Doug (2:21)

No, we should. We should point out each of the three of us. We do believe one of these conspiracies. Okay? We've done deep research into these conspiracies, into all of, like, the biggest Ones. Okay, we're going to cover them all. We're going to connect them and. All right, so. And I'm not even going to reveal which one, but, like, unironically, we all believe one.

Ian (2:38)

Obviously one of them is true. Obviously.

Aiden (2:41)

And they might all be true.

Ian (2:43)

They're all going to be wrong. I remember as a kid, I would. Sometimes I would get into my grandmother's medicine cabinet, crack open, crack open that little white bottle, and then all of a sudden, my Thomas the train set was all over the room.

Aiden (2:56)

I mean, the way CS Go Skins has a strong link to Tylenol.

Doug (3:02)

There was that one episode where you were like, you barely spoke. And because you said you had taken Tylenol, you had just done a red eye from Japan and hadn't slept. But it was the Tylenol.

Ian (3:12)

I was. Well, it's like. Like, which one of it could it be? Could it be the lack of sleep, which everybody deals with all the time, or the half a bottle of Tylenol I'd taken on the plane?

Doug (3:21)

Have you seen all the planes cause autism?

Aiden (3:24)

You know what else planes cause?

Ian (3:25)

Oh.

Doug (3:28)

I'm so excited to hear about 911.

Ian (3:31)

Hold on. Don't blame the planes. It was the people.

Aiden (3:34)

The Tom cruise defense for 9 11. Nobody was blaming the planes.

Ian (3:39)

No BL. How could it be a plane problem? How could it be a plane problem?

Aiden (3:43)

Nobody caused it.

Ian (3:43)

A plane problem. Everybody had a plane.

Aiden (3:45)

Yes.

Ian (3:46)

If everybody had a plane, knock the.

Aiden (3:48)

Other planes out of the sky. Yeah, that's actually a good point. 9 11. For a lot of us, it was an extremely formative moment in our young lives. Millennials and older, Gen Z. And because of its proximity to the rise of the nascent Internet, is one of the first truly online conspiracy theories that was spread with message boards and forums and other such methods of delivery. So I wanted to go back and I wanted to look at this 911 conspiracy theory. For me, this is personal because I have a brother who had a tattoo that said, skate fast, eat ass Bush. Did 9 11. That brother is now Aiden's financial advisor.

Ian (4:33)

That was exactly what my next question was. Exactly. I was like, I have one brother. Please tell me this is the brother that doesn't manage all of my money.

Aiden (4:44)

And if Aiden, a man that I trust, is gonna trust him with his money, then maybe he's got some. Maybe these are smarter ideas than I thought when I was a younger adult when I dismissed my brother for being a pothead. Okay, so if you can pull up my slides here, Perry. Exhibit A.

Ian (5:01)

Good stuff.

Aiden (5:02)

Look at this image. If that doesn't, if that doesn't scream conspiracy, I don't know what does. He looks guilty already.

Ian (5:08)

Is that a photo? Bush calling it in.

Aiden (5:11)

This is him calling the planes. Okay.

Doug (5:14)

And this is to scale.

Aiden (5:15)

This is to. He was big at the time, George bush being behind 9 11. Again, it's one of these early conspiracy theories. And if, if he can dodge a shoe as well as he can dodge accountability for his crimes, then it would explain why he's gotten away with it so long. I want to get into this. Okay, the main, the main arguments. First of all, all great conspiracy theories start with a good motive. And this one does have a good motive because the administration behind George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Halliburton, all these people, they wanted more power. They wanted an excuse for more executive authority and excuse to go to war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both of these things were accomplished in the wake of 9 11, addition to mission accomplished in the wake of 911 in addition to the creation of the Patriot act which allowed them to expand executive authority at a rate that had never before been seen in American history and give the president ability to President and the administration more ability to monitor communications online.

Doug (6:24)

I knew it.

Aiden (6:26)

By the way, I love this background because it just says protection, prevention, enforcement, enforcement, protection, protection, protection, prevention, enforcement, protection, protection, prevention, enforcement. And increasingly smaller font for no reason. I don't know who designed it or did the graphic design for that, but this is a real screenshot from the announcement of the Patreon.

Doug (6:43)

The doubters are feeling pretty stupid right about now.

Aiden (6:46)

So. So that's the motive. Right. But the conspiracies don't stop there. The Bush administration had credible evidence that Bin Laden would strike in the US well before he did. This is a briefing that was sent to George Bush and ignored that was titled Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the United States. There was no action taken in the wake of this. Could that be incompetence or a lack of perceived threat? Possibly, but it could also be conspiracy. Secondly. Secondly, this one's kind of a financial banger. And this is a real story from 2001. People in the days prior to 911 made statistically significant large put options bets on the two airlines involved in 911 and made massive financial profits and then laid low before collecting the profits. It was a weird anomaly that was created in the. In the previous day. Again, you know, we see similar things happen nowadays where tariff things will happen. Huge put bets day before and then callbacks the day after.

Doug (7:56)

And they're making a Nancy Pelosi knows Nvidia is getting a deal. She puts money. She puts money. Nancy Pelosi knows bin Laden is striking tomorrow. She puts puts on the airlines.

Aiden (8:05)

I wish I had an image here of Pelosi just decked out in Gold on 9 11.

Ian (8:09)

Thank God it's all coming together.

Aiden (8:11)

So some people did make huge profits from this loss, implying that somebody had advanced knowledge. Additionally, the core argument that is from day one, I remember hearing this as a child in 2001. And two, jet fuel can't melt steel beams.

Doug (8:29)

Okay, I have, I have a question here.

Aiden (8:30)

Okay.

Doug (8:31)

One of the things as we all research conspiracy theories that I realized is that it's very hard to find people who are supportive of the conspiracy theories.

Ian (8:40)

Yeah.

Doug (8:40)

You go on a mainstream media website and it's all like the debunked theory about vaccines and autism using clearly falsified evidence is totally false.

Aiden (8:49)

Yeah.

Doug (8:49)

And you don't get. They don't say. Well, here's why they don't go into it. Right. So I've never heard. Really, you got to break this down for me.

Aiden (8:56)

Because jet fuel, steel beams. Yeah. The idea is MSNBC won't even tell.

Doug (9:01)

Me about jet fuel.

Aiden (9:02)

The idea is that, you know, this is the first time that a fire has caused the collapse of a steel building of this size. And so the planes didn't knock the towers down, they just hit them and then started a fire. That was the idea. So the theory from conspiracy theories is that there was explosions, there was planted charges in the building that caused it to explode upon Bush's call.

Doug (9:28)

Yep.

Aiden (9:28)

This is the idea. Now if you were to try to. I think it's a rock solid thing. If you were to try to debunk this.

Doug (9:34)

Don't both sides this all right.

Aiden (9:37)

We don't need to. I just want to give these. These the woke and then let the people decide. They can decide for themselves. We're just asking is you would say that the jet fuel doesn't have to literally melt the steel beams. The impact plus the heat weakening the steel beams would be enough with that much weight and tonnage above it to cause a systemic collapse. It sounds stupid as I'm even saying.

Ian (9:59)

It, so I'm not kidding. A kid, a friend of mine, I remember him so his name was Abdul Karim. In fifth grade we had to do presentations in class. I don't remember why or like what would the subject around but his presentation for some reason was counteracting the jet fuel steel beams. 9 11. Like conspiracy theory. He wanted to explain why the towers had collapsed in on themselves which was way beyond, beyond the pay grade.

Aiden (10:29)

What grade?

Ian (10:30)

Fellow fifth grade students that were in the classroom. I'm dead ass. I remember it, I remember it so clearly. Everybody was in the class and he's just explaining like basically the, the building flaws of how the World Trade Centers were built and like why they collapsed in the way they did. And I'm 11 years old.

Aiden (10:50)

That is insane.

Ian (10:52)

I know. He was, he was a really smart kid, right? He was like one of the, I remember he's one of the highest performing kids in the class and he's giving us this presentation on how the Twin towers collapsed in on. It was insane.

Doug (11:03)

I was watching fairly odd parents at the time.

Aiden (11:06)

I know, I, Yeah, so, so maybe it's on the jet fuel. Maybe it's on the jet fuel. However, the conspiracies don't stop here. There is some more inconvenient truths. Aiden, the BBC live. So there was three buildings. People don't know this. There's the two towers and then there was the seven World Trade center which is a smaller 47 story building nearby.

Ian (11:29)

But you just said three. There's seven towers.

Aiden (11:32)

No, there's, it's called seven World Trade Center.

Ian (11:34)

That doesn't make any sense.

Aiden (11:36)

And this is odd because the BBC Live reported that 7 World Trade center had collapsed. By the way, it wasn't hit by a plane, it still collapsed, which is odd. And they reported that it collapsed while it is still standing in the background. They reported that it collapsed before it actually collapsed, which implies that they were, it was all part of a planned rollout.

Ian (11:58)

Yeah, so I just want to be clear here. So in the world, because you fully endorse and believe this. I fully endorse and believe this, yeah, of course. So in the world of the conspiracy that we're living in here, they've let the BBC news reporter in.

Aiden (12:12)

That's right, that's right, that's right. She's, she's deeply complicit. Bush called her first.

Doug (12:18)

But like they read the script wrong, right?

Ian (12:19)

Yeah.

Aiden (12:21)

Well the idea is too early, started the broadcast too early and so she's, let's revise that.

Doug (12:25)

Bin Laden was late.

Ian (12:28)

I love the idea of like they.

Aiden (12:29)

Couldn'T count on the laziness of Bin Laden. Everything's rolled out anymore.

Ian (12:34)

The chain of command, it's like, it's one of the most important covert operations ever to be accomplished within the history of the developed world. Yes, but you make sure that all of the BBC is, is in on it.

Aiden (12:48)

They sent them the talking points. Yes. And then the BBC messed up.

Ian (12:52)

You know what's funny about that is if you just watch what happens, you don't have to send any talking points. You could just.

Aiden (12:59)

That's an interesting point.

Ian (12:59)

You could just have them report on it. So. So why would they have been handed talking points? Me handing the talking boats before the towers go down? So you're going to say that the two towers fell down? No, no, no, no, no. I know. You could just watch them fall and then to be sure, it's like. But we'll make sure we talking points about the most prolific terror attack in American history.

Aiden (13:23)

I didn't know the tendrils of the Deep State extended to the lemonade stand podcast.

Ian (13:30)

If I may.

Aiden (13:30)

I didn't know the Deep State had an agent on our.

Ian (13:33)

Was planning a devastating terror attack on my own citizens. I wouldn't leak it to the BBC.

Aiden (13:38)

And that's why you don't have the drive that George W. Bush has.

Ian (13:44)

And I plan for this.

Aiden (13:45)

Stop the terror. I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers.

Doug (13:54)

Thank you.

Aiden (13:54)

Thank you. Now watch this drive. God, that's excellent. I would fall in the hell and back. And so I don't know that I can trust you on this one, Aiden.

Ian (14:05)

I think if he coped to it right then, like if he said, yeah, I did it, and then he said, now watch this drive, people. I think I'd let it go.

Aiden (14:14)

So, you know, I mean, those are like the key high levels on 911 conspiracy. I don't know if you guys have others, if you've heard from your travels, but believe me, I'm convinced.

Ian (14:25)

I think what you said at the beginning was the important part, right. Is this road, the wave of, you know, the first time, where the Internet is really the vehicle for spreading the theory around. Right. You could go on, you know, YouTube a few years later and you're watching 911 documentaries.

Aiden (14:41)

Documentary, yeah. A lot of kids watch that. Growing up was like, yeah, yeah.

Ian (14:44)

And. And I think that is an interesting reflection on the time we live in now when so many of these things can spread around at such a. Such a pace. I feel like the density of conspiracy that we have now is so much higher. And I think you have the next one we want to jump to, which I think is. Is. Is a great example of how the Internet helped kind of fan the flames of this.

Doug (15:11)

Heard of a little miracle drug before, Ivermectin. Take it every day now during COVID Let's get To. Let's get to modern times, right? Modern constitution.

Aiden (15:19)

I gotta say something.

Ian (15:20)

Wait.

Aiden (15:20)

Yeah, I'm worried because you actually do lick salt. Licks. Take horse electrolytes, act like a horse, eat horse oats.

Ian (15:31)

Okay, I hate to.

Aiden (15:32)

So if I'm trying to guess which ones we actually believe, the one where horse medicine cures you is actually something I'm you.

Doug (15:41)

This may. May or may not be the one. I'm just asking questions about Ivermectin.

Aiden (15:46)

Questions. Okay.

Ian (15:47)

I'd jump into Doug's immediate defense here. And for what it's worth, for what it's worth, Ivermectin, while getting called a horse dewormer, among other things, it is a drug that's given to humans to combat.

Doug (16:02)

Thank you.

Ian (16:03)

Parasites.

Aiden (16:04)

So you won't defend American citizens from George Bush's bombs, but you'll defend people.

Doug (16:08)

You got to crack a few towers to make an omelet. All right, but when it comes, Ivermectin is. Look, you probably all heard about, right? During COVID there's this disease, if you remember, called COVID 19.

Ian (16:19)

During COVID I do recall that.

Doug (16:21)

And so big part of COVID first year, everybody's freaking out. They said, isn't there a cure? Eventually the vaccines come out. Really suspicious. Normally vaccines take six to seven years. All of a sudden they're out in a year with this new genetic modifying virus called rna. I don't exactly know. RNA is. I think it modifies your DNA, Rinna. And so all the pharma companies are getting backed by the government and they are going to come in and inject you with this new vaccine. That's scary. But what if there was a nice, simple way to stop Covid from affecting your body?

Ian (16:55)

What if we already had it?

Doug (16:56)

What if we already had it? Okay, so early in COVID 19, bunch of Australians do a study, okay, this is early 2020, and they do a study. And you can go look at this study right now. And they show that in vitro. So like in a scientific setting, if you have COVID 19 cultures and you put ivermectin into it, it actually stops the COVID 19 from replicating as much. You might wonder why. It's a good question. Because ivermectin, what it does, it's been around for like 50 years. Is it. Is it stops like parasites, like worms? So it's for stopping worms. And you might wonder why would a drug that humans and animals take to stop parasitic worms, why would that stop Covid?

Ian (17:30)

Right? Because it was a parasite all along.

Doug (17:33)

Just stop asking questions. So now there are.

Aiden (17:36)

Because of the majesty of horses.

Doug (17:38)

The quote from the Australians is ivermectin, therefore warrants further investigation into possible benefits for humans. Okay, so a little nugget that we get to go off of. All right, maybe this is something. Now a lot of additional science starts to follow up with ivermectin. Is this dewormer that a whole lot of people take actually gonna help with COVID And the studies are over the next two years. They are just, they're not, they're not working. What they do show though is that it might do something in really high doses that aren't safe for humans.

Aiden (18:05)

So we're not taking enough.

Doug (18:07)

And so that was the problem.

Ian (18:09)

This is like if you add enough lanes, you solve.

Aiden (18:12)

Yeah.

Doug (18:13)

So gets back to my, I would say life's thesis, which is, yes, ivermectin in a human dose is now shown pretty thoroughly by a lot of studies to not do anything. Brett Weinstein goes on Tucker Carlson, he says there's communities around the world that are safely using ivermectin and it's helping them. And that was true that there were communities in Peru and India who were saying it was helping them, who years later have now said, yeah, sorry, that wasn't, that wasn't working. And the studies now show it doesn't do anything. But the big thing is that a certain studies showed if a high dosage is applied and conveniently, ivermectin is for animals and you don't need a prescription for that. So you can go to the store and buy horse quantities of ivermectin. And so a whole bunch of people went and just self administered Ivermectin. Joe Rogan, Tucker Carlson was talking about it and the government didn't want you to know. Okay, now there were 25 cases at the Oregon Hospital in 2021 alone where people were hospitalized due to excessive ivermectin because they were taking a horse.

Aiden (19:14)

But not for Covid.

Ian (19:16)

But at least I didn't get Covid.

Aiden (19:20)

Get Covid. I noticed also I've been to the hospital for Covid. Never saw a horse there. Never saw one.

Ian (19:27)

Not one time did I see, not.

Aiden (19:29)

One time you see a horse. Now I see waiting in line a.

Doug (19:31)

Lot of people saying stupid like oh dog, stop having to horse electrolytes. As long as you increase the dose, that's when it's affecting.

Aiden (19:37)

So you're slowly building your tolerance for horse related ingestions.

Doug (19:41)

And that way when Covid 20 happens, you're ready.

Aiden (19:44)

You're the only one ready.

Doug (19:45)

I'm like that movie Limitless where my whole body bloodstream is just full of it already. I will be these one horse left standing. It'll be me and the horses and the rest of you guys will be laughing dead.

Aiden (19:55)

Holy.

Doug (19:56)

So, look, I'm a super fan of.

Ian (19:58)

Doug here who is just loading up on horse electrolytes and.

Doug (20:04)

Yeah, okay, connect them somehow.

Aiden (20:05)

Yeah, I think they are.

Doug (20:07)

So look, here's how I would connect these things. Yes, the evidence doesn't show that Ivermectin does anything anymore. And yes, if you take a high enough quantity that might theoretically help you, you're probably going to go to the hospital. But this is another thing. The pharma industry won't let you talk about Atrioc, Okay. Because they prevented you from even talking about it. The tech industry stopped you from even saying Ivermectin could be useful on Facebook and Twitter.

Aiden (20:41)

Yeah, and I just think we recall nobody on the Internet or social media talking, suspicious that you're not allowed to talk about Bush.

Doug (20:47)

Name one time people are allowed to say that Bush did 9 11.

Ian (20:51)

Can't remember it.

Aiden (20:52)

I can't remember. That's why we are the podcast to break this news.

Ian (20:55)

It's finally.

Aiden (20:56)

It's been. It's been suppressed for so long, YouTube is allowing it. This time we'll explain why.

Doug (21:01)

Okay, so if you're watching this right now, save the file, save the video.

Aiden (21:05)

Please, and save our memory, because they could be coming for us.

Ian (21:09)

I want to add something on the Ivermectin thing. Okay, So I remember because I remember like six months ago. I was like, you know, maybe I need to dig into this. Like, not as in like, I was looking for answers of how to deal with COVID 19. I was like, what is the. You know where? Or what are some of the arguments from the people who are still saying that it was like a valuable thing to take at the time? And there's this, I think in the wake maybe of the Australian study that you mentioned, there's this study that claimed, like, clinical use in Egypt, that claimed, like, very successful results in, like, patients with COVID 19. This was early on during the pandemic, and this study was then like copied or like replicated by a few other countries or groups of people around the world. And then subsequently there was a larger study that I've read. I think it was like a metadata study that took like 25 of these studies that had been done, but all built off the back of that Egypt study that was saying or supporting the effectiveness of Ivermectin. The thing is, the Egypt study is, like, made up. Like, it's literally. They didn't do it. It was. The data for the Egyptian study was literally made up. And then all of these places that had built their data off of the backs of that study also suffered from very similar issues to that study. And this metadata analysis that a lot of people were propagating in, like, the couple years following that I had read was built entirely off of the back of, like, one grain of like, false, basically false premise or false information. And I thought that was wild. And the company that or like the group that published that metadata study issued a retraction for it, like, a year later, that this silenced, clarifying that this is wildly inaccurate and the underlying inaccuracy of the data in all of the studies that it had referenced. And the reason I came across this was because I was in a group chat with some people and somebody was like, laying in to, like, how we still could be using Ivermectin to be combating this problem. I was like, first of all, bro, is 2025. I was like, we're move on. It's crazy. It's crazy to get into this in 2025, I feel like. But then I spent a long time looking through it myself, and then I went through it with somebody who is much, much better at breaking down statistics than I am or reading these studies than I am, who's a friend of mine that I went to college with, who's an MD now who, Doug actually is studying infectious disease or is about to do his infectious disease disease fellowship. And you talked to him about something else we're going to be talking about.

Doug (23:53)

Yeah, we're going to be talking. Oh, we're going to be talking about autism.

Ian (23:55)

But I think through this whole process, something I had the realization of was I think when you take the time to look up studies and you feel like you're looking at something that supports, like, so clearly scientifically supports this angle that you're approaching. I think something I personally struggle with is I often don't have, like, the scientific or statistical literacy to break that down on my own. Right. So if I encountered that metadata study, this does look very convincing. It doesn't feel like I'm reading, like, some article from, you know, maybe NBC or msnbc. And I think it's, like, super partisan and they're not telling me the truth. Right. I'm looking at something that feels very professional in its presentation and If I don't look at the follow up that year later, I think that whole process of looking through the ivermectin case specifically gave me actually a newfound empathy for people who do have the conviction and believe in these things so fully. Because if I didn't have easy access to a friend who could really break down the details of these studies for me in a way that I can't even really echo through this podcast very well, it would be hard for me to even challenge my friend who is presenting it to me. And I think that it's something to, you know, consider as people navigate things like this is like there's things that are a little more outlandish that maybe, you know, I'm sorry, I know you're sold, but I don't think Bush did 9 11. You know, it doesn't seem, it doesn't seem. It's not as. It's not as comprehensive as QAnon.

Aiden (25:39)

And we'll get to that.

Ian (25:41)

And I was just kind of wrestling with that idea is like, I think people that stumble into these rabbit holes or believe these specific things, especially in recent years or especially related to something like medical. It's very understandable how people lock into some stuff like this sometimes.

Aiden (25:58)

Yeah. I will say, as someone who is now a conspiracy theory believer after this podcast.

Ian (26:03)

Yeah.

Aiden (26:04)

And just while you were talking and I was just thinking of the easy, funny thing to say in response. It's all. Everything has an easy counter. If you tell me the Egypt study was fake or was like, was not real, I go, that's a lie. You tell me the metadata was debunked and it was taken down and retracted. I go, they were, they were buried. It was hidden by the deep.

Doug (26:22)

That's what's awesome.

Aiden (26:23)

No matter what you say, it's actually really easy for me to fucking keep my worldview locked.

Ian (26:28)

That's such a hard. I was watching a Flat Earth day debate before this, you know, to educate myself.

Doug (26:32)

Yeah.

Ian (26:33)

And naturally, because I was like, you know, I look around me, Burr's flat.

Aiden (26:38)

It's pretty flat, bar as the eye can see.

Ian (26:41)

But in this debate, it basically boils down to that. It's like any piece of evidence or long, like, longer, more complex explanation that is given to the guy who's like, die hard about flat earth. He can just say, that doesn't make any sense. Like, like, think about it. That doesn't even make any sense. And that's the way of like escaping the, the, the engagement with the, with the other side.

Aiden (27:07)

Kyrie Irving is Better at basketball than you. And so if he says the earth is flat, that's. I'm already sold and I don't need your, your Kyrie.

Ian (27:16)

If you come out to the weekly pickup game, I'll back whatever you say. I'll back Kyrie. Come on.

Aiden (27:20)

The pot.

Doug (27:23)

Look, there's a real problem with censorship. Okay, look, Tucker Carlson with Ivermectin, they tell us the vaccine is the only answer, but why aren't there more treatments? Turns out there's a number of promising drugs and drug combinations emerging that could treat Covid, including Ivermectin. The media hate this, right? So if you were to believe the truth, which is that this is a sort of large global cabal, the government controls these things, that the instant that some of these conspiracies start to really take root, especially in the last five years, the technology companies prevent you from talking about it. Brett Weinstein starts talking about Ivermectin, gets demonetized. People on Facebook or Twitter have posts removed because they're talking about Ivermectin.

Aiden (28:03)

Now.

Doug (28:03)

Let's say Ivermectin was really beneficial. Why would they do this? That's right. The pharma companies, big pharma is trying to control it all. And that's the argument.

Aiden (28:10)

Or you pull up my screen or I think it's so fucking devious how Pfizer did all this insane global cabal only to have its stock drop over five years.

Doug (28:22)

That was also the.

Aiden (28:25)

Well, sometimes your Pfizer is now below where it was pre Covid.

Ian (28:28)

Sometimes your long term plans just don't work out.

Doug (28:30)

That's a sort of Elon Trump situation. They broke up.

Aiden (28:33)

They broke up.

Doug (28:33)

If Pfizer is no longer part of the.

Aiden (28:35)

Pfizer did all the work and then.

Doug (28:36)

It, I mean, it's really part of it, though. Like there's this weird balance of if you as a government say that's misinformation, you can't talk about it. That intensely fuels the belief that that's going on. Particularly when the people who are strongly backing the, you know, the, the, the prevailing truth in quotes are pharma companies who are universally hated.

Aiden (28:57)

I had a little conversation with my good friend Gavin Newsom recently, actually, where we talked about the rights to free speech in between him asking me about Marshmallows concert in Fortnite.

Doug (29:06)

And he did he think Marshmallow did 9, 11.

Aiden (29:10)

He implied it. He didn't say, but he implied it. And he basically said he asked, trying to put me on the spot where do you draw the line on what you take down or what you don't? What is the situation that's dangerous enough because if you take something down, you fuel the fire. Who draws the line? Different parties coming to power, and the other side gets really pissed. Is Jimmy Kimmel worthy of taking down for misinformation around Charlie Kirk's assassin, or is this person down for misinformation over Covid? Where's the line drawn?

Ian (29:36)

I want you guys to look me in the eye. Yeah.

Aiden (29:38)

Okay.

Ian (29:39)

I want the audience to look me in the eye, and I want you to think about this little thing called Occam's Razor and what you just said, because I think a lot of people think that. Truly. Truly. Whether it be ironically in a podcast studio or, you know, for real, what else would the government if, say. Say the grand conspiracy isn't true and they aren't trying to hide anything from you, and they're just trying to do their best to minimize the public health risk as best as possible in unprecedented times. Wouldn't they also do the same thing? They would also do the same thing. They would moderate messaging and try to, like, limit the perpetuation of something that is notably harmful or ineffective. That's what I want. I think. And whenever you think about this conspiracy theory stuff, you know, whether it be one or the other, whether it be Bush did 9 11, or whether it be. Whether it be Ivermectin being effective against Covid, think about, if none of the conspiracy theory was true and it was just a bunch of people trying to do their best, would it produce the same situation? That's. To me, that's Occam's razor with a lot of these things.

Aiden (30:50)

I agree with Aiden. Mossad cut Occam's throat with a race, and I'm glad we got to the bottom of that. Let's go deeper.

Doug (30:58)

Occam didn't hang himself.

Aiden (31:00)

Did not hang himself.

Ian (31:01)

I don't know how to smoke cigarettes.

Doug (31:02)

All right, just for context. All right. When, before the episode started as a truck held up a cigarette, he asked me, do you like the filter side or the tobacco side?

Aiden (31:12)

This is media misinformation.

Doug (31:13)

Neither of whom co hosts are now part of how to smoke a cigarette.

Aiden (31:17)

I am the last sane voice left in this. In this information economy.

Doug (31:22)

Dude, you're going to, like, throw up. You were. Have you ever smoked a cigarette? Okay, okay.

Ian (31:27)

I'm just. I'm just bad at it.

Doug (31:28)

Oh, got you. It is a skill. Yeah. You lose it unless you use it. Um, this reminds me of something that I forgot because I was like deeply lost in your eyes as you smoked a cigarette at me. Let's move on.

Ian (31:40)

It's reminded by my grandparents house growing up.

Aiden (31:43)

You saw just the smell.

Ian (31:45)

Yeah.

Aiden (31:45)

Wait, can I throw a couple at you before we have. We have some more deeper dives. Yeah, I want to throw a couple conspiracy. There's that. You can get your, get your quick takes. All right. We talked about flat earth. I think we're all a little bit. It's flat.

Ian (31:55)

It's. I mean it's definitely flat. I mean you just look around even.

Doug (32:00)

In a plane looks like look around.

Ian (32:02)

You within the distance that you can see. And definitely don't look through like a zoom lens at like a boat that goes over the horizon. Definitely don't do that or anything.

Aiden (32:13)

I think it's really funny that like we figured out the Earth was round thousands of so without. We didn't even have pictures from space. So like back then I could see believing it's flat. I'm surprised it hold up.

Ian (32:24)

I look around people, people even exaggerate that part though. People talk about us collectively believing the world was flat like way more recently than we actually did. We figured out the world was round so, so long ago.

Aiden (32:36)

Yeah. But I wonder when it became mainstream.

Ian (32:38)

Probably like in like 2020.

Doug (32:40)

And when became woke big media, the big bloodletting companies, they didn't want you to know.

Aiden (32:46)

Guys, what about aliens built the pyramids? What are you saying on this?

Doug (32:52)

That's the one you believe. You look.

Aiden (32:53)

He looked at you looks pretty convinced now. Be honest.

Ian (32:57)

It's like humans are gonna lift that.

Aiden (32:59)

It's like that's a heavy stone.

Ian (33:01)

What else could it be? They. They threw slaves and human suffering at it until they built them. That doesn't seem right. That doesn't seem right.

Doug (33:10)

It doesn't. That's not how big blocks work.

Aiden (33:11)

Also, it is weird.

Ian (33:13)

Too big.

Doug (33:14)

It's very similar to software. You can't just throw more people at the problem.

Aiden (33:17)

And the Luxor is a pyramid that doesn't look nearly as nice as the pyramids in Giza. Despite having 2000 plus years of technical advancement.

Ian (33:26)

I do.

Aiden (33:26)

Why is that?

Ian (33:27)

I don't believe in this one, but I do think aliens built the sphere.

Aiden (33:32)

They did it recently. Aliens came recently and they built the sphere that. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. What about Area 51?

Doug (33:38)

What about it? Does it exist?

Aiden (33:41)

It does exist as a base, I think. Are there aliens on it? Have we made contact with aliens, Doug?

Ian (33:47)

Okay, I think the alien do you. Do you have any initial thoughts? I actually do have a strong thought about the aliens 1. In general.

Aiden (33:53)

I want to hear your thoughts.

Ian (33:54)

Culturally, we're very entranced with the idea of finding Earth somewhere else.

Aiden (33:57)

Right.

Ian (33:58)

And we have so many pieces of media about it. We seek life on, like, other planets in our solar system or imagine what conditions they could live under, you know, more reasonable. Like, like, more recently, there are very serious efforts or ideas of like, microorganisms existing on Mars during, you know, like a couple billion years ago when the conditions could have been. Could have made them exist. Right. Or Europa is one of Jupiter's moons and it's covered in ice and has like, oceans under it. There's a question of, like, is that environment capable of creating. Creating life under it? However, the idea of finding like, comprehensive intelligent life to us is really, really unlikely. For I've heard two prominent theories why it's so unlikely that any of it would have touched anything within our human lifetimes as like a human race timeline while we've been alive on Earth.

Aiden (34:59)

But you do believe there's aliens out there based on the law of large infinite universe?

Ian (35:04)

Absolutely. I think there. I think there's absolutely life elsewhere in the universe. The idea that statistically we're the only planet.

Aiden (35:13)

Doug, where you stand on that?

Doug (35:15)

All right. I imagine us like us 3. We in our lifetimes had access to interplanetary travel. One of the things I would want us to do is travel, find other alien life, build a pyramid out of big blocks and then leave and fuck.

Ian (35:32)

With them and just really fuck with them.

Aiden (35:34)

Come back thousands of years later. Yeah, just fuck with him a little bit. But, like, keep our existence a total secret.

Doug (35:39)

Yeah. So it makes sense to me.

Aiden (35:40)

Yeah. Actually build the pyramids, then 2000 years later fly around a little bit at night.

Doug (35:44)

Right. In grainy gestate. Yeah, Give them a little. I mean, that was the basis of our entire civilization. Right? Everything, microchips, Red Bull, it all comes from the pyramids.

Aiden (35:56)

Well, thank. Hey, thanks, thanks. A little gray man for this one because I need a Red Bull.

Ian (36:00)

The two interesting theories I've heard about were. Are the, like, time kind of the time scale theory. So something we forget about is it's not just like distance and the amount of space between you and other places where life could exist or life could be traveling. But the time period that the universe has been around and the time that it will be around, you're not just accounting for like, being able to find the other place that alien life exists at, but Also finding it at the same time period that you exist in. And because time is so unfathomably long, like time, there's so much time in the history that comes before and after us. The likelihood of us existing at the same time as another intelligent species that we could encounter is just so, so unlikely.

Aiden (36:49)

We heard the theory of like the great filter.

Ian (36:51)

Yeah. And that's the other one.

Aiden (36:53)

Every, every society eventually gets to a point where we kill ourselves. Nuclear war or underpopulation or whatever.

Ian (37:02)

Right.

Aiden (37:02)

So every society is reaching that point and so nobody ever actually makes it to intergalactic levels. All filtered out and we're headed that direction.

Ian (37:10)

Yeah. And I think I was going to mention that as the other one, but I think it ties into the other one. Right. Is like your, your species has to exist and get that threshold. You have to get past the filter for an. Exist for long enough to find one of the other ones that also does it. It, it's just so unlikely. I think way, way, way more reasonable is we find like, you know, foreign bacteria. And I, I think that could definitely happen within our, within our lifetime.

Doug (37:39)

Ivermectin.

Aiden (37:42)

It would be very funny.

Ian (37:43)

And then we can.

Doug (37:43)

And then we'll see how the foreign.

Ian (37:45)

Bacteria reacts to different levels of ivermectin. And then, and then we'll give the bacteria Covid.

Aiden (37:51)

We're going to create Covid 40 dude. And then it's going to be like a whole horse related bacteria from Mars.

Doug (37:57)

That Australians put a bunch of alien bacteria and Covid and ivermectin into a box.

Aiden (38:03)

One more space.

Ian (38:04)

One more.

Aiden (38:05)

One more space one. And then we should talk about what QAnon.

Ian (38:09)

Yeah, let's go. We'll get real. We'll talk about a serious one.

Aiden (38:12)

Okay. Moon landing faked. Believe or no. We, we're, we're locking in on conspiracy theories today. We're figuring them out. Moon landing faked.

Doug (38:21)

Okay, here's the, here's the problem is.

Aiden (38:23)

That defend it is that if you.

Doug (38:26)

Believe as I do that the government is controlling all these things and connects them. Right. Why would they hide the aliens? Because that would get them the ultimate power. Right. If you are a government and you want to be in total control, the best possible thing you can do is be like there are aliens right now we got to rise up against that is the most unifying thing.

Aiden (38:45)

Even the aliens are telling them they can't do that.

Doug (38:49)

To who? The aliens.

Aiden (38:50)

The aliens are telling.

Doug (38:51)

So the aliens are. Okay, so we are saying it's not just pharmacy. Government leaders there's another figure.

Ian (39:01)

Oh, the aliens told them they couldn't do that.

Aiden (39:03)

It's so much easier for me to disprove facts than it is for facts to. Like, they have to work so much harder. I can just throw out a statement. You have to go like, well, so.

Doug (39:12)

Working theory is there is somebody above the deep state who's above big pharma. Right?

Aiden (39:17)

That's our current one, big pharma, into the deep state, into the aliens.

Ian (39:20)

Sorry, I'm just. I just want to follow that guy. That guy who's able to bully big pharma and the governments, is beholden to the aliens. Still. I just want to try to someone or part of the aliens, only part.

Aiden (39:34)

All right. I mean, if you don't believe Moonlighting was fake, I guess.

Ian (39:37)

I mean, I don't believe the Moonlight. It was fake. I remember. I. Really good. And this is. You know, it feels silly to cite a YouTube video in an episode about conspiracy theories, you could say. But I remember watching. Watching a really, really good video where this guy who had worked in film for a long time, he was an older guy, basically built the case that it would be more expensive or improbable to have faked the moon landing at the time in the way that they did than to actually have gone to the moon. And he explains, like, the camera, basically, that the camera and, like, film technology that existed at the time could not have created the images that became available through our exploration of the moonlight. And that was the angle that he took.

Aiden (40:20)

More proud of our country for being able to pull that off than just the simple moon landing, which is not as exciting.

Ian (40:24)

I mean, in a way, I think if we manage to convince the world.

Aiden (40:29)

That we did it.

Ian (40:29)

Convince the world, and then also hold all of the other countries, space agencies, and people at every level that were involved in the execution of the project and actually held those like people to secrecy and manage to convince everybody along the way. That would be more impressive.

Aiden (40:47)

That is a pretty impressive feat.

Ian (40:48)

Yeah. If that's true.

Aiden (40:50)

Makes me more patriotic.

Ian (40:51)

If that was true, then I'd be like, we're more fucked than I ever thought we were.

Aiden (40:56)

All right.

Doug (40:57)

Terrifying to think about.

Aiden (40:58)

For the.

Ian (40:58)

Right. For the record, we. I believe we.

Doug (41:02)

Hold on the jury. Don't get ahead of yourself.

Aiden (41:05)

What does Q think about the moon landing?

Doug (41:07)

I'm so interested in QAnon.

Aiden (41:09)

Okay, so separately.

Doug (41:11)

Yeah, Just.

Aiden (41:13)

Yeah, non sequitur. Just. You are interested.

Doug (41:15)

I didn't even know we were talking about this. I just wanted to. Sorry, go ahead.

Ian (41:18)

So we got A great graphic for this one.

Aiden (41:21)

Q. He's been the source for a lot of our stories in this podcast, but now you've taken a deep dive.

Ian (41:25)

Well, I mostly get my information from him.

Aiden (41:27)

Yeah.

Ian (41:28)

So I don't want to piss him off. There's two. Okay, so QAnon is a conspiracy that came to, you know, popularity mostly during like 2017, 2018, 2019, and it became surprisingly mainstream. And I want to start by saying that QAnon kind of originated from a different conspiracy theory called Pizzagate. And basically QAnon, in 2018 there was a person under the name of Q that started posting on 4chan and claimed that they were a high level government official and started spreading information that perpetuated the idea that there was a global cabal of pedophiles primarily controlled or participated in by top ranking Democrat officials and of course Jews, you know, and because. Because it can't be, you know, it can't be a conspiracy theory without a little antisemitism.

Aiden (42:31)

You gotta throw it in there.

Ian (42:33)

And through 2018, as the. As this following began to like build up steam, he posted for years with increasing intensity. Like through 2018, that was when Q himself or themselves was posting the most. And this bled into 2019 when he moved onto a different site called 8chan, until his account on that site was like compromised and HN was taken down. And then the conspiracy theory at that stage had become so mainstream and popular that other people sort of started to carry the message and the theories in different directions.

Doug (43:09)

So he is. It's this anonymous user who's posting more and more information that supports this theory that it's all a bunch of pedophiles at the top.

Ian (43:17)

Yeah. And it's important to fall back. I think the reason I wanted to explain this one was I remember kind of being around or like at a certain point, like browsing 4chan, when pizzagate was being perpetuated. And Pizzagate kind of laid the foundation for QAnon to exist. Pizzagate was something that started from initially leaked emails of Anthony Weiner on Twitter where a user, a right wing like Twitter user of some kind. I can't remember his account specifically, basically said that Anthony Weiner was participating in some sort of like pedophilic.

Aiden (43:55)

They mean like a code, Right? Everything. Every. All of his emails were sent out.

Ian (43:57)

That's not yet.

Aiden (43:58)

That's not yet.

Ian (43:59)

So this is Anthony Weiner's emails and he's Anthony Weiner who was involved in a ton of different sex scandals around his political career, I think was Easier. An easier target for this sort of thing. And this is the early seed for this idea that Democrat Democratic politicians are participating in some sort of child sex trafficking ring. And then we move on to John Podesta, who is Hillary Clinton's campaign chair, and his emails are hacked in a phishing. Phishing scam.

Doug (44:29)

And then don't think it's suspicious at all that the first guy's last name was Wiener and the second guy's last name started with Petto.

Ian (44:36)

And. And that's why I, like, because you think big, Doug, you think big because maybe it was planned by their parents.

Doug (44:41)

Because obviously they would leave breadcrumbs like this.

Aiden (44:43)

They would leave clues.

Ian (44:44)

This is. Have you ever seen. There's a Nick Mullen where he's making fun of him. Like, he's like, you know your friends that, like, put the $20 bill and like, make the towers burn together? And they're like, see, man, it's all, like, it's all true. And he's like, yeah, it's like after all that planning, and he's like, you know what they did after the clues?

Aiden (45:05)

One last step, one last step.

Ian (45:07)

We got to lay out the clues, the clues. And so, so Podesta's emails are, I would say, the big inflection point for this because his emails are published by WikiLeaks. People read through them and then latch on to phrases within those emails, like cheese pizza and refer those phrases to things like child pornography and build out the idea around this specific D.C. pizza joint that a bunch of officials have, like, either named or said they're ordering pizza from that there is a child sex trafficking ring in the basement of that pizza place. And I remember, I remember reading about. My friend told me, was telling me all of this at the time. And I remember going and reading 4chan threads about it. And like investigators on 4chan are like, taking pictures from the pizza joints Instagram that show, like, families or, like, kids there and like, using it as evidence for that. There's, like, kids trapped in the basement. They're also trying to, like, spin like, pictures of art that, like John and Tony Podesta, the brothers, the art they own as, like, evidence of some satanic ritual that these people participate in within the basement, posting, like, weird edited recordings that are like, allegedly of these people at the pizza place talking about abusing children. And all of that was circulating at the time. And this is like the bedrock for the idea that all of these people, Hillary Clinton included, for some people, included Obama, that they were all complicit. In this child sex, sex trafficking ring attached to this pizza place.

Doug (46:45)

And they enjoyed grabbing a slice before doing it.

Ian (46:48)

Yeah, yeah. And naturally, I mean, in the conspiracy.

Aiden (46:51)

Is there actual pizza there as well, or.

Ian (46:52)

No, I mean, they did, you know, because you gotta.

Aiden (46:55)

It's a cover. But they. Yeah, Obama had to have a slice.

Ian (47:02)

I think what happens. What happens is, like, in 2016 and 17. Another thing I want to touch on briefly is I remember. I remember when I was reading this stuff that people were strongly connecting it to stuff like Epstein because people knew a lot about Epstein's crimes already because he had already been to jail once for stuff that he had actually done. And he was known for having, like, high friends in high places, particularly that there had been proof of Bill Clinton traveling on Epstein's planes at different points in time. Right. So people see that connection. And then I think just because Bill and Hillary are married, people, like, have a very easy jump that, like, this is all part of the same thing. And then Q is taking an audience online, primarily from 4chan, that is, like, very, very popular, primed to believe in this stuff, and then kind of capitalizing on this idea that he's a figure of, like, knowledge and authority. And I think the real power of his conspiracy theory at the time was he actually didn't post many things explicitly. There's a handful of things over the period of time where he was.

Aiden (48:13)

That's all pretty vague, right?

Ian (48:14)

Yeah. So, like, there's maybe a few times he would make a claim that was, like, directly disprovable. Right. Like, he said, Hillary Clinton's, like, about to get arrested in flee, or like, John Podesta is, like, gonna get arrested on this date. But outside of specific claims like that, which were pretty rare most of the time because he kept it vague. It's like an astrology thing, Right?

Aiden (48:33)

You could always fill it in.

Ian (48:34)

You can always fill in the gaps and deny or, like, shape it into some sort of story. And I think a lot of people who were reconciling QAnon's capture of the mainstream in, like, 2019 and 2020, probably, like, if you've talked to anybody who believed in this stuff, you can see that the individual often believed in very different things from their counterparts. I remember there's a very good interview at, like, a QAnon convention, I think, by Channel 5, where he's talking to a bunch of different people at, like, the QAnon gathering. Right. And they all have wildly different takes on how this cabal works and what they do and why they do it. And I think that speaks to how the, the energy behind the. The specifics never mattered. You could. It's the leave and fill it in. It's the vibe that this Democratic specific sex, cabal and also Jewish, apparently.

Aiden (49:31)

That's how good science is done. Okay. Bunch of different theories all coming together at one thing. They're trying them out. They're putting them together.

Ian (49:38)

Yeah.

Aiden (49:38)

Okay. It's a scientific.

Ian (49:40)

It's.

Aiden (49:40)

And they.

Ian (49:41)

And they build kind of this weirdly, you know, I wouldn't say cohesive, but beautiful tapestry of, Of. Of a belief. And I think this lost some steam. It lost some steam when, like, Q was no longer, like, the main person posting. And like, the message, because it was no longer centered around him, was just around all these random, like, podcasters and figures that were like, in this right wing sort of media sphere, like, saying the election was fake. Like, it expanded way too far to have, like a cohesive message anymore. And then I think it slowly burned out over the last few years. Not that I don't think people don't still. Some people don't still believe this stuff to an extent, but.

Doug (50:25)

How's the pizza joint doing?

Ian (50:26)

The pizza joint? I mean, I don't know.

Aiden (50:28)

Shoot it up. Right?

Ian (50:29)

So I don't. Yeah, I don't know how it's doing right now, but, like, a guy broke in. He, like, shot open the door and, like, came in to, like, save the kids. The owners got a ton of death threats. Like, this did have a very tangible negative effect.

Aiden (50:41)

He, like, goes down to the. There is no basement. He's like, where's the basement? He's like, holding him at gunpoint, asking to find the basement. They open the closet door and he's like, freaking out. It's. Yeah.

Doug (50:52)

God, that'd be so weird to be robbed for something you don't have.

Ian (50:55)

He's like, what do you want me to do? Open the door to the basement that isn't real? Like you. And. And then he's angry. He thinks he's saving the kids for real. Right.

Aiden (51:03)

He's trying to be a hero.

Ian (51:05)

I think the main message I wanted to walk away from this from was if you, you know, perhaps. Unfortunately, as I was around for the origin of this theory and remember reading it and being there at the time on 4chan, because my friend told me.

Aiden (51:22)

You'Re on 4chan too much.

Ian (51:23)

Huh?

Aiden (51:23)

You're on 4chan too much. You're going to believe this shit in two years.

Ian (51:27)

I mean, like, I don't, I don't go in 4chan regular. But I thought it was interesting to read it at the time and see like, dude, what the fuck These people believe this? Or where is this coming from? And seeing that it takes for an idea to take hold so heavily in the public's mind, it actually does have a very long trajectory to it. There needed to be an audience introduced and primed to it and sort of like groomed into the full fledged, you know, insanity of the theory that there.

Aiden (52:06)

Was grooming going on.

Ian (52:09)

In a way, there was the grooming of the mind.

Aiden (52:12)

You know what it reminds me of is because it runs similar time, it reminds me of the GameStop. I think these, these conspiracy theories have a couple key factors to them. And one of them is that your enemies will all get punished. It provides this group you, you against the world and there'll be a reward for you at the end. And these things all come together to make it very appealing. And like the Gamestop thing was like, there's these evil hedge funds, by the way, nobody likes hedge funds. They are pretty evil. But like they have some secret thing. And once we hold strong and don't sell gamestop sock it will go to a million dollars a share. We will bankrupt all of Wall street and we'll be unfathomably rich forever. Like the, the core of it has these tiny nuggets of truth that is then way expanded and, and creates a story that can never be broken. But same thing with GameStop. Like it just fades over time because they make promises that don't like, they just say they just lose tomorrow this will be $500. It will happen. And then it doesn't happen. Well, now I need it to be next week. Oh, there's. But it can't hold forever, dude.

Doug (53:14)

Probably the biggest disappointment that a human being. Like, if you rank the most disappointing experiences a human being could have, I would put in the top five that if you spent seven, eight years on 4chan deeply soaking in the pizza sauce that all the Democrats are pedophiles and they're hiding it. And then Trump gets elected and announces the Epstein list isn't real. That's got to be the worst feeling. Like it's the longest edge ever. And then Trump's like, no, I'm not to going kicking you off.

Ian (53:43)

Wait, this is what do we talk about this on a Patreon episode? This is exactly what I was saying. It was like for. This is a. The Epstein thing is something that Trump never actually leaned into very heavily or never talked about himself very much. But he's paying the price for an audience that has been primed for a payoff over the course of basically a decade about this stuff. Because if you're, if you're one of those die hard people, all of these things have been intertwined for so long and you are waiting for your God king to finally give you the fucking cookie.

Aiden (54:16)

Yeah.

Ian (54:16)

And he's not, it's like why, why can't I get the cookie?

Aiden (54:20)

Well, I mean even though he didn't personally push it that much like Cash Patel and everybody, everybody around him was like this is going to, we're going to get this out. And then suddenly they're all switching. So it's just like a really frustrating thing for somebody who wants to see Hillary.

Doug (54:34)

Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton specifically.

Aiden (54:37)

It was her and Epstein, those in.

Doug (54:39)

Those who run that little pizza shop.

Ian (54:42)

I want to see them all locked.

Aiden (54:43)

There is, I don't have too much research on this because I don't afraid of getting killed. But there was, you know there is a deep conspiracy theory around the Clinton body count is what it's called which is that Hillary and what's funny, I said this on stream and they thought I was talking about the number of people they had sex with. Their body count. Oh, Hillary Clinton's had a lot of sex. No, the body count in that they Bill and Hillary have murdered systemically journalists and people over the years. I wasn't able to like do a deep dive on it, but there is, they could be killing people.

Ian (55:13)

Jamal Kashmir wasn't the Saudis.

Aiden (55:16)

Bill chopped him up.

Ian (55:18)

Bill, that's.

Doug (55:19)

I mean we know Bill's got a body count of at least one, that's for damn sure. So I just want to talk about dead Internet theory.

Aiden (55:27)

Yeah, tell me about it.

Doug (55:29)

This one is wild. This may or may not be the one I actually believe in. Dead Internet theory is conspiracy theory. It's not proven but the idea is that the vast majority of the Internet now is just bots. It's bots talking to each other. It's bots on the social media, it's bots making blogs. And everybody's probably had an experience like this. So I found a study that Berkeley did. If you pull us up Perry, they looked at 1.2 billion posts and they used a couple of what I will say are like a looser definition for what, what a bot post is. But still reasonable enough. And they found that their estimate is in 2019, about a third of the Internet, 35% was bot generated content. Now in 2025 it's about 60%.

Aiden (56:11)

Jesus Christ.

Doug (56:12)

This is across everything, two thirds of what you're seeing on the Internet is just from bots. And obviously a big part of this is the advent of ChatGPT, right? Because now it's incredibly easy to have it post very, very, very compelling looking stuff. They found that it's largely coming from Russia, Vietnam and the Arab Gulf states. I don't know why those, I don't.

Aiden (56:34)

See why those countries would have any interest in.

Doug (56:36)

Yeah, I have no idea.

Aiden (56:37)

Shaping the narrative on social media. I don't.

Doug (56:39)

So the follow up though, what's weird about Internet theory, the dead Internet theory, by definition, it's kind of hard to find good data, right? And so people have very different, like, let's say, conclusions on it. So London Cyberlab did one and they found that human. So their estimation is that human share is actually about 80%. So only 20% of the Internet is actually bot generated content. Pretty different from what Berkeley said. And their thing, one of the quotes is the platform filters remove roughly 96% of AI spam. And they say like, Reddit is only like 15% AI spam. So their idea is like, look, the platforms actually do a pretty good job of ending it. And then a Yale study, similar thing. They basically said 38% of posts on Facebook are by bots, but they only get 7% of the engagement. And so what that means is like, yes, there's an enormous amount of bots generating stuff, but you're not really seeing it. And so there's different ways to interpret this theory. And so I just kind of encourage people based on these numbers to remember as you're going around the Internet and you see people arguing or whatnot, and it feels like everybody is, is like, you know, at boiling point. I just encourage you to remember all of this is fake. I made up all of this with an AI this morning. None of these websites are real.

Ian (57:56)

Oh my God.

Doug (57:58)

And so it really makes you think that if you go on the Internet and you read a post that says that your conspiracy theory isn't real, that's probably a bot who made that website to convince you it's not real?

Ian (58:10)

Hillary Clinton probably made that bot.

Aiden (58:12)

Hillary Clinton probably made that bot and then killed the guy that designed the bot to hide the evidence.

Ian (58:16)

To hide the evidence.

Aiden (58:18)

It's truly insane.

Doug (58:19)

None of these links work. You can't.

Ian (58:21)

You made a fake Berkeley Data Lab page. This is psychotic, dog. I was, dude, I was reading this, I was reading this and I was like, oh, this is kind of good. Like, this is this means that even though there's a horrid amount of like bot posts, it means as humans we were like, what? Seemingly relatively good at not engaging with fake content. And then you fucking rub told me.

Aiden (58:44)

It's so funny because I was going to push back. I was like, how? How? Because when I see a post on social media, there's. The thing is human beings are using chat GPT a lot to write their posts.

Ian (58:55)

Yeah.

Aiden (58:55)

So that's a human being, but it's written like a bot. So how would they possibly know the difference between a human being doing that and someone just tasking ChatGPT? There's no way.

Doug (59:03)

Well, according to my fake website.

Aiden (59:06)

I don't trust your fake question.

Doug (59:07)

No, they, they have a whole section on validation human annotated gold sets and adversarial holdouts from 2022. We look, we cited like 15 different papers that don't exist, by the way.

Aiden (59:18)

Dude, that's been happening. Dud. The lawyers that are in court and they're citing court cases that don't exist and the judges are looking it up and being like, you're going to get disbarred. That shit's crazy.

Doug (59:33)

Look at this graph.

Aiden (59:34)

Viral cluster is poor.

Doug (59:37)

And then there's just a bunch of. I was hoping you guys wouldn't look too deeply into what was on these pages.

Aiden (59:42)

Pretty strong.

Doug (59:43)

Anyways, I did no research on dead Internet theory. I have no idea what's going on.

Ian (59:50)

Well, you know what?

Aiden (59:51)

Ironically, you've probably proven it. You've probably proven the ease of doing that has made. Well, I've become less and less.

Doug (59:57)

This took me maybe 30 minutes and I just had to give it some slight updates on like, here's a legitimate looking like website from Yale. Just make it look like this.

Ian (60:06)

I have a question for you. So in terms of when you're training AI models and you're feeding them a bunch of data in order to create the answers and outcomes that you want. Right. If we exist in an Internet that is continuously being dominated by robots or more sophisticated AI posts now.

Doug (60:26)

Yeah.

Ian (60:28)

Is that feeding into a data pool that is training AI further and they're getting. Becoming data, like just becoming more and more AI data.

Doug (60:38)

In Human Centipede, interestingly enough, the title of my fake paper is correct, which is Synthetic Dominance. So this is. We've talked about this very briefly. It's Synthetic data is the name for data that's created by AIs.

Ian (60:50)

Yeah.

Doug (60:50)

And what you just asked is the big question, which is if you are one of the AI companies, and you're making an AI right now, essentially, they've trained on all the human data we have. So the question is, do you. Is, is the frontier of research around using the human data that we have in a more effective way to learn more effectively, or is it about continuing to get more data, at which point you need AIs to make the data? There are obvious downsides with that, because if there are problems, or let's say inhumanity inside of the AI, and then the AI is using itself to train itself, it's going to just kind of get farther and farther from what humans would do.

Ian (61:24)

Right?

Doug (61:25)

And so there's obvious problems. And then we, we actually talked about this with ChatGPT5 a few weeks ago. One of the things that I thought was extremely interesting is they admitted that they used their previous ChatGPT model to create data that was used to train the new one. So they now fully OpenAI and ChatGPT are using synthetic data. So the question now is, yeah, that might accelerate how quickly it improves, but it might just be moving farther and farther away, where every time that you generate a new model, the percentage of stuff it's being trade on is just more bought stuff that is, that is like one of, if not the biggest question in AI right now.

Aiden (61:58)

ChatGPT, 40% of its training data comes from Reddit. As someone who's a regular Reddit user, the amount of AI generated content on there has gone through the roof. The number of people writing their posts or even filtering their ideas through ChatGPT before posting them, well, is higher.

Ian (62:14)

The yard podcast, it's all farm to table oc. No way. I brain rot that where slime will yell at you.

Doug (62:22)

And that's the other side of this argument. Do you really want another 5 billion human written tweets versus some good shit.

Aiden (62:29)

By chatgpt as humans get dumber because they're offloading all their schoolwork to chatgpt.

Doug (62:35)

Right? Like, maybe we don't trade on the.

Aiden (62:37)

World'S dumbest humans or the world's most recursive AI slob.

Doug (62:41)

We don't have the smartest people necessarily, just like churning out content all day long. All right? Reddit is not a bastion of intelligence.

Aiden (62:51)

Alexander Wang, the guy that got paid. Yeah, I mean, you know, his whole thing was people have worked for him. In my chat, they, they were part of the minimum. He just hired minimum wage employees to do human data, like to label pictures of dogs to do simple programming tasks. And he made $2.7 billion. I mean, that's Crazy. That's, that's an unreal.

Ian (63:10)

I mean, that's a come up.

Doug (63:11)

I guess the one serious thing on, on Dead Internet theory is there is real, let's say, evidence in quotes around this. But it genuinely is like almost impossible to figure out how this is. So for two reasons. One, the people who would have most of the information about this aren't telling you. Right. It's not in Twitter's interest to say, yeah, it turns out 90% of our stuff is bots. Right. Or if it is, they might say, oh, we took down this many, but they're not really going to have analysis. And the second is it just gets harder and harder, Both because the AIs are getting better and because what you said, which is humans use AIs to augment their.

Aiden (63:45)

That's the real insidious part.

Doug (63:47)

Yeah.

Aiden (63:47)

Half the time I can't tell if it's a bot or if it's a human who wanted to sound more intelligent.

Doug (63:53)

Intelligent, whatever, anything.

Aiden (63:55)

And they just filter it through chat GPT. And so it all gets mixes together in this, in this slop.

Doug (64:00)

Right.

Aiden (64:00)

Where I can't tell as a human.

Doug (64:02)

Yeah. It's a weird thing that by definition you sort of can't confirm whether this exists. You can't go and really say, you know, there's attempts and there's some. And so like I read, I did read a little bit about like some of the people who are doing essentially like security for websites against bots. And bots are getting more sophisticated every day. And that's kind of all we got is like, they're getting better. But you'd have to go to an individual website to really understand how they are dealing with it.

Aiden (64:29)

I want to go back to one of the first conspiracy theories in modern American history, one that kind of is the granddaddy of them all. One that maybe can tie all these together. This is the murder slide, please. John F. Kennedy, President of the United States. Okay. And I want to talk about whether or not there's any veracity to this conspiracy theory. And I want to go through the, the details of it.

Doug (64:57)

I'm already hooked just off that word. Dude, I'm fucking in the way. You set this up.

Aiden (65:00)

I wouldn't. I chat. JBT gave me that. John F. Kennedy. All right, I'm gonna give you the high level again. Motive, means, motive, opportunity. That's how you determine whether there's any truth to this motive. John F. Kennedy comes into office after Eisenhower. Eisenhower, notorious anti communist, notorious fighter of the Cold War. John F. Kennedy comes in, not really so interested. But he's young and his advisors are all leftovers from the Eisenhower administration. They're older guys, they really want to fight the Cold War. They want to spend money, they want to have the military. So they give him a plan from Eisenhower to invade Cuba with a sort of a false flag, rise up, Bay of Pigs type situation. It goes poor. He signs off. He's a young guy, he doesn't know these guys. I trust them. It goes incredibly poorly. It backfires. They do not take down Castro. It's a huge embarrassment for America. A bad state in the Cold War. Jfk, from that moment on starts to sideline all these old Eisenhower appointees from the CIA, from the FBI, from the military, from the government. He said, we need to do things different. We're going to do a more peace focused thing. We're going to talk to Khrushchev, we're going to negotiate. I'm going to talk to Castro. We're going to try and de escalate the Cold War.

Ian (66:15)

Boring.

Doug (66:18)

Knew it.

Aiden (66:19)

He gives a speech, famous speech, called the peace speech, seen here. I don't remember the exact location and date, I had it written down. But he gives a peace speech where he says, at the end of the day, we're all human beings, we're all mortal. We need to work together or we're all going to die.

Doug (66:37)

Except for the Democrats.

Aiden (66:40)

That's what he'd say now.

Ian (66:41)

Except for the Democrats that operate that pedophile pizza.

Aiden (66:44)

Yeah, you said those guys are those guys. Get those guys. But outside of that, he gives this Pete speech. This is considered a pretty iconic moment and it's, it's galvanizing for those leftover. Here, you can say right here, June 10, 1963, the peace speech, where he makes, he lays out his vision for the future where it's about less intervention, less war, less overseas, more focusing on America, more. This is a problem for those in what you might call the deep state.

Doug (67:11)

Today we lost our balls.

Aiden (67:14)

So a few months later, John F. Kennedy, while driving through Texas, is shot in the head and dies.

Doug (67:21)

And the conspiracy is, he's still alive.

Ian (67:26)

Dude, he's with Tupac.

Doug (67:29)

I heard at Coachella there's gonna be a Tupac and JFK hologram driving together.

Aiden (67:35)

I said, I was, I was doing research for this on stream. And I was like, yeah, the conspiracy theory that JFK was murdered. And they're like, no one's.

Ian (67:44)

That's funny.

Aiden (67:45)

He didn't kill himself.

Ian (67:46)

I think JFK killed himself. John F. Kennedy did not kill himself. I did. No, JFK is alive with Tupac and the first, the original Avril Lavigne.

Aiden (67:58)

So here's JFK in the car and with Lyndon B. Johnson, who would succeed him, and his wife, Jackie Onassis.

Doug (68:05)

Wait, was Lyndon in the car?

Aiden (68:06)

Lyndon was in the car.

Doug (68:07)

Damn. I didn't know.

Aiden (68:09)

Immediately after he's dead, Lyndon B. Johnson assumes power as president. And within a few months after that, we're in the war in Vietnam, folks. Suddenly, we're in the war in Vietnam into Syria, into, later on Iraq, into Afghanistan. The military industrial complex had reasserted control through their killing of jfk. Now, I. Oh, sorry. I looked into this as much as I could. Here's the thing. It's. It's because it's all so old and all the film is so grainy, and all the data is. There's. There's like. It's very difficult to see if there's any. You know, it's just people. Here's he said, she said on. I heard a puff of smoke from the grassy knoll. And I heard the. The things I could find that were even slightly interesting or inconvenient were the doctors who operated on him immediately after the shooting have signed notes, autopsy notes that contradict what later became the official story. So they looked at him and they were like, the bullet angle would be here and da, da, da. And then later on, it would be like saying that it only could have come from where Lee Harvey Oswald was in this building and there was no other shooter. And so there's something there, but they could have just been wrong in the moments. I couldn't really. You know, it's like they're. It's a heat of the moment type thing.

Doug (69:33)

And they were part of the deep state or they weren't.

Aiden (69:36)

Or they weren't.

Ian (69:37)

They were signed which part of the deep state or not deep state were there.

Aiden (69:41)

And then here's the here. But here's the weird part. Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who shot him from the third floor of the building. Yeah, he did. This is proven fact a few years earlier. Defect to Russia, go live in Minsk for a year, then come back and live in Texas during the height of the Cold War. This is a really good happened. And there's confirmed reports that somebody, namely Harvey Oswald, but that didn't look like him. This is what they said had gone to the Russian embassy twice leading up to this. So that was weird. And then there is official statements from Lyndon B. Johnson saying whether or not there's any Truth to this, we can't be playing up the Russia angle here because it could lead to a war where 40 million people die in an hour. Like, we can't. So there is, like, there's something weird about it. There's definitely. When you read about the time, there's.

Ian (70:35)

What is even the most, like, okay, most crazy, conspiratorial, torial implication of that. Is it that Russia did it? Like, what are you saying?

Aiden (70:42)

Yes, I'm saying everyone does. The conspiracy. The CIA killed him because of. They wanted more military action. But when I looked into it, there's like, a lot of, like, who was this guy? Lee Harvey Oswald? He has, like, a lot of proven connections to Russia during this time of, like, he's con. He's constantly in contact with Russia. He's living with a Russian landlord. He has, like, he's been to. He moved his family to Russia and then moved back. You know, there's like this weird connection. It could also be Hammerstein, he's a crazy guy, or he just. He's very pro Russia supportive and then shot separately.

Doug (71:14)

I don't want to ask too many questions. I don't like to think critically, but is the idea that Russia killed Kennedy or that he was hired, but was it a collusion between the government.

Aiden (71:28)

Like, nobody sees conspiracy.

Doug (71:30)

That he was working for the US Normally.

Aiden (71:32)

Is that the CIA?

Doug (71:33)

The CIA.

Aiden (71:33)

Oh, okay.

Ian (71:36)

Put them up.

Aiden (71:36)

That's the normal one.

Ian (71:37)

Well, I think that's. It's the ones I've heard.

Doug (71:40)

This is the first time working for the Russians.

Aiden (71:44)

Yes, dude. Yes, dude. So there's that. I mean, there's the angles of the shot there. Oh, and the other thing is that Lee Harvey Oswald, immediately after killing him and then getting captured, is then himself killed two days later by a guy with mob connections, Jack Ruby, before he is able to testify about what happened before Lee was.

Doug (72:07)

The Italians were in on it, so.

Aiden (72:09)

Maybe the mobs involved as well. There's this web of connections.

Ian (72:12)

You know, it's.

Aiden (72:13)

It's not that I can find any conspiracy theory in this that I fully go on, but it is like everyone involved has proven connections to higher. So it's like everyone's getting.

Ian (72:26)

But that's what conspiracy theories are. Right?

Aiden (72:28)

It's like.

Ian (72:29)

It's the idea that, oh, the. The evidence is convenient or circumstantial enough and that you could connect it to someone's potential gain from this is happening, and then you can say that they did it. Like, in the case of the JFK one, I feel like I've heard CIA did it, FBI did it, Mossad did it. Like it's. And then now I've heard Russia could have done it. It's like, or, or maybe it's like, maybe the guy just fucking did it.

Aiden (72:56)

You know, Maybe.

Doug (72:58)

Maybe I think they need to pay.

Aiden (73:01)

They all need to.

Ian (73:02)

Oswald.

Doug (73:03)

John Wilkes Booth.

Ian (73:06)

Why don't we ever talk about that one?

Aiden (73:08)

That's a conspiracy.

Doug (73:09)

Yeah.

Ian (73:10)

No. Why do we make one up? Oh, I think, isn't it interesting?

Aiden (73:14)

John Wilkes Booth is innocent.

Doug (73:15)

I don't.

Ian (73:16)

How many.

Doug (73:16)

Abraham Lincoln killed himself Presidential.

Ian (73:20)

I don't think Abraham Lincoln killed himself.

Aiden (73:22)

I actually, I want to make a claim. I think the play My American Cousin was so poorly written and boring that, that Lincoln offed himself and then the playwright or made up the John Wilkes Booth story to save his professional career.

Doug (73:36)

Yeah.

Ian (73:36)

Because he's like, my play is not my place.

Aiden (73:37)

Not that boring.

Doug (73:38)

That's a play.

Ian (73:40)

Because you wouldn't want to be the guy who wrote the play that's so bad that killed the kill of the.

Aiden (73:44)

Greatest presidents in American history. You don't want that to be your stain, so you make up who.

Ian (73:49)

Wait, are there only two? Is there. There's a third president who is assassin. There's four who are all. Who are the four?

Aiden (73:56)

Lincoln. Lincoln, McKinley, JFK, and the fourth.

Ian (74:03)

Why don't. Why are we.

Aiden (74:04)

There's a fourth.

Ian (74:04)

This is also part of it. It's like, why are we making ones up about McKinley and Lincoln? Is it just too old? Is it just too boring?

Aiden (74:12)

I. Listen, I agree with you. I think the, the miasma, the whirlwind around this one is far more complicated, compelling. It's more interesting. It's more than this.

Doug (74:25)

This one has more weirdness to it than I think a lot of other ones. It is. It just feels like, why are there so many strange pieces? There's a. Yeah. I mean, I watched, you know, a two hour YouTube video about it, which is the source of truth, to be clear.

Aiden (74:38)

Yeah.

Doug (74:38)

And that also, it's like it didn't make any strong claims, but it was just like, this is weird. There's a lot of weird stuff going on. Whereas to be honest. Ivermectin not that weird. Like it's, you know.

Ian (74:49)

Yeah, it's.

Doug (74:50)

You probably shouldn't take it. I just, you know, this is, is. This is the one where I'm like, okay, why is this so bizarre on so many.

Aiden (74:57)

That is the feeling I had. I read as much as I could about it and I couldn't come to a conclusion but even when I'm really putting my best hat on to find sources, like concrete sources, there are a lot of very weird things. Like, weird, like, like people signing off on documents and saying this is my official thing, and then retracting those things later whenever there's a, you know, there's a lot of, I don't know, there's just weird things. It's just we, I don't, isn't, isn't.

Ian (75:21)

Part of it feels like age of when it happened and available evidence, like there's so much of. This has to be the example you were laying out at the beginning. I remember hearing the same issue is like when you try to retread through what happened because it just exists at a different time when so much less like camera footage and things like that is around. Right? You're going solely off of people's recollections of what happened in a high intensity moment. And there's so many studies that have been done that people are, you know, even eyewitnesses are actually very bad at remembering and recalling specific events that happen around or in front of them. And they tend to screw stuff up and make mistakes like that. That's a super common thing in criminal justice to begin with. And now you're going back to a time, you know, now with so many decades past, where you're trying to like piece together the puzzles, where you just don't, you don't have enough concrete evidence to like build up something solid. So naturally things just seem weird. That's, that's part of, that's how I look at these things is like, maybe it's because it's like at the end of the day, if the CIA did it, it's like, how much does that change? Am I crazy?

Aiden (76:36)

I mean, it would change a lot.

Ian (76:38)

Am I crazy?

Aiden (76:39)

If it came out unequivocal proof that the CIA killed John F. Kennedy in order to get us into more wars.

Doug (76:46)

I wouldn't like it.

Aiden (76:47)

That would. Yeah, but I would. I think that would be a big deal. You're acting like it'd be like, wow, it's so long ago. I mean, it's like if it was unequivocal proof, that would be a massive deal. I think that would be crazy.

Ian (76:56)

It wouldn't be good.

Aiden (76:59)

I think it would be like the biggest story ever. I think it would be. I can't imagine a bigger story than that.

Ian (77:05)

It's like, it's like I still gotta.

Aiden (77:08)

Talking about it like it's a bad pizza.

Ian (77:11)

It would be crazy.

Aiden (77:13)

It would be Unheard of. I don't.

Ian (77:14)

I can't even. You're right. You're right. But I would like, I'd still go to work the next day.

Aiden (77:23)

I guess that's true. I still, I guess we're still talking in and doing the pod. You're still doing the yard.

Ian (77:29)

Yeah.

Aiden (77:29)

You guys are. Crack a couple jokes about it would.

Doug (77:32)

Be that, you know, Big A would make a clip. Maybe we would talk about the next week. But probably on.

Aiden (77:36)

Yeah, it's tough because I, you know, Occam's razor could explain all of it too. All these things could be people just trying to maximize their self interest with an event happening.

Doug (77:46)

I have a question. Do you know, because there was two, let's say, very high profile conspiracies that the current Trump administration was like, when we get in power, we're unleashing it all. One was JFK, one was Epstein.

Aiden (77:57)

Yeah.

Doug (77:57)

We're currently 0 for 2 over 2.

Aiden (77:59)

Yeah.

Doug (78:00)

Is there any follow up? Do you know as of 2025, why haven't they released the JFK?

Aiden (78:04)

So they did release the JFK files, but a lot of them were still redacted.

Ian (78:09)

Yeah.

Doug (78:10)

Who are they trying to protect?

Ian (78:11)

That's what I had a question.

Doug (78:12)

I'm not saying that is like a funny joke. Who are they trying to protect at this point?

Ian (78:16)

That was sort of. My question is like, what. What is the point of all the hullabaloo around stuff like that when you get to release it with a bunch of stuff redacted anyway? It's like, it's like, oh, Disney, Mickey Mouse is finally public domain and you find out it's just steamboat. Will it.

Aiden (78:33)

That's a step in the right direction. Yeah. They released 10,000 new JFK documents. But despite 10,000 new documents and a huge hungry audience of content creators and conspiracy theorists and YouTubers and they had nothing new to say, really. It was all basically what had already been said and anything new was redacted. So. So it was a shocking nothing burger. But it did lead to a lot of new books being released, which was interesting.

Doug (78:57)

I think it ties to the biggest.

Aiden (79:01)

The one of our lives.

Doug (79:02)

The one of our lives. Autism. Put autism up on the board.

Aiden (79:12)

The face of autism. William Gates.

Ian (79:16)

I just look at it. I just looked at it.

Aiden (79:20)

If his mom had so much Tylenol, he would not have invented Microsoft.

Doug (79:26)

All right. I have done a deep dive into vaccines and autism. I think we have all in our lifetimes. I would argue this is maybe the biggest conspiracy theory, maybe alongside Epstein of our lifetimes. At least one of the biggest, at.

Aiden (79:38)

Least in terms of people changing or their behavior, you know, so.

Doug (79:44)

So vaccines and autism. If you are like me, you've probably heard many times vaccines are obviously safe. These kook heads are just absolutely wild. The science is settled. And so what exactly are vaccine skeptics obviously like myself saying? So there are really three core things. It's not just this. I'm sure there are some people, but for the most part it's not just like vaccines are scary and bad. There's three things that they specifically are trying to kind of like push. So one is the MMR vaccine. This is the meal. Measles, mumps and rubella. Vaccines, these are pretty shitty diseases that kids get. So since the introduction of these vaccines decades ago, you know, this problem has largely gone away.

Aiden (80:25)

Eradicated measles and mumps, or at least until recently.

Doug (80:28)

Yeah, very back, very large.

Aiden (80:30)

What I like about this conspiracy theory is that it's pretty apolitical, actually. There's like the crunchiest left wing California mom and then like the most southern, you know, NASCAR watching right wing guys.

Ian (80:44)

Yeah.

Aiden (80:45)

And they both agree that we shouldn't give their kids vaccines.

Ian (80:47)

Yeah, they both, they both have kids.

Doug (80:49)

With their kids with measles, 9, 11 and vaccines. Really uniting the partisan sides, I think.

Ian (80:57)

A quick interjection to add on to that. I saw a map that it was showing the vaccination rates in children in grade school right now. And it was interesting to see how apolitical the map was. So some of the states with like the highest rates of vaccination still are states like I think Alabama, I think Missouri, but. And then other states that have lower rates are states like, like California or. There's just like not a typical political trajectory that you see across issues like this. For this specifically. And I thought that was really interesting.

Doug (81:35)

Yeah. So as I talked. So yesterday I chatted with Ian's friend Sam, who's a resident in infectious diseases, he's an md, Right. And like deeply researches this stuff and chatted with him about some of the core theories about why vaccines might be dangerous and why be. Might. Why they might cause autism. But also now broadly there's this, this concern maybe they're causing the chronic diseases that are growing every year. So I think let's start with some, some ground truth. One, there is truth that chronic diseases and autism rates have skyrocketed over the past few decades. It is true that the number of chronic diseases and the number of autism diagnoses at least has massively increased. Now the Number, at least that was said yesterday by Trump, is 1 in 31 kids. That used to be 1 in 20,000 a couple decades ago. So what used to be this extremely obscure thing is now we all talk about it all the time, everybody being autistic, like, it feels like it's, you know, one in five or something. Something like that. Of course, the caveat here is we don't know what causes autism. And also the way that we diagnose autism has massively expanded. Turns out not a lot of people went to autism diagnoses 50 years ago, that wasn't a thing. And so as you expand the knowledge and awareness and the people who are diagnosing this, you massively increase the number of people who are autistic compared to before. But then there's a 1998 study.

Aiden (82:56)

Yeah. Also like the. The severity before, it counts as it. Right. I feel like people nowadays have. Would say relatively minor. Yeah, autism, but this wouldn't even register on the scale before this.

Ian (83:09)

This is a part of it that the. There has been a large expansion of what, like, counts or what is diagnosed as autism over time. There's like a. There's more of a spectrum to these diagnoses than there ever were before, whereas in the past it was only people who were. Had some more severe version of autism, where, like, maybe they can't speak or they have, like a stronger learning disability or they can't live on their own without their parents.

Aiden (83:33)

Like, I think nowadays they just check if you have the lemonade stand, Patreon, and if you do, you're. You're diagnosed, they just let you right in.

Ian (83:40)

If you have more than 10 messages in the lemonade standpoint, lock me up.

Aiden (83:47)

Your mom loved Tylenol.

Doug (83:48)

All right, so the conspiracy starts in 1998. There's. There's this doctor, I believe, Andrew Wakefield. I didn't write it down, but this doctor in the UK who releases a study and it shows that kids who are getting specifically the MMR vaccine, again, this, measles, mumps, rubella, one had a massively increased rate of autism. It turns out there's only 12 of these kids. That is a tiny, tiny, tiny study to insinuate that vaccines are likely causing. His conclusion, gastrointestinal issues that are then causing some sort of mental change that is causing kids to have this. It also doesn't help that he was invested, like, had stake in another company that was making a competing MMR vaccine that was about to come out. So he had a little bit of a stake. But even if you assume the best intentions here. This is not a rigorous study. There's no control Group. It's 12 kids. That's. That's tiny. And so this is what largely sparked everything because now there is a study that points to it. And we've kind of talked. This is a theme we've talked about a bunch today, which is that. But now even if somebody comes in and says, no, that's not true, somebody will say, well, you skewed your research to try to show that it's not the case, or you didn't show for this control thing, or you didn't show for this. One of the things that Sam emphasized to me as I talked with him is that the effect of the MMR vaccine is one of the most, if not the most studied thing in medicine. Right. So if you just want to trust data, there's millions and millions and millions of children in cases where this has been examined since to the medicine, like to the, to the medical community's credit, as it often should have. Since 1998, there have been a shitload of studies in the UK, more than 3 million person years of observation confirmed an increase of autism diagnoses despite the MMR vaccination rates not changing. A whole bunch of this happened in Scandinavia as well. Basically, they're showing as autism rates have increased, the vaccinations have not. There doesn't appear to be any connection. Autism symptoms aren't showing up connection. They start doing like sibling studies to show that people in the same, you know, home, like one who gets vaccine and one doesn't. That doesn't seem to change anything. And then the other counter argument is, of course getting measles is really, really bad. And so if you're weighing the risk reward, it's you. Even if there are potential side effects like the measles can cause autoimmune diseases, cause immune amnesia, all these horrific things. One in five kids gets hospitalized.

Aiden (86:12)

So what's extra fucked about? It is like, first of all, it's parents making decisions for their kids, you know, so they don't get a say of decide whether they're not just ride.

Ian (86:22)

Out the measles son. Also.

Aiden (86:24)

But also that's two partisan. Do a, do a crunchy little liberal California mom voice.

Ian (86:29)

Son, son, I'm listening to you and you're listening to me, but I think you need to ride the measles out.

Doug (86:36)

Can they be a couple now?

Aiden (86:40)

Honey, Stop doing that woke nonsense with our son. He will not.

Ian (86:43)

Jerry, stop yelling at our son.

Aiden (86:45)

Stop trying to watch the NASCAR Speak.

Ian (86:48)

To him like you would another adult.

Aiden (86:50)

All right, honey. We're still in love, though. It's actually a beautiful relationship and the.

Doug (86:56)

Kid is stuck in the middle. So this is really the core thing here. I think people, because of this study. There have been a number of studies since a lot of examination and it's like millions and millions and millions of cases that as I look through a lot of the resources that Sam provided me, it's like the evidence is overwhelming. And look, I'm somebody who hopefully it's clear through this show, like I really want to try to understand the other side. I really went into this of like, is there any truth to this? And man, it's like, I don't know how much more data you can get. It's one of those things of this isn't. We're pretty sure that it's still fine. It's, this is one of the most studied things, man. So it's, it's hard to believe it.

Ian (87:33)

Every time I've looked into this, it's like you, you, it's, it's, it is kind of this like giant truck versus coughing baby. Like it's like you low. This study said that there's an increased rate of autism, like sample size 12. And then like a Danish metadata study of like 4 million children says no, that's the thing.

Doug (87:53)

Yeah, it's just like, it's like a million kids in Scandinavia, a million kids in Norway, a million kids in, in, in Canada. It's like there's so, so much data on this that it's just like this is clearly not the thing, at least from, from what I can tell. So that's, that's one is they're just saying, look, this particular vaccine is too much. And why are you combining all these together? Why are you putting measles and mumps and rubella into one vaccine? Why not spread it out? That also has a bunch of follow up studies that are like this doesn't seem to show the difference.

Aiden (88:22)

Kind of brings us back. Well, this is what I felt was so fucked up about Trump's press conference about Tylenol and autism.

Ian (88:28)

Right.

Aiden (88:28)

Yesterday. Because if you're just doing this kind of vibes based, you know, throwing it out, seeing what's. It can't be, boy, you know, whatever.

Doug (88:36)

Yeah.

Aiden (88:36)

The problem is, I think things like, sorry, I'm smoking too many packs a day is that I think for parents there's just, there's just such a deep fear that what if, you know, it's like even if you're the fact following you hear all the studies for like a mom who's like, I don't want my kid to have a lot, it's.

Ian (89:00)

Just like, I get it.

Aiden (89:01)

Once it's in your head, they start getting. It's just a. It's a fear that is irrational. And it overrides 10 different studies. You can link me 100 different.

Ian (89:09)

It's just that even if you believe that, it just overrides the other. Why does it override the other part of this that is like, yeah, what if my kid gets measles and diesel? What if that's the part.

Aiden (89:20)

That's the crazy part and also the part that if your kid gets measles, it will spread to people who don't share your fucking belief. So now you've like brought back a dead. You know, it is a.

Ian (89:30)

Well, this is one of. I remember having a pretty serious conversation with Sam, who you talked to about this a while ago, and when it was before Trump was elected and it was when it was the idea that RFK was going to be put into the position he is in now. And Sam's. One of Sam's greatest fears was like, with something like measles, which spreads, it is incredibly contagious and we're lucky to be in a position where it's effectively been stomped out, or at least was effectively stomped out until more recent times. Right. And the issue is that right now it's under wraps, under a vaccine that is really, really effective. Right. But you don't need, you don't need the whole population to stop taking measles vaccines for this to become a problem. You need just a large enough chunk of people to stop giving their kids measles vaccines so that it's spreading around so often and mutating so quickly again that the measles vaccine as it is, is no longer effective. And kids who have gotten the vaccine start to get it more often, start to spread it around more often. And this as like a US Policy could affect enough children in enough places that the risk of the disease spreads beyond the country itself. Because measles doesn't care about, like, you know, it doesn't stop at the US Canada border. Be like, ah, I wonder if I can get in. That was his greatest fear, is like, you're at the beginning of a spiraling consequence that reaches far beyond the parents and families that choose not just to get their kids vaccinated. It affects potentially so many more people around you and around the world.

Doug (91:08)

Yeah. As funny as it is to laugh at Dead, unvaccinated children, as you always say.

Aiden (91:12)

As you always say.

Doug (91:14)

We have it. We have an example in modern memory, which is Covid, right? And Covid kept mutating, and we get a new strain every six months that was like, more contagious, more shit. And so we've seen this. If a virus just keeps spreading constantly, it'll change. And that's the fear here is again, not only the people are not getting vaccinated. On top of that, there's people who can't get vaccinations for whatever reason if they have, like some autoimmune issue or something like that.

Ian (91:36)

And those people are protected by the high.

Doug (91:38)

By the herd and everyone else, right? So it's. It's really destructive. It's unfortunately, incredibly, incredibly dangerous and pretty sad. The two other points, we've hit the core of it, but the two other, again, I think if you want to just understand the. The argument why people are afraid, one is MMR vaccine. The second is mercury. So we used to have thimerosal, which is 50% ethyl mercury. Ethyl mercury in vaccines for a number of years. That was basically to prevent bacteria from growing in it when it was being used multiple times. So you might think, why the fuck we put mercury in vaccine? Well, it's not the same as elemental mercury, but the name mercury sounds scary. So literally out of abundance of caution, American Academy of Pediatrics in 1999 said, let's just remove it so that people aren't even worried about it. And then that was taken as proof that there's mercury in the vaccines that is causing issues. And so, like with many of the conspiracy theories, this didn't even have a real grounding in pain, in harm, but because they removed it, that was taken as a signal of, see, it's bad. And then last is the idea of just, there's too many vaccines. And so you might reasonably say, okay, in 1980, kids got seven vaccines when they're a kid. Now it's 14. 14 is a bigger number than seven. Okay? So holy fucking shit, right?

Ian (92:55)

Dude, this is that. This is the bombshell, right?

Doug (92:57)

Except the way seven is more than zero.

Aiden (93:01)

We never should have done vaccines.

Doug (93:05)

The thing is, so a vaccine, you. You inject antigens into your body, meaning they're part of a. Of the virus, right? And your body learns to recognize those antigens, builds up, you know, fighters against them, and then when you actually ever get exposed to the virus, your body's ready to go, okay, so red blood cell.

Ian (93:22)

That's how they do it.

Doug (93:23)

So in. In 1980, those seven vaccines had 3,000 antigens in them. So you were getting a very large variety and large dose of these different antigens that represented many different viruses. Over time, we've learned how to make those more effectively. So in total, the 14 vaccines now have less than 200 antigens.

Aiden (93:40)

Oh, interesting.

Doug (93:41)

If you're doing the math, it's about a fifteenth of the amount of actual antigens going into your body now in those 14. So, yes, it is true that 14 is bigger than 7. It is also true that 3,000 is quite a bit bigger than 200, but that's not the number people think about because they're not thinking about antigens. So. And again, with all these things, there's a lot more you can go into. So these three elements. Honestly, I really wanted to come in here and be like, is there something. And I. And I don't have it, man.

Ian (94:06)

It seems pretty. It seems pretty thoroughly lack of conviction.

Doug (94:10)

I really. Yeah, you know, so there's two. There's two. A couple interesting talking points before we kind of start wrapping this one. What is RFK Jr doing? There's a lot of, I think, fear around RFK Jr the new human health Secretary at America. He is, for the most part, not saying people, like, he's not trying to ban vaccines, so that's good. The couple things he's doing, he's trying to split the combination shots into multiple separate ones. As far as the science shows, that doesn't do anything. But if people take them separately, whatever that should be fine.

Aiden (94:39)

Well, it's just that they're less likely to take them. Now, once you add the fear and say, well, you should take them separately just to be safe.

Ian (94:46)

At a state level, removing the requirements for your kids to have two take those to go to school, like, I think he.

Doug (94:51)

So requirements are being dropped. The population level, like, recommendations of, like, all parents should do this, that's now being dropped. But again, you still can go do it. He's saying we need to fully eliminate all that mercury from the vaccines. Again, never really did anything to begin with, but that one's like, sure, man, that's fine. He's replacing new leadership. So as of now, it seems like he's encouraging the mindset of make your own choice. He is not banning vaccines. It does not appear that he wants to. He has said, I'm not taking vaccines away from people. Everybody can still get them. So it's not the problem with vaccines.

Aiden (95:24)

Though, is you need it almost can't be make your own choice. Because if enough people don't make the right choice, then everybody is impacted.

Doug (95:31)

So this leads to the second point, which is the unfortunate piece of this. Yeah, Big Pharma and the United Care. United States health care system blows ass. And that's not a conspiracy.

Aiden (95:42)

True.

Ian (95:42)

They are conspiracy. It's great.

Doug (95:47)

Perfectly willing to fuck us over in so many ways to extract the max amount of profit. I do not think that that is. We've talked about it many times. Everybody fundamentally knows us. And what sucks about this vaccine thing is that it is enriching pharmaceutical companies that we do have to go. Okay, in this category, yes, you guys are correct. Please keep doing what you're doing. And it sucks when the side that you're trying to advocate for is a side that is universally hated, where there's so much evidence of how they are willing to fuck people over for profit. And then you have to go, no, no, no. In this case, it's actually fine. They're not forcing you to take the COVID vaccine for money. That's not. Look, it's just literally the best thing. Ivermectin is not the solution. But when you've in your entire lifetime seen how shitty our system is, it is easy to question.

Aiden (96:32)

It's what builds the resent and the disease.

Doug (96:34)

It's what builds the allows in the.

Aiden (96:36)

Situations where it doesn't apply to Fester.

Doug (96:39)

Right. It's what allows. Then when Facebook takes a post down like it's. It's this big cabal of fucking pharma that seems to be related to big government that connects to all of this.

Aiden (96:49)

Guys, we're coming up on time. And I have now realized that you are part of the CIA and you are part of big Pharma.

Doug (96:54)

Yeah.

Aiden (96:54)

And we have sold out this fucking podcast to the Deep State. And I'm going to try and bring us all together and figure out what is actually behind these so called disparate conspiracy theories.

Doug (97:05)

I knew it.

Aiden (97:06)

Bring up the slide. John F. Kennedy was a notorious sex addict who cheated on his wife Jackie. Okay. Many times, in fact, he's quoted as saying, this is a real quote. He said, if I don't have sex with a new woman regularly, I get headaches.

Ian (97:22)

What? Just talking. Just talking about women like Kathleen. That's, that's.

Aiden (97:29)

Now I want to follow this up. John F. Kennedy is proven to have visited France in his lifetime.

Doug (97:36)

Okay.

Aiden (97:40)

John F. Kennedy. Ludwig Ogren. I want to follow a theory here that Ludwig A. Is John F. Kennedy's grandson, who. Ludwig, realizing that the CIA did Kill. JFK is out to get revenge. How does Ludwig, all these years later get revenge for his dead grandfather?

Doug (98:09)

He gets in an airplane.

Aiden (98:11)

He gets in an airplane.

Ian (98:12)

He gets behind the wheel.

Aiden (98:13)

Additionally, who's creating more autism than the hosts of the yard podcast?

Doug (98:18)

True.

Ian (98:19)

Okay.

Aiden (98:20)

It all fucking connects. Aiden's a pedophile with Epstein. It all connects. We've. It all comes back to Ludwig Augren.

Doug (98:29)

I should take Ivermectin. You added that Ludwig is writing the fake posts on it.

Ian (98:35)

What do you think?

Doug (98:36)

Ludwig's content gets a million views.

Aiden (98:38)

It's all bots.

Doug (98:39)

Dead Internet.

Aiden (98:40)

Dead Internet theory. No way. This guy's a famous content creator. It's all bots, dude.

Doug (98:45)

There weren't two towers. There were seven.

Ian (98:50)

Wow. And all of that just to just. So I get called a pedophile on two podcasts. Thank God. Thank God. I didn't want it to let up. My boss is incriminated. This is looking bad. This might take down the whole ship.

Doug (99:07)

Okay, Lemonade Stand curse. Something always happens after.

Aiden (99:11)

I'm worried about this one.

Doug (99:11)

Which conspiracy theory would you want to. To get an update to get proven, like, within 10 minutes of this? I'd say JFK, dude. They dropped the unredacted files in 10 minutes.

Aiden (99:21)

I think. Keep an eye out, aliens, bro. I really hope that right after this we hear about a real.

Doug (99:26)

I'm. I'm going to. I'm going to feel. Okay. That would be hype. And I would. I will feel really bad if we post this episode and then I open up Twitter and I see a Twitlonger from Ludwig. I'm going to be like, oh, fuck, man. I was. I was joking.

Ian (99:41)

Addressing the events in New York, addressing the 911 situation due to him on Mogul Mail.

Aiden (99:48)

The 911 situation is crazy, guys. It was a different time. I was new to flying. I wasn't on purpose, I hope.

Ian (99:57)

We've just. We've pieced together.

Aiden (99:59)

I hope that helps you guys.

Ian (100:00)

All of you listening. I'll probably be unemployed after this week. And we will see you next Wednesday on another episode of Lemonade Stand.

Doug (100:09)

Question everything.