From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A production of iHeart Radio.
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Noah.
They call me Ben. We are joined with our guest super producer, Dylan the Tennessee pal Faken. Most specifically, you are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. It is our weekly Listener Male segment. We're gonna hear from docer B. We're gonna hear from this is a true story. We're gonna hear from a couple of cats. We're gonna hear from
some anonymous folks. We're gonna hear from Meta Agent. We also, I think, wanted to collectively take a moment and thank everybody who has taken the time to listen to our episode about the dark side of adoption, and also to reach out and share some very personal stories. It really does mean the world.
Yeah, absolutely, and we're going to share one of those right at the top here. That's something that I received from a person who's become a friend through the show, and I communicate with somewhat regularly on Instagram asked to remain anonymous here, but this episode really struck a chord with them and compelled them to share this story. And I guess trigger warning up top, there's a discussion of some sexual abuse, and it's just generally some pretty sad stuff,
but it does have a happy ending. So why don't we pause here, make this our cold open, and then we'll come back with that story in full when we return. And we're back, and here is our message from an anonymous listener responding to our episode on the Dark Side of Adoption. Listening to the adoption episode, and I was actually ward of the state, not really foster or adopted. And if I'm not mistaken, a ward of the state
is something that's a little more common overseas. It's something that if you've ever seen The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, for example, or read those books, the character of Elizabeth Solander is a ward of the state due to not having parents and also due to something that she did,
a crime. I guess that she committed that caused her to be monitored more specifically, but to this listener's point, you can also become a ward of the state, sort of in the way you might be put in a foster home here in the United States, the right legal protection of some state body that's government. So I was actually ward of the state, not really foster or adopted. My mom lost three kids for good reason, and two
of us were placed with relatives across the state. They had done fostering before, so we were never checked up on. I was raped two times by people associated with them. But I think I'm even more bothered by the fact that the yearly check in we were supposed to have with a social worker was just a survey mailed to my uncle and filled out by him alone. I saw it once, and it asked about our happiness and how
we were doing. Never once had anyone asked me those questions, so they were able to give themselves five star reviews. Had I ever got to privately meet with an adult outside the home, I would have had the opportunity to tell someone what happened before it happened again. Siblings went back to Mom, but I got left behind, so I left on my own and hitchhiked across the country. On the positive side, life got better when I began being the only person responsible for taking care of my self.
So I would end by saying that to any kids who are in that bad place now, that it does get better, and that they should find the bravery to talk to someone if they feel like things aren't right. They might not realize right away that what they are going through isn't okay, but they can't blame themselves for not recognizing abuse as abuse when they never got to know. Love. Can share any of that if you want, or if
it's relevant in the future. No name if you do feel weird sharing it, but it is a relief saying it instead of just saying quote unquote bad things. I wrote an autobiography even and just labeled the worst as bad things, because if I don't call it what it was, then I can pretend it didn't happen. But seventeen years is a long time to keep that in Thank you guys for covering the dark side of adoption, and I hope others find the comfort I did and hearing a
lot of us were luckier than we knew. Ah. I think you can probably hear a little emotional reading this. I can't thank our listener enough for sharing this very private thing. It would seem for maybe the first time in a public forum like this, and I know that
has to be complicated, but it would seem empowering. And that makes me very happy that you felt comfortable enough to do that and to allow us to tell this story and hopefully you know, reach folks that maybe you're you know, in the midst in the thick of the situation that you found yourself in, because we know that even here in the States, you know, these kind of situations often fall through the cracks, and you know, people are even killed, you know, children, it's it's it's a
horrible thing. We know the system isn't inherently vicious, it does not intend for these things to happen, but it is understaffed and often there are opportunistic elements that can come in, like in this situation, and take advantage of the system for a check and not do that sacred duty that is, you know, looking after a child who is in need. So I just, yeah, I can't thank
you enough. And guys, you know, we got other messages similar to this, but this is just one that I thought was really moving and I just wanted to share it. But can you imagine the idea of being able to self assess your I mean, that's just mind boggling and if unfortunately, yeah, I can imagine it. But how awful and inefficient that a human never even got to speak to these kids.
Yeah, that's what I wanted to talk about. Pretty recently, my son's in a public school and he he got something sent home by the staff, like the teachers, the classes that he's in, and it let us know, let me know, as dad and his mom, that there's going to be an assessment, a self assessment basically that every kid was going to fill out in the school and it was going to ask questions like this, and you know, about how you feel, how if you feel safe, if
you feel fulfilled? All these like pretty big concepts for children of an elementary school age. But that kind of thing being you know, asked of a child in that moment when they're in school, which is theoretically a safer space for some of the kids than it is at home, right if they're in a bad situation, that to me
is a massively important thing to exist. And it makes me very sad that this, this person that is writing to us didn't even have that opportunity in some you know, third party group to come in and an adult that's not a part of that family that's taking part in the bad stuff to come in and actually just ask the question, Hey, how you doing to the kid.
It's just such a conflict of interest. You know that alone is maddening, but just when you find out that this is the kind of stuff that it can actually help to cover up a policy like that.
Yeah, I'd like to begin by anonymous thanking you specifically for trusting us enough with this story. This is, as we had mentioned earlier, this is something that many people have their own experiences with, very sensitive to that. One thing that I would like to say is you have, by virtue of contacting us, you have already done and impossible to estimate level of good for fellow conspiracy realists who may be in similar situations and have felt at
some point in their lives alone. And there's a power in that, and we thank you for this. Also, if you are comfortable, please do feel free to send your autobiography along. I would love to read it and just grateful for your time as well as the time of everybody else who wrote it. This does matter, and it is It is incredibly important, So thank you.
Yeah, I think you'll hear emotion in all of our voices. You know, this is just something that having been children ourselves and some of us of course having children, and all of us, you know, having children in our lives, just the idea of being in such a place of vulnerability and utterly having this system fail you, you know, and just the most egregious kind of way possible. It's
just difficult not to feel emotional about this stuff. But I don't know, guys, are there any like, if there were kids out there that were experiencing this stuff and they had the courage or the wherewithal to like reach out, would this be the kind of thing you would just you would just report this stuff to the police.
Maybe it's tough theoretically, Yes, there are things what are they called mandated reporters who are legally required you know, people teachers, educators in particular Teles. We're big, big fans of education, and teachers here dramatically cartoonishly underpaid go every day to spend their heart, their blood, their sweat, their tears, and spoiler here in America, a lot of money out of their own pocket and there's not a These are
not very deep pockets. Those are people worth trusting. So I would say mandated reporters are a big part of the conversation.
But to the point of our listener, there could be some kids that are in the situation that don't even recognize abuse as abuse, and how do you reconcile.
That Because things can become so evil, evilly insidiously normalized. That's part of it too. I mean, you know, cliches are only cliches for a reason. When people say things like it takes a village to raise a child, there is a truth to that in that everybody in in that child's environment is in some way I would say, or I would think, maybe I'm idealistic here, I would say, you are in some way responsible for ensuring the safety and the opportunity of that child as they grow and learn.
Like I, you know, I used to be a jerk about it. Like I would sit somewhere and there would be a kid that all of a sudden, I'm the only adult you know in the in the area, and I used to think, ah, crap, now this kid is my responsibility. I hope nothing terrible happens for the next six minutes or whatever. I'm not being here. I'm not paid to be the babysitter here, but there is a nobility to it. There is a mission. And again not to sound like a broken record nor a cliche, but
it is important. You're not alone and there is great power in reaching out to a community.
Yeah, it's hard for me to imagine a kid that's in this situation actually hearing this and then being able to take action based on it. But maybe I'm underestimating all of this thing that we're doing right now. But I've always heard that writing a simple note, like even with just the words please help, or something scribbled on a tiny little piece of paper, a gum wrapper or something like that, and just handing it to a stranger.
Right.
Yeah, we've seen we've seen instances of that working out where somebody gets pulled out of a situation because they slipped a simple note to somebody at a grocery store when they were take you know, when the uncle or whoever it is is taking you out to shopping because
they don't have time to do whatever. Just there. I do believe in the goodness of people, as you're describing their ben people who don't who aren't necessarily responsible for that kid at all in any of the filial ways that we discussed in our adoption episode, but will recognize when they can be of help.
Yeah. I don't really have a whole heck of a lot to add that that hasn't been said, So I would just end by once again thinking our anonymous listener for sharing the story, and again to everyone else out there who have shared their stories. Let's take a break and hear a word from our sponsor and then come back with some more messages from you.
And we've returned and we are jumping to the phone lines to hear from somebody that guys, I I think I just am not hearing this person correctly. Maybe you can suss out what this person's nickname actually is. I've been calling the meta meta agent me et a agent. I think they are saying meta sistis agent. That's it might be, but they called before we put that out, so I don't know what is time. So this is I'm gonna cause for some meta agent. So here's the message meta agent has for us.
Hey, guys, this is the metaist agent, this particle that's a big concern for everybody. The issue with city fertilizer, but sometimes called black sledge. There's been a couple of farmers that are refusing to sell products and like even the cows, because they're finding it so heavily contaminated with CFAs that it's dominating a lot of farm lands. And it's supposedly from the articles that I ran a worldwide problem. Yeah, thanks for the show and wanted to give you guys
pretty interesting topics to go through. Thanks, guys.
Yeah, so that is the metaisie agent. So we'll just say it like that. I can't. I'm sorry. I think maybe I just misunderstood and I kept replaying in and I couldn't get what it is. I like meta agent, though, Just call yourself that again when you call it, that's cool. Meta agent. You guys, City fertilizer, black sludge? You ever heard of this?
Yes, but I'm like a terrible sample size for this question.
Okay, No, you ever heard of city fertilizer?
I have not, And I've heard of black sludge, but not in this context.
Well have you heard of black gold?
Hey, Texas team?
In this case, No, it's used Texas dirts exactly. It's used a poopoo that human beings in cities, you know, send down the toilets and then into the sewage system, and then into the sewage treatment plants, and then as it's being treated, the solids that come out of there are black gold aka black sludge aka city fertilizer. It's the human poopoo. Okay, so sorry, So why is this important? Why is this scary? Why is this weird? Let's jump to an article from April tenth, twenty thirteen. It is
posted on NPR dot org's website. I believe it is part of an episode of All Things Considered. It's written by Frank Morris. I want to read just a little bit of this because this is really, I think one of our major first introductions to the concept of city fertilizer. So here we go. The title is cities turned sewage into black gold for local farms. Let's just read it verbatim here. Thank you, Frank Morris. On a normal day, Kansas City, Missouri, processes more than seventy million gallons of
raw sewage. This sewage used to be a nuisance, but Kansas City and a bunch of other cities around the world are now turning it into a resource for farmers. Farmers who need fertilizer. Yep. So that's really all you need to know. Frank calls it the smelly stuff because it does apparently according to people who produce this, and according to the EPA, it has a smell. It's not quite the the poo poo smell that maybe you might be imagining, but there is a bit of that sulfurous
thing going on to it. If you've ever smelled the sewer, you know, walking by we live in the suit, Smell the.
Sewer, catch a little whiff, and then it sort of like vanishes, you know.
Yeah, yeah, But now imagine covering acres and acres, maybe even hectares. I don't know the difference to be honest of farmland in this same poop poo kind of gross. Now let's go back, guys, So let's just take that concept.
Right.
It was gonna be great because cities were gonna be able to get rid of this stuff and make use of it. It's gonna be a great use. It's gonna make food. Now, holy mackerel, talk about recycling. Right, Those carrots go in, then they go out of you, then they make more carrots. Beautiful. Well, we talked about things like Prion's. We talked about things like problems with using poop and parts of one animal to feed that same type of animal, in this case humans, we're the animal.
There could be huge problems with it, right, But that's not the problem here, guys. The problem is something we mentioned all the time on this show, Ben, can you do the honors?
Well? If I had to guess, oh, and first off, thank you Metagant. Check out some of our work for IGU, it's it's for you. But if I had to guess Matt, I would say, we might be talking about some metals that are heavier, but more importantly, we might be talking about some pathas.
Yes, yes, pia carbon, some carbon chains that are pesky and really helpful, but also stick around and end up getting in the water and in this case in the soil slash, fertilizer slash the food that we're gonna end up eating, it's not good at all. You can go to the Columbia Missourian. They have a website Columbia Missourian dot com and you can find an article that was written June fifth, twenty twenty four. It is titled City
Finds Forever Chemicals and fertilizer sludge continues to apply to crops. Sorry, that's comical to me. They find them a big problem. Yeah, but they got to keep using it because now a lot of the farmland around this area is dependent on this supply of fertilizer, because if you don't get the nutrients into that soil, you can't grow any of the crops.
And thankfully that's the reason why it was called black gold, is because this stuff, this recycled dodo, it has a ton of nutrients in it, and it's nutrients that plants need. It's got the medigant spin.
It has the medicians, it does all the metagens for you, meta agent exactly. We wrote that for you before. We didn't know before you called. But yet, Matt, you're you're describing maybe also what we in the in the Boffin world and the Ivory Towers would call path dependency, meaning that a certain technique or technology or process has become baked in just like fresh baked poop, and then the
other ancillary or subsequent industries rely upon this. So, for instance, to stay with the idea of energy or yeah, loosely put energy, you could talk about path dependency as an example of coal during the Industrial Revolution. Well after people knew it wasn't ten ten double plus good, they had to continue using it simply because so many other industries depended upon its existence. And maybe that's what we're looking
at with this sludge. But one question I have for you Matt and for you Meticen is by the time people found out about the inclusion of pafas and the inclusion of heavy metals, it feels like maybe the horse already left the barn. Was there some sweet spot where human poop was just amazing for agriculture?
Well, it is, And here's the problem. I think it's the nature of the process of recycling the sewage water and it's not in the poop necessarily. Although there are pfasts in us all the time, usually when they get into us, our body doesn't process them, so they just stick around and go into places like our testicles and our brain. Sorry, just pointing out other times we've mentioned the places that they end up on this show. It's all true.
Our favorite places, our balls in our brains.
Same thing. So I Ben I'm gonna stick with that too, because there are there are major problems. It is unknown right now at least from the writing I've seen where the pfast is originating. Is it coming just from the water system itself, from the you know, the waste. Is it coming from some other place when it's like one of the processes that are used to create this stuff. So we're gonna go to the EPA's website right now to learn a little bit more about this black sludge.
They refer to it as biosolids, and I'm gonna read verbatim from their article basic information about biosolids. Here we go. Biosolids are a product of the wastewater treatment process. During wastewater treatment, the liquids are separated from the solids. The solids are then treated physically and chemically to produce a semi solid, nutrient rich product known as biosolids. The term
bio solids and sewage sludge are often used interchangeably. There are tons of regulations that the EPA has set forth, like standards that this reused poop has to meet before it can be applied to you know, food that humans and animals will be ingesting. You can read all about that right now. There's a Class A and Class B treated poop. I'm sorry that I'm saying it. Like, guys, I feel like such a child forever. Young Matt Ben
you you. I was cracking up when you were talking because you you used the term loosely and I just I couldn't get loose poops out of my head.
I don't just get them out of your butt first, you know, order of operations, loose poops, sink sloops.
There you go, there you go. But hey, sunsuing owed fire until you see the.
Whites of their buttons.
Yeah, and that's also technically the correct pronunciation is sun poop.
All right, we go.
Sorry, that's a way to I guess what Noel and I are doing here is backing you up. Don't feel like there's anything wrong with having a hearty laugh.
Solidarity and childishness.
Yeah, yeah, so let's get let's get back to this large scale bowel movement.
Yes, not to do that. So there's an article you can find in The Guardian. This is from March twelfth of this year, twenty twenty four, written by Tom Perkins. The title is legal action could end use of toxic
sewage sludge on US crops as fertilizer sewage sludge. I really flubbed the sludge there, guys, this is this is all about an intent to sue that was put forward by a group of people saying that regulators in the United States failed to see the dangers and to protect consumers people who eat you know, foods that are grown out of this toxic sewage sludge. That's how it's being described here as well, which.
You would never know. You would never know, by the way, because there is no FDA requirement to put that on you know, a label for products.
Right.
Oh, I didn't even know that. Is that true? You don't even have to label this stuff as from human you know, sewage.
I don't you know? That's it up? But I don't think so.
I've never been in I've never been in a situation where someone says, you know, it's ninety nine cents for an ear of this corn, sixty nine cents for this and then you go why and they go, well, it's because of the poop.
Okay, you're talking about the end product thee In my head, in my head, I was thinking about the fertilized, the bulk fertilizer being purchased, like it didn't have to have a label. That makes way more sense, Ben, Yeah, it doesn't say grown in human poop. I've never seen an ear of corn that said that. Gosh, oh there was another thing here. I was supposed to mention about the most common foods that are grown in this stuff, but
I think it's soybeans and corn mostly. So like the bulk, the huge bulk amounts of those staples are you are grown with this stuff because this fertilizer is significantly cheaper than other alternatives, the more expensive stuff that is kind of in short supply non human poop fertilizer. We talked about the phosphorus.
What is it?
What was it like peak phosphorus or something. We did a whole episode ones and how that's an issue for fertilizer specifically and for food growth. This is a whole wrapped up thing. You guys that might be worth our time. I just hate to go back to the pfast Well, it's it's awful, it's gross stuff. We end up having to explain how horrible these substances are for us every episode we talk about it, and it makes me it's
it's a huge down owner right now. I feel down because this stuff is literally in everything, and now it's in the dang fertilizer.
I think it's definitely changed the way that our crew considers diet and health. For sure. There are a couple of things we all had to say goodbye to separately, and that's just well.
And then forget that it's even in there. Why I stop eating that? Who cares everything? Anyway?
I miss orange soda and microwave popcorn and all all that slow jazz.
Yeah, okay, yeah, some of those things I've gotten rid of, but I'm still chugging and energy and drink right now and eating all kinds of unhealthy things. I'm sure. Well, Hey, thank you Meta agent for letting us know about this. If you hear more right to us, send us a voicemail anything like that, especially specifics, or if any action is taken. Otherwise, we'll continue looking into this story. We'll be right back after a messages from our sponsors.
And we have returned as always, thanks to our fellow conspiracy realist who have spent some time here with us. Time is the only real currency that living organisms have, so we understand it, we appreciate it, and I seldom ever do this, but you guys, can I tell you just some personal stuff quick. Yeah, just between us and the NSA and the millions of people tuning in right now or AI. You know, it's been a very difficult time here for our crew folks, for all of us.
And.
It seems that when you read the news, there's a disaster every four hours, you know, and it's easy for us to read about these things a world away and not feel personally hit, you know, like when we're talking about this adoption episode, it really hit home for me
as well. And I'm still with Anonymous and I'm still with you know, the work we did and the people we've spoken with about this, because I have people in my family who have been you know, like you were mentioning, you know, who have been directly impacted by these things. So I just wanted to take a personal note before we go into some fun stuff to thank all of our fellow listeners. There's a reason we call you fellow listeners. It's because you are a big part of this show.
And just thank you to everybody who has taking the time to reach out. Because the the folks here on the other side of your earbuds or your air pods or your headphones. I think those are three that your speakers. Okay, the folks on the other side are you know, know, more than just voices in your head, the real people too. So every time you take a personal moment, it just absolutely means a world to us. Dylan tennessee Powell play me off of my pretentious little soapbox there, but hopefully
the sincerity. Hopefully the sincerity carries through. Now we're going to go to a excellent letter. We got one of many from several people who are in the trenches of education. And when we talked about your call earlier, we explored a bit of a pilot program at David Gain College over in the United Kingdom where they said we are going to sub out human teachers with AI programs, and they enumerated the advantages of these programs, and then a
lot of people voting. Some of our fellow listeners told us their concerns before we before we get into We'll just do this one letter before we get into it. Has that stayed with you, guys, the AI teacher thing, it.
Has It's come up in conversation quite a few times with folks I know who heard the story outside of the podcast and just kind of brought it up already. Because I think it is a hot button issue, even for folks who don't have teachers in their families. But it just, first and foremost, it seems like a terrible idea. And I also did a little more digging, and maybe we talked about this in the episode, but it's not
like it's cheap. It's tens of thousands of pounds a year for the privilege at this particular private school in the UK.
And it's also energy intensive to have AI in the first place.
Oh yeah, guys, I forgot to even tell you this. We talked about that last Wednesday as we record this. Then on that Saturday, I took my son to one of his schoolmate's birthday parties and I met one of the moms of one of the kids who happened to be a Spanish teacher at that high school. At school, yes, and she showed me. She pulled up she happened to be doing work, because guess what, when you're a teacher, you're doing work when you're at a kid's birthday party,
because it never stops. She was grading papers and she pulled up on her laptop these diagrams that it's going to be really hard for me to describe to you guys right now. But it's diagrams that show basically how the skills that a child going to that high school will be learning when they take a Spanish class. And it's not the way you would think about it maybe when we were in high school. It's they're not thinking about it as language arts and all this other stuff.
They're breaking it down into these modes of thinking basically, and how is this class affecting these different modes of thinking for you? It was really cool, actually, and she explained that it had a lot less to do with using utilizing AI and more in learning to think about how this stuff is going to change everything that we do and everything we learn, and how how even jobs are going to function in the future.
Metacognition thinking about thought. Yeah, and with that these are excellent points. With that, let's go to docker B. Docer B to the point about being an educator is definitely probably underpaid and working too much. That's just a guess. We have not spoken to docer B directly yet, but doctor B, your letter meant the world to us, as well as the letters of the many other educators who have contacted us about this story. Here it goes Hi, guys, I've been enjoying your show for the past year or so.
You can call me docer B if you decide to mention this note in your show. I believe most educators will tell you that an AI teacher is a terrible idea. Points for you, not because we worry about our jobs, but because we care about children. We know from the failure that was the COVID lockdown the negative impact virtual learning had. I studied cyber school for my doctoral dissertation.
Congratulations dockerby, and from what I read and what I observed, most students, with few exceptions, do not learn on screens. We all learn differently, so classrooms have a variety of activities so that all learners can be engaged. An alarming number of students admit that they put almost no effort into online learning, and there are multiple cheat websites like brainle dot com not a sponsored ad, where they can go to find the answers to pretty much any online
educational activity. Now let's pause there, because I think we've all seen this with you know, people in the audience who have kids, or our educators or if you have educators in your family, you've seen that that especially during COVID, you've seen that shift to this online classroom which is pretty easy to game. Is that a hot take?
No, I don't think so. I didn't have experience with this, you guys. But I'm just looking at Brainley's website and it's described as like a tutor, right an AI helper with your homework.
You know, and that aspect of it doesn't seem completely shockingly awful to me. I think even in the segment, the news segment, I had mentioned like the idea of using AI as a helper for teachers, you know, as a supplementary tool, but you know, having that be the whole thing just seems really ill advise. But sorry, Matt, please carry on.
Oh no, I just I'm just pointing. I'm looking at the website right now, and it's got a lot of people saying about how much they love it and it helps out. But it appears that you could literally write in or take a picture of, or scan or whatever you got to do to get let's say, a pretty complicated math equation into the system, and then it'll just spit out the answer for you.
And perhaps, you know, the big thing. A lot of educational institutions and to be honest, a lot of adult institutions are working with is the fundamental importance of transparency. When people are using these tools right, and they're not telling their teacher they're using these tools, and they're not being upfront and public about it, it becomes incredibly ethically fraudulent.
It reminds me of our earlier conversation with our pal John Wallzac from Missing in Arizona, who does uses AI tools to replicate the voice of a guy named Robert Fisher and from the jump is very honest that this is what's happening. You know, this is a technology we
are leveraging. So it reminds me also as we continue, it reminds me of one of my friends who is an educator at a local school what you would call an in need school, and this board guys had I asked him about chat GPT right and the importance of transparency there, like don't use it and pretend that you're not and he said, he said, yeah, man, I'm not going to do his voice keep that part in, Dylan, but he said, yeah, man, I've had these essays from
these kids. I know they're really smart, but a couple of times I've had to say, I give you a zero and I give chat GPT for a one hundred. And I don't know if that's the right take. I don't know if that's the right tact. We are not ourselves educators. But to your point, Matt, this feels increasingly mission critical transparency, arming people with information. What else could you want with kids? Right?
Yeah, well, and you want transfer back, which is why it's so important to you know, give it to them.
Yeah, Like, if the teacher is leveraging this sort of stuff, we can only assume that if they are a good faith actor, they're also explaining, you know, their means and methods, and they're not going to try to obscure Oh, to be a professor at this point, you know.
Well, I'm watching it happen in real time with my son when when I, you know, sit down with him with his homework and stuff. And there are concepts like basic mathematics concepts as strategies maybe let's say that I've never encountered before.
Oh, yeah, like the thing where you count the dots on there's.
No no, you're right, but there's there's stuff in there in ways he gets to an answer like that and I go, how did you do that? I couldn't do that in my head, And honestly, it's because I had a calculator. I had a calculator for most of the stuff when I was at least older and really thinking about some of these higher order things. And he's only doing you know, pretty basic division in multiplication right now.
But also, shout out Texas Instruments. Those guys are how are they still the top top dog of school calculators?
And they're not just in calculators, man, Texas Instruments is a fascinating company.
Oh yeah. If you guys have ever seen the show Halt and catch Fire that talks about Texas being the Silicon Prairie, they were very much neck and neck with northern California in terms of that kind of space race for the personal computers. Really interesting show that has a lot of truth to it. It's historical fiction. But highly recommend that. And I didn't know much about Texas Instruments and those terms, but they really did have a huge impact.
Great call. Yeah, that's a great recommendation. Also, just to point it out, instruments is a very vague umbrella term, you know what I mean, We're in Texas. What do you make instruments? This interview is.
Truck shit, very sizes and applications.
Yes, there it is, you know, really weird disruptors.
Whatever.
So docer B continues and says, there is also the issue of the socialization that is missing in most cyber environments. One of the most important things that young people learn throughout their kindergarten to twelve experience is how to be humans and how to interact with other humans. A large percentage of the young people who are learning at home during the lockdown never recovered to where they should be emotionally.
Many of this year's college freshmen are still emotionally where they should have been around the ninth and tenth grade, and they are not prepared for the college environment. I don't know, and do we have any notes on that one, because I've I've seen it, you know. I have some kids that are in like my friend and family circle, who are pandemic babies and all their friends were adults for yeah, a couple of years, And that's real kick in the pants.
The only it's not a one to one, but the only thing I compare it to in my mind is that I'm a nine to eleven kid like that. So nine to eleven happened right towards the end of high school for me, and it shaped me a lot same well, because so many other things and concepts got introduced right at that time, right, and ways of thinking about the world and other people. And it really just put a
lens over the front of my viewing device. I don't know what I'm saying, but worth it, but I feel like that has occurred for these kids, right, all that stuff they went through, thinking about the vulnerability that exists just in this whole system that we run and we call civilization. I don't know, and conceptually their minds probably can't even fully wrap around some of that stuff. So it's almost like, I don't know, it's a state of unease that doesn't have a explanation yet.
Yeah, and you know, without sounding hyperbolic, the real cages are often not the cages you can see. They're the starting assumptions, right, the framework, as you said, the screen through which we view a thing. And I think that's an excellent and deeply disturbing point. Matt doctor b continues, Finally, I'd like to mention the negative health aspects of sitting at a screen, Doctor B, we have talked about this on our own cough cough, just hanging out.
How many hours has been today?
Okay, all right, so doctor B, this is an accountability moment for us. Doctor B points out, quote, we should all be moving at least four hours a day, and children should be moving even more than that. Sitting at a screen for long periods of time will have negative impacts on their physical and mental health. It can also do permanent damage to their eyes because of the blue screen. They use a filter. Doctor be got us. Doctor be got us pretty good.
On that one.
I have a pair of those Blueshift glasses.
Member.
They look really good on you too.
Oh yeah, they did ghosts. I wore them to the first iHeart Podcast Awards that we ever got to go to. I think you guys were there, right, yeah, we were all there. I think well, when Will Ferrell was on stage, I specifically remember we took photos and I had those dang things on and I look at them now and I go, why was I doing that in theater?
Those are not the ghost goggles.
Ghost goggles are a different thing.
Okay, cool, but we should all get some pairs anyway, Doctor B says, thanks, again for all the information you share. It would be great, if you haven't already, if you could do an episode on the history of public education. Many people do not know the origins or how horribly integration was handled after Brown versus Board of Education. Have a blessed day, docer By, So thank you, doctor b. You know, we paused along the way to explore some of this stuff. But I don't think our conspiracy realist
here is speaking into a vacuum. It feels like we all largely agree with the points raised. I'm so glad none of these seem like hot takes. You guys. We also, I imagine, we have our own wealth of personal experiences that apply to many of these points.
Oh you guys, speaking of personalized experience, do you guys remember we went to California? Did those meta videos.
Into the metaverse?
How could I forget?
Well?
We did one with is it Carolina Carolina Barlow? Yes, Carolina Barlo. We did one with her, and I don't know if you guys remember when we were chatting with her before and after the shoot. She was telling us about a documentary road trip that she and Will Ferrell will shooting.
It looks amazing where it's his best friend and co writer collaborator who is trans and them going on this road trip together and it just being this incredible bonding experience where they just learned more about each other than they had in decades of knowing each other previously.
Yeah, it's called Will and Harper and we're not sponsored by them. I just want to put this out there. It was crazy to see the trailer of it and then to see some of the behind the scenes where Carolina's there and they're just shooting that stuff, and it just made me think of that time we had out there and it was cool.
Nice, nice. And this brings us to because that feels like a letter from home for us. This brings us to. One of our last things for this Evening's program, we heard from Sam, and Sam just wrote us the nicest piece of correspondence. We'll read just a little bit of it. Hi, guys, I'm Sam, I'm a long time stuff they don't want you to know. Listener. I absolutely love listening to each and every episode while on road trips, working from home as a nonprofit fundraiser, or taking my dog kids for
walks around the neighborhood here in Ashville. I don't have any conspiracy news, but I've just wanted to say hi there to you all, and thank you so much for a long time now. You guys make me laugh and you make me think I really enjoy what you all put out into the universe. And then his bonus credit Sam, you included some amazing pictures of your rescue doggos Lucy and Beans and told us that you do photo shoots with them every Halloween season. I might need an insulin shot.
This was just so sweet. Does that land? Is that how insulin works? I think it is, so we want to with that. Thank you so much to docer B, to Anonymous, to meta agent or medigant, and thank you to Sam, Lucy and Beans. Thanks to everybody reached out to us. Stay tuned for our future explorations. As always, we have such wonders to show you and we can't do it without you, and we can't wait to hear from you.
That's right, Reach out and touch faith or you know us stuff they don't want you to know. You know we are. You can find us at the handle conspiracy Stuff on Facebook, where you can join our Facebook group. Here's where it gets crazy and get in on the memory and conversation surrounding every single episode that we put out. We are also conspiracy stuff on x fka, Twitter as well as youtwo or. We have video content galore for
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I finally caught up and saw the picture of Lucy and Beans finally, and it's amazing. Lucy Lucy rules Beans is amazing too. But Lucy's just got this like snaggeltooth thing going on. It's it's great. Okay. If you want to call us and use your phone in your mouth or your computer in your mouth, whatever your mouth is probably going to be involved. Call one eight three three st d WYTK. When you call in, you've got three minutes, give yourself a cool nickname, and say whatever you'd like.
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