Part One: The Fake Bomb Detector Grift That Killed Hundreds
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Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, the very podcast about, wait, shit, bad people podcast, the worst in all of history. I'm the host of the show and also bad at introducing it. Let's distract everyone from me being yet again incompetent at the one thing I have to do other than read a script and bring on our guest, Ed Zitron. Ed, how are you doing today? What's up? I'm Graham. You're great? That's good. That's better than bad. Ed, you have a podcast called Better Offline, don't you? I do. And you talk about a number of things on that show, but you've gained a great deal of fame and notoriety lately by repeatedly calling out a lot of the grifty and conny aspects of what some people call the AI revolution.
I think that would be fair to say. And you're working on a book right now, aren't you, Ed? You want to give the audience the title of that book? Yes.
It's called Why Everything Stopped Working, and it's about how everything stopped working due to technology and how we got to where we are today, which kind of fucking sucks.
That is a great premise, and I can't wait for the book. And I wanted to help you out with some research, Ed, on something that's kind of off the beaten path and not directly involved with the tech industry that you've reported on. But in terms of how people fall for cons and specifically con technology products, that's It's a really important story. And so I think you might get some value in hearing it, even though it's technically set in an industry that's not your immediate industry. This is a defense industry technology story. Have you ever heard the story about the bomb detectors that didn't work, that everyone, particularly Iraq, bought? Okay, great. Ed, we're going to have a really good time today.
Oh, boy.
Speaking of things that explode, remember when Bezos' rocket exploded yesterday? It sure just did.
It sure just did. And any time something explodes, I'm happy. Unless it's like a bad explosion that kills a lot of people.
Nobody died. Nobody died. So it's fine. And the videos were really fun.
How does the ideomotor effect relate to human psychology?
Yeah.
Yeah. That was a big boom.
Yeah, it is amazing how just knowing no one was hurt can make the two different equally nightmarish explosions, one of them just be really funny. You watch the video of that explosion when the town of West in Texas blew up a few years back, and it's not fun at all. It's just terrifying. But the Blue Origin rocket blowing up, pretty funny.
We looked at every angle.
It made the sound that Rats Tyrell did in Phantom Menace when he crashed. That's right. It's the same explosion, the same sound. But I was much sadder about Rats Tyrell. I love that you know his name, man. Of course. Yeah. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–2:11
2
How does the ideomotor effect relate to human psychology?
2:11–5:30
3
What historical examples illustrate the ideomotor effect?
5:30–7:07
4
How did the spiritism movement influence public perception?
7:07–21:43
5
What is the significance of the Gopher bomb detector?
21:43–21:53
6
How did the Gopher evolve from a golf ball finder to a military tool?
21:53–37:49
7
What are the implications of using flawed technology in defense?
37:49–43:51
8
How does this episode reflect on the nature of belief and deception?
43:51–1:02:24