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Does M Remember...?
458 Plays5 months ago
It's the inaugural instance of our new "game" where Josh tests M's memory of radio segments they recorded over a decade ago! We see how much M can recall about obscure Internet performance art projects and dodgy goings-on at the Vatican!! It's a fun an exciting game with everything to play for!!! EVERYTHING.
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Transcript
Controversy Surrounding 'Guide to the Conspiracy'
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello. As many of you will doubtlessly be aware, the podcast's guide to the conspiracy has been wrecked with controversy over the last two weeks. As news reports indicate, the voice actor who previously played Josh Edison, Juan Jacques Shaqly, has been indicted on embezzlement charges for his role in funding a competitor to Mountain Dew, the energy drink Moist Mound.
00:00:24
Speaker
and, in unrelated news, Wedge Billius, the voice actor for M.R. Extenteth, was recently made Crown Prince of Bohemia, and thus his royal duties preclude him from continuing in voice acting roles.
Recasting and Season 2 Launch
00:00:39
Speaker
As such, we here at Illuminate Incorporated, the venture capital firm that runs the podcast's Guide to the Conspiracy, have decided to recast, with voice-alikes, the roles of both Josh and M.
00:00:52
Speaker
Playing Josh is newcomer Fred Amplethwaite, a Glaswegian native with a fondness for trams and tram-related activities. And now playing M is veteran voice actor Sam Ankles, whose work you will have doubtlessly heard on both TV and radio, but not film because she's allergic.
00:01:11
Speaker
we wish them both the best of luck. And, because of this change in personnel, we are officially launching Season 2 of the podcast. It's the same old podcast, but now with new voices that sound exactly the same as the old ones, but with 53% more subliminal advertising. Melissa, play the theme.
Feedback and Clarifications on Alex Jones
00:01:36
Speaker
The Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy featuring Josh Addison and Em Denteth.
00:01:49
Speaker
Good day to you all. It is the Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy. In Auckland, New Zealand, I am Josh Addison. And in Zhuhai, China, when there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth. It's Associate Professor Em R X Denteth, it says here.
00:02:06
Speaker
Hello, jack i mean so ah Josh. Hello, Josh. How ah how are things in in Auckland? ah that The same as they always are. i i I don't need to elaborate on that, I'm sure. No, no i'm I'm sure. I'm sure your husband or wife is is doing well and your children and or cats or and or dogs are doing well as well.
00:02:27
Speaker
as well as well as well well well well as well as well well well well well well well well haven't we got an episode for you this week we have now before we start though we have got quite a bit of feedback on the previous episode yeah i guess we do have to cover for the old guys yeah i mean sorry yes i mean yeah the stuff we talked about last week I personally never actually listened to that episode. The the act of recording it was ah just so earth-shattering that um there was no need to listen to it, even while it was being edited or uploaded. so i assume I assume all of this feedback is just from people whose minds were blown about the subject of Alex Jones being right.
00:03:09
Speaker
Well, Jess, you'll find that actually people have been a little bit offended by the content of our previous episode. So our previous episode looked at Alex Jones being right. And we want to reiterate, we weren't saying that Alex Jones was right, just that it's clear he's right. Now, we thought we had made it very obvious that when we're saying he's right, we're not saying he's right. When we're saying he's right, we're saying he's right.
00:03:34
Speaker
So we just want to reiterate, we don't think that Alex Jones is right, but we do want to say that Alex Jones very clearly is right. He is definitely right. He's just not right. so And I hope that clears everything for the audiences who are listening to this episode, previous episodes, and future episodes. We don't think Alex Jones is right. We simply think that Alex Jones is right.
00:03:59
Speaker
was the difference between being right and being right.
Nostalgia: Revisiting Past Segments
00:04:02
Speaker
And I thought we made it very clear in the episode that we definitely recorded a few weeks ago. And if we didn't, it was the other people who got it wrong. But we said he was right. He's right. He's just not right. Right? Right. Exactly. Now, I can possibly clarify things by saying that, of course, one of those rights is what the capital R and one of them isn't.
00:04:28
Speaker
And I think it's obvious which. Should we move on? Precisely. Yeah, precisely. He's definitely right. He's just not right. So we have a we have a ah rollicking episode for you this week. We we we don't often rollick, but when we do.
00:04:43
Speaker
We roll a card and this this time we're doing so by um introducing a brand new segment. Brand new, brand spanking new. Indeed. So the character of MRX dentist, who was of course myself, ah when I say the character, I mean myself, I'm a characterful person. i'm'm i'm I'm what they call a bit of a character. ah So when I say character, i'm I'm not implying about any kind of fictional entity. I'm talking of course about myself. So MRX dentist, who was of course me?
00:05:13
Speaker
used to be on the radio back in, let me just check my notes here, Auckland, the University of Auckland student radio station BFM. Two segments, one called The Dentist Files, yes, and the other one called Conspiracy sorry conspiracy Corner, not Conspiracy Corner, so who would call something Conspiracy Corner? What a stupid name for a segment that would be.
00:05:37
Speaker
Yeah, actually, let's park that for a future episode that we're definitely going to do together at some point. So, The Dentist Files and Conspiracy Corner, and our new segment, because it has has been established throughout the run of this episode that the character of MRX Dentist, who once again, I should point out, is in fact me.
00:05:58
Speaker
doesn't ever remember anything that goes on in this podcast. So it definitely isn't going to remember anything that went on for any recordings that they made in the past, especially since I don't remember those because I didn't do them, but it's another matter entirely. So we're going to go back to those previous episodes. And yes, Josh is going to try to find out whether I remember anything about those segments that the character slash I did back in the old days on Oh yeah, be it 95, BFM, the University of Auckland, sorry, Auckland radio station, student radio station. That was convincing, right? That was completely it. And I think it sums everything up nicely. I understand we have a ah brand new theme for the segment also.
00:06:44
Speaker
Apparently, yes. I mean, yes. Yes. diff Yes. Definitely. Yes. Yes. I made it myself. I very definitely i very different know what is what we're about to hear right now. Oi, have you heard? That's conspiracy violence. At the risk of your own sanity, keep listening.
Investigating 'Pronunciation Book'
00:07:09
Speaker
So, so here's here here are the rule. Here's the game as it were. All right, let me just intro. Are there points? Are there? No, no, no. Are there points? Are there prizes? Am I playing for a prize? You're playing for the prize of your own dignity and self-worth. Josh, I have no dignity. I mean, I have self-worth. This is your chance to earn some.
00:07:31
Speaker
Oh, I mean, so so so there is a prize. I might miss some self-dignity by the end of this episode, or I might not. We just have to see how things go. No. So so so here's the deal. um As we just said before, in back in the mists of time had a series of short segments on BFM, the student radio station of Walker University. This was a long time ago. Now, if you were to go to mrextenteth.com, you will find an archive.
00:08:00
Speaker
of all of these recordings. Did you put them up at the time? They seem to be dated mostly. Yeah, so almost all of the recordings, there are four recordings which I didn't manage to snag. So BFM used to have a system where they put all of their segment recordings up as MP3s. Normally they put them up within a day or so of the program going out.
00:08:25
Speaker
Sometimes they would take a week or so. There'd be a few which I would mean to capture and then never did. So they are lost in the midst of time, although there might be the possibility they get rescued. So our friend in common, Nick, knows someone who has access to an old archive of BFM files. So there is hope they might be found, but also they may never have been posted. But yes, normally what I would do is within a day or so of the segment, I would put a note up on my old blog and also if I had notes for the recording put those up as well. So they all went up kind of contemporaneous to the to the segments being recorded on BFM.
00:09:10
Speaker
Well, that's good, because that means I can actually i can actually date these things with with some degree of accuracy. So what's going to happen is I've gone and had a trawl through these sort of 10, 11, 12 or more year old episodes, found a couple of interesting ones, and now we're going to see if Ian remembers ever having talked about them in the first place, and if so, what it was that they said.
00:09:36
Speaker
So just just like again, there's a little bit of recap. We've talked about this before, but ah your two shows were The Dentith Files and Conspiracy Corner. Quick, quick, pricey of what the two of them were about.
00:09:48
Speaker
look I mean basically the same show but with different names. So the difference being the first thing I did, which was The Dentist Files, was with Jose Barbosa. So that was the first kind of tranche of episodes. Whenever I say tranche, I think of Alex Jones talking about the tranche of papers he's got to go through in any particular recording. And then when Jose retired from BFM, that segment then became Cryptid Corner with David Farrier, Rhys Darby and Buttons. I did to it to it two episodes with them and then they fired me.
00:10:28
Speaker
so I went off there, and then I was called back about a year later to do Conspiracy Corner. And the difference being that The Dentifiles was on a Sunday morning, and it was fortnightly, and Conspiracy Corner was on a Thursday morning, and it was weekly.
00:10:46
Speaker
So the dentist files was slightly longer in length because Jose and I would have a yarn about all sorts of things and like this podcast eventually talk about a conspiracy theory and then meander off into a different topic entirely, Conspiracy Corner was much more focused. The thing which is interesting about Conspiracy Corner is I was doing that as I was finishing off my PhD.
00:11:10
Speaker
So it was kind of interesting to be doing a radio show once a week and also trying to finish off a PhD at the same time. Would not recommend doing either at the same time. Or both. But ah yet you did, and it all worked out. Oh yes, look at the stunning media career I had post that.
00:11:28
Speaker
you you ah You were on TV once or twice. I saw you. But anyway, that's true another time. So i've i've this week I have looked at Conspiracy Corner and the Conspiracy Corner episodes are about 10 minutes long. So I've picked a couple of them to talk about because I figure each one we we won't be able to draw out for too much.
00:11:49
Speaker
Now, the first one that interests me, because it was about something that I didn't remember, so I'm interested to see if you do, is from around September of 2013. According to your files, it was the 32nd Conspiracy Corner episode you did in 2013. The post went up on 19th of September, so it must have been sometime around then. And this was the episode about Pronunciation Book.
00:12:13
Speaker
Do you remember Pronunciation Book? So I remember Pronunciation Book and I remember talking about Pronunciation Book, but I can't remember why I was talking about Pronunciation Book other than very vaguely it was suspected it was some kind of ARG, alternative reality game.
00:12:37
Speaker
Yeah, so tell tell me what you remember about Pronunciation Book. Pronunciation Book was a series of videos on YouTube where you would be told how to pronounce a particular word. And and this is the point where I'm going, I actually don't know whether I'm just making this up or whether I'm dredging memories from the very depths of my subconscious. But wasn't there some kind of period where Pronunciation Book stopped posting and then started posting erratically and strangely, which made people think that maybe there was something else going on behind the scenes? Something like that. So yes, Pronunciation Book was and and from the looks of things still is a YouTube channel, given that the YouTube um clip that you had embedded on the blog post about this one is still live and you can play it. So it was a
00:13:31
Speaker
It was one of those wakey-weird internet things where it would just be a collection of short little clips telling you how to pronounce a word, and yet the sentences that that word would be used in would be particularly ah particularly odd, or would suggest, would talk about, um but we all would all be tying into some sort of a weird mission that was going on. Like, for instance, one of them had, ah teaching how to pronounce can and can't,
00:13:57
Speaker
And the example sentence that they used them in was, I can still hope for Mendoza's cooperation, but I can't imagine how we'll explain this to the chief. And so it so it was a little bit, it was one of those things that people, yeah this was back in 2012, 2013, people liked this sort of stuff. Before AI in the current state, we might think we'll obviously pronounce Asian book if it was going on today. They're just using an AI to generate sentences and then probably using an AI voice to then voice them. This is back in 2013. The kind of technology we'd normally associate with this kind of viral phenomena does not exist apparently at the time of recording.
00:14:38
Speaker
No, so on the 9th of July, ah you note that that's one day after your birthday. Hmm. Sorry, my my birthday's in July. I should probably note that down. Hold on. Yeah, thank you. Yes. they They started doing videos that instead of just being about this, they started a countdown, essentially, at a 77 day countdown.
00:15:03
Speaker
And so that these little pronunciation clips would then be appended with this countdown and people were wondering what's going on, what's going to happen in 77 days. Now, at the time you recorded this one, ah the the countdown had almost finished, but nobody quite knew what was going on. And as you say, a lot of people thought it was probably just going to be some sort of viral marketing for an alternative reality game or something like that.
00:15:25
Speaker
And indeed, actually, if you if you go to the the next episode of Conspiracy Corner, I forget what that one's about now, you you point out what happened. indeed Indeed, it was. It did turn out to be some sort of a yeah some sort of an ad for an alternate reality game called Bear Stearns Bravo, which was a Now that does ring a bell. So this is sort of a sort of a choose your own inventory type game set during the financial crisis and you were either a regulator trying to stop things or a banker trying to make lots of money or something like that?
00:15:58
Speaker
Yes. so it was and And the interesting thing, I think the thing why you chose to talk about it was because of all the people trying to investigate what was going on and what was going to happen after these 77 days, there was a great big research document, the 77 days research document, where people were were looking into all the stuff. And in particular, they found out the person who owned the account was owned by a kind of a guy called Thomas Bender, who was known to do this sort of stuff and also a guy called Jacob Bakila. And it turned out that various ah there was another account. There was a Twitter account called at horse underscore ebooks.
00:16:38
Speaker
which did the same sort of thing. It would have originally appeared to be, well, it was an actual sort of spam Twitter account that just had pictures of horses and weird stuff. And then suddenly it changed to start doing, again, slightly more surreal things that were also in the vein of um pronunciation book. People wanted to know what was going on. And so that that that sort of drawn connections and found that this appeared to have been but um bought out and operated by a guy who was known for doing this sort of stuff in the past. And yeah, sure enough, it know that they they um this guy runs to belongs to Cinedine, which is an artist collective. that These things that they make, they consider as sort of performance art and alternate reality games. And so sure enough,
00:17:25
Speaker
um that was what this this one apparently there was I can't remember now when I was looking about the stuff there was another one of the ones that nobody actually didn't catch on and nobody nobody really caught on to but that also ended up advertising the ABS turns Bravo book they've also worked on this is my Milwaukee which was a different alternate reality game that came out in that had already kind of come out in 2008 and 2009. So there was there was a bit of bit of pedigree there and so people people were pretty much onto it before it happened.
00:17:58
Speaker
But I think, yeah, that going by your blog post, the reason why you talked about this and the reason why you're interested in it is that it the investigation into it drew some interesting parallels with things like people investigating September 11. And even though this wasn't necessarily something sinister or some sort of disinformation, there was a conspiracy going on. People were working in secret to some sort of goal. And I think um this was this was ammunition for you to sort of to to to give a more expanded general definition of what a conspiracy is and what a conspiracy theory is.
00:18:34
Speaker
I'm now trying to work out how I even found the content for these episodes of the Denta Files and Conspiracy Corner. I'm assuming, especially given with the Conspiracy Corner I was doing on a week by week basis, I must have just been making a list of things I saw on what we used to call Twitter and going, oh, I'll investigate that. I can say some so something about that. So yeah, I'm actually now trying to go, how did I get the content for those episodes. Oh, past me was so ingenious, so ingenious, so productive. Was this back in the days when you had things like Metafilter and
00:19:14
Speaker
Slashdot and stuff that would it would would pop up interesting links to you. I think by 2013 Slashdot had already turned into a misogynistic hellhole and I never used Metafilter. I think actually what was probably also going on, I used to have lots and lots of RSS subscriptions to lots and lots of different web websites back when RSS was still a major thing.
00:19:38
Speaker
And so I would just be spending every morning going through my feeds looking at stuff and finding stuff to pick out to do potential do potential episodes on. So um if i might just if I might just quote you in the the took to conclude the um the blog post around this, yeah i haven't i haven't um I haven't saved any clips of this episode because basically it's just you discussing exactly what we've just said with your co-host. But on your blog post, you finish out this discussion by saying, in on the 19th of September 2013. Finally, the analysis of the investigation of pronunciation book rather supports my notion that we should be working with perfectly general notions of both conspiracy and conspiracy theory. The mystery behind pronunciation book case looks like it's a conspiracy given that there is a plan that has been hatched in secret to achieve some end, presumably orchestrated by more than one person.
00:20:32
Speaker
Despite the lack, or so it seems, at the structure of revelations of malign political shenanigans, this is perfect fodder for a conspiracy theory analysis. And in the previous paragraphs, you talked about how there was this community driven analysis of everything that had gone on. By showing how we can analyze such a case, we can hopefully remove at least partially the stigma involved in believing and analyzing other such cases. So there you go. That sounds like someone that you should invite on on onto the podcast to be a co-host. They sound like the kind of person who should be co-hosting the podcast's guide to the conspiracy.
00:21:02
Speaker
Hmm, well, who knows, maybe we can pull some strings. Make it happen.
Conspiracy Theories: Vatican and Beyond
00:21:06
Speaker
What do you say? It's pronunciation. It would be a threat to my position on the podcast. well Yes, i I did not remember that at all. i'd don't even I also remember we we did the episode on Time Cube ages ago. That was another internet thing that was around. No, Josh, I think you're fine. Time Cube. Well, yeah, I'd play the clip if I had it, but I do not. Anyway, so so that was the first one. so So you acquitted yourself fairly well. You did you you had memory of it.
00:21:38
Speaker
You um yeah you you didn't didn't have all the details there and why you're talking about it, so it was an interesting surprise for you, I guess. Yeah, well, it's also one of those things which was probably just a flash in the pan. Does anyone talk about pronunciation book now?
00:21:54
Speaker
i would Not that I've heard, no. But it has its own wiki still, or at least Synodine has its own wiki around of things that they did, but I don't know that it's been updated in a while. So let's move along, or actually move backwards, um because the next episode I want was was earlier than the previous one. This was the sixth conspiracy corner episode of 2013 that aired sometime around the 23rd of February. And this was your episode about the Vatican. Do you remember what was happening in the Vatican in February of 2013?
00:22:24
Speaker
Oh, is 2013 the point in time where Benedict is stepping down and Francis is stepping up?
00:22:35
Speaker
That is correct. So this episode, you were talking about the conspiracy theories around the the almost unprecedented stepping down of Pope Benedict XVI. It was something that hadn't happened. I point out actually, Benedict XVI stepping down was unprecedented because he had only existed the once and stepped down the once. But yeah the stepping down of a pontiff is almost unprecedented. It has happened in the past, but it is a very, very unusual situation.
00:23:05
Speaker
It was. So unsurprisingly there were a number of conspiracy theories around exactly why such ah such a strange thing might have been happening. ah Do you recall what those theories might have been that you might have talked about? So one of them is definitely going to be a liberal conspiracy within the Catholic Church to force Benedict to step down in order that a more liberal pontiff take charge. So there's going to be some kind of we've got dirt on Benedict and thus we're going to push him out of the way.
00:23:34
Speaker
So I'm very short sure that was one of the things that was going on. There was probably also an extremely ultra-orthodox right-wing conspiracy theory about a Catholic pontiff, but I have no idea now what that would have been, although this is a a good point. One of our listeners would like us to talk about Vatican conspiracy theories.
00:23:57
Speaker
in a future episode. So you should probably earmark coming back to this in a few weeks time. So yes, Josh, tell me, tell me about the other conspiracy theories. Well, actually, the the main one that you talked about in this episode was um around the fact that um Pope Benedict back when he was Cardinal Ratzinger. Oh, is this one up to you thing?
00:24:18
Speaker
No, no, it was just the investigation of child abuse in the Catholic Church. He was in charge of some of that, and obviously the Catholic Church had got a lot of bad press around the abuse. Still getting bad press. Who still gets bad press? And so the idea is that Ratzinger, who was in charge of investigating this stuff,
00:24:40
Speaker
Most of the efforts around sort of looking into child abuse in the Catholic Church seemed more about protecting the church's reputation rather than sort of kicking priests out of the church, just just shuffling them around to other areas and things like that. so so I think the theory that you spent most of the time talking about was the idea that he was being made the fall guy a little bit.
00:25:03
Speaker
for all of this stuff and being put out to pasture early. Although, as you as you noted, he did then get to he got sent off with a bunch of nuns to just go do old Pope stuff.
00:25:15
Speaker
Yes, it was a little bit odd. okay so So just go live with these nuns in a sequestered part of the Vatican and the new pope will come and have tea with you every few days and it'll be fine. Being waited on hand and thought by woman. I mean, what could possibly go wrong for a man who's been accused of covering up sexual abuse in the Catholic Church? And who has been nominally celibate for many decades.
00:25:41
Speaker
so So yeah, that that was interesting and interesting. It was current events, obviously, that was why why it came up at the time. um And again, almost unprecedented current events. So it definitely worth talking about and and an event that lent itself to a fair amount of conspiracy theorizing. But that's not the most important thing about this episode, I think. I would like to play a game within a game within the game of you now oh my god you've you've changed the rules on me it's game-ception i would like you to play the clip that i've labeled clip 1a and then tell me what you said next okay so just click one i'm just going to give all right so not clip not clip one sorry clip one not clip one on all right put him out to pasture essentially so you replace the person who might be most likely to be fingered by
00:26:36
Speaker
so I thought it was going to go on slightly further. You want me to say, think goodbye. How did that sentence conclude? Talking about the Pope. Obviously, fingered by a cephalopod is what I should have said, but I'm assuming it's going to be fingered by the new Pope. I'm sure clip 1a is going to tell me who was fingered by whom. Is that correct? Play clip 1a. Play clip 1a.
00:27:05
Speaker
All right, we're about to find out who who fingered who. So you replace the person who might be most likely to be fingered by some kind of massive scandal? Josh, you've just you've just deliberately gone for something salacious when 80 was a perfectly normal turn of phrase, but you just... Hello?
00:27:27
Speaker
and bo you Have done that? That doesn't sound like something I would do. Well, that was a perfectly normal turn of phrase. Yes, no, you're right. You're right. It was of obviously that was an error on my part, but um I'm sure I haven't done exactly the same thing in your next one. Could you please play clip two and then tell me what you said next? But because he's not dead, he's always going to be able to be fingered.
00:27:54
Speaker
Wow, that's odd, I don't remember. I remember doing that one at all. But why don't you know it? It's the exact same thing that's happened again. Could you just play that number two again?
00:28:08
Speaker
But because he's not dead, he's always going to be able to be fingered. how did this stretch it your a the third being This is obviously unfair. As someone with speech disfluency, sometimes I end my sentences in a way that sounds like I'm going to continue on. But actually, that was just a natural end. Now that he's dead, he's just not able to think it is how the sentence presumably ends. It's just dead silence.
00:28:35
Speaker
for a few seconds before picking up on the next moment there. A dead pontiff cannot be fingered. I mean, that's true. i dolphin that That sounds perfectly sensible. Could you play clip 2A and we'll see if you if you're on the money. But because he's not dead, he's always going to be able to be fingered as the person who did more to conceal the tragedy than to combat it. So much better he's off to one side and much better to have a smokescreen about retirement due to old age.
00:29:04
Speaker
rather than admit that maybe actually he wasn't the right leader for the church. sensible perfectly Very sensible, very sensible. think and And by some strange coincidence I managed to cut it at the exact point that made it sound a little bit dirty. i don't i'm I'm shocked, I'm shocked and disappointed in myself I have to say.
00:29:25
Speaker
You know, Josh, I blame myself, even though what I'm about to say is it clearly actually false, given that you do this for a day job. But getting you to edit the podcast has obviously taught you to use audio editing software to get such precision to be able to cut things off when I'm about to say who's fingering who. So obviously, I've been hoist on my own petard. And obviously, I'm going to have to finger. Exactly.
00:29:53
Speaker
and and then you never said anything ever again. That's not true because I have another thing now. This one this one is not a this one is not a humorous gotcha, I have to say, because with whether or not it was it was it was accurate and respectful and appropriate to be talking about fingering the Pope in various contexts. um you Josh, is a as an as a former Catholic, I think making jokes about fingering the Pope is all well and good. In fact, actually should be encouraged.
00:30:23
Speaker
Well, good, then. Continuing on, I think there's one thing that you got definitely right in this episode. Would you please play clip three? This is another trap, isn't it? I'm about to say something very, very stupid. Only one way to find out. I mean, I could just not click the file and then we'd never... No, no, I'm um saying this is this is the thing you got right, where you're 100% correct about. And what happens if it turns out you're lying? I've never lied to you in my life, ever. Are you lying now?
00:30:53
Speaker
that's There's literally no way to answer that question. Fine. I'll click on clip three. And so it would be convenient for Benedict to be somewhere else. He's not going to die. Well, he's going to die eventually. He's not going to die right now. So he's an immortal pope. He's going to threaten the church for all time by living in the Holy See eternally.
00:31:14
Speaker
And it's entirely true. he was It turned out the Pope was not immortal. ah He died on December 31st, 2022. So kudos. Kudos to you, Dr. Denteth. Kudos to me for predicting that a mortal human being will one day eventually die, especially a mortal human being in their 80s. Kudos to me for working as an 80-year-old. We'll probably be dead within about 20 years. i Frankly, i I consider you a prophet.
00:31:44
Speaker
But um that really, yeah that's that's all we have in our new segment of Does Em Remember? So how do you think you did? how Did you remember? but mean of I mean, I remember Pronunciation Book. I remember there was some kind of worry about there being an ARG going on for its resurrections. I don't quite didn't remember any of the kind of weird sentence fragments they were using for pronunciation.
00:32:10
Speaker
and I mean, if I was talking about the papacy, there had to be some reason why the papacy was in in the news. So it was kind of, it had to be the case of a pontiff being replaced. But no, I actually had forgotten that the main theory that was being talked about at the time was that Retsinger was being pushed out because of his role in... Well, I mean, so this is the tricky thing, in either covering up historical sexual abuse within the church or
00:32:41
Speaker
not doing enough to punish the people who are engaged in those historical sexual abuses. And of course, the thing which is interesting now about the replacement of Benedict with Francis is that it's still going on.
00:32:57
Speaker
It's still going on. We've seen all those that that case in Australia, numerous cases around the world. the the historical The inquiry into historic abuses, both in Australia and home in Aotearoa, New Zealand, showing that this stuff has still been going on, post the Benedict Papacy.
00:33:18
Speaker
So it seems kind of quaint now to go, oh, he was pushed out because
Media Bias in Political Campaigns
00:33:23
Speaker
of his role. okay sofi But why hasn't Pope Francis been pushed out for his role now in helping cover up ongoing abuse by clerics in the Roman Catholic Church? It seems that that conspiracy theory doesn't seem to be well-effidanced Given that if that was the reason why Benedict was pushed out, you would assume the new church would be a lot better than the old church. But the old church and the new church appear to be exactly the same. a but but But Pope Francis looks like Jonathan Price. And he was the bad guy in Ronin.
00:34:01
Speaker
And also the bad guy in one of the, yeah, Bond filmed the time and world enough, in the world enough to die, enough time to let's die, GoldenEye.
00:34:13
Speaker
yes one of the i think the second brosten one the one with oh was it michelle young i think she's i'm michelle yeah yeah yeah michel yeah and den know where he want to get i have to say so well yeah i i think you acquitted yourself fairly well i give you a good sort of six seven out of ten so i think you have gained some dignity and self-respect I don't think I have actually. I really, really, i think I think your choice of clips was actually designed to remove dignity rather than enhance it. I have to ask Josh, can I expect this ah future it for future episodes? How often do I use the term being fingered in those episodes? Because I have a feeling I was probably be saying being fingered a lot and you're just going to keep on finding more and more examples. so
00:35:06
Speaker
I say nothing. Except for the fact that it's a phrase that you have used and I'm pretty sure I had you up on it like two episodes ago. So yeah. Look, chances are... When you have the speech disfluency, there are certain phrases that you know you can get through without stumbling. And so you use them a lot. And so I just feel, Josh, that you are you were attacking me for my disability and my love of fingering.
00:35:31
Speaker
Yes, yes, no, I think um as as a final, as a prize for your your quite frankly commendable performance, ah you get to play Clip 2 one more time. But because he's not dead, he's always going to be able to be fingered. Words to live by.
00:35:50
Speaker
Yes, very definitely. So that brings to the that brings to the end this instalment of Does M Remember? So we do look at the indie there. So we do though, we have a little bit to round out because as as we've decided, we're going to start start putting a bit more real content into the bonus episodes and not just having new stuff, but then that leaves us with the question of what do we do with the new stuff? And the answer is,
00:36:18
Speaker
We're not going to do as much news stuff as we used to, because the bonus episodes actually became kind of short segments of here's something in the news, let's gripe about it. Now, if there's something interesting, interestingly large, worth fingering, and also conspiracy theory related, we're going to put it into the main episode and resurrect our old news sting to introduce it. So let's play that sting.
00:36:47
Speaker
breaking conspiracy theories in the news.
00:36:55
Speaker
So, what's been in the news? Yeah, so this bit of news is about the fact that three media outlets were leaked information from inside what inside or about the Trump campaign. So it was Politico, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. So they were leaked information about the Trump campaign. And part of that information was the vetting information they used for JD Vance.
00:37:24
Speaker
And Plizico, the New York Times, and the Washington Post have not published any of the leaks. They've only published that the information was leaked to them. And this has been a kind of fascinating turn, because if you recall, going back four years to a previous presidential election, a whole bunch of democratic stuff was leaked.
00:37:48
Speaker
And outlets like Politico, the New York Times and the Washington Post were very happy to publish the material in those links. But now it's coming from the Trump campaign. They're going, oh, no, this is this would not be a good idea. And some people are saying good.
00:38:05
Speaker
because it was wrong for those outlets to publish the leak information last time, especially since it seems that the wit leaks had been weaponized. It was people deliberately leaking information that would make the Democrats look bad in order to aid and abet the Trump campaign.
00:38:24
Speaker
Other people are saying, yeah, this actually looks a little bit bad because it seems that previously, when the attack was on the Democrats, these news outlets, which are either so slightly right-leaning, if not actually outright in support of the Republicans, were very happy.
00:38:43
Speaker
to publish this material. But whether to fix the person that they keep on writing soft puff pieces about, they're not happy to reveal that information at all. And given there's a feeling that the media seems to be doing as much to attack the Dems as they're doing as little to show that Trump was suffering from the same kind of cognitive failures that apparently Joe Biden did,
00:39:12
Speaker
It does seem like there might be a kind of media conspiracy to be soft on Trump and be hard on the Democrats. So it's an interesting little case study here. Depending on your view of the world and the way the world, you think the way the world works, either Politico, The New York Times and The Washington Post learned an important lesson four years ago and are doing better or They're going, yeah, but this is bad for our guy. So we're not going to say exactly what the Republicans were concerned about when J.D. Vance was made the vice presidential candidate in the Trump campaign. And of course there is the the angle of of the leaks themselves. Apparently it was Roger Stone's email.
00:40:00
Speaker
that was hacked and this is how this this leaked information got out or something. I haven't heard the specific details, but I know Roger Stone's name has come up and it seemed to be like people talking about sort of, you know, russia Russian interference again, although why Russia would be interfering in the opposite direction, I do not quite know.
00:40:21
Speaker
Well, I think the suspicion is that Russia just interferes. They don't interfere for a purpose, they interfere because interfering is good. But the other theory which has come out is that maybe Maybe the Trump campaign leaked the information themselves to keep them in the news cycle, because it does seem that the Harris-Wolff's campaign is doing gangbusters for the Democrats, and the Republicans, particularly Trump, are not doing well as a consequence. And so this leak might have been able to keep the Republicans in the news,
00:40:58
Speaker
and take some of the heat away from the media love of Harris and Wols. So there have been conspiracy theories on both sides. It's election interference by the usual suspects, i.e. the Russians, or it actually might be the Republicans going, we need to control the news cycle The best way to do that is to focus on a candidate that everybody actually kind of hates and is yeah ah unified in hating.
Bonus Content and Episode Conclusion
00:41:27
Speaker
JD, I like to have sex with couches Vance.
00:41:30
Speaker
Yes. So yes, in any case, an interesting little case study. So I think that's the end of this episode. We do, of course, have a bonus episode. What will we do for our bonus episode now that we are following a strange new format? Josh, coming up in the bonus episode, we are going to talk about the alleged assassination of Gung Pai Yokai, the inventor of the Virtual Boy.
00:41:58
Speaker
And not just that, the inventor of the ultra hand. But perhaps we've said too much. And the love tester. Yes. So if you want to hear about those things and you are one of our patrons, good news. You're going to because you can you can just listen to our episode. Because that's what being a patron is. I'm saying you're going to. You don't have to listen to the bonus episode. I'm going to listen to this episode.
00:42:21
Speaker
No, it will happen. You can. Josh is insisting that you come to your house and sell a podcast thing to your... I've taken this too far. Sorry, i a podcast thing to their air holes. What's a podcast thing, Josh?
00:42:41
Speaker
Do you have podcast? running on it. I do. I have i have ah a phone that has a podcast app on it. I have a computer that has links to a podcast service. I could i will duct tape my laptop to the side of your face if that's what it takes to play you this bonus episode.
00:43:00
Speaker
But if you're if you're not a patron, then you be violently assaulted by Josh when you fail to listen to a patron bonus episode. He will come to your house and assault you. That's the that is the podcast's guide to the conspiracy promise.
00:43:18
Speaker
Yes, so if you want to be a patron, go to patreon.com, search for the podcaster's guide to the conspiracy and sign yourself. I hear you should apparently not use the the Apple Patreon app to sign up because Apple has now started taking a massive cut of the fees so long as you find out from a different platform, you're okay. I was looking into this, so i think I think you have to kind of activate your Patreon on iOS for this even to come into effect, but whatever the case is.
00:43:52
Speaker
If you are subscribing to the podcast using an iOS app, as opposed to being sensible and subscribing to the Patreon via the web in interface, please cancel the subscription through the iOS app and just go and subscribe on Patreon.
00:44:12
Speaker
Oh, yeah. think yeah sign a you think a fit existing thing ignore that So ignore everything I just said, including the entire episode. And just, if you're if you're going to become a new patreon, because you want to be violently assaulted by Josh for not listening to the most recent patron bonus, if episode please sign up on the web interface and don't use the iOS app because you will be charged 30% more and that money will not be going to us it'll be going to Apple as a payments processor so I think we're done I think we're all done so it just remains for me to say my my characteristic sign-off message that I say every single time every episode leave now damn you to life immortal
00:45:04
Speaker
The podcast's Guide to the Conspiracy stars Josh Addison and myself, Associate Professor M.R.X. Denton. Our show's cons... sorry, producers are Tom and Philip, plus another mysterious anonymous donor. You can contact Josh and myself at podcastconspiracyatgmail.com, and please do consider joining our Patreon.
00:45:43
Speaker
And remember, Soylent Green is Meeples.