<v Speaker 2>don't really know. Oh, but a man, it's haunting.

1:00:01.760 --> 1:00:04.560
<v Speaker 3>So Garner at this point prepares to sedate him with

1:00:04.600 --> 1:00:07.800
<v Speaker 3>another morphine, Ampuel, but Faber doesn't want He doesn't want

1:00:07.800 --> 1:00:10.680
<v Speaker 3>this for some reason, and he lashes out and fights.

1:00:11.080 --> 1:00:13.760
<v Speaker 3>The fight knocks over a kerosene heater and this sets

1:00:13.760 --> 1:00:16.880
<v Speaker 3>fire to the tent, leading to a mad scramble for survival.

1:00:17.200 --> 1:00:18.840
<v Speaker 2>This was the part when I went on my first

1:00:18.880 --> 1:00:20.560
<v Speaker 2>read where I was like, oh my, this is the

1:00:20.600 --> 1:00:22.360
<v Speaker 2>moment where they're going to have to go down those

1:00:22.360 --> 1:00:24.960
<v Speaker 2>stairs together where they're gonna not have any equipment or

1:00:25.000 --> 1:00:27.560
<v Speaker 2>dogs left, and they're gonna think, well, we have nothing

1:00:27.560 --> 1:00:29.800
<v Speaker 2>to do but go down those stairs. But that's not

1:00:29.840 --> 1:00:30.840
<v Speaker 2>where the story goes.

1:00:31.040 --> 1:00:33.240
<v Speaker 3>No, there's a different kind of horror at the end.

1:00:33.280 --> 1:00:36.800
<v Speaker 3>There's a horror of wondering what might have been so

1:00:37.160 --> 1:00:40.480
<v Speaker 3>the men after this, they just book it back to

1:00:40.520 --> 1:00:42.560
<v Speaker 3>their destination. They try to make it to the depot

1:00:42.600 --> 1:00:44.800
<v Speaker 3>as fast as they can now their tent is burned.

1:00:45.320 --> 1:00:48.440
<v Speaker 3>Faber does not survive the journey, he dies in transit,

1:00:49.080 --> 1:00:51.440
<v Speaker 3>but they do reach the safety of the depot. The

1:00:51.520 --> 1:00:54.080
<v Speaker 3>three surviving men hole up to wait for the return

1:00:54.280 --> 1:00:56.680
<v Speaker 3>of the rest of the expedition, which is weeks away,

1:00:57.360 --> 1:00:59.960
<v Speaker 3>And while they are holed up in the depot, Garner

1:01:00.120 --> 1:01:03.200
<v Speaker 3>tries to talk to Bishop to get him to acknowledge

1:01:03.240 --> 1:01:06.160
<v Speaker 3>that he saw something in the crevasse, to at least

1:01:06.320 --> 1:01:09.400
<v Speaker 3>admit that he saw the dog dragged away, but Bishop

1:01:09.440 --> 1:01:10.800
<v Speaker 3>is very stubborn about it.

1:01:11.280 --> 1:01:11.760
<v Speaker 2>Quote.

1:01:12.000 --> 1:01:15.120
<v Speaker 3>Bishop refused to look at him. This is an empty place,

1:01:15.240 --> 1:01:19.040
<v Speaker 3>he said, after a long silence. There's nothing here. He

1:01:19.120 --> 1:01:23.840
<v Speaker 3>blinked and turned a page in the magazine Nothing. And

1:01:24.000 --> 1:01:27.680
<v Speaker 3>I loved this part because I think that line highlights

1:01:28.400 --> 1:01:34.320
<v Speaker 3>a subtext, an interesting implication of the story. To Bishop,

1:01:34.840 --> 1:01:38.840
<v Speaker 3>the idea that there might be something hidden, something possibly

1:01:39.000 --> 1:01:43.080
<v Speaker 3>monstrous and mind rending under the ice waiting to be revealed,

1:01:43.840 --> 1:01:48.520
<v Speaker 3>is troubling. That possibility is terrifying, and he denies it.

1:01:48.600 --> 1:01:52.880
<v Speaker 3>So he takes emotional comfort in telling himself, probably lying

1:01:52.880 --> 1:01:55.120
<v Speaker 3>to himself because it implies he did see the dog

1:01:55.200 --> 1:01:59.600
<v Speaker 3>dragged away, at least telling himself there's nothing there. And

1:01:59.640 --> 1:02:01.960
<v Speaker 3>I think for Garner, by the end of the story,

1:02:02.160 --> 1:02:06.600
<v Speaker 3>the opposite desire is operative. The opposite is true. The

1:02:06.720 --> 1:02:10.040
<v Speaker 3>nothingness and the absence are what would be frightening. The

1:02:10.120 --> 1:02:13.640
<v Speaker 3>idea that there is something hidden waiting to be revealed,

1:02:13.800 --> 1:02:16.560
<v Speaker 3>even if it's monstrous, even if it's something that would

1:02:16.560 --> 1:02:22.520
<v Speaker 3>destroy him, is somehow comforting. And this duality of orientations

1:02:22.760 --> 1:02:26.800
<v Speaker 3>toward mystery and understanding is I think a very important

1:02:26.880 --> 1:02:32.200
<v Speaker 3>part of humanity. Which option bothers you more the idea

1:02:32.240 --> 1:02:36.000
<v Speaker 3>that there is something unknown, as yet unrevealed, that could

1:02:36.080 --> 1:02:39.400
<v Speaker 3>destroy you, could destroy everything you love or destroy your

1:02:39.520 --> 1:02:44.200
<v Speaker 3>understanding of reality. Or would it be worse if there

1:02:44.360 --> 1:02:47.280
<v Speaker 3>is nothing more that what you see is what you get?

1:02:48.120 --> 1:02:51.640
<v Speaker 3>And for you, I guess the question is emotionally, does

1:02:51.880 --> 1:02:55.280
<v Speaker 3>there is nothing more? Reduced to there is nothing?

1:02:55.920 --> 1:02:57.920
<v Speaker 2>Yeah? I mean it brings to mind the famous Arthur C.

1:02:58.000 --> 1:03:00.880
<v Speaker 2>Clark quote. Right, two possibilities exist. Either we are alone

1:03:00.920 --> 1:03:04.919
<v Speaker 2>in the universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying. Yeah,

1:03:05.160 --> 1:03:07.760
<v Speaker 2>And It plays nicely with exactly what we're discussing earlier.

1:03:08.040 --> 1:03:13.040
<v Speaker 2>Is the crevass scarier before we see the stairs or

1:03:13.120 --> 1:03:15.920
<v Speaker 2>is it the other way around? You know, it works

1:03:16.040 --> 1:03:18.320
<v Speaker 2>so perfectly in the story, that duality.

1:03:18.600 --> 1:03:21.920
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, so for Bishop, it's implied that the stairs, to

1:03:22.000 --> 1:03:24.520
<v Speaker 3>find the stairs would be more frightening than the crevass.

1:03:25.680 --> 1:03:28.560
<v Speaker 3>For Garner, I think the crevasse is frightening, but once

1:03:28.600 --> 1:03:31.760
<v Speaker 3>he sees the stairs, now that there is a mystery,

1:03:31.840 --> 1:03:34.640
<v Speaker 3>now that there could be something more, it's actually inviting.

1:03:35.520 --> 1:03:38.080
<v Speaker 3>And I like that the story implies a correlation between

1:03:38.120 --> 1:03:40.960
<v Speaker 3>these two different attitudes and other things about the person.

1:03:41.040 --> 1:03:44.640
<v Speaker 3>This rings true to me. Bishop, who wishes there to

1:03:44.680 --> 1:03:48.480
<v Speaker 3>be nothing more, is a person who's ambitious, with an

1:03:48.480 --> 1:03:51.880
<v Speaker 3>orientation toward future goals. There's stuff he wants to do

1:03:52.000 --> 1:03:56.480
<v Speaker 3>and accomplish. Garner, who is defined by the past and

1:03:56.560 --> 1:04:00.440
<v Speaker 3>what has already been taken away. He's got loss of purpose,

1:04:00.600 --> 1:04:03.800
<v Speaker 3>loss of his great love. He wishes for a key

1:04:03.880 --> 1:04:06.800
<v Speaker 3>to unlock a new world, for there to be something

1:04:06.880 --> 1:04:09.720
<v Speaker 3>more revealed, even if it's horrible.

1:04:10.160 --> 1:04:14.200
<v Speaker 2>And it's clearly horrible. Yeah, there's no there's no hint

1:04:14.240 --> 1:04:15.600
<v Speaker 2>that it's anything but horrible.

1:04:15.920 --> 1:04:28.400
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I'm gonna read from the final paragraph here with

1:04:28.400 --> 1:04:30.400
<v Speaker 3>with the Garner back of the depot, looking outside. He

1:04:30.520 --> 1:04:33.480
<v Speaker 3>describes the so the beginning of the story takes place

1:04:33.600 --> 1:04:38.440
<v Speaker 3>during the Antarctic summer, so whereas perpetually daytime, and he

1:04:38.520 --> 1:04:41.280
<v Speaker 3>describes the sun as a great boiling eye in the

1:04:41.280 --> 1:04:44.440
<v Speaker 3>sky that never sets. But as the winter comes closer,

1:04:45.360 --> 1:04:48.680
<v Speaker 3>we get this part quote. A gust of wind scattered

1:04:48.680 --> 1:04:51.240
<v Speaker 3>fine crystals of snow against the window, and he found

1:04:51.320 --> 1:04:54.160
<v Speaker 3>himself wondering what the night would be like in this

1:04:54.240 --> 1:04:58.000
<v Speaker 3>cold country. He imagined the sky dissolving to reveal the

1:04:58.040 --> 1:05:01.280
<v Speaker 3>hard vault of stars, the gallay turning above him like

1:05:01.320 --> 1:05:04.760
<v Speaker 3>a cog in a vast, unknowable engine, and behind it

1:05:04.800 --> 1:05:08.440
<v Speaker 3>all the emptiness into which men hurled their prayers. It

1:05:08.440 --> 1:05:11.080
<v Speaker 3>occurred to him that he could leave now, walk out

1:05:11.120 --> 1:05:14.360
<v Speaker 3>into the long twilight, and keep going until the earth

1:05:14.440 --> 1:05:18.280
<v Speaker 3>opened beneath him. And he found himself descending strange stairs

1:05:18.640 --> 1:05:21.880
<v Speaker 3>while the world around him broke silently into snow and

1:05:21.960 --> 1:05:24.600
<v Speaker 3>into night. Garner closed his eyes.

1:05:25.600 --> 1:05:27.320
<v Speaker 2>Beautiful, haunting, perfect.

1:05:27.680 --> 1:05:31.080
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and I like again emphasized even there at the end,

1:05:31.200 --> 1:05:34.880
<v Speaker 3>like the thing that he's dwelling for moments on horrible

1:05:34.920 --> 1:05:39.520
<v Speaker 3>thoughts to him, thoughts about emptiness, about nothing beyond the emptiness,

1:05:39.600 --> 1:05:44.320
<v Speaker 3>you know, his lack of faith in God. The empty

1:05:44.400 --> 1:05:49.320
<v Speaker 3>expanses with nothing below, but then is strangely finding comfort

1:05:49.840 --> 1:05:53.280
<v Speaker 3>into the idea of descending into this alien realm.

1:05:53.800 --> 1:05:54.560
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.

1:05:54.680 --> 1:05:56.560
<v Speaker 3>So, as I said earlier, one of the things I

1:05:56.600 --> 1:06:00.160
<v Speaker 3>loved about this story was the horror evoked by the setting,

1:06:00.200 --> 1:06:04.800
<v Speaker 3>the bleak emptiness of the Antarctic glacier, and especially the Crevass.

1:06:05.880 --> 1:06:09.560
<v Speaker 3>If you read about Antarctic expeditions from people who have

1:06:09.800 --> 1:06:13.680
<v Speaker 3>actually participated in them, you will discover that the terror

1:06:13.760 --> 1:06:17.480
<v Speaker 3>of the crevass is absolutely real, and a threat about

1:06:17.480 --> 1:06:21.440
<v Speaker 3>which anybody traveling across great distances of ice has to

1:06:21.480 --> 1:06:25.640
<v Speaker 3>be almost constantly conscious. For example, I pulled up the

1:06:25.680 --> 1:06:29.600
<v Speaker 3>text of a book called The Worst Journey in the World,

1:06:29.760 --> 1:06:33.600
<v Speaker 3>written by absolletely Cherry Garrard, published in nineteen twenty two.

1:06:34.240 --> 1:06:36.800
<v Speaker 3>Cherry Garrard was a member of the famous Terra Nova

1:06:36.880 --> 1:06:39.920
<v Speaker 3>expedition to the South Pole under Robert Falcon Scott a

1:06:39.960 --> 1:06:42.240
<v Speaker 3>decade previous. Rob I know you have some stuff about

1:06:42.240 --> 1:06:46.680
<v Speaker 3>this expedition as well, and this book provides a first

1:06:46.720 --> 1:06:50.040
<v Speaker 3>hand account of the expedition and its struggles. If you

1:06:50.080 --> 1:06:53.000
<v Speaker 3>do a keyword search in the text of this book

1:06:53.040 --> 1:06:56.400
<v Speaker 3>for crevass, you get almost two hundred hits. It is

1:06:56.640 --> 1:07:01.160
<v Speaker 3>constantly on their minds, and apart from the physical difficulty

1:07:01.240 --> 1:07:05.880
<v Speaker 3>and danger of actually encountering them, the psychic toll of

1:07:06.000 --> 1:07:09.480
<v Speaker 3>knowing the crevasses are out there does its own violence

1:07:09.520 --> 1:07:12.960
<v Speaker 3>to the explorer. At one point, Cheery guard Rights quote,

1:07:13.280 --> 1:07:16.920
<v Speaker 3>sometimes a blizzard is a very welcome rest after weeks

1:07:16.920 --> 1:07:20.640
<v Speaker 3>of hard pulling, dragging yourself awake each morning, feeling as

1:07:20.640 --> 1:07:23.480
<v Speaker 3>though you had only just gone to sleep, with the

1:07:23.560 --> 1:07:27.520
<v Speaker 3>mental strain perhaps which working among crevasses and tails, it

1:07:27.600 --> 1:07:30.080
<v Speaker 3>is most pleasant to be put to bed for two

1:07:30.160 --> 1:07:34.680
<v Speaker 3>or three days. Even relatively shallow crevasses, which are sometimes

1:07:34.760 --> 1:07:36.560
<v Speaker 3>only a few feet deep, you know, there are much

1:07:36.600 --> 1:07:41.560
<v Speaker 3>shallower ones that are less visually impressive than what we're

1:07:41.560 --> 1:07:44.600
<v Speaker 3>imagining in this story. Even the shallow ones can be

1:07:44.720 --> 1:07:48.240
<v Speaker 3>dangerous and can cause fatal injury if you fall fall

1:07:48.240 --> 1:07:51.200
<v Speaker 3>into them unexpectedly. You know, falling five feet the wrong

1:07:51.280 --> 1:07:54.960
<v Speaker 3>way like that could be death. In Antarctica, a broken

1:07:55.040 --> 1:07:58.400
<v Speaker 3>bone from a survivable fall can quickly turn into a

1:07:58.440 --> 1:08:03.160
<v Speaker 3>death sentence. Down there, but many crevasses are much deeper

1:08:03.200 --> 1:08:05.520
<v Speaker 3>than that, might be one hundred feet or more, some

1:08:05.600 --> 1:08:09.600
<v Speaker 3>maybe hundreds of feet to the bottom. And he tells

1:08:10.640 --> 1:08:15.600
<v Speaker 3>Cherry Garrard does tells of crossing and navigating around crevasses

1:08:15.640 --> 1:08:18.160
<v Speaker 3>that he actually quotes a guy looking down into one

1:08:18.560 --> 1:08:21.240
<v Speaker 3>and says that some of them are quote black as hell,

1:08:21.640 --> 1:08:26.639
<v Speaker 3>just into darkness, vanishing into darkness below. And he talks

1:08:26.680 --> 1:08:30.320
<v Speaker 3>about stretches of ice that are made more or less impassable,

1:08:30.439 --> 1:08:34.280
<v Speaker 3>but because of how many crevasses there are. There's one

1:08:34.320 --> 1:08:36.559
<v Speaker 3>place he's talking about where I don't think he's actually

1:08:36.560 --> 1:08:39.000
<v Speaker 3>talking about passing it, but he's just talking about looking

1:08:39.040 --> 1:08:43.280
<v Speaker 3>at a chaos of crevasses, particularly I think in a

1:08:43.320 --> 1:08:45.760
<v Speaker 3>region where a glacier is sort of fanning out as

1:08:45.760 --> 1:08:49.320
<v Speaker 3>it reaches close to the ocean. And the real horror

1:08:49.520 --> 1:08:53.760
<v Speaker 3>is you often cannot see these deep gaps in the

1:08:53.800 --> 1:08:57.799
<v Speaker 3>ice as you approach them, for multiple reasons. First, because

1:08:57.800 --> 1:09:01.240
<v Speaker 3>of general difficulties with visibility on the ice even under

1:09:01.240 --> 1:09:04.439
<v Speaker 3>relatively good weather conditions, and in a blizzard, forget about it,

1:09:04.439 --> 1:09:07.920
<v Speaker 3>and a blizzard visibility is zero. But if you're trying

1:09:07.960 --> 1:09:11.040
<v Speaker 3>to move under ideal weather conditions, even then it's sometimes

1:09:11.040 --> 1:09:13.200
<v Speaker 3>just really hard to tell what you're looking at on

1:09:13.240 --> 1:09:15.080
<v Speaker 3>the ice out in front of you. There are weird

1:09:15.120 --> 1:09:20.360
<v Speaker 3>ways that that like light and shadows play against your eyes.

1:09:20.400 --> 1:09:24.400
<v Speaker 3>Sometimes people report this, and Cherry Garard does too. There

1:09:24.439 --> 1:09:26.840
<v Speaker 3>will be like what he calls these haystack formations of

1:09:26.880 --> 1:09:29.320
<v Speaker 3>ice that they somehow don't really see until they're coming

1:09:29.360 --> 1:09:33.240
<v Speaker 3>right upon them. That sometimes you don't see crevasses. So, yeah,

1:09:33.320 --> 1:09:37.240
<v Speaker 3>visibility is difficult. But even more dangerous than that, many

1:09:37.320 --> 1:09:41.800
<v Speaker 3>glacial crevasses can become covered by what are typically called

1:09:42.080 --> 1:09:45.639
<v Speaker 3>snow bridges, so that they are not even visible from

1:09:45.680 --> 1:09:49.000
<v Speaker 3>above until you put weight on the snow bridge and

1:09:49.080 --> 1:09:51.679
<v Speaker 3>it collapses, dumping you into the chasm below.

1:09:51.920 --> 1:09:55.559
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, just a naturally occurring trapdoor, you know, that could

1:09:55.640 --> 1:09:58.160
<v Speaker 2>just drop you into, you know again, a pit that

1:09:58.200 --> 1:10:01.479
<v Speaker 2>maybe five feet deep and break your ankle, or one

1:10:01.560 --> 1:10:03.439
<v Speaker 2>hundred feet deep and kill you outright.

1:10:04.240 --> 1:10:06.840
<v Speaker 3>So to get around of this, expeditions use a number

1:10:06.880 --> 1:10:09.360
<v Speaker 3>of techniques, some of which we actually see in this story.

1:10:09.960 --> 1:10:12.800
<v Speaker 3>So going a long ways back, you use the technique

1:10:12.840 --> 1:10:16.040
<v Speaker 3>of roping members of the expedition together, you know, so

1:10:16.080 --> 1:10:19.160
<v Speaker 3>they would tie their bodies or their sledges and animals

1:10:19.200 --> 1:10:22.080
<v Speaker 3>together with rope so that if one falls, the others

1:10:22.080 --> 1:10:23.880
<v Speaker 3>can stop the fall and pull them out.

1:10:24.640 --> 1:10:28.360
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. It's telling, isn't it that there are mountaineering techniques

1:10:28.400 --> 1:10:32.519
<v Speaker 2>that are used in order to deal with crevasses. You're

1:10:32.560 --> 1:10:37.080
<v Speaker 2>just you're moving, you're not ascending necessarily, you're just moving

1:10:37.120 --> 1:10:40.000
<v Speaker 2>across the landscape, and you need to be prepared like

1:10:40.040 --> 1:10:40.720
<v Speaker 2>a mountaineer.

1:10:41.000 --> 1:10:43.519
<v Speaker 3>Well, actually, and dealing with crevasses is part of mountaineering

1:10:43.560 --> 1:10:46.440
<v Speaker 3>as well. They're only they're not only a thing in Antarctica.

1:10:46.479 --> 1:10:48.360
<v Speaker 3>That's just a place where you're going to encounter a

1:10:48.400 --> 1:10:50.640
<v Speaker 3>lot of crevasses that you will also find them in

1:10:50.760 --> 1:10:56.920
<v Speaker 3>mountain glaciers. So yeah, there's there's the rope techniques. There's

1:10:57.000 --> 1:11:00.599
<v Speaker 3>probing with poles, so like stabbing poles into the snow

1:11:00.760 --> 1:11:03.240
<v Speaker 3>ahead of where you're moving to find soft spots where

1:11:03.280 --> 1:11:06.400
<v Speaker 3>the pole sinks through. That can be very effective but

1:11:06.439 --> 1:11:11.360
<v Speaker 3>obviously makes travel quite slow. There is one adaptation is

1:11:11.400 --> 1:11:15.960
<v Speaker 3>a sacrificial attitude toward lead dogs and other animals maybe ponies,

1:11:16.000 --> 1:11:19.799
<v Speaker 3>sometimes counting on the leading animals to fall through first,

1:11:20.000 --> 1:11:22.679
<v Speaker 3>allowing the rest of the team to stop before hitting

1:11:22.680 --> 1:11:23.440
<v Speaker 3>the gap.

1:11:23.800 --> 1:11:25.720
<v Speaker 2>Which is of course horrifying in its own right.

1:11:25.960 --> 1:11:30.760
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and then also eventually experience. People with lots of

1:11:30.800 --> 1:11:35.320
<v Speaker 3>experience traveling on glaciers learn visual cues to look for,

1:11:35.479 --> 1:11:39.760
<v Speaker 3>so that they can sometimes spot even covered up crevasses

1:11:40.280 --> 1:11:43.600
<v Speaker 3>due to characteristics of the surface ice like color or

1:11:43.720 --> 1:11:48.240
<v Speaker 3>drift shape. But even you know, very very solid, well

1:11:49.439 --> 1:11:53.040
<v Speaker 3>educated ice veterans won't spot it every time. There's nothing

1:11:53.120 --> 1:11:57.200
<v Speaker 3>fool proof here. Modern technology does have some tools that

1:11:57.280 --> 1:12:01.840
<v Speaker 3>these early Antarctic explorers did not have. You know, modern

1:12:01.920 --> 1:12:07.160
<v Speaker 3>Antarctic expeditions can use sophisticated techniques like ground penetrating radar

1:12:07.280 --> 1:12:11.680
<v Speaker 3>to image crevasses from above. But there is a maddening

1:12:11.720 --> 1:12:15.439
<v Speaker 3>aspect to this because you might think that, oh, well,

1:12:15.479 --> 1:12:19.639
<v Speaker 3>if you can make a map with ground penetrating radar

1:12:19.720 --> 1:12:22.000
<v Speaker 3>of a particular area, and then you can just know

1:12:22.080 --> 1:12:25.679
<v Speaker 3>in advance where all the crevasses will be. But that

1:12:25.760 --> 1:12:28.720
<v Speaker 3>kind of radar based map will not be useful for

1:12:28.880 --> 1:12:33.200
<v Speaker 3>very long, because a glacier is flowing and forever changing,

1:12:33.320 --> 1:12:37.960
<v Speaker 3>and its surface will change substantially over relatively quick timespans.

1:12:38.000 --> 1:12:40.200
<v Speaker 3>From what I was reading, it seems like not only

1:12:40.280 --> 1:12:42.240
<v Speaker 3>over the years, but maybe even over the course of

1:12:42.280 --> 1:12:45.400
<v Speaker 3>a few weeks or months, there can be substantial changes

1:12:45.920 --> 1:12:50.639
<v Speaker 3>in the in the crevass landscape. Existing cracks clothes, new

1:12:50.680 --> 1:12:54.519
<v Speaker 3>cracks open, All cracks move, some more quickly than others.

1:12:54.880 --> 1:13:00.200
<v Speaker 3>Oh wow, So Cravas's form because of physical stress on

1:13:00.360 --> 1:13:04.960
<v Speaker 3>the ice, usually caused by the flow of the glacier. Overall,

1:13:05.439 --> 1:13:08.679
<v Speaker 3>a glacier is a weird type of material to think

1:13:08.680 --> 1:13:14.000
<v Speaker 3>about because it has some liquid like characteristics. Glaciers do flow,

1:13:14.479 --> 1:13:17.439
<v Speaker 3>so it in a way makes sense to think of

1:13:17.479 --> 1:13:22.920
<v Speaker 3>them as extremely slow moving frozen rivers, and yet they

1:13:23.000 --> 1:13:27.719
<v Speaker 3>also have the brittle characteristics of ice. So while liquid

1:13:27.760 --> 1:13:31.959
<v Speaker 3>water easily flows around a bend and has no problems

1:13:32.000 --> 1:13:35.040
<v Speaker 3>speeding up or slowing down, you know, following the shape

1:13:35.040 --> 1:13:37.880
<v Speaker 3>of a channel and obstacles within it, or speeding up

1:13:37.920 --> 1:13:42.719
<v Speaker 3>going down a slope, ice flowing through a channel tends

1:13:42.760 --> 1:13:46.559
<v Speaker 3>to succumb to brittle fracture when it is deformed, and

1:13:46.640 --> 1:13:49.599
<v Speaker 3>this can happen for a number of reasons. Going around

1:13:49.640 --> 1:13:53.960
<v Speaker 3>bends or obstacles in the underlying terrain changes in the

1:13:54.000 --> 1:13:58.479
<v Speaker 3>direction or shape or speed of the glacier's flow, you know,

1:13:58.560 --> 1:14:01.320
<v Speaker 3>so like a change in the slope of the ground

1:14:01.360 --> 1:14:05.280
<v Speaker 3>beneath the glacier will cause it to flow faster, and

1:14:05.400 --> 1:14:08.200
<v Speaker 3>that causes the glacier to stretch, and then it forms

1:14:08.240 --> 1:14:11.120
<v Speaker 3>cracks in the upper part of the ice. You can

1:14:11.160 --> 1:14:15.080
<v Speaker 3>also see these chaotic distributions of crevasses emerging in places

1:14:15.120 --> 1:14:18.439
<v Speaker 3>where the glacier is stretched out horizontally. This is a

1:14:18.520 --> 1:14:21.320
<v Speaker 3>rough analogy. I don't think it's perfect, but this kind

1:14:21.320 --> 1:14:25.120
<v Speaker 3>of makes sense. Anything that might cause turbulence in the

1:14:25.160 --> 1:14:28.599
<v Speaker 3>flow of liquid water through a space would have the

1:14:28.600 --> 1:14:32.080
<v Speaker 3>potential to cause crevasses to form in a glacier flowing

1:14:32.080 --> 1:14:34.920
<v Speaker 3>through that space. And then beyond that you've got the

1:14:35.000 --> 1:14:39.240
<v Speaker 3>question of how do those devious snow bridges form. Usually

1:14:39.280 --> 1:14:42.320
<v Speaker 3>this seems to happen from snow drift. So snow is

1:14:42.360 --> 1:14:47.040
<v Speaker 3>being driven horizontally by wind, and this snow sticks to

1:14:47.280 --> 1:14:50.200
<v Speaker 3>the ice on the sides of the crack in the glacier,

1:14:50.680 --> 1:14:53.840
<v Speaker 3>and the snow adheres and piles up and up until

1:14:53.920 --> 1:14:56.720
<v Speaker 3>the top of the crack is covered completely. But sometimes,

1:14:56.760 --> 1:14:59.320
<v Speaker 3>you know, and so sometimes it can be snow filling

1:14:59.360 --> 1:15:01.680
<v Speaker 3>in the crack, because so maybe it does go all

1:15:01.720 --> 1:15:04.280
<v Speaker 3>the way down to the bottom, but it's just like

1:15:04.439 --> 1:15:07.880
<v Speaker 3>loosely packed snow, or maybe it actually just forms a

1:15:07.920 --> 1:15:10.719
<v Speaker 3>bridge over the top layer of the crack, and it's

1:15:10.800 --> 1:15:12.720
<v Speaker 3>just an open drop below that.

1:15:13.760 --> 1:15:18.320
<v Speaker 2>Oh, you included a photograph here in our outline. I

1:15:18.400 --> 1:15:22.400
<v Speaker 2>encourage listeners to look for such images as well, because, man,

1:15:22.479 --> 1:15:24.479
<v Speaker 2>you look in the background of this this image, Like

1:15:24.479 --> 1:15:27.799
<v Speaker 2>in the foreground we see where the crack has been revealed,

1:15:27.800 --> 1:15:33.000
<v Speaker 2>and there's some individuals traversing it, leaping over it. But

1:15:33.120 --> 1:15:36.360
<v Speaker 2>in the background, like the same crack continues but is

1:15:36.400 --> 1:15:38.240
<v Speaker 2>covered in snow, and at least in my eye, it

1:15:38.360 --> 1:15:39.480
<v Speaker 2>just looks like a snowfield.

1:15:39.680 --> 1:15:42.439
<v Speaker 3>Yeah. Yeah, you, unless you really know what to look for,

1:15:42.600 --> 1:15:44.519
<v Speaker 3>you wouldn't see it at all. And even some people

1:15:44.520 --> 1:15:47.360
<v Speaker 3>who know what to look for might not catch it. Yeah,

1:15:47.400 --> 1:15:50.759
<v Speaker 3>there's another really cool photo I came across regarding snow bridges,

1:15:50.840 --> 1:15:53.320
<v Speaker 3>but from the other angle. So this was on a

1:15:53.320 --> 1:15:57.639
<v Speaker 3>website called Antarctic glaciers dot org. This was a blog

1:15:57.680 --> 1:16:02.040
<v Speaker 3>post by a glaciologist named Bethan Davies of Newcastle University

1:16:02.080 --> 1:16:06.280
<v Speaker 3>in the UK, and the post is describing a little

1:16:06.560 --> 1:16:10.000
<v Speaker 3>expedition where a group of researchers explored the inside of

1:16:10.000 --> 1:16:13.960
<v Speaker 3>a fairly deep crevas on the glacier behind rothero research

1:16:14.040 --> 1:16:19.120
<v Speaker 3>station on the Antarctic Peninsula. And so the small group

1:16:19.160 --> 1:16:21.800
<v Speaker 3>of people they go down below the crevas. They like

1:16:21.840 --> 1:16:24.160
<v Speaker 3>have to descend through a hole, and then they're going

1:16:24.200 --> 1:16:27.200
<v Speaker 3>into this covered part of the crevas, so it feels

1:16:27.280 --> 1:16:30.400
<v Speaker 3>like an ice cave. It has all these icicles and everywhere,

1:16:30.439 --> 1:16:33.040
<v Speaker 3>and it's some parts are more white and other parts

1:16:33.080 --> 1:16:36.479
<v Speaker 3>have more blue ice. So it's beautiful looking down at

1:16:36.520 --> 1:16:40.360
<v Speaker 3>the cave part. But then there is one photo you

1:16:40.360 --> 1:16:43.360
<v Speaker 3>can see if you scroll down rob where the camera

1:16:43.400 --> 1:16:46.679
<v Speaker 3>is positioned looking up toward the surface in the crevas,

1:16:47.160 --> 1:16:49.640
<v Speaker 3>where the gap is covered by a snowbridge, so no

1:16:49.760 --> 1:16:53.160
<v Speaker 3>sky is visible, but you can see deep blue light

1:16:53.439 --> 1:16:56.600
<v Speaker 3>bleeding through the thinnest parts of the snow cover in

1:16:56.640 --> 1:16:59.920
<v Speaker 3>the gap, and it looks like Cherenkov radiation around it

1:17:00.120 --> 1:17:01.040
<v Speaker 3>nuclear reactor.

1:17:01.280 --> 1:17:02.960
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, it's absolutely haunting.

1:17:03.560 --> 1:17:08.200
<v Speaker 3>So I formally submit glacier crevasses as one of the

1:17:08.640 --> 1:17:12.960
<v Speaker 3>true real life horror stories of mother nature of planet Earth.

1:17:13.840 --> 1:17:17.880
<v Speaker 3>Beautiful in some ways, very very interesting to think about

1:17:18.200 --> 1:17:21.639
<v Speaker 3>how they form and the power implied and the way

1:17:21.680 --> 1:17:25.639
<v Speaker 3>glaciers flow everything that, you know, all of the strange

1:17:25.680 --> 1:17:28.160
<v Speaker 3>processes that we don't really think about or are hard

1:17:28.160 --> 1:17:31.880
<v Speaker 3>for us to picture that lead to their creation. But

1:17:31.920 --> 1:17:34.840
<v Speaker 3>then also just when you're actually faced with one, how

1:17:35.080 --> 1:17:37.840
<v Speaker 3>frightening it could be the idea of just plunging one

1:17:37.880 --> 1:17:41.360
<v Speaker 3>hundred feet down into a narrow gap in the ice.

1:17:41.960 --> 1:17:46.200
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Yeah, they're absolutely horrifying as just in our imagination.

1:17:46.640 --> 1:17:49.360
<v Speaker 2>And when you dig into the history, we've the humans,

1:17:49.479 --> 1:17:52.960
<v Speaker 2>human explorers have had horrifying encounters with them. We're not

1:17:53.000 --> 1:17:56.160
<v Speaker 2>going to go through all of them. But you know,

1:17:56.160 --> 1:17:57.360
<v Speaker 2>I want to come back to what we were talking

1:17:57.360 --> 1:17:59.640
<v Speaker 2>about earlier, like does it make sense to rescue a

1:17:59.720 --> 1:18:04.040
<v Speaker 2>dog from a crevass? Like is this a sensible move

1:18:04.080 --> 1:18:06.360
<v Speaker 2>on the part of our protagonist or is this the

1:18:06.360 --> 1:18:11.040
<v Speaker 2>protagonist being dumb or making that extra risky horror story decision.

1:18:11.720 --> 1:18:16.240
<v Speaker 2>And again, I'm very touched on how important these dogs

1:18:16.280 --> 1:18:19.280
<v Speaker 2>were to the people on these expeditions, both in terms

1:18:19.280 --> 1:18:21.679
<v Speaker 2>of the practical necessity of having them and then also

1:18:21.720 --> 1:18:26.400
<v Speaker 2>the companionship. But yeah, there's some historic precedents for this

1:18:26.439 --> 1:18:29.200
<v Speaker 2>as well. For example, during the British Terra Nova expedition

1:18:29.280 --> 1:18:32.920
<v Speaker 2>that we mentioned already to Antarctica from nineteen ten through

1:18:33.000 --> 1:18:37.559
<v Speaker 2>nineteen thirteen. There are multiple accounts of this, but one

1:18:37.640 --> 1:18:40.519
<v Speaker 2>quick account that I Ran across was a twenty twenty

1:18:40.560 --> 1:18:43.879
<v Speaker 2>three article from the US Naval Institute Heroism and Betrayal

1:18:43.920 --> 1:18:49.400
<v Speaker 2>in Antarctica by Karen May and she points into this

1:18:49.920 --> 1:18:54.400
<v Speaker 2>known clash between Cecil Mears and the expedition leader, Robert

1:18:54.479 --> 1:18:59.719
<v Speaker 2>Falcon Scott. They clashed on numerous occasions, including when Mears

1:19:00.040 --> 1:19:03.320
<v Speaker 2>refused Scott's order to rescue some fallen sled dogs from

1:19:03.320 --> 1:19:07.040
<v Speaker 2>a crevass. Scott himself ended up entering the crevass himself

1:19:07.120 --> 1:19:08.200
<v Speaker 2>to rescue the dogs.

1:19:08.400 --> 1:19:08.759
<v Speaker 3>Wow.

1:19:09.200 --> 1:19:10.840
<v Speaker 2>And I can only imagine this and some of these

1:19:10.840 --> 1:19:13.439
<v Speaker 2>other tales were part of the inspiration and part of

1:19:13.479 --> 1:19:16.800
<v Speaker 2>the research for the horror story we're talking about. Yeah,

1:19:17.160 --> 1:19:20.240
<v Speaker 2>surely there are also accounts of not only dogs, but

1:19:20.320 --> 1:19:24.080
<v Speaker 2>whole sledges and explorers being swallowed up by these as well.

1:19:24.680 --> 1:19:28.600
<v Speaker 2>One of these occurred during the Australasian Antarctic Expedition of

1:19:28.680 --> 1:19:33.120
<v Speaker 2>nineteen eleven through nineteen fourteen. This was led by Douglas Mawson,

1:19:33.479 --> 1:19:36.559
<v Speaker 2>who wrote about his experiences later in the book Home

1:19:36.640 --> 1:19:39.080
<v Speaker 2>of the Blizzard I believe was published with some other

1:19:39.120 --> 1:19:43.040
<v Speaker 2>titles later on as well. But here's an excerpt about

1:19:43.080 --> 1:19:46.160
<v Speaker 2>a tragic event at a crevass which swallowed up expedition

1:19:46.240 --> 1:19:51.519
<v Speaker 2>member Belgrave Edward Sutton menis his sledge and dogs in

1:19:51.640 --> 1:19:55.719
<v Speaker 2>nineteen twelve, frantically waving to Mertz to bring up my sledge,

1:19:55.800 --> 1:19:58.880
<v Speaker 2>upon which there was some alpine rope. I leaned over

1:19:58.960 --> 1:20:02.960
<v Speaker 2>and shouted into the dark depths below. No sound came back,

1:20:03.000 --> 1:20:05.439
<v Speaker 2>but the moaning of a dog caught on a shelf

1:20:05.560 --> 1:20:08.439
<v Speaker 2>just visible one hundred and fifty feet below. The poor

1:20:08.479 --> 1:20:10.400
<v Speaker 2>creature appeared to have broken its back, for it was

1:20:10.439 --> 1:20:12.920
<v Speaker 2>attempting to set up with the front part of its body,

1:20:12.960 --> 1:20:16.759
<v Speaker 2>while the hinder portion lay limp. Another dog lay motionless

1:20:16.800 --> 1:20:19.719
<v Speaker 2>by its side, close by what appeared in the gloom

1:20:19.840 --> 1:20:22.520
<v Speaker 2>to be the remains of the tent and a canvas

1:20:22.560 --> 1:20:26.519
<v Speaker 2>tank containing food for three men for a fortnight. We

1:20:26.600 --> 1:20:29.200
<v Speaker 2>broke back the edge of the and these another term,

1:20:29.240 --> 1:20:31.719
<v Speaker 2>but they were referring to the crevas here, I believe,

1:20:32.080 --> 1:20:35.839
<v Speaker 2>and took turns, leaning over, secured by a rope, calling

1:20:35.880 --> 1:20:38.479
<v Speaker 2>into the darkness in the hope that our companion might

1:20:38.560 --> 1:20:42.240
<v Speaker 2>be still alive. For three hours we called unceasingly, but

1:20:42.360 --> 1:20:45.479
<v Speaker 2>no answering sound came back. The dog had ceased to

1:20:45.479 --> 1:20:48.320
<v Speaker 2>moan and lay without a movement. A chill draft was

1:20:48.360 --> 1:20:51.000
<v Speaker 2>blowing out of the abyss. We felt that there was

1:20:51.080 --> 1:20:54.839
<v Speaker 2>little hope. Why had the first sledge escaped the crevasse.

1:20:55.439 --> 1:20:58.040
<v Speaker 2>It seemed that I had been fortunate because my sledge

1:20:58.040 --> 1:21:01.000
<v Speaker 2>had crossed diagonally, with a greater chance of breaking the

1:21:01.040 --> 1:21:04.439
<v Speaker 2>snow lid. The sledges were within thirty pounds of the

1:21:04.479 --> 1:21:08.559
<v Speaker 2>same weight. The explanation appeared to be that Ninnis had

1:21:08.600 --> 1:21:11.599
<v Speaker 2>walked by the side of his sledge, whereas eye had

1:21:11.600 --> 1:21:14.920
<v Speaker 2>crossed its sitting on the sledge. The whole weight of

1:21:14.960 --> 1:21:18.599
<v Speaker 2>a man's body bearing on his foot is a formidable load,

1:21:18.920 --> 1:21:21.160
<v Speaker 2>and no doubt was sufficient to smash the arch of

1:21:21.200 --> 1:21:24.280
<v Speaker 2>the roof. By means of a fishing line, we ascertained

1:21:24.280 --> 1:21:26.880
<v Speaker 2>that it was one hundred and fifty feet sheer to

1:21:26.960 --> 1:21:30.240
<v Speaker 2>the ledge, on which the remains were seen On either side,

1:21:30.240 --> 1:21:33.840
<v Speaker 2>the crevass descended into blackness. It seemed so very far

1:21:34.000 --> 1:21:36.960
<v Speaker 2>down there, and the dogs looked so small that we

1:21:37.000 --> 1:21:40.000
<v Speaker 2>got out the field glasses and could make out nothing more.

1:21:40.040 --> 1:21:43.360
<v Speaker 2>By their aid. All our available rope was tied together,

1:21:43.400 --> 1:21:46.160
<v Speaker 2>but the total length was insufficient to reach the ledge,

1:21:46.520 --> 1:21:49.080
<v Speaker 2>and any idea of going below to investigate and to

1:21:49.120 --> 1:21:51.960
<v Speaker 2>secure some of the food had to be abandoned.

1:21:52.479 --> 1:21:53.439
<v Speaker 3>That is chilling.

1:21:53.640 --> 1:21:57.559
<v Speaker 2>That is absolutely chilling, like the idea that the scale

1:21:58.120 --> 1:22:02.840
<v Speaker 2>of the crevass was beyond and they're not even drawing

1:22:02.840 --> 1:22:05.400
<v Speaker 2>their imagination into this, but just beyond the abilities of

1:22:05.400 --> 1:22:06.639
<v Speaker 2>their equipment to even reach.

1:22:18.080 --> 1:22:22.719
<v Speaker 3>You want another horror story from that book by Cherry Garrard, Sure, okay,

1:22:23.000 --> 1:22:25.400
<v Speaker 3>And this actually actually bring us back to a couple

1:22:25.439 --> 1:22:27.719
<v Speaker 3>of characters. You were just talking about Scott and Merrs

1:22:28.400 --> 1:22:33.880
<v Speaker 3>on that expedition. So Cherry Garrard is writing about a

1:22:33.880 --> 1:22:37.320
<v Speaker 3>section where they're crossing some ice and says, quote, we

1:22:37.479 --> 1:22:40.360
<v Speaker 3>ran level for another two miles, mirrors and Scott on

1:22:40.400 --> 1:22:44.519
<v Speaker 3>our left. We were evidently crossing many crevasses. Quite suddenly

1:22:44.560 --> 1:22:48.559
<v Speaker 3>we saw the dogs of their team disappearing, following one another,

1:22:48.840 --> 1:22:51.960
<v Speaker 3>just like dogs going down a hole after some animal.

1:22:52.840 --> 1:22:56.040
<v Speaker 3>In a moment, wrote Scott, the whole team we're sinking.

1:22:56.439 --> 1:22:58.880
<v Speaker 3>Two by two. We lost sight of them, each pair

1:22:59.000 --> 1:23:03.000
<v Speaker 3>struggling for foothol Osman the leader exerted all his strength

1:23:03.040 --> 1:23:06.240
<v Speaker 3>and kept foothold. It was wonderful to see him. The

1:23:06.280 --> 1:23:09.960
<v Speaker 3>sledge stopped and we leapt aside the situation was clear.

1:23:10.000 --> 1:23:13.280
<v Speaker 3>In another moment, we had actually been traveling along the

1:23:13.280 --> 1:23:16.880
<v Speaker 3>bridge or snow covering of a crevass. The sledge had

1:23:16.960 --> 1:23:20.320
<v Speaker 3>stopped on it, whilst the dogs hung in their harness

1:23:20.400 --> 1:23:24.240
<v Speaker 3>in the abyss, suspended between the sledge and the leading dog.

1:23:24.840 --> 1:23:27.720
<v Speaker 3>Why the sledge and ourselves didn't follow the dogs we

1:23:27.760 --> 1:23:31.799
<v Speaker 3>shall never know. Oh wow, bridge of dogs.

1:23:32.560 --> 1:23:34.920
<v Speaker 2>So yeah, and both of all these accounts we've been

1:23:35.200 --> 1:23:38.639
<v Speaker 2>looking at here concerning the crevass like they it sounds

1:23:38.640 --> 1:23:41.240
<v Speaker 2>to me like, yeah, you could basically just completely pass

1:23:41.280 --> 1:23:44.439
<v Speaker 2>over one of these snow bridges and you would never

1:23:44.600 --> 1:23:47.720
<v Speaker 2>know that, like one hundred and fifty foot drop was

1:23:47.800 --> 1:23:50.439
<v Speaker 2>just waiting there for you, and you just happened to

1:23:50.880 --> 1:23:53.320
<v Speaker 2>not trigger it, and then the next one could get you.

1:23:53.560 --> 1:23:56.559
<v Speaker 3>Yeah. They don't always collapse. So yeah, very likely you

1:23:56.680 --> 1:24:01.320
<v Speaker 3>have been over crevasses and crossed a snowbridge without realizing it. Wow,

1:24:01.680 --> 1:24:03.960
<v Speaker 3>I mean not you the person listening, or you wrong,

1:24:04.600 --> 1:24:07.120
<v Speaker 3>the Antarctic explorer, the glacial mountaineer.

1:24:07.760 --> 1:24:10.320
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Though obviously if we have listeners out there who

1:24:10.360 --> 1:24:14.040
<v Speaker 2>have any experience with crevasses of one form or another,

1:24:14.120 --> 1:24:16.200
<v Speaker 2>definitely right in and tell us all about it.

1:24:16.600 --> 1:24:21.360
<v Speaker 3>Absolutely, Yeah, so scariest non speculative thing I've thought about

1:24:21.360 --> 1:24:21.800
<v Speaker 3>in a while.

1:24:24.320 --> 1:24:26.559
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, this is a great story. Again. I love its

1:24:26.960 --> 1:24:31.600
<v Speaker 2>use of history and an extreme real world environment, but

1:24:31.760 --> 1:24:36.360
<v Speaker 2>also involving this wonderful speculative elopment, you know, bringing in

1:24:36.560 --> 1:24:42.840
<v Speaker 2>that mythos flavor, hinting at this other world Cyclopean architecture

1:24:42.920 --> 1:24:45.800
<v Speaker 2>and the deep and so forth. Just a just a

1:24:45.840 --> 1:24:47.160
<v Speaker 2>wonderful little short story.

1:24:47.880 --> 1:24:49.920
<v Speaker 3>To end on a positive note, I would say, I

1:24:49.960 --> 1:24:53.439
<v Speaker 3>am really inspired by these stories of crevass rescues as well.

1:24:54.160 --> 1:24:56.920
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, I mean, they're not all doom and gloom like.

1:24:56.920 --> 1:25:00.840
<v Speaker 2>There are accounts certainly of individuals, you know, successfully being

1:25:02.400 --> 1:25:05.760
<v Speaker 2>rescued from crevasses, dogs being rescued from crevasses. And I

1:25:05.800 --> 1:25:07.439
<v Speaker 2>don't know if I mentioned it already, but dogs are

1:25:07.479 --> 1:25:12.080
<v Speaker 2>also very useful in crevass rescue. All right, well, we're

1:25:12.120 --> 1:25:14.479
<v Speaker 2>going to go ahead and close the book here on

1:25:14.720 --> 1:25:17.840
<v Speaker 2>Gramore of Horror Volume two. We hope that everyone out

1:25:17.880 --> 1:25:21.800
<v Speaker 2>there enjoyed our discussion of these two short stories, and

1:25:22.080 --> 1:25:24.040
<v Speaker 2>certainly we would love to hear from everyone out there

1:25:24.040 --> 1:25:27.479
<v Speaker 2>if you have thoughts on the crevass or on I

1:25:27.520 --> 1:25:30.759
<v Speaker 2>have no mouth, and I must scream you have thoughts

1:25:30.800 --> 1:25:33.599
<v Speaker 2>on the authors involved in these tales or other works

1:25:33.600 --> 1:25:36.920
<v Speaker 2>that they wrote, write in We'd love to hear from you,

1:25:37.240 --> 1:25:38.960
<v Speaker 2>and we should also go ahead and point out, Hey,

1:25:39.120 --> 1:25:41.880
<v Speaker 2>the next Halloween is just around the corner, so if

1:25:41.920 --> 1:25:44.640
<v Speaker 2>you have suggestions for next year, if you're like you

1:25:44.720 --> 1:25:47.280
<v Speaker 2>two should totally read this story in this story by

1:25:47.320 --> 1:25:49.400
<v Speaker 2>this author and this author, go ahead and write in

1:25:49.439 --> 1:25:53.800
<v Speaker 2>we would love suggestions. You know, any headstart we can

1:25:53.800 --> 1:25:56.280
<v Speaker 2>get on our selection process is always a good thing.

1:25:57.840 --> 1:25:59.560
<v Speaker 2>Just a reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is

1:25:59.600 --> 1:26:02.400
<v Speaker 2>primary a science and culture podcast with core episodes on

1:26:02.439 --> 1:26:05.080
<v Speaker 2>Tuesdays and Thursday, short form episodes on Wednesdays, and then

1:26:05.120 --> 1:26:07.800
<v Speaker 2>on Fridays. We set aside most serious concerns to just

1:26:07.840 --> 1:26:10.640
<v Speaker 2>talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.

1:26:11.080 --> 1:26:14.719
<v Speaker 3>Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

1:26:15.080 --> 1:26:16.680
<v Speaker 3>If you would like to get in touch with us

1:26:16.720 --> 1:26:19.240
<v Speaker 3>with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

1:26:19.320 --> 1:26:21.400
<v Speaker 3>a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

1:26:21.560 --> 1:26:24.200
<v Speaker 3>you can email us at contact at stuff to blow

1:26:24.200 --> 1:26:32.920
<v Speaker 3>your Mind dot com.

1:26:33.040 --> 1:26:35.960
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