FTP034: Duncan Trussell – Apocalypse and Cognitive Vertigo of Reality

Duncan: Hey! Nice to meet you too. Just so you guys know I’ve got about an hour and then I’ve got a moving, I’m in the middle of moving so I’m up to my neck in boring tasks outside of this which is wonderful but I’ve got all this year packing up chords and Incredibly mundane things I have to do.

Euvie: So, what’s the least mundane thing [00:04:00] that’s happening right now?

Duncan: The least mundane thing? I’ll tell you and it actually might seem….wait, where are you guys located?

Euvie: Bulgaria

Mike: And Istanbul

Duncan: Ok. This might seem mundane to you guys but it’s raining in Los Angeles which is glorious because it never rains here. That makes my day whenever we get any kind of rain it all it’s just magical. So that currently is what I’m the most excited about. Boring.

Mike: That’s so earthy. [00:04:30] [laughter]

Duncan: You know, You don’t really know much you need it if you don’t get weather, weather is so important in California because we’re in this rotten drought .You just don’t get whether, you get a never-ending beautiful day which sounds on paper fantastic maybe but in reality it’s kind of hellish, it’s like something out of some terrible and lazy existentialist play or something.  Just unremitting beautiful days that you’re forced to [00:05:00] recognise the darkness of your own heart.

[laughter]

Duncan: It seems like there is this never-ending trickle of news coming in about  discoveries regarding plants and animals that we form away just road off as being unintelligent or completely unaware which is pretty, what do you call it…antro

Euvie: Antropomorphic.

Duncan: Antropocentric. Now you find out oh, [00:05:30] actually the tree is incredibly tuned into its environment and connecting and communicating witth all the other plant life. So, If there is a frappening the human things got everything you can yellow really what you watching is used in Death you’re looking out at the death of all these living things that are just slowly withering because of a lack of rain watching things essentially die of thirst around you and it reminds you [00:06:00] of the climate change that is apparently happening and then that puts you in a nice apocalyptic mind States especially when you mix that end with the fact that we have nearly legal marijuana year so it’s really easy to be constantly stoned.

Mike: I was just at the Fish market today in Istanbul where shopping for dinner and my friend were just looking at the racks of fish and Shrimp and everything we’re seeing each other like you know in about 20 years none of these fish are going to be around. [00:06:30]

Duncan: Yeah.

Mike: That’s crazy.

Duncan: Maybe less. I mean it seems like right now, you have to take between subscribing to comforting conspiracy theory that there is some cabal of scientists working  for the UN and want to convince the people of the Earth that the planet is going through climate change when in fact everything is fine. You either subscribe to that or you have to subscribe to the probably more [00:07:00] likely scenario that we’re entering into a mass extinction or something that people have been writing for a long time and have names for. Scientists call it climate change, religious people call it the apocalypse. It’s the same word. It’s just funny with the modern way of talking about the end of the world is the climate change. Even though it’s not the end of the world. Actually one of my favorite George Carlin bits, he says: ”The planets, fine. Things die on this planet. [00:07:30] Have been dying on this planet for millions of years. It’s just a normal thing for beings to be wiped out on this planet for new life to come. The planet is fine. Humans are fucked. “ .

[laughter]

Duncan: But it’s not really scary. I mean scary on one level but on another level when you’re really deep in yourself. Me when I think the things I’m truly afraid of the big ones like climate change being like wiped out by some plague [00:08:00] or a flood or a massive tornado with powers never-before-seen. These things are so distant and impossible to connect you I don’t really feel afraid of them that’s probably the problem of the majority of the people on the planet to connect with something so massive and so seemingly far away. The ice caps? What does that even mean? Do most people have kids they don’t have enough food you know. [00:08:30] One of the major problems our species is facing is the inability to recognise global challenges in the work together in a global way to fix them.

Mike: It’s funny how we noticed that transition. It was like oh, look at the price of tomatoes!

Duncan: Right. Here, there’s no avocados. You go to a Mexican restaurant and they’re like oh, there’s no guacamole, no avocados. What? You know, we have an avocado problem. What? There’s no avocado? What are you talking about? Allright, I guess there’s no avocados.[00:09:00]

Mike: The world is out of that fish, out of stock.

Duncan: It’s crazy yeah. And it’s funny because, I really like thinking about singularity which is another word for the apocalypse. The way that movies have conditioned us to think ok, I know what the end of the world is going to look like. Because the way we think the end of the world looks if you’ve grown up watching post apocalyptic movies is-There’s this sudden event. Meteor impact [00:09:30] or over a course of a couple of weeks a disaster happens. To see the way it probably is happening which is like you’re saying, conviniences that we’ve been taking for granted, just one after the other kind of go away. You see an elephant in the zoo maybe girraffes, it looks like the girraffes are saying goodbye. It’s like the party is beginning to end. The party consisting of all living things [00:10:00] on this planet. Some of them are starting to make french exits. Where did the giraffes go? They didn’t even say goodbye. They just vanished, huh? Well, no more girraffes. They were cool.

Euvie: I grew up in the Soviet Union actually and that’s what it was like in the late 80s I mean you just walking to the store on the shelves are empty in the the lady at the front as well sorry there’s no bread today well what do you have or will we have rice like you know how this kind of desperation [00:10:30] and everybody is miserable and there is violence and there is probably a lot of alcoholism and stuff like that but there’s nothing happening on the day to day basis. It’s just getting progressively worse

Mike: I was walking down the street the other day and looking at all the candy shops in thinking like there is conflict in Turkey right now and Russian ambassador was just shut the other day and I can hear a bomb car bomb from my window about a week ago so just crazy s*** right but I’m working on the street [00:11:00] and it’s like a sort of a mix of the European Middle Eastern and Asian market sort of. The streets really lively in cool and there’s candy shops everywhere like every third shop has got a candy shop and I was thinking like I don’t know if it’s a farce if anyone is buying that. How are these guys staying open? Because you sense the desperation but at the same time there’s all of this commerce going on.

Duncan:  So the desperation is coming from the [00:11:30] turbulence being caused by what?

Mike: The political situation.

Duncan: Can you describe the political situation to me because I, for one thing, over a year were foggy on what’s happening just because i we’re not even sure if we can trust our news. It’s a confusion is happening here because people are starting to wonder if all of the news that were getting over here is propaganda. We don’t know what’s happening. For example, the situation in Syria. [00:12:00] There’s two different stories that the people are telling about that situation. One of them is these rebels are “good guys” and they’re being wiped out by Russia and Assad. In the other story it’s no, these are ISIS-radical islamic militants who if we don’t take care of them now, there’s going to be more assassinations, more car bombings. One story [00:12:30] is liberate Syria and the other is just get rid of them like they’re zombies. Wipe them all out, completely. Then there’s of course shades of those stories. Which one is true?

Mike: I think it’s like there’s no moderation in news and that’s part of the problem everyone’s trying to get the most clicks and attention and that’s why clickbait such a thing so it’s like it’s not even so much that the story is being manipulated although I’m sure it is but there’s just such extremism in how the story is being communicated [00:13:00] that no one knows what side the believe anymore it’s like bomb them all or save them all I don’t know what I’m supposed to do in this situation.

Duncan: And here’s another sad thing is it so many of these events are happening now it’s difficult to keep up with them because there is actually now Minor car bombings you know like minor suicide bombings you know where they go in only four people were killed now and so it I’m not even looking at that when I was just four people vs 50, [00:13:30]  it’s crazy things are getting strange things are but there was some video that popped up of one of these hoodies with two children did you see that the two children you were used as suicide bombers recently did you see that?

Euvie: No.

Mike: No, I didn’t.

Duncan: So he’s sitting with them. He says Islam is the religion of glory. Not a religion of humiliation and [00:14:00] these two children or were they going to be martyrd as they call it and he’s like saying that to the kids, are you afraid to die now? -Like no. You know, he ended up killing a bunch of people apparently. Again is that real is a propaganda I don’t know I saw the video looks real let you know that like you’re saying we want extreme extremes are preferable to shades because extremes you can deal with if there’s an extreme problem with we are surrounded by like [00:14:30] something that is definitely trying to kill us and has a kind of unified goal did it easy to fix that problem so horrible that way you may want to fix it but it’s kind of seems like humanity is entering into this age where certain operating systems aren’t working anymore for the kind of software that we’re trying to run right now and some kind of archaic view of religion [00:15:00] doesn’t work anymore or it’s mixing in with new ways of looking at the planet and it just doesn’t work. I mean, living in the United States fully aware of the fact that we are constantly bombing people accidentally, think about that. Like you know, people are horrified when a person intentionally walks into a mosque and blows up a bunch of people but in the United States it’s kind of overlooked that we accidentally kill people all the time which is so f***** up I like in fact the intentional killing sometimes [00:15:30] I think like if you had to choose between being intentionally murder accidentally murdered which would you want accidentally getting stepped on by some giant thing drunk on its own power or vino intentionally blown up by Sam desperate thing I don’t know I hope I never have to make that decision do you guys think the problem is religion or a faulty or outdated understanding of a world religion? [00:16:00]

Euvie: I think that a big part of it is that people are just aren’t looking at the facts and whether it’s the religion clothing their judgement or just oversimplification or that they’re just not thinking on there own but I think a big part of that people just aren’t looking at fact in we have more days and other than we have ever had in human history and that’s what was my mind so whether it is because of religion or because of something else I don’t think it matters I think it matters just that people aren’t thinking straight. [00:16:30]

Mike: I was going to say the exact same thing observing facts you know I have heard something recently more people are killed by bee stings and terrorism or something like that that’s insane.

Euvie: More people are killed by furniture than terrorists. [laughter] In the States.

Duncan: Don’t know why I did this morning I’ve decided to blow the apocalypse trumpet with you guys I don’t know why. I didn’t want it to get so dark but let me just point this out. I’ve thought that too. [00:17:00] I was like c’mon really? More people are killed by sharks, drowning, hearth attacks. More people are killed by things falling over overpasses or the lightning strikes. You name it. You can come up with a lot of, mosquitos Jesus Christ. One of the things I used to think is if I really was Isis if I was running Isis I would just start selling free cigarettes. Yeah that’s gonna kill way more people. [00:17:30] So many more people. The tobacco companies are just wiping people out. No one even mentions that. OxyContin really like prices from one of the get organised start a pharmaceutical company that sells some kind of hyper addictive opiate and sell tobacco and you’re going to just kill so many infidels but that being said that I did this interview once with someone over it display singularity university this guy Aaron Frank [00:18:00] and they are studying the acceleration of technology and  types of technology that are suddenly accessible the people that formerly worked in kind of map which technologies we don’t have access to it eventually you will be able to have access to or at least relatively easy and inexpensive to assemble and some of these did he mentioned or potentially the ability for the individual to shoot your own personal satellite up into space. [00:18:30] The other of course is “wet works”

Mike: Oh, wet labs?

Duncan: Yeah, wet labs. The ability of the individual To genetically modify things, to build things by altering DNA using technology that right now most people don’t have. Also, you have to add in  those two are two things the third thing which is the Unknown technology that isn’t here ye, that will come. So what you were saying is, eventually [00:19:00] going to get to the point where any motivated individual Will have the ability to create some kind of weapon that could do catastrophic damage to society it’s not here yet but it will be there. It will definitely be there eventually. So, the idea I guess, bees kill more people which is absolutely true. Yes right now bees are more dangerous than terrorists for sure. But from the [00:19:30] ten, twenty, thirty year perspective, if there is some kind of mind virus, whatever you want to call it. If a new religion forms or if some very charismatic techno cult leader  who comes up  (by the way I don’t think this will happen), imagine some Mesiah appears. Some merge of an AI and human. Not afraid of death that has one of it’s tennants-if you help me wipe out [00:20:00] people then I’ll let you stay alive. Just some ridiculous sci-fi scenario. Not even Islam. But if there’s any kind of mind If there’s any kind of cognitive POV that does not include the entire planet or the star that what they call the sanctity of life are the importance of regardless of where a person’s at in their life, if they’re not harming other people  helping them have a good life, [00:20:30] if there’s something that’s the opposite of that  where we are right now they’re using what technology they have to cause to kill people for an imaginary thing again like when somebody kills people for freedom which is awful mantra that we’ve heard here the liberation of Iraq for example the George W Bush in it something about freedom in what you might as well be saying we liberated Iraq for Allah . Both of them are Phrases or words to completely up for [00:21:00] interpretation you know what does that even mean man. But the idea that were looking at like a very militants religion or parts of a religion are militant better way to say er militarizing and there there is the potential in the future for them to obtain nuclear weapons potentially bioweapons those kinds of things did in the short term yet it’s just like chaos in smaller parts of the world [00:21:30] but in the long term it really bad and I’m not a right wing person and not a left wing person I want to kill anybody I think I want to achieve what they call a type 1 civilization I want to achieve full connectivity that we can move into space and make-up artificial, super intelligence with technology. That’s an outcome I would love to  see. Or create for the intelligent people [00:22:00] on the planet and then everyone on the planet join together to work on telescopes that could potentially discover alien civilizations. Things like that appeal to me, that’s what I prefer. But, If there’s something standing in the way of that which is equivalent to a child that doesn’t want to stop believing in Santa Claus to the point that the child is willing to start burning down the houses of people who don’t believe in Santa Clause. [00:22:30] Then I think at that point you have to do something that doesn’t make sense from the perspective of cultural relativism of the idea like everyone deserves to live the way they get to live up untill a point when the people, that doesnt necessarily work if some group of people, the way they want to live is by converting an entire planet to a religion at the cost of if you don’t convert they F. [00:23:00] I’m sorry, I don’t even know why I did this.

[laughter]

Duncan: I went on reddit watch people die and i was watching these isis death videos. Have you guys seen any of those?

Euvie, Mike: Yeah.

Duncan: Jesus, holy f*** . Not only the most violent thing I’ve ever seen in my life, It’s also really well shot. Apparently, Isis has access to some great cinematographer or something.

Euvie: [00:23:30] And they take pride in it.

Duncan: Yes!

Mike: They’ve got dolly shots.

Duncan: Yes! They’ve got a dolly in a place where they’re slicing peoples throats. What is happening? That is so apsurd to me asnd something about the perfection of their techniques of shooting snuff films essentially makes me feel alot less compassion then maybe I formerly felt. [00:24:00] It makes me think oh, this are praying mantises or something. They’re fully infected with a mind virus that is, I dont see how you can fix that. I dont see how I take somebody who shot a film in a slaughter house hanging upside down with their throats beeing cut. I don’t know how many Ram Dass retreat or how many Ayahuasca sessions it’s going to take to make that person realize that maybe [00:24:30] that’s not what God wants us to do on this planet. Alah is not saying hey can you guys  maybe get some better lightning in there for God when you’re slicing these people’s throats You know it’s a problem it’s a real problem where you could say it’s innate a s***** problem because it least, because how can you even fix it.

Mike: You said a few minutes ago like what you think the problem is is it religion [00:25:00] and I just a few days ago I was looking at Google Maps and just kind of looking at the area cuz I’m in Istanbul in a zoomed out and saw it you know all of the Middle Eastern countries and I noticed that is not the first time I’ve looked at him out but obviously there’s a giant yellow patch in this area where like Algeria, Nigeria, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia. All of these countries are in this yellow patch that is so concentrated nowhere else in the world in there [00:25:30] and it’s not the first time I’ve heard people say that it’s not necessarily religion its environment climate change this to resources.

Euvie: Climate change.

Mike: Climate change, exactly.

Duncan: Yeah, I’ve heard this too. And why the climate change of the climate changes changes because of industrialization and techno it’s technology were not effectively using the energy supplies so which is creating all these problems. Ok fine. It’s climate change, Fine so if instead of like [00:26:00]  ok all of us was imagine that instead of us being separated in the way we are through the internet all of us are in a place where a flood is beginning that we need to work together so that we don’t drown but some of us I don’t know one of you and me we start referring to some book of magic and from reading the book of magic or determination about the rising waters is that we’ve angered an invisible being who rather than just [00:26:30] having a conversation with this is having a conversation with water  the problem is one of us didn’t wear the right headwear. This is why the God is angry, why the water  has risen. So if I stone that person to death maybe the water or stop rising or even better it’ll just please this loonies got the text people by murdering them so catastrophes  See, that’s the problem. What we need is rveryone to be referred to as a humanistic concept [00:27:00] of like, look, we did this. There’s no angry person is like why didn’t you read the book bit that I gave the guy said it the right way whoever that guy maybe you know Moses Jesus where you just need to be more pragmatic which is like if you imagine the amount of heroism and courage in overcoming the fear of death  first invasion of the Buddha that a lot of these militants have achieved it (  I’m not saying [00:27:30] that it’s good), but they are f***ing brave. They have overcome some basic human desire to stay alive and giving their lives for this belief that’s the tragedy because that very same energy imagine if that was being applied to let’s bring the world into a connected state so that we can use our resources [00:28:00] to create the living conditions that will allow people to suffer let you know imagine that that that that was really sad about it the very same energy that these people are and I’m not just saying the radical Islamic militant people but the very same energy that anyone who is taking the time to figure out of build weapons to blow people up is that was being applied to how do we desalinate [00:28:30] ocean water in a energy efficient way  or how do we get clean water people putting it clean water to people you wipe out a huge percentage of the world’s diseases so that kind of frustrating but instead of being generated by an operating system that doesn’t work anymore. It doesn’t work. It will work, by the way sorry for this rant. It will work. The operating system of any fundamentalist religion will work. [00:29:00] It will work after you have completely wiped out civilization. Then that’s definatelly going to work. Break if you can successfully take out the power grid or you can cut successfully somehow create an app global disruption that nuclear holocaust happens then in the non-radioactive patches of land were your building your post-apocalyptic Village your fundamentalist religion will definitely definitely were you can burn [00:29:30] which is you can, you know what I mean. It will totally work. You can start burning witches again. But that isn’t going to work as long as this new Form of life that splits warming on the planet is happening also the new form of life by that I mean the modern civilisation the Wirral and join in different ways this can continue unless the people who are the voices of this civilisation come up with a way to harmonize so that this can continue to grow. [00:30:00]

Mike: I can’t help but feel like the resilience and strength and hardness required to either fight the opposing powers or do what’s necessary to change the world in in the right direction is just doesn’t exist in the west.

Euvie: People are pu**ies

Mike: Yeah they’re so comfortable the fire is not under their asses enough to make that changed it something women talking about quite a bit.

Duncan: Yeah and also there’s been a kind of concerted effort [00:30:30] to keep us from work feeling a fire under asses.

Mike: Exactly.

Duncan: True journalism would be if a van on use if instead of showing like SNL make fun of Donald Trump last night, they’ve really got him this time. They were showing devastation.

Mike: Aleppo

Duncan: Aleppo. The horror. The horror over and over again. Look this is happening on your planet. This is happening. [00:31:00] This is happening. If they were doing that, there would be change. But the problem is that we have these completely unthoughout ideas apparently about what we can show people. We can’t show them that. Why not? Because the children. Oh really? You can’t show them children being blown up because you want to protect children? That doesn’t make any sense at all. You have to show the people what actually happening in whatever the [00:31:30] forces are there keeping the media from illuminating what is actually happening on this planet or trying to put some kind of way I don’t know some kind of opaque blur in front of the horror whatever that forces it’s doing that there is in some rotten ways I let let me protect the children I don’t the people of the United States that they don’t need no it’s just it’s not tasteful [00:32:00] to show that decapitated infant laying on bricks in a devastated city. It’s not tasteful to show the throat being cut of people who were being treated like human cattle and some slaughterhouse. That’s not tasteful, let’s not show that lets show own version of the world where they are things are kind of bad but they’re not that bad it’s f***** up what is the force [00:32:30] that is getting in between the people and reality why is there a force that is working what is actually happening in the world are attempting to soften it so that the people don’t see what’s really happening what is that Force?

Euvie: Well, it’s capitalism because Because the power to be interested in things staying the same are people feeling like things are the same so that they continue getting mortgages and continue buying sh** they don’t need and continue [00:33:00] voting for things that don’t really affect anything I mean there are a lot of people in power who have vested interest in things remaining the way that they are.

Mike: Yeah exactly you were saying about me not protecting the children from being exposed to that thing I wish that was all that was because it maybe at that point you can have a conversation in reason with them but I really think it’s about views and that’s it. So it’s news organizations are not going to show what doesn’t get views. [00:33:30]

Duncan: Having the guts or just being awake up at night where I was like why don’t I just see what this is all about. Just that one video has created like a real shift in my thinking and you know what you guys are saying – what is the truth, what is verifiable truth? And the verifiable truth is there is some organised effort to keep the people of planet Earth away from the truth that’s safe to say right? [00:34:00] There appears to be some group or network of groups that are at all costs trying to keep us from seeing what’s really happening and anytime anyone shows as what’s really happening Edward Snowden for example Julian Assange anytime you get in a glimpse of what is really going down the white governments really work those people are either arrested or they have to go into hiding. That’s real, that’s true right? So that means that [00:34:30] We are living under some kind of an umbrella or living under some kind of dome of symbols that are being placed in between us and reality In peace symbols because of technology this dome is beginning to evaporate and that causing a lot of cognitive dissonance for any of us. I mean and I was [00:35:00] growing up living in the United States I would regularly take LSD and if you take LSD instead the current dollar bill currency or if you take LSD and watch the news or if you take LSD and do anything at all, any conditioning that’s been planted inside of you by corporations, states, countries or whatever, it doesn’t work for a second. I kind of weird window opens up and you [00:35:30] see unfiltered reality. So When you watch the news you suddenly the reporters seemed insane like me why are they talking like that, what is that rhythm, why are they dressed like that, where are they acting like that?  They’re not acting like people, people don’t act the way they’re acting. You think that. You will get money and you think what is this paper, why is this meant so much to me? This is just paper, this isn’t real, what is this, this isn’t real. Then you start looking at things [00:36:00] through that lens and it becomes obvious that you are under some kind of dome of propaganda. It’s just you not really sure why it’s there, who made it, what is it shielding you from, what is it? Then when you come down you tell your friends now I think this might be living in a place where we’re being brainwashed by some kind of very powerful group of people that’s trying to make us think things that are not important are important [00:36:30] and things that are important aren’t important. In fact, it appears that we’ll be hypnotised into believing that the right way to live is to trade our life energy in exchange for pieces of paper and that’s f****** insane man. You say that it when your 17 or 18 after a great acid trip and your friends are like whatever man, whatever. No, no, no it’s normal, it’s the best way to live. And then you can even rest on [00:37:00] this idea like I just had a heavy acid trip. I’ll just lay back and you know how they say. If you take more than 3 bits of acid you become permanently insane

[laughter]

Duncan: This must be it. Because for a second it did really look like you know the paper that we call money wasn’t important at all. The most important thing was to love people and be in the moment, to connect with nature. But yeah I was f******  high and stupid and you could rest back into the idea that you just went a little crazy [00:37:30] and that actually there isn’t a dome separating you from reality. But now, thanks to the internet. No matter how hard they try to keep information away we’re getting the information and I think this is creating a kind of cognitive dissonance that is yet another example of technological disruption that are happening all over the planet. A kind of weird cognitive vertigo that a whole lot of people are experiencing right now because they’re having [00:38:00] to deal with the fact that we are not being shown the truth. The people of the Earth are not being shown the truth and you can maybe mind for the daddy, you can try to find the daddy, you can go on WikiLeaks, you can search for but you sure as f*** won’t see it when you turn the TV on and you’re not going to see it when the president talks and you’re not going to see it when you open up the newspaper because it’s been intentionally hidden from us and now we know it. Which means [00:38:30] that you have two choices. You either pick between allowing yourself to just subscribe to the propaganda just as a form of laziness, or you face the truth which is we’re being lied to on a daily basis by people who aren’t afraid to kill and f*** man that the mind f*** that’s a real serious mind f*** I don’t know where the in-between place staying out is there. It’s either you’re just like yeah, I’m just living in another time period [00:39:00] where some power structure is using propaganda to make people act like robots. Or you start getting in going down that rabbit hole of who the f*** are these people and why?