Last Podcast On The Left
Last Podcast On The Left
"If you're gonna lie to us anyway, take us into a war, make it fun. The axis of evil speech talking about, you know, North Korea, Iraq, first of all, it's not an axis. But yeah, if you're gonna take us into a war based on lies anyway, make the lies fun. You know, make the lies fun, sell me." — Ben Kissel
"I remember when Jigsaw was actually still bad because now they did the same thing with him wherever one actually praises him because they found life through him torturing them, which I don't think that's normal." — Uncredited Speaker
"The social credit is like a personal scorecard for each of China's 1.4 billion citizens in one pilot program already in place. Each citizen has been assigned a score out of 800. In other programs, it's around a 900. And citizens with top scores get VIP treatment at hotels, airports, cheaper loans, and fast track to the best universities and jobs." — Ben Kissel
The episode opens with a discussion on fashion, specifically cowboy hats, which then transitions into a debate about the effectiveness and potential pitfalls of modern surveillance and social credit systems, drawing parallels to existing credit score mechanisms in the US. The conversation shifts dramatically to a speculative theory about the Iraq War being motivated by the search for an extraterrestrial "Stargate" in ancient Mesopotamia, examining historical context and potential motivations behind such a theory.
The podcast then delves into several true crime narratives. One story details a South Carolina woman accused of poisoning her husband with eye drops, sparking a discussion on the difficulty of committing untraceable crimes in the modern era and various hypothetical methods of evasion. Another segment recounts the attempted murder of a skydiver by her husband, highlighting the psychological manipulation and elaborate plot involved.
The latter half of the episode focuses heavily on China's social credit system, dissecting its mechanisms, implications for citizen freedom, and its comparison to Western social and corporate monitoring practices. The discussion touches upon the increasing power of social media influence and the potential for a dystopian future where personal behavior is rigidly controlled. The episode concludes with brief mentions of horror movie franchises and podcast merchandise.