Speaker 1 (00:08):

Theme

Andy (00:31):

Hey everybody. Welcome to Skinny Mat's, tinfoil hat. My name is Andy broadcasting out of Henderson, Nevada.

Skinny (00:39):

And my name is skinny. Mat broadcasting, somewhere out of the Northern hemisphere.

Andy (00:46):

Just wanted to do this first episode to kind of, well, actually this zero zero, zero episode, to give you an idea of what the show is about and what me and Skinny Mat about. This is a show about conspiracy theories and not just your run of the mill conspiracy theories, but also things like cryptozoology stuff like big foot and the Loch ness monster. Also we have episodes that kind of veer off a little bit of the a well-worn conspiracy theory track and go into, you know, some other more lighter funner subjects. Me and Skinny. Mat have been friends for how long we've been friends, Mat

Skinny (01:28):

2000 and 2002, 2003.

Andy (01:34):

I started, I started my band in 2002 and I think that's where we met.

Skinny (01:38):

I'm pretty sure that yeah, the green Valley green Valley ranch. There in Henderson.

Andy (01:41):

Yeah, it was, I think it was like 2000, 2002 or 2003. So a long time

Skinny (01:46):

. I wasn't even almost on almost 20 years. I don't know .

Andy (01:50):

And the reason we started the show is because we would have arguments. I am a pretty much a non-believer in almost all conspiracy theories. I would say

Skinny (02:01):

Almost you're a non-believer in almost everything, anything fun you just don't believe in.

Andy (02:05):

Oh yeah. I guess you could spin it that way. Sure. but Mat is a very fantastical believer. Mat will believe in a lot of crazy, crazy shit, including shit that he just makes up on his own. Like it doesn't have to be a well-known conspiracy theory for Mat to truly believe in it.

Skinny (02:26):

Not at all. I just have to believe that it's possible. If I can believe that it's possible, then I'm going to believe that it's possible. That's all right.

Andy (02:33):

And, and, and that leads me to our next topic is that some of our shows are just going to be about theories that you have. Not necessarily a conspiracy theory of a bunch of people having a sinister plot. But just Mat having a plot.

Skinny (02:49):

Absolutely. I mean, look, there, there have been many, a great thinkers out there and all those great thinkers had an original thought and they said, look, I think this is what this is. And everybody's like, fuck you. You're crazy. And then you look back and they're like, Oh, actually they weren't that crazy. They're right. I just think of myself as a, as a new school thinker.

Andy (03:10):

All right. That's also another way to spin it. So yeah, so, so Skinny Mat has this weird brain and we get in these weird arguments that sometimes get very passionate and, but they've always been a lot of fun for us and we thought that it might be fun for people to listen to as well. I have some questions for you, Mat, and we'll start that. We'll, we'll go back and forth. You have questions for me? Not necessarily now. All right. Well, if you can think of any, go ahead. All right. So here's a question I have for you, Mat. Do you remember the first time you heard a conspiracy theory and were intrigued by it?

Skinny (03:50):

Okay. Abs absolutely. Actually do. Okay. I do. I was it was, let's see, I was about 12 years old. It's funny. Cause I was just talking to my, my old man and my dad about this. We had a guy that lived down the street from us in Henderson. Everybody called him Carney Mike. Okay. and he ran this little, you know, like they show up in a town and set up in a parking lot and then just their, their little rinky-dink carnival. They used to set up in time at field way back.

Andy (04:19):

I remember I went to those all the time.

Skinny (04:22):

And this dude would have the fuckin best. And craziest story is one day he pulled up, he had a line in his front seat, like a legit fucking lion, just on his front seat. He used to drive it out from Pahrump all the time. Well, one day we were sitting outside, me and my dad and we'd seen lights over Vegas. And they were like all lined up straight across from each other. It was a big thing. It was on the news. Umnd it was like an unconfirmed UFO sighting. And he had stopped and we were talking with him and we were like, Oh look, it's UFO is, you know, and he's like, Oh, now I know some of UFO's. He had then gone on to a story about how he had served in Vietnam under a secret, mutpost that he wrote a flying disc saucer to a secret enemy. Bunker got him to open the door of this secret bunker and go in and see all this alien technology and everything else. And then he rode the silver disc back and the silver desk, he said it was like a size of a Frisbee, like wrapped around him like an egg. He said, Oh my God.

Andy (05:32):

And so, so Carney Carney, Bob Carney, Mike Carney, Mike was a carny. Was you, you had a UFO experience with Carney Mike. And he said, no, those aren't UFO's, I've been inside of one. Those are government

Skinny (05:50):

That's government around with UFO technology. I've seen real UFO's and that's not them. That is a spectacular, it was chorus from that moment on. I was like, well, , anything is possible. Carney. Mike

Andy (06:05):

Mean, Mike has to be honest. Right. Everything you say and has got to be true.

Skinny (06:09):

Listen, listen, this guy had a , he was like, ah, I've got pet lions. And then he showed up one with it in his car. Okay.

Andy (06:17):

So you thought, Oh, he's full of shit. He don't have no lions. So then after that you're like, Oh, everything he says must be true. Then

Skinny (06:23):

He kept proving himself every time. Like that's the biggest load of bullshit I've ever heard in my life. He'd show up and prove it the next day. He's like, Oh, I can swallow swords. I'm like Bullshit. Next day, show up and be Saul and swords. I'm a demolition expert. He'd show up with sticks of dynamite. The next day he blew the neighbor's tree from the neighbor's yard into Timet at field. One time with the seal charge. That's the greatest thing ever.

Andy (06:52):

So that's a really fascinating story. I can see how you would be shaped by that, you know crazy interesting kooky fuckin tiger. King character comes into your life. Uthat's another thing is, is me and skinny, Mat grew up in Henderson or, you know, right outside of Las Vegas. So like aliens and stuff was pretty normal for us. Like that was on the news.

Skinny (07:19):

Yeah. They had coverage of it. Yeah.

Andy (07:21):

We have a, we have a newscaster here named George Knapp, which we hope to do a show about. And George Knapp reported on on a lot of things. He reported on tons of things. But one of the things he reported on was area 51 stuff. He kind of broke that open in the, in the early, late eighties.

Skinny (07:39):

I think it was the late eighties, like 80 at 89 or something like that. 89 91. Yeah. All that. Bob Lazar our stuff.

Andy (07:46):

So here's another question for ya, Mat. What conspiracy theory do you think is true and what is your favorite conspiracy theory? Now those are separate things. Hopefully like there's one that you might not think is true, but it's your favorite. And then there's one that you think is, is definitely true.

Skinny (08:06):

You know, there's, there's so many of them out there that I can find truth in. I honestly think that the moon landing, honestly, I believe is, is the truthful one. That one, I believe there's no way we landed on the moon. I don't, I don't think that happened. Favorite one. I think my favorites, the wackiest favorite one you have would be that the Reagan replaced all the birds with cameras and the birds worked for the bougie. See, I think that's, I think that's up there with one of my that's one of my favorite ones, all the birds, all of the birds have been replaced by that is a job by drones and they all work for the bougie. They're just set out to watch us and keep tabs on us. Okay. That's it. Those are good ones. That's my favorite. That's one of my favorite ones. I reserve the right to change that. Not sure, but sure. Most of the ones I've gone with now

Andy (09:06):

Are there any conspiracy theories to your knowledge that turned out to be true?

Skinny (09:14):

Other than the, you know, growing up as a kid, you always heard about how the government had experimented on people and how, you know, the, just the, just the experiment on people. I never thought that would be a thing. And then I found out that it was, so it was an actual thing that government actually did secret experiments on their own, their own people. And they lied about it to cover it up, you know? And if, if they're willing to do that, then it kind of led me to believe like what aren't they willing to do then? You know, literally killing, killing their own people that volunteered to serve for their country in any way, shape or form. So if they told them they were going to test it, they probably would have done it, but because they chose not to tell them and they just lied to them and then lied to the American people about it. I kind of left open that door mistrust.

Andy (10:06):

Right. Yeah. And I think that after JFK is when government conspiracy theories really ramped up, I think before that you didn't really hear about them. They weren't really a thing.

Skinny (10:19):

Well, up until, up until then, they had, everybody had complete trust in their government. They didn't think anything was going on.

Andy (10:25):

Right. But you ha you have to know that just because the government did one thing doesn't mean they're doing everything.

Skinny (10:31):

If it doesn't mean they're not right. Like they can like, like they, they have, they have just as much to do it as they do to not do it.

Andy (10:40):

I don't know what that means.

Skinny (10:44):

It just means that like, if, if somebody out there believes that it's beneficial for them to do it, they're going to try and do it no Mater what it is.

Andy (10:53):

Well, I, I watched this the serial killer documentary and the guy's name. It was like Ed Edwards or something. It was some weird, like double name like that. And he was a serial killer that operated out of somewhere. And somebody wrote a book that attached him to every single, famous murder that ever happened. You know, in his lifetime, he was like 13 years old. According to this guy, when he committed his first murder, even though he was in one place of the country at the time, there was evidence of that. He snuck away, flew on an airplane, killed Jon Benet Ramsey, flew back, you know, and was woke up in his bed the next day. You know, like this guy tied every single murder to him. And it was just total and complete bullshit because there's no way that this dude could do all those murders with all the evidence saying he was elsewhere. Right. But you just, you tie patterns. It, which brings me to my next topic. And it's why people believe in conspiracy theories. You know, it it's, I think that,ucertain things in your life may happen, but,usome people think it's a brain thing. All right, Mat. So check this out. This is Shannon Odell. It's a YouTube clip. I found about the brain chemistry of people who believe in conspiracy theories, check it out.

Shannon Odell (12:19):

People who believe in conspiracy theories have brains that are more prone to illusory pattern perception, AKA finding connections. When there are none in one study, researchers flipped coins and asked subjects to record the results. People who thought they saw patterns in the random coin flips were more likely to believe in at least one major conspiracy theory. So why do conspiracy theorists sometimes see connections that just aren't there. Neuroscientists believe it may be due to extra dopamine in their brains. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter involved in emotion, reward and cognition. It's thought to be especially important in decision-making as it helps people find signal in noise. People with genetically higher levels of free dopamine are more likely to believe in one or more conspiracy theories. In fact, in an experiment where a drug to increase dopamine levels was administered to non-believers. They behaved more like believers seeing patterns in random shapes.

Andy (13:31):

So it's not your fault, Mat, your brain makeup is just like that. Oh, okay.

Skinny (13:36):

Oh, okay. That explains it. That explains it all.

Andy (13:40):

It's like being gay. There's no choice in it. Yeah. There's no choice. There's no choice. You have to work really hard to overcome these, these fantastical thoughts. See, as I, do you agree with that at all?

Skinny (13:55):

Not even a little bit. No. See, I think, I believe what happened is that they killed your imagination to think outside of the box, which gives me the true.

Andy (14:06):

We're not talking about me here. We're talking about you. All right. We're talking about people who believe in conspiracy theories, not ones who don't know.

Skinny (14:15):

Cause we're the more educated ones we know. We have a more broader view of the world than those that do not believe in.

Andy (14:24):

Um I asked, I asked you once I said, do you think you can find a conspiracy theory in anything? And you said, yes. Do you believe that?

Skinny (14:30):

Yeah. Now, cause you can.

Andy (14:33):

But isn't that exactly what she was talking about with what, what was it called? The dopamine levels. No illicit Tori elusive Illusory pattern perception, which means you're finding patterns in things that aren't. But if you can find a conspiracy theory in anything like really the sh a shadowy government or a shadowy cabal of sinister people, making a plot is involved in everything.

Skinny (15:06):

Yeah. It could be, yeah, yeah. Right down to this.

Andy (15:11):

Well we, both of us know that that's not true. How do we know until it actually, because we've created it, you and I have both created it. Correct. But one is allowing us, but I'll bet. I'll bet that people will find a conspiracy theory in this where there is none and you'll be able to see that happen.

Skinny (15:30):

We'll see. I might believe them. What if it's true?

Andy (15:33):

So I, I honestly, I don't think that you fall in that category. Like if I were psychoanalyzing you as a conspiracy theorist, I don't think you fall in the category of someone who has extra dopamine, someone who is like predisposed to believe in conspiracy theories. I don't think you're like that. No. So I have another clip, which I think says more about it. This is Rachel Runnels. She did a Ted talk. She had her thesis was called conspiracy theories in the quest for truth.

Rachel Runnels (16:06):

Believe it or not. There's a lot of research out there on what makes someone more likely to believe in a conspiracy theory. Research tells us that conspiracy believers have a high need for uniqueness, which just means that they like to be different and cool. They like the ability to claim membership to a small and exclusive community. Research also tells us that conspiracy believers tend to feel unrepresented in traditional forms of authority. It's a lot easier to believe that the government is lying about the existence of aliens when you already don't believe anything that the government says.

Andy (16:42):

So that is the category that I think you fall into Mat. I think you fall into the uniqueness category.

Skinny (16:50):

So what I do, because I don't want to be popular,

Andy (16:53):

Not popular. I think you want, like at the beginning of the, of this episode, when you said great thinkers and unique thinkers who think outside of the box and everything, I, I think you, I think you want to, I think you perceive yourself as this, this different thinker. And in order to think differently, you have to go, you'd have to step outside of what the traditional beliefs are. You have to step outside of facts. You have to step outside. You have to go into an imaginary dreamworld of, of false things in order to really, really take that step and.

Skinny (17:29):

See you're so quick to call those things false. But they're the true what we're true.

Andy (17:36):

We're talking generally give it generally.

Skinny (17:39):

They can be true though.

Andy (17:40):

But, but they're just as true as fairies and unicorns though. There's no facts to support them or very little, there's no evidence and it's, it takes a major, major belief on your part and faith on your part. It's not things that are based in reality, but I have some more questions for

Skinny (17:59):

You. All right. I

Andy (18:02):

Have a question that you should have for me. Okay. One sec. In fact, I'm going to answer it. It's the same question I asked you. Do you think are there any conspiracy theories to you? Not to your knowledge, it turned out to be true. Are that I have an answer for that. I have, I have a pretty awesome answer for that. Okay. Santa Claus. Think about it. Okay. Santa Claus was a conspiracy perpetrated by my parents, probably yours. Yup. And millions of others to trick children into thinking there was a magical man who watched you all the time, knew if you were good or bad and brought you gifts. You know? So if like conspiracy theories can be pulled off, if you're a child, you know, I think if you're a little child with an impressionable mind and your, and the people you trust most are telling you that this thing is real. But if you can't grow out of that, then that's where, that's where it starts to lie on you a little bit.

Skinny (19:04):

So you've have at, at some point, if, if you can't grow out of it and nobody can prove to you that it's not real, then isn't that real for that person.

Andy (19:15):

No, because there's a reality. There, there is a, there is it's, we don't have our own realities. We have a shared reality, but there is like, like that's your own perception.

Skinny (19:26):

There's people out there that have been told about Santa Claus and gone their whole lives, believing in it. And every morning they wake up and there's a gift there from Santa Claus under their Christmas tree. It's not

Andy (19:37):

From Santa Claus though. Do you think it is

Skinny (19:40):

From Santa Claus, but it is it's from their Santa Claus. It's from their per that person's that person,

Andy (19:45):

Individual perception. But in reality, someone left that there a person did.

Skinny (19:50):

But that's what Santa Claus is. Santa Claus is the person that leaves gifts. Right. But we just, because the name of that person is, you know, Susie, instead of Santa Claus, doesn't see mean the same thing.

Andy (20:04):

You think you can just believe something into being true?

Skinny (20:06):

Well, yeah. Cuz it can be.

Andy (20:11):

Why don't you have a billion dollars right now? Why don't you believe you have a billion dollars?

Skinny (20:16):

But I don't, I don't believe I want that.

Andy (20:18):

Two more questions for you. We're getting a little deep in this weird rabbit hole about general generality. Do you think conspiracy theories can be dangerous?

Skinny (20:29):

Oh, obviously anything. Any, yes. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Anything can be dangerous. The truth can be just as dangerous as a conspiracy theory.

Andy (20:40):

Right. But the truth is real and conspiracy theories are unsubstantiated.

Skinny (20:49):

Oh, that's your point of view.

New Speaker (20:54):

Uh okay. I have another question. Considering how the political realm is rife with all kinds of conspiracy theories, why are you mostly apolitical? Because that's one thing I've noticed about you and, and, and, and I think you'd say, would you say that was true?

Skinny (21:11):

Well, how do you mean by apolitical?

Andy (21:13):

Like, you're not really concerned about politics at all. Yeah. Or very little,

Skinny (21:18):

Very little, it has very minimal impact on my life personally,

Andy (21:24):

But you'd have to admit that like the political realm, especially nowadays is rife with pretty juicy conspiracy theories.

Skinny (21:35):

Well, I mean, it, it is there all the, it doesn't Mater like that the whole system is a conspiracy theory. Like there's no, like arguing that Biden is going to be better than Trump or Trump was better than Biden. It's like saying water from a stream is better than water from a Lake. Like, it's, it's just, it's still water. Like there's going to be, there's minimal difference between the two. There, there, it's still all being controlled by the, the rain and the clouds and the, the, you know, the sun and everything else, everything else is controlling. It. You're just calling it two different things. It's two different containers, but it's all the same outcome. Like, it doesn't matter who sits in that chair. They all work for the same people and they all try and do the same thing. So the guy who you get in there,

Andy (22:23):

I highly disagree on that. Like most things about us. Like most things. Yeah. yeah. I, I just, I just wonder like Like it, like, I hate to pull the Hitler card so early, but, but like a Hitler was a leader that changed the course of history through violent evil acts. Do you think that if maybe something would have happened in the course of history that maybe didn't have a Hitler, then things would have shook out different?

Skinny (23:01):

No, I think there would've been somebody else that would've just done the same thing. Really? Yeah, absolutely. Okay. I don't think that I don't think people affect history at all.

Andy (23:15):

You think a shadowy cabal of people in cloaks chanting in a, in a dungeon are the only ones that affect history.

Skinny (23:22):

No, but I believe that there are few people out there that truly do affect history and they're the ones that are controlling it. Absolutely.

Andy (23:29):

Yeah. Do you have any evidence of that?

Skinny (23:32):

No. Okay. Other than it's happening, other than that, it's like, there's, I don't need evidence to prove it. And just the way, you know, you don't need evidence to breathe there.

Andy (23:44):

So here is another question. A conspiracy theories have seen a Renaissance in the last few years. What do you attribute that to?

Skinny (23:52):

Honestly, the internet, the amount of information that's available to us is so grand in scope that it's almost impossible to weed out that, which is fact and which is not. And that, which is, you know, like the other way around, you know? Yeah. It's just tough to have to weed through all of that information. It's right. It's an overload without any filter, you know, too much information is too much. It's bad and it's not good for us.

Andy (24:24):

I think you're definitely right on everything you said, but I think, I think you're alike. I think the amount of information is great. I think it's an incredible tool. It's like fire, you know, it's an incredible tool, but it can also be your worst enemy because misinformation thrives just as much, maybe even more. And I think conspiracy theories are, as far as information in general goes, conspiracy theories are the car wreck on the side of the road that we all slow down to look at. You know, it's a gross thing that we're, that we can't turn away from, that we are intrigued by. That happens and that, and I think that's, and I think that's damaging to a society. I have another clip here. This, did you watch the Netflix documentary, the social dilemma? Not yet. No. I've been, I've been nervous about watching that you should check it out. It may might watch it, but it just, it might, it might play into the same. We might agree on a lot of things as far as conspiracies go, because this guy is basically saying that the director is basically saying that Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all the social networks is, is a conspiracy for your attention. Right. And they're trying to sell you things, but that, but that has terrible, terrible side effects. Right. And one of the side effects, well, I'm just gonna let them talk. I'll I'll, I'll show you this. This was on bill Maher. Last week, this is Tristan Harris president and co-founder of the center for humane technology director of the social dilemma, check it out.

Bill Maher (26:00):

And it's especially dangerous now because a great deal of the country is going to believe that this election is stolen. Yeah. That Joe Biden is not legitimate president. And then what, then what happens? Because then it's not like Facebook is going to shut that side down or, or are they are they going to, I mean, they've taken, the companies have now taken moves that we never saw up until a few months ago.

Tristan Harris (26:30):

A lot of the public pressure that they haven't acted enough. So there's this weird situation we're in where if you let the Frankenstein run without any controls. And so anything goes viral. If it gets the most clicks and likes, that just rewards the most conspiracy theories, you know, YouTube, for example, recommended Alex Jones, Infowars, conspiracy theories, 15 billion times, which is more than the combined traffic of New York times, Washington post guardian Fox news combined. And when you just realize the scale of all of that conspiracy theories are especially dangerous because they're like a trust bomb. They warp your perception of everything that comes after it. In fact, the best predictor of whether you'll believe in a new conspiracy theory is whether I already got you to believe in one. And once you believe, for example, the election is rigged or it's stolen, then you perceive everything through that lens and it warps all of your perceptions.

Andy (27:19):

So what do you think about that, Mat?

Skinny (27:21):

I mean, yeah, that's absolutely. That's, it's just another, this is like, this is a tool that is used to help cloud more of the truth, basically, you know, like instead of, instead of being able to look at our political system and saying that it's broken, it needs to be fixed. And here's the things that we need to fix it. This, this adds a smoke screen to the actual issues at hand to, to split the people and to, and to not change anything at all, because it allows, it allows half the people to go. They stole the election and the other half to go, you're a idiot. No, they didn't. Rather than coming together and saying, Oh, there's something, something was fishy. They didn't steal the election, but this asshole still got elected for no fuckin, you know, like he's, he's not going to be any different than thelast guy. We elected the system's wrong here, you know?

Andy (28:22):

Right. I, I think that w what he's getting at though is social media. And he said this earlier in the interview, he said, we basically we're into this 10 year experiment of social media. And what it's done is it has taken information that we all, you know, get accepted as truth. And it's put it through the shredder. And given you this little sliver of information that you believe in, like, if you did a Google search right now, or a YouTube search, skinny Mat and I did one, it's going to give us different results based on what it thinks we want to see. And it's not doing that. I think out of like anything nefarious, it's doing it because it wants to sell us more shit and have our eyeballs attached to it longer. See, but that's why that's why those algorithms exist.

Skinny (29:08):

Like my issue is that you don't say that them, them wanting to do that, isn't nefarious because I believe that it is. I think, I think them doing that so that we do are attached to that longer. And I think that is a nefarious thing. I think that's a bad thing. And I think they.

Andy (29:27):

It's nefarious in the fact that that they're being manipulative and using psychological techniques to keep our attention longer, but it's not nefarious in the fact that they want to start a civil war or they want to polarize the country. I don't think that, I think that was a byproduct of, of giving everybody their own like skewed version of reality that fits there Worldviews.

Skinny (29:50):

See, and I don't, I think that's smart people sitting around somewhere creating a plan to try and develop something to allow the human race, to continue to go forward. I think that's, I think that's, it's, it's all

Andy (30:08):

To continue to go forward? Why would they do, why would they be so destabilizing?

Skinny (30:13):

Because they have to be, they have to be, I think, I think in

Andy (30:17):

Forward, how do you, how do you, how does that cause

Skinny (30:19):

I, I, I have a feeling, I have a theory that in order for the human race to continue, we have to get knocked back a peg. We have to get knocked down because we're going to advance ourselves to the point where we're no longer humans and we're no longer a human race. We're no longer what we are we'll evolve. You think it's like a Rocky movie

Andy (30:45):

Were like, if Rocky just kicked ass the whole time, it wouldn't be a very good movie. He had to get beat up a little bit.

Skinny (30:52):

Not only that a, this, that if we evolve any more, we're going to be privy to this amount of information that we, in our current forms can't possibly handle. Like, like a, like a two dimensional being, trying to figure out a three-dimensional box. It's not like it that we'll hit that point. And we'll just all self-destruct. So rather than allowing us to get to that point, they knock us back. So we never, we never can reach that point. We never can't reach that point of self-destruction.

Andy (31:25):

Oh, that is interesting. I'll I'll be looking forward to that thesis paper. You're gonna write about that.

Skinny (31:30):

I don't write papers. Nobody reads them. I can't write. Okay.

Andy (31:33):

All right. Skinny Mat. Well, we have to wrap this up. Do you have any like final words for our first episode for our audience?

Skinny (31:41):

I'll put it to you this way. If you believe it, believe it. And don't let anybody tell you otherwise that's it, period.

Andy (31:50):

All right. So thank you very much. And we'll see you on our first episode coming soon.