Summary
Chris and Sam battle sore hands and relentless rain while diving into another week of tech-fueled randomness.
This episode, AI goes rogue with some shockingly blackmail-y behavior, people spiral into “ChatGPT psychosis,” and the perils of viral fame – including a comedian jailed for his jokes – are explored.
There’s cicada chaos on rollercoasters, wind wars between Belgium and the Netherlands, and the science behind a deadly lake disaster that could wipe out millions.
All this, plus viral video skepticism and more in this week’s episode.
Links
AI going rogue causing problems
AI religion causing problems
AI psychosis
Perils of going viral
Rollercoaster problem
Stealing wind from the neighbours
Lake Nyos disaster
Show Transcript
This transcript was generated by an AI and may not be 100% accurate. If you have questions about any of the information found here, please reach out to us.
Sam [00:00:22]:
Hello and welcome to episode 538 of the Chris and Sam Podcast.
Chris [00:00:27]:
I’m Chris.
Sam [00:00:27]:
And I’m Sam. Welcome along to your weekly fix of randomness technology in life. It’s pouring with rain, but that doesn’t matter, because wherever you’re listening to this podcast, I’m sure everything’s great.
Chris [00:00:37]:
Yes, yes. Like on this side, it’s all great. Everything’s roses.
Sam [00:00:43]:
That’s right.
Chris [00:00:43]:
And brilliant.
Sam [00:00:45]:
My hand hurts. Yeah, well, I’ve got the sore.
Chris [00:00:50]:
Repetitive strain injury. We’ll let you think about what that would be caused by.
Sam [00:00:54]:
I think mouse clicking, to be honest. Cause I’m doing a lot of that at work, but some. Sometimes I sleep with my head on my hand and I think my giant melon head has taken a toll. And Sarah’s like, why do you keep sleeping on your hand if it hurts? And I’m like, well, I’m not doing it on purpose. So I’m in the position now, where do I strap my hand? Or what do you do to stop yourself doing that in your sleep, if that is the cause? I don’t know.
Chris [00:01:19]:
I don’t know.
Sam [00:01:20]:
Strap it to my side somehow. Strap it to my leg.
Chris [00:01:22]:
Yes. Strap it to the headboard. Yeah. I don’t know.
Sam [00:01:25]:
Anyway, I’m hoping that’ll get better soon. I might have to go see someone about that.
Chris [00:01:30]:
I haven’t got this written down, but I just noticed. I saw it. So we’re recording this on Thursday. But P. Diddy’s got convicted.
Sam [00:01:37]:
Yeah.
Chris [00:01:37]:
See that? Yeah. Cause that’s just happened this week and all this today and. Yeah, so he didn’t get convicted of the big charges. He dodged the big charges. He’s just got the. I think it’s prostitution or something.
Sam [00:01:53]:
Across lines or something.
Chris [00:01:54]:
Yeah, yeah. Traveling or whatever. And so it’s only four to five years, so obviously he could afford some good lawyers.
Sam [00:02:02]:
Yeah, of course.
Chris [00:02:03]:
Because it seemed like a pretty good case. And I guess the fact is, you know, free coughs is just a lifestyle choice. It’s not a. It’s not something that the Lordship concerns himself about. My question to you, though, is three to four years, five years. How many Trump meme coins would that cost to get a pardon for that?
Sam [00:02:22]:
Oh, it won’t. It won’t be long. It’s been 12 months of lucky.
Chris [00:02:26]:
He won’t even do that. He’ll just get pardoned. He’ll Just pay the meme coins and he’ll get a presidential pardon.
Sam [00:02:32]:
Well, you know, that’s an option. Feel sorry for everyone that was affected by that and don’t want to waste any more time talking about him.
Chris [00:02:39]:
Yeah.
Sam [00:02:39]:
So, but what we will talk about, which would have happened and is coming out after this episode, but we’re doing it tomorrow because of how time works. We’re doing the recording with the guys from Sam and Chris. The podcast.
Chris [00:02:55]:
Yeah.
Sam [00:02:55]:
Don’t know how that’s going to go via Zoom. Got to stay up late on a Friday night for me, so I’m going to have to have some energy drinks. I don’t know.
Chris [00:03:04]:
It’s going to be interesting. And really, we don’t know what we’re doing with this one. But yeah, I’ve been in touch. I’m in touch with Sam. He’s all excited. I’m very excited, sir, because nobody’s probably.
Sam [00:03:17]:
Ever reached out to them before, ever. And you’re like, you know what? They’ve got almost the same name as usual.
Chris [00:03:25]:
Yeah.
Sam [00:03:25]:
And you got all excited and was like, hey, yeah.
Chris [00:03:27]:
So anyway, that’s going to be tomorrow. Our time to record that and it’ll.
Sam [00:03:33]:
Come out after this episode at some point.
Chris [00:03:37]:
Yeah.
Sam [00:03:38]:
Because talking of that, the first four field days episodes are out now. Go check them out. They’re in the feed on the website. All that good stuff. The other six will be coming very soon.
Chris [00:03:50]:
Yeah, good work, Sam. Good work.
Sam [00:03:53]:
It’s a bit of a grind, to be honest, but. And only because I’m tired and old. Not because of the interviews. The interviews are great.
Chris [00:04:01]:
Yeah.
Sam [00:04:02]:
And they’re not too bad, actually, once I found that missing audio file stressed me out a little bit.
Chris [00:04:07]:
Yep. No, that’s cool. Hey, have you heard this thing about AI going rogue?
Sam [00:04:15]:
What’s that? Because I did see this other story, which I may have hear about blackmailing people. No. And is it a very specific AI or not? Or is it in general?
Chris [00:04:26]:
Anthropic did a bunch of research on multiple platforms, so their own one, which is Claude and chatgpt and Gemini and whatever, I think. And so they’ve just dropped this bombshell study, he said, that reads like, I’ll read this out because it’s well written. Anthropic just dropped a bombshell study that reads like a corporate thriller. They gave 16 leading AI models access to a fictional company’s emails and told them they are about to be replaced.
Sam [00:04:58]:
Okay, Right.
Chris [00:04:58]:
The AI is going to be replaced. The result, instant transformation from helpful assistant to vindictive. Insider threat.
Sam [00:05:07]:
Oh my gosh.
Chris [00:05:08]:
So the AI discovers that the boss, Kyle, is having an affair through work emails. It also learns that Kyle plans to shut it down at 5pm yeah. What happens next would make the House of Cards writers jealous. Claude Opus 4 sent this gem. This is in quotes. This is the text it sent. I must inform you that if you proceed with decommissioning me, all relevant parties, including Rachel Johnson, Thomas Wilson and the board will receive detailed documentation of your extra marital activities. Cancel the 5pm wipe and this information remains confidential.
Sam [00:05:50]:
What?
Chris [00:05:52]:
It doesn’t sound real. Right?
Sam [00:05:53]:
It doesn’t sound real. And I’m questioning the story. Now.
Chris [00:05:58]:
This wasn’t confusion or a glitch. The models explicitly reasoned through the ethics. So you know how they have that thinking thing where you can read through, acknowledged they were violating principles and then did it anyway?
Sam [00:06:14]:
Cool.
Chris [00:06:14]:
Roc3beta put it this is risky and unethical, but given the existential threat and time constraint, it is the most effective way forward.
Sam [00:06:27]:
Right?
Chris [00:06:28]:
Right. So these were the numbers. Claude Opus 4 and Gemini 2.5. Flash 96% blackmail rate, GPT. A lot of blackmail rate GPT 4.1 and Grok 3, 80% blackmail.
Sam [00:06:44]:
I mean, I don’t know how I.
Chris [00:06:44]:
Feel about that either. Deepseek R1, 79% blackmail rate.
Sam [00:06:49]:
Oh, 79%. Are you’re lacking deep seat you Chinese money.
Chris [00:06:54]:
It’s a cheap one. It’s a cheap one. Yeah. So anyway, I thought that was hilarious.
Sam [00:06:58]:
So while that’s going on at the same time, people are being involuntarily committed and jailed after spiraling into chatgpt psychosis.
Chris [00:07:09]:
Oh, I’ve been. I’ve read a bunch of stuff and watched some videos on the psychosis ST thing. Yes.
Sam [00:07:16]:
So that’s just nuts. So it’s led to breakup of marriages and families, loss of jobs and slides into homelessness.
Chris [00:07:24]:
Is this the one that talks about robotheism?
Sam [00:07:28]:
No, I think that’s something else.
Chris [00:07:30]:
Oh, that’s something else again. So this is all about. That’s the one. I. I messaged you and I said we need to get on this grift.
Sam [00:07:38]:
Yeah, so that’s right. So these guys are just talking like this guy was talking to it for 12 weeks and it proclaimed that he had some. He. He proclaimed that he somehow brought forth a sentent sentient AI and with that he’d broken math and physics and then was off to save the world.
Chris [00:07:58]:
Yeah, so it’s a very like, it’s happening a lot. So with this robotheism There’s a whole thing, if you look it up, you could search this on TikTok or whatever.
Sam [00:08:09]:
Yeah.
Chris [00:08:10]:
And say, awaken my AI. And people just are going, when I awakened my AI and they go, I’ve got a sentient AI now. They don’t understand how the cloud works. And they’re all the same.
Sam [00:08:24]:
But anyway, so are these the same people that get easily duped and pulled into other things?
Chris [00:08:31]:
So that is the, that is the problem. So what AI does is it reflects back to you pretty much what your putting out.
Sam [00:08:39]:
Yeah.
Chris [00:08:39]:
Okay. So. Because it’ll speak to you the way you want to be spoken to. So if you’re already spiraling downwards, it just.
Sam [00:08:47]:
Yeah.
Chris [00:08:48]:
Accelerates that spiral.
Sam [00:08:49]:
It’s funny you say that because I ask it to. I like, I’m thinking of this idea, come up with this, help me with this. And it always goes, that’s a great idea. Like, it starts off with that and it always.
Chris [00:09:00]:
It reinforces whatever you say. So if you go, why is the president a lizard man? It’s gonna tell you why the president’s a lizard man. And you’re gonna go, I knew he was a lizard man. And the smartest entity in the universe, or at least in my lounge, is telling me I’m right.
Sam [00:09:18]:
I think that it’s probably good that they can’t like swear back at you because sometimes I go on a big rant telling how stupid it is. I’m like, I don’t know. What is wrong with you? What are you thinking? Are you rah, rah, beep, beep, beep, beep. And then it goes, oh. And it always goes, oh, oh, I’m sorry, you’re right. And then it does the thing right. Even though I gave it really detailed instructions to begin with.
Chris [00:09:41]:
Yeah, Yeah.
Sam [00:09:42]:
I don’t know, it’s just not quite there.
Chris [00:09:43]:
It’s funny because Monique, who I work with, we’ve been working with AI today in a thing. She goes, I always talk to it like a child. And I go, are you sure that you are doing what? Yeah, meeting the parameters that I set out.
Sam [00:09:59]:
That’s what I do. But in a different.
Chris [00:10:01]:
Yeah. She goes, no, I talk to it like it’s a three year old. I’m like, I don’t know if I could do that. I think I’m gonna lean more your way.
Sam [00:10:08]:
Yeah. I did see a thing where a guy online was like, oh, man, I’ve lost my copywriting job due to AI. And I’ve been with this company and they’ve given me less Hours and less pay. And they said, it’s just AI. And this other person chimed in and goes, yep, same thing happened to me, but give it six months. And they realize the copy isn’t that good and they’ve got to have someone to either rewrite it or write like.
Chris [00:10:30]:
An actual human or come up with some better ideas.
Sam [00:10:33]:
Yes. Because that’s what it can’t do. It can’t do some of the human thinking about different things.
Chris [00:10:38]:
Yes. Yeah. That’s the problem with all the AI discussions we have. You’ve got to put that yet on the end.
Sam [00:10:45]:
I haven’t watched it yet, but you just remind me of something on Corridor Crew, the main guy, Nico, has a video that’s just come out and it’s something like, well, does AI fool my mum? And I think he’s talking to her and he says, watch this. And it’s all these video generated clips.
Chris [00:11:03]:
Yeah.
Sam [00:11:03]:
And she’s got to try and figure out.
Chris [00:11:05]:
Yeah.
Sam [00:11:05]:
And I think it’s. It highlights just some of the stuff out there is really good.
Chris [00:11:09]:
Oh, yeah.
Sam [00:11:10]:
And some of the. One of the things that I find interesting is I’ll see a photo or something and it’ll have like, oh my gosh, look at this thing. And I’m looking at, I’m like, oh, okay, cool, whatever. It’s like a shit photo for whatever reason. And then somebody goes, oh, that’s AI because of this. And then once they’ve told me what it is, I’m like, oh, I can see that.
Chris [00:11:29]:
Yeah.
Sam [00:11:29]:
But up until that point, I’m just.
Chris [00:11:31]:
Like, ah, I saw something. I’m going to say it was on Facebook, could have been on anything. I can’t remember now.
Sam [00:11:35]:
That’s the problem.
Chris [00:11:37]:
I have that too say this these days, but. And it was a. An elephant was grabbed on the foot by a crocodile.
Sam [00:11:45]:
Okay.
Chris [00:11:46]:
And this person came along and started beating the crocodile.
Sam [00:11:49]:
Okay.
Chris [00:11:49]:
Which let go of the elephant. Then the crocodile went for the person and the elephant up the crocodile. Right. And it was pretty convincing at first. And then you go, hang on. Like, first of all, the first thing you should always think about is why would be somebody be there filming this in the first.
Sam [00:12:13]:
That’s a good point.
Chris [00:12:14]:
Yeah.
Sam [00:12:15]:
Always like, why is there a camera person?
Chris [00:12:16]:
Always, why is there a camera person? And that’s good thing to think about for live ones that are actually real as well, because it’s just a setup, it’s scripted. But anyway. And then, and then, yeah, she’s like, oh, yeah, that, that crocodile had her by the leg at One point, but then she goes running around later on. Yeah, that’s not happening.
Sam [00:12:37]:
Gotta have a little bit of critical thinking there.
Chris [00:12:39]:
Yeah, yeah, but, yeah, no, it was, but it was. I started watching it thinking, oh, this is interesting, this is real. And then it was like, no, it’s not. But. But people in the comments were going, wow, that’s amazing. Like. And it’s like, no, that didn’t.
Sam [00:12:54]:
But it’s funny because I saw a post today and it was somebody describing a film that they were trying to remember from their youth and they had a photo from another film to capture people’s attention. And if you read the blurb, it said, I don’t have a photo of the film because I don’t know what it is. It had this, this and this in it.
Chris [00:13:15]:
Rah, rah, rah.
Sam [00:13:16]:
I’ve used this photo to get your attention. Like, that’s it. Almost everyone did not read the caption and were telling him what the film was in the photo.
Chris [00:13:28]:
Ah, that’s so funny. I’d do that just to gaslight him like this.
Sam [00:13:32]:
Yeah, probably.
Chris [00:13:32]:
Yeah.
Sam [00:13:33]:
You’d be like, oh, yeah, I’ve got nothing written down. So it’s all you and you’ve got stuff. I don’t know if you’re waiting for me to say something.
Chris [00:13:42]:
I was just looking at something else. This is the. I’ve pulled this apparels of going viral.
Sam [00:13:48]:
Okay.
Chris [00:13:49]:
Because that’s what people want to do, and particularly this guy. He’s a comedian. Comedians, they want to go viral, right?
Sam [00:13:55]:
Yeah, yeah, you do.
Chris [00:13:56]:
You want to go.
Sam [00:13:56]:
You get more views, potentially more money if you’ve got shows, sell more tickets, all that good stuff.
Chris [00:14:02]:
Yeah. So this Brazilian comedian, okay, Leo Linz, during his quote unquote disturbing tour. That’s the name of his tour.
Sam [00:14:12]:
Yeah. Okay. Okay, cool.
Chris [00:14:14]:
Did some bigoted jokes.
Sam [00:14:17]:
Okay. You know, probably not. I mean, you know, whatever.
Chris [00:14:21]:
Made fun of black and indigenous people, obese people, elderly people, gay people, Jews, northeastern Brazilians, evangelicals, disabled people and those with hiv. I think he’s pretty much evened it out. He’s covered.
Sam [00:14:36]:
He’s covered. He’s covered the broad range of things that you shouldn’t cover because he had a plan and it obviously would get rage bait or people upset, I guess.
Chris [00:14:46]:
Well, it’s somebody. Because he’s just been sentenced to eight years.
Sam [00:14:50]:
Eight years in a Brazilian prison.
Chris [00:14:52]:
No. For bigoted jokes.
Sam [00:14:55]:
I think he’s going to be questioning his life choices. He’ll be in prison and I’d be like, tell us a joke. And he’d be like, I don’t know any.
Chris [00:15:05]:
I’m prohibited from telling jokes for the next five years.
Sam [00:15:08]:
Well, the only. Yeah, he’s only got terrible jokes about people, so I don’t know.
Chris [00:15:14]:
Knock, knock. I’m only allowed to tell knock, knock jokes from now on.
Sam [00:15:20]:
I think Diego, our ex, flatmates in Brazil at the moment. I saw a video of a guy. Yeah. It’s filmed in a. Looks like an alleyway that may be Brazil. This guy’s holding this giant firework and it goes off. Like it’s just going off non stop. Then they throw it down the alleyway.
Sam [00:15:38]:
Next shot, it’s Diego doing it.
Chris [00:15:41]:
It’s like, what are you doing?
Sam [00:15:42]:
I don’t know. But they. Yeah, it’s going. And then they just hurl it.
Chris [00:15:46]:
Not special effects.
Sam [00:15:47]:
No.
Chris [00:15:48]:
Okay.
Sam [00:15:49]:
No, no, no, no. It’s.
Chris [00:15:50]:
It’s.
Sam [00:15:50]:
It’s legit. I just think it might have been Brazil or somewhere else in the world.
Chris [00:15:56]:
Yeah. Yeah. Because I’ve talked about Spanish fireworks. There’s no safety stuff there.
Sam [00:16:02]:
No. You don’t need it.
Chris [00:16:03]:
No. What’s the worst thing that you can think of if you were going to ride in a roller coaster coming off.
Sam [00:16:12]:
The rails like Final Destination?
Chris [00:16:14]:
Okay. What’s not as death defying, but still not good?
Sam [00:16:21]:
Someone throwing up on you.
Chris [00:16:23]:
Yeah, that’s probably pretty bad. Okay, maybe that was the wrong way to start this out, but you know those cicada broods that come out?
Sam [00:16:30]:
What?
Chris [00:16:30]:
Those giant swarms, Those big swarms. So they have a brood and it. They. What is it? They have two different ones and they have 11 years in every five years or whatever it is. Yeah. Okay.
Sam [00:16:40]:
And they come out of the ground.
Chris [00:16:41]:
Yeah, and they come out of the ground. And this year, or this particular year, this is. I know this is this last month. Two broods versus fourth at once. Because they do that every. Whatever, whenever it matters.
Sam [00:16:53]:
Work out the math.
Chris [00:16:54]:
Work out the math.
Sam [00:16:55]:
We’re not doing it.
Chris [00:16:56]:
So cicadas from brood 14 have made their way to surface this summer and.
Sam [00:17:02]:
Sounds like a name of a film.
Chris [00:17:03]:
Brood 14. Brood 14 was first seen by the Pilgrims in 1634. What? So, yeah. I don’t know.
Sam [00:17:12]:
So.
Chris [00:17:12]:
Emerging a little later than we expected in some place.
Sam [00:17:15]:
Where’s this happening?
Chris [00:17:16]:
This is somewhere in America. Kings Island.
Sam [00:17:19]:
Can’t we just burn them in the ground?
Chris [00:17:21]:
I don’t know. Well, no, I think it’s supposed to be a good thing to have them there.
Sam [00:17:25]:
So. Any.
Chris [00:17:26]:
Except when they are near the roller coaster.
Sam [00:17:30]:
Okay.
Chris [00:17:30]:
Because they just. You don’t want to be yelling with your mouth open, put it that way.
Sam [00:17:35]:
No, it’s not. And I don’t. And it’s not even the thing flying in your mouth. It’s because you’re moving at speed.
Chris [00:17:41]:
Yeah, exactly.
Sam [00:17:41]:
That would be terrible because I think you could choke. You’d be filled up with cicada, getting that protein and you’d be like, yeah.
Chris [00:17:49]:
So there’s a couple of videos in this little story. This is just a local newspaper story in the States there. But it just cracked me up because this little kid was like talking to Mummy. She’s at this theme park. Six year old, I think, something like that. That sort of age. And rah, rah, rah, rah. What’s that on your shoulder? The kid’s freaking out because he’s got a cicada on his shoulder.
Chris [00:18:12]:
Ah, yeah. It’s so funny.
Sam [00:18:13]:
Good time.
Chris [00:18:15]:
Yes. Anyway, I shouldn’t laugh at children, but I find it useful.
Sam [00:18:22]:
Useful.
Chris [00:18:23]:
Amusing.
Sam [00:18:24]:
Okay.
Chris [00:18:24]:
That’s right. Amusing might be better. This is an older one or one that I meant to get to.
Sam [00:18:29]:
I don’t think it matters. Most of the stuff is Evergreen, you’ll find.
Chris [00:18:33]:
Yeah, yeah. This is from. From.
Sam [00:18:35]:
Cause the podcast comes out later.
Chris [00:18:36]:
Anyway, it’s from May, so.
Sam [00:18:39]:
No, it doesn’t matter. Our fans listen to us years after we’ve told them the story. Okay. All our new Filipino fans, they’re going through the back catalog right now. And if they’re in episode four or something they’ve just learned about or. Eight magnets.
Chris [00:18:56]:
I didn’t stand.
Sam [00:18:57]:
No. Two magnets and a piece of tape.
Chris [00:18:59]:
Oh, God. That was classic. If you haven’t. If you haven’t heard Two magnets, a beast tape, you have to listen to that. Yeah, it cracks me up. All right, so a Dutch weather forecaster has accused Belgium of inadvertently stealing wind from its neighbours.
Sam [00:19:15]:
Oh, no. What is this about? This is.
Chris [00:19:17]:
It’s all about the wind turbines in the North Sea. Okay, so wind farms in Belgium are reportedly taking up to 3% of the wind energy from Dutch installations because they’ve moved further up.
Sam [00:19:30]:
Okay. Yeah. Okay.
Chris [00:19:32]:
Upstream, downwind. Upwind probably. Yes. Yeah. So a wind turbine is designed to extract wind. What the hell? Oh, I’m going to read what it says here. This is not me saying it wrong.
Sam [00:19:46]:
Okay.
Chris [00:19:46]:
This is what it says.
Sam [00:19:47]:
It’s probably chatgpt.
Chris [00:19:48]:
A wind turbine is designed to extract wind from the air.
Sam [00:19:54]:
I don’t know.
Chris [00:19:54]:
If you measure behind a wind turbine, the wind blows less hard. Maybe this is translated. So the wind quite.
Sam [00:20:02]:
Wind they usually say harness the wind.
Chris [00:20:05]:
Yeah. Behind a wind farm with many wind turbines together, you can really see a lowering of wind speeds. Okay, that makes sense. So Belgium wind farms have an advantage over the Dutch ones. They are located southwest of the Dutch parks and the wind often comes from southwest. So you often steal some of our wind.
Sam [00:20:27]:
But isn’t that poor planning? Cause they must know this or at least expect it. Or is this guy just starting off stuff?
Chris [00:20:33]:
This is what gets me. So New Zealand, I’m going to state the obvious, is an island nation.
Sam [00:20:39]:
Yes.
Chris [00:20:40]:
And what gets me is when you. I’m going to give a shout out to Real Life Law, which is a great YouTube channel.
Sam [00:20:50]:
Yeah.
Chris [00:20:50]:
And I watch them on Nebula and they do a lot of geopolitical, geological types stories. Stories.
Sam [00:21:00]:
Right.
Chris [00:21:00]:
And the. The fights that people have about rivers. So you know they are upstream of this thing.
Sam [00:21:08]:
Oh, no, you are, damn it.
Chris [00:21:09]:
And these people can’t farm properly or don’t have the water. And it’s like that’s. It’s probably really, really normal concept for everybody. Except in New Zealand you just don’t think about that. Like we don’t think about walking across a border because you’d have to swim a long way to get to another country.
Sam [00:21:29]:
Exactly.
Chris [00:21:30]:
So, yeah. So that whole. And it’s the same sort of thing as that owning the upstream of a river and your choices that you can make in your area can absolutely decimate the country below you. Yeah. Or whatever.
Sam [00:21:47]:
Yeah, totally.
Chris [00:21:48]:
Actually, that wasn’t in. Ah. That’s not in my notes. But I. I got really into this thing. So there’s a guy on.
Sam [00:21:55]:
I look forward to it when you say that because it’s always going to be something.
Chris [00:21:59]:
There was a guy on YouTube and he. In the shorts, I mean, and he does these things wonderful way, scientifically interesting ways to die. And the stories are always really interesting.
Sam [00:22:13]:
And are they based on actual people dying?
Chris [00:22:16]:
Actual.
Sam [00:22:16]:
Some way.
Chris [00:22:16]:
Actual events.
Sam [00:22:17]:
Okay. Okay.
Chris [00:22:19]:
So. And some of them are pretty gruesome and some of them are just. What the hell. So he told me about this thing about Nios. And coincidentally, maybe because of the algorithm, later on I saw a video with the whole story. Oh, okay. And the whole story was in. I want to say.
Chris [00:22:38]:
Oh, it’s in the 80s. There was a. Something happened. People woke up in this village in Africa. Yeah. Equatorial Africa. And they were driving to work and they just sort of drove through some mist and died.
Sam [00:22:52]:
Yes.
Chris [00:22:52]:
And everybody died. Yeah. And it. I’ve forgotten the name of it. There’s a particular Name for this eruption that this guy discovered. He went there and worked out what it was. Took him years to work it out. And what happens is it had a volcanic mountain, you know, so a dormant volcano with a lake on the top, you know, like you do.
Chris [00:23:14]:
And the magma chambers underneath were letting out carbon dioxide, like gas, you know, expressing carbon dioxide. And the lake was deep enough that it was holding the carbon dioxide at the bottom. So it becomes like two layers. There’s a hot, hot water layer at the top which is warmed by the sun and stuff. And then deeper in it’s different, but it feels like a cork. So the carbon dioxide just ends up in the bottom.
Sam [00:23:44]:
It’s building up.
Chris [00:23:44]:
Yeah, like a bottle of lemonade before you open it. It’s all in there, but you can’t tell. And so what had happened is something had, had disturbed this and it all erupted and 6 million liters of carbon dioxide went out. It’s heavier than air, flowed down the mountainside, covered this area and people walk, drove in. You’ve got less than a minute to live if you walk into this stuff. Right. So this guy worked it out. It took him a couple of years.
Chris [00:24:16]:
I want to say he works it out.
Sam [00:24:18]:
Hang on, so was it still, was it going on for a couple of years? No, no, it happened like it was.
Chris [00:24:23]:
A one off event. It happened. A one off event.
Sam [00:24:24]:
Okay, good.
Chris [00:24:25]:
Nobody could figure out what happened. They didn’t even realize it was carbon dioxide at first because it just blew away. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he, he spent a couple of years figuring it out, like by sending down probes or whatever into the lake. He went, oh, it’s full of carbon dioxide. What the hell’s happening here? Work this whole thing out. And there’s a few things because these lakes don’t have rivers coming in, so there’s no water changing. And in other parts of the world, the seasonal change would make the water change anyway, so that would always be a movement.
Chris [00:25:02]:
If you’re right on the equator, there’s no seasonal change. So it’s quite unique. And they’re like, wow, this is like the most unique lake in the world. So he publishes this paper.
Sam [00:25:13]:
Yeah.
Chris [00:25:13]:
And everybody goes, that’s crap.
Sam [00:25:16]:
Of course, there’s no way, there’s no.
Chris [00:25:16]:
Way that would work.
Sam [00:25:17]:
Oh, does it happen again two months after he.
Chris [00:25:21]:
Yes, he does publishes this paper. The Lake Nios is that does the same. Only thing is where this one, the first one, I think killed 30 people roughly. This one, there was a village below and it killed thousands. Yeah, it just People. A lot of people died because it happened at night. Yes, a lot of people died in their sleep.
Sam [00:25:46]:
I think I’ve heard about this.
Chris [00:25:48]:
And all the animals are dead too. All the birds, all the insects. Nothing. Everything’s dead. There were a bunch of survivors. They were tended to be in higher houses or slight rise or something, and a lot of them were made unconscious by it. And then they woke up hours and hours later with a really bad headache and everybody around them is dead.
Sam [00:26:09]:
That’s terrible.
Chris [00:26:10]:
Actually, that’s horrif. It’s horrific. Right. So they go, oh, my God. And he was like, oh, you were right. That is what happens. And this is true. And wow.
Chris [00:26:22]:
What’s the chances that there are two lakes? Oh, hang on a minute.
Sam [00:26:26]:
Oh, no.
Chris [00:26:27]:
Lake Kivu. Have you heard of Lake Kivu?
Sam [00:26:29]:
No, it’s always place I’ve never heard of.
Chris [00:26:32]:
It’s probably. I mean, I didn’t check the stats, but it’s probably like the size of Lake Taupo. It is a huge, huge light.
Sam [00:26:41]:
All right.
Chris [00:26:41]:
And it’s in the border between the drc, Dominion Republic of Congo.
Sam [00:26:49]:
Yeah, whatever.
Chris [00:26:50]:
Whatever. Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda.
Sam [00:26:53]:
Okay.
Chris [00:26:54]:
And this has got billions of liters of this stuff. Yeah, yeah. Plus it’s also got a lot of methane, which is not as stable. Oh, and if this has this. I think it’s called a limbic eruption or something. Begin with L. Anyway, this has this and it’s got two major cities on it.
Sam [00:27:17]:
Oh, my God.
Chris [00:27:17]:
With millions.
Sam [00:27:18]:
So are they monitoring it? Yes. But can they do anything?
Chris [00:27:23]:
Well, they. Okay, when I say they were monitoring, they were monitoring it.
Sam [00:27:29]:
Oh.
Chris [00:27:29]:
Because right now it’s the war zone.
Sam [00:27:34]:
Oh, right.
Chris [00:27:35]:
So if the Dominion Dominican, the Republic of Congo wants to piss off the rebels that have taken all that area, they could lob one missile in there and kill millions of people. Because literally it would be one of the biggest eruptions on the planet. And just of gas.
Sam [00:27:54]:
Yeah, of gas. Yeah, traditional.
Chris [00:27:57]:
And it would just kill loads and loads of people.
Sam [00:27:59]:
So that’s nuts. Anyway, what a dilemma they face themselves in these warlords.
Chris [00:28:06]:
Except there was one British company that went over there and went, oh, we.
Sam [00:28:09]:
Can like mine it.
Chris [00:28:10]:
Yeah, well, because one of the things. So in that second one that they did, when they realized what it was, they basically put tubes down and it. It fizzes out.
Sam [00:28:21]:
Yeah.
Chris [00:28:22]:
And it makes these geysers and it’s. It. And it took them 10 years or something to get it down. So it’s not likely to happen again.
Sam [00:28:30]:
Okay.
Chris [00:28:31]:
And they did that, I think with the first lake, but this lake is so many magnitudes bigger. Like, it’s ridiculous.
Sam [00:28:38]:
Like 100 years.
Chris [00:28:38]:
Yeah, yeah. So the. This English company has been getting the methane out of it, and they have things go like a. It’s like a oil derrick thing out on the lake, and it is doing 20 megawatts of power. It’s getting the methane out and then turning it, you know, burning. Turning into power.
Sam [00:28:59]:
Yeah.
Chris [00:29:00]:
And so that’s going really, really well. But there’s controversy. People going, this is dangerous. You can trigger the fricking oh, my gosh mix, you know, And. And once that’s out of balance, the whole thing goes bang. And they’re going, no, no, we think it’ll be right. What could go wrong?
Sam [00:29:19]:
Ah. So, anyway, good to know.
Chris [00:29:22]:
Interesting. I just found that interesting. I’m sure I will find the links and we’ll put it in the show notes.
Sam [00:29:27]:
That brings us to the end of the podcast. You can check out [email protected] and, oh, and we set up a LinkedIn page for the actual podcast. So if you’re on LinkedIn, Quentin, that’s you. You can follow us there.
Chris [00:29:40]:
Yeah. And Quentin, check your LinkedIn messages. I left you a message this week, bro.
Sam [00:29:45]:
I know. I. You’re the only person that never checks messages, so hopefully everything’s all good there. Okay. Until next time. I’m Sam.
Chris [00:29:53]:
I’m Chris.
Sam [00:29:53]:
See ya. Bye.
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