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Closing the Door on 2023
145 Plays11 months ago
Josh and M end 2023 like they ended previous years: with a year in review!
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Transcript
Introduction and Favorite 80s Taglines
00:00:00
Speaker
In a world where podcasts take a hiatus, two podcasters dare to do it differently and present... The Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy End of Year Special. Featuring no special guest stars. Literally no planning whatsoever. So sit back and relax. And insert your favourite 80s movie tagline here. I'm going for 1982's Silent Rage. Science created him. Now Chuck Norris must destroy him.
00:00:27
Speaker
And I'm all about Warlock 2. When he comes, all hell breaks loose. Hey! It's the podcast's guide to the conspiracy.
Weather Chat Across the Globe
00:00:59
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the podcaster's guide to the conspiracy. In Auckland, New Zealand, sweaty and humid, I am Josh Addison. In Zhuhai, China, positively frigid, from what I understand, but stuck to you now. It's true, I am cold and frigid, and that's not just the outside environment.
00:01:18
Speaker
Wasn't really funny, but that's it. No, not really. No. Yes, no. In just a week. Last week, as I recall, I was complaining about it being cold and you were complaining about it being hot. Now our fortunes have reversed. Isn't life grand? And quite severely. It was 10 degrees hotter in Zhuhai a week ago. That's quite a drop. It is. It's actually not as big a drop, or at least as
00:01:43
Speaker
bigger change in temperature as i found when i was in romania because we went from mid teens below celsius one week to very close to the teens above celsius a week later and believe me in the city which doesn't have the greatest sewer system in the first place melting snow in the space of one week with that huge temperature increase not a good recipe
00:02:11
Speaker
No, whereas it's now basically summer in Auckland, as it always is, which I was hoping to avoid, but no, not going to happen. I'll be, I'll be there to enjoy it soon. You will, you will.
Year-End Reflections and Travel Concerns
00:02:23
Speaker
So it's, it's the end of the year, almost. We're recording this on the 21st of December, mere days. My mother's birthday. Your mother's birthday. Happy birthday, Emma's mother. Uh, you're, you're in the country just after Christmas.
00:02:38
Speaker
I arrived back on the 6th of January. A week after, a couple of weeks after. So I've got two more weeks and one day here in Zhuhai and then I'm leaving on a jet plane. I have a portable HEPA filter to use on the plane so that when I want to take water or eat food I can try and get rid of all of the disease filled air around me.
00:03:01
Speaker
because this is the worst time of the year to travel, because it's winter here in China, which means it's COVID galore. And I believe you're having a little bit of an upsurge with the old COVID back home as well. Well, we've been having an upsurge for the last month or so, as you know, I fell victim to it last week. And even died because of it.
00:03:22
Speaker
But I got better. Just like Jesus. Yeah, exactly. It's Jesus' birthday. So yeah, I just felt just keeping it real for Jesus. Yeah, you are in the right kind of festive spirit. And in the spirit of the season, we are obviously legally required to make our last podcast of the year a sort of a year in review kind of a podcast.
Year-in-Review Format
00:03:51
Speaker
Yep, it's the same old format from every other year where we just go, oh, we covered this, and this, and this. To be fair, that's at least news to us because we generally can't remember anything we recorded going back more than a couple of weeks.
00:04:07
Speaker
So I'm actually surprised we've been doing this podcast for more than a month or so. So it's news to us and so maybe it's news to you lot as well. I don't know. I mean, although imagine the poor listener who their first episode is the clip show.
00:04:26
Speaker
I don't know. They'll deal. I'm sure. People are adaptable. Are they though Joshua? Are they? I mean history's showing they're really not. Yeah, no. Resistant to change at all costs.
Mars Low Nox and Political Concerns
00:04:37
Speaker
Speaking of things changing though, I think I may have had a bit of a breakthrough on your mysterious phrase that got sent to us a while ago.
00:04:46
Speaker
Oh, Mars Low Nox. Low Mars Nox is an anagram of monk or slacks. Possibly we're being given given given an ultimatum. Do we continue wearing trousers or join a monastery? Oh, I mean, they're only elves and no, no trousers at all.
00:05:05
Speaker
And you know my position on albs. You love them. I do. I do love a good alb. I mean, frankly, I'd be happy to never wear trousers ever again. Well, we all would, but society won't have it. I mean, with actually with the government we've got back home and Aotearoa, actually probably be forced to wear trousers in future, given that you'll probably be required to wear clothing according to the gender as marked on your birth certificate.
00:05:30
Speaker
yes yeah it's not looking good right at the moment but let's let's not look forward to whatever uh unfortunate things may be coming up for us let's look back let's let's reminisce yes precisely because what we should be thinking about is the intractable past where everything was better apparently unless you were an ethnic minority a marginalized person of color a woman a trans person homosexual i mean
00:05:58
Speaker
As long as you were white and middle-aged, things are great in the past. Why, both of those things, so sweet, let's do it. Indeed, let's go back to the future. Ah, so it is December of 2023 and we've recorded, I didn't actually bother counting, probably 50-ish episodes, maybe a bit less, that's what we normally get through.
Annual Episode Tally Debate
00:06:19
Speaker
Yeah, so we normally have a few weeks off at the beginning of the year, then of course we had You Were Away, so there were filler episodes from May.
00:06:28
Speaker
I was in transit, so filler episodes from you. I was sick, so filler episodes from you. You were sick, so filler episodes from me. As you know, we have a accounting issue here and that I don't count filler episodes and you do. So the actual number of actual episodes is ambiguous at best. I usually don't give them an official number though. So I don't, I think in terms of
00:06:56
Speaker
In terms of real brand new topics, I count three, six, nine, 12. No, 10. Do I have 13 going once? No. I mean, really nine, I suppose, because one of them was a UFO. It was new UFO stuff, but we've covered UFO stuff before. I don't know. One of them was about kings and coronations, and we sort of done a bit of that. I think basically what I'm saying is we've done nothing new this year.
00:07:25
Speaker
except for a few things that were. So we've done something new is what I'm saying here. We've done nothing new and something new at the same time. Precisely, we're a walking contradiction. We did lots of fun little filler episodes. I like a little filler episode. It's nice to just, because that's when you can have a go at those little topics that were never actually big enough to fill up an episode, but were maybe fun to talk about for 20 minutes or so. I certainly enjoyed the ones I did.
00:07:55
Speaker
bring to heen, other ones.
00:08:03
Speaker
I'm just waiting for you to feel the silence, but you're not doing it, damn it. Okay, fine, I'll keep talking. What have we
YouTube Copyright Challenges
00:08:08
Speaker
talked about? What have we talked about? It's actually new. We started this year, our first topic this year was about, in Hidwana, a Mesopotamian- What a wonderful phrase. In Hidwana, it ain't no passing phase, it means no worries. For the rest of your days, it's a problem-free philosophy. And if we were posting this to YouTube, we'd definitely get a copyright strike right about now.
00:08:29
Speaker
Would we? Are they that strict? Even if it's... Oh, there. Yeah. Even if you're just singing a tune. I thought covers were okay. Josh, I was going to joke that at the end of this episode, because we did the whole movie trailer thing at the beginning, we should end the episode with the classic Clue thing. I'm going home to sleep with my wife. The one time we did that, I played a little bit of the final song from Clue, and the video was immediately taken down, even putting a snippet of material in there.
00:08:59
Speaker
because it turns out the music labels do not care about fair use. They do not care. They will just slap you. Yeah, no. If it's an actual snippet of an actual recording of a song, yeah, they're on that, like, like wolves. But I think your own covers of songs, I'm pretty sure they're... Not necessarily. It really does depend on the company involved. Yeah, I don't know. Disney is notoriously litigious.
00:09:26
Speaker
Right, well fine, then I will not sing any covers of well-known songs in this episode. It's a great loss to the podcast because as listeners know, your covers of popular songs are a mainstay of this podcast. I can't usually shut you up from singing in episodes, but we've actually found a legal reason to make you not sing on this podcast.
00:09:54
Speaker
Yep, no more renditions of Let It Go and that one from Moana. You'll just have to live without. Speaking of Moana, it rhymes with Inheduana, which was our first topic of the year.
Revisiting Classic Conspiracies
00:10:05
Speaker
Mesopotamian writer type woman who was possibly the world's first published author. Not particularly conspiratorial, but they don't always have to be super conspiratorial. Sometimes they're just an interesting topic. Yeah, yeah. We've talked about the conspiracy about Rome not being real.
00:10:22
Speaker
In our bonus episode, we may talk about other things not being real. Yes, but I was about to say, we've got an absolute doozy of things you think exist, but don't actually exist coming up in the patron bonus episode this week. But we'll get to that later. We finally did the thaw slash tooler slash... Or just tool. I mean, it turns out there's a lot of dispute as to exactly how this word is pronounced, even right down to how it's spout, whether you put the little two dots above the U or not.
00:10:51
Speaker
Yes, given that it was sort of came from a Greek word and then became a German word in the North. Anyway, we talked and we talked about them, which is one of those ones which I'm surprised we hadn't done an episode on them up until now, but we did. What are those topics that we we've mentioned the tall society with relation to a bunch of other conspiracy theories over the years? And we've always kind of intimated in the past that we should talk about the tall society because the tall society itself is actually very interesting because it did exist.
00:11:21
Speaker
Even though its origins are fictional, there was a society with that name that was fairly influential for this small thing you might know of from the middle of the 20th century called National Socialism or Nazism. And so we're always referring to it. This year was the first time we went, actually, we should just talk directly about it.
00:11:43
Speaker
And we did. Ah, and we talked about so many other things. The Mountain Meadows Massacre, that was a fun one, coming out of your... Yes, and that all Steve Clark's fold. Yep, coming out of your conference. You should talk a bit about your conference, actually. That was possibly the biggest thing.
00:11:58
Speaker
happen in the world of conspiracy theory. I mean it really wasn't my conference. Well, I helped co-organize with Melina and Julia, both of whom are listeners and patrons of this series. I'm about to say this episode is if we have specific episode patronage, which actually... We don't. Although maybe we should. Maybe we should.
00:12:23
Speaker
So yeah, there was a conference back in the first half of this year, which was at VU Amsterdam, where there were a whole bunch of philosophers and actually a few social scientists as well convened in Amsterdam to talk about conspiracy theories. I gave a keynote. There's a special issue coming out from that conference at the beginning of next year. So we'll be returning back to talk of the conference
00:12:48
Speaker
in the first third of this year when the articles from that special issue start being produced. It was an absolute highlight of the year, especially since it did occur at a rather low point in my calendar, given that I was actually being a caregiver for my mother with cancer at the time. So being able to go to Amsterdam and be an academic superstar for a week or so was actually quite nice, given all the other stuff that was going on at the time.
00:13:17
Speaker
And from that conference came, just thinking purely in terms of this podcast, came a bunch of interviews with various of your contemporaries. Not as many interviews as initially. Due to a bit of a hardware failure, yes. Yeah, due to the fact that when I was first interviewing Patrick Brooks, the recorder just decided to completely give up the ghost and your recording equipment dying on you in the Netherlands.
00:13:43
Speaker
really does put a crimp in your style when you're attending a conference and can't easily therefore go and get a replacement unit.
00:13:51
Speaker
and the people you want to talk to are attending the conference, and by the time you've got the replacement unit, those people have left the country. Yes, but you managed to get a few, so that was good. I did. I did. I actually did mean to follow up with more interviews. They didn't occur. That is a plan for next year. The second half of this year when I returned back to work,
00:14:13
Speaker
has been rather busy with both writing and teaching and thus organizing subsequent interviews has turned out to be very, very low on my list of priorities.
00:14:24
Speaker
Ah, and what else have we looked at this year? We had an election in the country, obviously. Yeah, rather depressingly, actually. But that new government who are, they're doing stuff. Which is, I mean, we say, we say new government, as people back home are describing it, is quite Maldunish. So it feels, it feels like an old government. It feels like a very old government. The one thing that didn't occur to me until the other day was
00:14:51
Speaker
Good old Winston Peters, staple of New Zealand politics since time began. I mean, I would dispute good there, but old is definitely true. Yeah. I had forgotten his metamorphosis in this election campaign, given that he was Deputy Prime Minister during the COVID lockdowns.
00:15:14
Speaker
and basically signed off on everything that the government did. And yet for this election, his party became the party of anti-vaxxers. Remember, Josh, this is the former deputy prime minister who was telling the media they should be looking into things that former deputy prime minister, Winston Peters, signed off upon. Well, exactly. Yeah. It was intimating.
00:15:38
Speaker
There was a cover-up, but if there was, you would know about it because you signed the legislation. So he's always been very good at having it both ways. He's very good at that, yes. But notoriously crap at actually being in power, so we'll see how things go for him.
00:15:59
Speaker
What's the expression? I can't remember. I think it was when he was with the last Labour government saying, rather than having him outside the tent pissing in, we've got him inside the tent pissing in because that's what Winston Peters does. But yes, we looked at the election. We took multiple looks at Alex Jones and David Icke's sites because there's always something to talk about on those sites, not necessarily
00:16:25
Speaker
Not necessarily fun to talk about, not necessarily things that improve our lives, having been exposed to, but definitely interesting. Yes, although increasingly more and more video content, less and less textual stuff to look at.
00:16:43
Speaker
Wasn't Alex Jones having trouble getting his sites hosted? Or was that...? I know, that was years ago. Years and years and years ago. Well, I guess that explains why he's managing to do so well and get so much damn video content up there.
00:16:59
Speaker
So we did some new stuff. We looked at some other things as well. But we started going back to old, old topics in our Back to the Conspiracy section. We had another look at the Illuminati and the New World to Water. We went back to the classics. We redid moon landings and redid JFK's assassination.
00:17:21
Speaker
We had another look at the Celtic New Zealand hypothesis, another one that we're probably not better off for having investigated at all really, but I guess it's good to be sure.
00:17:33
Speaker
Yeah, and it is interesting that, I mean, the Celtic New Zealand thing was really, really big when I started doing my PhD, and has kind of dropped off the map. But now that we have this conspiracy theorist-infused government back home, and there's now this questioning about the role of titariti in New Zealand political life,
00:17:59
Speaker
I wouldn't be surprised if the Celtic New Zealand thing starts coming back.
00:18:04
Speaker
Well, yes, they've got straight on to the making New Zealand an official language thing, which is so endangered back home. So endangered. I mean, you just never hear it spoken on the streets these days, apart from when you hear it spoken on the streets all the time. Yes. And the idea of getting rid of the Maori names of various government departments, but not all of them.
00:18:31
Speaker
And yes, getting rid of the bonus for civil servants to learn, Terry O'Mari. Unless you're the prime minister, at which point, yeah. Go fill your boots, yeah. Ah, but no, so we looked at a bunch of that stuff. We went back and looked at the old, what we called the stopped clock effect, in that certain conspiracy theorists do get things right.
00:18:51
Speaker
from time to time. Sometimes they claim they got things right from time to time and then you investigate to find out actually no they didn't because two very famous conspiracy theorists
Controversial Conspiracy Theorists
00:19:02
Speaker
go on and on and on about how they were right in the past, Alex Jones and David Icke. It turns out when you actually go and investigate their claims, it turns out they really haven't. So we talked about how David Icke has talked quite a lot about how he was talking about Jimmy Savile and what Jimmy Savile was up to well before the news broke. And people have investigated David Icke's claims and gone,
00:19:29
Speaker
That's actually not true. I mean, if it was true, it wasn't in published works. It may have been in private communication, but there's no published works prior to the Savile Affair being exposed on TV in the UK that Ike was talking about these things. And David Ike was recently interviewed by Tucker Carlson on Tucker Carlson's X show, and in that
00:19:53
Speaker
Tucker Carlson plays a clip of all the times that David Eich got things right. And as commentators have pointed out, the clip's origin is very interesting because the origin of the clip comes from Infowars. It was a clip made by Alex Jones showing how Alex Jones had been right in the past. And this clip was made up of
00:20:16
Speaker
This is Alex Jones talking about Alex Jones in the past. And so basically Tucker Carlson is using Alex Jones' self-serving clip, where Alex Jones claims I got things right by selectively editing his own interviews and discussions in the past.
00:20:37
Speaker
to then prove that Alex Jones got it right. But look, I can show you Alex Jones got it right. I've got a clip here of all these successful predictions Alex Jones made, which is a clip that Alex Jones made to show that he was making successful. Ah, I cannot say successful. No, actually I cannot finish that sentence now. We all know how the sentence was going to end. Let's just move on. Yes, yes, yes. Ah, so we did
Tesla Talk
00:21:02
Speaker
what else we looked at. Oh, and most recently we looked at Tesla, the person not the car.
00:21:07
Speaker
Although I did name the episode the Tesla Model 3 because it was our third time looking at Tesla. So very clever joke that. Very clever. I hear the Cybertruck doesn't take well to being washed. It also doesn't take well for fitting things in its cavity at the back because people have pointed out you can't even put a bike in it properly.
00:21:31
Speaker
No, not a great amount of storage space. I was, I think... Get stuck in the mud as well. Someone was talking about the wiring. Someone was showing, here's the wiring of a car that looks like sort of the car's nervous system or something. And here's the wiring of a Cybertruck, which is really small and compact and neat. And people think, you know, that's like cars do that on purpose because you don't want, if your headlight blows, you don't want to kill all of the electrics in the entire car. Whereas the
00:21:59
Speaker
The cybertruck appears to have stuck all of its eggs in one particular basket, which doesn't cope well with being powerwashed, apparently. Anyway, enough programming to see. Elon Musk, what terrible things will you do next? I shut it. I literally shut it, I think.
00:22:16
Speaker
We've talked about so many things, though, but really, when it comes down to it, what are your takeaways?
Favorite Episodes and New Material
00:22:23
Speaker
What's the best thing we've talked about this year, in your opinion? Well, I mean, you said we didn't cover much new stuff this year, but actually, there are six things that we want to highlight, which were our favourite episodes this year.
00:22:36
Speaker
And by and large, they're all bits of new material. So I want to start by highlighting one of my favorite episodes from earlier this year.
Bizarre Conspiracy Theories
00:22:47
Speaker
So we did a whole series on papal conspiracy theories. I think you've got a favorite from this list as well, Josh.
00:22:54
Speaker
And one of my favorite topics this year is this really curious conspiracy theory that says that Mick Jagger and Pope John Paul II are in fact the same person. So we devoted an episode to this back in August of this year and we were looking at the really curious coincidences in the career of Mick Jagger and Pope John Paul II where you think, no, no one thinks they're the same person. And yet, so often when Jagger's on tour,
00:23:24
Speaker
Pope John Paul II was visiting the very same cities in Europe. And there are these weird lacuna that when Pope John Paul II is not available for an audience in the Vatican, Mick Jagger is being interviewed on TV in the UK. So there's some really weird coincidence here. We weren't entirely convinced that the conspiracy theory is absolutely true.
00:23:51
Speaker
But there is something really really weird about Jagger's career and Pope John Paul II's career which does raise this interesting question. If Mick Jagger was in fact masquerading as Pope John Paul II, why did he retire the Pope John Paul II persona?
00:24:09
Speaker
Not as many groupies? Well, I mean, that was a suggestion you came up with in August. But, I mean, was Pope John Paul the second day particularly sexual Pope? I don't think so. Well, behind closed doors, I have to assume it was anything goes in the Vatican. Wow, yeah. And still is. Actually, talking about behind closed doors and the Vatican, this probably takes us quite nicely to your favourite episode from our Papal Conspiracy Theory series this year.
00:24:36
Speaker
Well, the ones that appealed to me the most, I think, did have a religious theme. I think first, perhaps, I'd like to talk about one that we did in August of this year on the Cheesemus conspiracy. I'm sure you remember this one well. The real story
00:24:54
Speaker
of why Christmas is spelt the way it is because, you know, as we said at the time, it's a weird word to get your head around when you first encounter it as a child, whether in the context of Christmas or of Jesus Christ. You see, what's this trist? Why does it start with a chir when we pronounce it
00:25:11
Speaker
as a cure. And obviously, it was only because of our in-depth investigation that we realized, I mean, this is something, I'm 47 years old, first time I heard this, that in fact, Christ starts with a chir, because Jesus was actually made of cheese, and they don't want you to know that.
00:25:29
Speaker
All the times, all the times, when we used to do the conspiracy thing, and I would be assuming that the nature of it would be some sort of a dairy-related conspiracy theory, and it never was, and yet the biggest dairy conspiracy was the story of the baby Jesus. Or in this case, the baby Jesus. Yes, that's the same thing.
00:25:55
Speaker
Now, what is interesting about this, because there is a rival hypothesis out there, which is the ch sound, actually isn't a k sound as you'd expect from English, but it's an adaptation of the phi sound from ancient Greek. And this has also been put forward by the Roman Catholic Church to explain why it's Christmas, not Christmas. But of course, we looked into that, and as we discovered, ancient Greece isn't real. No, no, it's actually Rome.
00:26:23
Speaker
Yeah, so this whole ch, phi sound, absolute nonsense, absolute nonsense. And you all heard us talk about that length. Yeah, it was two really interesting episodes in August of this year. Yeah, what's your next highlight? Well, the other one we looked into, and once again, this is one of these suggestive conspiracy claims, which I thought was going to be worth looking into.
Sinister Cat Theories
00:26:52
Speaker
is of course the cat conspiracy. So I mean as everyone knows cats are up to something. You can just tell by the way they act and behave. They're doing something. And so we looked into what is it that they're doing and frankly the episode was so startling and so
00:27:13
Speaker
disturbing in its content that I would recommend you go back to our coverage back in March of this year and listen very carefully because there are certain things that we said at the time which I still stand by but they were they were frightening. Whereas I strangely have no memory of it whatsoever and I don't think that's a coincidence.
00:27:37
Speaker
No, well, I mean, as I say, they're up to something. They are up to something. I own at least, I have at least one cat in my household. No, no, Josh, we talked about this in March. You have five cats. You don't seem to be able to remember you have five cats, but you have five cats. Pretty sure I only ever see one at a time, though. Well, maybe that's just what they want me to think.
00:28:04
Speaker
because they're organizing behind your back to ensure that you're not aware you've got five cats. Everybody assumes they own one, two, or three cats. Everybody has five cats. Even people who don't own cats have five cats. What are they up to? What are they up to? Well, we exposed some of it in March, but frankly,
00:28:28
Speaker
As I say, you've already forgotten most of it. I mean, it's very disturbing. Yes. I thought you were going to talk about one of the episodes you did just now, but given that there's been nothing but silence for the last three minutes, I guess it's my turn again.
Illuminasty Humor
00:28:42
Speaker
So I will talk about my second favourite one, which we did in August of this year, when of course we went over the various offshoots of the Illuminati.
00:28:53
Speaker
um we looked into the sexy illuminati or illuminati. Now I do want to just interject here we're not talking about the youtuber illuminati that h bomber guy recently exposed as being a bit of a plagiarist this is a pre-illuminati. Oh yes this is the early 18th century sort of yeah the actual the actual illuminati the ones I
00:29:18
Speaker
I was a little bit put off by the way that they made their symbol, the eye inside the triangle, but it wasn't an eye. It wasn't an eye. Yeah, I mean, it's got the wrong orientation, for one thing. Yeah, yeah. And then discovered that not only... I mean, quite a lot like a cat's eye in some respects. Best not to think about it too closely, I would say. Especially not when of course, we then went of course from the Illuminati into talking about the Illuminati, or the mean Illuminati, the ones who
00:29:48
Speaker
while they're plotting to bring about the downfall of society are also leaving just really bitchy notes for people just all over the place. If you've ever received an anonymous one, that was the illuminasty. We had hoped that there would be an equally benevolent organisation balancing things out on the other side, but I'm afraid there is no illuminicity in much the same way as it's not called gymnastics.
00:30:17
Speaker
which is a reference to the 2006 film Stick It, starring Missy Peregrine, a film that I have not seen, but still under tag. I didn't even know it existed until we did that episode. But now everyone does, because we blew the whole lid off that thing. We did. And there have been absolutely no consequences to talking about the Illuminati, because of course they existed in the 18th century.
00:30:44
Speaker
but were disbanded in the early 20th century for reasons we covered in that episode. So yeah, go back and listen if you want to catch up on things, but an interesting time all around. I think we've got time for a couple more. Let's see your last highlight.
00:31:02
Speaker
Well, the other one which I thought was interesting that we covered this year, because we started to do a little bit of a philosophical dive into conspiracy theories, and we started talking about mathematical realism.
Mathematical Realism and Numbers Stations
00:31:13
Speaker
Now, mathematical realism is the claim that numbers are, in some sense, real. So it's a kind of platonic theory of numbers, saying that instantiations of things like one, two, three, pi, and all those things,
00:31:29
Speaker
are actually instantiations of real entities somewhere out there in the universe. So one only has a value because there really is a literal one somewhere where the instantiations we find in mathematics are realized. And this has led to a really interesting conspiracy theory amongst mathematicians about numbers stations because there's always been this question, who is broadcasting and why are they broadcasting? And this theory goes, look,
00:31:58
Speaker
those numbers stations are not broadcasting to us. Those are the numbers broadcasting to other numbers communicating amongst themselves. So the real conspiracy here isn't that these are spy stations sending out coded messages. No, the government is covering up the fact that there was a number three somewhere hidden in area 51, which itself is an instantiation of the number 51.
00:32:28
Speaker
and it's broadcasting to other numbers around the world. And once again, what are they up to? What are they doing? Why do they need to communicate? And why do they always communicate in English? Yeah, I mean, it sounds blatantly nonsensical when you put it that way. But I remember if you actually go back and listen to the episode, and as I recall of August this year, once you spell the whole thing out, it makes perfect sense.
00:32:57
Speaker
Mathematical realism is a seriously debated topic in the philosophy of mathematics, and once you accept that numbers are real, you have to accept that numbers can talk.
00:33:09
Speaker
I mean, we've always known that money talks and money has a numerical value. So in retrospect, it actually should have should have cottoned onto that a lot sooner than we actually did. Yeah, money is the inbred cousin of numbers. Exactly. Right. So one more. If we're talking about my my last highlight of the year would have to be, of course, when we looked going back to Papal things, I think it was in August of this year, we looked at the the conspiracy theory around Sasquatches and
Papal Bigfoot Theory
00:33:38
Speaker
the Vatican.
00:33:38
Speaker
The theory that due to the Ten Commandments prohibiting murder,
00:33:47
Speaker
the Pope himself essentially realized that he could get around this commandment to assassinate enemies of the church by recruiting Bigfoot himself, being not one of God's children. He's not bound by God's laws. So having located him, the theory goes that the Pope has been sending Bigfoot out, armed with some sort of rudimentary communication device.
00:34:15
Speaker
for possibly decades now. And the most interesting thing I think about that conspiracy theory was that it was an episode of Rick and Morty two weeks ago. So what do they know that we don't? Dan Harmon and his co-ricers like to sneak these things in.
00:34:37
Speaker
But I always like it when we get in the head of someone. Every now and then, we used to have the thing where we'd talk about something and then John Oliver would talk about it the week later, purely by coincidence. Lately it's been... Or as we discovered this year, we talk about something and behind the bastards are talking about it the week before or the week after us. That's been the one. We've preempted them or they've preempted us numerous times. But given that I'm
00:35:03
Speaker
quite certain they have no idea we exist. John Oliver also has no idea that we exist. Oh, he can't. There's no possible way he can. So yeah, I mean, it's been an interesting year.
Future Academic Plans
00:35:17
Speaker
So you've got some sort of conference-related plans for next year. Anything else in the works? I assume you always seem to have a million papers on the go, or reviewing other people's papers.
00:35:29
Speaker
So there'll be two book chapters released next year if not actually four book chapters released next year because I think I've just about I've just agreed to write two more book chapters along with the two which are coming out.
00:35:42
Speaker
two articles which I've agreed to write a conference in June in the UK which I need to write a paper for. There's actually a conference going on in Xiamen here in China at some point at the beginning of next semester which if that goes ahead I'll have to write a paper for that. So even though I'm
00:36:05
Speaker
thinking, oh I'm clearing the decks, I'm getting all the work I've promised put away. I'm suddenly aware that I've promised a lot of work next year, so next year is going to be very busy. Maybe, maybe 2025 is the year that I get to relax. You and your promises. I know, I know. It's a terrible thing to be in demand.
00:36:27
Speaker
Mmm, wouldn't know. But yeah, so I think that'll
Year-End Wrap-Up and 2024 Plans
00:36:32
Speaker
do. It's nearly Christmas time. We just need a quick little wrap up of the year, tie things up with a nice pretty bow, put it under the tree, leave some cookies out for Santa Claus. I've completely lost track of this metaphor.
00:36:44
Speaker
So it's time to go. It is time to go. Time to say goodbye, 2023. You were a year. We both- And to paraphrase Clue, I'm going home to sleep with your wife. Fair enough. And yes, so, so, so. I'm on holiday for the next two weeks after this one. You're in the country at the end of that time?
00:37:04
Speaker
So stuff will happen, things will happen. So we probably will be in, so my plan is we'll probably be in hiatus for most of January, but we might record some stuff in advance. So we have a little bit of a feed in for next year. So we can kind of record a week ahead of schedule. And that way, if things come up, we've got a certain degree of flexibility. I do like a certain degree of flexibility.
00:37:34
Speaker
That's what your wife said. Exactly. Right. We've had pop culture references. We've had crude sexual references. I don't think there's anything left for us. So let's say goodbye in 2023. See you in 2024. But for now, goodbye. That's what your wife said. No, that doesn't work. That's what your mother said? No.
00:37:58
Speaker
Uh, Josh, save me. Save me, Josh. Save me! That's just what your mum said. I don't know why I said it is safe here, but it's gone. It's gone. The moment it's gone, it's over. Goodbye. Bye-bye.
00:38:13
Speaker
You've been listening to Podcast's Guide to the Conspiracy, posted by Josh Addison and Ndenter. If you'd like to help support us, please find details of our pledge drive at either Patreon or Podbing. If you'd like to get in contact with us, email us at podcastconspiracy at gmail.com.
00:38:40
Speaker
Oh,