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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, and that makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. Merry Christmas do those who celebrate and happy day off work to those who do not celebrate Christmas. It's kind of a win win for everybody in the gang. Here tuning in and we hope that you have had a lovely day.
We hope that you are getting some R and R, some rest and relaxation, and we I hope that you are ready for some very very strange news. There's a lot of stuff afoot we're going to Hopefully we didn't talk about this before we record, but I'm thinking we can maybe end on a positive note in the spirit of getting so close to surviving twenty twenty three, which has been just like a constant Shyamalan plot twist after another. We're going to learn about the Red Sea in a
weird way. We're going to learn about some sea animals in a pretty exciting way. But before we do any of that, we have to acknowledge something that is part of a continuing larger phenomenon, cyber attacks hacks. Shout out to anybody who's an Infinity customer or Comcast or whatever they're going as now, but some big news just broken. It affects a lot of people.
Yeah, last time on the show, you may remember if you were twenty three and me customer, all your stuff got hacked. Remember that that just happened. Well, it turns out back in October, another pretty big institution got hacked. It's a thing called Nation Star Mortgage, which changed its name to mister Cooper a couple of years back. Really hanging with yeah yeah, yeah.
Because it's more innocious is one of those rebranding plays.
I guess I got to tell you if they're they're a mortgage company, they are actually the people that I used to have a mortgage with when I owned a house previously. It's very weird to go to their website and pay mister Cooper all that money that you owe them.
It's a charitable corporation. Now you got a name, you know, I hope Matt. Do They have like a logo, like a face logo, like some guy in a you know, Hona Civic version of a suit.
I only ever saw their logo. That was just a very small Mr. Dot Cooper and it was all lowercase mister Cooper. He just wants all your money.
Well he wants more of your money too, depending on the interest rate.
Right, oh yeah, and more and more nowadays. Well, so back basically a right around Halloween, mister Cooper said that it had been attacked. They noticed some weird stuff on their servers and they're like, oh, what's going on with that? We don't know, but they had to do the same thing twenty three and me did, where they have to report it to the SEC. Hey, there may have been some kind of data breach. We're not really sure. We're
assessing it. We'll see what's going on. So that made news in early November of this year that that had occurred. Right a regulatory filing that they had to put forward that kind of made the news. I mean it did. It showed up in places like the New York times that something occurred. Because again, like twenty three and me, this is a big company. There's lots of investors in this company. It's a big deal. When something like this occurs, it can affect share and how the company performs well.
As of December eighteenth, the reporting has changed quite a bit. It wasn't just a few people got affected by this thing. It was around fourteen million users whoa got affected. And guys, let me just jump here to my notes from this ABC News article written by Luke Barr on December eighteenth, twenty twenty three. According to the official information coming from mister Cooper, now, this cyber breach involved quote substantially all of our current and former customers, and it was their
sensitive personal information. Here we go. The personal information in the impacted files include your name, address, phone number, social Security number, date of birth, and bank account number unquote.
Can I just say that the whole former thing, yes, really gives me because you think that you're out, you're out, but there's always stuff floating around.
No, my name, all of my information's in there, guys. So I don't know about anyone else listening to this or finding out about this news, but I'm gonna have to take some steps just for my own, you know, sense of well being, whether or not this information is out there and being sold to somebody. That's that's also
part of this story. So as a part of the steps that mister Cooper has to take now that they've realized how big this hack was, they are going to spend I think around twenty to twenty five million dollars to mitigate this stuff, to monitor the dark web and see if this information or you know, this batch of information is getting sold somewhere. They are also providing two years of that kind of monitoring that we've you know, had on this show before with like what's it called
the Norton LifeLock or LifeLock by Norton. They're going to provide that for everybody affected for two years.
At least. We can't protect all identity theft.
We are required to point that out. But also twenty five million seems like a pretty a pretty low blood price to pay for this because what you've just described here, Matt, and there are other very similar cyber attacks we talked about too later.
But what you've.
Described is the dream ingredient list for identity theft. It's all the stuff you need, except like you don't need the routing number because bank routing numbers are public informations, So now you can do any number of things. I think you're right, man, I think it's time to freeze
the credit. I think also any financial boffin will readily tell you, tell all of us that we are supposed to have our credit at a freeze and only unlock it when we're doing stuff and then lock it right back up, just like how you close the refrige when you take out the leftover case. Do you.
I can't see a really good reason to not function that way, Ben, and I currently don't function that way all the time, and it's often one of those things I think meant for many of us. You're just not thinking about freezing your credit, right. It is like accidentally, You're right, Ben, It's like accidentally leaving the door open.
Right.
We need to just do that. So let's let's all try it. Let's give it a try. I know it's one of the things that's on the top of my list to get done. Right now. Just freeze everything, make sure we're good, and honestly get a new account number, because if my bank account number is rolling around out there. I don't really like that. I don't like that at all.
Actually, what no way?
Yeah, So there's a lot more you can read about this from the Register. Some great writing by Jessica Hardcastle over there also came out on December eighteenth. It's discussing more of like basically, how they're responding to this. So I guess the other question is what do we do right. We've talked about maybe potential actions you can take independently.
Can you reach out to mister Cooper directly? Well? According to some writing in The New York Times by Stacy Cowley cowl Y from November seventh, mister Cooper had set up a website to provide information to anybody who has
been affected. It also says, at least according to Stacy, that they are quote truly sorry because there were actually network disruptions back in November guys, where people who are trying to pay their mortgage bills couldn't pay them because the website for mister Cooper, the portal I guess that you used to go in and pay, wasn't functioning because they were, at least according to mister Cooper, they shut down portions of their servers that were affected, right, and
some of those portions also had to do with their website and how it functions, which is not great for users. Nope, But on this New York Times piece by Stacy Cowley, there's a link to a website. But I don't know about you guys. I would click in that website. It's incident dot mister cooperinfo dot com, and I'm not seeing anything pull up.
It's like kind of logjamming.
We were talking about this off air.
Yeah.
I tried to go to the website as well. By the way, that's Mr Cooper, so not mister spelled out. Yeah, and it's not loading for any of us. If you go to the mister Cooper website, that works.
But that's good.
They'll gladly sell you a home or help you refinance. But the and the help center appears to still be up. You can get their mailing address. Since no one sends letters anymore, those things do have an impact, I think. But but yeah, it's curious. It's the worst time for their website to go down. And I just got the right now we're cooking live. I just got the this site can't be reached message after try to go a couple of times. Okay, unanimous, then they must be tuning in.
Nice to hear from you, mister C that this is this not indicative of Like I don't know if I have confirmation bias or if I'm just seeing the things I'm looking for. But doesn't it seem like there are more cyber attacks happening now? Like Sony just had that massive hack from GM MGM just had a massive hack. Yeah, and then there was there was another one. I can't remember. It's like it's getting tough to keep track of all of them. Oh, Exfinity we mentioned I'm beginning, Yeah, thirty
six million people. This is a little bit different though, because of the degree of information that has been spilled, And for anybody who doesn't know, could you maybe walk us through like how these hackers rap fit from this, because these guys are selling it right or attemptation.
If they were able to sell it to a third party or a third parties. Often this information gets stolen in bulk then basically packaged so that it can be sold to other countries. So probably non state actors in other countries. I would imagine just on again the dark
web somewhere when those people have it. The most common thing for this type of identity theft information is for it to be used to open credit lines or lines of credit in other people's identities basically, And it's very weird because you can take those lines of credit and go to places like Vegas and then you can go gamble a bunch of money with somebody else's credit line that you've created, and then if you get any cash winnings, you just take it and run or you know, quietly,
calmly exit the building as to not raise suspicion. It's really scary because you can also do things like go and buy a bunch of like AFT cards.
Yeah, the oldest like grift in the book is like you know, return stealing things and then returning it to another store and getting you know, store credit because a lot of places are pretty lax about receipts. There's any number of ways to incorporate that sort of more old school grift into to what you're talking about here.
You can also use this to secure a short term loan and then use that loan to make a purchase of a large thing like a house, and then sell the house very quickly for a profit. So there are multiple avenues of advantage here to this con and it's actually the thing that I think is likewise frightening is it's not tough to get away with this. It not
like it's not like faking or death. Faking your death is very difficult, but doing a grift like this with someone else's identity, you can get away, and people do every year.
Yeah, buying cars is another big thing. I've personally seen that happen in my life. It is really just a creepy thing. So just keep keep a lookout for more of these types of data breaches, make sure when your stuff is in one of them, as in I think a few of us might have gotten caught up in the Exfinity thing. Nothing, it's fine, just smile and move on, but take actions to protect yourself.
I did have a fraud situation where I had like a very unusual charge on my bank account just fyi, and for a little bit of you know, protect yourself. It was tied to Apple Pay, which is, you know, obviously you can get Apple credit, but I have my debit card, you know, in my Apple wallet. And if you ever lazily sign up for a service using your Apple Pay or your Apple Wallet, they forever have that
link to your card. And I don't know what this thing was, but I literally had to remove my card from my Apple Wallet and manually added back in and I reported the charge and I was able to get it reversed. But that was sort of an eye opener for me.
I would strongly suggest I'm not a expert, thankfully in these sorts of shenanigans, but I would I would strongly suggest the following, which I have found to be advantageous.
If you are interacting with one of those digital payment hubs like an Amazon a subscription service and Apple Pay, PlayStation, Xbox Store, et cetera, have have some kind of credit card if possible, if you have the wherewithal that you only use for that, do not attach it to your debit card because it's much easier to get things repaired when you have a credit card, So like Prince, and it will help your credit score too, that crazy byzantine,
arbitrary bullshit that we all have to participate in in the United States right and many other countries. Obviously, to be FITIR got to.
Get a good score or you're worthless to US Credits America, which.
Is also on the way. I didn't tell you guys I hung out with On previous evening, I went and hung out with some pretty cool guys from the United Kingdom. They do a show called high on Homegrown. I've never learned their real names. I don't know what they look like. They are professional growers of things and they and they were talking about this exactly what we're talking about. They were talking about the tricky world of digital payments and a bit of the grifting that can occur. And they
they're like us, they're very anti grifting. So just to be clear, they weren't like this is great.
I got another random cash aff card in the mail, somebody named like Johnny Cash sixty nine. Why anyway, All right, y'all, we'll be right back with more strange news. But protect your wallet, protect your check, Yes, protect your check.
And we're back with another piece of strange news. This is a fun one. We've talked a lot about the whole war against humans. It's happening seemingly in the animal kingdom. You know, you got your orcas trying to capsize boats, all of that good stuff. Well, now it seems that the war against humans has taken an interesting evolutionary turn. We always talk about how one of the superpowers of being a human is our opposable thumbs. It allows us to grip things in certain ways and also, you know,
show that we're pleased or displeased with something. But it's something that typically most members of the cetacean kingdom or most cetaceans do not have. They have flippers. We know that dolphins are very, very intelligent. They've been studied in terms of their ability to communicate with each other, and they're vast intellect They've often been featured in science fiction.
Of course.
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, you know, presents them as sort of the most intelligent creatures on Earth. Or actually I believe Ben maybe you know, aren't they like aliens kind of they're meant to be seen as aliens and they're the one guy. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
They're the benevolent, better life form. And they get word that Earth is going to be destroyed, and so they they big people, a very nice, very warm, but firm goodbye, thanks for all so long, all the fish.
That's right. Well, it turns out whether this is an evolutionary thing that's going to take or not. Marine biologists studying the Gulf of Corinth, which is near Greece, recently discovered a dolphin, one in particular an individual that has
you know, let's just call it developed thumbs. What it really looks a lot more like, which honestly is pretty awesome in and of itself, is both fins kind of resemble like a bottle opener, you know, where you have the little hook at the bottom and then the long piece and you use that to pop the cap off of your you know, tasty beverage. Well that's what they observed. Researchers spotted this very strange dolphin twice this past summer
while doing some surveys near Greece. And there's a great article in All That's Interesting by Colleena Fraga that describes the whole thing, using some citations from USA Today as well.
In fact, let's do a quote here. One of the researchers named Alexandro's Francis, who is the scientific coordinator and president of the Polagos Cetacean Research Institute, spoke to Live Science, and I believe maybe the Live Science quote was also reprinted in USA Today, saying that the dolphin was seen a swimming, leaping, bow riding, and playing, and seemed perfectly capable of keeping up with the pod despite this unusual adaptation.
Now we've talked about this a lot. Sometimes, you know, a mutation can be not advantageous, but it's when it becomes advantageous that it may be, in a long enough timeline, becomes an evolution. It's way too early to discuss whether that's the case here or not. It does appear that this is what you might consider a deformity, you know, within this cetacean group. But if it proves to be advantageou you know, given conditions, perhaps it could become an evolution.
You know. Let's see, there's another really good quote here from USA Today. Francis says, the fact that this irregularity is found in both flippers of the dolphin and no injuries or skin lesions are present explains why this could not be an illness but an expression of very rare genes. This is exciting, kind of exciting, slash terrifying.
No, we need to make sure this dolphin, this particular dolphin, is out there breeding like crazy. We need more dolphins with thumbs. I'm into this.
He says. Francis says that this could well be the result of constant inbreeding, which you know inherently is a good thing and usually does generate genetic irregularities that are not good. But in this case, it's kind of a It seems like it might be a leg up or a thumb up. I don't know, what do you guys think?
Let me add one more little detail here. During a dolphin's development, the article says, in the womb, these fingers I guess, are surrounded by cells, and these cells merge together to create this contiguous flipper or paddle like appendage. The space or the cells between the fingers, which I guess is what it looks like as they're developing die off prior to birth. But in this situation, that doesn't
seem to have happened. And another researcher, Lisa Noel Cooper, told Life Science and she is from the Northwest Ohio Medical University, it looks to me like the cells that normally would have formed the equivalent of our index and middle fingers died off in a strange event when the flipper was forming while the calf was still in the womb.
It's pretty wild, man. This dolphin was one of thirteen hundred striped dolphins known as Stenella coraloelba and they exist, you know, there in the Gulf of Corinth, and they are in fact isolated from a lot of other dolphins in the Mediterranean, So they are the subject of a lot of observation from that Pelagos Cetacean Research Institute since as far back as nineteen ninety five.
We don't know if it's environmentally dependent operation or whether it is to your point, in genetic or inbreeding. But it could also be atavism, you know, because the ancestors of dolphins were four legged land mammals and they eventually returned to the ocean, right, So there's a number of factors that it could be. And if I'm aware, correct
me if I'm wrong on this, snol, I don't. I think the dolphin has been sighted but has not been like it's weird to say it this way apprehended a studied Like, No, there's no DNA test, And until there is further investigation, the humans aren't going to know whether this is a one off thing that was due to environmental factors. The way that other maritime life might be exposed to human created contaminants that mess up their development. We don't know whether the dolphin has tried to grab anything.
We don't know whether it's a a genetic precedent that could lead to more breeding. But usually in these cases, quite often those sorts of mutations will tend to be one off or recessive traits. So you got to find the other thumbed dolphin, bro if you're tuning in, if you're listening.
Well, and again, I think it would require some conditional situation that would make such a mutation super advantageous to the point where it would kill off other individuals, you know, in the group that don't have that. That's to my understanding, my very rough understanding of evolution. That's kind of how it works. You know, on a long timeline, like a
mutation happens, it's kind of random. But then the ones that sort of you know, rise to the top are because all of a sudden, not all of a sudden, are over time conditions make that a really good trait to have, and the ones that don't have that trait are at a disadvantage. Therefore, the ones that have it are the ones that carry on and continue to breed. And you know, therefore the evolutionary trait kicks in. There is one last quote I want to read from Cooper,
the Ohio researcher. I believe the hook to your point about grabbing things, Ben, the hook shaped thumb may have some bone inside it, but it certainly isn't mobile. No cetaceans have mobile thumbs. So so, while it's a very interesting kind of buzzy thing to talk about, we don't have dolphins yet that can like operate a doorknob.
Do we talk about I mean, why would that's that's a dolphin steeze, right, But Joe, dolphins are able to improvise tools, right, they are sure they have that level of intelligence. And did we mentioned mentioned there's stripe dolphins did we talk about? Like you said they're isolated. There's there's a line of one of the articles you shared with a snool that says you have to put these
dolphins in perspective to the larger dolphin population. And the book goes to put this pod in perspective the genetic distance between these dolphins and other like quote unquote common dolphins. Dolphins don't get offended. If you're listening, you're all amazing, they say they are. The genetic distance is like if humans lived in a mixed species society with chimpanzees and gorillas. WHOA, yeah, so that's that's a big deal. That's further. That's more
of a distance than I had imagined. I am outside of like the Yangze dolphins in China. I had always just thought, yeah, dolphins, you know, they might have some differences, but they're more or less on the same vibe. And this appears not to be the case.
Does I don't know, Matt any any final thoughts here. I think I've said all I have to say about this one. It's super interesting.
Well, I just wonder if it's a toy story situation dolphins. Dolphins won't let us observe them when they're using their thumbs, you know, they know when we're watching, but they're down there. Look, it's a water planet, guys, and these dolphins are pretty dang smart.
They sure know well, like I said, at the very least, even if they're not a prehensile, I guess they could serve as sort of a bottle opener type fulcrum, you know, if there are bones and they're rigid enough. They speaking of improvising tools, this would be another type of tool that could be used, I guess in theory, but I'm no dolphin scientist here, but yeah.
Well, just weirdly enough, I noticed from the pictures the hook part is I would categorize it as the hook is facing backwards.
That's true, so it wouldn't be as useful as a bottle opener.
You're totally right, all right, but we're thinking in terms of human tools. Let's keep that right.
Yeah. Well, well, I'm thinking in terms of being able to hook something on to the dolphin as it travels forward, which is generally the way the dolphin travels, right, because that could be extremely helpful in some instances, right, to see what you're saying, imagine to clear away some netting or something that's in the way that's blocking other dolphins in their pod.
Wow, you're really thinking big on this one, Matt. That's a good point because we know that dolphins are often, you know, the victim of getting tangled up in here garbage like what do you call those these plastic rings that cans come in and things like that, or netting designed for tuna or other fish. This could potentially allow these dolphins to like rescue others or like free themselves. That's a really good point.
Theoretically, but not in this particular dolphin. I don't. Well, maybe maybe I'm just.
How rigid it is, right, I guess.
But the hook is kind of backwards for those purposes, right, I mean, just at least what I'm seeing here, it would be difficult unless it moved in a different way.
It is really interestingly hooked though, the little like it is a perfect little lip, this thing that we're looking at. It's very interesting.
And it was just cited twice last summer. So I don't know the whereabouts of this current dolphin. Now, we don't know how these formations occurred. It reminds me the conversation about mutation. Additionally, in the world of evolution, if a mutation does not it doesn't have to help the creature to continue. It just has to not harm the creature in a relative way and not impede reproduction. So it kind of reminds me about how humans developed a
blue eye. So you trace it back and there's like one person in the ancient days of modern day Estonia blue eyes. They were probably advantageous because you know, they were pretty or whatever. It managed not to be burned for witchcraft, but that mutation successfully spread and then occurred
in other parts of the world. I would be very interested in just learning more about this dolphin, because we have to realize all of the maritime all maritime floor in fauna is under intense danger right now, right from a number of reasons, including ocean acidification and so on. These dolphins were apparently stranded along the coast of Greece for like thirty years, according to Alexandros Francis.
Jeez, yeah, I didn't catch that part. And no, and that's also kind of therein lies the I guess, sort of gallows humory joke about the idea that the animal kingdom is coming for us, in particular the maritime ones. I think that's what's made most of the headlines, is like these orcas trying to you know, capsize fishing vessels, and that's you know, even the film Orca, you know, which is sort of a ripoff of Jaws, is very much about that, or the idea of Moby Dick, you know,
targeting and coming after Captain Ahab. So, yeah, you're absolutely right. They really are under serious threat, and perhaps that serious threat could be enough of an environmental threat that could cause evolutionary traits, you know, to accelerate. Perhaps, I don't know, what do you say we take a quick break here, a word from our sponsor, and then come back with one more piece of strange news.
And we have returned. Let's stay in the world of all things osceotic, and let's let's let's get into it this way with the talk of a continual hobby horse of mine. I think all of us who gets to name military operations? Who is the person who has the job where they say, you know what, let's call it Mockingbird, and someone's like, oh, let's call it operation Red Beam, and someone goes, no Blue Beam and they're like, damn, you're good at this.
Or if it's outsourced, it ends up being called body macboat face. Right, Wasn't that a military vessel that.
Was crowdsourcing the name of military vessel. I'd like to introduce all of us to one of the hottest new things in the Red Sea, Operation Prosperity Guardian. Your old pal uncle Sam and allies are officially protecting ships in the Red Sea from Huti cough cough Iranian attacks. This is something that is going to be incredibly important later and indeed it's going to lead to some dangerous outcomes. Here's what happened. This happened quite recently December twenty twenty
three as we are recording this. The Huthi Group or a Uti group is a proxy military of Raan and they are fighting in Yemen. Are They have been launching drone attacks and firing things at private shipping vessels going through the Strait of Hormuz, in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and so on. The United States reacted to this. Finally, the Secretary of Defense, as we record, Lloyd Austin, said, We're forming an international maritime security force.
Who's in this weird justice league the United Kingdom, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, s Chel and Spain and then also some partners who asked not to be named, which, yeah, a bit of a flag there, my favorite flag. And so this has set the world, the international relations world a buzz. This also comes on the heels of the newly revealed information of the conversation between everybody's favorite uncle Uncle GI and US President Biden, wherein g basically told Joe, look, I'm
gonna get Taiwan. Dude, I'm gonna get Taiwan. I don't have a timeline on it. I'm a busy guy, but I'm gonna get it.
It will be fine. Oh yes, it will be mine. Like like Wayne's thrilled with the guitar.
Yeah, Gi, probably, I mean obviously heard our episode on semiconductors and chips, So I guess he needed to needed to make that statement of what we're saying is things are becoming increasingly instable the or unstable. The Hooti forces have been launching these attacks for quite some time. This is not new beans weird time to make a community quote. But shout out to anybody who got that reference.
Well, old beans is your thing, so new means yeah.
New beans is the is the social approval app episode of communities with a nice appearance from Tim and Eric. So the Houtis have been fighting the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in Yemen since twenty fifteen, and because of the complex web of relationships between Saudi Arabia and the West, vivisected journalists, notwithstanding the US and Europe typically are going to side with Saudi Arabia in these things and supply them with infrastructure, military training, all the evil toys of war.
This is an escalation. This means that the US is now verging closer and closer to what we would call a hot war, an active conflict. And if this depending on how Operation Prosperity Guardian goes, great name, guys, Depending on how this goes, we may be looking at a situation that escalates quite quickly. It's dangerous stuff and it's dangerous water. We don't know what the consequences will be, but we know the West needs to do a better job reported on it well.
Whose prosperity is being guarded is the question.
The prosperity being guarded would be that of private and state sponsored shipping vessels and the companies that own those or the companies that profit from the resources those things transport.
I'm reading through the AP News article you shared with this Ben, just trying to like understand it as much as I can. The pushback is pretty intense from other countries. Who are, you know, support in support of countries in the area other than Israel.
I mean, this is a global choke point. It doesn't matter where you live, the economic activity in the Red Sea affects you. Kind of like the Strait of Malacca, right, which is the reason Singapore has encountered such prosperity. Right now, at any point in time, there are somewhere around four hundred commercial vessels going through this tie little part of the Red Sea. You want to shout out Tara Copp and Lolita c. Baldor over AP News for the information here.
Like you said, they're catching heat because of the US's relationship with Israel, and indeed it's quite possible that they have more Middle Eastern partners than just Bahrain. But those Middle Eastern states want to stay anonymous because they can't take the heat of being affiliated with something that might
be in support of Israel. It's a weird game where everybody has these contradictory interest these unrelated interests, and everybody has agreed, at least in Operation Prosperity Guardian, everyone is agreed that their interest aligned on one goal, which is to keep the fossil fuel resources flowing through the Red Sea. And as we know, when wars actually happen, it's not a matter of ideology. It might be dressed up as that it might sound good in political speeches and in
military monologues, but wars are always about resources. So if you want to see where a war might start, you have to look at stuff like this. And I'm I'm just baffled that so much stuff goes through this. Fifteen percent of the goods that go into Europe, in the Middle East and North Africa go from the Gulf and from Asia via sea, and then that's like more than twenty percent of refined oil, et cetera, et cetera. There's
a lot on the line. I don't know. I wanted to ask you guys in terms of this kind of stuff. Am I crazy for thinking of things like how Operation Desert Fox turned into Desert Shield and then escalated into the Iraq War? Like? Is that a lot?
I don't think so at all. Oh, I don't think you're far off the mark at all.
It's just so it's just so weird because it when we have when we can look back at something like that, right, it does appear that there are direct American interests at play. I wonder, I just wonder if you could point to them directly right now in this you know, what are the American interests outside of just protecting Israel as one of the primary goals right as a primary ally, Are there any other interests that America is playing here besides just securing trade.
Yeah, the domestic economy. Securing trade is one of the big things, because it's like picture of the United in the world overall. We we've got to picture the United States somewhat like rust goal in true detective bad men who keep the other bad men from the door. Very as as the world's current hedgemond, the US has projection that no other countries are capable of or willing to match, and a great deal of US activity abroad, in theory,
is meant to ensure global trade stability. That's like all they're saying they're doing, even when they get up to some shenanigans, which we hear about pretty often from our fellow conspiracy realists. There are big international companies that have a lot of a lot of heft in the United States, like BP British Petroleum, but they're super deep in the States.
They said they're going to pause all oil shipments through the Red Sea due to the deteriorating security in the region, and that is huge, not just for the US, not just for the United Kingdom, but you know, countries that use fossil fuels, which is all of them, Yeah, pretty much most of you know.
I can't help but hear the name of this opera and think about the idea of prosperity theology or prosperity gospel. It's sort of almost like a buzz term that usually doesn't mean what you think it means, or it's sort of like inherent inherently a bit of a grift. I don't know, maybe I'm just like getting triggered by that term. But do you have any thoughts around that? The meaning behind the name?
You know, I've got some speculation. I want to say, they're just guarding prosperity. Right, the name at least we're talking about the spitoff Ara. The name at least feels a little more transparent than names of operations in the past. But it's also clearly marketed to be a name that everyone can agree with, right, Like, you're not going to sign up what you don't guard prosperity?
What do you It seems like a like a like a no, duh kind of course we should do that. Everyone needs to prosper right, Why would we not want to protect that?
China said, good luck, they're not participating by the way, ahh, I just had to add that part of there.
That's very telling, isn't it.
I mean it feels like it, but we also have to be careful not to you know, read tea leaves or make connections that we cannot prove.
But yeah, it.
Does feel indicative of a larger process or phenomenon. Also for the Hooty side, they issued a statement and they said, look, we'll destroy the coalition fleet. You guys love this quote. They said the Red Sea will be your graveyard. So they're super not chill about this.
I mean, the Red Sea I've always found to already have a pretty ominous name, you know, like Sea of Blood.
But we know that won't be true.
Right.
The navel might that we're talking about here is intense.
Yeah, yeah, the I think it's often easy for people who live in the US have not seen the exercise of US military acumen. It's easy to forget that they can and will reign fire, right, yeah, just the only thing stopping them is international norms, sure, right, international norms and then consequences with your neighbors. Right, So you've got to you've got to be you've got to attempt to
go through institutions like the UN. The Biden administration already wrote to the UN Security Council and said, hey, can the UN send somebody in to stop these attacks? And the UN said, hey, maybe we'll form a committee to see about setting up a meeting or something. And then
the United States said, yeah, hold my beer. Yeah, I think it is I think it is worrying though, because we're talking about air land and sea force projection, and what gets lost in these conversations about business, about global stability, about the status quo, is that the people of Yemen have been faking massacred for years and it didn't matter who was president in the US. And it didn't matter, Honestly, when it sound cynical, it didn't matter who you voted for. Those bombs kept falling.
We don't really do humanitarian stuff unless it benefits us financially, you know. I mean, I'm sorry, that's just the truth, you know. I mean, even even intervention, you know, against the Nazis took ages, and it wasn't until it was like we couldn't not do it, Like public opinion would not allow us to not intervene. We would have been on the wrong side of history. These conversations were had. You know, it's like, I guess we gotta do it, you know, or it's going to create this problem that
we will have to deal with down the line. You know.
It's it's all very self serving.
Man, it's so self serving.
It took a Pearl Harbor to galvanize the isolationist American public into World War Two. It took a nine to eleven to gather public support of interventions continuing escalating interventions in a rock. I mean, I don't know, and that was.
The meal ticket nine eleven, you know, just to like, Okay, now we will be interventionists, but behind the guys of this world police situation, we're the good guys. Because that sort of like created that persona, but that's not really what we're doing.
Yeah, and tune in. We've got some episodes about stuff like that on the wave, folks. It's deep water. Also, I guess, in defense of the Chinese government's calculus, what would China gain from becoming a vault in this If you already have a group of people who say we'll do these dirty dishes, do you need to go to the sink too? Or you just like what to the question about cost benefit, What is to be gained from this? I don't know. It's tricky.
It is super tricky. Yeah, and Dicky, yeah yeah.
I want us to hear from a fellow conspiracy realist who have experience in the Red Sea. You want to hear your thoughts on Operation Prosperity Guardian like it in general, the idea that the like these ships should not be fired upon. That makes sense. Sure, people working there aren't trying to overthrow a government. They're just trying to like finish out their tour and then maybe get home and eat somewhere that isn't a boat. You know what I mean.
I get that the people, the civilian population of Yemen is just saying, hey, don't you know, please stop dropping bombs on us. You know, like this kind of stuff happens increasingly, just like the cyber attacks we talked about at the top of this show, like the ecoming normalized, and that normalization is dangerous. So tell us what you think, tell us what you think is next. Tell us whether you think there is a hidden hand or some other
calculus that's not making the news. We did say we would try to end on one positive thing, and.
I have another positive thing if I could.
But yeah, yeah, yeah, ahead, you all go, you go.
First, Okay, it is really quickly. I didn't want to do this as an entire story because we already covered this and it was just too distressing on so many levels. And honestly, this story is just it would be a retreading of that. But one of the main organizers behind the neo Nazi Satanic sect, Order of Nine Angles, was apprehended, the alleged mastermind behind the whole thing, and listeners will probably remember how affecting that was to all of us.
It involved coercion of young people on the Internet into videos of self harm, rape, fantasy type stuff, just absolutely abominable things on discord and telegram. And I believe officers in Hawaii and Honolulu served a warrant to raid the home of an individual that is thought to be the leader of that group, so that person is now in custody.
Check out our episode several years old now on the Order of the Nine Angles. It does hold up. You can hear us mention them a couple of different times throughout the life of the show. I like that. I'm glad to hear. Hopefully justice will be done. Also, AI has a gift for you for the holidays, folks. AI may just save humanity from superbugs.
That's right, that makes sense modeling type stuff.
That's right. Scientists are discovering the first new antibiotics in apparently over sixty years through partnership with AI. This means that one of the ways the world could end. Shout out to our buddy Josh Clark our earlier episode on superbugs, which is weird post pandemic. This means that there may be hope, there may be a way to fight these things that are statistically inevitable. And speaking of statistically inevitable,
we hope it is statistically inevitable. That you write in with your thoughts, folks, what do you think about the rise of cyber attacks? Are there more happening more frequently or we just more attuned and more likely to pay attention to them? What other animals may evolve, how do these environmental pressures work and how they drive evolution? And then of course tell us about Operation Prosperity Guardian. You're very curious. We're easy to find online as well.
That's right. You can find us that the handle conspiracy stuff on x YouTube and Facebook, where we have our Facebook group. Here is where it gets crazy on Instagram and TikTok. We are conspiracy stuff show.
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