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Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Noah.
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer, Paul. Mission control decans. Most importantly, you are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. Tonight's episode, let's call it a travel show. Recently, just off air, we were talking about some of our favorite children's books and I reread a book called Oh the Places You'll Go by Doctor Seuss. You guys remember that one indubitably Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's pretty cool.
Right in the United States at least, it's often gifted to people to celebrate milestone occasions, graduations, weddings, funerals. But it got us thinking, what about the places you cannot visit? And you know, we love to travel. I don't know where to start this necessarily, but we, as everyone knows, Matt Nolan and I love going on the road. We're going to be on the road again soon, and we want to go to where.
Places ben you are I think the most traveled of all of us, and it has been a long time since I've had to go through a customs somewhere of any country. Can you just describe basically what that process is, like, Oh.
Yeah, it's uh, your mileage be very folks, But customs essentially you have to present documentation that allows you to physically enter this place, whatever that place may be, and then you'll typically get some questions depending upon how busy the customs agent is, depending upon how sensitive your country
of origin is. Perhaps, yeah, what's their vibe? You know? Recently, recently I've had some very weird conversations at customs, and not weird and a bad way, just someone who just someone who was like having a boring day, and then we had a lively discussion, you know what I mean.
But ultimately that interaction, as you're saying it, it has a lot to do with the country you're attempting to get into and your country of origin and the relationship between those two bigger powers.
Basically, absolutely, yeah, I think the relationship plays a huge.
Role on Yeah, agreed, it's one hundred percent correct. We are going to do a passport episode in the future. It is something more people need to know about. Tonight, we are exploring the places in the world that you overwhelmingly cannot visit. You cannot go. We'll have some returning guests, some important updates, and most importantly, fellow conspiracy realists right
to us. If you have visited any place mentioned in tonight's show, we would love to learn more, and we would like to if you are comfortable share your experiences with our fellow listeners. Here are the facts. First disclaimer, This episode a Western centric. We're focusing on what's sometimes called the Global West, and we're focusing on Earth. We're focusing on earthly places people for one reason or another, are not allowed to visit. You know what I mean.
I think about that too. We're thinking about places you cannot go. No one's going to Venus, right, No living human being is all of a sudden going to just drop by Mercury for a long weekend. Pluto's kind of out of the cards.
I just watched a video. Oh gosh, I can't remember this. The the scientist's name. He's He was a younger looking guy when we were coming up in Discovery and he I can't remember his name, he's so awesome. But he was telling a story about Jupiter and he was asked the question, well, could we just shoot a rocket like through Jupiter because it's just made out of gas, right, He's like, oh, interestingly, no, because it gets so and
dents at the center. Uh it would you know, it would melt and it's you know, to be destroyed pretty quickly. He's like, but actually, we don't know what's at the center of Jupiter, which is still a mystery, which is still Sorry, that just blew my mind, you know. But but science doesn't know what's there.
But can we send boys there to get more stupider? That's the question. No, it's just a dumb like a like a what do you call it, like a playground rhyme, you know, to get more stupid.
It's like uh uh snakes and snails kind of thing, right, the no will you do the rhyme? Maybe, said Walt's jump roping. Perhaps m hmm. I think it's boys go to Jupiter to.
Get more stupid or girls go to Mars and become superstars.
Well that's good. I like that. There's a positive message.
Oh guys, I just remember the scientist. It's Brian Cox, physicist. Awesome guy. He's like in his fifties, but he looks like he's twenty. You might get a picture in your head of him.
He's not the old guy from succession.
No, No, that's a different one.
It would be cool if they were the same guy, but like it would be There's an interesting point there, right, because there is, if we're diplomatically putting it, there is a non zero likelihood that if you are listening now, you may one day physically visit the Moon or even Mars. The odds are kind of low, but you know, it's still a possibility. The main thing is the rest of the Solar System, all the stretches of outer space. You're
probably not going to get there. That is a place you cannot go, even if all the other billions of people on Earth want you to. The technology is just not there, so we have to focus on Earth. It's big, it's not having the best time. It is super crowded now a nights people are all over the place. In fact, men, any of the places you cannot go are already populated by people pretty much just like you. And that that's where that's where we have to address the American dilemma.
Isn't this nuts? Like we talked about passports in the past, and we're doing in the past, and we're doing an episode about that in the future, Noel, not to put you on the spot. You got a passport, I think most recently out of the three of us, are renewed to passport. Is that correct?
Yeah, But it was like a passport from my childhood. I hadn't, you know, do a lot of traveling domestically, but hadn't left the country in many, many years since I was a kid, and I had lost that passport, did not have it, and I had to get one pretty quickly for an international trip that I needed to take, and I did go through like an expedited thing. And I think I actually got my passport physically the day of my flight, and.
It was like super clutch. But it happens.
And apparently in those situations like if you say you're traveling for a funeral or bereavement or something like that, they can expedite it. But I think because of COVID, the system was just so backlogged that it was very, very tricky for anyone to get help. And apparently you can write your congressman if you're in a jam or real situation like that.
Yeah, that is one thing that I was told.
I'm like, cool, I'll put that in my back pocket. But it all worked out. I did not end up having to write my congressman.
You could still write them, you know what I mean, maybe they're lonely. Yeah, I'd love to hear it from sort of penpal kind of relationship. I did want to mention too though.
On that trip, there was I hadn't dealt with customs in a long time, or to my memory, so I was so young. But there was a situation where it was really weird because you thought you were done and then you go through another country a little stopover, and then all of a sudden you got to do it again, and it sucked. And you have to plan that, you know,
because it takes time. It's like, you know, you got to plan that into your your connection, and a lot of times it's very very clutch because you're like, you know, waiting to go through customs and then you're literally hauling ass to get onto your flight right before it leaves.
Yeah. One time, one time I lost thirty six hours because I had to poop and I had almost spittake just a zero. I had to leave, like I cleared customs they call it. I had to go like there was a whole security thing. It was. It was weird. Now Matt never has to go through all go through poop.
Mating customs also is a euphemism for pooping.
That's actually really cool, right, we could use that one. You know, Matt's got an order of Malta passport, right, so you just sort of breeze through airports.
Yeah, I got free and clear and all the other stuff. I just gave them all my information in biometrics and I'm good to go.
You're a liar. I didn't do any of that as of twenty twenty three. It's weird. So the US has a dilemma. It has a really strange discrepancy. It is by far the most culturally influential country in the modern world by any measure, any metric. Yet the people who live in that country, a little over half of them even own a working passport.
Yeah I need just so you know, I need to get one for my son, and I need to update mine so that I'm right in that boat. I was doing research on this the other day and it looks like a fun process, he said sarcastically.
Well, you can get through it, you know. It's it's better to plan ahead. And it also means this dilemma. It means the country that is quote unquote traveling the most culturally in terms of influence, is home to a bunch of people who just stay in the US and don't go outside. Not a part of the global culture. And there's nothing wrong with that. You know, there are two huge oceans. It's difficult to.
Travel, and that is why a lot of people travel vicariously through others, you know, because there's a whole world of folks that are out there on the internet, over sharing on social media.
It's literally their job.
They are oftentimes treated to cruises, you know, fancy hotel stays, you know, things like that, all for the purposes of kind of creating this lifestyle image that folks can then either use as inspiration perhaps who I want to go to there, or just live through these people. Highly recommend the film Triangle of Sadness if you want to see this kind of world absolutely upended. It is the best sat tire of this type of thing that I think I've ever seen. Maybe one of the best satires I've
ever seen period. It's just fantastic. Ben, You and I were talking about that with some colleagues yesterday.
Yeah. Yeah, it slaps. Have you seen that when that triangle of sadness?
Nope, it's about some social media influencers and others who are on this like ridiculously opulent yacht cruise in you know, some you know, gorgeous clear blue ocean and things happen.
Woody Harrelson is the only American. I think.
It's a Swiss, a Swiss film, and Woody Harrelson plays the captain and he's like a like a Trotskyan anarchist basically and basically on purpose. This isn't a spoiler. It's in the trailer, crashes the ship.
And then it becomes the kind of kind of a Lord of.
The Fly situation, and it is hilarious and sad and kind of action packed, kind of kicks.
Ass on every level.
And it really is just a razor sharp commentary on the kind of stuff we're talking about.
Not employ it.
I'm you're watching YouTube shorts with you know, random people providing unnecessary voiceover on travel videos. This lady went to the Giant's causeway. She liked that rock. She jumped over it and she almost tripped, but she didn't. Sorry.
Yeah, there there is this need to experience the world, and if you are pretty much the majority of the United States, there are very difficult roadblocks to traveling the world physically. So we experience it vicariously. You know. We watch the YouTube shorts, We watched the Tier Point Noel, We watched the travel influencers on social media who will say out in Switzerland and now I'm mountain blah blah blah. Let uh. To me, that sounds a lot like telling burglars when you're not going to be out.
Yeah, that's true, or like having those cute little stick figures of every member of your family on the back of your STV, or like advertising some like luxury high end stereo you have in your car with a bumper.
Stickerh the giant sticker says, I don't know self defense.
Yes, that's right, that's very open please. Yeah, right, And so we have to be honest. For most people living in the United States in the modern day, the main way you travel outside of the borders of that country is to join the armed services or to work in a branch of government. And this is an American dilemma. It creates another issue, do it large parts to the actions of the American government. The world is chock full of places you cannot visit. Here's where it gets crazy.
We open with a sharp focus on the West and keep that for a moment, right, Let's learn about the world's most quote unquote dangerous countries.
Absolutely, as of twenty twenty three, the number one with the bullet or a bunch of them anyway, most dangerous country remains Afghanistan.
And it's not terribly surprising.
Considering, you know, if you paid attention to the news and global conflicts over the last decade, it's been number one for about well five years anyway, but still there's been stuff going on there for more than five years. It's been number one for about five years according to the Global Peace Index, which is a comprehensive tool that weighs lots of data about specific states and regions and assigned sort of a score to each one of these countries, referred to as a GPI.
I'm not quite sure what that stands for, bend, you know, Global Peace Index. It's just to just go with that. They go with their own name. Okay, got it, that's cool. I get it to dummy, that's funny.
Yeah, That Institute for Economics and Peace is a pretty strange thing. I'm looking at the website here and they instead of calling it number one, they rank it by like one is the best. So Afghanistan is currently ranked one sixty.
Third, right, yeah, which is interesting because there are more than one hundred and ninety countries exactly. So, not for nothing do historians call Afghanistan the graveyard of empires. You know, for thousands and thousands of years, all sorts of apimals have made life terrible for people living in that part of the world. And it's got it's got a lot of problems, and a lot of those problems come from abroad. It's home to some of the world's most profitable opium fields.
They hate women like they hate women existing. There's also a very unclean, very old normalization of abuse toward children, which you may you know, if you want to ruin your evening, you can look it up on your own. But it's unclean. And now a terrorist organization became a state power. It has at best a loose grasp on
rule of law in the country. And right now as you listen, it's weird, right that this place would continue to be the world's most dangerous country by multiple metrics, But it has a higher number of deaths from war and terrorism than any other state in the world. That's pretty considerable, you know, thinking about Russia and Ukraine in an act of hot war, Afghanistan is still more dangerous.
Yeah, that terrorist organization that now runs a state, remember, was American trained in part of one of the other conflicts that occurred in the country way back when. Wow, not that long ago actually, but forty years again.
You know, the US has an outsize influence, right, So it's it's the kind of thing that makes you want to listen to a mortal technique more often. In short, if you are in Afghanistan, and if you're not yourself of Ghani, you messed up. You cannot go. If you talk to the US State Department, you can't go. If you are in other countries, other stands, they're going to tell you not to go to Afghanistan. And number two most dangerous country. I like that you pointed out the
reverse ranking there, Matt. Number two most dangerous country Yemen. Yemen was in the news in the West for a little bit, but you don't hear about it as often now, which is a shame, because there is an ongoing humanitarian crisis and very powerful forces are waging proxy war in Yemen.
Yes, Yemen is currently experiencing arguably the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet.
More than five years.
Of military conflict have forced more than four million people to leave their homes and put fourteen million people at serious risk of starvation and disease. Around eighty percent of the population of Yemen, which is twenty four million people, is absolutely in desperate need of humanitarian aid. And that proxy war that we were talking about between the KSA and Iran is ongoing. The country is for all intents
and purposes, under siege. So while I probably wouldn't recommend going anyway, you can't.
Go, you can't go, you can't go. Then there's Syria, speaking of things that the Western world sort of forgot about collectively, the Syrian Civil Wars started a little before March twenty eleven and it continues today. Kid you not. This is the second deadliest war of the twenty first century. Five point seven million people have been forced to evacuate Syria to leave, and more than six million got couldn't get out of the country, but had to leave where
they lived, where they grew up. Iran, Russia, the Assad government and of course the US and Israel continue to beef in this place. We talked about it in the past, right, what's that? What's that? One? Port tartis something like the tartis bigger on the bigger on the side that on the outside. If only it were.
Dragon Con weekend coming out of my brain is that's true?
Dragon Con is a big deal here. If you travel to Syria, you have to understand there is little to no rule of law outside of the capital. If you go outside of the capital, you are on your own in a very dangerous way. And even people who are who grew up in Syria, you know their family might have been from Syria for centuries or millennia. If you get outside of the country and you try to go back, you're going to be in a tough spot. There's not really a customs you can clear, and that means it's
another place you cannot go for now. And I guess at this point we got to talk about number four Russia. Of course, sadly, yeah, I guess you can't go there? Can We really not as Americans. We can't go to Russia. No, not even to visit those cool buildings from Tetris.
Like Waite, really because I actually want to go to Russia. So this is this is terrible news.
Okay.
Is it because they won't allow Americans in or because it's dangerous to go?
I think it's dangerous. And the tough part is getting out, okay, because you know you will have a target. If you are coming as an American, you will have a target on your back. Actually, if you're coming from any NATO member state, you will be under close scrutiny. There's a lot of speculation going on about the future of Russia behind closed doors. The most important elite entities in the world, the mining folks, the tech folks, the military, the banking folks.
They're more or less gambling on what to do when this unsustainable situation burns down, which means you can't go. I guess if you're like Halliburton or something, or I guess if you like Join Wagner. I don't know.
I don't know. I okay.
Oh, speaking of which, just sin surround the topic. Did you guys see, I was at.
The gym the other day and I saw they do think that Wagner guy died in a plane crash.
I don't think we rediscussed this. Yeah, the finger, right, the finger was the forensic evidence that got mentioned. I didn't see that specifically.
It was just like literally a muted TV with a headline and I was just popped into my head just now. But that's wild. I bet he was assassinated. That sounds crazy.
Yeah, so maybe don't go to Russia. They don't take kindly to interlopers.
Well, it's so weird because like the State Department right says, hey, travel advisory, don't go to Russia. It's dangerous, and they put that out in February of this year, twenty twenty three. But then if you look anywhere else on the web, they are all these I guess travel agencies and even Russia's it's like, yeah, come on, come on over in Rush. Everything's fine, it's totally safe. Just don't go to you know, their a couple of regions in conflict. Don't go there,
you know, and be careful about it. But when you know the US State Department is specifically saying, hey, Americans don't do.
It, right, Yeah, And there's a reason. And of course the Department is always going to be overly cautious, right, that's their job. This takes us to another thing, like I love you bring this up, Matt, the idea travel advisories. There have been travel advisories about the United States to other countries. There was one that came out I think it was some other painful election and I want to say it was Germany issued a travel advisory to German nationals visiting Florida.
Specifically, there should always be a travel advisory for Florida.
I'm just kidding. We love you, Florida.
But the travel advisory is certainly not the same as a travel ban, which is a real you know, political weapon, right in a way, like instituting a travel ban. I think we had we had a couple of those recently that we're kind of done as almost like a diplomatic middle finger, right.
Yeah. It's fascinating because it would be political suicide to ban people in general from leaving the United States. It is meant to be an aspirational country, right, You are able to go and leave freely if you wish, unless you have committed some pretty heinous crimes. However, other countries not the same. You know, if you are a dual citizen of a place like Iran, they'll let you in, but getting out's the hard part. That's why you can't go to a lot of places. And I did learn
one thing. I know we're going and long here. I did learn one thing interesting about the top five countries the top The fifth one is South Sudan. South Sudan is the youngest nation by far in the top five most dangerous countries, and it didn't exist until two thousand and eleven, which means this show is older than at least one country on the world map.
This podcast is only two years younger than that.
Country, right right, The audio is only two years younger twenty thirteen. It was there's a good gram podcast, Am I right? Classic? That is really good? Actually, yes, I think so, thank you fi pud Left Behind podcast. I ran over it, backed over it. So thankfully South Sudan is stabilizing and or wishing more stability for the place. But right now, make no mistake, you cannot go. That's just the top five quote unquote most dangerous countries. We're
not counting the other heavy hitters. Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Somalia, Ukraine of course, and so on.
Well, we're not even hitting all of the African nations that have been going through coups like recently, super recently, and they're on the list most of the African nations. If you go to that Vision of Humanity dot org that we're talking about, most African nations are on the lower half of that list, which is really just mess up and sad, especially given there's so many military coups occurring right now.
Absolutely, you know what. On that point, let's pause for a word from our sponsor, and when we return, let's dive into that a little bit more.
All right, and we're back. Uh yeah, let's before we move on, let's let's just focus a bit on African nations and what's going on right now with places like Niger, Burkina, Faso, Uh, what is it, Guinea Guinea Bassau, Uh, Gambia, Saotome, I don't I think that's how you say it, Sautom, I don't know. And princip yeah, and PRINCIPU and others there there are there have been so many stinking coups, military coups specifically juntas that take over a standing government in
Africa in I don't know, let's say five years. If you're watching the news right now, then you can see Gabon is actively going through a coup in Niger. Weirdly enough, these Western powers we've been talking about haven't really acknowledged that the military junta taking over is a coup, which is weird. So if you look at reporting from Al Jazeera and some of the other outlets that are not Western, you know, specific or poised, people are just saying, Hey,
what the heck has been going on over there? And why won't people talk about it like it's a coup. I don't know. I don't know what to say about that. Besides, if there is a country going through a takeover from a military, we probably shouldn't visit, right.
Hey, Matt, what is AFRICAM.
Oh you want to talk about AFRICAM? Really? Okay, let's talk about AFRICAM. That is the US Africa Command. This is part of the Department of Defense. This is basically the United States military positioning for all of Africa based in Germany, which is kind of weird.
Like a town in Maryland called Germany, or like actual Germany.
No, no actual Germany where our young NULSEF. Brown was born when.
I was a young German boy.
Yes, yes, very much. Oh but the reason why I wanted to bring them up specifically was to talk about a thing called Flintlock twenty twenty three. And I'm going to make another podcast recommendation right now to everybody out there, the intercept which is a really cool online publication that
we've been looking at for a long time. They've got a podcast called Intercepted and they just conduct some awesome interviews with high level military officials, often trying to basically say, hey, how do you answer these questions that we have about you know, what's going on in Gabon right now or the Niger kup and what does that have to do with this thing that you hold every year called Flintlock, which is basically a military exercise for all of the
African participants, let's say participating countries, partner countries.
Yeah.
Well, they get together and they do all kinds of anti terrorism drills, training, weapons, you know, education, all kinds of stuff like that. It's mostly tactics really that these groups of soldiers are learning. And the weird thing at least that Al Jazeera and the Interceptor pointing out is
that these exercises have been going on for years. There was a there was one that just concluded back in oh gosh, I think March maybe of twenty twenty three March for April, and after Africam holds all of these flintlock exercises, the same trained military groups seemed to be involved in the coups against the governments of the countries in which they operate, which is, I don't know, weird.
Yeah, coincidence, right, had an old statistics professor one time who told me the world functions on patterns. If you believe something is a coincidence, you must prove it to be.
So yeah, well, I'm you know, I'm not trying to prove anything Africa.
Yeah, but there are places, there are places there you cannot go, you know. And while we're being US centric for part of this, I think we can agree one one key thing that people need to understand, especially in the US, is that the world is very different. The people are largely the same, they're largely good, they want the same stuff. There are chaotic situations abroad, and when
we look at this, I love that you're bringing up Africaan. Right, Because we're looking at this idea of the quote unquote most dangerous countries, we have to realize that's coming from a Western perspective, you know what I mean, that's that's very close to and I don't want to sound too like performedly woke or whatever, but that's very close to other ring right exactizing no question about it.
African by the way, shows twenty nine military bases US military bases on the continent of Africa.
And overall, the US effort is becoming increasingly competitive with other nations that are expanding their hegemonic influence like China. Right. Look, likely a lot of this is not big news to us playing along at home, especially if you live in some of the countries that have been mentioned. And here's hoping those countries become less dangerous in the future, not necessarily for tourists or just randoms drifting through customs, but more so for the innocent people who live there and
have always lived there and are having children there. This right now is only the beginning of the places you cannot go. So we can categorize a couple of reasons why you cannot enter certain places and mainly it's because powerful forces, certain powerful forces have conspired or do conspire to prevent your entry, and maybe they didn't plan on it, maybe it was just an accident and they didn't think about the consequences of their actions. Some of these countries
don't top the you know, global danger rankings. Some are just not even countries, they're just places that are bad to visit. But in each category we can find some compelling force preventing you from visiting in person. Obviously, political issues are the number one thing.
For example, in the case of you know, we Westerners and the United States in particular, one of the biggest reasons that you can't visit a particular place is because of intergenerational on going political strife beefs.
We talked about that at the top of the show.
You know, when you might get a second glance, perhaps by a customs agents, you know, perhaps a bit of a roll of the eye, you know, or just a little bit more probing questions. Sometimes they're you know, we have these stigmas that are associated with folks from countries that we have traditionally been at odds with.
And have you been have you ever been randomly selected at the TSA thankfully.
No, I have not, for whatever reason, I don't know. Maybe it's just they like my crocs. But I have never been pulled.
I have had. It's the funniest thing, man.
The only time I've ever had my luggage pulled was because man, they're really eagle eye about these liquid things, you know, too much fluid ounces.
I lost three bottles of hot sauce and a snow globe. No really, I'm really sad about that hot sauce. But no, no, I haven't.
But again, you know, we think, Okay, we talked to actually the other day about how Islamophobia seems to be on the decline to some degree in this country, at least in terms of rhetoric and talking point talking points, you know, politically publicly, right, because there was a time where if you even looked remotely Islamic.
You get pulled every time, you know, I mean, that was just it was just par for the course, that was what was happening.
And but that goes in the opposite direction too, right for Americans entering other countries, we're gonna get messed with for similar reasons.
It's really weird. I'm thinking about a place like Pakistan, that for a long time was a massive trade partner with the US, lots of strategic influence with the US there in Pakistan, and then it turns out, oh wait, they've been funding the you know, political enemies via terrorism of the United States, and now you know, Bin Lauden ends up in the country somehow weirdly, and then now it's things are weird and I don't I don't know.
I just don't know enough about the specifics to imagine like could I actually go to Pakistan if I wanted to? Or is that actually really dangerous? And it makes me think about groups like isol or ISIS or ISS or whatever the heck it wants to be called now that we talked about so extensively for so long, and then it feels like it just kind of dropped away as a talking point anywhere.
Yeah, it's interesting because the you know, for a time, to your point, Matt, Pakistan in the US were very buddy buddy, Prevez mush even Musharraf excuse me, even appeared with John Stewart on The Daily Show. And that's a weird interview. By the way, It did not age well, But of course John Stewart did a great job. We
know to your point. Now, we know that there are these ongoing human created issues, the shadows of colonialists, resource extraction, the old conspiracies that are riddling this alphabet of evil dressed in the lamb's wool of the quote unquote greater good, Matt. I love theyre bringing up Padkistad because we know what happened. We know how the CIA found bin Laden. It was a vaccination scam. How are you going to do stuff
like that and expect people to trust you later? You know, I don't think we can blame people outside of the United States for at some point concluding these Americans are bad medicine. That was an accidental joke. Bad medicine vaccinations. Sorry, please get vaccinated, do your boosters. And so. Because of this, because of these human creative political issues, countries like the DPRK, North Korea, uh Iran, Russia, Belarus, Venezuela, most of the stands.
To be honest with you, they don't like the US Western vibe. And it's a shame because geographically speaking, these are beautiful places. Historic Russia and Iran, ancient cultures have birth some of the best literature on the planet. Right now, do.
You think that's why there's so much strife, just because of the They just had a longer timeline to kind of develop.
These kinds of beefs and these kinds of like, you know.
Religious differences and schisms, and I just always you know, obviously it's also a very important location for many people of different faiths, so there's arguments to be had there. But it just got you, you know, they just really get the get the brunt of it in a lot of in a lot of ways.
I like that question. That's that's a very good question. Is it a matter of timeline because the United States is quite a young country, right, could still count as an experiment, and maybe there are just more opportunities for misadventure. You know, I don't know. That's a really good question. I wonder who could answer that. I don't think it's it's not me. I don't know. Something to think about it. It's a good one. There's also this other idea, a
world in the future without all this human drama. It's a world of amazing possibility. Imagine if just by virtue of being human, you could directly go and see in person all this awesome stuff that led to you existing you know, and it might inspire you to perhaps play a role yourself and expanding this noble experiment. And speaking of experiments, I suggest we pause for a word from our sponsor and return return to one of the strangest instances of places you cannot go, and we're back.
So Ben, you and I discussed some of this kind of thing on a recent episode of Ridiculous History where we did kind of our first ever clip show, which is where we take some of the bits and bobs
that we didn't get to in regular episodes. We often have so much to wonderful information coming to us from our research associates extraordinaire that we don't have time to get it all in, so we kind of bashed it all together and ended up with a whole episode on nukes and on nuclear stuff and nuclear places actually that you can visit. It was mainly the topic of our episode. Today, we're gonna talk more about this stuff you can visit
for a good reason. Some of the places we reference in Ridiculous episode are places you probably shouldn't visit and places that people have had misadventures visiting and led to some very expensive concrete domes being built. For example, you just have to listen to that episode and find that out.
But let's talk about Chernobyl. You guys, what a neat thing that's happened with that site, just how it's become this overgrown, psychedelic wildlife kind of flourishing ecosystem, you know, the site of one of the worst nuclear disasters in the history of the planet.
Yeah, you can. You cannot visit certain sites of mad experiments in the past, you know, nuclear testing to this point, it occurs occurred, i should say, across the world in remote places, sometimes targeting disadvantaged populations more than a half a century. And I love it. We're mentioning Chernobyl again because before the current conflict, you could go to Chernobyl, you could go see this wildlife haven, you know, and to that point, before the reactor went bust, you could
go hang out in Fukushiba. You can still go to Fukushima now it is a safe place to go. The US Trinity site is also restricted. We talked about this. You can anybody in the world allowed into the United States can visit the Trinity nuclear test site on one day of the year, which is that that's such a strange thing, right, yeah, super weird. Yeah, we couldn't even figure out quite why.
Ben, you sort of conjectured that, like maybe it has to do with budgets or something like that, But I don't know if that rings true to me. I think it's a good guess. But that's weird, man, And it seems like the demand would be so high, is it. Well, I guess there's a crowd if there's the one day. I mean, like if it were every day, that the man would probably beat his regular like any like visiting the Alamo. But yeah, it's just one day. It must
be like people lining up for miles. But oh no, no, yeah, that's a good point. Update clarification. It appears that there are two days you guys. The there's the first Saturday in April, and then there's a second day, the third Saturday in October. This is coming from the National Park Service. I didn't know there were two days.
Oh cool, we just doubled our time, guys, guys.
Yeah, let's do it. Let's let's let's go. Let's go hang out at Trinity. I hear at school. But other than those two days, you cannot go, right, and there are specific places, not countries, just places you're not going to visit. We did that episode on closed or secret Cities in Russia and that one, and then you know we're we're in the US South. We know about Oakridge. Oakridge was a secret nuclear city.
Can I just point out this year, the first Saturday in April is April Fool's Day?
Is that I'm failing? I'm not significant?
Well, well that was the one day that you could visit, right, the first Saturday, the one day Trinity it's on the first Saturday in April. Well, it happens to be April first.
Just that would be just some history buff Matt, did you watch did you see Oppenheimer? No? I think I haven't seen it yet. Yeah, okay, we'll miss it in the theaters.
West has been trying to get me to go to the Imax over here for like a month.
I don't know how long it's been out.
But yeah, there's an Imax everything. Is it the seventy whatever giant millimeter print?
It's the Mall of Georgia.
That's what I forgot.
You're close to the Mall of Georgia. That's that's a I love that place. Have you guys seen the latest Wes Anderson movie Asteroid City, is that what's called asteroids something? I feel like this little city that's based in the film is based around had to have been influenced by Trinity to some degree or Los Alamos, and it has a very similar vibe. And there are a few hilarious shots of like mushroom clouds kind of in the distance.
It's a cute movie.
I wouldn't say it's great, but it's it's cute, and the set design, of course, is worth the price.
Of admission alone. I enjoyed it for sure. It's very just so you know, because it's a Wes Anderson film and it's got a message to it. There are other places you can't go, sometimes with good reason. Military test sites. There are too many to name. You cannot approach them unless they get a heads up that you're coming in, you know what I mean. It doesn't matter who you are. If the Pope just shows up in the full outfit and walks toward Groom Lake, someone's going to shoot them.
It's it's like, the rules are pretty strict on that stuff. You cannot go. And then there's there's one we mentioned previously a little bit Diego Garcia Diego Garcia is a bit confusing because it's a vestige of the old British Empire, back when the sun never set right on that archipelago. The this island is down in the Indian Ocean. It's technically a British territory, but the United States military runs
it and you cannot go. Like if if you show up and you don't have a heads up, you don't have some sort of co sign, then you are going to be in deep water very quickly. Weirdly enough, weirdly enough, they have a kind of cool Fourth of July party on the base there. Yeah, for everybody, now the Americans, Okay, but there there are also things we've talked about, like western China, the weager population. You know, traveling to Tibet
is going to be a little dicey, right. Kurtistown is also at the point where people don't even like to call it the country. It's a region. I think maybe we got to shout out one favorite North Sentinel Island. North Sentinel Island is the place you cannot go. The last guy who tried to go was a young Christian missionary and just like the other people who are not from that island he was murdered by by the people living there.
Yeah, don't encroach on you know, indigenous people's unless you've got a really solid plan I guess.
And a translator. Right. Yeah. Our natural question with this, ultimately, when we're talking about places you cannot go, our natural question is why why are their places that you cannot enter? You know, the US and the global West, to be absolutely fair, often treats people from other parts of the world as though they do not have an inherent right to travel, an inherent right to exist, you know what
I mean. You don't have to look far to find harrowing war stories of people attempting to enter the US, you know, and not clearing customs, and it's not because of anything they did, It's because of who they are. And a country that prides itself on being aspirational, on being a place you want to visit, that country can be very tricky and very unfair to people who are trying to actualize that dream. So if we put a side space, we put a side time, travel, biological hazards,
et cetera, et cetera. The question is why can you as a human being not go everywhere you please? In this wide, terrifying, beautiful world. Are these laws making the world better? I don't know, what do you think. Should everyone be able to go everywhere, like aside from you know, military test sites and nuclear stuff? Could Should you be able to wake up and say, Hey, I want to go insert country here.
That sounds pretty entitled to me, just you know, saying yeah, I don't know, I guess.
But I want to go. Matt, I wont to go as end of the world.
If you want to go, find a way, you know, Like there's so many We've heard so many stories of people who visited Cuba when there was a complete travel ban on going to Cuba as an American. There's so many people who got to Cuba. And you just go to one other country and then you take you find a way to get into Cuba from that country because there's no problem getting in from that country. You just got to be careful about your visa or your passport or whatever you've got.
I think I mentioned before, they're in that brief window when travel was open. My kid and their mom went to Cuba and then it like slammed closed again, and they said it was awesome, like really cool old cars everywhere and stuff. It's sounded like a delightful place to visit, But what was the beef that led to it closing again?
Like whoa?
I was confused about how abruptly that, you know, hey we're back and nope, no, we're gone.
Aget. I think it's because the administrations of the US, they kind of change with the wind. So this is not making an argument for dictators or anything. But you know, the team passes the ball every four years, right, so they will react in different ways. In the US position against Cuba is a cold war thing for sure. I just don't know. That's awesome they got to go. You know, I was very jealous. They brought me some cool street art.
There's a handmade kind of painted, a little pressed, really nice kind of paper, like handmade paper kind of stuff.
Really cool. I got to get those frames to do list and speakin to do list. That's one of the questions. You know, of course, the idea of travel in the current global system is an expensive thing, right, It costs money, and so it is somewhat entitled to travel it all, you know, unless you are forced to do so. The question is these passports, these borders, these customs, are they making the planet a better place overall? Is it good to live in a world where you can't just go
places because you want to check out the vibe. Is there a solid argument to support these current regimes or is it the same old argument from before? Are you doing evil in the name of some greater good? It's a question we can't answer, you know, and no, you got me thinking about the timeline of empires. That one's going to stay with me. I don't know. I mean, Matt Noel, can you solve it? Can? Should everyone just be able to do what they want across the world? God?
No?
Okay, yeah, probably not. Well, let us know. I'm timpted to agree. Let us know what you think. Folks. We can't wait to hear from you. As we said at the very top of tonight's show, if you have been to one of the places most people cannot visit, we would love to hear your story to the extent that you are comfortable sharing.
Yeah. Hey, just in Atlanta. Anyone out there who has ever lived in or near a place in Atlanta called the Bluff?
If you have bluffs the Yeah, you're bringing up a specific neighborhood, my friends, Yes, I am.
I Am, there's a there's a there's a film about it. It's called Snow on the Bluffs. Yes, it's It's referenced in a lot of rap songs. It is a notorious place for scoring hard drugs.
Well, it's one of those places, like you know, a part of a city, you know, a small, tiny, localized place that you probably shouldn't go to, but you're not banned from, right, And I'm interested in those kinds of places as well, Like what is that like?
Shout out to Gary, Indiana, by the way. That's a heavy hitter on those questions.
Yeah, well yeah, And often it's small parts or small neighborhoods or something within a place, right, So.
Oh man, he just made me think of something near my hometown in Augusta, Georgia, where I grew up in that's right on the border of South Carolina and Georgia. There is a community of a group, a very close knit group called Irish Travelers who live in a gated community. And if you go to that gated community, they will chase you out with weapons.
They do not want anyone in there. There. This is a very specific group of folks who.
Have their own thing going operate under a different set of rules than the rest of us, and there's there's stuff out there about them. There's a twenty twenty episode about it years ago. But now I have heard people that even approach the gates and they are driven out.
So let's also let's also make some space at the very end to talk about the the other side of that, right, which is that there are wealthy neighborhoods all across the world where you cannot go. We can't go there, you know what I mean. There are all sorts of fences. The question is should those fences exist? Should they exist metaphorically, physically, ideologically? Is the world better with or without them? I think you might need some fences. I think maybe Robert Frost
was right. I think good good fences neighbors I think goes.
On to something hell, maybe even a three foot thick concrete dome.
Every now and again, you get in situations we can't wait to hear from you, folks. We try to be easy to find online, that's right.
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Hey, are you gonna be in Las Vegas in September, like specifically, I don't know, in the twenties, the early twenties, like twenty one, twenty three, around that time. There's this thing happening called the iHeartRadio Music Festival, and we're gonna be hanging out over there near it doing some stuff adjacent.
Oh, you can just meet up for for some ether hits at Circus Circus.
I can't believe we're talking about this after we just said earlier on this specific episode, don't advertise your location. But yes, it's all.
We're gonna be doing a thing.
It's gonna be cool, it's gonna be a lot of fun. We can't wait to see everyone that's you know, we miss being on the road.
Basically, find your way to the T Mobile Arena in Las Vegas and we'll be on the outskirts somewhere.
Somewhere, just drifting through Bose Activation.
Well, we know what. We'll give you more specific details as they arise, but it is a thing that's happening.
So if any of you live in Las Vegas, hit us up and maybe we can you know, do a.
Little a little meet up.
The very least come to see us do our whatever the hell we're doing live podcast.
We'll figure it out. You can also call us.
Yeah, you could call us too, But before you call us, this is a shout out directly to Kane Brown, who is going to be there. Uh, you should hang out.
With us, all right.
Just wanted you to hear that, Kane.
All right.
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