JRQE #5 - Duncan Trussell
Guests: Duncan Trussell
Full transcript · Read the full conversation in order, with its original context.
§01Transcript · 00:00
Hey, everybody. What the fuck is going on? This is one of the very last versions of the Joe Rogan Questions Everything podcasts that we're releasing as an actual podcast. We did somewhere around 10 of them, and I think we have two left. So it would probably be this one and one other one. Might not have been 10, but don't get all specific, ladies and gentlemen. This show was really a pleasure to do. The big pleasure of it was working with my buddy Duncan, of course, and exposing him to millions of people worldwide who didn't know about my brilliant friend. And one of the things I really love about doing podcasts with Duncan is he really gets me inspired to go on these wild rants. And I think I inspire him in the same way. And we have this really cool give and take energy when it comes to certain things. And he was just absolutely brilliant on the show
in introducing subjects and talking to people and injecting new ideas into these silly subjects like psychics, which is this episode. And a huge thank you to Banachek, who was the guy who we interviewed during the show and had him put on a little bit of a demonstration that really opened up my mind to what is possible in the world of trickery and manipulation and sleight of hand, the art thereof of it. I mean, I'd always known that there was a real art to magic, but boy, did that guy blow my mind. And one of the things I really appreciated about Banachek was that he blew my mind and then he told me it was all bullshit. He didn't try to pretend that he had some magic power or some device that only the government knows about. He didn't horse shit you. He told you after he was doing it, and even during the time he was doing it, that it was all bullshit.
But he was so good at it, it was still unbelievably fascinating. I hope this also opens up a lot of people's eyes as to what is possible in terms of trickery, in terms of what someone can trick you into believing, and what kind of manipulation people can pull off when they pretend to have psychic abilities. There's a lot of that going on, folks. I mean, there very well may be some sort of a psychic energy that people possess, whether it's a sense that people are not aware of or smells that people can detect that they can't quite describe, that aren't quite olfactory, but just some sense of something being wrong. But there's also a lot of liars out there, man. There's a lot of fakers and there's a lot of bullshit. And one of the things that I was most proud about the sci-fi show was that we were able to expose some of that bullshit.
And whether it was bullshit about the science behind chemtrails or whether it was the evidence in quotes when it comes to UFOs or whether it was not bullshit. Like the technological innovation that's going on at this incredibly rapid rate that we're experiencing and where this all could lead to. It was one of my favorite parts about the show. In fact, one of the least controversial and most real aspects of the show. But ultimately, it was a lot of fun to do. And so thank you to Duncan Trussell. And Duncan has an amazing podcast, the Duncan Trussell Family Hour. He's an amazing stand-up comedian. He's just one of my favorite human beings on the planet. he and Chris Ryan who's the author of Sex at Dawn and me are doing a joint podcast once a month we just did Duncan's really recently, the Duncan Trussell Family Hour and we were doing Chris Ryan's podcast which is Tangentially Speaking
and then we'll do mine again and we'll just keep rotating once a month we'll do each other but just awesome to have those guys as friends awesome to be able to do this show with Duncan and awesome to be able to work with such awesome guys like Todd Messero, who is the executive producer, and Frank and Michael from Arthur Smith. We had a great time. All the people at Sci-Fi, Tim and Wayne, and everyone, thank you very much. I really, really enjoyed working with you guys, and I really appreciate the opportunity. I really appreciate you letting me release these podcasts that we recorded on the show. A lot of people thought they were faking podcasts. They were actually real podcasts, and allegedly there was real marijuana involved. Anyway, this is one of the last ones. And this one is brought to you by Ting. Ting is a cell phone service that utilizes a Sprint backbone.
It's one of my favorite all-time podcast sponsors because I have had nothing but positive feedback from Ting. Ting is the cell phone service, if you've heard us talk about it before, that uses top-end Android phones. and what they do is they rent space off of the, off the sprint backbone. So they do it on their terms. Like they don't have any contracts. They don't have any early termination fees. They don't have all the nonsense that a lot of people have that's attached to a cell phone service. It's like hidden fees and overages with ting. You only pay for what you use. If you go over your allotted minutes, you just pay for what you use. There's not some exorbitant rate that you have to pay for. It's not some go-fuck-yourself nonsense that comes along because that's a real problem with a lot of these companies that are selling cell phone services. They're greedy.
They don't just want a little bit. They want it all. They want to suck you dry and get out of you whatever they can get out of you. What Ting does is they sell you the very best of all of the Android phones like the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, which is what I use, or they use the Galaxy S4, which is another sweet phone, the HTC One. There's a bunch of these really badass Android phones. And they do it in a way where you are going to save money, guaranteed. you're going to save it because 98% of people 98% people would save money with ting if you're one of those 2% man you need to look at yourself what's wrong with you dude what's wrong with you man why are you saving money are you uh are you crazy with how you use your phone what's wrong man. What is wrong with you? Most people save. Um, I know Chris Ryan uses it. He saves. I know,
um, it's just, it's all in all a better way to do business. And again, no contracts. If you want to leave, you just leave. You don't have to deal with any fucking nonsense. You don't have to deal with any of the bullshit that you deal with on the regular cell phone networks. And again, you use really awesome cell phones. So what is the URL? I can't find it. I got updated copied. They want me to say some things. Is it? Yeah, why do I feel like it's different? I just want to make sure it's okay. Hold on, folks. This is not much of an advertisement here. Rogan.ting.com. Is that it? Yes. Yeah, okay. Go to rogan.ting.com and you'll save $25 off any of their new Android phones or device. I couldn't recommend them enough. They're an ethical company and they're a company that's trying to do what I wish all companies would do.
What I wish all companies would do was try to make money, but don't try to make all the fucking money. I mean, isn't it possible that you can make a little bit less money and not have people fucking pissed off at you? So go to rogan.ting.com and enjoy. They're a mobile company that makes sense. It's a no bullshit mobile service. They say BS in the copy. I say bullshit. Okay? You can call them. Their customer support at 1-855-TING-FTW. They use internet speak like Ting for the win. Don't you love that? And they have online support at help.ting.com. So go to rogan.ting.com. Save yourself some cash. We're also brought to you by Hover. Hover is, it's actually Hover. Hover is a domain name company that I use myself. Hover, why am I calling it Hover? I'm a fucking asshole, that's why. I've been using Hover for over a year now. I've registered several domains with Hover. It's super easy to do.
And Hover has it set up where you get things for free, like who is domain name services. Hover is actually owned by the same people that own Ting. So the same ethic sort of applies to Hover. It applies to Ting. They're trying to give you a good service at a reasonable rate where you could feel good about the transaction. And that really should be what business is all about. They should give you something where you pay for it, what you feel like it's worth, and then you get the bill at the end of the month. And you go, well, that was worth that. That's possible, okay? It can be like that. And you don't get that with early termination fees and all that shit. They're taking advantage of you. Fucking you, man. Hover gives you exactly what you need to get the job done. and you find the perfect domain name for your idea to live,
§02Transcript · 09:24
so you can get started on it and move on to the next thing on your to-do list. I don't know why they even have that in the copy. Don't tell me what to do. I know about my to-do list, you fucks. But if you're looking for the great place, the best place for a domain, geeks, developers, designers, and programs are always talking about Hover, and even people like me. I guess I'm a geek. I'm an educated geek. but Hover gives you easy to use powerful tools to manage your domain and they also make it very easy to import your domain over to Hover they they actually call it a valet transfer the people at Hover are experts at domains so you don't have to be they just want to take all the friction out of managing your domains and they want you to be able to manage them all in one place so they offer you a valet transfer service to make it as easy as possible to move your domains. Hover also
offers Google apps for your domains, which is pretty sweet to have on. You can just set it up from Hover, really easy to do, super intuitive interface. And Hover has outstanding customer support because Google is a huge company and pretty much impossible to get a hold of if you ever need a hand. They can do it through Hover. They can help you with your Google apps and you You can try 30 days of Google apps on your domain for free at Hover to see if you like it. So these days, ladies and gentlemen, it makes sense to get your own unique email address. And they can do that at Hover as well. Personal, professional, and cooler than your Hotmail or your AOL. If you still have AOL, you're a fool. You're not going to fucking get my business. Contact me at johnnyshitpants at AOL.com. What? At AOL what? so you never have to switch emails and send one of those hey everyone I got a new email
to everyone in your contact lists don't you hate that shit and an email from hover is one that you'll won't outgrow it's easy to remember it's portable you can switch away from your email provider without losing your email address so go to hover ladies and gentlemen hover.com and you can use the code word Bigfoot for this episode. It's Bigfoot. Use the code word Bigfoot and save yourself some cash. Why Bigfoot? Well, because we're trying to see how many people pay attention to which episode and which one is more effective. So to save some money, the promo code for this episode is Bigfoot. Use it and go fuck yourself. Don't go fuck yourself. I don't really mean that. I say that shit, but I'm just trying to be silly. I'm just trying to give you a little levity before you delve into the world of fake psychics.
So with that, without any further ado, thank you very much for tuning into the podcast. Thank you very much for all the love online and Twitter and so many people that I've met that tell me they appreciate the podcast. And I appreciate the fuck out of you guys as well. And if not for all the information that a lot of you tweet to me and send me on Facebook and the things people tell me about when I meet them. I mean, we are in a very strange time, ladies and gentlemen, and we are sharing information. And I am merely a conduit to distribute some of that information your way. And I'm honored. And I'm out of here. So enjoy the podcast and big kiss. Joe Rogan Podcast, checking out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train my day, Joe Rogan Podcast, my night, all day. so this podcast is about psychics and maybe the lack thereof you know at a certain point in time
in the show you gotta I was wondering what exactly was going on when it came to psychics I always wondered I mean I never want to completely discredit the possibility that someone could have some extraordinary power that I don't possess. Who knows? You know? I mean, in a way, it's been explained. McKenna described communication as a form of telepathy, talking. Because in a way, you're making established sounds with your mouth that are attached to a cultural context that we all sort of agree to. And in doing so, you're reading my mind. I'm talking to you. You know what I'm talking about? a laptop oh I went to the store to get my laptop fixed and the guy behind the counter was such a nice guy you're you're experiencing that with me you know so you're sort of like getting a version of my memories and uh so I I never wanted to like completely say oh it's all
bs there's no way but man as we did the show like the more we did it the at a certain point in time I was like how much of this is fuckery you know how much of this is kooky there was there were several times when we were doing the show where I was like like paul smith who seemed like a very nice guy tried to get me to uh remote view and I had nothing I just drew a bunch of stuff down on paper and he was like just go to with whatever's moving you and I was like there's nothing there I honestly maybe it's just me I mean I left it to me I'm like I I want to see him do it because you know he'd been doing it for more than a decade he's an expert at it he's actually had positive results with it but me trying it they were saying that they could show me how to do it within you know x amount of minutes I would be doing it right nothing I wrote I drew some stuff
that I drew like a square and I wrote the color red and something was square with red in it but it was a guess it was a dumb guess it was a guess where there was a bunch of shapes and stuff in this location so if I had to judge myself on a pass or fail I would give myself a 99.99% fail I can't say 100% fail because I did have a square that had red in it and that there was something like that there. But that seems to me to be like something that shows up a lot. Look, there's this on-air sign. It's a rectangle that has red in it. I mean, it's like there's a lot of squares with red in them. Yep. So I think that easily could have been nonsense. But then I talked to Ed Dames, okay, and he's the number one top dog. If you start Googling people that are able to do that, people that have that remote viewing skill, Ed Dame's name comes up immediately. He's like the godfather of this stuff.
He started that Stargate program. So he was working on remote viewing. He said they had really positive results. He said he knows how to do it. And he said that they found Osama bin Laden. And he actually said they found Osama bin Laden. He believes they didn't go after him because they didn't want to end the war yet for whatever reason. You know, so take that for, you know, the grain of salt, whatever. Maybe he's right. But no, you do take something like that with a grain of salt. Like he's saying that psychics saw Osama bin Laden. Who do they call? How does that conversation go down? Hey, what's up? Well, it's not just psychics. He's working for the CIA. I mean, he's in the government. He's working in the government. Right. I mean, he's he's been. And he said also, and this I found this kind of interesting and kind of makes sense.
he said that they were trying to like distance themselves from this program because it's like this paranormal thing like you're working on like psychics and he was like even if it was effective they were like look we don't want to be connected to that because it just sounds too loony even if it's effective well I you know what man if you look at the history of the various experiments the cia have done they're not afraid of loony right they were dumping acid into guys mouths and brothels with two-way windows to see the effects of LSD. Once you've done that, you'll do anything. For folks who don't know that story, it was called Operation Midnight Climax. And what they did was they bought brothels in New York and in San Francisco. And these guys, they came in to engage in prostitution-type activities, and they dosed them. They dosed them with LSD. Yeah.
And it's an amazing story because the guys couldn't say shit. You're not supposed to be in a whorehouse anyway. And you're out there and you're getting dosed up with acid and like, yikes, holy shit. They did a lot more than that, man. A lot more than that. They went into mental asylums and they doped people up so much that they tried to rewrite their memories to fix the various mental disorders. They wanted to see if they could erase memories. They were doing this to mentally ill people in mental hospitals. Wow. Look it up. Project Monarch. The whole point is the CIA is not afraid of putting their feet in Crazy River. They do it all the time. So I think that the idea that they stopped this thing because they don't want to embarrass themselves. No, they stopped it because it wasn't working. Because let me tell you. Okay, but let's for a moment before I stop.
§03Transcript · 18:12
I just want to play devil's advocate. Okay. All of those things that we're mentioning are in the past. Operation Midnight Climax, I believe, is in the 1950s. Yeah. This remote viewing movement. They stop that as well. Is it possible? And again, this is just devil's advocate that they try things and they don't work. So they move on. Is that possible? Is it possible that they it's just that it didn't work? I mean, I think that if any government on the planet figured out a way to use a team of elite psychics to locate their enemies. Right. They're not going to be like, oh, let's cancel this program. It's embarrassing. They're going to keep using it because it's effective. What's a better thing than you just sit some guy in a chair and have him communicate all over the planet with whatever matrix of intelligence exists? But wait a minute. What if it only works every now and then?
But sometimes it really does work. I think there's plenty of money in the government to keep somebody like that on tap. But maybe not, man. And I think it does work. I've had so many moments where I'm thinking of a friend and they call or I'll get a weird feeling about somebody and something bad will have happened to them. And I know plenty of people who do that. And I know plenty of people who will get around certain people and immediately not be comfortable around them. And they're sensing something about that person. I think animals are always tuning into this deeper instinctual level. So at some point it just becomes, I think, semantics. Some people are going to say, well, I just listen to my instincts. Some people are going to say that they're psychic.
And so I don't think that there's a – it's too out there to think that there's some people who have especially developed instincts where they're really good at tuning into what Sheldrake called the morphogenetic field. I think that's possible that you could do that. The problem is, well, if it is possible, then how come it can't be reproduced in laboratory settings? and a lot of people say that immediately discounts it. But man, I can't imagine meeting someone who's never had that moment where you think about someone and suddenly they call. Someone that you haven't talked to in years. That has happened. Now, to play devil's advocate again, Sam Harris says that all that is is coincidental and that we think about people all the time and they don't call. But occasionally you think about people and they do call.
And it really is just dumb luck, but we make it out to be this big, important moment, and we sort of discredit all the other times where it failed. But he's, like, really super logical when it comes to stuff like that. And to the point where I almost have to step back. Like, he said that statistically no one really ever gets a hot hand in basketball where they can't miss. It just seems like they do. But if you count up statistically, like there's never a zone where there's an unusual amount of activity over a course of an hour. It's like these little bursts where things are really good and then they go away, but it all balances itself out in the end. And I found that very fascinating because I've always felt like someone getting in the zone, whether it's in golf or in pool or in basketball or anything, I always thought that was a real thing.
And some people, I've seen pool players do it where you get into a place where you just can't miss. And, you know, you just find that zone. And you're significantly better than when you're not in that zone. Right. So I've always felt that it was a real thing. So Sam Harris is a tricky guy when it comes to his ideas on these things. Well, who knows, man? Maybe he hasn't experienced it himself. Maybe he has and he's analyzed it more objectively than you and I have. That's a possibility, too. I had a dream once where in the dream, this girl that I was engaged to to be married came up to me and said, hey, I'm pregnant. And in the dream, I was bummed out. I'm like, oh, great, you're pregnant. And then the next day I woke up and an hour after I woke up, she called to tell me that she was getting married. Now, what is that?
I know that that happened to me, and I know that every night I don't dream about my ex-fiance being pregnant. That's not a recurring dream. If it were, I would be in therapy. Is she getting married because she's pregnant? No. Okay, well, then that doesn't – see, that's where I would step in as a skeptic. Not necessarily – I'm not really a skeptic, but if I was, what I would say – because I kind of am sometimes. I would say you probably think about her all the time. I think about my exes all the time. It's like a normal part of life. Yeah, but I don't have vivid dreams. But you were engaged to her. I don't have vivid dreams about her. I understand that, but you were engaged to her. That's a very strong connection with someone. It's very likely that you bring her up in your mind on occasion. I have her face tattooed on my stomach. Your scenario was different than her scenario.
Your scenario was she was pregnant. Her scenario, the reality was that she was getting married. You just happened to be thinking about her, and she just happened to call you and tell you that she's getting married, and you have made this grandiose connection between a dream. Well, let me play the real devil's advocate, because as many Christians know, the devil is the advocate of psychics. The psychics say that what actually happens is that your mind is kind of like scanning and it doesn't always accurately interpret the event. So pregnancy and marriage, they go hand in hand. And then she did end up having children. So the point, what makes it special?
And by the way, I know what Sam Harris is talking about. They've done studies about the idea that there's perpetually just a vortex of variables spinning through your mind that consists of all the people you know and all the things that could happen. And those things are mostly in the subconscious. But when something in the external universe happens that resonates with something in the subconscious, it creates the sense of synchronicity that psychics say is real. But, man, I know that I don't always dream about her. I know the dream was very vivid. I know it was like really soon after waking up to the point where when I got off the phone, I was like, what the fuck? That is really weird. Well, it is. Look, it's not outside of the realm of possibility. But all I ever say in these situations is I try, even though I am a natural dork. My natural inclination is to believe in psychics.
My natural inclination is to believe in Bigfoot and aliens and UFOs and everything. But I also think that there's a benefit in considering the completely numerical scientific approach. And looking at how a guy like Sam Harris would look at it and go, you know what? You have to address that too. Why wouldn't you address that? We don't want to address that because we don't want to miss out on some of the magic that is the world. And we like to think that in being able to tell when things are about to happen to you that somehow maybe that offers you some veil of protection that other people don't enjoy. And sometimes if shit's going to happen, I'm going to know not to get on that plane. And we would like to think that. We would like to think that. And how many people miss planes and then the plane crashes and then they swear they knew they shouldn't get on that plane.
I mean there's probably a lot of that too. I would if that happened to me. Maybe. Even if I hadn't thought it, I'd say I was going to get on the plane. Maybe. Maybe it would become a part of your consciousness. Maybe whether you like it or not, just enter in there. Well, yeah. You know, I like what Terrence McKenna said about people, you know, ancient humans and hunting and how you would have to develop the ability to silently communicate with a group of people that you're hunting with. It would make it it would make you very effective as a hunter, especially if you're hunting in group situations where you had to stalk something. So in that way, I could see how there might be a part of our brain that you can develop to be acutely tuned in to what the people around you are thinking about doing. I think all sports teams are based on that.
§04Transcript · 26:09
I think that I'm sure that people who fight or who get into really serious situations will tell you that they can really tune in to every sound. You hear that when someone's in a situation where they have to fight or they're in a life or death situation, you always hear this. Suddenly, everything becomes very loud. They can hear everything, see everything. So I think it makes sense that there is a deeper part of the human mind that is more aware than the conscious part of the mind. That makes sense. I don't I don't I don't know if that's what psychics say that they're using, but I think that that does exist in the human mind. It's also possible, I think, that there is like, it's almost like a waterfall that we sort of can poke our heads through and then pull it back. And that we can't tune it in all the time. Right. But it's very ethereal. It's very slippery. Yeah.
And you get it or you don't get it. And maybe some people get it better than we do. But one of the things that I have to respectfully acknowledge is that Ed Dames, who has done this for so long, trains people in it, was pretty clear to me that I needed to learn it in order to really understand it. And I didn't learn it. And I certainly didn't learn it from him. I mean, Paul taught it to me very quickly, but it was really just for the show. You know, if we had spent a bunch of time together, like over several weeks, and I really like tried to do it as if I was a prospect for one of their programs, maybe I could learn what the hell he was talking about. Maybe it's just my silliness. Maybe there was a breakthrough to be had that I didn't recognize. It's super possible that that's the case.
But, you know, there's part of you for sure that's always going to be skeptical until it's right in front of you. Right. And if you've experienced it, then you have to, you can be skeptical about the experience, but you have to acknowledge the experience. Yeah. And I went to the Rhine Institute. Okay. And this is really interesting. That's the, they're the place for the, it's a scientific study of the paranormal center. And I had a great time there. Who was the guy that ran the Rhine center? John Cruth John Cruth is the guy who ran the Ryan Center and was kind enough to take us through and show I sucked at everything I tried to be psychic with the numbers like picking which button to press I tried to be psychic with picking which button to press I screwed that up but one thing I did do is they had this room where it's totally dark and they have this meter that measures photons
and apparently you can create some sort of light from your body, some sort of photon release that can be measured. And the highest that anybody had ever did it was this guy Earl. And this guy Earl was, like, if he was a character in a Will Ferrell movie, like, he would be, like, the perfect cohort. He'd be, like, Will Ferrell's crazy partner who also happens to be psychic. and he was trying to move me with his mind. Ed, what did I say his name was? Will? Earl. He seems like he should be at Earl. His name was Ed. Yeah. Ed had gotten to one million on this thing. And Ed also could make you weave back and forth. He could direct you with his body and force your body backward and forward. Or so he said. He tried to do it. I didn't move at all. I don't know what he was talking about. But I let him try it. But he's gotten to a million on this photon thing.
I got to 400,000, which they were very shocked by. But I had a battery pack on. I had a microphone. And when I was doing it, I was stretching. So, I mean, the battery pack, we had like tape over the light and everything like that. But the bottom line is there's like a piece of electronics in the room with me. Sure. We did it again. And even though I got much less than the first time, I basically did the same stuff I was doing. I was mostly like leaning forward and touching my toes, like stretching and stuff. And I was also trying to breathe really hard. I was like. But then I thought about it. I was like, how is that psychic? What am I doing? Even if I can glow, you know, like in a way that a human being couldn't even perceive. If you could like hold your breath to the point where you fucking glow or tense up and scream to the point where you chi until a spark comes out of your dick.
I don't know. I don't know if that's possible. But either way, it's not psychic. I mean, there was nothing I did that gave me any inclination whatsoever that have any psychic ability. But I registered very highly on this one silly test while I was wearing a battery pack. Yeah, who knows? It's got to be the battery pack, I think. Who knows, man? I called him up the next day because he seemed like an honest guy. And he was really excited about the results. I said, you know what? I think we screwed up. I think we should have done one without the battery pack. We did it twice to see if we could replicate it. But this thing is still on me. And even though it's behind me and we're in this totally dark room, I'm still wearing a battery pack and I'm moving around. I don't know if Ed was doing the same things that I was doing.
So even though my score on this thing was higher, I might have been moving more than he was. That might have been why the light changed in the room, wearing this little battery pack. So this wasn't a really scientific test. But if you look at the evolution of animals and you think about animals before eyeballs existed, the evolution of the eye, you think about the gradual evolution of the eye, there would be certain animals that that mutation was happening to more than other animals. And if those animals could talk and they started reporting to other animals, hey, man, there is stuff all around us. There's things swimming. I've seen reefs. If that's if that the other animals, you are out of your mind. There's this darkness and movement. That's all there is. You're crazy. So I don't think that it's an insane idea that our senses are continuing to expand and to evolve.
Right. I mean, if you think about what they used to be compared to what they are now, we're like gods compared to what we used to be. You know, and we are just tiny little lemur creatures eating each other's poop and running from snakes all day. That's a very good point. But another point is, if that is the case, and we're pretty aware of the established state of consciousness that exists right now without psychic ability, we're pretty sure that most of the time, almost everywhere you go, there's no psychic ability going on. It's just normal life. But little peeps of it pop through every now and then, almost like poking through a membrane, finding its way, dissolving this membrane slowly but surely with new experiences all the time. But the membrane is gigantic because really what we're talking about is an evolving ability.
And it takes a long-ass time for a human being to evolve an ability. Right. And some people, though, say that it's not an evolving ability. It's a devolving ability that we used to be more tuned into what was happening around us. But then technology took the place of that because really I don't need to be telepathic. I can send you a text through the air. I don't need to be telepathic. But look at birds. Look at birds, what they can do. Or look at dogs. Dogs. Why do you think that people think that we used to be able to do it, though? Well, I think the idea is and maybe it is a romantic idea. But the idea is that the more tuned in you get to nature, the more tuned in you get to the movement of things on earth, the actual life force on earth. Yeah. Then the more you begin to hear deeper parts of yourself. When things quiet down, you go in that flotation tank. Yeah.
And when things really quiet down, you can hear very deep parts of yourself that normally you don't listen to at all. Yeah. So I think the idea is without all the distractions of modern life, people were more tuned into a deeper instinct than we have now. I think you're completely right. I think that it's real possible that we are inundated by too much sensory overload and that we're not relying on a lot of the instincts that we had to rely on when we were hunter-gatherers. where all we're doing is constantly hunting down animals and and on the prowl for your next meal and being really in touch with the earth without any electrical signals around us all the time without any wi-fi without any radio you know I like to think that that shit doesn't have any effect on me that I'm not affected by wi-fi and it sounds like totally kooky talk like what are
§05Transcript · 34:44
you talking about man you're scared of cell phone towers dude are they zapping you I'm not saying that but what I am saying is there is something undeniably different about where it feels when there's nothing if you go to a place that's in the mountains and very peaceful and you step outside and there's no cell phone signals you don't I mean I guess you could probably tune into the radio up there but there's not much yes it's fucking quiet as shit too you're not getting any noise pollution not getting any city not any it's a different feeling now if that was life all the time and without even the distractions, the electronic distractions that that world sort of forces on you. There's still some. You still have a TV. You still have – if you were just in the woods all the time, it's a totally different feeling. Yeah.
And if you're in the woods now with a tracker who knows how to track animals and they just start tracking animals, it would seem like they're magical probably in some of the things that they could do. Yeah. It's amazing. So, yeah, man, I think that there is a difference. I just saw this awesome visual depiction of Wi-Fi. Have you seen that? It's a picture of what Wi-Fi would look like if we could see it in the air. What would it look like? It looks just like an ocean, like this rolling ocean of information that we're all swimming around in right now. That's so crazy. It's crazy. How long is it going to be before people – forget about being psychic. How long is it going to be before you have some sort of Verizon chip in your head that allows you to tune into the internet? Not long. It doesn't seem like it's going to be long, right? Not long. Within 100 years, that's going to be reality.
I think within 10 years. Really? Yes. Like an operation? I don't know about an operation. I think within 10 years, they'll figure out a way to do it without an operation. God, that's going to be so strange. And then it will be a world of psychics. And then being psychic won't seem strange at all because everyone will have the ability to tune in immediately to all information available to anyone on earth or that's on the internet. And you know some people are going to complain about that. I can't handle it. Everywhere I go is the truth. I know what everyone's thinking. Hell for liars. Did you hear about the cyborg that just got beaten up in France? A cyborg? Yeah. A guy has one of the first ocular implants. It's connected to his bones. It's a video camera that films things. And he was in a McDonald's in Paris. And he goes in there.
The owner of the McDonald's sees him, tells him to take off his Google Glass. He thought it was Google Glass. He's like, I can't take it off. He brings medical papers with him to show people that it's an implant. Right. But they didn't care. And they tried to rip it off his face, but it's connected to his bones. Oh, my God. So the thing has got in it this – if it starts malfunctioning, it starts taking pictures of what's happening when it malfunctions. So he's got images of these French dudes who tried to rip his face off. So what happened? He's filing charges with the police, but they don't – they're not – I mean it's like it's so weird that the cops are like, look, we don't know how to handle cyborg crimes. yeah wow but they say this is going to be an emergent form of this is going to be a new kind of hate crime which is people beating up cyborgs I think that's probably
going to be the case I think especially if the limbs possess superpowers like if you start getting into like some six million dollar man realm where you decide to get your legs chopped off and put these super bionic legs on you just jumping over buildings and shit and you know some guys might kick your ass and they're like who's this crazy fuck good luck I know they have to catch you cyborg legs. That would be really hard. But if they hit you in the head, you probably still have a human head. They just sucker punch you. You don't see it coming. And then when you're out, they just fuck you up. Well, this is like another problem. This is probably very off topic, but this is another problem that's emerging is that right now the disparity in wealth is indicated through people's possessions, their cars and their homes and their bling.
But in the future, this disparity will be reflected in their physical appearance. So poor people who can't afford cyborg legs or cyborg arms or implants that allow them to tune into the Internet, they're going to have this incredible disadvantage compared to people who can afford the implants. And that's a real problem. And you're really seeing evolution there because those people who can't afford it are going to gradually, slowly die out. Yeah. I wonder, man. I really wonder if what we're seeing with these people that possess this sort of psychic energy, that tune into this psychic energy, if everyone can do it, we're just scared of even knowing that we can do it so we don't look into it. I mean, why haven't I looked into it? Why haven't I picked up a book on psychic skills? Like there's books on it that supposedly teach you how to cultivate your psychic skills.
I haven't given them an honest try. I haven't like sat down with them and being been completely objective so if I was making any judgment that psychic energy wasn't real I would be I would be kind of a dick because it's not fair I really haven't tried I don't possess it but I haven't tried I haven't tried to cultivate it I haven't done any of the work these guys Ed Dames and and and Paul Smith they they have done the work and they say they can do it so I have to take their word for it but I think that I would like to see something that really stands out for me I mean they had some good stories about stuff that works I would like to see something really stands out for me because the most impressive display of psychic ability I've ever seen in my life was self-admittedly fake that banachek That was the best display of psychic ability I have ever seen in my life.
I do not know how he did it, but I saw him make forks bend without barely touching them. I saw him make them twist up in a circle as he was guiding them in a circle. I Googled, searched that as soon as I got home to find out how to do that. And what'd they say? Well, what you do is you take a, I mean, there's a step-by-step guide to it on YouTube. It's possible? Oh, yeah. You take aluminum forks, exactly like what he had. And, I mean, this is according to the YouTube thing. I didn't spend a lot of time with it because you have to bend them. Right. So you bend them, and they heat up. So before you do your show, you spend some time on these forks. By bending them, they heat up. They're looser. And then that makes them more bendable. And I imagine that's a band. If you Google search a lot of what he did, it shows how to do it on the internet. Really? Yeah.
Boy, I would like to see that because I guess it's very possible. I didn't really completely thoroughly examine those forks, but I did clink them together. They were metal. Clink, clink. And I picked them up. I looked at them. They were real forks. Whether or not that was the fork that actually made it into his hand when he did that, I don't. I mean, there's guys that are really good with sleight of hand. They're really good with it. So that's possible. But what's important is that he says it's bullshit. Right. He told us that it's all tricks. He said, I'm not psychic. I have no psychic energy. I can't tell you how I did this because then I would reveal my sources. But I'm not psychic. I believe him. I mean, I don't have any reason to not believe him. He seems like a very nice guy. And it was very entertaining. He's very, very talented.
Like, I felt like we really got a treat because we got like a very small, intimate show with a master magician yes I mean he really is a master yeah so it was really entertaining and then the fact that on top of that he was telling us that it was all just tricks I found that to be like really fascinating well yeah he's like an uber skeptic and he's showing how it's so easy to manipulate people and he's showing how you've got to be very careful when you get around somebody who tells you that they can talk to dead people or they can talk to invisible people because you get You get in a lot of trouble with those folks. Well, he fooled scientists for four years. They thought he had real psychic abilities for four years. He fooled them. Yeah. It's amazing. He made me much more skeptical, but he still didn't.
§06Transcript · 43:13
He can't remove from me experiences I've had where it's like, I don't know what that is, but it's such an incredible coincidence that it seems beyond coincidence. I don't think he was trying to remove that. I think what he was trying to do is show that you could BS people. Yes, you can. And that's what he did. He BS people. I don't think he's saying that you can't have these unique moments where something becomes apparent to you. I think what he was trying to do was just show you that you can be tricked. Yes. And he was really good at it. I mean, really good at it. Amazing at it. We put coins over his eyeballs, duct taped his face, and he read the serial number on a bill that was in my pocket. I have no idea how he did that. He wasn't even looking at it. He was looking over there. Yeah, that was crazy, man. It was crazy. A lot of what he did was crazy. First of all, he's 50, okay?
The idea that he could read it from my hand this far away. I've got it a full arm's length away from his face. that he could even look over and read that serial number, this little tiny print on a dollar bill. They could read that from there. That would be really hard to do. But with duct tape over your face and coins over your eyeball, and you're not even looking at it, I don't know how he did it. I don't know how he did a lot of what he did. It was amazing. That girl, when he picked her out of the audience and told her her dog's name, that girl freaked out, man. She was like ready to cry. She got emotional. You could see her face or her jaw. And she wasn't a plant. I know she wasn't a plant. You know what I didn't know, though, man, when I was getting all shrill about her being a plant?
Is I didn't know that in the beginning he'd had people write information down and put it into envelopes. Yeah, but she didn't write about her dog. I don't know that. Yeah, we know that. We read her information. She didn't write about her dog. You did read the information? Yeah, the crew did. We had her information read, right? Yeah. She didn't write anything about her dog. Well, then... The dog went out to date the dog died. Right. She wrote the dog's name. See, she wrote the dog's name. Oh. Here's the thing. Wait a minute, he got to read all that shit? Yes. That's the thing. Because she wrote it and put it in her purse. Period. She wrote it and put it in her purse. Okay, do you know that there are pens, and when you write things down with these pens, they create an exact replica of that on a computer program, and they work wirelessly? See, I didn't know that bit of information.
So my mind was just trying to decode what he did, because it would have been impossible. But then it's like, oh. Well, we don't know. Maybe she used her own pen, which in case. Look, man, he said he named initials. You would get that from someone writing their name on a thing. Right. Maybe he had a camera that was watching all of them. Well, I guess the point is, like, we're trying to figure out the specifics of what he did. But it's no question that what he did wasn't psychic. And it was a trick because that's what he said. Maybe he had a camera behind me with, like, a zoom lens. And that's how he could read that. And that's also how he could read the people in the audience. I mean, who the hell knows? Yeah. There's no way to... How far in advance did he know where we were going? how long in advance did he know no idea huh the location
did he knew know about it beforehand though before the call we're trying to do here folks listening to this is trying to figure out how the The hell that guy did what he did. What he did was masterful. I mean, everything about it, even if it was tricks, whatever it was, it was amazing. But having him say that it was tricks and it was so good, it makes you really call into question all the other psychic ability that people claim. Well, another thing that it does is it shines a light on how monstrous some people are. Because imagine being such a sociopath that you use tricks like that to get around people, to show them that you have powers, and then you charge them money to let them communicate with their dead relatives. There are people who do that for a living.
They're the most vile, monstrous people on earth because they seek out the most gullible humans who are desperate and mourning and full of grief and guilt. And then they do a couple of Banachek tricks. They get them convinced that they're magical. And then they're like, yeah, for a thousand bucks or for a donation, I'll let you say hello to your mom again. Yeah. He was very adamant about his hate for that type of practice, that manipulative practice. and what he does, he calls himself a mentalist and he's an entertainer and he's also a debunker. He likes to debunk stuff. Tell people that what he's doing is a trick and just so you know, he's so good at it and he's telling you it's a trick so be careful because other people are probably tricking you too but they're not going to be as ethical as he is. He's a really cool guy, man. That was a real privilege having him
on the show. But it is fun to imagine that he's just an evil telepath. He's just an awesome, real psychic and that's how he makes a living. by pretending he's not. He's not. He just goes around because he knows that if he tells people that being a telepath is possible, then everyone will have telepathic abilities and he won't be special anymore. I wonder if he used his own pen. If he made them write their stuff down with his pen, that would explain a lot. We don't know. Because I do know that they can do that now. They have these special pens that are these computer pens and they dictate. So we don't know. You got to get your pen back. I mean, I think it's like... No, you don't. No, you can do it wirelessly. No, but if you have like a, I'm saying you want to get your magic wireless pen back. You don't want it to. True. But I think that they gave their pen back anyway.
People don't steal pens when you fill out a form. Especially if you say, can I have my pen back, please? Like if it's a magic pen, you're going to ask for it. Can I have that blinking pen back that I gave you? What were the numbers? Shows how many megabytes are left. Yeah. I don't know what his tricks were. But the important thing is that he says they were tricks. Yes. And they were amazing. Yeah, but just because someone can emulate something doesn't mean that it's not real. But it made going to the Rhine Research Center feel so silly. You know, like me standing in front of these things trying to figure out which one's going to go off next and totally getting nothing. Right. Like thinking, like, maybe I've got this power. And then this guy comes along that shows you, like, the craziest psychic shit you've ever seen in your life. And then just goes, oh, by the way, it's all lies. Yeah.
It's true, man. I mean, there's a – you can do a lot. You could do a lot. Like, think of Rasputin. Think of like Rasputin, this dirty, filthy guy who just comes into Russia, says that he's a psychic or a mystic. And the next thing you know, he's basically running Russia by manipulating the leaders because he's convinced them that he has these powers. I mean, you can go far if you can convince people. You're leaving something out about Rasputin. His giant cock. His giant cock. His cock that was so giant, they cut it off and bottled it. They saved it forever in a jar of formaldehyde. And people go to a museum in Russia and look at it. That's how big his cock is. I've seen that jar. It's like 11 inches flaccid. Yeah. It's a giant hog. It's a terrible thing. It's a terrible, evil-looking dick. Yeah. You just imagine it going into a woman that you once loved, just plunging into her.
I think when the apocalypse happens, it's going to wake up and break out of that jar. It's going to come out of his dick. His dick's going to sprout legs in the middle of the night. Remember that scene in Aliens, the second one, where what's-his-face, mad about you, kept the chick in the lab, tried to get her contaminated with one of those little face huggers? That's what it'll be like. It'll be like the face hugger. It's going to grow some legs and crab its way around the laboratory until it shoves its giant pickled cock in your mouth. Giant pickled wizard cock. Hundreds of years of formaldehyde. Soaked into that. That terrible thing. Green and pulsating. Just a zombie dick with crab legs. Antique jizz remnants pumping out. And that's where it starts. They open up the vault to try to rescue. And, you know, it's a fucking swarm. Like a beehive of bugs flying through the air.
§07Transcript · 51:21
They're all miniature little giant flying crab cocks. And it just spreads. It spreads like a virus. Ariel. That would be the funniest apocalypse. They're looking at it on their slide for the first time. and it's little tiny evil cocks flapping their wings. They're like, what the fuck are we looking at? They have to look at it like 100x 100 times the size just to get a... What are we seeing? They're giant pickled cocks with wings. Next on SyFy. Little tiny ones. Yeah, that's right after Sharknado. Man, I... Pickled cocks. Yeah, that's a... I think that it's a... That's a terrifying aspect of Rasputin. Also the fact that they shot him several times and they kept... Yeah, they poisoned him. They didn't wash it to him. He was raised in, shot him. Well, I think any dude with a dick that big is a special man. You know, you probably have a lot of special tolerances, you know.
So it's a rigid human being. If you've got a big giant cock like that, it's like the universe is like trying really hard to get you to breed, you know. Right. We all know that like penis size, no matter what anybody says, it means something. If it didn't mean anything, it wouldn't bother you if your dick was little. It means something, okay. And you probably don't need a gigantic, humongous one, but if you have one, you got that. That's a big thing with people. So when a guy like Rasputin comes along and he has a giant cock, then he's charismatic with that big giant cock. Yeah, it's a perfect storm of evil. Scary. Giant horse cock, can communicate with the dead. That's all you need to take over Russia. It is a real problem with people that we're gullible. that we want to believe silly things. And over the course of this show, one of the things that I've found
is how many people get upset at you if you don't believe the things that they believe. Yeah. Well, you feel embarrassed. I mean, part of it is you feel embarrassed. You want to defend it because you know that if you're experiencing some strange thing, that some part of you is going to be skeptical. And when you decide to believe in the strange thing, then you become very defensive. It's embarrassing. And that's I think that's why sometimes you feel a little bit of sympathy for some of these people because they've invested their lives into ideas that they haven't fully investigated or explored in a real way. Right. It's really sad when, you know, knocking the legs out from under the table upon which rests a person's entire paradigm. That's a sad thing to see happen. You're watching someone fight against that with all their might. Yeah. And we're seeing that every week. Yeah. Yeah.
Every week we're seeing some person who believes something. And I think somewhere along the line, the show is becoming more about psychology than it is even about these ideas. Yeah, man. And one thing it's taught me is that we can't let people who believe in invisible, unprovable things have any kind of power. That's what it's showing me. Like now a lot of these people, you meet them there. They don't have a church, a congregation. They haven't started a religion. But you can see how if someone like that, if they had power, they would be incredibly dangerous. If you're around someone. It could be, yeah. Yeah. Well, I think that people having power in that sense, like the presidential power or king type power, is probably going to be a thing of the past one day. I think ultimately we're going to realize that anybody that gets to control people, it's probably a bad idea.
It should all be like some sort of a group minded thing. Because if it's not, then you get led into wars and you get led into crazy situations, bank takeovers and bailouts and stuff. I just saw a video on a Christian show, which is a speech of Ronald Reagan when he's president talking about how he believes that the end of the world is going to happen in Israel based on biblical prophecy. This is a president. He controls nuclear weapons, and he's freely saying, this is what I believe. It's been prophesied in the Old Testament. It's like, no, you're president. You can't believe that. You're not supposed to believe that stuff. Yeah, it's too weak an idea. It's too weak an idea. And if you exhibit this weak idea, it should disqualify you from controlling anything because it's a crazy person's thought. So we have to reevaluate. Oh, did we just let a charismatic, crazy person run things?
Or did we really pick a wise leader? Right. But the point is, a leader can't really be a leader. You need a bunch of people working with you. And everyone says that, but there's still a president. There shouldn't be one. There's no fucking way one person should be running anything. So yeah, one person who believes crazy shit shouldn't be running anything. You know who else shouldn't be running anything? Anybody. No one should be running a goddamn country. Right. No one. It should be the entire country gets to vote on shit. Yes. And I think you can get a totally different sense of who people are based on that. Like Reddit. Yeah. Run the country with a Reddit system. Sure, yeah. That would be a true democracy. Or Twitter. Imagine if you could vote on Twitter. Yeah, it would be amazing. It would be incredible. It would be amazing, but also probably pretty easy to hack.
Maybe, but why can we do our banking online then? Right. Good point. You tell me you trust it with money, you don't trust it with votes? That's ridiculous. It sounds like you want to manipulate votes. They can do pretty much everything online with banking, and you're dealing with millions and billions of dollars every day going back and forth, including the stock market. So you're fine with all that, but we can't vote. Voting's too complicated. That's a great point. One man, one vote. What are you trying to sink the whole system? What if a bunch of hackers get in control? You want a bunch of guys with Guy Fawkes masks running this fucking country? Right. They can't give it back to the people and they know that's what that would be. So they can't do it. They can't do it. So they'll never do it. It'll never, you'll never be able to vote.
Well, I think you eventually will because I think that people that are in the position to control things will eventually get phased out. Let's hope. New people will come in. I just think it's inevitable because the generations that are coming up, it's going to be way harder to be as corrupt as the generations that are in power that are just used to abusing it and having that kind of control. You wouldn't want that if you could have the level of control of a Julius Caesar or a Genghis Khan. I think it's dangerous. I think it's dangerous. But would you want it? Fuck no. If it was me or Hitler, I'd say yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yes. But it's never that. And I think it's really – what it should be is we should all have ideas that we share. And we should all have maybe things that we agree on or disagree on or things that we can debate, public discourse.
But ultimately, it should be a vote. It should be 300 million people, X amount of them are over 18, whatever the age we decide is. It really should be probably 21. And then from there on, they get to make the choices. Yeah, but what if, for example, this voting happens in a country where people believe in Sharia law and believe that women should be covered in burkas and that you cut off someone's hand who steals? What if there's – They convicted a woman in India because they read her mind with a machine. Really? Yeah. What did they convict her of? She was convicted of – Oh my god. That's scary. The first EEG machine called an fMRI read her mind, and it was admissible in court that she actually had prior knowledge of this crime. That's incredible. So that's what's kind of experiential knowledge of the crime. That's incredible. But not admissible in U.S. court.
Not admissible in U.S. court. Well, I'll tell the story for people listening to this who didn't hear it. What they just said is that there's a woman in India that was convicted with this machine called an fMRI. What does it stand for? Functional MRI. Functional MRI. Magnetic resonance imagery is what MRI stands for. And that she was convicted for murder because they knew that she had some sort of a memory of the crime. And they were able to read her mind and find that. Holy shit, that's incredible. That's cool. I think that eventually we're going to have a hard drive on our brain. And I think we're going to be able to record life in a way that looks exactly as if you're living it. and I think you'll be able to watch it and experience it. I think first it'll probably be visual, but then as people, the technology gets better and better and people get more advanced, we'll figure out a way
§08Transcript · 59:57
to experience everything too. It'll be like black and white TVs. They started out, it was just a black and white television. Then all of a sudden it was color, HD, stereo, stereo sound where there was winds whistling behind you. I mean, TVs today are incredible, but they started out this big, stupid wooden box with this dumb little tube in the middle of it that looked like shit. It was rounded like a fishbowl. I think that first they're going to start out with video. It's going to, you're going to be able to video and have some sort of an audio and you're going to be able to play it back. Google glass, something along those lines, but it'll be all the time and you'll be able to access it. You'll have a giant, like 18 trillion terabyte hard drive in your head and you'll be able to access your entire life. So we're going to have to,
people are going to be able to read your minds by just taking it out. Yeah. And like, well, let's see what Duncan was doing. Oh, beating off to tranny porn. Were you, Duncan? Really? Ball gags and tranny porn. Sure. They'll be able to find out what you saw on your computer. There was nothing wrong with that, man. And the more we realize, the quicker we realize there's nothing wrong with that, the happier we'll all be. But the point is that they're going to be, it's going to be a moot point. I think everyone's going to be psychic. Yes, exactly. I mean, for sure. People, if you look at it that way, we already are psychic. It's just not connected to our heads yet. Well, we're certainly way more psychic today than people were that were living in like, you know, 15, 20 or something. You know, what we can do now is there's a call it what you will.
The connection is always on and it's much more powerful. And we can do things incredible, like talk to people that are on the other side of the world in real time. Well, I mean, what is it? I'm probably going to misquote it, but didn't Asimov say technology that – a technology – I'm going to butcher this quote, but it's something like a technology, an advanced enough technology would be indistinguishable from magic. Yes, that's exactly the quote. So that's the idea, which is that if you were to go back and tell people, yeah, we use wireless signals to show us where we're going. We use wireless signals to communicate with people on the other side of the planet. We use wireless signals to control cars. We use wireless signals to do everything. People will be like, what are you talking about? How is that even possible? But now it's real.
And so I'm sure that in the future, once technology becomes more part of us and we all become cyborgs, then in that way, the notion of being able to mentally merge with a person won't seem insane at all. In fact, you will be able to merge with the consciousness of the planet. There'll be some kind of emotional Internet where you can empathically, technologically merge with all human beings and experience the way the entire planet feels.
I think you're absolutely right. And I think that we're starting to feel the beginnings of this with the Internet that we're experiencing today. I think the Internet is joining people today in a way that we've never experienced before. And it's just begun. And I think the next step is probably going to be a lot more immersive. Yes. And that next step might deal with real time video and audio from person to person. We might be able to access people's actual experiences as they're taking place. Sure. And then there's going to be designer augmented realities where you can download upgrades just to normal reality, like make your reds redder. Yeah, exactly. Make the colors deeper. Let's enhance smells. And they'll be like, well, let's change smells altogether. This turns the smell of a fart into roses. So from now on, you're not going to smell any bad things.
And that's going to be what starts happening is we begin to enhance our reality technologically, which I've heard in Google Glass. It's already happening. Like one thing that they're desperately trying to keep out of Google Glass is facial recognition. But someone's already hacked it. So it does that because the last thing you want is for a stranger to be able to walk up to you with Google Glass, scan your face, go do a Google image search and come up with like, oh, hey, Ted, do you remember me? Remember me from that party? That's a problem because you're like, wait, do I really know you or are you just using the internet? So they don't want that to happen. But the thing about it is they're already going to hack it so that happens. And then you can have like a Yelp for people. You know what I mean?
So that when you're doing facial scans for people, you could see hanging above them douchebag or rapist or pedophile or whatever. So people are going to be cursed with this cloud, whatever is about them, and the cloud will be around them. And you can make, you could change that. You can upgrade it. If you want, you can make it so that assholes always have flies, digital flies swarming around them, you know, to avoid them. That's a great idea. Yeah. If that, if technology really can do that and we start judging each other based on our experiences, but you're going to have like, you're going to have to look at a guy's record too. Like, okay, who gave you one star? Oh, look at this guy. He's an asshole. Sure. But you could tell, you know, we already can do that. Like it just takes a second.
I can already get your name and go on your Facebook account and within 10 seconds figure out if you're a douchebag. Yeah. I mean, how many times you got to someone's Twitter and you go, oh, I know what's going on in your head. Yeah. Quick. Right away. That's sort of psychic in a way. Yes. I mean, it's communicative. And essentially the idea of psychic is it cuts out all the middleman and you get right to the information. Yeah. Yeah. It's a form of technologically enhanced connectivity that's never existed as far as we know on this planet until today. And it's only going to get more and more intense. And everyone's – this is part of the thing where everyone's like, oh, God, the NSA, they're watching everything I do. There's no more privacy. It's like, oh, you have no idea. You're so lucky right now if you exist right now. This is the last era of privacy.
It's already – there's hardly any privacy. If you do something dumb enough on a city bus, the entire planet will see you. Yeah, if you murder someone, it's so much more difficult to get away with it today than it's ever been before. Yeah, but – If you commit a crime. If you commit a crime. If you just do something embarrassing. If you try to take a burning tequila shot and set your face on fire, within 30 minutes, the entire planet might be looking at that event. So privacy is already going the way of the dinosaur. But in 15 years, you will not be able to go outside without being recorded. Do you think that's going to cause a convergence, though, a real convergence where people have real empathy for other people because they're experiencing their pain, their feelings all the time?
I think that if anything positive can come out of this connection that human beings are experiencing, it's going to be that we're going to realize somewhere along the line that we're going to all be a lot better off if everybody's happy. And there must be a way. If you can get two people to be happy or four people to be happy, why can't you get four million? What is missing? At what point in time does it become – does everybody lose value? Is it 4,000? Is it 40,000? Is it 400,000? there's a number where people stop giving a shit about certain people they read about in the newspaper if there's only four of you one of you dies everybody gets sad yeah but if there's four million of you like we lost another one today hey there's fucking four million people don't worry about it dude yeah right man well I think that's one part of it I think the other part of it is
there's going to just be people even more addicted to negativity and like the nancy think so yeah I think the nancy gray show is going to be really hard to watch because you'll be able to emotionally tune into it and guarantee Nancy Grace would be like, here's the way it feels to be an eight year old getting strangled to death. People want to experience those dark things, too. But I think ultimately it's the ultimate device of peace, because when let's say the president of Iran sits down with the president of Israel and they telepathically merge minds so that one can experience the totality of the other person's life and uh what they what whatever their religion is and whatever their ideas are if those things merge then you can be like oh shit we're exactly the same we really are the same that's that's the problem yeah the problem is if
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you lived their life you would have a very similar way of looking at the world as they do and if they lived yours they would probably have all your experiences all your hopes and dreams and loves and conquests and failures, all that shit together makes you. And unless someone is you, it's hard. It's hard for them to understand you. But when we all can see each other, it's going to get real weird, man. It's hard for you to understand you, much less somebody else. But still, you know where else it's going to ruin? It's going to ruin the meat industry because the first thing Pete is going to do is slap one of these brainwave devices on a cow that's about to get slaughtered, send that up on the internet and be like, go ahead, eat a cheeseburger. but first experience this insane terror that that meat felt right before it got murdered. I think you're right. It's going to be a weird world.
I think there's going to be a lot of weird things that we're going to be able to experience, a lot of weird ways that we're going to be able to be in touch with each other. And also getting hacked. Our minds are going to be able to get hacked. And that's another scary thing. And the way that sometimes you'll wake up and you'll have like six emails from your friends being like, hey, asshole, you got fished. I don't want to buy a purse. Please stop trying to sell me purses. In the same way, you might wake up and, like, your brain has been hacked and implanted all over your brain as the desire to go eat a cheeseburger or to, like, go on a certain website. That's another scary thing. Yeah. Are we good with this episode? Yeah. We just have a few little beats to hit. What do you have to hit? One thing that would be great is the first podcast, you haven't been to Ryan Institute yet. Right.
But I said it earlier. I talked about the rhinos to it. I'm sorry. Just set it up, and we'll get that other part for later in the show. What do you mean? Well, what you said is great. Just kind of do it as if you haven't been there yet. Like, I'm going to go to this place. Okay. Okay. So I'm headed to this place. It's called the Rind Research Center, and it's the gold standard for the scientific study of the paranormal. Yeah, I've heard of them. They make the cards. They've been studying the paranormal since the 1930s. So I'm going to go there and see what they can show me, What kind of scientific proof they could demonstrate. Apparently, they can show you all the different ways that they can measure psychic ability. And we're going to try a few out. Yeah, man. They're the ones who invented those psychic cards with the squiggly lines and the square and the circle.
They're the ones who came up with that test. Yeah. Well, apparently, they say some people have innate abilities. Some people don't. Some people, you can sort of cultivate their abilities. Some people, you can't. Sure. I believe it. We'll see. I'm open-minded. I'll go check it out. Yeah, they're very respected. Good luck. So anyone looking to get more information on any of these subjects we're talking about, go to sci-fi.com. There's like clips and videos. Go check that out. Spell it because they spell it weird. Yeah. S-Y-F-Y.com. People are like, why is this a stupid show on this? It's not even science fiction. You're right. But it's S-Y-F-Y.com. dot com. They got you on a technicality. So yeah, it's not the sci-fi channel anymore, like as in only science fiction, but it's still pronounced sci-fi. And you have a right to be upset at me. I understand that.
If I wasn't me, and I was watching this, and I wanted to see Battlestar Galactica, I'd be like, why is the Fear Factor douche on? I'm looking to watch some Battlestar Galactica, some science fiction. Right. But it's not just science fiction. But you know the one channel that sticks to their name? What? The Learning Channel. That's all about learning. Is it? No. Have you ever seen them? What do they have now? They have people wrestling pigs. It's like... What do they have on now? It's all reality shows? The Learning Channel is like... What do they have? Boo-boo. Honey Boo-boo. Honey Boo-boo's on the Learning Channel? Yeah, Hoarders. What are we learning? People are really stupid as fuck. I'm learning I love Honey Boo-boo. Hoarders is on the Learning Channel? What? Hoarders? Did you say Hoarders? I think Hoarders... Isn't Hoarders on the... Hoarders is on A&E. Arts and Entertainment.
Oh, there you go. Hoarders is on Arts and Entertainment. That's right. Was that an art or an entertainment? It's both. Wow. Okay. So, you know, I don't know, man. I don't know about this psychic ability thing. I think we have to wrap it up now. But my take on it is I did not feel like in doing the show that it disproved anything to me. It did prove to me that there's guys like Banachek who are absolutely masterful at doing what he did. However he did it, he claims that it's a trick and he's not psychic. I believe him. What he did was amazing, though. So I learned that there's people like that. I was really blown away by his abilities. But it didn't take away from me the possibility that a guy like Ed Dames can remote view or that a guy like Paul Smith can remote view. I couldn't do it. I didn't see evidence of it. but there's enough there for me, enough anecdotal evidence,
enough stories of these guys seeing things that turned out to be real, that I would be foolish if I dismissed it without actually learning how to do it. And that was one of the important things. So I'm going to leave it at that. I don't know whether or not psychic energy is real, but I am incredibly impressed. I'll say that again. I don't know if psychic energy is real or psychic ability is real, but I'm incredibly impressed at Banachek's ability to fake it and Ed Dame's descriptions of how it works. So that's where I'll leave it. Cool. I'm in the middle on it. I'm all over the place. Well, I hope people out there try to develop their abilities. I should too. You know, I don't know what's wrong with me and why I don't want to like sit down and read a book on it. I really need to figure out what's wrong with me that I don't want to give it a chance.
God, when I was a kid, I used to read those books all the time. Did they work? no but like I would I remember reading that you could sit and like if you stare at the back of someone's neck you could make them look at you so I'd be riding in the car and just staring at the back of my brother's neck trying to get him to turn around did it work no I mean your brother's tired of your shit absolutely tired of my shit and he would turn around anyway to punch me The end.