From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Noll. They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Paul Mission controlled decads. Most importantly, you are you. You are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. It is time once again, fellow conspiracy realists for one of our favorite weekly segments, listener Mail. We have scoured through the hinter lands of the Internet. We've talked with you on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Crossroads at Midnight, all the hits, and we have We've chosen some stories that we feel will be of great interest to the best part of the show you, specifically you. We're going to talk a lot about our overpopulation episode. We're going to be introduced to a mystery. We're also going to open with just some some general updates. So the first part of this segment is going to be uh we'd called the cavalcade a corn copia at the very least of some some things that have been on our minds collectively. Uh, I think maybe we start out by shouting out a guy that we we have spoken with, not all in person, regarding augmented reality and virtual reality. Now, Matt, know you will recall when last we we spoke about this stuff. We were kind of on the fed. It's about a couple of things. But I think we all agreed this metaverse, whatever it ends up being called, is somewhat inevitable. Do we still hold that opinion? I don't know. I mean, the metaverse has kind of become a bit of a of a goof in terms of how much Facebook has put their eggs in that particular meta basket. Are metas rather just put their eggs in that particular meta basket and doesn't seem like it's going super well. Um. Augmented reality, on the other hand, seems to me like a much more viable version of this kind of experience where you can overlay things data, you know, scavenger hunts, all kinds of things that it incorporate the real world, because we do still have a real world at this point, which I think is is important to consider. Maybe when the world becomes uninhabitable, virtual reality meta verse situations might be a little more attractive. Yeah, to that point, I think meta is a really, really good bet that's not going to pay off until ten years from now. But when it does pay off, the metaverse is gonna be so awesome. In that bunker, I changed that bunker, yes, well, put again, this is the reason I'm saying metaverse or whatever it ends up being called, is because first to the post does not always mean the person who wins the game, right. Medicinal beverages were all over the US before Coca Cola became a thing, right, and now it dominates that market. This is primarily a teaser here for a guy we're going to be talking to later this year named Chris Pilcher, mixed reality artist that we randomly ran into. We're in conversations. This guy has gone through m I T UH. Actually he's hanging with m I T right now, UH, and he is combining the world of art, high art, fine art, and performance media with UH with augmented reality. This dude is someone who's going to be very exciting to speak with and heard back from him recently. So really, this is a call out to our fellow conspiracy realist folks. If you have questions about the future of a r v R, you have thoughts, uh, please send them any any way you want to contact us, anyway you want to contact anybody on the show, let us know, because we're looking forward to this, assuming the world still spinds. I wanted to take some time to give a special shout out here to a long time listener of the show who goes by Unwilling Stardust. Now you'll recognize perhaps that handle because Unwilling start Us reach out to us not too long ago when we were talking about the ongoing protest and instability in Iran. As I last spoke with Stardust, they were going to a protest with no clue about their safety. I want to just read a brief excerpt here and maybe we can react to this. All right, So unwilling to start us as First of all, according to the Islamic Republic, revolutionary guards, having an improper JAB will now have serious consequences. The range goes from having to pay a huge fee to having to do many hours of social work, uh, and up to including oh, let's just read this. Uh. It happened to a prisoner who, as a journalist is social work, was writing a one page article about why the Islamic Republic is so amazingly good. Uh. They can also be imprisoned, Their belongings can be taken away, cars, electronics, especially social media devices, and they are forced out of their city to live an exile cannot leave the country. The crimes cannot be argued in court. There is no second trial if you attempt to appeal. Many places that have been closed down by the government for allowing women to not wear her jabs are remaining closed Dave. Also, they being the Revolutionary Guard, have arranged new rules to make life difficult for women without hjab. Today at university, says unwilling to stardust. My hejab was hanging from my neck without putting it on my hair, as if it had just fallen. And not only the person coming to the exam room to examine the students attacks me verbally abusing me, but also they attempted to ban me from taking the exam or going to school. The professor who who defended me was detained. And people are being tracked via their social media as as their license plates. Gentlemen. This comes on the heels of recent executions for protesters in Iran. You guys heard about this, now, this is news to me. Yeah, but I'm not following it nearly as closely as you are been. I mean, everything you're saying there, it sounds like a religious revolution, rebellion against a state that holds a religion very close to how it governs, right again, a theocracy. In a recent episode on How to Be a Skeptic, we discussed briefly the dangers of theocracy. The United Nations, Gosh, just just a few days ago, came out with an official statement regarding what's going on in Iran, and the United Nations has accused the government of Iran of weaponizing the death penalty. They're saying that they're killing people by example, crushing descent by frightening the public with public executions. This follows uh as well with our earlier report of multiple protesters dying in custody. Right now, we can confirm that Tarran saying Tahran the capital of Iran is a lot like saying the White House when you talk about the US government. Tehran has executed four people in connection with these demonstrations, following frankly kangaroo court trials, and this is not us saying it We're not being political partisans here, folks. The United Nations as confirmed that the trials leading to those four executions did not meet the internationally recognized legal minimum for what defines a fair trial. This is not a sustainable situation. At least seventeen other protesters have been sentenced to death, according to Curturk, the U n High Commissioner for Human Rights, and this reminds me a lot of what of the excellent work are Pal Robert Evans did in his series It could happen here. I keep thinking about these things occurring across the planet now right. The coup and Peru or who attempt it was very underreported, the hilarious attempt in Germany. We're just saying it's hilarious because come on, it's a decayed aristocrat, uh. And then numerous other coups, including something we talked about quite recently regarding Brazil and folks, I know we talked about doing an episode on the situation in Iran full episode on this, and we have been gathering sources. We've been speaking with protesters who are in a very real way risk in their lives to contact us UM I primary early in bringing this up because I want to check in with you, met and with you know, do you feel that the West is doing its due diligence in reporting the situation here? It certainly doesn't seem to be breaking through, um in the news cycle and in the way that you think a story of this weight and importance should. Yeah. Absolutely. I I don't know, man, I'm I'm torn a little bit, honestly, Ben, because I'm far too aware now of the West's let's say, interference with other countries when it comes to these kinds of uprisings, right, I mean, often it's the CIA that's getting involved with like a student group or something to make something like this happen in a country that is seen as adversarial to the West or their purposes. Um. It's the skeptical thing, right, I'm still feeling skeptical about it to some extent, and that's probably because I'm so far removed and it doesn't affect me in the way it affects unwilling stardust Um. And that's a that's like a kind of a crappy position to hold for somebody who's going through it like that. The way that I'm sitting here right now and thinking about it, um, But I don't know. It freaks me out. It makes me feel like um other forces that are at play, even though I don't have any way to confirm that. Yeah, and I'm I'm tempted to agree with you in some regards there, Matt, because one of the things that we have to always remember is that the shadow of US imperialism is a very real specter, right, and it colors the way that you encounter reports of this stuff in the West. Quite recently there were some Maraudian activists who were saying the protest have flipped the switch. It brought to my mind a very important question, at what point does a protest become a revolution? What is the is it a spectrum? Right? Was was Occupy Wall Street on the verge of becoming a revolution? I very much doubt it. A revolution is difficult in the United States? But do we have an answer for that? Is there any way for us to say this is no longer a series of protests, this is now actively a revolution or an attempted overthrow. Well, I mean go back to January six, right, I mean think about it, like, what's what is the line there between protesting and uh an attempted rebellion that kind of thing, or an attempted revolution. Well, and and and and the folks responsible for that event you're talking about January six, would rather it be viewed as a protest because it does doesn't really align with reasonable American political even like on the most extreme side, and one wants to be seen as attempting a coup, you know, And then the folks who may be responsible for that event, it's much better politically for them to say, no, this is a protest. In America was built on protests. But again, if there's protests happy, they don't like they'll call those people terrorists or domestic terrorists. But we have to keep in mind, as much as it is discomforting to think about, it is very beneficial for people on the other side who are opposing that president and the actions to consider it a you know, an attempted revolution, right versus maybe like somewhat organized chaos. So it's like, it's it's just a tough thing to think about when we're in these realms, um, But when it comes to Iran, I mean, there's definitely horrendous stuff going down. Hundreds of people are being killed in the protest yeah, murdered. So I mean, in the end, doesn't matter who's pushing the buttons to make the actions happen. I think it does, but again there's no way to fully tell in the moment. It's a very very good question, and also it's a question that a lot of Western journalists cannot answer on the ground because it's very difficult to get into Tehran with good reason because Uncle Sam has multiple times sent people into that area as tourists. So that means no official diplomatic visa, none, none of that kind of protective measure. Just hey, we're here to take pictures. Boh, I didn't know there was a there was a nuclear deploying. I don't know why they're sending muppets as tourists, but that's the voice, right and so this so it may sound as though there's a bit of a broken record, but we want to do justice to this conversation, to what's happening now in the world that is not being why widely reported or is being sanitized in the way it's being reported. The US is an imperialist power, There's no two ways about it. And you can you can say that and still be a US patriot. Right. The not the missile, but the the issue is that what's happening here can trigger things in other places. Instability, global instability can be on the rise. It very much is, and it will be perhaps sooner than we think. At this point, we're going to end this part of this listener mail segment with not just a general update, but a call to action. If you have information on the ground in Iran, if you have experience in the country or with the Islamic Republic, we want to hear from you. Please find us a conspiracy at I heart radio dot com, fi just on Instagram, Twitter, if there is a more secure platform you prefer, then you can also uh find find me or the show directly on those platforms outlined, and then we can connect on a more secure means of communication. For now, we're gonna pause for a word from our sponsors. Please be safe, folks will be right back. And we're back, and we are jumping to the phone lines. We haven't done this in a while. Guys, here it comes. We've got a message from Krista. Hey, guys, um, my name is Krista. I've actually left a message for you all before and have been along to a listener. Um, you can use my name in this entire message. UM. I just came across and its treading on TikTok. But Max Lohan, Um, he was start tew years old in two thousand seventeen, created free energy. Um, and he's disappeared. No one knows where he's at, and he can't be found any video that I try to watch about like the things that he created were invented at all. Everything pops up with a virus on it, saying that microphone has been infected with the virus. If I try to watch a video that he created, Um, everything's been screwed from the internet and he's gone. He would have been the nineteen years old right now. Um, but out of nowhere, like he's just not around anymore. UM. I would love for you all to like to speak on this seat for even a small amount of time. UM. It's scary and UM mostly like where's Max? Thanks? Free energy? Yes, Christa, thank you so much for letting us know about that. This was new to all of us. And you heard Ben say free energy. And that is because over the years that phrase, right, that term. Um, We've we've analyzed versions of it a lot. I think I would say, right, We've looked into instances of supposed free energy gathering and use and device creation and all that kind of stuff many times. And I don't know about you guys, but to my knowledge now, I still haven't seen one that would meet the criteria of that phrase. Yeah, agreed. Not In in previous episodes and in some previous Strange News and listener mail segments, we have we have explored a lot of related a lot of related claims, and at this point, unfortunately, none of those has seemed to reach the threshold of either scale or experimental reproducibility at Lee. Again, up to this point, right up to this point, we were unaware of this person, Max low N l O U G h A N. But we are now going to watch a roughly two and a half minute video and this comes from ktv N. It's Channel two news. It appears to be a major news station. Ben, I think you've confirmed that it's CBS out of Reno, Nevada. Yeah, So we're gonna watch this and we'll play some excerpts within this podcast, and hopefully we'll all be on the same page. So here we go. This is story about Max Lowen dreussed in his lab coat. Yeah, I wear this fairly often. Max Lahin sits in his parents old boiler room converted into a lab. I am in a boiler room right now, and he ponders the future. Often the future that I imagine is the future, frankly that we all imagine. He wants to make the world a better place. And to do that you need one single thing. If you've got energy, you've got power, you have everything. So to solve this problem, a few months ago, Max took the matter into his own hands and created this electro magnetic harvester out of a coffee can, some wire, two coils, and a spoon. The harvester conducts radio waves, thermal and static energy and turns it into electricity. This wire takes the energy from the air down below. Here we turned it from a C into d C. So we take the device outside and wrap up Max's brother into a string of l e ed lights. Thing. A fourteen dollar invention was able to do that. So imagine the same harvester on a scale twenty times larger. Okay, guys, so there we go. According to KTV in a whiz kid with a powerful idea, and he is someone to know. Um, it sounds great from the reporting, right, free energy? He really did make this ing that just pulls energy out of thin air and can power l ed s. That would be incredible. Well, there's no info about the maximum amount of energy? Uh is it? So it's electromagnetic energy? I would assume based from the description. From the description, there's nothing to tell, right, there's nothing to do, there's no there's no what is the amplitude or what do they what do they call that? Um? Sorry, I'm not a scientist, guys, I'm not a physicist. I don't know. I don't know things. But how how much wattage do you actually get out of that thing? What can you power? Right? It reminds me of those old crystal radio kits that you can build at home. You know what I'm talking about? Oh yeah, yeah, the ones with like little crystals that act as an antenna where you can essentially create your own. But no, it's not a ham radio. It's a receiver exactly. Um. Interesting you would say that, because that is on the skeptical side, that is precisely what this device is being, uh compared to I'm not pooh pooing you, I'm just saying what I remember from building what it seems kind of yep, you you need an antenna of sorts, like where he says, this is where what do you say? This is where the energy comes in. He's pointing to a wire and then he, you know, shows you where it goes in and converts from A C to D C I guess. And then there's the output, and that's where he plugged in the or at least attached the wires to the strip of LED lights um which, by the way, led lights, I think we all know this guy's It takes very little energy to run an L E D. A single LED light or just a small strip of LED lights doesn't take a ton of power. But even if even yes true, But even being that being the case, that's at the very least a cool way to power L E ED lights. Yeah, that's all just a can and a spoon and some wire. Let's do it. Let's go. That's kind of cool. The problem is the claim is by Max and again he's thirteen years old, guys, come on. But the claim by Max is that this device pulls in energy that is abundant, that is just flying around at any time it was nighttime, by the way, so it wasn't solar powered, which is, by the way, the uh, the abundant source of energy that is always flying around. It's it's the sun. It's that radiation. UM. And there's another video you can watch that we're not going to watch on the podcast, but I recommend you search it out from four years ago from a great creator YouTube channel called a electro boom. I guarantee if you see, uh, the face of the person who hosts that show, you will recognize him. Uh. He goes into it and really describes how this device is in fact exactly a crystal radio UM and just demonstrates how you can build one and what it does and why it functions, um. But also why it wouldn't work even if you build the huge one, why it wouldn't do much much more, it wouldn't scale question before we go on, Christa's asking what happened. And also I hope electro Boom is nice to this person, because let's keep in mind, there's a thirteen year old child. You know, they're obviously not out to build people. They're not trying to scam North or Grumman or something. Right, You're absolutely right, Uh, you know, I don't want to speak for that channel or that video, but I would say, in my opinion, the biggest gripe that comes forward there is that Max Lahan ended up going and doing basically a tour of the world. He got on lists of things like Global Teen Leaders of two thousand seventeen at the we Are Family Foundation, sort of a Greta Thunberg type figure. I mean in that yeah, in that moment, right. Yes, he went and gave major speeches at places like Nexus, which is a highly reputable science. I believe it's a foundation where they go and they give talks similar to ted Um. He was interviewed several other times on fairly big outlets, basically people saying, wow, this kid figured out free energy. This dude is This kid is Nicola Tesla and he's wearing the Tesla T shirt in that channel too. He is um and Max is so well spoken, so he seen comes off as so intelligent. He can clearly solve a Rubik's cube, which come on, that's no simple feat u in in like five seconds, you know, one of those like speed solves. But there were some medics can but but he is so confident when he speaks. It reminds me of the Skepticism episode we just did, where when you hear him talk, you tend to just believe him because he's just saying it. Yeah, this is how it is. This is what it is. Absolutely And you know, if you have energy, then you've got power, and if you've got power, you've got everything. And with this simple device, I can make power. Look, here's how it works. Here's the coil, here's this. So your mind just kind of goes along with him on the ride. Uh. It's just strange that so many people immediately took that positive news, that potential like oh, win for humanity and just said, yeah, well, let's go with it. Also, I mean, speaking of news, he's on the news. They don't put quacks on the news, you know, solving Rubik's cubes wearing uh, wearing lab coats and their parents boiler room. I'm being a little jokey, but I mean that's part of it. You know, a kid like that speaking in the way, speaking demonstrating these levels of whether it be genius or savantas um or whatever you do kind of Oh, well, how don't I know know about this kid? Let's let's let's go. He's obviously got it cracked. And I would say that's why his name and this concept is currently trending on or maybe not currently anymore, but was trending on TikTok for quite a while. The most well researched of yes, because it does seem so positive for humanity overall. The kid is so confident and just. And then he was you know, he was all over the place in twenty seventeen, seriously seen um and then we haven't heard much from him. There were a couple of videos a while back. I don't know if you guys remember seeing this. He was sent to us via listener email. At one point it was a video of Max when before I knew who he was. Uh, And he is making he was making predictions of some sort about certain Yeah, that's right, that's right, in like a kitchen of some sort, or like just in his house, I think. And he's talking about cern and black holes and all this other stuff, and he's using the correct nomenclature of the correct vocabulary and saying it's so confidently that it feels kind of scary and like something he knows something more than everybody else, and it's going to happen, I would pause it and I don't. I cannot confirm this. I think he got a lot of attention really fast as a thirteen year old, and then there was probably quite a bit of blowback to that, UM, and he just became a kid again. I think it is probably what happened. So maybe avoided social media for quite a while. UM kind of went just dark a little bit when it comes to that stuff. And again, it's not because, in my opinion, that he's attempting to be a liar or to deceive a bunch of people. It's because he believed the thing, and maybe his family didn't know. They didn't understand what it actually was. Even the news presenter, the guy that went and interviewed and didn't really understand. I wouldn't have understood unless I researched it, right, So it's I think maybe that's what happened. You can't find him on Facebook though, what you did, Yeah you can find I mean, it was pretty easy actually, and I'm where I'm wondering if this is actually his page or anyone that he knows even represents this page. But you can go to Facebook dot com, slash Max l O U G. H a n And that's where I found that video that we just listened to. Another great point and also, Matt, I think we should take pains to know this is not the same thing as doxing someone. Finding someone's Facebook page is not doxing someone. We're very well aware. Uh, this is a child. I love that you pointed this out. There are a couple of possibilities to it. Could be that, Uh, this kid is getting ready to apply for college. You know it's t seventeen, was a couple of years ago. Uh, maybe a situation where his parents or he himself doesn't want to be associated with too much hubbub right, or to look like they're propagating bad science, which is know, what he did, even if it's just a crystal radio is still an amazingly impressive thing for a kid to figure out on their own. That's awesome. Also, the last thing I just want to point out, the National Invention Secrecy Act of nine one is a true thing, and it is used to suppress technology. Oh shoot, what if he really did figure it out and he just got a little visit. It's a real thing. It's like, hey, kid, we're gonna need you to take it down a couple of pegs here not necessarily gonna disappear you, but strike a little fear of God and you well, you know the innovation potentially here, guys, was the spoon attached at the top of his device. I don't know if you saw that is no spoon, Matt, this spoon bend. Maybe they want you to believe that there's no spoon, but there's got to be a spoon. And if there is a spoon, Uh spoon BANDA is brought to you by Big spoon. Is the man man with the spoon you touch? Now, have you, guys seen the new uh Knives out movie yet? Glass? Yeah, no spoilers. This is what it's about, uh free energy or something along the lines of free energy using reclaimed seawater as a source, you know, to to replace you know, nuclear and electric and coal power and all that. But then there's you know, there's a twist. There's like many things, and there's always positives and negatives, so nothing's perfect or free and that. And thank you so much for calling in Krista with that question. We hope this helps a little bit. You can find more information. It's out there. I hope you don't get any more viruses on your phone. That's not good and I'm not sure why that was happening. You can find this stuff on Facebook and on YouTube, and no viruses on my computer that I'm aware of. I guess we'll see. We'll take a break and we'll be right back National INVECTORUS Secrecy Act. And we've returned with one more piece of a listener correspondence, this one coming from one of my favorite nicknames of recent memory, Cyborg Penguin uh. And it was in response to our overpopulation episode, and specifically to a comment that I made about why someone would or would not have a child uh in the event of losing a child. Um. And it was just kind of an off the cuff remark where I was just we were both I think Ben, you and I were sort of you and I were both kind of considering what the drive to have a child might be in the event of losing a child, versus it being such a traumatic experience that maybe you would not want to ever put yourself in the position to go through that again and maybe wouldn't have a child. UM. Cyborg has this to say, Hey, Noel, regarding your comment on replacing a kid with another. You're getting it wrong. The logic isn't that you wait for a kid to die to have another. You have a lot in a short span of time to have more chances of having at least a handful who served five. The appearance of healthcare technology, or the improvement of healthcare technology in the Andes region upset this uh and now people have fewer children. My mother has twelve siblings, between full and half siblings, and that was basically because in an agrarian economy, more kids are more potential farm hands, and half of them might not make it, so you better be sure to spawn a lot of them. The Peruvian demographic explosion of the fifties to seventies was in part because of this. You need at least a couple of generations before you change the practices of the people. So from the forties to the sixties are grarian families with a lot of kids who made it to adulthood was a thing. I love the program today Best of luck to you and the guys. So I think this is a very valid and interesting perspective from a part of the world. Maybe we don't consider or a type of lifestyle, you know, in terms of farming um and maybe an older mode of thinking around this topic than maybe still exists today. And I think Cybor Penguin addressed that beautifully in terms of, like, it takes some time to see a change in behavior, you know, over the course of generations. We certainly know that in in days when healthcare which is not not a thing, like even as far back as you know, the Dark Ages and the medieval times, life expectancy was very short and often children would die in childbirth or die very very young, um. And so the idea was to have as many as possible to make sure that that bloodline was carried on. But I wasn't really thinking about that in terms of more modern examples, and I think this is a really good one, you know, the idea of in the forties and fifties, at this notion that we've got to have as many as we can because health care wasn't good and some kids might not survive in perhaps more harsh uh and and dangerous frankly um farming conditions. And it was sort of a calculation of like, you know, we gotta have more kids to the farm can be staffed, you know, with family, and then also that the farm the family farm can be passed down to a two generations, you know, to carry on. Yeah, yeah, well said, and thank you so much, Cyborg penguin. This is something that I believe we've we've also explored in some previous episodes. Uh, the overpopulation fact and fiction is it's red meat for a lot of people, for a lot of the wrong reasons. Right when you hear the different arguments, Uh, it gets, as we say, very weird and hypocritical. In the halls of power, people will say a lot of folks should stop having children, and then they'll say, but my kids are fine, right, But that doesn't apply to me. The same problem with the corruption in the Chinese government regarding the one child policy. If you come um and a grarian background, then you realize there is there is a calculus to this. Right again, most people are incredibly intelligent. One thing we did miss, and I'm so glad to bring this up now, is that there are some pretty compelling arguments that have come out that overall the global population of human beings may be stabilizing. I think we made a pretty good case that the growth itself, the Malthusiant arguments have proven incorrect. But what we are seeing is really a problem of inequality of access to education, to resources, to healthcare, and that access, that problem has been so heavily propagandized and politicized that people are finding themselves in a weird situation where they're supporting they're supporting parasites at the very top of the financial ecosystem. I think I'm a word Saladin in a little but all to say, yeah, everything everything. Cyborg Penguin is saying, well, like, I'm I wasn't a part of that conversation, guys, I'm sorry I missed it. Um, I don't know. I So way are we saying overpopulation isn't a problem or released as big of a problem as I I feel like it is because I feel like the more human beings, the more resources you got to use, which means more trees cut down, more fresh water used, more plastic, more lithium everything. I think this perspective also speaks to a thing we talked about in the episode where it kind of course corrects to some degree over time. But you know, but again, it takes time for that correction to to set to be to be visible. Um, whether it be because of changes in generational thinking, around having children or there have been. You can speak to this. I'm sure other actors as well. UM, that will potentially cause overpopulation as a massive spike to really have us, you know, worried, sort of even out the freeze course correction, let's let's explore that for a second. So the real problem with humanity's population growth, which has been on a continued clip ever since the Black Death, you know, human beings took that one on the chin and then they just said, let's reproduce as much as we can. Um. The real problem is one of logistics, you know, it's one of what of expectation of quality of life. Consider for a moment that the average person needs somewhere between like three to four leaders of water a day, and a lot of people use way more than that, right, and a lot of people are not getting that. I would note that if you look at the world as it stands now, eight plus billion people, all sorts of terrible things are happening due to previous generations, right, and the way they treated resource allocation. Now, this population of eight billion people has to contend with the sins of the past while also asking how do we distribute these resources or in my case, how do they distribute these resources? And that's where the issue comes in. It's very easy to be a billionaire or a tycoon at Davos Economic Forum and say here's what we do to make everything right. But it's very difficult to be someone who says I need to feed my kids. My kids are part of my not just my family, but my livelihood. We all work this land together. That's the great danger, I think is the disconnect. Now, would planet Earth be better with far fewer people on it? I'm just going to be a jerk here and say yes, that's objectively true. But also the idea of painting it as a crisis situation as a means of advancing one zone wealth extraction or resource extraction ideologies, it's dangerous. It's misleading. And the people who are saying that are smart enough to know what they're doing. Okay, yeah, I hear you. It's uh, it's my own biases because I just heck skepticism. It's not too confident. Yes, no, no, not at all whatever, No no, no, no no. But just when I'm thinking about that standard of living at least in uh, in many parts of the West, I had this image of these open lithium minds where there are you know, tens of thousands of human beings attempting to extract tiny amounts of lithium individually so that they can support those families that you're talking about, so that the family Lea's in largely Western cultures can thrive with their phones and stuff. Right, So, like maybe it really is just it's kind of I think I heard you guys say the phrase on the on the episode eat the rich situation, Like maybe we really do do just need to coll the coll the wealthy people, which I would you know, all of us, I think I would know. I would include myself in there when it comes to just people who use too much but the wheel. Yeah. Yeah, it's difficult though, because again the course correction. This is a thing uh folks often don't like to talk about. But humanity is simply another example of another animal on earth. And as you can see historically, when a population exceeds a certain a certain threshold, nature itself will correct for that to retain its favorite thing, which is equilibrium. You evil ambulance or whatever you were, fire truck. I get a lot of non consensual lubers. I'm just gonna be honest. Uh so. But the but the point holds. You know, the problem here is one of the tragedy of the commons. For any fellow nerds out there, how does how do we handle a public good? Right? Uh? And the the other issue is one of cooperation. How can you get eight plus billion people to look out for the greater good and somehow prevent the most powerful of those eight billion people from doing some weird scheme to make them set their own lives quote unquote better at the expense of others. And Cybord paint I think we're talking about here is a brilliant observation that my village varies for people having these experiences. When we talk a little bit about replacement rate, right, for a population to remain stable, reproductive pairs produced two point one children, that accounts for mortality, accounts for everything such that the population will be stable. When you hear global statistics, right November, the eight billion person is born, I think we wish them happy birthday and when in an episode, happy birthday. Sorry, if we knew you were coming, we would have cleaned the place up a little. But what what we see there is that this population growth globally, that statistic can be misleading because it is not an even growth right places like India or Nigeria, right that that those places people are gonna have more than two point one kids. Places like Japan. Uh, the replace spent rate is no longer being reached. There's some pretty compelling arguments that globally a certain point population will decline. Um, And I think you know, no. One thing that was really personal for us for a lot of listeners was the conversation about why people may or may not decide to have a child after losing a child. And that is something that, Um, that's something I really appreciate about what you're saying, cyber Cyborg Penguin, is that that is as a personal decision, but also sometimes people in a very real way, I feel it is a necessary thing to do that that one must do this, you know, that one must put their feelings aside. And that's simply the reality of the world that can be driven by um reasons of economics, whether it means like like like he's talking about in terms of needing those hands to to to get the work done, you know, and so uh, stacking the deck in a way that you you know, in a time where maybe you might lose more than one child, you know, for various reasons, or maybe there are religious reasons where it's about you know, spreading the gospel or whatever it might be. You know, and that's your that's your responsibility to do that, so you do put your feelings aside. I think I was coming from it in my comments um as a parent, if I lost a child, I don't know. I don't think I would ever want to put myself in that position again because it would be such a heartbreaking thing. So I was coming at it from a completely emotional standpoint when I made that comment, or when I positive that that might be a perspective shared by others, because to your point, then it is very personal and there are a lot of different reasons. And this is something uh that I know we both actually all of us listening along as well the overpopulation episode really wanted your perspective on as well. It's an incredibly if goal conversation. You know, we have a lot of people with us today who have perhaps had to terminate a pregnancy right or had a pregnancy that didn't go to term for any number of reasons. How would you react to that the statement, um, you know, from from knowl from your side, the idea that it is a personal decision and it can be I mean there there aren't really words for it, you know, like how how how should what of our fellow conspiracy realist attempt to approach that situation? I mean it's the same thing as like asking yourself, how would you act in an emergency situation? You know, you hope that you would act a certain way, but given the actual realities of it, you might not act that way. You know that you think or that you wish you would. I see that. One lucky difference between those situations is that if you want to trust yourself in an emergency situation, the best thing to do is topeatedly drill and train such that it can hopefully become reflective muscle memory automatic. And you just don't have that ability in this situation where you lose your life like that. I don't I say sorry, I I wanted to interject that. But Matt, what are your thoughts? Um? I want to know your thoughts? So why don't you write to us? You can find us on social media. We are conspiracy stuff on many outlets like Twitter and Facebook. And YouTube. We are conspiracy Stuff show on Instagram and TikTok. Please please please check those out, follow us if you will. You can interact with us there for sure. You can also interact with us in other ways, that's right. You can give us a telephone call one eight three three st d w y t K, where you will hear Ben's voice inviting you to leave a message. You will have three minutes to leave said message. Tell us anything you want. Um also give yourself a cool nickname and you a well here your very voice appear on this program, this segment, this listener Mail Weekly Listener Mail episode. To make sure to let us know if that's okay, and h if you want us to hold anything back. And if you don't want to do phone or social or any of that kind of stuff, maybe you throw your phone in the ocean. Could on you? What about sending a good old fashioned email? We like those. We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they Don't want you to Know is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Noll. They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Paul Mission controlled decads. Most importantly, you are you. You are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. It is time once again, fellow conspiracy realists for one of our favorite weekly segments, listener Mail. We have scoured through the hinter lands of the Internet. We've talked with you on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Crossroads at Midnight, all the hits, and we have We've chosen some stories that we feel will be of great interest to the best part of the show you, specifically you. We're going to talk a lot about our overpopulation episode. We're going to be introduced to a mystery. We're also going to open with just some some general updates. So the first part of this segment is going to be uh we'd called the cavalcade a corn copia at the very least of some some things that have been on our minds collectively. Uh, I think maybe we start out by shouting out a guy that we we have spoken with, not all in person, regarding augmented reality and virtual reality. Now, Matt, know you will recall when last we we spoke about this stuff. We were kind of on the fed. It's about a couple of things. But I think we all agreed this metaverse, whatever it ends up being called, is somewhat inevitable. Do we still hold that opinion? I don't know. I mean, the metaverse has kind of become a bit of a of a goof in terms of how much Facebook has put their eggs in that particular meta basket. Are metas rather just put their eggs in that particular meta basket and doesn't seem like it's going super well. Um. Augmented reality, on the other hand, seems to me like a much more viable version of this kind of experience where you can overlay things data, you know, scavenger hunts, all kinds of things that it incorporate the real world, because we do still have a real world at this point, which I think is is important to consider. Maybe when the world becomes uninhabitable, virtual reality meta verse situations might be a little more attractive. Yeah, to that point, I think meta is a really, really good bet that's not going to pay off until ten years from now. But when it does pay off, the metaverse is gonna be so awesome. In that bunker, I changed that bunker, yes, well, put again, this is the reason I'm saying metaverse or whatever it ends up being called, is because first to the post does not always mean the person who wins the game, right. Medicinal beverages were all over the US before Coca Cola became a thing, right, and now it dominates that market. This is primarily a teaser here for a guy we're going to be talking to later this year named Chris Pilcher, mixed reality artist that we randomly ran into. We're in conversations. This guy has gone through m I T UH. Actually he's hanging with m I T right now, UH, and he is combining the world of art, high art, fine art, and performance media with UH with augmented reality. This dude is someone who's going to be very exciting to speak with and heard back from him recently. So really, this is a call out to our fellow conspiracy realist folks. If you have questions about the future of a r v R, you have thoughts, uh, please send them any any way you want to contact us, anyway you want to contact anybody on the show, let us know, because we're looking forward to this, assuming the world still spinds. I wanted to take some time to give a special shout out here to a long time listener of the show who goes by Unwilling Stardust. Now you'll recognize perhaps that handle because Unwilling start Us reach out to us not too long ago when we were talking about the ongoing protest and instability in Iran. As I last spoke with Stardust, they were going to a protest with no clue about their safety. I want to just read a brief excerpt here and maybe we can react to this. All right, So unwilling to start us as First of all, according to the Islamic Republic, revolutionary guards, having an improper JAB will now have serious consequences. The range goes from having to pay a huge fee to having to do many hours of social work, uh, and up to including oh, let's just read this. Uh. It happened to a prisoner who, as a journalist is social work, was writing a one page article about why the Islamic Republic is so amazingly good. Uh. They can also be imprisoned, Their belongings can be taken away, cars, electronics, especially social media devices, and they are forced out of their city to live an exile cannot leave the country. The crimes cannot be argued in court. There is no second trial if you attempt to appeal. Many places that have been closed down by the government for allowing women to not wear her jabs are remaining closed Dave. Also, they being the Revolutionary Guard, have arranged new rules to make life difficult for women without hjab. Today at university, says unwilling to stardust. My hejab was hanging from my neck without putting it on my hair, as if it had just fallen. And not only the person coming to the exam room to examine the students attacks me verbally abusing me, but also they attempted to ban me from taking the exam or going to school. The professor who who defended me was detained. And people are being tracked via their social media as as their license plates. Gentlemen. This comes on the heels of recent executions for protesters in Iran. You guys heard about this, now, this is news to me. Yeah, but I'm not following it nearly as closely as you are been. I mean, everything you're saying there, it sounds like a religious revolution, rebellion against a state that holds a religion very close to how it governs, right again, a theocracy. In a recent episode on How to Be a Skeptic, we discussed briefly the dangers of theocracy. The United Nations, Gosh, just just a few days ago, came out with an official statement regarding what's going on in Iran, and the United Nations has accused the government of Iran of weaponizing the death penalty. They're saying that they're killing people by example, crushing descent by frightening the public with public executions. This follows uh as well with our earlier report of multiple protesters dying in custody. Right now, we can confirm that Tarran saying Tahran the capital of Iran is a lot like saying the White House when you talk about the US government. Tehran has executed four people in connection with these demonstrations, following frankly kangaroo court trials, and this is not us saying it We're not being political partisans here, folks. The United Nations as confirmed that the trials leading to those four executions did not meet the internationally recognized legal minimum for what defines a fair trial. This is not a sustainable situation. At least seventeen other protesters have been sentenced to death, according to Curturk, the U n High Commissioner for Human Rights, and this reminds me a lot of what of the excellent work are Pal Robert Evans did in his series It could happen here. I keep thinking about these things occurring across the planet now right. The coup and Peru or who attempt it was very underreported, the hilarious attempt in Germany. We're just saying it's hilarious because come on, it's a decayed aristocrat, uh. And then numerous other coups, including something we talked about quite recently regarding Brazil and folks, I know we talked about doing an episode on the situation in Iran full episode on this, and we have been gathering sources. We've been speaking with protesters who are in a very real way risk in their lives to contact us UM I primary early in bringing this up because I want to check in with you, met and with you know, do you feel that the West is doing its due diligence in reporting the situation here? It certainly doesn't seem to be breaking through, um in the news cycle and in the way that you think a story of this weight and importance should. Yeah. Absolutely. I I don't know, man, I'm I'm torn a little bit, honestly, Ben, because I'm far too aware now of the West's let's say, interference with other countries when it comes to these kinds of uprisings, right, I mean, often it's the CIA that's getting involved with like a student group or something to make something like this happen in a country that is seen as adversarial to the West or their purposes. Um. It's the skeptical thing, right, I'm still feeling skeptical about it to some extent, and that's probably because I'm so far removed and it doesn't affect me in the way it affects unwilling stardust Um. And that's a that's like a kind of a crappy position to hold for somebody who's going through it like that. The way that I'm sitting here right now and thinking about it, um, But I don't know. It freaks me out. It makes me feel like um other forces that are at play, even though I don't have any way to confirm that. Yeah, and I'm I'm tempted to agree with you in some regards there, Matt, because one of the things that we have to always remember is that the shadow of US imperialism is a very real specter, right, and it colors the way that you encounter reports of this stuff in the West. Quite recently there were some Maraudian activists who were saying the protest have flipped the switch. It brought to my mind a very important question, at what point does a protest become a revolution? What is the is it a spectrum? Right? Was was Occupy Wall Street on the verge of becoming a revolution? I very much doubt it. A revolution is difficult in the United States? But do we have an answer for that? Is there any way for us to say this is no longer a series of protests, this is now actively a revolution or an attempted overthrow. Well, I mean go back to January six, right, I mean think about it, like, what's what is the line there between protesting and uh an attempted rebellion that kind of thing, or an attempted revolution. Well, and and and and the folks responsible for that event you're talking about January six, would rather it be viewed as a protest because it does doesn't really align with reasonable American political even like on the most extreme side, and one wants to be seen as attempting a coup, you know, And then the folks who may be responsible for that event, it's much better politically for them to say, no, this is a protest. In America was built on protests. But again, if there's protests happy, they don't like they'll call those people terrorists or domestic terrorists. But we have to keep in mind, as much as it is discomforting to think about, it is very beneficial for people on the other side who are opposing that president and the actions to consider it a you know, an attempted revolution, right versus maybe like somewhat organized chaos. So it's like, it's it's just a tough thing to think about when we're in these realms, um, But when it comes to Iran, I mean, there's definitely horrendous stuff going down. Hundreds of people are being killed in the protest yeah, murdered. So I mean, in the end, doesn't matter who's pushing the buttons to make the actions happen. I think it does, but again there's no way to fully tell in the moment. It's a very very good question, and also it's a question that a lot of Western journalists cannot answer on the ground because it's very difficult to get into Tehran with good reason because Uncle Sam has multiple times sent people into that area as tourists. So that means no official diplomatic visa, none, none of that kind of protective measure. Just hey, we're here to take pictures. Boh, I didn't know there was a there was a nuclear deploying. I don't know why they're sending muppets as tourists, but that's the voice, right and so this so it may sound as though there's a bit of a broken record, but we want to do justice to this conversation, to what's happening now in the world that is not being why widely reported or is being sanitized in the way it's being reported. The US is an imperialist power, There's no two ways about it. And you can you can say that and still be a US patriot. Right. The not the missile, but the the issue is that what's happening here can trigger things in other places. Instability, global instability can be on the rise. It very much is, and it will be perhaps sooner than we think. At this point, we're going to end this part of this listener mail segment with not just a general update, but a call to action. If you have information on the ground in Iran, if you have experience in the country or with the Islamic Republic, we want to hear from you. Please find us a conspiracy at I heart radio dot com, fi just on Instagram, Twitter, if there is a more secure platform you prefer, then you can also uh find find me or the show directly on those platforms outlined, and then we can connect on a more secure means of communication. For now, we're gonna pause for a word from our sponsors. Please be safe, folks will be right back. And we're back, and we are jumping to the phone lines. We haven't done this in a while. Guys, here it comes. We've got a message from Krista. Hey, guys, um, my name is Krista. I've actually left a message for you all before and have been along to a listener. Um, you can use my name in this entire message. UM. I just came across and its treading on TikTok. But Max Lohan, Um, he was start tew years old in two thousand seventeen, created free energy. Um, and he's disappeared. No one knows where he's at, and he can't be found any video that I try to watch about like the things that he created were invented at all. Everything pops up with a virus on it, saying that microphone has been infected with the virus. If I try to watch a video that he created, Um, everything's been screwed from the internet and he's gone. He would have been the nineteen years old right now. Um, but out of nowhere, like he's just not around anymore. UM. I would love for you all to like to speak on this seat for even a small amount of time. UM. It's scary and UM mostly like where's Max? Thanks? Free energy? Yes, Christa, thank you so much for letting us know about that. This was new to all of us. And you heard Ben say free energy. And that is because over the years that phrase, right, that term. Um, We've we've analyzed versions of it a lot. I think I would say, right, We've looked into instances of supposed free energy gathering and use and device creation and all that kind of stuff many times. And I don't know about you guys, but to my knowledge now, I still haven't seen one that would meet the criteria of that phrase. Yeah, agreed. Not In in previous episodes and in some previous Strange News and listener mail segments, we have we have explored a lot of related a lot of related claims, and at this point, unfortunately, none of those has seemed to reach the threshold of either scale or experimental reproducibility at Lee. Again, up to this point, right up to this point, we were unaware of this person, Max low N l O U G h A N. But we are now going to watch a roughly two and a half minute video and this comes from ktv N. It's Channel two news. It appears to be a major news station. Ben, I think you've confirmed that it's CBS out of Reno, Nevada. Yeah, So we're gonna watch this and we'll play some excerpts within this podcast, and hopefully we'll all be on the same page. So here we go. This is story about Max Lowen dreussed in his lab coat. Yeah, I wear this fairly often. Max Lahin sits in his parents old boiler room converted into a lab. I am in a boiler room right now, and he ponders the future. Often the future that I imagine is the future, frankly that we all imagine. He wants to make the world a better place. And to do that you need one single thing. If you've got energy, you've got power, you have everything. So to solve this problem, a few months ago, Max took the matter into his own hands and created this electro magnetic harvester out of a coffee can, some wire, two coils, and a spoon. The harvester conducts radio waves, thermal and static energy and turns it into electricity. This wire takes the energy from the air down below. Here we turned it from a C into d C. So we take the device outside and wrap up Max's brother into a string of l e ed lights. Thing. A fourteen dollar invention was able to do that. So imagine the same harvester on a scale twenty times larger. Okay, guys, so there we go. According to KTV in a whiz kid with a powerful idea, and he is someone to know. Um, it sounds great from the reporting, right, free energy? He really did make this ing that just pulls energy out of thin air and can power l ed s. That would be incredible. Well, there's no info about the maximum amount of energy? Uh is it? So it's electromagnetic energy? I would assume based from the description. From the description, there's nothing to tell, right, there's nothing to do, there's no there's no what is the amplitude or what do they what do they call that? Um? Sorry, I'm not a scientist, guys, I'm not a physicist. I don't know. I don't know things. But how how much wattage do you actually get out of that thing? What can you power? Right? It reminds me of those old crystal radio kits that you can build at home. You know what I'm talking about? Oh yeah, yeah, the ones with like little crystals that act as an antenna where you can essentially create your own. But no, it's not a ham radio. It's a receiver exactly. Um. Interesting you would say that, because that is on the skeptical side, that is precisely what this device is being, uh compared to I'm not pooh pooing you, I'm just saying what I remember from building what it seems kind of yep, you you need an antenna of sorts, like where he says, this is where what do you say? This is where the energy comes in. He's pointing to a wire and then he, you know, shows you where it goes in and converts from A C to D C I guess. And then there's the output, and that's where he plugged in the or at least attached the wires to the strip of LED lights um which, by the way, led lights, I think we all know this guy's It takes very little energy to run an L E D. A single LED light or just a small strip of LED lights doesn't take a ton of power. But even if even yes true, But even being that being the case, that's at the very least a cool way to power L E ED lights. Yeah, that's all just a can and a spoon and some wire. Let's do it. Let's go. That's kind of cool. The problem is the claim is by Max and again he's thirteen years old, guys, come on. But the claim by Max is that this device pulls in energy that is abundant, that is just flying around at any time it was nighttime, by the way, so it wasn't solar powered, which is, by the way, the uh, the abundant source of energy that is always flying around. It's it's the sun. It's that radiation. UM. And there's another video you can watch that we're not going to watch on the podcast, but I recommend you search it out from four years ago from a great creator YouTube channel called a electro boom. I guarantee if you see, uh, the face of the person who hosts that show, you will recognize him. Uh. He goes into it and really describes how this device is in fact exactly a crystal radio UM and just demonstrates how you can build one and what it does and why it functions, um. But also why it wouldn't work even if you build the huge one, why it wouldn't do much much more, it wouldn't scale question before we go on, Christa's asking what happened. And also I hope electro Boom is nice to this person, because let's keep in mind, there's a thirteen year old child. You know, they're obviously not out to build people. They're not trying to scam North or Grumman or something. Right, You're absolutely right, Uh, you know, I don't want to speak for that channel or that video, but I would say, in my opinion, the biggest gripe that comes forward there is that Max Lahan ended up going and doing basically a tour of the world. He got on lists of things like Global Teen Leaders of two thousand seventeen at the we Are Family Foundation, sort of a Greta Thunberg type figure. I mean in that yeah, in that moment, right. Yes, he went and gave major speeches at places like Nexus, which is a highly reputable science. I believe it's a foundation where they go and they give talks similar to ted Um. He was interviewed several other times on fairly big outlets, basically people saying, wow, this kid figured out free energy. This dude is This kid is Nicola Tesla and he's wearing the Tesla T shirt in that channel too. He is um and Max is so well spoken, so he seen comes off as so intelligent. He can clearly solve a Rubik's cube, which come on, that's no simple feat u in in like five seconds, you know, one of those like speed solves. But there were some medics can but but he is so confident when he speaks. It reminds me of the Skepticism episode we just did, where when you hear him talk, you tend to just believe him because he's just saying it. Yeah, this is how it is. This is what it is. Absolutely And you know, if you have energy, then you've got power, and if you've got power, you've got everything. And with this simple device, I can make power. Look, here's how it works. Here's the coil, here's this. So your mind just kind of goes along with him on the ride. Uh. It's just strange that so many people immediately took that positive news, that potential like oh, win for humanity and just said, yeah, well, let's go with it. Also, I mean, speaking of news, he's on the news. They don't put quacks on the news, you know, solving Rubik's cubes wearing uh, wearing lab coats and their parents boiler room. I'm being a little jokey, but I mean that's part of it. You know, a kid like that speaking in the way, speaking demonstrating these levels of whether it be genius or savantas um or whatever you do kind of Oh, well, how don't I know know about this kid? Let's let's let's go. He's obviously got it cracked. And I would say that's why his name and this concept is currently trending on or maybe not currently anymore, but was trending on TikTok for quite a while. The most well researched of yes, because it does seem so positive for humanity overall. The kid is so confident and just. And then he was you know, he was all over the place in twenty seventeen, seriously seen um and then we haven't heard much from him. There were a couple of videos a while back. I don't know if you guys remember seeing this. He was sent to us via listener email. At one point it was a video of Max when before I knew who he was. Uh, And he is making he was making predictions of some sort about certain Yeah, that's right, that's right, in like a kitchen of some sort, or like just in his house, I think. And he's talking about cern and black holes and all this other stuff, and he's using the correct nomenclature of the correct vocabulary and saying it's so confidently that it feels kind of scary and like something he knows something more than everybody else, and it's going to happen, I would pause it and I don't. I cannot confirm this. I think he got a lot of attention really fast as a thirteen year old, and then there was probably quite a bit of blowback to that, UM, and he just became a kid again. I think it is probably what happened. So maybe avoided social media for quite a while. UM kind of went just dark a little bit when it comes to that stuff. And again, it's not because, in my opinion, that he's attempting to be a liar or to deceive a bunch of people. It's because he believed the thing, and maybe his family didn't know. They didn't understand what it actually was. Even the news presenter, the guy that went and interviewed and didn't really understand. I wouldn't have understood unless I researched it, right, So it's I think maybe that's what happened. You can't find him on Facebook though, what you did, Yeah you can find I mean, it was pretty easy actually, and I'm where I'm wondering if this is actually his page or anyone that he knows even represents this page. But you can go to Facebook dot com, slash Max l O U G. H a n And that's where I found that video that we just listened to. Another great point and also, Matt, I think we should take pains to know this is not the same thing as doxing someone. Finding someone's Facebook page is not doxing someone. We're very well aware. Uh, this is a child. I love that you pointed this out. There are a couple of possibilities to it. Could be that, Uh, this kid is getting ready to apply for college. You know it's t seventeen, was a couple of years ago. Uh, maybe a situation where his parents or he himself doesn't want to be associated with too much hubbub right, or to look like they're propagating bad science, which is know, what he did, even if it's just a crystal radio is still an amazingly impressive thing for a kid to figure out on their own. That's awesome. Also, the last thing I just want to point out, the National Invention Secrecy Act of nine one is a true thing, and it is used to suppress technology. Oh shoot, what if he really did figure it out and he just got a little visit. It's a real thing. It's like, hey, kid, we're gonna need you to take it down a couple of pegs here not necessarily gonna disappear you, but strike a little fear of God and you well, you know the innovation potentially here, guys, was the spoon attached at the top of his device. I don't know if you saw that is no spoon, Matt, this spoon bend. Maybe they want you to believe that there's no spoon, but there's got to be a spoon. And if there is a spoon, Uh spoon BANDA is brought to you by Big spoon. Is the man man with the spoon you touch? Now, have you, guys seen the new uh Knives out movie yet? Glass? Yeah, no spoilers. This is what it's about, uh free energy or something along the lines of free energy using reclaimed seawater as a source, you know, to to replace you know, nuclear and electric and coal power and all that. But then there's you know, there's a twist. There's like many things, and there's always positives and negatives, so nothing's perfect or free and that. And thank you so much for calling in Krista with that question. We hope this helps a little bit. You can find more information. It's out there. I hope you don't get any more viruses on your phone. That's not good and I'm not sure why that was happening. You can find this stuff on Facebook and on YouTube, and no viruses on my computer that I'm aware of. I guess we'll see. We'll take a break and we'll be right back National INVECTORUS Secrecy Act. And we've returned with one more piece of a listener correspondence, this one coming from one of my favorite nicknames of recent memory, Cyborg Penguin uh. And it was in response to our overpopulation episode, and specifically to a comment that I made about why someone would or would not have a child uh in the event of losing a child. Um. And it was just kind of an off the cuff remark where I was just we were both I think Ben, you and I were sort of you and I were both kind of considering what the drive to have a child might be in the event of losing a child, versus it being such a traumatic experience that maybe you would not want to ever put yourself in the position to go through that again and maybe wouldn't have a child. UM. Cyborg has this to say, Hey, Noel, regarding your comment on replacing a kid with another. You're getting it wrong. The logic isn't that you wait for a kid to die to have another. You have a lot in a short span of time to have more chances of having at least a handful who served five. The appearance of healthcare technology, or the improvement of healthcare technology in the Andes region upset this uh and now people have fewer children. My mother has twelve siblings, between full and half siblings, and that was basically because in an agrarian economy, more kids are more potential farm hands, and half of them might not make it, so you better be sure to spawn a lot of them. The Peruvian demographic explosion of the fifties to seventies was in part because of this. You need at least a couple of generations before you change the practices of the people. So from the forties to the sixties are grarian families with a lot of kids who made it to adulthood was a thing. I love the program today Best of luck to you and the guys. So I think this is a very valid and interesting perspective from a part of the world. Maybe we don't consider or a type of lifestyle, you know, in terms of farming um and maybe an older mode of thinking around this topic than maybe still exists today. And I think Cybor Penguin addressed that beautifully in terms of, like, it takes some time to see a change in behavior, you know, over the course of generations. We certainly know that in in days when healthcare which is not not a thing, like even as far back as you know, the Dark Ages and the medieval times, life expectancy was very short and often children would die in childbirth or die very very young, um. And so the idea was to have as many as possible to make sure that that bloodline was carried on. But I wasn't really thinking about that in terms of more modern examples, and I think this is a really good one, you know, the idea of in the forties and fifties, at this notion that we've got to have as many as we can because health care wasn't good and some kids might not survive in perhaps more harsh uh and and dangerous frankly um farming conditions. And it was sort of a calculation of like, you know, we gotta have more kids to the farm can be staffed, you know, with family, and then also that the farm the family farm can be passed down to a two generations, you know, to carry on. Yeah, yeah, well said, and thank you so much, Cyborg penguin. This is something that I believe we've we've also explored in some previous episodes. Uh, the overpopulation fact and fiction is it's red meat for a lot of people, for a lot of the wrong reasons. Right when you hear the different arguments, Uh, it gets, as we say, very weird and hypocritical. In the halls of power, people will say a lot of folks should stop having children, and then they'll say, but my kids are fine, right, But that doesn't apply to me. The same problem with the corruption in the Chinese government regarding the one child policy. If you come um and a grarian background, then you realize there is there is a calculus to this. Right again, most people are incredibly intelligent. One thing we did miss, and I'm so glad to bring this up now, is that there are some pretty compelling arguments that have come out that overall the global population of human beings may be stabilizing. I think we made a pretty good case that the growth itself, the Malthusiant arguments have proven incorrect. But what we are seeing is really a problem of inequality of access to education, to resources, to healthcare, and that access, that problem has been so heavily propagandized and politicized that people are finding themselves in a weird situation where they're supporting they're supporting parasites at the very top of the financial ecosystem. I think I'm a word Saladin in a little but all to say, yeah, everything everything. Cyborg Penguin is saying, well, like, I'm I wasn't a part of that conversation, guys, I'm sorry I missed it. Um, I don't know. I So way are we saying overpopulation isn't a problem or released as big of a problem as I I feel like it is because I feel like the more human beings, the more resources you got to use, which means more trees cut down, more fresh water used, more plastic, more lithium everything. I think this perspective also speaks to a thing we talked about in the episode where it kind of course corrects to some degree over time. But you know, but again, it takes time for that correction to to set to be to be visible. Um, whether it be because of changes in generational thinking, around having children or there have been. You can speak to this. I'm sure other actors as well. UM, that will potentially cause overpopulation as a massive spike to really have us, you know, worried, sort of even out the freeze course correction, let's let's explore that for a second. So the real problem with humanity's population growth, which has been on a continued clip ever since the Black Death, you know, human beings took that one on the chin and then they just said, let's reproduce as much as we can. Um. The real problem is one of logistics, you know, it's one of what of expectation of quality of life. Consider for a moment that the average person needs somewhere between like three to four leaders of water a day, and a lot of people use way more than that, right, and a lot of people are not getting that. I would note that if you look at the world as it stands now, eight plus billion people, all sorts of terrible things are happening due to previous generations, right, and the way they treated resource allocation. Now, this population of eight billion people has to contend with the sins of the past while also asking how do we distribute these resources or in my case, how do they distribute these resources? And that's where the issue comes in. It's very easy to be a billionaire or a tycoon at Davos Economic Forum and say here's what we do to make everything right. But it's very difficult to be someone who says I need to feed my kids. My kids are part of my not just my family, but my livelihood. We all work this land together. That's the great danger, I think is the disconnect. Now, would planet Earth be better with far fewer people on it? I'm just going to be a jerk here and say yes, that's objectively true. But also the idea of painting it as a crisis situation as a means of advancing one zone wealth extraction or resource extraction ideologies, it's dangerous. It's misleading. And the people who are saying that are smart enough to know what they're doing. Okay, yeah, I hear you. It's uh, it's my own biases because I just heck skepticism. It's not too confident. Yes, no, no, not at all whatever, No no, no, no no. But just when I'm thinking about that standard of living at least in uh, in many parts of the West, I had this image of these open lithium minds where there are you know, tens of thousands of human beings attempting to extract tiny amounts of lithium individually so that they can support those families that you're talking about, so that the family Lea's in largely Western cultures can thrive with their phones and stuff. Right, So, like maybe it really is just it's kind of I think I heard you guys say the phrase on the on the episode eat the rich situation, Like maybe we really do do just need to coll the coll the wealthy people, which I would you know, all of us, I think I would know. I would include myself in there when it comes to just people who use too much but the wheel. Yeah. Yeah, it's difficult though, because again the course correction. This is a thing uh folks often don't like to talk about. But humanity is simply another example of another animal on earth. And as you can see historically, when a population exceeds a certain a certain threshold, nature itself will correct for that to retain its favorite thing, which is equilibrium. You evil ambulance or whatever you were, fire truck. I get a lot of non consensual lubers. I'm just gonna be honest. Uh so. But the but the point holds. You know, the problem here is one of the tragedy of the commons. For any fellow nerds out there, how does how do we handle a public good? Right? Uh? And the the other issue is one of cooperation. How can you get eight plus billion people to look out for the greater good and somehow prevent the most powerful of those eight billion people from doing some weird scheme to make them set their own lives quote unquote better at the expense of others. And Cybord paint I think we're talking about here is a brilliant observation that my village varies for people having these experiences. When we talk a little bit about replacement rate, right, for a population to remain stable, reproductive pairs produced two point one children, that accounts for mortality, accounts for everything such that the population will be stable. When you hear global statistics, right November, the eight billion person is born, I think we wish them happy birthday and when in an episode, happy birthday. Sorry, if we knew you were coming, we would have cleaned the place up a little. But what what we see there is that this population growth globally, that statistic can be misleading because it is not an even growth right places like India or Nigeria, right that that those places people are gonna have more than two point one kids. Places like Japan. Uh, the replace spent rate is no longer being reached. There's some pretty compelling arguments that globally a certain point population will decline. Um, And I think you know, no. One thing that was really personal for us for a lot of listeners was the conversation about why people may or may not decide to have a child after losing a child. And that is something that, Um, that's something I really appreciate about what you're saying, cyber Cyborg Penguin, is that that is as a personal decision, but also sometimes people in a very real way, I feel it is a necessary thing to do that that one must do this, you know, that one must put their feelings aside. And that's simply the reality of the world that can be driven by um reasons of economics, whether it means like like like he's talking about in terms of needing those hands to to to get the work done, you know, and so uh, stacking the deck in a way that you you know, in a time where maybe you might lose more than one child, you know, for various reasons, or maybe there are religious reasons where it's about you know, spreading the gospel or whatever it might be. You know, and that's your that's your responsibility to do that, so you do put your feelings aside. I think I was coming from it in my comments um as a parent, if I lost a child, I don't know. I don't think I would ever want to put myself in that position again because it would be such a heartbreaking thing. So I was coming at it from a completely emotional standpoint when I made that comment, or when I positive that that might be a perspective shared by others, because to your point, then it is very personal and there are a lot of different reasons. And this is something uh that I know we both actually all of us listening along as well the overpopulation episode really wanted your perspective on as well. It's an incredibly if goal conversation. You know, we have a lot of people with us today who have perhaps had to terminate a pregnancy right or had a pregnancy that didn't go to term for any number of reasons. How would you react to that the statement, um, you know, from from knowl from your side, the idea that it is a personal decision and it can be I mean there there aren't really words for it, you know, like how how how should what of our fellow conspiracy realist attempt to approach that situation? I mean it's the same thing as like asking yourself, how would you act in an emergency situation? You know, you hope that you would act a certain way, but given the actual realities of it, you might not act that way. You know that you think or that you wish you would. I see that. One lucky difference between those situations is that if you want to trust yourself in an emergency situation, the best thing to do is topeatedly drill and train such that it can hopefully become reflective muscle memory automatic. And you just don't have that ability in this situation where you lose your life like that. I don't I say sorry, I I wanted to interject that. But Matt, what are your thoughts? Um? I want to know your thoughts? So why don't you write to us? You can find us on social media. We are conspiracy stuff on many outlets like Twitter and Facebook. And YouTube. We are conspiracy Stuff show on Instagram and TikTok. Please please please check those out, follow us if you will. You can interact with us there for sure. You can also interact with us in other ways, that's right. You can give us a telephone call one eight three three st d w y t K, where you will hear Ben's voice inviting you to leave a message. You will have three minutes to leave said message. Tell us anything you want. Um also give yourself a cool nickname and you a well here your very voice appear on this program, this segment, this listener Mail Weekly Listener Mail episode. To make sure to let us know if that's okay, and h if you want us to hold anything back. And if you don't want to do phone or social or any of that kind of stuff, maybe you throw your phone in the ocean. Could on you? What about sending a good old fashioned email? We like those. We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they Don't want you to Know is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.