Listener Mail: Fire of Unknown Origin

finished listening to your episode about post biological intelligence. Towards the end of part two, you raised the question of whether such an intelligence would have something like emotions. This is a great question, and in the recent Vault episodes on invertebrate emotions you shared some ideas that could help to answer it. In the Invertebrates episode, you focused on the ways that an internal emotional state could make manifest as measurable behaviors. The example that I remember most clearly

is the one about bees. After receiving a free sugary treat, bees will forage with a more optimistic bias, but after a simulated attack, they will forage with a more pessimistic bias. This change in behavior may be attributable to something like an emotion. Those of parenthesis and and adds as a pre post biological intelligence. Writing this based on memory, I may be missing something from the b example. Feel free to add on or correct if you read it on air. Well,

nothing to add or correct so far, and you're doing good. Uh. Continuing this got me thinking that maybe the same test could be applied to a machine intelligence if we could observe it. Maybe a free burst of gamma ray energy would cause it to display some optimistic behaviors, while a destructive, unexpected supernova would cause it to show more pessimistic behaviors, whatever that might look like. However, such an intelligence would probably have some similarity to modern machine learning in the

sense that it would extrapolate based on past data. Optimism or pessimism would probably show up as an overreaction or under reaction to the stimulus beyond what the cold calculation of an algorithm would predict. For example, if the machine knows that in the past a supernova or other negative stimulus has caused a ten percent impact on its systems, the cold, emotionless calculation of data would would suggest changing

its behavior by ten percent. On the other hand, if the machine had some kind of emotional state like pessimism, maybe it would change its behavior by fifteen percent. That five percent difference could be the way to tease out the effect of emotions from the effect of adaptive behavior based on past experience. The caveat here is that the observer would need to know what the emotionless baseline is. Maybe this is a study that only an even greater

machine intelligence could carry out on smaller, simpler ones. It was fun exploring the connection between these episodes. So thanks for another week of great podcasts. Best Aiden. Yeah, this

is a good point and so yeah. In that Invertebrate Emotions episode, we talked about the difficulties in separating out the different things that we would classify as emotions, Like you might be able to regard an emotion like anger in one sense, as an internal state that has a subjective felt quality to it, like it feels like something to be angry, and then on. In another case, you could say anger is a set of externally observable behaviors

that you see clustered together. That was you know, they represent a certain number of biases and behavior that occur at the same time, maybe like uh, a quickness to physical aggression or something like that, in other things that would correlate with anger uh. And so those are definitely

separate things. I guess you would have to leave aside the question of whether it would feel like something to uh, to have an emotion shan for a post biological intelligence the same way it would feel like something for us. That comes back to the question we talked about in the episode of weather. Post biological intelligences would actually be conscious, and one part of having a conscious experience is having

internal emotional states that feel like something. Yeah. The other part would just be like, would they have these sort of clusters of externally observable behaviors that sort of are seen together and they represent a certain disposition towards external stimuli? Yeah, yeah, this is a yeah, this is a good breakdown. I I appreciate this. All right, let's hear from another listener. This one comes to us from Chris. Chris writes, Hi, Robert,

Joe and Seth, good day. Your recent two part episode on the Machine Lords of Barnard has been a great listen. It is difficult to conceptualize how we could get to a post biological point uh in the time scale that might be involved, but it is a fun thought experiment. The topic was particularly relevant to a short story by Sushin Lieu that I am reading as part of an anthology work titled to Hold Up the Sky. I had first read The Three Body Problem after hearing you mentioned

it many times on past episodes. I really enjoyed the way his sci fi has written through a completely different lens that most Western readers are used to. Um or maybe it's just me, this is great. I did recommend The Three Body Problem in a previous summer reading episode we did a few years back. I loved that novel. Uh, but I have not read any of Cician lous Um short stories, so so yeah, this is this is totally

fresh to me. Yeah, same here. I I did the audio book of the of of that of that first one, the Three Body Problem, but I haven't read any of the subsequent books in that series, or any of his shorter works. Well, that is a dark forest that we should maybe both wander into all uh, they continue. The short story I'm referring to is titled Cloud of Poems.

It is a fascinating story involving an advanced race of dinosaurs called the Devouring Empire, who have recently joined the Greater Galactic Civilization coming to our Solar System, enslaving humans and raising them as feedstock on their interstellar ship, and in a particular human named ye Ye who teaches classical Chinese literature to the feed lot humans to make them more tender. Now this is where the post biological life

comes in. Another member from the Greater Galactic Society comes into the Solar System and is only referred to as quote a God. There's a lot of backstory, but it is made clear that this is a being from a significantly more advanced race that has been that has transformed itself into beings of pure energy with the ability to jump from one side of the Milky Way galaxy to the other. In this sci fi world, it's explained that the level of civilization is based on the number of

dimensions it can access. The Esteemed God's race can access eleven dimensions. That's a lot of dimensions. In the episode, you discussed how the motivations of a post biological life form might be different from our own and whether they would have the same concerns as a living being, etcetera. And this story gets at that point, which I think

is relevant. If a race evolved to a point where individuals transformed past a stage where a lifespan is no longer a concern, I think they would not continue to have the same desires and motivations as their pre biological selves. In this story, the Esteemed God, who is an intergalactic art collector and researcher, is challenged by the human you you to become a better poet than the classical Chinese

master uh liebe. The human point is that even with all the technology that the Esteemed God possesses, it cannot replicate the poetry of a human because it does not possess the ability to understand the human spiritual realm. Since this God is still an individual, albeit being a pure energy, he takes the challenge, transforming himself into a human and attempting to surpass the poetry. Long story short, He fails.

Then instead decides to build a quantum computer to write and record every possible poem using the Chinese alphabet and save them each on an atomic level storage device where each poem is stored on a single atom. It's then discussed that it will take ten to the hundred and seventy second power number of atoms to store every possible combination, and that unfortunately there are only ten to the eightieth

power of atoms in the entire universe. I don't know how to check these numbers, so I am unsure if they actually match up to reality. Uh maybe Seth can help me out on that. Let's let's hear it. Let's Seth quickly in real time chime in and uh in fact check those numbers for us. He's got to go count him. Okay, he's gonna count. You'll come back um in ten to the hundred and seventy second power minutes.

Uh So, anyway, the Esteemed God then decides to start building the quantum computer, and to do so, he will need to deconstruct the entire Solar System, humans and the Devouring Empire to their constituent atoms a mere ten to the fifty seven power to do so, and has no had has no qualms with the destruction to achieve those ends. This was an entirely too long email, but I did do my best to summarize an astounding work by Sushin Lou.

You should really just just read it. But to but suffice to say, I think a post biological race that is descended from previously living beings would be extremely dangerous, especially if they have the power available to them, like the esteemed god of our story, willing to destroy entire races and solar systems with no second thought to achieve a goal. Again, great episode. Thanks for all you do bringing us listeners, great content. Best Chris. Oh thanks Chris.

This sounds like a like a great read. Yeah, yeah, I um, I love the ideas explored in this. Uh you know the this This is definitely an ideas author that toys with wonderful sci fi concepts. I mean, based on the one novel I've read. Um, that's kind of how it rolls out. So there's a lot of individuals discussing very at times high minded science scientific topics, but with some other fun stuff thrown in as well, like

real world, um, political concerns, Chinese mythology, etcetera. Yeah, totally, And I will say I don't want to spoil anything, but the book also has a really great, a really great science fiction weapon in it that's extremely counterintuitive that comes in towards the end. I won't say any more than that it's it's it's not a piece of wood

with a nail in it though. But yeah, I really like this idea of a a super intelligent post biological being being challenged to try to write poetry that transcends the great poets of Earth, like the example in the story would be would be lead by I think a lot of Western readers probably know his name spelled more like a Leapo or lee Bow, often like l I p O or l I b O, but like a Tang Tang dynasty era poet who's just a wonderful poet.

And so it raises the question of like, well, you know, if this, if this being is so so intellectually past human beings, why would it be that it couldn't write poetry better than you know, the than the poetry produced by the best of this you know, biologically confined uh species on the planet Earth. Well, I think there actually maybe is something plausible to that, because you know, almost

all great art is about like suffering in some way. Uh. And so if you were to take a being that is is just like so powerful it essentially has no real wants or physical limitations, you can imagine how a being like that could have real trouble creating compelling narratives community that that would like, uh, speak emotionally to the experience of beings who are limited like humans are. Yeah, so then it has to take human form and try

and create human art. It has to be the word made flesh, right, it has to come down and become one of us. Yeah, exactly how else can it possibly understand it? So? Yeah, definitely, Yeah, thank you for the recommendation, Chris. I will have to look that that story up all right. Well, well, Carney, our mail bot has even more machine and AI and robotic based listener mail for us here today. Yes, this next message is a response to part one of our

episode about punishing machines. This comes from Karen. Karen says, love the show. I'm just going to jump into this. I think that if we judge a robot able to commit a crime, the robot is also implicitly able to have a crime committed against it. But if a human or another robot victimizes a robot, what would the consequences be. Let's say that I commit a crime against a robot. I take the Amazon Virtual Assistant Alex and throw the device on the floor, constituting an assault on Alexa. What

happens next? What is justice to her? Is it based on the robots programmed values, likes, dislikes, or goals? If so, then Alexa's greatest value is supporting Amazon, and her goal is to sell Amazon products. What do you do with that? Another silly example, Think of the security robot who drove into a pond. I like that, you say, who by the way, I think of the security robot who drove into a pond and drowned itself in people saw that happen.

Would people who witnessed a robot getting damaged without stopping it be guilty of some sort of neglect if they were, what would make it right to the robot? If you made it this far, thanks for reading, and what do you think? Well, Karen, we actually do talk about this a little bit in part two of that series, but I've been thinking about it more since we recorded that part two, and I think this raises some really good questions. So a few distinctions on my thoughts about whether robots

could be the victim of a crime. I would say, at the surface level, this depends, at least in my opinion, on whether the robot is conscious or not. And I think the standard assumption today is that machines like the Amazon Alexa, even complex machines, they're not conscious. But in the future it might be hard to say. And this gets back, of course to the hard problem of consciousness, which we talked about in the Machine Lords of Barnard

sixty eight episodes. Uh, if we don't know what consciousness is and why it arises in the first place, even in biological brains like ours, it's gonna be hard to judge whether a non biological machine could ever be conscious or not. So this is just a big open question. To me. I don't really come down on one side

or the other. But with that huge caveat, I would say that I think if robots are ever able to be conscious, if for whatever reason we decide yes they are having an inner experience like we are, then I think the obvious implication would be that they have the right to be protect it against harm just like anybody else,

but for an Alexa or whatever. Since I don't think anybody really has suspicions that Alexa is conscious or that Alexa has any kind of internal experience, I think harm done against an Alexa would really just be a property crime against its owner, like if you were to damage

somebody's wheelbarrow or something. But then there's another big complication that I'll throw in that that your email really made me think about, which is the possible brutalizing effect on society and on onlookers of tolerating crime against robots that appear to be conscious even though they're not. This is

something that I'd take kind of seriously. So I'm imagining a scenario like this, see if this makes any sense to rob Like, so we imagine most people are still decided that, yeah, there's nothing that it's like to be a robot. Robots can't actually suffer, so they don't have like inherent rights that we need to protect because there's nothing that it's like to be them that they just

don't care. But if you were to make a robot that convincingly acted out suffering when it was harmed, and then you just had lots of robots like this constantly like being harmed in public views, Like a humanoid looking robot that could just like sit there while somebody beat it with a stick and it would scream in pain. Something does seem like very wrong about that that just being stimuli that we are constantly exposed to and doing

nothing about. You know, it almost seems like that that would have a kind of horrible numbing effect on onlookers, that would desensitize them to the real suffering of human beings and of animals. Yeah, I guess. On a related note, I know in my household with a with a with a child, we we have stressed at times that you know, even though you know Alexa or Amazon or Google or whatever you're talking to, uh, you know, even though it's

not a real person, and we're very clear about that. Um, you know, you you shouldn't talk mean mean to it. You know, you should you should be nice when you address the robot. You shouldn't be you know, unnecessarily uh,

you know, angry or or you know, or anything like that. Uh. Likewise, we've we've had this discussion when when one is playing against an AI in a game, particularly you know, certainly if it's like an enemy AI, but but more specifically, you know, if it's something like an online Settlers of Catan situation where it's like a fake human player, Like, you're not allowed to just say mean things to the non human in the in the chat box because that it just sets a weird precedent, you know, right, it's

and it's not because it would hurt the AI. It's because it's like it trains you to behave that way, and eventually you may end up behaving that way towards somebody who could actually be harmed by it. Yeah, so anyway, I mean, of course, it's it's in a whole additional area of like, how do we treat how do we

treat you know, virtual entities in simulated environments and in games. Yeah, well, I guess this starts to sort of bleed over into the bigger, big controversial question of like whether you know, whether video games that have violence in them train people to commit violence in the real world. And I'm certainly not taking a position on that. I I don't have a strong opinion one way or another about that. Maybe we could look at the research more on that in

the future. But um, but I mean I would say that there there's something like if something is happening in physical space and you're seeing people actually like use physical violence against a robot or be uh, you know, performatively verbally abusive to a robot, even in in real physical space, and nothing is is just being tolerated. Something about that, at least intuitively to me, would have would seem to have a kind of deadening and and very detrimental effect

on on the culture. Right, But then again, we have to be open to the idea that there could conceivably be situations in which the robot's presence is intolerable. Maybe it's not the robot's fault, but um, like say, there's some sort of a I mean you to go back to the cigarette robot example from that the first episode. If if the cigarette bot can roll into your house uninvited, I mean, I I think you should be able to, um to kick it out of your house, right right?

Sure you know we were not going to stand for the tyranny of cigarette bot. Yeah. Maybe so that's the other side of it. Maybe maybe we should. Maybe there are cases where it's actually good to to appear to violate the rights of a robot if that robot represents something really evil and bad that you want to like demonstrate your disapproval against. I guess that that actually did come up in the paper. They were talking about arguments that like part of what juries sometimes want to do

is just like symbolically demonstrate moral approprium. Yeah, here's an idea. What if you could build up moral willpower by having a robot devil that actually sits on your shoulder and is constantly trying to tempt you to do evil, and so you like just practice ignoring it all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess so I could see that working. I'm not sure if I could. I mean, I can see people doing it. I don't know if it would work, uh at anyway, Well, we'll let those the listeners decide on that.

Here's another bit of listener mail for UCE. This comes to us from Jim and New Jersey, Robert and Joe. I would like to update the trolley car problem slightly. For autonomous vehicles, it's not a choice of whether the car strikes the elderly couple or the mother pushing the baby stroller, inflicting the least possible harm. It's whether the car chooses to crash into a wall or tree seriously injuring or killing the passengers, or to strike pedestrians injuring

or killing them while leaving the passengers mostly unscathed. But let's make it a bit more interesting. UM in the gym includes a few um caveats here. First of all, it's a choice between one passenger and a group of pedestrians, or it's a choice between a group in the vehicle and one pedestrian, or it's a choice between an equal number of people in the vehicle and an equal number

of pedestrians. Does the car's decision favor passenger safety as the car moves from basic utility vehicles into more expensive luxury models. I don't know what these answers are or should be. There are no easy answers, Jim. I think this raises a great point, Jim, and we actually, I think we this is probably the response that came in after part one published, but before part two, So we sort of address some of this in part two. But this raises a bunch of other permutations that we didn't

get into. UH. And and one thing that these variations really highlight for me is um a problem that we also did not really get into in the episode, which is UH, making life or death decisions when the probabilities of the outcomes that you're trying to choose between our very uncertain. So we were talking about how an autonomous vehicle in reality is going to have to make like

trolley car type decisions all the time. But actually, what it's gonna have to do is make like a trolley problem decision where it's not one track with one person

versus another track with multiple people. It's going to be lots of abstract branches of probabilities, like you you have an x percent probability that someone will be injured or harmed on this track versus that track, And a lot of times those probabilities, even that the machine judges with the best of information available to it, are just going

to be wrong. So it's not just that the decision will have to be made, but the decision will have to be made necessarily on incomplete information that could be could be very misguided. Just one example, like if an autonomous vehicle is trying to make a split second decision

to minimize harm in an oncoming wreck. Uh, it's going to have to make judgments like how many people are in the other car, but like how well it seems like that's something that's often going to be difficult or impossible to determine, or like what's the probability that people will will be injured or killed in certain collisions? I think it's unfortunately it just gets more and more difficult

the more you try to get into the details on it. Though, as we were saying in the episode a number of times, it's not like this is a scenario where the human driver naturally has an advantage. I mean human drivers, I think are often just like making split second decisions based on almost no reasoning whatsoever. Is just sort of like instinctual jerky movements. Though the individual human is not going to see their own driving that way, right, So yeah,

it's it's a complicated situation. Okay. This next message is about dad jokes and a former Listener mail episode. It comes from Mohammed. Mohammed just says, hey, guys, just listen to a bit in the list in her Mail episode about indicating sarcasm and text. And I wanted to point out another sarcasm indicator. I see a lot on social media that I think works really well alternating upper and lowercase letters. It reads intuitively to me as mocking and sarcastic.

And that's the whole message, except Muhammad attaches a picture of a tattoo where it's one of those like they say, I say things, so the parents say, you'll regret that tattoo when you get older. And then the response is me also saying you'll regret that tattoo when you get older. But it's alternating upper in lowercase letters. And then the tattoo below that is a weird looking SpongeBob square pants. Yeah, I don't know. This looks fine and it's not a

squid word tattoo. For crying out loud, it's SpongeBob. That's a weird SpongeBob, but it's good. I don't know the difference. What what what would be the deal if it was a squid word tattoo? Does that have political significance? No? No, it's just like squid Where have you ever watched SpongeBob? No? Never a whole episode. I mean, I know what it is, but well, I I could explain it to you, but the best thing to do just do. You have to watch and then you'll you'll understand the context. But yes,

squid word is one of the other characters. And I guess there's squid word tattoos out there. Maybe there's some great squid word tattoos. Um, but I feel like SpongeBob is the better choice. I did not know we would get factionalism in the response to this, But this is good. All right. Let's get to some weird House related listener mail here. This one comes to us from Chris offhand. I don't know if this is the same Chris as earlier, but different one different Chris. A lot of a lot

of Chris. Is a lot of Chris is out there, all right? This Chris says, Hello, Rob and Joe. Well we all have that first time it denied was the night I experienced Highlander. This is not related to any recent podcast specifically, but after searching and watching related weird house cinema shows on Prime, I'm being presented with quite the bevy of sci fi and weird house options. So tonight I try Odd Highlander. It's not over yet, but Sean Connery is Egyptian but has a Scottish accent. We

helped just roll with it, I guess onward um. On another note, the dad joke episode was great. I'm a father to four children, the oldest is the same age as your son, Robert, and she has gotten to the point where she's trying her hand at making up jokes. A few land with her siblings or parents, but most are rather misunderstood. But she persists as far as the way a captive audience reinforces our dad jokes. This is

spot on. The word play jokes and fart innuendo just make makes for an easy target for the five to nine year old age group. Fortunately, I'm going to have around a decade of time with children in that age range, so I'll be well entrenched in the dad joke mindset. So one for the road then not knock, who's there? Who? Who? Who? What are you? And al Yeah, that's the end of the regards Chris, I've encountered that one in the wild before. Now.

As for Highlander, um, yeah, absolutely. Highlander is a is a wonderful and and weird film, Uh that I think about quite a bit. And obviously we're we're big fans,

huge fans, enormous fans. We're princess of the universe of Now, regarding the idea that Sean Connery is Egyptian in The Highlander, I recalled that's actually multiply confusing because, uh, if I'm not mistaken, it's Sean Connery not even attempting to mask his Scottish accent, but he's playing a guy who comes from Egypt originally, but his name is one Sanchez Villa Lobos Ramirez, and I think he is supposed to have been more recently Spanish, right, yes, So you know, I

don't know. It's I guess there are different ways you could crack that apart. I mean, the obvious answer is Sean Connery is not going to do an accent. He's going to Sean Connery's accents. So he's going to be Scottish in any and everything, whether he's playing an ancient Egyptian immortal or like a Russian submarine captain, you're getting you're getting the same accent. But I don't know you could I guess say that, like if you live long enough,

perhaps you're fluid enough to move through different cultures. You also moved through different languages, and you move through different accents, and I don't know how you wind up there, But like I guess the thing is, you could look at it this way. Ramirez is traveling in Scotland at the time, uh in that movie, That's how he encounters McLeod um. Therefore, perhaps he's just shifted into Scottish mode. And indeed we never see him in that film anyway out of the

Scottish context. So that's right. Yeah, he's a worldly wanderer in the Highlands. He's like, he's like Brian Cox and Braveheart. Yeah. So I don't know. I guess it makes I'm gonna go I'm gonna go with Hi. I'm gonna say it makes perfect sense. It's what It makes perfect sense within the context of Highlander one. I guess it. In Highland or two he's a ghost, so he's he's just set in whatever he was, right, but where he died. So, you know what, I'm going to take it a step further.

It works perfectly in Highlander two as well. I don't know if I agree that he's a ghost in Highlander two isn't. Well, he's the product of some kind of necromancy from the planet Zeist. So the way it goes, he's he's killed in Highlander one and then many years in the future, Uh, Connor McCloud yells his name, and then yelling his name causes him to be like reborn in Scotland, and then he comes to visit Connor McCloud. So I don't know what you call that. Yeah, I'm

going to call it a ghost. Okay. He appears very fleshy, but but maybe maybe a fleshy ghost. Okay, this next message is about Weird House Cinema. It comes from Andy, and he says, Hey, guys, I really dig the relatively new Weird House Cinema segment. I noticed you haven't done any animated features. May be wrong on that point. I haven't had the chance to listen to them all. So I had a couple of suggestions. Two of my personal favorites from when I was a kid, nineteen seventy seven's

Wizards and nineteen eighty threes Rock and Rule. Both are fun and definitely strange post apocalyptic animated features. Wizards is a Ralph backsheet film with some great humor. Rock and Rule contains wonderful music by lou Rey, Debbie Harry and Cheap Trick, as well as a demon made of animated cow brains. LOOK forward to seeing your thoughts on these fantastically weird animated features, Andy. Well, Andy, I've read about

both of these movies but seen neither one. Same. Yeah, I'm not familiar with Rock and Rule at all, but I'm familiar with Wizards just because it's it's often held up there. It has this you know, it's a. It's favorite for people who are into like seventies weird animated features, and you know, I like, we're other work by Ralph bak Sheef for sure, So I don't know, maybe that

one's in our future. I know we've we have a couple, at least a couple of animated titles that we've been kind of knocking around, and uh, I think we may have animated content discussed on the show in the near future. So this one is from Landon, and Landon says, hey, guys, my older brother had a Turbo Graphics sixteen rob which I think this came up in Gunhead, right, because we're talking about the idea of Gunhead having uh ports for

multiple systems. Is a video game, and one of them was a game on the Turbo Graphics sixteen that I don't recall playing, but when I was a kid, I had this, uh this weird game console, and we talked about the game Balk's Adventure, which is about an aggressive caveman baby that headbuts dinosaurs to death. Yeah. I had to look it up that it is some sort of caveman baby. I also recall that at some point, I think you have to rescue the Princess of the Moon

or something like. You go to the Moon and the bad guys from the Moon, and the bad guy has been transforming dinosaurs into evil versions of themselves, and if you like head butt the dinosaurs enough, they revert to their sort of sweet, nerdy former selves. Anyway, Uh, Landing goes on about other turbographic sixteen games, says says Bonks was a great game, but Landon also says Keith Courage was good too. Now, Keith Courage, I think the game was called Keith Courage in Alpha zones. And this was

a really bizarre game that I also had. It was a it was a two D platform side scroller, but it had two very different types of levels. One was

like and they would alternate. You'd go one, and then the other one was this cute animated overworld where you'd walk around and and go into shops and stuff, and it was animated in a way almost loo kind of like earth Bound or something except two D. Uh, just like very like cute and sunny and bright, and then every other level was just this demonic nightmare in these caves with like satanic robots attacking you, very very hot and cold showers to use the Grand Guniol phrase. But

then anyway, Landing goes on. There was also a really cool racing slash adventure game too. You had to wander a world and look for people to race. I wish I remember what it was called. I don't know what that one was land but Landon says, I've been really enjoying the Weird House Cinema episodes. I've seen several that have been covered. Robot Jocks was a childhood favorite for me and my brothers. Crash and burn became a catchphrase for us. What do you think about doing an episode

on the movie Universal Soldier? Thanks for the great shows, Landon, Um, Well, I don't know Universal Soldier. It's been a long time since I've seen it, But I don't know. I guess anything's possible. We've we often have this discussion, like we we don't really have a a set in stone criteria for Weird House Cinema is it's it's kind of a does it feel right, does it feel like it fits? And and then we kind of go with it. So I don't know, I'm not sure. I haven't looked at

Universal Soldiers. Roland Imrick, isn't it I think is it. Yeah, I believe it was in early one of his films. Could be wrong about that. Speaking of Roland Emerick, Rachel and I just recently decided to re revisit a movie I hadn't seen in a long time. We watched the nineteen Godzilla, directed by Roland Emerick, and what a travesty. Just that movie is just direct, no offense to anybody

who worked on it. But yeah, just I don't know, as someone who's who's come to really be more discerning about Kaishu type films as as time goes on, that one is just the bottom of the barrel. This is the Godzilla in name only picture. I don't know what you mean by that. I mean it's the one with Matthew Broderick and genre No and those people. Yeah, yeah, I think it's sometimes called I've seen it referred to as Gino as Godzilla in name Only. Well yeah, well,

like most of the movie is not actually Godzilla. It's Matthew Broderick and a bunch of people running around in a building running from velociraptors. I think there's the baby godzillas. But so it came out a few years after Jurassic Park and so there are raptor sized baby Godzilla's doing most of the action in the film. Well, you know Roland Imerick, he he had some He did some fun pictures. Though. We have to remember he did Stargate. Oh, Argate was

kind of fun. You know, Stargate was fun. I haven't seen it in a long time, but ye say, remember had a gloriously befuddled James Spader in it. It was James Spader and Hugh Grant mode. Yeah. Yeah, and there was some fun teleportation high jinks. Uh. Other than that, I'm a little little foggy on what happened. Okay, all right, here's another bit of listener mail. Lison comes to us from Cheryl. Cheryl Rights, I've come across a movie that

might be suitable for this feature. It is a late sixties sort of movie when studios were trying to catch up with youth culture. It goes about as well as you'd expect. I'd be interested in your take on it. The Magic Christian stars Peter Seller's and Ringo Starr, with an amazing cast of credited and uncredited actors, including John Cleese and Wilfred Hyde. Y Yule Brenner sings a torch Song in Drag very well too. Thanks for what you do best, Cheryl. Oh, I've seen The Magic Christian. This

movie is nuts. I also it's been a while since I've seen it, but it's uh, it doesn't really have, as far as I recall, much of an overarching narrative. It's not like a plot driven movie. It's more just kind of a series of bizarre vignette strung together of of people. Like the main thing I remember about it is it has like somebody who's got a lot of money tricking people into like like doing pranks on people, essentially getting people into bizarre scenarios under the impression, under

the idea that people will do anything for money. Yeah, I've I've never seen it, but yeah, it does have a lot of interesting people attached to it, and I don't know, it seems to be part of a a genre that I have very little exposure to, sort of a like a late sixties British satire. The film um like I was looking at Joseph McGrath's uh work here, Scottish film director, and it's a lot of stuff that

I've never heard of. But also stuff like the nineteen seven Casino Royal adaptation which had Peter Sellers in it and Ursa Landrew's David Niven, etcetera. Yeah, I think it was based on something that was written by by the writer Terry Southern and uh, actually, fact, I remember I'm pretty sure The Magic Christian was a favorite of former show host Christian Seger. Really okay, yeah, maybe that's maybe that's why it sort of rings about, like maybe I

remember him talking about it. Yeah, all right, what do we have? Looks like we have one left in the bag there. Ah, yeah, okay. This comes from Greg. Greg, also writing about Weird House Cinema, says The Keep is an interesting film by Michael Mann, his second feat. Sure, I was super excited to see this movie when it

first came out after seeing production stills in maybe Fangoria. Anyway, the film is a beautifully shot, confusing mess with Nazi SS troops, an Immortal Warrior, and pure evil every fog machine ever made crank to eleven during the whole thing. Oh and an all star cast. Look it up. Maybe worth a visit for Weird House Cinema. Thanks and love the show. Greg. Have you seen The Keep? Rob? I haven't.

It's been on my list for a long time. I think it's one that I've occasionally like powered up like and I'm like, I think tonight's tonight, I'm gonna watch the keep and then it just doesn't happen for one reason or another. I'm almost positive it's got a Tangerine Dream score. That's what thats you in. That's probably it. H I mean, also, you know the idea Michael Mann

is not really known for his genre pictures. You know, you tend to, so the idea of one of his early films had a bunch of supernatural weirdness and and uh, you know, and and and Nazis and stuff. It sounds worth checking out. I've certainly talked to people who are big fans of this flick. Um, So, yeah, I don't know. Maybe maybe this is weird house material. I did look

it up. I can confirm it is music by Tangerine Dream uh and and it fits because the movie has a kind of that that Tangerine Dreams sort of slow dream equality to it. There's lots of fog floating around, and the cast is really excellent. I don't think I could say it's a good movie. H. Greg is correct that this movie is is very confusing, and it doesn't I don't recall it having much of a like very a very propulsive narrative. But it's got great actors in it.

It's got Scott Glenn as some kind of strange like chosen One type figure who is who is drawn to this war zone in Europe by supernatural forces. I think at some point his eyes start glowing and I recall Scot Glenn has unbelievable what do you call the muscles on top of your shoulders, the where like your clavic hold your neck, those things. Um, yeah, those traps are those traps? Traps? Sure? His his traps are off the charts.

His traps are unbelievable. Scott Glenn is great. I mean really, this whole I mean you look at the people in this film is like Gabriel Byrne. Ian McKellen. Um, if Brian Payne shows up, I think he's basically just a rando in it. But like Bruce Payne is a great Beam movie actor as well. Yeah, Ian McKellan is of course wonderful as always. I think Jurgen proc Now is

in it. He plays a Nazi. I think Gabriel Burne plays a Nazi and it is the elevator pitches that this demon in a cave who looks like a bodybuilder hell spawn slash robot comes to life, is awakened somehow and kills a bunch of Nazis. Yeah. I think I've seen a picture of the the entity in question, and he looks like he's probably Thanos his personal trainer. Yeah, he does lift this, This demon does lift bro Well, I mean say no more. It's got a tangerine dream score,

so I'd watch it. Okay, Well, maybe this goes on the list for the future. And yeah, it is funny seeing this come out of Michael Mann, who I think Michael Mann is a great filmmaker. I really enjoy a lot of his movies, but most of the ones I can think of are like crime thriller type movies, like some of the best of that genre. But yeah, you don't really think of him as making horror movies. Though. One movie of his that I think is is really overlooked.

Is he in the like mid to late two thousands, I think, like two thousand five or six or so, did a Miami Vice movie? Did you ever see this? No? I never did. I know the film in question, though this movie is it is not at all what you would expect it. Uh. It's so it's just a you know, like cops dealing with crime and drug smugglers and stuff in terms of story content. But stylistically, this movie is so dark and do me. It is like it's like

the cop movie at the end of the world. The cinematography is full of all this a negative space and haunting low light. It's it's it is astonishingly weird and beautiful in terms of how it looks for a cop movie, which is what it is. I would say, it's if you're into I don't know. If that tickles your fancy, you should. You should look it up. Tangerine Dreamscore. Oh

I don't know. Okay, well then I can't commit. Okay, all right, We're gonna go ahead and close it up here, but we'll be back next week with more listener mail. Keep it coming, um you know it. Feel free to write in about any topics past or present or potentially

future stuff doble your mind, weird how cinema. Uh, and you know, never be shy about even chiming in between part one and part two of a series, because that that's exactly the case with the Punishing Robots listener mail that we read in this episode because we're recording this episode between the publication of part one in part two, right, yes, good good, Thank you for noting anyway, Thanks as always

to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Anson. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.