From UFOs two, ghosts and government cover ups. History is really with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to now. Hello, welcome back to the show of My name is Mac, my name is Noel, and I am Ben. I am Most importantly, you're here and listeners that makes this stuff they don't want you to know. Thanks so much. This is our last show of the year. You guys. The next time we come back it will be seen provided you know the various apocalyptic cults around the world are not correct this year, and that you know the world doesn't end. Yeah, December twenty one has already passed us, and a lot of times that's one of the dates that's used as this is when it's gonna end. So hey, we've made it so far, co team, so we also have we have something a little bit a friend for you today. Today, instead of looking at a specific topic or a listener request, the three of us are going to help you out for um. You know, many of you probably celebrate Christmas. Many of you might just get together at your family's house at the end of the year and you have that awkward moment where you're relatives that you see once a year, once every two years and really have nothing in common with other than the lottery of your jeans, and get together with them and you have to talk with like uncle Mike or Aunt Cynthia about something. Maybe you are uncle Mike. Yeah it was, Matt. Yeah, perhaps you if you look around and there's not an uncle Mike, it's you. And are you and uncle Matt? Do you have any siblings kids? I am an uncle Matt, uncle Matt. Yeah, yeah, I like it. I look forward to being the weird, creepy uncle at our gatherings from here to the future. And so Matt, this, this uh approach to a show was your? Was your idea? Do you want to tell them a little bit about it? Oh? Sure, yeah, I guess it was my idea. It was I was showering and thoughts happened, which you know sometimes they do sometimes and they don't we you do in the cream rents or were you? I was literally standing imagine me, uh, not awake, maybe ten percent awake, shower just going directly over my head and just go, oh, man, I wonder what I'm gonna talk with my family about. Because I've gotten over Christmas, because I've gotten into a couple of discussions recently with my dad where, uh, you know, it's not heated in any way, it's just I really want to understand where he's coming from, and you know, my own beliefs sometimes start to fight up against that. So I want to find a way that we can find common ground, some subjects that we can talk about that maybe won't get into any fights, but it'll make everybody think and hopefully generate some cool conversation. I think that is a very forward thinking, solid tactic going in to the battle ground that can be family holiday experience. Yeah, yeah, I don't. I think it's uh, I love you man, I do think the world of view. I also think that's incredibly idealistic that people will reach a common ground. Maybe it will happen, maybe there will be an end of the year miracle, but it's still it's still a fantastic idea and well intentioned to give you the audience. If you're looking for stuff to talk to your family about at the end of the year, then this will hopefully give you give you some I guess olive branches or some ammunition, depending on how it goes down. Some food for thought. Perhaps do you guys want me to go and get started with you know what I think you should. I think you should kick it off. Okay, well this is kind of starting at dark, which isn't my intention. But this is something that you can bring up that I don't think there is a side you can take that would make you like a combatant when you're discussing this topic. So the it's the Highway of Tears. It's something we covered this year, and it's a subject where the the bad person or the one side are literally murderers and rapists. Definitely, it's a kind of an equalizer really, you know, at least we can all admit hopefully that everyone at this table here not murderers. Yes, but but it's it's one of those things that a lot at least I it was brand new subject for me when it came up. I think Ben you had talked about it briefly maybe on car stuff, or you'd have been mentioned to you or something to that effect. So we got on Scott Benjamin who was your co host and on car stuff, and we discussed this topic about a highway in British Columbia where since nineteen sixty nine, women and girls have gone missing or were murdered. I think there's eighteen officially we said, but then there many more that are probably on there. You've probably heard the episode. If you have not, I would recommend checking it out, watching our video, then getting some of the information because it's it's a fascinating subject and there are things actually happening to perhaps help the situation up there. Um In the news, I saw a piece, just a quick thing about the First Nation groups getting together and coming up with just a refresher there. There is something sort of specific about this area that made it conducive to these victims being sort of easy targets. Yes, exactly. I don't want to rehash the whole episode, but but it's you should know that hitchhiking is a big thing there because a lot of the area people are just they don't have money to have a car and to get around places. But they also have to travel very long distances to get to where they work or to where they go to school. So what what's happening now? The British government is working to commit three million dollars to improve the public transit along this highway where a lot of this stuff happened. Are these highways. Uh, there's a it's a story from the CBC and let's see, they're gonna get one point six million over two years to enhance the transit services. But this is interesting in the in the article, it says with a in a cost shared basis with local communities. So I don't know exactly what that entails, and I couldn't get more details. It couldn't mean a couple of things. Maybe some sort of public option or yeah, some sort of public option to pay in tax. Uh. Specifically, this is a Yellowhead Highway six team between Prince Rupert and Prince George. It's a pretty rural area. Um, Matt, as you said, Uh, this is an episode that is a great equalizer. We we know this because earlier I had asked or we had asked uh folks on the internet. Uh, ladies and gentlemen, we asked you some of your favorite episodes of and that was one of the ones they kept coming up. It involves everything. There's corruption in the government, which now has some damage control applied. The problem I would say with this shared investment area, of the shared investment aspect is that in very impoverished rural communities, there's not as much of a tax base to draw on. So this what was the number again, Matt, thirty million, three literally just three millions, just three million. This is to improve everything from infrastructure of the roads themselves, to you know, the creating places where I think they call them transient what do they call them, transit transit shelters, so places where people would feel safe, and then putting webcams in their cameras lit bus stops. Yeah, exactly, yeah, I mean it's better than nothing. One thing we received a lot of mail about. We had a lot of Canadians reading, and Canadians sometimes you weren't even aware of the situation who live on the other side perhaps of Canada, which was really weird to me. It seems like it would be something that was more well known. But I'm glad that we were able to discuss it and put it out there. And I think, again, it's a dark topic, but it's one of those things that can really give some food for thought about how we treat specifically Native people's because this could go into all kinds of other conversations which maybe a little more harsh, harsh in the vibe, but you know, again, it's cool. I like the idea that you could talk about these things with your family. I hope that you can do you guys, mind if I do one please? Um. So this is of my three, this is probably the most neutral. I would say, Um, it's definitely dark, but I think it's definitely something that could be brought up and shared, and it's something that people could bring their own personal experiences with, as we experienced when we received an insane amount of mail about sleep paralysis and shadow people. And I mean, you know, I haven't been you know, on the show properly for very long, but in the amount of time I've been on, that's definitely been the hot button, you know, uh listener mail response that we've gotten for sure. And um, So that particular topic really resonated with me, just because it's you're in such a vulnerable place when you're asleep and you're um your mind is able to kind of run wild. You can take the anxieties of your day, of your week, of your life, and they are sort of translated into different scenarios. Dreams that can be you know, very clear, could be very abstract. There's all kinds of different ways that you can perceive these things. But when you start bringing into the equation this idea of like an alien other like coming into your you know, sanctity of your sleep, of your like you know, resting place, then it really starts to make you think, where is that coming from? Is it coming from outside of you? Is it coming from within you? And I just thought it was a really interesting topic and I really enjoyed talking about it, and UM I did a little looking into it seeing if there was any new studies, and it turns out there is. There's a psychiatry researcher at the University of Cambridge named balond Jelal and in his new study UM he looked at a hundred college students in Cairo looking for a correlation between stress, anxiety and depression and experiencing sleep proasis. And when we were talking about it, there wasn't necessarily a common factor that we were able to determine, and we from the mail that we got, it was all kinds of different people that were experiencing these symptoms, which, again not to rehash the episode too much, a lot of times included seeing um shadowy figures out of the periphery of your eyes, of your sight in your bedroom, or experiencing a presence that comes upon you and presses down on your on your chest and you know, sort of sucks the breath from you. And uh. In this study which he conducted in Cairo, Egypt with college students, UM, seventy one of the population that experiences sleep prolysis actually blame it on supernatural force. This and half of that seventy believe them to be caused by gin, which are to my understanding, ben evil demonic forces that have roots in Islamic mythology. Is that is that accurate? Right? So? This is this an interesting topic too. I thought about this as well. So I've had long had a fascination with the theory of jin, which while it's often treated as folklore in the West, in many areas in the Middle East, where in Islamic culture it is treated as a genuine phenomenon. The idea that Allah which we've talked about on the show, the idea that Allah made angels humans, and then the third and sapient species, the jin out of smokeless fire, not necessarily not necessarily evil creatures depending upon the culture or the context, UM, but in many ways filling in the role of what cre gins sort of the West would recognize as demons. Um. The most popular gin in Western culture is, of course Robin Williams as the genie in Aladdin, based incredibly loosely on several poor translations of A thousand and one Arabian Nights. So I'd imagine maybe there are benevolent gen and then there are evil gin, right, yeah, and there are different classes of gin, just like because they would have a they would have or do have according to the believers society, UM, that has the same hierarchical nature, you know. So that was the perception of this, uh, you know, the population that was um part of the study. But as it turns out that out of those who experienced sleep paralysis UM, and especially the ones who actually hallucinated like some of these more intense visuals and concerning shadow people and creatures UM, you know, invading their their space, he actually found that these people were more likely to have suffered from PTSD, anxiety or chronic worry. I see. Okay, so the mental state effects that as well. You know, we um, we had an interesting talk off air about something just tangentially related to this. Actually, uh, can I use this one instead of one of my three because this tangent is interesting enough, I think we should chase it. All right, So we've talked before in the past about the most fascinating and beautiful in some ways a phenomenon of mind and matter. Mind over matter proven to exist, and it began when it began, I think when Scott and Matt and I for various reasons, we're looking into a driving test that all the cavies in London you used to have to take because the knowledge you remember it. And the thing about the non college is that it's incredibly difficult, even in the age of GPS, and all these drivers must memorize not only landmarks and roots and back roods, but alternate routs. Uh. And the amount of spatial memory that they have to dedicate to this is, you know, is enormous. But what some studies have found is that long time black cab drivers or the really expensive classy caps for everyone outside of London, UH, those those drivers have the area of their brain that is dedicated to spatial memory is physically larger than average. Because they have spent so much time dwelling on this, it has increased the growth and the density of their brain in that area and Furthermore, we find the same thing with I am going somewhere with this guy's I promise we find the same thing with areas of the brain dedicated to pathy or what we recognize as compassion in long time meditators, longtime Buddhist monks. I don't mean just your casual I'm not napping a meditating person. I mean, you know, people who dedicate their lives to it every day, the same way that cab drivers are out driving these weird roots every day. So this sounds hunky Dorian friendly when we contemplate that good thoughts can physiologically change the nature of your brain, or even the size of certain areas of your brain. So it makes me think, no to this study, what happens to your brain if you spend every day worrying? You know, you spend every day angry or plotting revenge? Is there a dark side equivalent to this? Not to be too star Wars, but can you think yourself sith that's crazy. It's almost like the shadow people are manifestations of these worries that are creeping out of your subconscious and into your sort of half waking life, you know. I mean, I think that's why I'm into this this idea. Is there a snowball effect? Is there a positive feedback loop? Does uh, increase in PTSD equal and increase in sleep paralysis equal, and increase in anxiety equal and increase in PTSD and so on until your brain grows three sizes too long. You guys should see the magic the gathering section of my brain. It's crazy, man. Huge. The last thing, though, there was referenced in this this previous study that I mentioned an additional study, um and it involved looking at Cambodian refugees attending a psychiatric clinic, and forty nine of a hundred had at least one episode of sleep paralysis in the previous twelve months. Um and among the PTSD patients had monthly episodes of sleep paralysis versus fourteen point eight among non PTSD patients. So, I mean, it's just interesting to see this correlation. And uh, it's something that I can kind of wrap my head around, you know, because I've never experienced that. I believe you said you've never experienced a kind of sleep prowsies. Match, Ben, you haven't either. I don't believe you've been. We're not sure that's fair, right, UM, But you know. I mean, the mind sort of strives to explain away these kinds of things, and um, I think this is a pretty good place to look. Yeah. Well, it's another great topic to discuss with your family because I would just say, the number of responses, like you said, we've gotten are large, very large comparatively, so perhaps someone at the dinner table will have a story. I would not be surprised one bit. So what next, Matt. The next thing I think you can discuss is a cool topic that is a bit cavernous, but I think you can get through it and it comes up. They're really cool, little smaller discussions that you can have on the side. And that is the idea of the deep web or the dark net. It's and it's really cool, especially if you can kind of maybe talk to older people in your family about this kind of technology and explain to them, give them some visualizations about what it looks like. I think Ben, you used really good Iceberg analogy when we were talking about the deep web and all the unindexed stuff on the Internet that exists, and then comparing that to the darker sides of some of the places you can access with the onion router. And tour or or both, which is the same thing. And in my experience, it's that's something that a lot of people just don't know anything about. Even just to have like a basic discussion of what this is, I think is fascinating that it exists and all the litigations surrounding it, with the whole dread pirate Roberts thing and all that. Yeah, and it's a bonus that you can seem really smart and impress your people. Um, if you missed our conversation with Alex Winter, who made a documentary called The Deep Web, definitely would I would recommend going and checking that out. And made a cool little movie called Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. I heard something about that I don't know. Well this so this one is. He's made a couple of very cool documentaries and we had a chance to talk to him. It was I would say, the coolest thing that I did this year, Well, there there are a couple of really cool things. It's one of the coolest things sharp I got to do a really really really good interview. Definitely check that one out and put that on the playlist for sure. The Deep Web story that I always think of because it's kind of funny. Um. Is it also pertains to something else that's really interesting, which is just um, you know who's responsible for um? Artificial intelligence? Is it the person that created? Is the person that programmed it? Or once that thing makes a choice, are all that stuff? Um? There was a Swiss art collective called Median Group of Bithnik, which was a group of artists from I guess you could call them kind of conceptual artists that designed a robot art installation that they programmed too. They didn't tell it what to buy, but they gave it a budget of a hundred dollar as in bitcoins each week, and the robot randomly chows items off of a a service on the dark net called alphabet and it actually ended up buying some drugs. I believe it was ecstasy. Didn't it ship it to the installation? Wasn't that the thing? Maybe? Maybe that was something else? I think it was part of the installation? Was the were the items themselves if they were confiscated at the end of the day when this thing was shut down? But it sort of opened up this discussion of you know, who's responsible? Is it the you know, the creator or the consciousness called consciousness of the of the bot um. So I don't know remember that story, Ben do? Yeah, And it's it's a fascinating one because it also intersects with the future of consciousness. And I think you raised I think you got to the heart of the question there, nual philosophically, to whom is the punishment meted? You know? One last thing I'll add here without going too far into it, is the big question about the darknet for most people is does it actually work? Can you honestly be anonymous? And unless you are very, very talented and at least moderately lucky, the answer is absolutely not. The answer is very close to the Abraham Lincoln quotation about fooling some of the people some of the time. If you are routinely, aggressively proactively using something, and depending on the type of stuff you're doing, especially if you're uploading something, then your chances of getting caught UM rise stratospherically over time. And the reason this happens is because there is a pernicious, uh and dogged and unending um campaign on the behalf of not just our government but other governments to remove anonymity from the Internet under the guise of the great Boogeyman national security. This is this reflects my opinion, maybe not necessarily the opinion of my co host or the opinion of our company at large, but this, to me, it reflects the facts on the ground and the most fair way I can put them. We did a great episode with Jonathan Strickland's UM maybe in two thousand fourteen, about two fifty I can't remember, which about just how difficult it is to truly be anonymous on the Internet. We're talking about wearing a physical disguise, walking into a library in a different state, without bringing your phone, once using an assumed identity, and then never going back or being that fake person again. It is difficult, and you know, I feel I feel for a lot of the people who are maybe a little bit more secure and have a little bit more faith in their abilities to be anonymous than they should be. Just stay safe out there, guys. It makes me think of when you talk about, you know, how now difficult it's becoming to be anonymous on the Internet. There's a great book by Dave Eggers called The Circle, and it's actually being made into a movie, or it's they're working on it. UM is being developed and the crux of it is there's this Facebook meets Google esque giant conglomerate that basically owns the Internet, and they come up with this concept, um, in order to sign on to this service, this Facebook esque service that ultimately becomes the Internet in this book, UM, you have to be yourself. That's the only way to be a part of it. You can't have an alias. You have to have your one account that is tied to your identity and everyone knows it's you. And ideally it means no more trolls, it means no more mean comments on YouTube, it means all of these great things theoretically, but the way it plays out in the book not necessarily so great. I can imagine a super revillain being born from that so that everyone knows their infamy. Yeah, not only that. There's a thing in the in the book as it develops, and I don't want to spoil anything, but this is very very early on where they develop these cameras that people just start wearing everywhere, and they can place them everywhere, They can place them in uh different locations across the world, so that if there's any kind of social unrest or any kind of injustice is being done. It's constantly being broadcasts. Again, on the surface, sounds like a great idea, but it means more than that. It means that everything is just static, you know, like nothing can change kind of. I don't know. It's it's very interesting book. I recommended, Hili. I love that. Yeah, do you have a copy of can borrow? Actually did it on audiobook, but um, it would be a good, good late Christmas present. I really recommended. Like I said, you know, read the book before the movie comes out. Then you can talk. I talk about the book at family Christmas, and then when the movie comes out next year, everyone will be like, hey, little Johnny was talking about this book last year. Little Johnny has become Indeed, last little bit I want to add into this discussion that you might have is the statement by Hillary Clinton recently about a Manhattan project for encryption and basically breaking it or wanting to break it and having an initiative to do so. I didn't hear this the Internet. The internets, just like when CISPO was coming through and people and all that stuff, they are responding at least anyone who's interested in encryption and keeping information safe. They are responding with great vitriol to this. So if you are interested in that, just do a Google search for Manhattan Project. Uh and literally you will get all the news. It's it's pretty insane. And last thing, if we're talking about late Christmas presents, which I don't know I keep doing, but I guess I've been getting some good gifts this year. Um, have have you heard of the comics series The Manhattan Projects? This sounds familiar, but I don't. But I don't. I've never read it. I'll just give you the The basic premise is that Robert Oppenheimer, who created the atomic bomb, actually had a evil twin um who lived completely separately. They were separated at birth, but they grew up completely, completely separate environments. Whereas the real Robert up Robert Oppenheimer, you know, was educated and became a very well respected researcher scientist. His brother ended up on the streets and you know, in different psychiatric facilities, etcetera. But they had the same intellect. And the very first scene in the book is basically the real Robert Oppenheimer sign signing on for the Manhattan Projects and then his brothers showing up and murdering him and taking his place. And it's also set like in this kind of dystopian, weird sort of future past kind of scenario where like not like steampunk, but kind of like you know, it definitely feels like the time period that it's supposed to, but there are like aliens and there's weird technology and things were just a little off. It's sort of this alternate reality, alternate history kind of thing. Um. And it's ongoing, and it's in trade paperback. So that's a that's a really cool book I have. I'm not nearly in it enough as I should be, as much as I should be, but I recommend giving that a look. For sure. Writing it down sounds awesome. We'll shoat me onto another topic. Oh well, I don't know. UM, I guess I'm gonna call this the Ballad of Martin Screlling, because I don't know. It's such schaden freud, you know, but I just at the end of the day, it's it's entertaining to me. And it pointed out some really big, big issues with the whole big Pharma um machine. And uh, this originally kind of came up right around the time, um we did an episode on the Big pharma and UM just how a lot of the machinations and that business model you know, are a little bit inherently shady, and but they're not not necessarily um out in the open. And you have this kid, Martin Screlly, who essentially broadcasts everything that's wrong with this industry in the most you know, millennial oversharing kind of way, you know, just tweeting out all of these like responses to his critics. And if you guys don't know Martin Screlly, um is this I believe he's thirty thirty two years old, UM guy who has you know, done very well for himself managing pharmaceutical companies and doing these startup pharmaceutical companies. And he made the news, uh several months back when he raised the price of a very old drug that he had bought called dara prim that's used to treat toxoplasmosis, which is a is a condition that um is very common in general population, especially in France and well people that a lot of people that comes from cats. This is one thing that I always here and it's very can go unnoticed undetected in people that are healthy otherwise, but in cancer patients that are receiving chemo and have lowered immune systems and um AIDS HIV patients UM this can be debilitating, It can totally destroy their immune system, shut manage. I just basically, I don't wanna I don't wanna talk too much in um in this in this show, because God knows I talk a lot. But in Toxic we did an episode about toxoplasmosis regarding the nature of the infection, because there's compelling evidence that it actually changes people's personalities in terms of accelerating some forms of mental illness, just schizophrenia or paranoia, and it affects genders differently. So this is this is something that uh, this is something that I know there are a lot of stereotypes about France, but this is something that baffles a lot of people to to nose earlier point, ladies and gentlemen. Toxoplasmosis is not generally a lifelong infection, nor is it generally lethal, but it can change your behavior. So if you ever notice that your friend with a lot of cats it's getting to be a little bit of a shut in or even a little bit promiscuous, take care and blame Martin Screlly because it's going to be much more expensive for that person and to get well. It's true, and so um going back, that's that's interesting stuff for sure. I'm sorry. I have images now of of the crazy cat lady who's just very flirty, like overly flirty, but also just covered and cut here well, and they say too that like if you haven't, then cats are more attracted to you. I think we talked about this, Ben does that. I think that's true anyway that um So, this drug dar prem has actually been around since nineteen three and up until now, it's been believed to be the best treatment for this particular parasite. And um so Martin Screlly and his company Touring Pharmaceuticals, which he founded, um As, I guess I'm gonna use the term pharmaceutical startup, which to me is counterintuitive, like it just kind of like it seems like you should shouldn't be able to just start a pharmaceutical company overnight like you would an app or something like that. But that's just me. So Screlly purchased the rights to this particular drug and for his company and overnight raised the cost of it more than fifty five fold. And um, I believe it was something like, uh, seven hundred dollars a pill from like fifty dollars a pille. Yeah, And so there was this huge outcry overnight. He became you know what, folks are calling the most hated man alive, you know, and the Internet responded as they do with you know, pitchforks and torches in the form of hateful Twitter rants much deserved, and U Screlly just kind of doubled down and responded directly and this was like quoting rap lyrics and at his detractors and just didn't do himself any favors and just kept doubling down. That's the thing about the story that I find so fascinating because it's like you're seeing all this in real time, these things that the pharmaceutical industries don't want you to know about this guy. This kid is just like spilling the beans on all of this excess. I'm not saying that everyone's like this. They you know, there was a big pharmaceutical group that ejected him. The Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America, which is a large consort shim of different pharmaceutical companies, just completely threw him under the bus in terms of you know, saying that this is not our philosophy. This guy is completely counter to the way we do business. And while that's a you know, probably a smart pr move, I'm sure it's not entirely true. I mean, there's definitely some underhanded dealings that go on in any kind of business, and I would imagine in the pharmaceutical but especially because price gouging has been a concern politically for a long time and it's something that we still see. This to me, though, was just such a brazen example of this just in the public eye, someone that has zero filter, and uh, the story gets weirder, doesn't it. Yeah, the the whole live streaming thing, really, I don't know, maybe going yeah, well, but even before that, so, you know, so he did this thing with the drug and there was just a public outcry. You went on talk shows and basically said, you know, hey, I make money. That's that's what I do. That's my job. You can't hold it against me that I'm um charging what this particular drug is worth. You know, it's been under uh you know, it's been undervalued for this long and now based on you know, these calculations that me and my people have done. We've decided that it is in fact worth this and it is it is a you know, an equitable cost for this treatment, and you know how many based on how many people it effects, etcetera. So then he after I mean, Bernie Sanders was tweeting Adham, Hillary Clinton, you know, everyone just totally throwing this guy under the bus. He comes back and says, you know what, after some serious consideration, U decided that we're going to lower the cost um. But he doesn't say how much, doesn't say when, and then basically he changes his mind again and says, you know what, psych and completely lets it go. Not even basically that's exactly what he did. Yeah, So then this is the part where it gets real weird. Um, this guy has a kind of easy, sort of a music freak. He's really into collecting music memorabilia. Apparently he had as uh, one of Kurt Cobain's credit cards that he whips out at fancy cocktail parties to impress his friends. You know. Weird right, So um, he there was Guys out there may be aware that the Wu Tang Clan are really popular hip hop outfit that's been around since the l eighties early nineties, very very important group. A lot of people went on from that to have a very successful solo careers. Alderty Bastard, Um, the method Man, etcetera. And the head of the group the Rizza. UM does a lot of music for movies, Jim Jarmish movies, and UM did a lot of the music for the Tarantino films, the kill Bill series. UM. So they don't understand why, but their newest record, they decided they were going to make one insanely what's the word been, bespoke version. Yeah, just just like completely like gold you know, Philip Greed leather bound tome, you know, with like parchment pay bur with the liner notes and this. You see it. It's it's quite beautiful. But they didn't exactly put a price on it, but they were going to auction it off to the highest bidder, and the story dropped that it had sold because people were kind of making fun of this. They were like, it was gonna pay million dollars for a woot tang record, and then all of a sudden it's sold. And there's actually a lot of speculation for a while on the Internet that it was in fact Quentin Tarantino because he's a huge fan, has worked with Rizza, etcetera. Uh, no surprise, it's their boy, Martin Screlly. Yeah, what a freaking turn. I can't believe that that's who bought it. It was absurd. It was like this guy had already just been in the news just like becoming this this hilarious like super villain. And now he's gonna take the Woutang Clan record for himself. So so maybe he's he's riding high. Even though riz A clearly despises him and they have a public feud on Twitter, he still has uh, an album that many hip hop fans would likely covet. And uh, it doesn't end there, though it continues. It does continue, but just there were some quotes in this article where it talks where he kind of responds to his feud with Rizza. And I read this and I'm like, this is this real? Who said? Who would say these things? And yes it's real. Quote, I bought the album. There's a big bleeping check in Rizza an album producer Clevering's pocket. Now, um, and he says, this Woodchan Klan thing is starting to get pretty tense. You probably see that increasingly. I'm getting pretty frustrated by it. I bought the most expensive album in the history of mankind and bleeping Rizza is talking bleep behind my back and online. In plain sight, I'm just getting piste off. That's not the way I do business. If I hand you two million dollars, bleeping show me some respect, at least have the decency to say nothing or no comment. And that's not the end, either, is it. That is not the end. There's a There is a happy ending, I would say, although we don't really know how happy that ending is going to be. So last week, on December seventeenth, the Internet rejoiced when Martin Screlly was taken away from his Manhattan apartment wearing a gray hoodie and handcuffs by the FBI for supposedly allegedly defrauding his investors at the company that he had run prior to touring, called Retro Finn. And supposedly he had made some um investments on behalf of some folks and they did not work out, and so he was basically funneling money through the company allegedly in order to um put money back where he had taken it, you know, and to kind of make sure the investors. We're happy temporarily, but it was all just kind of like a you know, robbing Peter to pay Paul kind of situation security exact exactly. Um, he bailed himself out for five million dollars and UM now he's you know, awaiting, awaiting trial. And he basically has come out and said that all of this high profile, horrible behavior on his part was just a social experiment just to kind of see, you know, how people would react. It was a prank brouh. Yeah, I can I can see him ending up in South America somewhere. I mean, if you have two million dollars to spend on an album, you probably have the means to get a fake passport or even maybe a legitimate looking and perhaps actual passport. And the final blip in this story thus far is actually Um there at the end, right before he got busted. Oh and also there's a wonderful you can find this online. He live streamed several days of his life, UM, and a lot of it is him playing Xbox, playing guitar, chatting with UM high school seniors from his previous from the place he went to high school in New York. UM getting asked to the prom and you know, saying that he would give references to Columbia University of these particular students. Things like that. Um, really classy stuff. Um. He The latest story is that he was fired as the CEO of another company called Calobiospharmaceuticals that he acquired relatively recently. UM and did some pretty interesting financial gymnastics in order to inflate the price. And UM a lot of investors who were doing a short sale, right, Yeah, the definition would be the sale of a security that you don't own or that you have borrowed. And so your idea the motivation for that is, uh, you're making a bet that the price of the security is going to go down, so you can you can borrow it, sell it. It'll go down to a lower price, and you make a profit. So you can do it as speculation or to hedge the downside risk of a of a long game. So what actually happened was this particular company was about to go under and Screwlly Uh and his you know investors are touring, to my understanding, scooped it up and completely screwed that short sale. So they were investors that were betting that it was going to go down, and in fact the price of the stock and continued to rise. And so I was reading an article where a guy was talking about how he it was actually a message board that I found, um, where this guy was talking about how he uh now all of a sudden ode e trade two dollars just overnight because of this pet did not work out in his favor. And it's because of you know, this relatively shady transaction that Mr Screwlly participated in look good for the company though, right, maybe there are people who worked there. Don't let don't let me interject too much here, but what maybe it's better listeners, Um, I know a lot of people meet myself included, will to know when when we hear this abstract sort of removed financial talk. So let's root it in a physical object. The three of us are guys. Could you pick, like just an object of some sort of worth. Rubik's cube? Okay, so a rube excube. So here's how short selling works. So Noel has a rub excute, Matt does not. But Matt wants to make a little money. He wants to get a he wants to have a hustle. Right, but he checks, he checks where he lives and where he works, and it's Wall Street, so he can't just go out and sell bootleg DVDs. Instead, what he does is he borrows a rub Excute from Noel, and the rub excube at the time he borrows it is worth let's say, thirty dollars, and he sells this rube Excute to someone else, which unfortunately would be me in the equation, I'm the one getting swindled here, um, and I buy it for thirty dollars. But then the price of not just that rub Excute, but every rub excube in the world old or in town or wherever rube excubes are held, drops to fifteen dollars or even just five, and you're still making money. And so what Matt does then is buys another rub excube or buys the same rube exscue back from me if I'm completely getting screwed, and then returns your rube excube. No harm done, but he's got fifteen extra dollars. That's how it works, and I and I hope that's not um overthinking it, but it takes it's difficult at times to understand just the abstract terms getting thrown around without being in a physical object. It's not illegal, yes, and I didn't mean to imply that what he did was illegal, but it's just kind of, um it's the kind of thing that people you know suffer for. Yeah. Yeah again another, these are great things to discuss at the dinner table or afterwards. Think so too. And I mean this one if there's a lot of humor in this story, to me, I think it's you know, and it certainly could be something that if you've got a hardcore capitalist uncle, you know, it is going to be like, well, that's how it's supposed to be. You know, this kid did did absolutely nothing wrong. He's totally in the right, in the clear. But see, I think someone who's taking that perspective is going to just not like this guy because he's a young kid. That's the flame thing. And I was talking with our coworker Casey about this story. Um, he's been following it too, you know. And uh, in a similar with a similar kind of schaden freud kind of attitude is me because this kid, he's just got the most punchable face. You know, it's just you just want you want to see him go down because he's just so cocky. You just I mean and brazenly just unapologetic about this stuff. Um Casey was like, you know what, I bet that you know, you know he did all this stuff that is technically legal. Only now is he getting led away in cuffs because you know, he took some money from some rich folks on Wall Street supposedly, and that's what it takes. But why but why now? Because he's running his mouth too much. You know, he's spilling the beans too much. You know, people don't want this this out in the open on Twitter like this, like put him away at least scare him, get him to shut up, like you said, Maybe he just goes away, Maybe he ends up in uh, you know, the Cayman Island somewhere, you know. To be um, to be completely objective, it is true that this investigation was ongoing before of course before end. But yeah, I admit timings interesting. All right, now, you know it's winded down, you guys are everybody's getting a little tired. Everybody's skill us right now. Let's get heavy with it, but not the way you might be thinking. Let's talk about hallucinogens with the family. This is a cool topic that you can bring up from a clinical scientific angle. I guess you can discuss the things that we talked about with using hallucinogens. More recently has treatments for things such as PTSD, such as depression, and a couple other addiction addiction, addiction. We've talked specifically about addiction, so check out our episodes on this. I think it will be a great thing to discuss because there is somebody in your family who went to Woodstock. There's there's probably somebody who maybe was a bit of a hippie in your family back in the day. Uh somewh there was somebody that was working in the labs in Berkeley. Maybe one of your cousins is on acid right now, that's true, maybe you are on mushrooms. Who knows, probably not, hopefully not, but it I this is a cool subject to discuss, kind of the way we're talking about with the dreams, just the nature of consciousness, things big questions that are people a lot of times have cool opinions about and you might not know that you're let's say aunt or maybe even your mom, your parents have opinions about this that will blow your mind. I would highly recommend it because they're also I don't know the way draw are being treated in our country in particular, particular in the US and in a couple of other countries are really it's changing. And because the way our country in particular and several other countries throughout the world, the way we view drugs of the of this sort hallucinogens is really changing, and I think we're again maybe seeing the possible benefits as opposed to just demonizing them the way we did in the seventies and then ongoing from there. Well, not only that, I mean as a society, um, little by little, it's not a quick process, but we are, you know, having more discussion of things like drug courts and then treatment for addiction rather than just demonizing addicts as criminals. And you know, these things go hand in hand. I don't know necessarily we're going to be in a world where, uh, you know, harem antics are being treated with LSD, but it's an interesting conversation to have. They're definitely not in the same class, you know, Like we're talking about something that opens up pathways, you know, in your mind and lets you experience things in a different way, versus something that literally ravages your body and makes you dependent in a way that precludes you from doing pretty much anything else, and that's what you seek at all times. So I mean, I just think it's interesting that we are getting to a place where these conversations are more socially acceptable, and so why not try it out at the Christmas innesse the waters if you're brave. All the lucinogens are not created equally. There are several that are not just known but expected to uh impart a non enjoyable experience, something much more close to the revelatory act of waking up as Keanu reeves in the Matrix or excuse me, neo, I think it was supposed to be acting in that show and pulling the tube out of your mouth and realizing your pot in a giant machine world. Uh, in this this kind of revelation, these would be things like ahuasca, um ibu gain I think, or eyebo gain, which and maybe mispronouncing which is apparently a sure fire quit smoking aid as with other addiction as you guys mentioned. So there's a big difference between the recreational stuff and then the spiritual awakening stuff. And you know what though, if um as Matt said, uh, if you're if your relatives have already had experience with it. They'll know. I don't know. I don't know if this is necessarily the best dinner table discussion. But I did feel like I should mention it because when we did the episode UM a few weeks ago on Crisis Actors, I think I was probably the most taken aback in the room by it. UM. You know, I just find it a little bit difficult to wrap my head around how anyone could honestly believe some of these theories. The idea that you know, the Sandy Hook shooting, for example, was staged in its entirety that you know, UM, I just don't understand how you can look at, um, you know, the fact that children, you know, were killed, families were torn apart, lives were ruined, and say that this didn't actually take place. And I believe in the episode I likened it to, you know, Holocaust denial. UM. But in the news there was a Florida professor who was actually hired to teach a class at Florida Atlantic University on conspiracy theories, James Tracy, James Tracy in the video, and I think on here perhaps on audio, Okay, I don't recall that I'm sorry. At the time, he was a professor for Florida Pacific University. Well, as it turns out, he was canned, UM just completely because he was making some of these statements and you know, UM actually UM bordering on harassment of the parents of a six year old child who was killed in the shooting. And the statement that UM the university released is as follows. Today Jane Tracy, an associate professor in the School of Communication and Multimedia Studies, was served a notice of proposed discipline termination by the Vice Provost for Academic Affairs at Florida Atlantic University. And at the time, which was Saturday, UM today being Tuesday, December, this happened on the nineteenth. UM, he's had ten days to respond from that time. This actually came after the boy's parents, UM Lenny and Veronic Posner, wrote an op ed in a local newspaper, The Sun's Sentinel of Brownard County, Florida, and they basically said that Tracy had led a group of people, UM in you know, encouraging them to harass these parents about their part that they post supposedly played in this you know charade, and um, you know, to promote his conspiracy theories that the the event was staged, and they quote they seek us out and accused us of being government agents who are faking our grief and lying about our loss. So it's rough, and that sort of mirrors the my perspective on the whole thing when we were doing the episode, how I you know, I kind of felt a little taken aback by the whole concept. So yeah, interesting to see that development. And you're one of the nicest people I know, so for you to be a little bit taken aback, to me, it's the equivalent of someone else being profoundly offended. You know. We also received a number of tweets and emails regarding crisis actors. I don't know if you checked out the YouTube comments, but it is a very very um emotionally charged subject and on both sides, I imagine. Yeah, And you know, I really I want to speak directly to you audience. Uh. And I can't speak for anyone else, of course, but I personally immensely appreciate the feedback from the folks who I thought that we did a good job trying to address this topic because we don't we don't like to suppress anything. It's not the nature of this show, So we like to address everything to the utmost of our ability, which means critical thinking, which means looking at both sides of something and seeing what if any evidence exists on either one. We try to handle that respectfully, and I can say that I don't always get it right, but luckily enough we have we have you guys out there keeping us honest. All right, Well, guys, unfortunately it looks like it's also almost our our time and older. We have any said into the year music or any like bitter sweet like it? It's gonna be okay? Kinna is it sure? Nope? I don't like this? Turn this off? How about this? Yeah? There? Yeah? Maybe third tons yep, Oh that's it? Yep. Oh. Man. I have maybe three feelings a year, and I think this is one of them. So recently, uh SISPA, it's all that passed, which is an Internet surveillance bill which removes the protections that theoretically or nominally exist between your personal information is known by a private corporation and is known by multiple governments. So another thing that happens recently while we were all Twitter paid it over Star Wars is that Zimbabwe moved to make the Chinese one a legal currency. Aijian canceled in return all of their debts as edges the way on a little bit closer to being an international currency capable of combating the petro dollar. So stay tuned to your gas pumps. The petro dollars one that I wanted to bring up, but I thought it. I wasn't sure if it would be too much to discuss, but I feel like that's a great way to get in some of the larger ideas or the let's say the more uh, some of the more specific conspiracy theories. I think the petro dollar really brings things together as a way to discuss smaller things. Yeah, maybe I missed it because I was thinking things for um, the listener in seen it's it may be entirely possible that you say, Zimbabwe as a new as started using China's currency, And you know, I don't know if people at your holiday party will care, but well it would be cool if they did, because I think it's important world news. I mean, that's really great. I mean, at this point I would say the holiday meal is done. Everyone's Comma tos on the couch. You know, we're thinking about new year's let's think, let's give us some more what what are some things to be thinking about moving into What are the stories that the sea you're seeing the seeds of now that are gonna really take off? Sure? Well, of course you if you listen to the show, you're probably familiar with the various conspiracy theories regarding Donald Trump, which I talked about a little bit on periscope, and regarding Bernie Sanders, which no I believe you touched on in an earlier audio podcast, and both have some intriguing points to them. Stay tuned to that. If you are invest in US elections, you may also you may also wonder about how the situation in the Middle East will work out, Will they reach the tompt um at this point? And how ironic because I was working on an episode about prophecy and I got to release date wrong, So I I think I'm gonna stay away from predictions. Actually, um, no one really has a crystal ball in the Middle East. We do have some interesting stuff coming up about predicting the future, about gnasticism, several of these in the new year. Let's see what else from I touch on the nature of artificial intelligence or even magic and we have a well, I guess I'll let you in on the secret. We have a long list of topics suggested both by you, by sources that we go outside of the show, and things that we have found in our individual ramblings through the dark alleys of the internet and the places we travel. So we have a lot more in store for you on the way. I'd like to pass the mic to you, guys. Do you have any year in statements to our listeners before we bid them? Ado? Oh, I just want to thank you guys for having me on the show. Um, it's been a lot of fun and I look forward to uh doing and into the new year. And it's been cool passing from you know, the mixing desk into the booth. So I've been really really appreciative of the opportunity, and I hope everyone's been enjoying enjoying it. We love having you. It's fantastic to have a third person in here just to throw things off of. And you're really you're you absorb what we talked about in here really well and then you have ideas and throw them back out. So good work, all right. I'm sorry, I'm not gonna pat your back too. Much. But you're you're awesome, Noel. I think our people agree. Yeah, I mean no, it's no secret that we are not just work friends, were French friends. We hang out and do stuff and laugh at each other's jokes and whatnot. Also, you know, even if that were the case, even if you are my very best friend, even if you had saved my life in a shark attack or a car crash or a lottery deal gone wrong, or a shark crash or a shark crash, even if that happened, you wouldn't be on here if you weren't good at what you do. Well, you know, I feel the same way. And it's a lot of fun just chatting with you guys. And I think it's been fun just taking some of the cool conversations that ben you and I and Matt and you and I as well, and I'll three of us in at work and outside of work haven't kind of do it do it on the show. So let's I appreciate it, and I'm looking forward to next year. Heck, yeah, we're getting Uh. I love this. We need to do this again. Let's have a drunk podcast next year. Yes, yes, we'll clear it. We'll clear it with the higher outs. No, we'll just do it. I'd like to I'd like to add briefly. I know the podcast is going on too long at the moment, so i'll I'll make it short. But you, yes, you, you specifically listening to this are the reason this show exists in the first place. And we have been close so many times to this, uh, this thing not continuing. It has been endangered, it has been vulnerable all those other words people use for animals dwindling, right, it has. It has been in danger of cancelation. We have been in danger many times of being fired. However, somehow we made it, and all of our best idea is as ever come from you. Yes, you specifically, so we'd like to hear him. You can find us on Twitter and Facebook at Conspiracy Stuff. We are all over that place. You can also go to our website and that is stuff they don't want you to know dot com and that's where you can find blog posts, podcasts, every podcast we've ever done, every video that you guys have ever done, um and more. You can check out Periscope, dot tv, slash Conspiracy Stuff, which is where Mr Bolan normally does our stuff. We've got some guests who go on there got a dude named Steve who chills with Ben sometimes. I was Stephen Ben before. It was a lot of fun. Oh and uh, I just really quickly. I hope you've checked out our the meeting video episode. That was a whole lot of fun to shoot the other day. I really enjoyed being part of it. And I am a little worried that it looks behind the curtain but too much. But I think people can I don't know they can get over it now for all friends here. And lastly, if you don't want to do any of that stuff gives you the willies, whatever, bride a good old fashioned email. You can write that to conspiracy that house stuff works dot com. From one on this topic another unexplained phenomenon, visit YouTube dot com slash conspiracy stuff. You can also get in touch on Twitter at the handle at conspiracy Stuff.