Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Grading. Hello, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 1: My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
Speaker 1: me Ben. We are joined as always with our super
Speaker 1: producer Alexi's code ename Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you
Speaker 1: are you. You are here, and that makes this the
Speaker 1: stuff they don't want you to know. It is the
Speaker 1: top of what people these days are calling the week,
Speaker 1: which means that it is Monday. If you are hearing
Speaker 1: this the day it comes out, folks. As always, we
Speaker 1: have original episodes coming to you twice a week, and
Speaker 1: we want to take the time to uh you don't
Speaker 1: get away from the episodes a little bit, give you
Speaker 1: what we call strange news and listener mail segments once
Speaker 1: each week to tell you what's on our minds, on
Speaker 1: the world's minds, and as always, to tell you some
Speaker 1: of the uh stuff that certain establishments may not want
Speaker 1: you to know about the news. Uh. The Nation of
Speaker 1: Japan is urging younger generations to get this drink more alcohol.
Speaker 1: Texas has followed uh in all sorts of directions with UH,
Speaker 1: with the letter of the law versus the spirit of
Speaker 1: their religious intent. But we know that people are also
Speaker 1: worried about water, which we predicted a number of years ago.
Speaker 1: But before we get to any of that, we have
Speaker 1: some housekeeping announcements here in the world of conspiracy realism.
Speaker 1: Many of our fellow listeners have written to us and said, hey,
Speaker 1: I ordered the book. Thank you for doing so. By
Speaker 1: the way, UH, but I am someone who likes to
Speaker 1: encounter their books or experience them in an audio format, Matt. No,
Speaker 1: people are asking whether we have an audio book, so
Speaker 1: on behalf of everyone tuning in. Are the rumors true?
Speaker 1: Do we have an audiobook? Can we Can we talk
Speaker 1: about it? I think we can talk about it. It
Speaker 1: doesn't exist in the world quite yet, but it will
Speaker 1: very very soon. It is the audio version of the
Speaker 1: stuff they don't want you to know book that will
Speaker 1: be hitting shelves in a physical form on October eleven.
Speaker 1: Preorder your copy now. Link available in our link tree
Speaker 1: on Instagram. Um. But yeah, we each of the three
Speaker 1: of us took our turns kind of round robbin ing
Speaker 1: the chapters and you know, doing the audiobook version, and
Speaker 1: I personally can say I had a blast doing it.
Speaker 1: It's definitely different than just riffing on the podcast, but
Speaker 1: I think it's gonna be a really fun listen. That's right.
Speaker 1: And if you want to celebrate the book coming out
Speaker 1: by hanging out with us, We're going on a little
Speaker 1: bit of a tour. We're gonna be in Atlanta on
Speaker 1: October eleventh, in Washington, d C. On the thirte October,
Speaker 1: and on the fourteenth in Plainville, Massachusetts. Check out the website.
Speaker 1: Stuff you should read books dot com again, stuff you
Speaker 1: should read books dot com to check out those tour
Speaker 1: dates and register to hang out with us today. And
Speaker 1: for everyone who's written in across the world, say hey,
Speaker 1: can you get over to London? Can you get over
Speaker 1: to Denver? Can you get over to Kinshasha? Uh? Can
Speaker 1: you get over to Perth? We would love to and
Speaker 1: to do so. The best way to be the change
Speaker 1: you wish to see in the world is to right
Speaker 1: to us at Conspiracy at I Heart radio dot com.
Speaker 1: I have no compunction about forwarding those messages and saying, hey,
Speaker 1: put us on the road because we love hanging out
Speaker 1: together in person. We are actual friends. And when we
Speaker 1: say we're actual friends, we're counting you in that crew. Uh.
Speaker 1: So we would we would love to be part of
Speaker 1: your day to day experience and we are grateful that
Speaker 1: you are a part of ours also like by the book,
Speaker 1: and then our our overlords will be like, Yo, book
Speaker 1: sales are doing well, let's send you to Perth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was tasting. That's the best way to get us there.
Speaker 1: Pre order a ton of books in your city. Now,
Speaker 1: tell your friends, tell your drug dealer, tell your parole officer. Uh,
Speaker 1: tell your telling that handler at the at the company.
Speaker 1: Because I don't know if you guys heard this. Uh,
Speaker 1: we are on this show. A lot of our fellow
Speaker 1: listeners are tuning in and one of the front ads
Speaker 1: they're getting, which I'll talk about later in a few weeks,
Speaker 1: when the front ads they're getting is a c I
Speaker 1: A recruitment ad, which is so interesting because back in
Speaker 1: my day, they weren't doing ads on podcasts. But story
Speaker 1: for another time. We would also that happened on our
Speaker 1: show in twenty fifteen or sixteen as well. What have
Speaker 1: you did it? At least a few of you are
Speaker 1: company folks. Now, congratulations, stay safe, don't believe your bosses. So, uh,
Speaker 1: we also have been on the road, as you've heard,
Speaker 1: and uh, a couple of us traveled out to Texas. Texas,
Speaker 1: the lone star state is always going to be a
Speaker 1: chock full of stuff they don't want you to know. Recently,
Speaker 1: know you encountered something not just in one state, but
Speaker 1: in a couple that I think I would like to say,
Speaker 1: not to speak for all of us, but I would
Speaker 1: like to go on air saying it gave me a
Speaker 1: chuckle because we have an upcoming secret episode about a
Speaker 1: related topic. What is that secret episode, you may be asking, Well,
Speaker 1: if you order the book last time, I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna shill forward on this on this strange news segment.
Speaker 1: If you order the book, you'll be able to hear
Speaker 1: that secret episode. If not, they're just gonna have to
Speaker 1: read some tea leaves about the story we are about
Speaker 1: to share. Yeah, I mean, look, I don't want to
Speaker 1: use the term book band right up front, because that's
Speaker 1: like super loaded. But there are some laws swirling around
Speaker 1: um certain states and in our fair union, uh, one
Speaker 1: of which is Texas, that are seeking to make it
Speaker 1: a little easier for the powers that be to remove
Speaker 1: certain books from the libraries you know of of young people. God,
Speaker 1: it's sounding like a grandpapa young people. Um, but it's true,
Speaker 1: Like we've always all of us, you know, have grown up,
Speaker 1: um reading books that were assigned to us and certain
Speaker 1: ones that others maybe we're a little controversial, things like
Speaker 1: Lord of the Flies for example. Um, certain books like uh,
Speaker 1: you know exactly, books that you know are a little
Speaker 1: edgy potentially or have some other lore kind of associated
Speaker 1: with them. Catching the Right for example, is a book
Speaker 1: that often is associated with like school shooters, even though
Speaker 1: the South Park episode the sort of like lampoons, that
Speaker 1: whole thing points out that nothing really that remarkable happens
Speaker 1: in the book. He doesn't school shoot he doesn't really
Speaker 1: hurt anybody. He just sort of got a bad attitude. Um.
Speaker 1: But it is a book that, you know, in the
Speaker 1: right hands, can kind of like you know, give way
Speaker 1: to a certain mindset of being, you know, other of
Speaker 1: being like the person that everyone else is out to get. Um.
Speaker 1: So it's easy if you're looking for blood and guts
Speaker 1: and gore, get a book like that. It's sort of laughable.
Speaker 1: But there are things in books that that can be
Speaker 1: dangerous in the wrong hands or the right hands, I guess,
Speaker 1: but that's the point of literature. We're able to, you know,
Speaker 1: make our own decisions. Um. But certain people in in
Speaker 1: power school boards and the like and the governing bodies
Speaker 1: you know that governed school boards think that certain books
Speaker 1: maybe should not be in the hands of young people
Speaker 1: in places like Texas and Florida that tends to have
Speaker 1: a lean towards puritanical kind of religious ideology, whereas like
Speaker 1: the idea of being indoctrinated you know, by the left
Speaker 1: or or something like that. Um. And this new kind
Speaker 1: of you know, smattering of laws that have been making
Speaker 1: the rounds really seeks to empower school boards to uh,
Speaker 1: you know, have a heavier hand in pulling books from libraries.
Speaker 1: And in Texas in particular, a school called Keller I.
Speaker 1: S d Um was a really interesting case study in
Speaker 1: one of these laws. Essentially they've had this for a while, UM,
Speaker 1: where you know, they're there individuals that have like these
Speaker 1: kind of committees that examined books that are you know,
Speaker 1: on the shelves in school libraries and say, okay, we
Speaker 1: need to like take a closer look at these. But
Speaker 1: apparently this had already happened the previous year. A lot
Speaker 1: of these books had already kind of made the cut,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden with this new law, uh,
Speaker 1: they were re examined. And the irony here is that
Speaker 1: one of these books was the Bible. The the Bible
Speaker 1: all versions. In fact, an email that's circulated from the district,
Speaker 1: you know, the school board there, Keller I s D
Speaker 1: in the district they're part of. UM had a kind
Speaker 1: of like a spreadsheet with a lot of these books
Speaker 1: that needed to have another look given to them. And
Speaker 1: it literally says the Bible in parentheses, all versions. And uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like, is this an oversight? Like this
Speaker 1: is clearly the reporting on this. This is from about
Speaker 1: two weeks ago, but I think this is like a
Speaker 1: larger conversation. The Bible was not banned in Texas schools.
Speaker 1: That that is a very alarmist view, but the fact
Speaker 1: that like whatever kind of broad stroke, kind of blunt
Speaker 1: instrument approach to censoring books or towards taking a very
Speaker 1: keen eye towards material that is inappropriate quote unquote for students,
Speaker 1: somehow this one got caught up in the net UM.
Speaker 1: So this email that went out said attached or a
Speaker 1: list of books challenged that's the word they use, or
Speaker 1: the term challenged this year. By the end of today,
Speaker 1: I need all the books pulled from the library and classrooms.
Speaker 1: More information will be sent regarding actions uh for these
Speaker 1: books and UH. Included in that list was the Bible
Speaker 1: all versions and and Frank's Diary, not the book though,
Speaker 1: a graphic novel adaptation, which is interesting because it makes
Speaker 1: me think this is a very imprecise kind of methodology
Speaker 1: that goes into this because there were there was controversy
Speaker 1: around and Frank's Diary in the past, not because of
Speaker 1: what it said about, you know, the Nazis and because
Speaker 1: of violence or whatever, specifically because in a certain version
Speaker 1: of the book and Frank talks about getting her period,
Speaker 1: and uh, there were certain people that thought that was
Speaker 1: inappropriate for kids of a certain age to to hear about,
Speaker 1: you know, a young woman getting her period. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: does that does that not feel a bit disingenuous at most?
Speaker 1: I mean that, you know, full disclosure. I recently visited
Speaker 1: the m. Frank uh house and this, Uh, it just
Speaker 1: feels as though someone were trying to find a reason
Speaker 1: to have a problem like Okay, let's walk through the
Speaker 1: structural reasoning the idea there. Will be very quick about this. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the the idea there is, Hey, I have no problem
Speaker 1: with children learning firsthand about the dangers of genocide, but
Speaker 1: I don't want, for some reason, I don't want to say,
Speaker 1: the authorities, uh for people to know about the idea
Speaker 1: of menstruation, despite the fact that roughly half of the
Speaker 1: reading audience is going to have firsthand knowledge about that experience,
Speaker 1: if not while they're reading very soon. What do you
Speaker 1: do as authority? You treat that as Santa Claus. It
Speaker 1: just feels very insincere, But that that is, it was
Speaker 1: a long time ago that that was the issue at hand.
Speaker 1: The same with like that book Mouse, graphic novel Mouse,
Speaker 1: which is about you know, Nazism from the perspective of
Speaker 1: these like kind of anthropomorphized uh mice characters, which is
Speaker 1: a you know, very powerful piece of graphic literature. Um.
Speaker 1: But perhaps there was some bad language, or there was
Speaker 1: something in it that was visually disturbing or whatever. But
Speaker 1: how the Bible made this list is simultaneously bonkers to
Speaker 1: me and also makes a lot of sense because what
Speaker 1: book yeah, yeah, yeah, the swastika that's on there. Understand. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well there's a beef story about Mels. But moving on it.
Speaker 1: As you're saying the let's get back to the Bible.
Speaker 1: I mean, of of all the books that are could
Speaker 1: potentially be banned, I mean, the Bible is full of
Speaker 1: sex and violence and misery. And I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: our Christ, our Lord and Savior, was nailed to across
Speaker 1: and you know, stabbed in the side, and and and
Speaker 1: well you know, I'm in the parlance of Christians, Christianity, um,
Speaker 1: you know, forced to wear a crown of thorns. I mean,
Speaker 1: as we all know, the Mel Gibson film The Passion
Speaker 1: of the Christ. Uh, it was massively popular amongst the
Speaker 1: Christian community, but would you really watch it? It is
Speaker 1: ultimately like torture porn. It is incredibly sadistic in the
Speaker 1: violence that it portrays. So I do think it's interesting that,
Speaker 1: like the Bible is unimpeachable in terms of like literature,
Speaker 1: but the fact that it made the list here is
Speaker 1: very fascinating to me, Like, what is the mechanism of
Speaker 1: discerning you know, what is it is not appropriate for
Speaker 1: young people to have access to in the library, especially
Speaker 1: in a state like Texas, where obviously you know, Jesus
Speaker 1: is everything, and like you know, religion, religion is a
Speaker 1: massive mover and shaper of policy and ideology and upbringing
Speaker 1: and all of that good stuff. So it makes me
Speaker 1: really question what the mechanism of looking through and deciding
Speaker 1: what books. It feels like someone made a mistake. And
Speaker 1: it obviously was a very sexy headline to say Texas
Speaker 1: bands the Bible, like have we gone too far? I mean,
Speaker 1: you could say yes, but then if you look at
Speaker 1: Snopes like, no, Texas did not ban the Bible. It
Speaker 1: got momentarily pulled. But even the physical act of pulling
Speaker 1: the Bible from a libraryes and that seem like heresy
Speaker 1: to you, or would seem like to some I don't
Speaker 1: know your hands of our Bible. That's interesting the version uh.
Speaker 1: Christian authorities historically are the most likely to pull uh
Speaker 1: Christian lore to which they object. That's the whole reason
Speaker 1: that there's apocrypha right versus canonical books. But still, yes,
Speaker 1: I agree with you. It does seem um kind of reflexive, reactive,
Speaker 1: and it does make for a good headline. It also
Speaker 1: makes for a good clarion call. Education is one of
Speaker 1: the most vital battle grounds of any civilization throughout history.
Speaker 1: Not for nothing was it illegal for certain classes of
Speaker 1: different civilizations past to possess the power of literacy, which
Speaker 1: is very much a superpower. And this, this means, like this,
Speaker 1: I think shows us how yeah, I'll do it, how
Speaker 1: devilishly easy it is to remove one's access to education.
Speaker 1: For anybody who doesn't realize what a what a big deal,
Speaker 1: this is, how existential this is. I do recommend checking
Speaker 1: out our previous episode on the war over textbooks, because
Speaker 1: all textbooks are not telling you and your children the
Speaker 1: same stories. Oh and Matt, you know, I know you
Speaker 1: have a Christian background, and you know, I know that
Speaker 1: you probably took great effort to like read the Bible
Speaker 1: and digest the Bible and you know, did Bible study,
Speaker 1: and we're you know, encouraged to do so. But was
Speaker 1: there was there ever a point in your upbringing or
Speaker 1: you were questioning, like, wow, this is kind of messed
Speaker 1: up the stuff that's in here, But not in terms
Speaker 1: of like ideology, was in terms of content, in terms
Speaker 1: of like the violence and the and the sex and
Speaker 1: like the you know, the kind of depravity that is
Speaker 1: represented in the pages of the of the Bible. Uh No,
Speaker 1: because a lot of my study was guided by, like
Speaker 1: at least early on, by the Methodist Church and what
Speaker 1: the Methodist Church was instructing pastors throughout the country to
Speaker 1: you know, teach that week or that month or whatever.
Speaker 1: And often you're so focused in on you know, a
Speaker 1: handful of stories that you don't even venture out into
Speaker 1: the other territory unless you're doing it on your own.
Speaker 1: And when you encounter it on your own, you have
Speaker 1: a lot of questions, right like I did. I was
Speaker 1: always like, what what does that mean? Why? Why is
Speaker 1: this in here? But I would never go to a
Speaker 1: pastor or someone who knew better than me and say hey,
Speaker 1: why It was just like I just leave that over
Speaker 1: here in my cognitive Uh, I don't know, it is
Speaker 1: very curated. I grew up in the Methodist Church as well,
Speaker 1: and it's all these little exercises and things that guide you,
Speaker 1: and they they give you the That's why everything in
Speaker 1: the Bible is like citable. It's all these like chapter
Speaker 1: and verse, you know, because it's all meant to be
Speaker 1: taken in these little nuggets. But when you read the
Speaker 1: whole thing, taken as a whole it does beget a
Speaker 1: lot of questions and a lot of like contradictions that
Speaker 1: that you know, you want to know why they exist,
Speaker 1: and they're sort of like, pay no attention to the
Speaker 1: man behind the curtain, just look at this one and
Speaker 1: then like do your little workbook assignment and then move on.
Speaker 1: You know, like that's kind of the attitude. So it
Speaker 1: is interesting to me that no one in um religious upbringing,
Speaker 1: typically you know as as kids, encourages kids to read
Speaker 1: the whole Bible. That is not a thing. They don't
Speaker 1: give you a book report to read the whole Bible.
Speaker 1: They make you study little parts. I uh yeah, I
Speaker 1: will soft pushed back about that because there are many
Speaker 1: Christians that I know who were just like kids in Islam.
Speaker 1: They were they were tasked with reading the entirety and
Speaker 1: welcomed uh to ask questions. I I personally do not
Speaker 1: ascribe to Christianity myself, but I have read multiple versions
Speaker 1: of the vibe the Bible, including the most famous ones
Speaker 1: in Western Cannon, like the all People Love the King
Speaker 1: James Bible. Nowadays you know they're all translations, uh, And
Speaker 1: I remain although again I don't personally ascribe to a
Speaker 1: lot of those beliefs. I remain grateful for the people
Speaker 1: who said, read the whole book before you disagree with it,
Speaker 1: ask us the questions, and let's let's explore them together.
Speaker 1: And I think I think that kind of thought, that
Speaker 1: structural application of thought is a big piece of our show.
Speaker 1: I did not know you were both raised Methodists. Refresh
Speaker 1: my memory that denomination does baptism by sprinkling holy water, right,
Speaker 1: rather than by dunking somewhat water. Right. That's it's like
Speaker 1: soft back, just kind of it's like Baptist. Their Baptist
Speaker 1: religion is a little more um hard in the paint,
Speaker 1: and Methodism is a little softer and more like you know, accessible,
Speaker 1: I would argue, would say somber and uh serious about it.
Speaker 1: It is, but it also has praise and worship bands
Speaker 1: and youth group and youth tacos and stuff like, you know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't have all the pomp and circumstance of a
Speaker 1: Baptist you know, church service. It has much more of
Speaker 1: this like modern kind of like you know, like the
Speaker 1: Righteous Gemstones are probably meant to be Methodists. They don't
Speaker 1: really go and talk about that in the show, but
Speaker 1: that is the experience that I had with methodism where
Speaker 1: it's like this wow mazow kind of like production of
Speaker 1: like you know, rock and roll, kind of like like
Speaker 1: youth group bands and stuff I have, Like, I know
Speaker 1: that we have many many people who are adherence to
Speaker 1: many many feasts uh in our audience today. And folks, UH,
Speaker 1: if you have ever found yourself saying based on an
Speaker 1: excerpt of something that has maybe been spun or presented
Speaker 1: or curated for you based on excerptive religious text, if
Speaker 1: you find yourself completely objecting to it, then I will say,
Speaker 1: and I I do not really practice advice. I will
Speaker 1: say as an observation that if you intellectually respect yourself,
Speaker 1: and you intellectually respect those with whom you disagree, you
Speaker 1: should respect those uh, then you owe it to yourself
Speaker 1: as a dissenter to say I am informed. I again,
Speaker 1: have read multiple religious texts. I I read the Bible
Speaker 1: in full, and look, I'm gonna tell you it's uneven writing.
Speaker 1: There's some really there's some real sexy stuff like the
Speaker 1: Book of Songs. There's some real there's a couple of
Speaker 1: things that are all just this person begat, this person
Speaker 1: who begat this person. Uh. And I first part that old,
Speaker 1: that old part. And there are some literal things like
Speaker 1: the tree of life, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ also
Speaker 1: on a thing that functions visually very much like a tree.
Speaker 1: It's interesting, and if you disagree with something, you owe
Speaker 1: it to yourself to understand that with which you disagree.
Speaker 1: Not for nothing did Lucifer say, non serfium, I brought
Speaker 1: it back. We're talking about that affair. Okay, I did it?
Speaker 1: All right? Yeah, that's a great word. I will ask
Speaker 1: you you guys this um. Are there versions of the
Speaker 1: Koran versions in the way there are of the Bible
Speaker 1: to be able to even say in parentheses all versions?
Speaker 1: That implies And we know that King James version has
Speaker 1: a spin, just like you mentioned earlier. Been our textbooks
Speaker 1: have spins depending on the the ideology of you know,
Speaker 1: the school board or whatever. Which parts we want to
Speaker 1: leave ours parts we want to like big up or whatever? Like?
Speaker 1: Does the Koran have versions? It's okay, I can I
Speaker 1: can answer this. That what I want our fellow followers
Speaker 1: of Islam, and I want a fellow Muslims in the
Speaker 1: crowd two to write in and talk about this, because
Speaker 1: there are canonically not different versions of the Quran. Uh.
Speaker 1: There are different versions of reciting it, right, and there
Speaker 1: are different versions of the idea of of the true
Speaker 1: representative philosophy laid down by the prophet. The most well
Speaker 1: known in the West would be Sunni and Shia, right.
Speaker 1: But that's not the same thing as you see in uh,
Speaker 1: you know LDS, or as you see in a Anglican
Speaker 1: interpretation or a Baptist interpretation of the Christian Bible, which
Speaker 1: is already sort of uh, it's sort of the remix
Speaker 1: of ancient Judaic text with this new you know, it's
Speaker 1: the double album. Maybe I'm asking kind of a silly
Speaker 1: question because obviously, like in um, in translation, you're going
Speaker 1: to have different versions. Like the very act of translation
Speaker 1: is inherently a version, and the translator, you know, has
Speaker 1: a lot of power, which is why the Karate is
Speaker 1: only Karate if it's in Arabic, that's right. But with
Speaker 1: the Bible, you have like the King James version, which
Speaker 1: we know is a massive spin on like the content
Speaker 1: of the Bible at the behest of King James, you know,
Speaker 1: like to kind of like use that as a as
Speaker 1: a as a means to kind of like enact some
Speaker 1: of his um, you know, policies and ideas. So I
Speaker 1: just we're kind of getting in the weeds here. But
Speaker 1: I do think it's interesting to think about the Bible
Speaker 1: in the same way we think about the way textbooks
Speaker 1: are presenting a certain narrative. And the thing that's interesting
Speaker 1: about the Bible to me too, is like some parts
Speaker 1: are very historical record documentation of historical events, and some
Speaker 1: parts of it are these like parables or like, you know,
Speaker 1: is it real? Did it really happen? They don't really
Speaker 1: tell you in the text. You have to kind of
Speaker 1: decide for yourself. And then we have in the same way,
Speaker 1: like we have lawmakers that are strict constructionists of the Constitution.
Speaker 1: They look at it as if it's if it's written
Speaker 1: down and that's the thing and there's no room for interpretation.
Speaker 1: There are people that look at the Bible that way too,
Speaker 1: like if it's in the Bible, then it definitely happened.
Speaker 1: Um in terms of like Noah's Ark and you know,
Speaker 1: the Whale and all of that stuff, which clearly if
Speaker 1: you look at it from a place of pop culture,
Speaker 1: that's the stories that stuff is like it meant to
Speaker 1: teach a lesson, but I don't think Noah made an
Speaker 1: arc and put all the animals on it, you know, not,
Speaker 1: what do you think about that side of it? Just
Speaker 1: about Noah's ark or the literal just about like the
Speaker 1: parts of the Bible that are clearly literal and the
Speaker 1: parts of the Bible that are like these massively spectacular tales.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're the best parts of the book in
Speaker 1: my opinion, there are also Probably One of the main
Speaker 1: reasons I kind of lost my religion a little bit
Speaker 1: was because it was trying to square what was supposed
Speaker 1: to be taken literally and what was supposed to be
Speaker 1: a parable what was in my mind clearly a made
Speaker 1: up story to make a point, I guess, or to
Speaker 1: teach a lesson um, and then not being able to
Speaker 1: really discern what was which. That's that's where I had
Speaker 1: my cognitive dissonance. But you know enough about me, uh no,
Speaker 1: And to not have the person guiding you along be
Speaker 1: able to tell you the difference maybe like and and
Speaker 1: why these things didn't square with you. You didn't have
Speaker 1: anybody that could explain to you the way you felt. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: well listen, we have to move on. But I want
Speaker 1: to just part and parcel to we're talking about here Florida. Also,
Speaker 1: one of these laws created a situation where they are
Speaker 1: refusing donations of dictionaries. What could be a more innocuous
Speaker 1: text than a dictionary? It just that's my whole point
Speaker 1: is like what is a rubric for? Like what texts
Speaker 1: are we rejecting versus what texts are we like welcoming?
Speaker 1: And if a dictionary is getting banned again, not banned,
Speaker 1: but like questions were like, oh, we're putting a pause
Speaker 1: on accepting dictionaries for the for the time being. Um,
Speaker 1: then then where is the cut off? Like at what
Speaker 1: point are we just like losing it, losing the plot
Speaker 1: in terms of like what literature and text actually is for.
Speaker 1: It's a great point. All right, Well let's take a
Speaker 1: quick break and then we'll be back with more strange news.
Speaker 1: And we're back and for this story, we are traveling
Speaker 1: to Jackson, Mississippi. So it's a pretty great city. Actually,
Speaker 1: I don't have you guys ever been to Jackson? Yes,
Speaker 1: in a lot of songs Jackson. Alright, okay, cool, Well yeah,
Speaker 1: but we're going to Jackson because the citizens there are
Speaker 1: going through a crisis similar to citizens of other cities
Speaker 1: in the United States and across the world. Uh, there
Speaker 1: are a lot of crises going on right now, and
Speaker 1: there have been for quite a while. This one is
Speaker 1: probably closest to the coverage we've done before on Flint, Michigan,
Speaker 1: and a couple of other cities that are going through
Speaker 1: water treatment plant crises. Um dang, Jackson is just it
Speaker 1: seems like it's getting hit just blow after blow. There
Speaker 1: was recently a lot of flooding in Jackson and other
Speaker 1: parts of central Mississippi. The Pearl River flooded due to
Speaker 1: just record rainfall that was occurring around that time, and
Speaker 1: all of that water coming through Jackson caused some serious
Speaker 1: issues with their water treatment system. And well, I guess
Speaker 1: I'll let the Governor of Mississippi really sum it up
Speaker 1: for us. On Monday, as we record this, Monday, August
Speaker 1: twenty nine, there was an emergency press briefing given by
Speaker 1: the Mississippi Governor, Tate Reeves, and this is what he said, quote,
Speaker 1: please stay safe, do not drink the water. Yeah seriously,
Speaker 1: like that alone, Good God. In too many cases it
Speaker 1: is raw water from the reservoir being pushed through the pipes.
Speaker 1: Be smart, protect yourself, Protect your family, preserve water, look
Speaker 1: out for your fellow man, and look out for your neighbors,
Speaker 1: and God save America. That's crazy. That's Independence Day level
Speaker 1: of speech right there. That is wild. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: a sorry. I hate when people say correct. No, yeah,
Speaker 1: right on, I agree with you. This is also for
Speaker 1: anybody unfamiliar with Mississippi in the US, this is the
Speaker 1: largest city in that state. We are talking about just
Speaker 1: one city with more than a hundred and sixty thousand residents.
Speaker 1: If you look at the metro area, then that means
Speaker 1: that this water issue affects way more than two thousand people.
Speaker 1: This is serious. Yeah, the latest estimates I saw were
Speaker 1: around a eighty thousand, but you're right, like up to
Speaker 1: two thousand who are being affected directly by this. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna continue with the governor's quote just a little bit
Speaker 1: more because it shows why he's speaking in such a
Speaker 1: dire manner. The governor said quote, until it is fixed,
Speaker 1: we do not have reliable running water at scale. The
Speaker 1: city cannot provide enough water to fight fires, to flush toilets,
Speaker 1: and to meet other critical needs like that that alone,
Speaker 1: like restaurants don't have water the tap when you turn
Speaker 1: it on the water pressure is so low that barely
Speaker 1: anything comes out, and when it does come out, it's
Speaker 1: like it's raw water from the giant reservoir that is
Speaker 1: just northeast of the city. Um, where the Pearl River
Speaker 1: comes out of as its flow, which is not a
Speaker 1: marketing thing. But by raw water we mean untreated. So
Speaker 1: it is. Yes, it is complete a dice roll. And
Speaker 1: let's be honest, if you live in the US, you
Speaker 1: know this. It is a loaded dice roll. As to
Speaker 1: whether this stuff has effluence jumping right, effluence would be dumping,
Speaker 1: as as whether as possible bacterial contaminants, all the stuff
Speaker 1: that would have been filtered out by wastewater treatment or
Speaker 1: just water treatment, the types of things where you see
Speaker 1: like fish advisories like because the fish like are pumped
Speaker 1: full of merkety, that's because they exist in a part
Speaker 1: of the of the river or whatever body of water
Speaker 1: that has not been filtered in this way. We are
Speaker 1: not meant to drink that water and we should not
Speaker 1: eat those fish. No. Um. So, guys, if you just
Speaker 1: think about that situation, you think about the economic impact
Speaker 1: it's going to have on the city of Jackson, Like
Speaker 1: the hospitality industry the entire thing is it's going to
Speaker 1: have to be put on pause again after going through
Speaker 1: the COVID break basically in in profits there that that
Speaker 1: it's had. Um, you think about the each individual person
Speaker 1: in individual parents who are trying to you know, what
Speaker 1: do you do for your kid while you get bottled water?
Speaker 1: And that's one of the only things you can do
Speaker 1: or some other type of water product, right because you
Speaker 1: can't just turn on tap anywhere in the entire city
Speaker 1: and get water. And the Federal Emergency Management Agency FEMA
Speaker 1: is headed there. They've been there this whole week attempting
Speaker 1: to hand out as much bottled water as they can, obviously,
Speaker 1: and you know, you can kind of predict this and
Speaker 1: you know this, but there's not enough bottled water to
Speaker 1: go around. And it's just the nature of tempting a
Speaker 1: herculean effort like that. Um, it's just it's not enough.
Speaker 1: The National Guard has even been called in by the governor,
Speaker 1: even Joe Biden. President Joe Biden declared an emergency recently
Speaker 1: this week. I believe that was yesterday today, yesterday. It's
Speaker 1: a big deal. And this this is all happening, by
Speaker 1: the way, after a month a month of water boil
Speaker 1: advisory in Jackson. Guys, we live in Atlanta. We've been
Speaker 1: through our share of water boil advisories, and you know,
Speaker 1: generally when you experience one of those, at least that
Speaker 1: I've been through personally, it's a couple of days week
Speaker 1: maximum when there's been some kind of natural disaster or
Speaker 1: just something really bad that's come through the city. But
Speaker 1: can you imagine a full month, and when they do
Speaker 1: it here or another, you know places, it usually feels
Speaker 1: like in an abundance of caution, we advise you boil
Speaker 1: your water. It would be a good idea, or drink
Speaker 1: bottled water as opposed to definitely don't drink the water.
Speaker 1: And may God have mercy on your soul? Um Can
Speaker 1: we also point out that Jackson, Mississippi is any two
Speaker 1: point four seven percent African American and it's demographic makeup. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: we can't. This is true. It's it's really bad. This
Speaker 1: is a breaking story. So there's gonna be a lot
Speaker 1: more development, probably even by the time you hear this
Speaker 1: story when it comes out on the Monday that year
Speaker 1: hearing it. But we're we're trying to just stay on
Speaker 1: top of it and follow it as much as possible.
Speaker 1: I would highly recommend heading over to Mississippi Today dot org.
Speaker 1: It's a really great nonprofit news site where there's just
Speaker 1: tons of information being pumped out. It appears to be
Speaker 1: really great reporting, at least to my eyes there is.
Speaker 1: There's so many articles they've written. It's Alex Rosier or
Speaker 1: rose Er Rosier, I'm not exactly sure how you say it,
Speaker 1: but writing alongside Bobby Harrison, Kaylee Skinner and a couple others.
Speaker 1: They're just answering questions for people of Mississippi. So people
Speaker 1: who are in and around Jackson, they've got great resources there,
Speaker 1: like exactly where you can go physically right now if
Speaker 1: you're in or near Jackson to get water. Uh, if
Speaker 1: you just scroll down on their main website, they've got
Speaker 1: it and it's continually updated there. And one thing that's
Speaker 1: important to note. We're talking about specifically something called the
Speaker 1: Obi Curtis Facility, and the folks who are working there
Speaker 1: now are in crisis mode. Like many municipal employees, several
Speaker 1: of whom are in the audience with us today. Welcome folks. Uh.
Speaker 1: They are likely underpaid, definitely overworked, and they are at
Speaker 1: the whims often of machinations far above their heads, right,
Speaker 1: far above their ability to control. So there's another point
Speaker 1: I want to make. It's a it is a larger,
Speaker 1: deeper point. Uh. It is unexpected, right ideally on paper,
Speaker 1: it is unexpected for a person in the United States
Speaker 1: to need to purify or boil water, to have a
Speaker 1: boil advisory as uh as Null pointed out, It's usually
Speaker 1: phrased as something small happened, but with an abundance of caution,
Speaker 1: we advise you to do such and such. This is
Speaker 1: not the case in many, many other parts of the world.
Speaker 1: It is simply expected that one must either boil water
Speaker 1: or one must have bottled water of some sort. So
Speaker 1: what is happening here, I would say, is something that
Speaker 1: a lot of our international listeners are going to be
Speaker 1: intimately familiar with as the average day today. But if
Speaker 1: you are listening and you are in the US or
Speaker 1: Canada or some parts not all parts, don't believe the
Speaker 1: hype of Western Europe. This is something that you can
Speaker 1: put in your journal as a harbinger of things to come,
Speaker 1: not a Jordan harbinger, very nice, brilliant guy, but a
Speaker 1: general harbinger of things to come. General Harbinger, General Harbinger,
Speaker 1: and may God have mercy on yourself. The water. Uh,
Speaker 1: the water crisis isn't coming, folks, It's already here. And
Speaker 1: the heroic efforts, as you said, Matt, the herculean efforts
Speaker 1: to make make water potable, drinkable, Uh, they are only
Speaker 1: going to become more arduous, more challenging as time continues.
Speaker 1: Just something to think about every time you ask yourself,
Speaker 1: should I take a bath or take a shower? But
Speaker 1: either way, I mean, that's not even the main issue here, guys.
Speaker 1: This is an infrastructure story like this is. That's seriously,
Speaker 1: what's at the heart of this. The mayor, chuckway La
Speaker 1: Mumba made a point that, hey, this is not something
Speaker 1: that may have happened. We've seen this on the horizon
Speaker 1: for some time, for several years actually, we've noted that
Speaker 1: this specific facility, the O. B. Curtis Water Treatment Facility,
Speaker 1: it's failing and it's going to fail. It's not a
Speaker 1: matter of if, but when. And it just happened to
Speaker 1: occur now because of the catastrophic flooding. And I wonder
Speaker 1: how many other cities, no matter what size they are
Speaker 1: and no matter what country they're in have water treatment
Speaker 1: facilities that are on the brink of failure just because
Speaker 1: of the amount of water that needs to be pushed
Speaker 1: through those things. And you know how where the water
Speaker 1: is no longer flammable hopefully, But that's an enormous point, Matt,
Speaker 1: that in your mind, readers, get that to the infrastructure
Speaker 1: systems are already under tremendous stress, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Like what it's um It's a situation where if you
Speaker 1: think of that system the way you would think of
Speaker 1: an anatomical system like a body, and it's agglomeration of
Speaker 1: natural systems ease to the point where any of ends,
Speaker 1: not even a black Swan event, any bad day, could
Speaker 1: lead to a catastrophic series of dominoes. And it's it's
Speaker 1: easy to hear about a story like this if you
Speaker 1: don't live in Jackson, Mississippi. It's easy to hear about
Speaker 1: it if you don't have family or friends in Jackson, Mississippi,
Speaker 1: and then say, oh, gosh, thank goodness, I don't live there.
Speaker 1: But it's uh, it's on tour. Sadly, statistically in the
Speaker 1: United States, it is on tour and it is coming
Speaker 1: to a town near you. If I had to guess,
Speaker 1: I would say most likely, the next wave of these
Speaker 1: things that will occur, the next wave of these dangerous
Speaker 1: events will They won't be in the Los Angeles, they
Speaker 1: won't be in the New York's, they won't be in
Speaker 1: the Chicago's because those are very, very densely populated and
Speaker 1: in some ways, very densely funded parts of this country.
Speaker 1: They're gonna be doing is They're going to be happening
Speaker 1: in the town's outside of Chicago. They're going to be
Speaker 1: happening in the rural areas of you know, Arizona or
Speaker 1: another very thirsty state. Wouldn't you say Flint was kind
Speaker 1: of a harbinger of this. I mean, it wasn't flooding,
Speaker 1: but it was about infrastructure. It was about like old,
Speaker 1: outdated pipes with rust and all kinds of crazy stuff
Speaker 1: that just wasn't addressed, you know, by the powers that be,
Speaker 1: and then we should have been, well, it's about funding,
Speaker 1: Like our city is going to get funding, you know,
Speaker 1: either via the state or via federal spending. In this case,
Speaker 1: the e p A entered into an agreement, at least
Speaker 1: according to CNN, with Jackson, to provide seventy four I
Speaker 1: think maybe seventy five million dollars to repair drinking water systems.
Speaker 1: But then the mayor of Jackson, Lamombo, said, oh no,
Speaker 1: it's gonna take two billion dollars to repair this water
Speaker 1: treatment facility to fully replace it. Like a seventy four million,
Speaker 1: seventy five millions not gonna do anything really, um and
Speaker 1: and now and then it's who do you believe? Right,
Speaker 1: do you actually need that much money? And if you do, well, dang,
Speaker 1: we should probably invest that money somehow. But where does
Speaker 1: it come from? And it becomes political decision priorities, and
Speaker 1: like do you value life first or do you value
Speaker 1: like other political kind of maneuvers that you can make,
Speaker 1: like as a politician, Like that's how you value elections first.
Speaker 1: That's always where's life on that list? Way down? Way low? Yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: I think I think we're just gonna have to continue
Speaker 1: watching this. I you know, I hope everybody in or
Speaker 1: around Jackson, if you're listening, I hope you're safe. Do
Speaker 1: what you gotta do right to us and let us
Speaker 1: know what you're going through right now. If you've been
Speaker 1: through something like this in another city, we'd love to
Speaker 1: hear your experience. And if you have any more information
Speaker 1: about budgets and how how they get allocated to water
Speaker 1: treatment facilities. We'd love to hear from you too, And
Speaker 1: while we wait to hear from you, we're gonna hear
Speaker 1: from our sponsors. Will be right back, all right, and
Speaker 1: we have returned. Thanks so much everybody. We're going along.
Speaker 1: We only have a little bit of time here, but
Speaker 1: hopefully it will be worth your time. The only real
Speaker 1: currency today's question, should plants have legal rights? Now? A
Speaker 1: number of years ago there was this fantastic conversation across
Speaker 1: so many disciplines regarding the idea of what's called legal personhood,
Speaker 1: and this was applied to the concept of higher order animals.
Speaker 1: When I say higher order, I'm not trying to be
Speaker 1: a jerk. I'm talking about animals, non human animals that
Speaker 1: are able to perform some of the cognitive trick that
Speaker 1: were once thought unique to the genre of primates currently
Speaker 1: calling itself human today this is stuff like um, the
Speaker 1: idea of abstract thought, planning for the future, the idea
Speaker 1: of deception, the idea of um, understanding oneself, of meta cognition,
Speaker 1: thinking about thinking. That's what happens when you look in
Speaker 1: a mirror and say, oh, that's not me. But is
Speaker 1: it kind of me? But it's not me. Some animals
Speaker 1: can do that too. It's amazing, right, And uh, this
Speaker 1: argument or this this quandary is moving forward in the
Speaker 1: world of plants. Related to this episode on legal personhood,
Speaker 1: we earlier did an investigation on whether or not plants, Yes,
Speaker 1: fellow green thumbs, this is for you, whether or not
Speaker 1: plants could fit the definition of an intelligent being. Now,
Speaker 1: of course, the human cannon, the human ivory tower, is
Speaker 1: at a disadvantage here because that's a species that has
Speaker 1: yet to arrive a real definition of intelligence, as yet
Speaker 1: to arrive at the concept of a soul, has yet
Speaker 1: to arrive at a concept of sentience. This stood out
Speaker 1: to me. I would say, this is technically strange news,
Speaker 1: but you're not going to see a debate about it
Speaker 1: on your media avenue of choice. The idea came up
Speaker 1: in the news recently in some of the forums I follow,
Speaker 1: but it's largely inspired by a wonderful book that was
Speaker 1: written a few years ago called Brilliant Green, The Surprising
Speaker 1: History and Science of Plant Intelligence by a plant neurobiologist
Speaker 1: named Stefano Mancuso, along with a journalist Alessandra Viola and this.
Speaker 1: I don't know, do you guys remember the episode we
Speaker 1: did on plant intelligence or the possibility thereof. It's been
Speaker 1: a minute, but I mean, I'm fascinated about the idea.
Speaker 1: I'm always like talking about mushrooms and they're like networks
Speaker 1: of underground, you know, like stappses and stuff. I do
Speaker 1: think it's a thing, no question about it. I do
Speaker 1: remember being fascinated specifically with carnivorous plants and how that
Speaker 1: evolution occurred, and then like what what caused that to happen.
Speaker 1: I don't think we ever got to the bottom of
Speaker 1: whether or not plants think, because we just can't tell you.
Speaker 1: But I remember how interested I was in the topic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is fascinating, man. I'm right there with you, because
Speaker 1: if you have, it's an older idea that needs more attention.
Speaker 1: Charles Darwin studied plants as well as animals for decades
Speaker 1: of decades, and he ate them. While he was studying.
Speaker 1: By the way, uh, he was one of the first
Speaker 1: Western thinkers to say, hey, plants carnivorous and non carnivorous.
Speaker 1: They move and respond to sensation. I would love for
Speaker 1: any of us listening along in the audience today, to
Speaker 1: go and talk to your plants while you water them,
Speaker 1: and then get back to me and let me know
Speaker 1: if you see a change in their growth pattern, and
Speaker 1: whether you think that is some sort of vibe, whether
Speaker 1: you think that is just uh, that you are exhaling
Speaker 1: gases that are good for them, or you know, whether
Speaker 1: they instantly died, which means you might be a bad conversationalist,
Speaker 1: like I put that on you. Sorry, folks, forgive me.
Speaker 1: But the idea is responding to stimulus from an environment.
Speaker 1: It is the nature of life, right, That's the reason.
Speaker 1: Rocks are apparently always rocks unless they are naturally soft
Speaker 1: and they just harden up when you touch them. Just blue,
Speaker 1: some blues, some minds in a freshman dorm somewhere. But
Speaker 1: this is strange because if we get to the root
Speaker 1: of it, we see that plants do exercise action in
Speaker 1: their environment, which indicates at least uh. You know, people
Speaker 1: get mad when you say understanding or desire, but it
Speaker 1: indicates moves towards things that are good for them and
Speaker 1: away from things that are bad for them. We know,
Speaker 1: for instance, human beings may may pursue things that are
Speaker 1: technically low level poisons. Right, Like people recreationally enjoy kept
Speaker 1: sais in right, and that is something that is evolved
Speaker 1: to deter consumption of plants of spicy right right, and
Speaker 1: pep pep PEPs and uh we know that Uh, people
Speaker 1: and other forms of animals on this planet. I have
Speaker 1: enjoyed fermented things which you know contain alcohol or some
Speaker 1: relation of alcohol that can also be be damaging to uh,
Speaker 1: to a bodily system. But I've been thinking more our psilocybin. Well,
Speaker 1: psilocybin is not necessarily damaging to a bodily system, uh
Speaker 1: in this Well, No, it doesn't mean in terms of
Speaker 1: like things that plants beget that we enjoy also fruit.
Speaker 1: I mean there's like a whole symbiosis with plants that
Speaker 1: we have this relationship with them, and we've tested it
Speaker 1: and we know what will kill us and what won't.
Speaker 1: So there's an interesting sort of entry point to interacting
Speaker 1: with plants, like in terms of like life on Earth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm drawing a bright line around those first two examples
Speaker 1: because they are things that are potentially dangerous to living forms.
Speaker 1: Unlike psilocybin, it's not naturally dangerous, which despite what the
Speaker 1: War on drugs would have us believe so. And I
Speaker 1: was thinking about this. I was looking at a couple
Speaker 1: of fantastic articles. I reread part of Brilliant Green, and
Speaker 1: I went out on this patio I have where I'm
Speaker 1: living now and just watched the plants move. And I
Speaker 1: want to get kind of meta with this in the
Speaker 1: in the small most smart, I mean, they know what
Speaker 1: they want. You can't say that about everything. That's what
Speaker 1: I mean. It's a it's a system. It's a very
Speaker 1: honed system, that's all I'm saying. So part of my
Speaker 1: question is this is also a setup for for an
Speaker 1: episode I think we could visit in the future. But
Speaker 1: part of my question for you guys, this is not
Speaker 1: to trick you into an interview. This is a series
Speaker 1: of me asking you and our fellow conspiracy realist what
Speaker 1: you think. Part of my question here, the where we
Speaker 1: get to the meta aspect, is simply put this, if
Speaker 1: ever there were a widespread academic recognition of plants having
Speaker 1: some sort of legal right, not just the tree that
Speaker 1: owns itself, you know in Georgia, but but something like um,
Speaker 1: something that says, for legal purposes, destroying a forest is
Speaker 1: the same thing as mass murder. What would that mean
Speaker 1: for the world. Do you think that's even a thing
Speaker 1: that should or could happen. I don't think it could,
Speaker 1: but should it? Well, it is illegal to set for
Speaker 1: us on fire unless you're a logging corporation or like
Speaker 1: a company that like owns it and can just like
Speaker 1: do it, you know, unchecked. But it's a very interesting
Speaker 1: question because some of the things that I'm fascinated by
Speaker 1: involved being able to take of these things that these
Speaker 1: plants provide. And if all the sudden the plant had
Speaker 1: this personhood, you have to like ask permission or something.
Speaker 1: But if you want to take the hippie kind of
Speaker 1: dippy perspective, it's like the plants want you to eat them,
Speaker 1: like the psilocybin wants you to eat them. Like they're
Speaker 1: part of this system of the earth, like in terms
Speaker 1: of like that like network of these like underground networks
Speaker 1: of like electrically communicating kind of synapses that are mushrooms
Speaker 1: that are this like kind of circle of life and
Speaker 1: existence and like they're not I won't go so far
Speaker 1: as to say that they're there for us, but like
Speaker 1: they are a way of interacting with them, you eat
Speaker 1: a plant. You're not killing the plant exactly, because it's
Speaker 1: just gonna regrow itself. It's like cutting a lizard's tail off,
Speaker 1: like thet of the ones that that regrow. So I
Speaker 1: think it's fascinating. It's not like we're so even that
Speaker 1: vegetarians who are so anti factory farming and stuff, they're
Speaker 1: all about eating plants, and they're the ones that have
Speaker 1: the most aggressive opinions on life of any of us.
Speaker 1: So it's it's a very interesting question, It's all. I
Speaker 1: don't know the answer, Matt, what do you What do
Speaker 1: you think? Dude? I just had a very very clear
Speaker 1: picture of Norman Borlog with a bull horn, standing up
Speaker 1: on a platform and there's a wheat field and he's
Speaker 1: just he asks, okay, now we need you to feed us.
Speaker 1: Is that okay? And then can we have her consent?
Speaker 1: Can you sign this pdf? Okay? Can you sign this
Speaker 1: Adobe document? I don't know. To me, it was just
Speaker 1: a very funny. But what do we do at that
Speaker 1: point if plants have some kind of personhood, have some
Speaker 1: kind of sentience that we acknowledge, Like, what do we
Speaker 1: do to feed ourselves? Terrestrial entities that contact us are
Speaker 1: not plant or fungi based, so we could eat that,
Speaker 1: you know. There they don't come rocking through this little
Speaker 1: backwater of this little backwater galaxy and say, holy crap,
Speaker 1: what if they're based on connivorous plants? Man? You know, like,
Speaker 1: what if they come through and they say, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: our versions of flies are eating us nuca or whatever,
Speaker 1: our version of nucas. I don't think that will happen,
Speaker 1: but I do think I do think it is um
Speaker 1: It is a an idea that the human species could
Speaker 1: leverage to be a little bit less of an unsustainable fad,
Speaker 1: a little bit less uncool to the super organism of earth.
Speaker 1: You know, I I know a lot of vegans of vegetarians.
Speaker 1: I was a vegetarian for myself for some time. I
Speaker 1: was privileged enough to be so, which is an important point.
Speaker 1: But also there's this meta cognitive argument right like we
Speaker 1: also it goes to so many levels, and I think
Speaker 1: it's worth revisiting an actual episode because we have to
Speaker 1: ask ourselves, is there a hierarchy of life? Right the vegan?
Speaker 1: The vegetarian says, I know this is a living thing.
Speaker 1: I wish to not do harm to others, perhaps, but
Speaker 1: I also need to live, and like any human being,
Speaker 1: I will put my survival over literally everything. What happens
Speaker 1: when what happens when you tell thousands of people who
Speaker 1: depend upon deforestation in a given area that they cannot
Speaker 1: they cannot feed their families because they cannot interrupt this
Speaker 1: great dance, this great cycle of life that has continued
Speaker 1: millions of years before people were around. It's politically difficult,
Speaker 1: but also again, politics is just sort of another religion
Speaker 1: that humans have made up. And there's not money. Yeah
Speaker 1: well there, yeah, money as well. I still have the
Speaker 1: standing call for anyone, anyone to tell me the difference
Speaker 1: between modern economic belief and religious belief. On their line,
Speaker 1: politics and money are like, you know, two hands in
Speaker 1: the same gloves. I feel you, But the the the
Speaker 1: idea here is to me. It's fascinating because we know
Speaker 1: a lot of people who are close with plants. And
Speaker 1: this is an open call. By the way, you don't
Speaker 1: even need to use the show contact information. You want
Speaker 1: to find me on social media app and bowling or something.
Speaker 1: Send me your pictures of your plants. I am here
Speaker 1: for it. I love plants. There there's some of my
Speaker 1: favorite living things. And if you have a plant in
Speaker 1: your life. If you like live around plants, then I
Speaker 1: am almost certain that if you are human and live
Speaker 1: around plants, even if you are a botanist and well trained,
Speaker 1: you would probably anthropomorphize them a bit. You've given them, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you've given them names, you know, you give them per senalities.
Speaker 1: You might have put some plants next to each other
Speaker 1: and you can tell whether or not they vibe. And
Speaker 1: there's chemistry with that too. Plants do talk to one
Speaker 1: another in in such that they communicate. They exude or
Speaker 1: emanate different chemical signals. Plants scream to their kinful when
Speaker 1: they are being hurt. They transmit signals when you are
Speaker 1: mowing the grass, you monster, Where have you seen this?
Speaker 1: Where's the study? I'm so fascinated by this, Like I
Speaker 1: was gonna ask you, like, is it about pain like
Speaker 1: animals versus plants? Like is it about pain? And how
Speaker 1: do you register this what you're describing? I'm so fascinated
Speaker 1: by this idea. The life cycle of a plant on
Speaker 1: in most cases is to get its seeds ingested. We
Speaker 1: may spread, So I just don't understand why it would
Speaker 1: be I guess it would still be painful, but it's
Speaker 1: also purposeful and then also what is the balanced chemicals
Speaker 1: We would need Matt to communicate to the plant that
Speaker 1: there is some sort of in our opinion, greater good,
Speaker 1: you know, as they're an afterlife. I'm sorry, I mean
Speaker 1: the whole episode. Whole episode. This is amazing. Um there's
Speaker 1: a there's an amazing record called um oh gosh more
Speaker 1: Garson Plantasia. It's a modular scynth record from the like sixties,
Speaker 1: and it was designed to like play for your plants
Speaker 1: with the with the understanding that it would like help
Speaker 1: them grow. So there are like all these things that
Speaker 1: we're talking about that it comes from this like kind
Speaker 1: of counterculture like psychedelic movement of the idea that like
Speaker 1: plants are sentient and that we are participating with them
Speaker 1: in this like life cycle. But no one of all
Speaker 1: those people, they never are like, oh, I'm worried if
Speaker 1: I'm gonna hurt the plant if I like eat one
Speaker 1: of its leaves. They're like, the plant welcomes me to
Speaker 1: like eat of its leaves, as opposed to the cow
Speaker 1: who we put in a pen and like hook up
Speaker 1: a thing too. It's like teats and just suck the
Speaker 1: life for out of it and like, yeah, those things
Speaker 1: actually scream, you can hear it. It's it's awful. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's fascinating to me on so many levels. And and
Speaker 1: we don't have time now but to let you know
Speaker 1: the specifics of reference. This an upcoming episode. The research
Speaker 1: I read that was most compelling was in I want
Speaker 1: to say, after we had recorded whether or not plants
Speaker 1: or intelligent? Uh, there was this study out of Tel Aviv.
Speaker 1: I believe it was that went specific. It's focusing specifically
Speaker 1: on tomato and tobacco plants. And then it shows through
Speaker 1: through literally holding a microphone, it shows that when under stress,
Speaker 1: they admit frequencies that are inaudible to you know, the
Speaker 1: average human ear between twenty two hundred killer hurts. I
Speaker 1: hope I haven't ruined you know, anybody's like vegetarian feast
Speaker 1: or whatever. I have plants. I ate them all the time.
Speaker 1: Most people do or should. Uh. So we want to
Speaker 1: hear your thoughts. What kind of conversations have you had
Speaker 1: with your plants, What do you think about the future
Speaker 1: of water? Where do you stand on the banning of books?
Speaker 1: Is it always a bad thing? Are there some books
Speaker 1: that should not be read? We think there's definitely one
Speaker 1: you should read, which we're pretty explicit about because we'll
Speaker 1: get dragged in the street and shot if we don't
Speaker 1: mention it. So, uh, stuff there what you know of
Speaker 1: the book? Ben said, true? Right, yeah, yeah, they're they're
Speaker 1: after us. That Honda Odyssey is idling on my street
Speaker 1: right now. Uh and that's not laughing because he's looking
Speaker 1: out the window and she she's a van to But seriously,
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