From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A production of iHeartRadio.
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Noah.
They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our superproducer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. If you are joining us the evening this comes out, let us welcome you to Thursday, January thirtieth, twenty twenty five. It's one of the most exciting times of the week for US folks. In these chaotic days and evenings, we get to hear from the most important part of the show, which is you. We're
gonna learn about bunkers. We're gonna talk about chimera and ethics. We're gonna we're gonna do some Bible studies. We're also going to talk about search engines and airplane doors, plastic. We're We're going to it is probably one of my favorite ones. At the at the very end, stick with us. We have an amazing joke for you, and we're gonna
hype it up the entire time. We're gonna hype it so hard that no matter how excited you are about hearing a joke from one of your fellow listeners, you're gonna be even more excited by the time we get to it.
And if we peek out the windows right now, there is snow in the ground in Georgia.
Right now.
Weird, it's a snowy night in Georgia. Uh yeah, we are coming.
That's gonna be for the joke. By the way, Sorry, yeah, we.
Can't hype this joke enough, but in tonight's listener mail program, we will attempt to you so quick check in, just for just for everybody who hasn't had the privilege of watching our fair Metropolis battle strange weather. Guys. I was thinking about this. I don't think we should say climate change anymore. Why I think we should say climate chaos?
Oh yeah, okay, certainly was climate chaos on the roads of Fair Atlanta, Georgia yesterday. We had another snow day the other week, and I think people took it very seriously. But Ben, you and I were even out in the world midday on some adventures for Ridiculous History at the waffle House Museum, which is a thing here in Atlanta. So it wasn't showing precipitation at that point midday. And even the folks that were kind of enough to give us the tour from waffle House pr waffle House Corporate,
they were not taking this seriously. And it seems like a lot of other people didn't neither, because there were all these videos of cars just slip and sliding across the road in the early evening.
I remember that moment when I was saying, hey, thank you so much much for letting us into this museum. It's not Davos level, but it is.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I just found out one of the dads at the karate dojo where my son trains, is one of the top waffle House people. He's one of the top men exactly the waffles.
He gets a third of the waffle secret recipe and then he carries the breast pocket.
I love it. We have such a great time. Please. Obviously, being here in Atlanta, we are huge fans of waffle House. Check out our upcoming episode on Ridiculous History or upcoming series. I believe one of the things we will dive into is a favorite hobby horse of ours, which is the waffle house index. This has nothing to do with what we're talking about this evening, but oh gosh, what a time. We can't wait to we can't wait to explore that
top waffle. I'm gonna start using top waffle. That's so great. Wait, your neighbor really has like he's he's in the waffle cabal.
Oh no, just a father who happens to also have a son that trains at the same dojo where my son.
Trains, a known associate of waffles. So yeah, that sounds a little red scare on my ends, and that's my bad. But let's guys, let's get to it. Let's learn more from what you are fellow listeners have shared with us. Where do we begin, Maybe I don't know, we're talking about this off air. Maybe we take a moment to explore something that's been on our minds across the United States and the world. A series of hand gestures.
What do you say now, Yes, indeed, And we're going to go to a quick break and return with that very conversation. And we have returned with a message from Marvelous Marvin Medley's it's a mouthful with an extra M for added alliterative fun. And I'm just gonna go right into it because this is something that I think you know, is going to be really divisive for some folks. But we're just going to kind of tackle it in a as a matter of fact a way as we can.
So here we go subject the salute. So, in my opinion, I don't understand how this is even in question. It was a Nazi salute. Also, I don't like that the fact I see it that way makes me the conspiracy theorist. Major media doesn't seem to be giving it much attention, and for me, that's terrifying. I assume y'all know exactly what I'm talking about. What are your takes? You can use this correspondence on here and you can call me
marvelous Marvin Medley. As always, the void abides. You know, guys, when I kind of had a little bit of a head in the sad day, I just wasn't I was feeling a little overwhelmed with some various things in my personal life, and just in the state of the world and fires and all of the news has just kind of been bumming me out. So I had a bit of a media blackout day or a social media pause. The day of the election was also MLK Day, and we were off work and I was hanging with my family.
But one thing that I couldn't ignore or avoid was this image video and stills of mister Elon Musk, the top tier gamer, and it seems to be right hand of incoming or newly elected President Donald Trump making a very alarming gesture with a lot of historical precedent, essentially putting his hand on his heart and then a straight out arm at an angle. And I just have a hard time believing that somebody with the level of media training, someone at the heights of you know, corporate America and
politics now, would misconstrue a gesture like that. I don't know what it portends. I'm not trying to be alarmist, I'm truly not. I just do feel like that there's some there. It's hard for there not to have been some dog whistley intention behind them. Whether this is something that is represented in the entire administration at large, we certainly know there are followers of the neo Nazi ideology
that are very much supporters of set administration. Whether this is an effort to appeal to them to have some common ground. Or whether this points too larger nefarious things in the wind, I cannot say, but I just know that I was alarmed by him doing that, not once, but at least twice. A lot of folks online are calling it a Roman salute, which I believe, guys, historically was what the Nazis co opted into that zig Heile sign.
And a lot of folks are pointing to Elon Musk's kind of notorious media awkwardness and you know, hopping up and down like a small child, and various things that perhaps point to a form of autism. Perhaps there's a lot of people making excuses for this gesture, and I have a hard time buying any of that. But again, I'm not trying to ascribe meaning where there is none, but I know what that gesture represents, and it's hard to not take a little meaning from that. So I
yield the floor. Guys. It's very flummixing the whole thing, but it's also it disturbs me.
I would just say I encountered this via John Stewart on The Daily Show and a segment that that team created that for me it mirrored my personal feelings where you see it happen the first time, and you are you have some awareness of who Elon Musk is, and you know, especially in my case, I've watched him on SNL, you know, host SNL and be extremely awkward and even joke about how awkward he is. Right, that was the big joke in his monologue on SNL not that long ago.
And the first time you see it and you hear the words he's saying about he is thanking the audience because it goes out to you, and he says those words, my heart goes out to you, and it does appear as though he gestures to his heart and then throws his heart out. Right. John Stewart in that segment, you know, even makes that comment, well, that was a little weird. Maybe you could have done it, you know, in a different gesture to do the same meaning with your hands,
but you didn't. But okay, we'll give you the benefit of the doubt.
Then hands even would have done the job, you know, like, haha, I open my arms to you, things like that.
Right, he jokes about, maybe it's dabbing on the haters, and then I don't mean to just recount John Stewart's material here. It's just that that is essentially what's going through my mind as I am watching this occur, and he does it a second time behind him to the crowd, and upon seeing it the second time, it does feel a little more intentional. And it does feel because it's not the same thing as a Nazi salute, right, I think we have to say that a Nazi salute. I've
seen the videos. We've gone through so much footage from World War Two over the course of this show, where we have watched, you know, think about all the video
content we made. A lot of that's old Praliner archives, a lot of it's old military documented films, and you see Nazis saluting and it is a very specific thing, and it did not look exactly like that, but it looked so similar to that, or close enough to that, that it really did send a bit of a shockwave through me, thinking, how is it possible that somebody of that stature and power, and like, how could they do that? Why would they do that?
At the risk of needing to refuse myself, I am adamantly anti fascism in all forms, and we can go, you know, we can point out to the excellent point you put there, Matt. We can point out the what I would call the hair splitting, maybe the tea leaf reading of what happens when some one who is maybe not super well uh suited to public speaking gets overwhelmed with emotions. Right, I just touched my chest like that, you know. Uh. This the question is, of all of
the things one could have done, why do this specific thing? Uh? The the answers and body language are of course super easy. You could do your hand in that similar salute, right, you could do a Roman salute or a Bellamy salute, which I'll get to in a second, and you can just pop some peace fingers up there, you know what I mean. Now you're just Now you're just Nixon, which is a whole different back of badgers.
Rock and roll horns, you know, if you wish, sure.
A wild thumbs up, you know what I mean?
Uh, big triangle, you know, why not?
And just put it hard high. So there's also something that some of the reporting is forgetting, which is the Bellamy salute. Do you guys remember the Bellamy salute? It may have been a little before.
I don't I don't think. I guess I just know, the typical military salute with the hand, you know, just you put the hand to the head and and go outward that way. Then the Nazi salute is sort of that, but to the chest right, I just I just wanted to clarify Matt's description of how it's different. Could you maybe point that out.
It's specifics with the hand right, Ben.
Right, Yeah, it's yeah, a direction of of how it's held. Yeah, So for historical context also, and I am not defending this. I am severely anti fascist, and I can't believe that became a bad thing to be in the last few years. But Bellamy salute spelled b E L L A m Y kind of like Bill Bellamy, the DJ from MVV. Yeah, yeah, super relevant reference. The Bellamy salute was created as a gesture.
It looks like it looks similar to the CKL the Nazi salute, and it was supposed to accompany the pledge of Allegiance that children recited in public schools in the United States. Yeah, just like you're doing, hand over heart right, hand out. The thing the thing that bugs I believe all of us, and I don't want to speak for all of us, but the thing that bugs all of us, I imagine, is that you could have done anything else.
You could have done so many other things, you know what I mean, Like, uh, we know that due to the way social media has rotted attention spans, people are incentivized to react to very quick video clips right or
memified viral tableaus of a situation. So like Howard Dean was a politician who got sunk because what he had he had a yoppie yea, yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't have the register for it, but you know, or there we go on those lines, there we go operatic and uh and so it's just poor decision making and definitely to your point, noel it is the Whistley. You can have problems with Elon Musk, but you can't call him stupid.
I think that's right. And that's where I get, really, you know, just kind of icky about this whole thing. And I'm not trying to make any all inclusive statements here, you know, I just think that kind of alarmism is maybe just that in some ways, I don't know, And I'm like I said in the past, and I think the most recent Strange News episode, we're all just doing our best to navigate this stuff, and I just I'm trying my very best not to have a knee jerk
reaction with this stuff. So I do want to just point out two perspectives, one from Ruth ben Yatt, history of professor at New York University, who said, historian of fascism here, it was a Nazi salute and a very belligerent one too. And then a counter perspective from the Anti Defamation League, which is an organization, of course, that is against anti Semitism. They said it seems that Elon Musk made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusi usiasm,
not a Nazi salute. Andrea Stropa, who is a former I guess Musk associate who has connected him with the Fara. Italian Prime Minister Giorgio Maloney apparently posted a clip of Musk with this caption saying Roman Empire is back, starting from Roman salute. So there are, you know, a handful of perspectives. I'm just talking about how it affected me when I saw it, and I know it's also like there's a lot of images. It's just perfect for this kind of co opting. A freeze frame looks just straight
up like a Nazi salute, whatever the intention was. So it's certainly not a very good pr move at the very least because it's getting memed all the help.
Well, yeah, and there's alarm coming. I was flipping through Instagram earlier and I saw just a random reel of a German citizen just saying, hey, first time, I hope you know you see what's going on here.
Yeah, and we really appreciate this marvelous Marvin alliteration aside, there, alliteration aside whatever. We appreciate this because it has been on the minds of a lot of people in a very diplomatically described, a very chaotic time. Right. We talked about it in the past. The secession of power is something that empires always quarrel with, and here in the United States, the successful passage of power is an extraordinary
thing for it to occur peacefully. And you don't have to look far throughout the modern world or throughout history to see how easily this sort of stuff can go wrong. Now, of course, you know, I apologize for putting out an adamant opinion here. I'm far less interested in what I think you guys, I'm way more interested in what our listeners think because to your point, Noel, is this is this alarmism, right? Is this just reacting to something that
is sort of manufactured, arguably to incite reactions. It calls to mind again broken record here calls to mind our conversations with Carl Miller about the way that online communication is sort of programming people to feel like they instantly need to react, but at the same time still on the fence. I don't want to diminish this stuff. Like, you know, none of us are fans of the Nazi Party. Sorry, if you are and you're listening, maybe not the show for you.
Well, and here's the thing. The AP has a First of all, this is what Musk said in response to all of this brew haha. He said, everyone is hitler, attack is so tired, come up with new material essentially what he's saying. But here's the problem. The AP article is titled Musk's straight arm gesture embraced by right wing extremists or wardless of what he meant. And this is by Bernard Condon. And we have in response to this post from groups like White Lives Matter, which is a
white nationalist groups, the white flame will rise again. Maybe woke really is Dead, was posted by white nationalist Keith Woods on X Right. When a commentator named Evan Kilgore posted on x did elon Musk just Hyle Hitler, we are so back, so dog whistle intentional or no, right, awkward gesture or no, this stuff matters and his sort of half hearted you know, denial isn't really even a denial, is it.
It's a non nile, it's a non apology. It's a I mean again, everybody, it's just so easy to do, you know, if you're celebrating something, so easy to just do some peace signs, you know what I mean? Where As you said some rock and roll horns.
Well, you know, I should have known this would yield plenty of conversation. I did have another you know, I'm just gonna read it because I think it's a quick one and we can honestly give the floor to another listener. A listener by the name of the Millennial Boomer, had this to say about a couple of topics that we've covered in recent Strange News and Listener Mail episodes. Good evening, gentlemen,
A wonderful show today. As always, I wanted to pop off a few quick things first being about the browser wars. As always, feel free to use any of this in your show. As you pointed out on the show, Edge is the default Windows browser built off Chromium like Chrome, so fundamentally the browsers have the same base structure. Edge actually beats performance of Chrome the majority of the time
due to Google's vast data collection efforts. If you really want to subvert both browsers, you can download Chromium directly and have full control of the browser's settings. Many that Microsoft and Google lock you out of. This is great information. Firefox is sort of the last remaining major secondary browser out there, but much of the funding to Mozilla, the Mozilla nonprofit rather organization, comes from Google. I did not know that, so one has to wonder what the game
play is there for Google. In the long run, Mozilla has slowly been adopting more Google friendly policies. My opinion is that they have to support another browser out there so that they don't have monopoly on the industry. Without Mozilla, Google is the sole shaper of the web, which is a scary thought. The other thing I wanted to address was the airplane doors. It's nearly impossible, if not impossible,
for someone to open them. While at altitude and speed, the force pushing in on the door is many tens of thousands of pounds of pressure. At cruising altitude, it's something in the neighborhood of twenty thousand plus pounds of pressure on the door. Now, do failures happen, obviously, but in general, outside of landing and takeoff speeds, the force exertion on the door quickly outranges human strength potential. This
is also good to know, millennial boomer. This will help me sleep at night and sleep on flights when I'm in the exit row. Finally, I love the thought of future civilizations, assuming there is any, looking back on our skeletons and wondering what all the plastics were about, especially if there's such an infra loss like we have with the ancient cultures we study today. When I was in college, my archaeology professor gave us a thought experiment about toilets.
Imagine such a world where human waste removal is significantly different, especially if we become spacefaring and travel away and come back to ruins and all knowledge is lost of the current civilization. With things being so digital, that is entirely possible. Thus, leading to the future civilization, wondering why everyone had this porcelain thing in their homes. Would they think it's an altar to a god? Everyone has one. It must have had significance to everyone. Why the whole was that so
they could make their offerings to the god. It's such a mundane object today, but with no knowledge of the use case hundreds of thousands of years from now, what was its purpose? It makes you think about the objects we find today that we're not sure of the use case, but that everyone in the past knew its function. Appreciate your work as always, the millennial boomer guys, I just
thought that was all such good information. And I know we don't have a ton of time to chat this one through, but I thought it was worth dropping because really this is sort of stand on its own. I don't know if you guys had anything to add or any before we wrap, but I do thank you the millennial boomer.
Those are great thoughts.
Yeah, thank you millennial Boomer. Yeah, I owe you and emails. We want to go ahead and be account of bill of buddies on that one. There are so many threads we can take this in. We would love to hear from you as well, fellow conspiracy realist, thanks for sharing that, Nolan, you know most portly mallenial Boomer, thanks for taking the time to write in because you're reading my mind on some of this search engine stuff.
Oh geez, chromium As to mention the plastics and skeletons, I just think that's such a so rife for like the way science fiction writers kind of think about, you know, future civilizations finding remnants of the past, and it's just as perplexing as you know, some of the things that we find from ancient civilizations. Super cool. And also thanks to Dave for just breaking the ice on that salute.
I think it was.
Definitely worth talking about, and I hope that we looked at it from multiple angles. So we're going to take a quick break here a word from our sponsor, and then come back with more messages from you.
And we've returned. We were jumping to the phone lines. Guys. Before we do that, gotta make a little I don't know, confession, will you hear my sins? Boys, I just have to admit that I was you know, I would have been a star player on Uncle Billy's Bible. Bonkers, Uncle Uncle Baby Billy's Bible Blonkers been a star player.
I've always said that about you, dude man.
About twenty two years ago, I would have taken everybody out. I would have been the king Bible bonkers. But I am not that anymore. And when we did our episodes on the Birth of Jesus, I went off of a bunch of information that was in my head that I didn't confirm in the moment that I didn't you know, I didn't do the fact checking in the moment, So I just kind of went off of what I remembered
and I got something is wrong personally. So this next segment is our Uncle Baby Billy's Bible Bonker's Bible study. So we're going to hear from two people, oz Woman and Sleepy Stella. I think maybe we just play these back to back, uh, and then well we're going to read the Bible a little bit. You guys. Isn't that exciting?
Always?
All right? Here we go, Here we go. First up is oz Woman.
Hey, this is oz Woman, Idaho. I'm listening more and you guys are talking about timeline theology. You guys haven't read all of the book. You haven't read all of Luke. Okay, it says that Gabriel came down to Mary and another angel went down to Joseph. Several days later, Mary came out as pregnant to Joseph. Joseph decided that rather than stone her or kill her, he was going to divorce her quietly, That's what it says in the Bible. And after he decided he was going to divorce her, that night,
another angel came and spoke to Joseph. And it was after that speaking, but then they got married. And it shows in the Bible that Joseph did not know Mary as his wife until after.
Her birth and her healing.
So there you go, and this is oz woman, and yes you can use my name.
What was the issue that we talked about in terms of the chronology, There was just there were slight differences between the Gospels.
Yeah, differences between Luke and Matthew, two books in the Bible, just about those moments when the angels came to both Mary and Joseph, gave him the information and then how they dealt with it right, and specifically, what I got wrong was what the situation was between Joseph and Mary, you know, prior to, during and after the revelation.
Also, I've always thought the immaculate conception was referring to the birth of Jesus, but is actually a concept that is associated with Mary being born without original sin.
Wow, let's see. I didn't know that, And I think and I do wonder how much of that is different between what's taught in certain Christian sects versus Catholic sects.
It's apparently not mentioned in scripture.
Yeah, I think that's an important point because we have I know, we're getting to our next conversation, right, but with this we do have to note that your denominational mileage may vary. Oh, it's an important point to remember.
Oh yeah, and your translation may vary too. There are some very important things within Osma's message that we're going to address here in a second. But first of all, I guess just what we need to know is that there were two different visitations from angels according to the Bible, and one went to Mary first, and then another angel
visited Joseph. There's a dream or something and a visitation that occurs for Joseph after he is made known by Mary that this is what has happened, because she was informed by a different angel Okay, let's continue on with Sleepy Stella's message because she gives us a little more information and specifically from a Catholic perspective.
Hi, guys, this is Sleepy Stella. I'm listening to part one of your Jesus episodes, and I really appreciate you mentioning the perpetuation of miss Angle, because the story of a human woman being knocked up by a heavenly or a divine male is, you know, all over mythology, even before Christianity came about. Anyway, I didn't want to clarify something. I do not consider myself a Christian at this point
or a Catholic. I was brought up in the Catholic staith, and I went to you know, Catechism, Sunday School, things like that, and we always learned that Mary was is. She was impregnated by the Holy Spirit.
Before she married Joseph. She was engaged to Joseph, and in their little community wherever they lived, everyone knew that they were betrothed. And the reason that the Angel appeared to Joseph was to say, Hey, she's pregnant. He's going to be the son of God, but please go ahead with the wedding kind of make her an honest woman, so that she's not an unwed mother, and that's when the loyalty and the faith of both Joseph and Mary
were tested. I think you guys are saying in this part one that Joseph and Mary were already married when she received the Holy Spirit and became pregnant. That is not how I learned it. But again, this is in Catholic Catechism when I was making my sacraments. Anyway, call me back if you'd like to discuss this. That's how I always heard it. They need to make sure that Mary was not ostracized by.
Her community by becoming.
Pregnant out of wetlock, even though Joseph was not the biological father. Basically he kind of had to sign the birth certificate kind of situation. So anyway, that's how I always learned it. Thanks for your show.
I haven't called you guys in a long time, but I'm enjoying listening to this episode, and thanks.
For what Bhi, thank you Sleepy Stella.
Gosh, great information, right and very much stuff that I know. I grew up Methodists. I think you did as well. Matt. It seems like they sort of dumb it down a little bit. The version that you get in Methodist Sunday School and Catholicism has always been a real hung up on the details. Now, I don't mean that in a
negative way. I just mean very focused on very specific chain of events, and I just feel like I kind of got the like you know, made for TV movie version of it, and my religious upbringing.
Well you got to think, you're I was a kid for most of the time that I was studying the stuff, and it was a big part of my life. And you can imagine that there's a version of that that goes to you know, the children's church thing you go to and then the youth group that you go to. They are very different versions of this probably that get taught to you, and then that gets stuck in your head the way they did get stuck in my head.
The complexity of being betrothed but not yet married and then making that decision to go along with everything that's happening, as we talked about in the episode, is so complex, so just it's an intense moment. It's an intense thing to do, right, so to teach kids that you just maybe change it a little bit I'm imagining if the idea.
Even of receiving the Holy Spirit and not handled with tact could certainly be a very difficult thing for a kid to understand.
Yes, yes, so guys, if you don't mind, I've shared the document on here and I figured we could maybe round robin some Luke and Matthew. Is that absolutely?
Do you want to do, Matthew or do you want to profile you?
Hey?
So, here we go. This is the new International version of the Bible via the Bible Gateway or Bible Gateway.
I never knew what that stood for, matt I always see NIV on on certain editions.
So thank you for the international version.
Yep, that's the version I just gave to my son.
It's a very popular one.
I had my name on it.
All right, here we go, man, that's awesome.
This is Luke one twenty six through thirty eight, starting with twenty six in the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy. Don't worry about Elizabeth for this, But that is an important part of the Bible.
But that's all there. What you said is all in there. Yeah, it's Elizabeth pregnancy. Don't worry about that. Now we'll get to Elizabeth.
She's right. It comes in the story later continuing, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph. A virgin pledged to be married pledged to be married the man named Joseph a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary.
The angel went to her and said, greetings, you, who are highly favored. The Lord is with you.
Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the Angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God.
You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus.
He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father.
David, and he will reign over Jacob's descendants forever. His kingdom will never end.
This is the really important part. How will this be, Mary asked the angel, since I am a virgin.
The angel answered, the Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the Holy One to be bored will be called the Son of God. And we're gonna skip some of the Elizabeth stuff, right, matt Yeah.
We're skipping over Elizabeth. Sorry Elizabeth. And finally here this is verse thirty eight. I am the Lord's servant. Mary answered, may your word to me be fulfilled? And then the angel left her. So that's the moment everything we just read there is the moment the angel Gabriel went to Mary and gave her that news, right, the good news, the messed up news, what the heck news? That was
that part. Now we got to jump to Matthew again in the new International version, this is Matthew one eighteen through twenty five to get some insight into how what was Joseph doing, what happened to Joseph, and how did he find out, and also to talk about the relationship at the time, because this is where we find that information. So let's begin. This is verse eighteen. This is how
the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about. His mother Mary was pledged pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.
Because Joseph, her husband, was faithful to the law and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace. He had in mind to divorce her quietly, which is a very big deal at that time.
Wow, And it's also that's interesting.
We had a crisis of faith.
Isn't it weird to use the term divorce because they're betrothed at this moment, right, they're not married.
Right.
It's a translation or a translation choice, i should say, which these adaptations are riddled with.
So you're saying, man, he's having a crisis of faith at this point because he does not yet understand the magnitude of her being pregnant.
It's like, what is the right thing to do? What is the most correct, most righteous path of action? And sometimes, especially when you're in the trenches amid situations like this, can be very difficult to see the broader horizon.
Well, this is before he has a vision though, Yes, right before, Yes.
This is the test of faith that our callers are talking about.
Exactly, he could have just jumped ship right away, but instead he was dwelling on it. He actually slept on it.
It would seem exactly that's exactly.
What he did. Let's get to you, let's get to it, man.
You want to take us to verse twenty Sure, so he is considering. After he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
She will give birth to a son, and you were to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.
All right, I don't want to editorialize too much, but I love how this next couple verses. It feels like there's a quick aside, like someone leans in and faces the camera and says, all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet. And then back to the story, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him a Manuel, which means God with us.
When Joseph woke up, he did what the Angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife.
But as was stated by our callers, this is verse twenty five, but he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son, and he gave him the name Jesus. So yeah, there you go. There, there is what the Bible says occurred, right, at least according to that one version in translation.
Yeah, and while the translations may differ, right, and while people have spent centuries exploring different connotations and implications of translation, that's the gist of the story, correct.
Yes, yes, and that is not off the top of anyone's dome. I e me, that is what it actually states. So chapter and verse, Yeah, there you go. And you know, all this stuff is so complicated and based in faith anyway, like even to the writing of the world that we just stated out loud, right, and then whether or not you or how you feel about those words and their meaning and everything, and that is your own thing, right, So there you go. I think that's it for this section.
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And we have returned, Ah what wonders to share with you which have been shared with us via our fellow listeners. We're not going to get to everything, So, fellow conspiracy realist gentlemen, I propose a choice. Pick a number one through. Pick a number one through. Oh gosh, I love this game. One through five hundred thousand.
All right, that picks three hundred and ninety nine thousand, two hundred and fifty three.
Okay, all right, we're gonna go so with a quick set up for a larger conversation from our pal Griffin. Griffin, the Void reached out to you thanks to your excellent correspondence earlier. We'll share this real quick because I think it's going to be a rich, fertile soil for us to explore together mourning gents, says Griffin. You can call me Griffin, says Griffin. I was just listening to your listener mail segment where you briefly touched on the possibility
of growing human organs and animals for transplant. I attempted to write an ethics paper about this, maybe close to twenty years ago. At this point, it's an area of fraught with ethical issues. I understand the desire to end any organ shortage to mitigate the suffering of people around the world. Audits surface, it really appears to be a no brainer. Where I get stuck at is at what point do these animal donors have rights of their own?
Stay with me, This is into a letter from PETA pause here, Griffin We actually got some really nice letters from Peta. We had some pretty great correspondence, which I believe we shared on air. Anyway, Griffin continues, and this is where it gets quite fascinating. Simply perform a thought experiment, says Griffin. Assumed that we've modified a pig to grow organ safe for human transplant, essentially creating an animal that, short of skin and bone structure, is human in every
other way. A human in a pig bag points to you for the creative writing there. Now, at what point are those pigs hitting a threshold whereby they should be considered human and afforded the rights and considerations that we would give to every other human. This is my problem with it, says Griffin, because I found I could not come to an answer. The end result of this science
is organ farms full of hybrid animals. It's distressing to consider that they may be human enough that the moral consideration that one human life is worth more than one animal life would need to be considered a side off. Griffin. Jeez, it's something that we've quarreled with, right, It's something that I don't know, Griffin. We wrote back to you with perhaps an overly thorough response there, But there's a lot to it, you know, guys. Do you guys ever think
about that? Like? Is there all right? Let me set up this way, so Griffin, please send us your paper if you return to it. We always love reading reading the things that our fellow listeners create. In our response with you, we talk about the ethical foundations of this conversation. And first off, I don't know about you, guys, but I think this is going to become increasingly more concrete as time goes on. Like I think the I think the chimera organs are on the way.
Yeah, aren't they being worked on? They yet? I remember seeing videos about this with rats and human ears.
Yes, yes, years ago, yeah yeah, And it wasn't the inner workings of the ear. It was just the fun part that gets cauliflowered, except if someone clocks you. And then also we know that there were heart transplants poresine or pig heart transplants, and that led to people living longer than they would have. Unfortunately they did expire after the transplant, right, so they're not alive today.
I don't know.
It feels like it is going to happen at some point. But our argument here is maybe maybe needs to begin with the two distinct and sometimes mutually exclusive philosophical origin stories.
Right.
One idea that is oversimplifying is that a all higher forms of life deserve the same right as the human animals, Right, that's number one. Number two is a little more nuanced and says the crucial difference ethically hinges on the complexity of the brain. Right, So a chicken is not gonna is not going to figure out Project Willow and quantum proof computing or something like that. However, and that's a
shout out to you, Baron, Eaton. We could say that a corvid or the right kind of cephalopod may be close enough to what humans experience cognitively that they should be afforded the same rights, you know, feeling pain, feeling regret, knowing people, missing people, or other you know, members of your community. I don't know, I think that is those those points seem kind of distinct, right they.
Do, They certainly do. But I'm just I took a look at my dog, oh, sitting on a bed over there, and just thinking, well, dang, I mean, I think I see a lot of the emotions in her. Course, I am the human that's tesked with keeping her alive, but in the same way. I don't know we've had those discussions animal intelligence and plant intelligence. I think you've had those like those really gosh, these when you get down into it, like how would you possibly give full human
rights to all higher order animals? Like how could you even do it?
Right? Yeah, the concept of legal personhood, which argues that some non human life forms, whatever they may be, have evolved to the point that they should, you know, be counted as humans legally. It's a weird definition because it's kind of like what we talked about with the disappearance of Ambrose Small is legally dead for a while, and then eventually they say is really dead. It's nuts because it reminds us of something we didn't get to in strange news, you guys, this is a hobby horse for
us for many years. Elephants legally can no longer pursue their release from the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado. It went all the way to the Colorado Supreme Court.
Wow, I did see that headline. Actually, it's pretty wild.
I can't wait for the law and order on this one, you know what I mean, who's going to play the elephant dun dune.
I'm gonna say, Willem Dafoe perfect, perfect, or Gary Oldman who may have Willem Dafoe is kind of always Willem Dafoe except when he played Usperazio that time, but he isn't really known for his transformation. You're right, Oldmen is a much better pick.
I don't know. I could see all I could see all of it. But all right, So critics of this, we'll call the move to free the elephant's pr stunt, but supporters of not putting these kind of animals in zoos will say it's a moral necessity and legal person hood is It's a concept that we see in multiple countries. It's going to recur as time goes on, and I think it will only accelerate and the stakes will raise with each passing moment because the natural habitats where these
animals could reside are quickly disappearing, you know. I mean, yeah, zoos aren't great. You know, I'll never forget the various times we've hung out. I think maybe we met the same guy in Atlanta who called our local zoo an animal prison or animal jail. Did you guys ever meet that guy.
No, but I've certainly heard that term thrown around, and there's animal rights groups that seem to feel that way. I think we have mentioned often on this show that our zoo, as well as the aquarium here in Atlanta, are kind of focused on rescues and animals that wouldn't survive in the wild because of various injuries or that they would be ostracized, et cetera. So there's something to
that in a conservation kind of way. I do not care for the idea of zoos as like amusement parks, you know, and animals on display simply for entertainment purposes. If there is a component like that's obviously what pays for these conservation efforts. People buying tickets to the zoo, and I think that's great, but I do kind of prefer personally for there to be that conservationist component.
Yeah. I just remember how fun the zoo was with my son when he was young, and it was always a learning opportunity.
Also, I'll say it, man ethics society, where are you going to have the other opportunity to witness firsthand these amazing organisms? You know what I mean?
I mean, I went to the Animal Kingdom last year, maybe two years ago at Disney, and there's a Safari ride and I don't know what their deal is where these animals come from, but it was incredible. It was this vast open area and all of these zebras and it was a really good day. A lot of times they're hiding, but they were all out. And the people who are giving the tours and these like kind of buses that can even drive through pretty deep water. We're
clearly just absolutely, you know, passionate about these animals. There's no question there. So again, I don't know the deal with these animals and how Disney acquires them, but I did. You're right to your point, Matt. Probably not going to go on African Safari anytime soon, but this was kind of the next best thing.
See. But are the rhinos true cast members?
Yeah right, you know, Oh boy, check out our Disney until they pull their heads off.
Oh no.
So that's our first axiom, right, our beginning point. What we would take to be true in this argument is that all higher forms of life deserve the same rights as human animals. In theory, that's great, it is true and noble. However, in practice it has never happened, and we have to remember that most humans don't have the rights that we like to say most humans have, right. Right. The second axiom is, you know that idea of how complex is the brain? Right? Are you capable of metacognition?
Are you capable of art abstraction? And do you miss things when they're gone? Can you see an invention and replicate it? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. There's a lot of misinformation here because a lot of non human animals make tools. And this is where we get to the idea that that you're talking about, Griffin, the argument that creating a non human animal with discrete human compatible components is helpful. Right, it would undoubtedly save human lives.
But Ben, do you think that would also maybe change some of the perspective around animal rights just in general, Like like, since there are hybrids, now, does that mean the non human animals maybe attain some more robust rights?
Hell?
Yeah, man, I'm just wondering if you changed the lay of the land. You know, I think it's great foreshadowy. So this is not step ad in. So I am not a neurosurgeon, thank goodness, but we know that the brain in all these living things, it is the headquarters of the nervous system and therefore organ interaction. So it seems like a tall milkshake for us to claim that changing the organs of a living creature would not somehow
result in secondary changes upon the brain. So how many organs, how many systems can you sort of humanize before the brain starts to humanize as well? Does that make sense?
Yes?
Yeah, Well, and we talked a lot about the humanized models, as they called them, of rats and mice, right and some of these other animals that already have their DNA altered so that they are more human like. And as you're saying, what does that do to the cognition of that creature?
I love it because when you say that on a lighthearted note, that makes me remember the excellent videos that I will consistently go back to of rats enjoying their lives, like rats being tickled. Rats are ticklish. I don't know if you guys.
Squirrels some amazing videos of like squirrels reacting to trauma, like I saw one the other day of squirrel grabbing their heart like, oh, like out of surprise, like a Disney cartoon character. You know, I mean there are They are able to process complex emotions. There's no question about it.
Yeah. I also I wanted to shout this out the Top Tier video if you have never seen it, there was a study teaching rats to drive and they love it. They're all about it. Ares, But are they having fun? You know? Are they getting out there? They super duper are We also know that I've read too much rat science. We also know that rats musical preferences change on based on the amount of cocaine administered to them. Yeah, who got the grant for that one? You know what I mean?
Well, they probably got a pardon from George W. Bush. Oh yeah, this is science, there it is.
But congratulations to whomever helmed that study, because you must have. You must have rolled a critical success on pitching ideas with charisma. We are admittedly consummate omnivores here on this show. We are well aware of the horrors inherent and factory farming and livestock industries as they stand today. But I will posit to this question about what makes a human a human right, I would posit that this becomes more immediate when we see a race between two biomedical breakthroughs
and it's very much ticking clock here. Which will win the race? Is it going to be the creation of Kaimer destined for death? Like we grew this pig because it has pork chops, but we also grew it because as a heart, you know what I mean, or a kidney or what's what's a funny organ? A clean there we go, nailed it, well done? Yeah?
Well?
And one of the cool things about this, and I'm gonna give you a proposal here. One of the cool things about this is that the organs are often grown on the exterior of these animals. So what if there was a way to remove the organ that was grown, save the animal, and now the animal can live a life. What if with every organ grown you get an adopted animal h.
Very like Toms of Maine.
Yeah, or what if the whole the whole trial period at the end, you have to take care of the animal for the two months prior to getting your getting the organ installed. So it's up to you whether or not you keep that animal in a happy, healthy place.
Sure, welcome to the least we can do. Well, you know what I mean? You know this is the other thing too, right, the other like the idea of growing animals purposely for these organs. And I love your idea there, Matt. It's not that different, coldly put, from the way that people are raising livestock today, right. The difference is only the end use, which is horrific to say, but very true.
The other thing racing towards the finish line of technology here, and I would argue triggering a form of path dependence is the creation of just purpose made, manufactured replacement organs. Hey, hey, says the person. I've got a bum ticker. I have certain maybe physical or philosophical, or ideological or spiritual limitations that do not allow me to have a poreside heart inside of me. So here's some of my DNA. You guys have a great weekend, and then just three D
print a new heart for me. Something like that's gonna happen. It may be more expensive, but I posit this. Whatever the breakthrough is, whatever path dependence occurs, and there will be some sort of it. What about this. We talk about replacing a human organ often, right, because humans are super into not dying. What happens when you need to replace a brain. To go back to the idea or building on the least, we can do or the least you could do. LLC picture of this kind of Faustian
bargain or this poison pill deal. What do you do in a world where your loved ones may die but they could have a copy or fasimile of their consciousness put in a new physical body. Right now, we usually think of that being robots, right, or some kind of online similacrum. But here's the gallows humor. How about this. What if the replacement does become possible and they say, ah, your organs are too riddled with problems. We can replace you know, your brain. We can make a copy of
you in a new thing. And you say, yes, doctor, please save me, And they say, all right, due to the constraints of current biomedical research, your consciousness can be replicated. We can save your life, but you will be inside the body of a pig. M What would you do? You know what I mean, that's doable.
Let's try it. Yeah, I support you, guys.
That is one of the most diplomatic nos I've ever heard. I love it, man. I don't know if most people would say yes. You know, we're thinking out loud here, but again, thought experiments aside. This is going to be a thing. The red market is very real. A lot of people have died as a result, a lot of money has been made, a lot of crime has been committed, and everyone wants other people to be able to survive. We just don't know what the effects of that are
going to be. You know, it's a fantagious situation again, Like you, what happens if organ replacement becomes incredibly affordable economy of scale? Right now, I don't have to worry about smoking. Just pop over to CVS get my other lungs, you know what I mean? I get a price break at twelve.
That's that's crap.
I don't know, it's it's a lot to think of. And sorry, I know I'm ranting a little bit here, but but what, like, what would you guys do? Is it is it possible that is it possible that at some point this kind of technology would be banned because of the ethical complications?
Yeah? I think we just got a three D print them proteins. We can do this.
I like the optimism, Noel, how about you?
What I mean? You know, I'm given the vast quantities of money involved in the field of biomedical technology, I have a hard time thinking if there's money to be made,
that it's going to do anything but progress. I don't think ethics typically are at play when it comes to money to be made, you know, I mean it kind of It seems like a lot of times it is stuff is pushed forward without fully thinking through the end game, ramifications in the service of making lots of money, and that maybe the voices of dissent are often kind of quieted in favor of quote unquote progress.
Yeah, yeah, terrifyingly well put there. We know that, we know the conversation will continue. We're going to We're going to lean on you. Fellow conspiracy realist. Please write in and tell us how you would solve these ethical quandaries. Is there something that you would not do to save yourself or a loved one? What is the what is the rubicon? Thou shaltst not cross? The Bible's got in
my head recently. Before we before we go out, we want to in Letters from Home, we want to give a quick shout out to soup Dog, who raised some fantastic questions about digital existence. Do check out our recent conversation with the tech researcher and award winning podcaster Carl Miller, creator of kill List that should be available now. We are going to get to our good friend Baron Eaton and Project Willow in the future. But for this moment, I think there's nothing better for us to go out
on than a nice joke as a palate cleanser. Remember how earlier we were hyping up this joke.
Oh and something about the snow.
Can we hype it up more? Yeah, Dillie, give us some crazy music, no crazier.
Yeah, I don't know, this might be too crazy.
All right, all right, take it down one point five.
That's it. That's it.
There it is, that's the spot that sounded weird. Uh, here we go. This is uh. This is a joke that we were very excited to receive from our pal Harrow. Add with that drum roll, we proudly present.
Hey man, I'm listening to the Listener news and you made a reference to ic DMS and I just wanted to point out that that is. But yet when the abominable spittleman anyway, Emo, Harrow, have a great day, go ahead, and if you wish go ah.
I'll take it.
It's better than humorous, Harry, And yeah, yeah, we appreciate everybody who writes in with humor, which is one of the highest aspects of thought, to be honest with you, but maybe we restate.
The joke one more time for people who haven't heard it before. What do you call it? How someone else do it? I'm too close to it right now.
What do you call it? When the abominable snowman takes a poop?
And ic b m oh. Thank you for the rackouts. Applause Dill in Tennessee pal face.
Like innercontinental ballistic missile, Yes, icy, icy movement, Yes, yes, okay, it's you know, it's good humor when you have to spell it all out for everybody, or I'm just bad at it at jokes. Sorry, that's awesome. That's very good, very good.
Thank you so much for the rockets. Applause there, Dylan, Thank you to Griffin Harrow, Soup Dog, Bearing Eat, no Ose Woman, Sleepy Stella, Marvelous, Marvin, the millennial Boomer, and most importantly, thanks for tuning in, folks. That is our show. Join us tomorrow. We have such wonders to show you if you want to, if you want to inspire us in a further exploration of these programs or an episode please please please hit us up immediately stop whatever you're doing.
Shoot us an email, drop us a call, or hit us up on the nets of the inters, which is how Yoda would say internet.
He ways, Yeah, God bless him for it. You can find us with the handle conspiracy stuff what we exist on Facebook with our Facebook grub here's where it gets crazy. On YouTube we have video content for your producing enjoyment. And on xfka, Twitter, on Instagram and TikTok we are conspiracy stuff show. We're also human people. I'm how now Noel Brown on Instagram? How about you, Ben Bowen.
If I survive the current travails, I am an entity that can be located in a number of fashions. Get the to the Necronomicon. Turn to page sigma eight. There will be a little upside down black triangle there. It is a magic book. So just turn that triangle the correct way at midnight and then we'll start chatting. Or you can find me on Instagram at redacted.
Oh and Matt, Yeah, if you want to find me, just go outside, find a car. Make sure you can see yourself in that car's windshield. Once you're there, give it your absolute best. Riz you could usually just look through Ben and Noles thing and I'll be in there. Wait, somebody just changed my name to Riz.
God no they did not. I love it as well they said it, by the way, speaking You know what, here's a little secret hint for finding Matt. He just posted a really cool video talking about our live appearance on February eight, nineteenth at National Sawdust as part of the on air fest. If you want to hear Matt's dulcit singing voice and piano playing skills, you can check that out on my and Ben and the Stuff they don't want you to know Instagram account and it will
point you to Matt's secret personal account. Ooh yeah, and.
You still pretend it's a secret. We gave you a pretty clear directions. But yeah, you know, secrets are fun.
Yeah, exactly. My name is Matt Frederick. You can find me on Instagram. You can call our number one eight three three STDWYTK and tell us all about all the things that we talked about in this episode. What are your feelings, what are your thoughts? What are your ideas? When you call in, you've got three minutes say whatever you'd like. Give yourself a cool nickname and let us know if we can use your name and message on
the air within the message. If you got more to say than can fit in a three minute voicemail, why not send us a good old fashioned email.
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