Written By Will Grant
 

If you’ve got a raw milk enthusiast friend, they might be conveniently forgetting that grandma used to boil her "fresh" milk to avoid dying from bacteria poisoning. Mind you, it wasn’t all safe in the good old days. In 1978, a Soviet scientist stuck his head in a particle accelerator and got blasted with a proton beam 600 times the lethal dose (and somehow survived). He might be a good candidate for the upcoming Enhanced Games, a sporting competition that openly encourages athletes to take performance-enhancing drugs. Oh, and AI might finally let us chat with dolphins, but do we really want to hear what they have to say?

Raw Milk: When Nostalgia Meets Reality

Raw milk advocates love to wax poetic about the good old days when milk came straight from cow to cup, pure and natural. The reality? History shows us that Grandma was probably boiling that "fresh" milk over the fire to kill the bacteria that could spoil it or make the whole family violently ill.

Pasteurisation isn't some modern conspiracy to destroy nutrients - it's an age old response to the very real problem of milk-borne diseases that used to regularly kill people. While raw milk enthusiasts insist their unpasteurised dairy is healthier, they're essentially gambling with the same bacterial roulette that our ancestors tried to avoid by boiling their milk. Sometimes the old ways weren't better, they were just more dangerous.

The Man Who Survived a Particle Accelerator to the Face

Speaking of dangerous, meet Anatoli Bugorski, who holds the dubious honour of sticking his head into a malfunctioning Soviet particle accelerator and getting hit with a proton beam travelling close to the speed of light. 

Despite being exposed to radiation levels 600 times the lethal human dose, Bugorski survived (albeit with some lasting effects) and continued his scientific career. Most people worry about paper cuts at work - particle physicists worry about accidentally getting their heads blasted with near-light-speed particles.

Can AI Help Us Talk to Animals?

The Kohler Doolittle Challenge is offering prize money to crack the code of interspecies communication using AI - without invasive methods. Whether it's translating bat squeaks, understanding dolphin whistles or deciphering whale songs, researchers are trying to bridge the communication gap between humans and animals. 

The prospect of actually understanding what animals are saying raises fascinating ethical questions. Do we really want to know what our pets think of us? What if dolphins have been insulting us this whole time? Or they’re just out for a bonk and don’t care about consent. While critics question whether technology can truly substitute for the nuances of natural communication, the field is ripe with potential for either breakthrough discoveries or spectacular disappointment.

The Enhanced Games: Olympics with a Pharmaceutical Twist

The Enhanced Games represent a bold new approach to athletic competition - openly embracing performance-enhancing drugs instead of pretending they don't exist. This initiative encourages athletes to push the boundaries of human capability using modern science, directly challenging traditional sporting bodies like the World Anti-Doping Agency.

While some argue this threatens the integrity of sport, others see it as celebrating the pinnacle of human achievement through pharmaceutical enhancement. The Enhanced Games promise bigger muscles, faster times, and heftier prize money for record-breakers. Rod is all for it and Will, not so much. It's pitting sporting tradition against scientific innovation, raising uncomfortable questions about what it truly means to compete at the highest level.

Maybe the Enhanced Games should add a raw milk chugging competition and particle beam dodging event. Now that would be worth watching.

 

CHAPTERS:

00:00 Who is Sponsoring the Enhanced Games

02:06 Raw Milk Myths Debunked

05:03 Historical Practices of Milk Boiling

08:10 The Proton Beam Incident

14:20 Interspecies Communication Challenge

24:42 Anthropomorphism and Animal Emotions

25:08 The Ethics of Translating Animal Communication

27:55 Enhanced Games Events and Controversies

30:51 Debate on Performance Enhancing Drugs

38:54 Risks and Consequences of Steroid Use

42:19 The Future of Enhanced Games and Athlete Compensation

42:57 Science Says Pay Me More

 

  • [00:00:02] ROD: Today's story comes to you from this topic. Always hit the more button. So try and guess. You good Listeners at home, what kind of venture might this be? Here are some clues. Big name investors include conservative, billionaire, Peter till, Saudi Prince colored bin Al,

    [00:00:20] WILL: Perfect.

    [00:00:21] ROD: accent. And Donald Trump Junior. So I start thinking, have you got any guesses? I know you do will, but you're not allowed to talk. It's gotta be hard. Okay, this might help. here's, here's a statement accompanying the announcement of funding for this new venture. This is about excellence, innovation and American dominance on the world stage, something the MAGA movement is all about.

    [00:00:41] So you're probably starting to coalesce an idea here. Another clue the future of sports is here we are on a mission to redefine super humanity through science. Innovation and sports. So yes. Your guest that I know will guest that listening to me, it's the Enhanced Games. It's a startup that plans to hold an Olympic style competition in May of 2026 in Las Vegas. It is time for a little bit of science,

    [00:01:23] But not too much.

    [00:01:24] WILL: I'm will grant an associate professor in science communication at the Australian National University,

    [00:01:30] ROD: and I am Roderick g Lamberts. I'm a 30 year sitcom veteran with the mind and indeed the emotional capacity of a 15-year-old boy.

    [00:01:37] WILL: And as well as Rod's always hit more story we've also got for you.

    [00:01:42] No, they fucking didn't.

    [00:01:44] ROD: I've got a little tail on how you really should science.

    [00:01:47] WILL: I've got a big is it ethical question.

    [00:01:49] ROD: No one cares about that. And also, I'm gonna do a fun with animals. And the only way you can tell if they're having fun is ask them.

    [00:01:56] WILL: Finally, wow, payment helps.[00:02:00] 

    [00:02:01] ROD: Since when? When does money mattered? I, what? What are you gonna tell me?

    [00:02:06] WILL: uh, this story is entitled, no, they fucking didn't. 

    [00:02:09] ROD: do I get to guess? 

    [00:02:10] WILL: you may have some friends out there, listener.

    [00:02:12] You may have some friends out there who like to drink the milk that is raw. You know, comes fresh from a cow, uh, possibly straight from the nipple or, you know, maybe you've got it in the fridge. But, uh, it hasn't gone through that magical process of. Pasteurization 

    [00:02:29] ROD: you say posturization

    [00:02:29] WILL: posturization pasteurization.

    [00:02:32] I've told you about milk puss long ago. Long

    [00:02:34] ROD: ago. I just, I don't want to let us forget that. Let, let's keep, keep the dream alive. is it too soon for me to say, I used to talk to someone years ago who was very into raw milk, and one of the things they told me was, oh no, it doesn't go off.

    [00:02:44] Well,

    [00:02:45] WILL: it, it is a food substance.

    [00:02:46] ROD: it doesn't go

    [00:02:47] WILL: It, it definitely does.

    [00:02:48] ROD: If it's processed, it goes off. But if you leave the raw milk in a container on your kitchen bench, it doesn't go off.

    [00:02:53] WILL: That, that is incorrect. That is incorrect. Just to give you a little, not really an analogy, but milk is made for making life like, like we have, we mammals.

    [00:03:02] ROD: So if I drink milk, I get pregnant. Ah,

    [00:03:04] WILL: not quite, no, but it's close. It's close. We, we mammals have said, you know what, we need a, a food to feed babies when they can't really handle other stuff. Let's get some milk. And it turns out that milk because of that, is really great for growing things. milk will grow bacteria quite a lot. Do not put your raw milk. Do not put your regular milk on the bench and just leave it there. No

    [00:03:24] ROD: good bacteria that protect it from going off.

    [00:03:27] WILL: But amongst the mythology of the raw milk drinkers, yes, there are things like, no, it doesn't go off. But also one of the classic ones.

    [00:03:35] Is, ah, it was all fine. In the olden days, you know, on grandma's farm, we'd get the milk, uh, from the cow and we'd drink milk fresh from the cow. It didn't go through. No factory, no government intervention, no public health inspector.

    [00:03:48] ROD: We ate rotting meat and everyone was fine.

    [00:03:50] I'm alive. That's proof that they didn't die before they could procreate. Everything's absolutely fine. We didn't have medicines then. We didn't need medicines. Humanity survived and in fact is thriving.

    [00:03:59] WILL: there, there, [00:04:00] there's actually three interesting flaws in that logic, okay?

    [00:04:04] One is just because it didn't hurt them, doesn't mean it didn't hurt someone else. You know, we've, we've got survivor bias, if it killed 10% of the population, but it didn't kill your grandfather, doesn't mean that it didn't kill 10% of the

    [00:04:17] ROD: Grandpa smoked 119 cigars a day, he lived to a thousand.

    [00:04:20] Therefore, cigarettes aren't bad for you.

    [00:04:22] WILL: So inherently the people that lived are the one. So we've gotta be careful of that. Understood. Two.

    [00:04:27] ROD: Two,

    [00:04:28] WILL: People that say, it didn't hurt me. None. I always, I always love this when people say, you know, I got beaten up as a kid. It didn't hurt me none. It's like, are you sure I got

    [00:04:36] ROD: I got punched in the kidneys all the time? I still pee out of one side of my bits.

    [00:04:40] WILL: sure? Like, like, there are plenty of times I'm like, oh dude, you do look hurt. You do, you do look hurt.

    [00:04:46] ROD: Don't hurt me at all.

    [00:04:49] WILL: Not to be mean. Not to be mean.

    [00:04:50] ROD: That's not being mean. That's being actually quite compassionate.

    [00:04:53] WILL: anyway, I just wanted to, I just wanted to cite my sources here.

    [00:04:56] I was watching a video From Farm to Taber. And, and there is one more flaw. it's total fucking bullshit. So while pasteurization was invented by Louis past.

    [00:05:07] In 1863,

    [00:05:08] ideas of heating things, to make them more sterile. Go a fair bit back. Like he got in there and he was like, I own this thing. And it's like, no. Oh dude,

    [00:05:19] ROD: you nicked

    [00:05:19] WILL: Dude. Dude, a lot of people had been heating things to make them sterile.

    [00:05:24] ROD: I thought of washing

    [00:05:25] WILL: some time.

    [00:05:26] Okay. Yeah. Like there are stories going back to like, there are Chinese monks in like the 12th century or something like that, that are heating things to, to sterilize

    [00:05:32] ROD: them. 

    [00:05:32] WILL: in the 20th century, the 19th century, the 18th century, there is a lot of evidence of, uh, people boiling milk, people boiling milk that comes from the cow and goes into those little kids that they, oh, this is great.

    [00:05:47] Fresh from the cow. And you can see their mother or their grandmother going, yes, darling, fresh from the cow. Because you know, there's a couple of the first one, oh,

    [00:05:55] ROD: I never heard this.

    [00:05:56] This is excellent.

    [00:05:57] WILL: This is excellent. There's a whole bunch of devices called milk boilers.

    [00:05:59] ROD: What do they [00:06:00] do? what are they for?

    [00:06:01] WILL: Um,

    [00:06:02] ROD: why would I buy one?

    [00:06:03] WILL: They look like a sauce with a lid on it and a bit of, you know, 

    [00:06:06] ROD: so I got a cupboard full of milk boilers already.

    [00:06:08] WILL: There you go. No, but, but, uh, you know, it's especially made device so that, so that the bubbles will come up different from water, but they've existed for quite a long time. It was also taught in home economics classes throughout all of these places.

    [00:06:21] Like, it's like, people shared ways to boil milk and what you need to do. 'cause you need to be near, it needed to stir.

    [00:06:26] ROD: I just like actually called milk boilers. Yeah,

    [00:06:29] WILL: Yeah, yeah, yeah. They existed.

    [00:06:30] ROD: of you know, this never happened before.

    [00:06:31] What's that? No, nothing to do with it. That's, that's just ridiculous.

    [00:06:35] WILL: And third.

    [00:06:36] There's a whole bunch of letters between, uh, between women of the 19th century, 18th century saying, ah, I'm sick of boiling the milk. I'm all of this, you can look at Wikipedia milk boiling was practiced for a long time in the United Kingdom before being introduced to the colonies in America in 1773.

    [00:06:52] people been boiling milk for a long time. So this is just a little story about memory hauling things. we, we forget things that we did as a practice, in part because those kids of that time, they didn't pay attention to mom's boring chores. And yes, it was, let's assume it was very gendered labor.

    [00:07:09] Like it, it was, it was the women doing. And also, let's assume also those women are like the instant, they don't have to do it anymore. they're buying milk from the shop.

    [00:07:17] ROD: Yeah. Stop. one thing I don't have to do

    [00:07:18] WILL: one thing I don't have to do. And, and I won't even talk about it.

    [00:07:21] Like, like who's gonna go? Remember those glorious times when we boiled the milk,

    [00:07:25] ROD: but when we had the mango in order to squeeze the water out of our clothes for four and a half

    [00:07:30] WILL: your fingers into

    [00:07:31] ROD: Yeah, yeah.

    [00:07:32] And get forearms like Popeye's.

    [00:07:34] WILL: Yeah, exactly.

    [00:07:35] ROD: Yeah. We don't talk about

    [00:07:35] WILL: don't talk about it. We don't talk about those things anymore because what's to talk about?

    [00:07:38] And so people just completely forgot. So look, there you go. Whenever some ding-dong raw milk drinker says, but we used to drink milk fresh from the cow all the time. probably it was boiled. So I'm gonna tell you how in the olden days we knew how to really science commit, 

    [00:07:57] I think we did. Yes.

    [00:07:59] ROD: [00:08:00] 1978 olden days on the totally 

    [00:08:02] WILL: goki

    [00:08:03] ROD: He's a physicist.

    [00:08:04] WILL: Oh my God.

    [00:08:05] ROD: Do you know him?

    [00:08:06] WILL: I do.

    [00:08:07] ROD: I do. You're gonna love, well, then you're gonna know this,

    [00:08:08] WILL: guy. I love this guy.

    [00:08:10] ROD: So he was inspecting a faulty detector inside the Soviet Union's most powerful particle accelerator

    [00:08:15] WILL: time

    [00:08:16] ROD: Institute of High

    [00:08:17] WILL: physics.

    [00:08:17] I love this guy. I love

    [00:08:19] ROD: he's a legend.

    [00:08:20] WILL: If

    [00:08:20] ROD: still alive, we'll find out.

    [00:08:21] So yeah, Institute of High Energy Physics. It's a one and a half kilometer, uh, long particle accelerator called the U 70 Synchrotron

    [00:08:29] WILL: They name him such cool names.

    [00:08:31] ROD: It really rolls off the tongue. What's this one?

    [00:08:33] WILL: 70? U 70. We have beat 69 before.

    [00:08:36] Yeah. Now number 70,

    [00:08:37] ROD: 69. For some reason, distracted people, not much work Got done

    [00:08:41] WILL: I'm just trying to think about Soviet 60 nines. Like,

    [00:08:43] ROD: I mean, obviously very pragmatic,

    [00:08:45] WILL: obviously. Obviously they did. I

    [00:08:49] ROD: Should we, uh, each genitals in other's mouths? I'm very tired. British tron all day, let us mouth gens not in the wi equals take too long. I

    [00:09:03] WILL: Beautiful. So

    [00:09:04] ROD: you 70 because they got over the, uh, 69, so there's glitch and it needed eyeballing.

    [00:09:09] As he stuck his head into the enormous machine to inspect

    [00:09:13] WILL: bomb. Stick your head in machine.

    [00:09:15] ROD: Look at particles. He was struck in the head by a proton beam traveling at close to the speed of light. We've all been there.

    [00:09:25] WILL: Look, I'm struck by things traveling at the speed of light all the time, but not a whole

    [00:09:28] ROD: but tho those are thoughts.

    [00:09:29] Those are thoughts

    [00:09:30] WILL: No, I mean like from the sun and shit.

    [00:09:32] ROD: Oh, they are photons. Just not as concentrated.

    [00:09:34] WILL: Not as concentrated.

    [00:09:35] ROD: Yeah. So apparently, Several safety mechanisms had failed is a great quote.

    [00:09:41] WILL: Oh, look, I,

    [00:09:41] ROD: oops, 1970s

    [00:09:43] WILL: Russia. I know it's better than 1930s Russia and 1950s Russia. Sure. But I'm not imagining it as the land of safety.

    [00:09:50] ROD: No. However, today just fine.

    [00:09:55] WILL: So what were the safety protocols that, well,

    [00:09:56] ROD: this, I don't know. It wasn't clear. 'cause there, there appeared to have been quite a [00:10:00] few, but the accidents, apparently it exposed him to levels of radiation between 200,000 and 300,000 rads. So that is 600 times ish. Uh, lethal human dose

    [00:10:09] WILL: 600 times a,

    [00:10:10] ROD: Only

    [00:10:11] WILL: you know, you know, sometimes though, I mean we have talked in the past about many of these people that eat a lump of plutonium and go, oh, I've had 800 times the like.

    [00:10:19] ROD: And look at me, I'm fine.

    [00:10:20] WILL: Yeah.

    [00:10:21] ROD: I drank raw milk too. I'm fine.

    [00:10:22] WILL: maybe, maybe that's what fixed it.

    [00:10:24] I don't know if those doses are hard science.

    [00:10:27] ROD: in this case, he got a beam of it, not his whole body awash in it. Maybe that makes

    [00:10:31] WILL: Yeah,

    [00:10:32] ROD: Maybe he wasn't, you know, fully Hulk radiated. So anyway, of course Bosky lived, which is one of the miracles of all this. But sadly, the details of his accident, they weren't particularly clear 'cause they were kept very secret.

    [00:10:42] You know, Soviet, Soviet Union secrets. So there was one single grainy photograph that showed roughly speaking the course of the ray through his swollen noggin.

    [00:10:52] WILL: So this is an X-ray?

    [00:10:53] ROD: No, it's an actual photograph. It's just like

    [00:10:55] WILL: that is so good. Like

    [00:10:57] ROD: it's not great printing, but he, he doesn't

    [00:10:59] WILL: you can see, you can see on that like, so the back of his head's got like a scar in his hair and then just near his nose is like a blood spot. And they've drawn a line going, yep. Proton beam went through scar through brain into nose there.

    [00:11:11] ROD: It's not excellent. I mean, look, my printer's not the most high quality printer, but it's still, you get the gist. people got this photo and they, and they couldn't really tell much from it, but just recently from this grainy pick, some clever buggers did a 3D rendering.

    [00:11:25] WILL: Oh really?

    [00:11:26] ROD: Yeah, because they wanted to get more detail. So what was good about it was, this photo is slight, it's not quite side on, there's a slight rotation of his head, which apparently helped do the rendering to get a clear image of, as they put it, how they could reconstruct the line of damage.

    [00:11:39] WILL: Yes, indeed.

    [00:11:40] ROD: So it looks like the, the proton beam trajectory, it, it, it crosses, it goes up his schnoz I

    [00:11:45] WILL: I thought it went in the back of his head. I feel,

    [00:11:46] ROD: no, I think it went up his nose first and then passed out through the back.

    [00:11:49] Okay.

    [00:11:51] WILL: And

    [00:11:51] ROD: it goes through the bony labyrinth, as it were of his left ear passes mostly through the temporal lobe. Oh no, you're right. It might come, come the other way through. The thing [00:12:00] passes his ear close to the point at which it meets the occipital lobe, which we all know is very important. What does this mean? It makes sense of the epileptic seizures that he had after he had the accident. Mm-hmm. Also, the fact that his left ear basically stopped working. Yeah. Okay. Deaf as a post, sorry, deaf as a post. And also he experienced numbness on the left side of his face, probably due to damage of that fraught Popped out his nose.

    [00:12:23] Yeah, no, and you're right, it came out his nose, not in his nose. I got confused. So it's also, they say noteworthy. That despite the injury occurring in a region associated with language in the temporal lobe at the boundary of the occipital lobe, which is related to vision.

    [00:12:36] The accident, other than making him tired and the numbness and

    [00:12:40] WILL: hit the sleepy center.

    [00:12:41] ROD: Yeah. Apparently it made him quite fatigued. And, um, other than that, it didn't significantly impair his perception or intellectual faculties.

    [00:12:49] WILL: That's awesome. 'cause I, I confess, I have, uh, loved the story of the dude getting hit by the proton beam. But this, but it's nice to see, this is like old mate with the railroad spike, um, from all of the psychology

    [00:12:59] ROD: Yeah. It's the modern version

    [00:13:00] WILL: of what, 18th century or

    [00:13:02] ROD: Gage or something, I think his name was. Yeah.

    [00:13:04] WILL: So he, he got the railroad spike straight through the head.

    [00:13:07] ROD: Yeah. He, he tamped down on some dynamite and blew a crowbar through his noggin.

    [00:13:10] Who

    [00:13:10] WILL: doesn't do that often?

    [00:13:12] ROD: I don't do it often, but yeah, once or twice. You gotta know. 

    [00:13:14] WILL: Was it, was it a full crowbar, micro bar is quite a big thing

    [00:13:17] ROD: Yeah. No, well his is an old school one, so they're probably more expensive to make them large. Yeah. Like one of those lean ones. But what I love about this, so not only did he survive after the accident, he finished his work day,

    [00:13:28] WILL: Mm-hmm. Which is very is

    [00:13:31] ROD: obvious, and then didn't get medical attention till the next day.

    [00:13:34] No, I,

    [00:13:35] WILL: you know, maybe he's thinking a little bit of blood fine.

    [00:13:37] Like this is, this is classic.

    [00:13:39] ROD: Well, I can still move mostly both my arms.

    [00:13:41] WILL: This is such a classic communist story as well. and do we know that's true? it's just like old mate I think it was Chairman Mao was inspecting the dam building

    [00:13:48] ROD: Oh yeah,

    [00:13:50] WILL: and the concrete wasn't mixing fast enough, so he jumped into the concrete to mix it himself.

    [00:13:54] Like it's such a, maybe it's true. Maybe that's, that's the level of fervor that people [00:14:00] had for work in these communist societies, but also might be some propaganda.

    [00:14:03] ROD: Oh, it might be. He's got nothing better to do.

    [00:14:04] 'cause apparently a year and a half later he finally goes back to work properly.

    [00:14:08] WILL: Oh, so he finished the day, then took a year and a

    [00:14:10] ROD: had to have a little bit

    [00:14:10] WILL: Finished the day, then take I think smart. That's weird.

    [00:14:14] ROD: Then completed a PhD.

    [00:14:16] WILL: Good on you.

    [00:14:16] ROD: and was in the job until he was 77. Huh. So, as I said at the top, that that is how he science So we often talk about fun with animals and you know, whether it's good for them or not. we've gotten to a point where maybe if we're having fun with animals, we dunno if they're having fun, but maybe, maybe,

    [00:14:34] last story we'll be able to ask. So 2024 Kohler Doolittle Challenge. Kohler Doolittle challenge for interspecies. Two-way communication was launched. The challenge for Interspecies, two-way communication. So it's a mixed between a foundation by Jeremy Kohler and Tel Aviv University

    [00:14:50] WILL: Uhhuh. So

    [00:14:51] ROD: a Professor Yossi, he's at Tel Aviv.

    [00:14:54] He's the chair of this prize committee. Uh, he also co-authored a study which recently developed machine learning algorithms to translate bat squeaks.

    [00:15:03] And it got them to at least be able to identify the subject of the squabbles between said bats.

    [00:15:09] WILL: That's mine. That's mine. Yeah. That's mine. Mine,

    [00:15:13] ROD: me. Bat me.

    [00:15:13] Bat mine. 

    [00:15:15] WILL: what was, it was a Gary Larson cartoon. he said all dogs, all they ever say is, Hey. Different version of Hey. With different tone. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, that's, we've got it.

    [00:15:24] Like we know what they're saying. Yeah. It's, it's not rocket science.

    [00:15:27] ROD: Well, you know, I mean, we talked about ethics recently and that might come into this. so there are other efforts that have tried to

    [00:15:32] WILL: to include

    [00:15:34] ROD: similar approaches. So algorithms to detect the emotion of pigs and their grunts, the squeaks of rodents to identify when they're stressed.

    [00:15:41] I can answer that. If they're squeaking, they're stressed. Yeah. Also, to be fair, rodents I think are mostly stressed. I think that's their baseline position.

    [00:15:49] WILL: Smaller animal you are, you know, you gotta be stressed about the

    [00:15:51] ROD: and, and when your job is basically to scrounge things and try not to get eaten

    [00:15:55] WILL: I'm imagine elephants and blue whales, low stressed, like, they're just

    [00:15:58] ROD: well, a lot of social commitment [00:16:00] though, maybe.

    [00:16:00] WILL: Maybe

    [00:16:01] ROD: Precious, precious to conform. So the prize is for cracking the code from this challenge. The grand prize is an award of either $10 million US 10 million is an equity investment or you get a $500,000 cash prize. So you either get an investor of

    [00:16:16] WILL: 10 million Oh, an investor into your company.

    [00:16:18] ROD: Or you get slapped half a mill.

    [00:16:20] WILL: Yeah. Okay. Okay.

    [00:16:20] ROD: And they're a smaller annual prize of a hundred K to help researchers come up with, uh, as they put it, scientifically rigorous models and algorithms for coherent communication with non-human organisms until interspecies communication is achieved. So that's a big thing.

    [00:16:36] They say, look, we're open to any organism comms and any modality from acoustic communication whales to chemical communication in worms. I

    [00:16:44] WILL: love it.

    [00:16:45] ROD: And I'd never thought of chemical 

    [00:16:46] WILL: No. This, you know.

    [00:16:47] ROD: no, I mean, I, I thought

    [00:16:48] WILL: we could talk to trees too.

    [00:16:49] ROD: like, that I thought of. I knew this happens, but the idea that you would somehow find the algorithms or the machinery

    [00:16:54] WILL: think, I think this is one of the few areas where I'm like, ai, go for it. Yeah. Like, like, let's do this and then we'll be saddened. 'cause 'cause their conversation is not rich.

    [00:17:03] ROD: Mine, mine. Mine. Yeah. That's, well this does come up. I agree. Like it's, I'm torn on this, but the, the, the ultimate goal, they, they do say ai.

    [00:17:13] Look, it's not, it's not critically use ai, but it's highly likely it would be helpful, you know, so the ultimate goal they say is develop a system where animals do not realize they're communicating with humans. So they've gone tearing test on this. You wanna get to the point where

    [00:17:25] WILL: oh.

    [00:17:26] ROD: the animal can't tell it's communicating with a mediated life form or with some other creature.

    [00:17:30] It's gotta be that good.

    [00:17:32] WILL: It's, it's like it's communicating with a member of its

    [00:17:34] ROD: a native speaker as it were.

    [00:17:36] WILL: Because remember there are some animals that have words for human.

    [00:17:38] they

    [00:17:39] ROD: have words for human?

    [00:17:39] WILL: Yeah. I told you a couple of weeks ago, man,

    [00:17:41] ROD: that was ages

    [00:17:42] WILL: ago, didn't you? Listen,

    [00:17:43] ROD: I never listen. I'm all about output. So they're talking about, yeah, this idea that you can somehow create a conversation with a non-human that they can't tell the difference. So they wanna, they're hoping to announce the grand prize in a couple of years. So this was launched in into 2024. They don't expect it to suddenly the grand

    [00:17:59] WILL: No, no, [00:18:00] no, no. This is a big challenge.

    [00:18:01] ROD: This is a big challenge. It is a big challenge. So small price criteria, things like this, you have to have approaches that are non-invasive and applicable across a wide range of contexts.

    [00:18:10] So like grabbing a dolphin and putting a chip in its brain doesn't count.

    [00:18:13] WILL: Okay. Okay. Yep.

    [00:18:15] ROD: Which is fair enough. It's gotta be based on normal communication signals of the animals, like the range of the way they do it.

    [00:18:21] WILL: can't train it to, well, no, fair. Yeah. Training gorillas to sign language, 

    [00:18:25] ROD: the results of which have not been controversial

    [00:18:27] WILL: whatsoever. No, no, no. Indeed, indeed. But at least there, there have been efforts in that direction.

    [00:18:32] ROD: have hands and they use hands. So it's not unreasonable. Um, it also has to allow researchers to measure the response of the animal. And its attempt that your attempts, so you've gotta somehow be able to measure the communication attempts in terms of the responses of the animal, which is fair.

    [00:18:47] So, uh, the team had surprise, could have important ramifications for the understanding of animal sentience. And hence, I love this, provide support for animal rights. What I really enjoy is, and you kind of hinted at this, the assumption that communicating with animals won't, won't reveal that they're fricking monsters.

    [00:19:03] Like they might be horrible or stupid as hell. in all through this, there's this sweet naivety, like we have to respect their

    [00:19:09] WILL: Well, you think it's, it's all, it's all like, I want to eat that. I want to take that, I want to eat you.

    [00:19:13] ROD: Well, you made talking to Dolphins, right? Even amongst some very sophisticated and uh, uh, gentil, uh, com communications I've had this week with esteem scientists.

    [00:19:22] They're like, yeah. So we took this family out to see the dolphins and it all looked very good. 'cause these four dolphins were interacting. We didn't mention that it was one female and three males trying to rape the female because that's just what dolphins do. And she sort of smiles politely and wanders off.

    [00:19:36] And I thought, yeah, good point. So I mean, the idea that their moral, their, their morality will be the same as ours. Or matter at all is interesting Detractors to this. Say, look, I think no amount of AI programming can substitute for long-term, detailed knowledge of the society and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

    [00:19:53] Indeed, it does matter. a professor of psychology at the Union of Pennsylvania says, look, trying to uncover the meaning of a [00:20:00] baboon's grunt, a dolphin's whistle or an elephant's rumble without knowing the social background takes years.

    [00:20:07] he likens it to jumping to page 137 of Pride and Prejudice.

    [00:20:11] WILL: Oh, that's a good page though.

    [00:20:12] ROD: page though. I know. That's the one where Elizabeth Bennett says no to Mr. Darcy.

    [00:20:18] WILL: I'll bet it is. I'll be, I'll bet it is. And that's, oh, it's, oh,

    [00:20:20] ROD: oh, it's stirring.

    [00:20:22] WILL: Bennett. Oh, you're so strong, but, so wrong.

    [00:20:25] If only she knew how good, how good Mr. Darcy's heart was. Exactly.

    [00:20:29] ROD: So if you just suddenly dived in there, you wouldn't know the context. This is exactly the same as communicating with animals apparently. we fast forward to 20, 25, 20 teams have entered the competition.

    [00:20:41] WILL: good. Awesome.

    [00:20:42] ROD: this is a year later from when it was first kicked off. There were four finalists. They included people who were looking at comms in Nightingales.

    [00:20:50] WILL: I like how you say comms? 

    [00:20:51] ROD: It's our role.

    [00:20:52] Comms. Sorry. Communication. Sorry. gonna do some animal comms. We're gonna get a PR

    [00:20:56] WILL: I, I do, I do social media. I'm pretty good at LinkedIn and animal

    [00:20:59] ROD: I can do baboons and puppies, but not much else. You know, I'm not good with this. So that's why they did nine Nightingales

    [00:21:04] So, Nightingales, cuttle, fish, cuttlefish. I know. Which to me are always just those bits of white

    [00:21:11] WILL: Oh, but you never know. I mean, a lot of these animal researchers, it's like, why do we, why do you choose the fruit fly? Oh. 'cause it fucks a lot

    [00:21:18] ROD: And dies

    [00:21:18] WILL: and dies fast. And dies fast. And it's like, oh, okay. All right. Fair enough.

    [00:21:22] ROD: cutoff fish.

    [00:21:23] WILL: could be easy to hold into a tank. Like it could be

    [00:21:26] ROD: also, I'm guessing the ethics thing. Like we don't care if it's okay to hurt fish. 'cause they don't have any feelings

    [00:21:31] WILL: Kurt Cobain said to the ethics committee Exactly. 

    [00:21:33] ROD: he was wearing that old jumper in those glasses he got from the op shop at the time.

    [00:21:36] WILL: Yeah. He would've looked very scholarly in those glasses. Wouldn't work. Like, I would've been like, Kurt be my PhD advisor.

    [00:21:42] Come on man.

    [00:21:43] ROD: I don't think you would've come as far as you have. The other one was Mama sets.

    [00:21:47] WILL: Mama

    [00:21:47] ROD: Mama sets. Mama sets. But we have a first winner of a small prize 2025. May this year, a team from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute collaborated with the Sara Sota Dolphin Research program.

    [00:21:59] WILL: Oh, I'm guessing it's dolphins [00:22:00] then.

    [00:22:00] ROD: How'd you know?

    [00:22:01] led by a person called Layla. She'd been studying bottle those dolphins for more than four decades. So they got acres of data. Yeah, They use non-invasive technologies, so that was part of their condition. You can't be invasive hydrophones, digital acoustic tags attached by suction cups to the animals. That's a hell of a suction cup to stick it to a dolphin and it stays with all the water in the S

    [00:22:22] WILL: cup technology has developed quite a lot recently

    [00:22:24] ROD: since I was a boy.

    [00:22:25] WILL: Uh, it, it has, it really

    [00:22:27] ROD: over 40 years.

    [00:22:28] WILL: We'll do a whole episode. A whole episode just on suction cup

    [00:22:31] ROD: That's at five angles.

    [00:22:33] WILL: Yeah.

    [00:22:34] ROD: So the recorded sounds like the, like a, a name like signature whistles of certain animals that were identified regularly with a particular kind of whistle.

    [00:22:42] So like a

    [00:22:43] WILL: Oh yeah, they, yeah, they in

    [00:22:43] ROD: Like a name. Yeah. And non signature whistles, which were about, they say 50% of the animals calls, but poorly understood. So we've done a lot of research. Now we dunno what that is, which is funny. Anyway, they found there are at least 20 types of non signature whistles that multiple dolphins use.

    [00:22:59] So same kind of non signature whistle

    [00:23:01] WILL: Things that were

    [00:23:02] ROD: non names

    [00:23:03] WILL: wordy sort of

    [00:23:03] ROD: Yeah, yeah. That others have used. It's not just one dolphin going pr, a whole bunch of them go.

    [00:23:07] WILL: They don't sound like that at all.

    [00:23:09] ROD: Two types of these were shared by at least 25 individuals. So there's a shared tonal link. Link, yeah. Some kind of vocab. So the researchers played these sounds back to the dolphins and they found one of them triggered. Avoidance in the animals

    [00:23:21] WILL: Oh, okay.

    [00:23:22] ROD: might be an alarm. Yeah. Another triggered a range of responses.

    [00:23:27] Could be a sound made by dolphins when they encounter something unexpected.

    [00:23:30] WILL: What's the, what's the agy one? Like they go into a wl, like how do you,

    [00:23:33] ROD: oh, I love that word.

    [00:23:34] WILL: there, is there a command? It's like, go,

    [00:23:36] ROD: It's not weird and rapy. It's a wl.

    [00:23:38] WILL: Yeah. 

    [00:23:38] ROD: So the, the is Israeli, um, academic who's part of the board. He said, look, we're mostly impressed by the long-term huge data set these people created.

    [00:23:47] Yep. That's a critical thing and we're sure it'll lead to more research. And this is great. And the judges were also impressed by the non-invasive techniques, which is great. But of course we have a professor of animal computer interactions. She says, you [00:24:00] know, you know the standard discipline, animal computer interactions.

    [00:24:03] I think one of the main benefits of these advances is that they could finely demonstrate animals. Communication systems can be just as sophisticated and effective for use in the environments in which their users have evolved as human language in our species. So it could be like people and stuff?

    [00:24:17] WILL: No,

    [00:24:18] I don't believe so.

    [00:24:19] ROD: You think animals are dumber than us.

    [00:24:21] WILL: Are

    [00:24:21] I do.

    [00:24:21] ROD: do.

    [00:24:22] WILL: Dolphins may be pretty decent, but like they can recognize themselves in a mirror. They can use names. Yeah. They have culture. Uh, there's a bunch of other animals that are of that sort of thing.

    [00:24:32] They can use tools, me.

    [00:24:33] Surprised. Okay. If dolphins are talking about things much more complicated than food, sex, territory

    [00:24:39] ROD: Fun.

    [00:24:40] WILL: Fun.

    [00:24:40] ROD: Like, woo.

    [00:24:41] WILL: Yeah,

    [00:24:42] ROD: sure. I wanna totally disagree with you, but I don't necessarily, because I love that these are often people who, who critique others for anthropomorphizing.

    [00:24:49] Yeah. And then they subliminally

    [00:24:51] WILL: No, go all the way

    [00:24:53] ROD: the shit outta

    [00:24:53] WILL: this. Even the ants. The ants have like capitalism

    [00:24:56] ROD: they have and they have emotions and they care. They have humility. They're deserving of respect.

    [00:25:01] WILL: Oh no. They're deserving of respect.

    [00:25:02] ROD: they?

    [00:25:03] WILL: Jesus man. Yeah, of course they

    [00:25:04] ROD: oh, they, I want evidence.

    [00:25:06] Well, she says when the prize is first announced. More importantly, the question is whether we'll be willing to truly listen.

    [00:25:12] WILL: Oh, wow. Well, do we truly listen to each other? Do we truly listen to ourselves? Whoa, whoa. Do we ever,

    [00:25:20] ROD: I don't know.

    [00:25:21] She goes on to say, uh, are we gonna grant them the fundamental entitlements, their intrinsic dignity demands? I sincerely hope so. To which I reply again. How do you know they're not fucking monsters? imagine you translate an elephant or whatever, and it's just like, I wanna murder everything.

    [00:25:37] That isn't me. Fuck you. The world is mine to abuse and use.

    [00:25:41] WILL: I, I would be surprised. I mean, I mean the, the idea that

    [00:25:44] ROD: but, but why not?

    [00:25:45] WILL: We translate all animals and it turns out that they're genocide, they're monsters, they're genocidal monsters that we have to exterminate. I feel unlikely.

    [00:25:52] ROD: But I just, I, I, I do love how many people, oh, their intrinsic dignity will finally reveal that.

    [00:25:56] And I'm like, you, you don't know that they could be dreadful.

    [00:25:59] WILL: Oh. And, and

    [00:25:59] ROD: why [00:26:00] would they not be dreadful? Well,

    [00:26:01] WILL: and look, this, this goes back to, you know, there's a bunch of people in, in a variety of places, genocide studies and others that, for example, that, uh, that we can hear the voices of other people.

    [00:26:11] Yes. And it doesn't have to be a genocide, but there's plenty of inhumanity happening on the planet right now. We can literally hear their voices. Yeah. And we don't treat them with significant dignity. Yeah. Like, I'm sorry. Yeah. That doesn't happen just because we can hear their

    [00:26:24] ROD: Yeah. Suddenly we understand what they're saying.

    [00:26:26] It's like we speak a lot of languages and we still treat 'em like shit. That's not hard to imagine. So in the end, look, what my takeaway from this is very interesting because, for me, it's very interesting. The, the, the Dolphin Project reveals one main thing, which is basically the whole world is large language models.

    [00:26:41] They're just saying the best thing about this is we get this giant database of sounds to crunch

    [00:26:45] WILL: fairness, that is literally a large language model. Like they don't have associations. That's the, that's the challenge.

    [00:26:50] ROD: Yeah. But yeah, I, I agree with you too. But it's just interesting that for all this other dignity and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, it's the bottom line is we get this huge database of stuff that we can squeeze through ai.

    [00:26:58] And find the patterns. I love it. I'm not against that.

    [00:27:00] WILL: Oh, I love that. I love that.

    [00:27:01] ROD: But the whole assumption, oh, the beautiful human dignity of the animal species. Nah, I'm not convinced. I'm not convinced. So up the top, I started with the idea that we should always hit the more button.

    [00:27:14] And we talked about the enhanced games. So the enhanced games seeks to reinvent sport with science. That's their words in and in their words in particular. We are pioneering a new era in athletic competition that embraces scientific advancements to push the boundaries of human performance. They're pioneers.

    [00:27:29] Yeah, they're pioneers

    [00:27:30] WILL: and particular sorts of science. So it's more your chemistry. Uh, your biochemistry,

    [00:27:35] ROD: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    [00:27:35] WILL: maybe, you know,

    [00:27:36] ROD: not so much your robotics,

    [00:27:38] WILL: Well, not so

    [00:27:38] ROD: much you gotta do with your human

    [00:27:39] WILL: or not so much your training or your, you

    [00:27:42] ROD: or your psychiatry or any of that really.

    [00:27:44] It's just like, let's beef up the beef. So basically what they're saying is we don't wanna just allow performance handing drugs. We want to encourage their use and celebrate their use. That's what they're

    [00:27:54] WILL: saying. Mm-hmm.

    [00:27:55] ROD: So, um, the events, they're planning on having things like this. Swimming, of course, [00:28:00] 50 meter Americans, but they're going with meters ' 

    [00:28:02] WILL: I do love that Americans are occasionally forced to use metric. I do like that. Suck it

    [00:28:05] ROD: It's like, yeah. Ha ha. 50 meters, a hundred meter freestyle. Both. And the 50 meter and a hundred meter butterfly. 

    [00:28:12] Like I would love to see someone do butterfly so fast. They're basically like a, a hydrofoil across the water. That would be amazing. that's one of the events.

    [00:28:19] They also, obviously, obviously, and this is one that excites me the most. Weightlifting, I really wanna know.

    [00:28:24] WILL: it actually excites you.

    [00:28:26] ROD: Fuck yeah. I wanna see what a human body can lift. Like, I, I think that's amazing.

    [00:28:29] WILL: why don't you eat a forklift? Like, fuck,

    [00:28:31] ROD: with only their meat?

    [00:28:32] WILL: this is, is

    [00:28:34] ROD: iron can meat lift?

    [00:28:35] WILL: What can meat, like

    [00:28:36] ROD: How much iron can meat lift?

    [00:28:38] WILL: Who cares? Oh my god. Me fucking can,

    [00:28:42] ROD: I thought we were friends. I thought my interests were your interest are just out of

    [00:28:46] WILL: Are you gonna watch this thing?

    [00:28:47] ROD: I would 100% watch this a hundred percent. I would not be able to help myself. They also wanna do a hundred meter sprints and 110 meter hurdles. ' 

    [00:28:55] WILL: I, I, I want the drug that, uh, helps you get better at hurdles because I feel like, I feel like yes, you've gotta get fast.

    [00:29:00] There is, there is the fastness bit, but still the getting over the hurdles. Like,

    [00:29:05] ROD: well, the Isn't it true though if, if you run the hurdles and you smash into the hurdle, you can still, in theory you could still win.

    [00:29:10] You don't have to get over

    [00:29:11] WILL: It's not, it's not a, it's not a have to get over

    [00:29:13] ROD: So all you've gotta do is make 'em strong enough to blow through the hurdle and fast.

    [00:29:17] WILL: I think it's just annoying on your knees. Like if they were like chest height and you could, you could

    [00:29:20] ROD: just annoying

    [00:29:21] WILL: Well,

    [00:29:22] ROD: what? My knees are a little bothered.

    [00:29:23] They're

    [00:29:23] WILL: fricking trippy little. No, the problem is they fall over and they trip you.

    [00:29:26] ROD: because they trip you. Yeah. Yeah. So what you do is you enhance people enough that it doesn't matter, just straight through. So each winner would get a $250,000. You don't get that in the Olympics. Also,

    [00:29:36] WILL: adoration of your nation.

    [00:29:38] ROD: I do crave that. So yeah, you also get bonuses if you get a world record.

    [00:29:42] So if you get the a hundred meter world record or the 50 meter freestyle world record, you get a million. No

    [00:29:47] WILL: wait, wait, wait. Million bucks. They're not world records.

    [00:29:50] ROD: Yes, they are. If you're faster than any human being,

    [00:29:53] WILL: no. In

    [00:29:54] ROD: In the parameters of the enhanced games, you are faster

    [00:29:56] WILL: than No. You can in, in your, in your enhanced games, you can have whatever world [00:30:00] record.

    [00:30:00] They're not world record like, like if you, no, if if you, if you are like, I got a world record for swimming the fastest 50 meters

    [00:30:07] ROD: in a speedboat,

    [00:30:08] WILL: in a speedboat, in a speedboat, like that's not a world record in swimming. The 50 meter

    [00:30:13] ROD: in a speedboat. It is.

    [00:30:14] WILL: Yeah. Fine. It's the world record of, of pretending to swim in a

    [00:30:18] ROD: not actually swimming.

    [00:30:19] Like

    [00:30:19] WILL: you don't get the 50 meter freestyle world record.

    [00:30:22] ROD: speedboat is half full of water and you're splashing your arms around?

    [00:30:24] WILL: matter. Doesn't matter. I'm sorry. they're world records in their category. Exactly. And every person in the enhanced games will get a world record because this is the first time they're

    [00:30:32] ROD: No, no.

    [00:30:33] 'cause they're competing against others.

    [00:30:34] WILL: And in fairness, they have to actually beat the, the regular humans at

    [00:30:37] ROD: Yes, they do,

    [00:30:38] WILL: But they're not, yeah, they're not world records. They're okay. Okay. They're beating world records, but they're not, yeah.

    [00:30:43] ROD: In a different

    [00:30:44] WILL: way.

    [00:30:44] They're not competing

    [00:30:44] ROD: with an angle, so they get a million bucks.

    [00:30:46] You beat those world records, you get a a a million bucks. but you'd be amazed to hear that not everyone is on board with this idea.

    [00:30:51] WILL: What

    [00:30:53] ROD: What I know, I was shocked. So there, there's a great one here. The world, you know, wada, the World Anti-Doping Agency. So the president recently released currently VI Bunker.

    [00:31:03] He was at a meeting of the Summer Olympics sports leaders and he said basically the enhanced games. I love this quote. pose a threat to all that's hallowed and decent in global sport.

    [00:31:12] WILL: No, indeed, indeed. And global sport is the most decent and hallowed place known to man.

    [00:31:17] Possibly only all has been, possibly only, only trumped in hallowed ness by the, papacy in the Catholic church. Like

    [00:31:23] ROD: you are right, you are right. Anointed by God. Or at

    [00:31:26] WILL: Yeah. No. So you get the Catholic church and then you then you get

    [00:31:29] ROD: hallowed ness of global sport. And it's not quite anointed, but it sits under when the, the papacy getting anointed. And they get dribbles of the ointments. Yeah,

    [00:31:36] WILL: they do. They they, they do the ointment dribbles.

    [00:31:38] ROD: He says this initiative seeks to normalize the use of potentially dangerous drugs. Yes. He's not wrong For the sake of the athlete health and purity of sport, of course it must be stopped. He's serious at the 20, uh, 28 Olympic Games in LA As they approach, we cannot allow what should be a celebration of honest sporting endeavors.

    [00:31:58] WILL: I'm, yeah, I'm with him.

    [00:31:59] ROD: It should [00:32:00] not be overshadowed by this cynical attempt to under undermine clean sport. they're gonna urge the US authorities

    [00:32:05] WILL: you know? Do you know?

    [00:32:05] ROD: it. Block it.

    [00:32:06] WILL: you know what's tough is when there are baddies on both sides. Mm-hmm. Like, like the Olympic, the Olympic Federation is not the world's most honest, non-corrupt organization there, but,

    [00:32:17] ROD: but no, they're not. But

    [00:32:19] WILL: putting up boundaries and saying, maybe we should stop the point at which giant corporations or nations either

    [00:32:27] ROD: either way

    [00:32:28] WILL: can manipulate individual people into the worst things for them.

    [00:32:33] ROD: manipulate, incentivize.

    [00:32:34] I, I think

    [00:32:34] WILL: I think the Olympics like clearly, you know, look at the worst times of the Olympics. You, you go when, when East Germany won all of the gold medals, like back in 1982 or something like

    [00:32:43] ROD: that. Coincidence.

    [00:32:43] WILL: you look at their steroid program

    [00:32:45] ROD: they've trained better. They've trained better.

    [00:32:46] Everyone knows

    [00:32:47] WILL: like they were hosing them with steroids. Yeah. And, and wow. They won. have you, have you seen the death rate from all of those

    [00:32:53] ROD: Yeah. It's like 8%, no, 10%, I,

    [00:32:55] WILL: Oh, I don't know.

    [00:32:56] But you know,

    [00:32:56] ROD: it's high.

    [00:32:56] WILL: high. It's, it's, uh,

    [00:32:58] ROD: you telling me it's high? You tell me they've suffered. You tell me the side effects.

    [00:33:01] Are you saying it's bad for them?

    [00:33:02] WILL: Yes,

    [00:33:03] ROD: but they get money.

    [00:33:04] WILL: Money

    [00:33:05] ROD: free choice. Consent money. Yeah. American Way, man.

    [00:33:08] WILL: Money keeps you alive. I'm not saying the Olympics are the good guys.

    [00:33:11] No,

    [00:33:11] ROD: No,

    [00:33:12] WILL: but this is so much worse.

    [00:33:13] ROD: no, you're right. Like the, the, the, the World Anti-Doping Association, it came up in one of the stories I was reading about this, you know, like they're not exactly pure, they're a whole bunch of Chinese athletes and,

    [00:33:23] WILL: and you know what, it's

    [00:33:23] ROD: and you know what, it's, they, they chose not to test them properly or they chose to let the, you know, like there's, there's a lot of sleepness

    [00:33:29] WILL: actually really complicated science to actually work out what's going on, and, and it's not beyond science, but it's, you know, a lot of this stuff is measuring elevated testosterone or something like that, and it's, and obviously you

    [00:33:40] ROD: And it's, and obviously you and I have that all the time.

    [00:33:40] WILL: No, but it's not actually measurable in the sense it's just based on averages of what a woman or a man might have. But you, you're selecting people who are elite already. So it's, it's

    [00:33:50] ROD: are not average women or men.

    [00:33:51] WILL: it's not actually simple, but getting to a place where you go all on for young and old.

    [00:33:56] ROD: but that, that is kind of an argument for saying, fuck it, then,

    [00:33:59] uh, 

    [00:33:59] WILL: no, [00:34:00] there is, there is a version of that that says, okay, then we don't have to think about trans, we don't have to think about man, woman, or anything. Like

    [00:34:06] ROD: have at it. Have at it.

    [00:34:06] WILL: at it. Have at it. Shoot yourself in the eyeballs and, and go to or other way. Ban all money in sport.

    [00:34:14] All money. All money in sport.

    [00:34:15] ROD: You don't even have to buy a

    [00:34:16] WILL: You're only allowed, you're only allowed to watch community sport. That's it.

    [00:34:19] ROD: Oh, I hate you. I wanna watch Australian rugby. No,

    [00:34:24] WILL: no. That's the other solution. You are only solution. You are only allowed to watch kids sport and community sport like Jesus.

    [00:34:29] ROD: Not, not only allowed, you must, you must watch four hours a week. Otherwise you're not part of the community. You're not a good and upstanding member.

    [00:34:38] Oh God, it makes me wanna cry.

    [00:34:40] So, um, United States, uh, U-S-A-D-A, they're people who are against stuff like this.

    [00:34:46] They say, as we've repeatedly said, for all of the obvious reasons, the enhanced games or any equivalent. Competition is a bad idea. We really want the USA authorities to do something. We should show up and ask the Senate to do something. So we want a block, block, block, block, block. So the first world sports body, the pushback was world aquatics and they passed a ban on any swimmer.

    [00:35:05] And I like this, who supports endorsers or participates in an event that embraces the use of these enhancements,

    [00:35:13] WILL: don't get to compete against them

    [00:35:14] ROD: If you even support, if you say it's cool, I'm not doing it. But it's cool if they want to, they say, no, you're out. You cannot police. Yeah. A hundred percent

    [00:35:20] WILL: how you solve problems. Yep. No, it's true. I mean, that's what 1984 told us. I didn't get to the end of 1984.

    [00:35:26] Who knows

    [00:35:26] ROD: We didn't need to. It all went well. No, it got better at the end. I think it got

    [00:35:29] WILL: what it was saying

    [00:35:30] ROD: turned into a utopia Police

    [00:35:31] WILL: the thoughts and you solve the problems.

    [00:35:33] ROD: It did. It did. And prohibition in, you know, obviously in America are the booze that worked. It worked. Exactly. Social media bans for children, it's gonna work. When you ban stuff, it will work. That's how that we know this's. Yeah, every, every example around the world where you ban stuff, people don't find workarounds and it works.

    [00:35:50] WILL: I think listener is like, what side are you on?

    [00:35:52] ROD: I know I'm confusing. So the enhanced games, the founder and president of the Enhanced Games is an Aussie bloke,

    [00:35:57] WILL: Aussie, who is it?

    [00:35:58] ROD: Aaron dea. [00:36:00] and he reckons Olympics don't compensate their athletes fairly. Wow. Wow. So what,

    [00:36:05] WILL: what, I dunno what fair would be, but, but I don't doubt, I don't doubt

    [00:36:09] ROD: 10 bucks an hour, room and board.

    [00:36:10] WILL: Well, I don't doubt that. Uh, a fraction of a second different and there is a lot of money difference in, in.

    [00:36:18] Mm-hmm. You know, you can, you can come forth by a very, very short amount of money and there's no doors open to you. There's not, you, you get a bunch of gold medals and, you know, there's money. it's almost like it's one of those Powell Law industries where a lot goes to the top.

    [00:36:32] ROD: Yeah. And it's also what I like though, coming from the, the point of view of someone who's trying to promote this stuff. Who obviously has no fiscal interest in this at all. Nothing to gain

    [00:36:40] WILL: you,

    [00:36:41] ROD: you, me? No. These guys like Aaron to say that Oh, no, no.

    [00:36:45] The reason we're doing this is 'cause it's fairer to the athletes. We will compensate them fairly. It's a classic, classic line. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. They're not being compensated fairly. The immoral thing is not paying people properly. Um, he also says athletes should have the freedom to make their own choices.

    [00:36:59] and the world anti-doping authority is actually an anti-science police force. This

    [00:37:03] WILL: the consent issue, isn't it?

    [00:37:04] Isn't 

    [00:37:04] ROD: isn't it? It's also their anti-science. They're not letting us use all the stuff.

    [00:37:08] WILL: doped up Ewoks?

    [00:37:09] Like how much, how much can we do?

    [00:37:12] ROD: for an orgy. You, you,

    [00:37:13] you, 

    [00:37:14] WILL: up

    [00:37:14] ROD: are you making it weird again?

    [00:37:15] WILL: wanna juice up the Ewok.

    [00:37:17] ROD: That's basically a grizzly. A wie or a grizzly?

    [00:37:23] WILL: I don't wanna have sex with a wie. Like, I'm sorry.

    [00:37:26] ROD: I don't think it matters whether you want to Wie sound big on consent.

    [00:37:33] can you imagine?

    [00:37:35] WILL: I,

    [00:37:36] ROD: No, I don't care.

    [00:37:38] WILL: Whatcha

    [00:37:38] ROD: you gonna do? Anyway?

    [00:37:42] so they also go on to say, they go on, obviously it's anti-science, it's not fair. What they, they, the enhanced games people protecting athletes is our top priority.

    [00:37:50] WILL: Is it?

    [00:37:51] ROD: So they wanna free them up, get them paid properly, and protect them.

    [00:37:54] WILL: Indeed, indeed. Protect them from

    [00:37:56] ROD: the bad,

    [00:37:57] WILL: the rip off of the

    [00:37:58] ROD: ripoff of not being [00:38:00] paid properly and not having freedom.

    [00:38:01] It's very American, even though he is Australian, every competitor will undergo rigorous state-of-the-art, medical profiling before participating in the competition.

    [00:38:09] WILL: What, what does that mean?

    [00:38:10] ROD: I don't know. ECG and something, something up the butt.

    [00:38:12] WILL: but if you don't care why

    [00:38:14] ROD: they do care, they wanna protect them,

    [00:38:15] WILL: but, but what are they doing?

    [00:38:17] ROD: to make sure they're healthy, not to see if they're cheating. Just make sure they're healthy.

    [00:38:19] WILL: it matter apparently? Like

    [00:38:21] ROD: did I not mention protecting athletes is their

    [00:38:23] WILL: No, but, but but what is the thing that they would stop someone from competing for

    [00:38:26] ROD: you got arrhythmia.

    [00:38:28] WILL: Oh, okay.

    [00:38:29] ROD: We don't want you to run around a track or pick up a truck because you, your heart will probably explode.

    [00:38:33] That's what they're claiming. We will look after these people 'cause that's all we care about. Competition will be supervised by a medical

    [00:38:38] WILL: team,

    [00:38:39] ROD: team, so don't worry. 

    [00:38:41] WILL: rules are made for good reasons.

    [00:38:43] someone's

    [00:38:43] someone's gonna get hurt and then a lot of people will get sued. And then

    [00:38:47] ROD: Donald Trump Jr's backing it.

    [00:38:48] They got the money. It's fine.

    [00:38:50] WILL: Oh, and look, the rich people go, ah, not my problem.

    [00:38:52] ROD: Oopsie. Yep. So one of the problems is, of course, by the time the games begin, all the damage that would've been wrought in training using these performance enhancing drugs will already have started to happen

    [00:39:03] WILL: And, and there'll be people that we will not see into the games because they've gone too far.

    [00:39:08] ROD: Yep. They would've exploded. And some of the risks, some of the risks, here's some of the things can happen. I mean, we've, we've heard about these before. Risks of just taking anabolic steroids or anabolic steroids as I prefer to call em, anabolic, anabolic steroids.

    [00:39:18] And they're also illegal. So there's legal risk. There's Yeah, exactly. If you're ju 'em, they're illegal. But there's also so many men see their, their breasts and prostate grow and their testicles shrink. What all men look for. I want a smaller prostate and I want larger bourgeois women get deeper voices, grow body hair in places they don't want, and lose hair on places that they do like their noggins.

    [00:39:40] There are, of course, many stories about the length of the CL becoming quite profound. With hardcore steroid use.

    [00:39:47] WILL: fairness to the Olympics, that is not a thing that, that should be measuring or at all.

    [00:39:51] ROD: Well, I don't think that's a contest. No. Largest clitoris is not, not on the list unless you're weightlifting with, anyway, so the, um, [00:40:00] males and females could experience tendon tears deliver, uh, uh, liver tumors.

    [00:40:04] Severe acne, elevated blood pressure, heart problems. Exactly. Yeah, I know.

    [00:40:07] WILL: when will they stop? I know, when will they stop?

    [00:40:10] ROD: I'm really strong.

    [00:40:11] WILL: pimply, but how can we, how can we sell these pimply athletes? Like,

    [00:40:15] ROD: look how strong he

    [00:40:15] WILL: could I put them in my car ad I can't have a pimply athlete

    [00:40:18] ROD: Yeah. What, what if, what if they, um, yeah.

    [00:40:20] Hmm. Um, also issues with anger and depression,

    [00:40:23] WILL: Mm-hmm.

    [00:40:23] ROD: so it's not great, but whatever. So, morals and 

    [00:40:26] WILL: stuff.

    [00:40:26] but, but, but,

    [00:40:27] ROD: Morals. Morals.

    [00:40:28] WILL: how many athletes have signed up for this?

    [00:40:29] ROD: Two and a half million. Million. I have no idea.

    [00:40:32] WILL: Ah,

    [00:40:33] ROD: There's no, there's, I did not find a record of who signed up. I don't know if they actually reveal that yet.

    [00:40:37] It's 

    [00:40:37] WILL: not

    [00:40:38] like, are, but are there people, I mean, yeah. But May next year, if you are 

    [00:40:42] ROD: assuming it gets

    [00:40:43] WILL: I mean, obviously you've been doing training for a long time before then, but May next year you're in the

    [00:40:48] training. Now

    [00:40:49] you're, you're in the hard training phase surely they know someone knows.

    [00:40:55] ROD: no, I can imagine a lot of people

    [00:40:56] WILL: are you saying this science podcast doesn't know how many people have signed up for the enhanced games

    [00:41:00] ROD: and how many people are doing Theros. I know we Garbage. It's only a little bit of science. Yeah, so morals and stuff. So people argue, you know, the, the records are meaningless because enhancements, as you argued earlier, 

    [00:41:12] WILL: no, no. Records aren't meaningless. I

    [00:41:14] ROD: These records would be

    [00:41:15] WILL: yeah, they would be, yes.

    [00:41:17] ROD: I don't agree. It's still competition within Parameters.

    [00:41:19] WILL: swimmer with flippers. It, it's like fine. Fastest swimmer with bigger flippers. Fastest swimmer with a motorboat faster. Like, it's like

    [00:41:26] ROD: I'm into it. 

    [00:41:27] WILL: We have to have rules. If we don't have rules.

    [00:41:30] ROD: it's chaos. Rules control the fun. yeah, there are, there are a bunch of actual Olympic athletes who've come up and said, look, what, what message are we sending to the kids?

    [00:41:37] WILL: Ah, that's always the problem.

    [00:41:38] ROD: that's always the problem. It's always the kids think about the children. Um, you know, these, these records are meaningless. Whatever they do is meaningless because, you know, they haven't trained properly.

    [00:41:46] WILL: Uh,

    [00:41:46] ROD: triathletes rise through grit and honor, not shortcuts and hypocrisy, phrases like this, but freedom.

    [00:41:53] WILL: Freedom. Mm.

    [00:41:54] ROD: as Dusa argues, it's not just about enhancement, it's about economic freedom.

    [00:41:57] it's

    [00:41:58] about athletes having a [00:42:00] choice. about breaking the monopoly that old institutions hold over human. Performance. 

    [00:42:05] WILL: Beautiful. 

    [00:42:06] ROD: So that's what it's really about. It's about, you know, freedom, reality, 

    [00:42:10] WILL: no. Look, look, seriously, uh, I'm, uh, I'm

    [00:42:12] ROD: are anti,

    [00:42:12] WILL: I'm, I'm very anti. I just feel this is another place where the Olympics isn't perfect, but I don't mind the Olympics. I like the Olympics. I, I, I think the Olympics is good fun. It is not perfect, and it is a long way from an even competing ground, uh, for every athlete.

    [00:42:28] But you gotta have something, you gotta have something that looks after the athletes here. And that is like saying that athletes could earn more money. That's not,

    [00:42:35] ROD: no, it does. It's said they'll have medical attention.

    [00:42:37] WILL: No. a bunch of athletes will go into this and not earn more

    [00:42:40] ROD: They'll fucking die. Yeah. But I've gotta say, I can't help it. There's a part of my brain that goes, I just wanna see what a human body can do.

    [00:42:46] WILL: I, I, I, regardless,

    [00:42:48] ROD: I can't help myself. I, if it was on, I'd watch it. 

    [00:42:52] WILL: I'm 

    [00:42:52] ROD: not saying I'm a good human, but if it was, if it was broadcast, I would watch it.

    [00:42:57] WILL: Um, some scientists have done some science. Um, what, and they've done some science about science and their key lesson is if you pay people, it might motivate them, 

    [00:43:06] ROD: to do science

    [00:43:07] WILL: friends out there in the scientific world, you know that peer review is one of the curses, the, the, the, the problems of our game.

    [00:43:14] Perfect system. turns out, if you're struggling to get peer reviews, the Journal of, uh, critical Care and Medicine said, oh, what if we paid them 250 bucks to review, review a paper? Why, 

    [00:43:25] ROD: turns

    [00:43:25] WILL: out they got more people saying yes, and, and they, they returned them faster. But weirdly, it's only a tiny amount.

    [00:43:33] Like they went from, they went from fricking 47.8% acceptance to 52.7% acceptance, little fraction. And they return their reviews one day faster. So

    [00:43:44] ROD: is that all,

    [00:43:45] WILL: if you've got a journal out there and you want to, get some more reviewers,

    [00:43:49] ROD: I'd do a lot more reviewing if I was paid for it.

    [00:43:51] WILL: 250 bucks a pop.

    [00:43:52] ROD: Fuck yeah, there you go. I wouldn't give 'em a lot of review. I'd just give 'em a few words. Like, this is tops change line

    [00:43:57] seven. 

    [00:43:57] WILL: worth $250.

    [00:43:59] ROD: you considered line [00:44:00] 48?

    [00:44:00] WILL: I, I absolutely

    [00:44:01] ROD: and that shouldn't have been a, but that should have been an and see a native

    [00:44:06] WILL: $250 please.

    [00:44:08] $250

    [00:44:09] ROD: it. I'll take 

    [00:44:09] WILL: it. I'll take it.

    [00:44:10] Uh, a little bit of science, 

    [00:44:11] ROD: is brought to you by nasa.

    [00:44:13] No,

    [00:44:14] The Australian government? No. And those dudes who make cars?

    [00:44:18] WILL: None of those? No. We're independent. Uh, we fight for the fight. Uh, we will stick it to the man and the woman that, uh,

    [00:44:25] ROD: Non-denominational. We'll stick it to anyone

    [00:44:27] WILL: all the aliens or anything if they, if they want it, depending on if they can consent.

    [00:44:33] but if you've got topics,

    [00:44:35] ROD: send it to an email address.

    [00:44:36] WILL: Cheers at a little bit of science.com

    [00:44:39] ROD: au. And if you want to like, offer us money to be represented on this show, we'll take it.

    [00:44:44] WILL: Oh really?

    [00:44:44] ROD: Yeah. 

Will Grant
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