Toxic Cooking Show
Misogyny, $800 first dates, simps, and high-value women: Social media has been busy cooking up and feeding us an addictive but toxic slurry of trends over the past few years. Here at The Toxic Cooking Show we're two friends dedicated to breaking down these trends, terms, and taunts into their simplest ingredients to understand where they came from and how they affect our lives. Join us each week as we ponder and discuss charged topics like personal responsibility and "not all men" before placing them on our magical Scale O' ToxicityAny comments or topics you want to hear about write to us at toxic@awesomelifeskills.com
Toxic Cooking Show
How Conspiracy Theories Poison Our Society and Why We Still Fall For Them
Conspiracy theories have evolved from reasonable skepticism about government deception to dangerous delusions with real-world consequences, tracing their development from Cold War distrust to internet-fueled paranoia.
• American trust in government began eroding in the 1940s with the Roswell incident and changing official explanations
• MK Ultra program confirmation proved the government conducted unethical human experiments with LSD and torture
• The internet's emergence around 1999-2000 created perfect conditions for conspiracy theories to spread rapidly
• Major conspiracy drivers include 9/11 "Loose Change" video, Pizzagate, QAnon, and modern election fraud claims
• Scientific approach requires observation, question, hypothesis, testing, and conclusion—steps conspiracies often skip
• Understanding the difference between likelihood based on evidence and absolute factual certainty is crucial
• Conspiracy theories rated as "antifreeze" on the toxicity scale—deceptively appealing but potentially deadly
• Healthy skepticism is valuable, but requires relying on credible sources and willingness to change beliefs
• Some conspiracies have deadly consequences through direct violence or dangerous health decisions
Rate and like our show! Write to us about your favorite conspiracy theories at toxic@awesomelifeskills.com. Find us on Facebook, Instagram, and soon on Bluesky.
Hi and welcome to the Toxic Cooking Show, where we break down toxic people to their simplest ingredients. I'm your host, christopher Patchett LCSW, and here with me is my lovely co-host.
Speaker 2:Lindsay McLean.
Speaker 1:This week. We're going to do something a little different this week. Uh-huh, I just want to give you a little bit of a background of how we got to where we are today, want to give you a little bit of a background of how we got to where we are today and usually, like we do like a whole thing, where, where do we go from now? And that's actually going to be kind of the main focus of this week.
Speaker 2:Uh-huh.
Speaker 1:We are going to talk about conspiracy theories.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:So excited, yes, so excited. I'm sure you've heard one conspiracy about anything.
Speaker 2:I mean, I know what the internet is. Yeah, you spend about five minutes on there.
Speaker 1:You will run into some sort of conspiracy theory so basically it kind of started off like we used to have trust in our government in America. It was up until the 1940s where the Cold War started taking place and all of a sudden there was the crash in Rosdale. Do you know about the crash in Rosdale?
Speaker 2:This sounds vaguely familiar. Does it have to do with aliens?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was alien spaceships and things like that. And so what had happened was that there was a UFO, just a UFO, like an unidentified flying object. It wasn't necessarily an alien spaceship or anything like that, but it was just a UFO that had crashed. Somebody, a civilian, saw this and saw the wreck site and caught up the government. All of a sudden the men in black come by and and so they come up and they basically they talk to this guy and they're like what you saw here, it was really nothing Kind of was all of a sudden secretive. And this guy's, like you know, like I know, I saw, like what you saw here it was really nothing kind of, was all of a sudden secretive. And this guy's, like you know, like I, I know I saw, like you know, like that is a great way to not get somebody on your side, by the way it was basically just, they were just kind of dismissing it.
Speaker 1:It was just like oh, you know, there's really nothing like that big. The guy was saying well, this is materials I've never seen before, like that was going on. Oh, no, no, no, there's nothing, there's nothing. So this guy is coming out about it and all of a sudden, shortly after it goes from this is nothing and this guy trying to speak out about it and everything like that. And now all of a sudden, this guy is now retracting everything they said uh-huh and then you know, it starts kind of catching on.
Speaker 1:Like you know, like okay, there was something going on, like what the hell is going on? And now all of a sudden, the government is saying, well, it was, it was a weather blip, and that's why these were things that were never seen before, because the sky has never seen a weather balloon before. And so people started saying like okay, this is really weird, like something's going on that we're unaware of. Fast forward into the 90s. Now, all of a sudden, people kept on talking about it and just as you said something to deal with aliens, people kept on saying, like it has to. You know, there's, there's more to it. There's is this originally it was an unidentified flying object. Had it be something like an alien thing, like that? And finally the government comes out and says, well, we were testing an aircraft. We go from it's absolutely nothing to a water balloon to all of a sudden, 50, 60 years later, it was a top secret aircraft from the Cold War.
Speaker 2:Which I would believe, but it still looks suspicious.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it still looks very and that's where a lot of people are still today, Whereas like, why couldn't you just say that 60 years ago that, okay, we're not going to give you any information on it, but just say that it was a testing flight for a new type of plane, but we're not going to discuss it? I think people would have been more like, okay, yeah, we're in harsh times right now, we do have to have national security, things like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you bring them in, you make them sign the NDAs, all of that. You give them the bare minimum information. You can't talk about it because we have told you something and then that keeps them from spreading the information. Right.
Speaker 1:No, all of a sudden, people are starting to have like a little bit of starting to lose a little bit of faith in the, in the government. You had the 1960s, you had JFK. Then people started believing, like you know, like the CIA had something to do with it, the FBI had something to do with it and to be fair during that time.
Speaker 2:If you ever go to museums that are dedicated to like spy history or just weird stuff around that time, the ideas that the cia was coming up with to assassinate people are wild. Well, like the things they would do like I remember seeing something at one point that they had a plan to basically make, I think, fidel castro go bald because they thought he was going to like that would make people lose respect of. Like the beard fell out and the hair fell out. Like they were. They were doing crazy shit. So I don't blame people for being like this could be having, because clearly somebody at the time was like I have an idea.
Speaker 1:Oh well, so we're really going to go into this here in a second.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:So you, you had JFK, something's going on. You had the moon landing in 1969. We really didn't land on the moon, things like that and all of a sudden, in the 1970s and this is where things really kind of go into that territory Before I go into the 1970s, let's go back to 1953. Okay, so this is just at the beginning of the Cold War, and so there were people going over to the Korean War. They were coming back and they started spewing communist propaganda and the government said okay, something's going on. The communists are doing something that we don't know about and they're brainwashing these people. So they must have found a way to brainwash people. So since the communists found this way of being able to brainwash people, we need to find a way to brainwash people.
Speaker 2:Also logical.
Speaker 1:So who better to do than the American public?
Speaker 2:Again very logical here.
Speaker 1:Let's just test this on our own people you think of like ethics and you think of like when it comes to like trying to figure out like things psychologically that you're gonna have a disclaimer, you're gonna talk to the person you're going to, you know, let them know what the experiment is about.
Speaker 2:That's why we can't do cool experiments now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what? To me that's like a double-edged sword. I mean, like a lot of cool shit came out of that time period but at the same time, like it's understandable.
Speaker 2:It is very ethnic. Ethnic, wow, ethically questionable.
Speaker 1:Speaking of ethically questionable volunteers for this experiment. It was called MK Ultra, started in 1950s and what it was was guy goes out to a bar, meets a nice pretty woman. They start talking and this pretty woman this pretty woman comes up and says like hey, why don't you, why don't we go back to my hotel?
Speaker 2:He's not going to say no.
Speaker 1:Right. So they go back to their hotel and then all of a sudden they're drugged up and they're kidnapped and they're brought out to different sites throughout the United States, even in Canada, and they're given LSD.
Speaker 2:That was not where I was expecting this, but okay, we kidnap people, we lure them in, we kidnap them and we drug them. Got it.
Speaker 1:And they, they did a lot of harsh experiments. They would deprive them of sleep, they would drug them with LSD, they would basically put them into a coma and then they would wake them up with different drugs, adrenaline and things like that. People died. Different drugs, adrenaline and things like that. People died, and you know they never found the brainwashing formula Shocking.
Speaker 1:But here's kind of one of the things is you know, during this time there was somebody who was kind of speaking up and saying, like shit, like you know, like this is completely fucked, which, yeah, if you're drugging up people and and kidnapping them by the cia, our own government and basically torturing them not basically, but they are torturing them, not basically, but they are torturing them.
Speaker 2:They are yeah.
Speaker 1:Killing people, trying to find a formula that would brainwash people, and started to speak up, and then, all of a sudden, this person falls out of a tall building.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've studied Russian history, I know how that happens.
Speaker 1:So I mean, you know, it was purely an accident.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, and people were starting to question, like what the fuck is going on, like there was nothing more to it, that this person just fell or committed suicide. His name was frank allison and in the 70s, like you know, like more and more people were starting to come out and saying like, hey, you know I was, I was drugged up and I, I went through. You know, horrible, horrible thing. You know, I don't remember a lot of it, but I believe that this is where I was and this is what happened. And so this, the family of Frank Olson, said like hey, look, you know, we really think that something more happened to this.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so they had him dug up, his body, did a full autopsy and there was, you know, evidence of head trauma prior to him falling.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:And so there was no omission. It was just all of a sudden there was a check for $750,000 from the CIA. Hey, sorry for your loss.
Speaker 2:So sorry to hear this happen. We just now found out about it.
Speaker 1:Judge was even said to him like, look, know, there's not a lot that we can prove, but there's definitely more to the story than than what you're being told. And that was when this mysterious chick all of a sudden came from the, the cia, and that was kind of the end of that. And and now people are like okay, what the fuck actually happened.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so it was coming up. It was more people were coming out about it, they were describing the same things and finally the CIA did have to declassify some documents, but not all of them, Not all of them. So they did finally admit that, yes, we did do human experiments and some of them conducted LSD use and things like that Didn't go into the nitty-gritty, but obviously at this point it's kind of one of these things where it's just like holy shit, our own government has done this shit to us, to us and this shit that that's way out there that these other people are saying, yeah, the the CIA is not admitting to all of it. But you know what? I now believe this person over what the CIA is saying. So we've gone from total trust of our government to lacking trust.
Speaker 1:And then shortly after that, that was when the Pentagon came out saying about the weather bloom was not really a water bloom, but it was a top secret airplane at the time and even up until the early 90s, Area 51. 51. It wasn't I. I remember growing up in the eighties, early nineties and hearing about area 51. And it was at the time. It was like we know it's there, but the government doesn't acknowledge it or anything like that. And finally Bill Clinton came out and said like it's there.
Speaker 2:That's it.
Speaker 1:Wow, I'm sure that's going to make people very trusting in you. So I mean, all these things came out of the Cold War and then the whole idea of like the moon landing, things like that. I mean people are just completely all over the place of like what the fuck is real, what the fuck is not. And this little beautiful thing comes out in the 90s.
Speaker 2:It's uh, called the internet came out the year I was born uh.
Speaker 1:So it really started gaining traction back in like maybe 99, 2000 I mean I knew so 92 when it came out, and so it was, I remember, in like 96, 97, I can only think of maybe one or two of my friends who actually had the internet. I remember we had internet capability on our computer but it was there was no way in hell that my dad was ever going to get it, because the fact that it was 10 cents a minute, wow. Because of the fact that it was 10 cents a minute, wow. And I mean you got to think that the early phones that we had and downloading a page was probably slower on our computers in 96, 97 than it would be on our phones in 2001, 2002.
Speaker 2:Oh, hell yeah.
Speaker 1:So one page is taking two or three minutes, that's 30 seconds or 30 cents just to load up one page, so it wasn't. That's a good use of money? Yeah, so it wasn't. It wasn't until like 99, 2000 that, um, it really became accessible to almost everybody, and I know, like my family, we got it in 2000. And so I remember my first screen name was patches underscore 20, because I was going to be 20 for the rest of my life. So obviously so.
Speaker 1:So that would have been 99-2000. And then, in 2001, we had 9-11 happen. And here we are at the birth of the internet. Now anybody with an idea is able to start posting their ideas, or able to start spreading their message across, and things like that.
Speaker 2:Well, because I remember even then, being in elementary school, we learned how to use Ask Jeeves to look up stuff plenty of websites out there that they were enough, that they were allowing a bunch of like eight, nine and 10 year olds to get on the school computers and learn how to like look up this stuff.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, you could ask it questions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so dated, but yeah, I mean people were. They were posting things like there were. There were a lot of websites.
Speaker 1:I think it was 90. So I graduated 97 and I'm trying to think if it was 11th grade or 12th grade. We had a project that we had to go online, use the, the school library computer, and and so I remember the project I did was on LSD, because I was a fucking burnout in high school.
Speaker 2:Very fitting with this whole episode.
Speaker 1:See, I was only preparing myself. You know what? 28 years ago, I was preparing myself for this.
Speaker 2:So you're thinking about the future.
Speaker 1:That's smart 2001 comes, the 9-11 happens and shortly after that happened, a video was posted up and it was called Lose Change, and it started going down this rabbit hole of how it wasn't really the plane that caused the falling of the twin towers, that it was bombs that were planted inside because steel beams couldn't melt, or something yes, steel beams couldn't melt uh know, melt at that degree and that there were implosions that were being heard.
Speaker 1:and if you look at this, then you'll see that there are implosions on the side of the tower as it was coming down and people started buying that. Oh well, you know shit. This was an inside job, that Bush did this in order to create war with Afghanistan and finish off the job of Iraq, and people started buying into it and a lot of these things were debunked very quickly. But the thing is is that once the message is out there, it's there, and I mean also you will never get it back yeah, you will never get it back.
Speaker 1:And and this is directly after the whole like mk ultra finally coming to light, the weather balloon that wasn't a weather balloon. So there is evidence that the government has no problem killing its own people to meet their own agenda. And so you know, with the, with the internet, it got worse and worse. Not too long ago. It's I mean, it's gotten down to the point where QAnon came out. There was the whole thing with Pizzagate.
Speaker 2:Oh, my God.
Speaker 1:Where they were saying that there was a whole sex trafficking in the basement of a pizza parlor. Somebody heard it, they went in, they killed people, and then we have the election fraud of 2020. Well at this point.
Speaker 2:It moves so quickly and you may get into this that before it seemed to take some time and now you've got issues happening like Hurricane Helene. And now you've got issues happening like Hurricane Helene and within a week of Helene blowing through and just decimating Western North Carolina. I'm seeing stuff because I have you off your land because they want to steal the lithium that's underneath. That is how quickly that whole machine is working now that you have less than a week. I mean some people still don't even have running water or internet. I mean they didn't for weeks afterward, but we haven't even gotten in contact with all these people. They're still finding missing people and you're already coming up with these conspiracy theories about this is happening and I bet it was. You know the government that caused this. They're doing climate change. They made this happen. You know the whole FEMA stealing the lithium from underneath your house type thing. It was fast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And I mean, like the 2020 election frauds that spread around even before the election was over.
Speaker 2:Yeah, before it even started. Yeah, there were already, like Trump was. You know, we try not to get political, but Trump was definitely pushing this whole idea that people are going to cheat. And then he lost and he had already positioned this idea and, as a result, he could, from day one, just put it out to me Like that's why they're not releasing the results and people were primed to buy it.
Speaker 1:Right, and that's kind of the thing, is that again, there was fraud in 2024. That was reported. That was reported and we have our own government officials that are saying that Democrats can control the weather.
Speaker 2:Look, if we could. That one I hate because it's so dumb. Some of these. You look at them and there's something that makes sense in it. You're like alright, yeah, I can see you're wrong, but I can see it. Democrats control the weather. Please stop for five seconds and look at that. There would be evidence, right right and then.
Speaker 1:So here's the thing is that a lot of this comes into, I feel, and the thing is, is that, again, trying not to be too political, like I'm even, trying to say, like you know, like in 2024,.
Speaker 1:When the election first came out, I didn't want to believe it. When I first heard of these conspiracies with starlink and elon musk and things like that, I wanted to believe that. I truly wanted to believe that there was some other reason than then people just voting for trump, naturally, and so. But the thing is, is that there is a whole way of doing this? I wanted to call you out last episode, but I was like I will wait until this episode, because this just just happens to be exactly what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2:Tell me what did I do.
Speaker 1:So you know something like Elon Musk and the inauguration. My heart goes out to you.
Speaker 2:Yes, that was what that was.
Speaker 1:So here's where I'm going to call you out. I cannot say for certain that that's what it was correct.
Speaker 1:I was going to say before you. I cannot say for certain that's what it was. I can say that through actual evidence that, yes, it really did look like that, and through actual statements that when it came out and it came to his attention that, rather than him saying I understand how it came out that way and I apologize that it came out that way, that's not what I was trying to do, he doubled down and he decided to troll. So the only thing that I can say with 100% certainty is was it a Nazi salute? It looked. I don't know if that's what he was intending to do, but I can at least say that he doesn't give a shit.
Speaker 2:And I agree with you on this. I understand the importance, when you're having a debate with somebody, to go through all of that, because it is important. It is important that everybody you know we'll use this as the example watches that video and thinks about it and looks at what came before and what came after in terms of things that he has said, things that he has done, how he has reacted, and you put all of that together and you reach a conclusion. You know, I think that is the important thing to do here, Because, yeah, if you just take a gesture and you completely cut off for something, it could mean anything. It could have meant my heart goes out to you, it didn't, and I will die on that hill. It didn't and I will die on that hill.
Speaker 2:But you know, I'm willing to understand the debate of making sure that you break it down and be like but did he really? Did he say this is a Nazi salute and then did it? No, he didn't. Has he said, hi, I'm a Nazi? No, he hasn't. Right, you do have to acknowledge. It's like. We cannot 100% be like yes, that is what he, because he hasn't said that.
Speaker 1:But it was and that's, and it's. This is where, lindsay I'm sorry, you're being toxic as fuck right now yes, there is a lot of evidence pointing to that, everything from his support to what is the German ADF.
Speaker 2:AFD.
Speaker 1:His support to the AFD. Lot of things that he has done has been at least on the line of being anti-semitic and things like that.
Speaker 2:Look, I'm okay, if you want to call me out for this, I will die on this hill, just like the q anon supporters are going to die on theirs.
Speaker 1:But again, you know like and that's kind of the thing is that again we cannot say that it was one way or another, but again what we can say, what we can say for factual, is that he doesn't care that it came off that way.
Speaker 2:Yes, which is almost as big of a problem.
Speaker 1:I mean I, and that's where you know like I'm not trying to play it off as it being nothing, because not caring is just as bad as saying that. Yes, that was a salute.
Speaker 2:Did you watch the video? I said I know you watched it, but you were half asleep. The guy who was talking about you know gestures and we don't want to read too much into them and of course this is not going to come over well in audio, but he's got his. I don't even know how to describe this.
Speaker 1:How would you? I don't even know how to describe this. He's holding something and he's shaking it.
Speaker 2:He's holding it kind of up above his mouth and going down an angle very close to his mouth back and forth, and obviously you thought I was grating cheese onto my plate or putting salt on my plate. No, I was sucking a dick.
Speaker 1:And but you know, and that's the thing, is that like, okay, again, I'm not trying to play it down or anything like that I do think that definitely, what had happened was an extremely horrific thing, and I think that it does appear that way. However, I cannot say for certain on that particular thing.
Speaker 2:And I get that Me personally. What he has said before, what he has said after and the gesture combined come together to form what I believe to be a Nazi salute.
Speaker 1:I really would like to say that because but that feel is different than factual. So, like Right, I think too, kurt Cobain was a huge hero of mine when I was growing up and the fact that he committed suicide. There is a huge piece of me that still believes that it he didn't commit suicide, that the shotgun was too long, and this, that and the other. But the thing is is that chris never saw dave's goal. His own bandmates, a lot of people around him, the fact that he did try to commit suicide two months earlier all point towards, yes, this was a suicide. And the thing is is that it is very hard because I feel inside that no, this isn't true, that my hero wouldn't have done that.
Speaker 1:But being able to draw that conclusion that like yes, you know, like there's absolutely no evidence pointing towards the opposite, and every evidence that we do have pointing towards the opposite is very shaky at best. And that's kind of the thing is that there is a whole way of actually kind of looking at things and it's science, you know, taking it to like the scientific step. So scientific step is you make an observation, you come up with a question, form a hypothesis, conduct a test, reject or accept the hypothesis. So let's look at Pizzagate. Okay, I made an observation that all Democrats are evil, baby-killing, eating, sex-trafficking, assholes.
Speaker 2:This has been my observation, that's yeah.
Speaker 1:I asked a question. That or somebody said that there was a sex-trafficking thing down in this pizza parlor. So I asked the question are Democrats you know sex-trafficking out of this pizza parlor? So I asked the question are Democrats you know sex trafficking out of this pizza parlor? Okay, I made an observation. I asked the question. My hypothesis is that, yes, democrats are sex trafficking in the basement of this pizza parlor. Cool, conduct a test. The basement of this pizza parlor, cool, conduct a test. Eh Well, I never went to the pizza parlor. I never saw downstairs, I never saw anybody actually being sex trafficked.
Speaker 2:Wasn't the guy not even from the town, or was he?
Speaker 1:Oh the shooter. Yeah, yeah, I don't think he even from the town, was he? Oh the the the shooter. Yeah, I yeah. I don't think he was from the town that's what I seem to remember.
Speaker 2:It was that he was. It's not even like he knew these people and had reason to to believe. It's like, well, there's always been something weird about bob. It's just like no, you, you saw a video online, yeah, from somebody that you didn't know.
Speaker 1:So we didn't conduct a test. So all we're at is a hypothesis. Looking at the election fraud of 2022 or 2024. I'm sorry, looking at the election of 2024. Okay, made an observation? Well, observation is I know I didn't vote for Trump. I know the people that are around me didn't vote for Trump and Trump has won. Ask a question Well, was there fraud involved with Trump's winning Form? A hypothesis, form, a hypothesis. Well, I believe that there was election fraud and Starlink gathered together and had switched a bunch of votes in Pennsylvania over to Trump, conducted an experiment. Well, starlink was only in a few places in Pennsylvania and even in those places was Philadelphia and Lake Pittsburgh, where Harris actually got to vote. Yeah, okay, yeah. So now I have to accept or reject. Well, based off the evidence, I'm going to have to reject that hypothesis.
Speaker 2:But now hold on a second. Using this, can we not go back to Elon Musk for a second?
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And you say, all right, he's made a gesture, hand goes up at an angle, palm is facing down. He did it not once, but twice, he did it. We've seen that. And you say, okay, was this? My question here is, was this a Nazi salute?
Speaker 2:And you look at the evidence which says he has previously done a gesture that I would, that many people would call my heart goes out to you. So, for instance, both hands touch the heart come out. We have seen him do this. There's video evidence of this. We have seen him come out in support, both before and after the video of the gesture, in support of far right groups, support of far-right groups.
Speaker 2:We have seen that he did not apologize for any harm the gesture may have caused. He did not acknowledge that this could have. You know, oh, I see what you meant and I'm so sorry I didn't mean it that way. You know, nothing was said of the kind as you said. Of the kind, as you said, a actual neo-Nazi came out and was like hell, yeah, man. And nothing was said to be like, absolutely not Like. I don't delete that copy, you know everyone quickly bury it. Would you not then look at that evidence and say there is an extremely high likelihood that he was aware of what this gesture meant and chose to do it anyway, given the audience. Therefore, we can we can say that this was a Nazi salute. I'm not calling him a Nazi, I'm saying the gesture that he made. Based off of that evidence, would you not agree then that that is a Nazi salute?
Speaker 1:So the actual salute and everything like that. It appears it follows the same exact way and and here's kind of that, that difference in wording, is it? You know again all the evidence I've seen? Is it likely? Oh fuck, yeah, a trillion percent likely. He purposely meant to do that. A trillion percent.
Speaker 2:But at what point, though? When you see it and you're like this is so, so, so likely, do you just go ahead and say I'm going to call it that?
Speaker 1:Well, so here's the difference between likelihood and factual. Factual is I have a pen in my hand. When I let it go, where's it going to go?
Speaker 2:Down.
Speaker 1:Right, I know a trillion percent that it's going to go down. I can take the same pen. I can pick it up. Drop it again. Pick it up.
Speaker 2:What if you were in space? It's not going to go down.
Speaker 1:And that would be a whole different thing, because that situation but how do I know you're not in space? Oh, my God, I'm getting.
Speaker 2:You started this.
Speaker 1:But that's the thing, is that it is factual that this pen is going to drop here on Earth. Yes, I can test it over and, over and over again and each and every time that is going to be the same exact result Likely is.
Speaker 2:I think what I'm trying to get at is that at a certain point, when you're like it's, there's obviously the like, the hundred percent. You know, if you're on earth and you drop something, gravity is going to like it down. We know that. You can't. You can't argue with that, although people will try and. But then there's the it is. You can assume that it will happen because the likelihood is so small. But where do you draw that line of saying this is so likely? I'm just going to, for the sake of the argument, for the sake of not spending 18 minutes explaining all the little if, if, if, if, if. I'm just going to say yes, Fact.
Speaker 1:So okay, so here you go. Likely, I am a I believe in science Big bang. There is so much evidence pointing towards a big bang. There is, I mean, uh, math and equations, and what we have as far as, like, the universe, everything is is towards that there was a big bang. Is it factual? That's still debatable. Is it likely?
Speaker 2:that nobody was there who saw it?
Speaker 1:is it likely that's what happened? Well, as of right now, all the evidence is pointing to yes, this is likely. What it? What it? What started the universe?
Speaker 2:that's why it's a theory yeah, and that's that's.
Speaker 1:The thing is that it is, and, oh my god, theory in science means it's more than just a guess. The only thing that the theory is saying is that it is.
Speaker 2:It's an educated guess.
Speaker 1:Well educated guess is a hypothesis, a theory is all the evidence is pointing to that. So like there is the theory of gravity, well, we can't really experiment of gravity unless we're going to take two humongous objects and actually go into it and really dig deep and all that. But what we can see from the sun and the earth, it looks like gravity is an actual thing. Of the Earth, it looks like gravity is an actual thing. The fact that we are able to take a pen and drop it points to gravity being a thing.
Speaker 2:I just realized I wouldn't know if you were in a space station, because you don't have any hair to float around.
Speaker 1:But I do have bolts that.
Speaker 2:Those could be. Those could be like glued down.
Speaker 1:I'm just being a dick and I know it I know okay, and this is why we're friends exactly but yeah, you know, and that's the thing is that, like likelihood, like you know, again we can kind of we can draw a very strong conclusion and but that's all it is. It's it's a very strong conclusion, you know, and that's kind of. The difference is that there is only one person who knows it being factual or not. But again, all the evidence I see is very highly likely that, yes, that is what he meant it to be. But to actually say it is difficult to say.
Speaker 2:I'll let you slide on this one.
Speaker 1:You know, and that's the thing is that we actually have to go down these things. So, like MKUltra that I was kind of saying about the moment that it came out that we did do these things, are the other people who said that there was more to it than even what the cia is saying now? Very highly likely, a thousand percent. I believe them, but I can't say that it's factual right and that's kind of the difference, is you know?
Speaker 1:again with the thing with elon musk, I believe it to be a nazi salute. Yes, is it factual?
Speaker 2:can we at least agree to call them swastikars.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I'm all about that.
Speaker 2:Okay, great, as long as we can agree on that I'm fine.
Speaker 1:But you know, and that's the thing, is that, like it does have to go on both sides, we do have to actually look at reasonable evidence. Rather than Joey who does a YouTube channel, we actually have to look at what a person actually says, as what their past is and things like that. Because again I, I I'm not going to sit here and say that no, wasn't, because again, all the evidence I've seen is definitely pointing towards, you know, like a Nazi salute. But the thing is is that I cannot call that itself Nazi salute, but I can say that is very likely and that I don't stand for it, that I don't agree with it, that I don't agree with him, I don't agree with him, I don't agree with his actions, I don't agree with his actions, and that's the thing. Is that, like, yes, likelihood, you can still make that decision of where you stand on likelihood, but looking at the facts versus looking at the likelihood.
Speaker 2:Right and I agree with that that you do need to based on facts, and sometimes you see something and you get this like gut feeling that you're like this is whatever. This can't be true, this can't be right, and you do have to pause and back up and explore what the actual facts are and where you were getting those quote unquote facts from. Where's your information coming from? Sources we all learned this in school. What are your sources? Your source cannot be, with a few exceptions, some random person on TikTok saying well, I heard no, no, it's.
Speaker 2:You really need to be careful and I think people have lost that ability, because maybe they haven't lost the ability. They have chosen to ignore that, because that requires effort and that requires them to sometimes face hard truths that the thing that they want to believe maybe just isn't true. You know, we all want to believe that this person is a bad person and maybe a lot of evidence points it Jeffrey Epstein. Jeffrey Epstein, did Epstein kill himself? I don't know, I don't know. And there are people who are like, oh, obviously he did. And then there are people like, well, obviously he didn't. There are people out there who had reason to hate him and it's important to analyze that information and not just kind of take something at face value and be like, oh, of course he killed himself, yeah, I'm not going to question anything. But you also can't take it too far and be like I'm the question Every single little thing.
Speaker 1:Sometimes you have to understand that there are facts like gravity as long as you're on earth, which I don't believe you are I mean I, I can definitely say that I am on earth, or else molly would be having floating ears but I can't see molly she's on the couch.
Speaker 2:She's snoozing. Our ep has zero cares to give today.
Speaker 1:so, with all that being said, we we pretty much went into like where we go from here, and a lot of just comes down to asking yourself these questions and actually looking at reliable sources. And you know, like I would say, the biggest thing is looking at facts instead of feelings. The whole idea is that, yes, we all have these gut feelings and a lot of that kind of comes from the fact that we want to believe things. But the thing is, is that our gut, I mean, is not all that good? What so, with all that being said, where do you put conspiracy theories on our list of toxicity? Would you say it's a green potato, where you just shave off the green and you're able to eat it? Would you say it is a death cap mushroom 50, 50 shot of killing you? Or would you say that this is a antifreeze?
Speaker 2:a delightful last meal talking about conspiracy theories as a whole, I'm gonna have to say it's antifreeze, because, while I think it is good to do your own research and I know that phrase is very charged right now it has been taken over by certain groups of people who use it to push conspiracy theories or ideas that have been proven to be not true or not scientifically factual. Like you should be drinking raw milk, please don't do that. By the way, I don't think anybody listening is drinking raw milk, but I see that phrase unfortunately pop up on that type of thing. Just do your own research. So I don't mean it in that way, it in that way.
Speaker 2:But I think you shouldn't always assume that everything you see is true, even from a trusted source. With big things, you should sometimes question it, you should sometimes be open to it, but you have to remain factual. And people don't want to do that and as a result, and people don't want to do that and as a result, people die. People have literally died from run around and believe that. I'm not going to fight you on it, but unfortunately it's a gateway into believing things like the government is putting. What were they putting in the COVID vaccine? Supposedly Microchips, microchips in the vaccine, or that FEMA is stealing the lithium under your house that got destroyed you, you got to be careful in there because it's a. It's very slippery, so and that can get you killed. If you drink raw milk, you can die if you refuse to get vaccines. There is a measles outbreak in texas and new mexico right now.
Speaker 1:A child has already died from that did you hear what your uh homegirl uh said?
Speaker 2:no, I avoid her, look. Look, she's not my. She's not my representative. I know she's my state, but like that's the town over, thank, god she's saying that.
Speaker 1:Uh, like chicken said we should start having measles parties.
Speaker 2:And her proof of evidence is an episode of the Brady Bunch. Yeah, see my previous point about please have factual source. We don't just trust TikTok and TV. Oh my God, oh, marjorie Taylor Greene needs to go crawl back into whatever awful CrossFit gym she came out of. But yeah, people die from believing in conspiracy theories, and not just the people who believe in them. But, like with Pizzagate, you know it can spread and it can have huge effects on other people who get accidentally snapped up in your delusion about stuff. So, yeah, I would give them. While I think it is healthy to question things, I think it's healthy to do your own research and to not just blindly believe everything the government is telling you or that you're seeing on TV or that you're seeing on Facebook, especially on Facebook. Y'all the boomers and AI need to stop. I think that it's people go too far and it has deadly consequences.
Speaker 1:I agree with you a hundred percent. I think that it is definitely a antifreeze. I would also just add, as far as, like you know, I agree, like you know, it's good to question things, it's good to do your own research, but I would add that if you're not buying into the actual scientific research and you really want to know that badly, then put on a fucking lab coat, get yourself you know, like the, the, the degree of yeah, go back to school, study, study to be a doctor, study to be a whatever the people are who make vaccines?
Speaker 1:yeah, I don't know um you know and and actually do legit research. Because then you have people like Matt Welsh who goes off about what is a woman and the thing I really loved I loved how he talked in a town hall type thing and he was going off and people were asking him well, do you have a degree in psychology? No. Degree in social work? No. Do you have a degree in science? No. Biology no. Like there is a reason why these degrees are important is because, yeah, I went into school prior, you know, with like a very liberal mind but at the same time, like there's also evidence that I wouldn't have known about if I hadn't gone to school and if I would have just said, if I would have just Googled my already understanding of things. Google is going to have like anti-vaccines. It might have 60 trillion pages supported by doctors and people like that and it's going to have three pages of bill anti-fraxer and if you look up how vaccines causes autism, then Bill's anti-vaccine pages are going to show up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think we also need to do a better job of learning to accept when we're wrong. It's okay, you can feel sad. You can feel sad, you can feel angry. I had an ex who was obsessed with drinking milk because he was like it gives you strong bones and that is not necessarily a completely 100% factual. You're going to grow big and strong because you drink milk.
Speaker 1:Oh, the 90s.
Speaker 2:I know Right, and I, I got tired of him constantly being like I must have my milk because I have strong bones. I looked up this information and I presented it to him. I was like this is, these are the facts. And he literally looked at it and was like I don't feel like believing that those, those words, came out of his mouth. Now, the bigger issue is I continued to date him. That's the real problem.
Speaker 1:Because I'm different.
Speaker 2:I'm different, yeah, but you know it's okay to be wrong and it's okay to be upset, that something that you believe, something that you grew up hearing or that you want to believe. You know you want to believe that milk is good for you. I'm not saying you can't drink your milk, baby boy. You can have it, but you can't tell me that you must have it because it gives you the strongest of strong bones.
Speaker 1:You can be sad, but it's not true you can be sad, but it's, it's not true? Well, and, and with all that being said, let us know if you have any conspiracy theories that you buy you want to hear your best conspiracy theories write to us at toxic, at awesome life skillscom. We have Facebook, instagram and soon to have blue blue sky should be posted on it soon. And.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, don't forget to rate and like the show yeah.
Speaker 1:Don't forget to rate and like the show and, with that being said, we'll see you next week. I've been Christopher Patchett, lcsw.
Speaker 2:And I've been Lindsay McLean.
Speaker 1:Bye, bye you.
