Listener Mail: That's a Bummer

assemble it and present it to us. That's right. That's because Carney quit social media. That's right. He got off Facebook, got off Twitter, stopped scrolling, he listened to our episode on Bummer and uh now he's he's bummer free. Uh though, on the other hand, he has in fact turned into a manual social media robot of his own uh and no behavior modification. Instead, he just rolls around the world,

delivering messages directly between people by shouting them them at you. Yeah, it it takes a little longer, but but he never stops. That's the cool thing, you know. It's like the he's like the monster and it follows. He just makes a straight line from from cinder to recipient and he'll get there. Most of the time he just zips up and says like yes or heart or or just presents the proper emoji in place of, you know, actual emotional investment. He also deals in um in memes quite a lot as well.

Oh yeah, well, I can't fix everything at once. Okay, Well, I think we should jump right into it with a for this first one is not a single bit of listener mail, but it is a theme we got. So let's start by talking about our episode on The Tingler. This was about fear and about the nineteen fifty nine William Castle movie The Tingler. Super fun episode. I really

enjoyed that one. Yeah, and hopefully we inspired more than a few people to actually go check this film out, you know, for the first time, or to revisit it and admire its weirdness. Absolute camp classic. It is wonderful. But I wanted to start up front. We usually, if we get any corrections, we try to put these upfront most often, and so I'm doing that right now. In our episode on The Tingler, in talking about the influence

of our gut flora on our brains. Specifically, we were talking about the ways and the evidence that changes in gut flora could have an effect on animal fear response, including perhaps human fear response. I mentioned an estimate that the number of microbial cells in our bodies around ten

times the number of human cells in our body. Now, this used to be a commonly cited figure, but several listeners got in touch to point out that the more recent and probably more accurate estimates have revised that number down, so it's probably closer to a two to one or a one to one ratio. But even on the lowest end, that fact remains about as astonishing to me. On the conservative estimate by sheer cell count, only half the cells in your body are human cells. Yeah, and and that

is that is amazing to consider. The Tingler, of course, uh involved for anyone who didn't listen to that episode, and easy reminder, uh. It involved a plot line about this weird centipede like creature that resides along all of our spines and when we when we fear, when we when we really gripped by intense fear, it constricts around our spinal column and if we don't scream to to you know, to drive it back into seclusion. It will like snap our spine in half, right, when the fear

starts flowing, you get those spines cracking. Right. But of course, the one of the whole weird aspects of the whole plot was there's a thing living inside you that's not you. And of course the more we we we know about the human body and uh, the microbiome, we know that that is a reality. Like you said, half of our selves are not our own. Half of we are half

Tingler at all times. Except the only way I might argue with that is that maybe those cells are best thought of as you, even though they don't share you, say your d n A. And they are bacterial cells, not mammal cells. In what sense are they not you? If they share body space with you, if they have control over your feelings and your thoughts and your behaviors. I don't know, it's kind of hard to argue that

those bacterial cells aren't you in some way. This is another reason we we really need to do the fly yeah show. You know, probably the Cronenberg version, that's version as opposed to Vincent Price, uh is that's the one that I'm I'm most attracted to. But you get into a lot of this in that film as well, like the idea of your genetic identity being disrupted by the by an interloper, in human interloper that flies into the

telepod with you. But of course we already have so many interlopers that are just part of the package that are I guess going. They have to be attract and we assembled by the computers that are maintaining the telepods. To begin with, it's okay, we're all brundle fly. Okay, do we want to look at our next email about

the Tingler? I think this one starts off being in response to a question we asked in that episode, which was could having a sort of imaginary personification of your fear response be helpful in overcoming your irrational fear response? Liken thinking of it as some kind of animal that you have to contend with that's separate from you. Uh, does that give you some kind of power over it? And our listener Anna got in touch with several thoughts.

But first off, I think that's what she's talking about, all right, She writes, Hi, Robert and Joe, I've been listening to your podcast for a while now and really enjoyed other podcasts I listened to. I find interesting when I am listening to them, but then I move on. But with yours, I find myself having lots of thoughts about the topic you were discussing. Oh no, in one of your recent podcasts that you were discussing anxiety and if it could be personified it would be easier to

deal with. I suffer from some anxiety myself, and one analogy I found useful was the image of a smoke alarm. The smoke alarm is there to go off if there is a fire, but often goes off if you burn or toast, or forget to put the fan on above the stove. The smoke alarm responds the same whether it is a major disaster or a minor incident. I find this useful way of describing my anxiety to others. I often forget to put the fan on above the oven

and the smoke alarm comes off. I keep a broom nearby so I can poke the button on the smoke alarm with the broomstick. Perhaps I should imagine poking my anxiety with a broomstick. I think that's a really good analogy. You also discussed why you enjoy horror films and this reminded me of something I read in a Newal gaming book. It was in the introduction to the Coraline and Other Stories book. He was saying it was a shame that modern children's literature wants to avoid scaring children, but some

of the best children's stories are scary. He quoted Ogden Nash quote. Where there is a monster, there is a miracle. He says. A world in which there are monsters and ghosts and things that want to steal your heart is a world in which there are angels and dreams, and above all, a world in which there is hope. And from there she goes on to make a reading recommendation that we may come back to in a future episode, but she closes out by saying, keep up the great work. Annah. Yeah.

Uh so this is a really interesting thought. Now, Robert, I think you've sort of covered that idea on the show before, right this. I think this was before I came on the show. But you did something a long time ago about children children's like scary kids stories. Yeah. Yeah, there's an older episode on that about because there was there was a study about like terrifying elements and children's literature.

It would be interesting perhaps to look at it again and see if there's gon't have been any new scholarship on it. Uh, And of course there are all there's always the you know, observations of like the horrific aspects of not only like Grimm's fairy Tales, like that's a standard, but you know you expect it from the brothers Grim But then you look at Disney films as well. Yeah, and the you know, at a ton of replexing, lye traumatic moments that occur in those films. Yeah, it's um,

it's it's it's interesting. Of course, the whole argument about like you know, you've got to have the monster so you can have the angels. Um. I think maybe that's part of it. I mean, that's also kind of a theological argument for the existence of horrible things in the

world that sometimes people take issue with. So I don't know, well, I don't I don't know if you should take like the angels thing literally there, because like I sometimes have the thought, obviously, we want a better world, you know, you want pain to be taken away and like more good things to happen to more people all the time. But there is a part of you that says like if I never faced any kind of pain or any kind of struggle or anything, something about that seems very

scary in itself. There's a kind of like brave New World is kind of quality to that that there's some part of us I do think that yearns for struggle, and that would maybe feel like life was meaningless if everything was always good and happy. I've been thinking about about some of this recently, I mean, particularly with with

with say horror and uh in dystopia. You know, at times we have like just extremely grim models of this, and I feel I feel like, you know, obviously, fiction is always going to speak to the time in which

it is created. It's going to speak to the experience of the people that created and and I don't mean to like, you know, make a you know, to to over inflate that and try and make an outrageous overstatement of the obvious here, But but you know, I think I feel like at times, maybe the horror is dwelt on in times and by people you know who do not who who have the privilege of not having to confront uh such horrors head on. But then what happens is later on, in a more horrific time, or a

time when the horror is more obvious to us. We still have those same stories to look back on, and they don't always match up, you know, they don't always deliver what we need to either make sense of the

world that is occurring around us or to escape from it. Um. And then the other thing I was thinking of two is the the idea of you know, personifying anxiety, uh, you know, and about how it often seems like I often feel like, you know, there's there is the shape of of the anxiety that must be filled with something, you know, and if if I'm not worrying about this thing,

like something else is going to fill that shape. And I think that's just part of of like how we evolved, you know, like we evolved to be a being that would always encounter that shape. That shape would be there, perhaps very physically in the form of a predator or just you know, in the form of the you know, the hurdle of surviving in a in a hostile world.

And as we remove ourselves from that world of just pure survival, you know, we have we still have that shape in our lives and it will be filled with something. It cannot remain a vacuum Um, it may fill up with paper tigers if that's all it has in your life, or it just may fill up with dreads about things that may occur or certainly will occur in your future. Um. And then yeah, I guess we have to poke it with a broomstick. That's the only thing to do, or

we'll wait. I'm I'm not sure. Were you suggesting that it's possible that the that that shape could be filled in with sort of fictional exercises as well, like that this is a value of scary or or challenging scenarios and so yeah, I think so, I mean there, I try to think of times where I've I've done that

either like consciously subconsciously, and I think I have. But they were often sort of simpler times in my life too, where not to say the world was simpler, but maybe I was just more oblivious, you know, to the you know, the dangers of saying you know, geopolitical situations or you know, or less um, you know, if it's familiar with you know, the state of my own privilege, that sort of thing. Uh. And so yeah, you just sort of lump a horror film in there, like imagine this and uh and then

I don't know. I feel like later on I reached a point where it's like, oh, I don't have to imagine that that like this is this is all real, and that's what gets sucked into the into the vacuum of the shape. If that's making sense, all right. We also have another Tingler related a bit of a listener mail here, and this one comes to us from Jonathan. Jonathan Rites, thanks for choosing a film that dates back to my generation. I was eight when I saw The

Tingler in the theater. I wasn't sitting in a vibrating seat, but at the moment when the creature walks across the projection screen, the theater momentarily shut off its emergency floor lights. What frightened me, though, were the sudden screams from the audience, multiplied by the screams on the soundtrack. Those live screams

seem chilling at the time. I'm not proud to say that I thought this was the best horror film I had ever seen, and going to the movies to watch Saturday matinee horror films was a regular part out of my life. In the years since, I've experienced way too much cortisol to enjoy horror anymore. Amazing how you can create such a fascinating episode on such an unlikely topic. Oh thanks Jonathan. Yeah, that's great that we got to hear from someone who was actually there for not only

The Tingler, but other horror matinee films. I need to I need to write Jonathan back and ask him, you know what, what are some more memorable entries from the Horror Mountain matinee that he remembers seeing turning off the exit lights. I envied the people who got to have the experiences before, like insurance demands on theaters would prevent those kinds of stunts, right opposed from like whatever kind of like gimmicky insurance. Uh that William Castle might have

been proclaiming to the film. Alright, So we next are going to turn to a message from our listener Cody about our episode on the asteroid twenty nineteen okay, which passed very close to the Earth not too long ago. Cody writes, Hey, guys, just listen to your episode about the nineteen okay. I actually work in the field of planetary defense. Amazing. Uh, So sometimes we ask for messages

like this and sometimes we get them. Cody continues, and there is unfortunately quite a lot of misinformation on this subject, mostly spread by academicians and journalists who don't actually work in this field or sit on any policy discussions. So let me get this out of the way. The nuclear option is, by leagues, the better tool available to us. So let me explain why, with the caveat that these are my personal opinions on the subject as someone who

works in this field, not the position of any particular organization. Alright, so we're gonna get a nuclear nuclear weapon in space, advocate, right, and really the first like pro nuclear weapon argument, I think we've really properly entertained on this show. What about this is good, you know, finally finding a good use for nuclear weapons that isn't killing people. Okay, uh, Cody continues. Every asteroid that is ever going to hit the Earth is going to go through a very long period of

having a vanishingly small probability of doing so. This is because the probability of an impact is calculated by taking the ratio of the cross section of its probable location when it passes Earth. With errors factored in, this looks like a big ellipse with the Earth inside. To the cross section of the Earth itself. For asteroids detected foreign advance, this ratio is close to zero i e. A very large number divided by a relatively small number. This is

still true for asteroids that will strike the Earth. This is just how errors factor into the calculation of probability. The really dangerous aspect of this is that at the time scales that would be required for something like a gravity tractor to work, the probability you would calculate for

an impact is you guessed it basically zero. So who in their right mind is going to spend the billions of dollars required on such a mission when there's almost an absolute certainty from an accountant's perspective that it's a waste of money. This is also true of any painting or mirror or solar sale venture that's been proposed. We just don't have infinite money to play those kinds of games on asteroids that were not certain are even going

to strike the Earth. Now, by the time we are much more certain of an impact, like let's say we have calculated a five percent chance, the only remaining tools that stand a chance of working are a kinetic impact or or a nuclear standoff. Explosion, nobody actually contemplates blowing it up in this field. At that point, the cost

of the mission still controls the equation. Here, a kinetic pusher will be moving at the same speed as a nuclear device when it reaches the asteroid, and pound for pound, a nuclear device just delivers more energy for the cost of delivering it to the asteroid. Let's not forget the US does not currently possess any vehicle capable of delivering a kinetic impact or of sufficient mass to be relevant to anywhere in the Solar System. We need a Saturn five to just to even try the expanse version of

space travel isn't here yet. As for elegance, nuclear winds there too. Since any kind of explosion next to an asteroid causes the near part of the asteroid to heat up and blow off for quite a while, you're not just pushing it, you're turning the asteroid into a rocket.

As for turning the asteroid into a radioactive asteroid, I'm sorry to say, everything in space is already radioactive, and an asteroid we'd be trying to deflect would find our attempts to make it radioactive cute by comparison to what the Sun already does love the episode. And yes, there are actually people working very hard on this problem. Cody. Well, this is great. I mean we you know, we we we knew there were people working on this problem, and

we celebrate them. And it's great to actually hear from someone like this. So you know, keep up the great work, Cody, because we need it. This is this is, as I've said in multiple times, like this is one of the those those few endeavors that can actually you know, have the potential to save the earth. Uh um and uh and we should absolutely celebrate it, acknowledge it, and end

above all things funded. This is a really great example of how firsthand knowledge of working with a problem in a field can inform your decisions better than just thinking

about the problem. And you know, from an abstract point of view for not very long can because like a lot of these astrophysicists that you talk about would say, okay, you know, like the gravity tractor sounds like a great idea, and it is a great idea except for the considerations that Cody mentions here, right, the idea of calculating the probability of an impact far enough in advance for it

to work. It seems like we would have to have the ability to predict with much greater accuracy than we can right now whether something would hit us way away in advance. And I don't know what it would take for that kind of accuracy to come online. Maybe we just can't ever expect that it would, I guess, unless we want to go, you know, put gravity tractors on all kinds of things, which, as it points out, nobody's going to show out the money to do, right, Yeah,

yeah it is. So it does make a I think a strong argument for this being the far more practical choice as well. Alright, well, on that note, let's take a quick break, and when we come back, we will roll into some bummer email than alright, we're back, So the next batch of emails is going to concern our episodes on social media the bummer business model, as so dubbed by Jarren Lanier. And we got quite a few of these, so we might try to roll through some

of them pretty quickly. But but well, well, I guess we'll stop to comment wherever we can, right, and just reminder every everybody. Bummer was Lanier's acronym for what behaviors of users modified and made into an empire for rent um, which which which? Which is nice and eloquent, But then when you get down to it, like bummer just feels appropriate. So now I just refer to all social media as bummer just in my daily conversations. I'm probably really annoying

some people in the process. But anyway, first we heard from Hannah Hannah Wrightson and says, hello, I'll just listen to the social media bummer episode, and I thought it would shy. I'm in As a junior in college, I took a substance abuse class, and our semester long project was to give up something we were addicted to for the semester. A lot of my classmates chose coffee, soda, and one or two even chose cigarettes. I chose Facebook. When my classmates found out, many of them seemed surprised.

Most of them said they could never give up Facebook, and some even admitted to being addicted to Facebook, like oh, I'll quit cigarettes, but Facebook, Yeah, so she continues. For the first week or so, it was really hard. I found myself to be grouchy and bad tempered, almost like I was kicking a chemical habit. I guess I kind of was in a way, because social media is primed to reward our brains in a way that encourages more usage of social media. However, I found something interesting after

and after the initial withdrawal. I found I was actually much happier without social media. After the semester ended, I created a new account, but found that I didn't really want to use it anymore, and found that it actually made me anxious and sometimes even depressed. The same is true of other social media platforms, include Instagram. I find that I am happier and less anxious and generally more

productive without them. I still stay in touch with all my close friends, many of whom live out of state, and I feel that I actually feel more connected to those around me without the use of these platforms. Just thought i'd chime in with my two cents. Keep up the good work. Well thanks for sharing, Hannah. Yeah, I have to agree. When I got out of my personal accounts, I've I felt a lot better. I felt a lot

better in so many ways. I still have to have work accounts for the show and others, but you know, I use them less and I don't use them for personal things that I just log in when I have to. Basically and Uh, yeah, and I totally identify with this experience. Yeah, and uh, for anyone who is you know out there is just toying with the idea. I think we've mentioned

this before in previous episodes. I can't stress enough the value of if you're not going to delete your accounts, delete your shortcuts, delete your apps, because I mean one way of describing it is like, oh, it makes it harder for me to find it, like I have to work more to log in. And I think that's absolutely key because you're destroying those sort of automatic responses, you know, where we all find like your fingers just kind of

move on their own. It's almost like a wig board experience of suddenly you're you're in Facebook, suddenly you're scrolling in Facebook, and then you're you know, you're, you're you're feeling the roller coaster of of of emotions that is going to happen, that initial surge followed by that that downward trend. Yeah. Well, one more thing I can say that sort of came up when I was emailing back and forth with the listener who got in touch about

his social media experiences. I will say that if you find yourself wanting to pull back from the most negative aspects of social media, but unable to delete your accounts for some reason. Maybe you need them to stay in touch or to coordinate on certain issues, or you need them for work or whatever. I would say that probably the best thing you can do is do everything in your power to not consume any algorithmically recommended content on

these platforms. That means, if you're on Facebook, don't ever scroll the feed, Just don't scroll, don't click on anything that is recommended or suggested. Know exactly what you're going to on the site and go there and just go to that. The same thing applies to other sort of semi social media platforms. Don't just scroll, don't click recommended videos on YouTube. If you're gonna watch a video on YouTube, know what you're gonna watch, and then go watch that

and just that. Likewise, if you're you're thinking of yourself, Oh, I wonder what John Hodgman is the tweeting about, just go go to his Twitter page. Yeah, don't depend upon the stream, the scroll, et cetera. Yeah, don't let it decide what you see next. Of course, that's a lot easier said than done. I mean, these platforms are designed to be very enticing with the automatic recommendation of the

content you see next. Sometimes you might not even realize you're doing it, but you clicked the next video that was recommended, or you started scrolling. So it can be hard to catch yourself. But to whatever extent it's it's in your power to do this. Don't let it tell you what to see next. Yeah, it's a continuing struggle, and it's a continuing struggle for us. So yeah, we encourage you all to just hang in there. Okay. This

next one is from our listener, Sarah. Sarah says, Hi, guys, I just listen to the social media as a bummer episode. Coming on the heel of a week long social media cleanse. One of the main reasons I still use Facebook is to keep up to date with my roller Derby team. In fact, because of deleting the app, I missed a skate park meet up someone was trying to organize for extra practice. In that way, social media directly connects me

to real life social activities. At the same time, I do often find myself scrolling mindlessly, particularly in situations like the bus or other times I don't really know anyone. It keeps me from talking to new people and meeting strangers because it becomes something to turn to in moments I could just talk to the person next to me. I find it hard to balance these two opposing forces.

I'm trying to be better about how long I'm on the app, but there is a fear that I won't see posts I truly do care about, like a Friends May your Life announcement or a street festival. I want to go to the Friends Shares anyway, keep up the good work. I'm a graduate student in genetics and have incorporated your podcast into the assignments of a science and

society class i'm designing. Thanks Sarah, and Sarah also taunts us for being uh initially unable to pronounce jarn Lanier's last name as Linear because she points out that we are in Atlanta, which is just a little bit south of Lake Lanier. Yeah, I have to have been. I'd never put those two together, you know, I reading his name over and over again, I never thought of Lake Lanier. Um, And even after I started saying his name correctly, I

did not associate it with Lake Lanier. Uh So, one thing I will say is that this is one of the insidious things about platforms, especially Facebook. That Facebook, more than all the others I think is the problem here because it has it has captured many elements of life where it's now just expected that people will be on Facebook. Well, it's the model of of disruption, right, instead of disrupting a particular market or area of commerce, it's the disruption

of social interaction, which is is even more insidious. I mean, that's I think part of their business model is they want people to schedule events on Facebook as and to get people to only schedule events through Facebook, so that you will be in exactly the situation you'll be worried. Oh if I don't log on to Facebook, I'm going

to miss things that I want to go to. Yeah, so I can see where there's definitely this is a great example if there's a value in it, at the very least sustaining a certain you know, percentage of the population that is not on Facebook and is and and and informs people I'm not on Facebook as if nothing else to keep this from being the predominant way of communicating with each other, you know, I mean it already

is I've been in the same boat. I've missed stuff in real life because I got an invite on Facebook, and I never logged into Facebook and never saw it. Right. Well, I'm thinking too about say more official things like like like school related stuff like thankfully. Uh, you know, I get a lot of different communications from my son's school, but like Facebook is not the primary uh connection point, Like they're still depending on on emails, on on text

messages and uh and robo calls. You know, it's weird to say something nice about robo calls, but at least it's not bummer uh in this in this instance anyway. Uh So, yeah, it's I I would be far more afraid of a situation where everyone is like, oh, make sure you've signed up for Facebook so you can get updates about your child. Oh man, one more thing. I just had a quick thought about the idea of always being able to scroll the feed when you're just otherwise

idol and you're not doing anything. I think there could actually be other risks to this too, not just taking you out of the moment, out of your surroundings. I think this could be establishing bad habits in the brain. I just finished reading a book by by the computer scientist Cal Newport called Deep Work. It's a it's a book that's sort of it's one of the most self helpy books I think I've actually enjoyed, but it is.

It was full of a lot of interesting ideas about the value of sustained attention and focus and how a lot of our our business and technological world is sapping our ability to stay focused on long, deep intensity uses of attention. And one of the things he talks about is the way that you can always just look at your phone whenever you're bored sort of trains your brain

to have extremely low tolerance for low intensity stimulation. And so this also, he thinks, makes us worse at focusing on tasks because we have learned that whenever we're feeling like, you know, less than peak stimulation, you just look at something else. Right, we're potentially forgetting how to be bored, and how to how to roll with being bored, how

to use our imaginations. And I should say, with more and more uh people using their phones at the urinal and in the bathroom of public bathrooms, we're not reading the stall walls and the other wall above the y. There's so much, you know, sharpie based ingenuity that is just not being appreciated anymore. All right, Let's look at this next email. And also I'll also have that that perhaps there has been a drop off in the quality of of of of restroom graffiti since more people probably

have phones than have sharpies. Well, I think there's been a drop off in quality of all literature. That's one of it. No, I don't know if that's true. I'm not gonna be that negativity bias guy. Okay, let's look at this next email. This one comes from case Son. Waiter, are you gonna do this? Robert? Sure? I'll read this one, um, dear, stuff to blow your mind cast. I just recently listened to your social media as a Bummer a podcast and

wanted to share my experience. I actually just deleted my Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram a little over a month ago, while I am still on Snapchat occasionally. I have seen an overall improvement in my life. I have been having more meaningful conversations, connecting with others better, and focusing on life improvements. I've been working out and have seen a general increase in curiosity and desire for understanding. I have the feeling I won't be getting back on social media until I see

some changes for the better within it. Keep exploring reality, Cason. Well, thanks Kayson. Uh do you want to go straight onto this next one from Nathan to do you want to read this? This is from Nathan. Friends, your show keeps me company through the challenging bouts of boredom at work. Thank you for your efforts. I felt the need to

respond to your recent social media episode after listening. Depression has been a big part of my life in the past, and I took a hard look at the way Facebook affected my mood and deleted my account after saying goodbye to my friends. I had had that account for a decade, registering while in UNI when Facebook was still closed to the general public and only available to students. I had watched the many ways it changed during the period and

was very unimpressed with the direction things were headed. Afterwards, have again to more carefully dissect other areas of my life to extract more fulfillment, ultimately moving across the country and setting up my life in an area I knew to be heavily community oriented with much better weather. I then said about fixing the variety of things that caused the bouts of depression, and I can say I am I am mostly stable person. Now with a much better

handle on my mood and life in general. I was recently informed by my ESSO that you can now use Facebook Messenger without needing a Facebook account, so I have the light version of Messenger to keep in contact with friends and events. I obviously also use Instagram and read it, but delete the apps off my phones every time I finished using them, which has reduced my mindless scrolling to almost zero. I engage in local community through volunteering and

in person gatherings. Life without Facebook is bliss. I encourage anyone who is able to delete their accounts to do so. It has literally turned my life around. Nathan. Wow, well, yeah, thanks for getting in touch Nathan. That that really hits home. Okay, let's take a look at this next one. That is a response just a short response to our episode on the Bones of the Plumed Serpent ur geom Oology episode

about ketzel Koadal. This is from there. Our listener, Bridget Bridget says, I enjoyed the show overall, but I really emailed to respond to your Godzilla comments near the end of the episode. I love the Japanese Godzilla movies. I went over two hours out of my way to see shin Godzilla in the theater. That's that's that. I also agree that the bureaucracy going on in the movie added to it. This isn't to say I didn't enjoy Big

G rampaging through the city. I hope Toho does a sequel. Also, if you're fans of the Radioactive Dino, there is a great book called The Godzilla Fact Sorry I did not underline I'm on my phone. That's okay, bridget. It has a lot of history about Big G, Tohoe, actors, directors, producers, special effects and so on. Awesome, Yeah, shin Godzilla. We've we've mentioned before a recent Japanese Godzilla movie that is just enthralling. Uh so much of it is bureaucratic response

to what is going on. And weirdly enough, the thing that it that I've seen recently that reminded me the most of is the HBO mini series Chernobyl. Oh. Yeah, you know a lot of lineups here, you know, especially radiation. Radiation does play into the sort of the origin of of Godzilla as a as a fictional um you know, contemplation. But uh, but you know, both both films have a lot of like meetings about what is happening and our

on our in our very enthralling. I give a slightly higher rating to Chernobyl for for a few different reasons, but but yeah, Shin Godzilla is terrific. All right Now, we already did a whole listener mail episode that was just responses to our five part series on psychedelics with the special focus on psilocybin, and uh we a lot of people got in touch with their thoughts and experiences

after that one. We got some other really good mail on that, so I didn't think we could ignore it, so I think we will take a look at a few more emails that came in about the psychedelic series, right, so yeah, so the next few emails are are definitely going to deal with psychedelic substances, so just bear that in mind. Yeah, uh, should I do this? First one from Zerich here hit us with the Zerik email. Okay, this is from Zerreg. Zeric says, hey, guys, this was

a really wonderful series on psychedelics. I really loved it, and I hope you have the chance to dedicate more future episodes to some more specific topics in the area, though at least a short break is probably in order. Uh, it might be a while before we come back to it in any deep way. Yeah. Um, I'll resist the

urge to make nine thousand comments and suggestions. But one thing that's particularly interesting to me is the relationship between classical psychedelics and serotonergic antidepressants such as S sr eyes, snur eyes, etcetera. Without boring you with too much neurobiology, psychedelics seemed to induce the changes that antidepressants induce over

weeks or months in just one experience or day. Rather than serotonin being the happiness chemical, it would seem that these drugs antidepressant effects are more about decreasing it than increasing it. Though, as you rightly pointed out, serotonin does a ton of diverse things at different receptors, in different

parts of the brain and in different contexts. Either it's a long term elevation with an s s R I that causes down regulation of the excessive serotonin signaling, or a one time massive stimulation with the classical psychedelics that does it, but the result is apparently similar. What remains unclear and intriguing to me is exactly what the relationship between those mood effects and the sensory gating effects that

make psychedelics so unique and interesting. Is some think that what they have in common is just the idea that it's a kind of global reboot of the brain slash mind. So I think the answer is probably a lot more interesting than that. Here's one idea for a related topic. What would a world with normalized psychedelic use actually look like? Paullen talks about this a little, but I wish he'd

explored it a bit more. Should we take the medical route, the spiritual and or religious route, a totally secular legalization as in a free for all, or something else. Maybe they're not mutually exclusive. My instinct is that it would be better if psychedelics were not bound to medical, religious, or capitalistic institutions, but I don't really know what that

would look like. I also think it's very important that they be introduced and used in safe, educated, enlightening contexts, though I don't have a ton of confidence in our society's ability to do this kind of thing. Are there any precedents? What should the age limit be? Compared to

Pollen's idea about psychedelics being wasted on the young? Keep doing what you're doing, I'm only twenty four, but I've been listening to the show for something like ten years and it's been a rewarding and consistent part of my life. I'm a graduate student in neuroscience currently, and I definitely give the show credit for inspiring and motivating me to

this point and some psychedelics as well. Best Zarek, Well, thanks so much THEREK was always delighted to hear, especially from from long term listeners, like that, Yeah, really really nice to hear that we may have helped inspire you to go into the sciences. Now that the part I I, you know, react to the most here, of course, It's just that that question what would normalize psychedelic use actually

look like? Um? And I do agree with the with his read that it would be better if corporations, um, you know, the large religious organizations and in the medical industry didn't have you know, a complete strangle hold on these substances. But it is difficult to imagine what it

would look like. I mean, really, I think that the models you have to compare it to are the more you know, traditional societies such as you know, Amazonian cultures, etcetera, or more or ancient societies that we often don't have a completely clear picture of how, how or what specific

psychedelics were involved in their their daily life. Yeah, I mean it does make me think about how even though, as we discussed in the episode, from a physiological point of view, psychedelics are relatively very safe compared to most other recreational drugs that people take, and not to say there are no risks, but like compared to uh, you know, cocaine and stimulants and opioids and all that kind of stuff,

that the risks are very low. But I don't At the same time, I don't think that means that there couldn't be really damaging, unhealthy uh systems of use for them. I just wonder what if if there was like a an industry controlling psychedelics the same way that there's an industry controlling tobacco or alcohol somehow that I don't I don't know. It's something about that seems like it could go to a very bad place. I don't know exactly

how right. I mean, we've we've we've seen what happens when say somebody like say that the CIA tries to use a psychedelic for their own purposes, uh, and it's like, that's not an enlightened vision of the future. Uh, you know, I don't. I don't think that, you know, ultimately, it's not something that that really showed a lot of promise from mind control in the long run, and so you didn't see programs like mk ultra continue. But but yeah, you would hate to see it, you know, controlled by

a corporation. You would hate to see it controlled by like a you know, a religious um organization that was using it for more nefarious purposes or ultimately trying to use it for the same thing that that MK ultra was interested in the Giltra project, interested in controlling people through them. Uh, you know, it should be used for personal liberation. Uh, you know, I believe that is the stronger, more pervasive argument made by uh, you know people throughout

the decades and most recently in Michael Pollan's book. Um, I mean, it's it's a very this is a very imperfect analogy. But I think to something like like yoga for instance, like a yoga practice can be very good for one's body and state of mind. You can also injure yourself through it. If if a teacher doesn't know what they're doing, they could potentially help you injure yourself. Um. Likewise, you can make comparisons though to more like thoroughly regulated

practices such as medicine. So yeah, it's it's kind of uncharted territory because the price the more primal examples that we can look to in the past you had it was the domain of the shaman, and the shaman kind of fulfilled you know, multiple roles in in a particular society.

Though above all they were a healer and and in Western society, and most of our our healer roles or are rather tightly control you know, it's certainly medical healing, uh, some of the more you know, various other therapeutic practices as well. So it's one of these things where we would have to sort of create a new um, a new class of of of healer in our society. You would really have to bring back some form of shamanism.

But then who controls the shamans? Right it are they a part of some uh you know, larger religious institution where they are they corporate in nature? We get back to these same problems again. Yeah, whether it's religious organizations, corporations and business or governments. I mean the world is full of institutions that are inherently interested in promoting their

own power and control. And uh, and yeah, it seems like all kinds of you know, cultural practices or substances are seized one way or another by one of these institutions primarily. And yeah, it is hard to imagine. I think this is a really tough question. I don't know if if we have a good answer for it. Well, you know, one thing that Poland gets into in the book is he talks about going out and finding a essentially a shaman, essentially a psychedelic guide to to take

him on this experience. And he talked a little about how, you know, some of the people he scouted, uh, you know, it was it was an easy pass. You know, it was like that I just I don't this is not the right person. But other people he was very impressed with. So, I mean, I guess that's part of it. Is like even if it's completely you know, unregulated in the way that it's going to be, it is currently you know,

largely unregulated. And since it is you know completely uh you know underground, you're gonna have uh, you know, it's just going to be the market of of of Shaman's maybe it's a review based or is just word of mouth. I don't know, but but but I guess that's a section of the book where he does get into the question a little bit. So anyway, yeah, kind of rambling there, but especially since I have no answer. Uh so, you know,

the short answer, though, is it's an open question. All right, I guess we need to take a break, but when we come back, we'll do a few more of these Psychedelic listener mails and then go on to a few other topics than Alright, we're back. So here's a short one in response to our Psychedelics episode. This is from our listener, Tatiana. Tatiana says, hey, guys, short time binge listener, love the show, especially enjoyed the five part series on psychedelics.

Do you guys have any plans to delve deeper into talking about the self? I know you guys referenced Alan wattson the Psychedelic series once or twice. Maybe you've already done an episode on him. But like I said, short time listener, I don't think we have no never he comes up from time to time, you know, because he had something to say about a lot of these a lot of the issues that we talked about on the show, but but never like a real like Alan Watts themed episode.

He would be interesting to cover. Yeah, he's uh, kind of like Terrence mckinna. He's one of those people who's a very captivating public speaker. I find listening to his talks is just kind of magical. He's He's definitely an individual who I've I've heard more than I've I've read. Uh and and I still smile whenever I hear a sample from Alan Watts pop up in a mix sort of electronic track or even occasionally an industrial track. I

bet he is. His lectures are one of the most highly sampled of any Yeah, I would, I would, I would bet so it's like him and Blade on her. But his voice is very musical and very whimsical. But wise Yeah, yeah, he sounds like a wizard. But anyway, so, uh, she continues. I think his book The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are would be an excellent follow up to

the series and mail bag. The book eloquently sums up those ineffable experiences on psychedelics into a cohesive theory about the nature of reality and existence at least to me. I firmly believe so so many people could benefit from understanding Watt's worldview. And I'm tired of sounding like a hippie to people when I tried to explain it. Please, you guys have much better words than I. I I don't know about that, but oh. She also says she subscribed

to Invention. Good work, Tatiana. Everybody should follow your lead and subscribe to Invention. Yeah. I would love to do an episode on Watts in the future. And uh, and I've I've given up trying to not sound like a hippie. I think that's probably just what it's going to be like for the duration. All Right, you want to do this next email? This one? I know this one, got your got your anten, I poked up. This one comes to us from the home dad abroad. That is how

this listener identifies themselves. Hey, those of the blown mind. Although I am painfully aware that none of my emails have elected enough interest to make it on a listener mail episode, it is still my hope that they were read and may have sparked some type of response around the office. Regardless of the past, I do have a question that I would love to have addressed through a

means which would expose others to the possibility. Extending out from previous and controversial set of episodes delving into the bicameral mind. You yourselves have occasionally brought up the idea of the bicameral mind hypothesis when discussing many other topics. However, it has largely been in jest, or at least in

a lightened hearted manner um. I would say that it's sometimes come up in a lighthearted or addressful manner in in other episodes, but I think when we I would argue, when we discussed them originally, you know, we we gave it a lot of serious consideration. Yeah, I mean, I would say it's still one of those things that I'm not convinced by the idea like it, you know, it it asks you to accept a lot, though I think

he makes a really interesting case. So it's one of those that I'm not convinced to buy, but I take seriously and remain interested in and would always be open to evidence for though I'm not super hopeful that evidence for it will ever show up. Alright, Your recent episode on Psychedelics and the following feedback episode often referred to experiences on psychedelics encompassing in some case a sense of ego loss, and in other cases as having encounters with God.

In many of Your Your and other criticisms of Julian Jane's ideas, there has been the claim that, even if his ideas are correct, there is no way to test for an older form of mental structure in which the subconscious mind speaks to the conscious mind as a disconnected being,

since we are not built that way. And yet here exists substances which allow one to view themselves from without, substances that seem capable of freeing God from the confines of our deep unconscious selves for us to examine an even question. Additionally, as we know, ego loss is the separation from the sense of self, which defines our own

conscious awareness of who we are. In James book and other works, he relates the idea of the God voice coming from within and describes humans as experiencing the world from a surface perspective, with longer term planning coming from that personal God voice or the God voice of a stronger personality like that of a leader priest. To spell it out from a quick surface vantage point, that there would seem to be distinct similarities between the effects of

psychedelics and the hypothesized functioning of the bicameral mind. To further argue this relationship, psychedelic experiences don't seem to be burdened by language, but instead by imagery and visualizations that are open to interpretation. This is much like the non linguistic side of the brain, which is still capable of communication even with a severed corpus colossum, only through visual means. Anyway, there is a question in there somewhere the home data abroad. Well, yeah,

that's an interesting idea. I don't know if I'm fully following all the way, but but I see some of the connections you're making there. Yeah. And um, you know, uh, Terence Terence McKenna, who had discussed in Psychedelics episodes a bit. You know, he actually references Jane's work a few times, once in Food of the Gods, but also in some of his other writings and talks that I've been looking at. Um. But in a nutshell, mckinneth thought that the concept was

very interesting. I mean, James and McKenna both were contemplating the same thing, right, The emergence of the modern mind from its more primal predecessor. And as we've discussed, this is a shift that that did occur over the course of our evolution. I mean the details of it in the you know, the exact mechanism of it or or what we're so so many people were trying to figure out. But I mean, certainly the consciousness, the state of mind that we have today is not the state of mind

that are you know, are more ancient ancestors had. At least you can get into discussions about where the change occurs, how gradual the changes. But certainly, uh, I think we can we can state, uh, you know, on a quickly that that the way that we think now is not

the way that our pre human ancestors thought. Right. Well, I mean, one thing that McKenna and Jane's both have in common is that they posit a sort of point of shift with with a with a cause that can be identified through which modern consciousness in humans came into play, as opposed to a lot of other people would probably assume that the way the human mind is now is something that sort of gradually and continuously evolved over time.

There wasn't like a point of shift where something changed in a really important way, right, But even in a more gradual scenario, you do end up like contemplating, like, well, okay, is is everybody at the same rate in this race towards modern consciousness? Or is it You're gonna have a situation where some people are are more h you know, modern le conscious than others. Yeah, it is weird. I mean it's hard to imagine, you assume, I don't know. I mean, is there even a way to measure levels

of consciousness? That seems it seems hard to do. Yeah, so, um so, Yeah. Then mckinna does bring up James's work in some of his own writings. McKenna's main criticism, though, was that Jane's rarely considered hallucinatory substances in his hypothesis. Um, you know, it comes up a time or two in

Jane's key work, but really almost in passing. And you know, granted, James tend to tended to focus on the areas and languages of of of his own expertise, and was rather upfront about that, like, you know, pointing out that he did not speak Mandarins so he or read Mandarin, so he did not explore Chinese culture. For examples of the bicameral mind. UM. And mckinna was, of course laser focused on the on the role of psychedelics in their role in the past, the present, in the future of our species.

So he seems to have admired a lot about bicameralism, but felt that, you know, that this was a glaring hole in the overall work. Um, which I mean, I I kind of agree with McKenna on on that, you know, I mean too well. I mean, he yeah, he's naturally got a very hallucinogen centric view, right, and and I mean it's a strong case to be made for the

use of these substances in various ancient societies. And if you're trying to form a model of uh, you know, like James's model, uh, it does seem that you should incorporate hallucogens in there in some way, shape or form. But anyway, UM, I guess the other way you could look at it is if someone, some enterprising person out there wanted to, you know, create a combined theory of like McKinnon bicameralism, um. You know, that would that would

be interesting. I'd probably read that if you put it in essay form now I do think the email are too an approximation basically identified. My you know, main issue with with the bicameral mind hypothesis, and would also somewhat apply to the mckinna hypothesis, is that to whatever extent the case they pers and already lines up with known evidence. It's one of those things that I won't I'm not going to say it's impossible to have, you know, better evidence.

That people use the word prove, I don't. I don't know if prove is ever a very useful word in like historical scientific theories, because you're not dealing with like a mathematical proof, but if you're just talking about like presenting you know, really conclusive evidence for some kind of historical hypothesis, and that is sometimes done in you know,

physical historical sciences like paleontology and stuff. I won't say it's impossible, but I will say I imagine it's going to be very hard, even if one of these theories happens to be correct, to find the evidence that would show that it was correct. You could you can kind of like tinker around at the margins, you know, and say like, oh, here's something that would kind of fit with what with what chains or what McKenna was saying.

But unfortunately, as like fun and interesting as these theories can be, I think there's it's very likely there's just always going to be the evidence gap. They're like, how do you go farther with it? Now? One key difference between mckinna and UH and James is of course that that James was primarily interested in the past, but but

mckinna was also extremely interested in the future. So I think that like the other side of of mckinna's writings, Uh, you know, concerned the question of where are we going from here? And how could psychedelic substances play a role? How how many they have not only played a role in the evolution of consciousness, how could they play a

role in the necessary continued evolution of consciousness? Could they help us reach a place that we need to achieve in order to avoid the essentially, you know, the catastrophes of the modern age and and ultimately even like leave the planet and become a planetary species something that he said,

he argues is is incompatible with our current state of consciousness? Yeah, uh yeah, yeah, And I mean he he had a lot of resting metaphors about that kind of thing, like he remember one talk of his I listened to where he talked about the the brain being a computer that's

running an operating system, and that operating system is culture. Uh, and that you know that psychedelics are like a way of wiping the hard drive, like erasing the operating system and getting back to the deeper level of the machine, which obviously was the thing that he was like Advocating metaphors like that can be really compelling, but they also show that McKenna was not just concerned Yeah, like you're saying, like Jane's with coming up with the theory that explains

some mysteries about the past and about the human mind, but was he was an advocate for a worldview He was like human humanity should be more like this. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Though it doesn't make it brings them back to our previous email talking about who who will be the masters

of the psychedelic substances? If you're making an argument that um that that a psychedelic evolution is necessary for in a planetary trap all um an interplanetary culture, Uh, I mean interplanetary travel is a megaproject generally best left to major institutions that can control people, or at least, you know, can control massive projects. Uh So, if you're going with that argument, maybe, uh, the psychedelics should be in in uh in control of of like you know, corporate or

or governmental shamans. I don't know, I don't particularly like that that idea, but if you're if you're lumping uh, you know, psychedelics and space travel together, Uh, it sounds like that's where you would place the trust. All right. Next, I think we're gonna look at a couple of messages from our episode about Surviving a Great Falls is an episode where we talked about stories of people surviving falling from extremely great heights, such as out of an airplane,

and like, what do these stories tend to have in common? Uh? So? The first one is in response to what we mentioned about how being bigger is worse when you're falling, even though it increases your surface area, which should increase your drag through the air. Why does gravity win out over drag as you get bigger? Like? How come? I think it was Haldane who said, you know, the mouse will survive a fall down a mind shaft, but a horse will splat uh, will splash or something. This is from

our listener, Jeremy. Jeremy says, Hi, Robert and Joe, big fan of the show. Just a quick comment on the episode about surviving a fall. The reason why if you're bigger, gravity wins over air resistance is because mass goes up on the cube, but surface area only goes up on the square. Kind regards Jeremy short to the point, and

I think that's correct. I think that's a similar problem you encounter when you imagine organisms getting bigger and bigger and having more of a problem dissipating heat from their bodies, right, because as they grow, as they get up there, their their mass goes up in a cubic way, which means they're going to have more and more heat issues inside the body. But the surface area on which to dissipate that heat only goes up on a square. All right.

Just when comes to us from Phil, Greetings, Robert and Joe. I just finished listening to your episode how to Survive a Great Fall. It reminded me of the two thousand nine TV remake of Day of the Triffids. Towards the beginning of the film, a massive solar eruption renders everyone on a particular flight blind, including the pilots, save for one man played by Eddie Izard, who happens to be

napping at the time. As the plane goes down, Iszard takes this opportunity to grab as many flotation devices as possible and pat himself within the airplane bathroom. The plane crashes and Izard finds himself to be the sole survivor.

Based on what I learned in the podcast from anecdotal evidence, this seems like he could be a viable option for survival, albeit a just wanted to share this tidbit as I believe I've heard you guys mentioned both Iszard and Day of the Triffids in the past, and it seems to tie in neatly with the episode. Hope you both found this interesting. Keep up the great work, Phil. I have to admit I have I've never read nor seen any of that adaptations of Day of the Triffids, but I

know that I should. I know that this is uh. This is a key hole in my like my sci fi key hole key hole that is, it is a It is a is a notable hole in my viewing history, but also potentially a way that I might unlock new thoughts and ideas if I were just to finally view it. Good save there. Okay, this next one comes from our listener Josh. This is also about falling out of an airplane. Robert and Joe just finished listening to your episode on

how to Survive a Great Fall. As always, it was fantastic. Leve all your work and your podcast is what got me started on podcast in general. I'm running today about a personal connection to the idea of landing on snow safely. In the nineteen fifties, my grandfather was in the army and based out of Alaska. His unit was on ski

patrol across Alaska, watching for Russian activity. The belief of his commanders at the time was that if the Russians were to attack Alaska, they could have troops jump out of a plane at low altitude with no parachute and land on the snowpack fairly safely. They estimated any such Russian unit would be fifty combat effective after no parachute.

After a no parachute jump onto a snow pack. I suppose what they would give up in casualties they would gain in the surprise advantage of not having big targets hanging in the air. I wish I could provide more details with My grandfather is long passed, and I just remember the story he told us when we were young. Thanks for all you do, Josh. I was looking for evidence of this. I couldn't find anything to back up the idea that the Russians would actually intentionally jump out

of planes without parachutes. But I did find other references on the Internet to this rumor as like being shared by members of the American Armed forces. Uh so it does look to me like at least some American you know, military leaders thought this. Well you could imagine it being, you know, something that would be factored into the Cold War competition of just saying like, okay, here's something that

is feasible. Maybe they are doing it, or I mean, it could also be something where the Russians, uh where either side really could have could have just put it out there as a as a bit of false information to discuss this before. It's like the Russians have psychic assassins, Well we need psychic assassins. Actually nobody had psychic assassins. But it's just like one of those uh, pointless excitations of the other side's fomo about certain war powers. Maybe

we should be throwing people out of airplanes into snow banks. Uh. You know, if the enemy is doing it, then we need to look into it as well. All right, here's another one. This one comes to us from Cindy, Hi, Robert, and Joe. This is the third time I have written. I know you guys get tons of emails, so you can't right back. So I'm going to trust it when you say that you still read all of them. You may already be aware of this book or even own

it already, but if not, I highly recommend it. It is quite simply awesome, and it is well written as well. I believe it would be up at least one of your alleys. I think it would be up both of our alleys. Uh. The book is titled Paperbacks from Hell

by Grady Hendricks and Uh. I have not picked up a copy of this yet, but it is a subtitle The Twisted History of seventies and eighties Horror Fiction, and it seems to be to revolve entirely or around like the amazing, often skull based artwork that you find on these old paperbacks, paperbacks that just that enraptured me when I was a child, and still whenever I encounter them, either in a used bookstore, uh on a like, or if I'm on Amazon just looking around at old books,

or if I am at a beach house and I find one of these squirreled away, I instantly geek out. So this does look amazing, all right. We got a couple of emails about our episode on the Electric micro Bland. This first one was from Jamie. It includes a photo. I'm sorry that you out there can't see it. We'll try to describe it. Jamie says, Hey, guys, just listen to your episode on the Electric micro Bland and heard you talking about the garden gnome with light up eyes.

Now this was something I think we didn't talk about having seen. We just proposed, right, yeah, that it must exist. Okay, Jamie's got the inside scoop. Jamie says, my sister in law has a fear of garden gnomes. So one day when I was in a local grocery store and happened upon this electric garden gnome, I had to take a photo to share with her, and now I can share it with you too. Imagine looking out into your garden

to see these glowing eyes staring back at you. Thanks for another show, Jamie, and Jamie attaches a photo that is a regular sort of I don't know your stone colored garden noome with the beard and the cute little stubby fingers, except has these nightmare welding goggle eyes with with the it's got the look inside of like the highly reflective backing with the powerful led bowl. But I don't know. It looks like it would shine through your soul. Yeah,

it looks like it looks like the dead lights. That's what they looked like. Um. It is a horrifying gnome if I've ever seen one, But I'm glad that Jamie sent it in. Do you want to do this? Next one from Kegan? Should we close out here? Sure, let's do it. Hi, Robert and Joe, I've been listening to your podcast for a bit more than a year and a half now, occupying my time at a variety of jobs between parking rental cars and working on governmental contracts.

I love listening to your insights on into all the all the different topics and thought experiments you cover, But one that I particularly love is when Robert gets into Dungeons and Dragons creatures and either their feasibility in the real world creatures that may have inspired them, or just how this topic could make a great dungeon creature adventure.

I'm curious, Robert, have you ever thought about doing a more D and D related episode or possibly starting up a personal podcast delving into such things, possibly a Facebook group that homebrews based on your episodes. Uh. Dungeons and Dragons is a hobby close to my heart and bring in bringing real world inspirations into it or getting into interesting real world topics because of it makes me just giddy.

Your most recent episode, Electric microbe Land, is already giving me a few ideas for a news that can shoot out wires to either drain its enemies or pump them full of electricity and use this ability to heal its neighbors, regardless of whether you decide to make something separate or interject a reference every once in a while. Thanks for bringing a favorite hobby of mine into such an amazing podcast, Robert, and thank you for asking so many questions when it

comes up. Joe, keep on rolling strong, Keagan, Oh well, thanks Keegan. Um Yeah, I mean I love talking about you know, the Dungeons and Dragons mythos, So you know, to whatever extent we can incorporate more entries from the Monster Manual in the future, I would I would love that we have talked about potentially doing an episode on like Dungeons and Dragons and role playing in sort of the psychology of it. I've kind of done a little uh uh in nosing around for potential sources on that UM.

But I can say, you know, without a shadow of doubt that that more monsters will come up on the show in the future. I'm not sure which ones, but there's just so many great monsters in the in the in the Monster Manual, no doubt. I keep getting envious that this is gonna be like the saddest, nerdiest statement

anybody has ever made. But it's that I've always wanted to play D and D. Yeah, I mean, it's it can be hard to find, you know, the right opportunity to I went for like what twenty years or more without playing probably more probably like twenty five years between playing it in UM like junior high and then playing it again as an adult. So it's but it's it's still there. It's it's thriving it's uh, and you know you can. It's more it's more publicly accessible and acceptable

these days. I feel I've been around people playing it, and I may have mentioned this on the show before, but something that always struck me about it is that, maybe more so than any other activity I'd ever witnessed, it seemed like a thing that could be magical if you have the right group, but that one person can

easily completely ruin it. Yeah, I mean it is a social my my philosophy on it anyway, is it it is a social communal exercise and and and as such, Yeah, everybody has to be kind of on the same wavelength. Everyone has to You've got to have the group has to have a certain vibe for it to work. So I've talked to people who are like, yeah, I tried it, and I felt like the d M was a bit Tyranne Nicole or you know, some people were taking it serious and some people were goofy about it, and uh,

you know, that's that is one of the challenges. You gotta find the right group. You got to find a you know, a group that you fit in with, either in you know, in real life, in a physical gaming setting, or even if you're doing something remote, which a lot of people do these days. All right, we have one last email, and it brings us back, as all things should, to the Sacred Mountain. Right, let's go up that slope.

This is from Kyle. Kyle says, Hi, guys, I'm still at work, but couldn't resist your call to mountaineers as I have a personal story to share related to your Sacred Mountain episodes. So I'll make this a quick one.

I hiked to Everest base camp in fifteen and had a very strange experience the night before we arrived at base camp over five thousand meters or seventeen thousand feet, I woke in the middle of the night and completely believed time was running backwards, a feeling that is difficult to describe the way it involved, a panic sensation as though I would lose my prog rest by having to rewind my previous grueling day of hiking, possibly backwards, and

a feeling of total helplessness. I remember walking back and forth, practicing walking, checking that time was indeed working. I think I convinced myself time was okay when I saw somebody else walking perfectly normally, not backwards, to the toilet, not what I would call a toilet. I think the strange experience lasted about five to ten minutes or uh he sugg maybe minus ten minutes, so not exactly quick. The next day I was fine, relatively as I was already

suffering minor headaches from that altitude. I asked around in the morning and most of the experienced hikers and locals thought it was a weird one too. A Serba recommended that lots of garlic and from memory, I think this affects dilation of blood capillaries. Definitely required fact checking. It seemed to help anyway, as I did not experience any

more hallucinations over the next week or so. On the way down side, note, just imagine the smell of a nineteen year old guy who has not showered properly in two weeks, heavily eating garlic with daily strenuous activity. I was almost proud. I was nineteen years old at the time, traveling with some friends from the Raise and Give Society from the University of Leeds, UK, with no mental illness

and was relatively fit. To date, I have not experienced any similar reality bending episode, and in the end it had caused me no harm, though I confess I am tempted sometimes double checked the bedside clock if I stir in the night. I've never emailed you guys before, though you have accompanied me in my headphones for many years now, I believe, even perhaps on my Himalayan hike before my phone died, and writing in has been on my perpetual to do list. So I would like to say thank

you to the whole team. I recommend you and your other podcasts whenever in conversation. Uh, and I drop a fact theory explanation for our weird universe that you guys have armed me with all the best. Kyle, Oh, well that's not that's great to hear. I mean, the the last part the trials and the mountains informative to hear. But but I can see that that was that was

an ordeal. Yeah, well, I mean it was part of what we're talking about, like this question about the effects of altitude on possible hallucinations, especially in people who didn't

experience hallucinations in other contexts. Yeah, that's interesting. And then also like the I assume the effects of like all that um that hiking and climbing on the mental state, you know it reminds me of you know, we we've discussed dreams again recently, but when you've when I've been in the water on a boat or in the surf, and then you have that sensation of remaining in it and it kind of affects your your your mental state

and even your dreams. I wonder if that's playing a role here to this idea of of marching forward and that being a rate of passage through time. Has an interesting uh, interesting bit of listener mail there. Yeah, and there's still more. That's the sad part. We we were not able to get to all of it. There's an excellent fatberg a listener mail. We're just going to have to hold till next time. But let's let's try not

to forget that, right, But we're gonna put it. We're gonna put it away in the fat bird cooler and we'll return to it in the meantime. Hey, everybody there, there are plenty of other episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind over at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com and if you want to look up invention, that's it Invention pod dot com. Those are the I guess you could say the twin mother ships that you can check out Those are the O and OH websites for

our show. But of course you can find our shows just about anywhere wherever you get your podcast, and we we asked that wherever you do get them, if there's a way to rate, review and subscribe to our shows, just do that. That's a great way to have help us. And of course just tell folks about it about these shows in the real world. That also helps big time. Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer, Maya Cole.

If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other to suggest topic for the future to maybe have your mail featured on future listener Mail episode, you can email us at contact that's Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.