INFORMATION OVERLOAD: How social media and AI can push you to the edge of insanity

Is AI the modern-day puppet master pulling the strings of misinformation? Join  Jimmy Rhodes and Matt Cartwright, as they untangle the web of trust and deception in the post-truth era and explore the effects of information overload on Matt's mental health. Triggered by a tragic incident in Southport, UK, we investigate how false information can ignite societal unrest and how AI-generated content like deep fakes intensifies disinformation.

How do you find the truth in an ocean of conflicting information? And who decides what the truth is anyway? We delve into the overwhelming flood of data in our digital age, examining the evolving nature of scientific inquiry through debates like the origins of COVID-19. We also explore the role of spirituality as a potential anchor in chaotic times. As social media algorithms deepen echo chambers and terms like "conspiracy theory" are wielded to silence dissent, we stress the necessity of keeping an open mind and questioning our assumptions to foster a healthier relationship with the media landscape.

Is free speech a double-edged sword in the age of information overload? We navigate the delicate balance between freedom of expression and the dangers of unregulated content, drawing from personal experiences with social media addiction and the need to distinguish entertainment from education. We explore theories about global cabals, 5G and iodised salt, discuss the potential influence of hostile states on misinformation and emphasize critical thinking and evidence-based analysis. Our discussion underscores the importance of reconnecting with offline reality to maintain mental well-being in a world increasingly dominated by digital narratives. Join us for a compelling exploration of trust, truth, and technology.

(1) Exclusive: UK Gov Sneaks Ingredient Into Food Supply (substack.com)

Chapters

• 0:01 Welcome to Preparing for AI
• 1:15 Why now?
• 12:22 Information, missinformation, dissinformation
• 39:27 Rap Battle: Puppet...Master...
• 41:27 Has it always been thus?
• 57:16 A lighthearted look at more speculative theories
• 1:07:42 Influence of Hostile States on Society
• 1:11:04 Can anything be done?
• 1:19:51 Lulled by Soothing Lies (Outro track)

Transcript

Matt Cartwright: 0:01

Welcome to Preparing for AI, the AI podcast for everybody. With your hosts, Jimmy Rhodes and me, Matt Cartwright, we explore the human and social impacts of AI, looking at the impact on jobs, AI and sustainability and, most importantly, the urgent need for safe development of AI governance and alignment.

Jimmy Rhodes: 0:24

The ice age is coming, the sun's zooming in, engines stop running, the wheat is growing thin A nuclear era, but I have no fear because London is drowning and I I live by the river. Welcome to Preparing for AI the AI podcast for everyone, with me, jimmy Rhodes, and me, matt Cartwright. Well, this is going to be a very different episode. We're going to be exploring trust, distrust, misinformation, control and conspiracy theories, narratives, division, polarization and how AI is enabling and is going to make all of this worse. So there is a link here to AI, but this is going to be a bit of a broader episode, because we wanted to talk about trust, information overload and Matt's personal experience, and it seems like now is an opportune time.

Matt Cartwright: 1:15

So the trigger for this episode now is the disorder that we saw in the UK about a week or two ago. This started with an appalling tragedy in Southport in the northwest of England, where several children were stabbed and, sadly, three of those children died. The identity of the perpetrator was announced or leaked online, and some of the social media posts reported this was a Muslim who had arrived as an illegal immigrant on a small boat. Now, I believe this is not correct. The information subsequently was that this was a black British Christian born in South Wales. I think. While I can't confirm what details are true or not, it's important to note the difference between what was leaked and what is now apparently correct there, but obviously it's difficult to know with anything what is the truth. But anyway, there was subsequently a riot and protest in southport, which then led to protests in several british or english cities, most of which then turned into riots, and then and I think this is really important for some of the themes we're going to explore counter protests by groups with, for example, a pro-palestine agenda. Maybe worth noting that here's some of what have been dubbed far-right protesters were apparently also carrying Israeli flags. Now, definitely these crowds were not homogenous on either side. There's no doubt there were people here protesting on the grounds of immigration. People joining in for kicks, in the same way as happens with football hooliganism. Youngsters joining in because they're generally pissed off possibly plants on both sides and people who were there because they're generally pissed off possibly plants on both sides and people who were there because they wanted to peacefully counter protests and typically anti-racist lefties, pro-palestine elements is what I've seen in the media a real cocktail of people from all kinds of different backgrounds with different views, and that's why this is so complicated an issue. But it's also something that's been brewing underneath for a long time.

Matt Cartwright: 3:06

I think I naively didn't think immigration was such a huge issue in the UK anymore. I knew it was a big issue in the US and in France, but I have seen recently a lot of stuff around, information not just on small boats that's not necessarily well reported but is widely available, and it's brought home to me how big an issue this is and we should point out, like I just said, you know, the UK is not alone. This is brewing under in many, many countries as well as the US and France, germany, Sweden, netherlands. You can see the result of elections recently and how important an issue this is. So what is the point of this issue and how does it connect with AI? Well, you will be glad to hear that we are not going to explore the specific issues of the UK's social fabric and immigration policies.

Matt Cartwright: 3:49

We link this to AI because of so-called disinformation and I really hate that word because I think it plays into who decides what is disinformation and what is just information.

Matt Cartwright: 4:00

The winner, or often the state, or the ones with the power, control what is information and what's disinformation. And he who controls information controls history. And so what you're left with and this is such a big issue because of our increasingly divided and tribal society is two sides of who both think they're victims of misinformation. And, as we discussed with Dan Lyons a month or so ago and we're going to expand on today, and as we discussed with Dan Lyons a month or so ago and we're going to expand on today, it's this trust or distrust that I think is the underlying factor behind all of this. And AI is not only amplifying the issue, but it's going to make it easier and worse to both disinform but also to shut down, debate and control the narrative. And so, as I've talked so much already. I'm going to ask Jimmy to talk a little bit more about the specific point as it references to artificial intelligence.

Jimmy Rhodes: 4:50

Thanks, matt yeah so.

Jimmy Rhodes: 4:51

So there's an article here um, it's by the guardian um little disclaimer, but yeah, it's basically talking about exactly what you were talking about there and it links what we're talking about on the podcast back to AI. So when those stabbings unfortunately happened, quite soon afterwards there was an AI-generated image which was shared on X or Twitter which depicted bearded men in traditional Muslim dress outside the Houses of Parliament, and it was viewed nearly a million times and it was captioned. We must protect our children and it's definitely almost certainly been part of the reason why things got out of control in the UK. It's fed into it, and so that's kind of the link back to AI. And the article also references platforms like Suno, which has been used to generate which we use to generate AI music.

Jimmy Rhodes: 5:52

Unfortunately, that's also been used to generate online songs with containing xenophobic content, all this kind of stuff. And recently I've seen there's you know, there's better deep fakes are getting better and better. Um, they're still not perfect, but they're probably good enough to fool most people, and so we're getting to that. We're already starting to see what we've been talking about for a little while on the have online, and also it's becoming very hard to believe anything that you see online, because it could be AI generated content, it could be fake, it could be misinformation or information, but you don't know, and I think that's what we want to talk about for most of this episode.

Matt Cartwright: 6:39

Yeah, so I get, I'm going to do something quite personal now. So I'm going to do something quite personal now. I'm kind of not sure about this, but to sort of open up about my own mental health struggles over the last 18 months or so, because it specifically pertains to information. And I don't call it disinformation for the reasons I mentioned in the beginning, because I don't think I have the right or, you could argue, the intelligence to decide what is true and what's not. I am, of course, as a private citizen, entitled to my opinion, but I'm not even sure of that. So you know, I've literally bombarded myself with information for the past 18 months and I've probably been down the rabbit hole, and it's because I like to learn about everything, like I've always been super thirsty for knowledge. I used to sit on the tube in London and I would read the leaflets and pamphlets on insurance and stuff, because I just had this constant need just to be taking on information.

Matt Cartwright: 7:35

And until recently, I spent several months not working. I was working on a part-time master's, I was doing loads of AI courses I've talked about on the podcast and I was also doing what I will call my research into what's been going on in the world and it's been interesting and I think I'm far more knowledgeable than I was six months ago and far more awake to some of the realities. But it's been a burden and it's been incredibly draining. And I think I have heard and read about well into hundreds of theories around COVID vaccines, global cabals, viruses not existing, the coming collapse of fiat currency, the collapse of the food chain, destruction of farming, reasons for the Ukraine war, israel, gaza, ai apocalypse, climate hoax, rockefellers, waf, who, fake bird flu, nanotech, 5g, 15 minute cities eating insects, controlled opposition you name it.

Matt Cartwright: 8:26

I wanted to understand everything and find answers and understand why people believe things that are so opposite to each other, when surely I thought there should be evidence for a single truth. And what I found the most surprising is that 18 months later, I feel that for the first time I'm waking up, not because I believe all these theories or because they're all nonsense, but because I've realised I simply do not and cannot know what is true and what is not. It would be far easier to believe it's all the global cabal, that you can blame them for everything and not take responsibility for your life. Equally, it would be easy to say they're all nut jobs. Go back to my little micro world, watch the mainstream news and follow the narrative. I can't put everything back in the box and I'm sure something is wrong.

Matt Cartwright: 9:07

I'm sure many of these conspiracy theories or theories or truth or lies are all partly true, but I'm also sure some of them are complete nonsense. I mean, if nothing else, there are so many theories out there that they all end up contradicting each other, which kind of makes it impossible. So you either choose a side and then you can easily believe you're better than the normies, the sheeple, the anti-vaxxers, the tinfoil hatters, the conspiracy theorists, the useful idiots, whatever you want to call them. And whichever side you're on is the key that you can feel you know and they're just idiots that don't know anything. Create a them and look down on them rather than realizing that maybe you largely misguided. There might be some truth in there that you should explore. It reminds me, actually, of Jimmy a few weeks ago, challenging voting based on your kind of tribal party rather than what policies you actually think and that match your values. Our opinion on certain key issues COVID, immigration, us versus China, palestine, ukraine, russia becomes our tribe as it's replaced our religion or our class, although much of division certainly still happens along religious or class lines, where people still have a belief or a social group.

Matt Cartwright: 10:17

So my last line here before we leave, or my last paragraph before we leave this monologue and start to have more of a debate, is that it's the sheer volume of information, as well as the algorithm, which creates the echo chamber. That is why this is so dangerous now and why it's been so dangerous to me personally. Never before have we had access to so much information, literally so-called evidence that can prove anything, but also with an algorithm that pushes you down a path that convinces you that you must be right and they must be idiots. You believe you've been engaged in critical thinking, but the way where your brain works has been shaped by the content you've been funneled into and shaped by social media platforms, and nothing is presented as opinion. Neither side wants to have a debate anymore. Everything is presented as irrefutable facts and anyone who can't see that is an idiot, evil or the enemy. Both sides believe it's freedom of speech.

Matt Cartwright: 11:10

As long as you agree with me, science is never settled. Just as one example Jimmy and I talked about whether COVID leaked from a lab or not and the furring cleavage site, which is what makes SARS-CoV-2 so easy to infect humans. We managed to find scientific peer-reviewed papers that proved or supported both sides of the argument, and it took us three or four minutes to do that. Now, science is always about constantly challenging. But how can normal people know what to believe and I mean normal in a good sense here when they literally can find information that tells them whatever they want to find or believe? The overload of information and the constant proving and disproving anything has driven me personally to the point of insanity. And do you know what I think is a solution? Religion or spirituality? Because, in effect, every belief now is an act of faith and a clash between good and evil. I'm not saying which side is which, but it indicates to me that it's almost like a battle that only religion or faith can explain. So, on that note, let's get into the debate.

Jimmy Rhodes: 12:21

So you've you said a few things there. I've said quite a few things there.

Jimmy Rhodes: 12:25

Quite a few things there, but you used a few words which, I'll be honest, I have issue with. Things like proving and disproving and sort of fairly black and white phrases. And just going back to the debate we had about and the scientific papers that we looked up, I would not say that those papers proved or disproved anything. I would say they made an argument. In both cases, they made a rational argument one way or the other. The paper that I think I sent to you said that it's basically said that it's possible. It said that it's possible. It didn't try and disprove that it's possible, um, it said that it's possible. It didn't try and disprove that it was creating a lab.

Jimmy Rhodes: 13:07

In that particular instance, um, and I think for me that's a really critical point and I find that quite often, like for when you and I have um conversations, debates, discussions we quite often do end up convincing each other one way or the other, or moving, you know, maybe moving, moving the needle slightly, and I feel like that that's something that's lost online and that's where this problem is. Is that, um, you know, and that's not specific to AI, that social media where it's kind of like everyone's in their little tribe and you've got to be in one gang or the other. Now my attitude to a lot of these things is I don't know the answer. I don't know the answer and there are a lot of things where you know, and obviously that that percentage changes, I suppose, um, you know, I, I read a lot of scientific stuff, I follow a lot of maths channels, I follow a lot of physics channels and you know most of that stuff, especially the stuff on the fringe, is open to saying I don't know the answer, this is what we think it is, this is the latest theory, then we need to test it, then we need to go and try and understand it better. And that's something that I try to follow is like that kind of scientific method and try to always internally have a bit of a gauge on what you know. Do I believe something or not, or is it like actually I've got no idea?

Jimmy Rhodes: 14:28

And with a lot of the things that you're talking about, I'll be honest, I have no idea and a lot of them are quite human points as well, where it's, you know, it's one side arguing, so there probably isn't a right answer. It's like, you know, the left versus the right arguing over things like immigration that you talked about earlier on, with something like covid. I'm sure there is a right answer somewhere, but I don't think we'll ever find out. That's the. That's the problem there, um, and there's a lot of things like that in the world as well. There's a lot of things. I mean, you know, I don't even like the word conspiracy theory because it immediately it's one of those little badges that you put on something which basically says it's a conspiracy theory.

Matt Cartwright: 15:04

So it's obviously nonsense yeah, I mean I I've said this now, but I just like to call them theories and that's not. You know that that kind of plays into that. Oh well, matt's a conspiracy theorist. Well no, I just think it's arrogant to decide what is and what isn't true and, like you say, this idea of labeling it conspiracy theory is actually to to kind of push into a basket, that is, if you believe this, you are X.

Jimmy Rhodes: 15:25

Yeah, and this is the problem, isn't it? There's a conspiracy theory. The conspiracy theory basket is something that lots of stuff gets chucked into. Now, you know, if you talk to me about flat earth, for example, and you know, sorry, if we've got any, prove it, jimmy Provemy, prove it. Well, I can't prove it, but I would say I've got, I'm pretty confident, um, and there's lots of very good evidence in that particular example that, um, that we are obviously on a flat earth, um, but no, quite the opposite. But you know, whereas some of the other stuff you talked, it's like it gets put in the same basket as that kind of stuff, um, where it doesn't necessarily belong there, or there are margins or degrees of whether that's, whether that's correct or not, um, and this stuff is really complicated.

Jimmy Rhodes: 16:17

And and this is the whole point of the podcast right today is that AI bringing it back to AI? I mean, it's a combination of things, it's not just AI. Like social media and the internet's been around for a while, which means free speech has been extended as a platform. You know, these platforms have extended free speech to everyone in the world, so everyone in the world's got opinions. The algorithms mean that you end up getting lumped in with a load of other people with similar opinions and they reinforce um, whether they reinforce information, whether it's correct or incorrect, they reinforce that and they put you in that echo chamber, like you said, um and ai is unfortunately.

Jimmy Rhodes: 16:55

Ai might have a lot of benefits. There might be lots of really good things that come out of ai, but this is an area where it's going to be a huge, huge problem. Um, because soon you're going to be able to generate videos, images, voice of people saying or doing whatever you want, and I am really scared about that. I'm genuinely really scared about that. When it comes to things like elections and democratic processes, and I don't think there is a solution yet. I mean, you've got you know there a solution yet I mean you've got, you know there is certain things like where you've got things like twitter, where you've got your blue tick and things like that, which maybe do sort of help a little bit with this in terms of, like, verifying accounts and things.

Jimmy Rhodes: 17:36

I think something similar is needed somehow for ai, so that you know when the ultimate version of um sora comes out. When the ultimate version of Sora comes out, when something that can produce pixel-perfect, audio-perfect video, for example. We really do need something to be built into a system like that so that it's got a fingerprint that says it's AI-generated. The problem is, open source is sort of only a few steps behind closed source stuff, and you know how long is that going to last? How long is it going to be until there's an open source model created by somebody who wants to do harm which, can you know, doesn't have such fingerprints and that kind of thing? So I think it's only ever going to be a short term solution in that sense, and I don't know what the answer is I think a long time ago, maybe the, the first few episodes that we, that we did, we we already talked about this actually.

Matt Cartwright: 18:37

Yeah, so it. You know, it's some this, this idea of kind of post post truth, where we get to a point that we actually said you know you can't believe anything and therefore you just don't believe anything. So you literally don't believe anything. You don't see with your own eyes. If you could get to that point, I actually think that's better than we are now. I'm not sure we do get to that point because, you know, even if you find that, for example, you know mainstream media and by mainstream I don't mean the bbc, cnn, I mean all of the kind of media of a reasonable size are governed by certain rules around, you know, declaring that something is ai and something is not, the. The democratization, if you want to call it that, of media and of social media means that people can kind of view, you know, whatever they, whatever they want, on whatever kind of platform they want. So you know they don't need to view it on a on a regulated platform. It would rely on all of the social media platforms to be regulated anyway. I kind of want to pull you back to a point I wanted to make it on on on that around who. Who controls information, or you know who decides what is this information? So I think the most obvious examples we can have are big pharma controlling the medical industry and big tech controlling the tech industry and ai, etc. So you know two of the big ones there and I think you know. I should just point out at this point the issue here. What we're trying to raise, what is true and what isn't true kind of doesn't really matter for the episode. I think that's a separate rabbit hole that we're not going to go down on this episode. So you know whether some of these theories are true or not. If they are some of the kind of theories out there, it's horrible for the world and if it's, you know and it's terrible so many people are asleep to them. But if they're not true, we still have a massive issue. You know maybe even a bigger issue that we've got this hugely divided society where a substantial percentage of people believe passionately that it is true and that all the people that don't believe it are idiots.

Matt Cartwright: 20:42

And we did some research actually on this. So before we even started it, we had a me and jimmy had a chat before we decided to do this episode around how many people believe in the concept of the global cabal and depopulation. So for those not familiar with it, that would be that the you know, the wef, the who, the, etc. The Rockefellers, all the big famous families are controlling the kind of deep state and there is a depopulation agenda which partly explains COVID vaccines, shutting down the farming industry, etc. Etc.

Matt Cartwright: 21:19

So this is obviously not a definitive answer because we're asking Claude to look at you know things that are out there. So we asked it to look at things like memberships of sort of conspiracy theories as their so-called networks. He looked at how many people had voted a certain way, various kind of factors, and then tried to estimate. So this is very much an estimate, no-transcript are aware and trying to battle this or it's bollocks, and we only have 25% of sorry, and we have 25% of society who have been radicalized and are very, very motivated and hell-bent on trying to bring down the system. So I don't know what my question is for you, jimmy, but just putting kind of that out there, trying to bring down the system. So, um, I don't know what my question is for you, jimmy, but you know, just putting kind of that out there, that is the position that we're in at the moment. Um, you know, regardless of of which of the sort of extreme views or or not extreme views is true, yeah, and I've got, I've got an article here.

Jimmy Rhodes: 22:40

I mean this is this is again disclaimer, this is like five years old now, so but there was an extensive, um, uh, study actually done into conspiracy. Well, again, what, what, what? Their branding conspiracy theories, I guessed, but, yeah, like, depending on what it was, and I think the overall point was that only 50 of people didn't believe in any of them. So I think, overall, what it showed to me is that is the overall level of sort of mistrust in authority, in in governments in general and in sort of um, yeah, in governments, basically, um, which you know is, is is quite worrying, um, but also like, again, as we, as we talked about that already, this, this kind of problem, that this is only going to get worse.

Jimmy Rhodes: 23:29

And you talked about the fact that social media should be regulated, but I feel like the horse has already bolted in that respect, because the internet is a thing and you can't really rewind time on that, because I don't think it's down to any one specific platform, and how do you actually regulate that? I mean, interestingly, so just this week, google have actually lost a big case in the US which might actually result in Google being broken up and this is all around the monopolization of search results, and there are similar court cases going on for, I think, apple and some of the other big tech firms in the US, and one of the positive things, I suppose, is that it seems like regulation around AI is being given consideration upfront, so that maybe we don't make some of the same mistakes that we've made with social media this time around, because obviously, you know, pre 15 years ago, 20 years ago, social media wasn't even a thing at all and obviously all this kind of stuff has proliferated because of the internet.

Matt Cartwright: 24:38

I wanted to go back a little bit. This idea of sort of who controls the narrative and why, that kind of frightens me, because in one sense I think, well, you know, as you know, we need to clamp down on things, and clamping down on things means, you know, stopping certain freedoms, and it would mean that you, to be honest, have to have a agreed kind of narrative. And then the more I think about that, the more that kind of scares me. And does it? Does it? I guess, a comparison here to open and closed source models right In terms of a closed source model is this idea of a narrative that is controlled by someone who's got our best interests at heart. And if that is the case and they had our best interests at heart, then that would probably work. But if they haven't, then it's like a closed source large language model where, you know, do we trust open AI with it? And I think that's the same with the narrative here.

Matt Cartwright: 25:28

And what has bothered me a lot recently is about the talk of misinformation, or disinformation is really just, you know, disinformation is just what I don't agree with. It's the opposite side. And I think one thing that has annoyed me a lot I looked at a BBC article about the riots that we were talking about, you know, earlier in the episode in the UK, and the article was about someone who had sort of retweeted the original tweet, which had identified that it was an undocumented migrant who had apparently committed the murders of the children. And the person who had retweeted it, as far as I could tell, was not a celebrity or an influencer, it was a normal person with not much of a following on social media. But somehow this got picked up and in the description of the person to decide that they were distrustful distrust world distrustful or distrust worthy it decided to say that through their search history they had, you know, been promoting anti-vax sentiments around covid. Now, you know we're not getting into our views on on vaccines, um, but suffice to say I think it is fair for someone to have a view about the COVID vaccines, even if not on vaccines in general, and that that should not be something that is used to decide whether that person is right or wrong on another opinion. And this all falls into a pattern that I've seen a lot recently about.

Matt Cartwright: 27:01

How you know, identifying where someone doesn't follow the official narrative on any particular issue means that they're not trustworthy on any other issue, you know, and it kind of comes into politics as well, doesn't it? You know, even with Trump, it's nothing that Trump can do is it can possibly be good, because Trump bad rather than being able to look at. Well, just because you know you disagree with him doesn't mean that everything he says is wrong. I use the Trump example because it's probably the one that's in the media the most and he is the one that, in the kind of media that I tend to read, he's obviously kind of chastised and, yeah, I'm not a big Donald Trump fan, but I don't think that everything he says is without merit. But the way in which the narrative is shaped is to create 100% bad, 100% good. There's no nuance in it at all.

Matt Cartwright: 27:51

And I see that happening, like I say, to a big scale with politicians. But when you see that happening with a member of the public whose opinion cannot be trusted because they don't have the view that the let's be honest the national media organization has around covid vaccines, I find that quite frightening. And and I'm not, you know, I'm not a big proponent of free speech, I'm not, you know, I actually, quite in many ways I think there should be restrictions. I've said that you know. You know my view around ai and governance, so I'm not a libertarian or anything like that, but I find this thing frightening. I really do I think.

Jimmy Rhodes: 28:25

I think, with this example it's, it's the same thing, right it's? We need to find a way to discredit somebody because they don't. They, you know, you're writing an article. Whoever it was that was writing that article, they don't agree with your narrative or the narrative you're putting across in the article on that day, and so you do whatever you can to try and discredit them. To.

Matt Cartwright: 28:48

You know, presumably the people that are reading your articles and this is the bbc, though I mean, I know a lot of people don't like the bbc, but that that, to me, is not. You would expect that in certain types of media, absolutely in partisan media, but this is happening now in what is supposed to be. You know, the bbc is not supposed to have a view. Really, I mean, yeah, okay, we know that it does, but it it's not. I find it more shocking because it's it's this kind of, you know, the like I say, what is officially national but an independent media. I would expect it from the guardian or the daily mail, because you know you can see that they have a view and that's a bit, yeah, exactly, they've got an agenda.

Jimmy Rhodes: 29:29

I think that's why it shocked me more, because it was a bbc and maybe I shouldn't be, maybe I shouldn't be surprised, maybe I'm being naive here yeah, I feel like this is, this is this is, in general, the sort of way the narrative goes, but I also think I mean one of the things I did want to say is that this is not like the some of the tools that are available to, you know, get to put information out there I'll just call it information but some of the some of the tools that are available to be able to, for individuals to put information out there is new, like all, like most of it is new.

Jimmy Rhodes: 30:01

So social media, all that kind of thing, but this kind of thing has also, it's also been a thing for centuries. Like trying to control the narrative around things, whether it's, you know, whether it's religion, whether it's media, whether it's governments, whether it's you know, it's it. This has always been a thing, and actually kind of this sort of feeds into the global cabal thing. Like I don't, I don't, I don't, I'll be honest, like I don't have, I don't put any credence in that at all, but like there's always been, um, there's always been governments and, you know, wealthy people and powerful people, people with power, have always tried to control the narrative and have always tried to set the agenda and have always tried to have things their way and I think that's just normal, that's just sort of. That's the way things have been for a very, very long time.

Matt Cartwright: 30:57

I think the difference now is the avenues and the technologies and the platforms on which you can actually spread this kind of information yeah, I, I want to go into an example and you know, because it's the obvious one, I know it's, you know, my favorite thing to talk about ai and covid. But, um, yeah, I think covid is the example, is the best example, because of the number of different narratives there are on this issue and there is a lot of really good, believable. I use evidence I know you don't like the term and I agree with you for what it's worth. When I say evidence, I talk about because it's being portrayed as evidence, not because it is evidence. But there is a shifting in the mainstream narrative that is happening now very, very slowly, but excess deaths, vaccines etc. Links back to Big Pharma. There is definitely a slow shift in the narrative, but the mainstream narrative is still generally, you know, vaccines are safe and effective. Covid is not really an issue and you shouldn't really worry about it. And then you can go into literally a thousand different things on the one side around.

Matt Cartwright: 32:03

You know the causes and, like I say, there is again portrayed as evidence that we have nanotechnology invest injected into us. There is evidence that you know 5g towers are causing electromagnetic frequency that is causing the, the illness that people were thought was covid. There is evidence that it was always flu and other things. There is evidence that it was parasites. There is evidence that it is all the vaccines which the COVID pandemic was engineered to allow the injection of the vaccines. There is also evidence that you know lots and lots of people are getting long COVID. There is evidence that no one's getting long COVID and it's all from the vaccines.

Matt Cartwright: 32:45

There are so many different narratives here and so much information around each of them and so many people who are bought into them and are so bought in that then, as we said, the algorithm continues and it feeds more and more information that keeps you believing that you're right and everybody else is wrong.

Matt Cartwright: 33:03

And then, of course, you know the big thing were mistakes made or was it all a plandemic? And if you don't believe there's a plandemic, then you're an idiot, and if you do believe as a plandemic, then you're an idiot. I guess again, like it's always kind of been like it, but I would say that in the past there was maybe one or two views, like there was a theory that people would call a conspiracy theory and it was one conspiracy theory. The thing is now, when you go into the covid conspiracy theory in inverted commas. There's not one, there's a thousand, and there is a pretty significant amount of people who believe and have evidence for each of them. And do you know what? I'm sure some of them are right, you know and some of them are wrong.

Jimmy Rhodes: 33:44

You know that people you can't see, you they can hear the, they can hear the quotes.

Matt Cartwright: 33:48

They can hear the intonation in my voice. Don't worry, I know that they know.

Jimmy Rhodes: 33:51

Our listeners are quite intelligent, jimmy and this is why I'll be honest, my, my personal sort of and you can, maybe you can say this is burying my head in the sand but a lot of this stuff I just kind of gloss over and don't even entertain it, because and it's not because, just to clarify, it's not because I don't think it's possible or I don't necessarily believe it, it's because I know that I'll, it's because I know exactly what you're saying, which is that there's going to be a thousand different answers and there's going to be an answer for every now, like there's going to be a narrative that fits whatever you want to believe on a lot of these things.

Jimmy Rhodes: 34:32

Um, and so my, my conclusion is that I'll never know the answer and therefore I'll just crack on and and um, as I say, I follow a lot of science things and and there's a lot of that that I can believe in because I understand it and I can. You know, it takes you through, it's logical, it takes you through the logical steps and it and it also admits that it might not always be have all the answers. Um, whereas with a lot of the things we're talking about, it's got a lot of emotion mixed up in it, it's got a lot of information on all sides mixed up in it. It's got probably a lot of you know, you said misinformation is again like I don't want to say. I'm not saying misinformation in terms of my, my side is right because I don't have a side. I'm saying there's misinformation on both sides in all of these things. Um, and that's because there's a sort of like emotional investment from all sides on it.

Matt Cartwright: 35:27

You're in the absolute best place to be. To be honest, I think you're exactly. You're right. I think for me, the answer is it's easier said than done, but the answer is just don't look at any of it, Just don't look at any of it and, like you say, crack on. That actually is the answer. I mean, you know, I stopped looking at Twitter months and months ago. I just haven't looked at it since. I post our podcast on it, or I post a link to a podcast on it and I literally open it and I close it as fast as I can so I can't get dragged into it, and you know that is the answer.

Matt Cartwright: 36:02

Youtube I logged into YouTube today through the browser instead of the app, so I didn't get you know, and I actually got a really nice video that I got pulled into. That was really really useful and and helpful to me, um, rather than the usual rubbish. But I use my personal experience for this episode because I think it makes it more real and it allows us to have that conversation. That's that's, you know, a bit more focused. But actually the concern for me is, like most people are using social media all the time and even if I manage to just pull myself away from it and say do you know what? Like I've said I, I, I now acknowledge that I just think I'll never know, I'll never know I can have an opinion, but manage to just pull myself away from it and say do you know what? Like I've said I, I, I now acknowledge that I just think I'll never know, I'll never know I can have an opinion. But there's too much out there for me to ever be intelligent enough to to to decide what is right and what is wrong. But there are so many people who, who you know most I don't know if it's most people, I think it's most people, it's definitely more than 50 of people are generally obsessed with social media and once you know, maybe at the moment they're looking at cat pictures and football, etc. Etc.

Matt Cartwright: 37:04

But I can tell you from my experience that it doesn't take long to click on something and then get dragged into something else and bang the algorithm's twisted around and then you just get dragged into stuff. That's that's. The issue is whether I am able to say do you know what? I'm done with this, I'm not interested. That stuff is out there and it is dragging more and more people in and you know, proven by the fact that we, when we had the first conversation, that we looked up how many people buy into stuff and, like I said, 20 to 30 percent of people in the us you know whether it's right or wrong, as I said before, if if it's right, then wow. How can so few people know? And if it's wrong, then wow, how many people believe something that is so completely wrong?

Jimmy Rhodes: 37:49

You said you don't know if you'll be intelligent enough to know the answers to some of these things. I do Again.

Matt Cartwright: 37:56

I'm being humble.

Jimmy Rhodes: 37:57

Well, no, but also it's not about I don't think this is about that. It's not about intelligence, like the smart thing. The smart thing to do, I think, is to realise, when you don't have the information to make an informed decision on something, and understanding that, and I think that's definitely something that I try to do with everything. It's like you said, you know, do you sit in one political part, do you lean one way politically or another? It's like, well, no, I mean, the smart thing to do is to listen to all sides and sort of take a balanced view, and it's never I 100% agree with everything that Biden says or I 100% agree with everything that Trump says.

Jimmy Rhodes: 38:38

For me, I know it is for a lot of people, but that would be my recommendation is, and that would be that would be. I would say, that is critical thinking. It's kind of knowing when you don't know and understanding the limits of your knowledge and wisdom, and this has been philosophized about for a long time as well. This is something that's you know, the Greeks were talking about this and discussing sort of what can you know? What don't you know? What's you know? I think, therefore, I am is exactly about that, basically, and it's applying that philosophy to the modern world is probably the piece of advice I would give.

Matt Cartwright: 39:21

Shall we break things up a bit. Shall we have it out with a rap battle. Sounds like a great idea. Cool, let's do it.

Speaker 4: 39:34

Listen up. Any conspiracy, addictive clown. I'm about to verbally smack your theories down. Your brains run from all that online junk, swallowing lies like a digital trunk. You think you're woke. You're a sleeping sheep Trouted and bullshit that's ten miles deep. Wake the fuck up. Your mind's been hacked. Why you ever crackpot with a hidden fact? Back off, jenny, you close-minded fool. You're just another system-loving tool.

Speaker 4: 39:54

While you're blindly trusting the nightly news, I'm uncovering secrets. Pay my dues viruses, shadow governments too. Open your eyes. This ain't new. You're living in a dream world, perfectly numb, while the real puppet masters pull on your thumb. You've lost your damn mind. Now you can foil hat freak.

Speaker 4: 40:09

Your facts are weaker than your rhyming technique. You see pokemon in every shadow. Your theories are deep as a kiddie pool. Shallow. You're not a covering chapter circle jerking with other basement dwellers. Reality's shirking.

Speaker 4: 40:19

Get off your ass. Step into the light. Real life's complex, not black and white. Fuck your complexity. That's the smoke screen To blind sheep like you from the truth unseen. I'm ten steps ahead.

Speaker 4: 40:27

You're stuck in the past, swallowing my pagana that was built to last the nymph's a weapon, but also a key To unlock the chains and finally be free. You see a mirror. I see through the glass At the puppeteers pulling strings en masse. It's all far gone, you can't see straight Drowning in fear, anger and hate. Your research is a joke, a pathetic farce. Sharing pick and pull just to show off your art. So grand conspiracies pulling the strings Just great. It's stupidity causing these things. But that's too boring for your adult brains. So you craft fairy tales to explain your pain. Pain, the only pain is watching you sleep through the biggest mindfuck in history covid convulsed. It's all connected, but your brain's too warped to get. I expect it. I'll be crazy, but at least I'm aware of the webs they weave in the open air. You're lost in the sauce. A blue pill mess while I'm fighting the power causing distress well, that was nice.

Matt Cartwright: 41:29

That was a change, something different. Did you enjoy that?

Jimmy Rhodes: 41:33

well, I created it. So yeah, I did you.

Matt Cartwright: 41:35

I thought we both created it and it was. That was the two of us, just off the cuff it did sound like you yeah, it did it sounded well.

Jimmy Rhodes: 41:42

Yeah, it sounded more like me than you. One thing, one thing that I uh do wish that I could do with suno is um is uh get it to do two different voices consistently.

Matt Cartwright: 41:53

It doesn't do that very well we could have just done the voices ourselves uh, we could.

Jimmy Rhodes: 41:57

I'm sure it would have been epic, but I am a you know, accomplished rapper.

Matt Cartwright: 42:02

Do you know? I actually did a rap in my. I mean, this might explain a lot about my kind of mental health. I did a rap in the year 11 of high school, so when I'd be like 15, 16, I did a rap with two other guys called the Hitman in assembly Nice. I did the rap, I did the rap. One of the other guys used the drum machine and the other guy was my hype man.

Jimmy Rhodes: 42:28

Nice. What was it about it?

Matt Cartwright: 42:30

was about a hitman.

Jimmy Rhodes: 42:31

It was about a hitman, okay.

Matt Cartwright: 42:34

Yeah, well, we digress. So conspiracy theories, or theories, or disinformation, or misinformation, or whatever we want to call it, has it always been like this?

Jimmy Rhodes: 42:43

yeah, well, I kind of mentioned it earlier on. I think I think it has, like the, you know, in terms of has there always been different I mentioned it earlier on have there always been competing powers trying to control the narrative? Right in history, whatever it is you want to talk about, that's always been a thing like information is power right and um, and what we've got right now is information overload. So you know it's to be expected. Um, there was, you know, there are examples that we know about where, uh, different nations have tried to meddle in each other's elections in not in the in the recent past but that's not proven, jimmy, that that sounds like disinformation to me.

Jimmy Rhodes: 43:26

Well, fair enough. Okay, so there are. Well, there are theories. There are theories conspiracy theories about it, but that's. But why would that be a conspiracy theory? Like theories, conspiracy theories about it, but that's, but why would that be a conspiracy theory?

Matt Cartwright: 43:41

like that. For me, that's just like you know. Yeah, it's obvious. Why wouldn't you like? Sounds terrible, but if you could do it, why wouldn't you do it?

Jimmy Rhodes: 43:46

yeah, and it's. I'm not talking. I'm not actually just talking about russia meddling in the us, like the us has meddled all around the world as well and internally, yeah, in its own affairs.

Matt Cartwright: 43:55

Yeah, and he's doing and is doing it now I'm sure.

Jimmy Rhodes: 43:57

The point is like someone's always trying to control the narrative. Ever since information's been around, ever since someone wrote the first book, the person who wrote the first book was, to a certain extent, getting their ideas across. Now you could call that controlling the narrative, right? So I think it has always been around, you know, certainly as long as as I say, as long as we've been able to record information. So you know, since we were recording stuff on parchment, you know so.

Jimmy Rhodes: 44:26

So the the the challenge now, again going back to it, is that is that the ability to do this is on a different scale completely. Ai. Ai takes it up another notch. Social media took it up a huge notch. The internet and the availability of information took it up a huge notch. Ai is going to do the same thing again, possibly on steroids, because anyone is now going to be able to generate I mean, it's not just written information anymore, it's audio, it's video, it's photos. You can actually generate whatever you want now, or you will be able to in the near future, and all of that's going to get better and better.

Jimmy Rhodes: 45:05

So trying to decide what information you take in, what you believe, what you don't believe, is just going to get more and more difficult and hence the whole point of this particular podcast. I'll be honest, I found it it we talked about it earlier on in a little break we had. I found it quite difficult to do this podcast because we don't want to get into any of the specifics, and that's very deliberately, um, and obviously there's a lot of sensitive topics that we've talked about. I hope that the overall point that we're getting across is that, you know, we're just trying to take a balanced view of what is information going to look like in the future. What is, how are you going to decide what is information and misinformation, and what to believe and what to, or who's going to decide?

Matt Cartwright: 45:52

Or who's going to decide as well.

Jimmy Rhodes: 45:55

And I mean, you talked earlier a little bit about freedom of speech. I'm a I'm a big proponent of freedom of speech. There are limits on freedom of speech, it's not. You can't say anything, you can't incite hatred, you can't do a lot of things, um, or I mean you can, but you'll. You'll probably get arrested pretty quickly. Hence why, um, I think tommy robinson's in can, canada at the moment, but yeah, but I am a proponent of free speech. I'm a proponent of open source and openness, because to shut things down, in my opinion, to shut things down is not to have the conversation and not to have the debate at all. And if you regulate too much and if you shut things down too much, then someone's still in control, it's just a central authority which, in my opinion, is not actually any better.

Matt Cartwright: 46:46

Yeah, so what I was literally about to say free speech essentially ensures that those vast swathes of information are going to be there, and government state control limits it but therefore limits freedoms and takes control of the narrative. So I think to simplify. But the only way we have harmony and I'm going to sound like I'm working for a certain uh state's uh party here is we have a more authoritarian, controlled state with controlled media, but then that means the complete removal of freedoms and a state controlled narrative. So you know, you either have safety and security until something major happens and then you realise you have no rights, or you have freedom and safety from totalitarian control, but you have a much more divided society within it, with conflict and potential for, you know, fairly regular unrest yeah, I think so, but I don't know like it's a really hard question and it's something that's been around for a long time.

Jimmy Rhodes: 47:51

You know, there's 1984, there's there's been musings on this for a long time. I'm I'm definitely on the side of free speech and not becoming more authoritarian in this respect because, as I said, you still have a narrative in that kind of society. It's just a narrative that you know is controlled, and so I'd rather have the debate and have the conversation and be able to decide for myself.

Matt Cartwright: 48:20

You've sort of opted out of the information you know, you've made a conscious choice to avoid social media et cetera, which to me sounds almost like it's a contradiction. You want the information out there, but then you're acknowledging that actually it's dangerous, so you're saying, well, I couldn't deal with it, so I just stay away from it. Isn't that a contradiction?

Jimmy Rhodes: 48:39

Kind of Okay.

Jimmy Rhodes: 48:41

I maybe overstated. The avoidance of social media Like YouTube is social media, and I use YouTube. I just curate the information that I. So I watch some stuff for entertainment and I read some stuff. I do read some stuff on social media, but I'm very clear in my own head when I'm doing it for entertainment purposes and when I'm doing it because I want to educate myself, and so and I and I, I think we all have the ability to do that to be honest, like a lot of the, a lot of the stuff we've talked around today.

Jimmy Rhodes: 49:15

So, whether you call them theories or conspiracy theories, I kind of just take it all that's the stuff we've talked around today. So, whether you call them theories or conspiracy theories, I kind of just take it all that's the stuff that I take with a pinch of salt. And the reason I take that with a pinch of salt, as opposed to, you know, some of the science stuff that I follow is because it doesn't like it's all opinion and it's all emotion and it's all got that mixed up in it, and so that's what I'm saying. I'm, I'm, I'm not going to be able to arrive at an answer, and I shouldn't try to arrive at an answer, because that's that's the for me, that's the danger is, and that's what's dividing society.

Matt Cartwright: 49:52

so that's that's what I'm talking about this is a social media rather than an ai point, but I think it's. You know the social media it is. People talk about it being addictive and I think it's underplayed. When we talk about being addictive, this is not a kind of metaphor. It literally is addictive in the same way as a drug. You know there's the whole dopamine hit. I think it's more than that. You know you get, you almost can't do without it, and this is why it's like a drug To me, some of this stuff.

Matt Cartwright: 50:24

When I talk about my personal experiences, for a long time I stopped looking at Twitter, so I knew for a long time that the answer was don't do it. Like you've got it in your hand on your phone and you your hand twitches right and and wants to look at something, or you're like, how can I bookmark this? I mean, some of the stuff is incredibly interesting. That's. The other thing is like, don't get wrong as much as I kind of you know. As for the sympathy about you know, oh, how terrible it's been for me to have all this information. Well, it's fascinating. Like some of the stuff is absolutely fascinating, whether it's true or not. Like it's just fascinating that people have researched and done so much to propose something, to push something, to believe something, decision, you know, and and say I believe this and I'm and I'm on that one side.

Matt Cartwright: 51:18

I think the thing for me is, because I'm someone who craves so much information, I never arrive at a decision because I've got so many different things in there and therefore they kind of contradict each other and it's very difficult to make a decision. But just the looking at information, I think where you, where you differ from most people, is because you don't look at that much of the information, where you differ from most people is because you don't look at that much of the information, you're not drawn in by it and therefore you are not addicted to it. And so for a lot of people, the addiction is it's not far off, like it's not a crack addiction, but it's an addiction in a way that, like giving it up is hard. I mean, how many people I feel like we've had this conversation before. Maybe we've done it on the podcast, I'm sorry if we have how many people say, oh, yeah, yeah, social media it's terrible. I wish I could delete all my accounts. Well, you can delete all your accounts, you know.

Jimmy Rhodes: 52:04

So we all know the answer. Yeah, I mean I basically have, um, I haven't deleted my facebook because it's got stuff on there that I want to keep, and I was on facebook for a long time, um, but not for the last eight years, I don't think. Uh, and I have a lot of friends who are similar twitter. I've basically never used twitter um.

Matt Cartwright: 52:27

Luckily, it seems like musk might have um driven twitter into the ground. I'm not.

Jimmy Rhodes: 52:31

I'm not certain it's going to exist in a few few years time I don't know, I, I, I think, um, I think it's still thriving in a way. Actually, did it not have more users in the first quarter this year than it did um in the previous, in the previous year, or something?

Matt Cartwright: 52:45

I mean this is a great advantage. This is a great example of information disinformation, because what I read is that it was losing more money than any other business ever from a takeover. And oh really, and and users I mean I know users left it initially, maybe not later. I, I, yeah, my view is that the money doesn't matter, because elon bought it because he needs the data for grok, um, and I don't think you really?

Matt Cartwright: 53:08

I don't think not cares less is wrong, because it would be great to have control of a media empire. But I don't think it matters ultimately whether x is successful, because once he's, you know, crushed all that data, it will be worth more than it would be worth as as as a social media platform anyway but I digress should we do something a bit more light-hearted?

Matt Cartwright: 53:37

And I think actually it feeds in quite nicely from what you've just said. So have a look at some of the more interesting theories that are out there. So these are some of them are ones that I personally have come across. I wonder whether, as an experiment, at some point we should come up with something outlandish and see whether we can write a, you know, a sort of 1500 word article with some form of references to I'm doing the uh, I'm doing the thing with my fingers. Again, prove it. Um, because it would be interesting. Because some of these like, like I say, some of these which seem to be completely outlandish but actually like the articles, have got a lot of what do I call, if it's not evidence they've got a lot of um, supporting information behind them.

Matt Cartwright: 54:24

So the one that we discussed this week that I think is one of the most interesting is the uh, the iodized salt. So this is um. This is in the uk specifically. So someone who is is a big consumer of instant noodles but also is very, very careful about what they put into their own body, so always reads the ingredients on the things that they eat, even though they eat instant noodles. Bit of a contradiction there, but we'll carry on. So they noticed that recently in the uk, pot noodles have started to have iodized salt instead of normal salt added into them, and that hasn't happened for I believe 20, 20 something years since iodized salt had been added. I don't know why it was added 20 years ago. Anyway, it's more expensive, apparently, um, and so they then started researching other instant noodles from various supermarkets and brands and found that they'd also been putting iodized salt in. So the theory is the iodized salt.

Matt Cartwright: 55:28

Many of you will know that iodine is something that would be given out as tablets in the case of a nuclear weapon strike or a nuclear leak in order to help to mitigate the effects on the body. So the iodized salt is being put in by the British government, presumably because it wants people, when there's a nuclear war, to not die as long as they've eaten pot noodles. The answer was because the kind of people who eat pot noodles are young students and people who don't work or don't earn much, and they're the people who are going to be needed to go and fight in the war and therefore they're the ones who need to be able to survive a nuclear strike. I'm not sure that any amount of iodine could save you from an actual nuclear strike, let alone some iodised salt. But I know, jimmy, I know you think this is not a conspiracy. You believe this one right.

Jimmy Rhodes: 56:23

Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, yeah, you said this was going to be lighthearted. It certainly is lighthearted. Yeah, I just I think this is just bonkers. I don't know what the background is on it and I should probably read up on it, but this is exactly what I was talking about with the whole fiction thing. I mean, my guess with this is like someone's realised, as you say, someone's realised iodine is in something. They've then gone and researched a whole bunch of stuff about what contains iodine and then that's it. They've probably gone from there and then just constructed this uh, you know, work of fiction.

Matt Cartwright: 57:05

I'll try and link it in the show notes, but I might forget, and I'm not sure I want to steer people to this article, to be honest, um, but it's on substack, maybe you can search yourself if you want to find it. Um, the second one. So I mean, obviously bill gates comes up as anything. He's, as we all know, he's part of, if not the founding father of, the global cabal, and but one of the more interesting ones I heard recently was was they were talking about how, um modified citrus pectin, particularly found in in lemons and grapefruits, was very good at dissolving spike protein. And then I heard that that's why bill gates tried to get rid of all citrus trees. Um, I mean, I'm I wasn't aware that he was trying to get rid of them and, by the way, here I'm not, I'm not a you know either for or against bill gates and uh, in bill gates involvement in charitable adventures, vaccines, whatever.

Matt Cartwright: 58:01

But on this particular issue, I think there is some evidence out there that bill gates has actually um, or the bill and melinda gates foundation has supported the planting of extra citrus trees, lemon trees in particular, in various parts of the world. So I think that makes this one a particularly odd one to me.

Jimmy Rhodes: 58:20

Yeah, sounds pretty fruity. Oh, very good.

Matt Cartwright: 58:24

The other one, which is not so much of an individual theory. But the thing that always makes me really kind of confused by the whole global cabal thing is I think if it was, the global cabal is controlling all of the heads of state and they just don't know it and they're all puppets, and this deep state thing goes deeper than anybody knows. I kind of find that more believable. But the idea that Xi and Putin and Biden and in the past Merkel, et cetera, they're all on secret phone calls to each other and they're all kind of in bed together with each other and they all agree and you know, have these conversations at WF meetings I just find this like incredibly well staged.

Jimmy Rhodes: 59:10

Yeah, it would be.

Matt Cartwright: 59:12

Like unbelievably well staged and for people who know how you know how random and how you you know just how unstable and and and messy the world is, how you could manage this level of organization, to be honest, yeah, the, the this is another problem with a lot of these things.

Jimmy Rhodes: 59:32

Right, is the kind of the level of yeah, that's it really the level of organization that you would need to have in in what is clearly a very disorganized world?

Matt Cartwright: 59:46

um, kind of like wish the world was that organized in a way exactly, yeah, that's my point is, if only it was that organized, maybe some of the other problems wouldn't wouldn't be so apparent, right? Yeah, exactly, so this is quite an interesting one. So the whole 5g thing. So there was one particular thing I saw which was that, um, the mrna vaccines, that in it had injected a spider web, nanotech, into all of us and it was made of actually the, the particular web from a particular spider, had created the, the nanotech that's obviously been injected into anyone who took mrna vaccines. Um, and then 5g being turned on and then a super powerful ai was going to control everybody. That's, you know, quite far out there.

Matt Cartwright: 1:00:36

But I, I wanted to actually just talk to you as someone who is, you know, into science and and and as a software engineer, you know 5g and and electromagnetic frequencies and their potential effect on the body. Where do you stand on that? Do you think this is complete nonsense or do you think actually, you know, this is a bit more. This is something that maybe is a. You know, there is an issue around electromagnetic frequency and it's been turned into something bigger than it is yeah.

Jimmy Rhodes: 1:01:05

So I mean, specifically on this, a whole bunch of tests were done specifically on 5g um because it had to actually pass safety tests to be able to be used in, you know, proximity to people, um, one thing that is true is that, like, how high power lines, so like, if you live near high, high power lines, like the, the big power lines that take um power across a country, they do have an effect on you. That's been demonstrated. Um. But 5g like this, the stuff you're talking about again, like it's, I mean you'd have to go, you'd have to believe in quite a lot of conspiracies to even get close to believing any of this. And they are tested, they've been tested on people. There's like there's literally loads of papers, loads of scientific tests out there and I don't. I mean, what are the effects we're talking about here?

Matt Cartwright: 1:01:59

well, they're using it to control. I mean, there's there's one thing which is it's being used to control people. The second is that it just causes illness and actually you know the whole the whole kind of pandemic narrative. Actually it's illness caused by electromagnetic frequencies. That, that is, is the whole problem. So I think there there are. You know, like we said before with the COVID one, where I said there are all kinds of different layers of this.

Matt Cartwright: 1:02:23

I think with 5G, actually, you know, I laughed initially when, at the beginning of COVID, talking about injecting with 5G chips, but actually when you look into it more I'm not saying it's necessarily more believable, but you realise it's much more complex. And I think where I have a real issue with this one is why 5G? Why was 4G okay and 3G was okay and, like you say, power lines and everything else and Wi-Fi, but 5G was not? And the actual background with this was that the first city to turn on 5G in the world was Wuhan in 2019. Well, it wasn't. It was actually Shanghai, seoul and, I think, surprisingly, london, because for anyone who's been to London and tried to use 5G, it's pretty rubbish, but apparently they were the first three cities in the world to turn on 5G. So Wuhan wasn't even the first one in China, but that's an interesting one, I think the whole thing about electromagnetic frequencies and radiation, etc.

Matt Cartwright: 1:03:18

I one, I think the whole thing about electromagnetic frequencies and radiation, et cetera. I mean I'm more concerned actually about the Wi-Fi in my bedroom and having a Wi-Fi router next to my head when I go to sleep, for example, than a 5G tower that is a few miles away. And I think, if people are really worried about it, there are, like you say, power cables. I mean mean the houses that we're in. Like, get out in nature and get your feet on the ground, away from a place that's permanently full of electric cables and power. That to me has a degree of sense. I mean, I think, having exposure over a long period of time to too much electricity and radiation, I can see how that has some kind of effect. But this particular thing of 5g, it just seems to me what? Why is 5g the bad guy and 4g was okay?

Jimmy Rhodes: 1:04:04

yeah, I think, I think you'd have had a lot more evidence of people been harmed by 5g by now. If, uh, if it was a real thing, which has, as far as I'm aware, has never existed, um, like there's never, there's no evidence of that at all. And also, I mean, who's whose interest is it in for global cabal?

Matt Cartwright: 1:04:25

oh, right, before you even ask the question, we're going back to that yeah, um, yeah, but I just so sorry.

Matt Cartwright: 1:04:32

There is a theory as well that the reason for the lockdowns is while the lockdowns were taking place. It was to allow them to install all the 5G towers while the lockdowns were happening. So that was the reason for lockdowns in 2020. But in China, in all the cities like Beijing, shanghai at that time, there were no lockdowns. So bizarre that they only locked down certain cities but built 5G towers. And, of course, all the people putting up 5G towers who, far as I know, most of them are, you know paid 50 000 pounds a year. They were apparently in on the whole thing yeah, the whole thing's just bizarre.

Jimmy Rhodes: 1:05:07

I mean that that I don't even need to try and discredit because I was alive at the time, so, and it's so, I know. I mean, for starters, 5g was rolled out way before covid. Um, none of it makes any sense.

Matt Cartwright: 1:05:21

It's just bizarre yeah, and the last one, which is you know, I just thought that one of the more amusing. I find this one amusing. I mean, I'm sure there might be people listen to this podcast who now think I'm an idiot. But, um, this idea now that viruses don't exist as they've never been isolated, so, and this you know, there's quite a lot of people in actually scientific, with scientific backgrounds who are now on the bandwagon with this one. So, and people who you know didn't start out on them, maybe they've been dragged in, maybe they are in some way corrupted by it. But this I find a really interesting one because this is a really good example for me, when we were talking before about evidence, with me putting my fingers in the air, in inverted commas, where people will say, well, there's evidence of viruses, we've seen them on an electromicroscope, and then people will say, well, how do you prove that's a virus? You don't. But this is a really good example of evidence, right, you can just I can say well, this is black, I say no, it isn't.

Jimmy Rhodes: 1:06:26

But then you're arguing over the definition of a word, not evidence. I mean, you can look at a virus, you don't even need an electron microscope, you microscope, you just need a microscope. As far as I, know, like you can.

Matt Cartwright: 1:06:40

Anyone can go and have a look at one. It's like this is yeah, I agree with you, it's the definition. If the definition of vice is, it's just a single-celled organism that can cause people to be sick yeah, I mean it's possible.

Jimmy Rhodes: 1:06:53

Nothing exists. You know it's possible, we're living in a simulation and that is actually possible.

Matt Cartwright: 1:06:57

Like you can't I think that's fairly possible. So more and more possible to be honest.

Jimmy Rhodes: 1:06:58

So you know it's possible, we're living in a simulation and that is actually possible, like you can't disagree. That's fairly possible, so more and more possible, to be honest. So you know, I suppose anything's possible. Um, I think, I think I don't know who's saying viruses don't exist, because I think with this one I had never heard of this before.

Matt Cartwright: 1:07:13

So we're obviously in different rabbit holes on the internet I think me and you are in slightly different places with where we've been on social media in the last 18 months, jimmy.

Jimmy Rhodes: 1:07:24

Yeah, I mean, I've heard of the 5G stuff, bill Gates and citrus trees never heard of that. I've heard some global cabal stuff, but not the specifics. The virus is not existing thing. I've never heard of that and I'd probably read it with amusement.

Matt Cartwright: 1:07:42

Do you think some of this is being pushed by, you know, as an agenda, by certain hostile states? I mean, there is a really famous interview I can't remember the name, but it was a Russian ex-KGB who defected to the US and there was a really famous interview with him where he talked about how, basically, people were being sent into society to just destabilize it and to eventually cause the breakdown of the US. And it would be a very, very, very clever way to do it to, you know, unsettle society with a lot of these theories. I mean, you've got 30% of people in the US, so you know, if that's the case, you're doing a very good job. I mean, we can't estimate what percentage, but you know how much do you think this is a case of? A lot of this stuff is generated by not necessarily just bots, but by hostile organizations or states, and there again, we play into AI being a facilitator because it makes it much, much easier to do it.

Jimmy Rhodes: 1:08:50

Yeah, well, on that point, I mean I'm sure that happens all the time, I'm sure that kind of thing. I mean we know that kind of thing happens all the time. I'm sure that kind of thing. I mean we know that kind of thing happens all the time. Um, so, maybe, but it would be a a very long-term, a very smart, long-term plan.

Matt Cartwright: 1:09:09

If that is what's going on, um, I don't again with that, it's like we're never gonna know if you, if, you watch this interview which, like I say, I think it's from the 80s, I think it was around 1985, something like that who defected? He talked about it being a very long-term plan and I mean, this is not a conspiracy theory. This is someone who defected and said, look, this was the plan. So I could definitely believe I don't know how much much but that part of it that you know. There's a conspiracy theory about controlled opposition. If there's a controlled opposition, there's definitely gonna be a, you know, a controlled um. What's the opposite of opposition? Controlled?

Jimmy Rhodes: 1:09:51

position, controlled position. That's not. That is it what?

Matt Cartwright: 1:09:54

is the opposite of an opposition. Opposition controlled shun controlled shun.

Jimmy Rhodes: 1:10:00

Um, yeah, I don't know. I mean, you, you're getting, you're getting into stuff there where it's like, yeah, that probably goes on. I'm I'm not, I'm not going to say that doesn't go on like we, we know that sort of thing goes on all the time. Um, will it work again? Like this is where. Come back to what I was saying earlier on, but this is why I am a proponent of free speech and critical thinking, because that is actually the defence against this, in my opinion. Believe a lot of these things and and um, you know, maybe that's, that's just the way, that's the way democracy gets shaped, that's the way the world works.

Jimmy Rhodes: 1:10:44

And when a majority believe some of these things, um, it won't be a conspiracy theory anymore won't be a conspiracy theory anymore, and if if they're wrong, then we'll be in a dangerous place let's finish off on and, and you did already kind of mentioned some ideas.

Matt Cartwright: 1:11:08

But what can we do about this? Um, not necessarily me and you, and maybe the answer is we can't. But, um, what can people do, what can communities do, what can civilization do to to stop this from getting beyond the point of of no repair?

Jimmy Rhodes: 1:11:25

I think the horse has bolted in that respect. What I do and I know I've already rambled on about it so I won't go into in much more detail, but, um, you know, treat everything written on the internet by someone you don't know as a piece of fiction is I guess you know the position I've arrived at and I don't do that with everything, but there's a lot of stuff that I watch where it's like there's a really genuinely compelling evidence base for it and it is something that you know they can show you the pictures they can show, and I know it's like, okay, all that could be fake and all the rest of it. But again, I keep going back to it. But I'm talking about science.

Jimmy Rhodes: 1:12:08

Like, I follow a load of science channels on YouTube and there's a load of science channels on YouTube that are complete nonsense, um, but there's also a load of them them which I find to be reliable sources. So to mention a few. There's like PBS Space Time, there's Dr Becky who talks about astronomy, and these are like. You know, why do I believe them rather than somebody else? Because I know that they're qualified. You know, dr Becky, for example, she's a qualified astronomer in that field. She's talking about like the results that are coming out of jwst.

Jimmy Rhodes: 1:12:41

It all agrees with what everybody's saying they put the time into it to gain the credibility right yeah, they've put the time into it to gain the credibility and so they've won me over in that sense. And again, this comes back to the whole critical thinking thing, because whenever I'm kind of in some of the other corners of the Internet where you're just reading something that a bloke said on Reddit or whatever it's like, well, yeah, it might be true, it might not.

Matt Cartwright: 1:13:07

You need to try and verify it somehow there is one thing where I kind of take issue with that Maybe take issues the wrong way, but a bit strong I disagree. The wrong, a bit strong I disagree is I think if you look at a lot of this stuff now, there are people with very, very scientific backgrounds, you know, and who are established experts in the field. So I'll give you an example um vandenbosch is a very, very, uh well-known or I don't know if he's well-known because people don't know virologists, but he's a very well qualified virologist and he has a very, very controversial theory about the pandemic and how it's going to end, with most vaccinated people, or a lot of vaccinated people, very, very sick or dying Now. He has a very, very strong scientific background but he has a very, very extreme view and I think COVID is almost an exception, but I think so much something happened unprecedented in modern times strong scientific background, but he has a very, very extreme view and I think, you know, covid is almost an exception, but I think so much something happened unprecedented in modern times. You know there was. It was the big shock of our lives so far in terms of the way that it affected the world, and so it has a kind of, you know, a much bigger effect, and maybe it's not fair to kind of compare this to other eras without going into sort of similar kind of massive geopolitical shocks. But some of the theories around, you know, even about the virus is not existing.

Matt Cartwright: 1:14:31

If you look at some of the people who believe that these are not random people writing on the internet, these are people who've been, you know, ex-managing directors of global pharmaceutical companies. Are not random people writing on the internet. These are people who've been, you know, ex managing directors of global pharmaceutical companies and people with really, really, you know, strong scientific backgrounds. Which is why I say are they, you know? Are they being paid by hostile states to take this view? Because it that almost makes more sense than somebody with that background suddenly being won over or, you know, have they just gone down the rabbit hole as well?

Jimmy Rhodes: 1:15:02

well, okay, I mean I can't. I can't speak to the covid example because I don't have the information at hand, but an example of this not so long ago and maybe this will upset some people, but an example of this was climate change, and, irrespective of whether we get like, you know, whether it's man-made or not, there was a debate not that long ago about climate change and it turned out when you know, and so there were scientific papers out there saying it's not happening or it's not man-made, or all the rest of it. And there was then a sometime later, there was a global study where they looked at all the papers. So there was, so there was papers on both sides, but they looked at all the papers and they said, okay, out of all the papers, what percentage of them are saying that climate change is real and it's manmade, and what percentage of them are on the other side of the argument, to something like 99.5% of all papers around climate change were saying were supporting that it was real and that it was man-made. And yes, you will always be able to find arguments on both sides, even within science.

Jimmy Rhodes: 1:16:09

I don't know what the situation is with the COVID thing, but I suspect, my suspicion is that the majority of published scientific stuff is on one side and not on the other, but you'll always be able to find a paper saying and even from people that have been fairly credible in the past. Like it happens, there are, rather than conspiracy theories, I guess, fringe theories out there, and you'll always be able to find arguments backing up both sides. So it is tricky, um, and you know, you never know. One of the sources that I talked about earlier that I go to for my information might one day start spouting rubbish and become, for whatever reason, um, you know, become untrustworthy, and that's something that I guess, again, like I always, have to keep an eye out for I'm gonna take the the sort of end of this episode, um, and it's sort of weird for me to give advice to people.

Matt Cartwright: 1:17:12

I guess, bearing in mind what I've said about, you know how I've personally been struggling with information and or I want to call it information overload I think that's probably the best way to describe it rather than information or disinformation. But I think that means I can give some advice, which I mean. One is just don't get dragged into it. Just, you know, don't go down that rabbit hole too far, because you'll, you'll find it just never ends. There is just so much information out there that you know, even if you think you're finding the truth, you you'll, you'll never find the answer, you'll never find the answer.

Matt Cartwright: 1:17:48

The other thing I just recommend is you know, and and this is advice I am taking myself is, get out there into nature, get away from screens and computers and you know, the internet and social media, and live in the other world. I don't want to call it the real world, but live in the physical world, because some of this shit, if it happens, then we're all fucked. But you know, if the worst happens, we're probably not going to stop it, and it's an easy thing to say, but you're living in the moment. Now it hasn't happened. Now you're still able to do the things that you are doing and you know living a life to a certain standard.

Matt Cartwright: 1:18:28

So you know, try and spend time as much as possible away from these sources and not get dragged into it. And if you do, just understand that there's a sort of narrative behind it, and it's not always a negative thing. I don't think people are always trying to push an agenda for the wrong reasons, but there's always a narrative there, whether it's a good or a bad narrative, there is a narrative and quite often that good narrative is in the eye of the beholder. So even people who are doing things for what they perceive are the right reasons, at some point you've got to make a decision what you believe in and what you want to live your life by. And you know. If you find something you're passionate about, then great. But if not and you don't have a strong belief, then my advice would be just keep living that way and don't get too dragged into it.

Jimmy Rhodes: 1:19:18

I think that's good advice to end on.

Matt Cartwright: 1:19:21

So that has been another marathon episode. We will leave you with a second song this week, this one in a slightly different style, and thank you if you listened through to the end. We hope you enjoyed it or at least got some. At least. If you didn't enjoy it, at least you got something out of it and maybe uh maybe you will avoid some of the mistakes that I've made. So thanks very much for listening. We will see you all next week with a more normal episode of the podcast. Take care, guys.

Speaker 5: 1:19:59

Duny trusts each journal's word, blind to strings that pull unheard. Peer-reviewed reality. Big Pharma's hidden dynasty. Waves of static wash over me. Truth is blurred. What can we see? Will time assert? Maths sees VIP's crumbling throne. Whispers truths through encrypted phone While Jimmy eats his cricket meal. In general, it's a game of Crumbling throne. Whispers truths through encrypted phone While Jimmy eats his cricket meal.

Speaker 5: 1:20:43

Injected future, forced ideal. Waves of static wash over me. Truth is blurred. What can we see? Jimmy's content? Matt's on alert. Whose world view will time assert Matt? Matt sees Fiat's crumbling throne. Whispers troops through encrypted phone While Jimmy eats his cricket meal. Injected future, forced ideal. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. Fifteen minutes from your cage, 5g calls us to every stage. Nano chips beneath the skin. Freedom lost or brave new win? Waves of static wash over me. Truth is blurred. What can we see? Jimmy's content? Math's on alert. Whose worldview will time assert Worldview, will time assert. Fifteen minutes from your cage, 5g pulses through every stage. Nano chips beneath the skin. Freedom lost or brave new win? Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. Genies lulled by soothing lies. Math decodes the world's disguise, sergei's dreams of control unseen. What is real, what does it mean?