WTW120: People Simply Cannot Stop Believing Bogus Child Trafficking Stats

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:03 Clip: What's so scary about the woke mob? How often you just don't see them coming. Anywhere you see diversity, equity, and inclusion, you see Marxism and you see woke principles being pushed. Wokeness is a virus more dangerous than any pandemic hands down. The woke monster is here and it's coming for everything.

0:00:34 Clip: Instead of go-go boots, the seductress green M&M will now wear sneakers.

0:00:42 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Where There's Woke. This is episode 120. I'm Thomas. That over there is Lydia. How are you doing?

0:00:47 Lydia: Hello. I'm doing okay. How are you? Do you like how I push off like the witty little remark I'm supposed to do? Push it to you a bunch of times.

0:00:50 Thomas: Oh, are you supposed to do a witty remark? I didn't know.

0:01:00 Lydia: I feel like I'm supposed to and I don't know what to do usually and so I answer just honestly, you know, from my heart and then pass the ball to you in hopes that you do something better than I could come up Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Have you noticed that about me?

0:01:13 Thomas: I hope magic happens. I don't want to answer anything that's going to start an argument or incriminate me in any way.

0:01:25 Lydia: Marital disagreement. Yeah.

0:01:26 Thomas: Okay. Yeah. No, I am so awash in today's subject that I can't even, I realized I filled the banter section of my brain.

0:01:35 Lydia: Wait, can I can I just say really fast? So I said, hey, we should probably start recording soon. You said, yeah, I'm trying to track down an Ashton Kutcher video. That's what people have to look forward to. Too.

0:01:47 Thomas: That was unrelated to the thing. I just really wanted to see an Ashton Kutcher video.

0:01:51 Lydia: Yeah. That's how deep we go for this show, you guys.

0:01:55 Thomas: You know, I once had a stranger say I was AshtON KutCHER. Did you know that? Yeah.

0:01:59 Lydia: No way. Really? I don't see it. No.

0:02:01 Thomas: I don't know how convincing, you don't see it? I mean, there's some amount of it yeah have you looked at ashton I the funny thing is at the time I didn't even know anything about I knew the name but I was like oh kind of I don't

0:02:08 Lydia: Okay. I just typed in our shared browser. Maybe the reason you had a hard time finding your video is because you're spelling his last name incorrectly.

0:02:21 Thomas: Really no the internet doesn't care you don't you don't know you know that could have been one of the kids you don't know that you don't know that that was me I'm typing fat I've got my wife trying to record before a narcolepsy kicks in. And I've quickly, this is the most I've ever made you laugh. Me trying to spell something.

0:02:28 Lydia: Ashton Kuchar. Okay. Okay. Okay, I'm looking at him. I think I can only see the best one. The hiding, the more embarrassing ones.

0:02:48 Thomas: Look, there's a golfer named Matt Kuchar who has the name spelled that way. My brain probably did that. And then I spelled it. I spelled at least three different ways. I think you can only see one. I Think that's the browser's kind of sparing my feelings a little bit there. Yeah. It's like, I'm not even going to show you the other ones.

0:03:10 Lydia: Your wife can't know.

0:03:10 Thomas: This is the closest he got. Okay. Drum roll. The results of the Ashton Kutcher lookalike contest. It is there. There is some.

0:03:18 Lydia: -huh okay maybe a little bit here's the thing here's the thing

0:03:21 Thomas: Also, maybe we are not. Okay, it was in 2008. Yeah, it is before. It was a long time ago.

0:03:23 Lydia: Okay no beard no beard yes okay yes okay I was gonna say because I'm I'm looking at this picture what happens in vegas I could see if your hair

0:03:28 Thomas: I looked a lot more like him back then. What happens in Vegas? What? Oh, okay.

0:03:33 Lydia: Was grown out a little bit it's a movie um with cameron

0:03:38 Thomas: My brain was going wild. I thought that was you shorthand for like, okay, I guess I would do this guy like maybe like I'm looking at this video maybe what happens in vegas situation like

0:03:47 Lydia: Diaz yeah yeah no I could see that because like you have grown out your hair since we've been together and so like I've seen you with like a little bit longer hair so it kind of matches this vibe I'm seeing in this movie poster I've never seen you without a beard though and so I think that's the the missing piece

0:03:59 Thomas: Exactly anyway yeah I think that is actually the key because I didn't have much of a beard back then um speaking of missing pieces we talk about missing kids

0:04:12 Lydia: That was what this entire setup

0:04:12 Thomas: And milk cartons yeah I planned the whole thing every word of that tightly choreographed so much to talk about I I can't even I know I say that every time but this is such an interesting one truly fascinating we have a lot to talk We have a lot to talk about regarding the possible bullshit organizations we've looked into. There's a lot of fun stuff around that. But I really thought, okay, I've already spent two, three episodes telling you about that and just showing you kind of the bullshit of this one particular guy. So I want to make sure we got to the hard stuff, the hard data stuff like soon. I wanted to do that now. So we're going right to that because I want make sure that we get to the meat and potatoes right now. And then we have a bunch of other fun bullshit to go through, fraud, all this. I mean, there's so much.

0:04:56 Thomas: It's unending, unending. But I really wanted to talk about, and it's already hard to put a name to it, and that is the very problem of the subject, is it's so nebulous. I'm going to say child trafficking, I guess, is where I'll put it, because it really, really, really, changes the situation depending on what word you use. Are you using human trafficking? Because that includes a gajillion people all around the world who are mainly trafficked for labor. I think the majority of it. I didn't bother to check that stack because I'm not doing that subject. But every time I saw it referenced, you know, that might be the majority. Especially now. God, there's horrible stuff. I'm just remembering a podcast where one of the newest podcasts.

0:04:56 Lydia: Was yeah yeah yeah mm -hmm yeah right mm -hm the daily or

0:05:36 Thomas: Yeah, somebody who got, now people get like kidnapped into the cyber fraud places. You know about that? It's awful. Like it's around the World. There's a guy who graduated probably he was in India I think graduated with a degree in like computer science and then they'll put up fake job listings that's like hey come be our technical whatever and then it's it's a bullshit thing and they kidnap them like and they keep them like at gunpoint like just and they have to essentially be stuck in an office job at gun point trying to perpetrate fraud yeah kind of it's real thing can't speak to the numbers but so anyway that's trafficking.

0:05:42 Lydia: Something no oh wow wow oh my god like severance yeah wow right mm

0:06:16 Thomas: There's very, very, very real problems. And I think that's one thing I do really want to say is the hard thing. I've already kind of mentioned it, but I just want to reiterate the really hard thing about doing this topic is, in the same sentence, I could be talking about an incredibly silly, fake, made -up thing, and then one word later, the most serious, horrible crime that anyone commits that's very real. So it's really, I just, yeah, it's so hard. Like, we could switch in a heartbeat, depending on, like, the placement of a word. Because if you say child sex trafficking, that's awful and does exist. But as we're going to talk about, it's also when you try to look at the actual numbers, especially in the U .S., it's vastly lower than everybody says, but it's real.

0:06:39 Lydia: That absolutely happens yeah and they're absolutely victims and yeah yeah right

0:07:01 Thomas: And then that's also confused with child sex abuse. Obviously, very real, very prevalent, way more prevalent than sex trafficking. It's a completely different thing, though, like completely different. Yeah, they're related in some ways, but like it really matters which of these things you You want to look at if you're going to be donating money, be making promises about what your organization can do about a given problem, or, you know, you're trying to pass a bill or you're in general, just trying to scare people in a QAnon sense about the, you know, the Hillary's and the whatever's that are doing the sex trafficking of children. Like it's so easy to be talking about a vastly different thing. Just, just, just a slight word over it all. What I found is it all just gets blended together by both good actors and bad. You know, I think genuinely it's a complicated thing. It's also a thing that it's hard to be super precise all the time and how we talk. But there's also bad actors who are either knowingly do it, doing it or don't care or, you know, because there's all kinds of money involved when people's heartstrings

0:08:00 Thomas: Are tugged at. And that's very good that people are wanting to help. It really is. But I think one of the main things that motivates me on this is, for one, it was just wild to go on this journey from the Charlie Kirk fucking thing to what the hell is...

0:08:17 Lydia: That's where we started folks

0:08:17 Thomas: What are they talking about? Tim Tebow donated a bunch of money to like a, you know, like it's just wild To Go On This Journey.

0:08:22 Lydia: To a golf fundraiser day like with the aldeans yeah

0:08:27 Thomas: Right. Well, yeah, yeah. He donated first and then there's the guy. But also, I think what really frustrates me about this, and I made the point before, and I'm going to come back to it. If this were about rape kits, no one would give a shit. If this was about so many things that are actually things we need, or the actual cultural changes, societal changes that we would need in order to prevent harm, all of a sudden these conservatives don't care. They care about a particular thing described a particular way. And I also want to say, I've watched a bunch of interviews now with different stuff. Don't worry, I'm not going over much of it. But like, there's also a bunch of genuine right wingers who do genuinely care about this, of course.

0:09:07 Thomas: And like, you know, and some of them are doing, oh, boy, that's a tough example. Maybe I don't.

0:09:08 Lydia: That'd be like a marjorie taylor green right like we're we're like Well I just think about like um regarding Epstein she feels very very strongly about something like that And I don't buy anything else that she says ever

0:09:25 Thomas: But I just, I also meant like there's, there's all kinds of these like weird wannabe manosphere. Like they're, they're not even in the extended mano atmosphere podcasts. That's like two dudes who, you know, we're in the army or something, you know? And there's one of them that was kind of touching. Cause even though these are probably right wingers, this is one I watched with Matt Murphy. Again, we'RE not going to go over, but just as an example. And it was kind OF touching cause they're like, they had actually started some organizations themselves to help homeless veterans. And they were like, yeah, yeah, we just, you know, in a way it makes it all the more tragic if there's anything fraudulent going on. These two gentlemen, they're total nobodies from what I can tell, but they had, you Know, a little show and they were like, we were saying somebody should raise money for these homeless veterans. And then we decided we'd do it. And, you KNOW, one was a musician. And so they're like, yeah, We played a concert and, You know, we raised a few thousand bucks for the, like, it seemed really heartfelt and really like, even among, You Know, someone's politics doesn't determine their entire worth as

0:10:18 Thomas: A human, You KNOW, lots of people can just be wrong and can believe certain things for unexamined reasons, all kinds of stuff, cultural reasons.

0:10:24 Lydia: Especially if they're like a single issue voter or something like like

0:10:27 Thomas: Yeah, and it's so cultural. It's so based on the culture you're steeped in. It really is. Like it just, unfortunately, it's more about that. And there are some people who really care and really want to help. But I do think it's really tragic that their attention gets pulled in these wrong directions. But also in going back, it turns out these myths and these moral panics about missing, traffic, sex abuse, children, all this stuff, kidnapped children. I mean, it dates back as I knew that, that, but like, it's interesting to look at the details. Not only does the panic date back, but also debunking dates back.

0:10:59 Thomas: There's nothing new under the sun. Like this is a constant problem. It just continually gets debunked and doesn't matter.

0:11:06 Thomas: So I'm going to add one more debunking to that. I mean, I say it doesn't care. It doesn't like end it, obviously. Like there's just, and there's so much information out there, so many places to receive wrong information more than ever, that it's just more and more important to put out the correct information. Just hope we can keep up. You know, it's the only thing we can do until until some president and some Congress that runs on my agenda of cancel the Internet that I'm now every day, every day I'm more firmly in the cancel the internet. Can't just we just cancel it. It's just let's keep

0:11:06 Lydia: That oh yeah yeah it's not good for humans

0:11:39 Thomas: A few things. But social Internet should only exist with a verified ID. I'm seeing these YouTube comments now of stuff that I'M going in, and I don't think there's is a single real person on the internet anymore. And like, I'm genuinely concerned about it. Like really concerned because it just creates this entire fake environment. Anyway, point is information environment sucks. Going to try to put out some good information here, see what we can do, have some fun along the way and learn some stuff along theway. So here we are. I had to be roasted for my horrible spelling.

0:11:50 Lydia: Oh yeah yeah I know

0:12:09 Thomas: So that took some time, but we're going to get to our first break. patreon.com/where-there's-woke. Please support the show, support our efforts here, and please share the show with someone, especially if you ever see anyone talking about any of the stuff we talk about and being wrong about it. You know, we got to get help or help our debunks get to where they need to get to. Thanks so much. And we'll take a break and get going.

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0:12:32 Thomas: So remember Ashton Kutcher? Cause I don't. Yeah. Okay. Ashtan Kutchar.

0:12:34 Lydia: Mean kuchar Yes I do remember Ashton Kutcher, of course I do, you don't?

0:12:40 Thomas: I barely do. Yeah. It's funny. So in the back of my mind, when I first started looking into this, I was like, yeah, I do kind of remember he had a human traffic -y thing going, but it's funny because when I'm looking at these claims, he is a big example of one of them. And he's an interesting case because I also think he was trying to do a real thing because he talked about slavery around the world and human trafficking around the world. But he also delved into a piece of misinformation that I want to get into. But I completely forgot the interview that is the key thing I was looking for is Ashton Kutcher and, do you remember his partner at the time? Demi Moore in 2011 on Piers Piers Morgan could

0:13:15 Lydia: No, oh, Demi Moore oh man is that is that why you like don't really remember ashen kutchers because you also don't remember demi me more yeah

0:13:27 Thomas: Be. Yeah. Well, I remember her now because, boy, she's good looking in this interview. I never really saw her in anything. I don't know. I didn't really know. But I forgot they were a thing. God, that age difference was cool. Good for her, I guess.

0:13:40 Lydia: Yeah I mean they yeah they were a thing for eight years it was a

0:13:45 Thomas: Anyway, Piers Morgan on CNN in 2011, I believe. Ashton Kutcher is a weird case because I'm uncomfortable the entire time I watch him because he's so worked up about this. And I think it's genuine. I think he's mostly genuine. And he talks about like having, you know, met real victims of stuff. And I think his heart seems to have been in the right place. And then there's he testified in front of Congress in 2017.

0:13:51 Lydia: While oh wow hmm yeah actually I remember that yeah

0:14:12 Thomas: Remember that vaguely? Yeah and I don't believe he was still spreading this false number then but he did in this 2011 thing and uh god what a weird thing I was just like a real blast from the past and then you realize how long ago this was and it feels like yesterday but this is as good a video as any to introduce the main fake stat that I want to talk about today

0:14:36 Clip: The sex trade is 13 years old, and that's globally, by the way. Most people sort of see this and they go, okay, that's a problem in Cambodia, or that's problem in India. And it's happening in the United States. There's between 100,000 and 300,000 child sex slaves in the U.S. today. And and so when when we when we.

0:14:50 Lydia: What I immediately I'm like that's not

0:14:57 Thomas: Yeah yeah a hundred and three 300 ,000 child sex slaves in America today. Now, 2011 was a long time ago, but I don't remember that. That is a whopper. But there was a time when like these things, and probably still now, when these stats are just rattled off. That one's pretty extreme because it was child sex slaves.

0:15:19 Thomas: Like that's, I mean, that's fucking crazy. Like you got to be out of your mind to believe that. And yet, I grabbed a few more clips for fun. The claim changes a little bit. It. These are kind of random. The internet is ruined now. So no search actually works. True story. Google discovered if it made their search function worse, people would have to use it more. And so that's one of the reasons that nothing works anymore. But I did track down a couple old ones here just for fun. But these are real, though. They're old, but I mean, they're major. I guess this is slightly less old than the one we just did. Al Jazeera English story here.

0:15:54 Clip: 12 years old or 13 and it just boggles my mind that that can happen to them at such a young age. Child sex trafficking is often considered a developing world problem, but the US Justice Department says up to 300,000 children are being prostituted right here in the United States. The average age when they start 13 to 14.

0:16:17 Lydia: Mm, 300 ,000.

0:16:17 Thomas: So that's 300 what was it were you listening because I wasn't 300 000 kids being prostituted here in the united states and that was the justice department he says so a real place here's another one now this one seems to be from 2019

0:16:22 Lydia: Yeah, it's prostituted. Yes. Mm hmm.

0:16:37 Clip: It is estimated that there are between between 100 and 300,000 children here in the U.S. being exploited for sex every year.

0:16:46 Thomas: So that's 100 and 300 000 being exploited for sex every year which is you've kind of seen an evolution there now that could just be coincidental in the clips I found, because you really see all kinds of clips all, you know, like everywhere.

0:17:00 Lydia: Pretty much constant.

0:17:01 Thomas: But that first Ashton one was the most ridiculous. I mean, the idea that there's 300 ,000 sex slaves, and I have, lest you think that this is just random news clippings and random whatever, I found a poll done that is even more depressing here. Now, the weird thing is I tried to track down any like data or the actual poll. The only thing I can find is this weird like blog site site about it.

0:17:26 Thomas: However, in my search, I tracked down from the actual guys who did it, one of their like web pages, like his personal page. And I was like, oh, I found it. I clicked on the link and it was the same weird blog site. So it's like, I'm going to go ahead and take that as an endorsement of this was the actual results. But it's weird that I don't know. I just can't find, I don'T know if they didn't publish like any more details, but these are people who do tons of good surveys and research on this. I don't have any reason to doubt it. But in 2020, I believe, Joseph Ucinski and Adam Enders did some surveying about this stuff. They studied a lot of like conspiracy stuff. They've studied a lot of QAnon stuff.

0:18:07 Thomas: And as part of that, they did a survey. They say, we asked our survey respondents if they believe the number of children being trafficked in the U .S. was was above, about, or below 300 ,000 children. We frame the question this way because several politicians have used this number in the past, even though it has been labeled with four Pinocchios by fact -checkers who consider it a gross overestimation. What percent of Americans do you think said that the real number was 300, 000 or higher?

0:18:39 Lydia: 32%.

0:18:40 Thomas: Ooh, not bad. So this says, our survey found that 50 % of Americans think the real member of traffic children is about 300, 00 or higher.

0:18:48 Lydia: That's crazy.

0:18:49 Thomas: Now, I can't tell if this is a subset, but hold on. 34 % think it's much higher. I think that 34 % is within the 50%. So it's not like, you know, add them up and it'd be 84%. I think it is within 50%.

0:18:50 Lydia: 50 % seems high. Oh interesting. 84. Yeah Yeah. Yeah.

0:19:04 Thomas: But still, like that's more than half our country thinks that the number of trafficked children in the US is 300 ,000 or higher.

0:19:10 Lydia: Why aren't people like out in the streets right now, if that's truly like what they believe? I mean, I guess, but like, why wouldn't you be doing it even more?

0:19:16 Thomas: I mean, they kind of have been in different ways. So, you know, because we tried.

0:19:23 Lydia: I don't know, like, like, if I honestly felt that scores upon scores of children were being sex slaves or sexually abused or like trafficked, like all these other ways that they've like framed it and stuff, I feel like that's the only thing I'd want to talk about. And screaming at all of my government representatives constantly. Yeah, I don't know. It just seems it just seems weird.

0:19:46 Thomas: I mean there is a lot of that. Like a lot what I'm going to talk about is kind of that, like this is that. People are busy, you now, so people don't have a lot time.

0:19:54 Lydia: All right. Fine.

0:19:57 Thomas: So here's another thing, though. This isn't exactly related, but it does have implications for a lot of stuff we've talked about. Adjacently, we asked respondents about the existence of elite Hollywood and government sex trafficking rings. 35 % agreed that, quote, elites from government and Hollywood are engaged in a massive child sex trafficking racket. Yeah, this was so this blog thing was in 2021. And I think it was written from the perspective of like, hey, see all this QAnon stuff. Well, it's not just. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there's a big swirling thing that happened around this time. But what's interesting is this is written from the perspective of like, this didn't happen yesterday. Like these beliefs, yes, the QAnon beliefs are hijacking sort of and piggybacking and like exploiting this stuff. But like these myths actually predate that as well. And what I found that I think is kind of funny and something that I maybe have uniquely noticed is that weirdly this 300 ,000 number is very sticky and it's

0:20:27 Lydia: And Epstein. And yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah? Hmm. Hmm.

0:20:58 Thomas: Very sticky even beyond what has been tracked to be like the source of it. I actually found what's funny because I tracked, I was looking into this and I saw like what the alleged source for this is. And then what's fun is I found something that predates that by six years that also said 300 ,000. And what's so funny is that I don't, that could be pure coincidence or not.

0:21:24 Thomas: I mean, it just seems like for some reason, this number is just very sticky with this particular thing.

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0:21:33 Thomas: So this is a major thing. This is not just like, oh, there's a few random people saying that they're, you know, this is major subset of people. I don't even want to say subset. It's a majority of people in our country. Apparently I don'T, I mean less, unless things changed drastically in since 2021. And if anything, I bet you that number could be be higher now because of Epstein and actual things. Thing is though, Epstein, if you think about it like that, that is an extreme, extreme example. And the number of kids that you could prove were trafficked based on that extreme example through all of his fucking trafficking career is still, my impression is it's like, could be a hundred or so. Could be like 200, 200, I think. This is just me estimating.

0:22:12 Lydia: 30 years. Yeah Yeah. Yeah.

0:22:21 Thomas: I've seen different quotes here. There's a lot of victims. The actual trafficking qualification is a little bit different.

0:22:26 Lydia: That's fair, because I was going to say I had seen things about like could be up to a thousand, but not on the trafficking side of things necessarily.

0:22:34 Thomas: Yeah. Maybe this is a bad point, but just in thinking of like, well, that's the fucking Michael Jordan of trafficking. Like that's biggest example we know of in the US of like this awful, what people are thinking of as like, ah, pedophile rings, sex trafficking, whatever. So like, can you imagine how much much of that you would need to get to 300 ,000. Like, it's just like, you would need 30 ,000 of him or something. You know, it does that. I mean, there's a lot of people in the country. I guess you could argue that there would be like, I don't know, hundreds of thousands of people trafficking one child.

0:23:10 Thomas: Like it just, it is so many. It's so many, but I just think people don't have a good sense for numbers. And I think that kind of goes both ways because there's stuff that people underestimate and there's stuff that people will overestimate.

0:23:21 Lydia: Exactly, but then also if if it's one kid per per sex trafficking ring, then it's not exactly like these complex, significant trafficking rings.

0:23:30 Thomas: Yeah. It's not really a ring. That's true. Well, I think it's like B -Y -O -C, like bring your own child to the, like everybody has to bring a child to The Ring. And so like, I don't know how big The Rings are. But yeah, you remember, and I think you mentioned the Wayfair thing. That was around the time of this survey -ish, you know, there was this QAnon, there's this swirling QAnons, Pizzagate, Wayfaire thing. And it really did swirl. And one thing I forgot god is there's also some stuff I forgot about where there was a hashtag like save the children oh yeah oh I didn't remember it oh

0:23:35 Lydia: Then it's oh no yeah yeah yeah I actually almost said save the children earlier during this episode yeah save the Children that was

0:24:08 Thomas: Okay that yeah and the thing was it like it did start off as an earnest thing but then QAnon just took over and just like posted so much in it that it became useless you know and it was this real

0:24:13 Lydia: Everywhere yeah yeah you just use that hashtag on whatever conspiracy you want yeah

0:24:23 Thomas: Yeah but there was this specific like time that this happened in 2022 where it really blew up but like I said I mean this dates back and I think it's It's really interesting to go into the history. It's never going to be comprehensive, but it does seem like the early 80s, maybe 70s, but early 80S into that milk carton kid era. Like that's kind of when it really, you know, there's 1979 Eaton Pats. I knew that name. That's a very like dramatic, visible story. But there was also Adam Walsh, who you might know was the son of John Walsch, who then Glenn became the host of America's Most Wanted. And he, I mean, he's kind of responsible for a lot of this, you know, hard to blame him, I guess, but he testified in 1983 in the Senate and he claimed that 50 ,000 children were abducted for the reasons of foul play in the United States every year.

0:24:52 Lydia: Oh interesting yeah

0:25:19 Thomas: From what I can tell, that was kind of like believed, you Know, I don't have any surveys from back then, but especially back then you consider your ability to access information like that.

0:25:18 Lydia: Exactly that's what I was gonna say too it's like who's gonna sit there and fact check

0:25:33 Thomas: Yeah. A guy who's on TV, who's testified in front of the Senate says 50 ,000. I mean, what information are you going to use? I mean there's ways, but that was believed widely. And also what's interesting here is Congress passed some laws then. And do you remember when I asked you like, oh, do you know the NCMEC?

0:25:54 Lydia: Oh yeah I remember when you asked yeah

0:25:54 Thomas: I was just like curious if you knew about that. Yeah. That comes from this. They passed a law establishing the nationwide hotline and creating the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. I didn't even realize because it's still going strong. And you want to talk about money, that's got government money. Now, elements of what Matt Murphy were talking about are kind of true in terms of like, oh, we put so much more money into the drug war than we do our children or whatever kind of thing. And that's kind of truth. I say that this has gotten a ton of money. It's still on the order of 80, 90 million, which sounds like a lot, but relative to others, obviously relative to anything involving the military or whatever, you know, that's gajillions.

0:26:34 Thomas: But like relative to the drug war too, like it is true that we seem to have put more money into drug war stuff, probably because of racism, I'm guessing. And it is truth that there's probably a lot more. And that's the biggest thing is like, I wish we, especially now that we don't have a government or anyone who believes in facts involved in the government, I would love to put good money where it needs to be in terms of this. And I think we're probably going to talk about it a bit later in terms There is some legitimate stuff happening in terms of trying to track down victims. There's some legitimate use of maybe some of these nonprofits and all that, trying to help aid in technology for police. There is stuff that could be done, but mixed in is so much of the crap we've talked about where it's like, well, we're going to fly in with a helicopter and we're gonna shoot. You know, point is that was the origin of the NCMEC. And then if you think about kind of how that went, that organization is now kind of incentivized to, you know, perpetuate itself like any organization. And that's where a lot of the stats you see there. And they're not they're nicht lies, because I mean, it is a government organization. It's one of those weird like private public partnerships. I think it's kind of I didn't spend too much time looking into the exact funding because they've got all the money in the world and they've Got a lot lot of it from the government. So whatever. I mean, I'm not worried about them like ripping people off per se. And they do real things, but they often, they put out statistics that are like, here's our hotline. Here's what we've gotten on our tip line. And I mentioned that before. And then people will cite that as like, there are X number of missing kids because there were X number of tips

0:28:12 Thomas: About a kid, you know? And it's like, that's kind of fed into this information environment. But what I find so interesting and that I didn't know until just doing this research is that this was debunked in 1985 in a story that the Denver Post won a Pulitzer Prize for. Yeah, 1985. That's like a couple years later because they're like, geez, everybody is really going nuts about this. And they've got the milk carton kids and they got all this panic. Panic and so some reporters like got into it and we're like boy this um yeah no

0:28:34 Lydia: Yeah is that real

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0:28:52 Thomas: So that's one track now we've got a different track so we also had the 300 ,000 and I'm realizing now that I want to go back to that because we've got the 50 ,000 number that was given by I almost said Joe Walsh that's given by John Walsch and that was kind of the the bullshit stat on record for a while from what I can tell and that's One thing I'll get back to that in a second but going back to this 300 ,00 number because I'm going to trace both of them and they're going to kind of meet in the middle in a way. This is one that lots of people, lots of people have quoted it. And now what's frustrating now is that there's a different thing that has taken over, which is even more annoying in some ways. And I've already referenced it. It's that border thing. So when you search this anywhere post like 2020, like I guess Biden admin, that's when the claims switch to, ah, the borders open. And then there was that traffic children, quote unquote, or the Biden administration has lost 80 ,000 kids. And dann weirdly, so that number also merged with the 300 ,000 in a way. And so now it's, well, the Biden admin lost 300 ,00 kids at the border.

0:29:05 Lydia: John Walsh yeah yeah you

0:30:03 Thomas: And it's like combined two different bits of misinformation to one. Because, you know, when you just don't care about checking your facts, stuff just goes, man, like different, especially when you're Trump, and your party is Trump, you just fucking, yeah.

0:30:18 Lydia: Open your mouth and whatever falls out falls out

0:30:20 Thomas: And then if it changes, then that's the new thing. And then that'll morph and that's The New Thing. When it's not tied to reality, the sky's the goddamn limit. So that's kind of funny tracing that one, but it's even more frustrating because it's like a newer iteration, but It's the same old bullshit. And you see the same thing where some people say what it is, of course, which is, well, there's X number of people people who haven't been called to their hearings yet or whatever. And then some people change that to that many people are missing. That many kids are missing and some people will change it to that. Many kids are trafficked into the United States, like literally like all these claims come from that one thing. And again, people are just not precise in their language whatsoever and they don't care. So that's like the we'll call that the current era we're in, like 2020, I guess the 2020 era is the basically the border thing takes over that. And we heard Matt Murphy kind of talk about that. And that kind of took over. So it really is like the border, the traffic children, the blah, blah, blah. But before that, there was the 300 ,000 that I already went over a few times that was either kidnapped kids, sex slaves, or kids at risk, or exploited. And that one was a really sticky one. And tracing that one back goes all the way back to, well, 2001, but the data was from the 90s.

0:31:41 Thomas: So this fucking number that gets cited forever was from a 2001 report written by Richard J. Estes and Neil Weiner of the University of Pennsylvania. And it relied on data from the 90s that suggested that, you know, here we go, 326 ,000 children were, quote, at risk for commercial sexual exploitation.

0:32:09 Lydia: That makes more sense. Yeah.

0:32:10 Thomas: But imagine saying that in 2001 from data from the 90s and having that just that's just people just said that for 20 years after that 300 ,000 children kidnapped 300, 300, 000 children sex sex trafficked yeah sex slave I mean it's just nuts just so many and like there's there's obviously plenty of debunkings about that there's like what 2008 there's a big report where people were like like in all caps, please stop, like please stop. Please do not cite these numbers, the report pleaded. Quote, the reality is we do not currently know how many juveniles are involved in prostitution. Scientifically credible estimates do not exist, which is interesting. I feel like that's a strong statement, but you know,

0:32:24 Lydia: Sex slaves. Yeah, I could see

0:32:56 Thomas: Yeah, it is. Yeah.

0:32:56 Lydia: It being a really hard thing to like you would be able to say these are how many kids were rescued from a situation like that. But I don't know that that would give you any ideas to how many total are experiencing that kind of situation

0:33:09 Thomas: And that's something that is constantly said and it kind of frustrates me because this is a thing that happens with scientists that I I complain about sometimes I love, I love my scientists, but often I don't know what the solution is. And maybe it's, you know, maybe it'S not on the scientists, maybe IT'S on the you and I or the, whoever else the science communicators, but so often there'll be some insane claim. And then the scientist being a scientist, being a responsible person and speaking with an intended audience, probably of scientists will say, well, there isn't evidence to back that up. And it's like, that's not good enough. Like for the standard idiot American that does nothing Like, nearly nothing. I get in the faculty room, in the science circles, that's like, oh, no evidence. You know, like, but it's like it's also it's accurate. It's careful because you always want to leave open the possibility that it could be true, but you just don't have evidence, you know. But that's a frequent problem because our discourse is not built for that. Climate change, all these different things, it's not built for this precise scientific discussion of, well, there's no evidence that that is that and there's

0:34:14 Thomas: No evidence of that. It's just not good enough. It is like we need better ability to communicate different layers of plausibility. It' s one thing to talk about a claim that's 10 % different and be be like, well, there's no evidence to say that it's 10 % more, you know, but yeah, you could believe that, you Know, that's one thing. If it's like, Well, the moon landing was faked. You can't be like well, There's no Evidence that the moon Landing was fake, like it just doesn't. Those aren't the same thing. But we use the same words for them.

0:34:42 Thomas: You know, it's it's really doesn't work. It needs to be like that's fucking dumb. You Know, like, scientists say that's stupid. You Know, it just but it won't it won' happen. But anyway, along those lines, there is a lot of of like, well, even one kid is too many. It's like, yeah, no, I know. I know even one kid is Too Many, obviously. And also like this language where it's like well, we can't know because anyone involved in this is involved in a crime, you know, and whether it's the victims of the perpetrators, it's a shadowy thing, it starts to estimate.

0:35:13 Lydia: Yeah that's gonna be my next point is like how how are you gonna get an accurate understanding of an ongoing crime that someone is

0:35:24 Thomas: Well, there's ways, you know, and I've seen different ways. I'm not really sure why that quote said there isn't a scientifically reliable estimate. I actually don't know. But no, that's about prostitution. So maybe Maybe that is a, that maybe, you know, maybe that is why, because again, we got to, we have to be so precise in what we're talking about. So that was, the reality is we do not currently know how many juveniles are involved in prostitution. Scientifically credible estimates do not exist. Now that was a 2008 debunk. So that might be a different thing because prostitution, I imagine if you stretch kind of the limits of like the definition and how many like very subtle transactions there could be, like maybe that's what that scientist is thinking.

0:35:24 Lydia: Perpetrating yeah hmm yeah

0:36:01 Thomas: I don't know. Maybe that, maybe there is no scientifically credible way to estimate that, but that's That's why we have to be so precise, because there are ways to estimate, you know, things like crimes. There are ways estimate even unknown things like the most famous one I'm going to talk about is a survey. I'm not the scientist, so I don't understand it. But this is cited as the like be all end all that put a lot of this to rest.

0:36:21 Thomas: And it's weird because it's so old. It's from like 1999. And all that did was a survey somehow. But I guess if you're a scientist, maybe you understand like the different methods of doing this and maybe how rigorous it was that actually like asked enough people. Hey, did your kid go missing essentially? And then like did follow-up work to get those stories and to kind of match it up to different stuff. So I don't want to get too much into methods, but my understanding as not a scientist, just seeing what everybody is citing that that one that I'm going to talk about later is like pretty decisive kind of thing.

0:36:36 Lydia: Wow yeah mm

0:36:52 Thomas: So it depends on what you're talking about. So maybe there is no way to know the exact on prostitution, but in terms of kidnappings, you know, yeah, there are ways to know that. And that links us back to that 50,000 number. Because if you remember, the 50 ,000 was kidnapped children.

0:36:52 Lydia: Hmm yeah

0:37:07 Thomas: So then you might wonder, how did this report from 2001 that referenced 1990s data, how did that keep getting reported? And you heard it in one of the news things we did. How did that keeps getting cited as current Justice Department figure?

0:37:06 Lydia: Mm

0:37:25 Thomas: Well, yeah. Are you ready for a dumb answer? Answer that's because in 2010 the something called the office of justice programs published an article in its juvenile justice bulletin that cited that estimate the bulletin makes clear that this is only an opinion article and doesn't express the official position of the justice department but that doesn't matter yeah

0:37:20 Lydia: Yeah oh geez yeah hmm Interesting, I was just about to blame Obama, and now I

0:37:52 Thomas: Office of justice programs office of juvenile justice and delinquency prevention. I'm trying to see what sub sub sub government, whatever this is, but it, you know, since it says it's an opinion thing, but because it's on the fucking letterhead or whatever, you know because it has the imprimatur or imprimutter. I don't know. I never remember how they say that of government of the Justice Department specifically that just kept getting cited over and over and Over.

0:37:53 Lydia: Can't, thanks Obama and you can also ignore the date apparently too and consider 2010 is like you know a recent thing now.

0:38:19 Thomas: Oh, yeah, that re-ups it. Yeah, and what's funny is it's the very first sentence in the United States estimates suggest that as many as 300,000 children may become victims of commercial sexual exploitation each year. Now, it gives the citation, Estes and Wiener, 2001, right? But what's funny, too, is, like, you think about that's in 2001, that report is in 2010. So then imagine it's, like ,2015, and you're looking at, oh, okay, that's 2010, that reference, you know, like by the time you're a citation of a citation, of a citations, I'm sure it's pretty easy for people to just think, well, that is what they think over there in the Justice Department now, you know?

0:38:35 Lydia: Nobody looks at that, though. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

0:39:00 Thomas: So that's the origin of that 300,000. Now I want to go back to our other end of the story, the 50 ,000, so, you know, I'm looking at the time though, and there's a lot more to this story. So I actually think I don't want to get started on it running out of time. I think we should do an episode break here. And then when we come back in the next episode, which don't worry, I'll get out right away, especially for patrons, patreon.com/seriouspod.

0:39:21 Thomas: Of course, that's for the first shout out. You don't do that in the end of this. It's like, you don't even know how to podcast the basics. Then you go to college anyway. Anyway, so in the next episode of Where There's Woke, I'm going to link back that 50 ,000 number and they're going to meet in the middle. And then what's so funny is there's going to be also a 300 ,000 in there sneakily that I think is really interesting, but a different one, or is it? It is, but is it coincidence that it's different? I don't know. And then there's lots more to talk about in terms of actual numbers. I have some stuff to talk About in terms Of how to put this into context, what to really worry about in Terms of Children. I'm not covering the world of things to worry about, but like when it comes to this stuff, some numbers for comparison and just ways to really try to tether ourselves to reality a little better. I think it's just so important, especially as a parent.

0:39:23 Lydia: Man. But a different one. Oh. Sure. Mm hmm.

0:40:09 Thomas: As a parent, you know what I really care about? You drop everything else. I care about knowing real fucking information because that is what might reliably help me help my kid in some way. And I wish more people approached it like that. The things that we get really scared of are not necessarily the things that are the most scary or that we should be the most scared of. And it is so hard. And I found myself doing it too. I'll get into it in the next episode. But even though I was consuming stuff that was a debunk, it references real stories of kidnappings. And I'm like, fuck, you know, I can't help it. Like even me, I'm Like, God damn it. Do you know where your child is? You know, you're just like, God dammit. It's so easy. But and the thing is, it's not about trying to say, hey, don't worry about your kids. It's not about that, but it really is about, it could be important if you are so consumed with worry over someone

0:40:47 Lydia: Yeah, it becomes personalized. And then it's, yeah, it's easy to slot in your own kid. Yeah.

0:41:05 Thomas: Snatching your kid randomly that you do things like, well, okay, I guess maybe I'll drive them somewhere else. And it's like, okay. Well, actually in reality, driving them fucking anywhere is going to be more dangerous than so many things.

0:41:18 Lydia: It's similar to like the fear of things like shark attacks and stuff, too, where it's.

0:41:23 Thomas: Now those are real. Every day, 300 ,000 children are eaten by sharks every single day.

0:41:27 Lydia: Yeah. But like you watch Jaws and now there's so many people that are like terrified of shark attacks and and to an unreasonable to an reasonable degree and stuff and like being Being able to kind of put it into perspective. You know, it's obviously terrible if someone gets attacked by a shark. You know no one wants to get attacked by shark. But how likely is it really? What are the ways that you can prevent it from happening to you? And where should we be spending our energies?

0:41:37 Thomas: Boy, These myths. And the thing people don't realize is most people who are attacked by a shark, they know. It's a shark in the family.

0:42:04 Lydia: Maybe the reason you had a hard time finding Ashton Kutcher video is because you're spelling his last name incorrectly.

0:42:30 Thomas: No, the internet doesn't care. You don't, you don't know. That could have been one of the kids.

0:42:35 Lydia: Ashtan Kuchar.

0:42:40 Thomas: Scientists say that's stupid.

0:42:43 Lydia: I was just about to blame Obama, and now I can't.

0:42:47 Thomas: Are you ready for a dumb answer?