Written By Will Grant
 

Patagonian glaciers are melting so fast they're literally uncorking volcanoes underneath them, a 16th-century doctor kept patient records that read like Harry Potter spells, 1930s engineers thought they could run society better than politicians, and Americans can now buy guns online easier than getting a decent pizza delivered.

Today’s stories prove that whether we're talking about natural disasters, historical oddities or modern conveniences, humanity has a talent for making everything simultaneously fascinating and terrifying.

When Global Warming Becomes Literally Explosive

Those massive ice sheets in Patagonia aren't just melting - they're unplugging volcanoes that have been sitting quietly under all that frozen weight. As the glaciers disappear, the pressure comes off these underground powder kegs, and suddenly you've got molten lava joining the climate change party.

Think of it as Earth's version of opening a shaken champagne bottle, except instead of getting slightly damp, entire regions might get buried in volcanic ash. Who knew that global warming came with a side order of geological chaos? Mother Nature really doesn't do anything halfway.

Medieval Medicine: When Your Doctor Was Also Your Astrologer

Deep in the weird corners of history lies the story of a 16th-century physician who kept patient records that look more like ancient spell books than medical charts. This self-taught doctor was documenting cases with cryptic symbols, astrological references, and what can only be described as medieval medical madness.

Reading these records makes you incredibly grateful for modern medicine. Back then, your treatment for a headache might have involved checking your star sign and mixing up some questionable alchemical brew. At least when today's doctors can't figure out what's wrong with you, they don't blame it on Mercury being in retrograde.

The Technocracy Dream: When Engineers Wanted to Save the World

In the 1930s, a group of engineers and scientists had a brilliant idea - what if rational, technically-minded people ran society instead of politicians? They called it technocracy, and their plan involved ditching money entirely in favor of energy units and letting data drive all decisions.

Honestly, looking at the current state of politics, these technocrats might have been onto something. Their vision of a society run by spreadsheets and scientific method sounds pretty appealing when you consider the alternative. Sure, it never happened, but imagine a world where policy decisions were based on actual evidence rather than whatever gets the most retweets.

The Digital Gun Shop: Amazon for Assault Rifles

Here's a fun fact that'll keep you up at night - there are more gun shops in America than McDonald's and Starbucks combined. And now, thanks to the magic of e-commerce, you can browse firearms online with the same ease as shopping for household appliances.

The digital marketplace has turned gun shopping into a casual browsing experience. You can literally add an assault rifle to your cart while ordering groceries and a new phone charger. It's the Wild West, except the saloon is open 24/7 and accepts PayPal.

From climate-triggered volcanic eruptions to medieval medical mysteries, failed utopian dreams to digital weapons bazaars - our world keeps finding new ways to be absolutely bonkers.

So, keep your minds open, your glaciers frozen, and maybe stick to shopping for socks online...

 

CHAPTERS:

00:00 Introduction 

00:39 Volcanoes Unleashed by Melting Ice

02:18 Historical Medical Records and Practices

02:49 Astrology and Self-Taught Doctors

03:58 Bizarre Medical Treatments

13:56 Dog Flatulence and Animal Farts

24:03 Technocracy and Historical Predictions

30:55 Technocracy: The Vision and Ideals

41:23 Plant Perception: Can Plants See?

47:20 The Surprising Number of Gun Stores in the US

52:39 Conclusion

 

  • [00:00:00] Will: Listeners, rod, I just wanted to inform you of some of the other wonderful benefits of climate change that are coming in our near future. So some researchers have been doing some work in Patagonia, modeling the glaciers and the big, the big ice, uh, ice sheet that they've got down in Patagonia.

    and what they've done, they've looked at, um, the last Big Ice age and when they all melted previously, that was about 18,000 years ago. And it turns out that, um, the ice sheet huge as it was, was sort of squishing the earth down and holding down, this is a metaphor here, holding down some volcanoes. So, so basically their, their, their theory is that as, as these ice sheets melt.

    you're gonna suddenly uncork is the term that you might think about for these volcanoes that could, uh, that sit under Patagonia. Now, Patagonia is just one of the big ice sheets. [00:01:00] They say, look, there are other places, north America, Canada, New Zealand, maybe a lot of Russia and Antarctica, where there are at least a hundred hidden volcanoes sitting under the ice.

    And the, and the cool thing there is once you uncork them, they bring back more feedback loops where more volcanoes, more climate change. It is time 

    [00:01:33] Rod: for 

    [00:01:34] Will: little bit of science. I'm will grant associate professor of Science communication at the Australian National University.

    [00:01:40] Rod: I'm Rod Lambert, say, 30 year science communication veteran with the mind of a 15-year-old boy and the heart of a very sad human after that. Thank you.

    [00:01:47] Will: you. I thought you were sad for Ozzy Osborne.

    [00:01:49] Rod: I'm very sad for Ozzy Osborne. We're recording this. Not very many hours after the Prince of Mayhem and darkness himself. Tod off at 76

    [00:01:59] Will: today. [00:02:00] what are you gonna do? You wanna laugh at the past?

    [00:02:02] Rod: I'm gonna laugh at the past.

    [00:02:04] Will: I've got a, did you know there's a Wikipedia page for that?

    [00:02:06] Rod: Oh, I'm gonna do a little bit of, uh, tech disruption, same manure, different trial. and I'm gonna do a brief mention or a hat tip to e-commerce. 'cause what's more exciting than e-commerce? Nothing.So, uh, late 1590s through about 16, 10, 15,16, 10 ishdoctrine, his protege produced one of the largest surviving sets of medical records in history. As in they survive now huge amounts of documentation.Like, 

    [00:02:33] Will: like patient records? Yeah.

    [00:02:36] Rod: Observations and biographies and stuff. The main man was a fellow called Simon Foreman. You know, the guy went on to open a chain of hardware stores across, uh, the, the,

    [00:02:45] Will: no, he didn't, no. You, you tell the factualbit 

    [00:02:47] Rod: told the 

    [00:02:48] Will: the factual bit. 

    [00:02:48] Rod: Oh, the factual bit. He was an astrologer and a self-taught doctor.

    [00:02:51] Will: They,

    [00:02:51] Rod: They,

    [00:02:52] Will: they are, they are famously not quite the good 

    [00:02:55] Rod: one. My understanding was he's quite a well qualified astrologer.

    [00:02:58] Will: look. [00:03:00] Yeah. Well, you can be self-taught there. Look, I don't mind self-taught, you know, fitter and Turner, Tyler, uh, Tyler, you know, woodworking, get a musical 

    [00:03:08] Rod: instrument. Ler, I, 

    [00:03:09] Will: I, I just, I just think self-taught doctor.

    [00:03:11] Rod: well, 1590s, 1610s, I 

    [00:03:14] Will: it. I, there 

    [00:03:14] Rod: there was a college of physicians, so he turned to medicine after he claimed to have cured himself of the plague in 1592. Oh, okay. Yeah. So he is like, I, I did that. The College of Physicians in London said 

    [00:03:26] Will: mm-hmm. No, he didn't mate. Mm-hmm.

    No. Did, did he, did he offer a method that he cured himself of the plague? What's

    [00:03:31] Rod: What, what? It's, it's proprietary

    [00:03:32] Will: Well, not everyone that got the plague died, so no.

    [00:03:36] Rod: there, I know, and people forget that some,

    [00:03:38] Will: people forget that, you know, people catastrophize the plague.

    They're like, they're like wines.

    [00:03:44] Rod: Little whinges. The pla, it didn't kill everybody. so he said this to the College of Physicians, said, can I join? And they said, N no. So he said, 

    [00:03:54] Will: Fol 

    [00:03:54] Rod: ol official quote, written in dy English with too many wires. He established an [00:04:00] astrological practice and he used the stars to diagnose and cure everything from diseases to hauntings. 'cause you cure hauntings.

    [00:04:07] Will: I would, I I like that.

    [00:04:09] Rod: that. I do too. It's like, I'm, I'm

    [00:04:11] Will: doc. I've got a, a haunting.

    [00:04:13] Rod: Yeah. Here, take this pill and let me bleed you from the, uh, between the toes using

    [00:04:17] Will: this paper. 12 leeches in your eyes. That'll get rid of the haunting. Yep. You gotta suck out the ghost.

    [00:04:22] Rod: So his protege was also a, a, a fellow.He was a country erector.

    [00:04:26] Will: What?

    [00:04:28] Rod: So priestly chap Richard Napier. So Foreman really liked writing things down and mentioned there's a large body of work. So he recorded a lot of his life in autobiographies, which is, you know, good for him, which included apparently eye witnessed accounts of him seeing some of Shakespeare's play.So that's kind of cool.

    [00:04:43] Will: Hey, that's awesome.

    [00:04:43] Rod: Yeah. Can you imagine coming home and like, saw this thing taming of the ro didn't quite understand it. Yeah, he didn't, he didn't listen. It was drug 

    [00:04:50] Will: yeah, 

    [00:04:52] Rod: but more fun. He and Napier used to co-write super detailed case notes and they got to about 80,000 patients and they wrote [00:05:00] it down 66 volumes.Uh, I think clothed in calf skin, so, you know, you really want meat covering your books. It's really good for that. and apparently they contain thousands of pages of cryptic scrawl, full of astral symbols, recipes for strange elixia. Details from the lives of lords and cooks made suffering with everything from dog bites to broken hearts. So that's cool. Shit. Loads of stuff.

    [00:05:24] Will: Shit. Yep. Yep.

    [00:05:25] Rod: But, uh, according to a professor of history, philosophy of science, uh, Lauren Cael says, Napier produced the bulk of preserved cases, but his penmanship was atrocious, and his records were super messy.

    [00:05:37] Will: Seriously, Hey, could you imagine 300 years in the future? You'll get it.

    You're getting your penmanship critique. I I, I'm sorry,

    [00:05:44] Rod: You call this quills,

    [00:05:45] Will: I, I I wrote down 80,000, uh, records for you. And you're like, I'm sorry. They're not very neat.

    [00:05:50] Rod: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I mean, the smogs and stuff. So foreman's writing is strangely archaic. She says like, he'd read too many medieval manuscripts. I'm like, oh, it's in the 15 hundreds.[00:06:00] 

    Give him a break. Do. and she goes on to say, these are notes only intended to be understood by their authors. And again, fair enough. They're medical records

    [00:06:07] Will: like, I'll, I'll, I'll make DaVinci. You know, He he'd write, he'd write his backwards mirror writing so people couldn't 

    [00:06:12] Rod: read. Yeah. 'cause there were no mirrors then So, um. This is why I took the, it took the researchers at Cambridge is by 2019 this report came out. It took them 10 years to t trawl through all the books. Transcribe them, edit them, and digitize them. And they're available right now. You can go and look at them. I'm, I'm gonna give a web address because people who listen to this program podcast form. I know. Are you 

    [00:06:31] Will: you just gonna put it in the show notes? No.

    [00:06:33] Rod: case casebook. Do lib.cam ac do uk Do you catch that? Good. It's 

    [00:06:38] Will: the show 

    [00:06:38] Rod: notes. It's in the show notes, but they're there. I had a little look and there's a lot. And it's fun. So Cassel the professor, she says she hopes this will quote, open a wormhole into the grubby and enigmatic world of 17th century medicine magic and the occult for the browsing public. And there is a huge demand, obviously for the grubby, um, and enigmatic world of [00:07:00] such things. And it did, it did open that, wormhole. So what that means is we can talk about some of the fun treatments and case studies that were 

    [00:07:06] Will: in there. It's 

    [00:07:08] Rod: So there was one John Willson whose hair was lost to the French disease. Now what do you reckon that is? It's gotta be venereal in some 

    [00:07:16] Will: ways. It's gotta be, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. France Or smoking too many cigarettes. It's, it's like you've gotta camel rich. Yeah. Okay. It's a

    [00:07:23] Rod: Was and the cream and I,

    [00:07:25] Will: I. No, the French disease, like the French letter, it, 

    [00:07:29] Rod: it's a French, you know.

    Yeah. It's to, it's to do with matters of the, the pants. 

    [00:07:33] Will: do you know what the 

    [00:07:34] Rod: disease No. I don't.

    [00:07:36] Will: So you're not gonna

    [00:07:36] Rod: confirm it's the French disease. And the reason, uh, John Willson was there is 'cause he was being treated for a, um, thrust with a rapier in his privy parts.

    Well, yeah. So stabbed in the dick with a sword and then went, by the way, you've got syphilis.

    [00:07:49] Will: I think general area, like it could be the butt, 

    [00:07:52] Rod: the privy 

    [00:07:52] Will: parts includes butt. does it? Yeah, it anything that you gotta go to the privy for either. Either number ones or number [00:08:00] twos includes the privy parts. Like it is not necessarily in the 

    [00:08:03] Rod: dick. I'm thinking, ding-dong. Why would you stab someone in the butt when you can stab 'em in the down the

    [00:08:07] Will: um, no, you don't always get a choice about where you get to stab someone. You know with UIA like

    [00:08:12] Rod: rapier too. That's very accurate.

    [00:08:16] Will: Straight, straight down, main street. Like it.

    [00:08:19] Rod: Whoop, didn't even touch the 

    [00:08:20] Will: sides. 

    [00:08:21] Rod: Congratulations. By the way, you now got syphilis. 'cause I infected the sword.

    [00:08:25] Will: Oh, it's like a bad circus. Like some sort of, oh, Jesus.

    [00:08:29] Rod: I, I'd go and see that. That's damn

    [00:08:30] Will: I would not. I, I, 

    [00:08:32] Rod: I like, we need a volunteer stand. Very, very still. Are you ready, wooing? Um, Joan Broad book, thought her children to be rats and mice. She was just convinced that

    [00:08:44] Will: children are rats and mice. Like,

    [00:08:45] Rod: No, but she meant literally.

    [00:08:47] Will: Oh, okay.

    [00:08:47] Rod: Edward Cleaver who is recorded as having, ill thoughts such as, I love the spelling of this. Kiss Mine Arss. Kiss mine Arse.

    [00:08:55] Will: Is that, that's not a thought, that's an expression. 

    [00:08:58] Rod: ill thoughts. Well, it wasn't [00:09:00] then Maybe he started 

    [00:09:00] Will: it. I do like kiss mine arse.

    [00:09:02] Rod: Yeah, mine Arse is grammatically appropriate for the time and apparently the physicians note this probably down to witchcraft by a neighbor who has been suckling her puppy a 12 month since. So there's a witch neighbor who.

    [00:09:15] Will: who suckles her 

    [00:09:16] Rod: puppy 

    [00:09:16] Will: breastfeed dogs. I think we, we are, we're, I think we're bury the lead here. Like there's a lady that's breastfeeding her dogs.

    [00:09:22] Rod: Like

    that. Yeah. But she didn't come in to complain about it. That's just a hobby. You don't go to the doctor. I'm suffering from a 

    [00:09:27] Will: hobby. I, I,

    [00:09:30] Rod: I, I really like trains. It's not a reason to go to the doctor. Yeah, fair enough.

    [00:09:34] Will: Yeah, fair enough.

    [00:09:35] Rod: John Savage of North Lane apparently was devilish minded, sorry, not John Joan much whipping, uh, bedlam, whipping and cruel dealing, made her senseless and worse than before, said the notes mad since wi tide, which is, I dunno, period.

    [00:09:49] Will: Sorry, I lost the thread on all of that. Like,

    [00:09:51] Rod: So she's basically crazy as shit. Okay. Whipping her in stuff didn't help. Well, she'd be mad for quite, I know, I'm, I'm, I'm amazed too, how did that not 

    [00:09:59] Will: help? [00:10:00] 

    [00:10:03] Rod: But we whipped her in everything. She still seems crazy. It's fucking idiot. You know,Would you get saying,

    [00:10:12] Will: You know, people hang shit on Freud and it's 

    [00:10:14] Rod: like they do, you 

    [00:10:15] Will: you know, you know, he's, he's not in the whipping people to sanity sort of world. Yeah.

    [00:10:20] Rod: Oh. He didn't live long enough to explore all his ideas. Um, apparently she'd been mad. Yeah. Since Witson Tide, which I think is a, I dunno, festival or something.

    [00:10:29] Will: No, that's the famous way of marking the days of the week back then. Whitson Tide. Yeah. This is Witson Tide.

    [00:10:34] Rod: Oh yeah. It's Hump Day Witson

    [00:10:35] Will: the odds of March. Like it's the witson tides

    [00:10:37] Rod: The odds of March didn't come around every week.

    but apparently ever since she's been tied with chains and his ravenous of.

    [00:10:42] Will: meat,

    [00:10:44] Rod: So whipping didn't work. So chain her up and give her 

    [00:10:46] Will: meat. Great, 

    [00:10:47] Rod: Yeah, I know, I know.

    [00:10:49] Will: So that's how it was Remedy. Okay.

    [00:10:51] Rod: It was a remedy for her. Craziness. They would also sell, counter spells. Yeah. Because, you know, harmful against, harmful or suicidal thoughts because they're probably caused by [00:11:00] witchcraft or demonic possession. You know how it is. We've been there. Most popular treatments, purges. So puke stuff, fortifying, brews. God knows what's in them, but probably a 

    [00:11:10] Will: lot. What, what are we fortifying here?

    [00:11:12] Rod: the, the soul, the spirit. Yeah, exactly. Uh, and the gesture you are making for

    [00:11:16] Will: you need to like, it's like Popeye's, spinach. You're gonna lift a train or 

    [00:11:19] Rod: something like that. Yes, yes. You 

    [00:11:20] Will: a 

    [00:11:20] Rod: a tray. Yep. Fortifying brew. Which, so probably full of horrible things. Bloodletting obviously the touch of a dead man's hand.

    [00:11:26] Will: Whoa. That's a cool, cool treatment. I would be loving that. Like I, I go in there for whatever I got. My teeth are hurting or I got some blisters on my,

    [00:11:35] Rod: I've got the 

    [00:11:36] Will: and, and there's like a, a, a stored dead man to

    [00:11:40] Rod: well, remember they take, we're gonna go, we're gonna go on an outing.

    [00:11:42] Will: And do you, do you so it up like when you go, okay, the dead man didn't work, so we super it up and it's a dead child. Like, like do you? Yes. Do you go, okay, this is really super creepy. Let's get the

    [00:11:52] Rod: Yes. And not just their hand.

    [00:11:54] Will: No. Come on man.

    [00:11:55] Rod: Could be their arm. My favorite is pigeon slippers.

    [00:11:59] Will: [00:12:00] Slippers for pigeons.

    [00:12:01] Rod: Flip that around. It is literally what it sounds like.

    [00:12:04] Will: of course, one often looks at a pigeon and says, I would like to put my foot inside 

    [00:12:08] Rod: that Yeah, yeah, yeah. keep it warm.

    Basically it's a pigeon slit and apply to the sole of each foot.

    [00:12:14] Will: fie.

    [00:12:15] Rod: So you literally cut a pigeon open where, where it is slippers and suddenly your hemorrhoids are gone or

    [00:12:22] Will: your theory on that? Like what's your theory is gonna work here? Apart from, I mean, if you've got blisters on your feet or you know your feet are being burnt or something like that. Maybe. So

    [00:12:31] Rod: murder an animal horrifically and where it is, clothes is not my go-to.

    [00:12:36] Will: I mean, they're available. So

    [00:12:38] Rod: I was thinking that too.

    Like there were a lot of pigeons in England. Yeah. For a long, long time they did like to eat them. So maybe after you No, you wouldn't wanna eat them after they'd been slippers. anyway, uh. Napier, the, the protege continued the practice for a while and he liked to also, he added, he made it his own. 'cause he used to get second opinions from 

    [00:12:54] Will: angels. Well, I 

    [00:12:56] Rod: I do that. Being, being a rector. So he would get things like, [00:13:00] uh, one, one occasion he was trying to help a patient out and he was told after having a chat with a, a spirit, he would die shortly. Said, thanks.

    [00:13:08] Will: I few doctors, I mean,

    [00:13:10] Rod: Yeah. And another one, uh, I should not meddle with him. So don't, don't get treatment, because he was advised by the Archangel Michael to don't get involved in this particular curative.

    So anyway, look, this is a great story about the joy droppingly, crazy things humans did in the past, which I really enjoy, obviously, and always have, but also the effort that the Cambridge people went through for over a decade to transcribe and digitize this like, huge tip of the hat for that, because thank you for giving us 15 minutes of fun.

    [00:13:41] Will: All right, well I got a little bit of, um, old timey for you. but it came to me a little weirdly. So this is, this is my, did you know there's a Wikipedia page 

    [00:13:48] Rod: for that 

    [00:13:49] Will: and, uh, 

    [00:13:49] Rod: I gotta say, without even knowing what the topic is, my first response would be, of course there is. Oh,

    [00:13:55] Will: yes, of course there is. Of course there is. Um, So, a few weeks ago, yeah. you and I were [00:14:00] discussing the virulence, the power, the stickiness of a dog fart. it's true. Uh, yeah, exactly. It, it moves, it moves with viscosity more like honey than, uh, than your typical vapors. and, you know, you could be sitting,

    [00:14:15] Rod: I'm thinking more like a, a frack shale coal extract, honey. Makes it sound too nice. Yeah.

    [00:14:20] Will: Okay. Fair enough. Uh, but, but you know, you could be sitting on a, on a couch with, another person. Mm. The dog farts literally centimeters away from you and you can't smell anything. And, but there you are inside the cloud of 

    [00:14:32] Rod: death. And then an hour later, the person in the other end goes, what the fuck was that? And you're like, the dog fighting yesterday

    [00:14:37] Will: crawls over like a, like an evil caterpillar. Yeah. Um, anyway, I thought, you know what, I'm sick of this. I, you know, the dog farted again recently. And I'm like, okay, I, I, twice this year, I, I want science to answer this question for me. So I, I went out there and thought, what can I find on first, you know, dog farts?

    And I thought, I know you've gotta change that to flatulence.

    [00:14:57] Rod: against, I, I hope you use someone else's computer.

    'cause what, what if you're [00:15:00] associated with it?

    [00:15:00] Will: search man? On or off? No. You use the browser mode. What's the browser? The hidden hidden browser. 

    [00:15:05] Rod: Private browser. Private. Sneaky, no one knows mode. 

    [00:15:07] Will: Yeah. I couldn't find anything literally on this, the, the best I could find. It's, yeah, it's weird. It's weird. There's a huge gap in the market Honors project for someone in some field, but I don't know. the best that I could find was a New Zealand paper from 1998 Kiwi. Wait, wait, wait. Called Flatulence in Pet Dogs. they asked 110 dog owners if their dogs farted. 47 of them said 

    [00:15:29] Rod: yes, and the others were 

    [00:15:30] Will: were lies. Yeah.

    that's, I'm, I'm weirded out 

    [00:15:32] Rod: by that. All dogs fart.

    [00:15:33] Will: it occurred more often in less active inside dogs than those that exercised more often, which, which suggests to me they're just farting 

    [00:15:39] Rod: outside. or Yeah, yeah. It was observed more often. Not occurred 

    [00:15:42] Will: often. Yeah. Uh, no individual food or dietary association was identified. 19 of the 47 flatulent dog owners would alter their dog's diet if the change would reduce flatulence. But conclusion of the study, and I literally, it says in the conclusion. Flatulence occurs in pet dogs.

    [00:15:58] Rod: Well done.[00:16:00] 

    [00:16:01] Will: Thank you. Thank you. That was published. So, 

    [00:16:03] Rod: look, uh,

    [00:16:03] Will: uh, look, the other bit was most owners accept flatulence and are unconcerned about its consequences. Like, fine,

    [00:16:08] Rod: Well those are two conclusions I really 

    [00:16:09] Will: needed.

    Like you published that, that's great. But, so as I was, as I was writing, one of the other things that came up, I'm not sure if I can call it a study, but it's a collection of scientists gathering information. Yeah. Was, um, what

    [00:16:22] Rod: a collection of scientist is called? The study of scientists?

    [00:16:24] Will: Maybe, maybe. Um, was a great database. There's great, there's great fun to look at. It's not huge. uh, called Hash Does it fart, which was from, uh,

    [00:16:32] Rod: uh, stop. We have to pause. I, I have to read all of it from

    [00:16:36] Will: Well, I'll give you some highlights. Thank you. But, um, it was, it started as a joke on Twitter and people are like, oh, that's actually worth collecting as biologists does that animal fart. do you wanna have a guess which animals do and don't?

    [00:16:49] Rod: Ooh, which animals don't Is is more tricky. I'm, I'm gonna go leches, don't fart.

    [00:16:54] Will: Ah, leches don't, uh, probably not. 

    [00:16:58] Rod: let's say in [00:17:00] invertebrates more 

    [00:17:00] Will: broadly. Yeah. Invertebrates low on the farting.Okay. Not the only ones. So, so generally, generally copus,

    [00:17:09] Rod: acaia, propter, wait, no 

    [00:17:10] Will: mosquitoes. Uh, I don't have mosquitoes. Um, generally mammals are definitely reptiles. Reptiles are farts. Um, oh hell yeah. Uh, birds and birds are no, birds are non farts.

    [00:17:22] Rod: that holds, doing a lot of work on its own already. It's a multifunction.

    [00:17:25] Will: It can't be a trier like, uh, worms, clams and crabs. No. Uh, unsurprising now, like I think 

    [00:17:31] Rod: of a crab clam 

    [00:17:33] Will: fart. Clam. Ah, 

    [00:17:34] Rod: running horror. Like seriously, that's apocalyptic. A clam fighting would just be the 

    [00:17:39] Will: end of the universe. So, so this database has a great list of, of of 

    [00:17:46] Rod: animals 

    fire. We're calling it a database. Are we

    [00:17:49] Will: Yeah. Okay.

    [00:17:50] Rod: collection of anecdotes around

    [00:17:53] Will: Yes,that's true.No collection. Yes, definitely collection of anecdotes around drunken scientists. So, uh, I'm not gonna read 'em all. I've got, I I [00:18:00] just liked a few of them. So rhinos sounds wet. 

    [00:18:03] Rod: Uh, yeah. And also probably like, like 14 tubers in, in an echo chamber. 

    [00:18:07] Will: Come on.  Giraffes, noted for the fact that they fought at the face height of a man or, or like, I guesslike, say 

    [00:18:15] Rod: doesn't take exactly. So what that was under the title of the paper. How high is a drafts date?

    Yeah,exactly You're like, like, man.

    [00:18:20] Will: Yeah, exactly. That's how they measure it. spiders. No

    [00:18:24] Rod: No,

    [00:18:25] Will: broad, no. Wait, wait, wait. Broadly assumed to be yes, but never really proven. So there is, there is a research of spider fart.listen. Hard. Spider fart. How are we detecting that?

    Um, snakes were the one that got me. So some snakes up appear? No, but, uh, the Burmese python, often silent, but deadly, thick and meaty. Ooh, if it were a color, it would be brownish. Yellow. 

    [00:18:54] Rod: Pythonfart. Python fart. Like 

    [00:18:56] Will: I, it's a punk band. 

    [00:18:58] Rod: Uh, I

    [00:19:00] don't know. 

    [00:19:00] Will: it's a it's a kids' 

    [00:19:01] Rod: punk band. Didn't 

    [00:19:02] Will: That was a good one.It's,

    [00:19:03] Rod: a, you need to

    [00:19:05] Will: um, herring two. Here's, here's, here's, here's two more. So 

    herring 

    [00:19:09] Rod: up there with clam. You don't want a herring fart.

    [00:19:11] Will: Well, entire bays are filled with their farts. Apparently. You get a, a giant school of herring and you can, you can get wafts of

    [00:19:20] Rod: It's just one colossal gas 

    [00:19:21] Will: bubble of yeah, 

    [00:19:22] Rod: yeah, 

    [00:19:22] Will: yeah. But, but also apparently used for communication. I don't have any more DA data on that

    [00:19:28] Rod: among each other. Or basically Go away. Leave, leave us alone. We are 

    [00:19:32] Will: here. I I have no idea what it's used for. This 

    [00:19:35] Rod: could know, hearing studies

    [00:19:36] Will: not answer all the questions, but the, the last one, uh, termites, termites, termites fart a lot. and maybe a significant contributor to 

    [00:19:43] Rod: climate change.

    Look, and also, I'm gonna say if a termite farts, they probably use it in building products because basically there's nothing they do with their bodies that they can't turn into something.

    [00:19:51] Will: They are an industrious little, well, they're also a, a deconstructionist, 

    [00:19:55] Rod: uh,yeah. But they use deconstruction to construct. That's true. So they probably fart as a way, as a [00:20:00] curative for the inside of their hives.

    [00:20:01] Will: Mm-hmm. So, that database is out there, does it fart? And obviously, you know, we still need to know how bad they all are and why they're bad. probably. Diet would be a big part of this. But the interesting thing when I was reading this there was a bunch of articles on the Desert Fart database, which, which was turned into a book a few years ago. and the articles were saying, here's the announcement of the book. Yeah. And then there was this picture of this like, it's like a, you were laughing at old people. Mm-hmm. Um, old 

    [00:20:26] Rod: timey 

    people No, I wasn't laughing at old people.

    [00:20:28] Will: Yeah. Old timey

    [00:20:29] Rod: I'm turning into one. I can't laugh

    [00:20:30] Will: people. Yeah. We, we all are people in the past and there was this great picture, of like, I think it's, it's a 17th century engraving of someone looking rather happy while he uses his microscope to look at a picture of a 

    [00:20:43] Rod: monkey photo. It looks like a baboons date over a sson burn while it looks at things which isn't safe.

    [00:20:48] Will: Yeah. I, and, and so he's looking rather quite joyful at the idea of looking at this monkey

    [00:20:53] Rod: party. Yeah. But, but that of the era that faces between joyful and sinister as many pictures were

    [00:20:58] Will: No, definitely. He's, he's [00:21:00] right on the bit between. Is that sexual or is he 

    [00:21:02] Rod: just enjoying it or The fact that he's seen it fighting makes him think Now I think this beast 

    [00:21:06] Will: could be delicious. 

    [00:21:09] Rod: Like it's definitely 

    [00:21:10] Will: sinister. the thing that happened then in my, in my weird journey this afternoon, was that I was like, where's that from? like why is someone spending this is an engraving. It takes a long time to do it engraving. You gotta, you gotta,

    [00:21:22] Rod: that's true. Someone going, you know what, 

    [00:21:24] Will: someone said, 

    [00:21:25] Rod: I 

    [00:21:25] Will: wantto, I want, this 

    [00:21:26] Rod: moment I want to capture. It's gonna take me a month to 

    [00:21:28] Will: do it.

    I wanna capture the guy staring at the monkey farting. and having a good time. And I, I did, I did a, a Google Google reverse image search for that image. Yeah. I wanted to find out a little bit more about it.So it's 17th century engraving. Yeah. it's got a poem under it of some 

    [00:21:44] Rod: sort. it doesn't matter. 

    [00:21:45] Will: a lot of sense limerick but it turned up on this page, on Wikipedia called Category 

    [00:21:51] Rod: Flatulence 

    [00:21:51] Will: of Humans in Art. no. So there's a page, there's a page on Wikipedia and this, this is where I got you this just name.

    Fuck.[00:22:00] 

    [00:22:02] Rod: So,

    [00:22:03] Will: so it's a Wikipedia listing of all sorts of different paintings, etchings drawings. there, there was one or two sculptures, but it's hard to capture in 

    [00:22:11] Rod: sculpture mode. Well, it's very light. I mean, marble, marble is notoriously difficult to work with. And if you're gonna do something as delicate as a fart, 

    [00:22:18] Will: there's definitely art of a semi-religious bent. there's a bunch of Japanese art, there's a bunch of 

    [00:22:24] Rod: European art.

    [00:22:24] Will: I, I don't have a, a broad categorization, and this may be just reflective of the art that's preserved. Mm. So, so there's say, 16th century, 17th century, 18th century, um, Japanese art and European art from the same sort of era. And that might just be other people are doing it.

    We just didn't get sin. Yeah, yeah. but there's a bunch of fighting on devils and things like that, uh, in the European art.

    [00:22:44] Rod: that's like food 

    [00:22:45] Will: to them 

    [00:22:47] Rod: like, you're a demon. Would, would you like a nice cake?

    [00:22:50] Will: There was on you? There was a good one where two women were fighting the devil away.

    [00:22:54] Rod: is that what it was really about? I

    [00:22:55] Will: think that one was a little bit later. That looked like 1920s or 

    [00:22:58] Rod: something like that. 

    [00:22:58] Will: Um, um, [00:23:00] there, there's a lot of the Japanese art is sort of fight farting at demons and, and swamp monsters and things like that, all farting on each other. There's a guy here he can fart through the screen. He's blown a hole in the 

    [00:23:11] Rod: screen. That actually also looks like the two slid experiment in physics to prove where, where the light is a particle or a wave. 

    [00:23:18] Will: that he's doing with his butt.

    I did like this guy. So this like, do you remember, Goya's, what are they called? The, the depression one where he is totally depressed and he painted on the walls of 

    [00:23:26] Rod: the house.

    [00:23:27] Will: Um, it's got satin eating, eating his child, and, beautiful paintings. But this one, this one's got like a, a demony guy holding up a baby to fart at, at the light or something like that. So he is, he is like projectile farting, 

    then there's a lot of satirical, 

    [00:23:42] Rod: like, 

    [00:23:42] Will: uh, political cartooning and stuff like that where, where farts go all over the place.So

    [00:23:47] Rod: There's a 

    [00:23:48] Will: wiki page 

    [00:23:48] Rod: for,

    [00:23:49] Will: there's a Wikipedia page for that. It made me, it made me happy. And, uh, and you listener, you can enjoy a little bit of fart art too. Uh, and let's see what 

    [00:23:59] Rod: else we can get outthere.

    [00:24:00] Will: We've raised the bar.  So 

    [00:24:03] Rod: tech disruptions, I mean, we're in the middle of another one that would appear because of ai. And we for once, this is the first episode in a long time. We haven't, we're not talking about ai, are we? We don't have a specific AI 

    [00:24:12] Will: story. Well, uh, no I 

    [00:24:14] Rod: are. No, Thisisn't about 

    [00:24:15] Will: it 

    either.Well, there you go. Zero

    [00:24:17] Rod: Time Magazine. December, 1932.

    [00:24:20] Will: 1932. They're about to name Hitler Person of the 

    [00:24:23] Rod: year.Yeah. Again, 

     [00:24:26] Rod: Uh, is there a note.

    [00:24:27] Will: Yeah. No, it's, it's a nice first spam comment on Twitch. We've made it.

    [00:24:34] Rod: So yeah. Tie Magazine, December 32, a new ISM has emerged in 

    [00:24:38] Will: New York. Its name 

    [00:24:40] Rod: Technocracy. 

    [00:24:41] Will: Oh,ooh.

    [00:24:43] Rod: I know. It's proponents style themselves as technocrats. Their goal. So Technocracy, right? This is not a new term to us anymore, but this is a hundred years ago. Or close enough. These, these folks, let's be 

    [00:24:55] Will: honest, boys. 

    [00:24:56] Rod: Men may have kicked it off. Their goal [00:25:00] was the US should be run by engineers and technical experts.

    So 

    [00:25:02] Will: basically 

    [00:25:04] Rod: there was quoting time against and a startling array of statements about technological unemployment. Mankind's machines, destroying mankind's chance to earn a living. And a particularly about being under the present price system, the way we value things, present price system, the way we value things.

    [00:25:20] Will: Money. I want to live under the future 

    [00:25:22] Rod: system. Exactly. Well past price system compared 

    [00:25:24] Will: them. We do. I like the past price system. That sounds good. I wanna pay like Jane Austen. I'll pay 15 pounds for a 

    [00:25:29] Rod: houseOh, you know, not like a a, a servant and some kind of bow on your hat.

    [00:25:34] Will: Well, that too.But 

    [00:25:36] Rod: But these, this is what they were talking about. So the core ideology was a rejection of the price system underlying the global economy. So the bottom line was they didn't like money as a medium of 

    [00:25:44] Will: exchange.I, I'm, I'm happy with that. I wouldn't have thought technocrats were doing that. I, I would've thought the people rejecting money are a bit more hippie Yeah.Than technocrat.

    [00:25:53] Rod: Boy, are these guys not hippies

    [00:25:55] Will: and they're rejecting money.

    [00:25:56] Rod: Well, they reject money as a way to value goods [00:26:00] and services, et 

    [00:26:00] Will: cetera,

    How well do we qualitatively 

    [00:26:02] Rod: value No,tell me this. I'm gonna, I am gonna tell you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And look, they said before we get to the house of 

    [00:26:08] Will: it, they'd said 

    [00:26:09] Rod: the depression, the great depression of the time.So the 2029 ish, 1929 America was an exhibit A basically for them to say, look, money's fucked,

    Shit went wrong. money's fucked. It's arbitrary and garbage. And

    they, they predicted the whole system would collapse 

    [00:26:24] Will: no later than 1940.Oh, 

    [00:26:25] Rod: Oh, okay. Yep. Spoiler alert for you listening. In the past it didn't,

    [00:26:29] Will: uh, spoiler alert.

    [00:26:30] Rod: did, didn't go well,

    [00:26:31] Will: Spoiler, spoiler alert, if you remember the history of the early 

    1940s, it continued shit. Shit got 

    [00:26:36] Rod: pretty bad.Didn't continue well, but 

    [00:26:38] Will: it continued. Shitgot pretty bad. we didn'tget rid of money.No, we didn't. We didn't. No, no. Neither, neither Hitler nor Stalin, nor Roosevelt, nor Churchill said, let's get rid of money. Oh, maybe Stalin 

    [00:26:47] Rod: might I'm not saying World War II was good. I just wanna go on record.I'm not 

    [00:26:50] Will: saying it was good.Well, good. Finally, you know, we, we can make that a little bit of science. That's, that's our first political 

    [00:26:57] Rod: stand. Oh, that's it. 

    [00:26:58] Will: it. That's our, World War ii.world War ii. world [00:27:00] War ii. Not good. Not good. 

    [00:27:01] Rod: so they had their headquarters, they had a headquarters at Columbia University. They employed 36 ish, three 

    [00:27:07] Will: dozen.

    Did they pay them?

    [00:27:09] Rod: This is a good question In money. Well, we're gonna talk about how 

    [00:27:13] Will: they wanna pay people. 

    [00:27:14] Rod: they employed a love it, unemployed engineers, architects, and draftsmen to conduct an energy survey of North America.So, energy's the magic here.

    [00:27:22] Will: Oh, I think, 

    [00:27:23] Rod: I'm with them.

    Yeah. I thought 

    [00:27:24] Will: No, I'm, I'm with them. Yeah. Now you're talking my Dicky 

    [00:27:27] Rod: language.

    I thought I could 

    [00:27:28] Will: get you in. Yeah. 

    [00:27:29] Rod: Yeah. So they did this audit, and they presented some stats like this. This is again, from, still from the Time Magazine article. The total capacity of the US industrial equipment is 1 billion horsepower.

    [00:27:41] Will: thought you were gonna ask me and I could guess

    [00:27:43] Rod: how, what 

    [00:27:44] Will: do you think it is? I, 

    [00:27:45] Rod: I, I 

    [00:27:46] Will: it's, it's, it's north of 999 million 

    [00:27:49] Rod: horsepower.Freakishly. 

    [00:27:50] Will: You've done it again.

    [00:27:52] Rod: this is, apparently this does the work of 10 billion men or five times the earth's 

    [00:27:56] Will: total population, 

    [00:27:58] Rod: so they're 

    [00:27:58] Will: pretty impressed with that.

    [00:28:00] Okay, cool.

    [00:28:01] Rod: On the basis of 1830 methods, so a hundred years ago for them, 6 million men would've been needed to cultivate the soil for the 1929 US 

    [00:28:09] Will: wheat crop 

    [00:28:11] Rod: with the best existent equipment today. So a hundred years later, or for us, nearly a hundred years ago, 4,000 

    [00:28:16] Will: men could have done the 

    [00:28:17] Rod: thing. Okay. So they're saying shit got better technologically,

    [00:28:20] Will: You get technology, you get tractors and shit like that. And you can, you can, you can far 

    [00:28:24] Rod: more,my favorite one is, um, if every structure on Manhattan Island were destroyed. Yeah. And the entire community rebuilt with the latest inventions, the reconstruction would pay for itself in 

    [00:28:35] Will: 20 yearsBased 

    [00:28:37] Rod: on

    [00:28:37] Will: what? no other detail. just generally.

    [00:28:39] Rod: It just bloody 

    [00:28:40] Will: would, just, generally it would. I don't understand. No, 

    [00:28:44] Rod: you,you 

    [00:28:45] Will: you can't. If you make all these people office list and homeless, then

    [00:28:49] Rod: beyond that, you

    [00:28:50] Will: They'd be richer in 20 years. Destroy

    [00:28:53] Rod: everything. Destroy the 

    [00:28:54] Will: the roads, everything. Get it back to rubble.Yep.It'd pay for 

    [00:28:58] Rod: itself.

    [00:29:00] Yeah. But if you rebuilt it with the latest 

    [00:29:01] Will: inventions 

    [00:29:03] Rod: of 1932 

    [00:29:04] Will: ish, 

    [00:29:05] Rod: it would pay for itself in 20 years. Let's not get into details. Look at you with your wanting to

    [00:29:09] Will: I do, I do love, I do love that, that mindset, you know, of that era. It's just like, well, if we just wiped out this group of things Yeah.Then, you know, it'll, it'll obviously be 

    [00:29:19] Rod: cheaper.

    Yeah. Replace it with the stuff we've got now, which 

    [00:29:21] Will: is really 

    [00:29:22] Rod: good. And the good things will make the those things 

    [00:29:24] Will: better. 

    [00:29:25] Rod: Not that that's ever happened recently. So the guy who drove this was a guy called Howard 

    [00:29:30] Will: Scott. 

    [00:29:31] Rod: You know Howard Scott? He started 

    [00:29:33] Will: in happy days.

    [00:29:34] Rod: No 

    [00:29:34] Will: didn't. 

    [00:29:35] Rod: No. He was born in 1890. He claims to have been educated in Europe, but his training didn't have, he doesn't claim this, but his training had no formal higher education. His early life was allegedly 

    [00:29:44] Will: amystery school. School of the streets in Europe. Exactly. He, he, yeah.

    [00:29:47] Rod: as it says, his early life, a number of sources says it was a mystery.

    It's not 

    [00:29:50] Will: really clear. 

    [00:29:52] Rod: So until he emerged in the present, late twenties, early thirties as a techno 

    [00:29:57] Will: economi. 

    [00:29:58] Rod: he was accepted as [00:30:00] an entertaining drifter who lived in the village Squala, so Greenwich Village in New York. 

    So he lived like shit in a small part of New York for some time. He conducted, quote, a small business called Duron Chemical Company, which made paint and floor polish. And basically he would go around and try and tell his customers how to use the floor polishing materials. Sure, sure. 

    Which is fair enough,

    [00:30:21] Will: That's obviously where you go to then reorganize 

    [00:30:24] Rod: all of Society, the whole of society. And apparently according to time, he disliked that. So he let the business go to 

    [00:30:30] Will: pot,

    [00:30:31] Rod: So apparently, um, editors in tycoons particularly were of issue here. They, they really took him on board in the early 1930s. They were like, this guy's awesome. The stuff he started to say was amazing because he had the vocabulary of many sciences, technical and social at his command. Wow. So he could 

    [00:30:48] Will: yeah, he all pretty, 

    [00:30:50] Rod: he threw himself about, with an air of scientific Im personality and profundity.Technocracy was an idea. He was, its intelligence. His person and personality [00:31:00] did not matter. Listen and understand if you can, but do not interrupt or pry into Howard. Scott says Time 

    [00:31:05] Will: Magazine. Okay. 

    [00:31:06] Rod: Okay. 

    [00:31:06] Will: Do not pry into like,

    [00:31:09] Rod: look, not ye into 

    [00:31:10] Will: myjust just just take the results.don't 

    [00:31:13] Rod: look at the methods. No results. Take, take the assertions.

    [00:31:16] Will: Yeah. Take the, yeah. Okay. Take the conclusions. no 

    [00:31:18] Rod: logic hereYeah. Stay the fuck away. Um, he also sounded quite 

    [00:31:22] Will: Trumpian.

    [00:31:23] Rod: so yeah, very Trump-like, so there's a story in time again. They say as evidence that the, uh, the man has been a known Manhattans Greenwich Village.Sardonic. Bombas for 10 years. 

    [00:31:33] Will: So a bombas,

    [00:31:35] Rod: bombas That's a great word, isn't it?

    So apparently this is a quote from him at Notre Dame. The coach had a grudge against me. Notre Dame University kept me on the bench playing

    [00:31:43] Will: Ah.

    [00:31:43] Rod: Ah, well, at the 

    [00:31:45] Will: the most importantI I, I love anytime when someone has a grudge against 'em 

    [00:31:48] Rod: Yeah. kept me on the bench. People were mean to me.

    [00:31:50] Will: Maybe, maybe you were just 

    [00:31:52] Rod: as good as the other. The reason I wasn't there was 'cause people were nasty. Not 'cause 

    [00:31:55] Will: I was getting like, it's, it's your self-perceptions, man tag, you know, tag.[00:32:00] 

    [00:32:00] Rod: So he says, well, at the most important game of the year, during the last quarter with exactly one minute to play, we were 

    [00:32:05] Will: losing.Oh.And whereas he could come on and save the 

    [00:32:09] Rod: day.How, how could you possibly have picked 

    [00:32:11] Will: that?Oh, did he 

    [00:32:12] Rod: come on and save the day? thecoach was tearing 

    [00:32:13] Will: his hair.Ah, 

    [00:32:14] Rod: yeah.He finally turned to me, says, uh, Howard. And he says, go on, 

    [00:32:20] Will: get in there. I, I want to, I wanna just pause because I know the result of this story is gonna be glorious. is it? How the fuck could you know?Is it true? No.

    [00:32:32] Rod: Oh, spoil, no. Um, I rushed into the game, carried the ball for 10 rushes 80 yards down the field, and made a touchdown that won 

    the game.

    [00:32:39] Will: and a hole 

    [00:32:40] Rod: one at the same time. 

    [00:32:40] Will: Weirdly, I was carrying a golf court stick and I did 

    [00:32:44] Rod: did a, 

    10, 10.1, uh, routine on the parallel

    [00:32:48] Will: Yep. And I killed 

    [00:32:49] Rod: jaws, 

    I killed jaws with my, my legs, with the stands in an uproar.

    The coach rushed over to me and said, my God, who, where, who are you? Where did you learn to play 

    [00:32:59] Will: such 

    [00:33:00] football? I looked at him. 

    [00:33:02] Rod: Peeled off 

    [00:33:03] Will: my sweater 

    [00:33:04] Rod: and showed him all the decorations and medals pinned on my chest that I had won playing football in England, Turkey and Germany.famously American football folk.

    [00:33:13] Will: Yeah, no doubt. In Turkey, they, they'd love him, but hang on, he was wearing his medals underneath.

    [00:33:18] Rod: Of course he was. Of course. 

    [00:33:20] Will: was. Of course. He was like, what a smart thing to do. If you're playing a high contact sport, let's wear the medals. 

    [00:33:26] Rod: I want spiky shit stuff that's definitely gonna slash an artery 

    [00:33:29] Will: if I get touched.I love when you get carried away in your story, your bullshit story. You just like, I'm, I'm so loving in this. I'm, I'm loving it.

    [00:33:38] Rod: Then I pulled the barbecue off my back. I cooked them all dinner. It was 

    [00:33:41] Will: fantastic. yeah, he, um, 

    [00:33:44] Rod: was, didn't appear to have 

    [00:33:45] Will: gone to any Uni 

    [00:33:46] Rod: Betty at Notre Dame. That's, that's the least controversial part of that story. Sorry, Notre Dame. But this is all backdrops. So we're talking about the first technocrats and their goals. Their claims. Their practices. Let's get into that. 'cause why wouldn't we first get rid of money as 

    [00:33:59] Will: and, and, [00:34:00] uh, we just get rid of it. I, I, I get rid of, I, I think the trick of getting rid of money is. I know, Money is a social 

    [00:34:07] Rod: construct.What? Stop. 

    [00:34:09] Will: Yeah, yeah. Anyway, 

    [00:34:10] Rod: anyway. Give people 

    a moment 

    [00:34:11] Will: process. What, what is your magic for getting rid of money? Well, energy.we swap it for coal, like, like $1, one coal. Like it's,

    [00:34:22] Rod: And if you can eat it, it's worth twice as much. Basically wanted a goods or they, hey, wanted goods and services to be value based on the,oh, this is five. The energy inputs 

    [00:34:31] Will: 12 apples to 

    [00:34:32] Rod: them. Yeah. Okay. How much energy 

    [00:34:33] Will: goes intoyeah, we should do 

    [00:34:34] Rod: do that.

    We should do that.Yeah. It's, look, it's not completely insane in theory. So basically that would necessitate the abandonment of democracy and the 

    [00:34:41] Will: embracing technology. Oh, what? Wait, I didn't know we needed to abandon democracy yet. Oh, we're gonna get to that. 

    [00:34:46] Rod: Citizens wouldn't be paid in dollars, but energy units tied how much energy 

    [00:34:49] Will: they use.But that's, that's the thing in science fiction as well, like there's, there's societies where you could be paid in. I mean, well, clearly we are paid. Money is a, is a proxy here, but, but often we might be paid in [00:35:00] food. Like would be, would be the thing. That's energy.

    [00:35:03] Rod: Mm. It's all stores of value. I mean, I think that's what the anthropologist used to 

    [00:35:07] Will: call but, but energy, energy is the only thing that matters 

    [00:35:09] Rod: in the end.Whoa. What about love, man?

    [00:35:12] Will: Yeah. Well that's different too. 

    [00:35:13] Rod: Yeah. Yeah.I wanna get paid in love 

    [00:35:15] Will: Well and really good beer,But that's energy 

    [00:35:19] Rod: Yeah. So you walk into a bar or a, sorry, a shop and you say like a new cane, some spats and a cigar.And they say, that'll be seven watts.Yeah.And you say, sure, I'll hand 

    [00:35:29] Will: over my watt 

    [00:35:30] Rod: box.

    [00:35:32] Will: Well, it's like, uh, in Transformers where they had the energy cubes, you just 

    [00:35:36] Rod: Exactly. Yeah. My tesser act is here. Everyone 

    [00:35:38] Will: has a tesser 

    [00:35:39] Rod: act. But of course, as has been flagged, this would mean you have to change political systems, obviously.So they wanted to create 

    [00:35:45] Will: a ate. Yeah.

    [00:35:48] Rod: Which would consist of a union of the nations of North America, central America, the Caribbean, Northeastern Pacific, and along with a northern tier of South America. So this big blob, the rationale was that the natural [00:36:00] resources and the natural boundaries of this region would make it independent and a self-sustaining 

    [00:36:04] Will: geographical unit.Independent 

    [00:36:05] Rod: from,

    [00:36:06] Will: from anything,

    [00:36:07] Rod: And so you replace democracy. So you have government by an unelected, technically skilled, empirically driven elite, who have the expertise to determine values and make rational resource allocation decisions.You know, because rationality is how 

    [00:36:19] Will: humans work.

    Yep.

    [00:36:21] Rod: They of course had a uniform and they had some 

    [00:36:23] Will: traditions.

    They had a uniform. They went straight to 

    [00:36:25] Rod: uniform.Oh fuck. Yeah, they did.

    [00:36:27] Will: Uh, can 

    [00:36:27] Rod: I guess 

    [00:36:28] Will: keep going. Alright. Uh, it's a white boiler suit. with metals on it.Like, like it's got, it's just, it's utilitarian, but 

    [00:36:36] Rod: metals.well, they definitely wear the, the logo on the lapel of 

    [00:36:40] Will: their 

    [00:36:41] Rod: double-breasted gray shirt, gray suit and 

    [00:36:43] Will: blue tie. Oh, 

    [00:36:45] Rod: That's the, the, the logo is basically a yin yang, but just red and white without the little dots in it.

    [00:36:50] Will: But it's, it's a yin yang.It really is. 

    [00:36:52] Rod: So they would, yeah, wear these double-breasted gray suits, gray shirts, blue ties. They'd wear the, uh, the technocracy logo on their lapel.

    [00:37:00] Much like people now in America wear Trump's profile or the flag, they'd drive gray 

    [00:37:05] Will: cars.Why, why do people gotta make themselves sad? I mean, gray's cool.

    [00:37:11] Rod: Gray can 

    [00:37:11] Will: be delicious. Um, but top 30 colors, 

    [00:37:15] Rod: definitely. if 

    [00:37:16] Will: if not 40, 

    [00:37:18] Rod: Also, some of them, if they were really hardcore, they would, they would change their names. To reflect their roles 

    [00:37:22] Will: in the system.Oh, yes.

    [00:37:24] Rod: And they would, changing their names to, uh, numeric values, things like, you know, one dash seven, blah, blah, blah,

    [00:37:30] Will: blah.Did they actually change their name to numbers? 

    [00:37:32] Rod: yeah. Yeah. The, the, 

    [00:37:33] Will: the keen 

    [00:37:33] Rod: ones.

    [00:37:34] Will: Were there actually people 

    [00:37:36] Rod: did this?It would appear, so I,

    [00:37:38] Will: I,

    [00:37:39] Rod: I don't know if it was 10 or a 

    [00:37:40] Will: thousand, what would you choose as your number to be your number

    [00:37:44] Rod: 69? Dude,

    [00:37:49] Will: I'll be corporal. 17, please.

    [00:37:51] Rod: Exactly. So he did a radio event, 1933. He gave a speech about Technocracy at a hotel in New York before a live audience, about 400 people. [00:38:00] And 

    [00:38:00] Will: was broadcast. 

    [00:38:01] Rod: Apparently it was muddled jargon heavy. It was, uh, termed by, uh, the press later on as a grave mistake. Disastrous and a complete 

    [00:38:10] Will: failure.

    Look, look a grave mistake. I think you can only make mistakes when you have, somewhere to fall to. I don't feel like he has somewhere to 

    [00:38:17] Rod: to. Well, I think by this time he was doing pretty well.

    And, you know, the, the tycoons and 

    [00:38:21] Will: well, he did make 

    [00:38:22] Rod: He did make Time Magazine,

    [00:38:23] Will: so fair enough. 

    [00:38:24] Rod: Magazine. and I, when I was, I was, because I like to play with this, I, I whacked a few things into the chat, GPT and one point he came up with, he confused and bored listeners so deeply that newspapers the next day accused you 

    [00:38:34] Will: of being high.

    [00:38:36] Rod: I tried to verify it, but couldn't. So that could have been hallucination, but God, 

    [00:38:39] Will: I wish it was 

    [00:38:40] Rod: true. So anyway, where are they now? Where are these technocrats now? apparently for starters, their, basically the geopolitical view was both.Expansionist and isolationist. And that's a little tricky 

    [00:38:52] Will: to reconcile.

    [00:38:52] Rod: Like, I too would like to do these contradictory things. I'd like to be able to drink 10 of these delicious beers a day and be cut like an absolute [00:39:00] beast. I turns 

    [00:39:01] Will: I, it turns out that doesn't work.What,

    [00:39:03] Rod: So, sofar lied tous. Maybe if I joined the techno tech, Nate. also the World War II thing didn't help connections with communism, fascism, et cetera, et cetera. And the US clearly didn't become very isolationists after that. 

    [00:39:15] Will: They're going back there. for now, 

    [00:39:18] Rod: so Scott died.Technocracy Inc. It became, ink went into decline. And so there was some efforts to try and regain or gain popular attention. And my favorite was they 

    [00:39:28] Will: tried to, 

    [00:39:29] Rod: involve the, the sci-fi authors who would write about utopian stuff, et cetera, like Isaac Asamov, because they'd write about these beautiful utopia of energy credits, et cetera.

    So apparently they wrote to Asimov and he probably didn't write back, so they just kind of and flooded out. But it's a great example. This is part of the reason I like this, is because it's another example. Yet again, a, my God, the jobs are gonna kill us. The the new machine's gonna kill our jobs. We're all fucked, we're all gonna die.

    No one's got anything. It's horrible. We need to reimagine the world with a [00:40:00] completely rationalist, data-driven view that has come up repeatedly. It's sort of sneaking occasionally around the edges, again with ai, et cetera, et 

    cetera. Never works, happens all the time. Never works. Calm down 

    [00:40:12] Will: humans.What if it does? 

    [00:40:14] Rod: So, yeah. 

    [00:40:14] Will: That's, um,look, look a wild time for the world. And it's not surprising that people were like, okay, what if we were rational about this?And it's not dumb to 

    [00:40:24] Rod: be rational.No. The idea is wonderful. The reality of course, is so deliciously and sweetly naive.

    [00:40:29] Will: Oh, look. And, and it's, it's, it's classic because, know, I was talking to you last week about this, that, the science fiction authors of the fifties and sixties are, are drawing directly from that thing.

    Yep. Of if we just get rationality, right? Yep. Then everything will be perfect. And it's like there's no evidence that we can get rationality. Right. And also if we did no evidence, it actually would work in the, in the, in the way that 

    [00:40:52] Rod: you 

    imagined. And I love the irony of it too. Like the irony is if we dispassionately decide how we're gonna live our lives, we can then return [00:41:00] to an emotional, beautiful world.So 

    [00:41:02] Will: we 

    get where we're all named, named 141.7

    [00:41:06] Rod: 69. Dude,

     [00:41:09] Will: Alex, should we jump 

    [00:41:10] Rod: to YouOh, see, Alex got 

    [00:41:11] Will: a thing as he raises it, like the way that 

    [00:41:13] Rod: you've raised your microphone.kind of snuck up from, oh, show 

    [00:41:17] Will: your thing, Alex,Straightwith no euphemisms. Yeah.

    [00:41:20] Rod: Yeah.

    [00:41:21] Alex: Okay, this is just a quick one. I thought it was quite cute. Um, devoted listeners will remember last week, uh, a little bit of science, talked about screaming plants

    [00:41:29] Rod: Oh

    [00:41:30] Alex: and uh, I wanted to elaborate on plants so plants can feel pain, but a study published or just under three years ago out of Germany suggests they might be able to see,which is pretty cool.

    [00:41:42] Rod: uh,

    [00:41:43] Alex: the Quila, Trilio, Lata, which is like a, a rainforest,

    [00:41:47] Will: I thought that was a university in Germany. I thought you were gonna say it's a university 

    [00:41:51] Rod: in

    [00:41:51] Alex: The, 

    [00:41:51] Rod: They've done the, study. 

    [00:41:53] Alex: the the Institute is the Institute of Cellular Molecular Botany in the University of Bon in Germany, the, this fancy, um, [00:42:00] rainforest plant. They've observed it over time to, attempt mimicry. So it basically makes itself look like plants that are nearby.And it's been known to do that quite a number of times. It can change its leaf size, it can change its leaf structure going fromuni lobular to three lobular.Three 

    [00:42:17] Will: an an individual plant does this or it evolves over multiple.

    [00:42:20] Alex: No, no, no. An individual plant. So it can start growing with normal leaves and then it can reach a height where it's placed in proximity with another plant and then change its leaves in that segment.

    [00:42:30] Rod: So from a cactus to a chant,

    [00:42:32] Will: chant,

    [00:42:33] Alex: unfortunately it's not from like a, a vine to a fig tree? No, it's from like a vine with blob leaves to a vine with slightly different blob leaves essentially. And anyway, so they, they thought maybe there's, volatile chemicals in the air from one plant to another.

    Uh, maybe it is, um, gene sharing at the, at the root level or via microbiomes. and then, uh, so they, uh, thought, oh, screw it. We're gonna put this plant next to an artificial plant, and we're gonna say, you know, there's no microbiome there, there's no bugs there. And lo and behold, it mimics the [00:43:00] artificial plant.So 

    [00:43:01] Rod: to money or a car or something? Will it turn into

    [00:43:03] Alex: yeah. That's the, that's in the future research

    [00:43:06] Will: world's slowest photocopier like,

    [00:43:10] Rod: but it really looks like a dollar bill 

    tops. We should have 

    [00:43:13] Will: That's so cool. That's so, so like a chameleon or some sort 

    [00:43:18] Rod: of, 

    [00:43:19] Will: why would it do this? Like what's the evolutionary advantage to be able to do this?

    [00:43:24] Alex: They didn't elaborate into it. Um, one, one theory was that it might, I guess sort of Venn diagram take over the beneficial aspects of another plant and parasitize their methods of pollination or methods of, uh, garnering nutrition or funneling water to its root system. But, um, They thought the, uh, potential mechanism was essentially plant vision. So, so light receptive cells in the plant's

    [00:43:49] Will: I mean, just to pause clearly Plants are 

    [00:43:52] Rod: light, 

    receptive, very, very allegedly. They love the light. Apparently it's, 

    [00:43:55] Will: it's their jam,it's their thing. Like they're all over that. So,

    [00:43:58] Rod: but not like, [00:44:00] like recognizing, like subtleties, et cetera.

    [00:44:03] Alex: that's exactly right. So they call it the, the o celi is the scientific name for, for the plant vision, receptive element, and. It seems like it's the leading theory as to why plants can mi, why this particular plant can mimic other plants nearby.

    [00:44:17] Rod: Look, I think that's kind of bearing the lead though. Like the fact that they can see you kinda go, that's cool, and then turn into something else. Like, I, I'm, I'm kind of

    [00:44:25] Will: totally 

    [00:44:25] Rod: That's awesome.I feel like seeing is while important 

    [00:44:28] Will: secondary,I, but, but it still fits into, you know, the big. I don't know. I don't know if it's a, a, a mood change or a mind change 

    [00:44:35] Rod: about plants 

    [00:44:36] Will: the last, in the last two decades about, the connectedness that they have between roots, the communication that they have, their ability to engage and affect the environment around them.we have thought of plants 

    [00:44:47] Rod: as 

    [00:44:48] Will: advanced rocks, and maybe we should think of them as primitive 

    [00:44:52] Rod: animals.

    So given that, here's the question I have to ask you, Alex, our vegan friend. Are you a moral vegan [00:45:00] or a nutritional 

    [00:45:00] Will: vegan?

    [00:45:02] Alex: Oh, all, all kinds. Moral, nutritional, and planet 

    cherry. 

    [00:45:05] Will: actually 

    [00:45:05] Rod: see, feel, love, create 

    [00:45:08] Will: poetry he's just on salt.

    Now. It's just salt. Salt and water 

    [00:45:12] Rod: sunlight, sand, breathe. Arian. I mean, how do you, how do you rationalize that? That can't be easy? 'cause I'm obviously a hideous carnivore or I'm an 

    [00:45:19] Will: omnivore.Whydo you wanna make it harder for 

    [00:45:21] Rod: vegans?I don't. I'm curious though, 

    [00:45:23] Alex: I'm assuming, I'm assuming plants can see and feel less pain than something with eyes and a central nervous system.

    [00:45:28] Will: As Nirvana said, it's okay to eat fish. They don't 

    [00:45:30] Rod: have any feelings.They're not plants.

    [00:45:33] Will: What? Geez, 

    [00:45:35] Alex: You should think of plants as primitive fish.

    [00:45:37] Rod: But I mean, what a, what a horrible situation to be in, because I get it actually. I've mean, taking the piss aside, being a vegan.If you're a vegan for more reasons. I totally understand, because there are, I don't need a lot of meat, but when I do, there's a part of me that goes,why do people keep telling me this animal's actually like a dog? And it's annoying. So if you're a moral vegan, it makes a lot of sense. But then you hear, oh, plants can see field change their things.

    Have children care [00:46:00] about poetry, watch movies, like it's fucking annoying. Where do we get to the point where everything we eat actually doesn't want to be eaten? That's an issue

    [00:46:09] Will: except for breast milk. And then that's all we do.

    [00:46:12] Rod: That's not vegan.

    [00:46:13] Will: No. Breast milk's fine. It wants to be

    [00:46:15] Alex: It's consensual. I'm 

    [00:46:16] Will: Breast Breast milk is, breast milk is like as, as, on food and cooking.The bible of molecular gastronomy says the only food that was designed to be food is, is breast milk. Sowhich, Bible is this?Yeah.

    [00:46:26] Rod: How many recipes 

    [00:46:27] Will: does it appear It's, it's got, it's got all the good stuff, but like, that was designed to be

    [00:46:31] Alex: Hopefully just the one,

    [00:46:33] Rod: that's, that's 

    [00:46:34] Will: all we 

    [00:46:34] Rod: eat

    [00:46:35] Will: Yeah. On the cross, Jesus is like on food and cooking.You 

    [00:46:38] Rod: should read it. Oh no. Now we're at a point where, yeah, we need UBI, right? We need universal basic income, but what can we contribute? Well, ladies, you can make things a lot easier. Two 

    [00:46:47] Will: hours a day.What? 

    [00:46:49] Rod: Oh,you provide 

    [00:46:50] Will: nutrition.I lost the thread on that one. like I, like I 

    [00:46:54] Rod: didn't mean,didn't 

    [00:46:55] Will: you?I mean, I did, but I didn't.

    [00:47:01] Rod: [00:47:00] Wrapping us up with e-commerce, because e-commerce is where everyone wants to go. Everyone wants to talk about, 

    [00:47:05] Will: fantastic.It's a very late nineties term.

    [00:47:09] Rod: Well, 

    [00:47:09] Will: it's also current.Yeah. I know we buy stuff online, but it's not like it's a 

    [00:47:13] Rod: thing like no, 

    [00:47:14] Will: are talking about like, you get drunk and you buy stuff online.

    [00:47:16] Rod: Like that's a,that's not 

    [00:47:17] Will: e-commerce. that's e-commerce. It's 

    [00:47:19] Rod: clicking. So apparently there are nearly 78,000 physical gun stores in the usOkay? 

    [00:47:28] Will: if you'd asked 

    [00:47:29] Rod: me to guesswell, you said a hundred billion. 

    [00:47:31] Will: No, I would've, I would've, I would've done the calculations and probably got to about 

    [00:47:35] Rod: 77,000.Oh, see again, you're so close. I should've, I should've asked you. Right. But you can guess now if you want.78,000.Holy shit. What is that? More than the number 

    [00:47:45] Will: of,

    [00:47:46] Rod: oh, well, 

    [00:47:47] Will: uh, combined other planets in the solar system, 

    [00:47:49] Rod: uh, 

    [00:47:50] Will: through, uh, fruit in the 

    [00:47:51] Rod: fruit store,Toes 

    [00:47:53] Will: uh, toes on your foot. Toes on your foot, uh,

    [00:47:56] Rod: McDonald's, burger King, subway and 

    [00:47:58] Will: Wendy's combined 

    [00:47:59] Rod: apparently in the us.

    [00:48:00] Yeah. There are more gun stores 

    [00:48:01] Will: than there are Okay. Now, now that's a good metric. That's wow. 'cause if you would've said, how many McDonald's are there? Are there more McDonald's? Than gun stores. I would've definitely gone more McDonald's. And if you're saying more McDonald's, Wendy's and Burger.

    [00:48:12] Rod: apparently according to, uh, futurity Anyway, so do 

    they have 

    [00:48:15] Will: they have like, like little gun stores? Like, like Corner Gun stores? 

    [00:48:20] Rod: The big box gun stores, your mom and pop gun stores, and then your soulless ones who 

    [00:48:24] Will: don't even care aboutYeah, they don't care. They don't care about the customer anymore. Like, they don't 

    [00:48:27] Rod: care about what you're buying. I want the one with a mahogany handle that's in emblazoned with my family.

    [00:48:32] Will: Crest.No, I want, I want like a, a New York, bodega. Like, I, I want, I want something where they, they're selling weird shit as well. I want guns and fucking 

    [00:48:41] Rod: candy floss or anyway. Why would you go to one of these 78,000 gun stores when, when you could go to the Amazon of guns 

    [00:48:47] Will: and do it online?Can you 

    [00:48:48] Rod: it online?You could 

    [00:48:49] Will: can go to grab a 

    [00:48:50] Rod: gun.

    [00:48:50] Will: I 

    [00:48:50] Rod: didn't know that.

    [00:48:51] Will: No, you didn't.

    [00:48:52] Rod: this is a business that is, quote, revolutionizing the way Americans hoard firearms, offering shoppers a virtual arsenal of pistols, shotguns, rifles, [00:49:00] muzzle loaders shipped straight to 

    [00:49:01] Will: their front door.Butit's 

    [00:49:03] Rod: the only one. Yeah, there are other 

    [00:49:05] Will: e-commerceWell, I wasn't worried if that there were more of them.like the existence of one is not made worse by 

    [00:49:10] Rod: than one. Well,yeah, I mean, yeah, it's, it's, it's all terrible. 

    [00:49:15] Will: It's all terrible. 

    [00:49:17] Rod: So there are other ones and you know, which is, so you kind of go, well, who gives a shit about grab a gun?Well, it recently started trading on the US stock exchange, but like, as in the last week or two, which is I, I gather unusual, but even better, sitting on the executive board is Donald Trump 

    [00:49:30] Will: Jr.Oh wow. 

    [00:49:32] Rod: So when I was ready to be listed, he was there at the New York Stock Exchange ready to ring the bell as they do when 

    [00:49:37] Will: there's a new offer.Oh, he did 

    [00:49:39] Rod: Oh, he did it. He did it. And he says, quote, To be able to come back to the New York Stock Exchange and AC actually take a gun company public feels like such a vindication of all the insanity, all of the woke nonsense. That we've been watching and facing for 

    [00:49:53] Will: the last decade I was saying it was a vindication of the insanity, but 

    [00:49:56] Rod: yeah. yeah. yeah. So he starts A-U-S-A-U-S-A 

    [00:50:00] chant.Mm-hmm.Rings the bell, and 

    [00:50:03] Will: then he watches 

    [00:50:03] Rod: the stock 

    [00:50:05] Will: plummet.Oh.

    [00:50:09] Rod: So it starts at 2140 drops to 1320. Next day it goes by the end of the day. Next day it drops down 10 

    bucks. Down it goes. Why did it perform so badly? So the argument from futurity, at least the article, which is in our show notes, maybe be, it's because it merged with a special purpose acquisition company or 

    [00:50:28] Will: spac, 

    [00:50:31] Rod: which for our non Australian listeners,

    [00:50:32] Will: What, what, what do you do, honey? Oh, I'm a, I'm a special purpose acquisition 

    [00:50:37] Rod: I'm gonna spec this. So for our non-A Australian listeners, specing out means you're losing your shit. Like being a specker 

    [00:50:44] Will: is not great.It's, it's not far 

    [00:50:46] Rod: from a slur.it's not far from a slur, but it's still, but it isn't yet. So it's still fun. So SPAC is basically a shortcut to taking a company public.It's a quick way to get a, an 

    [00:50:54] Will: national public offer. 

    [00:50:55] Rod: et cetera. Yeah, so the details are boring as shit, but the vibe is financials. [00:51:00] Say they say this after a merger, SPACs.

    [00:51:02] Will: SPACs,

    Which is [00:51:03] Rod: always funny, almost always result in negative returns for all but the very first 

    [00:51:07] Will: investors.

    [00:51:09] Rod: Yeah. Okay.So it's a classic instrument 

    [00:51:11] Will: as this articleSo on the way up, people are investing before, before they go public. Yeah. And then theydump. 

    [00:51:16] Rod: pr So according to this article, it's, it's a classic instrument for sleazy celebrity deal makers 

    [00:51:22] Will: like TrumpOh, weird, weird to find 

    [00:51:25] Rod: Trump Jr. In that. freakish. Right. And, uh, they go on to say the likelihood of grab a gun rallying seems slim, especially given the noxious stigma SPACs I've earned over the last five years.So the bottom line is just talked about it because I just thought, well, it's, it's good to, you know, keep us honest, but what I, what I still, the, the thing that really shocked me most was the 78,000 gun stores and you can buy them online and it eclipses McDonald's, burger King Subway. And Wendy's combined, assuming our source is accurate.And futurity has 

    [00:51:55] Will: never led us Australia. I, you know, aside from the, the SPAC component there. Yeah. [00:52:00] it's a wild amount of guns and, uh, I don't know what to do with

    [00:52:03] Rod: crazy. Stop having guns.

    [00:52:06] Will: Well, I mean, I guess the interesting thing is where, clearly for a long time, you right.Wingers have loved a bit of guns. Mm-hmm. And I, I think they're in a cycle now where liberals are buying guns. They're like, well, 

    [00:52:18] Rod: buying guns. They've got guns. 

    [00:52:19] Will: We gotta get guns.You know, you know, we're, we're in Civil War zones, so, you know, whoa, whoa, whoa.

    [00:52:25] Rod: You make it sound 

    [00:52:26] Will: fun.Look, look, I appreciate this.It's not fun for anyone. 

    [00:52:30] Rod: but. 

    [00:52:31] Will: Not fun for anyone. Means not fun for everyone. And that's 

    [00:52:33] Rod: the motto That's what brings us together. 

    [00:52:36] Will: That's 

    [00:52:36] Rod: the, that's the motto.Come and come and definitely not have 

    [00:52:39] Will: fun with this. 

    Again, no. listener. Look, look, we want to, we want to give you, give you the, the warm science.

    Love that, that says even despite the idiots out there that make a technocracy and think, you know, they can do it, that there is, that there is joy and love.There's goodnessin, in good, 

    [00:52:53] Rod: real knowledge.And if you really love what we're doing, you can actually watch us live. Which I don't think is great 'cause we're not very attractive 

    [00:52:58] Will: people. But ah,[00:53:00] ah, 

    [00:53:00] Rod: see us on the I'm 

    [00:53:01] Will: not a veryattractive No, you are. 

    [00:53:03] Rod: No, you are. Stop it, stop it. Don't,Will is like the Heidi Klum of podcasters in Australia.Yeah, yeah, exactly.So you can 

    [00:53:08] Will: are too. We, you're exactly 

    [00:53:10] Rod: Heidi Klum as well.I'm more like El McPherson. Also give us, give us your 15 star ratings on all the platforms and send us 

    [00:53:16] Will: an email at cheers at a little bit of science.com au.

    [00:53:20] Rod: au. Wedon't care what's in it, just send us an email. 

    [00:53:22] Will: We out. Yeah, yeah. Send the good stuff. 

    [00:53:23] Rod: to reach out.We get scared. 

Will Grant
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