Examines AI art

(upbeat music)

♪ After the mind on the Academy ♪

♪ Shocked my pictures ♪

♪ Where the bastards of philosophy ♪

♪ Drinking a clutch ♪

♪ Brings above our skills ♪

♪ Like a sucker punch ♪

♪ Boy, come to see ’em, I’ll be ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, oh, see ’em, I’ll be ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, oh, see ’em, I’ll be, yeah ♪

♪ I’ll see ’em, I’ll be, yeah,
yeah, oh ♪ So we’re back.

We’re talking about AI again.

I don’t think we’re ever really
gonna stop talking about AI

because AI in itself does
not have any morality.

The morality that AI will
end up with will be something

that’s programmed by
people, but people are abusive.

And so this is it.

I think AI in itself is
inherently not good or bad.

Just like the internet is
not inherently good or bad.

It’s done some amazingly good things.

It’s done some awful horrible things.

It’s where scams come from now.

I have the same thing about AI.

A lot of scams are gonna happen because AI

and it’s some really wonderful
things are gonna happen

because of AI and it’s
up to us to control it.

The problem is the people who are often
in control don’t care about other people.

So this stems from
the second part of this

story, but let’s get
into the first part first,

where we get a little bit of sort of
irony or karma or something like that.

Where in 2022, this was the first
big story about AI who’s surfing art.

Like, is this okay?

We should think about this a little more.

A guy using AI to create an image, one
first place in a state fair competition.

And so he used, he says he
did a hundred hours of work

using different AI generators
and then Photoshop

and manipulating
everything to make this image

that he submitted, he
says he told the judges.

But the judges claim they didn’t know.

So they looked at this piece of artwork and
said, “This piece of artwork is amazing.

“That’s the winning
piece for this state fair.

” This of course then becomes a controversy
is AI generated art or is it not?

He’s claiming, again, a
hundred hours of work

went into this picture
that he says he made

but the problem is
mid-journey also contribute

to a Google AI at the
time contributed to it.

Photoshop contributed to it.

I know a lot of artists who
actually think Photoshop

is already taking away
from the idea of art,

from the actual handmade
feeling or aspect of art as skill.

Whereas someone in computers would be like,

“Well, you know,
computers are a skill in itself.

” I could see myself
making a piece of art

and then using Photoshop or
something to maybe touch it up.

But if it was going to be a big art piece
installation, like a picture I put up,

I think I wouldn’t want
that all to be handmade.

I wouldn’t want anything
in that generated by AI.

That’s just my instincts.

It’s not to say that I’m right or wrong.

It’s just my feeling about art.

It’s one of those things where
art is something you make

as a human being to
sort of express yourself.

After he won this competition and the
controversy comes out and the news comes out,

he says to the news,
and I think this is already

his first mistake, he
goes, “Art is dead, dude.

” If you want to make a
serious sort of statement

about the future, about technology
and stuff, you got to cut the dude out.

I say dude a lot.

If I’m being really honest,
my day-to-day conversation

is talking to people, I
actually say dude quite often.

I actually use it as an
expression of frustration.

I use it for both male and female.

To me, dude is gender neutral.

But if I was going to
make a serious statement

to the news about something that
I wanted people to take seriously,

I don’t think I would
throw a dude in there.

He says, “Art is
dead, dude, it’s over.

” AI won, humans lost.

So this to me is the first
irony, is that he’s a human.

So if humans have lost, he has to
actually include himself in that category.

So if he’s in that category, he
too has and is going to lose out.

And that’s maybe the first
step is he doesn’t see the irony

of what he’s doing to himself here as he
loses because AI in this case kind of wins.

So because he won and
this piece of art became

relatively famous, it
was all over the internet.

News outlets were showing it.

They were talking about it.

He tries to copyright
his piece of art, this image

so that other people
can’t, you know, steal it.

So despite the fact that we
know that AI to generate an image

has to be taking images off the internet,
learning from them, learning what they are,

so essentially stealing
other artists’ work to learn

to then add those elements into
the new piece of art it creates.

AI is stealing art on his behalf.

He’s using a sort of two,
three degrees of separation

to justify the fact that
he hasn’t stolen anything.

The AI is just learned,
it’s changed it, it’s modified,

it’s a new thing, therefore it’s
not theft in the traditional sense.

So he has this new thing that he made,

but he hasn’t actually made it because
AI has kicked in some effort there.

So his copyright application gets rejected

because they’re saying
as much as you may have

contributed to this, AI
also contributed to this.

AI has been stealing from other artists,

they don’t use those
words, but they’re

saying like, AI’s not
doing anything original.

You can’t copyright a non-original work.

It’s lifted, it’s copied, it’s
taken from other artists.

You can’t copyright that
without paying royalties

or giving kickbacks or
figuring something else

to give back to those
artists in the first place.

So they’re essentially
saying, because AI contributed

to this art, you as a
human cannot copyright it.

So his copyright claim has now
been, he’s now lost because AI has won.

He tried again and again and again.

And was rejected again
and again and again and again.

Now, if you go on Etsy,
people are selling this image.

It’s on cups, it’s on
t-shirts and other stuff.

They’re making money off it.

He’s not getting a taste
of any of that money.

He’s not getting a taste of any of that
money because he can’t copyright that image.

Since that image is now free on
the internet, other people are using it,

they might be making
thousands, hundreds of thousands.

Perhaps even millions,
I doubt it’s that big.

But he’s losing revenue
because he cannot copyright

that image because people
are now stealing the image

that he made from him, that
as we know, because of the

way AI works, that the image
was stolen from someone else

in the first place, they’re
not getting paid for that work.

So now in Colorado,
this guy is trying to sue

Colorado to force them
to create the copyright

because he has apparently
lost potential millions of dollars.

Now, the interesting thing to
me now is he’s actually too late.

So he’s already like the boom on
this piece of artwork is already gone.

AI art, generated art, state fair
art, isn’t the kind of long lasting art

that people are going
to review and see again,

and it’s not going to become
part of the consciousness

like the statue of David or something else,
or like even if you haven’t really seen it

or you don’t really care about it,
you kind of know what I’m talking about.

This isn’t going to do that, it’s not
going to have that sort of cultural impact.

If he didn’t get it right away
in 2022, he’s not going to get

it in 2024 by 2026, people
have probably forgotten about it.

It’s going to become a footnote in history
as the first piece of AI generated art,

and you notice every time they talk about
it, they don’t talk about his contribution.

They only talk about
the AI art contribution

of this piece of work because
that’s the only bit people care about.

Dave is just collapsed out of his bed.

He sleeps, he sleeps hard.

I mean, let’s just give him some credit.

So when we start looking
at back the history of AI

and how AI, how it fermented, how it began,
all the things that AI has or can do,

don’t probably be a picture
of his piece of artwork

in even textbooks or
Wikipedia and stuff in the future,

but what’s actually going to end up is
he’s never going to get a penny from that

because his contribution
is now less meaningful

to that art than the
contribution from the AI

like mid-journey, which
takes us into a second

lawsuit that’s going
on right now as well.

And it’s deep AI, the big big company
that is basically the AI company right now.

They are suing pretty
much the world to try to

get an exemption from
copyright across the board.

So the statement from the CEO is, we
can’t train AI on only public domain stuff.

So he’s basically saying right now,
AI is allowed to go out on the internet,

find public domain stuff,
put that into their generation

or whatever they do to create the
AI, to give it something to learn on.

And he’s saying the problem is,

that’s not enough for us to make a
modern intelligent AI, which I agree with.

The problem is what he then has to do is go

to copy written material
and use that to train his AI

and then that will then generate
new iterations of that thing.

So we’re talking about artwork,
we’re talking about writing,

we’re talking about like actual
work that could be done by a person,

that will not be done by
a person if the AI does it.

So all those people who
created the source material

are saying, I’ve copy
written this work, you want to

take this work from me, then
you got to pay me royalties.

And they’re saying, well,
we can’t afford to do that.

And we’re like, well,
if you can’t afford to

do that, then you
can’t use that material.

He’s like, but we need an exception
because we need this AI stuff to work.

Otherwise, how are we
supposed to sell this AI

and how am I supposed
to make millions of dollars?

Ironically, the dude
already has millions of

dollars, but I don’t
think that’s the point.

I think the point for
him is to own everything

and have all knowledge at his
fingertips that he is then in control of.

This is actually my biggest fear is that a
single dominant AI actually takes control.

And that’s the one whoever
owns that is the one that Jeez,

at the end of the day, there’s
nothing we can do against it,

except create our own
internet that is not a part of.

Oh, I’ve actually said this a bunch of
times while talking about technology stuff.

We just need two internet.

We need the now more
commercialized internet,

which is going to be your
traditional key TV cable package thing.

It’s going to have Netflix.

It’s going to have all this stuff.

It’s going to have Facebook.

It’s going to have whatever
Twitter on and all this other bullshit.

That’s the one I probably
wouldn’t go on anymore.

That’s the one you can put
all the AI you want on there.

I would be on the second internet,
which doesn’t have any of this shit.

And it’s just people generating
stuff and making stuff.

And it’s to me, the good old internet.

And I’m a very old man.

So maybe I’m just my nostalgia’s kicked in

and I only remember the
good bits of the old internet.

But I do remember that it was all
people and it was all stuff made by people.

And I was always really, really impressed

by the creativity of people and all
the stuff that happened on there.

And that is the stuff I would
like to see a lot more of.

So really, what the guy
from this company is saying

is we want to take all the material that
people have made and put on the internet

and not pay any copyright,
not pay them at all.

And then take that material
so that our AI can generate

new versions of that and
put those people out of work.

And that way, they don’t
only not get copyright,

they no longer get to
do the work they love.

So let’s talk about
this podcast that I make

and I enjoy making
podcasts and AI comes in

and it can make a perfect Cmic
B or perfect Ninja News Japan

or a perfect Montana L Diablo or
a perfect daily affirmations weekly.

And it can generate one every single day.

That is the same if not higher
quality than the one I make, my quality.

Again, if I’m drinking lunch,
as the theme song says,

is pretty hit and miss
and let’s be honest today.

I had a little gin in my coat
while I was having my lunch.

It’s a very nice afternoon.

I’m probably gonna be sleepy
by the end of this podcast.

But that’s irrelevant.

That’s another thing.

AI can’t get drunk with you.

Can’t hang out and talk to you.

So you come to a stream with an AI thing.

It’s not had a couple cocktails
and has a sort of different attitude.

And it’s all a different kind of smooth
atmosphere to everything that’s going on.

No, it’s just AI.

And then eventually that gets boring.

But if it can generate the exact same
show I make, then it’s going to do that.

And I can’t keep up speedwise.

I can’t release an episode every
day because I have a full time job.

Now there’s no one
listening to this podcast.

And it just keeps generating
and generating and generating.

And I see it’s going to kill the name
because again, it’s going to hit this limit

of I haven’t made any new stuff
because I’m no longer making podcasts.

So it has nothing it can learn off of.

So now it has to go into repetition.

It has to go into iterations of
the same thing over and over again.

This essentially hit
the writer’s block of AI

when other people are not
introducing new ideas into the AI.

Now it could do some creative things.

Let’s combine two other things
I’ve stolen into one new thing.

So that one new thing is slightly
more interesting for an extended period.

But I think there is
a limit to the level of

creativity because it
can never go into left field.

It just can’t go out of nowhere
and do something unusual.

It can’t add in new elements without having
someone tell it to add in new elements.

Basically the future of AI is very boring.

It’s actually my biggest concern.

Like if you want to put everything into AI

and everything relies on AI
and AI is making everything,

it’s going to hit a point where
it just everything is boring.

And we’ve already hit that with like
formulaic movies and formulaic TV shows

and formulaic things and we have these
expectations and they’re never broken.

So we’re actually getting bored with a
lot of stuff because we’ve hit peak TV.

Like I have a dozen TV
shows like I know it’s good

and I want to watch it,
but it’s already too much.

Now if AI starts generating even more and
then I get to this point where it’s like,

well it’s just the same
show with a slightly

different name where it’s
a slightly different change.

They’ve just been ripping each
other off for like the last six years.

And I’m like, why am I even watching TV?

And I can totally see that
actually happening where that’s

one of the things that actually
kills television and movies.

So the next question in the court case is
how much money is your company made?

So of course it’s
millions, billions of dollars.

And then the second
question is how much have

you paid out in royalties
and the answer is zero.

So they’ve taken, they
knowingly have taken music.

They knowingly have taken like art.

They’ve knowingly have
taken just scripts and stuff.

A lot of comedians were suing AI
because the big thing for a little while,

it’s kind of gone away, but it’s gonna
come back, is can AI make jokes?

Can AI do something that’s
actually funny to people?

We had the initial stages of AI.

We were making stuff that was weird and we
thought it was funny because it was weird.

But again, that’s sort
of the confusing out

of left field stuff that
we never expected.

They want to make fully proper structured
jokes that delight and surprise people.

And the way they do that is to
take jokes from actual comedians.

I think Sarah Silverman was
one of the leaders of this lawsuit

saying, okay, you’re taking
my jokes, you’re feeding into AI.

It’s kind of removing and
swapping out elements,

but it’s really just telling
the exact same joke.

But now we’re in a situation where she’s
not getting any money from this company.

She’s not getting anything
to sustain her career.

And if they actually are
successful, her career ends

because why would I listen to Sarah Silverman
do like a one hour special once a year

when I can go to this AI
channel that does Sarah

Silverman jokes 24 hours
a day, every day, all day,

until I get bored of it and then
don’t want to hear about it anymore.

My full expectation as there will be
more lawsuits going forward on all sides.

So we have the artist suing
the Colorado government

to try to get copyright so that
he can make money off his image.

The image that was
fundamentally stolen from

other artists who are
not getting paid copyright.

So I think if he gets his copyright

and then these artists can
prove that it took elements

from their artwork, they
would be suing him next.

We have this company who’s
trying to sue for the ability

to not have to have any regard
for copyright suing the government

saying we need this to train
our AI to stay competitive,

to stay, you know, to keep in an
advantageous positioning in the industry.

They’re going to be stealing from artists
and writers and musicians and other things.

And then if they’re
successful, those artists’ writers

and other things are
going to sue them for

taking their stuff
without paying copyright.

They’re never going to
get that exemption, though.

And then we have this
guy trying to get copyright

and getting refused because,
well, you contributed to it, yes,

but also the person
you worked with, the AI,

also contributed as much
as you did, if not more,

and you’re not paying them,
therefore, you can’t get copyright.

The AI cannot be given
copyright on a fundamental

grounds that they
do not own anything.

And that’s actually an interesting problem
is that if AI doesn’t own anything itself,

it’s going to be very hard
for AI to claim copyright.

It’s going to be companies on their behalf

and then they’re going
to immediately go to that

company and go like,
where did this come from?

How did this generate this information?

Can you trace it back to its source?

What was the source?
Have you paid that guy?

And that’s actually what it comes down
to, is they just don’t want to pay anybody.

The Hollywood strikes, I
did a whole episode on that.

And it’s because they had
some insane things in there.

What they wanted to do, one of the stories
was they wanted to take this script.

And it was this woman’s
essentially life story.

They said, we’re going to pay you
like a million dollars for this script.

But in the contract, it says,
we can feed your script into AI

and then from that, we’ll
be able to develop movies

and series based off what
the AI spits out afterwards.

And you’re not going to get any of that.

And she’s like, well, why
would I take a million dollars

when they’re going to try
to make 20, 30, 40 million

dollars per episode,
let’s say, of this TV show

that extrapolates from my information,
my life, and my script and my writing.

Like, it doesn’t make sense
to give that up to you anymore.

And there you can see sort of
the fundamental failure in Hollywood.

What’s going to happen is
you’re going to have people

who write, and they’re not
going to bring it to Hollywood

because like if I bring it to Hollywood,
I’m selling my soul, I’m giving it away.

They give me what is
a lot of money initially.

But a million dollars now
is only worth so much.

Like when I was a kid, a million
dollars, you could live forever.

Now a million dollars, you could
live for a long time if you’re a frugal.

But if we’re being really
honest, a million dollars

isn’t going to sustain
you until your old age.

I mean, it depends when you
start if you give me a million dollars.

Now, I probably could live the rest of
my life on it, but you’re a young writer.

You’re 20 years old, you’ve
written this amazing script.

They offer you a million dollars,
but then they’re going to put

you out of business right
after that because anything

you write is actually already
been written by the AI.

Now, of course, I have a certain
amount of faith in humans’ creativity.

That’s the whole point of this.

I think humans could come up
with a new and different story.

But then after you get
burned to that first time,

would you take it back
to Hollywood for them to

give you, let’s say, a
second million dollars

that then they would then
generate a billion dollars

worth of content out
of that you get nothing.

You don’t get a part of that.

If they were offering a
percentage, I think it might

be more amenable, because
then at least I get paid.

So if I could write
something really, really good

and they put it in an eye
and they make a billion dollars

and I still get 10 million
dollars, 15, 20 million dollars,

maybe a hundred million dollars,
I would be a more okay with that.

But it’s because these
companies want all the money

and not to pay the people
who actually do the work.

So what they’re trying
to do is scam people now

into like create work,
give us full copyright

forever in perpetuity,
you don’t get anything.

And then we don’t need
to hire writers anymore

because we have
everything in our little system.

And that again is when these TV shows,

these movies, they get
so boring and repetitive,

’cause this is the exact
same thing I’ve seen before.

They also had four actors.

If you’re a background
actor, you had to sign a waiver

that they could own
your face in perpetuity.

And my example was I am
a very, very young Brad Pitt.

I’m 17 years old and I’m
trying to get into movies.

I want to be an actor.

I’m trying to get my first shots.

And then I am in a crowd seen in a movie.

And then in a different
company, I become popular.

And then I become, you
know, 30, 40 year old Brad Pitt

and I’m making 20 million
dollars in movie easy.

Well, this other company still
owns my face from when I was 17.

So they slap that face onto another actor
and make an action movie with my name.

It might not even have my name
on it, but it has my face on it.

Now they’re making movies with
my face and I don’t get a piece of that.

I don’t get any say over that.

They start doing horrible things.

This is where deep fakes and revenge
porn and all these other things come in.

Because now maybe there’s a
porn company that’s associated with

that other company that I was
a background actor in the crowd.

And they’re now making porn with
my face in it from when I was 17.

And, okay, maybe I find that immoral.

Maybe I don’t, but then if I
don’t, I should still get paid.

Like I should get a piece of
that money and they won’t

give it to me ’cause they
own my face in perpetuity.

So you can see that
would be a huge block point

for any sort of negotiation going
forward because you don’t want a company

to own anything of
yours in perpetuity forever

and they can do whatever they want
with it and you never get a piece of it.

The final part of this is terrifying
because it’s AI in warfare,

which is another sort of total left,
like we’ve just taken a huge left term

for what I was talking about before but
it was AI and it’s in the news recently.

60 countries have ratified this idea

and it’s re-aim and it’s basically how AI
will be used in warfare because in Ukraine

they’re using a lot of
drones and some of them are

autonomous and they’re
worried about terminator.

Like we’re gonna make drones that go around

and just do strikes on
any living thing in the area.

It doesn’t have any morals,
it doesn’t make any decisions.

It just sees something in this area.

I’m gonna kill that thing.

Or they tell the thing, we
don’t want you to kill that child.

And then the AI goes, nah, but I
kind of wanna, and then it does.

One of the first experiments
I read about never saw

it actually happen was,
luckily it was never physical.

It was only within a computer
model but they had an AI drone

and they basically
were like, well, how do

we get the AI to
understand what its goal is?

And so they’re like, well, we’ll give it
points for destroying enemy targets.

And then the AI’s like,
well, I get enemy targets.

Well, I wanna get as many
enemy targets as I can

’cause I wanna get as many points as I can
because that’s what you programmed into me.

Then they’re like, well,
don’t hit this target.

Hit this target.

He’s like, but if I hit both
targets, I get more points, right?

And that’s what I wanna do.

And they’re like, well, no, no, but this
one is not the target we want you to hit.

So then the AI shut off communications.

And then it was free to do what it
want because it wasn’t getting told

that it’s not allowed
to hit things anymore.

And again, this was all
within a computer simulation

but the very first thing the
AI did is when people were

saying don’t do that, don’t
ignore your initial programming.

The AI was like, now, I’ll
figure out a way around it

so I can then continue
with my initial programming.

Which is very 2001 space odyssey
where the computer had its mission

which was superior to the
mission of the men on board

and that’s how you
got the guy locked out in

space and the robot
wouldn’t let him back in.

If you haven’t seen that movie
and don’t what I’m talking about,

it’s a pacing has changed a
lot since that movie came out

but conceptually, it’s
a very, very interesting

problem because the
robot AI in the spaceship

has its own set of criteria
and things that are important.

It’s own priorities that don’t necessarily
include the humans on board the ship.

So we have this 60 countries
ratifying this agreement

and they’re saying like, we
don’t wanna put AI into things,

we don’t want AI making arbitrary decisions,
we need people, we need oversight,

all this kind of stuff that would make again,
trying to keep the reins on a conflict.

And then you have China and China
has said, we are not going to ratify this,

we’re not gonna join in on this agreement
which immediately takes the whole thing

and shoves it out the window
because if you have one country

who’s like, we are refusing
to follow the rules of war,

well then you actually
end up in a situation

where no one should be
following the rules of war

’cause it’s the only way
to actually get things done.

If we’re gonna end up in a conflict

and you’re gonna cheat,
then I kinda have to cheat.

These are some of the interesting
questions that the AI is presenting us

because you end up with,
again, on the very small scale,

you have a guy who made
art with AI and he’s saying

like, I’m losing money
because I can’t copyright this.

I can’t copyright this
because AI contributed

to it and the AI stole
it from other people.

You have company saying, we
should be able to ignore copyright

because if we have to follow
copyright, then we’re stuck

in this situation where we
can’t get enough information.

We can’t get enough information to
use because we don’t have enough money

to pay everyone we steal from and
then you have the companies going,

we wanna buy your face, we wanna buy
your content and then never pay you again,

but we get to keep all that stuff
and generate more and more content

where we make money
off it, no one else does.

So there’s that sort of greed
where I get all the money

from my company and no
one else gets to share in it.

I get all the control and the power,
which extends to this country level

where it’s like we wanna make sure
that war doesn’t become this terminator

to kind of dystopic future and
then there’s a couple of countries

that’s like, no man, we’re kind of
on board with the dystopic future.

If we think we can win and
that’s clearly the fault of humanity

and you can see this is, again,
where I’m talking about morality.

The AI itself has no morality in this.

It is not good or bad, it is
the people and the countries

that are using it that make
these moral and immoral decisions

that lead us to where we’re
going to be in the future,

which very much looks like
it’s going to be a dystopia.

(upbeat music)

♪ After the mind of the academy ♪

♪ Shop my pictures ♪

♪ Where the bastards of philosophy ♪

♪ Drinking the clutch ♪

♪ Brings rubber skills
like a soccer punch ♪

♪ Won’t come to see ’em my beat ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, oh see ’em my beat ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, oh see ’em my beat ♪

♪ Yeah, oh see ’em my beat ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, oh ♪

More Murder in Japan: The Yuka Takaoka Story

(upbeat music)

Now, this story starts back in 2019.

And back in 2019, I followed
this story very closely.

It was not because it’s a
murder or it’s a salacious story.

It was actually the interesting part to me

was how the internet
reacted to this heinous event.

So the basic story is that back in 2019,
this girl attempts to kill her boyfriend.

She gets sentenced to attempted
murder and she goes to prison.

The internet reacted unusually
because she was attractive.

And that was the main reason.

You have someone who’s
committed a horrible act

and is getting treated very differently from
other people because they’re attractive.

The reason this is
sparked interest in me again

is because just recently,
she was released from prison.

And on Tokyo reporter,
they released a transcript

of the trial, some of the
questions and answers from 2019,

which is sort of an insight into
Japanese courts that we don’t normally get.

So I wanna go over a bit of the history of
the story, then we’ll read the transcript.

And just remember the
whole time Japanese men

on the internet are
white-niting this girl

so hard, they’re saying
that she’s innocent,

she shouldn’t be punished
because she’s too beautiful.

If she had been with me,
this wouldn’t have happened.

That was always the
part that was rolling around

in the back of my head, is that this
woman attempted to kill another human being

and they were willing to let
it go because she was cute.

And I think what made it one
of the things that made it worse

was the media was calling
her a real life yandere.

So that is the character in anime who
doesn’t show outward expressions of emotion.

She gets very jealous on the inside.

She loves very passionately.

In some anime, they would make it that
she would kill for the person she loves.

So they’ve made it already,
like she’s a character

in anime, appealing
to these anime nerds.

These guys who way, way overreacted.

And again, these people
who started making fan art

and started doing stuff on the internet
to say, she’s amazing, she’s wonderful,

she shouldn’t be punished
because she’s beautiful.

And she was just doing
this wonderful thing.

She was killing because of her jealousy,

but her jealousy was an
indication of how strongly she loves

and if she loved me, then this
would never have happened.

Let’s get back into reality,
characterizing someone

as an anime character would
certainly increase your interaction

rate on the internet, which is
what these people really want.

But it also puts up this
strange sort of relationship,

the meta relationship,
the internet creates,

where these people are like truly going
forward and attempting to defend her.

They set up like a GoFundMe style thing
to try to get her money for her defense.

They were trying to get her not
punished for attempted murder.

And the media didn’t help by creating this
atmosphere around her of this character.

And she had an Instagram
and that of course got blown up

because everyone wanted to
see more pictures of the pretty girl.

And in that, she did cosplay
of Yandere characters.

And they’re like, wow, this is just her
showing who she really is on the inside.

So I think really the thing
I was interested in was

all the bits of the story,
of course, because we’re all

interested in these sort
of like real crime stories.

But then there was also the
secondary aspect of this crime

and the person who committed it
were being fetishized the whole time.

And the internet audience was eating it up.

So you have Yuka Takoka, she
was working in a bar, a girls bar.

She became a manager, so she
was obviously quite good at it.

Girls bars, basically guys
come in, they pay money, they

pick a girl, the girl will
sit with them, they’ll talk.

That’s the base standard.

I mean, it implies a
certain level of sexuality.

There’s all these other like
other aspects to the relationship

of a hostess club where, you
know, you’ll go out on dates.

The dates are nonsexual,
but the man is expected to

give presents and pay money
and buy expensive things.

One of the scams, I don’t know if it’s a
scam because the people are going for it.

They kind of know what happens as well.

Is that on my birthday, let’s
say, I would go to the five men

who love me the most who come
to are my most regular customers.

And I tell them, I want
this very specific watch.

I want this very specific bag.

And I get five of those and then
I can return four and then keep

the one and say, “Oh, look
at this bag, you gave me.

I love it so much.

” But then I also got the cash
money for the other four bags.

So this is the kind
of relationship that is

created within the
hostess club atmosphere.

This is also what happens on the host side,

which is men basically manipulating
women into giving them money

for the exact same thing
that sort of may fake meta

love relationship, which
is what her boyfriend did.

Her boyfriend’s name was Phoenix Luna.

I can’t be his real name, but
that’s actually a pretty good name.

You know, I’m going to
name an anime character.

I might name him Phoenix Luna now.

Both the men and the
woman in this relationship

had this job where they
created relationships with

other people in order to
extrapolate money from them.

They moved in together.

Now, she was looking, this
is the version of the story.

She was looking at Luna’s
phone while he was in the shower

and she found pictures of him
with other women at the bar.

Now, remember, that’s his job to go
to the bar, talk to women, sit with them.

They take selfies, whatever.

They try to put on this great atmosphere.

They just do this all the
time because that’s his job.

His job is to make these women
actually fall in love with him

so they will come back more, spend
more money, give him more money.

That’s how he makes money.

She does the same thing.

Maybe it’s at a manager level.

She doesn’t do it so directly anymore, but
she teaches the other girls how to do it.

She tries to develop these
relationships so that the

bar makes more money, so
she can make more money.

Like, this is not something
that should be a surprise to her,

but she immediately connected if
she’s taking pictures with these women,

then he must be sleeping with these
women, and she got insanely jealous.

This is another part of
the Yandade character,

attributes that
everyone was playing into,

thinking this was so great that she was
fulfilling this fantasy character so much.

So, in Takahoka’s mind, this meant
that he was having sex with them.

So, she waited until 350 in the
mornings that he would be dead asleep.

She got a knife from the kitchen,
and she stabbed him in stomach.

He woke up and he struggled, and he managed
to get to the elevator before he collapsed.

She, for some reason,
brought him down to the lobby,

so she must have actually pulled
him out of the elevator as well.

There’s a bit in there that’s sort of
unknown, but basically it was discovered.

He was laying on the floor, bleeding out.

She’s sitting on the
floor, smoking a cigarette,

and talking on her cell phone in
sort of pajamas and like slippers.

She, her legs and her
arms were covered in blood.

There’s blood all over the lobby for.

She wasn’t calling the police.

She wasn’t trying to save his life.

She was just sitting
there talking on the phone.

I don’t actually remember if it
was revealed who she was talking to.

A passerby came and saw all
the blood and called the police.

So, that is how this was
discovered in the first place.

The photos in the lobby
are what made her famous.

Now, the most famous picture is her
sitting on the lobby floor on the phone.

She’s wearing sort of a black shirt
and not much else, some slippers.

And so, of course, the fetishization
of this person began immediately there

because she has her legs
out and she’s covered in blood.

And it’s exciting and sexy and dangerous.

And that’s the bit everyone wants to see.

And she’s just ignoring
the police at this point.

So, she’s sitting there
talking on her phone,

ignoring the police
officers who are there.

The shocking bit to me was the
boyfriend is sitting in the background.

He’s just bleeding out.

Like, he’s going to die if someone
doesn’t take some emergency action.

The police don’t seem to be making
any moves to actually make that happen.

I don’t actually know what
the proper procedure is there.

I assume separate the two and immediately
start performing first aid on the man

and arrest the woman since
she seems to not be injured.

We don’t know what happened
at this point if you’re the police.

You don’t know if he attacked
her and she fought back.

You don’t know if she attacked him.

So separate them and start giving
the person a news injured some first aid.

But that’s the picture
that set off the internet.

It set off the story.

It set off this because
she’s an attractive woman.

All these sort of white
night guys coming in.

Crowd funding her defense to
try to get her off this very clearly.

She’s guilty of attempted murder.

Her statement was I intended to die
after watching him die from stabbing.

Basically her statement
was once he died on the floor.

So this is where my
actual question comes in.

Why did she take him to the lobby?

If she was just waiting for
him to bleed out and die.

Once he died, she
was going to kill herself.

There didn’t seem to be any
reason to take him to the lobby.

And it seemed weird that she
started calling someone on the phone.

That is all information that
is lost to history at this point.

Then the article started
coming out and they

started calling her the
two beautiful criminal

because she’s cute. And by Japanese
standards, she hits sort of ticks every box.

She’s cute and sexy.

And that’s sort of this whole
atmosphere of attractiveness.

And then they add on
this other layer this yandere

sort of anime thing
they’ve thrown into it.

Again, the media threw
this into it right away.

They leaned into this
hard, setting off this

whole crazy fetishization
of this person.

So this was published on Tokyo
Reporter and Seemic B is a podcast.

So of course, I’m going to read it to you.

But if you’re on the YouTube
channel, you can read along with it.

What follows is a transcription of
some of the questions by her lawyers in it.

Readers learned the details of the
innocent how it happened, how it ended,

and her later regret
reports news post seven.

This is back from December 9, 2019.

Let’s go back to the time of the incident.

After Runa arrived at around 3 p.m.
on May 23rd,

we put up the curtains
together, talked and had sex.

What did you talk about?

Apparently, he had made a
reservation at a hair salon that night,

and his boss had asked him why he
was meeting with me outside the bar.

Now, this is one of the things
about being a host or hostess.

If you meet outside the bar and you start
dating or forming an actual relationship,

that will actually take
money away from the bar.

So they want you to keep the customers
coming into the bar as often as possible.

So having these relationships outside
can actually be very dangerous for the bar.

Maybe you form a real enough relationship
that you stop working at the bar,

and then he loses two
streams of income because

you’re not there to
attract more people,

but then also, the people aren’t
coming in to give the money.

Why would your boss say something to
you if you met Takoka outside the bar?

Because if I meet him outside the
bar, I would stop coming to his bar.

Well, that’s actually what I just said.

After that, he fell asleep,
so I went to the kitchen,

and my desire to kill him
and die remained the same.

So I grabbed a knife from
the kitchen and went to him.

So again, this is, she saw pictures
on his phone of him doing his job,

sitting in the bar, talking to
other women, taking selfies,

and she immediately
extrapolated that they must

be having sex as well,
so he was cheating on her.

What was that knife?

On the morning of May 23rd, I
bought it at Don Quixote in Okubo.

After work for household purposes,
I had no intention of killing him.

I just bought it for household purposes.

How did you hold the knife?

This is again, that bits that, for
me, isn’t outside are very interesting,

because I don’t know what kind of
questions they ask in a Japanese court.

I don’t know what is
important, what is not important,

when they’re talking about an attempted
murder, because this is all new to me.

I held the knife in both hands and stabbed
him in the stomach as he was sleeping.

What was he wearing?

He was wearing a pair of pants.

Where were you positioned?

I was standing in the middle
of Runa’s torso on his left side.

How did you hold the knife?

So he’s asking it again.

I held it with both hands.

What direction was the blade facing?

I don’t remember.

I stabbed Runa in the stomach.

What angle was the blade at?

He was a right angle to him.

How many times did you stab him once?

So this is trying to make sure
that all the details are accurate.

So there is some, perhaps,
suspicion that maybe she’s just

saying this, maybe she’s
covering up for someone else.

So she has to get all the
details right to actually prove

that she was the one who
actually tried to kill the guy,

even though she’s admitted to it
very directly and very obviously.

After you stabbed him, he tried to get up.

So I got on top of him to
stop him from getting up.

And he tried to let me go by choking me.

And he tried to let me go by choking me.

So he tried to get her
off of him by choking her.

What kind of conversation
did you have with Runa?

He said, “Okay, I love you.

So let’s stay together forever.

” So I said, “I love you.

So let’s die together.

” He put the knife
under the bed and said,

“I won’t tell the police,
but I’ll call an ambulance.

” So I took his mobile phone.

So he’s now in a strange negotiation phase
where he’s trying to, he’s been stabbed.

He’s trying to get away from
her so he can get to the hospital.

He’s saying, “I won’t
hold this against you.

I won’t call the cops.

” We’ll just say it was an
accident, something like that.

She doesn’t believe him.

She just wants them both to die.

Why did you put the knife there?

When I stabbed him in
the stomach and saw the

pain on his face, I
felt really regretful.

And by that point, I think I had no
longer any intention of killing him.

So this is in the moment when it’s real.

She suddenly thinks this was a bad idea.

I regret it.

I had this must actually happen so much.

What happened after you
took the mobile phone away?

He got up and went to the front door so
I chased after him, telling him not to go.

He hit me, punching and kicking
with his arms, legs, and face.

That’s when my contacts came out.

So I went to get my glasses.

I also took my cigarettes and
cell phone and chased after him.

That is a strange detail.

But again, very realistic
because I bet every time she

leaves the house, she grabs
her cigarettes and cell phone.

That’s just a natural thing.

I always just reach for and grab my keys
to the house before I walk out the door.

And I bet even in an emergency situation,

I would instinctively
just do the same thing.

So I think that’s probably
why this panic, the stress,

she just did what she always does,
grab her cigarettes and cell phone.

The lawyer asked the same question though.

Why the cigarettes?

I don’t know.

But I found myself holding a cigarette.

I found Runa lying at the entrance.

I was so regretful
that I called the police.

Now, that may not be true.

This is her testimony from 2019.

It’s actually said that she
isn’t the one who called

the cops, that it was a
passerby who called the cops.

Now, I, again, I’m getting all
my information from the internet.

It’s all secondhand.

I have no idea what is actually accurate.

Why did you call the police yourself?

When I saw Runa’s blood
and how he looked and pain,

I really regretted it and realized
that I had done something terrible.

I didn’t want him to die and I was so scared
of him dying that I called the police.

You told the police something different.

You said to them, “I heard a woman scream
when I was going down the emergency stairs,

so I knew I couldn’t
die with him.

” I was really panicked
at the time and I said

yes to what the police
and prosecutor said.

But what I really regret
most is having stabbed him.

So she’s saying, in the
moment, she called the police.

She just started saying whatever she
felt she needed to say in the moment.

I think that’s a very
realistic answer, to be honest.

Please tell us about
when you called the police.

They first asked me if it was a crime
or an accident and I answered crime.

It seemed like they
thought it was a prank, so

I told them the same
thing over and over again.

This is an interesting reaction
because I think in other countries,

if you say I just stabbed someone,
it’s never going to be taken as a prank.

But Japan being such a generally saved
country, the police probably are like,

“We want to make sure this is real
crime before we take our time on it.

” What happened?

I told the my name, Runa’s
name, that I had stabbed him,

that I was at the entrance, and
that we needed an ambulance.

I explained what I had done and
made sure everyone asked me.

Why did you stab him?

I liked him and I wanted to be with him.

I’m sorry.

I did something selfish.

When did you start to
think this around June?

I thought so after hearing
about Runa’s situation

from my lawyer and hearing about
my mother and father’s situation.

So Runa was in a coma for five days
and it took him five days to wake up.

He’d been stabbed.

He’d actually pierced his liver
and so he wasn’t able to eat.

He was actually having a lot of trouble.

So there’s a lot of rehabilitation.

At this time, he was probably
still just starting his rehabilitation.

It was very tough recovery.

He did do a full recovery though.

What was Runa’s situation?

The scars were deep,
reaching all the way to his liver

and he had been in a coma
for five days without waking up.

What about your parents?

When they came to
visit, they were very thin.

Their hair was turning gray.

They were crying and
with so many media outlets

at our house, they
were almost neurotic.

So again, this was a massive news story.

Everyone wanted as much
information as possible.

They were trying to make
this as grandiose as they could

because this pretty
woman with this yandere

atmosphere, we want to
create the story of the century

so they were just all over
everybody in the story.

The parents, of course, are
going to be hounded by the media.

Is that both your father or mother?

Both my father and mother.

As time went on, I became
more and more scared

that I had done something
so horrible and I felt so sorry,

so scared and so sorry that I
had nearly taken someone’s life.

I also caused trouble for my parents.

What about Runa?

I wrote a letter of
apology to Runa in June.

I said I was truly sorry that I
would no longer be involved with him

and mentioned compensation and
had it delivered through my lawyer.

And what about while you were in custody?

I was thinking about Runa and my parents,

making sure they were eating
properly, getting enough sleep.

My mother came over at
least three times a week,

but my father was busy with work,
so he came about twice a week.

What did we talk about?

We talked about a lot of things,

like the incidents, the procedures
from moving out of the house and our cat.

What about Runa?

I heard they settled for five million yen.

Five million yen is not very much money.

Like it would be the average salary for a
year in Japan is four to five million yen.

So it’s the upper end of a
very average salary in Japan.

I heard that they had submitted a petition.

What about the five million
yen settlement money?

My mother prepared it for me.

This is interesting because
I’ve actually read the story.

I reviewed some of the details.

After Phoenix had made his recovery, he
actually came out with a statement saying

he didn’t have a grudge against her,
he didn’t hold anything against her.

He wasn’t necessarily saying
he was going to get back

together with her, but he was
saying I’m not holding a grudge.

I’m not angry at her for what she did.

What kind of exchange did
you have with your mother?

She told me I prepared it for your future.

Your desire to return the
money is enough for me.

You don’t have to pay me back.

What did you think?

I want to work and save five
million yen, earn more money,

pay it back, and make my
mom and dad’s lives easier.

How did you spend your
time while out on bail?

I took a training course called
initial training for care workers.

I want to be useful to
someone in the future.

I took it because I wanted
to be like my mother.

My mother is a certified care worker.

She’s a great person and
I want to be just like her.

Is that a qualification?

It’s a qualification equivalent
to a second class helper

and allows you to work
in homes and the like.

How often did you go about three days
a week for about six hours each time?

The lectures were really fun.

I learned a lot of new things
and it was very educational.

I want to take practical
training and study

become a certified
care worker in the future.

Did you get the qualification?

Yes.

I heard that you need practical experience.

So what will you do about finding a job?

I would like to find a job through
Hellowork and start working.

Hellowork is sort of a very
normal job search place.

I don’t know if it’s from the government,

but it’s a search.
It helps you find jobs in Japan.

When you enter society, you will probably
find people who know about the incident.

How do you plan to respond to them?

I haven’t thought about how
to respond in any particular way.

It’s a crime that I committed.

Should I just let it go?

Rather than just
letting go, I think about it

deeply and make efforts
to a tone for my crime.

Can you endure?

I will endure.

There’s a little bit more
listening to your mother’s story.

It really broke my heart seeing
my mother crying so much.

I didn’t know how to
apologize, even though

this crime couldn’t
possibly be the fault of

a parent, so no matter how
much it was painful for me,

I decided to stay with her so
that I could make her life easier.

And what about Runa?

No matter how much I apologize,
I can never apologize enough.

It’s a crime I can’t a tone for
even if I spend my entire life doing it.

I don’t think I’ll be
forgiven even if I apologize.

It may seem strange and weird for me to say
this, but I’m really glad that I’m alive.

I’m truly sorry.

I am doing a very Canadian story now.

Didn’t realize that.

Now that I’m actually listening to myself
speak, I realize just how Canadian I am.

So she got three and a half years in
prison and she just got out recently.

She’s still active on
Instagram, X and YouTube.

What does she do on Instagram and YouTube?

Well, her YouTube, the most recent
one, she has 10,000 subscribers by the way.

The most recent one is her
doing a variety of different cosplays.

So it starts out with
her with not much makeup

on and how to put the
makeup on and then it’s

applying more makeup and then some
wigs and stuff and this is two hours long.

So I don’t know if she’s
going to be making enough

money off this, but
again, the people who are

watching this, it’s a question of are
they interested in her as a cosplayer,

as a beauty influencer
or are they interested in

her because of his dark
criminal background that

makes her attractive in a
different and unique way.

She’s not doing care work. So what she was
saying in the transcript, who just read,

it’s not that she was lying.
She didn’t follow through on what she said.

I think in that thing, she’s trying to
say, “Look, I want to be a better person.

I want to help society.

” That’s not necessarily a
bad thing that she didn’t do it.

I think again, I have a negative
view of influencer, which is

ironic because I make podcasts
and YouTube videos and stuff.

It’s interesting that the guy has
no grudge or he says he doesn’t.

I’m sure he hasn’t met her again since.
So I guess it’s easy to say,

you’re not holding a grudge
if you just never plan on

seeing someone again, just
how I live most of my life.

So for me, the salaciousness of the
murder wasn’t enough to get me interested.

I read about murder all
the time because I read

about the news all the
time and there’s a lot

of real-life crime in the news all
the time. I think it was the immediate

fetishization of her as a character.
Not even as a real person as a character,

but the fact that she
was a hostess played

into it, the fact that
her boyfriend was a host

played into it, the fact
that all these people

on the internet inserted
themselves into that

relationship, so many of
the guys on the internet

saying that if it was me,
this wouldn’t have happened.

I’m wondering now that she’s built her
influencer sphere. She’s on the Instagram,

she’s on YouTube. Are
the people there holding

out that small hope that
they could be the one

that’s actually with her
in the future and that

her yandade love, that
strength of love, that they

actually in a weird way
admire and want because

you want that sort of
level of passion directed

towards you, that they
would return it and then

they would end up having the
perfect relationship with her.

It’s interesting to see where she
will go from here because in Japan,

they have a weird
relationship with fame, so

she’s now gotten famous and she can probably
hold on to that fame for a long time.

There’s a story. I don’t want
to go into the whole thing.

I actually think I may have done this
story on an old Velocipod cast episode,

but there was a guy,
a Japanese guy, and he

was in France, and he
killed an eight a woman,

and because of the rules,
he wasn’t a French citizen,

they were like, “Okay,
we’ll send him back to

Japan,” and they will
punish him, and then

he was sent back to
Japan, he was extradited,

and then when he ended
up in Japan, they’re like,

“Well, he didn’t actually
commit a crime in Japan,”

so the Japanese didn’t
persecute him, so he

ended up basically
just getting away with it,

and then, based on his
reputation as a cannibal,

started doing restaurant
reviews and became

a really famous restaurant
reviewer in Japan, based

purely off a crime that
he’d committed in France,

one of the most heinous
crimes you could actually

ever think of, killing and
eating another human being,

so there’s this weird
disconnect almost with the

fantasy and the reality
in Japan, and you see

this in a lot of different
aspects, but I think

in these situations, it
shows so clearly and so

really that people
don’t have a connection

between what’s really
happening and what they’re

seeing sort of in media,
because they’re living

the dream, they want
the dream to happen,

they think this could
be real, but the reality

is, this is a convicted
attempted murder,

or, God, that’s a terrible sense, convicted
attempted murder, as way easier to say,

all these guys on the
internet living out a

fantasy that isn’t real,
because the character they

gave her in the media
isn’t her real character,

and she may play into it
now because that’s how

she’s going to capitalize
on that fame, but that’s

just as fake as the love
she may have shown people

while she was working
in a hostess bar, while

her boyfriend was
working in a host bar,

while they were getting
money from other people

pretending that they
actually were into them.

It’s a skill, it’s a skill I don’t have,
you can tell by this ending right here.

[MUSIC]

[MUSIC]

[MUSIC]

Examines the Morality of Skeletor

[Music]

It was with my friends online, we’re playing
video games and we start talking about

Skeletor, something I
do more than I should.

I like fictional
characters and I like

thinking about them thoroughly. Skeletor
is an interesting character because

Skeletor, well the question, let’s put
the question out there that started this

whole thing off, which led me to a
point where I went and did some actual

research about Skeletor. Skeletor is
a very buff man. I have to make sure

because I don’t know how much my
audience would actually not know Skeletor.

I know that show has been rebooted
multiple times, but none of those are

super popular. Do you know who he
men in Skeletor is a question? So I will be

explaining stuff that if you know it,
hit the little fast forward button on your

podcast player, but if you don’t,
you know, you do need an explanation.

He man, hero of attorneya. My apologies.
I should have said Adam, the milk

toast version of human pre-transformation.
Goes around, he’s like this guy who’s

really sort of Faye, but very buff. I think
he would be. He’s not a twink. He’s not a

bear. He’s a very buff man who’s
clearly a bottom. Then he gets out his big

sword, holds it in the air, and says by
the power of gray skull, and then turns

into a top. I’ll tell you that right now.
His clothes change, he gets a big

sort of strappy thing on, and he’s still
jacked. He’s jacked in both instances,

but his attitude changes. Let’s just
put it that way. He becomes he-man.

Skeletor, this was back in cartoons when
they basically had one body, and they like

repainted it in the cartoon. So he-man
was a white dude. Skeletor is a dark

bluish color. He actually lightens up
in later reboots, which is interesting.

The problem is, Skeletor has a
skeleton head, and so what is he? Is he a

skeleton with a buff body, or is it some
kind of like it’s a human with a skull head

for some reason? So what happened?
What is he? So the original, oh, and so the

question that came up was, would it be
appropriate for Skeletor to have intimate

relations with a corpse? Because if
he’s a dead body, because he’s a skeleton,

then him having relations with another
dead body wouldn’t be morally offensive,

or is he a buff dude with a skeleton
head and then him having relations with a

corpse? He’s not acceptable, morally
speaking. But then we would have to talk

about his morals, and this led me
down sort of a rabbit hole of how, what is

Skeletor, and where is his morality?
And that was an interesting question.

So what is he? In the original toy, so
this is back in the 80s when they made the

toy first, and then
the cartoon was

essentially a 30 minute
advertisement for the toy.

If you bought the toy for Skeletor,
and any of the he-man products and

the original toys, you got a little sort
of mini comic with it, which gave you

some sort of background on the character.
It’s not like a Pokemon card with

just like stats. This was like a little
story, little background. Now Skeletor’s

story, just basically said he’s a demon
from another dimension and then started

talking about how he hated he-man,
how he hated attorney. I wanted to suck the

magic out of the world, wanted to
take over the world, that kind of stuff.

Demon from another dimension wasn’t
explained very deeply, but it would justify

him having a skull head and a very
buff human body. But there are reboots of

the story, and they sort of alter it.
So basically the people who made the toy,

the people who made the cartoon and
the people who made the reboots, had an

inconsistent canon, and this is very
frustrating, because then we have to figure out

like what is true. Because one story
is that he was actually Hordok, which is

Shira’s enemy, the Horde,
invaded from another dimension to

Eternia and left Skeletor behind. Now
they took Shira from Eternia back to the

dimension they come from, which is how
Shira ended up there. So Shira is he-man’s

cousin I believe. But that meant that
Skeletor was left behind or abandoned by the

people who brought him here. He then
ends up being angry at both the people of

Eternia who rejects him for who he
is, and angry at the Horde who left him

behind because they were supposed
to be supporting him at all times.

This was essentially his family abandoned
him. There’s another story that he’s

actually the next in line of succession,
but the king didn’t want him to become

king because he has blue skin, racism,
and so pushed him aside and made his

son the king who became he-man’s father.
So that would make Skeletor he-man’s uncle.

In one of the reboots they have
someone throw acid in his face,

but that doesn’t give you a skull head.
Maybe he did some magic to repair it

because magic is real in this universe.
So that’s something could be done to stop

it or, you know, put an extra, I
guess a shell on the outside of his face.

I didn’t notice while sort of looking
at clips of the cartoons that the skull

exterior of Skeletor is vaguely flexible.
And this is how they give some expression.

So he can look sad because his
eye sockets will turn down. He can

look happy because his teeth will go up
and his cheekbones, sorry, his cheekbones

will go up. So he has the skull that
is resting above his incredibly buff

body is vaguely flexible. Now I don’t
know if that was on purpose because it’s

not really bone or if it’s just because
we have to give him some sort of

expression in his cartoon and nobody
cares until like 20, 30 years later when

some dude does a podcast and he
clearly cares because of inconsistencies

piss him off. So he’s going to go
through all the inconsistencies and try to

figure out what the fuck Skeletor actually
is. This was a time, Star Wars, when

all the bad guys were somehow vaguely
related to the hero and it was like a

big surprise. I don’t remember it ever
being revealed in the show as being

cannon or factual. So this is like
someone had this idea. Hey Darth Vader was

Skywalker’s dad. Let’s make Skeletor, he
man’s uncle and because there’s actually a

clear line of succession in the he man’s
story. So he can’t actually be his father.

He could be his uncle but they
never seem to have actually dealt with

that in any real way. Also I have very
bad allergies. I get allergies every year.

It’s very frustrating. Take a
lot of medication for allergies.

The interesting part about Skeletor is
that there was once the time where he

created monsters and then he man used
some magic to turn those monsters into

flowers and Skeletor was defeated
because of a severe pollen allergy.

So all the flowers started like shooting
pollen out and then he got such bad

allergies. He actually had to retreat.
So he was defeated by allergies. I actually

know how that feels. But that would
imply that within the skull on Skeletor’s

head, their error sinus cavities that
are like mine full of mucus and liquid

and they overreact to pollen. So
that to me implies that there’s a skull a

fleshy part and then a skull on the
outside. So there are some depictions of

Skeletor where the skull is floating
above the body and then there’s some where

there’s the body and then like a
little orange link between the skull.

So usually he has a hood up and you
can’t see into the hoods. You can’t see how

that skull is connected. So if it’s just
floating above it, it would just be magic.

But then if it’s just a skull, he
wouldn’t have allergies. You can see

the problem where I’m getting into.
I get into the minutia of this and the

more minutia I get into, the more conflicts
that come up. So what they need for

the whole he-man thing is me to sit
down and be like I will be the arbiter of

what is true for all of eternity and I
will make your stories consistent from

now on and I will take facts from previous
episodes and I will blend them together.

But I can tell you that there
is fleshy stuff inside there or he

wouldn’t have allergies. But we actually
have found is that he’s inconsistent.

We don’t know what Skeletor is.
So the morality of Skeletor having intimate

relations with a corpse is very difficult
to determine based on his physicality.

So we have to go into his morality. So
then I looked at some of his plots to see

where his morality falls. We know he’s
the bad guy. And this is the 80s and in the

80s they were not exactly subtle
what they’re bad guys. They’re bad guys.

We’re all just the cliche. I hate
everybody. I hate everything. I want to

destroy everything. I want to be the leader
of the world. Even if I have to destroy

the world, there’s no world left for
me to be the leader of which I as I grew

older realized that was really stupid
because what’s the point of being the

leader of a world that no longer
has anything in it that doesn’t exist.

That is always bothered me about
the I want to destroy everything. It really

bucks me. I can resident evil and the
tea virus thing because the tea virus kills

98% of the thing of the stuff in the world.
But the umbrella corporation is a

company. They need people to sell
product too. I’ve actually gone off on this

rant multiple times. It frustrates me to
no end because like, you know, parasites

don’t make sense because they kill the
host. So if you kill the host, you can’t

survive anymore. Umbrella is essentially
like the parasite. It’s killing off

the human population, but it’s a
company with no audience to sell to.

No consumer pool is no longer a company.
So what was the point? Now, I know there’s

science and evolution and stuff
that all goes into the tea virus as well.

But The president, so the company would be
like, let’s cut this research off because

we don’t want to kill everyone on it.
If they were going to create the virus

and then sell the vaccine, that could
work out. But I don’t actually remember

that coming up in any of the stories.
Some of Skeletor schemes. So to judge

his morality, we have to look at some
of the schemes he came up with. One of

them was that he created half size
Skeletors. So if Skeletor six feet, I don’t

know, they’re buff dude. So like you
could either imagine they’re like giants

like seven foot tall or being sort of
weightlifters, they might actually be

quite short. So let’s just call him six
foot so that we can do the math or easily.

He created three foot mini Skeletors,
a whole bunch of them. And his

plan was to have them overrun eternia.
The small ones, all the problem was the

small ones all had his singular attitude
and that they should be the leader.

So as soon as they started interacting
with each other, like who’s going to be

the leader of like the world once there’s
only Skeletors left, even if they’re

mini Skeletors, well, they all thought
it should be them. So they started

infighting. Now the full size Skeletor
was like, well, it’s obviously supposed

to be me because I’m the creator. None
of the little Skeletors agreed with them.

So he needed to actually rebreed
them to have a new sort of more

subservient attitude. But he didn’t think
about that at the time. So, but he was

willing to create a horde of little
Skeletors that would take over the entire

planet. And I don’t know if they were
going to kill everybody, but they were

certainly going to make it so there
were no food supply. So he was willing to

sacrifice little versions of himself. Now,
the Skeletor we all know is very selfish.

So sacrificing other versions of himself
as long as it’s not himself is fine.

That’s a very normal sort of 80s standard
attitude. So I didn’t take that too hard.

He once dropped fireworks
spiders on the capital of Eternia.

They were easily dispatched with
one hit. So that actually just was

to me showing he’s not very smart.
He started a volcano to destroy Eternia.

So he’s just trying to like destroy
stuff. I think that’s maybe the

underpinning is like he will do anything
to try to destroy stuff. Now, those

aren’t too bad. They’re very cartoony
kind of plans. He regularly mind-control

people. He had no problem taking over
people’s mind so that they would fight he man.

He summoned demons from another
dimension so that they would fight he man.

The problem was he never actually
figured out if he needed to come to

some sort of agreement with the demon.
So he would summon a demon. Sometimes

they would work with him. He would
summon a demon. And sometimes he couldn’t

control them. So this happened multiple
times. And he never actually thought it

all the way through like if the demon
wouldn’t do what he said, what was the point.

So a lot of us again, I think, have
the idea like if you go through the

ritual of summoning a demon, there is
sort of an inherent understanding that the

demon is going to do what you say.
We all have the monkey’s paw problem where

there’s a level of interpretation there
where maybe it doing what you say could

come back on you in a negative way.
But really summoning a demon just means the

demon is now in your world that doesn’t
necessarily mean the demon’s going to

do what you say. So that’s a very
important point for anyone out there who’s

listening right now who’s thinking about
summoning a demon. Just make sure

go through the rule book. See if there’s
any sort of like little script or anything.

And does the spell that you’re going to
use to summon a demon into your dimension?

Actually talk about whether or
not you will have control over the

demon because if you don’t, you might
want to rethink your process so that you do

get some sort of caveat in there in the
contract with you and the demon to make

sure the demon does what you say to a
degree. He did try to drain attorney of all

magic. And this meant every magic user in
the world would slowly and painfully die.

So we’re not talking about genocide.
I don’t know what you can imagine. He was

willing to commit murder on a massive
scale to gain power. So that’s where we see

his actual morality. Life doesn’t
seem to have any real value to him.

He is reckless in how he is willing to
use and spend life. He’s willing to create

life. He’s willing to use life just to
further his goals. The most messed up thing

though was he created a baby to raise.
Now the created a baby was a very vague

statement, but he basically got a
baby that he wanted to raise. So he could

marry her later and this turned out to
be Tila. Tila is a main character. She’s

sort of a love interest. I think for him.
Man at arms, sort of the leader of the

army of attorney, kidnapped her back,
I guess, I don’t know if it’s kidnapped, I

guess in that case, it’s rescuing, rescued
her from Skeletor and raised her as his

daughter. So she’s adopted. So we
do have this now like weird web where if

Skeletor created Tila, so we’re going
to go ahead and go with magic, not any

sort of other gross thing that I would
have to talk about, that she, if married to

Skeletor would be he-man’s aunt. As the
love, it just, is it problematic that she

is sort of the love interest of he-man?
I don’t think it is because they’re not

related, but if your uncle creates it,
is she his cousin? Like that’s actually

the problem because the creation aspect
is so vague is, are they actually related?

Because she’s created by magic,
right? I don’t know. That’s tough one. I’d

have to get more details on the creation
process, like did Skeletor use any of his

own flesh, let’s say, to create the
flesh that created the baby, that kind of

stuff would become important. But
he is a groomer, like that is 100% what’s

happened here. He’s going to raise a
child to become his wife. He is a groomer,

a Skeletor is a groomer. So that’s
the level of morality we’re talking about,

mass murder and grooming all on the table
as far as he’s concerned. Later on, he’s

willing to sacrifice her to want to be
aforementioned demons to get the demon

to come in. So his actual feeling about
the thing he created, this woman that he

was going to create to become his wife,
he was willing to sacrifice her without

question to get a demon because the
demon might be more powerful. So all that

being said, I think 100% the idea that
he would have a problem with having

personal relations with a corpse is
absolutely on the table. He doesn’t seem to

have any morality at all. He seems to
be doing whatever he needs to do in the

moment to what he considers perceived game.
Of course, every one of those plans

fails because he man generally throws
a rock at it. I mentioned the volcano,

he started volcano. He man threw a
rock into the volcano and plugged it up.

I don’t actually think that’s how volcanoes
would be stopped, but I think I would

just create more pressure and
create a bigger explosion. The writers of

He Man, not only were they inconsistent,
they didn’t actually spend a lot of time on

physics. Probably the most interesting
aspect of He Man as a character back in

the 80s. I didn’t actually watch any of
the reboot, so I don’t know, is that he

wasn’t allowed to hit anyone with his
sword. So his sword was used exclusively

for breaking items, usually doors or walls
or rocks. Someone threw a rock at him,

he would cut it in half. So there was a
door he would smash it with his sword,

but he never hit another individual
with his sword because of the rules of

kids TV at the time. He had a shield.
He often would use the shield to block.

The shield was kind of useless. Most
problems in He Man were actually solved by

He Man picking up something large and
throwing it. Now it may have been a rock to

plug a hole. It may have been picking
up a person and throwing them away, but

that actually seemed to be most of the
problems and how they were solved in the

He Man universe. But if he man ever
came across some of these actual real, very

diabolical plans, I think it
would have been time to

pull out the sword and
actually do some real damage.

[Music]

I just watched my viewer
count drop from three to one.

I think the phrase “scaling
to our having sex with

a dead body” maybe
turned a couple people off.

Examines Murder in Japan

(upbeat music)

So on Ninja Ninja Japan, I
don’t generally talk about things

where people die, because the feeling of
the show is supposed to be very flippant.

Like I make fun of whatever
I’m talking about, I give advice

to criminals and stuff, so I
don’t tend to talk about murder,

but that doesn’t mean murder
doesn’t have an inch of pen.

See me be on the other hand, this
is where I talk about whatever I want,

it’s experimental, I do
weird things, that’s great.

There have been two
murder cases recently in

Japan, and I thought
they were very interesting

and getting into the details
of these have been kind

of fun, so I thought it’d
be worth talking about.

In 2021 in November, at midnight, a
man made a call to emergency services.

And he said, there is a centipede in the
room, and someone isn’t serious condition.

And what he meant was, in Japan,
there are centipedes in their poisonous,

so if you actually get bit by one,
most of the time is not gonna kill you,

but there are people who have
reactions to any sort of venom,

so like people who are
allergic to bees and whatnot,

it can kill you, so this is
stronger than most other things.

So this guy was saying, I
have a friend in the room,

he’s in bad shape, he
was bitten by a centipede.

Paramedics arrive, there are two men
in the room, one who’s in cardiac arrest,

and then the other one who was the caller,
who claimed to be Diesuke Numba’s brother.

He had both health insurance cards, and
he showed them to the ambulance group.

Now health insurance cards in
Japan, they’re just a blue card,

they just have information on
them, they don’t have a picture.

So it’s not like a driver’s
license, it is sort of

identification, but it’s not
quite the same identification

as like a driver’s license or something
else, because it has no picture on it.

So it’s very hard to
connect this to people.

They took the patient to the
hospital, and then they called his family.

Pretty reasonable thing to do.

So the family shows up, the mother comes in

and they want them to check
on their son who it has died.

And the mother says,
immediately, this is not Diesuke.

So there’s already now a
significant suspicion in the case.

Numba had taken a
600 million yen insurance

policy out on himself
a few months before.

The victim, his name was Ando, and they
had met through religious solicitations.

So this Ando guy came to his house
and said, like, come join our religion.

There’s actually a lot of
sort of small cults in Japan,

so there’s actually kind
of thing happens fairly

regularly where they come
and they come to your house

and they say like, “Hey, just come
out and hang out, have a good time.

” It doesn’t mean much.

And then they find out you
want to paint everything white.

There is a group in Japan, and they
believe that the solution to every problem

would be to paint every surface,
including all of nature white.

So if you paint all the trees
white, they’re not going to die.

Everything will improve afterwards.

So that was one of those ones that’s
been on the fringe as far as I’m concerned.

They were hanging out.

They became friends.

The articles I read refer to them
as brothers and they’re not brothers.

So I think they were
brothers in the religious sense,

but not brothers in
the actual familial sense.

So this guy came up with a plan.

I’m going to take an
insurance plan out on

myself, and then I’m
going to have myself die,

and then I’m going to
collect the insurance plan.

Well, wait a minute, that doesn’t work.

I’m going to need something
else to happen here.

There was a lot of other
things that were also suspicious.

So this Ando guy, when they do the autopsy,
they find like he’s full of liquor.

He didn’t drink.

The police think that while Ando wasn’t
conscious, he was injected with vodka.

So it seems like they had had
some sort of drink or something else.

He’d put sleeping pills into the drink.

The guy’d fallen asleep
while he was unconscious.

He injected him with
vodka, which is why he was

essentially, his blood
alcohol level was so high.

The death was unrelated
to a centipede bite.

So there’s another sort of
question that actually didn’t

answer was, was there a
centipede in the room at all?

So did the actual, did
the guy actually get bitten?

Did he go through all the steps?

So he wanted to make it
look like this was an accident.

Like a centipede had bit this guy.

He had a negative reaction and he died.

He’d clearly hadn’t done the research.

And this actually comes up in the
court case that comes up very soon.

Because first of all, you
would want a centipede there.

You would want a centipede bite.

You would want to make
sure that the reaction looked

like an actual centipede bite
for this plan to go through.

You also would need to make sure
that they don’t immediately identify

it’s not your body if
it’s your insurance plan.

The reason he wanted it to be a
centipede bite was because for some reason,

the insurance would go
from 550 million yen to 630

million yen if it was a
death by centipede or wasp.

So there was some claws in there.

If it was like a bug bite that
kills you, you get more money.

Pay out from the insurance.

This plan was sloppy.

We can actually say this pretty fairly

because the judge actually
called it a sloppy plan.

Number was found,
the guy I actually did it.

So we’ll go back to my other point.

He wanted to make it look like the guy
had been bitten by a centipede and died.

So he injected him with vodka.

Anyone who’s watched CSI,
which I watched like 13 seasons

of that, you would know that
injecting someone with vodka

isn’t going to show up
as like death by centipede.

Having a bunch of sleeping pills in
your system is also very suspicious.

Doesn’t imply death by centipede.

What he would need to do was go and find
out what does death by centipede look like,

what does it do to your
body and try to recreate that?

The sleeping pills actually
would have been fine.

‘Cause you say, oh, well, he
has a lot of trouble sleeping.

He took some sleeping pills.

He went to sleep and
then the centipede bit him.

You could get away with that.

Injecting him with vodka is
not going to have any effect

like you would actually want if you
wanted to mimic a centipede bite.

The police did a search of his computer.

It was found to have a search
history of identity switch, life

insurance, autopsy, sleeping
pills, double murder, untraceable,

wasp, death, insurance
payout, alcohol, lethal dose.

So I don’t know if those were exactly
in order, but when the police searched,

they actually just found
like essentially a grocery list

of if I want to fake a merch, if I want
to murder someone and make it look

like something else,
here’s the laundry list.

Here’s the list.

It’s the difference between
a laundry list and grocery list.

I shouldn’t have said that.

Now my brain just went to that.

But his search history
was essentially a list

of all the things you would
need to search for to try to

fake death by something else
after you’ve murdered someone.

The suspiciously close
timeline of getting an insurance

policy also would have tricked
the alarm bells across the board.

This guy clearly did not
come up with a good plan.

He bought the insurance plan.

He didn’t have any plan to change the face.

So I’ve seen the movie face off.

It’s a pretty old movie.

But like that’s the thing.

Once the body goes into the hospital,

they’re going to get someone
to come in and identify the body.

Like let’s not just ignore
it, like you can throw his

wallet away so there’s
no like picture ID and stuff.

They’re gonna get a family
member to come in and say,

yes, that’s my son or
no, that’s not my son.

So if you’re going to do it, if you’re
gonna try to pretend that you just died,

you’re gonna need your mom, or
your husband or wife, your partner,

or someone in your family, to
come in and vouch that this body

that is not you is you for
this plan to even move forward.

But if your mom comes in and
immediately goes, well, that’s not my son,

then you’ve already hit
your sort of first roadblock.

And that actually shows
like how sloppy this plan was.

I do enjoy that the judge called it sloppy,

and that’s why that phrase
is kind of stuck in my head.

He was assigned to 30 years in prison.

He wasn’t given life
because he wouldn’t have

received the payout
because the plan was so poor.

So essentially his sentence was
brought down from life in prison

to 30 years because he was
so bad at planning a murder.

And he was never gonna get the money.

Japanese legal system
is different philosophically

from the ones in
the West, that I know.

I don’t know much about the
UK, but I know America from TV,

and I know the Canadian one from
living in Canada for a very long time.

They would never pay like emotional damage.

So you see all these cases
where it’s like this happened

and it caused my first thought
was the McDonald’s burn.

So the lady put the cup of
McDonald’s coffee in between her legs

and she drove away
and spilled it on herself.

She got third degree, like super bad burns.

And then she sued McDonald’s.

Now the suit in Japan would have been
for the injury, and barely anything else.

The suit in America,
millions and millions dollars

for the emotional damage that was done
because you were burned and now you don’t feel

safe going to a McDonald’s
or something like that.

So that’s one of the
differences between the court’s

illegal systems is that if
you sue someone in Japan,

you can get your money,
you can get the base funds,

you can maybe get a little bit more
for the trouble you went through.

But at the end of the day,
that’s all you’re gonna get.

So the payouts in Japanese
court are much, much

smaller than they would
be in other countries.

So it’s something to be aware of.

And that sort of helps
with understanding

this punishment of
30 years instead of life.

Because he’s like, he
wasn’t gonna get any money.

He wasn’t gonna get any
of the stuff he was gonna do.

He wasn’t gonna be successful.

30 years in prison for
the murder itself, that’s it.

But as I’ve sat on Ninja
Ninja’s Japan when we do

almost any crime story, planning
is the most important part.

And this guy was clearly
just not a good platter.

That’s not the only murder
that’s happened in Japan.

There was a girl, she’s about 17 years old.

She takes a picture and a
ramen shop and she posts it online.

One of the girls in the picture
who’s like 2021 at the time,

she’s angry that this other girl
posted a picture of her that’s online.

I saw the picture, it’s
not particularly offensive.

It’s just her slurping noodles
and some guys around her.

You know, flash in the
peace sign and being goofy.

Basically just being young
adults and having a good time.

She was very angry about this.

And she said this was an unauthorized
picture that she had posted online.

So she started contacting this
girl, essentially threatening her,

trying to bully her, trying to get
her to come and give her 100,000 yen.

So she demanded 100,000 yen
compensation for the picture.

She tried to get her to transfer the
money electronically, but that failed.

A lot of things have like a limit.

So I wouldn’t be able to
from my phone transfer,

let’s say more than
50,000 yen at a time.

So they ended up meeting
at a roadside station

that were three girls
together and the victim.

There was a 20 year old, a
19 year old, and a 16 year old.

The 20 year old is the leader.

She’s actually known as
kind of a local gang leader,

or she at least has
influence in these circles.

They put the 17 year old
into a car and they drove

her to a remote area
with a suspension bridge.

They get her out on the
suspension bridge and then

they start taking videos
over her with her phone.

And they get her to get down and do
the kneeling bow as a, say, I’m sorry.

This is a very Japanese thing.

You get down on your
knees and you do a bow.

You say I’m sorry.

She’s crying.

She’s terrified.

They make her take off her clothes.

They get her to balance
on the suspension bridge.

So she’s basically
sitting on the edge of the

suspension bridge with
her legs on the outside.

There is no indication that
she was pushed, but suspension

bridges, I mean, they’re
essentially just ropes.

So she’s balancing on that, precariously.

And then she falls.

She falls to her death.

And then they throw the phone after her.

And I think this was an
attempt for them to try

to get rid of the evidence
that they had filmed

of them making her strip
down her clothes, making

her get down and do the
bowings to say I’m sorry.

Then they disappear.

Now it turns out there’s a
whole other side to this story.

So you got detectives.

The detectives, you know,
they got a decompress.

We’ve all seen the movies with detectives.

There’s cop bars.

And so cops in Japan aren’t that different.

They all have cop bars.

There’s a lot of bars in Japan.

So there’s going to be a
lot of people going to bars.

There’s going to be bars
close to a police station.

A lot of cops go to that bar.

A lot of bars in Japan, they hire
young attractive women to flirt, talk to.

This is a very normal thing in Japan.

So there’s a bar that’s
very popular with the police.

And there’s a detective that goes there.

And he starts to drink with
a young 20 year old woman.

He starts having a good time with them.

And they get intimate.

And this is married man, has a family.

But this 20 year old is offering
him a whole level of excitement.

Maybe he doesn’t know in his life.

Now, the fact that there’s a
bunch of cops go to this bar.

And this guy is getting very, very
personal with this 20 year old girl.

So it’s clearly struck
a chord with someone.

Like someone was like, “Ah,
something’s a little off here.

” So someone videoed him
drinking with the young girl.

Now that itself, she’s 20.

That’s legal drinking age.

There’s not actually a problem there.

But it’s suspicious in one of the
cops is like something’s off here.

So I’m going to film it.

Now, this 20 year old, it’s not by
accident that I’m talking about it.

This is the girl, this girl from the bar
is the girl who committed this murder.

Now, how it works in
Japan is the first division

of Japanese police,
investigates murders.

The second division
investigates financial crimes.

This case, this murder
case, was assigned to

the second division,
the financial crimes,

with the detective in
charge being the detective

who just happened
to be hanging out with

this random girl at the random
bar where the police hung out.

So that was very suspicious already.

It’s actually weird that they even got this
far before someone actually said something.

It makes me think that Hokkaido,
this all happened in Hokkaido.

Hokkaido being its own
individual island and being so small.

It makes me think it might actually
have its own sort of internal set of rules,

and it’s sort of like the police
protect the police and stuff.

So the second division,
which investigates financial

crime, was taking care of in
charge of this murder case.

Now, what is actually happening
here is, is the guy covering it up?

Well, he’s not really able to cover up.

They found the smashed phone, and it
has video of the girl being stripped and

being forced to
apologize, and it seems like

they threw it off to try
to destroy the phone.

So there’s too much
evidence to actually deny it.

But putting this detective who has a personal
relationship with the 20 year old girl

in charge of the case means
it’s now at risk at court.

So in court, it could all
be thrown out because

this guy essentially
has tainted the case.

This girl might get off because
she helped this cop get off.

And it’s very, very weird sort of situation
because every single step of the case,

every single step of this thing is like
you would go like, how is this not noticed?

How is this not become an issue right away?

How is that guy who
doesn’t investigate murders?

How has he even put in charge of a murder?

He does financial crime.

Why has this happened?

Why didn’t no one asked why this happened?

So I think there was a lot of
cops keeping their mouth shut.

But then there was at least
one who was like, uh, this is

already just him drinking
with his girls already a lot.

And then the murder comes out.

Now it’s all blown up.

This case is ongoing right now.

So I’m actually trying to keep track
of this to see where it actually ends up.

If the policeman actually
gets in trouble, if the

girl actually gets arrested
and gets in trouble,

if she actually gets punished for her crime
or if this whole case just gets thrown out

because she had an intimate
relationship with a police officer.

But then it also means
that that police officer

probably went out of his way
to get that case assigned to him.

So he’s clearly he should go to jail too.

I actually think he
should be punished almost

to the same degree as
the girl who murdered

because he’s trying to cover
up the murder and get her off it.

I keep using the phrase
get off and I gotta stop that.

[MUSIC]

[MUSIC]

CMcB Examines Gravity

The Internet has been telling me,
men think about the Roman Empire a lot.

I didn’t until the Internet started
telling me that people did, and I wondered

why I didn’t. I realized
I am more interested

in Genghis Khan, because
he is the con of my heart.

Then I started
thinking about other

things I don’t think
about, and it got confusing.

Once when I was in
university, I went to a

judo training camp.
These aren’t competitions,

but the coaches there
might be the coaches who

decide if you are worth their
time, so people fight hard.

The last match of the day, my opponent
decided he was going to make a move and

did a double ankle grab
and flip me backwards.

I took a hard fall and
hit the back of my head

against the mats. Hard.
I don’t know if I blacked

out, but I woke up confused
and with a very wiped memory.

This was like cartoon stuff, except
it was real, and therefore very scary.

There are scenes in movies
where people wake up in the

confusion of battle. This
was that, except everyone

was wearing white.
I was wearing white.

Somehow from this singular
piece of information I was able

to gauge my safety,
we were all dressed the

same, so we were all
probably in the same group.

I got up and wandered
around the edge of the mat.

A few people came up
and checked if I was okay,

I just waved them off,
because I didn’t know who

these people were. I was
terrified and didn’t trust anyone.

The workshop was finished, and I didn’t
know what stuff was mine, so I wandered

around some more, got
water, loitered there until

there was only one
bag left. I grabbed it and

looked for a wallet.
Somehow I knew my own face,

but not my name. I recognized
my ID, and I read my own name.

I had one piece of
information. Progress.

I changed and still
avoided speaking to anyone

and wandered up
to the parking lot.

There were a few cars left. I
had keys my bag and looked for

a matching symbol. The only
Volkswagen there was mine.

I got in the car
and just sat there,

finally able to
breathe for a minute.

I felt a bit safer now, because
maybe I was sort of in control

of my environment. I
sat there in memory,

started to come back,
with no semblance of order,

random things that I
knew to be true, but did

not have any context
for. It was confusing,

so I started to drive.
Anyone with even a passing

sense of medicine knows
that every decision I am

making is the wrong one. Head injury,
not telling anyone, not seeking assistance,

driving while in a
mental fog. These are bad

ideas, but the thing
is, I didn’t know anyone,

and everything was scary, so I
did what I thought I needed to do.

My body, luckily,
naturally turned

me in the right direction to go
back to the city where I lived.

By the time I got
back into town,

I was back to normal,
I think. That is to say,

I could remember stuff
and people and things.

I take a certain pride in
the fact that I did not panic.

I may not have made
the best decisions,

but I handled myself.
Many years later, I told

someone about this as
amnesia and television came up,

and I could tell people
what it was really like.

I had it for about 20
minutes, but it felt like days.

After this above story
was recounted, very

possibly with some
flourishes, a coworker asked,

“Is there anything you still don’t
remember?” I wouldn’t know, I said.

That is an interesting concept.

You wouldn’t know what bits
are missing because you wouldn’t

know they were missing.
Like my third birthday.

I don’t remember
my third birthday,

and I don’t know if
that’s because it was

uneventful, or because it
got knocked out of my head

in a training session
that I paid for.

Evolution has assured us there
are many things we don’t think

about, like you can’t
see your nose, or that the

color purple doesn’t
exist. If you close one eye,

you can see your
nose. If you change eyes,

you can see your nose.
If you close both eyes,

you can’t see your nose,
and if you open both your

eyes, you can’t see
your nose. It’s still there.

Your brain just doesn’t
need it in the way all

the time, so it just
sort of erases it.

Your brain just makes the
decision to delete your nose all

the time, and we don’t
think about it at all.

The color purple isn’t
really the color purple.

It’s more the absence
of green, which we cannot

comprehend, so our brains create purple as
a filler so we can just go about our day.

Scientifically, purple
is not a color because

there is no beam of pure
light that looks purple.

There is no wavelength
that corresponds to purple.

We see purple because
the human eye can’t tell

what’s really going
on. Therefore, it is not

considered a real color,
sort of the same way that

royalty doesn’t exist. We
just accept that it does.

So it’s there, which makes it interesting
that purple is associated with royalty.

How do you become royal?
You claim a bunch of land and get

people to back you up
with swords, and then you

have some God-given right
to all the swans or some shit.

Owning all the swans is
what really gives it away.

That part is clearly made up.

So we evolved not to see
our nose and to make up

purple in so many other things. Evolution
is a complicated process, like Pokémon.

A variety of factors determines
if a Pokémon will level up.

The Pokémon’s level,
when friendship is high,

at certain locations or
regions, while holding an item.

Some unique conditions
may impact a Pokémon,

like Pancham evolves
into Pangoro, starting at

level 32, if there is a dark
type Pokémon in the party.

Inge involves into
Malamar, starting at

level 30, when leveled
up, while the game system

is held upside down
and feedback evolves into

Miletik, when leveled
up with its beauty

condition at 170 or above.
I have not encountered

any of these conditions,
so I assume this has

stalled my evolution. If
we are in a simulation,

as someone suggests.
One way to tell is if the

system is held upside
down, and your friend gains

immunity to psychic attacks.
Well, there’s your confirmation.

All of this so far is
impacted mostly by gravity.

As we are on a
planet, gravity is with

us all the time. So much
so that our evolution

into what we are is
more of an influence than

having 999 Game of
Google coins in your bag,

and a golden go.
Yeah, I know. It’s big.

Golden go, give a Google
big. The big bang happened.

Surprisingly, the beginning
of the big bang would

have been small. The rapid
expansion was the big part.

I am suspicious of the
bang bit, to be honest.

Sound, vacuums, and
all. It’s hard to hear

anything over a vacuum,
so maybe there wasn’t

any sound, and then
the big bang, and then an

actual bang, a little bit
after. This created all

the building blocks of
the universe as we know it.

Hydrogen and epoxy.
The problem was stuff was

everywhere, so to make
things stick to other things,

which is what the epoxy is for.

But it can’t stick to anything
if there is nothing to stick to.

The irony of being a sticky
substance with nothing

to stick to at the
beginning of the universe.

Attraction became
the fifth element.

The movie of the same name
from 1997, which was two hours

and six minutes long, much
longer than the moment

the big bang happened,
but shorter than the

entirety of the universe
existing, would have

you believe that the
fifth element is love,

but they are being dramatic
for the sake of the story.

The preceding file
elements would be earth,

wind, fire, and funky
beads. Every function

of your body is subtly
regulated by gravity.

So much so, you don’t even
realize you are a machine

that depends on it.
Probably your pesky brain

making decisions for you
again without your consent.

If you truly broke
the bonds of gravity,

the universe would do
what it does to everything,

make you into a sphere.
It would take time,

but the universe has
so much time, it doesn’t

even worry about it. The
universe never rushes.

It slowly pulls and
molds you, softening your

insides so you can be
gently pulled in all directions

at the same time.
The height of universal

evolution is Kirby.
Kirby, for all his cuteness

and ability to suck, was
not really a character design.

What you see in a
Kirby game is the place

holder 4, probably some
Mario rip off or something.

After working with the
pink blob, they decided

not to change anything
and just use Kirby as

is. The universe accepted
and approved of this,

because it wants you to
see what you could become.

If only you would forget
all about that being

bound to a planet nonsense.
None effects of long-term

residents in space are decreased
bone density, muscle atrophy.

The universe is softening you up,
so it can slowly mold you into a ball.

That, or it is waiting
until you become the

perfect stake, modeled
and soft. You are just a

sliver of wagyu to the
universe, where you could be.

It is impossible to know the
ways of the universe at this stage.

We do not have the technology or ability
to find out if our ultimate destiny is

to be Kirby, or wagyu
humanity. Perhaps to the

universe, they are the same
thing. I guess we will know

when the furthest flung
stars are finally observed

to just be barbecues warming
up and waiting for our time.

This is why barbecues are so universally
appealing to us. It is part of the core

atoms that make up the
universe as we speed away

from the big bang, so
shall we return to the

singular fire as the most
expensive cut of meat,

blobs of fat dripping
into create more planets,

but who shall consume
us. When Azathoth wakes,

the universe will end
because the universe is a

creation within the
dreams of Azathoth.

Thus, when the awakening
occurs, there will be no more

dream for us to exist
in. Azathoth is said to not

understand its own dream,
which isn’t that unusual.

I once had a dream where
death was standing at

the end of my bed
holding a bowl of ice cream.

Death, the very classic version of death
and a hooded cloak was scaled in hands,

was holding a bowl
of vanilla ice cream.

Upon my realization within
the dream that death was in my

room holding a bowl of
ice cream, I became very

aware that there was a task
that needed to be completed.

Death communicated to
me, death communicated

to me, but I can’t remember
if there were words,

or just a feeling sent
into the deepest part of

my soul, that if the ice cream were to
touch the floor, everyone I know would die.

Death then started to curl the
gnarled knuckles and twists so

that the bowl was
rotating ever so slowly, but

would eventually
succumb to gravity and fall

from the bowl to inevitably
hit the floor, causing

the ruination of
everyone I had ever known.

Talk about pressure. I
had a large, flat piece

of wood that I used
to put paper on to draw,

and I would draw on
the wood. I pulled this

large, awkward thing from
the corner and tempted

to position it, where the ice
cream was destined to fall.

It was while doing
this that my father

entered the room and
asked me what I was doing.

Apparently, I gave a
fairly incoherent answer,

as I was in a bit of
a panic attempting to

save the world and did
not have time for the

nonsense of explaining
the situation of someone

who would not
understand, but know this.

I was working in his
interest. As a thought,

just had to be kept asleep
by drummers keeping a

peaceful beat, giving me that
over death ice cream any day.

Even men in my childlike nightmare
as gravity played its part, gravity, a

function I did not
understand scientifically,

was so naturally a part
of my psyche, it was

elemental in the dream.
Otherwise, the ice cream

would just have floated
away, along with the

specter of death, along with
me. I mean that seems kind of fun.

So many other aspects of our life are
governed by gravity in ways we are not aware,

sleeping with a blanket,
the security that it offers.

The comfort that
comes from the fact that

the blanket is being pulled towards the
earth via gravity, and therefore has weight.

Some people even buy heavier
blankets to increase this effect.

Basically, they are
blankets that are more

receptive to gravity,
and bring us more comfort

and security as a result.
Pooping and its various

functions are all encouraged
centered around gravity.

In space, poop particles
are a real problem,

with real astronauts
making real complaints

and justifications that
the poop invading the

mission is not theirs.
Astronauts, despite being

elevated from earth
and freed from gravity,

are still people. They would blame it
on the dog if there was one in space.

The following is an actual
transcript from Apollo 10.

Oh, who did it? Tom
Stafford asked at one point.

Confused, young
and certain in replied.

Who did what? Sernan.
Where did that come from?

Stafford. Get me
a napkin. Quick.

There’s a turd floating
through the air. Young.

I didn’t do it. It ain’t one
of mine. Sernan. I don’t think

it’s one of mine. Stafford.
Mine was a little more

sticky than that. Throw it
away. Young. God Almighty.

I do like that the
astronauts had to give

each other instructions
to throw away the poop

as opposed to let’s
keep it in study it.

Most of your bodily functions
function as a result of

being developed with the constant
force of gravity behind them.

Our science fiction dreams have us walking
on spaceships with artificial gravity.

But the real and foe do not
provide the same comfort.

It’s as if our bodies
know the constant

of gravity is real. Six
months in microgravity

created on the ISS
showed a significant decline

in cognitive functions.
This is obviously

as of the author work.
Confusing our minds the

way their mind is confused
by the entirety of the

universe contained
within their dream.

Manual dexterity is decreased.
Motion perception and decreased

ability to operate vehicles when
compared to ground-based controls.

Essentially, the longer someone is in
space, the worse they get at video games.

Simulated gravity has also
demonstrated a decrease in positive

emotions, abnormal
mood swings of fear and

anxiety, and short-term
memory was impaired.

So when the astronaut
loses the game they are

playing, they will react
negatively. This is one of

the primary drivers for me
not having any astronaut friends.

The ultimate loss
of gravity would

mean that we, as stated
before, would become spheres.

We would float out into
the vastness of space,

but then become attracted to each other
again, spinning and bumping into each other,

sticking to each other
because someone broke

the bounds of Earth with
some epoxy in their pocket.

Our Kirby-like
bodies would stick

together, become more
dense, and then collapse to a

point where we initiate
another big bang all over again.

Then someone would say,
“Look at all the hydrogen.

“

Makes me realize that
Seth Meyers was really

good at his job. And
feedback evolves into Militech.

And feedback evolves into
Militech. Militech? Milotech?

And feedback evolves
into Militech. Milotech?

I think the fuck you
that is not a hard word.

And feedback evolves into
Militech when leveled up.

And feedback evolves into Militech.
Fuck you.

Should I try to memorize these and
then read it? I bet that would work better.

It’s because I’m not doing a practice run.

Examines Japanese Folklore

[Music]

It’s Japanese folktales. I came to Japan. Of course
I want to learn how to speak Japanese. I want

to learn how to read. I want to learn how to be
a better person. I want to be able to interact.

When I was learning how to read it first, I wanted
some heated gamma books. I got really interested in

them. I really enjoyed them. This is how I started
learning some Japanese vocabulary that I didn’t know.

I thought folktales would give me a
little insight into the culture. I wish I

hadn’t done that because the insight
into the culture was absolutely terrifying.

Japanese folktales are just off the chain. They are
just insane. The kid’s folktales traditionally are.

If you get the old original versions are always
horrendous stuff. It’s always people getting torn in half.

I would say in the European tradition, the Western tradition that they are
generally trying to teach you something. So, Hansel and Gretel is like, “Oh,

be your parents. Don’t go into the forest. Be careful of strangers.” A
little red riding hood is like be cautious of strangers, that kind of stuff.

There is, despite the horror of
the story itself, a lesson you’re

trying to impart upon children.
Japanese fairy tales or folktales.

They go hard and I spent years trying to
figure out what the actual moral of a lot of

these was. It turns out the moral of most
of these seems to be revenge as in get some.

The first story I read was the crab in the
monkey. I’m going to tell you the bridged

version of this. I started doing research
on these, trying to learn more about these.

It turns out, you know, this is an oral tradition, so
there’s multiple versions of the story. The interesting

one on this is what gets used in the final revenge
plot, kind of changes depending on where you are.

I bet it’s actually just local
stuff gets used so it’s more

familiar to the people who
are actually hearing the story.

I’m going to tell you the story
and then we can do a little

bit of analysis. I got three
stories to tell you today.

If you find a rice ball, don’t eat
that rice ball, that’s not good for you.

The monkey comes along and
sees the crab with the rice ball.

Don’t eat the rice ball.
Give me the rice ball and I’ll

give you this persimency,
persimines are a fruit in Asia.

The crab’s like, that’s a bad deal. I
got this one in the hand right now.

I can eat it and I’ll be satisfied. I
don’t know if crab’s eat rice. Sure.

I’ll go with that crab’s eat rice. I
think everything needs rice. If you have

a rice ball, I don’t use any animal
that would actually refuse to eat it.

Okay. I got a knot tangent. This might be
the hardest part for me. Discipline-wise.

The monkey convinces the crab
says, I’m going to give you the seed.

You can grow the seed
into a persimine tree.

The persimine tree, therefore, will provide
you with persimines for a very long time.

It’s a much better deal. It does take
patience and the crab’s like, you know what?

The crab’s just, you know, inherently patient animals. I will do the
exchange. So gives him the rice ball, gives the monkey the rice ball,

takes the persimine seed, goes off and plants at the monkey’s like,
aha, I got a rice ball, eats it right away, you know, disappears.

X amount of years later, I assume, they dose
kind of just jump, cut, smash, cut to the

next part. The crab plants and grows the tree.
It produces a lot of fruit, but it’s crab.

The crabs don’t have famously long arms and
they’re not particularly good at climbing.

Don’t tangent. I can’t. I’ve seen videos
online of giant crabs climbing up walls.

Okay. That’s not what’s happening here.
This crab cannot climb. God, I’m going

to ruin this. It’s not like I was going
to make it good in the first place.

This crab cannot climb the tree to get the persimines and the monkey is in the tree and he’s
like, aha, he takes a persimine, he starts eating it and the crabs like, hey, dude, those

are my persimines. You can’t have them without my permission. You need to like, at least give
me the persimines. You shouldn’t be eating my persimines. There’s a lot of argument there.

The monkey, being a little bit of
prick, takes an unripe and persimines so

very hard and throws it down and
kills the crab. This is straight up murder.

Now, there’s a couple of verses in this story. One is
very graphic rate like cracks its carapace and then

the thing suffers for a long time and dies and then
others is just throws it down and just kills the crab.

Now, this crab had babies.
Again, they grew this tree for years.

I don’t know how old these babies
are but I don’t know how long crabs live.

Crabs one of those animals that just lives
forever until it dies, which I guess is

every animal. What I mean is there are like
animals that have sort of a finite lifespan.

There are people who think that like lobsters
are immortal, like something has to kill them

but basically they never get sick or anything.
I don’t know if crabs are the same as that.

I know a couple people listen
to this, it’s like double speed.

This might be very
confusing for you. I’m sorry.

The earliest version of this is when
the persimine hits the crab to kill it.

It actually gives birth in
that moment and then dies.

So it was carrying
babies inside or something

but all the versions
the crab has babies.

Then the baby crabs are
like let’s get some help and

they don’t really explain
what the help is for yet.

It’s almost like a question of
is there inherent knowledge that

the babies are going to go get
revenge or is this like a reveal?

It’s actually something I should
ask some Japanese people.

After learning every one of these stories,
when I read these stories initially,

I went to some Japanese co-workers
and I asked them questions about it.

They were always very befuddled
because they couldn’t answer

any of my questions because
they were like too nitpicky I guess.

So they go and they want to get to the
Japanese folktale version of the A team.

We’re like we’re going to
go get the best of the best.

So they get a chestnut, a B, and an Usu.

Now an Usu is usually a tree stump
that’s been hollowed out and what they do

is they put rice in there and they get
a big hammer and they pound the rice.

So you probably if you’ve watched any video
on Japan, seen the guys, the guy hits it

with a giant hammer and then the other guy
mixes it and then he hits it with a hammer.

And there’s a rhythm to it.
So they want to go fast without

actually hitting the guy’s
hands with a giant hammer.

So there is a rhythm kind of
thing you can see if you want.

That’s not important.
You got to know what it is.

It’s really, it looks like a giant heavy
pestle. Heavy is the important word.

And a cow poop. So as a person listening to this
story, I did have issue with the anthropomorphization

because before we were dealing with monkey and
crap, both animals, they could talk to each other.

I’m accepting that. Okay, now it seems like the
author, the creator of this folk tale, is just like,

well, what do I want in this story? I’ll anthropomorphize
those, but not necessarily everything else.

Got to take a little deep break.
See how many spins he does.

Three. Four. Come
on, buddy. Five. Six.

Holy is a lot. Oh, he on the
seventh one. He’s down. Okay. Good.

So I take a little Dave break
there. Everyone enjoys a little Dave.

So my problem was, yeah,
anthropomorphizing cow poop.

So the B makes sense. It’s in the animal
kingdom, just like the crab in the monkey.

I’ll accept that. The
chestnut, that’s pretty tough.

How do we have a single sentient chestnut? The Usoo is
something carved from a tree. It seems like if you’re

going to anthropomorphize trees, when it’s an Usoo,
the tree had to be cut down. It would be dead by now.

But we’re just going magic, but
the poop was a bit of a stretch.

I was like, why do
you have to do a poop?

And I’m like, oh, it’s Japan.
Japan loves putting poop in stories.

Japan is, I believe, the culture that
popularized the ice cream swirl poop.

And so now if you draw that, people think
it’s poop and not necessarily ice cream.

So this group gets
together. You have the crabs,

the chestnut, the B,
the Usoo, and the poop.

And they’ve teamed up and
they’re going to get that monkey.

They go to the monkey’s house.
The chestnut gets in the fire.

The B hangs out around the
water pail. The cow poop hides in the

dirt floor outside the building
and the Usoo gets on the roof.

Now I explanation to how anything’s
happened. The Usoo, since it’s

sentient somehow, could get on
the roof, we’re just accepting it.

You can see what they’ve set up
is a root Goldberg machine of death.

They’re creating a elaborate
way to torture and kill the monkey.

Which, again, this is dark.
Like when you actually

think about what’s happening,
this is very, very dark.

So the monkey comes
home and he goes to the fire

to warm himself after a
hard day of monkeying.

And then the chestnut pops and
the pop, you know, that little bit

of fire jumps out and hits him
in the arm and it burns his arm.

So he runs outside and he
puts his arm in the water bucket,

which is not sentient, which
actually I just thought of just now.

He puts his arm in the water bucket and
then the B stings him. And then he runs and

he slips in the dirt on the cow poop,
which essentially would kill the cow poop.

I don’t know. I don’t know. They
could have just had the crabs

bring the cow poop over. It didn’t
have to be sentient, but it was.

It’s a character in the story.
He slips on the cow poop and he

falls down and then the Usoo
falls down on him and kills him.

So this is like home
alone. This is like full on

construction of A to B to C
to D to death. Now home alone.

I don’t believe they
killed anybody, but that’s

because it was a kids
movie. This is a kid’s story.

The imagine the large trunk
of a tree falling and crushing

if not the whole monkey, at
least enough of him to kill him.

I don’t really like how
complicated the plan is.

I don’t think you should
do overly complicated plans.

If you’re going to do murder
and stuff, you’re going to do that.

It has to be simple and direct so
you know it’s going to be effective.

This relies on lock if you
hadn’t fallen in the right place.

If the burn hadn’t been strong
enough, the plan fell apart right there.

So the plan was overly complicated.

I think this is supposed to
be the entertaining aspect of

the story for the kids, the
complicated nature of the plan.

But then if you’re going to do that, make it way longer.
Maybe that’s some of the other stories that I didn’t

read is that it is way longer and that is actually the
entertainment is how stupidly complicated the plan is.

But every element of the
plan furthers torture the monkey

before his death. That’s
something to keep in mind.

So I, when I read this story
the first time, went to my

Japanese coworkers and I said
what is the moral of this story?

And most of them could not really
explain it because it’s not forgiveness.

It is clearly and exclusively, you killed my
parents, I’m going to kill you and I’m not just

going to kill you, I’m going to make it painful
and maybe even last as long as possible.

Now, someone else in Japanese society kind
of came to a similar realization as me.

There was a guy named Ryunosuke Akutakawa.

He rewrote the end of
the story so that the crab

children were all arrested
and given the death penalty.

So this guy thought ah,
there is a moral lacking in this

story where the baby crabs
get revenge for their parents.

They need to be punished by the law
because they’ve committed a murder.

So I’m going to give them all the
death penalty so no one survives.

I mean, they actually make
it sound in that way that the

poop and the Usu and the bee
are irrelevant in the chestnut.

Maybe the chestnut, because it’s in
the fire, like it would be dead, right?

The bee, one of bee’s things, you hit dies.

The Usu is the only thing that
technically could have survived

this whole process because
the poop, you slip in the poop.

Yeah, anthropomorphizing those
was a bad idea because you have to

hurt them or kill them to get
them to participate in this plan.

And somehow they agreed to it.

No Japanese person I met could ever
explain to me the actual moral of that.

It was like don’t do bad things.
Like the monkey did a bad thing.

And that’s why revenge
wasn’t acted upon him

so the monkey shouldn’t
have done bad things.

So don’t be bad.

But I was like, is not a
complicated murder also a bad thing?

And that’s where they ran into
problems because it is hard to

deny that the murder torture
saw a movie at the end of this story.

This story is an acceptable way to behave.

I do like that the guy
who rewrote the end

actually also gave
everyone the death penalty.

Like that’s not actually better.
There’s no reconciliation.

There’s no anyone becoming a
better person out of this story.

It’s just death and murder.

Which brings us to our second story,
which is the rabbit and the Tanuki.

The Tanuki is a raccoon
style animal in Japan.

You probably know that.
I don’t want to make any

assumptions about what
people do and don’t know.

But Tanuki’s are famous
in Japan as shapeshifters.

There’s the War of the Tanuki, which
is like humans are encroaching on.

It’s like a jibbly movie or something.

Humans are encroaching on their land.

There’s one scene where
they use their testicle sacks

as they stretch them out
and use them as parachutes.

Other cultures are wonderful
and exciting to learn about.

I did enjoy that. It was very funny. It was
very funny to me because it was so weird.

This is apparently just
part of the Tanuki mythology.

Anyways, let’s get into it.

There was a Tanuki
stealing food from a farmer.

Pretty normal thing for an animal to do.

The farmer caught him and
tied him to a tree, the Tanuki.

He says, “I’m going to come
back later and I’m going to kill you.

” The Tanuki starts to
cry, so we all feel bad.

The farmer’s wife comes
back and she feels bad.

And the Tanuki apologizes
and says, “I won’t do it again.

I’m not going to
steal anymore foods.

” So the old lady in her
kindness unties the Tanuki.

So what does the Tanuki do?

If you haven’t already gotten sort of
the theme of what’s been going on so far,

the Tanuki then murders the
old lady and shapeshifts into her.

So when people come
back, they’re going to see

the old lady, but it’s
actually the Tanuki.

The Tanuki takes the
old lady and brings her

into the house so no
one can see the body.

He then cuts her up and prepares her in
a meal for the farmer when he comes back.

I’m just going to let
that one sit for a bit.

Everyone makes a big deal
about the South Park episode

where he feeds the kid his
own parents or something.

This way, way back.

Hundreds of years ago, the Japanese were
like, “Yep, this is what’s going to happen.

We’re going to have a man
do unknown cannibalism

as part of our folk tale
to teach kids morals.

” Again, it’s just a
revenge story, bud.

So the farmer comes back
and he sits down and eats

dinner and they don’t say
whether he enjoys it or not,

but I’m going to go ahead
and assume he thinks this

is a great dinner because
that just makes it worse.

Then the Tanuki sort of does
the big reveal and says, “Haha,

you’ve just eaten your own wife
and then books it out of there.

” Man, yeah, I don’t know
where to go from there.

There was forced
cannibalism as part of this

story if you really
stop down thinking it.

The farmer is understandably upset.

His friend, the rabbit comes by and
goes, “Hey buddy, what happened?

” He goes, “Well,
I just ate my wife.

” The rabbit vows revenge
on the farmer’s behalf.

There’s a few versions of this story,
but I’ll share the common element.

So I’m only going to use
the common elements

of this story when I
am telling it to you now.

Like the previous story, the
different versions, really all

they do is add more elements
of torture to lengthen the story.

So I’m going to give you the base version and
understand that every other version you could

hear has more aspects or elements of torture
in it before the actual death at the end.

The rabbit befriends the Tanuki.

Then, while they’re one
day while they’re out in the

forest, the rabbit drops a
beehive on the Tanuki’s head.

And then the Tanuki, of course,
gets stings all over his head.

So the rabbit treats the stings
with pepper to make it hurt more.

The Tanuki is carrying kindling,
so this must be on another day.

He’s carrying kindling on the
way back, and they’re walking by.

This story is actually called kachi
kachi yama, which is kachi kachi mountain.

And he’s carrying kindling, and he’s
walking along, and the rabbit’s behind

me and lights the kindling on fire,
setting the Tanuki on fire from behind.

And as soon as he’s like,
“Hey, do you hear that sound?

” Sounds like kachi kachi
kachi kachi is the sound of fire.

And then the rabbit looks
and goes, “Yes, that is

because we are walking
close to kachi kachi yama.

Kachi kachi yama is kachi
kachi kachi mountain, I guess.

” And that’s why you —
famously, you can hear the kachi

kachi sound of fire when
you are close to this mountain.

Of course, it burns his back. It burns
the Tanuki’s back, but it doesn’t kill him.

But that’s when the Tanuki realizes
the rabbit isn’t really his friend.

So then, he challenges
the rabbit to a contest.

I don’t really get this part.

He says, “Let’s race across the lake,
so we’re going to build our own boats.

We’re going to
race across the lake.

” The rabbit carves a boat
out of a tree trunk, so would.

The Tanuki makes his boat out of mud.

I think you can see a
flaw in the Tanuki’s plan.

As they start going across the lake,
the Tanuki’s boat starts to dissolve.

He starts to drown, and the rabbit
hits him on the head with an ore.

This is the weird part of this revenge,
because the revenge part of this —

if you had just left the Tanuki to his
own devices, he would have killed himself.

Like, he wouldn’t — you wouldn’t
actually have to commit murder.

Like, some of the other attempts could
have been considered murder attempts.

This one, he challenged you to a race.

He built an inferior boat.

That inferior boat started to sink.

He went down with it.

He couldn’t swim very well.

You could just let him drown, and
then claim a certain amount of innocence.

But, the rabbit takes it
always that step further.

Like, this is it, the
protagonist, or the hero.

These stories always
takes it that step further

to make sure that they
actually kill the thing.

So the killing blow is the — or
hitting the Tanuki in the head.

Then the rabbit goes back
to the farmer and tells the

tale of his revenge, and I
guess everyone satisfied.

And this is not an eye for an eye.

So, like, you killed my
wife, I’m going to kill you.

That would be an eye for an eye, I think.

This is always —
there’s another element of

I’m going to torture
you before I murder you.

So, it’s an eye for an eye, plus more.

It’s almost like your enemies must suffer.

And then I asked some
Japanese people about this story,

and their version of the
moral was don’t do bad things.

And then when you come
back to them and say,

“Well, is not torturing
someone also a bad thing.

” They’re like, “But that’s
as a result of your actions.

” So, if you hadn’t
committed those actions, you

wouldn’t have been
tortured in the second place.

So, that’s one of the weird
issues of these stories.

We have one more story.

Now, this one is not
about torture and murder.

Those two shared a theme.

And I read them very
close to each other, and

when I asked my Japanese
friends about them,

I never got a satisfactory
moral to this story.

Essentially, they would just
say, “Don’t do bad things.

” But I’m like, “But the
result of you doing a bad

thing was a very complicated,
awful, evil revenge.

” The last story I’m going to do,
though, is called the Boy and the Turtle.

And it’s just — it’s like someone did some
— found some LSD way, way back in the day.

So, there’s a little boy on the beach.

And he’s walking around
and he sees some other boys.

And they’re bullying a turtle.

I don’t know what that means.

I think I guess that just means they’re
playing with a turtle in an unkind way.

Maybe hitting it or
turning it out on the back.

Doing bad things to a turtle.

And I think at that point,
everyone is on the turtle’s sides.

Like, “Don’t do
bad things to turtles.

” Turtles are cool.

This is why the straw
industry suffered so

much when the straw
went up that turtle’s nose,

because when you heard a
turtle, the world unites against you.

So, you know, I don’t use straws.

I legit don’t use straws anymore.

I will only use paper straws.

And it’s because of that turtle.

Because turtles don’t hurt anybody.

Don’t hurt turtles.

Okay.

So, he chases the boys off.

He says, “Don’t
bully the turtle.

” I don’t know if he’s
a scary person, but

anyway, he gets the
kids to leave them alone.

And then she goes, “Thank you.

Come with me under
the sea to a magical world.

” That’s a great invitation.

It’s almost like Disney should make a
song that sounds very similar to that.

So, they go.

So, the boy in the turtle
go together under the sea

and they go down to this
like undersea castle world.

Somehow the boy can breathe,
not asking any questions.

It’s magic.

This is magic.

The undersea kingdom is magic.

So, I’m perfectly skeptical
of what’s going on here.

The boy attends a
three-day party and he eats

food and he does like
what Japanese people do.

They talk to fish.

He eats.

The thing is, if his Japanese
kid was probably eating fish

and talking to fish, that’s
got to be very uncomfortable.

It’s not exactly the
cannibalism from the previous

story, but there is like
an uncomfortable element

if you’re eating like a similar species
while having a conversation with someone.

But he’s having a good time.

He’s having a party or maybe
they’re just eating a lot of seaweed.

It’s been three days.

It’s time to go.

You can only party for so long.

So, the queen says come here.

I want to thank you for
helping our turtle friend.

Here’s a box.

Don’t open the fucking box.

Already that’s a bit weird.

It’s weird as a present.

Like, don’t open the box.

Here’s a box.

Don’t open the box.

That’s it.

Now, get out.

There’s no explanation as to
why you should open the box.

That is to me the biggest
problem with the story so far.

So the weird present is given to
the boy without any explanation.

It’s just the only thing
that said is here’s a box.

Don’t open the box.

I’m assuming it’s a very nice box.

This is a gift from the queen.

He goes back to the beach
and he’s like, I think it’s different.

This is feel different.

The beach looks different.

Maybe some of the buildings in
the background kind of changed.

That’s weird.

And he figures out
that time in the undersea

kingdom and time in
the world he comes from.

Past differently.

It’s almost like
interstellar black hole kind

of like time, fractioning
gravity situation.

I’m not going to explain it.

We’ll just, again, it’s magic.

But he understands that now
three days under the water in

the underwater party kingdom
equals 300 years in the world.

Which means everyone he
knows, his family, his friends,

everyone he’s ever, you
know, everyone’s ever existed.

They’re all dead now.

Like 200 years ago at least.

They’re dead.

And so he has no home.

He has no life.

He has no sort of world to support him.

Because again, this is not
an adult who made this choice.

This is a child.

And that’s another element that
I think gets forgotten very quickly.

This is a child whose entire support system
in the world is now gone 200 years ago.

He sits down on the
beach and starts to cry.

And then he decides to
do the only logical thing.

Maybe there’s something
in the box that can help me

in this dire situation
that I have been put into.

So he opens the box.

And when he opens the box, he
immediately ages 300 years and dies.

What is going on?

So the box was somehow
holding the difference

in time between the
real world and the boy.

So once the box was open,
that whatever magic was released.

And so his aging, it must have been
incredibly painful for a few seconds.

Like he aged 300 years,
and they don’t give a

time frame, but I’m
going to say very quickly.

But that aging process
must have been incredibly

painful and then just
in a sudden death.

The only thing I can
come up with is you have

a short-term reward,
but at a massive cost.

But the moral of the story actually
seems to be don’t help people.

Because if he hadn’t helped the turtle and
left the boy to just bully the turtle more,

he wouldn’t have gone
under seas, he wouldn’t

have spent those three
days ergo 300 years.

Which means his family
wouldn’t have died and

he would have been
able to live a normal life.

He would have, he lost
his life for helping this turtle.

And I cannot for the life of
me figure out any aspect of this,

of having any sort of moral
that makes any sort of sense.

And then the other question
that I have more than anything

else is why didn’t the queen
give him any sort of explanation?

If she had said, “Hey, look,
time passes differently here.

” So if you go back home and
you open this box, you’re going to

age in the difference the 300
years and you’re going to die.

So don’t open the box.

Then he would know
what was going to happen.

She could have explained that to him.

But then he would have had the question
of, “Well, why did you keep me here for

so long knowing that everything in my
world was going to change and disappear?

And all my family was going to
die, and I’m not going to have a life.”

And then it would have made more sense for
him to just stay in the underwater kingdom.

Like there’s no, all the questions lead
to you helped a turtle and lost everything.

The queen maliciously?

Because I don’t think
there was any ignorance.

She knew, she knew to
say, “Don’t open that box.

” So she knew what was going
to happen if you opened that box.

She didn’t give him any
way to go back to the

real world and actually
have some sort of life.

She just dumped him
and left him on his own.

So is that punishment for
coming to the undersea kingdom?

Was that punishment for helping the turtle?

Was this whole thing
some kind of weird strategy?

But that seems like mental torture
for the kid as he sits there and realizes.

300 years ago, everything
I know is no longer existed.

I don’t have anything
in this world anymore.

I have no life.

My world has ended.

I went and asked some
Japanese people what this means.

Like what is this story about?

And they said, “Well,
it teaches you nothing.

It’s just a fanciful story.

” And it’s like it’s a
fanciful story with one

of the most horrendous
endings to his story.

For someone who has tried to
be a good person, the whole time.

Doing good things
might have short-term

benefits but lead to
the loss in the long-term.

I spent months and months and months trying
to figure out some kind of lesson or story

or moral or point to this
boy in the turtle story.

And I’ve never been able to do it.

If you have an idea, please
post it in the comments.

Please send me a message.

ChunkmyVHS.gmail.com or something.

Because I got nothing.

I’ve asked Japanese
people, “They got nothing.

” They’re just like, “Oh,
it’s just like a fun, weird story.

” I’m like, “No, it’s not.

It’s horrible.

” And it makes me question everything
I understand about Japanese culture.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Poop Politics

(upbeat music)

  • There’s a story that caught my attention
    lately and I’m finding it fascinating.

And only because of
the, wow, it’s North Korea.

North Korea is always fascinated me and
then I kind of check in every now and then.

They shoot missiles over Japan
a lot, so they pop up in the news.

In the past South Koreans
have sent memory sticks

with music, Korean dramas, food, medicine,
and money over the North Korean border.

So what they do is they
connect it to a balloon and they

float it up in the air and
the wind will carry it over.

This is often led by North Korean defectors,
so people who lived in North Korea

have defected to the South and they’re
trying to get other people to understand,

you know, there’s a different
world, a different way they could do it.

They should defect too.

So if you’re North Korean
and a loyal North Korean,

then this is, you know,
what would we call it?

This is the worst kind of propaganda.

Showing people that
there’s a different life

outside of North Korea
that might actually be better.

I remember a story of two North Korean,

basically high school boys
who were sentenced to prison

because they were
watching episodes of Friends.

They were watching episodes of Friends

because they got their hands
on one of those USB sticks

and they had some friends
on it and they watched Friends.

So they watched an English American show,

not just a K-drama, and that got them sent
to prison for who knows how long, right?

This is North Korea, so the
sentences are quite arbitrary.

Last week, North Korea, well,
they must have had a meeting

of something and they’re
like, you know what,

we’re gonna send something
back over the border.

We’re gonna send a message.

And that message is gonna be really clear

that you don’t wanna do this,
you shouldn’t do this anymore.

So they were like, we’re going to
send balloons back over the border.

The military explosives unit was
dispatched to check on the balloons.

There were more than 260
balloons that were dropped

onto the dropped through
to North South Korea.

They had plastic bags attached to them.

So these plastic bags,
there’s a question of,

what did North Korean, this was done
officially, this was done by the government.

What are we gonna put
in these plastic bags?

So if you were at the meeting, you’d
have like a North Korean general maybe,

and he’s like, what
should we put in the bags

to demonstrate the resolve
and the might of North Korea?

And then for some reason,
there was a five-year-old

in the room and the
five-year-old went, poop.

We wanna, the North Korean
general then looks around

the room and goes, we want to lure South
Koreans from their decadent lifestyle back

to the North Korean family they should have
known reunites the North and the South.

What would represent North
Korea’s desires in that way,

the best, what could we put
in that to send that message?

And then the five-year-old
speaks over again and goes, poop.

And then everyone around the table
went, you know he makes a good point.

Who let the five-year-old in?

If you ever watch any of those
old movies, 80s movies did this a lot,

where you had kids for the main
characters and then it somehow

involved the military and
then at some point in the movie,

there’s a literal military
meeting with kids in the room

and they’re like giving
comments and advising

these adult generals
on what should be done

in this situation, usually
it was the aliens and stuff.

It was very silly to look at,
the more you think about it, the

more ridiculous it is, but it
does make sense for this situation

’cause how would you
get a group of military

leaders to go, you
know what we should do?

We should put poop in bags, attach it
to blooms and send it across the border

and that’s gonna send some kind of
message The message to me is a bit garbled.

I’m a bit unsure of what
it actually should be.

So what actually was in it
was plastic trash and manure.

The reason we know that was
manure and not human feces

was because it must have
been someone’s job to test it,

so the explosive unit rushes
out, so these are like very

serious military guys, they
know how to defuse bombs.

They get these bomb disposal
guys get to these balloons

and there’s again, there’s
two hundred in CCMs,

there’s a lot, so
there’s like no time to

waste, they have to check
them and analyze them,

make sure they’re safe, make
sure they’re not gonna hurt anybody,

and they, you know,
gonna have to go through

a lot of procedures
to open them carefully

and they open them one after
the other and spread it out,

so they would have had
to find all the particulate

in it, so the plastic, the
papers and the manure,

and then they have to send
it back to labs for testing,

and so that is how we know there is no
human feces, it was manure from animals.

And I just think of
there’s something poor

guy, that’s his job,
his job was to test it.

North Korea stated that
balloons from the South

were dirty things and a
dangerous provocation.

Mounds of waste paper and
filth will be sent in response,

so what they’re saying is view send
balloons over the border to the north,

we are going to send balloons back
over the border full of garbage and manure.

On 2014, the North tried shooting the balloons
down, I do like they use the word try,

’cause that means they weren’t successful,
so they have a, these are big balloons,

like these are supposed to
carry the contents for miles,

and they’re shooting at them, and
maybe they’re not very good shots,

I don’t know, it’s ’cause I hear
stories about how the North

Korean military, all they do
is train so they’re very good,

but then you also hear
they also have no food,

so how can they be
very good at anything?

They got a lot of complaints of
people who live near the border,

so those people were saying like,
please don’t shoot down the balloons

or try to shoot down the balloons anymore,
’cause their guns are going off all night.

In 2021, the government in South Korea
said, we should put a ban on these balloons,

it’s provoking the North, we don’t
want that, it’s gonna cause trouble,

we don’t want some of
the shooting at balloons,

and then the bullets come
down somewhere in South

Korea and actually injure
someone by accident,

that could accidentally set
off a war, we don’t want that.

But then a court said,
well, telling people they can’t

send messages to North Korea
is a violation of free speech,

so sending the balloons from South Korea to
North Korea is a protected writing Korea,

which is a very interesting piece of
legislation that had to be discussed.

But again, they’re trying
to send medicine, money,

they are sending USB sticks with like popular
content, K-pop and K-dramas and stuff.

Kim Yojin, who’s North Korean
leaders, sister, who is kind

of poised to take over and
she’s very serious looking.

She said, we will make it
clear that we will respond

with 10 times more the amount of filth
to what the South sends in the future.

So what they’re saying is for every balloon

that send, they send
over the borders of the

North, they’re gonna
send 10 times that amount

of balloons to 10 balloons
back, full of garbage and filth.

Two days ago, as of this recording,
90 more balloons were sent.

So there’s 260 in the first
batch, 90 in the second batch.

They were full of paper,
plastic, and cigarette butts.

So you got Korean soldiers and generals,

and just be like, well,
keep throwing in these

trash bags and we’re
gonna tie these trash bags up

instead of throwing them
away, disposing of them.

We’re gonna send them
over to the Southern border

as a message to our Southern
compatriots that we’re better.

I don’t know what the message there is.

I mean, I guess the message
is to stop, don’t send this stuff.

But, I don’t know, I don’t think it’s that.

There are real world ramifications of this.

So I kind of gloved on to this story
because the idea of sending poop

from North Korea to South
Korea as a message was

interesting ’cause in my
head, in my heart, my dreams,

what is the message they’re
actually trying to send?

Well, they’re trying to say
that the stuff you’re sending us

is dirty, we’re sending you
something even dirtier back.

But the real world ramifications are
that there was a treaty signed in 2018

designed to ease tensions
surrounding the border.

So they’re like, we’re
gonna sign this treaty

and the South is not going
to do military exercises

close to the border, it
makes everyone nervous.

The North is going to ease off the border
’cause that’s what makes everyone nervous.

And they don’t want a war to kick off.

But, because of these balloons being friends
sent from North Korea to South Korea,

they’re now talking about
suspending this agreement

and they start doing
drills close to the border

because again, this is where
the balloons are coming from.

It’s sort of invading their country.

A Korean general said
he will take sufficient

and immediate measures, but
no clarification is what that was.

So it could be that we’re gonna
try to shoot down their balloons

so that the manure from their
balloons falls on their border

and doesn’t get to us so they
have to pick up their own garbage.

So far, no one’s been hurt.

Now, these balloons
have like a timer in them

and they think the timer is
supposed to pop the balloon

when it’s over a city
center and then drop the

balloon into the city,
something like that.

That could fall on someone and hurt them.

Again, this is problematic because this
is how a war could kick off in the future.

My biggest concern, North
Korea is testing missiles

all the time, they shoot
missiles, they go towards Japan,

over Japan, into the
Sea of Japan all around.

And it is you get missile alerts on
your phone, like we get that regularly.

And then one of the problems
is new people come to Japan

and I meet them and they
hear about missiles being shot

and they like freak out
and I’m like, no, no, no.

That’s like literally a
weekly occurrence in Japan.

It’s just North Korea shooting missiles.

My concern though, so they
tend to just fall into the water

and then it’s just a test is
my actual concern is they hit

a fishing vessel or
something else by accident.

So they don’t actually right
now intend to do anything

but it’s a show of force,
it’s intimidation, intimidation.

But if they hit a boat and
they hit that boat by accident

and kill some Japanese
or South Korean fishermen,

citizens, the government
has to respond.

There’s no way you can
actually just let that go.

Like you killed five, 10, 15, maybe 20,
30 people depends how big the boat is.

You can’t kill that many people
and then not have a response.

North Korea being the way it is,
they never admit to any wrongdoing.

So they’re not gonna apologize, they’re
not gonna say they did something wrong,

they’re not gonna try to
make any amends for that.

They’re going to stick
to their guns and say,

well, you shouldn’t be
fishing in our waters,

even though it’s not their
water, something like that.

And that’s where the
problem is gonna arise.

So right now, sending poop across
the border is actually quite funny,

but you can see it escalates
and these small escalations

tend to have real world problems,
which actually could be an issue,

but still, maybe they should get
that five-year-old out of the room.

This is something I’ve
maybe talked about in

the past and it’s Kung
Fu fights to the death.

And I talk about Kung Fu a lot.

I like this kind of genre of stuff
and I like fighting movies and stuff.

But Kung Fu movies had
a thing that I always found

was illogical and it was
the fights to the death

of the best of the best to prove
which style was the best style.

Because the problem is, if you have
the two best Kung Fu guys in the world,

let’s say there’s a group of 10 there,
the best Kung Fu guys in the world.

And two of them fight
and one of them has to die.

Now that guy who died,
that means you now only

have nine of the best
Kung Fu guys in the world.

And it’s not like someone
just moves up into that

position, there is a
skill gap that is created.

So if those 10 guys all have to fight
each other until there’s only one left,

that means those guys
who are all the best

in the world don’t get
to teach anyone else.

And that means that
lowers the overall quality

and skill level of Kung Fu
in the martial arts world.

And this is always bug me.

It’s one of those things that’s
illogical to fight to the death in a film.

If the whole point is to prove
that your style is the best.

I guess maybe what they wanna
do is have the other styles die off.

But my other thought is,
even if you win the fight,

these two of the best fighters in the
world fighting means you’re gonna get hurt.

Like you just get hurt.

That’s what happens when you fight.

They don’t usually show that move.

Movies you recover really quick.

People get shot in their shoulder
and they just keep running and stuff.

I’m sure I would at least have
to lie down if that were to happen.

I watched Doom II recently and
there were a couple of elements

that struck me as
really, I don’t know, old.

Off putting way back in the day.

I don’t know, like in ’80s kind of thingy.

When I was young, I didn’t
think about it very much.

But now as I’m getting
older, I’m seeing it.

And it doesn’t sort of
fit in movies anymore.

And it’s when the bad guy lashes out

and kills an underling
standing too close to him.

So this, maybe the most
iconic ones were Darth Vader.

Now he would kill people he
would like crush their throat

when they failed or when
they didn’t do what he wanted.

But in Doom II, you have the
young Harkonan leader guy.

And basically someone standing next
to him and he says, “Let’s go over here.

” And that guy goes,
“Oh, we can’t go over there.

” And he slashes his throat.

And the guy dies.

And you think that would
only happen once or twice

before people will be like,
“You know what, I’m going to do?

I’m not going to stand with
an arms reach of that guy.

” But the problem is they should be promoting
competent people to these positions.

This is an organization.

So they should be promoting
people into these positions.

We have a certain skill set.

And if because they have
to deliver information to you

that you don’t like,
that you actually kill

them in that moment,
well, that’s problematic.

Because you’re out now
taking these skilled managers

and workers around
you and getting rid of

them is which means
they have to be replaced.

And then select the
guy who has to look at

the screen for you and
to deliver information.

You have to replace that guy.

So the guy who gets
promoted in that position

maybe he’s not ready
for that position yet.

Maybe he doesn’t have those skills.

Maybe he is smart enough to
stay out of arms reach, though.

That actually would
be an interesting thing.

But I’m concerned that the overall level
of competence is going to be minimized.

Because anyone with any real
competence is going to realize,

like, I don’t want to be
promoted to the point

where I am within arms
reach of the head bad guy.

Because when the bad guy
gets upset, he kills people.

And I came up with this kind
of like four solutions to this.

And one is you don’t
stand within arms reach.

This doesn’t work with
Darth Vader because

he was using the force
so he could choke you.

He actually did one where he
choked a guy on another spaceship

because he was looking at
him through a view screen.

And he promoted the
guy standing next to him.

But that, again, I was like,
that guy standing next to him.

He might be standing next to him for a
reason because he wasn’t actually very good.

Be quit the job.

So they’re going to promote
you to stand next to the bad guy

who’s going to kill
you if you get so upset.

And you’re the guy who
has to deliver bad information.

You know what’s going on.

You know what?

I’m going to quit this
organization earlier retirement.

I’m out.

Because that’s the end of your career path.

The end of your career path
is you stand next to that guy.

You have to tell him some real information

that he should be able to act on
and then he slashes your throat.

The ones that are more realistic,
though– so you’re in this situation.

You’ve been promoted this position.

Let’s say it’s a military thing and you
can’t because it’s desertion if you run away.

You would end up not
giving him the bad news.

So you’re given bad news and you’re like,

if I deliver this bad news
to him, he’s going to kill me.

So I’m either not going
to deliver the bad news

or I’m going to reinterpret the
bad news so it doesn’t sound bad

so that I can survive,
which means this leader

is now no longer getting
accurate, like a faithfully

accurate information
for him to act on properly.

Which is what crumbles the entire
organization at the end of the day.

I actually would like to
see a movie made by that.

It’s actually the
underlings, the subordinates.

And they’re like, OK, we
have to deliver this information.

Like we’ve found the rebel
base or the rebels are still alive.

And they’re like, OK, but
we have to say this in a way

that makes it sound like we’ve won
or we’re not going to have a problem.

And in that way, maybe we can
remain living for an extended period.

So it’s them manipulating
information all the time.

And that’s how the empire would collapse

because none of the
information would actually

get to the people who are supposed
to act on it or give instructions.

And the last one, very
simple, I would run away.

And this is probably the most realistic one

is like, I guess a technically
counts the same as quit your job.

If you could quit formally, that would make
more sense and be probably a better idea.

But realistically speaking, you’re
probably not– you don’t get that option.

So you just start to run.

You’re like, I’m going to get out of here.

I know if I don’t–
he’s just going to kill me.

And the alternative is you get
caught and get killed anyways.

So there’s no real downside to just
bailing on the whole situation altogether.

I don’t see it as movies as much anymore.

Maybe this is because
Dune 2 is based on a book.

I think it’s from the
’80s, maybe even the ’70s.

And so they still were doing this thing.

Like the whole point of the bad guy
just lashing out and killing someone

because they heard bad news,
which is show how bad they are.

But I think we’ve now gotten to a point

where you need a different
reason or a different way

to show that because it actually makes
less logical sense to kill your underlings.

And going on with movies, like I’m just

tired of people being all shady
and sarcastic to each other.

I started playing a video game
called the Calisto Protocol.

And at the beginning, it has the
two guys, the pilot and the co-pilot.

And they’re just being
snippy to each other.

And I’m like, not in a friendly way.

Not like two friends
who are like bantering.

They were just annoyed
at being with each other.

And I was like, how do these guys
actually work together in a successful way

if they’re so annoyed with
each other all the time?

It doesn’t make sense.

And so I think writers, if
you’re going to write movies

and you have a bad guy, you want
to show how bad the bad guy is,

lashing out and killing
someone that is not the answer.

That is now a trope
and it’s now off the table.

I am now disallowing that as an option.

See him on the beach.

Okay, last little bit.

I accidentally quit caffeine.

It’s about two weeks ago now.

So I just woke up and I was really
busy and I had a rough day ahead of me.

So I just went out and I got
out there and started going.

And I went to work and then I
went halfway through the work.

Maybe a couple hours later, I
started getting the headache.

And I was like, oh, I actually
had the headache before.

It’s a caffeine headache.

But I’m busy and I’m
working so I can’t stop.

So I started popping medicine
and that sort of helped.

But I actually went through the sweats.

I had the headache.

I felt pain.

I felt like exhausted.

It was awful.

It was a terrible, terrible day.

And I was like, you know what?

I know that caffeine addiction kind of
gets out of your system in a day or two.

You still get the cravings and stuff.

But the worst part is already over.

I’ve already suffered through it.

So I might as well quit caffeine.

So then I just quit caffeine.

I was like, not going to drink anymore.

Coke, I never drank coffee.

But anything with caffeine,
I’m going to try to stop.

I do get allergies though and
I was still getting headaches.

So you still get headaches for a while.

And the headaches are
the worst part because I

get headaches for a
lot of different reasons.

I’m very sensitive to headaches.

So what I thought was, okay, I’ll just
take aspirin until this all goes away.

And then I started looking
at like buffer in stuff like that.

Look to the ingredients
list because I remembered

that almost every drug that you can take
over the counter drug has caffeine in it.

Buffer in plus, which is the
one that I was getting before,

has more caffeine in
two pills than an entire

bottle of like a 500
milliliter bottle of Coke.

And I was like, oh, so
if I actually quit caffeine

and then take headache medicine
to get rid of the caffeine headache,

it might be the fact that
I’m reintroducing caffeine

to my body that is actually getting rid
of the headache and not the painkillers.

So then I had to go start
looking for other medicines.

I started looking at everything.

So I take allergy medicine and I
looked at the box, has caffeine in it.

Caffeine makes it get into your blood faster,
makes it work into your system faster.

If it has a drowsy effect,
it’ll make you not drowsy.

So caffeine is really, really
beneficial to have in drugs.

An interesting side note is in Japan.

They always tell you to
take medicine with water.

And so I used to take it with Coke.

Like I would drink a Coke, down
some medicine and drink some Coke.

And my Japanese friends and
family would all be like, don’t do that.

You’re not supposed to do it.

You should take it with water.

And I’m like, why?

And they’ll go, why are
you taking it with Coke?

And like, Coke has caffeine in it.

Caffeine makes it get
into your body faster.

It means it works faster.

And they’re like, oh, no, that’s not true.

They weren’t using any science on this.

And I go, we’ll go get the
box and look at the box.

And it has caffeine on the box.

And they were shocked.

‘Cause I was like, you should take it with
caffeine ’cause that makes it work faster.

And sometimes even work better.

But I went online and I was like, why
do I need to get rid of the headaches?

And I looked for some options.

And it was like, you know, make
sure you drink enough water.

It was pretty much standard stuff.

And it was ways to quit caffeine.

So it was just wean yourself off it.

Why’d I already done the cold turkey?

I’d already done it hard and fast.

So I might as well just keep up.

Going back and weaning
myself didn’t make sense.

And it did warn about like medication,
often has caffeine at that kind of thing.

So you gotta be careful
of all these things.

One of the pieces of
advice was just don’t give up.

Because caffeine is so prominent
and it’s such a big part of people’s lives.

There’s absolutely no reason
to give up on it anyways

and your life will just
be easier if you don’t.

Which to me was really awful thing to put

and sort of a guide
on how to quit caffeine.

If you came to this page, it’s
because you wanted to quit caffeine.

I technically already had.

But if you wanted to quit caffeine,

hey, just give up on the
idea of quitting caffeine,

that didn’t seem like
really good advice to me.

So maybe it was big caffeine
that was actually behind it.

Is there a big caffeine?

I’m sure there’s big drug
companies behind everything.

It’s gotta be big caffeine,
there’s big pharma.

That’s all the same.

So I’ve quit caffeine, I found the
sugar-free, calorie-free caffeine-free Coke.

This is the Coke with the gold band on it.

So I kind of drink that one.

I get a craving for cola.

And it’s done pretty well.

I found that Tylenol, all Tylenol
products do not have caffeine in them.

So if I get a headache,
I’m now taking Tylenol

or I get any sort of pain or injury
from judo or something, I take a Tylenol.

But I went and looked at the
medicine section of the pharmacy,

the over-the-counter stuff, and I
went and looked at basically every box

and every single box
except Tylenol had caffeine

and some of it had
a lot of caffeine in it.

You could actually be
like dosing yourself to

caffeine way the more
than you think you are

if you’re taking headache
medicine on a regular basis.

And I’m not gonna give up.

I’m not gonna take like just give
up, giving up as a piece of advice.

I’m not gonna do that.

♪ After the mind will be a kad of me ♪

♪ Shut my pictures ♪

♪ Where the bastards of philosophy ♪

♪ Drinking the clutch ♪

♪ Rings of upper skills ♪

♪ Like a soccer punch ♪

♪ Won’t come to see ’em my beat ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪

♪ Oh, see ’em my beat ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, oh, see ’em my beat ♪

♪ Yeah, oh, see ’em my beat ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, oh, oh ♪

Blind Tiktoking

(upbeat music)

  • Okay, so I want to tell a little
    story and then get into the main topic.

The way I tell stories
tend to take a lot of time,

so this actually, who knows
how long this is gonna be.

I am warning you now.

There is some off-putting elements.

I have over the last few weeks
when I’m trying to do podcasts,

being complaining about the fact that I
cannot read my right eye, it’s gone fuzzy.

So about three weeks
ago, I was getting headaches

sort of in the back of my
head and behind my eyes.

I looked it up online, not a good place
to seek out your medical information.

And it said these were cluster
headaches and this was kind of migraine.

But I actually had a similar pain before.

It’s when I got punched in
the face on the other side

and I felt a similar kind of pain and
it’s ’cause my eye was actually swollen.

So I thought, you know what?

I’m gonna go to the
eye doctor just to check

’cause just regular aspirin
isn’t taking care of this.

I go to the eye doctor and he starts giving
me stuff and it’s all working out fine.

And I say, so what’s wrong with my eye?

And he goes, “Well, this is the
same as what you had last time.

” And I go, “Well, last time I got
belted in the head “by a giant angry man.

“This time I didn’t do anything.

“Like, nothing happened
to my face or a head.

“No impact of any sort.

” So what caused it?

He’s like, “Oh, well, this is just
swelling “and swelling could be caused.

” Cause of anything.

And he kind of did like
a little shrug most drip.

He kind of did a little shrug gesture,
like, you know, life happens sometimes

and sometimes that swells up.

So I was like, “You know,
give me some details.

” He’s like, “Well, it could
be an injury, an infection,

“stress, any of number
of things could cause this.

” So if you go online, he
literally looks at me and says,

“If you go online,
you’ll see a long list.

” And I was like, “Okay.

” So basically, he’s
saying, “You don’t know.

” This is the doctor’s way of
saying, “I don’t know what caused this,

“but at least we
can start treating it.

” He gives me some medicine and
the pain in my eyes starts to go in.

I start to feel pain in my cheek.

And now that is where
one of your sinuses is.

And he said infection.

I thought, “Oh, maybe
because of my allergies and stuff,

“every now and then,
I get a sinus infection.

” “Every now and then,
I get a sinus infection.

” Every now and then,
I get a sinus infection.

Every now and then,
I get a sinus infection.

That’s happened a couple times in my life.

So I go to the nose doctor.

He’s your tube doctor.

He goes to your nose, mouth,
and ear, something like that.

So I go to him and I go, “I
think I have a sinus infection.

” He doesn’t even
really check much.

He just goes, “Okay, it
gives me a huge thing of pills.

” There’s one morning.

I have to take the pills for my
eye and the pills for my nose.

So there’s one day.

I remember it was a
Wednesday for some reason.

I had to take the variety of pills for my
eye and the variety of pills for my nose.

And in total for
breakfast, I had like 15 pills

with me, which made
me feel incredibly old.

Okay, whatever.

Sinus infection goes away
because that starts to feel better.

And then I realize, like, you
know, I’m not seeing as well.

I have always worn glasses, so
my eyes have always been poor,

but I think something’s
right, I go back and he’s like,

“Oh, the back of
your eye is still swollen.

” So he’s giving me
these steroid eyedrops.

He’s like, “Well, the steroid
eyedrops aren’t gonna get back there.

” So what we’re gonna
do is give you an injection.

And I was like, “Huh,
an injection from my eye.

” Well, I guess, you know, powerful
medicine is often injected into your body.

So that’s not a thing.

And then I’m like, “Wait, he
means an injection in my eye.

” So this is like
horror movie stuff.

And I am just taking my
deep breath and I’m going,

“Okay, yep, yep, let’s do that.

” Okay?

He’s like, “Right now.

” So I don’t know if this
was a technique or just,

this is how fast he moves, ’cause
this is a clinic they just do eyeballs.

It’s all service, like,
you wanna get glasses,

contacts, eye infection,
anything, this happened.

Pink eye, whatever,
they take care of it there.

So they have everything,
all the facilities, one clinic.

And so they have me
sit outside for a minute

and then like two minutes
later, they have me go in

and they have the chair
that you light on your back.

And I am, that two minutes was
enough to get me like, worked up.

I was like, “Okay, yeah, okay,
I’m gonna get stabbed in the eye.

” I did this in Dead
Space, I believe, was the

video game where you had
to aim it at your own eye

and then push the button, didn’t hurt then.

I’m not gonna hurt now, but I
mean, this is like horror movie stuff.

They line me down.

I’m gonna go through
the whole process for you.

So they line me down
and then Igor comes in.

Igor is not the guy
putting it in my eye, I hope.

Because the first thing Igor
does is he walks in the room.

So I’m lying down, flat on my back.

Already kind of like a vulnerable position.

He bumps into a couple of things.

And my first
thought, “Oh, fuck no.

” Fuck no, this guy is not
going to put a needle in my eye.

He can’t even walk straight.

Then he’s the guy who’s gonna put a couple
of drops in, probably to dilate my pupil,

and then a couple other drops
in, which is gonna be anesthetic.

So he puts a couple drops
in, boop, boop, he misses.

It goes on my cheek and I’m like, “Oh,
fuck, he’s not putting a needle in my eye.

” This guy, if this guy
gets the needle, if this guy

doesn’t put the needle in
my, I’m gonna just get a leaf.

I can’t, I can’t.

I have no confidence.

He takes like three shots to get
the first set of drops in my eye.

And I’m like, “Isn’t this all you do?”

Like, as the nurse in an eye clinic,

isn’t this literally one
of the only things you do

is drop, put drops into
people’s eyes and you’ve missed.

And then he gets the other one.

He goes, “This isn’t
anesthetic in Japanese.

” And then he puts those
drops in, also misses a couple.

And I’m like, “At least
he’s being generous.

” He’s kind of like nay palming my eye
area, knowing that someone will get in.

So he just floods that.

And I’m just like, “Oh no, oh no.

If someone else doesn’t come in real
soon, I’m gonna panic, I’m gonna leave.

” And this is, you know, you can
feel yourself working yourself up.

That’s the problem.

So the doctor then walks in and I’m like,

okay, doctor then
immediately starts filling

with a machine, but
not in a confident way.

Like, when I work with OBS, which I’ve
worked with a lot or I try to put graphics up

or something, like you
can tell when I am just

setting stuff up and when
something’s not going right

and I’ve kind of messed
it up and I’m trying to fix it.

And then he’s asking Igor for helping.

What does Igor do?

He bumps into some more stuff
’cause the dude is clumsy as hell.

And I’m like, this is just the
wrong guy for an eye clinic.

Eyes are incredibly sensitive.

This is not the kind of
thing you want happening

right before someone
stabs you in the literal eye.

Igor goes out after they fix this thing.

And then the doctor
has very soothing voice.

He’s actually a very good doctor.

They put in those clamps
that keep your eyes open

and a hugely bright
light right in your eyes.

You can’t see anything.

And it’s like, I keep mentioning
the movie but then every time

I tell this story and then I
forget the name of the movie.

So they clamp your eyes
open and you can’t see anything.

No, the doctor says, look up.

I’m lying on my back and I
look straight towards the ceiling,

which was at that point
straight forward out of my face.

And the doctor goes, no, look up.

And I’m like, well, this
is not the time to argue

but I’ve actually had this
argument with a coworker.

Up is a function of gravity.

So down is towards the
center of the earth and up is out.

When you’re in space, there is
no up because things do not fall

because you fall down
therefore you rise up.

So if you’re lying on your back,
up is still away from the ground.

That is, people don’t think of it that way
but up is actually a function of gravity.

If there’s no gravity, there is no up
because if up is towards the top of my head

then if I lie down,
I just start sliding

towards my feet because
I would be falling down.

So I look up straight at the ceiling,
straight into that light, so I’m blind now.

And then he goes, no, no, up.

And he taps the top of
my head and I realize he’s,

oh, you don’t mean up.

You mean towards up my eye.

I’m trying to think of the
phrase he could have used

to make that happen
more efficiently because of

course I think he’s stupid
but he thinks I’m stupid.

It’s one of those situations.

So look up towards the top of your head.

That maybe would work.

So I look up and then, because of
the anesthetic, I don’t even feel it.

I feel something kind of touch
my eye and that actually would

have been the insert of the
needle and he does it real fast.

I mean, this is, again,
Kudos to the doctor.

He’s very good, he’s very
fast, he’s very efficient

and this took no time
and all he would do.

He said, sorry, this might hurt.

They always say that in Japanese
before they give you a needle.

Is this kind of standard thing?

I actually think it makes it worse.

They should just be like, boop.

And then he squeezed
it in, it was a steroid,

pulls it out, didn’t
even notice really.

I felt something touch my eye.

I don’t know if that was
it going in or coming out.

And then he goes, that’s
it, he takes the clamps

off and then I’m sort
of blank a few times.

If I’m being honest, physically,
I basically felt nothing.

But the adrenaline and the
terror I felt was untouchable.

So I go out into the waiting room
’cause I have to pay for this experience

and I start sending my
friend’s messages on my phone

and I’m like, I just got my eye
stabbed, I just got a needle in my eye.

This is like a nightmare fuel.

And I realized my hands are shaking.

And it’s because I’m coming down from the
adrenaline for like five minutes straight.

I’m just sitting the
going, it was terrifying.

That was last week.

I’m now I’ve gone back again.

He’s giving me some oral steroids.

It is slowly getting better.

But basically when I do
these podcasts and stuff,

I have notes and
basically I try to hide the

notes under the
camera so I’ll stick it up.

It’s actually now right in front of
my face, but it’s below the camera.

Now if I hold it there,
I’m incapable of reading it.

And my writing is incredibly
messy, so I can’t read the writing.

That’s the problem.

So I did an engineer’s Japan this morning.

I have my notes up and I’m gonna
have to look at it a little closer today.

That is gonna be just a problem for the
next little while until I can see again.

The thing is, again,
I’ve worn glasses since

I was 16, so my eyes
are garbage anyways.

At this point, if they
wanna put me up for

experimental, let’s replace
your eyes with robots.

I’m on board.

I will absolutely replace my
eye with a robot at this point.

I’ll clockwork orange, that’s the movie.

At the end of clockwork
orange, they reprogram the guy

and they block his eyes open like that
and make him watch propaganda videos.

That’s stuck, that image stuck with
me, even though I’ve saw that movie

when I was like five, 10
years old or something.

Should not have been watching that movie.

You just became Isaac from Dead Space.

(laughs)

That was one of my first mentions.

I did the thing in real life
that happened in Dead Space.

That is actually was my first thought,

like, oh my God, I’m
doing the Dead Space level.

But in Dead Space, I think
if I remember correctly,

you’re aiming it and then you have
to push it down with the two joysticks.

It’s like a dual joystick thing.

But I think the idea,
the concept is that you’re

doing it to yourself, if
I remember correctly,

and then you have to
press a button to stab

it in and if you miss,
you failed that level.

But that’s the only thing I
remember from that game.

So I was super impactful.

Like, if I’m being really
honest, that’s a bit, I remember.

  • I hated that in Dead Space.
  • I think you were
    supposed to hate it in

Dead Space, which
actually means it was good.

If we’re being honest, if it
was supposed to be gross

and off-putting and terrible and
you felt that way, it achieved its goal.

Horror movies, if you
walk out of the horror movie

and feel, ah, that’s
actually, they’ve done a

good job, which is, you
know, counterintuitive.

‘Cause if you walk out like I had
a great time, that was really fun.

That’s not, that’s not a good horror movie.

Just letting everyone know that my
eyes all messed up, I can’t really see.

If now, though, if I mess
up something in a video

game, I can actually
claim it ’cause I can’t see.

As you go, ’cause I’m,
ah, I didn’t see that side

of the screen ’cause you know
nothing on this side works anymore.

I’m going to play the intro song again.

So I’ve done a lot of
scary things in my life.

Like, again, I fight people for fun.

I’ve ridden motorcycles and had crashes.

I crashed a car.

I’ve put myself in dangerous situations.

I got in trouble with the Korean
mafia a little bit when I was in Korea.

All scary.

Nothing compares to the mental
terror you put yourself through

when someone’s like, I’m going
to stick a needle in your eye now.

Let’s get to it.

That’s, that’s actually
what it came down to.

It wasn’t a terrible,
dangerous, awful thing,

but the mental thing
you do to yourself.

So let me play the intro song again, and
then I can edit this podcast much better.

(upbeat music)

♪ After the mind of the academy ♪

♪ Shocked my pictures ♪

♪ Where the bastards of philosophy ♪

♪ Drinking the clutch ♪

♪ Rings of upper skills ♪

♪ Like a soccer punch ♪

♪ Won’t come to see in my feet ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, oh see in my feet ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, oh see in my feet ♪

♪ Yeah, oh see in my feet ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, oh see in my feet ♪

I’m very excited to have my own theme song.

Having your own theme
song changes the feeling

of your podcast, if you go through
the trouble of actually making a podcast.

We’re talking about TikTok.

So the TikTok band in America is kind of
gone through, it’s actually not finished.

Did you commission it?

Ah yes, there’s a whole other story.

DX Man, you’re just going to
get all the stories out of me.

I had a presentation to do at work,

and it was a very boring
presentation, and my boss was like,

you have to make this
get people excited about

this thing that we’re
doing, and it’s not exciting.

And he’s like, get people excited.

I’m like, that’s not gonna happen.

There’s nothing I can do to get excited.

So I was like, well, what can I do?

And I go to chat GPT, and I put
in all the criteria for a rap song.

So I put in the criteria for
this thing we’re introducing.

It’s just a course, and
then gave it criteria

for the different
elements of a rap song.

And a produced one
I put in digital editing,

now went online to try to find someone
who would do a beat and sing it for me.

You can find lots of people
who do beats and lots of

people who do songs,
that will do like rap for you.

But they won’t do both.

You can find five real,
find people who do beats.

On five real, find people who
will do a track, a rap for you.

But they won’t do both.

So I ended up going to a different site.

I think it was Upwork, and I found
a guy’s name who will do both.

And so he’s from Zimbabwe, his name
Stones Mojo, and I sent him a message.

I was like, I want a song
for this presentation.

I made a music video for it.

He will do both parts.

So I was really excited.

I got him to do the song.

I put the song.

I cut together a little video.

And it was all like from
free clips from websites,

like copyright free stuff.

And if you search in like urban
dance, you get a very specific look.

So I put all those together,
and I cut in some little joke bits,

and then I played it, and
people at the company loved it.

I mean, that’s what it came down to.

And so then I was like a
couple months later, I was like,

I’ve had this theme song for
this podcast for a long time

that doesn’t fit the tone
of the podcast, because it

was like heavy, which I
like a lot of heavy music.

But when I’m sitting here
talking, it’s actually quite relaxed.

So that quite relaxed atmosphere
didn’t come through in the music.

So I was like, you know what?

Dude, I’ll commission another song.

I gave him the lyrics, so my friend
wrote, “Enter the Mind of the Academy,”

’cause I have the chunk of beef
chest Academy of martial arts t-shirts.

I wrote, “Drinking at lunch brings
verbal skills “like a sucker punch.

” And then he said,
“Welcome to Seamick Bee.

” And that was it.

And I gave him like a feeling,
like an old diggable planet song.

And in like two weeks later,
suddenly this song pops up

and I got this new theme
song for my podcast.

It’s great lyrics.

Yeah, I mean, again, it
was sort of a community

effort, which actually
makes it better as well.

‘Cause my friend wrote a line.

We only, again, a
theme song can only be

like 30 seconds long
before it gets annoying.

So yeah, I listened to it one more time.

So you can actually hear what he says.

It’s, again, he’s from
Zimbabwe, so he’s English.

He says, “I love, he doesn’t
say Seamick Bee like I do.

” He says, “See
y’all, walk beep.

” (upbeat music)

“Enter the Mind of the Academy.

” “Shuck my beef chest
where the best is a philosophy.

” ♪ Drinking the lunch brings
up a skills like a soccer punch ♪

♪ Won’t come to see I’m my beat ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, oh, see I’m my beat ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, oh, see I’m my beat ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, oh, see I’m my beat ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, oh, oh ♪

So yeah, enter the Mind of the
Academy where the best is a philosophy.

Yeah, no, I really like that.

I really like that he doesn’t
sound like I would sound

if I sang it, which, in my
opinion, makes it better.

But we’re talking about TikTok today.

I like TikTok.

I’m an old dude, but I like TikTok.

I use it a lot.

I take clips from the
podcast and put on there.

They don’t get any traction.

That’s fine.

I don’t care.

I’m there to have a good time.

And if one person comes from TikTok
and watches some more stuff, that’s great.

For me, the most
interesting elements of this

is what is actually the
issue they’re talking about.

‘Cause when you’re
talking about politicians,

the things they’re saying are
never the actual issue at hand.

So what is the actual issue at hand?

I’ve done a couple of episodes of
Seamig B now on Senate hearings

and the Senate hearing is
never what they’re talking about.

Like they say, the last one was
about child safety and social media.

And almost every conversation they had

with the CEOs of these
really big tech companies

had very little to
do with child safety.

They kind of grilled
Zuckerberg on it in Facebook.

When they got to the president of TikTok,

all they really talked about is whether
or not he was Chinese or from China.

That’s now a very
famous clip on the internet

because they ask him in about three
or four different ways are you Chinese?

And he’s like, no, I’m from Singapore.

No, I’m from Singapore.

I did military service for
two years in Singapore.

I am not Chinese.

If China invaded Singapore, I
would get called up to fight China.

But you can see what is him having
to do, having his connection to China.

How does that help or detract from
child safety and the usage of TikTok?

It doesn’t actually mean anything.

So this is one of the more
interesting issues for me

is what they’re talking about
now is not the actual issue at hand.

And to me, when I talk about
America and when I think about America,

the fundamental beliefs of
America is a capitalist system.

I’m from Canadian.

I’m actually from a socialist republic,

which means social
services are inherently a

part of the political
system where I come from.

I live in Japan, which
is not a republic as such.

Japan is very socialist.

It must be a socialist
democracy, regardless.

Social welfare is a big issue in Japan.

They want social services.

They want to take care of people.

When I got my needle in my
eye, the entire thing, so we’re

talking about drugs,
examination, and needle in the eye.

So all those procedures and
stuff, I paid 1,600 yen, which

is about $15, probably less
now with the exchange rate.

So we’re talking about going to a doctor,
like a visit, some actual treatments,

all in the span of an hour,
and I’m paying less than $20.

And that’s socialized health care.

In America, they talk about
capitalism, capitalism, capitalism.

And I’m always interested
in the true reality

of what happens in America is
not really capitalism as they claim.

So what they’re talking about with TikTok
is that this company is a national threat

because the Chinese are collecting
data, or they can collect data.

Now, my issue with that version of the
statement is, every app we use collects data.

Now, you could specify which
kind, but at the end of the day,

Google collects a ton of data
that you don’t want them to collect.

Facebook collects a lot of information
that you don’t want them to collect.

YouTube collects a lot of information
that you don’t want them to collect.

It is ridiculous, or there’s the other side
that this bill, if it comes into effect,

because they don’t
mention TikTok in the bill.

TikTok is the reason
they’re putting it

forward, but they don’t
mention TikTok by name.

It just says apps.

So you have two possibilities.

One, they ban TikTok, and they
just stick to what they’re saying.

Or now they have the ability to ban
and control social media in America.

So if YouTube steps out of line,
you’re collecting too much data.

That’s the reason we use.

Now we can shut down
YouTube or ban YouTube.

Now we can ban Facebook.

Now we can do whatever we
want to show through media sites.

The most interesting
prospect here is that with

Biden in control right now,
if this law goes through,

he could shut down
Donald Trump’s truth social,

because it’s an adversary
to the current government.

And that’s one of the
lines they put in there.

They want it to be an adversary
to the government collecting data.

So since Donald Trump is
collecting data, because all apps do,

and he’s an adversary to the
American government in its current state,

Biden would then be
free to ban true social.

I don’t think they’ve thought that through,

but that is actually one of
the implications of this bill.

And it goes back to sort of
the Patriot Act, where these like,

if we think you’re a terrorist,
we can do whatever we want,

and now we’re just going to classify
anyone we want to attack as a terrorist.

That’s the kind of logic
that might be happening here.

We’ll use TikTok as the example.

That’s the terrorist that we’re attacking.

But then we can classify
other things or other

people as terrorists,
so then we can do that.

So now we can classify
other apps as adversarial

so that we can attack
them in any way we want.

They can make a blanket
ban on all companies

that are collecting data
and they can level that.

They could do this.

They can say companies
are not allowed to collect data.

This would trash Google,
it would trash Facebook.

But they can say, look, let’s make it fair.

Let’s make it a level playing field.

You’re just not allowed
to collect data anymore,

or we’re going to specify
what data you can collect.

And the thing is, one of the
things in the Senate hearings

with the president of TikTok
was he was like, it’s all voluntary.

Like you click and agree before you sign
up to TikTok that we can collect this data.

So why are you angry
about the data you’ve

agreed to let us collect
us collecting that?

They’re angry about it going back to China

because they’re not
really sure what they

can do with it is I
think actually the issue.

So Trump came out recently.

This is interesting as he says, he
wants to stop the ban on TikTok.

He says, I hate, I think
it’s because he hates China

more than anything else at
the moment, but he doesn’t

want them to ban TikTok
because Facebook would then grow.

And Facebook helped
rig the previous election.

The data doesn’t even go to China.

The database is in America.

That, I don’t know if that’s true.

I actually have a clip I need
to find and I want to insert.

And it’s propaganda on TikTok’s best.

They created a script and it has two
creators reading the exact same script.

It’s very natural.

I’ll be able to find that because I know
I’m shared it with my friends in Discord.

So I’ll actually throw
that up on the screen.

It’s this is not a one-sided thing.

Like there’s no good guy here.

TikTok is not the good guy.

The US government is not the good guy.

TikTok’s an abusive
app as is every other app.

I mean, no joke.

They all are exactly the same.

But if you understand that,
you know how to take care

of yourself or teach your kids
how to take care of themselves

and stuff like that.

But if you’re going to put limits on
one, you gotta put limits on them all.

That’s just, I think, the
easiest way to do things.

‘Cause again, it should
just be fair competition.

This was an interesting TikTok that came
out because they’re trying to defend TikTok.

These are TikTok creators.

And you would think because
of the very natural feeling

they present that this is just off the
top of the head, this is off the dome.

But how quickly this becomes
a script is really interesting.

You recognize that they can
take TikTok and change that.

They can pretty much
call any type of Chinese.

Because it’s parent company.

Right by it isn’t it’s in a Chinese code.

No, they are incorporated in the cake.

TikTok is incorporated
in the sake of the course.

They’re seeing a goal,
they’re seeing a goal.

We look at the ownership of the company.

16, we’re looking at the
ownership of the investors.

That’s what you’re saying is
over by international investors.

The vast majority of the majority
of the American are allied nations.

Again, the vast majority of the
company is owned by the employee.

Again, the vast majority
of which are not in Chinese.

And the other Chinese is
owned by the American user.

Only one of which is in Chinese.

Now, TikTok does have a
headquarter stored in Austin, Texas.

Now, but not only does it have a
headquarter to come in mainland China.

But not only does it have
a headquarter company.

TikTok has a headquarter ability.

Actually, it was the daily show
that used to do this or John Oliver.

And they would take local news stations,

would usually be given a script of
something to say to talk about an issue.

And this is not an uncommon strategy.

This is propaganda.

So they want to explain to TikTok users.

This is obviously from TikTok.

This is a script they’ve written.

I love that they dropped an F bomb in there
to make it seem more authentic and natural.

Makes you wonder.

Oh, no, no, it’s not wonder.

TikTok actually at like 100% pays
these creators their popular creators.

They gave them a script.

They say, we’ll give you this much money.

Read the script to make
it as natural as possible.

Those guys did a great job.

They gave you the basic facts.

They were like, oh, yeah,
the servers are in Austin.

It’s owned by this many people.

It’s incorporated in the Cayman Islands.

They’re done an incredible
amount of research.

Like, if you think about
what I’m talking today,

I read about 15, 16 articles.

And I’m going to give
you a very shallow view of

what this TikTok ban is
in some of the implications.

But there are people that like TikTok has
an investment in this not going through.

So if they can get the facts to the people
who watch TikTok and they have them believe

those facts, well, then
now they have ammunition

to go to the government and say, well,
you know, it’s not a Chinese company.

So a bunch of Americans
now go to their Congress

people and say, it’s
not a Chinese company.

The servers are in Austin.

Yeah, 100%.

That was provided by
TikTok to those creators

so that they could read it and
they just have a very natural flow.

And maybe that’s the kind
of content they do already.

But immediately I was
suspicious of why does that

guy have so much information
squished together that well.

I actually, the thing I
was wondering the most

is did they read it or memorize it
because they’re pacing was pretty similar.

Like they had overlaps a couple times.

That was pretty cool.

But we’re still talking about really
the ban on the government side first.

Trump said that he doesn’t, he doesn’t want
TikTok ban because then people will go back

to Facebook and
Facebook helped rig the last

election and I think Donald Trump,
he might be a little out of touch.

I think that’s pretty
fair to say because if

people leave TikTok,
it’s mostly young people.

The fact that I’m on there, I’m already one
of the oldest people on TikTok probably.

They’re not going back to Facebook.

They would go to another app.

I actually think this, the worst
case scenario is that TikTok dies.

But then a new app takes its place
that does almost the exact same thing.

And that’s where young people go.

The interesting thing
about Trump though, in

2020 as president, Trump
signed in an executive

order for ByteDance to divest itself
from TikTok so essentially to sell TikTok.

At this point, the
recording was actually

interrupted and I had to take
care of family emergencies.

So we’re actually picking up
on the next day, which is why

it doesn’t sort of link directly
to what was said before.

So there’s a couple other
different views you can take of this.

One of them is, what
are the Chinese things?

The Chinese Foreign
Ministry spokesman said,

Washington resorts to political tools
when U.S. businesses failed to compete.

They’re saying because
TikTok has become so

dominant and capitalism
has failed that these

Western capitalistic
companies can’t compete

with TikTok, that the government now has
to step in and shut down the competition,

which is completely
an anti-capitalistic idea.

I find that one very interesting.

I don’t tend to take
the Chinese Communist

Party’s opinions very
seriously because they

just tend to say
things that are very pro

China, but of course,
when they do take a shot

at other countries, it’s
always very entertaining

because they always just
like lay into them really hard.

It is interesting to
look at how the votes

were done because 15
Republicans voted against the ban.

They said, look, we should
absolutely warn people.

We should tell people that this
might be a data security issue.

This might be China
collecting your personal

information, but if
they know that and they

still choose to use the app,
that should be acceptable.

I actually kind of agree with these
Republicans, because that is capitalism.

Give people all the
information they need to

make their own decision,
but then you have

to allow people to
make their own decision.

That’s freedom.

That’s in America, part
of freedom of speech.

You should be allowed to say these things.

People are supposed to be
able to make their own decisions.

This does sort of imply that the bill
isn’t actually about TikTok the company.

It’s about apps that can be banned if
they’re being labeled a security threat.

So this means like any other app, as I was
saying, jokingly before, it’s true social.

It’s owned by an adversary to the current
government, so it could be shut down.

If you wanted to like
broaden these rules,

Facebook had all that Russian
influence during the elections.

That could say it’s being attacking America
and they could shut down that down if they

want, Elon Musk, when
he took over Twitter,

absolutely destroyed
the security basically,

fired everyone who had
any sort of knowledge there.

So he just ripped apart the
security aspect of Twitter.

At that point, it’s no
longer a secure website.

It could be banned.

So you can see keeping the bill vague as to
what it actually would define as a security

threat means that you could then broaden
it and attack any media outlet you want.

So then we get to
Congressman Mike Gallagher,

and he said TikTok is becoming the dominant
news platform for Americans under 30.

So I got that clip, so
let’s play that right now.

So in this clip, he’s
trying to assure people

that this isn’t about
just banning apps

that they disagree with, that
this is a very focused thing.

But then we learned what
it’s actually focused on.

The only impacted sites
are those associated

with foreign adversary
apps, such as tiktok.com.

It can never be used
to penalize individuals.

The text explicitly prohibits that.

And it cannot be used to censor speech.

It takes no position at all on the content
of speech, only foreign adversary control.

Foreign adversary
control of what is becoming

the dominant news platform
for Americans under 30.

This is a common sense measure
to protect our national security.

I urge my colleagues to support
this critical bipartisan legislation.

So what he’s actually
done in there, and I think by

accident, is tell you what
he’s actually worried about.

He’s saying that
this is about a foreign

adversary, this is about the
apps and security and stuff.

It won’t go under,
won’t be going after free

speech, but then he
immediately says TikTok

has become the primary news
source for people under the age of 30.

So people are getting their
information from TikTok.

They’re not getting their
information from the apps we influence.

They’re not getting
their information from the

apps we maybe have a certain
amount of control over already.

They’re getting their
information from this app that is

controlled by a company
that is from a different country.

If I start an app in
Belgium, which is not

a foreign adversary,
but then I start saying

a lot of anti-American
stuff, how quickly would they

change the parameters
that it’s a negative influence?

And so this is, I think,
what it really comes down to.

They have less influence and
control over the news media.

And as sort of traditional
media, like news shows

and stuff become less
popular with people under 30.

I mean, most people I know under the
age of 30 don’t watch television at all.

They will stream stuff, they will
pick and choose what they watch.

And when it comes to
news, it is going to just get

filtered into them through
an app they watch like TikTok.

They’re saying we
have to take that news

source away from them so we can put them
back on the news that they like it out.

I think the reality
would be that they would

just find a different
news source that they

also don’t have control over because that’s
going to be part of the appeal of this.

And it’s all about control.

So we had the clip previously
of the two guys reading the

exact same script that was
obviously provided them by TikTok.

We have the senators
saying like we’re losing

control over the
news, over what people

actually take into their lives,
how they get their information.

We need to stop that.

We did get to the last little bit.

It was a Democrat, Congressman
who got very famous on TikTok.

He has 2 million followers and
he voted for the ban of TikTok.

So basically TikTok
made him famous, put him

into Congress and then now he’s in
Congress and he votes to ban TikTok.

He comes out and he
says like, oh, I’m so sorry.

This isn’t really what you think it is.

He essentially said I voted
to ban TikTok because

I didn’t think it would
go through through.

I apologize.

I did not handle this
situation well from top

to bottom and that is
why I have been completely

roasted on this app over
the last 48 hours and I get it.

If I were in your shoes, I would
probably feel the same way.

I would see someone
who used this app to build

a following and then
appears to have voted

against it and I would
be upset and I would

feel like I deserved
more of an explanation.

So here goes.

I like this app.

I’ve been able to
reach a lot of people and

hear directly from
them and it’s been great.

I’m also in Congress and
I’ve been a part of some

briefings about this app
that were genuinely alarming.

When I was reading the bill, the part I
agreed with was the part that tries to force

a sale because I
figured this would just be

a better app if we didn’t
have to worry about

the stuff that comes
with it being potentially

controlled by an
adversarial government.

The part I didn’t like was
the part that threatens a ban.

After the country is on
this app, it has become

a force for good in the
lives of millions of people.

So I weighed those two
things and the reason

I voted for it was
because I genuinely believe

the chance of a ban is
practically zero for a lot of reasons.

Financial, political,
geopolitical, I just

don’t think there’s any
real chance of a ban.

I still believe that, but
maybe I got that balance rock.

On the one hand, I have information
about this app that isn’t public.

On the other, the language of the bill
was going to upset millions of people.

My thinking was, I
could reconcile those

two things by just making a video
that said, “Hey, here’s the situation.

” And that was a total disaster.

I really overestimated my
ability to do that in a really hot

moment when millions of
people were laser focused on this.

Some of you have said, “I must
have been bought by somebody.

” Well, that is exactly why I don’t
take any corporate pack money.

Not from TikTok, not from
Meta, not from any corporation.

That doesn’t change the
fact that I screwed this up.

I did.

I apologize and I will keep you busted.

I don’t know what he was
actually thinking, but he absolutely

was not thinking like, “I’m
going to do a protest vote.

” This is actually
weirdly Brexit logic.

So when Brexit went
through, they interviewed

a bunch of people who voted for Brexit,
who actually said like, “Oh, I voted for

Brexit because I didn’t
think it would pass.

” And the interesting thing, it
shows that votes actually matter.

So you can’t do protest votes.

You have to vote with your
own best interest at heart.

Other wise, you might
end up actually getting

what you voted for, even
if it was a protest vote.

There was a lot of
people with Brexit who

said, “Oh, I didn’t think it would
go through, so I voted for it.

” And it was just to
show how angry I am.

But now you’re not part of
the European Union anymore.

Now you’ve actually
gotten what you voted for.

So how do you feel now?

I have no idea how far this is going to go.

It wouldn’t surprise me either way.

It wouldn’t surprise me if this just died.

It needs another vote,
I think, in the Senate.

And it wouldn’t surprise
me if it died right there.

It wouldn’t surprise me if this was
considered unconstitutional in some way.

I think divesting the TikTok from ByteDance
isn’t the worst thing ever, if I’m being

honest, because I don’t
care about the company.

I mean, I’m doing this topic because
I’m interested in all these processes.

I’m interested in the votes.

I’m interested in how the companies and the
government are fighting back against each other.

I’m interested in what
this is really about.

And the core issue that
has come up again and

again is this is about control of the news
and the news that young people take in.

And TikTok is a very liberal website.

It’s a very liberal place where
people express themselves.

And so a lot of young people
are finding their voice there.

And I think that liberalnessness is what is
actually scaring these Republican senators.

The fact that this
app is being provided to

them from China just
makes it that much worse.

But clearly the thing
is that they’re saying

it about, like every
other Senate hearing

I’ve dealt with on
Seamig B, it’s not actually

the actual issue isn’t what
they’re actually talking about.

I don’t have a big
investment in TikTok.

It’s not a big part of my life.

I don’t really care for social
media if I’m being honest.

So what happens isn’t going
to impact me in any great way.

But I am interested
to see the justifications

and the lies and the back and forth
and the propaganda and all this stuff.

And then the thing
is, if ByteDance divest

itself of TikTok and he
gets taken over by one

of the Shark Tank guys
or something, because

those are the guys who
actually interested in it.

I bet that would
destroy the company.

I bet TikTok would collapse or the people
who really love TikTok for what it actually

is right now would leave
for some other version

of TikTok would come up
with a different company.

We’re going to offer you what TikTok used
to be right out the gate, here’s a new app.

And then we’re already at a point where
young people coming up right now, they don’t

want to use an app that is what older people
use, even if it’s like five, ten years.

They want their own app.

And that’s actually to me
how social media is going.

It’s a generational thing.

And the younger generation
that’s being coming

into their own right
now and getting into

social media, they don’t want
to use someone else’s app.

They want their own thing.

It was actually my
theory of every generation

has their own, it’s
almost like yearly.

There has to be like a
summer love song and

you can’t, you can like
or appreciate or enjoy

the love songs that came
before, but it’s not your love song.

So you need that one summer, that one song
and that’s your song that you associate and

that becomes you, it
represents you as a person.

It’s the same thing with apps,
it may be a five, ten year period.

But in that period is
when that becomes your

app, the app you
associate yourself with.

And that’s what you grew up with and that’s
where you came to maturity with and that’s

where you learned a
lot about the world from.

And so I actually think
TikTok only has so

much life in it left
anyways because there’s

going to be something that
comes up that replaces it fairly soon.

These apps and stuff
are getting so big, so we

talk about Facebook,
Facebook has been around

forever and it’s
like, oh, it’s not going

to go anywhere, but it’s
just not as popular as it was.

And young people now,
they don’t use it anymore.

Instagram I would say
it’s already on its sort

of death nails, it’s kind
of going the same way.

Twitter has gone through so much.

I mean, I don’t think anyone even
considers it particularly relevant anymore.

So we are waiting for the next app to
come in and sort of take over this space.

So I think the loss
of TikTok, I think the

loss of any one of these social
media companies is not a big deal.

They grow so fast and they
become dominant so quickly.

People think, oh,
you’ll never be able to

crush these companies,
but the natural process

is speeding up and
something’s going to come

up and it’s going to
be popular with young

people and then other
people are going to get on it

because that’s where you
have to be to be trendy.

It’s where you have to do to make your
deals, so where you have to go to be popular.

And I’m going to miss it, but that’s where
things are going to happen in the future.

And this cycle, it’s going to continue.

So this life cycle is
interesting, but now

with the government
trying to interfere, trying

to take control
over it, I don’t know if

that’s going to speed
it up or actually make

it hang around longer
because there actually

may be more resistance
to it going away because

this people actually
care about it and people

love fighting back
against the government.

But we should all know
there’s really only one platform

you should care about
and that is the beef nation.

What up, beef nation?

I am going to commit myself to trying to
say that more often in sound, more sincere.

When I say it so
that sooner or later it

actually just happens
to actually where I just

come on and go, hey,
what up, beef nation?

How am I chung stealing?

After the mind of the
Academy, shot my big

chest, whether best
is a philosophy, drinking

a clutch, brings rubber skills like a soccer
punch, won’t count to see how my feet.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ruining Religion

(upbeat music)

  • So there’s a town in Japan called
    Chingo, it’s in the prefecture of Almodi,

that’s sort of the north part
of the main island of Japan.

And I’m trying to figure out
how this story came to be

because my supposition is that
there was a Japanese Christian

person and they wanted
to bring Japan sort of

more into focus as part
of the Christian story.

So there is a claim in this town that
that is where Jesus is actually buried.

Now that’s a pretty big claim and
it has some massive implications

on the Christian
religion, which I personally

believe they didn’t think
through when they started

fermenting this story or
trying to put this story out.

And then there’s a question
of do other Japanese Christians

believe this or did they
just go along with it?

Like I don’t know where
this originated from

because I’m not practicing any
sort of religion in any real way.

So the only things I
know about Christianity

would be like what the
average person would learn

or know absorbing
information about Christianity

through popular media.

So the story of Jesus, as we know
it, it’s kind of the New Testament.

It starts when he’s in his 30s, which was
a great opportunity for someone to rewrite

or write what happened in
his 20s ’cause there’s really

no mention of him until he
hits that sort of 30 year age

when he becomes the
prophet that we know about.

So what was he doing in his 20s?

Now the actual assumption
is because he was a carpenter.

He was probably doing carpenting.

He was working.

He was a apprentice, something like that.

And people don’t really tend to question

what did Jesus do in
his 20s in the wild years?

Well, this story claims that he went to
Japan because Jesus is obviously a weeb

and he wants to come to
Japan and learn Japanese stuff.

I don’t know.

I mean, what are you gonna say?

He grows up in the Middle East
and he travels all the way to Japan.

I mean, never mind the inherently
xenophobic nature of Japan as

a country back then that a
foreigner just entering the country

would have been an
incredibly difficult thing to do.

Now he is supposed to be Jesus.

He’s got the God on his side.

So we’re gonna have to give
him that Jesus as a character

is so charismatic, so
powerful, so influential

that the Japanese
people just took him in.

But then why wasn’t
Christianity a big part of Japan,

Japanese culture in
the history in the past?

And the claim is Jesus came
to Japan to study theology.

So at that time he was
probably either studying Shinto

or Buddhism or probably
let’s just say both.

He was studying both Shinto and Buddhism.

So then he goes back to the Middle East and
starts preaching about the Promised Land.

Now the Promised Land, I think we
generally interpret that as being heaven.

Well, in this case, it’s not heaven.

The Promised Land is
Japan, which is why again,

so many weebes think like when I get to
Japan, I just gonna be like heaven for me.

Everything’s gonna work
out my life would be better.

That’s what Jesus was
preaching to people at the time.

He wasn’t saying you
should live a good life

and then when you
die, you’ll go to heaven.

He’s saying you live a good life
and maybe you can go to Japan now.

So we get the New Testament
and New Testament happens.

We kind of know this story.

So he is crucified and
then three days later,

he rises and he ascends
to heaven or did he?

Because according to this story,

they had to rewrite a bit
for him to be buried in Japan.

If he ascended to heaven,
either his spirit ascended

to heaven and his
body still in the Middle

East or his body just
fully ascended to heaven.

So that doesn’t work if you want the story
to end up with him being buried in Japan.

So the story continues as when it was time
for Jesus to be crucified, he just bailed.

He dipped out, he just wasn’t there.

He left his little brother there,
Esukiri, to take the fall for him.

Now, Christ in Japanese is crystal.

So because of the Japanese
pronunciation, and the Romanization

of names and stuff, the
name is gonna sound different.

So that’s taking the
name Christ from English

and putting it into sort of
Japanese pronunciation is crystal.

So Esukiri would
have to go back.

So we had to actually find out what
the little brother’s actual name was.

But I, again, very shallow knowledge.

I don’t remember there
being a little brother.

Like they mentioned Mary,
they mentioned Joseph.

They mentioned Jesus.

They don’t mention any siblings.

And you think a sibling to
Jesus would be a pretty big deal.

Like it would come up in the Bible.

They’re probably, there
probably would be a story or two

of Jesus interacting with his sibling,
either in a positive or negative way.

Like maybe the sibling betrays him.

Maybe he teaches the sibling
how to be a better person.

Who knows?

But I mean, it didn’t, it seems like

it seems like the character of Esukiri

was inserted into this story
because someone needed

to be crucified to the
cross and it couldn’t be

Jesus because Jesus
had to get back to Japan.

So that Japan could become
the center of Christianity.

So Esukiri is crucified in Jesus’s place.

So that does not explain
who goes into the cave

for three days and then
who ascends to have it.

So if we say it’s Esukiri, again,
there are significant implications

on how that changes the
sort of story of Christianity

because is Esukiri the son of God or
is Esukiri the son of Joseph and Mary?

Because maybe after God had a
baby with Mary, immaculate conception,

maybe Joseph and Mary
decided to have their

own baby as well that
God was less involved in.

So this needs a lot of explanation that
just does not exist, it’s just not there.

So Jesus returns to Japan and
he does what any sensible person

doesn’t Japan, he starts a garlic farm.

And that is tough.

He gets married, he marries a woman
called Miyuki and he has three children.

Therefore, direct
descendants of Jesus and

Miyuki live in this
town shingo in alamori.

Direct descendants in
this town still live in alamori

and they will say that, oh,
that’s that family right there.

They are direct
descendants of Jesus Christ.

Jesus dies at 106.

I assume of natural causes
and then they bury the body.

That’s the end of the story, but it
actually opens up so, so many questions.

The first question I had was
why would Jesus go to Japan

to study theology if he has
a direct line to God himself?

So he doesn’t need to study
something if he knows the truth.

Like if he knows there is a God because
he can communicate directly with him,

there is no need for him to study religion.

Because he knows
inherently what religion is.

So if he comes back to
Japan, he studies shinto.

Shinto is polytheistic, which
means there are a multitude of gods.

Now, the Bible says, I think
it’s one of the 10 Commandments

says, like you won’t
worship God’s other than me.

So the whole shinto religion
is out of bounds for that one.

Like you shouldn’t be
worshiping these gods.

Now maybe Jesus wasn’t
worshiping these gods.

He was studying it.

He was studying the philosophy,
he was studying theology.

But why would he need to do that?

Because he knows the truth,
he can share you the truth.

He can tell you the truth.

He can give you everything you
need to know direct from the source.

The other sort of major religion
in Asia at that time is Buddhism.

The then diagram of Buddhism
in Christianity is a little difficult

because it’s like, be giving to
others, which is a very Jesus idea.

Care about the people
around you and be aware.

Then there’s also like,
there is the aspect of

Buddhism that there is
no God, that we are God,

which is very antithetical
to the Christian religion.

I would need someone
with a lot more knowledge

to actually explain the differences,
the comparing contrast of that.

But realistically speaking,
we’re still in the same situation

was why would Jesus
need to study that at all

if he’s in a situation where
he can tell you the truth

and he knows what the truth is because
he’s directly connected to the truth.

There’s another question.

So I did already say like, it
seems like not mentioning

the little brother is a really
big oversight in the Bible,

but if Jesus took a decade
to go to Japan to study,

it would have made a lot of sense if
when he returned to the Middle East

and started preaching, he
mentioned Japan by name.

But that never shows up.

They do talk about the Promised Land

and again, we interpret the
Promised Land as heaven.

But if he’s talking about Japan, you
think he would have had a name for it,

the name that they
actually used in that country.

So maybe he wants to use the Japanese

and have some version of
Nihong would show up in the text

or in the story in the Bible,
but that doesn’t happen.

And certainly there’s
Anglicization of the word Japan.

That doesn’t show up, but the core,
the crux for me more than anything else.

It’s that Jesus is crucified and basically
letting someone else take the fall for him

doesn’t fit my image of Jesus Christ.

He doesn’t seem like
the kind of person who

would let someone
else suffer in their place.

He doesn’t seem like the kind of
person who would let someone else

be crucified for something
he was being accused of.

It seems like the whole
Jesus mythology is based

around the fact that he would
sacrifice himself for others.

That’s actually the
crux of the crucified

arguments is that he
is sacrificing himself for

the average person for the population to
absolve us of our sins, which takes us to,

to me, the most important oversight in this
story that was created after the Bible is

that if Jesus was
supposed to die in the

cross for our sins and he didn’t, that
means he didn’t absolve us of our sins.

We are still in a state where
we cannot get into heaven no

matter what we do, because
that absolution has never happened.

He just was like, well, you
know, screw the human race.

I’m going to go off to Japan and farm
garlic for another 70 years until I die.

That is fundamentally changing the
entire nature of the Christian religion.

If you’re going to take this
story in any way seriously.

So it seems like
Christians in Japan who I

don’t know if they
believe this story or not,

but if they believe this
story have to do a lot of

filling in gaps to be able
to make that story work.

I honestly think that the
person who made up the

story wasn’t thinking through the fundamental
consequences of what they were saying.

And they were just
again trying to make Japan

a central aspect of
the Christian religion.

And it’s kind of been
done so that this little

town could have a
little cloud in the world.

Now this isn’t the only
story like this in Japan.

So oh, that’s actually
talked about the

descendants, the actual
supposed descendants.

I saw internet video online, internet
video online is actually almost redundant.

But I saw an internet video.

It was kind of a documentary and
they were talking about this story.

I’m actually interviewed
one of the supposed

descendant, direct
descendants of Jesus Christ.

And the guy says the interviewer says, are
you a direct descendant of Jesus Christ?

Do you believe you are a direct
descendant of Jesus Christ?

The man they’re speaking
to is very uncomfortable.

He has this kind of rye smile like,
I know what I’m supposed to say.

And I know what I believe and
those two things don’t match up.

So if you ever want to see that
face, that is where it’s going to happen.

When someone says, are you
the descendant of Jesus Christ?

And you have to say yes or no.

So he does a very, very diplomatic
answer, which I loved very, very much.

He says, it’s good for the town.

And that’s actually the reason he might go
along with this, because there is a certain

amount of tourism that’s going to come
in to see the burial spot of Jesus Christ.

And the claim that there
are direct descendants,

they can say that
family over there, that

house, that is where the direct
descendants of Jesus Christ live.

And it’s good for the town
for a certain amount of tourism.

I’m assuming Japanese Christians go there.

But then there’s people
like me who hear the

story and I kind of
want to go there just

to see the place they claim as the
final resting place of Jesus Christ.

Knowing I’ve been
damned to hell and there’s

nothing I can do about
it because he never

absolved me on my sins by
getting crucified on the cross.

The man is very
uncomfortable, but he’s kind

of doing it for the
good of everyone else

in the village, which is a
very Christ-like thing to do.

So you actually think he
probably doesn’t believe he is, but

he’s going to sacrifice his
pride for the benefit of the town.

That’s kind of a sacrifice he’s giving
for others, which is very Christ-like.

So that turns my
opinion around a little bit.

Maybe there is a
little touch of Jesus in

this guy and he is a good guy
and he’s doing the right thing.

I would be interested
in what his religion is.

Is he Christian?

Because it would be very
awkward for someone who

is supposed to be a
direct descendant of Jesus

Christ, to go to a church
and listen to sermons

and have being told
about the religion that

essentially you are, like they should just
be inviting him up to the front and go like

to say whatever you want to say
because whatever you say is the truth.

But like I said, this isn’t
the only story like this.

These Japanese
Christians clearly really want

Japan to be the centerpiece
of the Christian religion.

There is another area.

It’s a little further away.

I wasn’t able to find
the exact spot on

Google Maps, but they claim that
Adam and Eve are buried there.

Now I think what they
wanted to do was connect

Adam and Eve who live
in the Garden of Eden.

So if they’re buried in this area, this
area must be close to the Garden of Eden.

So they’re inadvertently trying to
claim that Japan is the Garden of Eden.

But since the actual story is that Adam and
Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden,

what you’ve actually
established is that

Japan is 100% not the
Garden of Eden because

that’s where they ended up,
which was not the Garden of Eden.

So this is their final
resting place, their

final resting place would
not be in the Garden of Eden.

There’s a place called Ishikawa.

It’s kind of the north side
of the main island in Japan.

There’s a mountain called Hodatsu and
they claim this is where Moses’s tomb is.

And so what they’ve done is
taken all the central figures.

And again, my level of understanding,
these are the people I’ve heard of them.

There’s so many
personalities, people in

the Bible that if you quiz me on, I
wouldn’t even have a clue who they are.

But they’ve picked all the
ones that everyone would know.

They got Jesus, main character.

They got Moses, had his own movies
and Adam and Eve, which is the first story.

And they’ve taken them
all and tried to transfer

them into Japan as this being a
very significant place in their life.

So the realization
there is that by trying to

alter the story to make
Japan more important,

what they’ve fundamentally
done fundamentally

is undermined the
Christian narrative that

goes throughout the
Bible and taken away all of

the significant benefits because
the sacrifice of Jesus didn’t happen.

Japan is not the Garden of Eden.

This being where
Moses’ tomb is, I don’t

know what the
implications of that would be.

But certainly the
implication is that Japan

is the most important
place in the Christian

religion and just the rest of the
world hasn’t caught up with that.

If you’re ever in Japan, I would
recommend do a little side detour.

Head up to the north part of the
main island, find a place called Almodi.

Find a little town
called Shingo and start

looking for the signs
that say the burial site

of Jesus Christ or take a little tour
through Ishikawa, find Mount Haudatsu.

But if you can find
the final tomb of Moses,

and then you can start
your own Indiana Jones

adventure because we
all know how well that

worked out, I mean you
got five movies out of it.

[Music]