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 Nolan.
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Alexis code named Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. I hope your brain waves are doing well, fellow conspiracy realist. We are also going to check in with the state of music in a country or a region you haven't heard too much about here in the US. We are going to along the way mention some other stories that caught out eyes.
If you're listening to this and you're currently unhoused, here as hoping that the Supreme Court does not ban sleeping outdoors, which is a thing they're trying to do. Have you heard about this?
No, that also include camping.
That's the question. Yeah, it's like, how would you.
We'll get it probably have to be in a national park or something some kind of like government accepted designation.
Yeah, and before the mutated strains of drug resistant bacteria get into the International Space Station or take it over. It's already up there in orbit. We have other stories to share. We want to start with one that may not be appropriate to all audience members. So we're going to talk about an incredibly disturbing event, self immolation that occurred here in the United States shortly after we recorded
our previous Strange News and listener mail. And if this is something that may you feel may not be appropriate for you or the kiddo's listening along, absolutely fine. Just fast forward fifteen minutes or so and I'll give you a chance to go very well. We begin want to introduce you to a man named Max Azarello. At the age of thirty seven, Max Azarello set himself on fire in a part outside of the Lower Manhattan Courthouse where
the trial of former President Donald Trump continues today. This was a long time in coming, and if you are someone who is on social media, you may have seen a lot of the discourse as this was happening. If you were not on social media and you get your news through maybe broadcast television or the radio, then you may have also heard the live reporting of this self immolation. Self emilation is just the word for setting oneself on fire.
And this this prompted a conversation immediately about what the motives may have been, right, what would what could possibly drive someone to injure themselves in this way. Historically, we know that self immolation in the modern era has often been an act of protest right in the Asian theater as well as you know the ostensible launch of the Arab Spring not too long ago, and I think we
all read about this case separately. By the time that it was by the time we were really digging into a lot of this stuff, this person was still alive. They were grievously injured when they set themselves on fire. They were taken to a hospital after the flames were finally extinguished, and they died as a result of their injuries. What we'd like to do with our time today here is take a look at the trail that Max Azrello
left in the time leading up to his death. Because before he set himself on fire, he distributed pamphlets out like around to anyone who would listen, and reportedly law enforcement was also very quick to pick these pamphlets up. We read his manifesto right, and he also left videos about the beliefs that propelled him toward this act. I'd like to start with before you get to the manifesto, excellent piece by The New York Times, written by Michael Wilson,
Tracy Tully and Jan Ransom. A life overtaken by conspiracy theories explodes in flames as the public looks on. And the scary thing is, I think for many of us listening tonight up until up until the death of his mother, that he had a very close relationship with. Max was an all around mench He was like a good guy. He was educated, he was a supportive friend. He had worked with some political offices, but he was by no
means like a partisan of any sort. He was the kind of person that you could talk with even if you disagreed. And that appeared to begin to change around April sixth, twenty twenty two, when his mother, Elizabeth passed away. And I think we've all, like we're mentioning this off air. We saw some of the videos right before, and I think we've read the manifesto as well, correct.
I have not.
I just want to say, though, when I first saw the news story, my immediate assumption was that it was some kind of protest for Trump being on trial, that it was like a hardcore supporter, And I think a lot of people probably thought that until deeper digging was done.
Yeah, he's the pamphlet that he was distributing. You can actually still find it right now. There's a Google drive where it exists. I guess we could say the name of it, just bleep this dip Secrets of Our Rotten World. It's the title of it. And it has all kinds of stuff in there, including a section about the Simpsons and how it's brainwashing and evil.
Right, and if you were in the wrong place, that place being collect Pond Park right by the courthouse, then you would have been able to snag a physical copy of these. You can also go to his substack, Theponsi Papers dot com and read in full his thoughts about this. To give you just some excerpts here which is right now. You can find it easily, folks. He says, my name is Max Azabello. I am an investigative researcher who is so himself on fire outside of the Trump trial in Manhattan.
Interesting note this is not related to the Trump trial. Itself, which I think is to your point, Noel, it's something we all thought upon first read just because of the location he chose. But he says the following, This extreme act of protest is to draw attention to an urgent and important discovery. We are victims of a totalitarian con and our government, along with many of their allies, is about to hit us with an apocalyptic fascist world coup.
And as you read through. As you read through, Max lays out the point by point of what led him to this belief of what he sees as supporting evidence, and to him, the story starts. One of the big parts of the story begins in March of twenty twenty three when billionaire Peter Thiel starts a bank round on Silicon Valley Bank, which we talked about when that occurred, and as he is investigating this on his own, he
begins becoming increasingly convinced that this dates. This all dates back to cryptocurrency and to Thiel's venture capital firm Founder's fund, and he list out the following things that he considers inarguably proven. One cryptocurrency, he says, is our first planetary, multi trillion dollar ponzi scheme. He says further, the cryptocurrency was expressly created for this purpose by a ball of
rich and powerful people. He says all the bank failures in March of twenty twenty three were intentional, in other words, that someone was purposely collapsing the banks, and he says cryptocurrency is what's keeping this quote unquote Ponzi scheme afloat. When it goes insolvent, which apparently is designed to do, it will take down half the stock market, it has already created global inflation, and from there goes on. It's
very again apocalyptic end of civilization type stuff. He also says COVID was unleashed on the world as a rationalization or something for the public to focus on, or a way to enable the Ponzi scheme to continue. Other phrases he uses or things like economic doomsday device made to shatter the world economy. We're all familiar with stories of billionaires getting up to shnannigans, and not all of those stories are untrue, but in this case, Max also argues
the US government is fully in on the grift. He named checks Bill Clinton, going back to the nineteen eighty eight DNC speech where he nominates to Caucus. He taught about the Simpsons, as you had earlier mentioned, Matt, He talks about Rob Lowe getting stitched up. He brings in Epstein. He claims that the entire governance of the US is a secret sleptocracy, with both parties ultimately being run by financial criminals, which again I don't know, let's stop there.
The Simpsons thing, by the way, traces back to Harvard. He thinks people become part of this scheme through Harvard, like the Lampoon.
Isn't that the kind of comedy magazine of Harvard?
Yes, but he's specifically talking, well, yeah, I guess talking about people who probably wrote for the lamb Shoot and then found their way from Harvard to the Simpsons writing room, and Bryan twenty seven of them.
I think, you know, it's kind of like a pop culture fun conspiracy that's been bandied about so long to almost to the point of meaningless, where meaninglessness where people say, oh, the Simpsons predicted insert thing here, right.
Yeah, But in his in his pamphlet, he's saying that The Simpsons as a show basically was programmed us to think we are powerless kind of dumb dumbs inside this big you know, dumb, dumb cogs in this huge machine, and we're powerless to change anything.
Do we really need the Simpsons to feel that way?
So let me get to a quote from the manifesto, which again I think you should read the pamphlet if you're interested, if you want the like the in depth stuff. Look at his manifesto where he writes out a lot of this and he says, here's his quote. He says, if the Simpsons served the interest of organized crime, how would it do so well? It offers a dysfunctional family suffering from moral decay, a community incapable of solving its problems, a worker drone who slaves a way for an evil billionaire,
and cathartic laughs for our poor collective circumstances. And then he starts talking about specific episodes like Marge Versus the Mono, which I think was written by Conan O'Brien, primarily Lisa the iconoclast, and he argues that it is pop culture programming, the idea, that the idea that the elites of the US and maybe the world are telling the public that our eroding collective circumstances are our own fault and we can't do anything about it while they steal the American
dream from us it is, says Max, for lack of a more elegant word, brainwashing. And while this might all sound really crazy, he is writing in a structured way, right, in a coherent way.
Couldn't you apply that kind of thinking to just about any form of satire though if you tried hard enough.
Yeah, it's a rorshack aspect to it, right, what do we interpret? You know? Because Married with Children, if you remember that show that had a lot of the same stuff, but maybe without without the trope of the redemp of.
Kid and it's not nearly as clever.
It's not. No, the Simpsons had the benefit or has the benefit of standing on the shoulders of satirical giants. But with this, you know, the issue for me, guys, is that a lot of a lot of people, especially in recent years, have felt that there is something more to the story that they've been left adrift, right, that the institutions and the regimes and morals that are supposed
to protect the public have been weaponized or compromised. And you know, look at the Supreme Court, that's got some real problems that are coming to bear now.
Well, none of these things are patently untrue. It's also not a particularly unique take. I would argue any of it. You know, it sounds like a person that was triggered into a state of mental decline that kind of snowballed. And I don't mean to be reductive in that way, but that's just kind of how it hits me.
He also mentions Walt Disney, Stanley Kubrick, all the Doctor
Strange Love. Yeah, George H. W. Bush as the director of the CIA, and his logic, at least from what I understanding, has told me if this is incorrect, His logic is that this cabal escalated an existing plan because climate change and resource extraction, the great bill of those crimes is coming to coming do and so they knew that they would eventually not be able to sustain the current status quo, and so their plan, in his estimation, was to gobble up all the wealth and resources they
could and then pivot to a hellish dystopia, leave everybody else holding the bag of consequences. And again to your point, Nol, some of the things that he mentions are things that many of us listening tonight might personally agree with, but he's curated these into his own sort of miliu or remix. And with this, I don't know if it brings the
awareness that he was hoping for. Because the story the headline people read as man sets himself on fire, and then many of us initially assumed this was some meant to be some sort of public protest about the ongoing Trump trials, But to be clear, again, it isn't. And I'm not sure what we take from this. Folks. If you're listening to this and you have ever felt that you were in an unstable place or you were not supported my friends or family, please remember that there are
resources available. And Azabella reminds me a little bit of you know, how people got weaponized by the QAnon chatter and the next thing, you know, raising an interesting point on a forum leads you into the spiral. Well months later, you're armed and you're breaking into a pizza place.
Got a wonder too.
Someone who hasn't been dipping their toes into these waters for years and years, to whom a lot of these things feel old hat to if all of a sudden they were presented a lot of this stuff at once, I could see how someone not in the best mental state could be it could be too much for you know, because it can just be like a sensory overload.
And I think that happens a lot.
And I think that's what caused a lot of people during COVID to go off the deep end a little bit because they didn't have anything to do but go down these self perpetuating kind of echo chamber y rabbit holes.
It got caught the feedback loop.
Yeah, guys, look, I don't know about y'all. I personally speaking, I think the reason why I haven't gone down a full on, like melt down route after learning everything that we've learned on this show is because I've got responsibilities I have to take care of on a daily basis. I can't focus on some of these things as some unified theory, as some like big bad that's happening and really point to things like this and make pamphlets. It's because I gotta make sure my son's got food. I
got to make sure he gets to school. I gotta make sure he's got clothes. I got to make sure, you know, we're making episodes so that I can have a house and mow the lawn. And I filled my life up with responsibilities, which is well, and distractions like video games like Fallout and all that stuff, and TV shows.
I guess here's my worry. I think anyone listening to this right now, any one of us could be susceptible to this if we had the time, basically to sit here and ruminate on all of the insane stuff that we've uncovered over the years. Which just makes me, you know, it makes me feel terrible for this person, for him, for his family, for anybody that knew him, because he got caught up in loops. Like you were saying, be that again, I think we just we have to individually be cautious.
Of Yeah, agreed. And in the case of Azraelu, there were signals. They're almost always signals for the leading up to or preceding these acts. We know that he had been checked into a mental health facility in August to twenty twenty three. There is nothing wrong with that, to be clear, that is a good thing to do when
it's necessary. He didn't find it very helpful when he left, he reportedly, and this is from the Times article, he approached an autograph in the Hasa Monica hotel over in Cordova Street of Saint Augustine Florida, and he threw a glass of wine at it. The police came over and he told the police he did that, and they said, okay, well, you know, everybody has a bad night. Again, that is also.
True, somewhat generous of some one could argue.
Yeah, anybody has a bad night. But then two days later he is back in front of the very same hotel in his skivvies, in his underwear, ranting through a bullhorn to the public. And then three days after that he vandalizes a sign outside of United Way office. He climbs into the bed of a stranger's truck and starts going through stuff. This has all been a huge sea change for him, because radicalization does occur, and often when you're in the in the midst of it of extremism
or falling into that feedback loop. To you, it will not if you are in the bubble. The bubble does not seem to be a bubble of extreme extremity. You know, you think that you are, or you feel that you are putting the pieces together. You think it's everybody else who's slowly boiling in that pot. And with this, you know there's much more to the story. Do you guys have some to add before we close this part.
Oh, just something that you, I guess kind of mentioned and you're right up in our shared document about this. This does feel to me like the kinds of doomsday tropes that we see a lot of times in history and fiction, people wearing like sandwich boards saying the end is nigh.
You know.
It reminds me of like there's a character and Watchmen, you know.
And of course the narrative of Watchmen is that all of those conspiracies are in fact true and that the people shouting, you know, in the streets.
Actually do kind of know what's going on.
So but it does feel like a harbinger in a way, you know, when you hear about this kind of stuff, and how maybe it's a perfect storm for people to be self.
Radicalized in this way.
It's an interesting phenomenon that I don't quite know how to wrap my head around.
Well said. Also, another aspect of this is that if you are if you are an antagonistic force who seeks to destabilize a given government or power structure, social structure, I should say, then you can create things that look like independent protests that does not appear to be the case here. But the question is is this a tragic, heartbreaking one off to our knowledge, no one else was injured. Is it possibly indicative of a trend? Right? What is
on the horizon? With that mind, folks, please please please please take care of yourselves, take care of your loved ones. We're going to continue digging into this story. We are going to learn more about it as time progresses. In the meantime, Before we move to the next piece of strange news, please remember this. If you are having thoughts of self harm or suicide, you can right now call or text nine eight eight to reach the nine to
eight eight Suicide and Crisis Hotline. You can also go to Speaking of Suicide dot com forward Slash resources for a list of additional resources. You are not alone. Your mental health is worth it. Again, that's nine eight eight. We're gonna pause for a word from our sponsor, will return with more strange news.
And we're back with a story that still definitely feels like stuff they don't want you to know in a bit of a sinister way, but on the surface maybe a little bit lighter than the.
Story we just discussed.
The Russian Republic of Checha has recently announced a ban on music that the way it's being reported in the Western press is that's either too fast or too slow. The Chechen Ministry of Culture released a statement saying that was translated to say, from now on, all musical, vocal and choreographic works must correspond to the tempo of eighty to one hundred and.
Sixteen beats per minute.
Probably most people understand what bpm is, but anyone that works in production probably understands to a greater degree, and there's an interesting psychology behind it.
A lot of modern pop music is.
About one twenty to one twenty two beats per mint it. A lot of hip hop is slower than eighty beats per minut it.
What kind of falls between eighty and one.
Sixteen are a lot of house music and techno music and kind of.
Club type music, but also classic.
Rock songs like Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles, which is just ever so slightly too fast for that, including also Taylor Swift's Cruel Summer Smells like teen Spirit by Nirvana, which is one seventeen so one bpm two fast.
And the reasoning behind this, as far as the Chechen government and their Ministry of Culture is concerned, is to really focus on carrying on and perpetuating the Chechen folk traditions in music and to not borrow from other cultures at all, which is very interesting to kind of couch that in terms of such a mathematical formula, like the idea of like this is the no go zone for beats per mintent rather than like things like instrumentation or
you know, certain kinds of arrangements or whatever. It just seems rife for you know, failure. But let's see, Yeah, I don't know, we could maybe just start from there. There's some other things I want to bring into the conversation, but it immediately hits you as sort of like you know, a ban on dancing, because it's like it goes against
religious beliefs. But this is less a religious thing than it is a cultural thing, and it's about preserving and passing on the traditions of Chechen senses of rhythm to future generations. But yet there's some very interesting kind of contradictions in this that will get in in a second. But I don't know, maybe we'll start from there. Do you guys have any thoughts on banning music of a certain bpm and how it could even be forced.
What could go wrong? Right now? I think we do need to just real quick for anybody listening, because we talked about we talked about the problems between Chechena and Russia exactly, yeah, earlier in drugs as weapons. Chechen is pretty small. It's an autonomous republic in the North Caucus, so I think like southern Russia. And it's to your point
about culture. No, I'm wondering if Ramzan Kadrov, the leader of Chechna, I'm wondering if this is part of a continuing move to shore up nationalism to say, like, we do have a distinct culture. We are not Russian. Sure, we are our own thing.
Except I mean, I know that Chechnia has waged a couple of wars against Russia in the past, but now I believe they're considered quite the ally. You know, and the person you just mentioned in power there in Chechnya is very close with Putin, and I believe was either installed or you know, kind of co signed by Putin.
Yeah, yeah, he's currently a colonel general in the Russian military. I know that they Yeah, he was basically Putin was his kingmaker, right, that's who tapped him in. But I'm also thinking, like, Okay, in this part of the world and also in Central Asia, a lot of laws get passed that may seem very odd to outsiders, but we have to understand there's got to be some kind of
logic behind it. I mean, if they're trying to ban it to your first question there, I guess the only really effective ban is trying to shut down importation of stuff, which is almost impossible in the era of streaming music. But then you could say, well, you can't play this in official state functions, right, no more Hotel California.
Except the funny thing about it is there there are so many American as apple pie songs that totally fit the bill, like Staying Alive by the Beg's. I mean, how much more American can you get in terms of like importation of culture. I mean it's just classic you know disco, you know white dudes singing falsetto.
And traditional chech and music by the way kind of slaps.
Oh, absolutely no, for sure, And I've certainly heard a lot of traditional Chechen music because of the nature of the string sounds and the rhythms, the poly rhythms used in electronic music and samples and like used as like textures and kind of like loops, you know, underlying kind
of electronic music. But yeah, like I'm getting a lot of this from this NPR piece, by the way, from April ninth by Rachel Triesman, And she points out that, in addition to Staying Alive by the Begs led Zeppelins, Stairway to Heaven, which is eighty two bpms fits the bill, Dancing Queen by another very European kind of like fashion forward kind of Western vibe there, and Taylor Swift's ten minute version of All Too Well, which is ninety four.
I guess my thing is, like the whole bpm range seems just problematic in terms of like, how is this actually accomplishing what they're setting out to accomplish. Apparently even the Russian National Anthem and its official recording currently it is out of this range.
It's too slow.
Well, they have until June first to rewrite it.
Well, there you go, and I'm sure that would happen.
But even like the song in the background of the kind of like press release video that announced this was also didn't fit the bill for the standard.
It's really interesting.
Yeah, Okay, I've got one of those silly, very clear pictures in my head of roving groups of military or police personnel that have some kind of device that just measures beats per minute. It exists for just walking around it detecting.
Tap tempo is what it is.
They're walking around with just like a metronome and tapping the tempo like a producer would try to get a tempo for like a track and able to oh no, shut it down.
After the June first deadline, though, at least artists who have to rewrite songs in Chechnya. From Smithsonian article you sent and old that also links to the original reporting in the Moscow Times, it looks like they will have an opportunity to rewrite their songs if they don't jibe with the new band. But if they don't rewrite a song, then they just can't play that song in public. So is it kind of like how some countries will ban smoking in public places, but you can still like smoke
at your house? Can you still play what was it? Here Comes the Sun in your apartment? Yeah?
It's sort of like you know drug laws, where it's okay to consume it's in your private home, but not out in public, or you can't buy it or whatever the rules might be. One thing to mention too, Ben, that I'm sure you're aware of, is human Rights Watches view of Chechnya. As recently as twenty seventeen and twenty nineteen, they conducted some very deadly purges of folks seen as being part of the lgbtq IA community.
And there's something.
About the idea of like banning club music has such a you know, place in gay culture, you know, and in terms of like just the history of it, and then like the nature of dancing in clubs as often there's there are some huge, you know, forces in that world that are part of that of that culture, and you just got to wonder if there's sort of like a behind the scenes, you know, dog whistley thing where
they're saying this, this stuff isn't welcome here anymore. But it's like it wouldn't have to be this veiled about it, though, because they've been so open about their disdain for that kind of culture as well. So you've got to wonder what the real motivation is.
Maybe it is a cult for war, a culture war mentality, because it doesn't this come in the step of first they've been terrible to like LGTBQ people for quite some time. There is an active warning for anybody traveling there regarding that. And then I think this was on the heels of an unintentional pun, on the heels of new dress code crackdowns to make people dress in accordance with their interpretation of Islamic law.
Guys, can we do a quick demonstration just for anybody that isn't hasn't sat in a studio before, like absolutely must have with a bpm like a metronome playing. Yeah, So here's a quick example of eighty beats per minute. So this would be the minimum number of beats per minute that are that is allowable under this new rule. Here we go, okay, and then.
Here ballid territory kind of yeah.
And here's one hundred and sixteen beat for a.
Minute too fast, shut it down, shut it smash the metro.
That's that's right on the edge. That's allowable.
And I just think the discrepancy too, between like one sixteen and one seventeen. Oh, buddy, like if anyone's ever fuzed over making beats.
Sure again, the psychological effect of like of tempo really does read. But the difference between one sixteen and one seventeen is probably something only a really nerdy producer in the weeds is gonna know.
That's it. That's the one.
Yeah, so even with seventy nine and eighty, right, I mean, of course, really really close.
I just wanted to add something that I thought.
I saw this on a YouTube video and I'm sorry, I'm forgetting the creator pointed out something that I was unaware of. In nineteen ninety four, the UK passed a law that banned public performances of music quote holy or predominantly characterized by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats aka tech. They were trying to crack down on club culture. They were trying to crack.
Down on raves. You know, this is like the high time for raves. And there's a.
Very interesting group called Autecra who are kind of in this. I don't know, it's sort of an annoying designation, but IDM stands for intelligent dance music, things like AFX twin and square pusher like the beat boops, not just straight
up four on the floor like dancey club music. But Autekra, in response to this law, issued a track called Flutter, in which no two bars ever have the same beat, and it was literally like a protest, and they had some very interesting things to say about it in the let's see, in the literature that came with I believe
it was either a single or something. Let's see, the track was programmed to have non repetitive beats and therefore, according to them, can be played at both forty five and thirty three RPMs on a turntable under the proposed.
Law, which is what we call malicious compliance.
Yes, and then they also went on to advise that any DJs spending their track to quote, have a lawyer and a musicologist president at all times to confirm the non repetitive nature of the music in the event of police harassment.
Fantastic.
So that's the kind of thing we're talking about with this Chechnia story, where it really because I guess you can measure bpms more easily than you can how often beats repeat or what qualifies as like repetitive, because that's sort of a little bit subjective, and bpm are an objectively measurable thing. But what if you had a song that changed BPM's it's only one sixteen for a second, and then it goes down to whatever acceptable rate? Are
you doing an average? At this point these cops are going to have to have some serious math skills.
What if you are considered a political dissident, because we know Chechnya has a lot of problems with this right now, what better pretext would there be? Now the police can just break into your flat and say, oh, we have to check the BPM and we found this other stuff, so you're under arrest and executed.
And could it go to the lengths of like book burnings where it's no longer even legal to possess these You know, it's a slippery slope. You start by doing it and thinking it about public performance, but then next thing you know, it's like, no, we're really cracking down and we need, you know, to have this iron grasp over culture and it's no longer legal to possess these things, Like how long a walk is it from one of those.
To the other?
Yeah? And how do you I don't know's it's definitely part of something larger, I think, a way to further exert control over the region and the public. But as you was suitably pointed out here, Nol, there are a lot of problems with the idea of an enforcement of this, let alone the conception of this kind of law, and those problems are such that we have to question the motivation, like the idea of quote unquote preserving culture that just doesn't It doesn't have enough sand for me. It doesn't
hold water. It feels like it is for something else. Perhaps, as you said, it is a dog whistle, right, like when racist politicians back in the nineteen eighties and nineties would have what would make such a to do about quote unquote urban music, right, so now they're just saying bpms.
Well, weirdly enough, speaking of that bizarre designation, and in commercial radio, by the way, hip hop in the main totally acceptable under this designation because I think it's largely like seventy five bpms or faster. But within that range, you know, you don't usually have except for like maybe like bombs over Baghdad by outcasts, you wouldn't really have a hip hop song that was at the speeds that are on the upper end of that.
That makes it clear. I think we know what we have to do. Gentlemen. It's time to contact the Wu tang. Oh yeah, take them out of the vague. They're they're in Vegas training right now. I say, we deployed them.
Oh, I thought they were chilling in the thirty sixth chamber.
That you are you read on to Operation thirty six chaper.
Absolutely, they relocated it to the outskirts of Vegas.
Yeah, oh, I don't care for that in the sphere perhaps anyway, I don't know. Interesting story, interesting example of a very odd move that seems to be a harbinger of things to come, perhaps much like the Unfortunate Fellow and your story, Ben, but again a lot less heavy. But something that seems less heavy on the surface can yield much heavier results down the road, as things tend to kind of snowball with these levels of like trying
to control what people can and can't do. Let's take a quick break here, a word from our sponsor, and then come back with one more piece of strange news.
And we're back. Guys. I can't wait until twenty thirty eight rhyme The newly yeah right, the newly elected President of the United States requires that all music that is played within the United States be bluegrass only. There's only bluegrass, and people will have until September to rewrite all of their songs into a bluegrass format that's going to be exciting.
Bluegrass has got to be on the upper end of that bpm range. It's it's all pretty quick, but.
It is representative of American culture somehow.
Which is interesting because parnage of it. Yeah, because the banjo clearly traces back to an African instrument.
Ah see see, and a lot of the Chechen instruments that are kind of loot like or these sort of like you know, have that sort of timber to them.
Well as the first actual facts Homo sapiens, you know what I mean, the origin of humanity. A lot of stuff people acclaiming is their own ultimately traces back to you know, when people started people e yah in Africa.
Basically we're saying this is nuts. All of this stuff is nuts. Well, hey, you know what else is nuts? Everything you've ever thought ever in your whole life or seen or heard happened inside your brain. And let's talk about what happens inside there and whether or not you control the data that your brain generates.
You're reading my mind, Matt.
Oh, I hope.
So this is one of those things. By the way, when I see this, I didn't even I didn't even bother to reach out because I was like, I know one of it. We have to get to this. I'm very excited.
This is it, y'all. Ten years ago, almost today, in April twenty fourteen, we released an audio and video series about something that was then known as neuro marketing. If you want to look those up, you can search our YouTube channel at conspiracy stuff for quote exploiting your reptilian brain for profit or neuro marketing and you that's a real banger. You should check that one out. Only forty four thousand people have seen it so far. Neuromarketing, science
or science fiction. Those are all three video and audio episodes you can listen to right now about this thing called neuromarketing that at the time was is being pioneered by several private companies that were using fMRI technology and EEG technology to scan the old human brain while that meat based sensor equipment was interacting with advertisements to basically get a better concept or an understanding of what a consumer's response to advertising is, what they focus on visually,
what they remember from the audio, and most importantly, how the ad made that meat brain feel.
Oh yeah, saying meat brain made my meat brain sizzle a little bit.
Well, there you go. And since then, y'all, we've been rapidly, unsteadily careening down this old humanity mountain towards full on android territory. And now in twenty twenty four, there are companies like Neurolink that we've talked about before, synchron that we haven't mentioned that much, Precision Neuroscience, several others. They're all developing and actually deploying direct brain to computer interfaces,
hardware and software. So do we think there's anything we need to be worried about?
Guys, there are a lot of things people need to be worried about.
Let's not worry about all of them at once, though.
Yeah, because I think we kind of we can. I like the way the predicted the predictive area of tonight's program. We did make some predictions there. Just the technology is too yummy, the science is too useful and applicable for it not to be used or applied. But we were I think pretty forthright when we said we couldn't make
a call on the timeline we just need. It's like when you know it's going to rain, but you don't know if it's going to rain at three thirty seven or just in the afternoon, but we always on the way exactly. It's a range.
It is well and again, this technology ten years ago was aimed at understanding the brain wave functionality the thoughts, right, that are happening. Now it's moved into understanding like reading them to the point where they can be used. Your thought can be used as an input as an interface, right m hm. The fear that is now coursing through think tanks and lobbying groups and even now state senators and governors here in the United States and parliaments in
other countries across the world, particularly in Latin America. The concept is how do we protect the data that's stored in each one of our meat brains from being exploited, used, sold by companies that are building tech to read those thoughts?
Right?
Because you have new currently you know, again, legislation, as we even said back then, Unfortunately we're always correct with that, legislation is often outpaced by technology. So there is it's a new theatre of what we define as identity and rights. You know, do you have a right to your thoughts?
Couldn't you argue in terms of the whole you know, technology outpacing legislation that this is pretty forward thinking legislation for something that's really just on the bleeding edge that they haven't really even spelled out like what this looks like in terms of you know, we've got some things like neuralink and you know folks that are using their minds to control very simple things and play you know, World of Warcraft or whatever it was that the guy
did all night. But it does seem for the legislature in Colorado to be thinking about this already.
It's kind of smart.
Agreed, agreed. So let's jump to the article that we found on Reuters on April seventeenth, twenty twenty four, that is last Wednesday as we're recording this on the twenty fourth, And here's the title. First Law protecting Consumers brain Waves signed by Colorado Governor, that is Governor Jared Polis Paulis Polis. It's literally to protect brain waves that which is crazy to say out loud.
I don't know, as though it were your intellectual property in some way, or like it's got personhood or what are we talking about here?
That's really interesting.
Well, it's data, it's your data, and literally it's yeah, rawest of data, and it has never before been accessible unless that data was expressed through either words or someone's writing, or through music, through you know, in some way it was it was expelled from your brain.
It was collected, even if it was collected physically through monitoring by scientists. Right and even then, for quite some time, they would just have a vague understanding of neural activity. But they hadn't reached the point where some research is at this moment where you can have someone hooked up to the right equipment, they can think something and you can literally see what they are envisioning or get, for lack of a better word, a transcript of their thoughts.
Wasn't there a dream study that where people could look at kind of get some a vague rough estimation visually of what someone was dreaming.
It's all happening.
Now.
You combine it with stuff like modem's ability to sense the number of human beings in a room. You can get into like some of the Bluetooth technology and how that has advanced, get into you know, peripherals that are used for gaming.
Right now, Sure you can buy to location tracking dude.
As all of that stuff comes together, we are closer and closer and closer to this really crazy place where whatever entity it is, whatever corporation likely it is, we'll be able to understand your thoughts wherever you are, where you go, how you think, what you think. It's just going to be insane.
And the end goal, right, predictive ability, predictive of what you're thinking, but what you will.
Think well, And I would say putting the thoughts in on purpose, because that's what ads are, right. Ads are meant to persuade us that In those episodes in twenty fourteen, it was all about how to make a more persuasive ad to get someone to need to not only want to buy something, but to feel as though they need
to buy something. So according to this article from Reuters written by Brad Brooks, the sponsors of this bill said, quote it was necessary as quote quick advances in neurotechnology make scanning, analyzing, and selling mental data increasingly more possible and profitable. Other people who sponsored the bill state Representative Kathy Kipp Let's see state Senator Kevin Priola. Priola and
another huge proponent of this bill. And I would say it doesn't say this in the article, but likely one of the entities that really helped write this bill is a group called the neuro Rights Foundation. It's a nonprofit that promotes the ethical development of neurotechnology.
Right out of.
Fallout, guys, I mean, can you imagine getting your brain skimmed, you know, like where we're worried about, like long range credit card skimmers or like RFID tag readers. Can you imagine if this stuff, you know, advance so far that walking around someone could shoot something at your head and pull ideas out or pull your personal you know, passwords or whatever.
Like.
I know it sounds pie in the sky now, but the way this stuff goes it's exponential, you know.
Yeah, I don't think it's I don't think it's that far of a walk honestly, which and there is one good thing though, just the larger context. It reminds me of like that TikTok band that keeps getting discussed instead of data protection laws. This is a cool way to get in front of some things. This might actually set whatever the retroactive version of a precedent is in jurispruits. If it works, you get say, well, we're protecting thoughts,
let's protect these other things too. It's a bit Polyanna, but so I speak it out loud into the ether, so anybody's skimming thoughts will be like hopefully thinking, eh, that's a good idea, and then write their congress folk.
Just don't think about mister Staypuff. I'm sorry.
Whatever I think about, like clearing your head. I think about that scene of Ghostbusters where you know, whatever they think of is what's the form that the traveler is going to take?
And of course the ones thought that pops into.
Whoever it was, whatever characters had was the cuddly mister Staypuff.
Oh yeah, I think that was Dan Aykroyd's character.
Yes, you're right.
Okay, So guys, for anybody who's listening to this and is still feeling skeptical, this is Reuter's writing. Just listen to this. We kind of already said it at the top quote the US Food and Drug Administration. Last year, the FDA approved human studies for Neuralink's brain implants, which, as we just said, had previously been tested on animals and is now being tested on humans and it appears
to be functioning. Earlier this month, in April twenty twenty four, the CEO of another company, Syncron Synchro n which is I guess a rival to Neurlink. They talked to Reuters and they said the company is preparing to recruit patients for their large scale clinical trials that eventually will they're looking for commercial approval for its brain interface brain to
computer interface system. And those are literally two companies out of dozens across the world that are developing this tech right now and have been for a while.
And not all of those companies labor under the same regulations no of research that the US applies. So it's I mean, yeah, I think you're god, it is something. I think we're onto something in twenty fourteen going through how do we get to that? It was the obsession with tcts maybe that led into that, But yeah, man, on the way, there is another there is a group of positive cases for this, you know, being able to interact directly with neural activity and say comotose patients or
people are physically unresponsive. That's that's one of the cases that could be a positive. But given the profit motives that are clearly apparent here, we can't say that no one is going to use this in an nefarious and disturbing way.
Well, it feels like the kind of tech or the thinking behind the whole trope of wearing a tinfoil hat or some sort of implement that guards your brain from being infiltrated, you know, penetrated remotely. Those tropes exist for for a reason. I'm not saying, you know, that's ever been the case. I just feel like this is now the time and history where we are closer to that reality than ever before, you know. And then there's something what would that look like if all of a sudden,
this technology is cracked so wide open. Of course it ends up in the commercial sector first, but then people figure out how to jail break it, and then people figure out how to build devices or they can do it themselves, you know, with again nefarious purposes. Of course they would be guarded at first, but then we always see that kind of tech trickle down into like hobbyists and folks that are doing this and maybe even making improvements.
You know.
It's I don't know, it's yeah, it's wild.
It is wild. And laws are never going to protect anybody from a bad actor that doesn't give a crap about laws, right if somebody is coming through and let's say, illegally scanning brains, even though there are laws against that kind of action. But thankfully, if you're worried about a corporation, let's say, a company that is trying to sell products or maybe even surreptitiously do some brain scanning at some point in the airport in the future, the best place
is to go. Right now as of today's recording, are Colorado because they're putting legislation forward. And who'd have thought Chile if you want to have to to Chile. Their Supreme Court just issued a unanimous decision ordering a company there that was doing some brain scanning stuff called Emotive Emotiv to delete all the data that it had collected on one of the senators there in Chile, Guido Girardi, and like they made them get rid of that information.
The company complied, they shut down for a moment, and they restarted just basically with these new rules. But it's the first time that I guess, as supreme court or a major court of any kind said hey, let's make a ruling on brain scanning in particular.
I would think too that for medical purposes this stuff would be covered under like HIPPA regulations, where you know, all of your personal private medical data is protected if.
It's in a hospital or medical setting.
Right, And this is also we got to thank the neuro Rights Foundation. Didn't they work with Chile on that decision? Oh?
They did. But again, look, I want to big up the neuro Rights Foundation, which you can find at neuro n e u r O Rights Foundation dot org. You can check them out. They're very interesting. They made a documentary with Verner Herzog by the way, Yeah, it's all about reading thoughts and stuff. Oh what is it called Theater of Thought? That's the name of it. You can watch it. Well, it appears to be brand new. You can watch a trailer on YouTube right now, and it's
got Verner doing his you know, the mind. It's amazing the mind. Sorry to taste, but yes, that that is in there, and I think they're good. It's one of those things that I haven't had enough time to go through and click on the hour.
Board board of directors. Yet I knew there was going to be a butt. I want to big up these guys, well.
I but again, you to do no.
There's always the potential for aulterior motives. Of course.
It on the surface it appears like what is that Electronic Frontier Foundation where it appears to be. It's an organization that appears to be doing really good work. We just don't know everything yet, but yeah, I think this is worth maybe another full episode on this stuff.
Guys.
We may need to give it a little bit at more time if new stuff comes out. But I didn't know how many companies are trying to do this right now.
I mean, remember last week we're talking about the like genesis, like the many livers. This is another form of biotech
right where getting to that stage. And I'd like to also it's synchronicity because I was also looking back at earlier research from twenty fourteen, and I feel like there are a lot of fascinating things here that aren't getting mentioned, like how does this help the push for non human personhood right when you can directly communicate what's happening is we're building telepathy we as a civilization or building telepathy? Are humans ready for it? I'm gonna say it's you know,
sometimes the only way to swim is to jump in. Bro.
Humans could barely handle the Internet. I mean they can't. Yeah, this is next level from that. You know.
It's just and we know we have some people listening tonight who are experts in related fields. Be cool to hear from them.
Let us also let us know what we can finally get the tech from that movie up where I can talk to my dogs and hear them say things like I have only just met you, but I love.
You, and you know that's how he feels.
Get a cast speak with animals.
I want that. Well, Hey, that's all for me, guys.
Fascinating one man, all fascinating, all all important and speaking of important, you are the most important part of the show. Folks, we would love to hear from you. We passed the torch. Be yours to hold it high and shout out to anybody who got that weird poet poetry reference. Try to be easy to find online.
Did you learn that from the new Taylor Swift album?
Ben, I'm joking flanders Field j I spoiled it.
No, it's just funny how everyone's like, oh my god, who is this Patti Smith that Taylor Swift's talking about. I must discover her and Dylan Thomas, et cetera. But no, you can discover us on the internet by reaching out to us at the handle conspiracy Stuff, where we exist on Facebook, on YouTube, or we've got video content rolling out every single week and on x FKA, Twitter, on Instagram and TikTok.
We're conspiracy Stuff show.
Do you like to call people? Call us and put this number in your contact list. One eight three three std WYTK. It's a voicemail system. When you call in, you've got three minutes. Give yourself a cool nickname, and let us know in that message if we can use your message and your voice on the air, and if you've got more to say than you can fit in that three minutes, why not instead send us a good old fashioned email.
We are the folks who read every email we get. There is a spoiler. This is why you should always listen to the end of the episodes. Folks, we have a prediction that recently got confirmed. We were correct. You guys remember a while back when robot dogs became a thing and people were looking at all the DARPA videos and saying, oh, these are for peaceful purposes. I had said immediately, I was like, the first thing that's going to happen is eventually someone is going to throw a
weapon on it. Well get this. If for nine and twenty dollars, you too, civilian can buy a flame throwing robot dog.
What a terminator? Why wouldn't you? Oh, I didn't know that part the terminator.
So let us know about these questions and more. Let us know if you have a new robo Fido that literally spits fire, and you can do all of that and more at our email address where we are conspiracy at iheartrdo dot com.
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.