The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 248 - Animal Behavior Enterprises

Episode Date: March 6, 2017

Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine the Animal Behavior Enterprise. SOURCESTOUR DATESREDBUBBLE MERCH

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Read a story from American history to my friend. Gareth Reynolds who has no idea what the topic is gonna be about. That is the third time we've recorded the intro and like we had bits going. We did. Yeah they were like dude you know two different times we had bits. They're all gone. And then now this third one is just like we're out. No more. Do you want to look who to do? I'll do one bottle. People say this is funny. Not Gary Gareth. Dave okay. Someone or something is tickling people. Is it for fun? And this is not going to become a tickly podcast. Okay. You are queen fakie of made-up town. All hail Queen Shit of Liesville. No. A bunch of religious virgins go to mingle and do a frame. Hi Gavie. No. Has he done my friend? No. David as you know we're in the midst of the two week roll-up as people are calling it. The roll-up. Reverse dollops. And we're in the

thick of it. Yeah. And we're doing these because we're going on tour. Yeah. And so Gareth is picking up a little bit of the slack. Yeah. So shut up about it. Yeah. So yeah. Dicks. Don't need your emails. Don't need your Facebook posts. But Dave are you ready for another ride in roll-up land? I don't know why that happened. What? It's just it wasn't. I wouldn't have done that. I don't want your notes while I'm. All right. Fine. Here we go. Ready. I'm going to give notes during this whole thing. Go. Bermuda 1964. That's just. I like to whisper it. It's the opposite. Coming hot. Fun. You know what I mean. This is like when Trebek and Pat Sajak switch and Sajak host Jeopardy and Trebek host Wheel of Fortune. It's fun. OK. It's fun. Pat's not comfortable having people answer in the form of a question. Alex is weird around the wheel. Anyway. Bermuda 1964. The United

States Navy had just completed and lowered the first sea lab 193 feet in the water. That's not very far. It's not. It's not impressive distance. But it will. OK. So after conquering space the U.S. was now conquering the ocean. So the sea lab was to be what it sounded like a lab on the floor of the sea. But yes it's not an impressive distance. No I'm not impressed at all. But they also. So they're putting like a they're putting like a Winnebago on the bottom of the ocean. That's how I'm seeing it. Well yeah they're Thelma and Louise in it basically they just drove they drove the sea lab off a cliff. Right. And then they're just submerged. They're like this is amazing. But they also. But they can't. I mean they just can't go. They can't go that low. They I would love it. Can't they keep going. Put it super deep. I mean because it's very complicated. I like this is this is their first time they're sort of testing out what is this. What is it like to be a crustacean fairly close to shore. OK. Well that's a good

question. The Little Mermaid was this is how the Little Mermaid started. Yeah. Exactly. So they they basically built an underwater home for four men who are going to live down there for 30 days straight. The man a great sitcom. Yeah. You can't do a lot of entrances and exits. So it's just one. So they're going to live down there for 30 days straight. The man in charge inside of the sea lab was George F. Bond whose nickname was Papa Topside. I'm sorry. His nickname was Papa Topside. Now when you say Papa Topside I am assuming that means he likes to be up where there's land. Yeah. No. Papa was very uncomfortable in the sea lab. No he's walking on. I want to be on top. Papa shut up. I'm topside toppy. Papa want the topper to the top. The nickname is at the bottom of the ocean Larry. And bottom of the ocean Larry's on land like my life was leading up to this. So yeah like I said they're supposed to be down there for a month. Sadly after 11 days the four men were brought back up due to concerns over a

tropical storm and what it would do to the lab and the sea astronauts. I can write it out. I don't think that's right. I don't think that's fair. Are you tough guys. I don't think that's fair. To conquer the sea baby. No you got to get ready for the storm. By the way if you're down there how happy are you when they pull the plug. You're like oh and I look like I was good. Oh by the way that was the worst idea ever. Holy hell what an error. You know how the guys would go to the moon get a lot of attention not so much. Sweet God I hate fish. All right. So they were brought back up a year later though the navy was added again giving everyone what they love a sequel. They were moving this one. This one was going to be on the coast of California right near La Jolla. Less less trouble. There's not tropical storm situations. No. Yeah which you think could have maybe factored into the thinking. Well it's hard to early. Yeah. They called this one very creatively sea lab too. Boom. So the

first one is sea lab. This is sea lab too. The deuce. I don't think anyone's comfortable with that. This time the lab would be lowered. Like I said 205 feet. Oh so they went to eight feet deeper. 193 was the first one. The first one was down. That's that's 12. Yeah. They went deeper. So they're really fucking banging it. Yeah. They're really. Yeah. Really going hard pushing it. Hey gents let's go 12 feet deeper. Gentlemen in a million years we can reach 500 feet. Come on. Take my hand to the future. Okay so they dropped that baby down. So they got that baby down there. The plan this time is to have two different teams spend 15 days down there each. So basically halfway through they're going to swap you know they'll take those guys out put another 15 down there or another four down there. Tag team scientists. Tag team. They were in wrestling uniforms. Now the atmosphere they created down there was 80 percent helium 16 percent nitrogen and 4 percent oxygen to compensate for the

environmental change. That's like the gym I work out at. Are you sure? Where do you go? Do you go to sea labs? I go to a helium sea lab. A sea lab. And where the abs is really like in big bold letters. Sea abs. It's something. Let's get those sea abs going guys. Get on your backs. So the pressure down there is seven times that of land. So a regular atmosphere you know well you'd die. It was so intense and different that when you left the sea lab you had to spend 31 hours in a decompression chamber to adjust before going back to the land. So our atmosphere here would be a killer. So it really does down there feel like another planet which is probably why they use so many astronauts. There were many reasons for the sea lab program. Do you like that? I just like the idea that they're going through astronauts. Yeah. We're going to need more astronauts. We hate you guys on earth. The bottom is hard. So the reason why they're down there is they're looking to

they're looking for salvageable materials. They're also seeing how tools how tools work down there. But mainly so they're looking for like driftwood and shit that they can salvage. Well there's other stuff and we'll get into how that gets collected in a second. Tools like different hammers and saws. Yeah like screwdrivers saws hammers drills. Yeah just a guy hammering on the glass of the sea lab. Gentlemen hammers are the same. No. I'm good at sound effects. Michael Winslow situation. It's they call some people call me the new Michael Winslow. Michael Winslow has called me that. The white Winslow. The white Michael Winslow. Nope not happy with that. So it was basically four astronauts picked to live in a lab underwater for 30 days. Now sea lab two was like the original because it had what is known as a helium speech descrambler decompression room. So this is a room where they could make phone calls from. Now the room actually used

helium gas instead of nitrogen. So they replaced the nitrogen with helium. So there's a lot of helium in this room. Do we know why this was the room they could make phone calls from and not the other one. Well this is the room with the phone but they also you know because I'm pretty sure because of were like they were worried that they didn't want anybody to be able to intercept the phone call. Right. I mean so they had because if Russia gets a holdier this is what happens 200 feet down. Sir we have breaking news. They have lobsters down there. Big lobsters. OK. They find driftwood. They find driftwood lobsters and hammer hammer hammer work same as on land. OK. Everyone relax. So like I said there's two dude splitting the time. There's two sets of four dude splitting the time down there. But one former astronaut commander Scott Carpenter spent all 30 days down there and he's a bit of a badass. So at the end of it all still underwater Carpenter received a congratulatory call from

President Lyndon B. Johnson. So he has to take it in this room where it's mostly helium. So you know I spent two minutes at the bottom of a pool and Obama called me. They have a super impressed. You found all the change that the kids through. All the coins. So so Lyndon B. Johnson gives him a call. So he's still this call I'm going to play was he's still at the bottom of the ocean. There are some problems because the White House secretary and you know some some dude in the Navy they're trying to like link it up and there's a little confusion with this phone call. So I'm going to play it. OK. I'm ready for your phone call. This is Commander Carpenter on the line. Scott. Can you hear me operator. Now Scott would you speak please. How do you know that operator. I understand you. Yes. That's a way to say a lot better. Yes. We can't hear him. Operator can go for a connection.

Yes we can understand you. Can you man. No. No. We don't need that space to do. All right. I'm going to send him that there's no need to put the car over there. I think we wouldn't be able to understand this all gargles. Well you're a very mild operator but my voice will sound quite different. I'm in a chamber with a healing atmosphere so the frequency of my voice is quite high. Yes it is. That is not a telephone connection problem. That's just the result of my speaking from a pressurized chamber in a healing atmosphere. Do you understand. Yes you're not. So are you able to understand me over.

I think the operator just can't understand your helium voice but you sound very loud to me and I just checked on the west there. It's very garbled and we have to have a clear connection for the president operator. This is helium speech. It will always be garbled but I'm sure it will be understandable. The president knows that it is a helium speech. All right I'm going to jump ahead a little bit. The president will understand. Operator. Yes. What is he saying? He said it's a synthetic helium gas atmosphere. Yes and it makes his voice sound garbled with a real high pitch. Oh I see. Okay. We'll try it. Scott I wonder if anybody understands this. Well I don't know. The operator said that it's very loud and when I was trying to tell him I

thought it was somebody. No. Well we just said type C. Oh well. What do you want sir? Scott do you read me on earth? Yes sir Mr. President. Over loud and clear. How low? Fine. Well Scott I'm mighty glad to hear from you. You've convinced me and all the nations that whether you're going up or down you have the courage and the skill to do a fine job. Well thank you very much. There are a lot of other people who've been serving the same kind of curves that's a great career out there and we're all very loud and close but we're so fit to call us and let us know that we're interested in your life. Okay so. Holy. I mean. I mean that's just amazing. They're so confused. It's just my favorite thing. So but okay so CLAB was also the time

when the U.S. Navy and the government began to step up its relationship with animals and how they use them to their advantage. I don't like where this is going at all. Don't get too worried. I don't. Listen we've all been bitten by the name the chimp okay. But when you bring into military and animals and it's just. Dolphins and sea lions had been used to detect mines and help with torpedo technology but now they could use them in more crucial roles as they were living in their world which is where Bob Bailey entered. He was hired by the Navy in 1962 as the director of the U.S. Navy's animal training program. Until now he'd mainly been working on dolphin communication but now he's working more on training. In addition to conducting the research

and developing programs for fleet systems using dolphins seals and sea lions. We have a seal right here. They need the best. Bob immediately got to work and train Tuffy a Pacific white bottled nose dolphin. Sure. Tuffy was smart and picked up tasks easily. Bob used Tuffy to take tools to the men and also carry the men's mail up to land. I'm sorry. He's a little male dolphin. What the fuck is happening? Tuffy is like I guess like flipper based. Why do they have mail? Because they're not writing letters. You know they're writing letters man. They get the bills? Yeah bills yeah. Well they didn't have direct withdrawal and stuff like that. Let's go out they're like oh fuck. Oh no. Honey I'm going to send you the bills soon hun. I'll get right up

there when I can. I'm sending a dolphin to pay for the gas. So Bob got Tuffy to run drills. This dolphin has a shit job. Yeah well yeah. A fucking wild animal and they're teaching it how to deliver mail. Yeah well there's other stuff because they got him to run drills like to help men if they got lost like basically Tuffy would hear an alarm underwater near where one of the guys was outside a sea lab and then Tuffy would dive down to the sea lab and he would take a line from the sea lab and he would run it out to ever the you know the lost diver was he wasn't really lost there was a drill but then he would attach it to the to the diver help him attach it and then they would pull the diver back in. So they're like dolphin pranks where you just fucking with a

dolphin. Yeah it was punk for dolphins. Yeah Tuffy also seemed to be fearless and he actually was a bit of a perfectionist getting visibly upset when the men would fail on their end of a mission. Totally reasonable. Get your shit together. Sergeant Dolphin. You think I'm doing this for fucking fun? He's just walking around there and by the way no more mail. Okay he likes a smoke. There's no more mail okay. You get your shit together I get my shit together. Without Tuffy all you guys are doing is checking out how hammers and drills work down here okay. Idiots. Don't forget who Tuffy is baby. By the way Scott I banged your wife. Oh Tuffy. Tuffy the D. Sea. Now the notch on the seaweed. So there were some snags when Bob was at the Navy training

dolphins like the one dolphin who was supposed to save a man but came up an hour later with a huge grouper in its mouth like a cat with a mouse. That's the best dolphin of all. Yeah he's a dolphin. Hey check out what I found. Yummy. Tuffy's behind him like this dude ain't gonna work out. Do it with his grouper. I got a fish. Oh they're all diced. Oh let me tell you what. How great would it be if we finally communicate with dolphins and they all talk like Andy Dice play. Hey we're looking to bang. Oh wait what are they saying. Hey stupid you got a big dumb nose. Ow. They're reaching their flippers around their head to eat fish like the cigarette. So this is not the first time that animals were being used on behalf of our armed forces. Sure.

During the Second World War B.F. Skinnerd was hired and created Project Orcon for the Army. Skinnerd was a psychologist and an author who invented the Skinnerbox. Oh I love the Skinnerbox. You lived in one in college right. I did. The Skinnerbox which demonstrated the theory of operant conditioning. Basically he would put a rat in a cage with a pedal and when the rat pressed the pedal a food pellet would drop. Now so you just put the rat in the cage someday the rat's gonna look at the pedal hit the pedal and a food pellet's gonna come out. Well over time the rat will realize that if he presses the pedal he gets the treat. So you now have a rat that quote learned a behavior followed by a reinforcing stimulus which results in an increased probability

of that behavior occurring again in the future. This is how we feed thin. This is how I got fed. Right. Yeah I still get fed like that. That's why I love my Skinnerbox. That's why you should be talking to a therapist. Thank you. Is there any is there an app that would help me? Good Lord. I can't with you. B.F.'s Project Orcon took this theory to quite a level. Skinnerd wanted Project Orcon to unorthodoxly guide bombs to its exact location. Oh boy. They were to use bat glide bombs which were small gliders with wings and a tail with an explosive center and a guidance section in the nose that allowed it to be directed while it was in flight. So essentially these would be warheads that had three lenses in the front of the bomb that would show on a screen mounted on

pivots inside of the bomb what the front was seeing. In Project Orcon inside the nose would be one to three pigeons. Hold on. I'm going to have to back out a little bit. Can you repeat that? So in the bomb there's like three screens and that shows what's going on outside. Inside the bomb in this project theory there would be one to three pigeons inside of the bomb. Are they watching the TVs? Well so their job is that they pack at the screen towards the location that they've been trained to find. Okay. So they've been trained with the theory of operant conditioning. All right gentlemen I got an idea for a new bomb. Okay. Okay. By the way bombs are working pretty great. Yeah I think we've got a lot of good stuff. I think I've got a way to make them be much more

accurate. Okay yeah I think we're always open to hearing. We put little tiny TVs inside of the bomb. Sorry I'm going to actually flag that right away. Okay hold on but there's a reason. There's already a problem with that. Okay so we put little TVs in the bombs. Okay. And then we get birds and we get birds. My hand's still up and it's. We get birds to just keep on packing at them TV screens and boom. Goodbye Iran. Yes sir questions. I think we're just going to roll. Bird bombs. Okay. I don't know what can go wrong. Anyway who wants more coke? Everyone? Everyone want more cocaine? Hey let's do ten pigeons. Let's just do a bunch of pigeons inside. Oh a bottle of pigeons. The dolphin comes in. Pigeons ain't got shit. Ow. So basically these screens in there are on little

they're like on little pivots. So as the bomb would be dropping if it goes off course since the pigeons had been trained that they were supposed to peck at the perfect spot. So when they're inside the bomb and it's dropping they'll peck at the screen and it'll move the angle of the bomb to where they're pecking which is the the target that they've picked out. The cool thing is the target would remain in the center of the screen. When the hatch door opens up for them to get out they don't need parachutes. Right. The hatch door. Right. Let me look over here. Because I know I I know I read about it and I just I'm not. The pigeons just sitting there going when do we jump out? All right our job's done. I think it's going to be a direct hit. And eject.

And there's no door. There's no door. How did we get in here? Stupid. Stupid. I mean if there's three. So yeah the target remains at the center it wouldn't it wouldn't shift but if the bomb is going off track they follow it they peck at the target and it redirects it moving it on its pivots. The National Defense Research Committee shut down the program after investing $25,000 in it and called it very eccentric and impractical. Oh fuck you. Skinner complained quote. Legion haters. Skinner complained quote. Our problem is no one would take us seriously. So I'm not sure why that is. You are correct. The reason I don't know what it was. The reason people weren't taking you seriously is because you had pigeons playing with TVs and bombs. I think it's that I wear loud ties. I think

I got to wear muted tones. Also pigeons and bombs playing with TVs. I'm going to go ahead and go tie shopping. Okay also pigeons and bombs. What if pigeons were drivers of cars? You're fired. I'm marrying a pigeon. Oh bread. So yeah not sure why that was. Anyway so two of the younger people working with Skinner on this project were Keller Breeland and his wife Marion. They were psychology students who had soaked up a lot of good from BF and what he was doing. They did think however that the technique could be expanded and used in with animals in other ways. Sure. They even saw a way to make a business out of it. Put a pony in a nuke. Ponies are in tanks now. What are the main issues? Sir we cannot get the ponies out of the tanks. Build the tank

around the pony. Sir that does not help us with the main problem that the pony is going to be stuck in the tank and is only growing. Then unbuild the tank. Sir there's another problem with the ponies in the tanks. Yes. They don't know how to use the tanks sir. Oh yeah any TVs? Yes sir. All right problem solved. All right we'll keep throwing TVs at this while we're building tanks around these horses sir. So Marion and Keller they moved to the animal they opened the animal behavioral enterprise in 1947. So they basically took Skinner's theories and they used them to make animals kind of do human things for entertainment. Sure. You've heard it a million times. Is this the beginning of the circus? This is the circus start. No the training would be the same but it would involve

behaviors that were not very natural to animals. So they also saw a way to make money off it. So you know obviously you're worried this is going to get evil. They were not there's some red flags but for the most part they seem pretty humane because they were focused on rewarding behavior as opposed to punishing wrong behavior. So they rewarded good behavior didn't punish wrong behavior. Okay. They began training they'll like you do with me. They began by training animals for general mills. I don't think that's true at all. That's not true. If anyone saw our text thread they'd be like are you okay? What does he do to you? Okay cunt for it is. All right. We might have to do the other one Wednesday. Such an idiot. I called you a failure. Failure that was a failure. You

just wrote failure. So they began training animals for general mills. The cereal company? General mills. Yep. They're involved in tons of stuff. So they were using this to advertise their feed in stores. So they would hire trained chickens. I'm going to hold up. I'm going to okay trained chickens. There's a phrase you don't hear ever. Oh you'll get used to it. They would send these chickens all across the country and they would make sure they were show ready. So show ready. So the trick the chickens are doing like little tricks. Right. And like the people who like the people are loving it. Like people are going to feed dancing flipping over. You'll hear some of the options for what they could be doing. But yeah. But then there was also like there was like

Buck Bunny who we all remember as the coin depositing bunny from the Coast Federal Savings Bank. We do know. Yeah. We all remember Buck. But this was really just the tip. How much do you have to torture a rabbit to make it put a coin in a slot. Well I don't. It's very hard. It's hard to tell because but I don't think it is. Look. I mean I think it's like anything else. Like whenever you see an animal like on a set or anything it's not ideal and this is like the 50s. So surely you know there's people are not being as sweet as they should be. But it's see. I mean it basically it seemed like these animals would go do a gig and then they would come back for the most part. Like I said there's gonna be some red flags. But go ahead. No it's

gonna say probably wouldn't. We probably wouldn't be reading it if it all went well. If all the animals went off and came back. So soon they moved on to a plethora of honor and other animals. They and it really helped with appearances on the animal. Their animals are on Wild Kingdom and the Tonight Show. Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But those are all. Wait what did you call it? I thought you were doing a bit. Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. No just Wild Kingdom. Okay. Wild Kingdom and the Tonight Show. What's what's. It's gotta be the same thing. Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. Mutual of Omaha was the sponsor. So it was called Mutual of Omaha. Oh Mutual of Omaha.

But it was it was a nature show back then that everybody watched. That could very well be. Today's Planet Earth. But we were all under the impression that we were watching some actual shit happen out in the wild. Well I'm sorry to think I was being lied to. Perhaps. And I for sure know that Johnny Carson. He would not lie to you. Would not lie. Never. So they opened this place called the IQ Zoo. So the IQ Zoo was Skinner's operant conditioning theory in serious motion. Though he was not at all associated with it. It thrived in Hot Springs, Arkansas and quickly became a top tourist attraction because of the show Keller and Marion put on. But yeah. A visitor to the IQ Zoo could see a hen playing a hen sized piano while another hen tap danced. Okay. Already I'm not

interested. You don't want to be a part of it. Well Dave what if I sold you on this. Because they're not playing Beethoven. It's binga binga binga binga binga binga binga. That's what and the other one's just dancing because otherwise it'll get it'll get stabbed in the feet again. Okay. Well what if I told you that there was a hen that laid fake wooden eggs from a prop nest and whatever the num whatever number the audience called out that's how many fake wooden eggs would be laid by the hand. Yeah man. You're in. Okay good. Let's do that. I'm going to get you more. So it was really about. By the way who thought that up? What? That's a crazy fucking idea. Dude. Honestly. Yeah. Like it. I don't have any. I mean the idea that this came to fruition

is insane because they I don't know how. I mean who like you need a good partner to be like yeah I think a hen playing a piano is a good idea. Let's explore this far. So it was really about the reinforcement at the moment of behavior by giving the chicken a small amount of feed. So it's again it's essentially what they would be of Skinner did in the Skinner box right. So the pedal is now the activity. So the more that they were trained the longer they could sustain it until they were ready to perform. The acts proved to be unprecedented crowd stoppers at fairs and feed store open houses events where they played showing to as many as 5000 people in a day. Mike the chicken's still better. Yeah. There was a chicken without a head. Don't compete. I mean don't compete.

Can he play the piano? He didn't need to. What did he do? He fucking criss-drawn without a head. He just didn't have a head. Big deal. Spoiler. Wow. But chickens were becoming so done at the IQ farm. So they unveiled their new star. Priscilla the fastidious pig. Priscilla was a small pig. Pigs are super smart. Pigs are really smart. They're like one of the third or four smartest animals. Yeah. No. Let's eat them. Priscilla was a small pig who would blow people's minds by turning the radio on. We don't need your fucking politics. I didn't say anything. That was a sound drop. Priscilla was a small pig who would blow people's minds by turning the radio on, eat at a table like a human, pick up dirty clothes off the ground and throw them in her

hamper, use a vacuum to clean the floor, select her favorite feed from a wide selection and answer yes or no questions from the crowd by hitting a yes or no lever that would light up to the audience's amazement. Fuck off. Read the first one. Okay. The first one was that she would turn the radio on. All right. That's easy. She would eat a meal at the table like a human. Now what does that mean? They sit up like a little table area. She has fucking little pigs. No, I think I don't know. A human is with forks and knives. Well, she's not. She's eating a meal at a table, very unpig-like. So she's sitting on her pig ass eating with her. You're still torturing the poor thing. So, okay. So she would eat at the table that she would pick up dirty clothes and then throw

them in her hamper, which is the best part that it's hers. Well, they're not hers because she doesn't wear clothes. Oh, she does her washing. Come on now. She would use a vacuum to clean the floor. So she's a slave. She's a slave pig. OCD. OCD. No, it's nice. Let's have a slave pig. She would select her favorite feed from a wide selection. She would answer yes or no questions. But again, I really like, okay, this one's a little shady, but it wasn't like, again, they were like trying, they were not, these animals were not getting whipped and stuff like that. So Priscilla was such a hit that she went on the road to fairs, feed stores, and even TV to spread whatever the hell her message was. People would jam a feed store to get a look at her.

Fuck yeah. Priscilla had a- Oh my God. Are you going down to the feed store to see the pig? Dude, I'm in love. They could turn on the TV? Dude, I'm in love. I'd comb my hair. Yeah, Priscilla's doing my taxes. Priscilla, I need to leave my wife. I- Yeah, I can't do it anymore. That's good. Yeah, she's just not understanding me. Yeah. Well, boy, I should probably roll. You're getting a violent, easy girl. You got the smoke coming out of that nose. So she had a solid two year run, but the truth was that multiple Priscilla's were used. What the fuck? See, they needed to recast Priscilla every four months or so because

the pigs are pigs and they quickly became too large to ship to stores to be Priscilla's. So there's multiple Priscilla's. And then they ate them. I mean, I don't know that they definitely ate them. They ate Priscilla. Make no mistake about it. All the Priscilla's were eaten. Festidious. Well, this tastes like a smart pig. Well, this was a Festidious meal. I bet that pig vacuumed. So next came a calf called Laro Larry. I'm sorry, calf. Calf called Laro Larry. So the names are terrible. Name for Laro feed. But it is a terrible name. Oh, so it's a sponsorship. Yes, he was Laro Larry. It is terrible. This one. But also it took me a minute to find out that Laro was a feed. So for a while I was like, what's Laro? Is he like a Marx brother? Laro.

So he would play the same yes or no question game that Priscilla did. And he made his debut at the International Dairy Expo in Indiana for General Mills. Laro Larry also played a game that was called Bull in the China Shop, where he would destroy plates and dishes and other shatterables in an order that the crowd picked. Passing spectators who were not familiar with the show were said to be alarmed. The fuck is happening in there? Oh, it's just a celebrity calf. You don't know Laro? Sorry, you guys don't know Laro? Oh, he's the Priscilla of the China Shop. He can smash plates in order. Boy, I bet Priscilla's there to clean up after him. The hell are you boys talking about? Oh my god. Who thought that up?

All of it. Yeah, it's just, I mean, honestly, they were just, they were like running out of stuff, right? Ducks played guitars. Wait, wait, wait. How did you just speed past ducks play guitars? You don't get to just ducks play guitar on the next fucking thing. We got pigs, you know, throwing stuff in their own hamper. Ducks play guitars is the craziest thing you've said yet. A pig putting something in a hamper, the fucking duck is playing. Is he actually playing it well? No, no. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's playing. He's playing. Yeah. This one's called Hotel California. Yeah. No, he's just like, he's got like a guitar strap to him and is like able to do motions that like, you know, they probably play like a guitar sound. No, he's doing it with his beak.

He's just got to be hitting it with his beak. Yeah. Yeah. He's not using his arms. But the ducks have hands. Which one has hands? You just made it sound like. Oh, we have hands. Okay. There was some weird soccer football game that people could play against a turkey. No, this one down. The turkey was placed on a mini playing field where it had a steel ball and a goal. The turkey is trained to get the steel ball into the goal while an audience member or two would use a long pole with a magnet on it to try to move the steel ball away from the turkey into their goal. This doesn't sound fun. It sounds actually annoying. That game would have to be, I mean, the most annoying. Yeah, no. What about a game called kill me where we start and I take

out a gun and I shoot myself. A dog kills me. How about a game where a dog shoots me in the head? You know one of those? They had animals playing poker, three card Monty performing high jumps. I've seen those paintings, by the way. I think it's a different one. Hens played a game called the civilian aircraft spotter where they would control their neck all the way around to make it look like they were looking everywhere. This was also called atom bomb neurosis. What? I think like because of the era, like they like basically would turn its head all around, but the names are it's so dark. They're just now it's just a fucking bird that could turn his head around. It's not a fucking nuke looker, whatever the fuck is happening. They were always working

with rats, hamsters, guinea pigs, squirrels, horses, cats, dogs and crows. Oh, and they had raccoons playing basketball and and groundhog celebrating Groundhog Day. Hold on. I would watch a raccoon basketball league. Yeah, well, it's not so much of a league, but yeah, RBL. The RBL. Yeah, it's fucking great. Officials are terrible. He's traveling. Oh, no, he's killing him. They're just eating garbage again. Is there a ball? What is this? You groundhog celebrating Groundhog Day and there was a rabbit who would take a photo of the customer and itself, which I would think is the first selfie and it was a rabbit. So there's rabbit. So it's shooting it's shooting a picture and then turning the camera out and taking a picture of itself. No, it's like it's in frame.

Oh, it's getting a shot of itself and you together. So you come into its frame and then it takes the picture with a button that it hits. Yeah, so it's a what camera and was it a bunny a rabbit? Um, I mean, that's actually fucking great. Yeah, that one is pretty crazy happening. There was of course, there should be rabbits all over the city. No, with phones. What? And whenever you go up to them, they take a selfie with nobody's. No, how can that not be a thing? Are we not civilized has to be in Japan has to be without a doubt. They'll be like, oh, you mean a rabbit photo cafe? You're like, what is it? Yeah, you get a coffee and then a rabbit takes a video of you. Yeah, welcome here. Welcome. Um, notice no one is doing anything with cats.

Yes, because cats don't fucking play that. And the cats don't play that. There was, of course, the hen that shot a fake gun into a fake bottle that appeared to knock over. There was an ad campaign for a paper where a moose and chicken were running the paper. All of this behavior was done. There was the commercial campaign where a moose and chicken were in charge of like a newspaper and people liked it. Um, no matter what it was, they were always, uh, it was always done using Skinner's theory of rewarding repeated behavior. They were motivated by learning a simple task that would result in a reward and reward and they wanted a reward. For instance, the raccoon playing basketball, he would shoot the amount of baskets someone in the audience picked.

So if someone in the audience said they wanted the raccoon to shoot five baskets, he would make one basket, wait for a treat. If he didn't get it, he would make another basket, wait for a treat until he got to five and got a treat and then he would stop. They claim they could train hundreds of animals a day by using, uh, this lever reward system. Hundreds. Hundreds of animals. I mean, even more, like they said, once they trained them, it was, yeah, it was it. Um, they needed little human interference once the, once the basics were handled. They even made the front page of the Wall Street Journal, which featured the Breelan's dog Putty playing poker, somersalting and even balancing his four legs on four legs of

an upside down table for several minutes. I mean, is that on video? Yeah, I, I, there's a picture of it. I, I'll try to find it. It's on TV all the time. It's crazy because the dog looks okay. Like he looks like calm, calm, not, not okay. He looked, but he doesn't look like he's like, Hey, this is the, what the, how did this even start? Like a normal dog. He'd be like, What's happening? Yeah. Trap, trap, trap, trap. Yeah, they've got him on, but his legs are like spread out. It's pretty weird. Um, they also invented a mechanized coin operated animal show. Now these were basically games with real chickens that were put inside of a box on a street, more specifically in fair parks, expositions and malls where people could play them. So the chickens

would be placed in what we're called showcages, which they said were air conditioned for up to six hours a day. Two chickens would perform. They would take turns performing when someone would put a coin in a game would start and the chickens would play you in a game like cards or something fairly small. What the fuck is happening? What is happening right now? Or you'd watch them display a talent of some kind. So there's just chicken torture boxes all over the street and you give them money and then they have to fucking dance. You put a coin in and the chicken is just like, Ah, all right, I fold and you're like, Whoa. Wow. And these are just all these are just randomly placed around at their peak. They had 400 units in operation all across the country. What does

that even mean that that every state had a few? Well, I mean, yeah, there's just chicken boxes where there's chickens inside. Yeah. And they'd be like, yeah, they'd be like, yeah, it would be like a fair game or like whatever they would. It's like early Pac-Man, but with chickens. Yes, it was, it was. Without ghosts. Well, but actually, they would they had replacements. They had replacement animals and equipment on the ready to send anyone who needed a replacement, which because they die in there. Yeah, that's one of the sad things about the game. Like when you're playing Pac-Man and Pac-Man dies, you get a new one, you get a new chicken. When you're playing when you get a new chicken, you get a new chicken. When you play chicken, there were two. Yeah,

but it takes a while. Yeah, but you look, I mean, sure there are some days where both probably croaked. Hey, put a corner in here and the chicken died. That's just the guy's hand with an oven mitt on it. That ain't no chicken. Oh, shit. Sorry, guys, we got two on the way. Chickens will be here tomorrow. They had great success training cats. What? Like the one that they trained for the Quaker Oats and the Puss in Boots campaign. What in the fuck? They used lots of cats. They would train them in Arkansas and then they would take them on location. Talk to me about training cats. Now, in 1965, Bob Bailey had finished his work with the Navy and joined the team at the IQ Zoo. So he was the dude who was working with Tuffy before. Are we done with the cats? So he,

don't worry, he had met Keller and Marion when he was working at the Navy. Keller helped Bob with dolphin training techniques based off of how he trained chickens. Bob found Keller's insight very, very helpful and was really taken with their system. Sadly, Keller died of a heart of heart disease in 1966. And soon after it, Bob and Marion were running the show at the IQ Zoo. Bob was placed in charge of the ABEs programs for the Department of Defense and all the Marine Mammal programs. He developed unique equipment for dolphin and other animal navigation, as well as animal communication devices using lasers, supersonic generators and radio transceivers suitable to potentially be implanted in an animal. But that's crazy. And sling shots and sling shots.

And that's it. And he taught he taught dolphins how to do a dice clay and smoke cigarettes. That's why they all talk like that now. Oh, yo, this fish is gross. Do you hear it, dolphin? Oh, hey. Oh, the more the government learned about the IQ Zoo and the ABE, the more they saw potential. The timing of all of it was certainly a play. This was deep in the Cold War era and the US was dead set on not turning commie. That's right. This made the battle for information on the enemy so pined after that they would go to extreme lengths to get the smallest detail. The CIA was very interested in getting some help with the war on information gathering. Quote, they came to us to solve problems, Bailey said. What this started was a fairly

substantial substantial relationship with Bob and the zoo to convert cute animal acts into important info gathering patriots for the government. So what we're looking for is like a like a chicken infiltration army. Oh, yeah. I mean, the chickens can play poker. The thing over there is the Russians don't know if a chicken is an American chicken. No, that's the thing. And these chickens don't have accents. And again, they can play cards. They could play the guitars. If you want to get turkeys, they could play soccer against them. Yeah. So you know, we also need assassin chickens. Oh, yeah. No, we have we have actually one that that shoots a fake gun at bottles. So he'll be great. He'll be great. As long as you can shoot the fake gun.

Yeah, he'll be great. Yeah, we can just replace it with a real gun. You got neither that. Stay over my place. The dolphins. Okay, the dolphins are really weird. Okay, the dolphins drink a lot in party. So it's like a freak show situation. The dolphins are crazy. The dolphins have gone crazy. They all smoke. They're there. They're like Andrew Dice Clay. You don't know him yet. Oh, he smokes through the blowhole. Oh, through the back of his head, just blows it out his mouth. Yeah. Oh, so they started with birds. Bob liked training birds. He was able to make macaw parrots roller skate. But the CIA wanted to start with a different bird. What? Yeah, I mean, they don't need to. It's autumn. They have flight. There's the last

animal that needs to roller skate is a talking bird. Well, and then all it's saying is like, why? Why? Please stop. 70s. Fuck the 70s. Not a fan. So they started with Ravens. The CIA immediately began working with Bailey and Ravens. Bailey loved Ravens and what they could do in the field form quote, who doesn't quote, it operates alone. And it does very well alone. Western Ravens are adept at pattern recognition. They could learn to respond to a class of objects. They could learn to respond to class of objects. If you've got a big desk and a little desk, you could train it's always go to the small one. They can also carry quite a load. These things could pick up weights, heavy packages, even file folders. It was incredible

to watch these Ravens carry a load in their beaks that they would have that would have defeated any ordinary bird. Nobody has ever been more fired up about Ravens. And I am including the NFL team. The guy, listen to what he says. It operates alone and it does very well alone. You don't need no friends. Raven can lift heavy shit and doesn't want to know anybody. And the Ravens like, I actually love being around. I actually like, how do you think we make other Ravens? We, that's part of being around Ravens. So he said that they could also be trained to open drawers and stuff like that in offices. Peck out a guy's eyes. Peck out the eyes. Obviously a big player in this one. Russian

Russian eyes. Yeah. They were used to drop listening devices in specific locations. Bailey even claims he snuck a Raven onto a commercial flight for some reason. Sure. Quote. But we've all done that. Quote, it was in a map case under the front seat. And every now and then the Raven would make a noise. He imitates a strange deep groan. And I'd be in my seat and I'd go like this. He'd squirm. Oh my God. He's faking. He's farting. I don't even think he's doing that. I think he's just. No, he's faking. He's farting. Is that what it means? Yes, that's what it means. I'd be in my seat and go like this. He says squirming. Yeah. He's pretending like he's farting to cover up the fucking bird under his seat.

It's not like the household dog. Excuse me. Do you have a bird under your seat here? Did you eat beans? I have food poisoning and that's just a map in there. Okay, so Bob clearly liked the work, but Ravens were one thing. Sure, Ravens could pick up physical objects or documents. Oh yeah. But what the CIA couldn't do was gather information from a conversation of persons of interest at the drop of a hat. Here come the cats. So the Soviets were adept at saying the wrong were adept at not saying the wrong thing when they knew they were being spied on. It wasn't like they were just Soviets chatting about nuclear secrets on the street in America anywhere. No, stuff like that would happen in America if it was in a Soviet embassy. Sadly, a person

could never sneak in there without being detected. But an animal could. Fuck yeah. Why is there so many cats? What these deal with cats? We have nine, 19 cats. Well, Dairy, as- How fucking dare you? How dare I? That brings us to Project Acoustic Kitty. Jesus Christ. The idea was as simple as it was complex. The proposal was to turn a living cat into a listening device. Oh wait, I thought they were going to do an acoustic set. This is off our first album. Then we're just going to kind of tell some stories, I guess, and then play some of our hits. Hope you guys like folk music. All right, two, three, four. So it was a cat bug, right? So the idea came- I like how Jose walked out of the room as soon-

He left as soon as this got talked about. He's familiar. This is bullshit. We all know this story. The proposal was to turn a cat into a listening device. Fuck yeah. So the way they came up with it was that one day a higher up at the CIA was watching an Asian head of state for surveillance when he noticed that cats were wandering in and out of the meeting area. Nobody really seemed worried about what the cats were doing. They would carry on as usual when a cat laid near the scene. Nobody seemed to give a shit about these cats. What the fuck? Light bulb. Now this idea was a little crazy, Dave. You know, it's already crazy because there's cats cruising around in an embassy. For starters, it would require a good amount of training and they would need a way to steer the

cat. Plus, to make sure it could record things, some surgery would be required. Well, because you have to steer it. But if they could get a cat to lay down near an important back and forth, why it could be the turning point of the Cold War. Let me just say, having had a lot of experience with cats, there's nothing easier than training a cat. Very easy to do. Now, to your point, there was some worry that cats might be too wild to follow orders. But Bailey swore they would be just as good as dogs and less suspect because of their size and aloofness. Thank you. Which, if anyone's seen the play cats, you know, that's true. They are very light on their feet. Nobody's seen the play cats. Oh, come on, magical. Jellicle cats. Mustophiles. What's happening right now?

Rum-tum-tigger. You've seen it? Let me know more questions. I'm the one doing the talking here. Okay, buddy, this is a reverse one. This is a rollup. Bailey knew that he could train it because of what he'd seen at the IQ zoo. If a duck could play a banjo, then a cat could walk into a designated area. And you know what? I've always said that. That's one of my favorite sayings. That you have that bumper sticker on your car. Quote, we found that we could condition a cat to listen to voices, Bailey said. We have no idea how we did it, but we found that the cat would more and more listen to people's voices and listen less to other things. Bailey got to work with one of the inventors of the human cochlear implant with the goal of turning the cat into a transmitter.

A wire would run from the cat's inner ear to a battery and instrument cluster implanted in its ribcage. The implants would be used to direct the cat, so a sound in the left ear would make the cat go left and vice versa. Jesus Christ. The CIA worked with audio contractors who built a three-quarter inch transmitter that would be placed at the base of the cat's skull. A little microphone would be put in the cat's ear also. There was also thin wired antenna that was woven together with all the wires that ran all the way through the tail because the fur was long to conceal it. So to be clear, this is all placed under the cat's skin and then stitched up again. I just want to make sure we're clear because you can't have it like outside of its body. The ear implants weren't.

The ear implants were in the ear and then were like, you know, they- Right, the ear implants isn't a big deal. Right, but- The fucking antenna under the- Attena, yeah. Hey, this hurts. Yeah, hurts very badly, I'm sure. So the batteries were an issue, too, because the cats were smoking. I mean, well, I like the battery. How was there not a- Well, because cats have a battery pack. Oh, come here, you got a battery pack, right? I was like, where do we put your double A's, baby? So since the cats were small, they would have to go the smallest battery made, which in turn meant that there wouldn't be too much time for dilly-dallying when it was time to record an important conversation. So where are they putting the battery right in the butthole?

The battery goes right in the butthole. Yep, you've read this before. No, I mean, I think it's just, you know, it's all like, essentially, they find a little like an area where they kind of put it all together. So I mean, it's, you know, they have like, yeah, I mean, it's like got a transmitter, you know what I mean? Well, they're creating a fucking cyborg cat. So after the agency discussed the potential fallout, if the public ever found out about this, Project Acoustic Kitty was given the green light to wire up their first kitty spy. So they're worried, and this is the 60s? Yes. They're worried if people found out that they put, they turn a cat into a listening device, that people would be upset. Yeah. Because it's a cat? I think for many reasons. This is right around,

I think it checks a couple of weird boxes will be beating black people at Selma. So I'm not sure. Well, I guess you could say that's why they went ahead with it. They were like, you know, someone made that point. They're like, good point, Carl, let's just do it, wire it up. The surgery is not going to be easy. For the cat could not be suspected of anything, Dave. You know, nothing could affect any of the cat's natural movements or worse, make it uncomfortable. Imagine the scene where a cat tries to spy on some people, but it's preoccupied with the wires jammed near its spine. It could start acting strange and raise suspicion, or perhaps Dave, it could even begin clawing at the device jammed in it and remove the equipment revealing the mission to their foes right there.

All the equipment would have to withstand the cat's internal temperature as well. What about not doing it? It's also an option. It's a huge option. It's also an option. Acoustic kitty goes electric. One lucky cat was the winner of the CIA feline spy lottery. Winner is not a good term. This cat won big. This cat won big. An adult, gray and white female cat, a small crowd of agents and techs who worked on the project watched the vet perform the equipment installation. It must have been beautiful. One man was nauseous at the first sight of blood that came out of the cat and had to sit down to regain his composure. He's such a chicken. He should be playing a piano. Come on. Stick with me.

Come on. Can get better. Sorry. After the cat woke up from the successful surgery, she was placed into recovery to be monitored and evaluated. She was run through several spy CIS scenarios. After the surgery, they found that the cat's behavior was inconsistent and they began to fear they couldn't make the program succeed. If she got bored, she would walk off. I can't believe that there's a cat whose behavior is inconsistent. It's pretty weird. You didn't see this coming. If she was hungry, she was preoccupied with getting food. What a fucking asshole. Bob could solve everything but the hunger factor. Now, I'm not sure what this means or how they solved it, but they opted for another surgery which addressed the hunger of the feeling.

Oh, come on. What does that mean? I don't know. It means they put something in its stomach to fill it up, like a balloon or something, to make it seem like its stomach was always full. It's making a sacrifice for its country. It doesn't have a country. It's a cat. It's a patriot. It's a cat. It's a catriot. It's a catriot. It's a catriot. Cats have no borders. Come on. Cats are no border animal. Come on. Okay. After the hunger was fixed, it was time for Agent Cat to get into the field and change animal spy technology forever. Disagree. One way or another. The CIA parked a van, obvious. Well, that's what they do. This is before it was like a stereotype.

I mean, they've actually parked in so many vans at this point, it might be like people will be like, oh, no way. CIA would never do vans. Now, it might be smart to do vans again. So, the CIA parked a van across the street from a park near the Soviet embassy on Wisconsin Avenue in DC for their virgin mission. There were some Soviet targets sitting down to have a chat. Once the Soviet men seemed settled, it was time to send in their four-legged Jason Bourne. The CIA opened the van and released the cat. They began controlling its movements as it made its way across the street. So, this works. They're actually making a move. They're sending it in a direction. Yes, but unfortunately, the mission ended there as the cat was immediately run over by

a taxi to kill. God damn it! How did I know that was gonna happen? Probably because it's obvious. Because it's a cat. And with that project- You know how it wouldn't have got hit by a car? They let it fucking do what it needed to do. Also, don't make it cross the street. They made it cross a- just go- I mean- It's not a great- it wasn't a great plan. Yeah. Have a guy walk it down the street and then just like toss it in there. Stupid cat. And this is the only cyborg cat they have, right? This was it. Okay, this was the end of Project Acoustic Kitty. That's it? That's it. Just like its first agent, it was no more- They're the ones who fucked it up.

No, the CIA pulled the plug. How did they pull the plug? While acknowledging- Drop it off on the sidewalk. While acknowledging- Look, there were a lot of complications. Put it in the fucking park. While acknowledging- Start it in the park. Well, they can't- Put it in the fucking tree. You can't be obvious. Anywhere, put it on the other side of the street. I agree with a lot of what you're pitching. While acknowledging the cats can quote, indeed be trained to move short distances, the CIA concluded that quote, the program

would not lend itself in practical sense to our highly specialized needs. Victor Marchetti, a former assistant to the director of the CIA at the time, remembers the project in more honest terms, quote, they slit the cat open, put batteries in and wired him up, Marchetti said. They made him monstrosity. I'm a big fan of that cat. And it wasn't cheap either. Imagine the guy who saw the cat get run over and then was like, what in the fuck is inside that cat? Oh my god, robot cats. All cats are robots!

I'm gonna get off the streets! They're here! I told you! They're going to take our women! It wasn't cheap either. After repeated surgeries and training and equipment and research, the price tag was somewhere in the area of $20 million. Oh my god! What? What? I do not know. $20 million and one dead robot cat was all they had to show for it. Yeah. I love that. And despite the failure.

Can I just say something? Yes. Worth it. Worth it. Definitely worth it. Very penny. Now you know to not do it. $20 million less and then you'll never forget. Despite the failure, love remained in the air at the animal farm because after teaching animals together for over a decade, Mary and Bob were married.

The ABE closed in 1990. Married by a pig. Married by a horse who was a registered priest. He just like, if you take her to be alive, clock your heel twice. The ABE closed in 1990. In 1996, they opened the Bailey and Operant Conditioning workshops which provided training to animal trainers and psychologists. Mary passed away in 2001.

But the U.S. is still in the new ways of using other creatures to their advantage. DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, has been trying to crack a way to create insect cyborgs for a while and they were coming up short. They had tried to build tiny flying robots but they were either too heavy with equipment or they had too little equipment on to not be worth the endeavor. I don't like this. They made a nano hummingbird with a 6.5 inch wingspan but it could only fly for 11 minutes proving to be fairly worthless.

So frustrated, they took the conundrum publicly and asked scientists to submit, quote, innovative proposals for how to control insects. They included a pamphlet with their goals. The desire for it was obvious. In nature, there were already tiny things that were flying. Surely it would be easier to robot up a bug over make a robot bug with far less upside. Like how you just put your glasses on and then took them off to rub your nose again. No, this is going with the end of mankind.

So insects provided half of the work already. Now they just had to cyborg them up. As the pamphlet said, it might be possible to transform insects into predictable devices that can be used for missions requiring unobtrusive entry into areas inaccessible or hostile to humans. Fuck. DARPA wanted proposals on how to steer the insects and said they would fund ones they liked. Did I say when this was?

This is like 2006. I don't know if I said that. This is like 2006. Okay. They obviously needed control of the robot bugs. So they needed to be able to get them within five feet of a target to record. So yes, obviously the insects would be fitted with microphones and small cameras. They said that if they added chemical sensors to them, they could find bombs or gases.

Or if a threat comes to fruition, they could zoom around to site and find survivors with heat sensors. But honestly, as we both know, that probably wouldn't be all they would use. Michael Maharbiz was an electrical engineer at UC Berkeley when he heard about the scientist talent show and was excited by the idea. Of course he was. He knew nothing about insects. So he read up on etymology.

Flies were too light, he thought. Moss were too weak. But he did find one that he liked. A bee. The beetle. Fucking beetle. The beetles are tanks of the insect world. They could fly around with their hard shells and could surely carry some gear and take a beating.

I tell you what, they're not a tank under my shoe. No. Okay. Well, Dave. I've smacked those beetles that come into my house and I don't. Okay. I make them. I make their lives over. I want to send a message to the other beetles. I don't understand.

This isn't your, this isn't your fucking home beetle. Okay. Plus now I know they could be robots. Okay. All right. So you've proven your point. You're stronger than the beetles. So what I'm doing is fighting a robot war.

Tell Ringo and George. The real issue was the control part. In order to actively control the beetle, he would need to get into the nervous system and hijack its impulses. Okay, I gotta go. After some more research, he settled on the flower beetle as his guinea pig. With good old fashioned trial and error and tinkering, scientists found that the base of the optic lobe was the spot. What the fuck?

They found a place that when stimulated men made the wings move and another spot that made them stop. Electrical stimulus had given them some control over what the beetle would do. With that figured out, they were ready to wire one up. But first he would have to be and he would have to get anesthesia. Come on. However, not knowing where to put a needle, they opted for throwing the beetle in the freezer for five minutes. Why?

Why do they need anesthesia? Well, I think because they, you know, they're, well, because what they're about to do to it. Yeah, but it's a bug. Agreed. But I think, you know, I mean, they're trying to be, I guess. Humane? Yeah, but.

To a beetle? Yeah. I get trying to be humane, but you can't. But yeah, I mean, well, look, it's less painful. But again, it's like, Yeah, but the beetles, You're really, you're really splitting hairs. The system, like, can they feel?

Beetles can feel, yeah. Bugs can feel, for sure. Not every animal has a nervous. Not every animal, no. But a lot, you know, most, I mean, yeah. Really? Yeah. You're absolutely 100%.

You're right now claiming that beetles have a nervous system. That's what you're going with. Yeah. Yes. That, that's for sure. Okay. That is for sure. All right.

Yeah. So they. Put it in the freezer for five minutes. Put it in the freezer for five minutes. Then they took it out, poked a needle through the exoskeleton, and then made holes over the brain, and then they put thin wire into said holes. Then they made holes in the basilar muscles,

which work with the. How tiny is this guy's hands? I mean, honestly, the, what they were using, it's so small. Yeah. Like it has to just be. It's a microscope. Yeah.

I mean, you need like to shrink a surgeon for this. Using little tiny robot hands. Yeah. Or else they're using beetle hands. So they, so they, yeah, they get another beetle to do it. He's like, you son of a bitch. Sick son of a bitch. They found.

Race trader. They found that by stimulating the right wing, they could increase its rate. And that the same with the left. So they also kind of wired stimulants on the, like the wing muscles. So they made it a faster beetle. So they, well, they've, so far what they've done is they've made it so that they can get its wings to go.

They can get its wings to stop, and they can get the right one to go faster, and they can get the left one to go faster. So they stimulate whichever one. So does that mean they can turn it? That means they can turn it. What the fuck? All of the wires would connect in a small box

that they had to put on the beetle's back that they referred to as the backpack. Yep. The backpack also contained a battery, a radio receiver, and a circuit board. And a TV. And a TV, and a queen size bed. It was a Holiday Inn.

It was time for the rubber to meet the road. So they uploaded their beetle software called Beetle Commander. I'm sorry? They uploaded their beetle software called Beetle Commander. Is there an app? It's an app. Yeah, do you not have Beetle Commander? Oh, it's the best.

Oh, it's the best. It's like Uber with a beetle. So they could send wireless signals to the robo bug. He sent the signals, which went to the antenna, which then got sent to the circuit board, which then shot electricity through the wire into the lobe. The beetle's wings began to flap, and it took flight. They controlled it perfectly.

Whatever direction they wanted it to go, and it went. They even sent signal for it to stop flapping mid-flight, and the beetle stopped mid-flight and fell to the ground. Well, that's fun. Yeah. He was like, why? Don't worry about it. You're on anesthesia.

And these beetles, they're big, though. Like some beetles are like... Oh, this is a big beetle. Oh, yeah. This has like a rhino horn on it, essentially. Okay. So this is actually called a flower beetle. So it's like a two-inch, three-inch beetle?

Yeah. And there are some beetles that are up to like four inches that are insane. In China, they have made robot moths and honeybees. I'm sorry? They've made robot moths and honeybees. I've heard about the honeybees. Amit Lal, who once worked with DARPA,

has been getting deep into it. Lal also once saw a better way for outfitting the insects. Morphogenesis is the process of changing from larva into adults. Oh, I do that. I've seen you do that. You do that once. You do that bi-annually, I believe.

Yeah, bi-annually. Yeah, which might not be a callback anymore. Morphogenesis is the process of changing from larva into adults. So this is like cocooning bugs, basically. For humans. Since there's the cocoon phase, Lal thought that if the electronics were placed

in the larva, that when they went through Morphogenesis, the body could potentially shape around the electronic here. Yeah, I can't be a part of this anymore. They gave it a whirl, and they put wires in a larva hawk moth. What the fuck? When it was in its transformation phase. A week later, they emerged from their shells, and sure enough, tissue had grown around the electronics,

now embedding that inside their body. Has nobody seen Star Trek before? Yeah, I mean, honest. Well, so the electronics are now inside of living tissue, and they can now control them. This is also found to be less painful for the insect, which I'm like, how do you gather? I wonder who gives a shit.

Well, who's? Yeah, you can't register. There's just no way. Hey, does that hurt? Yeah. Yeah! Yeah, I know. They all say, yeah, the same way.

They're not saying anything. They're all saying, yeah, the exact same way. So the procedure was so easy that they believed it could easily be done in mass production, if necessary. What the fuck? Does that even? This would all be so embedded that it would be hard for us to even know.

Right. That they could be out there now. I mean, we just have no idea. I'm not saying that they are. If they're saying that they could be, they are. In 2011, the reward element in all of this got stepped up. As we said, Skinner would use food, as would Bob and Marion. But during training at the State University of New York, SUNY,

researchers began working with rats. Now, they didn't use food or an auditory sound. They actually implanted a third wire to send an electrical pulse into the medial forebrain bundle, which is the section of the brain that processes pleasure. With food pellets, the rats would hit the pellet to get some food. Well, now they set up a way that the brain would actually get that stimulation without a real reward.

So now they set up a lever that will just send the direct signal right into the medial forebrain bundle instead, and the rats went rat shit over it. Instead of the casual hits on the pedal in the Skinner box, the rats were now hitting it up to 200 times in 20 minutes for the brain reward. It's like an orgasm. It's rat meth.

Yeah. It's like, yeah, it's, I mean, yeah, it's probably like heroin. Yeah. Oh, wow. I actually want this in my brain. I can get that. We got to do it when you're in your larva phase, though. And that's really where it ends now. So cyborg insect rat robots.

I'm holding my breath for an acoustic Jose. Bob Bailey is still alive and not done yet. He should be done. He's been working with security agencies in Europe on training dogs via acoustic signals to perform any number of security tasks. Quote, there's nothing that can run upstairs like a dog, he says.

It has a billion years of evolution behind it. What the fuck? So have you seen Black Mirror? Oh, this is very Black Mirror. Yeah. That last episode of Black Mirror this season. Oh, I didn't see that one. It's about, it's about robot bees.

Is it really? Yeah. Oh, wow. It's fucking great. And it's totally, you're like, oh, yeah, this could happen. Yeah. The last season of it, there were a couple and I was looking. Yeah.

The old lady one with the traveling through the one that was dying and traveling through different times. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that was weird. But there were some I thought were great. Yeah. It's a great show for sure. Well, but this is what it's based on and it's fucking real.

You can't fuck around with shit like this. Well, the truth is that there's, yeah. I mean, the more I was reading about it, the more that what rubs me is also that the insect has no idea. Like the idea that you can be implanted with something and never actually know. Right. Like if it happens, it's like the matrix.

It's like if it happened first, you never know that you're actually, like what is will versus what is predetermined. You know, but yeah. But like the idea that the, you know, just like and even the guy, the guy, the guy who came up with the first one who wired the the beetle, like he is like laughing off like the idea that there's any, you know, chance that this becomes anything terrible or anything like that. Of course, because it becomes something terrible.

Yeah. Someone uses it for evil. Well, that's the problem with this shit. Also, like we've been writing books about this forever, but man versus nature, man does not win. No. You don't get to control nature. I know you want to control nature,

but you won't eventually be able to control nature. Again, it's when you're trying to solve every problem. Like when you're able to devote, you know, like even when you're putting pigeons inside of a war, it's like you're, what, what is the obsession with having all. I'm for that one. I'm for that one too, obviously. But, but you can't like, sure, it's crazy to be able to actually control a beetle

and get it to drop out of the sky mid-flight. But it's also like, it's kind of like the phones. It's like you need a little bit of control. Well, but there, but the thing I've read about these insects is they, they eventually want to use them to assassinate people. Well, that's the thing is that they're so, yeah. But the thing, the beetle is a circuit board in it. Right.

Like, and the, and the moth, like, or the bees, they, they are grown. I mean, it's just like, what can't you do? Right. You could so easily implant a little exploit, like something, you know, into a, into a bug or, You just, it just, it just goes, flies in and, and, and puts a dart in you and you're dead. Yeah. Like that, the fucking, the Korean guy.

Or the Russian guy. The Korean brother. The dude who Pootin's poisoned twice. You got killed by two women who thought they were doing a prank. Yeah. But the guy, but also the dude who's gotten poisoned twice by Pootin, he, he doesn't know. He doesn't know when he got poisoned. Right.

Of course not. How would you know? Because you'd like watching everything because you're like, Pootin made all my organs shut down once. Fool me once. Oh, look at this little bug. Yeah. So versus nature.

Nature always wins. Yeah. Well, you know, at least they wired up that cat. So the reason they're doing the bees is because they're preparing for bees to die. Right. And then they're going to release mechanical bees, little bee armies of robots. For what advantage? To pollinate the plants.

Oh God. I mean, we're just, you can see how that might be a problem. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm done with robotics and animals. Yeah.

Let's the animal, the animal farm stuff was like cute. It's just they got the acoustic kiddie is where you're like, what the hell is this? What you said, it always goes, it always then gets used for evil. Like, of course, the animal farm is cute. All chickens in a box on the side of the road. You're playing, you're playing Pac-Man chicken. Next thing you know, a chicken is assassinating Fidel Castro. Like it's fucking crazy.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, they try, you know, they tried to poison Castro's shellfish. They like actually poisoned like shellfish that he was, it's amazing. Yeah. Well, they also tried to blow him over the cigar. Yeah. Which is the funniest, just adorable.

Yeah. Well, you got me. Alrighty. Here we go. We signed chickens. Roll up. Well, man, yep.