Wait... you don't give 2 weeks notice to the allegedly murderous cult. There is never an excuse for bad manners...well maybe this might be the one exception.
49:00 -- Japanese police aren't known for being especially effective investigators. The near-100% conviction rate in their courts is less because police have gathered devastating evidence for prosecutors to present, and more because of a strong institutional bias toward conviction. It's actually a pretty nasty system.
It also has to do with a rather heavy handed system of pushing completely innocent people towards plea deals, because of the ingrained trust in institutions. Basically, people take guilty plea deals because they are lead to believe that, the very fact that they were arrested means they are guilty, because the state/police are venerable and honorable institutions and they can't be wrong. It is all part of the really twisted honor culture that is driving that entire countries population to what amounts to extinction level mass suicide. It is honestly very sad.
@@MysteryFaceX It's actually not very high. That much is real. When I visited Japan it was perfectly okay to leave my phone on the table at a coffee shop while I went to get a napkin or something, and I could be confident nothing would happen to it. I saw exactly one graffiti tag the whole time I was there, on the underside of a freeway, including many places that would be absolutely covered in America. People don't even jaywalk.
Apparently in the UK any males can use Esquire as part of their name IF you don't have a grander title. So by adding Esq. to your own name you are essentially telling everyone you're a pretentious nobody.
i always thought esq was owning property in UK like midevil squire owned his own property but didnt own enough to have servants /tenants basicly lowest form of "landed" gentry
"Fun" Fact - After the sarin attack the majority of public trash cans were removed throughout Japan. To this day, people transport their trash home with them.
Therapeutic massage is a pretty standard component of physical therapy. It can reduce painful muscle spasm and increase range of motion. If you don't have any physical problems it's probably not life-changing though. Like taking a pain killer if you don't have any pain. You won't notice it, but that doesn't mean it's ineffective.
@@CHKNFNGRZ Yeah it seemed a bit left field that he said massage. Chiropractic treatment does have some benefits, but for some reason they seem to advertise themselves as improving "energy flow" or that they can cure diseases and illnesses that have nothing to do with your bones. Chiropractors also aren't externally regulated
1:11:54 you know, this reminds me of how the US prosecuted some of the Japanese war crimes. Eating POWs wasn’t technically a war crime because nobody thought that they needed to say you can’t eat POWs. But you know what is a war crime? Not providing a proper burial for dead POWs. And passing a POW through the human digestive tract is not considered providing a proper burial. The defense of “it’s not a war crime” was sound. Unfortunately, a separate war crime was committed that they couldn’t defend.
If I had a nickel for every time one of Simon’s sponsors had the word “spoon” in their name, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird it happened twice…
Hey Simon, fun fact the Branch Davidians are in fact still there. They’ve changed their names but are still on the compound. I went and was very shocked but they very much still praise the work of Koresh.
As an RMT, Massage can provablely lower blood pressure and reduce stress. Those are the two biggest and most well studied effects. The toxins and things like that are crap though.
My stress,and blood pressure are severely reduced when I just sit down,and do nothing lol So,massages are the equivalent of sitting down,and doing nothing.Youre a fraud,stealing money from people who are lonely,and seeking the touch of another human.Gross.
I think the problem is that the toxin stuff is the main thing people hear about. Magic solutions are just so much more enticing. Kind of like yoga, which can be a helpful form of exercise and meditation, but absolutely isn’t a millennia old tradition passed down through lines of yogis, since it was all but invented around 100 years ago.
"looks a bit peaky" Looks sick. Going out in Japan when sick, without wearing protective devices, is highly disrespectful. Thus the looks of disapproval towards the old man
When you hear how incompetent the police in this story are, and then look at Japan's conviction rate, you quickly start to put 2 and 2 together on how accurate their convictions are.
The reason they were so incompetent was because Shoko just had the difficulty set to 'very easy'. He bumped it up to normal after that, biggest mistake of his life.
There was clear distortion of the events and the facts which drove the conclusion of their culpability. Today it one can see that the cult was used as a scapegoat, penalized for openly protesting the control of the world economy and politics by the Jewry. The event seems to be it was fixed to penalize them. NOT terrorist AT ALL!
yeah...american police are dogshit too. The simple fact is...most police work is super hard, and unless they get lucky...they aint catching anybody. movies and tv shows have made us think cops are superheroes who are all sherlocks with insane deductive reasoning...and in actuality...most of them are dogshit, and even of the cases they actually prosecute...a LOT of those were coerced and/or found out to be wrong later... AND....even with that being said...crime has been going down and down every since the 80's. Even during covid when crime 'spiked' it was still 'lower' than previous years. Cops don't decrease crime...a stronger social safety net and social programs so that people are not left to feel like crim is their only option....decreases crime.
Lol loving the irony that Simons skepticism is getting so high he is bordering on BECOMING a conspiracy theorist with his disbelief in common medical practices such as massage therapy.
I doubt he disbelieves in basic and standard massage therapy. In this specific case, the subject was largely chakra acupuncture, a method I also believe to be bunk. Pretty much any "medicine" that has spiritualism built-in is gonna sit pretty low on my respect list.
@@josephschultz3301 Yes and no. My folks have used acupressure rather often, which works on most of the same principles as acupuncture but without the needles. Dad pointed out that a Chinese practice I can't recall the name of involved massaging the joints in the skull for therapeutic effect. This was poo-pooed by science for quite a while because "everyone knows" that those joints are fused and can't move. Until we developed machines sensitive enough to detect tiny movements in those joints. Do we follow any Eastern religion or philosophy? No. But if it works, it works. We've got blood, lymph, and even electricity flowing through our bodies. Could be affecting one or more of any of them.
@@brigidtheirish Many scientific studies have been conducted to review the effectiveness of acupuncture. Not a single one has provided conclusive evidence that there are any medical benefits as a result of acupuncture treatment. Infact, most have shown the complete opposite, with both acupuncture and placebo groups returning similar results, as demonstrated by the NIH's scientific research paper titled "The Status and Future of Acupuncture Clinical Research" which amalgamated the findings of a range of scientific studies. The studies compared real acupuncture (sometimes referred to in the studies as "verum" acupuncture), a placebo acupuncture treatment (referred to as sham acupuncture or SA) and patients who were told they would receive acupuncture and were put on a waiting list, some of the key findings of which I'll paste below... you're welcome to google the title of the research paper if you wish to investigate yourself. "In the LBP trial, patients who received acupuncture improved by 28.7 mm, those who received SA by 23.6 mm, and those in the wait-list group improved by 6.9 mm." "In the MIG trial, the numbers of days with moderate or severe headache decreased by 2.2 days in the acupuncture group, 2.2 days in the SA group, and 0.8 days in the wait-list group." "In the TTH trial, the number of headache days decreased by 7.2, 6.6, and 1.5 days, respectively." "In the TTH trial, number of headache days was lowered from 16 to 6 (verum) and 16 to 8 (sham) (not significant)" "Compared with a sham control, acupuncture provided clinically irrelevant short-term improvements in pain (standardized mean difference, −0.35 [CI, −0.55 to −0.15]) and function (standardized mean difference, −0.35 [CI, −0.56 to −0.14]) and clinically irrelevant longterm improvements in pain (standardized mean difference, −0.13 [CI, −0.24 to −0.01]) and function (standardized mean difference, −0.14 [CI, −0.26 to −0.03])." "Sham-controlled trials show clinically irrelevant short-term benefits of acupuncture for treating knee OA. Waiting-list-controlled trials suggest clinically relevant benefits, some of which may be due to placebo or expectation effects." I'll let you read the paper yourself if you wish to see any further data.
I could just listen to these episodes, still getting Simon tumbling down his rabbit holes and the well written scripts. But I come her for Jen. Her tone on the edits is always just right, often I think reflecting the viewer/listeners thoughts. So more love for Jen since I don't think se gets enough.
Well,to be fair,putting needles in your skin only requires the ability to feel the place you're placing the needle.Seems like you'd be over complicating things by also seeing lol
The executions took so long because in Japan the sentence isn't carried out until all of the appeals of every convict involved in the case have been exhausted. I would love to see a Decoding the Unknown about the VHS tape discovered in the Portland OR Goodwill Bins that may have been evidence in the FBI's investigation of Aum's American activities. There's already a video on it from another channel, but I would love the take of one of Simon's writers on the whole situation.
@@drewlovely2668 honestly the fact I cannot find it on google (jumped 3 pages in, used all the normal searching tricks, and keywords, don’t have the time to try anymore than that), it’s either false or absolutely true
@@LunaOrgana: Google used to be incredibly precise when you used to right words. Now you can get the most inane results and information searching for something when said results used to be spot on roughly a decade ago. I've spoken with a lot of people about this phenomenon and the majority agree that it's to promote a more positive image even if the search results aren't accurate like they once were. TLDR? Google is garbage nowadays.
There actually are still Branch Dividians, Caitlin Doughty of "Ask a Mortician" did an excellent video on the Waco siege that I'd highly recommend to anyone interested. If I remember right they actually have a church near the sight of the siege along with a memorial for all those who died. I certainly don't agree with all the went on at Waco but It is pretty gross and sad how the whole thing was handled.
Caitlin's video was SO well done! Honest and informative with moments of lightheartedness as she played the news anchor 🤣 I love her channel, every video has been fascinating!
@@lucimitchell7273 Yes, I've read them all! She just helps me feel so validated and okay in my own skin. Like it's okay to have thoughts and questions about death, something that in my experience society generally discourages and even downright shames. As someone with depression and suicidal ideation I unfortunately think about death a lot and it's just comforting to have a "safe" place where that's not considered shameful it just is what it is it's not "good" it's not "bad".
I too have some odd family members. My aunt and her husband moved across the country to join a cult. Where they’re paying $6,000 each to learn how to levitate, commune with the dead, command angels, spontaneously heal people, be a prophet, command the power of prayer to change events past and present, and spontaneously cause people to repent. We call her husband Jim Jones and are just waiting to see how this whole thing will turn out.
"Prima facie" is the new term I learned from this video. In looking up its meaning, I can certainly tell he enjoys hanging around his lawyer friend, lol.
I've had deep tissue massages for years, one of the only things that's ever helped my chronic shoulder and back pain. I was a massive sceptic of acupuncture and only had it done because it was offered for free during a range of motion test. I figured why not, I've tried other stuff that didn't work. I was the most surprised that I was pain free for the first time in years. Sadly, I have never had it done since as I prioritise giving blood every 3 months and acupuncture treatments disqualify you from donating in the UK for 4 months after its done unless the therapist is registered, and the only registered one near me moved out of the area after my first session
@@Amlaeuxrai There's a big thing about infection management in the UK, they don't let you donate for months after tattoos or piercings either. Also, If you've had a transfusion since 1980 they won't let you because of the heightened risk of vCJD transmition thanks to the BSE outbreaks of the 80s and 90s. The list of disqualifying factors in the UK is massive
@@Amlaeuxrai having needles put in you by an unregistered practitioner has pretty obvious infection risks, that said the list of things that prevent you from donating here is just stupid
CHRIS. The fact that you just casually brought up your Kung Fu cult and didn't branch off onto a completely new episode just about that is a crime and I demand an entire script on that story.
I've been waiting for this one. Time to watch Simon attempt my second language. ~ Fun facts as I watch for Simon: Japan is still hovering in the 90% area for atheism but most people consider themselves culturally shinto/buddhist. This week's writer has a VERY good read on the culture btw. Being lazy isn't a thing you can do without pushback. That's why the fashion, hobby, religious, etc subcultures are such a big thing. Japanese people like to say "work hard, party harder" but the introverts usually just go home and avoid everyone after work lol (I did this too)
It’s not about “toxins“ but it does more than just feel nice. Saunas and steam rooms (particularly steam rooms) Open your pores and unclog them, which cleans your skin nicely. The steam also opens your sinuses
That's a big reason why I refuse to go into saunas and steam rooms. Way too many people who are sick like to go "sweat it out" and they are rarely ever disinfected. They're a giant, moist, warm petri dish people sit half naked in. 🤮
Haruki Murakami, one of my favorite authors, wrote a book called "Underground", which is actually a collection of interviews he did with various survivors and family members of survivors of the Aum Shinrikyo sarin attacks in March of 1995. The last bit of the book is some interviews with current (at the time) and former Aum members. There is also a map of the Tokyo subway lines with the names of each. It's very well done and Murakami mentions in the preface that only one person refused to be recorded and that he had to write out the interview by hand instead, but in the end he wasn't permitted to include the interview in his book. He and his assistant compiled hundreds of names, tracked down about 140 people and of those, only 40% actually consented to be interviewed about the attacks; many didn't want to get involved for fear of reprisals and such. I'm glad how Japan tends to treat disabled people got a mention. Look up about how survivors of the 2 nuclear attacks were treated in post-war Japan. As for the justice system in Japan. Yeah...if someone is arrested and charges are pursued, you're basically screwed and it's to the point that even if you're innocent they don't care much. More of a system of assumed guilt rather than assumed innocence. The Ace Attorney games and even Death Note are a commentary and criticism of that approach. Yes, there are lazy Japanese people, Simon, but Japanese society is rather strict. Conformity is expected. Go to school, go to university, get a job (salaryman, usually), have a family, etc. The kids who stand out too much or who just don't "fit in" can have a rough time and it's not unusual for teachers to ignore bullying. No, this doesn't apply everywhere, but it applies pretty broadly all the same. Societal pressures can reach a point that some will quit their jobs and become hikikomori (shut-ins or hermits) who don't leave their house/apartment or even their bedrooms. Basically severe burnout from all the pressure to succeed and rise through the ranks and all. It's immensely stressful. There are people who can be brought in by family members of the hikikomori to help them acclimate to society again. Just helping them take little steps such as just leaving their bedroom at first, to going out for a walk, and eventually even working again. It's a slow, gradual process that doesn't always work and it is dependent upon the hikikomori to also put forth the effort to change things and heal.
I've read that book! It was incredible and frightening! I left it behind when I left Japan (limited weight for shipping things home) but now I'm going to get another copy.
@@keilatenshi5910 I read it when I took a class on Murakami's works my senior year of college. I'd read Kafka on the Shore by Murakami when I was studying abroad my junior year (I was in Sicily and I hadn't brought much with me, so I hunted down a bookstore selling some English books and picked out that one because of the cat on the cover, and it is one of my favorite books ever now), so I was excited to take a class and read more of his works. He's great at fiction already, so the way the interviews were edited and handled being non-fiction is really good.
@@deadgoon2170 Underground? Yeah, it's good, but it is non-fiction and I have to be in the right mood for non-fiction. Kafka on the Shore is my absolute favorite of his works. 1Q84 is also pretty good. I haven't read the most recent book he's written. All of his works are very good though.
@@SolaScientia Same! Haruki Murakami is one of my fav fiction writers, and I picked up the book without knowing what it was about. It was very interesting to see how he handles the non-fiction, especially interview-based non-fiction on such a topic. It gave me my first real hint of Japanese culture and mindset, which was rather drastically different from what I was used to.
Massage therapy is 100% beneficial for dealing with scar tissue, helping arthritis and lymphatic issues, and problems with muscular atrophy. That aside, the mental benefit is positive because people need physical interaction with others.
Thanks for another video guys. Although the content as always is difficult to swallow, I think you guys do, for the most part, a classy job telling the story and not sensationalizing. Often you guys really bring light to the victims and who they were and take away whatever light might be shining on the people who commuted the crimes… Also, Jen’s edits never fail to make me laugh.
This is why I love this channel. They aren’t about the gore of the story, But rather the victims of the said perpetrators. I’m not here for the Gore details anyways. The tangents are also another thing I’m here for because I myself cant tell a story without adding my own Tangents to it. 🤣
I oftentimes love how I'll learn about Jen's personality from the editing she'll do & specifically from the choice of memes she deploys in each video. like her use of the "....run" *dramatic beat* meme lets me know that she probably adored Vine bc that's how long that meme's existed. I bet she's a very warm & bubbly person. :)
13:40 I was aware of the past stigma towards disabled children when I visited Japan in the 00’s. I was pleasantly surprised when my group of friends ended up sharing a tour boat along Tokyo Bay with a set of parents and their mentally disabled adult son. They were enjoying taking him on a day trip and pointing things out to him in a way he could understand. I think the population decline and efforts towards emphasizing the importance of children has changed a lot of the ways orphaned and disabled children are viewed there.
There's different kinds of massage. There's the light relaxing thing, which is mostly just for enjoyment, and then there's the proper medical massage that you get when you have fucked yourself up. The second one feels like torture when it's happening to you, but it gives effects in the long run. There's a reason massage is almost always listed as part of a physiotherapy regime.
Exactly. I have Scheuermann syndrome, I almost cry in every session when my therapist loosens up my knots, but it helps tremendously. But of course there are gimmicky types, like when they put warmed up stones on your back :D
Yup, Me saying "oh I have a massage" and people are all "ooooooo how nice!" No It's not nice, it's a deep tissue/physio massage. I will be in significant pain during and after. It's not a nice time. Worth it in the end, but owwwww
@@TheDolphace yeah that's why I avoid that, because due to my past my immediate reaction to pain is violence and aggression. Even if it would benefit me significantly I can't take that risk, which makes healing all the damage from my past even more difficult because I'm in almost constant pain I can't get rid of
Ooof, this! I have a bad neck/shoulder RSI and getting medical massages to help the muscles/nerves was SO painful. Basically I had horrible neck and shoulder pains from hunching forward too much at work (I'm a seamstress) and I couldn't even ride in the car or carry a heavy shopping bag without triggering spasms shooting up my shoulders and neck... I still get flare-ups if I'm not being careful with my posture or if I'm under enough stress to have a really tense neck/jaw/shoulders, but at least it's better than before! But those massages, OW. The masseuse was basically using a myofascial release method that felt like I was getting my shoulders crushed to get the nerves and muscles to relax!
We studied this in religious studies as major case study into how cult leaders can manipulate people with religious claims. This may be the most familiar topic to me that the channel has addressed so far, super interested to see the take on it here. Please do keep up the good work
Hate to break it to you, but there are still Branch Davidians out there. And even a couple of survivors of Heaven's Gate who still believe in it. I was raised in a doomsday cult and only escaped as an adult, so the subject is of particular interest to me.
There are people who left Heavens gate but the active members that maintain the website and all were actually charged with that responsibility because someone had to make sure every member was laid to rest properly including what's his name who was around his 70s or older.
The thing with Aum, is that while they may not have actually detonated a nuke in Australia (and I find it hard to commit to even that degree of certainty), everything about these guys says they absolutely would have had they worked out how. Given who they were running around with and what they had access to, I find it more surprising that they didn't.
Making an actual nuke or even an atomic bomb is much harder than you might think. You need plutonium for either- and it does not exist naturally. You have to enrich certain isotopes of uranium to get plutonium and the process is either very slow and unreliable or very VERY noticable to anyone who bothers to check. Now a dirty bomb is much easier, but they would still need to mine and purify uranium ore which is not all that hard, but it is extremely dangerous to do and again has obvious signs of its production if you know what to look for. As sloppy as Aum was in their execution of the other weapons I'd lay better odds on them blowing themselves up or turning themselves in short lived night lights before they made anything really dangerous. If you want a small idea of how dangerous even less radioactive materials are check out any video about the Demon Core the people it killed and injured.
@@Scudboy17 A uranium-based bomb is possible (see Little Boy), but as you said refining uranium to weapons-grade material is a very intensive process. And to expand on the plutonium: the only way to create it is via a breeder reactor. Not only that, plutonium bombs are all but required to be implosion-types (Manhattan Project tried the gun-type with plutonium, but it constantly fizzled) which in turn requires even more engineering to pull off. As for dirty bombs, their effect is more psychological than destructive as any isotopes that would make such a thing as deadly as media loves to portray are far too dangerous to handle in the first place to make it worth the effort.
Actually Simon you can totally build a nuclear bomb in your basement without any uranium. Like 30 years ago a guy demonstrated this as part of his college thesis and his paper and all his work was seized by the FBI which would imply he was at least onto something if not completely true.
It was not a bomb, he tried building a reactor. Which he was unable to do. His device did emit relatively high levels of radiation though. Not immediately deadly or anything, but far above safety standard levels. He collected the radioactive materials to be used as fuel from various household objects.
As mentioned, I'm assuming you're referring to David Hahn, who didn't build a bomb but did attempt to build a sort of particle source and then planned on attempting to build a reactor which I assume was meant to be a breeder type of some kind. None of it was directly bomb related. His stuff was seized and his house and shed had to be demolished for general safety reasons, he wasn't "onto" anything. Anyone with a background in the science involved can easily see none of that stuff was going anywhere other than being a hazard for people in the immediate vicinity, most of all himself. Yes I'm qualified to speak on this, I won't get into specifics but I have spent plenty of time in nuclear and particle research labs. Popular perception of the dangers are wrong, not in degree but in how and what is dangerous and why. General advice is - if you don't know exactly what you're doing, leave the stuff alone - main reason is that you're likely to hurt yourself and those in your vicinity far more than achieving anything else.
I tried acupuncture and massage along with physical therapy after a car accident. The massage was relaxing which helped my muscles relax and made the physical therapy work better. The acupuncture, I was only able to go twice because each time it made the pain so much worse I would leave the appointment and sit sobbing in the car for a while before being able to drive home.
Massage is incredibly useful for muscle pain. Particularly if you are in a position to add stretching as well. It’s not a cure but it does help get the muscles where they should be for a while so that they can potentially heal.
I’ll say this about saunas. While the toxin stuff is probably a load a bull, we were taught in nursing school that saunas can be beneficial for pain relief for certain conditions. It helps promote blood flood to the muscles. It can also act as a giant humidifier for when you’re really stopped up
The “oh no I’ve been pronouncing it diet when it’s deit the whole time. Good news though I don’t particularly care” line caused me to spit the mouth full of water I had at the time all over my dash. Good stuff fact boy good stuff
"Making a biological weapon is something you can do in your basement." The earliest forms of biological weapons were made during battle. When an army besieging a city had a troop who was dead (or in some cases, very near dead) from some kind of highly contagious illness (smallpox and the plague were favorites), they'd catapult them over the city wall. The catapult was already built, and the body was just a body, so no building was required.
Making a little bit of a biological weapon is easy, people do it by accident all the time (poor food handling and storage). Making a lot of a biological weapon, and purifying it is about a billion times more complicated (ask anyone who makes biological pharmaceuticals).
Just a tip for pronouncing Japanese words and names, there is no syllable emphasis at all. If it's a struggle to not emphasis a syllable (and it usually is for English speakers), place the emphasis on the first syllable.
Simon. For the more dark CasCrim's, you should definitely do a live Shaker And Spoon demonstration. When the narrative becomes super intense, you could have a nice refreshing cocktail on hand to " take the edge off."
I have MS and massage helps my muscles and joints. Yes it feels good but for people who have chronic pain and illnesses massage therapy gives better range of movement and relief.
Well yeah,that makes sense.Not sure why you raced here to write that,considering with MS,your time alive is likely very much reduced,so why waste it posting dumb shit other people don't need you tell them,in random comment sections on TH-cam? I'd like to think you'd be a little more focused on actually accomplishing something before you're out of here.
@@jeffdroog oh and I have accomplished a lot in my 35 years. I have 2 degrees and have worked around the world. My biggest accomplishment is raising my son to be a good person. Something your mom didn't do for you. Have a great day 🎉
Not the first time delving deep into this story, and since I already knew a ton about it, I was initially very hesitant to watch it as I was mainly put off by the 80 min length. I decided to watch the beginning before making my final choice, and IT WAS SO GOOD THAT I WATCHED IT TILL THE END!! Great job Chris for the very thorough research that went into this and telling the story by avoiding copying the "Mainstream" documentary format and instead focusing on less known (though 100% complementary) facts that allowed me to get a fuller understanding of this Guru's, his Cult, Motivations, etc.. It has been tremendously helpful as it filled the gaps & allow me to paint what feels like the final version of this crazy event!
Part of the 99% conviction rate in Japan has a lot to do with the collectivist, traditionalist culture they have, but it also has a lot to do with how woefully corrupt the Japanese justice system apparently is. Defense attorney is a tough job because they don't have trial by jury in Japan. They basically live under as severely suspended constitution. Judges pretty much hand down sentences with little chance for proper trials.
@@wraithyoshidj6702 When your house is on fire stay quiet about your neighbors house also being on fire See saying that you shouldn’t talk about someone else’s problems if you have any is very dumb
Have I seem other videos on many of these stories? Yes, but do I still click to enjoy Simon's reaction to these stories, often for the first time? YES Edit: The joy on Simon's face after finding 5 small bottle in his box was the serotonin I needed.
Massages are very therapeutic. They are a good form of stress release. Plus if you go to the gym, or a bodybuilder, it can help the recovery time of your muscles, as massages can increase the blood flow to those areas that are getting massaged. And have you ever heard the term "don't knock it until you try it" Fact Boi?
A lot of GP offices in the UK offer acupuncture to help with chronic pain and other types of pain and will refer people for massage therapy as well, not a cure all but still a big and valid help to people who are suffering
Many scientific studies have been conducted to review the effectiveness of acupuncture. Not a single one has provided conclusive evidence that there are any medical benefits as a result of acupuncture treatment. Infact, most have shown the complete opposite, with both acupuncture and placebo groups returning similar results, as demonstrated by the NIH's scientific research paper titled "The Status and Future of Acupuncture Clinical Research" which amalgamated the findings of a range of scientific studies. The studies compared real acupuncture (sometimes referred to in the studies as "verum" acupuncture), a placebo acupuncture treatment (referred to as sham acupuncture or SA) and patients who were told they would receive acupuncture and were put on a waiting list, some of the key findings of which I'll paste below... you're welcome to google the title of the research paper if you wish to investigate yourself. "In the LBP trial, patients who received acupuncture improved by 28.7 mm, those who received SA by 23.6 mm, and those in the wait-list group improved by 6.9 mm." "In the MIG trial, the numbers of days with moderate or severe headache decreased by 2.2 days in the acupuncture group, 2.2 days in the SA group, and 0.8 days in the wait-list group." "In the TTH trial, the number of headache days decreased by 7.2, 6.6, and 1.5 days, respectively." "In the TTH trial, number of headache days was lowered from 16 to 6 (verum) and 16 to 8 (sham) (not significant)" "Compared with a sham control, acupuncture provided clinically irrelevant short-term improvements in pain (standardized mean difference, −0.35 [CI, −0.55 to −0.15]) and function (standardized mean difference, −0.35 [CI, −0.56 to −0.14]) and clinically irrelevant longterm improvements in pain (standardized mean difference, −0.13 [CI, −0.24 to −0.01]) and function (standardized mean difference, −0.14 [CI, −0.26 to −0.03])." "Sham-controlled trials show clinically irrelevant short-term benefits of acupuncture for treating knee OA. Waiting-list-controlled trials suggest clinically relevant benefits, some of which may be due to placebo or expectation effects." I'll let you read the paper yourself if you wish to see any further data.
@@emilyc8958 see above, it is you who is out of the loop. Also, please don't assert 'there is decent science to support both' when you've clearly undertaken absolutely no research into the topic, it inspires false confidence in others.
I'm so amused by Simon's sponsors. They are either spot Fing on or completely ironic. His sponsors are some if the few that I've actually looked into or considered.
Actually my grandmother was in that subway station when this happened. She was visiting my Uncle and Aunt who was living in Tokyo and they were stationed there for work thru the CIA.
branch davidians are still around! went to waco a few years ago and there’s still the rubble from the old compound on the ground, and they have the original sign posted. it’s gated (and creepy) so we didn’t go in, but there were certainly some people still living there and walking around with their dogs and stuff
Yes Simon, it can be done. Back in the 90's, after being acquitted of his wife's murder. O.J. Simpson tried putting out a tape defending his actions to the public. This was pre internet so the way to get a hold of a copy of the tape was to call a 1-800 number. But people outraged with his trying to make a profit off the murder where able to constantly call in so no sales where being made and Simpson lost money in that venture. the Church of Scientology did something similar. They use to have to argue every year with the IRS about getting the same tax free status other religions had. Till their followers suddenly started filing law suits with the IRS. it would have cost the IRS hundreds of thousands of dollars to fight those lawsuits. But the Leadership of CoS suggested to the IRS, "If we get tax free statues, all those law suits go away", and as soon as the IRS caved the lawsuits where dropped over night. As for the fear of the end of the world. Many did fear that with the new millennium coming it might trigger the end of the world. A large number of Anime used that as a plot to their stories. We saw something along the same lines in 2012 with the Aztec calendar debacle.
I'm blind and I can explain the concept of using partial sight to gain friends or followers in the setting of the residential schools for the blind. Back then, the teachers for those schools were perfectly sighted, teaching the students how to be good little subservient blind people, and it was thought that more sight makes you more capable. The teachers did not make it any secret that the partially sighted kids were treated more favorably than the functionally or totally blind kids. That caused a whole load of issues I won't get into. Unfortunately this still happens to this day, albeit to a lesser extent. Fortunately my parents did not send me to one of those places because they knew better. Some absolutely messed up things happened in those residential schools that were run by sighted administration. To borrow a quote from Simon, "The past, everyone..."
About the saunas, I recommend "Clinical Effects of Regular Dry Sauna Bathing: A Systematic Review" wherein it's shown that while yes, a lot of the health benefits claimed by alternative medicine freaks are bogus(like the magical "detoxification"), there is a measurable and quite easily explainable set of benefits to your cardiovascular system.
If anyone would be interested in the explanation, but doesn't want have the time or has problems finding the study, here's a quote: "Intense short-term heat exposure elevates skin temperature and core body temperature and activates thermoregulatory pathways via the hypothalamus and CNS (central nervous system) leading to activation of the autonomic nervous system. The activation of the sympathetic(=autonomic) nervous system, hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal hormonal axis, and the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system leads to well-documented cardiovascular effects with increased heart rate, skin blood flow, cardiac output, and sweating. The resultant sweat evaporates from the skin surface and produces cooling that facilitates temperature homeostasis. In essence, sauna therapy capitalises on the thermoregulatory trait of homeothermy, the physiological capability of mammals and birds to maintain a relatively constant core body temperature with minimal deviation from a set point. "
On who? I just thought that pretty much 100% of them believe in the End of Days. My parents do. It's so annoying, trying to get people to care about where our species and our planet will be in a million years, or even another thousand, when they're like "oh, we're already in the Last Days, Jesus will come back well before then, so there's no need to worry about it!" ARGHHHHH!
@The Casual Criminalist: I'd have expected Aum Shinrikyo on Into the Shadows. Then again, how Japanese police actually gets that 99% conviction rate may qualify for that channel...
The answer's simple: they don't, that's a different statistic than what any other country quotes. 99% is the conviction rate if it gets to a judge's decision, which is in the 80s and 90s in *most* countries - other countries quote the conviction rate of cases that get seen by a judge at all, and if you take this statistic for Japan the rate is only 37%, while most countries in Europe and NA are still between 50 and 70% - even 80% for the USA.
I can't wait for the Notebooks to come out, I always get over excited thinking today might be the day, but each time it's not it gets me even more excited to see them. Keep up the good work, the videos just keep getting better!
56:20 I kinda love how the editor caught the Mig-17 mix up and instead of doing another take Simon just had them put up a picture of the plane (Helicopter is Mi-17 because the Soviets are even worse at naming military hardware than the British).
@@murlock666 at least we attach a name to it M1 Garand, M2 Thompson, M3 Grease Gun, M4 Carbine. Japan and China just call everything "Type (year it was adopted)" regardless of if it's a vehicle or gun or coat and Britain has different number and letter schemes for everything you can think of because their regulations are as much of a cluster fuck as their language.
@@steel8231 You still type it just fine though. So..... We name most things too. FV for fighting vehicles. They each get an FV number and a name to go with it. Chieftain, Challenger etc. Trouble is we have multiple dept's that are responsible for procurement. That's where most of the confusion starts lol. I'm pretty sure a Q.M. would be able to explain the madness though.
Erm, at the end when you felt sorry for the woman... wasn't it the wife who had been locked up, and the Yakuza shot her, and the girlfriend who went to jail? So not entirely innocent. Also, I'm fairly certain there's been some good findings about saunas (especially for treating the common headcold), and as other folks on here have commented, massage is part of physical therapy. Some of the traditionally "woo woo" things have, when you strip the spiritual stuff away, real physical benefits. Others are placebo effects, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Better to have a "homeopathic" sugar pill or water that once was near a flower than take some prescription with awful side effects, if the placebo effect will work for you.
Jen is a fucking legend. I laughed so hard it felt shameful. 🏃I love this channel so much I can't even express it. it's a balance of dark and light. love the writing, the editing and Simon's reactions. keep going
is a seismic weapon really THAT outrageous though? i mean, fracking has caused a lot of earthquakes in areas that never head them before. i mean, it's possible to SOME degree. probably not to a precise area, but if you just wanted to cause damage to a general area, i could see how that MIGHT be possible (key word - "might")
Seismic weapons are theoretically possible, and by that I mean there are existing theories and ideas about how they could work, but actually causing a real earthquake is very hard to do and even harder to control. It would be like trying to direct a hurricane using a desk fan- and in our example that desk fan would be a nuke. The energy released in a relatively low magnitude earthquake- like 3-4 on the Richter scale, is greater than every nuke every dropped or tested, and those are small quakes. Trying to control an earthquake would be like standing on a steel plate that is being bent at an extreme angle and hitting it with a sledgehammer to get it to break. It might work, it might not, but either way you are tap dancing on a landmine. When that plate breaks, you can't control where it breaks or where the pieces go when it does. Controlling and earthquake would be literally impossible. We might be able to start one with a large bomb or nuke in just the right spot at just the right time, but there's no telling what the resulting quake would do or where. Tectonic plates are thousands of miles long and wide- poking it in one spot could result in a quake anywhere else that plat is under tension. It's just not worth the risk.
Chris Lake here - to add to Mike’s comment, whether or not the weapon is plausible (and as a weapon it kinda isn’t, for the reasons Mike said) has little to do with how popular it is among conspiracy theorists. It’s like weaponised hallucinogens- they definitely exist and are potentially devastating weapons, but anyone who talks about them a lot is still almost certainly a tinfoil hat. Seismic weapons are similarly that kind of red flag, if you know what I mean.
My favorite conspiracy theories are the REALLY stupid ones from the US government.* For example, when chaos theory was at its beginning stage, they took the buttwrfly flaps its wings and causes some insane weather event somewhere ekse literally. They wanted to weaponize it, and some thought there was one specific butterfly they had to find. Which is similar to their search for : "Dorothy." Gay men used to use the code "I'm a friend of Dorothy" from the wizard of oz to let people know they qwre gay. So they searched for Dorothy so she could tell them every gay soldier's name lol. *as long as no one is getting hurt for that reason
Me too! Dorothy’s a brilliant one, and I also particularly like the gay bomb and the psychic men who stare at goats stuff. It’s also worth looking into the history of the Boxer IFV - an amazing insight into military “development” brilliantly portrayed in the criminally underrated film Pentagon Wars.
@@tongboy187 will do! I know that the military definitely put... way too much effort going undercover to try to find gay men. A big chunk of those undercover guys HAD to be gay, or had their bi/gay awakening lol. They also tried to get rid of the lesbians in the military, but there were hella lesbians in the military lol. So when the officer ordered it, his highly decorated officer said "ok, but my name is gonma be the first on the list." Then the other officer in the building said "and my name will be second." So the dude through the whole plan out lol.
@@tongboy187 there's also a badass russian military division that definitely had some lesbians in them. They were in ww2 so they were killing nazis. But they were know as the night witches. They would fly rickety ass wooden airplanes until they got close to the germans. Then they just fucking turned the engine off. And just let gravity catapulte straight toward the nazis completely silent, then dropped the bombs before turning the engines back on and hoping for the best lol
My favorite dumb conspiracy theory involving the military was when a Wiccan was giving a sermon to some national guardsmen and a conspiracy theorist went ballistic over it. Like the army really tested psychics by having them kill goats by staring at them. What makes you think they wouldn't just massively recruit witches if witchcraft was real?
Man I’m so glad you guy’s decided to do this one I know i had asked about it a few months ago in the comments and you guys responded but it’s so cool to actually see it Japan has some crazy story’s and people but for some reason they never seem to get covered.
I've listened to this episode a few times and, based on the comments I've seen here, Simon needs to do a 'Massage Therapy' video on 'Today I Found Out' or something. He either isn't aware of the use of massage therapy in the medical field or is confusing it with something like chiropractors.
With all due respect, I have to say something. Massage is used extensively in physical therapy to aid with anything from sports injuries to spine disorders and broken bones. I had manual therapy (very rough medical massage) as a kid because of my scoliosis; combined with specific exercise, it allowed me not to become a hunchback. A manual therapist can even reset your bones to a degree, especially in your childhood before they completely harden. Without massage, a person who has stiff muscles from a ligament injury or prolonged bed rest can literally fall and re-injure themselves. I had lymphatic massage for my swelling (illness), it is a medical procedure done to alleviate edema and pain associated with build up of lymph. If you saw people with lymphedema, for instance, you will know how terrible and dangerous this can be. Acupuncture is also not magic, needles physically affect clusters of nerves and relieve pain because nerve endings are responsible for our sensations. Nerves are connected throughout the body, and sometimes an acupoint is not located in the same spot as the pain. Both massage and acupuncture are real medical treatments and are covered by most insurance today. Sorry, I love your show and it's okay not to know this, that is until you tell the masses that a medical procedure equals ghosts🤣🤣🤣
THANK YOU. Having had an 8 week course of electroacupuncture for overactive bladder syndrome and seeing very real benefits, I found his comments somewhat infuriating. I'm so sceptical as well that the chances of it being down to the placebo effect are minimal to none.
With all due respect, you have no idea what you're talking about. Many scientific studies have been conducted to review the effectiveness of acupuncture. Not a single one has provided conclusive evidence that there are any medical benefits as a result of acupuncture treatment. Infact, most have shown the complete opposite, with both acupuncture and placebo groups returning similar results, as demonstrated by the NIH's scientific research paper titled "The Status and Future of Acupuncture Clinical Research" which amalgamated the findings of a range of scientific studies. The studies compared real acupuncture (sometimes referred to in the studies as "verum" acupuncture), a placebo acupuncture treatment (referred to as sham acupuncture or SA) and patients who were told they would receive acupuncture and were put on a waiting list, some of the key findings of which I'll paste below... you're welcome to google the title of the research paper if you wish to investigate yourself. "In the LBP trial, patients who received acupuncture improved by 28.7 mm, those who received SA by 23.6 mm, and those in the wait-list group improved by 6.9 mm." "In the MIG trial, the numbers of days with moderate or severe headache decreased by 2.2 days in the acupuncture group, 2.2 days in the SA group, and 0.8 days in the wait-list group." "In the TTH trial, the number of headache days decreased by 7.2, 6.6, and 1.5 days, respectively." "In the TTH trial, number of headache days was lowered from 16 to 6 (verum) and 16 to 8 (sham) (not significant)" "Compared with a sham control, acupuncture provided clinically irrelevant short-term improvements in pain (standardized mean difference, −0.35 [CI, −0.55 to −0.15]) and function (standardized mean difference, −0.35 [CI, −0.56 to −0.14]) and clinically irrelevant longterm improvements in pain (standardized mean difference, −0.13 [CI, −0.24 to −0.01]) and function (standardized mean difference, −0.14 [CI, −0.26 to −0.03])." "Sham-controlled trials show clinically irrelevant short-term benefits of acupuncture for treating knee OA. Waiting-list-controlled trials suggest clinically relevant benefits, some of which may be due to placebo or expectation effects." I'll let you read the paper yourself if you wish to see any further data, but the fact that you're defending a 'medical procedure' that has identical benefits to a placebo effect shows how little you understand on the subject. What you're demonstrating is the Dunning Kruger effect, and you should maybe not try to belittle Simon who I imagine is infinitely more informed on the subject than yourself.
49:53 that's why Japan has the 99% conviction rate. Japanese prosecutors will only prosecute if they're sure that they can get a conviction, and police will only pursue an investigation if they're sure they can get prosecution. That results in a lot of investigations being dropped. The finding of the badge could easily be spun into "the real murderer left something there to frame the cult", and that combined with the laws protecting the cult from investigation could make prosecution an uphill battle. Better for them to drop the whole thing and retain their 99% conviction rate, lest--horror of horrors--it becomes 98%.
Just because they’re smart or confident at their job does not mean that the person in charge was listening to them and not telling them what he wanted them to do
Simon, You should do a segment on The Boys on the Tracks (murders Of Don Henry & Kevin Ives). Please please please take a good hard look at this one!!!! I love watching all your channels and I think you’d really like this one once you got into, it’s full of weird twists, and shady people doing even shadier sh*t. Two young boys found dead on an Arkansas railroad in August of 1987, political connections, corrupt local government officials conspiring to hide their own drug racket, a sketchy State Medical examiner with a ludicrous track record of ridiculous findings (man shot himself 5 times, clearly suicide, a decapitated man who supposedly died of a stomach ulcer… his missing head, no big deal that must have been eaten by the dog…seriously… these are just a few of his findings), the FBI and DEA making on the record accusations of coverup and murder against the sheriffs department and District attorney, potential ties to Barry Seal and his Mena Drug Smuggling Operation, a governor who eventually became president protecting and promoting the Medical Examine, Hundreds of pages of FBI documents which are mostly if not entirely redacted…..All kinds of interesting stuff in this one. I’d love to how much of it can be corroborated with official documents after 35 years. 35 Years later, two episodes of Unsolved Mysteries, dozens of media investigations and still no one has ever been convicted, there’s never been any trial, and no charges were ever filed. Please give this one a look?
I saw a video on this once. It's been a few years ago. I don't remember what channel it was, some crime channel, not Simon. I also have forgotten many of the details.
There are some really interesting and horrible cult cultures that should be covered by you guys! A lot of misinformation and sensationalized versions are floating around and the script writers do a fantastic job with separation of fact and overblown "reporting". Also, you mentioned Japan, a subway and a leaky bag and I immediately thought of the sarin attack. I knew a little, but this is so far a bit more than I already knew.
David Koresh had followers in other parts of the world, mainly California and Australia, and some of them still believe in him and are still waiting for Koresh to come back to life.
If people are even more interested in this story, there are 2 books by Haruki Murakami about it which are an interesting read because they not only show what drives people to join these cults and do these things but also what kind of crazy work culture they had or still have in Japan. The books are a collection of interviews he had with survivors and also with members of the cult. One book for each side, no judgement, just testimonies and a collection of thoughts at the end.
@@kellybeck4579 I think in English it is called Underground. It was released in the late 90s as multiple Essays first, then made into 2 books and Underground ist both books in 1. Might be different depending on the country you are in.
One thing. It has been shown you can get your hands on nuclear power. in 94, 17 year old David Hahn made a nuclear reactor for the atomic energy boy scout badge. Also, Simon. Just because I have to the the naysayer. I don't think acupuncture has any benefits but massage does. According to the Mayo Clinic, massage can have the benefits of "[r]educing stress and increasing relaxation, reducing pain and muscle soreness and tension, improving circulation, energy and alertness lowering heart rate and blood pressure, and improving immune function. But, while there are some studies that say the following are also benefits, there is need for more studies for looking into: anxiety, digestive disorders, fibromyalgia, headaches, insomnia related to stress, low back pain, myofascial pain syndrome, nerve pain, soft tissue strains or injuries, sports injuries, temporomandibular joint pain, upper back and neck pain". Love your content, I just wanted to be one of those ACTUALLYYYY people once in my life.
I'm pretty sure acupuncture at least does something, since it's been successfully used in animals as well. It's not a magical cure-all but it does do stuff
@Jasa actually acpuncture actually gave very limited use in pain mamagement. it's not a cure all like people like to say but if used in a specific way it can help. there are studies done in support of them.
There’s a difference though, between reducing pain/treating symptoms and actually curing. I’ve heard people claim massage and acupuncture as full cure, and if your issue is anything other than stress or tight muscles I highly doubt that. Maybe I’m giving him too much credit, but I just thought he was scoffing at the idea of them being a magic cure-all.
Thanks to Shaker & Spoon for sponsoring today's video. Visit shakerandspoon.com/criminalist to get a $20 off coupon at checkout.
Remember folks. The only cult to join is the Cult of Whistler. All hail the follicle challenged one!
Look into heat shock proteins with Sauna, it's moderately legitimate.
Wait... you don't give 2 weeks notice to the allegedly murderous cult. There is never an excuse for bad manners...well maybe this might be the one exception.
@@Trix469 I think these days they call it Quiet Quitting which can work out in both senses.
@@anarchyantz1564 you are wise. As their lawyer, I would advise ... ninja vanish.
49:00 -- Japanese police aren't known for being especially effective investigators. The near-100% conviction rate in their courts is less because police have gathered devastating evidence for prosecutors to present, and more because of a strong institutional bias toward conviction. It's actually a pretty nasty system.
Hell, when some police officers ordered someone to halt and the guy didn't, they were apparently confused as to *what to do.*
@Cancer McAids Also, Japanese prosecutor departments are critically underfunded, so they only pursue cases that are slam dunks.
It also has to do with a rather heavy handed system of pushing completely innocent people towards plea deals, because of the ingrained trust in institutions. Basically, people take guilty plea deals because they are lead to believe that, the very fact that they were arrested means they are guilty, because the state/police are venerable and honorable institutions and they can't be wrong. It is all part of the really twisted honor culture that is driving that entire countries population to what amounts to extinction level mass suicide. It is honestly very sad.
Doesn't this all contribute to being poor investigators? Now I wonder how high the actual crime rate is in Japan.
@@MysteryFaceX It's actually not very high. That much is real. When I visited Japan it was perfectly okay to leave my phone on the table at a coffee shop while I went to get a napkin or something, and I could be confident nothing would happen to it. I saw exactly one graffiti tag the whole time I was there, on the underside of a freeway, including many places that would be absolutely covered in America. People don't even jaywalk.
Ah yes, the six horseman of the Apocalypse: pestilence, war, famine, death, copyright strikes, and de-monitization.
And RAID: Shadow Legends...
What season of Supernatural were the last two in?
Shouldn't fake news be on that list as well 😜
I see what you did there....
Nice one.
@@marketazelezna1249 lmao 🤣
Apparently in the UK any males can use Esquire as part of their name IF you don't have a grander title. So by adding Esq. to your own name you are essentially telling everyone you're a pretentious nobody.
It's like being the most homeless guy in the homeless camp
The same with "master", I think it's only until you're 18, but one of my friends changed his title to that because his surname is Bates.
@@LittlestSamurai Master is used instead of Mister(Mr) for a child
i always thought esq was owning property in UK like midevil squire owned his own property but didnt own enough to have servants /tenants basicly lowest form of "landed" gentry
@@LittlestSamurai That's just brilliant.
"Fun" Fact - After the sarin attack the majority of public trash cans were removed throughout Japan. To this day, people transport their trash home with them.
But if you need to find one, a convenience store (conbini) is your best bet.
I always wondered why such a clean country had no public trash cans, thank you
Therapeutic massage is a pretty standard component of physical therapy. It can reduce painful muscle spasm and increase range of motion. If you don't have any physical problems it's probably not life-changing though. Like taking a pain killer if you don't have any pain. You won't notice it, but that doesn't mean it's ineffective.
And also skin to skin contact is beneficial to mental Health. Also sauna is also good for you
Depends on the pain killer.
@@juliuswalsetveit329 sauna for sure for both mental and physical health imo
I believe Simon was thinking of chiropracty, which is the art of telling you those loud, painful crunches coming from your joints are good.
@@CHKNFNGRZ Yeah it seemed a bit left field that he said massage. Chiropractic treatment does have some benefits, but for some reason they seem to advertise themselves as improving "energy flow" or that they can cure diseases and illnesses that have nothing to do with your bones. Chiropractors also aren't externally regulated
1:11:54 you know, this reminds me of how the US prosecuted some of the Japanese war crimes. Eating POWs wasn’t technically a war crime because nobody thought that they needed to say you can’t eat POWs. But you know what is a war crime? Not providing a proper burial for dead POWs. And passing a POW through the human digestive tract is not considered providing a proper burial.
The defense of “it’s not a war crime” was sound. Unfortunately, a separate war crime was committed that they couldn’t defend.
As an up and coming TH-camr likes to say, "it's only a war crime the second time."
3:20 Apparently Simon didn't hear about the boyscout who made a radioactive hazard in his parent's shed back in the 90s.
Was his name Sheldon per chance?
My exact thought! I can’t believe he hasn’t done a video on that yet…
They made a reactor, and still then it wasn't functional. Making actual energy or explosives is incredibly different
What was his name? I've never heard of it myself, and now I want to look it up!
@@aceofkpop1243 th-cam.com/video/baULH2XdnvM/w-d-xo.html its video on it
If I had a nickel for every time one of Simon’s sponsors had the word “spoon” in their name, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird it happened twice…
Saw a comment like this yesterday nice to see a fellow Phineas and Ferb
You'll have 3 nickles when a coke spoon sponsor finally comes onboard.
I'd this real? We could all use some tiny snow shovels lol
@@TheCasualCriminalist bring back McDonald's coffee spoons! (for nostalgia)
@@TheCasualCriminalist Absynthe spoons exist so why not coke spoons? Or handy collapsible silver coke straws, perfect for any occasion
Hey Simon, fun fact the Branch Davidians are in fact still there. They’ve changed their names but are still on the compound. I went and was very shocked but they very much still praise the work of Koresh.
Do they still molest children and murder their critics?
Wowww! That is surprising
That's super worrying, the Branch Davidians are pretty weird anyhow but to still praise Koresh is nuts.
This one does not care what others believe as long as they don't try to sell it to me.
Pretty sure it's also because the Branch Davidians technically had a religion before David Koresh took over with his weird version of it..
As an RMT, Massage can provablely lower blood pressure and reduce stress. Those are the two biggest and most well studied effects.
The toxins and things like that are crap though.
Simon's naivete makes me smile.
My stress,and blood pressure are severely reduced when I just sit down,and do nothing lol So,massages are the equivalent of sitting down,and doing nothing.Youre a fraud,stealing money from people who are lonely,and seeking the touch of another human.Gross.
Toxins are what your kidneys are for. Except the toxins that straight up kill you.
I think the problem is that the toxin stuff is the main thing people hear about. Magic solutions are just so much more enticing.
Kind of like yoga, which can be a helpful form of exercise and meditation, but absolutely isn’t a millennia old tradition passed down through lines of yogis, since it was all but invented around 100 years ago.
@@cdrolshagen I mean, he's completely right about the false health claims that often goes with it.
"looks a bit peaky"
Looks sick.
Going out in Japan when sick, without wearing protective devices, is highly disrespectful. Thus the looks of disapproval towards the old man
Yeah. I think it's disrespectful everywhere after COVID. Try sneezing in a grocery store here: you'll get the same looks and people moving away.
When you hear how incompetent the police in this story are, and then look at Japan's conviction rate, you quickly start to put 2 and 2 together on how accurate their convictions are.
Japan's legal system is essentially a shotgun, you'll eventually hit the guilty people if you hit everyone
The reason they were so incompetent was because Shoko just had the difficulty set to 'very easy'. He bumped it up to normal after that, biggest mistake of his life.
There was clear distortion of the events and the facts which drove the conclusion of their culpability. Today it one can see that the cult was used as a scapegoat, penalized for openly protesting the control of the world economy and politics by the Jewry. The event seems to be it was fixed to penalize them. NOT terrorist AT ALL!
It's kinda like asking a government how corrupt it is and expecting them to be honest
yeah...american police are dogshit too. The simple fact is...most police work is super hard, and unless they get lucky...they aint catching anybody. movies and tv shows have made us think cops are superheroes who are all sherlocks with insane deductive reasoning...and in actuality...most of them are dogshit, and even of the cases they actually prosecute...a LOT of those were coerced and/or found out to be wrong later...
AND....even with that being said...crime has been going down and down every since the 80's. Even during covid when crime 'spiked' it was still 'lower' than previous years.
Cops don't decrease crime...a stronger social safety net and social programs so that people are not left to feel like crim is their only option....decreases crime.
Lol loving the irony that Simons skepticism is getting so high he is bordering on BECOMING a conspiracy theorist with his disbelief in common medical practices such as massage therapy.
I doubt he disbelieves in basic and standard massage therapy. In this specific case, the subject was largely chakra acupuncture, a method I also believe to be bunk. Pretty much any "medicine" that has spiritualism built-in is gonna sit pretty low on my respect list.
Okay but unlike some people, I don’t believe a massage can magically heal arthritis and fibromyalgia and bad joints and whatever else.
I think he thought more about the lava stone type gimmicky massages
@@josephschultz3301 Yes and no. My folks have used acupressure rather often, which works on most of the same principles as acupuncture but without the needles. Dad pointed out that a Chinese practice I can't recall the name of involved massaging the joints in the skull for therapeutic effect. This was poo-pooed by science for quite a while because "everyone knows" that those joints are fused and can't move. Until we developed machines sensitive enough to detect tiny movements in those joints.
Do we follow any Eastern religion or philosophy? No. But if it works, it works. We've got blood, lymph, and even electricity flowing through our bodies. Could be affecting one or more of any of them.
@@brigidtheirish Many scientific studies have been conducted to review the effectiveness of acupuncture. Not a single one has provided conclusive evidence that there are any medical benefits as a result of acupuncture treatment. Infact, most have shown the complete opposite, with both acupuncture and placebo groups returning similar results, as demonstrated by the NIH's scientific research paper titled "The Status and Future of Acupuncture Clinical Research" which amalgamated the findings of a range of scientific studies. The studies compared real acupuncture (sometimes referred to in the studies as "verum" acupuncture), a placebo acupuncture treatment (referred to as sham acupuncture or SA) and patients who were told they would receive acupuncture and were put on a waiting list, some of the key findings of which I'll paste below... you're welcome to google the title of the research paper if you wish to investigate yourself.
"In the LBP trial, patients who received acupuncture improved by 28.7 mm, those who received SA by 23.6 mm, and those in the wait-list group improved by 6.9 mm."
"In the MIG trial, the numbers of days with moderate or severe headache decreased by 2.2 days in the acupuncture group, 2.2 days in the SA group, and 0.8 days in the wait-list group."
"In the TTH trial, the number of headache days decreased by 7.2, 6.6, and 1.5 days, respectively."
"In the TTH trial, number of headache days was lowered from 16 to 6 (verum) and 16 to 8 (sham) (not significant)"
"Compared with a sham control, acupuncture provided clinically irrelevant short-term improvements in pain (standardized mean difference, −0.35 [CI, −0.55 to −0.15]) and function (standardized mean difference, −0.35 [CI, −0.56 to −0.14]) and clinically irrelevant longterm improvements in pain (standardized mean difference, −0.13 [CI, −0.24 to −0.01]) and function (standardized mean difference, −0.14 [CI, −0.26 to −0.03])."
"Sham-controlled trials show clinically irrelevant short-term benefits of acupuncture for treating knee OA. Waiting-list-controlled trials suggest clinically relevant benefits, some of which may be due to placebo or expectation effects."
I'll let you read the paper yourself if you wish to see any further data.
I could just listen to these episodes, still getting Simon tumbling down his rabbit holes and the well written scripts. But I come her for Jen. Her tone on the edits is always just right, often I think reflecting the viewer/listeners thoughts. So more love for Jen since I don't think se gets enough.
Hell yeah! Jen is the best!
Peak means poorly, not feeling well.
Acupuncture is a common occupation for the blind? Like people who can't see put needles into you.
Well,to be fair,putting needles in your skin only requires the ability to feel the place you're placing the needle.Seems like you'd be over complicating things by also seeing lol
The executions took so long because in Japan the sentence isn't carried out until all of the appeals of every convict involved in the case have been exhausted.
I would love to see a Decoding the Unknown about the VHS tape discovered in the Portland OR Goodwill Bins that may have been evidence in the FBI's investigation of Aum's American activities. There's already a video on it from another channel, but I would love the take of one of Simon's writers on the whole situation.
This sounds so crazy it must be true.
Oh man, according to my google search, they nuked the results. All links to college kids shopping in Portland or where to find a good vhs player.
@@drewlovely2668 honestly the fact I cannot find it on google (jumped 3 pages in, used all the normal searching tricks, and keywords, don’t have the time to try anymore than that), it’s either false or absolutely true
@@LunaOrgana the in-depth video I'm referring to is by Barely Sociable, they did it about a year ago. It's still available.
@@LunaOrgana: Google used to be incredibly precise when you used to right words. Now you can get the most inane results and information searching for something when said results used to be spot on roughly a decade ago. I've spoken with a lot of people about this phenomenon and the majority agree that it's to promote a more positive image even if the search results aren't accurate like they once were.
TLDR?
Google is garbage nowadays.
There actually are still Branch Dividians, Caitlin Doughty of "Ask a Mortician" did an excellent video on the Waco siege that I'd highly recommend to anyone interested. If I remember right they actually have a church near the sight of the siege along with a memorial for all those who died. I certainly don't agree with all the went on at Waco but It is pretty gross and sad how the whole thing was handled.
Caitlin's video was SO well done! Honest and informative with moments of lightheartedness as she played the news anchor 🤣
I love her channel, every video has been fascinating!
There are also remaining Heaven's Gate cult members, last I checked. They maintain the website, and mostly keep to themselves.
Her books are fantastic too!
@@lucimitchell7273 Yes, I've read them all! She just helps me feel so validated and okay in my own skin. Like it's okay to have thoughts and questions about death, something that in my experience society generally discourages and even downright shames. As someone with depression and suicidal ideation I unfortunately think about death a lot and it's just comforting to have a "safe" place where that's not considered shameful it just is what it is it's not "good" it's not "bad".
I adore Caitlin, and am faascinated by cults.
I too have some odd family members. My aunt and her husband moved across the country to join a cult. Where they’re paying $6,000 each to learn how to levitate, commune with the dead, command angels, spontaneously heal people, be a prophet, command the power of prayer to change events past and present, and spontaneously cause people to repent. We call her husband Jim Jones and are just waiting to see how this whole thing will turn out.
NGL If it works $6k is a pretty good deal lol
@@somerandom3257 heck, 6K is a deal for any one of those skills, let all of them.
Bs
@@darrenangus6919 I shit you not. We all thought they were playing some sorta joke when they told us about it
Had you been British, I would say they have been paying their tuition at Hogwarts.
I love it when Simon breaks from the script, we get great new words like "ostracating" 😂
"Prima facie" is the new term I learned from this video. In looking up its meaning, I can certainly tell he enjoys hanging around his lawyer friend, lol.
I've had deep tissue massages for years, one of the only things that's ever helped my chronic shoulder and back pain. I was a massive sceptic of acupuncture and only had it done because it was offered for free during a range of motion test. I figured why not, I've tried other stuff that didn't work. I was the most surprised that I was pain free for the first time in years. Sadly, I have never had it done since as I prioritise giving blood every 3 months and acupuncture treatments disqualify you from donating in the UK for 4 months after its done unless the therapist is registered, and the only registered one near me moved out of the area after my first session
Can't you give blood every 4 months? Make it into a fun weekend, give blood Saturday go and get some acupuncture the day after!
@@batfurs3001 Every 3 months, plus I have a rare blood type so donating is higher on my priority list
@@tbv_shorts why tf does acupuncture disqualify in the UK? Any background on that?
@@Amlaeuxrai There's a big thing about infection management in the UK, they don't let you donate for months after tattoos or piercings either. Also, If you've had a transfusion since 1980 they won't let you because of the heightened risk of vCJD transmition thanks to the BSE outbreaks of the 80s and 90s. The list of disqualifying factors in the UK is massive
@@Amlaeuxrai having needles put in you by an unregistered practitioner has pretty obvious infection risks, that said the list of things that prevent you from donating here is just stupid
CHRIS. The fact that you just casually brought up your Kung Fu cult and didn't branch off onto a completely new episode just about that is a crime and I demand an entire script on that story.
I've been waiting for this one. Time to watch Simon attempt my second language.
~
Fun facts as I watch for Simon: Japan is still hovering in the 90% area for atheism but most people consider themselves culturally shinto/buddhist.
This week's writer has a VERY good read on the culture btw. Being lazy isn't a thing you can do without pushback. That's why the fashion, hobby, religious, etc subcultures are such a big thing. Japanese people like to say "work hard, party harder" but the introverts usually just go home and avoid everyone after work lol (I did this too)
oh boy the pronunciations were painful but the writing was accurate. im sure youve heard the saying 'the nail that sticks up gets hammered down'.
I see you used Google to craft your opinions on Japanese culture. Glad you love anime though, big guy.
Why does this sound like a katana weilding meme lord flexing about his japanese knowledge?
It’s not about “toxins“ but it does more than just feel nice.
Saunas and steam rooms (particularly steam rooms) Open your pores and unclog them, which cleans your skin nicely.
The steam also opens your sinuses
That's a big reason why I refuse to go into saunas and steam rooms. Way too many people who are sick like to go "sweat it out" and they are rarely ever disinfected. They're a giant, moist, warm petri dish people sit half naked in.
🤮
It’s about culture and how a hundred years ago saunas were the only warm places to bathe in for Finns for half a year when it was freezing outside.
You could also live in sauna while building your bigger house.
Haruki Murakami, one of my favorite authors, wrote a book called "Underground", which is actually a collection of interviews he did with various survivors and family members of survivors of the Aum Shinrikyo sarin attacks in March of 1995. The last bit of the book is some interviews with current (at the time) and former Aum members. There is also a map of the Tokyo subway lines with the names of each. It's very well done and Murakami mentions in the preface that only one person refused to be recorded and that he had to write out the interview by hand instead, but in the end he wasn't permitted to include the interview in his book. He and his assistant compiled hundreds of names, tracked down about 140 people and of those, only 40% actually consented to be interviewed about the attacks; many didn't want to get involved for fear of reprisals and such.
I'm glad how Japan tends to treat disabled people got a mention. Look up about how survivors of the 2 nuclear attacks were treated in post-war Japan.
As for the justice system in Japan. Yeah...if someone is arrested and charges are pursued, you're basically screwed and it's to the point that even if you're innocent they don't care much. More of a system of assumed guilt rather than assumed innocence. The Ace Attorney games and even Death Note are a commentary and criticism of that approach.
Yes, there are lazy Japanese people, Simon, but Japanese society is rather strict. Conformity is expected. Go to school, go to university, get a job (salaryman, usually), have a family, etc. The kids who stand out too much or who just don't "fit in" can have a rough time and it's not unusual for teachers to ignore bullying. No, this doesn't apply everywhere, but it applies pretty broadly all the same. Societal pressures can reach a point that some will quit their jobs and become hikikomori (shut-ins or hermits) who don't leave their house/apartment or even their bedrooms. Basically severe burnout from all the pressure to succeed and rise through the ranks and all. It's immensely stressful. There are people who can be brought in by family members of the hikikomori to help them acclimate to society again. Just helping them take little steps such as just leaving their bedroom at first, to going out for a walk, and eventually even working again. It's a slow, gradual process that doesn't always work and it is dependent upon the hikikomori to also put forth the effort to change things and heal.
I've read that book! It was incredible and frightening! I left it behind when I left Japan (limited weight for shipping things home) but now I'm going to get another copy.
@@keilatenshi5910 I read it when I took a class on Murakami's works my senior year of college. I'd read Kafka on the Shore by Murakami when I was studying abroad my junior year (I was in Sicily and I hadn't brought much with me, so I hunted down a bookstore selling some English books and picked out that one because of the cat on the cover, and it is one of my favorite books ever now), so I was excited to take a class and read more of his works. He's great at fiction already, so the way the interviews were edited and handled being non-fiction is really good.
Good book. It's no Norwegian Wood or Wind-up bird Chronicles, but facinating none the less..
@@deadgoon2170 Underground? Yeah, it's good, but it is non-fiction and I have to be in the right mood for non-fiction. Kafka on the Shore is my absolute favorite of his works. 1Q84 is also pretty good. I haven't read the most recent book he's written. All of his works are very good though.
@@SolaScientia Same! Haruki Murakami is one of my fav fiction writers, and I picked up the book without knowing what it was about. It was very interesting to see how he handles the non-fiction, especially interview-based non-fiction on such a topic. It gave me my first real hint of Japanese culture and mindset, which was rather drastically different from what I was used to.
Massage therapy is 100% beneficial for dealing with scar tissue, helping arthritis and lymphatic issues, and problems with muscular atrophy. That aside, the mental benefit is positive because people need physical interaction with others.
I think he meant more like chiropractic stuff and acupressure/acupuncture
Thanks for another video guys. Although the content as always is difficult to swallow, I think you guys do, for the most part, a classy job telling the story and not sensationalizing. Often you guys really bring light to the victims and who they were and take away whatever light might be shining on the people who commuted the crimes… Also, Jen’s edits never fail to make me laugh.
Hear, hear!
This is why I love this channel. They aren’t about the gore of the story, But rather the victims of the said perpetrators. I’m not here for the Gore details anyways. The tangents are also another thing I’m here for because I myself cant tell a story without adding my own Tangents to it. 🤣
@@bannankev you nailed it. Love all of Simon's other channels and avoided this one for awhile. Quickly bacame my favorite channel, period.
I oftentimes love how I'll learn about Jen's personality from the editing she'll do & specifically from the choice of memes she deploys in each video. like her use of the "....run" *dramatic beat* meme lets me know that she probably adored Vine bc that's how long that meme's existed. I bet she's a very warm & bubbly person. :)
Damn straight Jen is the shit!! Their whole team is awesome frankly lol
13:40 I was aware of the past stigma towards disabled children when I visited Japan in the 00’s. I was pleasantly surprised when my group of friends ended up sharing a tour boat along Tokyo Bay with a set of parents and their mentally disabled adult son.
They were enjoying taking him on a day trip and pointing things out to him in a way he could understand. I think the population decline and efforts towards emphasizing the importance of children has changed a lot of the ways orphaned and disabled children are viewed there.
There's different kinds of massage. There's the light relaxing thing, which is mostly just for enjoyment, and then there's the proper medical massage that you get when you have fucked yourself up. The second one feels like torture when it's happening to you, but it gives effects in the long run. There's a reason massage is almost always listed as part of a physiotherapy regime.
Exactly. I have Scheuermann syndrome, I almost cry in every session when my therapist loosens up my knots, but it helps tremendously. But of course there are gimmicky types, like when they put warmed up stones on your back :D
Yup,
Me saying "oh I have a massage" and people are all "ooooooo how nice!"
No
It's not nice, it's a deep tissue/physio massage.
I will be in significant pain during and after. It's not a nice time.
Worth it in the end, but owwwww
@@TheDolphace yeah that's why I avoid that, because due to my past my immediate reaction to pain is violence and aggression. Even if it would benefit me significantly I can't take that risk, which makes healing all the damage from my past even more difficult because I'm in almost constant pain I can't get rid of
Ooof, this! I have a bad neck/shoulder RSI and getting medical massages to help the muscles/nerves was SO painful. Basically I had horrible neck and shoulder pains from hunching forward too much at work (I'm a seamstress) and I couldn't even ride in the car or carry a heavy shopping bag without triggering spasms shooting up my shoulders and neck... I still get flare-ups if I'm not being careful with my posture or if I'm under enough stress to have a really tense neck/jaw/shoulders, but at least it's better than before! But those massages, OW. The masseuse was basically using a myofascial release method that felt like I was getting my shoulders crushed to get the nerves and muscles to relax!
@@Kif_Lee heat therapy is beneficial for some types of pains but... Like obviously it doesn't have to be stones. Heating pads are probably better.
35:06 this is the first time I've actually watched an in-video commercial. Well done, Simon.
We studied this in religious studies as major case study into how cult leaders can manipulate people with religious claims. This may be the most familiar topic to me that the channel has addressed so far, super interested to see the take on it here. Please do keep up the good work
Hate to break it to you, but there are still Branch Davidians out there. And even a couple of survivors of Heaven's Gate who still believe in it. I was raised in a doomsday cult and only escaped as an adult, so the subject is of particular interest to me.
Glad you escaped.
There are people who left Heavens gate but the active members that maintain the website and all were actually charged with that responsibility because someone had to make sure every member was laid to rest properly including what's his name who was around his 70s or older.
.. which cult.
The thing with Aum, is that while they may not have actually detonated a nuke in Australia (and I find it hard to commit to even that degree of certainty), everything about these guys says they absolutely would have had they worked out how. Given who they were running around with and what they had access to, I find it more surprising that they didn't.
Making an actual nuke or even an atomic bomb is much harder than you might think. You need plutonium for either- and it does not exist naturally. You have to enrich certain isotopes of uranium to get plutonium and the process is either very slow and unreliable or very VERY noticable to anyone who bothers to check. Now a dirty bomb is much easier, but they would still need to mine and purify uranium ore which is not all that hard, but it is extremely dangerous to do and again has obvious signs of its production if you know what to look for. As sloppy as Aum was in their execution of the other weapons I'd lay better odds on them blowing themselves up or turning themselves in short lived night lights before they made anything really dangerous. If you want a small idea of how dangerous even less radioactive materials are check out any video about the Demon Core the people it killed and injured.
@@Scudboy17 A uranium-based bomb is possible (see Little Boy), but as you said refining uranium to weapons-grade material is a very intensive process. And to expand on the plutonium: the only way to create it is via a breeder reactor. Not only that, plutonium bombs are all but required to be implosion-types (Manhattan Project tried the gun-type with plutonium, but it constantly fizzled) which in turn requires even more engineering to pull off. As for dirty bombs, their effect is more psychological than destructive as any isotopes that would make such a thing as deadly as media loves to portray are far too dangerous to handle in the first place to make it worth the effort.
Could someone have been equating nukes and dirty radiological bombs?
Actually Simon you can totally build a nuclear bomb in your basement without any uranium. Like 30 years ago a guy demonstrated this as part of his college thesis and his paper and all his work was seized by the FBI which would imply he was at least onto something if not completely true.
His name was David Hahn and it was for a boy scout project
iirc it was a nuclear reactor not a bomb. sure, massive radiation field injuring lots of people, but no EXPLOSION
@@anonamos2358 this just makes it even more awesome.
It was not a bomb, he tried building a reactor. Which he was unable to do. His device did emit relatively high levels of radiation though. Not immediately deadly or anything, but far above safety standard levels. He collected the radioactive materials to be used as fuel from various household objects.
As mentioned, I'm assuming you're referring to David Hahn, who didn't build a bomb but did attempt to build a sort of particle source and then planned on attempting to build a reactor which I assume was meant to be a breeder type of some kind. None of it was directly bomb related. His stuff was seized and his house and shed had to be demolished for general safety reasons, he wasn't "onto" anything. Anyone with a background in the science involved can easily see none of that stuff was going anywhere other than being a hazard for people in the immediate vicinity, most of all himself. Yes I'm qualified to speak on this, I won't get into specifics but I have spent plenty of time in nuclear and particle research labs. Popular perception of the dangers are wrong, not in degree but in how and what is dangerous and why. General advice is - if you don't know exactly what you're doing, leave the stuff alone - main reason is that you're likely to hurt yourself and those in your vicinity far more than achieving anything else.
I tried acupuncture and massage along with physical therapy after a car accident. The massage was relaxing which helped my muscles relax and made the physical therapy work better. The acupuncture, I was only able to go twice because each time it made the pain so much worse I would leave the appointment and sit sobbing in the car for a while before being able to drive home.
Massage is incredibly useful for muscle pain. Particularly if you are in a position to add stretching as well. It’s not a cure but it does help get the muscles where they should be for a while so that they can potentially heal.
The training for a defence attorney in Japan might as well boil down to two courses: “Shrugging 101” and “Tapping Out”.
I’ll say this about saunas. While the toxin stuff is probably a load a bull, we were taught in nursing school that saunas can be beneficial for pain relief for certain conditions. It helps promote blood flood to the muscles. It can also act as a giant humidifier for when you’re really stopped up
The “oh no I’ve been pronouncing it diet when it’s deit the whole time. Good news though I don’t particularly care” line caused me to spit the mouth full of water I had at the time all over my dash. Good stuff fact boy good stuff
"Making a biological weapon is something you can do in your basement." The earliest forms of biological weapons were made during battle. When an army besieging a city had a troop who was dead (or in some cases, very near dead) from some kind of highly contagious illness (smallpox and the plague were favorites), they'd catapult them over the city wall. The catapult was already built, and the body was just a body, so no building was required.
don’t forget the super-fun siege activity of poisoning the besieged cities water supply with dookie!
@@mikieswart I didn't know they actually did that intentionally.
Making a little bit of a biological weapon is easy, people do it by accident all the time (poor food handling and storage). Making a lot of a biological weapon, and purifying it is about a billion times more complicated (ask anyone who makes biological pharmaceuticals).
Simon : realizes he recorded a whole video pronouncing diet wrong
Also Simon : proceeds to record another video saying Ashahara instead of Asahara
Not a soul cared.
@@grilledleeks6514 Some care, but not NEARLY enough to stop watching Simon's absolutely brilliant content.
Just a tip for pronouncing Japanese words and names, there is no syllable emphasis at all. If it's a struggle to not emphasis a syllable (and it usually is for English speakers), place the emphasis on the first syllable.
Congrats on making it to 100 episodes, Simon and crew!
Simon. For the more dark CasCrim's, you should definitely do a live Shaker And Spoon demonstration. When the narrative becomes super intense, you could have a nice refreshing cocktail on hand to " take the edge off."
Allegedly, being a defence lawyer in Japan is such a shitshow that Phoenix Wright's most fantastical aspect is Wright's success rate.
I have MS and massage helps my muscles and joints. Yes it feels good but for people who have chronic pain and illnesses massage therapy gives better range of movement and relief.
Well yeah,that makes sense.Not sure why you raced here to write that,considering with MS,your time alive is likely very much reduced,so why waste it posting dumb shit other people don't need you tell them,in random comment sections on TH-cam? I'd like to think you'd be a little more focused on actually accomplishing something before you're out of here.
@@jeffdroog tf? You think you were doing something here, dont you? People with MS have the same life expectancy as everyone else.. 😂😂
@@jeffdroog and its not dumb shit if people like Simon consider massage therapy to be fake.
@@jeffdroog oh and I have accomplished a lot in my 35 years. I have 2 degrees and have worked around the world. My biggest accomplishment is raising my son to be a good person. Something your mom didn't do for you. Have a great day 🎉
Not the first time delving deep into this story, and since I already knew a ton about it, I was initially very hesitant to watch it as I was mainly put off by the 80 min length.
I decided to watch the beginning before making my final choice, and IT WAS SO GOOD THAT I WATCHED IT TILL THE END!!
Great job Chris for the very thorough research that went into this and telling the story by avoiding copying the "Mainstream" documentary format and instead focusing on less known (though 100% complementary) facts that allowed me to get a fuller understanding of this Guru's, his Cult, Motivations, etc..
It has been tremendously helpful as it filled the gaps & allow me to paint what feels like the final version of this crazy event!
Part of the 99% conviction rate in Japan has a lot to do with the collectivist, traditionalist culture they have, but it also has a lot to do with how woefully corrupt the Japanese justice system apparently is. Defense attorney is a tough job because they don't have trial by jury in Japan. They basically live under as severely suspended constitution. Judges pretty much hand down sentences with little chance for proper trials.
I know you are not talking about other countries govs being corrupt
@@wraithyoshidj6702 well... he is.
@@wraithyoshidj6702 2 things can be bad at the same time…
@@somerandom3257 when your doorstep is dusty u clean it before you start talking about the neighbor's
@@wraithyoshidj6702 When your house is on fire stay quiet about your neighbors house also being on fire
See saying that you shouldn’t talk about someone else’s problems if you have any is very dumb
Jen cracked my up few times with the "run" memes 🤣
Have I seem other videos on many of these stories? Yes, but do I still click to enjoy Simon's reaction to these stories, often for the first time? YES
Edit: The joy on Simon's face after finding 5 small bottle in his box was the serotonin I needed.
Massages are very therapeutic. They are a good form of stress release. Plus if you go to the gym, or a bodybuilder, it can help the recovery time of your muscles, as massages can increase the blood flow to those areas that are getting massaged. And have you ever heard the term "don't knock it until you try it" Fact Boi?
I haven't tried suicide but I'm pretty sure it can have some harmful effects on my health.
@@michanefs1808what the actual fuck? Comparing suicide to massage is absolutely disgusting.
A lot of GP offices in the UK offer acupuncture to help with chronic pain and other types of pain and will refer people for massage therapy as well, not a cure all but still a big and valid help to people who are suffering
My understanding is that there is decent science to support both, simon just a little out of the loop on this one
Many scientific studies have been conducted to review the effectiveness of acupuncture. Not a single one has provided conclusive evidence that there are any medical benefits as a result of acupuncture treatment. Infact, most have shown the complete opposite, with both acupuncture and placebo groups returning similar results, as demonstrated by the NIH's scientific research paper titled "The Status and Future of Acupuncture Clinical Research" which amalgamated the findings of a range of scientific studies. The studies compared real acupuncture (sometimes referred to in the studies as "verum" acupuncture), a placebo acupuncture treatment (referred to as sham acupuncture or SA) and patients who were told they would receive acupuncture and were put on a waiting list, some of the key findings of which I'll paste below... you're welcome to google the title of the research paper if you wish to investigate yourself.
"In the LBP trial, patients who received acupuncture improved by 28.7 mm, those who received SA by 23.6 mm, and those in the wait-list group improved by 6.9 mm."
"In the MIG trial, the numbers of days with moderate or severe headache decreased by 2.2 days in the acupuncture group, 2.2 days in the SA group, and 0.8 days in the wait-list group."
"In the TTH trial, the number of headache days decreased by 7.2, 6.6, and 1.5 days, respectively."
"In the TTH trial, number of headache days was lowered from 16 to 6 (verum) and 16 to 8 (sham) (not significant)"
"Compared with a sham control, acupuncture provided clinically irrelevant short-term improvements in pain (standardized mean difference, −0.35 [CI, −0.55 to −0.15]) and function (standardized mean difference, −0.35 [CI, −0.56 to −0.14]) and clinically irrelevant longterm improvements in pain (standardized mean difference, −0.13 [CI, −0.24 to −0.01]) and function (standardized mean difference, −0.14 [CI, −0.26 to −0.03])."
"Sham-controlled trials show clinically irrelevant short-term benefits of acupuncture for treating knee OA. Waiting-list-controlled trials suggest clinically relevant benefits, some of which may be due to placebo or expectation effects."
I'll let you read the paper yourself if you wish to see any further data.
@@emilyc8958 see above, it is you who is out of the loop. Also, please don't assert 'there is decent science to support both' when you've clearly undertaken absolutely no research into the topic, it inspires false confidence in others.
There is zero reliable evidence for acupuncture. It simply does not work beyond the placebo effect.
I'm so amused by Simon's sponsors. They are either spot Fing on or completely ironic. His sponsors are some if the few that I've actually looked into or considered.
Listening this in Tokyo at 2am eating my dinner! Thanks Simon!
Actually my grandmother was in that subway station when this happened. She was visiting my Uncle and Aunt who was living in Tokyo and they were stationed there for work thru the CIA.
10:00 there are still Branch Davidians around, Simon. Caitlin Doughty covered it in 2020 😅
branch davidians are still around! went to waco a few years ago and there’s still the rubble from the old compound on the ground, and they have the original sign posted. it’s gated (and creepy) so we didn’t go in, but there were certainly some people still living there and walking around with their dogs and stuff
Jen is a legend. People just listening to the podcast are really missing out.
Had to throw in the "that was sarcasm. Please dont launch a surprise aerial assault on my Pacific Fleet"
Yes Simon, it can be done. Back in the 90's, after being acquitted of his wife's murder. O.J. Simpson tried putting out a tape defending his actions to the public. This was pre internet so the way to get a hold of a copy of the tape was to call a 1-800 number. But people outraged with his trying to make a profit off the murder where able to constantly call in so no sales where being made and Simpson lost money in that venture.
the Church of Scientology did something similar. They use to have to argue every year with the IRS about getting the same tax free status other religions had. Till their followers suddenly started filing law suits with the IRS. it would have cost the IRS hundreds of thousands of dollars to fight those lawsuits. But the Leadership of CoS suggested to the IRS, "If we get tax free statues, all those law suits go away", and as soon as the IRS caved the lawsuits where dropped over night.
As for the fear of the end of the world. Many did fear that with the new millennium coming it might trigger the end of the world. A large number of Anime used that as a plot to their stories. We saw something along the same lines in 2012 with the Aztec calendar debacle.
Mayan calendar, not Aztec. No offense.
I'm blind and I can explain the concept of using partial sight to gain friends or followers in the setting of the residential schools for the blind. Back then, the teachers for those schools were perfectly sighted, teaching the students how to be good little subservient blind people, and it was thought that more sight makes you more capable. The teachers did not make it any secret that the partially sighted kids were treated more favorably than the functionally or totally blind kids. That caused a whole load of issues I won't get into. Unfortunately this still happens to this day, albeit to a lesser extent. Fortunately my parents did not send me to one of those places because they knew better.
Some absolutely messed up things happened in those residential schools that were run by sighted administration. To borrow a quote from Simon, "The past, everyone..."
About the saunas, I recommend "Clinical Effects of Regular Dry Sauna Bathing: A Systematic Review" wherein it's shown that while yes, a lot of the health benefits claimed by alternative medicine freaks are bogus(like the magical "detoxification"), there is a measurable and quite easily explainable set of benefits to your cardiovascular system.
Lol thank you was literally looking for this comment
If anyone would be interested in the explanation, but doesn't want have the time or has problems finding the study, here's a quote:
"Intense short-term heat exposure elevates skin temperature and core body temperature and activates thermoregulatory pathways via the hypothalamus and CNS (central nervous system) leading to activation of the autonomic nervous system. The activation of the sympathetic(=autonomic) nervous system, hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal hormonal axis, and the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system leads to well-documented cardiovascular effects with increased heart rate, skin blood flow, cardiac output, and sweating. The resultant sweat evaporates from the skin surface and produces cooling that facilitates temperature homeostasis. In essence, sauna therapy capitalises on the thermoregulatory trait of homeothermy, the physiological capability of mammals and birds to maintain a relatively constant core body temperature with minimal deviation from a set point. "
"Do Western religions really believe the world is going to end?"
Simon, you need to do a video on Accelerationists.
On who? I just thought that pretty much 100% of them believe in the End of Days. My parents do. It's so annoying, trying to get people to care about where our species and our planet will be in a million years, or even another thousand, when they're like "oh, we're already in the Last Days, Jesus will come back well before then, so there's no need to worry about it!" ARGHHHHH!
@The Casual Criminalist: I'd have expected Aum Shinrikyo on Into the Shadows. Then again, how Japanese police actually gets that 99% conviction rate may qualify for that channel...
The answer's simple: they don't, that's a different statistic than what any other country quotes. 99% is the conviction rate if it gets to a judge's decision, which is in the 80s and 90s in *most* countries - other countries quote the conviction rate of cases that get seen by a judge at all, and if you take this statistic for Japan the rate is only 37%, while most countries in Europe and NA are still between 50 and 70% - even 80% for the USA.
"Good news I don't particularly care" omg I love him so much hahaha
Jen! Use Homelander (from The Boys) saying "I'm not the hero. You all are the *real* heroes." 😂
I get extra excited when a channel I really love mentions where I live, perth, western australia.
Never stop the tangents Simon
It is mind blowing the parallels of incompetence, blind devotion and methods of popular manipulation between Aum and Donald Trump
Shogun is one of my favorite books, great story telling of the Portuguese, Dutch and Japanese relations of the time
I can't wait for the Notebooks to come out, I always get over excited thinking today might be the day, but each time it's not it gets me even more excited to see them. Keep up the good work, the videos just keep getting better!
Saying you look a bit peaky common means you look a bit sick, not suspicious, but that is also a good reason not to sit next to that person on a train
Okay. Literally the earliest I've ever clicked on a video. XD I usually don't get the notification for hours. Can't wait to dig into the episode!
The Alejo y Valentina bit at 5:15 🤣 Greetings from Argentina Simon & crew, keep up the great work!
Simon in early episodes: "im not sure I agree with execution." Simon now "This is a good ending"
56:20 I kinda love how the editor caught the Mig-17 mix up and instead of doing another take Simon just had them put up a picture of the plane (Helicopter is Mi-17 because the Soviets are even worse at naming military hardware than the British).
At least we dont call everything the M1 LOL
@@murlock666 at least we attach a name to it M1 Garand, M2 Thompson, M3 Grease Gun, M4 Carbine. Japan and China just call everything "Type (year it was adopted)" regardless of if it's a vehicle or gun or coat and Britain has different number and letter schemes for everything you can think of because their regulations are as much of a cluster fuck as their language.
@@steel8231 You still type it just fine though. So.....
We name most things too. FV for fighting vehicles. They each get an FV number and a name to go with it. Chieftain, Challenger etc. Trouble is we have multiple dept's that are responsible for procurement. That's where most of the confusion starts lol. I'm pretty sure a Q.M. would be able to explain the madness though.
Erm, at the end when you felt sorry for the woman... wasn't it the wife who had been locked up, and the Yakuza shot her, and the girlfriend who went to jail? So not entirely innocent.
Also, I'm fairly certain there's been some good findings about saunas (especially for treating the common headcold), and as other folks on here have commented, massage is part of physical therapy. Some of the traditionally "woo woo" things have, when you strip the spiritual stuff away, real physical benefits. Others are placebo effects, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Better to have a "homeopathic" sugar pill or water that once was near a flower than take some prescription with awful side effects, if the placebo effect will work for you.
“Crazy gonna crazy” is a great quote for a shirt
Correction, a Mig-17 is a Korean-War era fighter jet. A MI-17 is an armed helicopter. Different companies entirely.
man I'm so glad that Simon clarified at the start that he is going to be telling me a story about true crime and not reading my fortune
Jen is a fucking legend. I laughed so hard it felt shameful. 🏃I love this channel so much I can't even express it. it's a balance of dark and light. love the writing, the editing and Simon's reactions. keep going
Look up The Critical Drinker, That Chapter, Absolute Mad Lads, Coffee House Crime.
Same! Jen definitely had me cracking up this episode! 🤣
I loved that the “run” meme kept coming up!
51:31 As usual the meme insertions by the editor are impeccable.
is a seismic weapon really THAT outrageous though? i mean, fracking has caused a lot of earthquakes in areas that never head them before. i mean, it's possible to SOME degree. probably not to a precise area, but if you just wanted to cause damage to a general area, i could see how that MIGHT be possible (key word - "might")
Seismic weapons are theoretically possible, and by that I mean there are existing theories and ideas about how they could work, but actually causing a real earthquake is very hard to do and even harder to control. It would be like trying to direct a hurricane using a desk fan- and in our example that desk fan would be a nuke. The energy released in a relatively low magnitude earthquake- like 3-4 on the Richter scale, is greater than every nuke every dropped or tested, and those are small quakes. Trying to control an earthquake would be like standing on a steel plate that is being bent at an extreme angle and hitting it with a sledgehammer to get it to break. It might work, it might not, but either way you are tap dancing on a landmine. When that plate breaks, you can't control where it breaks or where the pieces go when it does. Controlling and earthquake would be literally impossible. We might be able to start one with a large bomb or nuke in just the right spot at just the right time, but there's no telling what the resulting quake would do or where. Tectonic plates are thousands of miles long and wide- poking it in one spot could result in a quake anywhere else that plat is under tension. It's just not worth the risk.
Chris Lake here - to add to Mike’s comment, whether or not the weapon is plausible (and as a weapon it kinda isn’t, for the reasons Mike said) has little to do with how popular it is among conspiracy theorists. It’s like weaponised hallucinogens- they definitely exist and are potentially devastating weapons, but anyone who talks about them a lot is still almost certainly a tinfoil hat. Seismic weapons are similarly that kind of red flag, if you know what I mean.
7:20 "... Unless the sun is also suffering a power outage ..." 🤣😂😅
My favorite conspiracy theories are the REALLY stupid ones from the US government.*
For example, when chaos theory was at its beginning stage, they took the buttwrfly flaps its wings and causes some insane weather event somewhere ekse literally. They wanted to weaponize it, and some thought there was one specific butterfly they had to find.
Which is similar to their search for :
"Dorothy." Gay men used to use the code "I'm a friend of Dorothy" from the wizard of oz to let people know they qwre gay. So they searched for Dorothy so she could tell them every gay soldier's name lol.
*as long as no one is getting hurt for that reason
Me too! Dorothy’s a brilliant one, and I also particularly like the gay bomb and the psychic men who stare at goats stuff. It’s also worth looking into the history of the Boxer IFV - an amazing insight into military “development” brilliantly portrayed in the criminally underrated film Pentagon Wars.
@@tongboy187 will do! I know that the military definitely put... way too much effort going undercover to try to find gay men. A big chunk of those undercover guys HAD to be gay, or had their bi/gay awakening lol.
They also tried to get rid of the lesbians in the military, but there were hella lesbians in the military lol. So when the officer ordered it, his highly decorated officer said "ok, but my name is gonma be the first on the list." Then the other officer in the building said "and my name will be second."
So the dude through the whole plan out lol.
@@tongboy187 there's also a badass russian military division that definitely had some lesbians in them. They were in ww2 so they were killing nazis. But they were know as the night witches. They would fly rickety ass wooden airplanes until they got close to the germans. Then they just fucking turned the engine off. And just let gravity catapulte straight toward the nazis completely silent, then dropped the bombs before turning the engines back on and hoping for the best lol
My favorite dumb conspiracy theory involving the military was when a Wiccan was giving a sermon to some national guardsmen and a conspiracy theorist went ballistic over it.
Like the army really tested psychics by having them kill goats by staring at them. What makes you think they wouldn't just massively recruit witches if witchcraft was real?
Man I’m so glad you guy’s decided to do this one I know i had asked about it a few months ago in the comments and you guys responded but it’s so cool to actually see it Japan has some crazy story’s and people but for some reason they never seem to get covered.
Absolute Mad Lads covered this guy.
It was great.
I've listened to this episode a few times and, based on the comments I've seen here, Simon needs to do a 'Massage Therapy' video on 'Today I Found Out' or something. He either isn't aware of the use of massage therapy in the medical field or is confusing it with something like chiropractors.
With all due respect, I have to say something.
Massage is used extensively in physical therapy to aid with anything from sports injuries to spine disorders and broken bones. I had manual therapy (very rough medical massage) as a kid because of my scoliosis; combined with specific exercise, it allowed me not to become a hunchback. A manual therapist can even reset your bones to a degree, especially in your childhood before they completely harden. Without massage, a person who has stiff muscles from a ligament injury or prolonged bed rest can literally fall and re-injure themselves. I had lymphatic massage for my swelling (illness), it is a medical procedure done to alleviate edema and pain associated with build up of lymph. If you saw people with lymphedema, for instance, you will know how terrible and dangerous this can be.
Acupuncture is also not magic, needles physically affect clusters of nerves and relieve pain because nerve endings are responsible for our sensations. Nerves are connected throughout the body, and sometimes an acupoint is not located in the same spot as the pain.
Both massage and acupuncture are real medical treatments and are covered by most insurance today. Sorry, I love your show and it's okay not to know this, that is until you tell the masses that a medical procedure equals ghosts🤣🤣🤣
THANK YOU. Having had an 8 week course of electroacupuncture for overactive bladder syndrome and seeing very real benefits, I found his comments somewhat infuriating. I'm so sceptical as well that the chances of it being down to the placebo effect are minimal to none.
With all due respect, you have no idea what you're talking about. Many scientific studies have been conducted to review the effectiveness of acupuncture. Not a single one has provided conclusive evidence that there are any medical benefits as a result of acupuncture treatment. Infact, most have shown the complete opposite, with both acupuncture and placebo groups returning similar results, as demonstrated by the NIH's scientific research paper titled "The Status and Future of Acupuncture Clinical Research" which amalgamated the findings of a range of scientific studies. The studies compared real acupuncture (sometimes referred to in the studies as "verum" acupuncture), a placebo acupuncture treatment (referred to as sham acupuncture or SA) and patients who were told they would receive acupuncture and were put on a waiting list, some of the key findings of which I'll paste below... you're welcome to google the title of the research paper if you wish to investigate yourself.
"In the LBP trial, patients who received acupuncture improved by 28.7 mm, those who received SA by 23.6 mm, and those in the wait-list group improved by 6.9 mm."
"In the MIG trial, the numbers of days with moderate or severe headache decreased by 2.2 days in the acupuncture group, 2.2 days in the SA group, and 0.8 days in the wait-list group."
"In the TTH trial, the number of headache days decreased by 7.2, 6.6, and 1.5 days, respectively."
"In the TTH trial, number of headache days was lowered from 16 to 6 (verum) and 16 to 8 (sham) (not significant)"
"Compared with a sham control, acupuncture provided clinically irrelevant short-term improvements in pain (standardized mean difference, −0.35 [CI, −0.55 to −0.15]) and function (standardized mean difference, −0.35 [CI, −0.56 to −0.14]) and clinically irrelevant longterm improvements in pain (standardized mean difference, −0.13 [CI, −0.24 to −0.01]) and function (standardized mean difference, −0.14 [CI, −0.26 to −0.03])."
"Sham-controlled trials show clinically irrelevant short-term benefits of acupuncture for treating knee OA. Waiting-list-controlled trials suggest clinically relevant benefits, some of which may be due to placebo or expectation effects."
I'll let you read the paper yourself if you wish to see any further data, but the fact that you're defending a 'medical procedure' that has identical benefits to a placebo effect shows how little you understand on the subject. What you're demonstrating is the Dunning Kruger effect, and you should maybe not try to belittle Simon who I imagine is infinitely more informed on the subject than yourself.
@@ozzyd2679 see above.
Massage is proven yes, buy acupuncture has no proof
That “run” meme and Simon’s “woo woo” remark kicked me into open laughter 😂
The only reason my mom was not on that subway is because my mom had to deal with a head injury for my brother.
Please do a video about William Adams/Miura Anjin. The first western samurai in Japan, and advisor to shogun Ieyasu Tokugawa
Also the Asamo Sanso incident
Simon’s next channel should be him trying out things like massage and acupuncture and seeing if he changes his mind.
Anyone know where the sound effect from 12:25 is from?
49:53 that's why Japan has the 99% conviction rate. Japanese prosecutors will only prosecute if they're sure that they can get a conviction, and police will only pursue an investigation if they're sure they can get prosecution. That results in a lot of investigations being dropped. The finding of the badge could easily be spun into "the real murderer left something there to frame the cult", and that combined with the laws protecting the cult from investigation could make prosecution an uphill battle. Better for them to drop the whole thing and retain their 99% conviction rate, lest--horror of horrors--it becomes 98%.
Just because they’re smart or confident at their job does not mean that the person in charge was listening to them and not telling them what he wanted them to do
Simon, You should do a segment on The Boys on the Tracks (murders Of Don Henry & Kevin Ives). Please please please take a good hard look at this one!!!!
I love watching all your channels and I think you’d really like this one once you got into, it’s full of weird twists, and shady people doing even shadier sh*t.
Two young boys found dead on an Arkansas railroad in August of 1987, political connections, corrupt local government officials conspiring to hide their own drug racket, a sketchy State Medical examiner with a ludicrous track record of ridiculous findings (man shot himself 5 times, clearly suicide, a decapitated man who supposedly died of a stomach ulcer… his missing head, no big deal that must have been eaten by the dog…seriously… these are just a few of his findings), the FBI and DEA making on the record accusations of coverup and murder against the sheriffs department and District attorney, potential ties to Barry Seal and his Mena Drug Smuggling Operation, a governor who eventually became president protecting and promoting the Medical Examine, Hundreds of pages of FBI documents which are mostly if not entirely redacted…..All kinds of interesting stuff in this one. I’d love to how much of it can be corroborated with official documents after 35 years.
35 Years later, two episodes of Unsolved Mysteries, dozens of media investigations and still no one has ever been convicted, there’s never been any trial, and no charges were ever filed.
Please give this one a look?
yes this is definitely a story worth hearing. so sad
I saw a video on this once. It's been a few years ago. I don't remember what channel it was, some crime channel, not Simon. I also have forgotten many of the details.
Omg I've never thought that I would see locoarts in a Simon video hahaha. Bravo to the editor and greetings from Argentina
There are some really interesting and horrible cult cultures that should be covered by you guys! A lot of misinformation and sensationalized versions are floating around and the script writers do a fantastic job with separation of fact and overblown "reporting".
Also, you mentioned Japan, a subway and a leaky bag and I immediately thought of the sarin attack. I knew a little, but this is so far a bit more than I already knew.
Look up Absolute Mad Lads.
Ocktar.
David Koresh had followers in other parts of the world, mainly California and Australia, and some of them still believe in him and are still waiting for Koresh to come back to life.
If people are even more interested in this story, there are 2 books by Haruki Murakami about it which are an interesting read because they not only show what drives people to join these cults and do these things but also what kind of crazy work culture they had or still have in Japan.
The books are a collection of interviews he had with survivors and also with members of the cult.
One book for each side, no judgement, just testimonies and a collection of thoughts at the end.
Which book of Murakami's? I love his work.
@@kellybeck4579 I think in English it is called Underground. It was released in the late 90s as multiple Essays first, then made into 2 books and Underground ist both books in 1.
Might be different depending on the country you are in.
The Alejo y Valentina clip was like a punch in the face.
One thing. It has been shown you can get your hands on nuclear power. in 94, 17 year old David Hahn made a nuclear reactor for the atomic energy boy scout badge.
Also, Simon. Just because I have to the the naysayer. I don't think acupuncture has any benefits but massage does. According to the Mayo Clinic, massage can have the benefits of "[r]educing stress and increasing relaxation, reducing pain and muscle soreness and tension, improving circulation, energy and alertness lowering heart rate and blood pressure, and improving immune function. But, while there are some studies that say the following are also benefits, there is need for more studies for looking into: anxiety, digestive disorders, fibromyalgia, headaches, insomnia related to stress, low back pain, myofascial pain syndrome, nerve pain, soft tissue strains or injuries, sports injuries, temporomandibular joint pain, upper back and neck pain".
Love your content, I just wanted to be one of those ACTUALLYYYY people once in my life.
Who is the Mayo Clinic to go against fact boy?
I'm pretty sure acupuncture at least does something, since it's been successfully used in animals as well. It's not a magical cure-all but it does do stuff
@Jasa actually acpuncture actually gave very limited use in pain mamagement. it's not a cure all like people like to say but if used in a specific way it can help. there are studies done in support of them.
There’s a difference though, between reducing pain/treating symptoms and actually curing. I’ve heard people claim massage and acupuncture as full cure, and if your issue is anything other than stress or tight muscles I highly doubt that. Maybe I’m giving him too much credit, but I just thought he was scoffing at the idea of them being a magic cure-all.
@@RoseNZieg huh. I stand corrected. Thank you for the info