0:01

Salt mines, known for

0:03

being drudgery. Famous for

0:06

being salty? Nobody thinks

0:08

much about them, so let's have some

0:10

fun. Let's find out why salt mines

0:13

are secretly incredibly

0:15

fascinating. Hey

0:33

there, folks. Welcome to a whole new

0:35

podcast episode, a podcast all about why

0:37

being alive is more interesting than people

0:39

think it is. My name is Alex

0:41

Schmidt, and I'm very much not alone

0:43

because I'm joined by my co-host, Katie

0:46

Golden. Katie, hello. Hey,

0:48

hey, how's it going? It's

0:50

going great. We are entering the salt

0:53

mines and we're entering with a wonderful guest.

0:55

His next novel is I'm Starting to Worry

0:57

About This Black Box of Doom. It is

0:59

on sale September 24th, so next week, and

1:02

please pre-order now because that is the most

1:04

beneficial and you'll get the book sooner. Please

1:07

welcome Jason Pargin. Hey, Jason. Hello.

1:10

I am going to try not to

1:13

take today's episode to an extremely dark

1:15

place because it's,

1:17

we're talking about something

1:19

everybody's got. There can't

1:21

be death involved in this, so I'm

1:23

confident this will be a breezy, good

1:26

time. I

1:28

want to thank many listeners.

1:30

This was in general suggested

1:32

by RoastyToasty with support from

1:34

Capulicious, Courtchester, X Carax, Zed

1:36

Frank, Arkblade. They suggested

1:39

salt, and that's a great topic.

1:41

We could do a whole separate table salt episode

1:44

and then I broke out the topic of salt

1:46

mines because they

1:48

exist. They give us wonderful salt and there's

1:50

that metaphor people talk about of like,

1:52

oh, the salt mines are a bad job.

1:55

Some of them were, but that's okay. It's

1:57

so fascinating and worth talking about. I

2:00

refuse to believe that anything ever bad happened

2:02

in a mine. Yeah,

2:07

I think the seven dwarves dug up gems there.

2:10

Yeah, it's fun time while

2:12

whistling. I don't know what could

2:15

go wrong in an enclosed space underground. It sounds

2:17

like heaven to me. Yeah. Hey,

2:19

I like salt. And

2:21

we always start with what we've kind of gotten

2:23

into our opinion of or relationship to the topic.

2:26

And Jason, you can start as the guest. What

2:28

do you think of salt mines? Well,

2:30

I am of the belief that one

2:32

of the most modern, important modern phenomenon

2:34

is our disconnect from all the stuff

2:36

we have and how hard it is

2:38

to get it. Like every

2:41

little thing that you think of as

2:43

being easy, like your access to fresh

2:45

water. Somebody in the

2:47

world is dying for that. And if

2:49

you've ever been in a situation in the wild

2:51

where you've had to find and purify your own water,

2:53

you realize, oh, this takes an incredible amount of

2:55

labor and it's very difficult. And

2:58

I'm going to die because I can't do it.

3:01

That we just take up a grain of salt

3:03

is one of those things where there are language

3:05

is full of salt metaphors and talking about somebody

3:07

is worth their salt. Or you can take that

3:09

with a grain of salt or saying these people

3:11

are the salt of the earth. As if that's

3:13

a very meaningful and profound thing. When

3:16

for most of us, salt costs pennies for a box

3:18

of it. And we don't give it a second thought.

3:20

And the idea of being short on salt is ludicrous.

3:23

But for most of history and most

3:25

species that depend on it, getting it

3:27

is incredibly difficult. Yeah.

3:30

When you and I were document chatting

3:32

about this topic, you mentioned Morton salt,

3:35

where they had a whole innovation

3:37

of making salt pour more easily out of a container.

3:39

And even that we take for granted. It's just much

3:41

easier than it used to be. Is

3:44

that a thing that people know? I didn't know

3:46

if people realize that when you, because most people

3:48

out there, if I say close jars and picture

3:50

a container of salt, you're picturing a blue little

3:52

cylinder with a girl holding the umbrella. Do people

3:54

know what, why that's a thing? I

3:57

don't think so. That their entire selling point was here.

4:00

salt you can use even when it's

4:02

raining. What?

4:05

It's like, well, no, because it used

4:07

to clump up and they added a

4:09

de-clumping agent and so thus the slogan,

4:11

when it rains, it pours. When

4:14

it rains, our salt

4:16

will continue to pour. And

4:18

that was a huge selling point. And that's why their

4:20

logo is a little girl holding an umbrella. And she's

4:22

got a thing full of salt in the box of

4:25

salt is draining out behind her. Cause it's got a

4:27

hole in it. And even in a rainstorm, it's capable

4:29

of doing that. Thus she will get home and have

4:31

an empty container of salt and her parents will probably

4:33

beat her for that. But things

4:36

were very dark in the past, but that

4:38

was how you sold things. And

4:41

Katie, what do you think of these salt

4:43

mines elements of this broader topic? Well,

4:46

you know, I mean, I think as

4:48

long as I get to turn into

4:50

a cool ass donkey, I'm

4:53

all for it. Isn't

4:55

that like that was a thing in

4:57

Pinocchio. In Pinocchio? Yeah. In Pinocchio. They're

5:00

like, hey, boys, want to

5:02

have some beer and cigars? And

5:04

then they turn like it was

5:06

kind of the first example of

5:08

body horror that I I

5:10

guess was exposed to as a kid is

5:12

like them turning into donkeys and being in

5:15

agony. Sure. Yeah.

5:18

Salt mines. I think I have a vague recollection

5:20

of there's like a salt mine in where is

5:22

it? But it is like a

5:24

country where they have giant salt mines that you

5:26

can visit and they are like

5:29

wildly incredible, huge and

5:31

interesting. OK. And

5:34

so it seems seems interesting and

5:36

I'm excited about it. And

5:38

I would I've always just wanted to

5:40

lick the walls of one of these

5:42

giant salt mines to see what that

5:45

fresh salt flavor is. We

5:48

did we just did that bonus show about

5:50

the popcorn formations in caves, like the ceilings

5:52

and the walls on the floors. And maybe

5:54

that primed us to we're like, how do

5:56

I consume the sides of a cave? There's

5:58

a real. Yeah. a lot of like there's

6:00

a lot of geological phenomena that I want

6:02

to taste. Let me add it. Yeah.

6:05

Yeah. But

6:07

also, listeners, if you want a visual while

6:09

you're listening to this, if

6:11

you're driving down the road, you want to also look

6:13

at your phone in addition to listening, Google pictures of

6:16

salt mines. There's no uninteresting

6:18

photo of a salt mine. Yeah,

6:21

they're always huge. They're

6:23

really cool and otherworldly. I've never been

6:25

inside of one, but they're really cool

6:27

places and not to work,

6:30

I wouldn't think they're cool to look at from

6:32

a farm as a tourist to

6:34

pass through one. I'm sure would be cool. Yeah,

6:38

because I also have never been in one

6:40

when I went to Syracuse University for school.

6:43

I just found out that that place

6:45

is nicknamed the Salt City. The former

6:47

sports mascot is the Saltine Warrior, which

6:50

was a Native American mascot. And

6:52

so my only thought was I'm glad they changed

6:55

the Native American mascot to a fun orange with

6:57

a face because but I didn't think about like

6:59

there are cities with a history of salt mining.

7:01

You just don't think about these mines or where

7:03

it comes from. I

7:05

mean, Saltine is that because I

7:08

associate the word saltine with the

7:10

cracker. That was also

7:12

confusing. Yeah. Yeah. Is that is that also

7:15

like a word for a tribal

7:17

nation? Why is it called the Saltine Warrior?

7:20

In their use, it was an even more confusing thing.

7:23

It was like this is a native warrior from a

7:25

place that's full of salt. And

7:27

so he is saltine in his ways. Like

7:29

he's salty. They should have said the

7:32

salty warrior, but then I guess that sounds like a sea

7:34

captain or something. Well, see,

7:36

the Saltine Warrior sounds like

7:38

a cruel nickname for a

7:40

Republican or something. Yeah.

7:43

Right. And

7:47

with these mines are a set

7:49

of fascinating numbers and statistics. And

7:51

this week, that is in a

7:53

segment called Know Your Stats. You

7:56

must be able to mine the

7:58

data stats dig into. that

8:00

make you smooth. Now your

8:03

stats use all your knowledge

8:05

to solve those problems. Equation

8:08

strange as the dark

8:10

side of the moon. Bup,

8:14

bup, bup, bup, bup, bup. Hot

8:17

guys shirtless. Yeah,

8:22

everybody was imagining that. Yeah. Those

8:25

are some Saltyn Warriors, am I right? Oh, yeah.

8:28

My first Disney crush. I

8:31

think a lot of people see that. And that name was submitted by Zach

8:33

W on the Discord. Thank you, Zach.

8:36

There's a new name for this segment every week.

8:38

Please make them as silly and wacky and bad

8:40

as possible, possibly with Hot Warriors. Submit through the

8:42

Discord or to sifpod@gmail.com. So

8:44

do all of your listeners instantly know that that was

8:47

a song from Milan? I hope so. Is

8:49

that part of the fun that you don't tell

8:51

them? It's like, where did I... I

8:54

know that's something. I know that's something. I

8:56

know that's something. Where is that from? Yeah,

8:58

sometimes we just carry on. It's up to

9:00

them. And all

9:02

this week's numbers, they are about, I

9:04

guess, muscular people because it's about the

9:07

basic techniques of salt mining. Most

9:09

of us never think about how salt is mined.

9:12

And one of the ways is a horrible underground mine

9:14

shaft. But the key number

9:16

for framing this is three because there

9:19

are three general techniques that

9:21

people either use one of or a combination of.

9:24

For at least 2,000 years, they've mined

9:26

salt these various ways. So three

9:28

different techniques. Is

9:31

one getting a bunch of frustrated

9:34

deer in there to lick

9:36

things until they sort of

9:38

turn into a slushy? Right,

9:41

like the deer know where it is. The deer,

9:43

they're like the truffle pigs. They know.

9:47

Yeah, the salt-sniffing deer. One

9:50

of them is digging a big mine

9:52

shaft, shaft mining. The second

9:55

way is a related system called solution

9:57

mining. And the third way is letting

9:59

salt in. And

18:00

you can get it from foods

18:03

without necessarily mining salt. It

18:05

just like helps us get enough if we can

18:07

dig it straight up and season it and control

18:09

it that way. But there's like

18:12

some salt in, especially meat and stuff

18:14

that we just eat. Yeah.

18:16

Like you eat, eat some fresh

18:18

caribou, some fish. Uh, you

18:20

just eat them, eat them raw too. You get, got, got

18:23

to get a lot of salt from that. And

18:25

maybe what I'm asking is unknowable. Cause I think the

18:27

listeners are probably asking how 12,000 years ago did they

18:31

know that they

18:33

needed salt? Like how did they figure it out? And

18:35

is it a thing where they just knew it tasted

18:37

good or it? Yeah.

18:39

Because that's like older than the Bible thinks the

18:41

whole earth is. Yeah.

18:44

I mean, I, I would imagine it's exactly like

18:46

sugar tastes good. We crave it. I mean, a

18:48

lot of animals have this instinct as well. You

18:50

have birds that lick, uh, the

18:52

like cliff walls because it tastes tasty. It

18:55

tastes like salt. It's salty. They like it.

18:57

They like the mineral taste. A

18:59

cool one is like butterflies will

19:02

gravitate towards the tears of like

19:04

turtles or birds because they like the taste

19:06

of the salt. So they go, you know,

19:08

for a little butterfly, that's like, that's a

19:10

huge amount of salt. So they go and

19:12

you'll see like butterflies on a turtle head

19:15

and it's like, Oh, that's so adorable. But

19:17

they're like cry for me. Like they

19:20

cry to expel excess salt,

19:23

not because they're sad. And

19:25

so butterflies are there ready to sip up,

19:27

slurp up those tears. Butterflies

19:29

just whispering in its ear, like, you know,

19:31

I just saw, there's a

19:33

sad puppy that's dying over the

19:35

hill. There's nobody can do anything

19:37

for it. It's so sad.

19:40

And its mother left it. And it's just,

19:43

yeah, it's awful. I, I, yeah.

19:45

Philip J. Fry is frozen and he's going

19:48

to be in the future and his dog,

19:50

everyone who's seen Futurama is weeping, weeping, weeping.

19:55

It generally seems to be like a

19:58

lot of other things their bodies need, like vitamins. where

20:01

people did not comprehend vitamin C, but they

20:03

just ate enough food that had enough of

20:05

it that they didn't die. And then some

20:07

sailors started to get scurvy later on. And

20:09

we were like, oh, no, no, but the

20:11

salt is sort of that way where we

20:14

love it. We know we love it. And a

20:16

lot of our food had enough that people didn't

20:18

die. But you really can die

20:21

of not enough salt. The

20:23

condition's called hyponatremia, which

20:26

means water toxicity, like water flushes

20:28

salt from your system and

20:30

the words mean too much water, but it

20:33

really means not enough salt. Salt

20:36

ions are incredibly important. It's

20:39

the whole reason our brains work. It's the

20:41

whole way that we have osmosis through cells.

20:44

So flushing out all of your salt

20:47

kills you. And the other

20:49

direction too, there was a case of

20:51

someone, I think at University of Virginia

20:53

chugging soy sauce, and

20:56

then you get too much salt, like

20:59

hyponatremia, like you have

21:01

to really try, right? Like you have to chug

21:04

like an entire bottle of soy sauce

21:07

or like drink water to the point where

21:09

like you would be

21:11

throwing up. Like it's not something you can

21:13

very easily accidentally do. So that's why not

21:15

many people die this way, but it does

21:18

happen, right? Like, so like, don't do that.

21:22

And speaking of salt and water, that

21:24

third way of mining is something

21:27

that's more or less the most modern,

21:29

but it's called solution mining. And

21:32

it is where there is salt underground. You

21:34

pump water down to the salt and

21:36

then pump it back up after it

21:38

has mixed with the salt and become

21:40

a salty water, a brine. Ah,

21:43

okay. And so then you

21:45

just like boil the salt back out afterward.

21:47

And that's a third way to get it.

21:50

Really the key source for the whole

21:52

episode is an amazing book. It's called

21:54

Salt A World History. It's by award-winning

21:56

nonfiction writer, Mark Kirlanski. And

21:59

he says that But in the part

22:01

of Europe that's now southern Poland, they

22:03

had hot springs that bubble through salt

22:05

deposits. So it's a

22:08

salt water hot spring. And

22:10

dating back to 3500 BC, at least 5500 years ago, people

22:12

would put the salty spring water

22:18

in pots and use fires to boil the salt

22:20

out. So even

22:22

then, the earth kind of showed us

22:24

a way to do this third way of salt mining.

22:28

That sounds like a wonderful spa, hot salt water.

22:30

I don't know, maybe that's not good for you,

22:32

but I want to like float in it. Yeah,

22:35

some of these former salt mines, either

22:37

during or after, became spas because

22:39

people like the salt and there's

22:41

a thing, it's magnesium sulfate, but

22:43

we call it Epsom salts. And

22:45

it's named after a small town

22:47

in England called Epsom where people

22:49

soaked in magnesium sulfate springs. The

22:53

other thing that we actually get salt out

22:55

of less than you'd think is giant salt

22:58

flats. One number there is 50 to 70%.

23:02

That's how much of the world's lithium is

23:04

in a giant salt flat in Bolivia. And

23:07

we now are sending a lot of people

23:09

to mine lithium out of it. It's called

23:11

Salar de Uyuni. But

23:13

that salt flat is more than 4000 square miles. It's

23:17

more than 12,000 feet above sea level. So

23:20

not a lot of like people live there. It's

23:22

just too giant of a salt land. And so

23:24

that kind of place we actually don't tend to

23:26

mine much salt out of for

23:28

like eating and for our basic

23:30

human need. So it's more getting

23:32

it underground or getting it from seawater. The

23:35

next number here, this is about amazing ancient mining.

23:37

It's the year 250 BC. 250

23:41

BC, that's about 2,200 years ago. That's

23:45

when engineers in China built a

23:47

revolutionary salt mine that uses

23:49

a few different techniques, including solution

23:51

mining. Mark Kirlansky says

23:53

there have been like major organized salt works

23:55

in China since at least 800 BC. People

23:59

in Sichuan, China. have been gathering

24:01

available salt since at least 3000 BC.

24:05

We've really wanted salt that whole time.

24:08

In 250 BC, an engineer named Li Bing

24:10

ordered the drilling of the world's first brine

24:12

wells, like the first

24:15

on purpose solution mining system.

24:18

And that system worked and also killed

24:20

a lot of the miners. And

24:23

here we go. This

24:25

is where I knew, knew

24:29

where we were going to arrive. Yeah,

24:34

this opens up the darkest part of the

24:36

show. And this

24:38

is Mark Kirlansky's description of what

24:40

happens when they dug brine wells,

24:42

where they're mostly pumping water down,

24:44

they're not going underground so much.

24:47

But here's his description, quote, "'Sometimes

24:50

the people who dug the wells "'would

24:52

inexplicably become weak, "'get sick, lie down

24:54

and die. "'Occasionally a

24:56

tremendous explosion "'would kill an entire

24:58

crew, "'or flames spit out

25:01

from the boreholes. "'Gradually the

25:03

salt workers and their communities "'realized that

25:05

an evil spirit from some underworld "'was

25:07

rising up through the holes they were

25:09

digging. "'By 68 BC,

25:12

two wells, one in Sichuan "'and one

25:14

in Namerang Shanxi, "'became infamous

25:16

as sites where the evil spirit emerged.

25:19

"'Once a year, the governors of their

25:21

respective provinces "'would visit these wells and

25:23

make offerings.'" End quote.

25:26

Was this evil spirit like carbon

25:28

monoxide or something? Pretty

25:30

much, it was, they were hitting a deposit

25:32

of natural gas adjacent to the

25:35

salt deposit. And so

25:37

they were poisoning themselves with natural gas. Yeah,

25:39

that's not great. And

25:42

they didn't really understand, so they were like, it's

25:44

spirits, it's devils, yeah. Yeah. Yeah,

25:47

and I don't doubt those legends you find everywhere, because

25:49

in Lord of the Rings, the

25:51

dwarves dug too deep and they ran into a

25:53

demon and it's like, I don't doubt there's folklore

25:55

all over the place, because like, wow, every time

25:58

we dig one of these huge mines, something

26:00

horrific happens, but

26:03

we're not going to stop digging the mines. To be

26:05

clear, we're not going to stop getting the gold out

26:07

of there. That's

26:11

much too important. It's like, yeah. All

26:13

right. Yeah, but that is

26:15

interesting because like ignoring the folklore about

26:17

sort of like, hey, when you

26:20

live next to this body of water, like

26:23

there's demons there, so don't live there. And

26:26

there have been cases where like more

26:28

modern people will ignore that because it's like,

26:30

hey, like that sounds silly and made up.

26:33

And then it turns out there's like carbon

26:36

dioxide pockets underneath the water

26:38

or the it's

26:41

like a cave that releases some kind

26:43

of gas and then people get poisoned

26:45

or suffocate and die en masse. So

26:47

it is it is interesting because like

26:50

you don't have to necessarily believe in

26:52

spirits and demons, but if like there is

26:55

an entire like culture that

26:57

has been for many, many years going like

26:59

there's a demon that will just kill you

27:01

in your sleep. If you go near this

27:03

cave, you might want to

27:05

like test it, take it, take

27:08

it like a, you know, test kit there

27:10

to see if it's a, you know, there's

27:12

a lot of carbon monoxide or something. Right.

27:16

Like nice try with your legend about a

27:18

canary who died. I'm coal mining anyway. Thank

27:20

you very much. Don't eat it. We

27:22

all know that that the spirit is

27:25

actually an old man in a costume

27:27

trying to scare us away so he

27:29

can get the insurance money

27:31

or whatever those Scooby-Doo plots were. I actually

27:33

don't remember what the motive for the guy

27:35

pretending to be a monster always was. Yeah.

27:39

It was like always a carnival or something like

27:41

some business that is not profitable. Yeah. It

27:43

was usually I think like insurance money

27:45

or they're sick of kids coming near

27:48

their house. You know, it's like it's

27:50

like homeowner, evil homeowner association person. Like

27:52

I'm sick of these kids on their

27:54

bicycle. So I pretended to be a

27:56

ghoul. Yeah. Yeah. Scooby-Doo's

27:59

audience loved zoning. It was like their favorite thing to

28:01

talk about and think about. They

28:07

didn't really understand the natural gas, but

28:09

they also solved it. It

28:12

did take about 400 years. That was

28:14

a bleak period of not solving it yet. But

28:17

they- 400 years. Longer

28:20

than United States history, it's all good. They

28:24

solved it really brilliantly. They solved

28:26

it with pipes made out of bamboo. Either

28:30

through luck or skill, they figured out

28:32

that bamboo is resistant to salt, and

28:34

then salt can kill algae and microbes

28:37

that would otherwise combine with water and

28:39

rot the bamboo. They

28:41

built very long-lasting bamboo piping

28:44

systems where they funneled

28:46

the natural gas out, and then

28:48

also kept brine mining the salt.

28:52

On top of that, they were able

28:54

to set up boiling houses powered by

28:56

the natural gas. Then

28:58

they could use the natural gas to burn away

29:00

the water from the brine and get the salt.

29:03

They were doing this by AD 200. More

29:07

than 1,800 years ago, a salt mine in

29:09

China was our first

29:11

natural gas-powered anything at all. It

29:14

was our first natural gas-powered facility.

29:17

That's wild. How did they- I

29:21

know 400 years is actually quite a

29:24

bit of time in human history, but

29:26

to go from it's invisible, how do

29:28

we- Right. Because

29:30

natural gas, I don't think you can smell. The

29:33

reason we can smell gas in our homes is

29:35

they add a stinky rotten

29:37

egg smell to it so

29:39

we don't get natural gas

29:41

poisoning or explode our house.

29:44

But in nature, natural gas

29:46

is pretty odorless. There's

29:49

this invisible thing that just kills you and you're

29:51

like, yeah, that's a ghost. That

29:53

is pretty good logic. We like to make

29:55

fun of it, but if

29:57

there's an invisible force that's killing you, going like,

29:59

yeah, it's- demons, that's smart, that's

30:01

logical because what else could it be?

30:04

So to go from there to

30:06

like, actually, this is something

30:08

that we could pump out with

30:11

a pipe and

30:13

then also use in

30:15

combustion. Like,

30:17

how do you get from this

30:20

sort of superstition to understanding this

30:22

invisible thing so early on in

30:24

human history? It

30:27

seems like the key clue was the explosions.

30:30

Ah. When, you know, somebody

30:32

would make a spark and that's near a tube

30:34

of natural gas and blows up, it seems like

30:36

that led them to figure out that part. That's

30:39

what I love about humans though, because

30:41

if like the ball rug was real

30:44

from Lord of the Rings within decades,

30:46

we would have that thing powering our

30:49

windmills and stuff. It would be

30:51

right. We'd breed

30:53

tiny toy ball

30:56

rugs that you could carry around

30:58

in your purse. Right.

31:00

Yeah. The, ultimately the

31:03

advancement of civilization, the profit mode of all of

31:05

that, yeah, show

31:08

me whatever monster you've got, we will. Right.

31:11

Through selective breeding, we will humiliate you.

31:15

And like, honey, I can't

31:17

believe our bill this month

31:19

from CEB, Commonwealth Edison ball

31:21

rug, this stupid company. I'm

31:23

purely upset about the

31:25

letter I got. I

31:28

don't respect the miracle they achieved. You shall

31:30

not pass on this great offer

31:32

for a cheap gas. And,

31:37

and that astounding story, well, for one

31:39

thing, salt mining is safer now, but

31:41

like we say, there's no perfect way

31:43

to make it safe. Uh,

31:46

that, that leads into the other

31:48

darkest part of the show and our first

31:50

takeaway. Takeaway number one underground

31:56

salt mining operations often discover

31:59

salt miner. bodies. Like

32:02

we often old ones are new ones. Both,

32:05

but usually older ones. Like it's, this is

32:07

especially the shaft mining approach where you just

32:09

dig a big tunnel into the ground. We

32:11

will often find out that there was a

32:13

tunnel here before where salt miners died

32:15

and just kind of got walled off by

32:18

the recrystallization of the salt and the abandonment

32:20

of the mine. Like

32:23

are their bodies more like, are they

32:25

just bones? Or is there some preservation

32:27

cause like of all the salt? The

32:30

second thing, salt mummification. Ooh,

32:33

cool and sad. I don't know how

32:35

to feel about this. As

32:38

dark as it is, it is to me even more

32:40

just fascinating. Like, like, wow, that this can

32:42

happen. And so that's why it's on the show. Yeah,

32:46

because it is hard to overstate

32:48

that everything in the modern world

32:50

runs off of

32:53

mining. Everything, everything, your

32:56

phone, your car, everything you touch

32:58

has been mined and it will

33:01

be like that forever. When

33:04

we talk about like green energy or

33:06

nuclear fusion, all you're talking

33:08

about is different stuff that has to be

33:10

dug out of the ground and

33:12

people will die mining probably a thousand

33:14

years from now. It is, can definitely

33:16

be made safer. They make it as

33:19

safe as they are forced to make it. But

33:22

yeah, that's the

33:24

history of mining too, where it's like,

33:26

I could maybe give this person some

33:29

gloves to handle this dangerous mining compound,

33:33

but no, that's like

33:35

10 cents I'm going to lose per pound of sulfur or

33:37

whatever. Exactly.

33:41

Yeah. Yeah. Like, you know, we can only

33:44

protect 99.9% of the miners

33:46

and also we protect less than that because

33:49

the actuaries said we can lose a couple

33:51

of guys and you know, we won't

33:53

go out of business. And so that's the situation of it.

33:56

But I think that's the fun thing is anytime

33:58

I watch a movie that's about like the future.

34:00

And it's like a kind of utopian future. And sometimes you'll

34:02

see that photo of people with shares like, well, this is

34:04

what the world would look like if we

34:07

got rid of capitalism, rivalry and it's all these

34:09

beautiful buildings. And if you look at it, everything

34:11

you're looking at came from my mind. The, the

34:14

wonderful future of 500 years from now

34:16

of robots and AI and flying cars

34:18

and all of it. Okay. Everything you're

34:20

describing, some filthy person has

34:23

had to dig and dig and dig

34:25

in the dark. Yeah.

34:27

There are some really chilling like letters you

34:29

can read from minors, who

34:32

were trapped in say like a mine, 1800s

34:35

even turn of the century and they're just

34:37

writing basically. And so

34:40

it's, it is very haunting. That

34:43

being said, can we talk about

34:45

the people jerky? Cause that's interesting

34:47

from like a scientific perspective.

34:50

He's got a photo here we're going to get

34:52

to in a little bit. That's something.

34:55

Okay. Should I, should I look at this before

34:57

dinner? I

35:00

think you'll be fine. I don't find it like

35:02

too repulsive or anything, but it looks like a

35:04

lot of especially South American mummies that I've seen

35:06

in pictures. I see. Okay. Yeah.

35:09

And we talked on the past

35:11

cold episode about how people

35:13

have used coal for thousands of years,

35:15

mostly from like exposed seams, but most

35:18

of the shaft mining is relatively recent for coal.

35:21

Salt we've been shaft mining for a lot longer. And

35:24

there are some deposits that we've been

35:27

digging toward for a few thousand years.

35:30

And especially in Europe that was done

35:32

by a lot of ancient French people

35:34

that we call Gauls, ancient Germanic people.

35:37

We also get the name Gaul from

35:40

salt mining. That is

35:42

not what they called themselves. The Gaul is what

35:44

the Romans called them. And

35:46

the word comes from Roman and Egyptian language

35:48

words for salt. Because

35:51

Gallic people were that famous for

35:54

these amazing mining shaft systems where they dig

35:56

at like a 45 or 50 degree angle.

36:00

where it's a steep slope, you just

36:02

climb all the way down, carve blocks of salt

36:04

out of the deposit and physically haul it up

36:06

a 45 degree angle. Jesus

36:09

Christ. Which is awful work, it's

36:12

terrible. Whoa, is that where

36:14

we, is Gallic the, where we

36:16

got the term or the word

36:18

Gaelic from? Is that the same

36:20

thing or is that a different word? It's

36:23

related, yeah, some of my sources also

36:25

call these people like Celts, like French

36:27

Celts and yeah, so Gallic

36:29

and Cal, they have a connection there, but

36:31

the word Celtic isn't salt related so much. Right,

36:35

but Gallic maybe? Yeah,

36:37

that's related, yeah. So it's, and

36:39

these people were famous for trading their iron

36:41

and their salts all over the river systems

36:43

of Europe, that was what they were known

36:45

for and the Romans basically just learned

36:48

and kept cowing a lot of these mines

36:50

when they conquered those places. So

36:53

they inherited it from the people they called barbarians all

36:55

the time, even though they were like, oh my God,

36:57

salt, fantastic. We have way more salt now. Yeah,

37:00

inherited is an interesting term. There

37:04

is a lot of interesting also like Roman

37:07

sculpture and stuff like the dying Gall, where

37:09

there's a weird cut, even though there was

37:11

like a lot of propaganda about like these

37:14

guys are savages, they're terrible, there was actually

37:16

a lot of like art where there was

37:18

some interesting respect for

37:20

them where it's like depicting them in

37:22

ways that are kind of like positive

37:25

or tragic and it is a very

37:28

interesting thing of like where they would

37:30

sometimes conquer cultures and be like, hey,

37:32

look at how cool this culture is

37:34

that we conquered. Yeah,

37:37

totally, like they even adopted

37:40

a tool technique that the

37:42

Gall's figured out which is like iron

37:44

was the latest and hardest metal, but

37:46

they used bronze tools to mine the

37:48

salt because salt doesn't corrode the bronze

37:50

and it does corrode the iron, like

37:52

this was very wise and they

37:54

did it for a long time continuously

37:56

in some places, there's a place in what's

37:58

now Germany called Reich. and all that's

38:01

been an active salt mine since

38:03

ancient Germanic times. There

38:05

was a brief interruption when Attila the

38:07

Hun invaded, but as a

38:09

Germanic place in the Roman province and then

38:11

a place with German

38:13

rulers and the post-Roman Empire Catholic

38:16

Church, they just kept digging salts.

38:19

And so that's one of many places where you can start

38:22

a tunnel, lose some guys, and then

38:24

find them centuries later or more than

38:26

a thousand years later. That's

38:29

wild. So can we talk about some of these

38:31

people that we found? As

38:34

far as the biology goes, there's not a

38:36

ton to say. It's just that the

38:38

miners got either trapped or dehydrated because

38:41

also, you know, they didn't have bottled

38:43

water, so they need to like bring

38:46

fresh water to guys in a tunnel of salt

38:48

and they don't always do that that effectively. And

38:51

these were often people who were prisoners

38:53

or enslaved people and not cared about

38:55

by the people in charge. And

38:58

so guys just die. Well,

39:00

this photo you have here is

39:02

looks so much like a stereotypical

39:04

prospector with like

39:06

the long scraggly beard. It's

39:09

not, I'm not saying it's comical. I'm sure

39:12

he died horribly, but I've not seen like

39:14

a prospector mummy before. And

39:16

it's like, hey, we dug down the

39:18

mine. We found this mummified corpse and

39:20

he looks exactly like a cartoon prospector

39:23

from Toy Story. Right.

39:27

I mean, the cartoons come from

39:29

sort of a bastardized version of

39:31

reality and then human beings

39:34

have not really changed that

39:36

much physically, you know, since our

39:40

inception. So like, it's

39:42

just like, yeah,

39:44

it makes sense. The

39:46

beard and the haircut and the boots, it's very like

39:49

Golden Nugget Casino Las Vegas, which is not

39:51

what you think about with mummies. Yeah. You

39:55

think about a king. Yeah. Like

39:57

that's the thing about a mummified corpse. kind

40:00

of tell what this guy was

40:02

like. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah.

40:05

Yeah. No, I know. Like you can see

40:07

some personality there, which is harder. Obviously

40:09

when you just have bones,

40:12

uh, you know, archeologists

40:14

have to work pretty hard to figure

40:16

out who this person was, what their

40:18

deal was, you know, reconstruct

40:20

their face if they can. But if you

40:22

have a mummy, you can, especially really well

40:25

preserved one, which is the case for, it

40:27

looks like the case for these salt mummies.

40:30

Um, yeah, you can kind of like see, I don't

40:33

know stuff about, like, obviously it's hard to know

40:35

if we're right about the judgments we're making, but

40:37

you can see a lot of

40:39

their personality. You can kind of see like, Hey, that's

40:41

their face. This is how they kept their hair. This

40:43

is the clothes they wore. Yeah,

40:46

totally. Like the picture we're looking

40:48

at is not European. It's a mummy found

40:50

in what's now Iran. This was

40:53

in 1993, an active

40:56

mine at Cherabad in Northwestern

40:58

Iran found mummies from multiple

41:00

thousands of years ago with a

41:02

long beard, a single gold earring, one

41:05

of the mummies was a teenage boy. We've

41:08

also done some fines in Poland.

41:11

Because, uh, that spot in Poland where

41:13

they had the brine hot springs, they

41:15

proceeded to then start digging and

41:18

that digging started in the 1200s AD. Some

41:21

guys get lost. And then in

41:23

the ensuing 800 years, we find

41:25

mummies. There's even a controversial

41:28

find in what's now the Uyghur

41:30

part of Western China, where

41:32

there's a highly politicized debate about the

41:34

DNA of the mummies they found. And

41:37

does it mean that European people and

41:39

Celtic people were in Western China? We

41:41

don't know. But with all

41:43

of them, we find their stuff, their clothes. We

41:45

can kind of figure out what their face

41:48

looked like. It's a very lifelike person. Gold

41:51

earring. This guy was one

41:53

of the things he had a gold earring. I

41:56

love that. Maybe he was just

41:59

a rockin dude. know. This

42:02

is where I most feel like Joe Rogan

42:04

where all I can say is like, dude,

42:07

do you think about like this,

42:09

this dude's like a hot shot miner. He's got

42:11

his gold earring. He's gone to work and probably

42:13

was like kind of a

42:15

rocking dude. And then one day just assault

42:18

just falls in and just buries you there.

42:20

And then all these thousands of years, and

42:24

you think if that guy had ever had to fight a

42:26

gorilla, like could he have won that fight with the Joe

42:30

Rogan is fascinated with whether or not somebody can

42:33

fight a gorilla. I'm sorry. Yeah,

42:35

he is like that. But

42:37

I am, it is cool to see

42:39

like this guy's drip, like, you know,

42:42

many, many years later, where we can

42:44

see like, Hey, this guy, this prospector

42:46

actually has some pretty good drip. Those,

42:49

those boots do not look cheap. Like you

42:51

think it was easy to make a pair

42:53

of boots like that thousands of years ago.

42:55

Like that was anyway, I

42:57

think my, my theory now is that

42:59

this guy was the boss and his

43:02

death is hilarious. Right? Like he came down like, I

43:04

heard you guys have been complaining about the structure of this

43:07

tunnel and then it fell on him. You know, it's actually

43:09

funny. Like he's like

43:11

knocking on like some support beam. He

43:13

was like, do we need this crash?

43:19

But yeah, and, and these

43:22

minds are like all giant tunnels we try

43:24

to dig into the earth where they can

43:26

collapse. And so, you know,

43:28

sometimes they dry out or die of exhaustion and

43:30

dehydration, but a lot of the times they just

43:32

get crushed by the salt. And

43:35

Jason pointed out an amazing story about

43:38

a collapsed salt mine that is

43:40

now a Lake called Lake Pinhe, which

43:43

is in Louisiana in the US. And

43:45

in 1980, there were workers drilling for

43:47

oil. They accidentally drilled into

43:49

a salt deposit and undermined a salt dome.

43:51

So then 65 acres of land became

43:55

a giant sinkhole. Oh geez.

43:58

And there was a tiny Lake there that. then

44:00

became a 1300 foot deep

44:02

lake with a 150 foot waterfall before

44:04

it kind of settled into being a

44:06

much bigger lake today. I

44:09

love that story because you know, I have the

44:11

jobs I've had the worst you

44:13

can screw up is actually fairly minor.

44:16

Like you get something wrong in an article and you

44:18

have to correct it or you say something dumb

44:20

on a podcast and some people yell at you.

44:23

But having the type of job where

44:25

you can accidentally change the landscape for

44:28

the next thousand years because you accidentally drilled

44:30

into the wrong spot and drained a lake

44:32

and then created a 150 foot

44:35

tall waterfall that was temporarily the tallest

44:37

waterfall in the state due to the

44:39

cataclysm you called because you drilled into

44:42

the wrong spot. That's the type

44:44

of thing I would do if

44:46

I worked in drilling. It's

44:48

the type of day at work I would have. I can

44:50

just see it. Yeah.

44:53

And when we do that, we get a one

44:56

star review on Apple Podcasts. And that's, you know,

44:58

that's basically a mind collapse. I actually am very

45:00

brave. One

45:03

star terraformed the area for the

45:05

worst. 65

45:07

acres just a little hand collapsed. Oh, hold

45:09

on. I marked the wrong spot on

45:11

the map before I turned on the thing.

45:14

I'm sorry. Salted

45:17

the earth too much. Also don't

45:19

like the vocal fry. Yeah.

45:24

People be complaining. It's

45:26

history. Yeah. Well,

45:30

and that just the scale

45:32

of the danger and risk

45:35

that salt miners have taken for thousands of

45:37

years, I find it truly safe. I find

45:39

it amazing. And

45:41

that's a bunch of numbers and a giant

45:43

takeaway. We are going to take a quick

45:46

break, then return with two more takeaways about

45:48

astounding roles of salt mines and all sorts

45:50

of cultural stuff impacting the world.

45:56

Thank you. One

46:05

thing we all have in common, we

46:07

all have a mind. It makes me

46:09

so scared because I'm like, when is

46:11

the bad thing going to happen? And

46:13

minds can be kind of unpredictable and

46:15

eccentric. Everybody wants to hear

46:17

that they're not alone. Everybody

46:19

wants to hear that someone else has

46:22

those same thoughts. Depression Mode with John

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46:39

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46:41

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46:44

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46:50

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47:03

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Roberts now. We're

47:32

back and we're back with takeaway number

47:34

two. The

47:39

main salt mine for Himalayan pink

47:41

salt is a new front

47:43

in the conflict between Pakistan and India. Womp

47:46

womp. Womp womp. Himalayan

48:00

pink salt and then both countries got

48:02

an argument about it. There's

48:05

like this idea that if you have a

48:07

Himalayan salt lamp it

48:09

releases ions that are good for

48:11

you. I have not

48:14

seen any evidence that

48:16

this has any bearing

48:18

in reality. The

48:21

salt lamps do look cool, right? But

48:23

I do not believe

48:25

they have any actual health benefits other

48:27

than it's a

48:29

cool lamp that makes you happy, I guess. You

48:32

have to believe. That's why it doesn't work for you. You have to

48:34

believe. I see, it's

48:36

a faith-based lamp. Anyways,

48:38

tell me about these geopolitics.

48:41

Well, the thing is I

48:44

just went and looked at the website of my

48:46

nearest grocery store. If you buy pink Himalayan salt

48:48

as just the little thing of it to use

48:50

in your cooking, it's a 700% markup. It's

48:55

51 cents an ounce versus seven cents an ounce

48:57

for this Morton salt. I

49:00

do not believe that in a blind taste

49:02

test you could tell the difference, but it

49:04

is pink and it looks pretty to sprinkle

49:06

it on top of things. It's

49:10

pink. And when

49:12

we say that this is a driven conflict

49:14

because this is like it's suddenly a valuable

49:16

resource. I'm not saying that it's all just

49:19

upper middle-class Americans spending way too much on

49:21

it because they've decided it's magic, but that's

49:24

not none of it. Yeah,

49:27

there's even like, it's

49:30

more of a table salt episode thing,

49:32

apparently the fine dining restaurant, the French

49:34

Laundry, which is in California and famously

49:36

Gavin Newsom went there during the pandemic,

49:39

but they'll do like salt tastings as a

49:41

course. Like they give you different salts and

49:43

you try the salts. Like people get excited

49:45

about salt varieties. And

49:47

this one is, if it either

49:49

feels or is different for your taste, that's

49:51

great, but it is still salt. Like it's

49:53

mined from the ground like the other salt.

49:56

And the thing with the

49:58

Himalayan pink salt is. The

50:01

branding is somewhat true. It's from the

50:03

area of the Himalayas, which runs through

50:06

many countries, including both India and Pakistan.

50:09

And most of it is coming from a

50:11

mine in Pakistan. It's in the Northern Kewra

50:13

region, which is the red

50:16

brick colored foothills below, like

50:18

the tall snowy thing I think of with the

50:20

Himalayas. Like it's below Mount Everest, let's say. Right.

50:25

So they just mine hundreds of thousands

50:27

of tons of pink salts that are

50:29

salts. Like to me, they taste the

50:31

same and it looks nice. And

50:34

in the past few years, Himalayan pink salt

50:36

has become a big trend in places like

50:38

the US and elsewhere. And

50:40

as that got going, there were

50:42

concerned speeches about it in Pakistan's

50:44

Senate, like the legislature of

50:47

Pakistan, because the way the

50:49

process has gone so far is

50:51

that the salt gets mined in Pakistan,

50:54

and then it gets processed in India. And

50:57

they mostly did that because why not? It's

50:59

just salt until recently. And

51:01

then the price markup is

51:04

not happening at the Pakistan

51:06

stage. It's happening at the

51:08

India processing stage. And

51:10

then also it leaves the

51:12

Indian facility with Himalayan branding,

51:14

rather than like Pakistani branding.

51:17

Pakistan Senate leader, Shibley Faraz gave

51:19

a speech where he said, quote,

51:21

we are getting peanuts for this

51:24

gold, end quote. And he's

51:26

talking about the salt that

51:28

they dug up and other people processed. That is a surprising

51:31

element of a conflict that's more famous

51:33

for who controls Kashmir and stuff like

51:35

that. I

51:38

guess people are more racist

51:40

against Pakistan than like Himalayas seem

51:42

like, ooh, Himalayas, that's politically

51:44

neutral and beautiful. And then it's

51:46

like, Pakistan, isn't that something

51:48

we're supposed to be racist about?

51:52

Yeah, that's a, yeah. The US,

51:54

there's some people in the US who hear

51:56

Pakistan they think was Osama bin Laden there

51:58

recently. And so they, aren't excited about

52:00

that brand. On the other hand,

52:03

you know, it's, it's really coming from there

52:05

and why not learn a exciting thing about

52:08

salt from Pakistan? There's

52:10

a whole episode to be done about

52:12

this because one, the American consumer likes

52:14

things that are a little bit exotic

52:16

and two, we associate

52:19

adjectives with high

52:21

quality. So if I'm buying

52:24

Oatmeal and then there's one thing of

52:26

Oatmeal that's like three, cost three times

52:28

as much, and they're calling it French

52:30

sun toasted Oatmeal, I'm

52:33

going to be like, Ooh, that's

52:35

how they do it in France. And they could have

52:37

put any country on there. Well, that's not true. There

52:40

are certain countries that we associate

52:42

with fanciness and some

52:44

that we do not. And there's in

52:46

the world of marketing, cause

52:48

what was it the, the Choi and

52:51

Seabass that they had to rename because

52:53

it's old, it's old name was like

52:55

the something turd fish or something. And

52:57

so they, they just gave it, they

52:59

attached a country to it. And it's

53:01

like, Ooh, this is, this is an

53:03

exotic fish from Chile. I want that.

53:05

And so the Himalayan pink

53:08

salt sounds magical. It

53:10

does. But if you associate it, if you there

53:12

are certain countries that we are more racist against

53:15

that, it wouldn't mean anything. I

53:17

find that really interesting. I

53:20

do. I had not known that about

53:22

Chilean Seabass and fast Googling gives me

53:24

Patagonian tooth fish. And you're

53:27

right. That's not as strong of a Chile.

53:29

I think of a fun man and a

53:31

hat in the mountains and Patagonian tooth fish,

53:33

I think of like a grubby piranha or

53:36

something. Personally, I like that

53:38

better because I want to feel like

53:40

this fish at least had a chance. So

53:43

if it's a Patagonian tooth fish, it's like,

53:45

that could give you a serious bite. So

53:48

I feel like we are more evenly

53:50

matched. Yeah. Like I

53:52

defeated a Marlin or something like, yeah, cool.

53:54

Yeah. Yeah. Right. You want

53:57

to bite me? Well, I bit you. Like

54:00

a victory. And

54:04

we have one more takeaway for the main show

54:06

and then also a bonus show about a whole

54:08

nother use of salt mines. But the last takeaway

54:10

is takeaway number three. For

54:15

at least 2000 years, salt mines

54:18

have been religious worship spaces. Any

54:21

religion or was there a sort of

54:24

salt based religion? Oh,

54:27

I would like that. This is at

54:29

least three different faiths and

54:31

across a few cultures. And yeah, it's not

54:33

that specific. It's not like it's just Catholics

54:35

or something and they're into it. They're

54:38

just worshiping that guy that got famous for

54:41

sprinkling salt in a funny way.

54:45

TikTok or Instagram or something. Salt

54:48

Bay guy. Like, wow, he's

54:50

really bending his elbow in an interesting

54:52

way. He must

54:54

be some sort of deity. But

54:58

this does come back to if you see

55:01

these salt mines, they look

55:03

like if not holy places, they

55:05

look alien and otherworldly. I

55:08

can see why people would see this

55:10

as, I don't know. They're

55:13

just really cool looking. They don't look like anywhere

55:16

else on earth to my eyes. And they all,

55:18

we've got some great pictures here. Also

55:21

because salt, we just have all

55:23

these positive associations with salt. It's

55:26

tasty. It helps

55:28

preserve food in a seemingly magical way.

55:31

And then we associate it with all of

55:33

these health benefits, some possibly

55:36

real, some definitely not real. But

55:39

like, yeah, I mean, there's so much sort of a,

55:42

I guess religious elements that make

55:44

sense to associate with salt. I

55:46

mean, it's in tears. Right.

55:49

And that phrase that I used earlier saying that

55:52

someone is salt of the earth. That's from the

55:54

New Testament. That's from a speech. And

55:56

Jesus came. Yeah. If you've

55:58

ever been to a Seder. You dip parsley

56:00

in salt and it, I believe

56:03

it's to represent tears. I forgot

56:05

what the parsley is about. It

56:07

does taste pretty good though. Salty

56:09

parsley, surprisingly nice

56:12

tasting. Hmm. Yeah.

56:15

Yeah. And this whole cultural role across the

56:17

board is part of why there could be

56:19

a whole separate table salt episode. Cause between

56:21

its value and its properties, people

56:23

have been putting it into a lot of different

56:25

cultural contexts and, and the amazing

56:27

shape of these minds. It's like the positive

56:30

end of how we do a Balrog type

56:32

folklore. Like it's incredibly dangerous and

56:34

incredibly cool down there. Yeah.

56:36

It seems really beautiful. There's

56:39

a couple different houses of worship that you can

56:41

visit inside of a salt mine, like

56:43

you right now, there's not just a past thing. And

56:46

the first example is from those

56:48

Pakistani mines for the Himalayan salt.

56:52

And one of the facilities contains a

56:54

mosque, like Pakistan's primarily

56:56

Muslim. And they've been digging

56:58

in this spot for more than 2000 years. There's

57:01

also just hundreds of thousands of tourists visiting this

57:03

complex each year. And a lot of these old

57:06

salt mines or current salt mines are this way.

57:09

And then one of the parts of the

57:11

facility contains a small subterranean mosque. It's large

57:13

enough for like several people to pray in

57:17

and the structure of it, the blocks of it are

57:19

made of solid salt. They

57:22

just used it as building material. Cause it's right

57:24

there. And until you break it down, it's hard.

57:26

It sticks around. So

57:29

you're underground in the mine, but inside

57:31

the mine is like a building made

57:33

out of salt. Yeah.

57:35

And it doesn't really have like high walls.

57:37

It has low walls to kind of demarcate

57:39

where it is. But then there's a

57:42

directional element to pray toward Mecca. And yeah,

57:44

one of these pictures has a person in

57:46

it. There's room for probably like 10 people.

57:50

And part of the reason for some of these spaces

57:52

is that the workers could pause and

57:54

pray and lay because they're down there

57:56

for long shifts or it's hard to go back up.

57:58

You can still like pray. Practice your faith

58:01

while you're digging for salt underground.

58:04

And then this is not an outlier.

58:06

The next example, it's a much bigger

58:08

worship space. And this is a

58:10

mine we talked about before in Poland. So

58:12

this one part of Poland, first there

58:15

were Brian hot springs, and then in the 1200s,

58:18

Polish kings started having people dig.

58:21

And along the way, they built a Catholic church inside

58:24

of the mine because Poland is a

58:26

primarily Catholic country. There's

58:29

wooden pews, there's a chandelier, there's some

58:31

art, but the overall structure and shape

58:33

is just the walls of salt of

58:35

the deposit. And

58:37

they offered daily mass for the predominantly

58:39

Catholic mine workers across a lot of

58:41

the 1600s, 1700s. It's

58:45

just, it's so interesting because it's like,

58:48

yeah, I guess it's, it is

58:50

kind of difficult to enter and

58:52

exit a mine, but you

58:54

got to keep worship in. So why not put

58:57

your house of worship in the

58:59

mine? Yeah. And then

59:01

it looks amazing too. Yeah. Yeah.

59:04

Because like this next one, I think it's specifically an attraction

59:07

like this one in Columbia,

59:09

right? Exactly. Yeah.

59:12

And it looks like it, like you see it, it's like, I

59:14

would like to go see this thing. It's really

59:17

striking. Because it looks

59:19

like they retain sort of the natural

59:21

walls somewhat of the, of

59:23

the mine. So you're looking at

59:25

like these walls look like they're carved out of

59:27

the salt. So the walls are still

59:30

like made out of salt. Especially

59:33

it makes me think of cathedral designers. Like

59:35

it would be exhausting to have an empty

59:38

field above ground and be like, I need

59:40

to wall everything completely and it all has

59:42

to stand. And the salt cathedral, you

59:44

can just kind of take it out, you know, like maybe

59:46

that's easier. Maybe it's sort of a natural

59:48

strength is

59:51

what I'm thinking as a lazy cathedral.

59:53

Architect. That is apparently my personality. Like

59:57

if you pray hard enough, God will

59:59

not. let you inhale deadly gases

1:00:01

or have a wall fall on you. And

1:00:03

if it does, you didn't pray

1:00:05

good enough. Should have prayed harder, yeah. Cause

1:00:09

yeah, this other one, it said a

1:00:11

site called Zippa Kyra, which is

1:00:13

near Bogota in Columbia. And

1:00:15

it's from post-Columbian exchange, so it

1:00:18

hasn't been going that long, but

1:00:21

they built a giant cathedral inside of

1:00:23

that salt mine. And

1:00:25

NPR says it attracts thousands of

1:00:27

worshipers each Easter, and it's a

1:00:29

major faith site for just

1:00:31

the city of Bogota and that area. The

1:00:35

goal is the beauty, not so much to

1:00:38

keep mine workers working and not leaving

1:00:40

to pray. Right.

1:00:42

I mean, it is literally built

1:00:44

into these sort of translucent-ish

1:00:47

walls that eerily

1:00:49

reflect light in this way

1:00:51

that looks otherworldly. So I

1:00:53

can see how that feels spiritual.

1:00:57

Yeah, it has amazing statue art that's made out

1:00:59

of the salt. And yeah, in this picture, they've

1:01:02

got it lit blue, but you could switch the

1:01:04

lights up. And it looks

1:01:06

like a truly amazing place to be, like this

1:01:08

is why cathedrals are attractions and mosques are attractions,

1:01:10

and you want to go. They're really cool. And

1:01:13

then I said we have at least three faiths. One

1:01:16

more faith here is

1:01:18

just kind of the entire mine

1:01:20

for places where ancient Germanic people

1:01:22

mined assaults before the Romans came

1:01:24

through. And Mark

1:01:26

Kirlansky quotes the Roman historian

1:01:28

Tacitus, who lived in the first

1:01:31

century AD. There were still Germanic cultures in those

1:01:33

places. And he said that the

1:01:35

workers thought salt mines were an ideal

1:01:37

place to pray to their

1:01:39

pagan gods, and that the gods would listen more

1:01:41

attentively if a prayer was said in a salt

1:01:44

mine. So them

1:01:46

and other people have just kind of used the space

1:01:48

to pray for a lot

1:01:50

of history and in a lot of contexts. Why

1:01:52

did they think that gods would be more receptive

1:01:55

to their prayers in a salt mine? We

1:01:58

don't really know. I think it's just a matter of time. just

1:02:00

something about it being a special place. But

1:02:03

I think if you see salt as being

1:02:05

magic and as having healing properties and cleansing

1:02:08

properties and preservative properties, you would just assume

1:02:10

that if you're at a place where there's

1:02:12

tons of it, I think you would just

1:02:14

assume you're at a magical place. Yeah.

1:02:19

I wonder if they ever found salt mummies too, right?

1:02:21

Like if they ever found people who had died down

1:02:23

there and they're like, dude, these

1:02:25

dead people stay relatively

1:02:27

like they were when they were

1:02:29

alive. So that might've added to

1:02:31

the mysticism around these salt mines.

1:02:35

Yeah, totally. I would

1:02:37

100% have to think that absolutely,

1:02:40

because you would have to look at that body and

1:02:42

say this did not decompose the

1:02:44

way my father did when we buried him in

1:02:47

the yard. And then when the dog dug him

1:02:49

up and there's just bones left, it's like this

1:02:51

is, this person was, you

1:02:53

know, they were near immortality. They lived on,

1:02:55

their body lived on. It's like, yes, this

1:02:58

is the source of life. And

1:03:00

it's funny because here's the thing, salt

1:03:03

kind of is magic. It does everything. And

1:03:06

a culture that thinks of it as magic

1:03:08

and holy and as a miracle is kind

1:03:10

of more correct than the

1:03:12

average person today who literally never thinks about

1:03:15

it until their doctor

1:03:17

says, hey, you're getting too much salt and it's bad

1:03:19

for your heart. I don't know if

1:03:21

that's the thing doctors still tell people, but now

1:03:24

you just take it for granted because like everything

1:03:26

else is plentiful and who cares? But

1:03:29

no, they were right. Salt is

1:03:31

weird and magical and it does

1:03:33

everything. To me,

1:03:35

it is a form of like scientific reasoning of

1:03:37

like, okay, like in this

1:03:40

salt mine, there are these things that

1:03:42

happen, salt does this. It's

1:03:44

clearly, there's something going on with this that

1:03:46

is like magical. Cause like magic is the

1:03:49

kind of pre-science thing where, you know, we

1:03:51

didn't have the ability to come up with

1:03:53

any kind of scientific answers. So magic and

1:03:55

spirituality is the kind

1:03:58

of what we came up with. in

1:04:00

terms of explaining the world around us. Pete And

1:04:03

this is a place that must be protected

1:04:05

and respected, right? And, you

1:04:08

know, we shouldn't trash it or,

1:04:10

you know, their reason may have

1:04:12

been wrong, but the thing

1:04:14

they were doing made sense. John It's

1:04:17

all happening in a salt mine. A place

1:04:20

I never think about and I've only heard

1:04:22

negative things about. It's like also where

1:04:24

people were like feeling the closest to God,

1:04:27

you know? It's amazing. Right. And

1:04:29

if you're naughty, you get turned into a donkey

1:04:31

boy. Pete Which

1:04:36

is a feature. Sounds pretty good. John Right. Sounds

1:04:38

good. Pete I get cigars and beer and I'm a fun

1:04:41

donkey. Great. John If

1:04:43

it's like going to hell or getting turned

1:04:45

into a fun donkey, I kind

1:04:47

of want to be a donkey. Pete I'm

1:04:49

going to pull a small cart and help you plait. John Right.

1:04:52

Yeah. Have donkey thoughts. John

1:05:09

Hey folks, that's the main episode for this

1:05:11

week and I want to thank Jason Pargin

1:05:13

again for making time to join us, especially

1:05:15

in the run up to the release of

1:05:17

his book. It's titled I'm Starting to Worry

1:05:19

About This Black Box of Doom and I

1:05:21

tremendously enjoyed it. I didn't say that in

1:05:23

the main show. I said to

1:05:26

him at another time, I really,

1:05:28

really love the standalone novel he's

1:05:30

written. This is not tied to

1:05:32

his other works and it's such

1:05:34

a exciting and clear yet surprising

1:05:36

trip is what I would say.

1:05:38

I don't want to spoil any of it,

1:05:40

but I'm starting to worry about this black box

1:05:43

of doom. It's out next week when this

1:05:45

drops. You might as well pre-order because that's basically

1:05:47

ordering it without shipping times work or how

1:05:49

your bookstore gets it. And

1:05:51

I am so excited for you to read it. I'm

1:05:53

starting to worry about this black box of doom. such

1:06:00

as help remembering this episode, with a

1:06:02

run back through the big takeaways. Takeaway

1:06:08

number one, underground salt mining

1:06:11

operations often discover salt miner

1:06:13

mummies. Takeaway

1:06:15

number two, the main salt mine for

1:06:17

Himalayan pink salt is a new front

1:06:20

in the conflict between Pakistan and India.

1:06:23

Takeaway number three, for at least 2000 years,

1:06:26

salt mines have been religious

1:06:28

worship spaces. And

1:06:30

then so many numbers about the first

1:06:32

ever thing powered by natural gas and

1:06:35

built by humans, the three broad ways

1:06:37

of mining salt, the largest salt flat

1:06:39

on earth, and more. Those

1:06:44

are the takeaways. Also, I said that's the

1:06:47

main episode because there is more secretly incredibly

1:06:49

fascinating stuff available to you right now if

1:06:52

you support this show at maximumfun.org. Members

1:06:55

are the reason this podcast exists.

1:06:57

So members get a bonus show

1:06:59

every week where we explore one

1:07:01

obviously incredibly fascinating story related to

1:07:03

the main episode. This week's

1:07:06

topic is salt mines that became

1:07:08

vast storage chambers and treasure hordes.

1:07:11

Visit sifpod.fun for that bonus show for

1:07:13

a library of more than 17 dozen

1:07:16

other secretly incredibly fascinating bonus shows and a

1:07:18

catalog of all sorts of max fun bonus

1:07:20

shows. It is special audio. It's just for

1:07:22

members. Thank you to everybody

1:07:24

who backs this podcast operation. Additional

1:07:27

fun things. Check out our research

1:07:30

sources on this episode's page at

1:07:32

maximumfun.org. Key sources this week

1:07:34

include the book salt a world history

1:07:36

that is by award winning nonfiction writer

1:07:38

Mark Kirlansky. Also thank you to a

1:07:40

few different listeners for the tip on

1:07:42

that book. We also used

1:07:44

a lot of journalism especially from NPR

1:07:46

and from NBC News. Also

1:07:49

places like Atlas Obscura for amazing pictures

1:07:51

of salt mines in various parts of

1:07:53

the world. That page

1:07:55

also features resources such as native dash land

1:07:57

dot ca. I'm using those to acknowledge

1:07:59

that I require. recorded this in Lenape hoking,

1:08:01

the traditional land of the Muncie Lenape

1:08:03

people, and the Wapinger people, as well

1:08:05

as the Mohican people, Skatagoke people, and

1:08:07

others. Also, Katie taped

1:08:09

this in the country of Italy, Jason

1:08:12

taped this on the traditional land of

1:08:14

the Shawnee, Eastern Cherokee, and Sohatsuyaha peoples,

1:08:17

and I want to acknowledge that in

1:08:19

my location, Jason's location, and many other

1:08:21

locations in the Americas and elsewhere, Native

1:08:23

people are very much still here. That

1:08:26

feels worth doing on each episode, and

1:08:28

join the free SIF Discord, where we're

1:08:30

sharing stories and resources about Native people

1:08:33

and life. There is a link in

1:08:35

this episode's description to join the Discord.

1:08:38

We're also talking about this episode on

1:08:40

the Discord, and hey, would you

1:08:42

like a tip on another episode?

1:08:44

Because each week I'm finding is

1:08:46

something randomly incredibly fascinating by running

1:08:48

all the past episode numbers through

1:08:50

a random number generator. This

1:08:53

week's pick is kind of astounding because it

1:08:55

is episode six, and that is about the

1:08:57

practice of going to the beach. It really,

1:08:59

really ties in with the health benefit ideas

1:09:02

about salt and seawater that we talked about

1:09:04

on the salt mining episode here. So episode

1:09:06

six, going to the beach, check it out.

1:09:09

In addition to that episode, I want to

1:09:11

recommend a podcast by our guest. It is

1:09:13

called Big Feats. He and our buddies, Robert

1:09:15

Brockway and Sean Baby, watch the, let's

1:09:18

call it reality TV show, Mountain

1:09:20

Monsters, about guys hunting stuff like

1:09:22

Bigfoots. I also recommend my co-host

1:09:24

Katie Golden's weekly podcast, Creature Feature,

1:09:26

about animals and science and more.

1:09:29

Our theme music is Unbroken Unshaven by

1:09:31

the Budos Band. Our show logo is

1:09:33

by artist Burton Durand. Special thanks to

1:09:35

Chris Sousa for audio mastering on this

1:09:37

episode. Special thanks to the Beacon

1:09:40

Music Factory for taping support. Extra,

1:09:43

extra special thanks go to our members and

1:09:45

thank you to all our listeners. I am

1:09:47

thrilled to say we will be back next

1:09:49

week.