Episode 106 - Dr. StarKid Dakotah Tyler

Summary

Grits and Eggs Podcast – Episode 106

Guest: Dr. StarKid Dakotah Tyler
Date: December 8, 2025
Host: Deante’ Kyle (aka Big Ice Cub Cat)
Theme: Black Excellence in STEM, Identity, Society & Curiosity

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Overview

This episode features a free-flowing, in-depth conversation between host Deante’ Kyle (Big Ice Cub Cat) and guest Dr. StarKid Dakotah Tyler, a Black astrophysicist, STEM educator, and former D1 football player. The two dig into Dakotah’s unique career path, Black representation in STEM, the transferability of skills between athletics and academia, impacts of societal systems and technology, and philosophical questions about existence, curiosity, and human connection. The tone is raw, unfiltered, honest, and at times humorous—blending scientific curiosity with social and cultural commentary.

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Main Topics & Discussion Flow

1. Introduction & Representation in STEM

• Timestamps: [00:05]–[07:00]
• The show opens with banter, reflections on social media noise, and perspectives on fact vs. opinion online.
• Deante’ introduces Dr. Tyler with admiration for his representation of Black men in “big brain” spaces, stating:
  • “It’s like, we don’t see ourselves represented in that space a lot.” [10:28]
• They bond over shared love for science and creative arts, with a detour into fungal facts and regional roots (North Carolina, Georgia, DC, Atlanta).

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2. Dakotah’s Journey: D1 Athlete to Astrophysicist

• Timestamps: [07:17]–[16:31]
• Transition from D1 football to astrophysics after a career-ending injury
  • Sparked by watching Cosmos (Neil deGrasse Tyson) while recovering
  • Describes sense of lost identity and depression, then discovering a new passion
  • “It was like, my whole universe was collapsing in on me… But then I realized there are countless other planets, other possibilities.” [13:10]
• Parallels between sports and science:
  • Discipline, practice, and skill-building are transferable
  • Outworking others and the importance of networking in academia
  • Navigating predominantly white STEM fields:
    • “You don’t know the Unwritten rules… it’s like very gatekeeping. One way to penetrate that barrier… is come in curious and outgoing, and maintain control over what you can.” [24:17]

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3. Black Identity, Systems, and Community

• Timestamps: [16:31]–[26:37]
• Upbringing, family background, and the role of community in shaping ambition
• Importance of Black professional communities in cities like DC and Atlanta
• Dr. Tyler recalls sage advice from his father:
  • “When I’m 80, 90 years old, on my deathbed, I'm not going to care that I started making a little more money a little sooner, but I will care if I lived 60 years fulfilling my purpose.” [28:35]
• Discussion of systemic barriers, “school to prison pipeline,” dangers of identity solely around athletics, and struggles with neuroplasticity as we age
  • “That is dangerous—when you’ve solidified your identity around something and that is removed.” [22:24]

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4. Curiosity Theory & Content Creation

• Timestamps: [36:40]–[40:00]
• About the Curiosity Theory Podcast—creating spaces for science outside traditional institutions, reaching overlooked communities, and leveraging platforms like TikTok
  • “Now, the most well-known scientists are the ones who talk about it online.” [39:19]
  • Deante’ praises the freshness of seeing a Black scientist online with “grill in your mouth, talking about the moon and stars.” [10:20]
• TikTok and the democratization/misuse of information
  • “It’s my favorite thing about TikTok… seeing someone reflective of me, speaking as an expert… That’s so interesting.” [40:02]

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5. Fact, Opinion & Misinformation

• Timestamps: [43:30]–[44:32]
• Frustration with online debates, “anti-intellectualism,” and the inability to articulate disagreements
• Misinformation, the challenges of AI-generated content, and the need for federal regulation/disclaimers
  • “At some point, we need to push for some sort of federal law… this is AI.” [44:03]

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6. Intersecting Social Issues: Politics, Race, and Power

• Timestamps: [44:32]–[55:05]
• The current state of American politics under the Trump administration
• The lasting damages of corruption and wealth consolidation; power structures propped up by marginalized labor
• Discussion on civic action, strikes, and the untapped power of minorities
  • “If all minorities went on a general strike, everything would tank… we prop up this society.” [51:27]
• Comparison to historical revolutions, role of the police as pawns, and generational consequences

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7. Education, Mentorship, & Purpose

• Timestamps: [57:44]–[67:37]
• Giving back: funding, mutual aid, speaking to at-risk youth, and the impact of storytelling
• Deante’ describes talking to kids about:
  • “I give myself permission to make mistakes… but they're only mistakes if you're on a new endeavor.” [58:24]
• The importance of showing alternative paths outside sports, and building the confidence to resist negative peer pressures
• Social adaptation and “systems thinking”
  • “Trying to inspire and change a system, you have to expend a lot of energy… but you’re upsetting a system that’s reliant on funneling people into prison or poverty.” [68:41]

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8. Maladaptive Society, Food, Capitalism & Connection

• Timestamps: [73:02]–[80:11]
• Deante’s theory: modern society is “maladaptive”—our intelligence has outstripped our evolved context
• The loss of communal eating, importance of breaking bread, and impact of capitalism and tech (e.g., DoorDash)
  • “Breaking bread is the conversation… scarfing down food for the clock isn’t the same.” [73:25]

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9. Zoo Analogies, Systemic Depression & Surveillance

• Timestamps: [76:03]–[82:28]
• Animal behavior in zoos as a metaphor for humans in modern systems
• Hyper-consumption, lack of fulfillment, and the survivor’s guilt of outthinking but not escaping systems
• Surveillance capitalism, data profiling, and AI’s role in guiding human behavior
  • “That’s the most valuable data set ever—people’s chats with GPT… it builds a profile on you.” [82:18]

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10. Education System, Class, and Generational Shifts

• Timestamps: [83:28]–[87:14]
• Comparison of schools, jails, warehouses—bell systems and time chunking
• Each generation’s diminishing opportunity and increased struggle due to structural changes
• Blunt reality:
  • “The people making your life miserable will kill to keep the system… and you’re not willing to kill them. They’ll win every time.” [86:34]

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11. AI, Language Models, and Social Influence

• Timestamps: [87:59]–[90:25]
• LLMs (Language Learning Models) like GPT controlled by individuals who can “turn the knobs”
• How algorithmic manipulation may shape mass behavior, worldviews, and political opinions

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12. The Trouble With Modern Tech: Streaming, TikTok & Brain Rot

• Timestamps: [91:01]–[96:20]
• Deante’s concern with livestream culture:
  • “You’re participating in a human zoo activity… watching another person live.” [91:25]
• TikTok gadgets that make doom-scrolling even easier
• Inability to retain vast amounts of shallow information

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13. Red Pill Pipeline, Youth, and Gambling

• Timestamps: [96:33]–[101:21]
• The spread of toxic masculinity narratives online— disproven with basic logic
• Dangers of addictive behaviors like sports gambling, targeting youth, and planned exploitation
  • “15 years from now, all our youth addicted to gambling—and the same companies opening the rehab centers.” [101:21]

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14. Donald Trump’s Cynical Genius, Whiteness & Historical Superiority Myths

• Timestamps: [101:46]–[107:41]
• Deante’ and Dakotah riff on Trump’s manipulations and “knowing” of poor white America
• Dissect racist origins of science and white supremacist ideologies
  • “One of the first goals of Western experimental science was to prove Black people were an inferior species. To this day, people still believe that.” [103:27]
• Colonizers as disease carriers—rewriting the myths about “superior” conquerors

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15. Connectedness, Spirituality & Science

• Timestamps: [124:04]–[138:22]
• Astrophysics vs. astrology debate:
  • Tyler: “I can calculate the effect that Jupiter has on you—and it’s smaller than your phone across the room. Science has never shown astrologers’ predictions to be accurate.” [124:17]
  • However, both agree on a real, literal physical connection to the universe: “We are made up of stuff that went through a life cycle billions of years ago.” [126:06]
• Both share nuanced agnostic/spiritual perspectives
  • “I do feel like a sense of connectedness to something greater than me… and a duty to impact humanity.” [133:06]
• Criticism of “proud atheists” dismissing the human need for connection

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16. Aliens, Science Speculation, and The Limits of Knowledge

• Timestamps: [110:14]–[119:54]
• Oumuamua comet and misconceptions about interstellar visitors
• Dr. Tyler: It’s likely there’s alien life, probably simple, somewhere, but “no strong evidence” they’re here or flying crafts we’ve seen
• If highly advanced aliens came, humans would be powerless
• “If another intelligent lifeform can travel here, we’re cooked… If they made it here, they’re more advanced.” [113:33]

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17. Existential Wrap-up: Purpose, Humanity & Final Reflections

• Timestamps: [132:49]–[144:22]
• Final rapid-fire on science, spirituality, and the value of curiosity and conversation
• Key takeaway:
  • “The power you have is that window when your eyes open to when they close… what you can do with what you were given, in that window, is critical.” [141:01]

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Notable Quotes

• On curiosity and identity:
  • “An intellectual is more than anything else about being able to take in a flux of all this information and think for yourself.” — Dr. Tyler [42:24]
• On oppressive systems:
  • “If all minorities went on strike, everything would tank. But people are more afraid of what they’d lose than what they’d gain.” — Deante’ [51:27]
• On representation:
  • “Talking about the moon and stars with a grill in your mouth—I was like, this the truth.” — Deante’ [10:20]
• On science & human connection:
  • “We are literally just little boxes of the universe that can walk around and make decisions.” — Dr. Tyler [126:06]
• On change and systems:
  • “How do you uproot an entire system… without killing hundreds of thousands of people?” — Deante’ [81:28]

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Timestamps of Important Segments

| Topic | Timestamps | | ------------------------------------------------ | --------------- | | Dakotah’s Journey (Athlete to Physicist) | 07:17–16:31 | | Advice From Parents & Purpose | 28:35–30:03 | | Social Media, TikTok & Scientist Visibility | 36:40–40:02 | | Fact vs. Opinion, Anti-Intellectualism | 43:30–44:32 | | School, Prison & Systemic Control | 83:28–87:14 | | Astrophysics vs. Astrology Debunked | 124:04–129:47 | | Black Identity & White Mythology in History | 101:46–107:41 | | Speculating on Aliens & Interstellar Visitors | 110:14–119:54 | | Spirituality, Science, and Human Purpose | 132:49–138:22 | | Final Reflections/Invitations/Goodbyes | 143:36–144:27 |

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Episode Highlights & Memorable Moments

• Dakotah’s dad encouraging him to follow his curiosity about space after football injuries—shaping a “life purpose” worldview. [28:35]
• Astrophysics “nerd-out”: Explaining why Jupiter might “rain diamonds,” and what makes a planet a planet. [30:36–36:13]
• Realness about Black excellence, survivor’s guilt, and “systems thinking” as a way to visualize change. [56:24–68:41]
• Fascinating analogies: Zoo animals as a metaphor for humans in cages of modern society—pacing, depression, lack of fulfillment. [76:03–78:11]
• Debunking astrology but affirming a literal cosmic connection: “We are the stuff of stars.” [126:06]
• Humor: “Let’s end it there. White people are a disease.” [107:51]
• Final message: The window of existence is finite—maximize your unique potential. [141:01]

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Closing

Dr. Tyler plugs Curiosity Theory Podcast (YouTube, Spotify, Apple), his handle (@Dr.StarKid), and ongoing outreach. Deante’ invites him back for more conversations and possible collaborations in Tulsa or LA.

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Summary

This episode is a masterclass in blending Black cultural realities with scientific insight, breaking the mold for how curiosity, identity, and purpose can be communicated. Dr. Tyler’s journey showcases the importance of representation in “big brain spaces,” and both he and Deante’ encourage listeners to pursue curiosity, question systems, and find meaning in community, mentorship, and mutual aid. The tone throughout is energetic, sometimes irreverent, always honest, and deeply rooted in the lived experiences and aspirations of two Black men breaking (and redefining) boundaries.

Transcript

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah.

Woke up in the morning and to God be the glory Thankful for another day to tell my story Put my opinions in the universe and let them orbit I'm from the dirty soul with a dirty mouth My knee orbit, miss things things on me like a Norbit had to refuse them cause my bitch no rest fusion she gorgeous as I doubt my sons up and kiss my daughter forehead Tell them we gonna get this money to my pocket Sn morbid. Remember living in apartments now we playing mortgage. You don't even need to be on there. They run, they talking about you enough. Because I. I was telling Big Cat, like for like three weeks I couldn't even be on there cuz like every third video I seen was about me.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

And I was like, this is annoying as.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

It's good, man. No, it's good. You drive in interesting conversations, different perspectives. That's what I respect. That's what I like. That's why I. With your content in the beginning, I.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Mean, that is science. You know what I mean? That is what y' all do. What you mean to a degree is a varying.

So it's different perspectives about facts. You know what I'm saying?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

So I think the thing that gets muddy on Tick tick tock or social media is that all of us are having opinions about opinions. Yeah. But fact based things and how you arrive at the facts is also very interesting.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

The problem is people be having opinions about facts as well.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

That's a bad thing. That's not a good look.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

I don't have opinions about facts. If it's true, it's just true. But I think the science, science, the of science has always been very interesting to me because it was one of my. It was one of like language arts and science was like my two favorite subjects.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Oh, for real?

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah. But I like, I like like random fact. I like fungi. Like fungus.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Fungus is crazy, man.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

I'm just like, I'm astounded by. I watched that for hours, bro.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Did you know that the antibiotics that we get, like when you pop antibiotics, you go to the hospital and they give you penicillin.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

This comes from a fungus.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah. So like, so like grandma law, bro. If bread got mold on it, they'll tell you. It's like it ain't nothing but penicillin, is it? I don't know if that's.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

I don't know if that's.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

I don't know if. I don't know if the penicillin comes from yeast.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Base product. But like, I know my granny Was like, it ain't a big deal. Yeah. She's like, if it's a little dotta mold on it, it ain't gonna kill you. Now the whole loaf gone. Let that be.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, I don't know. I'm not a biologist. I don't know about the properties.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

My granny wasn't a biologist either, I'll tell you that.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

This country, bro. My grandma from Thomas. Thomaston, Georgia. So it's like.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Are you from Georgia?

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

I'm from North Carolina originally, but I grew up Wilmington.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Okay.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

So it's like a little rural, right? It's a little more rural.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

No, it's actually. It's. It's a. It's a coastal city. Okay. So it's where they shot Dawson's Creek at.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

I. But I didn't watch Dawson's Creek.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, me neither. But I know that because that's where they shot it. And it was like all the crazy at our school, like, there's like, don't shoot in Dawson's Creek. I was like, I never watch this.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Did that influence you heavily?

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Dawson's Creek, you a funny nigga.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Like, damn, that actually makes sense. Dawson's.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

No. Well, I think the. The bigger thing was the thing that I. I knew about my city was it was a site for, like, Civil War.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Cape Fear was a big thing. Gullah Geechee history is heavy there. Driving black people off into the swamps. One of the first coups in the country happened in Wilmington, North Carolina, where they overthrew a predominantly black government. Black Republican government.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

I didn't know that.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Ye. One of the biggest printing presses in North Carolina was ran by a black man out of Wilmington and then the port itself. So a lot of people when we was growing up, when they got that good job, they worked at the port either as a crane operator, Fort, lift, whatever, whatever. And that was like, shit. It's like either that or like 84 Lumber. 84 Lumber had, like, a huge fucking plant in the middle of our city. So it was like, you either work at 84 Lumber or you work at the port.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Or you go to the local college, uncw, and you go on about your business. So. But we. I left there when I was 13, moved here, moved to Douglasville, my mom from Atlanta. So I was like, okay. Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah. This is actually my first time being in Atlanta.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Real?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah. I never been here from where I'm from Indiana, mostly been in the Midwest. I went to school at University of Cincinnati, and I played ball at Lexington, Kentucky. At UK.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

And then I lived in D.C. for a little bit, which I really like D.C. and then I've been in L. A since 2020.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

That's where I did my Ph.D. oh yeah, word. Yeah, I fought with D.C. too.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

D.C. is cool. D.C. is probably my favorite place I ever lived. Honestly, it was the first place I really lived at where there was a big population of like young black professionals. And I guess living in Atlanta, it's like, obviously this is a black, this is a very black city, but most cities that I've been in, you know, black is always like this small minority.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, yeah. D.C. and Atlanta are big on that. Like, I think the thing, because of where I'm at with it now, like being in media, I mean, a lot of people that are in like entertainment industry, but like you talking about, you go to a party and it's like all of these different entertainment professionals, from lawyers to managers, to like people that just represent brands and shit like that.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, that's dope.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah. Like high level executives and shit. And all of them be black. It should be lit as hell.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

You say it's like a certain comfort of, of operating in the space where it's like, even though I'm new to this, I feel very welcome, you know what I mean? Whereas like, I would say in a place where you like la, you're going to be in an extreme minority in spaces like that.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, yeah. And a lot of the energy is weird in la. It made sense for what I wanted to do. My, my co host, Justin Schaefer, he's also a STEM educator. He's like more on the tech side. That's my dog. And he recently built us a studio in Tulsa, which is cool, cuz also you have like the black Wall street component and the city is having a little bit of a revitalization, maybe like a early Austin, Texas, where like the tech scene is growing a little bit. And so he just built us a studio out there. But there's actually a large black population obviously still in Tulsa.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

And it's cool to kind of see it start to bounce back in that way.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Would you say that it's. The tech space in Tulsa is similar to Austin in the sense that it's like overrun with tech?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Nah, like in early early Austin. Right?

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah. Because they kind of like shitted on Austin. Like they kind of like ruined Austin.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, it's the. If you go back, I don't know, maybe like 10 years ago, where it was starting to grow.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Pre Rogan.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah. He drove a lot of People there during the pandemic. It was actually a right. That was right around the time when I stopped watching that show.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, I used to watch it too, man. I used to. I feel like there used to be a lot of interesting conversations.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

It was that. Okay, so, for example, having you here is part of, like, my, like, whole antithesis about how I want to do interviews. I don't want to just interview people, like, necessarily for being in podcasting or for necessarily being, like, popular. I would just. I rather talk to people about, like, what a career is, like, who they are. Like, you being a black astrophysicist starting out as a D1 athlete, that's like crazy.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Crazy transition. You know what I mean? Yeah, you go. Because, like, a lot of people don't transition out of sports.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

It's hard, man.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

You know what I mean?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

It's hard.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, yeah. Let's talk. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about. First of all.

[e-mail] for business booking and inquiries. Deontaycolle.com for all updates. Grizzen eggs. G R I T S N E G G S for auto merch. So you got these new windbreakers.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

That is a hard jacket.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Big cat got on a fly ass windbreaker. Big Cat, you want to come show him the Sulon Salon national heritage windbreaker real quick in the middle. We going to get you in the middle now. Yeah, come back. You can stay right there.

From the back. Is crazy. My. Yeah, that was a. That was crazy. That was a crazy word play. That was wild word play right there. He perfectly in between, y'.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

All.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

You got to turn around and show everybody the fit. So, son, you know what I'm saying?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Feel me, Big head?

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Whatever. I'm out of here, man. All right.

I'm just saying, we having windbreakers, we having hoodies, we having hats, we having bucket hats. And then of course, you know, some of our knicksnacks. Like, do it again. The camera. Oh, we do it after. We'll play it in episode. Yeah, okay. But we do that after that. Whatever switchboard you using. Yeah, yeah. How did you. How did you get the angle right and then not switch it? Cuz I was worried about getting him.

It's all good. It's okay. What else?

The first giving show. By the time y' all see this, it'll be sold out. It's already like 75 sold out in one day, so. Sorry, guys. You know, we'll catch you at the next one. Yeah, yeah. Clap it up for Clap it up. Selling tickets, you know what I'm saying? But we still. We just added a late night show to the Brooklyn December 5th. Brooklyn Isola. We'll be live there. I think we already sold out the first show, so second late night show is starting now. Go get your tickets and. Yeah, man, that's it. That's all the plugs. New Music Monday. We saving that for Mondays. They don't pay attention when we do it here. But. Nmmtechy.com that's New Music Monday for music submissions. Nmmusic Monday. I mean, shit. Nmmtekyle.com for music submissions and adviceyontaykyle.com for all advice submissions. 657234 ax@ 657-234-3447. We have a very special guest today. I guess you just walked into the midst of our conversation, but started out as D1 athlete and is now.

Astrophysicist. Doctor. Doctor of astrophysics.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Of astrophysics. Master of the universe.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was gonna say astrophysicism.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Don't say, just don't say astrology.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, no, no, we know the difference. We know astrology. Dr. Dakota Tyler is in the building. Let's round of applause. You know what I mean?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Appreciate it. Been excited, man. I've been liking your content since it came across my feed.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

So talking about the moon and stars with a grill in your mouth, I was like, this the truth, you know what I'm saying?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, it means a lot.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, man, I with it completely, especially being a thing that it's like, man, we don't see ourselves represented in that space a lot. You know what I mean?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

In a lot of spaces.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

In a lot of space. A lot of especially big brain spaces, you know what I mean? I think a lot we talk about this a lot about being more than what we can do with our bodies, both like physical labor and like athletics wise. So good that you are like making content surrounding some real big brand activity and showing people like what's the possibilities club?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, man, I love it. And I love to try and connect with other especially young people, especially black men maybe that are on that, that path, that athletic path. I remember when I was young, it wasn't that I like didn't think that I could do science. I just really didn't care about it. You know, everybody that I looked up to was an athlete, you know, a celebrity, something like that. And it just never occurred to me that this was a cool thing to do, a fun thing to do, to be curious about the universe and it's something that you could do. Like if you work hard, if you have that value and that work ethic, you could build out your math skill. You could do anything, honestly.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Absolutely.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

If you work towards it.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, yeah. I think it's just applied knowledge too. It's like I'm gonna focus on being better at this, you know, just like anything else. The same thing you would do if as an athlete. What sport did you play?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Football.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Football. So what position?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Guess.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Because the football player.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Damn. So that means I gained a lot of weight. I played safety. I was a defensive back. But when everybody asks, when everybody says, you kind of look like a linebacker.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah. But you also. What? How 34. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nah, nah, nah. Yeah. N9. At 20. At 20. That's a pre safety. You got 360, you know what I'm saying? You like 511 too? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 511.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

6, 1, 6 2.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

We ain't going to do that. We're not going to do that. You know, you. In science, it's all about effects. My.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, man. I mean it depend on what ruler you're using, what measurement, what type of.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Cleats you got on.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, man. Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

But so, so this being like, you know, you know, there's a lot of head trauma coming in that. In that space.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Too serious.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

I think that, I think that it's such a crazy pivot to make. You know what I mean? What was the fat leading factors into? Like, okay, I'm gonna go into this. Like, what sparked the curiosity for me.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

It was very clearly, I got injured when I was in my junior year and during the rehab period, I kept getting re. Injured and eventually it was a slow process, but eventually I came to the. I just can't even train on the level that I need to. To get to the next level. So it was that being taken away, which was very depressing, right? Losing my identity, losing the thing that I thought was going to make me successful, the thing that I thought people liked me for, which isn't even wrong. Like that is what people like me for, not having that. And I started watching these documentaries. I started watching this show called Cosmos with Neil Degrasse Tyson. And I just got interested in the universe. It was like, it was, it was cathartic in a way because here I am. I feel like my whole universe was like collapsing in on me, that it was all over and there's actually like countless other planets that could be having. It could be an alien on another planet right now that just had an Injury and like ruin they playing career for whatever glorp ball or whatever they playing.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Right.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

And it's like, that's fascinating to think about. And I think it like, freed my mind in a way where I was like, well, you know, what if I become an astrophysicist? And then I just went through all of those steps, started a community college, working at night, got into a bachelor's program, working full time and just like prove to myself that, you know, if I work at this, just practice, like, you know that. You know that from sports.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

When you practice the skill, you get better at it.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Exactly.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

It's fair. It sucks because you got to put in the work, but it's fair. And I found that that was the case for learning math, learning physics, learning that logic.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, I think that was kind of the point I was getting at when I asked what position. Because there's certain, like, skill sets that you have to have as a safety that you have to work on on a physical level, whether that just be like lateral movement and shit like that or whatever the case may be. You know what I mean? Like, reading the. Reading the offense, all these different things. You know, the more you focus on that one particular set of skills, the better you're gonna get at it. And it's just gonna expand your tool belt. So I think it's like the same can be said about everything. Because I was 22, I never liked painting. I was always into like, illustration, but I never liked painting because it's like it didn't feel the same. It wasn't the same skill as drawing. So, like, you would do this, like, elaborate, like, outline drawing, and it would look amazing. And then you would put paint on it. It's like, this looks like dog shit. And so like, I was just like, oh, I'm not good at this. Yeah. So I'm gonna just focus on the illustration part. And I seen this documentary by John Michelle Basquiat called Boom. For Real. And it was about how, like, he was such a, like, like classically trained artist. Like, you know, he could do like portraits that look like real life, but like, he was known for these, like, childish the. The Basquiat style of painting of this right here. You know what I mean? Like, this is what he's known for, right? And I was like, oh, so it doesn't have to be like, rigid. I can just kind of like self express with these colors, but I don't have to copy him. You know what I mean? I could just figure out what my lane is and As I got more like fine tuned with the skill of painting, understand like shading and things like that, then it's just like, oh, it just morphs into this whole other thing where it's like you just start finding your style.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

But it took a focus on like, it took the initial curiosity and intrigue and then that turns into like just working on skill sets. Same thing you did.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

So it's safe to say. So you. You got your scholarship to University of Kentucky.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Injury. They just kind of.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

No, it was good. I finished out. I finished my degree there, but. But it wasn't a degree where I had any math or physics or anything. So I still kind of had to start from the beginning.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Okay.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

But in my. In the sport of football and usually basketball, definitely at D1 schools. I don't know if it changed. Has changed with the new nil stuff. But your scholarship was good. Like, even if my freshman year, I would have gotten. Had a career in the injury. I should have been at least, you know, based on what they told me. Maybe they were lying. You would. I would be good for that whole time. So I think that is a benefit in the money making sports like basketball and football is that you do have a little bit of security there. But like other sports, I know people who would like, we're on the volleyball team. I know women on the volleyball team who got injured and they just took their scholarship away like sophomore year.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, I was. You know what football players is like.

The reputation for being like kind of meatheads is not like really what that is because I was with. What's his name? Martellus Bennett. Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Tight end.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

You. You feel familiar with him? I was at a speaking at a panel at Rice University and Martellus Bennett was there, first of all. Fucking giant. Like, I was like, this nigga's intimidating, you know what I'm saying? Like, how big he is. But he dresses in like very like eccentric flowy clothing. And I was like this throwing me off a little bit, you know what I mean? And then come to find out, like, he's sewing all of his clothing because he can't find clothes that fit him. And he writes children's books and he's turned these children's books into like now he like works with Disney about creating like full blown, like, animations for children and shit like that. I'm like, yo, what the fuck? Like, I was using the truth in football. Now he's like, you know, he doing this, but like, he leveraged his connections. Yeah. And his sport to, like, get him into things that he was actually passionate about.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

And I think you kind of utilizing your skill set to kind of, okay, this is what I know from this sport. Now I'm gonna utilize that to like, focus in on this endeavor that I'm.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Like, oh, yeah, that was critical. That was critical for me to realize that the thing that I relied on in sports, which for me is like, the work ethic, the drive, the dedication, just being like, just being a dog and how I work, looked at things, I could apply that anywhere else. And now I, like, still do. You could do it in content.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Right.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

You could do it in editing, you could do it in strategizing. It works across the board. It's very transferable. Yeah, but we're not taught that.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, right.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

You're just praised for, like, doing the thing, for being good at the sport. And you know, that's dangerous. It can be hard to make that transition. And I think every athlete has to make it at some point, or even every young man who comes to the point where they realize, like, I don't know if you ever had dreams to go to the NFL or the.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

I wanted to go to the mlb or the mlb. Right.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

And then it's like a day comes when you're like, all right, well, that's actually not gonna happen for some people.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

As younger was out.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Like, yeah, it's some 511 dudes.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

How tall are you?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Like five?

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

I'm 5 10. I'm tell you, like when I went.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

You can't shoot.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

No. When I went to high school. Oh, no.

Look, I'm curious though. That's my. Nah, that's your whole thing.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

It's my whole thing.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

No, but eighth grade. Eighth grade, I played for middle school and like, was coming back into summer from the summer. Like, taller. Hella taller than me. Then when I went to night, I'm still the same height. Eighth grade to ninth grade. Yeah. And is like six one, six two. I'm like, oh, this is out. This is. No, I can't. There's no catching up in height.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

You know, I mean, that's just a thing that's naturally gonna happen because my son now he's 14 and he's 6 2, and it's like, yeah, like, that's how it's supposed to happen. It's a natural progression. I'm stunted, so it don't matter how good my shot is. I can't drive the lane. I'm getting my blocked. All these stronger than me. I'm good on this Baseball was kind of like even. You know what I mean? You know, height really don't matter if you can connect with that bet. But, man, I started smoking and I was like, I'm cool on this. I'm like, I'm straight. Yeah, I'm straight. Like, I don't really. I didn't. I didn't have it, like, a drive in me where I was like, I really want to be a professional athlete. After a while, it was just like, yeah, this is kind of boring. But what did.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

What did you have a drive for?

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Initially, I wanted to be an animator. Yeah. Yeah. So drawing was, like, always the biggest.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

So you've always felt compelled creatively?

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And, like, once the. When you get into high school sports, especially if you're really good, there is, like, a politic around it.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, definitely.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah. It's odd, too, because, like, me being better than the person who was starting when I showed up to that school didn't matter because he had been coaching them for. Since second grade, and he knew their parents, and it's like the decision to win was less important than the decision to keep relationships and.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, yeah. There's a real.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

There's a black kid on the team, too. It was weird.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Oh, Dawson's Creek High.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

No, not Dawson's Creek High. Douglas County. Who? It was only one. What's the. What's your boy name? He was the only other black baseball player. He played varsity when I came in.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Oh, yeah. You talking about baseball? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, man.

So I told you, I ain't said I don't know.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

So Wilmington, where I went to school, where I would have went to high school was actually same school as Michael Jordan Laney High School.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Okay.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah. But when I moved out here, it was Douglas County High.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Got you.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Gotcha.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Gotcha.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Dawson's Creek was just a show, my bro.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

I don't know nothing about it, man. I don't know nothing about your culture, bro. Where you came from, bro.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

I don't know. I'm learning, man. I'm always learning.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Mean, I'm always learning, bro.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Your culture. Your culture. Dawson's Creek. Yeah, but. Yeah, yeah. I think the. The thing for me was, like, okay, athletics might not be my jam, but, man, that's a.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

But that's like. I think that that's a blessing. Unless you can go all the way. I do think that that's a blessing because you think, like, as you get older, as we get older, our neuroplasticity and our brain goes down, it becomes like a Little bit more difficult to learn things and to change who we are. And that is dangerous. When you've solidified your identity around something.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

It makes a lot of sense.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

And I think we see that with retired athletes. I'll speak on football specifically when we talk about cte, which is obviously a condition that's degenerative in the brains of athletes that play violent sports. But I think that that just compounds the fact that you have a grown man who has a completely concrete identity around this specific thing that he is his skill set, what he can and can't, and then that's removed.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Like, where do you go from there?

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

For you, in. In that respect, was it. I know you spoke about like kind of like a period of depression because it is a loss of identity. Was realizing that you could actually like succeed in this other endeavor. And it wasn't like based on physicality or based on like, you know, just knowing the right people or connections, but it's more so based on like how well I know the information, how well I and apply the information. Did that start to like build a confidence back in you? How long did it take for you to kind of get the funk of being a athlete as an identity off you?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

I would say that I still had a strong identity around being able to outwork people. You know, I was clearly, I'm like have some genetic gifts to be able to play sports at a high level. But I also worked extremely hard. Right. It's not. I'm not like huge, you know, I'm not like DK Metcalf or something like that. That I'm a. I'm a normal sized person and that work ethic. I knew that I could outwork the. The people around me. But I also realized that it's not everything is not always about performance. Networking is still a thing. And I realized that I actually had this advantage towards or over many other scientists because I can be social, I could be outgoing, I could build these relationships. And people who are higher up, maybe that's advisors, professors, people with opportunities, they want it. You want to give opportunities to people you like?

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, for sure.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

And if somebody is able to like build that relationship and you know, plant these seeds, then that was also something that could help. So I feel like I was always seeing everything as a potential opportunity. I talk about this as being a black man in this field that's like less than 1% black. Well, one of the reasons that being black or brown in some of these sciences is so difficult is because you don't know the Unwritten rules. Right. There's. There's, like, a culture. There's a way things are done that you may not know about. Right. There's. It's like very gatekeeping. And how do you. How do you, like, penetrate that barrier? One way that you could do it, one way that I. That I chose to do it, the way I chose to look at it is to kind of come into every room, every collaboration, every opportunity with this mindset that, you know, if I show up curious, outgoing, sort of assume the best, assume good faith on people and yeah, sure, some people don't want to see me succeed. Some people hate me for whatever reason, but I just always tried to maintain the most control over what I actually could control.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Right, right.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Which was how I walked into that situation. And for me, it's been able to work out, which is not the case for everybody.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Right. I think the part of sports that is, like.

Kind of like undermining some aspects is like, the social part of it. Like, you. You do create, like, a very good, like, ability to be social because you. I mean, especially athletics, like football specifically, that's 22 players in certain positions. It's a lot of people, though. You know what I mean? It's a lot of personalities to manage, even as an individual or a player. And then. And also, too, at that young level, high school, college, it's a competitive position, too. So there needs a certain level of banter that you got to keep up with, too, that is, like, really transferable in real life, where it's like, not taking yourself too seriously, but also very confident in your skill set. Yeah. What's the growing up. And like, you grew up in Indianapolis.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

What was your. What was your parents into? Like, what did they do?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

My mom works for an insurance company my pops works at. He works at an aerospace company. He was like, in aerospace, they build engines, I believe.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

So he was on more mechanical side of it.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Definitely.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah. Yeah. So how do they feel like when you made the. The leap to go into astrophysics?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Interestingly so at the time, you know, I got hurt and I was talking to my pops. We hadn't talked in many years. We had, like, a bad relationship, especially when him and my mom broke up. And I maybe didn't talk to him for, like, six years or something like that. And I met up with him at a bar one day. This was after I graduated from uk, after I got injured. New football was over, but before I had, you know, found anything else. And he. First of all, I immediately recognized that a ton of the things in my personality are copied off of him or they like came from him, which was cool, interesting to see. And he was like, randomly, he was like, man, when you were in third or fourth grade, didn't you think space was cool? And I don't remember being like a space kid, but I do remember thinking like, a picture of Jupiter was cool, right? And he. So he just threw that out there, you know, trying to help. And he didn't know that. While I was injured, I actually started watching these doc. These astronomy documentaries. And I was like, yeah, actually I think space is pretty cool. I've been watching documentaries. And he was like, well, well, why don't you just become an astrophysicist? Like, why don't you become an astronomer? And I remember at first kind of being shocked at the prospect. Like, what do you mean? That means I would have to go back to school. I would be. I had this thing where I thought that I would be behind, like my peers, all my friends, they were either like going to play ball or, you know, they were going to get jobs as managers or whatever at a store. And I just had this feeling like, well, I'm going to be behind. And then my pops, he put it in a way that always has stuck with me. You know, when I'm 80, 90 years old, on my deathbed, I'm not going to care that I had started making a little bit more money a little bit sooner. But what I will care about is, did I live that last 60 years of my life doing what I loved, like, fulfilling my purpose, having my unique impact. And I kind of took that and protected that and kept that with me, you know, through that entire journey, a long journey, like 10 years to go from community college to graduating this past June. So just a few months ago, yeah.

Me and my.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

My friend was having a situation where like, his kid was struggling with math. And I was like, yo. I was like, you know, focus on the tutoring aspect of that, like just understanding these basic skills. But don't think about it as like they're behind because they're excelling at something that somebody else is behind in. Like our kids, we all have like these strengths and weaknesses, right? And I was like, between like 10 and 12 on a basic level, we are kind of taper out at the same spot. And then people kind of delve into their interest. Like, so me not really caring about like history, I was just like, it's odd, like how much I care about it now, but it's like in school I was like, I'm gonna just focus on language arts. This is my shit, you know what I mean? Like, and you will see that with everybody. And the same thing is applied to that. Like, even if you get started later, the skill set that you bring coming to it with is not the same, where it can kind of put you in a position where you're just right on par with everybody else. You know what I mean? But that's. Bruh. That's good to have, like, sage advice from your pops in that time, because that's a pivotal moment, bro.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah. And, you know, I was so deep depleted and deflated with that mountain of identity and path just disintegrating while I was on it, that I was very much receptive to almost anything.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

And it's funny because, you know, you think metaphorically, like, literally anything in the universe, and that is what it was. That kind of got me on that path. So, you know, I don't even, like. I don't know if it would have been possible had things worked out any other way.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Astrophysicism, Astrophysics. Astrophysics. I don't know why I want to put an ism on it so bad, but astrophysics, it's like a spectrum. Is it like a spectrum of study? Like, is there a certain, like, specific place where you, like, focus on in it?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

It is for me.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

So, you know, you got people that may study stars, black holes, some people study galaxies, which is just like, a huge collection of stars. Some people study, like, the history of the universe, how things have changed over time. I study what are called exoplanets. So, you know, we live on Earth. We got Jupiter, Mars, the other planets that orbit the sun. But at night, when you see stars out, you can't see the planets that they have, but most of them do also have planets. And so I study those planets, planets that orbit other stars. That's like, my specific niche. You know, I'm thinking about, like, habitability. I'm thinking about alien life. Like, how do you get a planet that's something like Earth? Is it possible? How common is it? So, yeah, I specifically study exoplanets.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah. What's. What. How did you land there? Like, is. That was just like, where. Okay, this is the. This is the coolest shit to me. I'm gonna just focus on that. Is that where you was at with it?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, I think I had this. I had this idea early on, before I really knew that much, that you could have, like, any type of planet. Like, maybe there's a planet that's just Completely made of gold or like silver, or one that's made of diamond, or one where X, Y and Z. And that was like, before I understood those things aren't really possible and, you know, in that fantastical way. But again, I think it was the prospect of sort of infinite possibilities that was very attractive to me at that time. And then as I started learning more, I started like realizing how much of a nerd that I actually was and how cool it is to think about these other planets and that we can study them. Like, you get a telescope, I can look at the atmosphere of another planet and then try to interpret what is going on on that planet. Is there life? Is there some weird condition that makes it completely uninhabitable?

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

What's the. What differentiates those things? Like, what's the. Like, what differentiates a star from a planet, so to speak?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Okay, so a star like the sun, which we are orbiting, is basically all hydrogen. It's just in helium. It's basically just a bunch of gas. It's so much gas that it's so heavy. The gravity is so strong that in the core, it like, is smashing atoms together, which produces energy, which is why the sun, you know, releases energy. A planet is going to be something that's much, much smaller, Usually made of rock. They can be gas, gaseous as well. Like Jupiter has just a bunch of gas. You couldn't really land on it if you went there on a spaceship. But planets are much smaller and they orbit stars. A star also you couldn't land on. But it's like this enormous fusion reactor in the sky just pumping out a constant supply of solar radiation of energy.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, bro. You like my Neil DeGrasse Tyson, bro?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, I appreciate that.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, bro. Like, I'm with this completely. Is. Is it true that like.

Jupiter reigns diamonds or some like that? I'll be reading mad facts and.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, there's a number of things that you can intuit or that you can assume based on the physics that we know. So on Jupiter, we know that there's a lot of.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, yeah. Hey, it's gonna be an in or out type vibe. So we either gonna sit here and chill or we're gonna be out there watching tv. Okay, go ahead.

You good? Do you need anything? You need water? You need anything?

Bird, where's the water at? Water right there. Can you grab her one real quick? You good?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

I like your pants. Stars.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Thank you. Yeah, that's. That's your whole jam. Nah, I'm telling because, you know, you know, I'll be singularly focused on you. And I'm like, what are you doing? What are you doing? 1.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Can I get one of those as well?

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

For.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Can I get a water too?

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, yeah, I got water right here. I'm cool. Yeah, you know.

Cuz, you know, you got my, my antennas is up. I'm focused on you.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

You a dad, man. You're such a dad.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

I'm like, what are you doing? What are you doing? But yeah, if you want to go watch tv, do that and we'll be wrapped up here in like another hour. Uhoh. Yeah. Okay, I'll see you in a little bit. We can go get food after. What did she say? You want Chick Fil A? I wish it was Sunday. Yeah, all right. I got you.

Nothing. I was just joking, baby. I'm just joking. Sure you want the pizza? Okay, go watch tv. So Jupiter raining diamonds.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

All right, so we know, like I said, Jupiter is mostly gas, so you couldn't land on it. But we know that Jupiter has a lot of carbon in its atmosphere. Like that's something we can see. I can take a telescope, get a little spectrometer, and I can tell that there's carbon there. Well, you know what happens to carbon when it's compressed under great pressure? You get a diamond. Right. This is how diamonds are formed. And so you could imagine that on Carp on Jupiter, it has like these insane weather patterns that are very different than what we go through because it's basically all gas. So you could imagine carbon that is like pressurized in a certain area within the planet, turning into diamonds and being like blown around by these high, high velocity, high speed winds. And they're literally being diamonds flying around.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

It's like. Yeah. When you, when you study the planet, you can, you can start to infer that these things must happen.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Right, right.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

I don't think that we ever went and saw. And you know what I'm saying? They saw like a diamond storm. Yeah, but we saw like some electricity that superheated some carbon in the atmosphere. And we say, oh, well, you know, that probably turned into some soot that got pressurized and then turned into a diamond. That.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

That's got to be. That sound fun, bro. Like, because it's like, it's like. Yeah, like, like you say it's a lot of inference, but it's also like just theorizing all the time too.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, that's what I like about it.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, right. Yeah. So the Curiosity Theory. What is that?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Curiosity Theory? That's my podcast. My co Host Justin Schaefer. He is a STEM educator as well, but he's more so on the tech side. He does a lot of, like, AI usefulness workshops, talks to kids, that sort of thing. And, man, we wanted to start this a podcast where I think we both really aligned on wanting to build our own platform. You know, I've definitely had this experience in science where it feels like I would get looked overlooked for opportunities that I was more than qualified for, for people who are less than qualified. And I suspect that it has a lot to do with how I present myself, how I look, how I sound, and how the people with those opportunities view who they want to give them to.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Right.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

And I'm just a little bit different.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

And it just got to the point where I was like, well, we, you know, we should just make our own platform, build this ourselves. Platform, who we think is interesting platform, the scientists that we want to talk to. And so we get in deep on space, really, all things science. Space is obviously my bag. We recently had an immunologist on. So we got deep into, like, the medical misinformation and medical mistrust and that sort of thing. But, yeah, we talk about space science, tech, curiosity theory. We're fresh.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

We're on episode 22, so only been, like, four months.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah. But I think, honestly, because, you know, the accolades matter, you know what I'm saying? Especially in the field that you're in, it's like, you know, being a doctor having a PhD, it matters, you know what I'm saying? I think that it qualifies you for a lot of things, but it doesn't, like, change necessarily the structure of system that you're stepping into. But I think with creating a visibility for yourself, it'll create opportunity 100. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. Like, you kind of got a back door, yo. Like, you know I'm saying create your own avenue into these spaces. I see that, like, often you're doing, like, keynote speaking and things like that.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Can you tell me that's actually why I'm in Atlanta?

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah. So you want to talk more about what you came out here for?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, yeah. So there's this conference called the Institute on Teaching and Mentoring. Basically, it's the. I believe it's called the Southern Regional Education Board. It's a. Like, a coalition of universities in the south and Black early career researchers, scholars, grad students all come to this conference. And I gave a talk on, like, personal branding and the importance as an academic of building an online presence. An online Brand leveraging the Internet because you can, it's what you said, you. You get your own exposure, your own visibility.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

And the interesting thing is that like, if you think about the scientific revolution going back to like the 1700s, the most famous scientists were usually the people who came up with like the most important equation or found out the most revelational discovery. But now I would say that the most well known scientists are the ones who talk about it online.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

So, like, I have, you know, surpassed visibility of people who've been doing science a lot longer. And it's like this low hanging fruit of being able to communicate in this way. You know, be a visual representative for people in the community and just show that this is something that, that we can do.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

It's my, literally my favorite thing about Tick Tock.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

It's the fact that like I can be scrolling one day and see you and it's like this has got grills and all type of. But he's talking like, like about astrophysics. And then it's like I was like, it's a actual astrophysics. Like, what the. Like, okay, now I'm like, okay, I'm all in on Dr. Dakota Tyler. Like, I'm, I'm gone. I was like, I probably spent. That's how it is when I discover people we talking about a three or four hour period of me just like everything this nigga has ever done, ever. And I was like, it's so interesting to see somebody that is reflective of me, but speaking as an expert, but also like fun and personable and like you have like a spectrum of things you talk about as well because now you kind of get into more like social commentary. You know, we talked about like the LeBron thing online, but. Yeah, and we'll get into that in a second. But I just think, like, it's my favorite thing about Tick Tock. Like, I literally found out so much about the dust bowl from this one creator who was like, this, like, this is her area. Like, this is what she focuses on in history. And like, the way she was able to detail everything down to like when we talked about like how the lotus was like eating people's clothes off of them because it was like they literally had no food source, so they was like eating anything that they can get to. And oftentimes that's terrifying. Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

By the way.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

So she told this story and it's a documented story from this. Like the kid documented this story because him and his dad was like walking and then there was, there was a dust storm and There was also like mixing dust on. It was like a whole bunch of fucking lotus. And his dad was like, duck down. And when his dad came up, he didn't know. No fucking clothes on.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

It's like a cartoon.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, it was cartoonish. And I was like, I actually didn't believe it. And she was like, and if you don't believe me, here's the source. I was like, oh, shit. She's citing her sources, you know what I'm saying? But I think that it's been like one of the most interesting parts of it for me. Especially even like, like I'm literally here because of Tick Tock. And it's like, because I was driving trucks and I had opinions and I, I mean, I, I think I had well informed opinions too. Like, I wasn't just speaking out my ass, but I think it was like people gravitate to that. Like, yeah, he is a truck driver, but he also like has a knowing of this situation that he's talking about. Whether it be black communal issues or just good takes about common social commentary and shit. It like led me into having this and this.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, yeah, man. That's one of the things that I love about your contact. So you bring up like being a truck, truck driver, but then still having the confidence to know that you, you're thinking about these things, you have something interesting to add. To me, an intellectual is more than anything else. It's about being able to take in like this flux of all this information and think about it yourself. Like kind of create your own filter for this information. What makes sense, what is a different way to look at it. And then you'll give these takes that are from a perspective that I, for example, may not have ever heard before. And I appreciate that. And it doesn't even matter if I necessarily agree with you or not. It's the fact that you can sort of like widen my perspective. And that's something now that I'm thinking about and I'm like, damn, that's a good point. And maybe I agree with like part of it, or maybe I agree with all of it, but that to me, the intellectual can take in this information and just like assess what they know, what they thought, what they believed, and the new information. And it doesn't have to be this thing where it's like immediately, immediately, oh, you're literally Satan because you said something that I disagree with. Yeah, that's not what, that's not how.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

An intellectual approach is not, that's not like, that's not articulating A disagreement either at all. So a big part of, like, my, like, trolling people is just because. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's because you can't articulate a disagreement. So do you even disagree or is this just, like, striking something within you that, like, I don't want to ex. I don't want to explore this. I don't want to explore a different path of thought. So I'm just going to reject it completely.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

It's anti intellectual.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, it is, it is. And like, period, you know what I mean? And like, we're experiencing so much of that.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

And. And that mixed with AI and that AI spreading misinformation and people not being able to tell the difference. And it's like, I think that at some point, as a society, we need to push for, like, some sort of federal law where, like, you have to have a disclaimer that this is a. Yeah. Not even just a watermark. Like, quite literally. Like when they was doing the COVID 19 thing, if you said anything about COVID 19, there was disclaimers there. You know what I mean? I need that on everything. That's AI. Yeah. Because it's going to get very difficult for people to tell the difference.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

It is, man. But they're intentionally not regulating anything. I mean, partially because all of these companies, all these tech gurus, the CEOs, are just like, sucking up to the Trump administration. Like, they just like suck them off and. And praise him and worship to get down on their knees.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

And there's no.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

There's.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

But there's.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

I've never seen no like this.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

It's crazy, bro.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

It's like.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

It's like satirical. You almost don't believe that.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

It's literally idiotic. Yeah. Like, once you're. Once we're bringing, like, wrestlers in, it's almost like they looking at. Yeah. Like, it's like they're looking at that movie as a blueprint for something. Yeah. In a weird way. Or.

Whoever wrote that movie is like, for foretelling what was to come type shit because it's. I can't. I literally can't finish that movie. It infuriates me, like, how dumb shit is.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah. Yeah. Nah, man. It's. It's hard to believe.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

It's repulsive. Yeah. Like, to be honest, like, every time I've tried to watch that movie, I can't watch it in full. It repulses me. It was like. Because, like, I really don't want to believe people are this stupid. But then you get online every day and you See that they are. And it's like, okay. When it's, when I see it in a text based app like Threads or X or you know, Blue Sky, I'm off Blue sky. Because it's like way too like echo chambered towards leftist type people is like, there's no, there's, there's no point of having this conversation. Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

It's like X, it's way over here.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

And then over there it's like, okay, I'm not just gonna talk to people that's just gonna group me because they want to group me.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

So it's like I like some heavy, like some, some same type of era debate or at least disagreements. But I think text based apps I don't really care about because I don't know who's behind them but me. People make videos of themselves saying the dumbest you ever heard.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

And it's like, oh, okay. Yeah, I'm amongst, like, I can't believe this.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

I can't believe like, like George Bush really like cooked us like this. He said the children weren't going to be left behind. Look at the children, you know.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

No, it's wild. It kind of makes you, you when you talk, when you like look at where we're at and you, you kind of pointed out that it's unbelievable when you look at idiocracy and where we are. And I feel like it, it like lets you in on this, on like the fragility of what it means to be like an animal that builds a civilization. Right. We assume that we've come so far and that these, we have these safety nets and things are set in stone, but we're not that different from, I don't know, people who were like caught up in mass hysteria over the course of history. Like we haven't really come that far.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Maybe actually the same. It's actually, it just feels modern.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, it's the exact same thing.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

And it's because, it's because we're living in it that we modernize it. But it's like if we were back there, it would feel the same as it does now. Like one of the crazier parts of this shit for me is like, it's very disheartening how long it takes to build things. Things and how fast you can destroy them like that. What it's been eight, 10 months since he's been off 11 now. And it's like Jesus Christ, he's on a tear.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah. You know, the really insidious part to me is that when he Gets done and he's out of office. You know, like the fraud and the corruption and how they're like, funneling, consolidating all of this wealth basically into his family's pockets. This is, there's going to be a lasting impact because of the new, new, like power players that are going to exist, whether or not he, you know, they try to go for a third term or whatever. And that's going. I mean, these people are young. How old is son? Like 19. They're talking about him owning tick tock a 19 year old.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

I, I really get curious. I. I have opinions about this and I have opinions about how things like this should be settled, but I cannot say them publicly. So there's that.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

All right, so you do have a filter.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, yeah, when I don't want people knocking on my door, you know. Yeah, man. Yeah, but like. Because there is a way to deal with these things, but.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Well, you know, interestingly, you got, you know, you think about history. How have, how have most revolutions come and come about throughout, throughout history? Really, in like, one way it has been most effective, but in the current, in the current system, in this modern time, you know, even like old school. Grab your pitchforks. You can't really do that anymore.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

The police are like so conformative. They conform to it. Like, like, they're completely like pawns. You know what I mean? They're not even knights at this point. They're literally pawns. And the way that we see people operate and hate, like ice, for example, like, who would take that job? You know what I mean?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, that's crazy, man.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

And so, bro, this is. Okay, we'll dive into, like, I'll give you like a sneak peek into my brain and like, how I process information. We're listening to Hills, Hills have Eyes three by Westside Gun. The intro is about how these bandits, like, stole diamonds from the Louvre. And I was literally like, how much in that museum is stolen? And then I started thinking about white people. And then I was like, yeah, white people are ill because they will make laws about theft and then they will show off their theft in museums. Just like, oh, yeah, look at this priceless artifact. We took that from somebody. Yeah, view it if you. But, but we'll say this is a national crisis because somebody came in and stole something from them. Yeah, it's weird. And then, then you get like that where it's like. And. And now Baron Trump owns Tick Tock. It's like, what the.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, man, it's. It's bizarre. And it's crazy. And it's hard to predict, like, what. What is the future really going to.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Be like, you know, at this point, it's like, so if there is no third term, if there is a third term.

Why would we stand for that? Right. Like, at some, like, it's actually to the point now, like, with them cutting SNAP benefits. And the reason why the government is shut down is because they, like, like the Democrats are putting a hold on it because they don't want people to have their health care strip these things, these basic human necessities, food, like shelter, health care. At this point, like, in modern society, health care is a need.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

And like, should be given to everybody. To me, like, just like education, everything shouldn't be privatized. But.

I think that if we look at it from the perspective of, like, our basic needs constantly being stripped away, not even rights, just needs to live, we should be fed up with it now.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

But a lot of people would like to, like, intellectualize and theorize what's going on and not physically act on it out of fear of what they're going to lose. Because.

If. If all minorities in this country just, period, went on a general strike, everything in this country would tank. Because behind. Because the face of a lot of things may be white and the people who represent a lot of industries may be white, but all of the people who work those industries are black people and people of color. And imagine, Imagine being able. You can't go to the airport if people of color go on strike.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Because all of TSA is people of color. Color. And all of TSA is black. And you can't eat at a restaurant if all black and people of color because most of the waiters in back of house are black and people of color. And it's like, we don't understand how much power we have and how much we hold and prop up this society. That it's like, it's a fear of what we lose and not a fear of what we gain.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

They don't have any fear about what they're going to lose because they keep us fighting each other. So, like, their systems are intact and, you know, they pretty much control that market day in and day out. And I think that the biggest thing for me is like, okay, there's no third term. What is this? Who inherits this? Like, who wants to be the president of this shit? You know what I mean? Because it's literally like you would need a Barack Obama, charismatic, like, enthusiastic as candidate to like, be like, yeah, we're gonna turn this around after they just shit the bed for four years. And also like, think about the people who he has in like some of the highest positions in our government who aren't experts of any thing. Like, why is Cash Patel even. What is he doing?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Of nothing, man. Of nothing. And you know what pissed me off when the recent, the scandal with the gambling, the NBA and the gambling stuff was that we know right now on a day to day basis, the Trump administration is enacting the worst fraud that the country has ever seen. I mean, bro, like, it's Rug, he's incredible. He's making crypto coins and Rug pulling people in real time. Every time the market tanks, you find out that people are putting, are like shorting, putting like 50, 100 million dollar shorts and then it tanks a few hours later.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

There is something that I do like, I like about scamming, but it's just not like, you know what I'm saying? Like, there is like a part of me is, I respect that. Like, I respect the scam. Yeah. Because if you can like convince people, like, because it's stupid, you know, I mean, like, why would you buy a Trump coin? Why? What the fuck does he know about? He's 70, 70 something, you know, I mean, he's clearly in cognitive decline. And you trust him to know, like the ins and outs of this new technology hasn't even been around 10 years. Yeah, whatever. All right? If you want to trust that, you should get scammed. But also, it's like this is also our fucking president. And he's like consolidating, like transferring wealth at a rapid rate. And he's kind of like moving in on Venezuela by giving Argentina so much money, he's cutting the legs out from other farmers by like transferring our soybean and beef import to Argentina. And then not to mention the type like the. Can we even like imagine how much wealth we've transferred to Israel? Like that's like directly being taken out of America's mouth, but like literally providing for their lifestyle. And that's like, how aren't you upset about this? Yeah, but it's at the same time, as a black person, it's just like, this is America, bro. Swear, this always been for me. So it's been like, it's not been any better in generations past. So this is kind of like light work compared to the people that come from before us.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

And we're still like excelling and creating new opportunities in space for ourselves. Whereas like.

1950, there is no like imagination For a black person to be. Oh, yeah, but here you are.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, man. I think about that a lot. You know, it's easy to get bogged down in the current state, but at the same time. Yeah. You know, if we go back to the 60s or the 70s, I don't even think a black person could go to ucla. So it's like.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

And if they did, imagine the amount of scrutiny they would be undermining.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

And even to take another step back. How many places right now in the world can you, after, like a failed athletic career, start from the beginning, go to public school, community college, undergrad, grad school, and become. And do what I did and become a natural physicist? I don't know how many places. I mean, a lot of my colleagues are international. They come. People come to America to be able to come to our schools. So in a way, I. I, like, feel grateful. Of course, I know that those privileges are coming off the backs of the rest of the world.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Absolutely.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Which is. Which is also.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

It's like this burden of knowing things that. That I was just like, you literally, like, stolen words out of my mouth. It's like the. The wanting to know means that, you know, like. Yeah, a little too much sometimes. It's like, so, like, I have to find a balance between, like, being grateful but also understanding that there's a privilege to this and also understanding how fucked up things are. So it's like this constant, like.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

And it's like, okay, was like, I do what I can control. You know what I mean? Like, I utilize my platform to continue to, like, provide information or bring awareness to certain things. But I'm also going to use it to speak to you because there is a future for our children. Yeah. And they need to say to see themselves in astrophysics and they need to see themselves the highest level. Like, you have a phone. PhD in this. That ain't no nothing to sneeze at, bro. That's like a grand accomplishment, bro. You know what I mean? And, like, especially for me, I, like, completely gave up on school, period. Like, I was just like. But I didn't have anything to spark curiosity anywhere else. So it's like it was either gonna be creative or blue collar. Like, that was my whole jam. Yeah. So, yeah, the. The state of the country is. It's disheartening and it's like. It's odd, oddly. Like, it doesn't feel real in some. Some ways.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

No, it doesn't.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah. It just doesn't feel real. But. But the impacts of it are very real. You Know, I mean.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

And, like, it kind of. It. That's why we do as much as we can. As far as, like, raising money. Mutual a. Like, we just had the coat drive last night. We was raising money for people who are gonna experience food insecurity. I'm always gonna share resources for people, People who, like, don't have those benefits and things like that. And I'm grateful that it's not like, it's not the thing that's gonna, like, cut the legs out from underneath me.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Like, if I have a platform, I need to be utilizing it to make sure that people know where these resources are.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

And, like, put our own bread up, you know, I'm saying I put money up for donations and things like that.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Do you feel like that is your, like, purpose or what? What? Your what meaning that you find in life?

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

I think that it's. It's. I think it's purposeful.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

I wouldn't say it's my purpose. I think.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Do you have anything that you think.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Of anyway, when I was at the school talking to those kids that, like, the at risk youth and there's kids that are in the same position as me and how much of an impact I had in that room, that feels like my shit. That feels like my purpose. Because.

I'm using my life experience to stop them from ever going down the path I went through and being very intentional about them understanding. Like, one of the things I made them say a lot is, like, I give myself permission to make mistakes. And I was like, but they're only mistakes if you're on a new endeavor. You know, everything you need to know about the streets. So don't try to say like, oh, I went rob this nigga and it went wrong, or I was selling drugs and I went to jail, and that's a mistake. Those are decisions because this is the world, you know?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

You can't make this. You can't make mistakes in the world, you know? You know the consequences. But going in a different path and not knowing and making mistakes, you need to give yourself permission to do this. And it, like, really just opened their world up. Like, the principal was like, bro. He was like, it's kids in here that never pay attention to our speakers. They actually don't care. They would rather be somewhere else or they go to sleep. Those are the most engaged kids that were here today. So, like. And I can't reach them, but you can. Yeah. And that just felt like, yeah, because I'm actually giving them a. A 15 to 17 year head start on me. And that's the biggest thing. It's like at 17, 18, you have information that you can enact on. At 18 years old, you can go get in trades. At 18, you can literally change your life in the course of four years financially and like, trajectory that I didn't have access to or information about. And a lot of times, like, the older people just say, oh, you just go get a trade. Well, like, what the are you talking about? You know what I mean? Like, what is a skill trade? I didn't know what the H vac technician was. I didn't know Weldon or like, that electricians were tradesmen and any of this. Like, yeah, being a plumber, it just seemed like, you know, they on jobs like that all the time. Like, oh, yeah, for sure plumbers crack. Like, that's like propaganda. Like, you're just gonna be a dirty old man and like the fat dirty dude. It's like these things don't seem appealing or inspiring, but it's like your physical health is literally up to you. And like, you don't have to have plumbers crack or like, things like that. Like, you just be a great in shape plumber. You know what I'm saying? You know what I mean? Like, that's not like.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

But it's not a requirement for the job.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

You know what I'm saying? But it's like this thing that, like this stigma around.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, man.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

That deviates people away from these, like, very lucrative endeavors and things that you can create, like entrepreneurship and a business for yourself, literally change your life and the lives of your families and giving these kids that, like, perspective on it from a place where I was. And like, I'm not. I'm not just talking to y' all about this. Also. I've actually utilized that to give myself another platform in life. They was all for. You know what I mean? And that feels more purposeful. Like, it's personally to me.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, that's deep.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

I think. I think the idea of being like just philanthropy, that's something that I've always like, even as a kid, it's like, if I get a million dollars, I'm gonna give it all the way to the homeless people. Like, that was like who I was as a kid. So, like, one of my biggest goals is to be able to like, go to old, like, run down motels, renovate them and make them affordable living for people. Even like free for 90 days or something like that. Something like where that's like real. Give people a launch pad and Like a place to start or restart, you know, I mean, yeah, but I think that part of it has always been like a part of vision for me. But I feel, I think getting to young black men before the system gets them, that's, that's.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, that definitely resonates with me. And that's powerful. I think about all the potential that is like lost, it's wasted, it's just not, that's not ever reached. And you probably, we probably can't quantify it. Earlier you were talking about, you know, how they keep people that are marginalized, always bickering, always fighting with each other. And when you think about like some of the civil rights leaders in the, in the 60s, 70s, like Fred Hampton, what, like a 20, 21 year old kid, this bringing together like a blue collar, white men, black, Latino, like something that we're missing now because they, because he died then and there's a whole generation of black leaders that were wiped away that did not and you know, were not able to carry out their purpose and have the impact. And so, you know, in a lot of ways I think it's not so mysterious how we got where we are today. And you know, without those natural, I want to call them like a natural, Natural defenses that marginalized communities have. It's kind of like our immune system against the system. And they wiped out those defenses, wiped out those thought leaders, but they continue to build up their defenses. You talk about like the police units, whatever. This is like the immune system for the, for the system at large. And it has grown to a point where what they wanted to happen, happened.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, I, I've been on a crazy like epigenetic kick lately.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah. Which is insane. Epigenetics is also crazy that you could pass on your experiences.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

I wish that there was a recorded like time, like he could record how many times I mentioned epigenetics in like the last like three weeks. Yeah, it's been actually insane because I think about this all the time because I think about the fact that they, they kill the fearless. And the fearless often don't reproduce because their work is fearlessness. And it's like they obviously don't have families. So, like how all those fearful people are reproducing and creating like more fearful people or more people that are conforming. And, and while like you said, they're creating a system of people who keep the rules intact, like this is like kind of encoded in people. So like we talked about like cooning for survival. Right. Like it would make sense to be a coon if you're under the thumb of slavery because it's like it's keeping you alive.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, it's adapt. It's an adaptive trait.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

It's adaptive trait, but you also are reaper producing. So like, how many is cooning now? That was like cooning 200 years ago.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

They got the cooning gene. We haven't. We haven't found it yet. Geneticists haven't found it yet.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

There's somebody on threads said this is the funniest I've seen in the last month. And he was like, we are in a coon demic. So funniest.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Let me ask you this. If you found out that, you know, we're just like speculating that there was a genetic trait that makes you more likely to like, just give in and like submit and, you know, to come and you fat, would that change the way that you saw people that did that if you knew it was genetic and it was against the.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

I. I feel like I know it now. It doesn't. So it doesn't necessarily change the way I view them. It actually kind of like changes the way that I. I feel like they should view themselves. You need to be very aware of the decisions and actions you're making. And like, you can change this. Like, you don't have to do this, right?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

It's like an alcoholic that stays away from, from liquor. You got like. So if you're a coon, you like, gotta stay away from.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

You gotta actually like start viewing white people as they are and not as you want them to be. Or how you like, you don't want like this idea of like being special. It's like, stop, stop. You're not. They'll use you. But it's also like this thing like, I wish it was like, I wish I could get like, like a recording of like what they say about them when they're not in the room. You know, just shatter their whole reality. But it's like, it's not possible. So it's like, yeah, bro, you just like, you fifth generation coon, bro. That ain't got nothing to do with me. But it's like, hopefully we can keep the revolutionaries alive. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I think. Yeah. So there's this thing now. It's like, Justin, what's, what's, what's. What's your boy name? Fast talker. Fast talker. The homie Justin Scott. So he talked about how, like, is it actually the safest time to be of revolutionary thought because they won't kill revolutionaries because they don't want to create martyrs. And like, especially somebody like me is so super visible, if I was to end up dead, it's just like, would amplify my work tenfold.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Because I'm so visible online.

So I think about shit like that. Like, I just think that people that have like, different perspectives, I want them around me, I want them like in my phone. I want to be able to call them and just be like, what's up? Also, like, you know, just like, I think it would be interesting for you to even come talk to those kids because, like, they don't know anything about astrophysics, bro. Yeah. I'm telling you, they don't. Because it's hard enough for them to be in a space where they have to conform to like a rigid schedule. So, like, the way that I was kind of telling them, like, you know, the schedule that y' all are on is the same schedule they're going to have you on in prison. And the fact that you're in the bottom 10% education wise in this county means that they already have slated you to go to prison.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

And we're here to change that reality. Like, I literally don't want any of y' all to go to prison. And y' all can like, literally change the outcome of like so many different, different people. Because they already counting you.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

They already got a suit waiting on you.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

It's like, don't ever get in that suit.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

And then like, you've overcome a whole generations of work. You know what I mean? But I think that your curiosity got sparked by something and they just need something to spark their curiosity. Something outside of them.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

You know what I mean? And also not somebody that's coming and just like, you know what I mean? Just wagging their finger. Like, I don't weigh my finger. I'll talk to these kids. And I listen to them too, too. I don't think they feel hurt a lot of times.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Oh, yeah, definitely. I. Yeah, man. I do a lot of talks to kids. It's one of my favorite things to do. And you know, kids, I find that up until it kind of changes around high school, but like, up when you're below that age, it still seems exciting and cool to be excited about interesting information that you hear. But then high school hits and it's like, doesn't. It doesn't seem that cool maybe to. To be, you know, showing too much passion or excitement about a given thing. So. I love talking to kids, man. What you was just saying, it made me think so one way that I like to think about things, to simplify them as. As systems. It's called systems thinking. And in physics, for example, I may. Instead of, like, worrying about every single molecule on the Earth, I'll just think of the Earth as a spherical system and just like, average over, you know, it's mass or something, but forget about the minutia.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

And that's, I think, an easier way to think about outcomes for people as well. You talk about a system of kids that are in an education system where maybe the education is not the best. And like this. This industrial prison system that's for profit, that needs bodies in there. You have this entire system that is actually reliant upon somehow funneling enough people to fill those beds, fill those. Those rooms. And in that system, the like going in and talking to kids, trying to inspire them. This is like. It's upsetting that system, but it's doing it in the most difficult way. Like, you have to expend a lot of energy. You do. And then the kids actually have to expend a lot of energy to not be funneled down the. This flow, the sort of like water flows at the, you know, the least energy from high to low.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

So this is funny enough. I know that. So I was like, everybody, all of y' all can feel inspired when you leave here. And that doesn't change anything.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Because you get around your friends and now you care about their social pressure. And who's the. Like, this was like. The first thing I asked them is like, what is your idea of power? You know what I mean? Like, who do you deem as powerful? I know when I was a kid, I deemed powerful the person who cared the least about consequences. Right. So the ability to enact violence and to not care about the consequences of the violence, that's power to me. And that leads into somebody that will kill you. You know what I mean? And like, for whatever reason. Well, not. Not for whatever reason. I mean, if you. In the drug game, killing is an attribute, you know what I mean? Because that's just the environment of things. Things. Right. And so I talked to them a lot about the power of authority over yourself and viewing. And instead of looking at power as, like, an external thing, viewing it as an internal thing, which means that this thing that you learned from me today, you'll be willing to say no to somebody that wants to deviate you from that path, regardless of what their criticism of you is. And, like, I try to jump way ahead of it, but I know that the more I go, the more I can expound on that, the more I can kind of drill it into their head, and the more they'll be willing to have, like, courage to be like, yeah, no, I don't want to do that. I want to do this, and I'mma focus on this, and y' all do whatever y' all want to do over there. And I, like, kind of literally made a testament to the fact that, like, it wasn't until I was able to tell my friends know that my life changed when I cared more about what they thought about me than I thought about myself. I was always in trouble. Yeah. Even. Even in situations where I knew I shouldn't be in the pressure of, like, being criticized or, like, ostracized.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Made me kind of just be like, all right, it. You know, I mean, and, you know, I was just, like, trying to get ahead of it, like. And, of course, like, I don't know what the success rate of me talking to these kids are. It's only been, like, a handful of times, and this was literally my first time directly just talking to a group of kids. But I would hope it'd be better at 1%, you know what I mean?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah. Yeah. And, yeah. You know, I. I really think that that's one of the biggest just struggles that we all face, even just as humans. Humans are social creatures, and it's that we all feel this pull to the group, which I think is evolutionary. You know, go back a hundred thousand years. If you were out in your village, what do you. You can't survive by yourself. Right. So there's a reason that we have this very strong pool in today's day and age. It could be maladaptive. Right. If you got people pulling you in the wrong direction, but you really care about the way that they see you and view you. And so one of the struggles that we have is to, like, listen to our own voice and do, like, what we know is right. And that can be, like, so hard to do.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

I feel like there should be a course on this in high school that teaches kids about our adaptation to going with the group.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

But in a modern society, how it could be beneficial to break away from the group.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Which probably hasn't existed in, like, current human history. Like. Like, there. There probably hasn't been much benefit to breaking away from the group. But I think that there's also, like, this idea of, like, we live in a modern society where you literally will. Can break away from this group and go and find a group that's more Aligned with your thinking and being extremely successful.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Especially online, you can find that, you can find that community that you resonate with.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Exactly. But I think that the difficulty is.

How do, how do I make that a physical thing for me? Because physical, like the physical interaction between us is like what strengthens our bonds, which is why like eating together is like such a bond strengthener. Yeah, but I can't eat with the. I'm online with like, I can't do that. You know what I mean? Which is why, like, when we do our events, we make sure we provide food. Because I just know, like, psychologically it's like we're eating together, you know, I mean, it's like a bonding thing.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

That's powerful, man. I think that's probably something that extends back like millions of years.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Absolutely. There's entire societies that are based around food. Like, like outside of America, of course, like the Italian society is like, literally everything is about food. There's a lot of African cultures where everything stops so people can eat and like eat together. You know what I mean? It is very psychological and we're like deprived of it. Yeah, I, I think that it's purposeful though. Right? Like a 20 minute lunch break, a 30 minute lunch break, you know? Yeah. It's not enough time to eat and converse. I think the part of, yeah, the part of breaking bread is the conversation.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Right. But if I'm scarfing food down so I can get back on the clock.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, but so this is also like really the influence of capitalism. Right. Like you said, you think about something like doordash. This is what I feel about conspiracies. Like, it feels like you say it's intentional. Well, really what's happening is people just want to make money. Right. The app want to make money. Restaurants want to make money. So they'll, we'll bring the food to your house. You don't have to go anywhere. But you lose this something that is integral to being human, which is like consuming what you need to make it to live tomorrow.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

This energy that used to be like a very chemical community based thing, but because of this, this app that's making.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Money, it shouldn't exist either because it's like, can you, can you imagine.

The. What we've done to ourselves in, in a form of like Thanksgiving, you know what I mean? Like, like our, like our breaking bread with one another has been like diminished so that we could pay 15 more dollars for cold food.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

We mean. What do you mean?

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Like by the time the Wendy's gets to your House. Okay, you go to Wendy's, you go get this. It might cost $12. By the time you get off. DoorDash, it's 25. And it arrives and it's not quality, it's not high quality, it's not hot. You know what I mean? And it's like. So you're getting. Twice. You're paid more for this food. And now it's cold and it's like, you can't reheat fast food, bro.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

The bread is soggy.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Once it get cold, it's over. But it's like. But there's is, like, cost, whatever. I don't know the correct term for this, but it's like this thing of, like, well, I already paid for it, so I got to eat it.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

It sucks, bro. And it's like. It's also, like, completely isolating people from social interaction, human interaction. Also, like, leave it at the door. Don't even hand it to me. Just leave it outside. Like, I'm a. Yeah. Animal, bro. Just, like, drop my food off at my front door.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, man. I. I have this. It's weird, this theory that the type of whatever intelligence that we have, that it's like maladaptive. And we start to explain what you.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Mean when you say that. Maladaptive.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, yeah, that. So you think, like, in nature, you look at various animals. The traits that they have are very adaptive for them. They help them survive, thrive, whatever. The cheetah, it's adapted for the cheetah to be fast as hell. If it's having to chase gazelles in the wild.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Correct.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Right. If we took all the cheetahs and put them in zoos now, needing to run around fast every day is maladaptive because that's not what it's doing.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

There's quite literally no space for you to perform.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Right. And what do you see when you see a lot of these wild animals in the zoos? They, like, pace back and forth. They can't. They literally cannot function properly because they don't exist in the environments that they evolved for.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Right.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

So they're. They're.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

And they have all of these instincts that they can't act on. Right.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

And it's like every day. So for the cheetah, it may literally just make it happy to sprint full speed. It can't do that in a zoo. It doesn't need to, but it's still. But, like, biologically, it still does.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, yeah. And which is why all the animals look so depressed.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Depressed. They, like, sway.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

I hate going to the zoo.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, man.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

There's a. There's a zoo that I went to. You can get back to your point after this. My bad. It's like, start branching off.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Go ahead, bro. I got adhd.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

That's how it goes. Oh, yeah. Bet same. There's this zoo I went to when I vowed to never go to a zoo again because there was a path created by this panda. Like, literally a circle around, like, he had literally beaten up half into this enclosement. And it's an enclosure.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah. And literally malfunctioning.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

It was like. I was like, bro, this is like, this animals losing its mind.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

He's just walking around in circles all day. And it's like, I just. Just depressed the out. I was like, I never want to be here again.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

And so you think about this. This thing that is very obvious to see in animals when they're in enclosures. Even though they're safe, they have all the food they need. They have to. Don't have to worry about predators. They literally have access to vets, which does not exist in the wild. But they can't thrive.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah. They don't need vets in the wild.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Exactly. And so when I say that the intelligence that we have is maladaptive, we have created this society that is so foreign for what we evolve to be in.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

That it's unhelpful.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

It's destroying us. Like, so, like, this idea of, like, the suicide rates going up and, like, we need to talk about mental health is like, okay, we need to talk about the society. Then.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

It's the whole system.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Like, it's the system. It's not. It's not. There's not one thing. It's like, we can't express ourselves.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

We don't make our own food. That's like, never been a human thing. Thing.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

It's never been a thing on Earth before.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

It's never been a thing on Earth. It's like, we eat what we kill. Right. And then you also, like, zone things where it's illegal to grow your own food, so you don't even get the fulfillment of, like, producing anything for yourself. And then as we, like, you know, you think about, like, creating a market around something that's a natural resource. Right. So if I could just have cows, have chickens, have.

And the slaughter of one cow can feed my family for three months.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

You dig what I'm saying? The chickens will lay eggs every day. Like, I literally don't have to worry about food. But there's a pride that you take in, like, not having to, like, depend on anybody else. Right. It's a visit. Like, also, like, there's no market for that slaughter either. Right. It's like the cow was born naturally. I kill it. It feeds us. It's like there's no dollar attached to that.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

And. And attaching a dollar to, like, the thing that we need to survive also makes us very selfish about who we share it with. So it makes us cagey. Like, nigga, this steak was 15. You know you can't have a bite.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Whereas, like, if we slaughter it, everybody can come over. Niggas like, oh, we got other cows, you know what I'm saying? Like, there's other pigs. Like, hell yeah. Like, we can't eat all this shit. You know what I'm saying? That's how people treat deers and shit. Like, let's have a feedback feast. But there ain't no feasting. If I had to pay for this.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

What's the first thing we don't think about? Can you. You trying to. You trying to go in on this? Like, if you want to come to dinner tonight, can you bring like 20 bucks, you know what I'm saying, to replace what I put in. It creates us, like, it makes us like, very cagey because it's like, it's an unnatural environment.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Unnatural.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

And of course, so of course, like, we're depressed. Of course, like, every girl you meet is on well, Bucher nigga. Like, yeah, she fine as shit, but she ain't got it all. Because. Because we're not living in a natural society. Like, this isn't who we have adapted to be. And like, we live in the idea of, like, insane white billionaires and what's best for them. And it's like treating us as subjects more than anything else. So if you can even think outside of this system as we do, it actually kind of creates like, like, like, like a double consciousness for us too. We're like, very depressed to understand that.

This isn't how we should be living. But also very, like.

Prideful in the fact that we've out thought the circumstances and still had success. And like, yeah, bro, like, I always knew I was gonna out think my. I was gonna think my way out of this, but it also, like, I'm not because I'm still, like, faced with, like, hyper consumption.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

You know what I'm saying? Like, things that I need trinkets. I need, need. I need things to make myself happy. Because this is weird, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's Weird. You know what I'm saying? It's like there's a survivor's guilt that comes along with it, too.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

It. Because, like, we literally shouldn't be living like this. But it's like, how do you uproot an entire system.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Without killing hundreds of thousands of people.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah. It's. And it almost feels unrealistic to expect that most people will be able to outthink that just because of the system the way that it is. Which is. Is really unfortunate. And it is. It's like when you start getting far down the line to the point where AI is tracking everything. They got your face on everything. They know exactly what you. You know. I remember what blew my mind a few years ago was to find out that on Facebook had built these profiles on people basically, you know, like 10 years ago, whenever Facebook was really popping that, just by, like, where you hover your mouse or what you like or what you click on. They know your age, your race, your interest. They're able to, like, build this profile from you, just from your behavior, which is, like, now how you get targeted ads.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah. It's like robot sociology, bro. It's weird. It's like. Because it's not. It doesn't account for, like, the humanity of people either. But also.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

It doesn't. You're literally a unit of data that they're trying to harvest.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

What I'm saying, it's like, harvest. That's what I'm saying. It's. So we're subjects to this thing, and so there is, like, a thing where I believe the powers that be know that there's, like, there's going to be people in this society to have, like, certain traits and instincts that are in their genetic code where they're going to exist outside of the system we built. But we also understand enough data about what, like, the roadblocks we put up that people are going to be susceptible to this. This society, too.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

And keeping it running for us. And it's also a part. A point of education not being good at all. And just very basic, because we're going to, like, weed out people with these subjects. Like, these basic subjects. There is no, like, astrophysics in high school, but there is science and the type of science we teach you. It's just like, how much of this can you take? You know what I mean? How much of this history can you listen to? How much is math can you. You deal with until you get out? And then it's like, literally doesn't teach you anything about being a person when.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

You think about that, you know, when you look at every aspect of society over the last hundred years, it's changed greatly. Except if you ever seen that picture of a classroom for 100 years ago, it basically looks the same. You just got a bunch of seats kind of like organized in rows and columns and there's a chalkboard up front. And it hasn't changed at all. Right. Because this is the education system that was supposed to, supposed to put people basically in factories. These little time chunked blocks throughout your day, then you get your little lunch and then you go back and you finish these little blocks.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

So there's three sectors of society that I've narrowed that down to like the classroom, the jail and the warehouse. They all live off of bell systems.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, yeah, it's a very, yeah. Discreet like time. You do this, you do this, you do this.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

And then, and for whatever reason, it's always like 90, 90 minute chunks.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

90 minutes you get 15, 90 minutes, you get 30, 90 minutes you get 15, 90, you're done. And it's like, but with jail, it's like you, the only difference in jail is you just can't leave. You can leave school, but yeah, you're already programmed.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

But you can see how that at the very least is acceptable. If the job that you were getting was going like you were set like you could have enough money to like raise a family, to get a house, whatever, which is how it used to be like you know, 100 years ago, 50 years ago, whatever. But now it's not like that.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

No, it's. So you just get people, it's, I think that they, they phase out opportunity for per generation to keep generation split. So my, my father's father would be like, all you gotta do is get a job and go to school. And it's like, well, it's not like that. But you can't tell a who it was like that for that. It's not like that. Yeah, they think you lazy and it's just like you just rinse and repeat that cycle. So it becomes a little tougher on. So if my grandfather gets a job.

Takes care of his family and he has a house, he has a wife, he has kids, he has two cars, he has insurance, like basically all his needs are met and then he still can afford some of his wants. Yeah, he tell your son that that's all you got to do. But by the time your son inherits that same system, he can barely cover his needs. And he's telling his dad like this system isn't working anymore. But also, there's a need to prove to your father that, like, you're adequate. So you, like, okay, I'm gonna make it work. I'm gonna work more hours and I'm gonna work. Okay, he worked 40 hours a week. I'm gonna work 60 hours a week. And then, like, you do get some, like, progress in that, but you suffer from the time that you're spending trying to prove something to this man who was giving everything in the system. By the time it gets down to me, I can observe it from perspective, like, without engaging, like, that shit doesn't work. I'm gonna try something else. And then we get the rebellious grandson. And then probably by the time my kids or grandkids come up, they'll have reinstated a system that is very beneficial. And they just keep it going. They just keep it going. Like, I. That's literally how I view things. It's like everything is about systems of control. And like, just, just, just slowly, like, okay, yeah, you know, you can, you. Now you can't afford two cars now you can't afford three bedrooms, but you can afford two on one.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

It's slight. Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Because the people that control the systems have all the wealth in the world, so it's like they literally lose nothing from taking anything away from us. And this is like, I'm just say it plainly. We are not willing to kill these. That's just what it is. You know what I'm saying? I'm say, like, Like, I hate to, like, be. It feels like, so, like, cynical and like that and also, like, maybe like such a hard left turn. But the thing is, like, the people who are controlling you and, like, making your life miserable are willing to kill you to keep that system that benefits them, and you are not willing to kill them. And they're gonna win every time. You know what I'm saying? Like, if I come into a gunfight with my fist, it's like, well, guess what? This is how this gonna go.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

All right.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

You don't agree, I'll just put a bullet in your head. And yeah, that's the end of our disagreement.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

And. Yeah, and if you look at successful revolutions throughout history over the past couple thousand years, always it was like you could get a group of people when technology isn't so advanced and you can.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Literally storm, you can overpower because of surveillance purely. Yeah, they know that, you know, you understand, like, like the same way we can recognize, like, how revolutions have started and they. And how they. They. Oh, yeah, they are one they're one through violence. If you can almost like predict. Oh yeah, a violent tendency or something like this is probably gonna get me put on a list somewhere. They could be like, yep, watch out for that because he, he gets it. Yeah, yeah, we'll find a way to block it or whatever.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

You know something that I've been thinking about recently is these, the LLMs that people use, the large language models like Chat GPT and Claude, they, there's a room of people that basically turns the knobs on how they respond. So it can make it, it can make it be a sycophant to you and just agree with everything you say. It could be more disagreeable. Right. But there's a group of people turning those knobs. And you know, human behavior is so easy to influence that you could imagine that, you know, Sam Altman or whoever is making those decisions is intentionally using like employing this thing, Chat GPT, which I think has almost a billion users in the world or several hundred million to guide their behavior. And you would never know, you would never know that that was happening.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

And when I first had this thought was a few months ago. You know, on X, everybody cries when Grok gives a woke answer. Like it's stating facts about how like black people aren't animal monkeys or some like that. And they'll be like, oh, when you're gonna fix this so it's not so woke. And then Elon Musk, he tweets, okay, we fixed Grock. And then like 15 minutes later it's calling itself Hitler, it's calling itself Mecca Hitler. So clearly what happened was they sloppily just turned some knobs and was like, okay, maybe I don't know exactly what they told it, maybe like be a little bit more right leaning or whatever. And that's a knob that they turned. And if they hadn't been so sloppy with it and incompetent, maybe you wouldn't have known. Like what if it just wasn't overtly calling itself Hitler. Right. And then what's the impact of that? Everybody is interacting with this. Like I said, hundreds of, of millions of people use this every single day. And like what are the knobs that they're turning? There's no, it's like you said, they know the way that people, I mean that's the most valuable data set that's ever existed. People's chats with GPT, it's, it's kids that don't even make decisions. They refer to Chat GPT to make a decision to, to have A text conversation.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

To.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

To also, like, feel within community.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yes. It acts like a friend. It's not a. It's not even a. It's not a real thing. It's a series of, like, numbers.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

It's scary. Scary. Yeah. Because I'm gonna tell you what this is. And like, to your point, it's like, hey, grock. And it gives you facts and it's like, that's woke. Yeah. No, that's a fact. That is an objective truth. And you're like, this is too woke for me. That's scary.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Because.

What type of world do you want to live in where, like, everything is comforting to your delusions? Like, when you're presented with facts, it's like, this can't be real. And. But you have a leader and the person that you like, literally falling behind, that will call, like, a fact fake. Like, this is fake news. And like, to the point where it's like, you hear those two words and you just associate it with that, man.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

And the. The thing that I like, I don't fear really anything. I just like.

The unknown of, like, where this is headed is the thing that I fear, I think the most.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

I don't really have fear for, like, how this, like, at some point I have to worry about my own children and just make sure they're productive society and they're not falling. Like, I. I kind of like, get on my son about, like, watching streamers and like that. It's like. It's weird, bro. It's like zoo. Like, this is like.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

You sound like an old man. I bet when you say that.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, I probably sound cooked as, but it was like, I just kind of tell him, like, you were just kind of participating in a human zoo activity.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Just watching another person. Person live.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

It is strange.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

It's humans who. Bro, it's like you're watching another person live, but they're also living in. Within the confines of what this camera can reach. It's odd, you know what I'm saying? So. And when I was talking to those kids at the school the other day and I asked them, like, how they felt about streamers, Autumn was like, them weird. I was like, my type of kids, you know what I'm saying? These are my type of kids right here, you know what I'm saying? They may be at risk to the system, but these understand life. Because that is weird. Why am I watching you live your life from my home? It's like a. To me, it's like a house of mirrors.

You know? What I mean, because, like, who else is watching, like.

Kid camera film? His life goes out to like, a hundred thousand other people watching him in a centralized device while another camera is watching them.

It doesn't end. That's why I' ma stop. Because then I'll just. I'm telling you, like, this is where my brain just goes to the point where I just hate it. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, it, like, information makes me, like, quite literally just hate. Like, I hate that. You know what I mean? But I think that I. I can't stop exploring the possibilities of what something may be.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

To the point where it's just like, this is my informed decision on it. It's not good.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

You know what I mean?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Well, because, you know, and this is also in influencing all of the kids that watch that all the time.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Exactly.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

And what is it influencing them to do? Think, feel like, what type of adult is. Does that create in 20, 30 years?

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

I don't know, because we've never seen it before. So it's also unprecedented. Yeah. I think it's also like fear of. Because you don't want your kids to be dumb. You know what I mean? Because, like, I think that we all kind of, like, feel within our right to say, well, like, we're. We're reasonably intelligent. And I don't remember how I arrived at this. I know I went to the same school and learned the same shit as y', all, but I just wasn't thinking about it the same way. And I would hope, like, on a. Just on a pure human level that we're all operating like that. But then I've never seen brain rot at this level. But I don't also know. I don't remember what our brainwash was like. It was like canon. Like, you remember that? Like, we was all doing that canon. Like, that was our 6 7. So I feel like these things are just the canon. Like, we was just doing this shit to each other. And so I feel like as kids, like, we're all gonna have our own experience with, like, brain. Right. I think that it's hyper. Like, it's just hyper visible now. You know what I mean? Because we all got phones, so we now we seeing across the world doing the same as us. And it's like, yeah, of course it looks a little sick, but it's also like, I don't think that we're as, like, complicated as we like to think we are.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Oh, no. And I mean something like TikTok, like the scroll feature. This is just. Hijacking whatever simple psychology that it is that we all have. And that's, that's like why it works, right? That's why everything is short form. Because it's, it's just. It's exploiting something inherent about our brains. Because our brains did not evolve to be like actually this is. You have to train yourself, you have to think hard about it to arrive at that. This isn't right. This, you know, this is new. So I'm not necessarily just being an old man, but there's something wrong here. That's anti human that's happening and. But if you don't think about it, I think where your brain naturally slides is into that and we see it more and more.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah. You know it's so scary about Tick Tock is like. It's like the scroll feature that you're talking about. They've created a gadget on the Tick Tock shop where like you don't even have to touch your phone to scroll. Now I saw that you just like put it on your finger and you could just scroll it.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

The Tick Tock shop should be pissing me off, bro.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yo, that is. I ain't gonna lie, bro. Like mad shit is evil, bro. Like Matt is just evil as fuck. Because like how much fucking simpler. Okay, so at what point does it become like where it's just. You think about scrolling and it scrolls like how far away are we from that? You know I think about that because if I have to scroll my phone physically where like I got, I got like a. I got like an iPhone pinky where it's like my phone is rested on my goddamn him so much. Yeah, that's what they call it. Like I think that's what they call it.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, but that's what you gotta do.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, it's just like where your just resting on your so long that it's just done like weighed my down. I got like Chris Carter hands and shit, you know what I'm saying? You ever seen Chris Carter's hands from like trying to catch it? That nigga thumb goes one like it goes like 12:30.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

So I like okay, just scrolling the phone is doom scrolling within itself. Now you got it where I can lay comfortably as I want and then just have this device that'll scroll while I don't touch my phone. That's crazy as.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

It's crazy. It's crazy.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

But it's also like.

There is no way to retain all that information. Oh no, not consciously.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

It's not possible.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah. So then it's like like, yeah, bro, that is what brain route is. This is like literally just cooking yourself all day just with loads of like unusable information, like, or just like people's lives. And like that it just, you know.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah. And the, you know, the, the social aspect of the like group thing is still at play. So, you know, people are watching videos of other people that have lives that they don't relate to and experiences they don't relate to do. And they're like absorbing this too. And you know, and that may influence the way you think. One of the first videos I ever saw from you, it was a short form video you was talking about. You had an episode where you was talking about the red pill, like Pipeline. And like, why, why is it that so many young men are vulnerable and susceptible to falling into that? Right? I mean, they're like watching these videos of what other guys are saying that are probably experiences that they've never had. But it just becomes a part of the zeitgeist and a part of the cultural truth. And you end up in this place where a bunch of young men think that like all women are gold diggers. They don't want to date nobody that doesn't have a lot of money, for example. And you said something that, which I appreciate. It was just like a different perspective. If this is true, why do we all grow up poor? How did that happen? Like that. That can't be the case. Right? So there's this reality that we have all. Well, or that young, maybe young people have all assumed it is true that the opposite gender is evil and they're, you know, they're messed up and all of these things, but that isn't reality at all. You're being sucked into this way odd.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Thing where a man with kids that doesn't have money is telling you this.

What gold digger are you talking about? You have no money. Yeah. And you still have kids. So obviously like you. Like that just contradicts everything you say you stand for. But also like, the amount is so weird, man. I think about this too, and I talked to my kids about this. You know, my son, he spends a lot of time in those, like, tech spaces. He's really into like video games and things like that and wants to be an engineer, wants to be an architect. So naturally, like that's a very good sign. But it's not a good sign of like, where those spaces land kids, which is like, naturally, like it's going to be red pill shit. Because he cares about like people who care about video games and the Video game community is like hateful, as racist, as misogynist because they spend all day on video games.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

You should get on Xbox. I had Xbox.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah. So he. And he's a. He's a fucking PC dude, okay?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Oh, he's a real gamer.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, he a real gamer. So I was like, how do you feel about women? And you know, he was like, well, you know, I've never really had a girlfriend, so I don't really have a lived experience with them, but from what they say online, it's like they're all women are gold diggers and things like that. And I was like, do you believe that to be true? And he was like.

Well, when you. I keep hearing it, so it must be true, right? I was like, well, the only thing that you can like draw truth from is your experience, so if you're not having any experience with a woman. And I was like, also, at 12 years old, how are you going to meet a girl digger? Nobody has money. He was like, oh, like you could just tell from him. It was like, well, that myth is out the window for me. He doesn't like. And he hasn't ever mentioned gold digger to me again because it's like, you got to catch them where they at and like, dispel it. My son is like a very reasonable person, which, thank God, you know what I mean? Like, he can't. He can't be fooled by like misinformation because he cares about the truth.

I think that like, shout out to the fucking tism, you know, I'm saying. But at the same time, it's like, you know, I'm saying without that aspect, imagine how many kids are just falling. Like the kids that never had a relationship with a girl, they have all of this information about girls and it's like.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Because they hearing it.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

And that's one of our weaknesses, is that the thing that we're presented with, we just start to absorb that.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Also, like, our brain is like hardwired to like, repetitive information. You know, I mean, which is why. Which is why, like, you know, I think about this stuff too. It's like there's people who are not athletically inclined telling you about prize picks, and then there's also athletes telling you about prospects. And then you have Sports center, which is like basically a 24 news cycle for gambling addicts. And then what are we going to look like in 15 years when like all of our youth are addicted to gambling?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

And then who's making the money off of that besides prize picks? Right. So now we have prospects are going to make all this money and then we're going to have all of these like anti gambling addiction resorts, rehabs popping up all across the country and they're going to make money handover fist and they're probably going to all be funneled by the same people. Yeah, probably Prize picks is going to start opening up rehabs for gambling addicts. Like it just is.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

And package it. Is them doing good?

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well like. Oh, well, we told you. You know, it's like, it's like, it's like cigarette. It's like tobacco companies funding cancer research.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, yeah. N. It's, it's why it's in cities.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

These are sick, bro. I'm actually gonna go the other way after all this righteous. I'm just gonna get evil on you. I don't know what my evil of choice is yet.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, well, you know, somebody who I think sort of shamelessly just capitalizes on all of our vulnerabilities to maximize his profit in whatever evil. Evil is ways possible is definitely Donald Trump. Like he's. He tapped into something.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

He got it, bro.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

He tapped into. Yes to this thing.

That's just fundamentally true.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, he just understands like poor white dumb people. Like he just does.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

It's wild.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

He gets that they don't care about anything but themselves. And also like think about this is like centuries and centuries of like inbreeding, drug addiction, famine, you know, I mean that's all embedded in them too. So like there is no and like some. There has to be at the core. I don't know what the study is on this. It's just a theory of mine. Like you can't like breathe empathy out of you. You have to be able to do it. Some think so maybe. I mean, because they don't seem to possess it in mass.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Well, I think that they do for the people that they see as themselves. They do for themselves.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Which is so weird because then that means that like you see white people as like a different species of human.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

A lot of them do. Do a lot of them. Do you remember one of the first. This is interesting. So you know, being a scientist, knowing that history, science has horribly racist history, one of the first major goals in my opinion of modern Western like experimental science was to prove, and this was sort of after Darwin comes out with the theory of evolution was to prove that black people, that Africans were an inferior spirit species.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yes.

The brain school sizes.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

And this is like one of the first actual goals of science now to this point, all of this has been, you know, debunked. It was all trash.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Still use it, which is.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

People still think that, bro. They think that white. The racist concept is that because white people evolved in Europe where it was colder and the conditions were harsher, they had to evolve to be smarter to like survive those conditions.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

But that's why they dominated everybody. This is the like, racist ideology.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

But this is also like an ideology that a lot of people hold and. But they don't donate it to like smarter. They donate it to like.

Savagery. Yeah, yeah. Like you become of savage because like, your life is literally like born out of scarcity and like. Yeah, of course you're willing to kill anybody to eat because there's not a lot to eat. You like basically a polar bear and it's like, maybe that's why a polar bear is like a praise predator because they'll eat anything they can catch because there's literally no resource, a food resource where they live. So yeah, you grow up in a. With a place of lack of resources. And then you look at how black people act when our history is like, fulfilled and like, we come from places of abundance. Yeah. So there's no reason to be stingy. There's no reason to reason to steal. There's no reason to withhold or gatekeep. There's no reason not to be kind and like hospitable because we have everything we need as averse to these people that come with literally nothing. They are like, the whole goal is just to take whatever you can get. And regardless of like, how. How it affects others. You know what I'm saying? But to think that that makes. Makes you smarter, it just makes you like a little less human.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Human.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Depending on like what you.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, it's not even. And the wild thing is that's not even at all the reason why white people were able, specifically Europeans were able to like, dominate everywhere. You think most of the places that they went, they brought disease. And you think about why did they have disease? Well, they like lucked up in a place where you could like, domesticate pigs and cows. Cows aren't everywhere. You know the reason that most black people are lactol lactose intolerant, because cows were not native to Africa. They did. They had goats, but they didn't have cows. And so genetically black people oftentimes don't have the ability to deal with milk from cows with that lactose.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Can't break that down.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

But it just. Exactly. But it happened to be in Europe, so they had these enormous farms they could domesticate all these animals. Nobody knew anything about germs and anything. They were living, filled, filthy, disgusting. To the point that they created these super plagues that almost wiped out everybody in Europe.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

But didn't. And then as they go, like, until.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

They got in touch with the Moors and taught them proper hygiene. Right. I mean, like, literally, like, showed them how to light their streets and, like, that. I think it was just cool with being in darkness, bro. Like, this is a whole, like, odd history behind Europeans. But that makes a lot of sense. Why? How they act, the way they act now that it's like. Yeah, to your point, like, bringing disease to people.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

It's like, yeah, but not even knowing it, though. Like, and just thinking and then. But you can see from a primitive mindset how you go to a new place, you think you're more advanced than them partially. It's because you got lucky and had, like, the right animals happen to be around you that you could domesticate. And you show up to these new places, and you. You know, you call these people people savages. And they all are dying from this disease. Right. And so, Mo, this blew my mind. Most of the natives in north and South America actually were wiped out by disease before the, like, the true wave of colonialism came. So when they came, they were already dealing with these populations that had been drastically reduced. And from there. But from their perspective, of course, they thought that they were so superior. Again, they have no idea about germs. They have no idea about how any of this happened. And it's very disheartening to think that to this day, people think that. That the way that they were able to, like, conquer everybody was just because they were so much smarter, when that literally had absolutely nothing to do with it.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Now is bringing real bacteria with them, which means, like, in a sense, y' all are a disease.

The more, you know.

Let'S just end it there. White people are a disease.

Oh, that fills me with joy. Yeah. Now they gonna clip that somewhere and be like, yeah, this hates us. Like, white people. Like, you know, it's so weird. As much as I talk about white people, they never refute my claims. I never see them. Like, you feel like, do you have.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Do you think you have white people in your audience?

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Oh, yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Is that a lie, you think?

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Probably, yeah. They reach out. They're like, yeah, man, I know I'm just a target audience, man, but I love what you're saying. Yeah. It's like, a lot of various races of people because of how I address our issues within our community. And it's because, like, I address it with, like, love and empathy rather than, like, just finger pointing or whatever. A lot of people have reached out. Like.

This is how I want to approach things in my community. Because the same things you saying, like, if you just apply, like, the criticism and the knowing of, like, what our shortcomings are with, like, love and empathy and, like, how we can change them. Yeah, I could, like, we could all, like, change our communities drastically or at least shift some perspective, you know what I'm saying? But, yeah, I know that, like, the predominant part of it is black people, but I know that there are some outliers out there. They. With what I do too. And, you know, I think that, you know, it's like a white guilt thing too, where it's just like, yeah, I know. We are evil.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah. That is an interesting thing to witness people that. That have that. That, like, respond like that.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah. Before we go, do you have anything that you want to plug?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, definitely.

Right here. Curiosity Theory podcast. We drop every Tuesday. It's me and my co host, Justin Schaefer.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

We.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

We really just get nerdy. We're science nerds. We get into culture, we get into tech. We talk some, like, philosophy, some mindset. So Curiosity theory, it's on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, podcasts pretty much everywhere. And then following. Follow me. Dr. Starkid. Dr. Starkid. Everywhere. I make a lot of science content, talk a lot about space, talk about some, like, social issues and stuff too. Whatever. I feel compelled. So, Dr. Star Kid, and then Curiosity Theory podcast.

Yo. What do you think about three? Have you studied it? I've seen the evidence.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

It's just a comment that. Yeah, but it is interesting that it. That it is a comment that clearly came from a different solar system. Like, it came from a different star a long time ago. And it just happened, you know, just happened to not. And that may seem like a coincidence, but if you think about the fact that it's a hundred billion different suns in our galaxy randomly, it would make sense that every once in a while, something from one of those would get shot out of that system, orbit around that star, and come into our solar system. So it's a comment. It's just like I think they said it's maybe the size of Manhattan, something like that. And then it has, like, a bunch of ice on it. And so as it gets closer to the sun, a lot of that ice, like vape, melts and vaporizes, and then it starts to have this big, huge, bright tail, which we can see right now, and that's what people are saying, but it's not a. There's nothing about it that should. That tells you that it's like a spaceship or that's it's behaving irregularly or anything like that. So just a comment, but there's a ton of misinformation about it out there.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, yeah. What's the astrophysics group chat look like? Oh, we're gonna hold on. What time we. At first.

We got 10 minutes. What's the. What's the astrophysics group chat look like? Question 1. Question 2. How do you feel about aliens?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

So first. Well, let me do the aliens one first, because this is very interesting to me. I think that by the numbers, I would say that I. I feel like I could guarantee that aliens exist somewhere, that there is life elsewhere. How interesting that life is. I don't know. On Earth, you think about the first life that evolved was like single cell, basically a bacteria. And it was bacteria for 3 billion years. Then it got more complex. So, you know, balance of probabilities. Most of the life, I would say, in the universe is probably like single cell. But I do think that in some cases, clearly we see this on Earth, you can have animals that are complex, evolve, maybe even like advanced societies and technologies like we have. But I definitely don't believe that they're flying around in our airspace. Like, I don't believe any UFO video that I've seen is evidence for it being an alien from light years away. I would believe it if I saw the evidence, though. You show me the evidence, I'll believe anything as long as I see compelling evidence. So I would say that aliens almost certainly exist. It's also possible that we couldn't even comprehend what life. The potential for what life could be like.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Right?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Because we're thinking about it, we're gonna.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

See it within our own lens, right?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Which how could we see it as anything else? Sometimes you see. You ever seen, like, some of these videos in from the deep ocean where they find a new animal down there, and you look at it and it looks like an alien. If you saw it in a movie, you would be like, oh, that, that looks like an alien. But this is on Earth, right? And so it stands the reason that any aliens on another planet would be more different than the most different thing that we see on Earth. And so what does that even mean? Can we even imagine that?

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

My theory around this is like, if, if, if. If another life form, an intelligent life form, can travel here through, like, different solar systems, and light years away. We're cooked when they get here because we can't do that.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Oh, they would be far more advanced.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Such an advanced technology that we can like, first of all, we can't comprehend the technology. And second of all, like, what do you think you finna do? Yeah, what do you think you're helpless. Like, those are people show, like, oh, the alien show. And they ask you who your leader is. They're not asking. Okay. Yeah, first of all, they know who the leader is, obviously. They'll probably be able to like stealthily monitor us in a way.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

That's what you would do if you were a smart civilization.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah. You wouldn't just die. You wouldn't just break through that. Who's in charge where your boss at? Like, no, bro, that's just some stupid human we think about.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Because I'm. You're not thinking about the complexity of that travel.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

So like, I've already like come to terms of like pure probability. There has to exist another life form somewhere. But then if they make it here.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Well, so here, let me ask you this. Do you believe that it would be a. Like a cordial, like a friendly encounter? Do you think that they would come with ill intent? Do you think it would be maybe something that we can't imagine?

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

I do think it would. I don't think it would be malevolent just because.

To have that like level.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Of ability, you would hope that you've evolved past. Past that sort of thing.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

That. And also I think just to have that a level of ability, of travel, like means you have everything you need, right.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

What are they gonna come take?

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

So like you literally need us for nothing, right? I would think the only thing you could do is come here and advance life here. And of course like the human mind and me is like, you do got a motive what that motive is? I don't know.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

What if it's just curiosity?

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

If it's pure curiosity, you know? And they're gonna be very shocked when they find out how we we deal with our curiosity.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Maybe. Do you think that. I mean, because they could have evolved in a similar way. They could have gone like through similar. Like maybe, you know, they showed up to us and we're where they were like a 50, 000 years.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

So they know that. They know exactly how to course correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because they got another like, we're gonna try to do two things. We're gonna try to kill them. We're gonna try to them.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

I. I would not be surprised if the first Thing did we did was like shoot off and I mean, think about who's in charge of our government, of our, our military right now.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah. Well, then also you, you gotta think so. I always, always think about this fact too. It's like the way that, like, we used to believe that Earth was the center of the universe. That's like how America believes that they're the center of the. Like Americans believe they're the center of Earth.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Oh, for sure.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

So many different places. Like if they. I, I would, I would just hope that they would come across the right government, you know what I mean? That would be like interested in dealing with this in like a diplomatic way instead of just like shooting them out the sky. Yeah. Because what government would that be?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

I don't even know what which one it would be.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

I don't know. I don't know why, but for some reason, the first thing that comes to mind is China. You think so there's just like, they seem to be very big problem solvers in their society. This is like how I view it. You know what I mean? Like, they just solve problems. You know, they're very efficient at solving problems. Problems for their society. But. Yeah. Do you have a deferring point of view on me?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

I, I don't know. I have no idea who I would trust with that. Yeah. I hope they just come talk to me, bro.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

I feel like.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

You know.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Right.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

No, I think you're the guy. You know what I'm saying? For real.

I, I just, I was like, thought about this in the sense of like, I would hope that it was somebody that was reasonable as I am about certain things, like knowing I'm already inferior when you land.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

You know what I'm saying? So.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, that's a very humble way to approach it.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Which I think is obviously true.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

If they came here, they come here from another galaxy. My. They're. We're inferior because we can't do that. So I would think that it would be. The good thing is like, you know, like, which I want. You know what I'm saying? Like, keep it real, what you want. And it's like, what can we offer you? You know what I'm saying? You can come with some type of house hospitality because it's like, guns ain't gonna do nothing. A gun, they can. Oh, they can probably like control the gun with a mind turn that on you.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah. I suspect that if they did their due diligence and observed, we would not cross the threshold that for them to like, okay, check the Boxes to actually make first contact. I would not believe that we're at the.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Probably. They would probably like, survey the Earth to find like.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Like maybe we'll come back in like 2000 years or.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Or just. Or just like, what.

What sector of this, you know, species is the. Seems the most friendly.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

But if you, if you recognize the humans, then you see that they all are like, capable of this wide range of behaviors. And I don't know if we crossed.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

If we like, passed, I would hope they would go, you know, just like. Funny answer. Just like the funniest thing. It's like, let me go to like, Jamaica first.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

You know, it's like bumba club.

But like, Jamaicans would like, probably be like, hey, like you want.

Like, like just like purely like, get. Let's get straight to it. Like, why are you here? You know what I'm saying? You doing at Kingston? You could be anywhere you came here. But yeah, I think that it's like, that's always been my thing too. This is also too. Like, this doesn't necessarily have to come in a humanoid form.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Almost certainly wouldn't.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Right, right, right. I heard a theory that the Grays.

Were drones and meaning what?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Like they're robots?

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, like, like, like the, the eyes were so big because they were cameras. That was like, that's fire. So fire theory that they. The. So because. Because they understood how violent humans were that they send in drones so they wouldn't like, like destroy them at all.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Like it's like low grade, Low grade drones though, right? Because they got here and they crashed.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

So like they said, you know, maybe couldn't account for the atmosphere or something like that, you know, but they were.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

In New Mexico where that we're like, nothing happens in the atmosphere. There's no. It's just flat. It's dry.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Okay, quick question.

This is a perspective I haven't heard explored from a scientific perspective. What is the benefit of like, hoaxes in that space? What's the benefit of like, creating a hoax around alien life?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

When you say the benefit of creating a hoax, you mean for the people who say that this is aliens and like, assuming that somebody's lying about it on purpose?

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Well, yeah. Like, what is the benefit of like something like the curiosity or the mystique around like an area 51.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Okay, so I think that that's really interesting. You think about the. The US Government, for example.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Pause real quick. Yeah. Why did we go this whole time and I didn't get into none of the nerdy bag. Like, I just know because it's like, I forgot, like, at some point, I just forgot this thing. Was the astrophysicist just like this? Cool. Very great opinions. Yeah. Well, go ahead. Go ahead.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah. So, you know, you think if I were to try and explain it in a way that seemed grounded in, like, what was real and what we know, you know, the U.S. government, how much money do we spend on defense? A trillion dollars. An unrealistic amount of money. Right. And a lot of that is going to be in, like, developing tech, developing things that nobody knows about, no other countries know about. Other countries are also doing this. Right. And so it wouldn't surprise me that there were a number of objects that we've created that are different than what you and I and the people in this room know about, that sometimes maybe get caught on camera. And the US Government is never going to come forth and say, oh, yeah, we're testing this new invisibility shield. Of course they're not going to say that. In fact, from their perspective, it may even be better to fan the flames of, we have no idea what this is. You know, we've been investigating it and we can't find out either. So I think that there's an element of that. I think there's also really a strong element of things looking a certain way. Like, people hate this explanation, but weather balloons on camera at a distance, like, moving in between clouds, they don't. They look weird. They look like little orbs or discs that are, like, zooming through the sky. But oftentimes it's literally, you could explain it by it just being something simple like that. Like trash.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah. I think oftentimes the human mind wants, like, the most.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Oh, we love that. We love stories. We love to be fascinated. We love.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, yeah. Because if it's just something simple, like weather blue, and it's just like, fuck, I wish there was something else. Because, like, black people love the fucking Anunnaki. Like, we love the idea of black Asian aliens coming and saving us from, like, this evil white society. But then it's like.

Yeah, but. But okay. Oh, I got. I got something else for you after this. And then we can go. But my thing is, like, the way that you just explained this kind of like, debunks all of that. It's like, they're not as. They weren't as evil as they were sick. I mean, physically, physically ill. And carrying disease with them is like, wiping people out by the hundreds of thousands. And also, like, think about how powerful that'll make you feel. Like, nigga we show up places and niggas die.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

You talking about the aliens?

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

No, I'm talking about white people.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Oh, okay.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

No, I'm saying I'm not. I'm back on white people. No, no. Well, I'm saying this because like we think about like the Anunnaki as like something to save us from colonialism in a way. But then the way you explain colonialism is like, nah, they just was carrying diseases. Yeah, it is kind of like inflated their ego where it's just like all we did was show up, just started dropping, you know.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

How did they describe it? They literally describe it as manifest destiny. That is their God given right. God wants them to spread across and spread, you know, their beliefs, their culture. Yeah, yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

If I was like cancer in human form, I would probably really believe that too.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Quick, quick question. You wanted to make it a point that I didn't call you an astrologer.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Let's. Let's talk about this for a minute. Okay. Let's talk about. Let's, let's, let's make all the black girls mad. So how do you feel about astrology?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

I'm gonna say right now I love all the crystal girlies out there, but.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yes.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

So you know a lot of people. Well, here's the thing. I. If you ask me to get into the science behind astrology, I'll tell you it's a pseudoscience. It isn't a real science. Like, I can tell you the effect that Jupiter has on you. I can actually calculate it. I can show you the equation and we'll see that the effect is smaller than like the phone on the other side of the room has on you gravitationally. Right. And any effort that has ever been made to like test the predictions of astrologers or match like psychological traits with your birth month, any sort of study that has been like reputable has not ever been able to find anything beyond like a random correlation, like what you would expect if it was just completely random. So I've never seen any evidence to suggest that there's anything like valid about that. However, I do deeply resonate with this idea that I think everybody who's into astrology, or at least most people, have, that they are connected to the universe. Because I think we are connected very much. I mean, we know for a fact. One of the greatest scientific facts, in my opinion, that we know is that, you know, the metal in this, in this mic, the carbon in this tree, the oxygen in my lungs and your lungs right this second, the only way to create These atoms that are heavy, they have like lots of protons and lots of electrons. The only way to make them is in the collapse and explosion of a star that happened billions of years ago. Like, we don't know other you. There's no other way to make these things. This is the only way you can synthesize these atoms. So in a very real and literal way, we are made up of like the stuff out in space that went through a life cycle billions of years ago. So it's like we are connected to the universe.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

You know, we are literally, literally the universe.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

We are literally just little boxes of the universe that can walk around and make decisions. I believe that too, which is amazing to think about.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, right.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

And I really like to think about. I mean, I also have non scientific beliefs. I feel like the purpose that I have in the universe, it's like unique to me. It'll never come again. It'll die when I die. So a part of what my job is to do, to like the duty that I feel, whether it's to black people, whether it's to young men, whether it's to my family, to the universe, to humanity as a whole, is to fulfill that role that the universe has sort of created me that nobody else can fulfill. Because I'm a little bit different. I got a little different DNA. I have a little bit different childhood experiences. We all do. Everybody does.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah. I feel the exact same way.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Everybody does. And only you can do that thing in that way.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

And that's why you got to fight that pool, that of the group that's like pulling you away from your center and your voice and like kind of drowning it out with noise. I got distracted from whatever you asked. I forget what you asked.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

No, I'm just, I just thought, I just wanted your thoughts.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Oh, the astrology thing. Yeah. So I mean, totally resonate with that, with that like feeling of connectedness to the universe. And oftentimes when I, I find myself like kind of debunking these things. You weren't a. Because of Mercury, you weren't a. Because of Jupiter or anything like that. You were just a. It's as simple as that.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

And I think that off people, they have this deep feeling of being connected to nature and to the universe. And if I debunk something about astrology, it feels like I'm saying that thing is wrong. That feels very right. That I also, also agree with, which is that I'm also. I feel like we are connected.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

I have like, I have a strong feeling and sense of connection with the universe and nature and things. Animals, plants around me, like in a real way.

I just. When people start talking about retrogrades and like that, I'm just like, bro, please. Because it's like, man, because, because here's the other thing too that it's like fascinating about humans. The collective belief in something does make it true.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Oh absolutely. Our whole society works like that.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Exactly.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

We believe in a dollar. We believe in a religion.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

We believe certain things are rude and certain things are polite.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah. So I think that if y' all collectively think that all of our like, like if y' all collectively think that in this period of time you're going to experience communication, you will.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah. It's like a self fulfilling prophecy in a way. You're gonna see, see the things that confirm it. Confirmation bias. And you'll just ignore all the things that, that.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Now unfortunately, I was born on December 21, so I'm a Sagittarius. And if you go through and read the SAG horoscope, I do check every single one of those boxes. That's an unfortunate coincidence.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

The people realize when they read it.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

People never know what I am until I tell them. And then when I tell them, they're like. That makes so much sense. And that's what I hate about.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, that makes sense.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think that, I think that we express a spectrum of traits and like abilities and emotions. And I think that like we are all of the zodiac signs if we want to be. You know what I mean? Because you know, I think it's some nature versus nurturing going on in there. And then I know girls that they start to get into like the sun moves and sun rising and moon sign and then the chirons and like that. And I'm like, yo, I'm out. I'm out. But I do believe that a collective belief in something can make it like very real thing for people. So I don't step on people's toes. But I just.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

People believe all different sorts of things.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah. They believe mad. You know what I'm saying? So. Okay, cool. Anybody else got like science questions for you? Got anything science related? Related? You want to know?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

No.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Oh no, I do.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

I'm going give you this. That something I believe in though. Okay.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

I do believe Earth is a right of passage. We have.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

What do you mean? We have to get it right here. Cuz if you look at the universe.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Right, if you study the universe, there's. What is the thing called the, the nebula?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

What is it Called like a nebula is a thing. What are you thinking of? Galaxy and nebula. You see, you see these pictures of space and it's like this beautiful thing, right? Yeah. You okay? Yeah. It's like a nebula. This big, huge. Like a bunch of gas basically in dust. There's different colors.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

So there's different, there's different solar systems.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

In the universe, right? Sure, yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

I feel like you have to get it. This is only spiritual. You have to get it right here. And then once you get it right here, you can go and travel spiritually.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

To these different places.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

You feel like Earth is like purgatory. A little bit kind of. Yeah. You have to get it right here. Yeah. As a scientist, what do you fall like spiritually? How does that question.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

That is a good question. So I would say. Well, first I want to say based off of what you said that that's, I think that that is like a beautiful belief that, that if it, if nothing else, it pushes you towards getting. Towards getting it right. Right. That's like something that is meaningful for you. And I could tell you that one day the sun is going to expand and like burn up the earth and all of the atoms that's in our bodies right now will go off into space and someday in the future may even end up like. I'm not talking about a spirit. I'm actually physically talking about the atoms. Will could possibly go into another star system somewhere and another planet that also forms life, which is crazy to think about. But I would say that I'm spiritual in this way where I feel connected to the universe and a duty to it to be whatever I am and to like find that and to have a positive impact wherever it is that I can. Which is I think, a spiritual belief, but it's not, it's not religious. I was raised Catholic, but I think I started asking some questions that were stumping people who should have been a lot older and smarter than me at a very young age. And I just think I figured that at least what I was taught about religion and God was that I know that I can't be smarter and like more ethical and more just than God. So. And I'm like 12, so there's no way. So for me that was just too too. Some of these things were too a bit too far fetched to believe. But I do think that I'm very spiritual in feeling that connectedness to the universe, to my community, right to humanity even as a whole. And yeah, for me that's like a very spiritual, spiritual thing. What about you?

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

I identify as agnostic, which is, like, I could never be an atheist. I just don't, like. Like, believing in nothing doesn't make sense to me. But I do believe that there is, like, I do feel like this sense of connectedness to something greater than me.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yes.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

I do feel like sometimes observed by something greater than me, if that makes sense. I do feel like a duty and a purpose to, like, impact humanity and be in a better way. And I. I do feel like that will have an effect on something that exists after I'm gone, like, whether it be my soul or anything like that. But I just don't believe. I believe similarly to you that, like, there's nothing I can do wrong in the eyes of God. Because, like, if you created this and understand this and like, all of this vastness and like, all of this undiscoveredness as well, then, like, nothing I can do can be out of, like, the realm of explanation to you. Like, you literally understand. And actually I'm very simple and stupid to you. So it's like, I don't concern myself with what God will think about me. Right.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Like, whatever people's idea of God is. So I believe in, like.

A higher power of, like, just connectedness between humans. Right.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

And I think that that expands into the universe in some way or another, but I just don't, like, identify it with, like, the Christian God or like, the God of Islam or anything.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

100 and it seems like throughout history, a lot of humans have felt that and have, like, described it in different ways. And a lot of the earlier cultures, they had animism where they, like, believed in, like, the spirit of things, like the spirit of the mountain, the spirit of the wind, the spirit of certain animals or the earth or the sun. And. Yeah, it just feels like we've always been trying to describe that. That and get in touch with it. And over the past, like, couple thousand years, I guess a few monotheistic religions kind of, like, really took hold.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

And sort of got, like, away from that to the point where people will say, oftentimes the. The people who are, like, staunchly follow some of those religions will refer to what you just talked about or what I just talked about is, like, very demonic. Like it's a bad thing.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, that's another thing too. It's just like, I'm not gonna get phased out by, like, that. Like, you don't know any better than I do, to be honest. Like, in my opinion, you know, And I think also.

I don't have, like, a fear around it so it doesn't like push me or pull me in any type of way. Like even me calling it God.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

A lot of that is fear based. Yes, it is. It's like I don't want to burn in hell.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

I don't think that anything in the universe that made me has plans for me to burn for eternity.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

It's. To me, it's like the concept of that doesn't even make sense.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Doesn't even make sense.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Even. Even to be honest, the concept of heaven doesn't make sense either. You know what I mean? Because like paradise seems boring.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

You would.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, it seemed boring. Like everything's good, everything's great all the time.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Like how I resonate as a human knowing that that's not a reality for me. It's like everything isn't good or bad all the time. It's just like. It's just like an ebb and flow of everything, all of these emotions. I wouldn't want to be in a fixed state of everything, everything being good. It would probably bug the out of. Yeah, I don't want to be in a fixed state of everything being bad. But I think that those extremes compel people to be able like, of a very controlled behavior here. And it's also very beneficial to people who are in power for whatever reason. So I think that even like with me identifying it or calling it God isn't like the way an agnostic would identify. But I'm also like very like empathetic towards humans. So I know that this is what you identify that feeling as. So I could just call it God. It's not a big deal.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

The same the way that I think of the universe and my purpose and the connection with it is what I know that people are talking about when they're talking.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

I know that's what you're talking about. So it's like, I ain't tripping on that. I don't have to find a new word for it, bro. You know, it's almost gonna be an extreme waste of my time and energy to find a new word for this thing. Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

And a lot of the outspoken. I think you find this a lot in science is like the very outspoken, proud atheists. They like do their best to, to like argue that religion down, which I can understand in a sense, but at the same time it's like you're removing like the very human thing. And that was a. That's a big problem that I have with a lot of science communication is that takes away that feeling of being Connected. Because I can tell you, you, like, the science behind it doesn't make sense.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

But I still feel it.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, yeah. And you can't take.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

You can't. Like, it's like the. That Indiana Jones scene where they remove the jewels and you got to, like, replace it, so you know what I'm talking about. So the big ball doesn't come in, like, when you erect the tomb. And it's like when you. You like, offer people this scientific explanation, but you take away the thing that they needed, which was less about the explanation and more about feeling connected.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah. We need, like, hopefulness and things like that. We need things to believe in. I feel like at the very least, our purpose here is to make things better. And like, to. This is like, a big criticism of mine. Soon is like, we've, like, been entrusted with this earth in this place that we reside, and, like, we're doing our damnedest to destroy it doesn't. Actually doesn't make sense to me. And if this is divine, like, like you're literally destroying the. The vehicle that we've been given to drive this divinity. But also another part of me is just like.

Yeah, I don't. I. I think atheism isn't in and of itself a religion.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

You think that it is or is not.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Atheism is a religion in the way that they practice it because there's a constant pursuit to disprove existence. Like disprove. Prove the existence of something.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Also creates, like, a culture of religion.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

I see how. Yeah, I do. I do understand what you're saying. I think it also depends on who you're talking to, because a lot of, you know, I'm friends with tons and tons of scientists, lots of them that identify as atheists. And it's, you know, it can be dependent, but almost anything can be a religion. You could almost describe. I feel like I sort of subscribe to the religion of science in a sense. Science isn't a religion, but there are many things that we know scientifically that I personally don't know because I'm not like a medical health scientist or something like that.

So I'm. I'm not like a medical health scientist, but I trust that that's sort of religious. Like, I don't know that for a fact.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, but you trust that you're doing the science.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

I'm trusting that they enacted the method properly. And there is a. A little bit of a religious aspect to that, where it's a belief. Yeah. Like, I believe that these doctors and that this, you Know, this process they went through is right and healthy and accurate. And I can, like, acknowledge that. I think it's a little bit dishonest to not acknowledge that. Yeah. You're, like, taking this on faith. You're taking this by. This is your belief that this.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

You have to, like. You have to, like, driving is. You know, I have to trust that these other people on the road can, like, are operating as vehicles the same way, because all of our lives are at stake. You know what I mean? The. The thing, I think. And also I think these things happen with people early in their beliefs too. Like when you arrive to atheism, you want to tell everybody. I think that that's, like, the fascination of us discovering anything new about ourselves or any new passion or any new. Like, I don't, like, I wouldn't bring up God in a conversation. You know what I mean? Like, I would just.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

People. Yeah. Like, people will ask me, oh, like, how has science impacted your. And I think then that gets into a. Interesting discussion. But yeah, I'm not going around trying to, like, find beliefs of people to shoot down.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah. I think that that's something that happens to people when they're fresh in their belief, and I think that they're, like, trying to confirm.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah. Trying to proselytize. Yeah. Yeah. Get it out there.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah. I'd be like, get away from me. But I think that I don't. I don't even, like, I think a big part of it. I wouldn't call it a waste of time. I would say that I feel like there are more important and concrete things for us to worry about here in this life that we can actually change instead of focusing so much on what happens after we die.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

That's all the power that we have is that window from when you open your eyes to when you close them.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

And it's like, actually not even long at all.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

At all.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

And. And. And I just go back to. To whatever maximum possible impact that you can have it once you're gone, it's done forever. There's no iteration of you in my mind that's ever coming back. So, like, what you can do in that. In that window with what you were given is it's. It's critical that you find that and that you. In, like, leave that imprint.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah.

You ever did shrooms before?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

I never have done shrooms, but people tell me that I should it.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

I don't know if it's a should or shouldn't thing. It was kind of going to parlay me into my like, do you believe in, like, parallel universes and.

Not.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Well, I believe that there may be other universes that exist, but not necessarily in, like, this. Not in the Marvel Universe way where there's, like, another universe where me and you are chill, but, like, we're swap seats.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Right. Or we're like, we're. Or we're actually both women or. You know what I'm saying? So I don't really believe in that time, but I do think that there are probably other universes. I mean, we live in one, so.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Right, right.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

It makes sense that there might be other.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

But not, like, a copy of you somewhere else.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

I personally don't believe that. Yeah, there are some people who, like, make that argument, though.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah. I think anything's possible. Yeah, I think.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

I mean, we don't know.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, I think. I think the beautiful thing about science, too, is, like, the. I. I do enjoy, like, this conversation that we're having, like, the. The different range of topics we touch on. It's like. That's what I enjoy the most about people. This is like that. That conversion because we're, like, collaborating on ideas about things, Right?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah. I love it, man.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

It's like my favorite in the world, I think, man. You could probably, like, like the scientist, non scientist thing. Yeah. But it's all like, science. You know what I mean? I like doing science all the time.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

You know what I mean?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, yeah. It's just whether or not people are seeing it the way that they're enacting their method of going through things, it is a science. It's a method.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah. That. That is all it is. You know what I'm saying? But thank you for pulling up, bro.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

I appreciate it. I'm glad it worked out. I was out here. Been looking forward to it. Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

And y' all are in la, right?

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

We're in la. So we got a studio. There's two studios that we use. There's the new one that we just built in Tulsa, and then there's one in LA as well.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

So definitely, if you are rocking with the one in Tulsa.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

We already did. So I fly out there basically, like once a month now, and we'll shoot, like, a batch of episodes. Justin is actually coming up to LA in the beginning of December, and we're gonna do a few episodes, and then I'll probably head back later in December to Tulsa.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

I would love. I've never been to Tulsa, so I would love to come out there. So if. Yeah, if y' all show me a shoot schedule. Well, I'll come out there. For sure. We can get a couple. I mean, if maybe just one or a few or whatever.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, man.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Whatever. I want to do. Whatever.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah. I mean, this was a. This was a fashion. This is what I like to do, man. I know it's what you like to do. You got a podcast.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, for sure.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah. Just, like, having that range. And I think it's really important, especially when we touch on some of these topics. It's cool to, like, think about these things and talk about them.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

I think it's intriguing, too, for the audience just to. It'll start helping them, like, explore the possibilities of things outside of, like, just things you see on social media.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Yeah, man. There's this whole universe of ideas.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah, for sure.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

And it's fun to play with them.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

And throw away the ones that you don't need it.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Exactly. Well, I mean, you know, always open door for you, bro.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Appreciate it, bro.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

For us to have these conversations. It's impactful and intriguing, so I enjoy it. Thank you for coming, man.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Thanks for having me, bro. It's been dope.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

Dr. Dakota Tyler, man. And y' all know where to find him. Y' all know where to find me. Big ice cub cat behind the camera. And this was another episode shot at Creative Soul Studios with my boy Fergie. Ferg. So we'll catch y' all next time, bro.

They say without the proper labor, faith.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Don'T stand a chance.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

I put my faith in faith and.

[Dr. Dakota Tyler]

Stand on fertile land I planted seeds Adeline de turn into trees before rest.

[Big Ice Cub Cat]

In peace te get printed to me.