Listener Mail: In Your Face!

say hi to the audience now. Carney. Uh, you know he always listens into our topics and then of course he feeds off of the listener mail and he you know, he was really into our series on facial recognition software, you know, because he is mostly software. But he was also very interested in my question I raised about whether dogs have faces. As we're a number of listeners. Yeah, it's it's stirred up some I don't know, debate. I guess you could say on online about whether dogs have faces.

Now mostly it's just people saying yes, I think dogs have faces. And here's why, Um, I don't feel particularly strongly about it myself. I just merely commented that I just tend not to think of the front of a dog's skull as being a face. I certainly see is having eyes and a mouth and a nose and so forth. But I still cannot believe this. This is the weirdest thing you ever said. But it's not just dogs, it's just you know, animals in general, um, that are not

human or nearly so at any rate. It apparently messed with Carney a little bit as well, because now he was obsessively going around scanning the fronts of dogs skulls and trying to put together some sort of facial recognition argument based off of that. Just wait till he gets to the buck flower dog from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Oh yeah, that's gonna really throw him for a curve, isn't it. I gotta give shout out. Seth reminded us of that one that is the best human face dog

of all time? Wasn't there one in there was like a similar film from the seventies that had to do with witchcraft, like alan Alda and It or something. Oh, this is ringing bells. Yeah, I just looked it up. It's called the Mephisto Waltz. I've never seen this one

looks really good. You know, I don't think I ever saw it in its entirety either, but back when I was watching a lot of Sci Fi Channel, back in the old days of Sci Fi Channel, when they spelled it correctly, um, they would hopeful for it with Siffycifia. They would have a lot of promos for you know, these films that they had the rights to show, and one of them was The Mephisto Waltz and I think they showed the the Faced Dog creature in that trailer

right in the middle of the Forever Night marathon. I don't know if I don't think they were showing Forever Night at that point. This is back when they were all about it was classic Doctor Who and also occasional like shows like what Man I'm Manimal? Was that it sequest I don't know, maybe se Quest definitely, Time Tunnel shows like that, movies like Gargoyle Space was another one that got a lot of play. So what was the

one with the car the car that could talk? Night Writer? Yes, yes, I don't remember if Night Writers on there or not. We'll stay tuned for the new podcast series Robert and I are soon launching about classic sci Fi Channel programming. I would love to do that podcast. I don't know anyone else wants to listen to it. Oh my god, I would make that in my free time. Uh No, but today is about stuff to blow your mind, and it is about stuff to blow your mind listener mail.

We Yeah, we received a lot of great stuff related to the face recognition episodes, certainly, but also volcanoes was a big topic. Yeah, a bunch of stuff. I guess we could start by addressing one thing we got a bunch of mail about. We may have brought this up on the website before, but I figure here's a good time to say. A lot of people have just emailed saying, hey, where's your website? Or like, I'm looking for source lists links that would be on the landing page for this episode.

Can you help me find them? Sorry, folks, our website has been led off to the website Slaughterhouse. It is no more. That's right. Yeah, and this I believe happened for all the shows that you know that are in the you know what was previously known as the Stuff Network.

Uh So, now, if you got to Stuff to Build your Mind dot com, if you go to invention pod dot com, or if you go to the websites for shows like stuff you should know or stuff you missed in history class, those will direct to i Heart listings for that show. Right now, To be clear, we don't want you to be alarmed. This doesn't mean anything about the show itself. The show is not going away anything

like that. It's just my Heart doesn't have individual websites for its podcasts, and they enforced that on our show among all others. Now, and if you're looking for like lists of resources that were used in a particular episode, I guess the good news there is that we kind of sucked at doing that anyway, especially recently, so there wasn't a lot of There wasn't a lot lost in

that regard. I think the ain thing that was that was lost is that we had a you know, we had a pretty good, uh, you know, searchable archive system of past episodes. It was a good way to go back and look at post past episodes. And there were a lot of blog posts on there from over the years. But I had not been actively blogging for you know, at least a year, so um and no ongoing blogging efforts were interrupted on that count. Oh and while the

website is no longer accessible. They assure us that it's still somewhere in the dark space, and that means that, for all we know, it could return in the future. It's just not there right now. But if there's something particular, something specific you were looking for, you can always just email us and ask. And you know, if it's a question about a source, we use like, hey, what was that book you mentioned? How do you spelled that author's

last name? Uh, we can will generally be able to get back to you and let you know, we'll do our best right and likewise, if you're trying to remember, like if you are thinking back to a blog post and you're like, oh, what was that blog post? What was that topic? Uh, you know, ask us via email and you know, maybe we can fish that up for you. You know, no promises, but uh, sometimes we can retrieve that information certainly. So I guess it's time to jump

into the listener messages now. As always, we've got a preface this by saying we're sorry. We get so much wonderful mail. There is no way, uh in heck, for us to read it all or even get close. This will just have to be a small selection of messages, but we appreciate all the mail we get. If your message was not featured, please don't take it personally. Right again and maybe you'll get on next time. But this first message concerns our pair of episodes about the eruption

of Mount Vesuvius. This comes from Seth. Seth says, hi, there. My name is Seth, and I'm a park ranger at Mount Rainier National Park. Specifically, my job title is climbing ranger. That means my duties include staffing the high camps and climbing the mountain many times each spring and summer. I've also worked for twelve years as a climbing guide on Mountain Rainier and many other mountains all over the world, including many of the ones on your list of volcanoes

at the end of Lessons of Vesuvius Part two. WHOA, I spent a lot of time living, climbing, skiing, and working on an active volcano, and so I really enjoyed the Vesuvius series, although the description of the victims at Pompeii and Herculaneum did give me serious pause. As I work and live both on and near Mount Rainier. Yikes, I would prefer my brain tissue to remain un vitrified. Thank you. I was also surprised that Mount Rainier did not make your list of volcanoes with large populations living

in close proximity. It is the only decade volcano in the continental USA, and there are millions of people that would be affected if the volcano were to erupt. I guess the main issue, though, is really the lahars that would form from pyroclastic flows melting the largest glacier system in the lower forty eight and scouring dirt, rock and debris from the river valleys and carrying them all the way to tide water, not the explosion of the volcano itself.

Your podcast really got me wondering why I have felt drawn to this mountain. I've spent nearly twenty years climbing, skiing, and working on it, and the steaming fumaroles, sulfur seeps, and crater ice caves always inspire a sense of wonder and awe, even after more than two hundred times climbing the summit. I really enjoyed the episodes, so thanks for that. I'm also really hoping you do one on the year without a summer. As an avid skier, I would love to have a year like that, just as long as

we don't have any boathouse situations. Best regards, Seth, Well, thanks for getting in touch, Seth. The mention of Lahars actually brings me back to something that we did talk about in one of our Vesuvius episodes where we mentioned the volcano Catla in Iceland, which is near the village of vik Has down on the southern coast of Iceland, and I was talking about how I had been there, and Katla is in a similar situation to what you're talking about there, the threat is not so much of

an explosive eruption like Vesuvius. The threat is changed by the fact that the volcano there lies under this vast glacier. So try to imagine what happens when a volcano erupts under millions of tons of ice. The greatest danger from eruptions here comes from Lahars again. You know, these these floods of mud and water coming out of the glacier system and from a yokolaps. Oh, these are the the

ice giants, right, Yeah, these are these outburst floods from glaciers. Uh, you know, so like there might be a lake that is fed by the flow off of a glacier as it melts. But then suddenly lots of heat melts a lot of glacial water, and that then the lake breaches whatever container it's normally held in and there's rapid draining. So a lot of times we don't even imagine properly what the most destructive elements of a volcanic eruption would be.

And one of the funniest things is that people often think, Okay, the danger of a volcanic eruption comes from flows of lava. That's like one of the least dangers to worry about. I mean, certainly, if you were in the position to be affected by the flowing lava, it's dangerous. But but yeah, it's all these other factors, and ultimately it's in many of the scenari as we mentioned, it's it's what happens

when then the population flees. Where are they going, what are the what kind of conditions are in place for them to actually evacuate the area. All right, here's another one. This one comes to us from Derek Derek Rites. Hey, guys, just finished listening to Lessons of Vessuvious Part two and had an experience to share my wife and I visit Hawaii every few years, not as often as I'd like. During one of our trips, we rented a house in a community just outside of Pahoa on the Big Island.

It was fantastic. Later I learned that in two thousand eighteen, several rifts opened not to even two ms away from the house where we stayed. Needless to say, it is long gone. During our twenty nineteen trip, I was excited to see if I could estimate the location of our former getaway by visiting the lava field. I certainly could have located at using a GPS, But every place at which the a road encountered the lava flow, there were many signs warning that venturing into the area was both

dangerous and illegal. I read, what do you think he should have the signs? Obey the sign? Having been to volcano Volcano National Park. Don't be one of those people who disregards the sign. I know, I okay, so you did you know? Yes, obey the signs, do not cross over into the dangerous area. But I'm one who constitutionally, by nature, is drawn into areas that you are not

allowed to go into. Well, I understand that, yes, anyway, he continues, I read that the area is still private property, and walking out onto the lava would have been trespassing. I was amazed at two other observations of the surrounding area. One more than a year after the lava flow, there are still areas of the field so hot that steam

pours from brakes in the crust. Too. I saw many dozens of instances of trees already sprouting from the field, tiny palm seedlings amidst the black landscape, taking keen advantage of the lack of competition and nutrients. I'm sure really which astounds me more the devastating destructive power or life a blatant disregard for it. Thanks guys, keep up the good work, Derek. That reminds me of the stories of

the forests pouring into the caldera on Vesuvius. Uh. Life not only finds a way, life almost just kind of gives a middle finger to the geologic danger. The I have to drive him again though that you know, anyone out there, if you have the opportunity to visit the Big Island and go to Volcano National Park, uh or,

it's I just highly recommended. I went there once many years ago, and I haven't had the chance to go back yet, but I hope to because it's it's just it's it's it's amazing experience to be able to walk through these volcanic craters, uh, To to like look down into a crater and see a complete rainbow below you in the crater, or walk through a crater and see the rainbow overhead and like pass beneath it and then look back and see it behind you. And to interact

with these environments that you feel like you're in another world. Uh. And then to see either you know, direct signs or these other signs of the you know, intense volcanic activity of the living earth right there beneath you. It's it's unlike anything else. Do you want to move on to Karma Mudah? Yeah, let's move on to that, that wonderful, warm feeling of Karma Muda. Okay, here come the warm fields. This first message is from Helen. Helen says, high stuff

to blow your mind. Love. Your work keeps me entertained and educated, and more importantly, indulges my intellectual curiosity in a contained way. I won't know what that means. Contained way within the limits of the podcast, episode The Limits of Sanity. Helen says, the recent episode on Karma Muda reminds me of another feeling which hasn't a direct English language correlate. It's one of my three personal life principles. A gope this is an ancient Greek word and is

usually interpreted in a Christian context, is godlike love. But I was taught that it means unconditional love between humans, which is reliant upon nothing except the shared existence. The best example I can think of is showing love and care and compassion for someone even when there is hate between them, treating your enemies with respect and mercy simply because they are also human. It's hard to do to transcend the secondary feelings one has for another person, and

it sometimes seems futile and grudging. But having been on the receiving end of it before, I can attest it's one of the things that could make a difference in a single person's life, So I try to practice it where I can. Thanks again, don't ever stop making us think. All right, here's another listener mail Lion comes to us from Kelly. Also on Karma Muda, Kelly riots Hi, Robert

and Joe. I love the episode on Karma Muda. As a musician and a music teacher, I have tried to describe this emotion so often and can never quite find the words for it. I recently got back into playing with an ensemble, which I really missed. I would often try to articulate what I love about playing with a group that I couldn't get from playing alone, but I never felt that my explanation captured exactly what I was feeling. Listening to this episode, I realized that karma muta was

exactly what I was trying to convey. Creating music with a group provides that sense of camaraderie, shared experiences, goose pumps, and often quote a sudden upwelling of uncontrollable happiness to use Joe's words. Even though I won't likely use the term karma muda and everyday conversation, I do feel that understanding the term actually has helped me understand the feeling better. Thank you both for the hard work you put into

the podcast every week. That'st which is Kelly having played in a band, I absolutely know what Kelly's talking about. This feeling of like when when you kind of lock in and suddenly everything's going right when you're playing music with other people, especially, I feel like in improvising music, like if there's a moment where you're improvising music with other people and everybody like makes a change at the

same time. I'm it's like that sudden moment where you you feel as if there's some kind of telepathy between you and you can get goose bumps, the feeling in the chest. It's very powerful. Interesting. I've never had that experience. I was never like in a garage band or anything like that, but but certainly in the more structured sense of just the communal creation of music, um, you know, with the high school band for example, and then UM and occasionally like church choir, is that sort of thing,

like the community communal singing opportunities. I can very much understand what Kelly is talking about here. Yeah, I mean, all kinds of music are I think, very strongly inherently unifying whenever you perform with other people. Yeah, Okay. This next message comes from Vicky. Vicky says, Dear Robert and Joe, I've been listening to stuff Table in your mind since and listening to inventions since it started. Thank you for

all the thought provoking topics. I really enjoyed the Kamma Mudah show, and I wanted to add another reason why someone might want a word for this feeling. Since the feeling can be overwhelming to some of us, we can disarm it a bit if we have a word. I have a few personal experiences of creating a word for this. First, when I was a teenager growing up in Wisconsin, my dad and I were watching some kind of nature documentary with baby animals surviving against odds, which created a strong

feeling of karma mudah. But I didn't want to cry. I was a teenager, and I looked at my dad, who was also trying not to cry. He was an American man, and he said, it's heartwarming, and that made us both laugh. After that, heartwarming was our secret code for when we saw something that brought up those feelings and we could laugh instead of crying. This is interesting and the idea that that you're feeling that essentially the Kama move to so strongly that it must be expressed.

There has to be an an outlet for it. It reminds me of some of the I believe it was a past episode I can't remember. I recorded this one with you or maybe this was a Julie episode, but about the desire to to bite a baby, because it's

so cute that this was with Julia. Okay, yeah, uh and and as I recall, the argument here was, yeah, you're just so overcome with this feeling and it needs out in some way, and like the best you can sometimes do is to like reach out and like pinch the child to just sort of deflate the overwhelming sense of kama muda. And this sounds oddly similar. Uh, you know, it's like, there's this we're feeling something, something is happening.

We have to say it. We have to transform it into transfigure it into some other emotion, otherwise it's going to destroy us. Yes. She tells another example about this that I think is interesting. So this one also involves singing. So she says, Now, I live in Tokyo. I've been here for more than twenty five years, married to a Japanese man. I belong to an association of quote foreign wives women currently are formally partnered with a Japanese person, and we gather once a year from all across Japan

for a weekend convention. It's always a great time, but it always closes on Sunday morning with the ceremony where everyone holds hands and sings a song written by one of the members Total Karma Muda. I find it too overwhelming, so several years back I started sneaking out just before the singing, and I found several other women doing the same thing. So now we plan it. We talk about when to make our escape, a timely visit to the restroom, for example, to avoid the singing. We all know what

the singing means. It's not the singing itself. I go out to karaoke with some of these people. It's that overwhelming feeling. Japanese has a word for that feeling, kendao, literally emotions moving, and people use it fairly often in conversation. When I first came here, I was surprised that people would say in English that something had moved them, but eventually I realized they were just translating the Japanese word uh. And at the end, she recommends a video that invokes

mild Karma Muda. It's a promotional video made by the Kanagawa Prefecture that involves a lot of people from the area singing and dancing in costume. To this one pop song.

It is indeed extremely cute and very sweet. But this is really interesting because she talks about all these these multiple methods, both like having a kind of code word, but then also having a kind of avoidance ritual, all for avoiding situations that are going to cause that karma muda reaction, the goose bumps, the tears, the you know, the warmness in the chest, because sometimes it's too much,

and people do this strategically all the time. And like, you know, even though the emotion of karma mudas described as inherently pleasurable, even though it feels good, it represents a loss of control. It can be frightening, embarrassing, It can make you feel vulnerable. Yeah, I mean I can, I can. I think I can relate to that sum with movies because I certainly at times appreciate being moved by a film, you know, uh, you know, the emotional roller coaster of a of a good film, and if

it's done right, you don't feel manipulated. You know, you feel as if you were you're actually actually engaging with the picture. But then there are other times where you just don't want to feel that, you know, and you certainly don't want to feel like the filmmakers are trying

to manipulate you into having a particular emotional state. And maybe that's one of the reasons I'm drawn to to to bad films, is that that oftentimes you you can be sure that you're probably not going to have a strong emotional reaction unless it, I don't know, unless it's to something that is, you know, done poorly and poor done poorly in just the right way to evoke those

kind of emotions. And this is basically how I feel when anyone makes like a current horror movie recommendation for him and they're like, oh, you should see such and such. Make you feel so bad, it's gonna be so shocking, it's just really gonna tear you apart. And I don't know, I think I'd rather just watch something with a rubber monster costume. And you were just talking about your love for the fly that's the king of genuine bad feelings. Yeah. Yeah, But I think the part of that is that I

saw it. I saw it at a at a point in my life when I was more open to those experiences where I was like, yes, let me watch some challenging horror. I'm ready to be challenged and and uh and so now you know it already has a warm place in my heart. It's not going to shock me with anything new. I mean, I maybe you know, when you revisit a film, you always feel something. If it's a good film, anyway, you feel something different, you find

new corners to it. But for the most part, I know what I'm going to get um and and maybe I'm yeah, I'm as I get older, I'm less inclined to have that kind of vulnerable experience, especially with the horror film, you know, because I don't know, it's like the the horror film does not have my my best interests at heart, necessarily just trying to hurt you. Yeah,

that's I think some films. I think a lot of films like and granted this is a this is also a risk with bad horror, you know, because it's sometimes it's even worse right because they're struggling with the with titanic feelings of like fee you're in hatred and and uh and then so forth, like all these negative aspects of of existence. And then sometimes the people managing all of these feelings, you know, they don't have the the storytelling or filmmaking. Um, expertise to really do it well.

So it's like going to a pharmacy and having somebody like, uh, you know what, it could compile your spilling pills all over you and it kills all over the place, and then feeling like, oh, well, this is probably going to poison me because they have no idea what they're doing. They don't know how to dish out the appropriate dosage. And you want you want the appropriate dosage of horror. Uh.

And sometimes it's easier to air on underdosing yourself. Okay, dogs don't have faces, and the movies are trying to harm you. Well sometimes no, I mean I think you could be right, You could be onto something there. But you know what, Robert, I think this next this next email is gonna put you in a vulnerable place and make you feel something. All right, here we go. This

one comes to us from George. I was listening to the Warm Feelings episode and was moderately skeptical of the sensation, which made me feel odd since I was hearing so much evidence. The feeling was short lived due to the explanation of the mooda scale. I perked up, knowing full well the story. After the explanation. The mention of being a wrestling fan did cause me to experience the feeling in my chest and I felt an involuntary smile in

the sense of Cammoderie. Living in Orlando, I get the chance to attend in XT television with around three hundred people, and there is a special communal energy. As an aside, I am thrilled to be seeing Great Mooda live this April in Tampa. Thank you for the varied subjects and depth of research and attention. Do you make my work day that much better? George V Uh, Well, yeah, that's

that's awesome to hear. I I I think this is a common experience with you know, with seeing uh say, professional wrestling or any kind of like performance like this, especially when you have a smaller the inside kind of like tighten it, tighten nit group, Uh, you know, certainly with three people and attendance at an inn x T taping. Uh. You know, it makes sense that you would have this, uh,

this kind of reaction to it. You know, I naively would have expected that wrestling falls more in the bad movie category, where it's something that you can expect to only engage you in a shallow way that it's kind of funny and fun and you you wouldn't expect to be deeply emotionally moved by it. I'm surprised how much emotional investment people do seem to have in it. Well, it's you can get very invested in an emotional experience

even if you know basically what's going to happen. Uh. One example wrestling based that comes to mind to explain this is I've seen people talk about Luca Libre in Mexico, and I forget who was having this conversation, but one side was like, well, I would get more into it, but it's so predictable, like you know whether the good guy or the bad guy is gonna win, and uh, and then the other and compared it more to like a passion play, you know, where the good guys win

for the same reasons that the good guys win in myths and folk tales and so forth, And so you have to think of it less as a like cinematic presentation of a story and more of these you know, these these tropes, these ideals coming together and battling each other, and then the audience shares in the communal experience of this. So it's I mean, it's it's the same with puppet

shows and shadow puppetry and various performances throughout history. In that regard, don't be the guy hating on wrestling because it's not realistic. Come on, well, like an example, a fun example. Over the weekend I was in Uh, I was at Universal Studios, Florida in the Harry Potter Land with my family. My son's a big Harry Potter fan. We're all Harry Potter fans. And they had like this live performance puppet show of the story of the Three

brothers as is told in The Deathly Hallows. Uh. And it's you know, it's a it's a fun little story like three adventurers and death and the gifts of death, the older one, the you know, this is the magical Stone, the invisibility cloak. And they so they're performing the story for everybody. Everybody knows the story because they've they've either

read it, you know, or if they've seen the film. Uh. And perhaps they've seen it earlier in the day because they perform it like every half hour, so right, but everybody gets into it, like part of it is knowing the show you're about to see and uh. And there was this kind of communal vibe to it. It was pretty exciting, even though it is, you know, a performance

at a theme park. All right, Well, on that note, we're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, we will explore some additional entries of listener mail. Thank alright, we're back. We're moving on from Kama Muda and getting into some divine territory. Right, so we're gonna be talking about messages that came in after our is

Santa God episodes. Those were definitely a lot of fun. Again, we know some people occasionally listen with their kids, so the next few minutes will involve some frank discussion of the jolliest of old elves. Just be warned there, that's right, Skip ahead if you need to, all right, Taylor writes, Hi, Robert and Joe Taylor again, writing from Salt Lake City, to share my childhood experience of Santa in a Christian household. I grew up LDS or Mormon more colloquially, and Santa

did experience a mild induction into my childhood faith. I've always been intensely curious, and even as a child, was very concerned about establishing a consistent ideology for the universe. So when I was four or five years old, I wondered why Santa would need to keep watch when God already knew everything that was going on. For context, my family and I have have long since left the faith, and my parents were never very fundamental about their beliefs.

When I presented my Santa dilimit to my parents, they cunningly replied that God must have invested Santa with this holiday responsibility, and I was delighted that God would be

concerned with which transformers I received that year. My parents never made any connection to the historical St. Nicholas, perhaps because Mormonism is an American religion far removed from Catholicism, perhaps because they weren't very interested in history back then, and most likely because, as you say, they were Santa. The belief was cemented when I stumbled across an esoteric

verse in King James version of the Bible Zachariah to six. Quote, Ho, Ho, come forth and flee from the land of the north, Saith the Lord, for I have spread you abroad as the four winds of the heaven, Saith the Lord whoa unquote between the Ho Ho the land of the north and spread abroad as the Four winds. I was convinced of Santa's divine investiture, never mind the context or the

rest of the surrounding versus. These revelations and a repeat encounter with a Mall Santa sustained my fundamental belief in the jolly old Elf for sever for more years, despite my investigative nature. As for the Mall Santa, I ran into him twice in a week, first at a grocery store and then at a party organized by our congregation. When I sat on Santa's lap at the church party, he handily remembered what I'd asked him for days prior to the grocery store, and that blew my little mind.

The possibility that this was a man with a particularly gifted memory and not the literal Chris Kringle did not cross my mind. For some years. I didn't believe that every Mall Santa was the genuine article, but I thought the fat Man must spice it up with some special appearances. Happy holidays to you both, and thank you as always for creating such genuinely engaging content. I haven't missed an

episode in years. Taylor, PS, I'm thrilled you enjoyed my Pokemon email enough to share it that one must have been a while back. Uh, this was great, And this really connected with a lot of memories I have about Santa beliefs as a kid, like trying to trying to incorporate Santa into a Christian worldview and saying, Okay, God already knows everything, but Santa all also knows everything. Santa must sort of work for God. He's like maybe at

the level of the angels or something. I don't know, it's weird, I you know, just despite growing up in you know, in a religious household and uh and certainly hearing talk about God and church and so forth, I don't think I have a really compared God with Santa. You know, I didn't really. I don't know. I'm not sure what it was, but I never really thought too long and hard about what their relationship with each other were.

In a way, I kind of maybe it was kind of it was kind of like engaging with with separate worldviews. Like when I was thinking about Santa, I was thinking about like the Santa um uh, you know, version of of reality. And then when I'm engaging with with with churches, the church version of reality, and um, yeah, that's that's the best I can figure on that on that count. Yeah, I guess I was always trying to make sense of it crammed together like Taylor, like putting it all in. Okay,

how does this fit? Um? I also remember this similar feeling of like, Okay, I know not all of the Santa's you see at the mall and everywhere can be the real Santa, but I wonder if some of them are like this, like Taylor saying, like occasionally the real Santa shows up at the mall, but most of the mall Santa's are fake. Yeah. Yeah. Becomes just such an increasingly complex exercise when you're trying stitch that together. And

I guess that's part of the situation, right. Eventually you just use there are just too many flaws, there are too many plot holes and uh and certainly if you pull out comes Razor out, then that's the end of it. Now. This next email comes from our listener Arson, and it concerns the question we asked in the Santa God episode, like what would it take for a real Santa religion to form, like an actual religion with Santa as a god? You know, meant seriously in the way people's other gods

are meant seriously. Arson says, Hello, Robert and Joe. I think I have a simple solution for how Santa Claus could continue to inspire belief in adults. The first is to change physical gifts wrapped with a label staying there from Santa two gifts with less concrete origins. It's pretty common in religions focused on a deity for people to

attribute fortunate things to various gods. This is also a common way to scam people out of money, most notably groups or individuals that request the person being scammed to send increasing amounts of money with the promise that there will be an exponential return on that investment. Even though there is no real result, the person being scammed can attribute their luck to the scam and thus their belief

in the ideas behind it can be strengthened. It would not take much of a stretch to tell children who reach a certain age that adults do the work of distributing gifts that Santa provides for in the form of mysterious windfalls. This would have a basis in St. Nicholas history, since he was said to give money to keep people

out of poverty and sin. The tradition some people have of choosing one person to play Santa and hand out gifts could work as a stepping stone for older children who would be preparing to be agents of Santa themselves. This would eliminate the need for Santa to have a physical location and to workshop and helpers. He would only need to mysteriously provide resources. This could also change the

equation about who receives presents. Naughty children might lead to a family receiving less bounty during the holidays, so unfortunate circumstances might be placed on children not being good enough. Hopefully, though the blame would fall equally on everyone. In that case, everyone in the house would have incentive to keep everyone else in line. If the Elf on a shelf remained popular, it could take a darker turn and mutate into one

of Santa's evil helpers. Another thing he is known for is being a protector of children, which seems to be one reason he survived various cultural and religious shifts. I highly recommend listening to the episode of Our Fake History where the host goes into detail about all of his variations. In one instance, a child who had been abducted was rescued by a flying St. Nicholas, who swooped in, grabbed him by the hair, and deposited him with his family.

But St. Nicholas was also known as zealously disciplined bad children, including beating them. His various helpers have been known to enslave bad children or worse. I think it would be easy for an adult, especially apparent, to buy more into this myth because of how fragile children are. They might not fear a child being physically carried off. But what if these helpers had equally mysterious gifts to give? Was

that flu a fluke? Or was the child naughty? Does my child have good enough grades or a clean enough room to be on the good list? I can imagine parents agonizing over this, especially if we end up in a world where antibiotics stop working in superbugs reign supreme. On that note, I hope you both have a wonderful holiday season and a happy new year. Arson. Well, I'm having a happy New Year and and and a good

holiday season, Thank you, Arson. I agree with the out of this as as I think we sort of expressed in the episodes. If Santa would have any chance of actually becoming a god through cultural shifts over time. I think one of the most important changes would have to be, like Arson's talking about a trend toward abstraction and obscurity, intangible gifts at unpredictable times rather than concrete toys on

Christmas Morning. But then it wouldn't be Santa. Is the thing? Like, the part of the thing about Santa is that Santa appeals to young minds who don't have a lot of space for these intangibles. You know, they want the very tangible. They want the gift that is visible under the tree, that you can pick up, that you can hold, that you can play with, the actual Santa whose lap you

can say you can sit on. And I feel like the more abstract you make it, the more you make it for adults, the less it will it will actually resonate with the child, and then paradoxically, the less it will then resonate with the backward looking adults. Well, but I think that's exactly why Arson's proposing this like progression and right, where so adults play Santa and giving concrete gifts to children that the children understand is coming from Santa.

And then there's a rite of passage. Whereas you grow up you realize, oh, okay, the concrete gifts that the children got, those were the you know, those were uh from adults pretending to be Santa, sort of the priests of Santa. The real Santa gives intangible benefits like health and wealth and stuff to people, to adults who are good. Okay, Um, well, I'll also say December is crazy and nobody has time for this. This is this is too elaborate a con Uh,

it's enough to just do like the normal Santa thing. Oh, I don't know. I mean people find room to do the regular Santa thing in December and then do prosperity gospel the rest of the year. I mean, yeah, I guess so. And I know, I mean Arson makes some good points. Maybe I'm just I'm just against the idea of destroying the idea of Santa. So like, you know, there's something pure about it. Let it, let it live for the short time it can thrive. Well, I'll defend Arson.

I don't think Arson is suggesting this would be a good thing to do. All right, here's another one. This one comes to us from Mark. Hey, guys, absolutely love your podcast. I'm a couple of weeks behind, and I just finished your two episodes on whether Santa qualifies as a god or not. A couple of things struck out to me, namely the processed food gods. You touched on the ridiculousness of the crunch wrap Supreme God as well as the flying spaghetti Monster. It occurred to me that

both of those examples involved processed foods. I eat foods that aren't found in nature. I know certain cultures have gods that reside over certain foods, like rice gods and Asian cultures. I was wondering if in your hours upon days upon weeks of research you would come across other gods constructed by humans. There are plenty of examples of humans made items becoming animate or being possessed by spirits in many cultures, but I don't recall ever hearing examples

of god's being handmade. Best regards, Mark, Yeah, the best example I could think of the this fits more into the first half of what you're talking about is the Sukamogami, the tool gods from the Japanese legends that we talked about.

So these like tools that were cast out in the New Year, um they would become animate but I don't think they became You're mark you're sort of making a distinction between gods that are, like, you know, powerful creator type figures versus just kind of things that are inhabited by minor spirits. And I think the Sukamogami were more minor spirits. Yeah, like he's talking about, could you have a situation where a major deity is a rock or something to that effect or it well is is a

handmade thing? Is something made by humans? Like a major deity is uh is a metal detector, or a major deity is a sword. My my, my answer would be would be two part. First of all, certainly nothing is immediately coming to mind, though of course it could be

missing something. The other thing is that one of the problems, or I guess one of the problems you get into when you start asking this question about God's in various belief systems is that you run into examples where God's have multiple forms, right, they have multiple likenesses that ultimately some up the uh, the the the larger and in

human quality of the god. Where so you it's conceivable you might have a god that sometimes appears as say a trident or as a sword, but inevitably that God will also have other forms, if not within the same belief system, than at least within the tradition of belief in that entity. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I think you're right. There are tons of God's that can metaphorically or maybe even literally take forms of human made objects. Uh, much more often if you accept a metaphorical uses. I mean,

like Jesus says I am the door. He that enters me will be saved and will go in and out to pasture, you know. But like, um, that's obviously meant as like a metaphor. It's just saying like it is through me that something will happen. Right, Surely there are myths. I didn't find any directly, but surely there are myths of gods that have sort of anthropomorphic forms, generally appearing in the forms of weapons. That's got to happen. Well, yeah, it would be interesting to look into that more and

I look for specific examples of that. All right, we're gonna take another break, but when we come back, we are going to consider some facial recognition emails. Thank alright, we're back, all right. So these messages came in response to the facial recognition episodes. We did this first one. It comes from Jim in New Jersey. Jim says, Robert and Joe, I have several thoughts in your latest facial recognition episodes. When I was a teenager, I would develop a crush on a girl, but I was also too

shy and awkward to approach her. I noticed I had a very difficult time recalling her face when she was not around. I don't recall having this for anyone else. I have no idea of the cause. I figured it was a mental tick as I struggled to figure out dating. That was kind of interesting. I think we talked in the episode about the ideas of facial recognition maybe being um easier in cases where you engage less emotionally with the face. I wonder um, Jim says, advanced forward several decades.

One day, I was passing a coworker in the hall and we stopped to chat. Her face disappeared. It was replaced with something kind of shimmery. I looked away and noticed it wasn't just her face, it was this. It was my center field of vision. I had previously scheduled an eye appointment soon after that, and I described it to the doctor. She very casually said that I had experienced an ocular migraine and that I should worry about it. I think maybe Jim means I shouldn't worry about it.

Um she got them too. I've only had a handful since, and they tend to go away in a minute or two. Oliver Sacks had them as well and wrote of them. Finally, your discussion of law enforcement using facial recognition software produced a scene in my mind. I'm sure we've all seen in crime drama movies and television. It's the trope of the corkboard and the detective room with photos of the suspects and lines connecting them. What if facial recognition software

could produce these Here's my thought. Facial recognition software finds the suspects face and photos scraped off the web. There will certainly be others faces in some of these photos. I'm sure we'll be able to identify these faces, which could lead to other photos with new faces, and more photos with more faces. Each photo with multiple faces would be a link establishing relationship of those in the photo.

More shared photos would increase the strength of that relationship. Eventually, probably very quickly, a network of closely related individuals would emerge the gang, so to speak. We already have clustering algorithms that do this. We might even be able to identify subclusters and hierarchies within the organization. I'm not sure if I find this idea really interesting or really frightening. Uh Jim in New Jersey, and Jim also says thanks. I now have the Friends theme song repeating in my

head as an earworm. I think that comes from us talking about Jennifer Aniston cells Ester, Jennifer Anderson Cellsis. Yeah, and we talked a little bit about about about the about sitcoms and the house. Sometimes the characterism sitcoms are so familiar that they are like actual friends. Right, here's another one when comes to us from Liam Liam Wrights. Hey,

Joe and Robert. First of all, love the show as well as invention I made to jump over from stuff you should know just over a year ago and have smashed your catalog in that time. Both your intellectual insights and tight research really does blow my mind. Just finished listening to the three part facial recognition apps. I'm the kind of person that usually takes the side of if you have nothing to hide, who cares, mainly because trying to stop technology seems futile, so just go with the

flow and try and enjoy the terrifying ride. At the start of the first episode, I thought, man, what's the big deal? But by the end I was fully aboard the bannit until we figured this out, boat. I do find it interesting to think that for half a century or more we've been waiting and hoping for a personal helper robot to clean in our homes and make our dinner. But this would require facial recognition to be a thing and work flawlessly. Now it looks like we were very

close to it being a reality. I find it a little creepy to imagine to help a robot that could recognize me, even with a partially covered face, nefarious government taps into your domestic robots to be spies, and the home the story rights itself. Anyway, keep it up. I recommend your show to anyone standing nearby who says the word podcast cheers Liam. So it sounds like we scared you. I don't know if we meant to scare you. I guess we did mean to give you a fuller picture.

But yeah, well, I mean, I guess we did intend to scare people, at least, I mean I felt a little scared after researching it. I mean part of it. I think the importance of it is that there is a lot in technology that we have that we're anxious about. But this is an area where, like our cultural anxiety around it, I don't think has generally speaking, has not

risen to the appropriate level. So, you know, whatever we can do to to help you fear the things in technology that you should fear more like this, and perhaps a little less in other categories that you might have been freaking out about, like this is one that we're also at a point where some things can be done, Some things can uh, some you know, restrictions can be put in place. It's not necessarily too late. Yeah, this is followed through in the next email. This comes from Kenna.

Kenna said, Hi, Robert and Josh. Oh, thanks Kenneth, thanks a lot. It's okay. I understand. Well, you know, she maybe she thinks you're Robert and I'm Josh, so it

could go either way. Hi, Robert and Josh. I just listened to all your facial recognition episodes back to back, and I think, uh, and I think the people arguing for only restricting these sorts of technologies by the end user legal agreement covered in episode three are missing a very major point tech monopolies and coercive end user agreements, wherein you have to agree to the term terms in order to access a necessary service. We talked a little bit about this, I think, when we talked about like

using facial recognition for payment, but can it continues? For example, one of the earlier episodes mentioned using facial recognition to compile medical records of livestock applied to cows. This seems like a good idea, but if it were instituted as part of your electronic medical records or as your real idea for voting, opting in would be a requirement for

civic participation or access to healthcare. Extrapolate that to public school access, receiving government unemployment or disability benefits, or citizenship verification for employment, and you can quickly make facial recognition not only an insidious tool of surveillance, but an extremely insecure one, much like social security numbers are becoming as we're required to give them out more and more often to verify our identity, our credit, and the like. Love

the episodes. They really clarified the reasoning behind my instinctive dread of this particular form of surveillance. Kenna very good points, I think. All right, here's another one. This one comes to us from Eli. Hey, they're a big fan of the show. I just had to write in because when Robert said that dogs don't have faces, I mentally did a double take. If that makes sense. I actually lost my train of thought. I was listening to the podcast at work because I instantly was gripped by the question

do people not think dogs have faces? And it's just me? And then when Joe laughed, it seemed that my world was turning right side back up. Not that my experience is representative of a larger swath of humanity, but as I thought about it, I've never heard of someone who doesn't consider dogs, cats, or birds birds to have faces. Here shocked and newly shocked, and it just seems like

a bird has less of a face. Faces anyway, Eli continues frequently, both my wife and sister will refer to dogs faces as they interpret their emotions or when describing how cute they are. So thanks for saying that you don't see it that way, Robert, because I had never even suppose there was another way to see it. Keep up the good work, Eli, you know, I share realized thoughts. I know, seriously, I I don't see how you could think dogs don't have faces. But I'm glad you don't.

I think that's very interesting. You have expanded my mind. I mean that, Like I said, I'm not trying to convince anybody of this um this way of thinking about about faces. But if I were to, if there was like a you know these kind of like um uh, you know, human identity tests that they give you sometimes, like there'll be a grid of squares and you have to highlight all the squares that have stop signs in them.

If I were presented with one of those, and you had like human faces and some and then you had some pictures of like cats and dogs and the others, and it says mark all the ones that have faces, I guess I would fail that test and they would consider me to be some sort of Internet scrying robot. But no, that'd be good you You'd be sabotaging the

machine for our for our benefit in the long run. Okay, okay, I think we should transition to talking about some feedback we got on our episode on Band or Snatch, where we talked a good bit about free will, whether this concept makes any sense, how issues of it are highlighted by, you know, the ways that technology may be accommodating our preferences without us even knowing it. This first message comes

to us from Andreas. Andrea says, Hi, guys, on the band or Snatch episode, you mentioned the possibility of movie content to be specifically tailored to specific audiences, based on, for example, their ideological or political profiles, and I think you insinuated that this might be a positive experience for the user, the underlying reasoning being, of course, that their own world view is reinforced. To clarify, I definitely didn't

mean it would be positive, but I uh. We did talk about how companies might assume that this would be more palatable to a wider range of users, which I think is probably true. That might be different than being actually beneficial. Andreas continues to challenge this. I would posit the following two options, but with their own worldly consequences.

A human beings are inherently flawed, and that we instinctively seek to reinforce our own beliefs and that technology will inevitably drive us towards an increasingly polarized world of ideological bubbles. This option would confirm your thesis on the Bandersnatch episode.

But there's another option. Be human beings are inherently flawed, and that we have a longing and desire for stories and legends to contain our own ideologies, and very importantly, for those ideologies to be disseminated to and adopted by more people, not to reinforce our own beliefs, but to impose or bring those beliefs on others, perhaps with the motivation of growing and strengthening the tribe with which we identify.

If B is true, assuming that the movie watching audience is aware that the content they're watching is specifically tailored to them, So again, this would be like you know, you watch the movie and it just like there are multiple versions of each scene filmed, where you can get the version that that the computer thinks is most suitable

to your personality. Um, and they would arguably not find any additional pleasure in watching a story with a worldview consistent with their own, since they would know that it was only themselves who got to see it, and that their world view would not be disseminated to others who

disagreed with it. As an example, would you rather watch a a political commentator on your favorite political TV channel stating a point with which you agree, or be watched the same political commentator go on a news show that typically hosts different political views and make the same statements there. In both cases, your world view is reinforced, but the second option, it is also disseminated to people who disagree with it. Uh and Andreas thinks that people will find

this much more satisfying. I think that we want to see our beliefs reinforced, but only in so far as they are communicated to others. Hence, the pleasure someone might take in, for example, watching a strongman's speech in a movie, does not solely come from the speech matching their belief but from them agreeing with it and into more importantly, knowing that others will hear this supposedly important speech. I wonder what you think. Thanks for the great show, Andreas. Uh.

I think this makes a sort of good point. But I think that these are both true to some extent, because hearing statements we strongly already agree with is inherently pleasing. For multiple reasons. For example, processing fluency. You know, we've

talked about this on the show before. We naturally find ideas all kinds of stimuli, not just statements about politics, but you know, art and stuff like that, more pleasing when we're more familiar with it, when it is easily processed by the brain, because the brain is lazy and it likes things that are easy to take in and make sense of. But then also, you know, there are other reasons why it might feel good, like creating a

feeling of social inclusion. Uh. But I agree with Andreas that we also like the idea of statements we agree with being spread to others in the context of a fictional TV show. Um, you know, we're watching it for entertainment and relaxation. Usually I can see pure processing fluency advantage driving a big slice of the behavioral pie about how people would actually express their preferences. Yeah, you know,

Andreas brings brings up some good points here. I feel a little differently about the uh, you know, the the the possibility a versus possibility be because possibility be in which you know, your your favorite political commentator or whatever goes on a show and shares this idea with others. That sounds a lot like to put it in a like a film connotation, like a movie going connotation, like watching a film that you're into with a hostile audience

and that does not sound pleasant to me. That sounds like something I would wish to avoid at all costs, because I don't want I would prefer to enjoy something I like with like minded people that will also enjoy it and I and I I'm not one of those people that it's where I want to then see my the things I love like battered into other people like I would. I would like to share things that I like with other people that might be receptive to them.

But I'm not going to stand around trying to convince somebody that say The Fly is a great movie if I know they're just not the type of person who likes this film. Well, here's a here's a counterpoint I'll give you. I have a very specific memory about a film with you know that could be interpreted in a

political way and a seemingly hostile audience. I remember when I was in very conservative East Tennessee going to a movie theater and seeing Brokeback Mountain in the theater and I remember, specifically at the time, being concerned that there would be people who would be in the audience with like I don't know, with anti gay points of view, reacting in a hostile way to the film in the theater, and I remember early in the film there were some

people around me who, you know, they weren't hostile, but they were kind of like snickering, like like the movie

was funny. And then at the end some of those same people were walking out of the movie in tears, and that I don't know that that was an interesting experience because I felt like the movie um to to an audience of people who might not necessarily have been very sympathetic to the idea of of a romance between two men originally for some reason ended up in the theater watching this movie and then we're emotionally moved by it.

I guess one of the things that they had that is most comforting about this scenario is that it comes down to the fact that there is there is a concrete version of this film. So if if anyone is won over by some aspect of it, they are still one over by the film Brokeback Mountain or or well whatever the you know, the specific film. Example is but you if we go into this like full future band or snacks scenario, which I just to clarify again, I was not bringing that up in the episode because I

was saying it's good. No, no, like yeah, like the bad thing about it would mean that it would mean nothing to say that you like a particular film exactly. Brokeback Mountain is different for everybody who views it based on their own pre existing uh, you know, religious or political viewpoint. Then it means absolutely nothing to say you like it because everybody will like it because the version they are served will be the version that matches their

expectations and their values exactly. And I think that's a very good wrinkle. Yeah, I mean it would. It would totally change what it means to say that you that you liked a movie or that you liked a TV show. It would it would mean more like, you know, whatever version of this the machine put together for me because it thought I would like it, did indeed trigger my pleasure centers. It would not represent a statement that was applicable to anybody else's experience. And then how would people

have hot takes on films anymore? Right? Well, that might be good but all right, here's another one. This one comes to us from m Cat m cat Rights. As you discussed in the Basilist episode, the free will of people are hard to predict, and I just wanted to put in my input on your band or Snatch episod it when I played through the episode of Bandersnatch, and I believe m Kat is talking about actually watching the episode of Black Mirrors. Yeah, I hated that they pushed

me to only two choices. Every time a choice came up. As I played, I came up on the choice of watching one of two characters die on screen. I really didn't like it, so I chose a third option. Never prompted, I quit watching. I stopped the episode and never watched it again. I refused the two choices always put forth. I kind of felt heroic, feeling like I saved a life doing it. But I feel like you didn't even possibly think of this on the episode you recorded on

the Bandersnatch. Personally, I hate being forced to an A or be choice. There's many ways to think about an option, but I feel like personally that people don't think outside the box. Hopefully someone else also said this to help think on the options, but also I love your podcast and you help my three year old son fall asleep with your calm voices. Plus I get to learn on the side. Thanks for your critical thinking skills, and I

will always be a fan m cat. Yeah. Yeah, And certainly one always has the option of turning it off, which which is it's I think it's valuable to h to keep that in mind, is that you can always

just reject the thing that you're you're interacting with. Like I actually had this conversation with my son recently because we were watching we happen to come come across like shortlisted films for Best Animated Short, uh, and we watched this one about this um these two stuffed animals that live in a sushi restaurant, and it was really sad. It was like a sad, little little short and he

didn't like it. It made him feel sad, and so I had to explain to it's like, well, you know, one of the things about about watching shows and you know, engaging with art is that if you don't ultimately don't like it, it's totally okay to just to not like it, to reject it and say I'm not gonna let this one you know, really be a part of my mind anymore than it has to be. Uh So, I mean that's kind of an over explanation of the obvious. But if you don't like it, uh yeah, turn it off.

And I don't mean that starthily, but we have to we have to. I think sometimes we have to remember that, given especially given like how important media is in our culture, that it's okay to just opt out of things that uh, you know don't make us happy, and we should be

doing a lot more opting out. Yeah, okay. To address one more thing in response to band or Snatch, I just have to uh address a Taylor wrote in We're not going to read this one in full, but but Taylor mentions quote in the episode Joe remarks that interactive storytelling in video games was a mostly failed device. I'll forgive you, Joe, because I know you aren't a big gamer,

but this absolutely is not the case. Player driven narratives are hugely popular and Triple A and indie video game titles alike, and are arguably the most popular method of storytelling in video games. Um So, whatever I said here, I probably failed to communicate what I meant to communicate, which I was trying to refer back to the style of interactive movie games that were popular on CD ROM

and laser disc in the nineties. Do you remember these, Robert, Yeah, where it's it's more in keeping with banner snatches, it's a movie. Yeah, Like, there were several like high profile ones that were like major flops that were widely criticized. Uh. When I when I do play modern video games, it's absolutely good story driven games that I like, I don't mess around with, you know, multiplayer games or whatever that

stuff is. So yes, I am aware of, uh, like, narrative based video games, and we've talked about some on the show before, like Soma and things like that. So

I'm sorry if I was inarticulate about that. I the ones I meant had failed had been the CD ROM interactive movies, which like, Yeah, basically, I think the point you and I were both trying to make is that this idea of a cinematic experience, like a purely cinematic experience that is also subject to audience choices, has never full taken off, and certainly has never rivaled the more

traditional cinematic experience. Yeah, I think the narrative can work in a more consistently active experience like a video game. I mean, I think one thing that's jarring about something like Band or Snatch or any of these interactive movies is that you're constantly being sort of jostled back and forth between experiencing it in a passive way and then suddenly having to engage. And that is just not It's not a very smooth experience. It's not it's not necessarily

a very pleasurable experience. It's better to be more in the fully active mode consistently, or in the fully passive mode consistently. Either want to be a driver or a passenger, but you don't want to suddenly have to switch back and forth between the two. That's a that's a great metaphor. Yeah, Like what would it be like to be writing where you kept having to reach over and take the wheel every few miles? All right, let's get to a few more listener mails here. We have something that came in

regarding our our tenth anniversary episode. This is the episode where Alison louder Milk, my original co host on the show, came back on board and we we all caught up about We've got everybody caught up about like what's going on with how Stuff Works? And uh the former stuff podcast like Stuff to Build your Mind. We talked about what How Stuff Works is up to, what Alison is up to, and reminist a little bit about the the early days of of podcasting and how stuff Works. Now.

When I pasted these into our document here, I made some abridgements in all of them, so these won't be read in full, just a few comments from each. This first one comes from Jim are frequent correspondent Jim in New Jersey. He says, congratulations on ten years. I think I've been listening since episode one. I checked my sent email and as best I can tell, I've written to you seventy seven now seventy eight times, he says. The

first time he wrote in was two thousand eleven. About whether mathematics is an invention or a discovery, he argued as kind of both, I think, he argued, it's kind of like the rules of chess. You know, like you can discover strategies, but you also like invent the rules to be with uh, And then Jim says, may you have many more years to educate and entertain us. Jim

in New Jersey. Jim, Yeah, Jim has an ability there with the emails that we do not have because we've changed owners enough time and we've changed email addresses enough time that like I have no I have no access to the old emails anymore. Yeah, you can't, can't search all the way back, all right? This one comes to us from Nathan to Robert Allison, Julie and all the hosts who followed after. Thank you for being part of

my life. Ten years ago, I finished a decade in the Army and got my first smartphone, where I found a podcast out. The first podcast I listened to was Quirks and Quarks, followed in a few weeks with Stuff in the Science Lab. Your show became so much more than I expected. For the next five years I listened and became a legitimately different person. Despite being interested in science. I was raised as a Young Earth creationist and had lots of barriers to scientific thinking that we're just a

part of my learning. Your clear explanation of scientific ideas and your willingness to revel in not knowing everything was one of the most refreshing things I could have at that time. And then Nathan goes on to say, so some other nice things. But but that's the quick summary there. I will say, I think a strength of our show is that we revel in not knowing everything. Yes, yeah, um yeah. I think that that is important is to ye to realize that there's there's not just knowing and

not knowing. There is there is the journey between the two and and certain the ultimate knowledge, ultimate whatever you know. It's like we're all on a on a continuing journey of exploration and self betterment. And uh, that's just we that the more willing we are to accept that, I think, the more peaceful our lives are. Alright. This next message comes from Josh. Josh says, Hello, Robert and Joe and

Christian two. I heard you guys mentioned on the tenth anniversary show how much you appreciate it when listeners tell you the show changed their lives. I thought you might appreciate my story. I'm currently an engineering PhD students studying how bacteria interact with engineered nano materials. A large part of why I decided to pursue a PhD is because of the attitude towards science is a continuous quest for knowledge. Shows like Stuff to Blow Your Mind have imparted on me.

I started listening to podcasts about four years ago, and while many shows have been added or cut from my feet, I've always kept stuff to blow your mind. Sincerely, Josh, oh that that that is that is really sweet to hear and and and certainly, yeah, we are super grateful of anyone who who hangs with the show or or even discovers as a new because there's just so much. There's so much out there today. There's so many podcasts. Every you know, every expert seems to have a podcast

these days. Every celebrity has a podcast. There's so many wonderful shows and also just a lot of noise as well. But uh, you know, we feel privileged anytime we listeners continue to keep us in their feet, and you know, we we don't take that lightly. We realized that that is the place that that has that has to be earned, alright. This one comes to us from Anne and writes in and says, Hi, Robert and Joe, congratulations on hitting ten

years of the podcast. I've listened to nearly the entire archive. I just need to listen to the first two episodes, How Fighting Asteroids Works and Amazing Infestations, which were mentioned in today's anniversary special Allison was a great blast from the past. Uh. And then she goes on to suggest that some day someday we should explore the concept of deja rev. Is it deja rev I don't know literally

translating to already dreamed? Have we ever experienced it? I assume she means, um, if we've ever had a dream that we feel like we've we've dreamt before. I think it's the other way around. I think it's you ever have the experience. It's like deja vou. But instead of thinking I already did this, you think I dreamed this, I've absolutely had that experience. I remember feeling that very

strongly as a child. I there's one that's stuck out in my mind where um, I was in the front yard playing with some friends and I was running around and I ran into a low lying branch like hit me in the eye. And I remember that at the time just having this powerful feeling of this just happened to me in a dream. I dreamed this entire scene with the branch in my eye and and all the people here. And I don't think that was true, but it was a powerful sensation. I don't think I've ever

experienced that. I think I certainly have situations where I certainly experienced deja vu, and I've certainly had dreams that I either remember or misremember having had before. But I've never I don't think I've ever experienced anything in life and and felt like it was a reenactment of something that occurred in a dream. I think that's something we could definitely come back to. Thank you man anyway, and

says thank you for reading my email. I think this would be a great topic to cover on the show. Cheers to ten more years, and all right, it sounds good, ten more, put it down for ten more. All these people breaking my heart. Seriously, y'all out there are are so kind to get in touch with us with these words of encouragement, and uh it feels so nice, so

so thank you, Thank you the listener. Absolutely, and hopefully in ten years, when Carney is the sole host of the show, Carney will have us back on to to reminisce about the old days. Occasionally he'll bring on our jarred heads like in Futurama and we can argue with the Richard Nixon head. I'm looking forward to les. Yeah, that'll be good. All right, Well, like I said, we receive a lot of listener mail and we we we

we generally read it all. We don't have time to respond to it all, and we don't have time to share it all here. But just you know, be assured that if you send it in, our eyeballs will linger

over it. Uh. And you know, if you didn't know, if you're stuff didn't get read today, maybe we'll fit it in next time, because again we've just received so much great content in meantime, if you want to check out other episodes of stuff to blow your mind, perhaps you heard reference to an episode that you haven't listened to yet, Well you can go back and find it where you can. Where can you find the show. You can find the show anywhere you get your podcasts, wherever

that happens to be. Just help us out by subscribing, by rating, and by reviewing. Those are the things you can do that help out the show in the long run, and certainly right in because we would love to hear from you. Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other to suggest topic for the future, 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 iHeart Radios. How stuff works. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio is the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Biddy Present point four point Far Far