X-Files: Fight the Future

0:00What do you do? I'm an annoyance to my superior as a joke to my peers that call me spooky Spooky molder. I'm the key figure in an ongoing government charade The plot to conceal the truth about the existence of extraterrestrials Well, I would say that about does it spooky? It's mutated into what? I Can't tell you what killed this man. I'm not sure anybody else I claim to either These men have been secretly negotiated a planned armageddon and you have conclusive evidence of this Yes I'm already way better I can't quit now. It's going I need you on this the global conspiracy with key players highest levels of power reaches a live every man woman and child on this planet You've seen more than you shouldn't

1:01Then you must take away what he holds most value of it On June 19 the impossible scenario that we never planned for But we better come up with a plan take your greatest fear These people don't make mistakes Your most paranoid suspicion we have no context for what you've done as met and your darkest nightmare And multiply it by X Trust no one Mr. Mulder You

2:03Hello welcome to unclear and present danger of the podcast about the political military doors of the 1990s And what they say about the politics of that decade my name is Jamal Buie I'm accomplished with the New York Times opinion section. I'm John Gans. I write the Substack newsletter on popular front and I'm the author of when the clock broke Conman conspiracists and how America cracked up in the early 1990s available on paperback at all Good bookstores all where Not the everywhere good books are sold is how that old saw goes and I'm also working on a new book which we've discussed in the past It's about Linda LaRouche. It's called crack pot empire But that's not going to be out for several years We'll keep plugging it though. I will eventually They'll come up when we're demanding that you buy it. Yeah on this week's episode of the podcast We watch the 1998 X files movie directed by Rob Bowman with a screenplay by Chris Carter Chris Carter being the creator of the X files television series

3:06I have no idea who Rob Bowman is and I'm going to go look real quick to see what else he has done He is still living still working and His work includes he was a director on the television show is 21 Jump Street start trek next generation Mark Geiver alien nation. This is all stuff I watch when I was a kid Quantum leap a show that I love and The X files as well Not film he's directed four movies in addition to the X files movie directed 1993 is airborn Which is About skating there are there are two movies about skating in the 90s at least it was yeah Okay, so airborne which has Jack Black in it and Seth Green that's something Rain of fire in 2002 which I remember it's the Matthew McConaughey movie with dragons

4:08Oh my god, I think I totally forgot that existed I've never seen it, but I know I know of it. I remember the commercials quite well. It's got to be really really good I mean sure Must be you know, it's good and then the 2005 Electra film the spin-off from the Daredevil movie with Jennifer Garner as Electra Which is terrible bad movie And kind of put kind of put Jennifer Garner movie jail for a while And that was the last movie Rob Bowman directed so he may just be in movie jail forever and then the X files is the second feature from 98 So that's Rob Bowman this stars basically and the people you would expect being the X files movie stars David the company as agent Mulder Joe Anderson as agent Skelly Martin Landau Blife Danner and Armin Moore Mueller stall round out the top build cast

5:09also In the film you will see Dean Hagland as Richard Ringo Langley William B Davis is the cigarette smoking man Mitch Pellegi as assistant director Walter Skinner And then a bunch of other I believe these are all X files people. I wasn't a big X files person. We'll talk about this later But that is who is in the movie scorer marks no Yeah, it's it's the X files movie here's the plot and And somewhat somewhat lore heavy but the plot in short is we start it's 35,000 BC during the ice age and will become North Texas and two cavemen encounter extra-trustual life in it the cave it kills one of them and infects the other with a black oil like substance Flash forward to 1998 A bunch of boys are playing one of them falls into a hole hole

6:12and encounters the skull of one of the cavemen and then is infected by the weird black goop That seats from the ground the goop kills him as well as the firefighters who later entered to try to save him And then a team of men wearing hazmat suits comes by the government. They extract everyone They're from FEMA presented in this movie as kind of an ER agency They're from FEMA and they coordinate off the site Smash cut to Dallas at a federal building where molder and scully are investigating a bomb threat. They discover skuh molder discovers the bomb Um, and the special agent in charge Goes to presumably disarming the bomb, but he stays there and is blown up by the bomb a molder and scully escape Clear, you know reference Oklahoma city there What follows basically uh is

7:13molder and scully are disciplined for casualties which included uh the five people but molder later discovers The a paranoid doctor Alvin Kurzwell that the victims were the firefighters and the boy who were taken from the site in Texas They break into the morgue where scully investigates and find evidence of a strange virus. She doesn't understand We learned in Texas that one of the lost firefighters has an alien organism inside of his body The officials admit Modestering this are told to administer a vaccine to it but the alien organism escapes and kills Uh, I guess the lead scientist there molder and scully return to Texas Where they discover uh a strange facility with uh

8:19Rebys are being bred for some reason They are chased by black helicopters and flee from the scene they return to DC where molder learns that Uh Okay, I'm getting a little convoluted for me now in my head. Okay, molder and how did you even remember? I thought you're reading off of something. I can't believe you remembered this How this movie the plot is in pause. Okay, anyway, I'm impressed go for it I think I think it's in DC again that molder discovers that they're aliens Uh-huh. He's told by the crazy doctor that they're aliens scully during the FBI hearing is stung by a B from the Texas field that B is infected with Whatever black group virus we learn that this is all a plot from basically the alubanagan We're plotting with an alien race to enslave humanity

9:21And what they thought was at the vaccine that created a preventive for being enslaved but they discovered in fact That the virus just produces the aliens. I'm sorry. I don't want to break your flow because I know you're in the middle of this But you Saying this plot Out loud just sounds totally is that it? Totally insane. Okay, I don't sound insane. Yeah, you still have a little more to go Sounds like the rantings of a child or a lunatic Uh, all right, so um Okay, okay, so scully Has been taken by these people molder is attacked by them. He survives the A lone gunman who are from the x-files show. I know who they are show up kind of give Give molder a plot dump. He goes to Antarctica to find scully That's where she is an underground facility. He has the vaccine. He revives her the facility wakes up in the facility There are also many humans kind of suspended like scully is she wakes up the aliens were cocoon begin to escape

10:27Motor and scully escape from the the surface an alien vessel crashes through the ice and flies away as scully comes back into full consciousness For return the DC they testify their testimonies has regarded all the evidence is destroyed uh Molder is like they're covering all this up scully continues working with them because you know She's like very quick and they win and then we cut to Tunisia where the smoking man and the leader of the illuminati group Uh explain that molder is a threat Uh, and that the x-files unit has been reopened and that's the movie yes as I explained all of that I did indeed sound like a ranting maniac. Yeah Because this movie is like every conspiracy theory. Yeah, smashed together. Yeah, we'll talk about that after we get through The New York Times newspaper because this movie Which was released on June 19th 1998

11:28Had a budget of 60 million did well Made it budget back three times for a box office total of a little under $190 million That's crazy to be um x-files very popular show. Yeah. Yeah It has a basically middling Reception from critics And the big criticism is that unless you watch the show this movie makes no fucking sense And I think that's exactly right Um, it's hard to follow if you do not know x-files lore But it was released on june 19th maintain the eighth and so let's check up the New York Times for that day All right, Iraq is smuggling oil to the Turks under gays of us. You and sanctions ignored Washington looks away since trade aids ally and Kurds who keep Iraqis at bay Iraq is smuggling large volumes of oil into turkey and violation of united nation sanctions united states and turkish government officials say Uh The officials say that the Clinton administration has chosen to look the other way aware that the smuggling benefits turkey a crucial ally

12:33And the american policy towards iraq and Kurds who deny the Iraqi government of presents Saddam Hussein control over northern iraq Still the region is complete with double dealing and surprising alliances administration officials acknowledge that the Kurdish leader benefiting from the subling betrayed the united states Less than two years ago thousands of trucks transport millions of tons of oil these will fuel and other refined products turkey annually Open a Leach reversing roads that united states and allied war planes fly over northern iraq officials acknowledge The smuggling is enriching presents Saddam Hussein's government and family These officials say at a time when the iraq leaders chafing under the united nations restrictions on official oil exports Which have been in place since the Persian Gulf War eight years ago Until the united nations determines that the government has eliminated programs to develop weapons of mass destruction As prohibited iraq from exporting oil through a limited program to raise money for humanitarian relief But the Clinton administration has decided not to try to stop the smuggling even though the united states is trying to hold together coalition

13:36In support of economic sanctions in iraq you know what this just is i read an article First of all, there's a lot of things here that there are seeds of The iraq or here the weapons of mass destruction stuff um Iran being stubborn about it even though they really weren't really doing anything um I mean, sorry iraq being stuff You know, I think this just goes to show that the united states policies In the middle east over the past 30 40 years really have been completely contradictory Confused Impossible to implement according to their principles require all these different kinds of cutouts And we've just created a worse and worse mess and now we're sort of at the endgame of it which is a Totally absurd war that we Doesn't appear to be over or Going on nobody knows what it is I just think like when you read an article like this and you see how confoluted the

14:41The united states is trying to move around all these pieces on the board You can kind of just say like look this is a this is an absurd game that they're playing that's never going to pay it out And it has it So it's just you know you sort of get the info you're like oh, they're trying to satisfy this interest the united states security umbrella for the region Doesn't really provide security. It just causes problems etc Okay, what else we got here The Japanese and inertia a cushioned airbag economy spawns leaders who will tinker not in a fit In a few weeks prime minister Rio to Rio Taro Hashimoto will face Nationwide elections as presides over the worst recession more than 50 years a limp stock market and the highest unemployment rate Since records began to be kept get experts over while me expect is Liberal Democratic party to do very well the latest polls show it very But with much more for five times as much support as any other party now Hashimoto is more likely ever to do well for president Clinton handed him a political cliff by

15:42agreeing to a joint America Japanese campaign to bolster the sagging end whether job owning and billions of dollars and foreign exchange interventions succeed and propping up the end They will almost certainly succeed in propping up mr. Hashimoto. I mean Japan is in the midst of what they call its lost decade In the 1990s, which is basically zero growth and nothing seems to get Japan out of its stagnation and really it's never been the same. I mean like Japan It's so strange. I mean Japan is obviously highly developed country not a bad place to live But you know, it was considered in the 80s and early 90s to be a rising power That was you know the way we talk about China today, you know like they're gonna they're gonna take us Oh, they're gonna take over they're gonna take over and then you know the recession of the 1990s really Destroyed that or it stops it and Japan has never I mean again Not a terrible place to live. It's not like they've gone back to the stone ages It's definitely they've had trouble regaining the dynamism and growth that they that they had

16:46In the second half of the 20th century, but so is the whole world So everybody we're all having the same problems Let's see China's middle class savers its new wealth We're in every Friday afternoon dozens of late model cars pull up to the iron gate of the three-year-old century experimental school one of several new private schools Here in a city where sturdy black bicycles are still a favorite mode of transportation and horse-drawn carts By the streets men and suits and women's wearing expensive jewelry a light from fours jeeps and BMW's Rushing excitedly into the building to pick up their children some as Youngest five who board this who boarded school from Friday Monday to Friday at a cost of two thousand dollars for year Not bad not a bad price. I'm sure back then in China. That was a lot of money But if you want to send two thousand dollars for private school in this day and age would be an absolute steal. I mean We begin to see the kind of capital capitalization is the wrong word The introduction of free of market economics into China

17:46the class dimension it brings in It it is you know creates a capitalist society with with with with It's classes and it creates a lot of wealth and it creates a lot of growth um I don't know this is just the beginning of a process that I know has You know obviously accelerated a great deal and there are a lot of very rich Chinese people in them very often They used to come to the United States to be educated. I don't think they're gonna be doing that anymore. Not so much. No um Oh, I remember New York gurning for grim fear deadly germ attack by terrorists New York long-veaters one of the world's most attractive target for terrorists It is has quiet as it turns out Has quietly Does make it sound like a vacation destiny yeah We long yeah Has quietly undertaken an ambitious effort to countertax carried out with deadly chemicals or germs According to city chemicals the city is buying germ detectors working out deals with regional hospitals for emergency care Striking unusual of course with drug companies to make medications quickly in an emergency and taking steps to stockpile medication

18:51Although no specific Thought of a germ or chemical attack the city is undertaken an extensive program since September And struck to about four thousand city police officers and firefighters and how to handle such an emergency This is before the you know, I think this is a when is the um, I am shunriko I was about to say I think I think it's a tack not long is other I think it's like right before that right Yeah, it's 95 okay, so it's 95 so Like that obviously is on the minds of these people so that's a cult in Japan It was terrifying released Sarah nerve gas in the subways of Tokyo. It's just there's just like a nightmare scenario out of again like a totally insane mind And yeah, you know, I mean obviously in New York has always been or started in a few ladies later. We'd have 9-11 And then there was the whole You know people forget about that maybe they don't do people forget about um The the weird anthrax thing that happened right after 9-11 no people remember that what yeah, it was never solved right?

19:54Yeah, it's really unclear. There's one guy. They think it might have been like he's like a researcher for the government and he died I think Um, he died of old age I think or an illness administration details defensive controls on satellite exports three top aids deny the transfers help China Clinton administration mounted the most detailed defense of its salad allies export control policy today Three top officials said that China's military has not benefited from transfers of sensitive American technology and the safeguards were in place to prevent any such leakage The spirited remodels by senior officials of the departments of Congress state and defense marked a counter-offensive against the growing Republican Let attacked the administration handling of satellite exports to China a policy that Republicans have charged threatens American national security Uh, we do not believe that the commercial space launch activities that have been authorized by licenses and modern under these procedures have benefited China's missile or military satellite companies well That's a little hard to believe because it's basically the same stuff. I don't know about that one Clinton administration

20:58um Again, you know the whole context of this front page is you know the rivalry Uh, that Japan is a fading power and China's a rising power you have its you know defense um It's it's wealth growing and uh, it's it's defense industry growing and that's all over the front page And that makes sense because we're almost in the 2000s when Chinese industry really picks up and kind of guts American industry So yeah, that's it makes sense that you start to see these headlines about rising China I think that's about it. What do you think? Well, Albany passes bill requiring HIV tracking This is still kind of the period where yeah, the HIV stigma has not gone away. It's still very much part of Uh, mainstream culture, but it's fading yeah, it's fading Um, but it's still very much there and I would um Reading this it seems to me

22:00That this very much is reflective of that yeah, all right So ex files yeah Did you ever watch six files John? I as an adult like so I didn't watch it in the 90s. I think I wasn't allowed probably I wasn't allowed to watch that much TV really Um, I was allowed to watch dark wing duck and I was a last to watch tail spin I don't know by 1998. I was like a young teenager though, so it's probably kind of allowed But I didn't wasn't interested in the ex files really. I don't know. I know at friends who were and then as an adult I kind of got into it because people were like oh, it's so good If you want to watch a classic 90s show like you love twin peaks and you love the simpsons and you know All these great shows and ex files was another one and I would say I really was enjoying the early episodes of ex files where It does this thing where it's like is there a supernatural or explanation or is it just like it kind of is always It gives it gives you two possibilities that there's some kind of Perfectly reasonable scientific explanation and then there's another kind of weird explanation

23:04I thought that that conceit was kind of fun and then it kind of drops that and goes off into its very weird plots A lot of people love it a lot of people find it very entertaining a lot of people. I think find it to be fun I'm not that interested in it and this movie like I guess there is a I guess there's a campiness to it that you can kind of enjoy but I find the absurdity Of the scenarios combined with the seriousness of the characters to be really hard to take and I get I get that that generates fun for a lot of people and the same way is like I'm sure some but I don't know like twin peaks David Lynch's movies you have like very cliched often kind of sappy you know lines characters acting and it's still like you know I can I can dig it I can enjoy that and I just don't get the same Buzz off of the ex files. I'm just kind of bored of it and the movie itself is such a pastiche of every single I mean the show is very kind of postmodern and this movie is definitely postmodern. It's a pastiche of as you said

24:07every single parent piece of 20th century paranoia every conspiracy theory but also kinds of cinematic tropes right so you have like it's an alien but first of all this movie has three cold opens And they're all different like kind of like pretty much it's got the fucking It's got it's got it's Arctic yeah, oh no the the like the caveman thing with the monster It's got the kid falling in the hole and then it's got the bomb. It's like these are three different films These so it's like that's like a you know, they're all kind of like different cliche movie openings like Kid discovers something You know go back in time. There's like a hidden evil or like oh, we're trying to diffuse a bomb But the bomb is not where you think it is. It's like die hard or whatever. It's just like two two three movies Begin at once and I'm like all right, dude Well, you got to pick one one of these to go with but the whole movie is like that. It just stacks and stacks and stacks

25:08So you have something like a all the presidents men kind of conspiracy thriller mixed with an alien invasion movie mixed with an epidemic disaster movie mixed with you know a natural disaster movie and it's just like I I'm sure that I guess you know the other example is like of someone who does the little past dishes or or I mean I guess like you know, you can kind of see the sources of David Lynch's world But it's very much his own, but where you can really see the sources is um You know Quentin Tarantino I think like a lot of people who like both what a lot of people like both But I just don't get anything out of recognizing tropes And I don't like I just don't get any self-satisfaction of the fact that I've seen it this in other movies Because I don't think it's making enough of a point a clever point about it. It's not There's nothing like I don't know the movie's not generating any irony for me. It's nothing and it I

26:10I found like the action sequences to be pretty boring. I also was annoyed about it because I find The things that it's playing on even though it's kind of making fun of them It's giving fuel to a lot of idiotic ideas and pretending that they're fucking smart, you know Yeah, it's like the fucking Joe Rogan worldview It's like oh actually they are not they are not telling you things. It's just like yeah, so you think you make up these dumb mythology Of like oh of alien invasions and hidden government programs because you don't understand what's and you don't want to understand or pay attention to anything that's going on The real world and it's just an extremely Self-satisfied Way of looking at the world Where you basically just make things up or go along with it not to say that I don't think that many people took the ex files that seriously Excuse me and the hiccups because I got to worked up

27:11I know it's not meant to be taken that seriously. I I but for whatever reason I can't do the smirk and enjoy the show I It doesn't ever go into like I'm I'm getting a kick out of this I don't care how serious self-series it is because that in itself is kind of funny. It just doesn't do it for me Yeah Yeah, I mean so I did not watch the ex files as a kid my parents did not monitor my television that closely Which did it's a little surprising given everything but they didn't But I just was very interested interested in it although it sort of it was hard at the time to avoid the ex files as a cultural phenomena It was a huge there's a huge show And this was my first time seeing the movie and really honestly my first time like engaging with the ex files in a serious way and I was You I think you're right like I love to talk to Chris Carter about this because It is this amalgamation of every conspiracy theory

28:12And like I mean and I mean that quite literally so you know we have aliens being hidden from the government We have the Illuminati we have black helicopters Um We have you know we have FEMA you know FEMA is like mentioned as being this almost like all powerful agency Which is funny to think about these days Um, but there's even there's mention of like you know killer bees in the film African eyes killer bees. Yeah, that was a big thing in the 90s huge thing in the 90s the African bees are gonna The aggressive strong African bees were gonna go destroy the d'asile in gentle European bees Very funny But like it's everything in there Like unlike The other I think the the great conspiracy movie of the 90s JFK Where the effect of all of the conspiracies and all the conspiracizing is almost sort of like it's to draw you in and give you the feeling of what it's like to be called up in

29:12A grand plot like to think that you've uncovered something Um, you know, I think I'll I'll ever so clearly things all this stuff is true But like as a film that's the effect it has a new as a viewer With the ex files movie the effect is just to kind of bewilder you a bit It's like all these things are kind of like slapped together as I don't know just as a grand and incomprehensible lore Um, I mean one thing I think that just to move over to thinking about it's a little like lost that show that everybody loves yes Just make any fucking sense to me and then I'm like yeah, anyway go on. I'm sorry To move over a little bit to the politics of it especially the politics To move over to that for a bit Uh, we've discussed before but like the 90s really were this sort of Hayday of popular conspiracism. Yeah um, and I think the ex files captures that

30:13Captures that completely. Uh, I think it's popularity is like to tie it up in that It's kind of reflect both both the reflection of and something influencing it Um And the thing about conspirat 90s conspiracism is it was kind of beroke in a way Right like this these are all very kind these are all very Extremely complicated and high level conspiracies Um That are completely fantastical even more so completely fantastical and and then weird way like How that innocuous but like you know the Illuminati these men who control the world It's like what practical and impact is that happen your life, you know, it's certainly okay Whatever does you Luminati Um, there's this weird thing is it like they operated the level of high fantasy almost yeah Yeah, no, it's true. They they and also it was like It was much more harmless like it didn't it was kind of like harmless cranks and it was fun

31:15It was considered fun It was like what's your favorite conspiracy theory and it was You know, we've discussed this before and it was kind of part of like slacker and and gen X culture a little bit Like it was sort of an ironic comment on the boomers feelings of being uh upset about JFK and about the 60s going wrong and also the 1970s had a lot of paranoia hangover too So there was like that element of it, you know, Richard link later slacker has all these people like walking around with these insane conspiracy All these like kind of Crazy Alex Jones. Yeah, that's the thing. That's an interesting Genealogy which is Alex Jones was like oh, he's like a really funny local guy in Austin You know part of what makes that city a kind of weird hippie place and and has all this kind of counterculture stuff And then he becomes like a very much more sinister weird figure for whatever reason as things accelerate

32:17But I think that the attitude I just have less patience for it now because I'm like dude everybody talks this way Half of like the culture hasn't gotten it's just I don't find it funny anymore I don't know that make sound a little tight, but like no, but it's huge I mean the Have you ever listened to like the Joe Rogan experience like I've ever tried to listen to the Joe Rogan experience It is so fucking stupid dude Which is like they're you're just like oh my god are you serious like you These people actually Believe this shit. I know it's just shocking and and anyway go ahead. Sorry. No, I was gonna say um It's one thing for Conspiracies to be a kind of like harmless crank nonsense but when Conspiricism is sort of forming almost the foundation of like a political movement Um That's like shaping high policy

33:20Then it moves into being quite frightening and so it makes total sense You know, I've never listened to the Joe Rogan experience like as a full episode But I've like watch clips and stuff and like Joe Rogan even in the clips seems like a huge idiot and a huge idiot who who You know rejects the idea of objective knowledge in favor of What seems You know, what seems like it makes the most sense And what fits this like Baroque and conspiratorial worldview And that that that appears to be like one of the dominant Shrains about people approach the world now and you see it I mean the the the recourse to conspiracism as like the the main way you Understand it interpret the world Is everywhere um or give an example. I'm like you talking about this on the podcast, but uh You know there've been some a few high profile incidents of like young black Americans being found hanged

34:24Um in various places and this has spawned a kind of conspiracy It could kind of a this notion of an epidemic of like hidden lynchings Uh under the you know the supposition like that the refrain is a black people don't hang themselves So this has been going on for for a little bit now and out of curiosity I was like well actually let me like look up Suicide rates among black Americans. I mean, I mean look up too things suicide rates among black Americans The the most frequent age like the age at which the suicide rates the highest for black Americans and the Methods for suicide which which that's all available by way the CDC All information collected and you know this isn't a deep dive But just sort of like a very casual glance at all of this tells you that like in the over the past 10 years or so The suicide rate for black Americans has been eight per 100,000 Um that if you separate stat right is that two per 100,000 black Americans die by self

35:27Excess self-strangulation or self-affixation so about a quarter of those suicides are by some form of strangulation In that the highest rates for suicide among black Americans is basically sort of early to mid 20s So like That doesn't mean there isn't secret lynchings happening but The claim that black people don't hang themselves Is like belied by the fact that in fact roughly like 800 to 1100 black people every year do Self-strangulate themselves which probably just means some form of hanging right um since it's like the easiest way to do it and So I bring that up to say that's like the kind like that's the difference between Something's happening in the world and it's an empirical question, right? It's like we you can collect information about it and try to like find out what the facts are as best as you can and draw conclusion Verses

36:29There's a conspiracy There's something being hidden from you There's something being this thing being um Uh, you know you're not getting the full story And the extent to which I think most people to like default to the second and not the first Uh, makes sort of even like casual conspiracies of like much less entertaining. Yeah, I mean It's also just with the abstinence shit like the Epstein didn't kill himself stuff and then you don't hear that that much anymore. It's just like You know, and then they treat people you know when you when you When you when you try to look at the evidence and you're like, I don't think that that seems that likely people are like Oh come on like it's a weird combination of cynicism and gullibility where it's like total cynicism But then you know like you have it like it's not it's actually pretty hard to do things in secret and you know It's not like that seems highly unlikely and so on and so forth. It's just

37:30You know, and then and then you seem like the they're like all your sheep but well you seem like you're the one accepting the official story and it's just like Look man It's going on what on likelihood Uh, you have to judge the world according. I think there's like a Not to do I guess we are here to talk about politics on some of it but like There's a weird collapse of like ability to To judge what's going on in the world according to like common sense standards rather than things that are extremely fanciful Like I was watching some fucking Like this the the culture is so suffused with these explanations like I was watching some video that came up on my twitter feed And it was this girl being like Revolutions are siabs because they're powerful people trying to like You know control others through their own you know for their own agenda and you're like yeah This is like the most simple at simple minded way of looking at the world like there's no social forces

38:31It's just like people manipulating people There's you know, it's just making people dumber and it's it's frustrating to watch It's making people don't dumber as they here's my conspiracy theory Conspiracy theories are themselves the conspiracy because it damages it's being pumped into the atmosphere by whatever sinister organization Not an organization. It's just very beneficial to people who would rather not be scrutinized to to generate This kind of myths because it creates a climate of total doubt and then nothing matters So there's a reason why for instance, Elon Musk, you know a lot of people say people think a lot of musk is an idiot And on some level he is the way he expresses himself It doesn't seem like he's a smart guy which is strange because he's accomplished a lot He has a lot of money and he has these companies and you know there's arguments about how much of that is him But there's a reason why I can think I can say without being conspiratorial myself

39:32There's a reason why this type of thinking Has been pumped into the atmosphere of discourse on something called like x because um It is damaging to people's ability to focus and pay attention and understand the world it harms the conditions of discourse Which is exactly what he wants to do because he is extremely wealthy and powerful and doesn't want that to be scrutinized That's it, you know that and and conspiracy theories You know he caught if conspiracy theories were a threat to the ruling order You know, there would be a lot more Stuff about oh don't do that no, they're not they're the more the better You know obviously if they're ones that You know Don't like trump being the target of Epstein once it does backfire sometimes But you know for the for the most part they're paralyzing of action because they suggest nothing could really change anyway And they are paralyzing a thought so it makes sense for so all regimes

40:37That are a repressive Circulate conspiracy theories about their enemies But also it just becomes the You know if you live in an authoritarian or totalitarian society that just becomes a wave of understanding things And it it destroys Judgment and it destroys reality So I think that there is a concerted effort or if not concerted effort than at least People kind of recognize on some low cunning level that it's in their interests to spread conspiracy theories because it's destructive of of of democratic deliberation and movies and movies like this don't help and no I mean I don't want to be that guy But I really fucking don't and I don't and I and I understand the entertainment value And I don't think the ex files is made the country a worse place. I'm not gonna say that that's ridiculous, but It is fucking stupid Go ahead. I was just gonna say that here it's like this is the distinction to make between conspiracy theories and conspiracies because there are actual conspiracies

41:43Right like you know right now The president is engaged in a conspiracy against like the voting right to the American people That's like an actual conspiracy by like any classic definition in the term. Yeah When we think about the way that the political system has been set up to Basically siphon money from the vast group massive people to like the super wealthy That's that's a conspiracy like it's organized efforts for a particular goal and Conspiracy like they kind of beroke like a conspiracy theory about how FEMA controls everything does serve to deflect from that Like the white supremacist conspiracy theories and Elon loves though. I think he does believe them Are also useful in that they direct people's attention from the fact that you know Elon Musk is like basically colonized the high levels of government contracting And is shaping policy in his interest and so I'm just agreeing with you right that like conspiracy theories serve to

42:47um Obscured the reality analysis yeah, no power analysis which yeah, we don't use term conspiracies like think of power analysis in part because that term as you know They like individualizes things a bit too much makes everything a bit too much a function of you know particular malign intent versus the structure of our political economy like the interaction like various systems and forces That that create conditions for people to do extra wires the uh I just think it's If it's just baffling to me that people think that the richest man in the world is somehow on their side and he's sticking it to the man Like because he's right he's the same people yeah, it's all like it's all affective right it's all It's all Elon Musk is the is not cool and uh He also dislikes people who have like cultural cachet and so you can see yourself yeah in him is a little bit of Richard Nixon thing going on there

43:52I guess right yeah Yeah, no, I get that I get that it is very very Forrestrade against strange to watch because you're just like this guy is obviously such a dweeb Has no charisma But he part of his power actually and not to this that this I don't know if he likes the x files. Let me look at that up Elon Musk, I mean this is gonna be hard to search because his x files fan Uh There's no public right okay um I don't know that he's a fan of it, but but one way that he gets power culturally is by being a fan By playing up his Identity as a fan of cultural products that people like right? So he's like I'm a fan. I'm also a fan I'm kind of a man of the people because I like these things. I'm just I'm relatable. I'm kind of nice

44:55On some level. I'm a harmless et cetera et cetera um So then you know you you you can see how this this this all works um But yeah, I think that that I I don't think I think it was obviously be absurd to say something like if the x files didn't exist The country would be in a better place today I don't think that's true And I think I don't want to upset I'm sure many of our listeners are huge fans I don't want to upset them and say that you're bad person for watching it That's not why you're a bad person is for other reasons but like the the um Yeah, I I just don't think it's aged particularly well and it's not an nostalgia that I'm sure if I had been a fan of the show I would have way more nostalgia for it now right? So if I had been if I had watched it when I was young I'd go back and I'd be like I remember what it felt like to watch it But there's so much stuff that capitalize. I mean obviously strange or things is capitalizing on an earlier wave of nostalgia But there's so much property intellectual property

45:58Series that plays on nostalgia that it's almost feels difficult to have genuine You know nostalgic feelings anymore. So I don't even like I don't even like Some movies we watched that's definitely not true because I have very specific memories But yeah, I don't have any emotional connection to it. I guess it's one way of saying The emotional connection to his vague irritation And also it's just flat out Not that fun of a movie to watch Yeah, as far as as far as being a movie is concerned just to if we're gonna switch back to the film as a film The one effective it in I guess you pointed this out when I was trying to give us synopsis of the movie One effective it being kind of like an overlapping series of conspiracy theories And being heavily in the x-filed lore is it's kind of just incomprehensible Um, it's sort of it unless you know, you know have a good sense of who everyone is like this wasn't There's like there's a type of movie based off a TV show. Yeah, it's like oh this character You're like, I don't know who the fuck that guy is

47:01It's just like that is trying to introduce you to the to the television show right that it exists It's like an entry point to the television show so you watch this and then you can go back and watch The actual show and you know the the movie will be like higher production values Be nice to put you'll get a basic sense of what it is and then there's the the movie based off a TV show Which is kind of just like a long episode of the TV show and so that requires you To have some basic knowledge of the television show and that's what this is But like basic knowledge of the x-files at that at the time the movie came out would have been like four or five seasons of just like the lore It's a lore heavy show. Yeah Right exactly and like and it's also like these disconnected or connected storylines and characters that reappear And then it gives you the appearance that oh this is all interconnected and the the consider the x-files is that all of the All of the things are kind of connected right right everything is systematic Uh

48:02In some way or another but I just don't Get it any any less thoughts on The movie or the politics I mean there's not much politics. It's kind of an anti-politics in its a substitute for politics We've made this comment before on other movies um I would say it's political thriller tropes It's just treats political throws as a trope. It's just another kind of movie plot line to cannibalize and to And I think it's pretty frankly. I think just If I'm gonna be blunt and I think that just presenting tropes to people and then having them kind of have this self-satisfied chuckle to themselves as they recognize it Is it pretty low-form of entertainment? It's like It's pretty dumb. It's like oh, yeah, I know that I've seen that and it's like yeah You think you're having this moment where you're smarter than the film and you're like yep you're doing that again It's like no you're just fucking doing it. You're just you're just like sitting on the cat. I'm sorry

49:05I don't know why I'm so angry sitting on the couch Sitting on the fucking couch watching these things and then you have you have this illusion of ironic distance and it's like no you're just you're watching The same slop that everybody else is and the fact that you can pick out The fact that these are references to something on some level does not make you You know superior in any way and that's a real gen X fucking thing is that that idea that through your cultivated consumption Of media and especially of pop cultural media you could have some kind of superiority to the squares And be a kind of cooler better consumer even though you knew it was kind of all You know it all meant nothing in the end. So I would say I roll this up into kind of critique of gen X slacker mentality too Yeah I mean my main thing is I just I found it very I watched this on a plane

50:07Yeah, so captive attention And I just I could not make myself want to pay attention to it. Yeah, the day before I had watched Rewatch the last sensation of Christ, which is three hours a three hour long Jesus biopic And I felt I mean granted directed by Marty Merdish were says so you know cracker jack filmmaking and yet I still found it much faster than the X files would be I just not not for me not for me and for kind of similar reasons, but why I've discussed I've just found myself not entertained by Conspiracy theorizing anymore Yeah All right That was the X files movie you can find it to watch if you care to watch it on apple tv Or Amazon Prime that's where I rented it. I met it's Fox. So it might be streaming on Disney Plus or Hulu or something I didn't bother to check But it might be so if you have those services you might be able to see it for free

51:08That is our show Thank you as always for listening You can find the show where podcasts are found and if you leave a rating and review where those places are people will find this show And that would be great You can reach it for feedback at unclear and present feedback at fastmail.com For this weekend feedback we have some feedback over a recent episode that I did with our friend of the show Nicole Hemmer About the film Gatica Lots of Gatica thoughts here we go. This is relevant to our conversation now Uh jamele john in your guest Nicole. I'm a long time listener and I look forward to every episode keep up to keep up the great show Thank you so much Patrick I just finished the Gatica episode and have a few comments The belief in eugenics appears unfortunately to be persistent within the tech silicon valley world To give one non-musk example There's a company called nucleus genomics which offers what they call IVF plus with the tagline have your best baby

52:09They claim that via gene editing future parents can optimize their babies height the eye color even IQ intelligence along Jevite I believe Peter Peter teals VC firm is an investor Neo also a big tech VC firms too and is is also an investor Not coincidentally, Neo is one of the main investors in the gambling platform kalshi As a science geek to think it mentioned I must point out the letters in Gatica GATC are the scientific symbols used for the foreign nucleotide Basics in molecular biology guanine adenine thymine and sisto cytosine These are the organic molecules which compose the genetic code of DNA in humans and indeed all life I always hope this was a clever way to hint. This is a society based on genetics best Thank you, Pat And yes, I mean silicon valley obviously is obsessed with this notion of being able to breathe the perfect human being And they seem I mean that the guys that we know the big tech billionaires Do seem to perceive themselves as some kind of like higher form of human life

53:14Because they happen to get lucky They got it all wrong on the stock market Yeah And mud I mean musk quite famously right Yes, he's trying to clone himself Yes, he's he's he's he has like a gaggle of children But they're not really I have to say to call them hit I mean they're his children biologically But like they're not his children and that like he has any relationship with them He kind of just like it's breath I mean it's weird. It's like a breeding thing he's doing And in an effort to I don't know create like Super people We mentioned Jeffrey Epstein Jeffrey Epstein also obsessed with this Um, this is an Epstein thing as well You know, there's just a type a type of a I guess a type of person who's like I'm a I'm God to give the man and so There must be a lot of me Yeah, I don't know I don't get it. I'm very repulsed by this kind of eugenics and race science kind of stuff

54:15Which usually go together I think it's evil and I think it's a sign of an evil person if they're interested in it. That's just my opinion I mean, it's a correct opinion Yeah, let's make that clear This is a pod this is a anti-race science podcast and anti Anti-computer nerd. No, I don't know I No, not anti-silicon valley type of sinister We're a lot of nerds listen to this show and we are arguably them as well We wouldn't like to Castus versions on them, but there's a sinister type of dweeb That I really can't stand and Elon Musk is probably the biggest example in the world and they're all into this kind of shit Well, it's so fun. I mean, not to rant about this, but like of course they're into this shit like there's like die But the you know, there's if you've been following I guess like academic controversy is there's the suicide of Jason R.A Like Cambridge professor and this was all sparked by some investigation by this guy Nathan coughress or

55:16coughness coughness And this this Nathan coughness guys is like a huge race science obsessive And it should be said race science is like idiotic. It's just I mean, I can't really it's hard for me to express house Stupid I think he is and I think this is obviously I'm self interested as a black American But also just like on the basis of you know, the notion that race is biologically real and coherent in any sense The notion that you can use these racial categories to predict intelligence The idea that like the structure of Western societies is a function of like IQ meritocracy like it's all Demonstrubly false and stupid and like the claims they make about IQ like one of the claims these people make is that like the typical Sub-Saharan African IQ is like you know Barely above that of an intelligent dog if that's the case right like if that is true then the way distributions work

56:17There can't be like the equivalent of like a black PhD student, right? There can't be a black genius on the other side if that's where if that's where the average is Then there can't be someone that's far away from the peak of the curve But they're clearly are and so it's like you meet one you meet one black person With like a science PhD and it's like well the whole the whole theory has to collapse by default But I was the point I was gonna make is that you look at a guy like that Who looks like a haunted Victorian doll And you're like well of course you believe this horse shit Like of course you're looking for anything that can naturalize your own sense of superiority over other people Right exactly it is a it's a massive Coping mechanism. Yeah, it's it's it's it's it's coped. It's like the biggest form of comb imagine actually I belong to a superior race and I was like well, you're not a very good if that's true They're not sending their best

57:18Yeah Yeah, that's true. Send me one of the superior ones, please Yeah Yeah, I mean like that's the other thing like nobody It's just so obviously I got into a fight with that confidence guy years ago On the end Twitter screaming about race science. He was around. He's creeping around forever and I Said to him Flat out. I was like your pathetic loser because you're Jewish and you're trying to impress these Nazis With your race science ideas and they're never gonna accept you And he got who's again, and I was like yeah, it's like the you're they're never you're Jewish. They're never gonna accept you They're just gonna be like oh like they're not gonna be take your evidence about Jewish. I actually were white Actually were white were part of European civilization. No Fuck off anyway It's yeah, they're disgusting. Have you seen that photo of like him Richard Hanania and Curtis Jarvan. Oh, yeah, fucking Curtis Jarvan. Yeah, the real master race over there

58:22They look hard Not to make I'm sorry make well, you know what I don't give a shit actually. I make don't I Was about to say oh, you don't make fun of the way people look I don't you know what I make fun of the people look all the fucking time you should make for them and if they're bad people Then they just make fun of the way people that's my If they're just like If you're just like right, but as soon as they annoying me all best I my my line for it might get to make fun of the way you look is if you are genuinely reprehensible then for me It's like yeah exactly If you have a pretension to superiority Then you have opened the floodgates to to be like while you're anywhere. Everyone's gonna look for any vulnerable right that's it That's exactly my good. That's my rule for it. You know Yeah, I'll admit maybe if you ignore me a little bit. I'll you know the threshold goes down a bit But in general, I try not to try not to make fun of the way people look unless

59:24Unless they have some kind of pretension you No, that's not the lesser fucking bus. Okay, bro Yeah, yeah, this is more of a Pantsy on episode where we're we're lapsing into so maybe we should wrap it off. Yeah, we should wrap it up. Okay episode's come out roughly over two weeks and so join us in two weeks for in the episode on saving private Ryan Steven Spielberg really how cool. Okay. Oh right right right world war two Steven Spielberg's world war two drama huge hit good movie great showcase for a sound system. I'll say that One of those movies full of guys that you recognize haven't seen this in some time looking forward to watching it again So we'll talk about saving private Ryan over at the patreon We'll be doing episodes on talk radio the all of our story film

1:00:25uh and The order a recent film about our white deprobosis group And there's a current episode up there on the pawnbroker as well as on the film confirmation that I give it to my friend Mediba When job was on vacation so you can check it about the patreon that's unclear. Sorry. That's patreon.com slash unclear pod and if you liked our A little a little less Restrained banter on this episode. Yeah, that's a little a little sneak peek of what you get on patreon We're much more willing to be me Yeah, we want to hear that check out the patreon That's it for the show which I've already said For John Gans, I'm Jim Elbowry and this is unclear in person danger. We'll see you next time so