Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
For those who know that questioning everything includes questioning this show's existence. The Last Show with David Cooper. Conspiracies at the high seas. A fun topic. That's what we're going to discuss here with Nathan Radke, a professor of conspiracy studies at Humber Polytechnic. Check out his podcast, The Uncover Up. You can also watch videos of that podcast on YouTube.
It is Conspiracy Corner. Nathan, welcome to the show. Ahoy, and thanks for having me on. Oh, wow. You're waiting for that one. Ahoy. That was in the chamber.
Chapter 2: What historical conspiracies exist at the high seas?
Look, the waters are weird. The maritime laws are weird. I love conspiracies with the oceans. You got octopuses. You got disasters that are unexplained. Everything out there is strange. And we're going to talk about how this winter storm that just hit the Northeast is opening up all kinds of conspiracies. But before we do that, why are the oceans such a great place for conspiracies to brew?
Get it, brew, because things brew in water.
Oh, yeah, because stuff brews in water. And because of climate change, the oceans are warming up.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I've worked at a bunch of levels. So every new term, I ask my college students, hey, what conspiracies are you guys interested in? Not necessarily what they believe in, but just topics they'd be curious to look into. And it lets me tap into the zeitgeist because, of course, my students are smarter and hipper and faster and cooler and more chronically online than I am.
And this year, it's not the Illuminati, it's not the aliens. This year, there's a high percentage of mentions having to do with the ocean. And exactly as you say, you got your sea monsters, you got your Bermuda Triangle. You got your Atlanteans. Can't forget the Atlanteans. And your Lemurians. Lemurians?
Give me a quick definition on that. I don't know. I've never heard that one.
Lemuria, it's another sunken, hidden continent, nonsense, Atlantis, that kind of stuff. And the Titanic. The students are all over these Titanic conspiracies. I didn't even know that there were Titanic conspiracies. Man, okay, we'll do that another day.
The iceberg was an inside job? Like, I don't... The Titanic didn't sink.
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Chapter 3: What recent winter storm sparked new Leviathan theories?
Oh, wow. Okay, obviously.
That makes perfect sense.
I believe it already. You've presented enough evidence.
We'll stick a pin in that one and come back.
Chapter 4: Why are oceans considered fertile ground for conspiracy theories?
But it's not that surprising. I mean, conspiracy theories tend to spread in mysterious areas, and the ocean's a giant mystery in our own backyard. It's often said we know more about the surface of the moon than we know about the bottom of the ocean.
And because my students are like a good general barometer of what's happening in social media in general, when they started talking about the ocean, I went to social media and I said, ooh, I bet you there's going to be some ocean conspiracies surfacing there.
I say we did there with the surface because the ocean has a has a surface. I know we're both killing it right now. What are some of the leading contenders for most curious ocean conspiracies right now?
OK, so you remember back in January, we had some like properly impressive snowfalls and we had that one particularly gnarly winter storm that swept across most of the U.S. and Canada. It's still on the streets where I'm living right now. There's still tons and tons of it outside. And it interfered with travel and commuting. And in Canada, we mostly shoveled through it.
But of course, down in the States, they're not used to this much snow. And so a lot of places were just shut down for a few days to minimize chaos. And when you have people shut in at home, something weird's going on, that's just a great recipe for conspiracism.
I'm starting to realize why COVID was such an important time in conspiracy history.
I mean, absolutely, that is the case. And anytime there's an unusual weather event, which, of course, these days is a lot of the time, unfortunately, there's always a lot of conspiracy theories that come along with it. And so in recent years, weather's become more extreme.
There's been a lot of discussion, sometimes even from politicians, about how this storm or that storm was actually caused by some kind of weather control device. I mean, this is classic stuff. It's in part because we want somebody to be behind the things that happen. And like the weirder the event is, the more we want it to have been deliberately caused.
So a couple of weeks ago, we actually had two blizzards at once. We had the blizzard of snow in the streets, and we also had the blizzard of memes and speculation on social media. And the one that we're talking about today, the one that got the most traction, had to do with a sea monster called the Leviathan.
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Chapter 5: What is the Leviathan and its significance in mythology?
And supernatural explanations, in some sense, they're kind of simple. You know, it's like, well, this thing outside of our control, this thing bigger than us, this very strange thing is a simple explanation for this complex outcome that we saw.
No, no, exactly. And this is something that we sort of scramble for. This is something that we reach for. We're very good at noticing patterns when we look out into the world. And when we are feeling anxiety, when we're feeling stressed, when we're feeling threatened, we even more frantically reach for those explanations. Because it's not enough for us to just see a pattern.
We want to know, but why, though? What's behind it? And it's much more satisfying to us if it isn't just why did this happen, but who made this happen? What deliberate agency is behind this thing? And conspiracy theories can give us an explanation for our feelings of dread. Dread is a terrible experience. I know you don't worry about anxiety and dread and things like that.
What are you talking about?
I'm anxious all the time.
That's my, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, anyway, go on. Yes. So you know that what can help you deal with anxiety are explanations, are trying to understand the situation, trying to hold on to the situation.
True. I used to be really scared of flying. And then I kind of just researched how turbulence work, where aircrafts experience it, how they're built to withstand it. And this information actually did help with that anxiety. Yeah.
Unfortunately, the information, so you went out and grabbed some good information. Well, probably. But it's just as easy for us to go out and grab some misinformation or disinformation. I mean, as ridiculous as it sounds to fall for a giant sea monster story, it's in part because people right now are reaching for metaphors that describe how uncertain and frightening the world is.
And what better than a sea monster to explain that? Well, exactly. I mean, think about like movie monster metaphors. Think about Godzilla, the original Godzilla film. That was a metaphor. That was a metaphor for the terror of atomic bombs, for the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Now...
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