Dressed to the Tees

We’re at episode 15 and Cait gets us started with the wildly unethical Stanford Prison Experiment (and a brief fun social experiment around leaving 12 year olds to their own devices). Then, Kait tells us all about Franz Reichelt, the Austrian tailor (and inventor) who jumped from the top of the Eiffel Tower.

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Transcript

SUP - Episode 15 

Cait: So did we decide that this was a hard open, or cold? Or soft?

Kait: It's,

Cait: is it again?

Kait: called a cold open in TV shows, but I don't know how it translates to podcasts. Maybe like it's a warm, open,

Cait: Well, the best part is I'm actually known for messing up this stuff because one time I thought it was you dressed to the tease and not to the nines. I'm so bad at these sayings. I can't get them right.

Kait: I'm saying you dress to the tease from now on. That's my new saying,

Cait: Yeah, everyone starts saying it.

Kait: welcome to Stumble upon Pod where you dress, to the tease.

Cait: Yep. Episode 15. Hi Kate.

Kait: Hi Kate.

Cait: Welcome back everyone.

Kait: It stumble a pod. Pod. I can't believe it's episode 15.

Cait: I know I second guessed myself after I said it. I was like, wait, are we sure it's 15? We had to go back and check.

Kait: I know Who knew? We already did 15 episodes

Cait: Yes. Thanks for hanging with us. If you listen to all 15 and if you're new, welcome.

Kait: and please go back and download our other episodes cuz they're pretty fun too.

Cait: Yeah, and message us and let us know what you think. We've been getting a lot of like really cool, nice messages from people.

Kait: also let us know what you think of our new logo. We have been so excited about it. And Kate really put like literal blood, sweat, and tears into that damn design. So

Cait: I had a couple meltdowns,

Kait: Yeah, but

Cait: but came out beautifully. You did an amazing job.

Cait: and it's actually really funny because me and Kate really wanted to add color to it. and we were going back and forth like what color should we add? But we both don't love color. So beige and charcoal. It

Kait: We're both literally wearing like almost identical black sweatshirts.

Cait: Yep. Black, white, gray, beige. That's all that's.

Kait: I'm wearing a black sweatshirt, black leggings and, oh, get ready for this papa color. Gray socks.

Cait: Ooh. See, I feel like you are a little bit more adventurous than me sometimes, but sometimes I surprise myself. Well, we both have bright red nails right now, which is kind of

Kait: We do. We do. We've got that cherry red thing going on, but that was for Valentine's Day. Well, for me at least.

Cait: Oh, I did it because of the, what's it called, the red nail technique.

Kait: Oh, I didn't know that. That was a.

Cait: Well, it's not really a technique, but apparently like people are more attracted to you when you have red nails.

Kait: What?

Cait: Yeah.

Kait: Okay. Okay.

Cait: I'm gonna test it out.

Kait: my gosh. We should test this theory. We should do like a whole research design around it.

Cait: Yeah, we can, well, it's like a big TikTok social media trend right now too, I think.

Kait: Hmm. Okay. Okay.

Cait: Like people like listen to you more and like gravitate towards you more and are more attracted to you when you have red nails. Because apparently back in the day, that's what like the popular thing for mothers used to have their red nails.

Kait: Hmm.

Cait: I don't know, like it's supposed to remind you of your mom

Kait: Oh,

Cait: in a good way. It's like a very Freudian thing.

Kait: maybe we should do our next story on this.

Cait: Yeah, I'm actually really into Freud stuff that is interesting to me. Maybe I'll do like an existential like topic.

Kait: Yeah. Freud kind of sucks though. He stole, he stole a lot of shit from a lot of people and didn't give them any credit.

Cait: If you want us to do something like that, let us know. If you don't let us know.

Kait: Oh, we could do a poll.

Cait: Yeah. I love a good Instagram poll.

Kait: Yeah. Very informative. Well, speaking of stories, should we dive right in?

Cait: right in. Yeah.

Kait: Or did you have other business to

Cait: I was just going to say I'm sorry to one of our listeners named Brie, she suggested a story for me to do and I said, yes, I'm going to do it. And then I completely changed gears when I started researching.

Kait: Oh no,

Cait: Brie, if you're listening, I might do your story next

Kait: it's on the docket. We have a whole notes app of like story ideas, so, It's, it's not gonna go unnoticed for long. We'll, we'll get it in there.

Cait: it was also really sad and I kind of wanted to do something like neutral and also go back to my roots about things that I think are interesting about the brain

Kait: Nice. Yeah. I mean,

Cait: social experiments.

Kait: very cool, very cool. The world is sad enough, we, we don't wanna make everyone more sad, so. You gonna tell us about your, your brain experiment?

Cait: yes. So today mine is about the social experiment of the Stanford Prison experiment.

Kait: Oh my God, I love this story.

Cait: Yeah. Like I feel like you guys probably all have heard this story a million times, a million different ways, but I actually never did like a deep dive into it, so I wanted to. I don't know. See where it took me.

Kait: And they've never heard you tell it so.

Cait: Yeah. You guys never heard my version of it.

Kait: Yeah. Perfect. I'm excited.

Cait: interesting. All right, let's see. I'll start with the sources, of course. And I only use two, so I used Wikipedia and I fucking love science. And that was an article by James Felton. We'll start shouting out the people.

Kait: you James.

Cait: Yeah, thanks Jimmy Alright. So the Stanford Prison Experiment was a psychological experiment conducted in the summer of 1971. It was a two week simulation of a prison environment that examined the effects of situational variables on participants' reactions and behavior.

Kait: It's so wild that they did this.

Cait: I know this stuff like really intrigues me. I loved reading about it. So Stanford University psychology Professor Phillip Zimbardo, led the research team who administered the study. You're Gonna Like this. Kate Zimbardo completed his BA with a triple major in psychology, sociology, and anthropology from Brooklyn College.

Kait: that's where I graduated.

Cait: Yep. In 1954, so a little bit before

Kait: Just a smidge.

Cait: and then he completed his master's and PhD in psychology at Yale. Very smart man.

Kait: Hmm.

Cait: So in 1971, Zimbardo accepted a tenured position as a pro professor of psychology at Stanford. With a government grant from the US Office of Naval Research, he conducted the Stanford Prison Study in which male college students were selected from like an applicant pool of 75 people. They chose nine plus three potential substitutes to be the guards, and then nine plus three potential substitutes to be the prisoners.

Kait: do you know what the cuz I remember learning about this a couple of different times in like high school and college, but do you know what the like criteria was that they were looking for when they picked. The applicants or, yeah,

Cait: I don't. But I do know like, like it wasn't too extensive. They just basically made you do like a psycho psychological

Kait: it's a tough word,

Cait: Yeah. . But I didn't see anything like specific, like, it wasn't really like age, race, gender, from what I've read. I don't know.

Kait: Hmm. Interesting.

Cait: If you guys know more, let me know. So, Zimbardo's goal for the study was to access, access, assess psychological effect on the student whether they were a prisoner or a prison.

Cait: He wanted to focus on the power of roles, rules, symbols, group identity, and situational validation of behavior , zimbardo said that he had been conducting research for some years on de individualization, vandalism, and dehumanization. This is a quote from him. That's why the words I'm struggling pronouncing them

Kait: I mean, he did go to Brooklyn College, Yale, and then got a tenure position at Stanford. Do you know how hard it is to get a tenured position? You have to jump through so many hoops.

Cait: I mean, I feel like a lot of schools and stuff aren't even offering tenure anymore.

Kait: cuz there, it like tenure is kind of fucked up, but,

Cait: Unless you have it then. Lucky you.

Kait: that's the thing. It's like if you get a tenured position, you could then effectively start doing nothing and still get guaranteed salary.

Cait: Mm, that's a good point.

Kait: It's fucked up.

Cait: Okay, so. Where am I?

Kait: De individualization,

Cait: yep. dehumanization. That illustrated the ease with which ordinary people could be led to engage in anti-social acts by putting them in situations where they felt anonymous or they could perceive of others in ways that made them less than human, like enemies or objects.

Kait: Mm-hmm.

Cait: So long story. When you are anonymous, people act differently, which we see a lot with cyber bullying and

Kait: like, yes. I was just gonna say social media. People can like hide behind the screen and they feel more empowered. But if you were like face-to-face with someone, they would never say that shit.

Cait: Exactly. It's awful. There's like, I love social media, but there's so many negative parts about it too.

Kait: I hate social media.

Cait: All right. The study I touched on before was funded by the US Office of Naval Research to understand anti-social behavior. The United States Navy and the Marine Corpse wanted to investigate conflict between military guards and prisoners, so that's why they funded his.

Cait: Participants were recruited from a local community with an ad in the newspapers offering $15 a day, which ended up being about like $108 today. Daily.

Kait: That is not a lot of money for some of the things they went through

Cait: right, but they didn't, they had no idea yet. So it doesn't sound like too bad of a gig, depending. The offer was only to male student. . So I guess that was Criteria.

Cait: criteria and they were young. I think a lot of them were like minors actually too,

Kait: no,

Cait: or I guess they had to be over 18, but

Kait: was gonna say there's no way that Stanford's IRB would allow that.

Cait: but their parents had to get involved at one point, so they were young anyway.

Cait: So it was offered only to male students who wanted to participate in a psychological study of prison life. Volunteers were chosen after assessments of psychological St. Stability, stability, and then randomly assigned to being prisoners or prison guards. The mock prison was located in the basement of the psychology building at Stanford.

Cait: Prisoners were confined by to a six by nine cell with black steel bar doors. They really made it look like a real jail. The only furniture in each cell was a cot and solitary convi confinement was a small unlit closet.

Kait: Oh my God.

Cait: I know prisoners were confined and were to stay in their cells or the yard all day and night until the end of the study.

Cait: But the guards were able to stay in a different environment separate from the prisoners. The guards were also given access to special areas for rest and relaxation. The guards were told to work in teams of three for eight hour shifts, and were not required to stay on site after their shift so they could go home and like see their families or go about their

Kait: But the, the students playing, the prisoners were there like the entire time.

Cait: Exactly, but they were on shifts also too, so there were guards at all times. So let's go to day one. The participants who had been assigned the prisoner role were mock arrested at the local Palo Alto Police at their homes or assigned sites. They were intentionally not informed that they would actually be arrested.

Kait: Oh.

Cait: Yep. The researchers wanted to it to come as a surprise, which was a breach of the ethics of Zimbardo's own contract that they all had signed.

Kait: was just gonna say that feels like a giant ethical breach.

Cait: exactly. So the arrest involved with charging them with armed robbery and burglary. The Palo Alto Police Department assisted Zimbardo's team with the simulated arrests conducting full booking procedures on the prisoners at the police headquarters, and they were read their Miranda rights fingerprinted and got their mugshots taken, went through the whole legit process.

Cait: Meanwhile, the three guards, well just three to start. Prep for the arrival of the inmates. The prisoners were then transported to the mock prison from the police station, sirens wailing, so the sirens and everything in the Stanford County Jail. They were strip searched, given their new identities, identification numbers, and forms the whole nine yards.

Cait: Prisoners were uncomfortable. Ill-fitting smocks without any underwear and stocking caps as well as a chain around one ankle. I'm like imagining like their outfits being from like Party City or something like cheap and like, I don't know. I'm sure they didn't, they looked like legit in pictures, but

Kait: I mean, I don't think that actual prison garb is that. Like comfortable either.

Cait: Yeah, it's probably like starchy.

Kait: I mean, when I interned at Bellevue on the forensic unit and we had guys from Rikers Island there, whenever we would bring them for, to the roof for like outdoors time, they would have to put on these orange jumpsuits and they did not like, I had to hand them over once and they did not feel like nice material.

Cait: Their outside time was on the roof.

Kait: Well, we were at a, on a ho at a hospital

Cait: Hospital. Yeah.

Kait: have like a yard for them to go to.

Cait: That's so crazy. Yeah. So they had the chain around their ankle. Their outfits weren't comfortable. Guards were instructed to call prisoners by their assigned numbers sewn on the uniforms instead of their name. So that dehumanize the prisoners to them. Yeah. The prisoners were then greeted by the warden who conveyed the seriousness of their offense and new status as prisoners.

Cait: So they really tried to make them feel like prisoners.

Kait: played the warden

Cait: That's a great question. It wasn't Tim Bardo. I'm going to get into that next, because he played the role of a prison superintendent,

Kait: Hmm.

Cait: so it was just probably another one of.

Kait: Like a re another researcher. Yeah.

Cait: Exactly. So like I said, Zimbardo, he also took part in the study.

Cait: He was the prison superintendent. He could mediate disputes between the guards and prisoners. And he instructed the guards to find ways to dominate the prisoners, not with physical violence, but with other tactics. Buring on torture, such as sleep deprivation and punishment with the solitary confine.

Kait: I think it's really unethical that he was involved in the experiment at all. As like the researcher that feels like you're fucking with the results.

Cait: Exactly. He should have known, he should have known this to start especially being like as intelligent on his as he was. And actually that ended up leading to the demise of this experiment, which I'll get into. But that's a really good point because, What if you just let them be guards and prisoners without any instruction?

Cait: Like maybe just saying, don't physically like hurt people. The results could have been so different

Kait: Yeah, I mean, or like having them, I don't know. All I know is that like there has been so much fucked up research and the reason that we have the ethical standards that we have today in research is because people. Did fucked up shit that like you would think would be like, we don't have to write this down cuz that's fucked up so you shouldn't do that.

Kait: But it's like, no, we should write everything down.

Cait: Yeah, you have to

Kait: Yeah.

Cait: That's so crazy. So day two, it's two 30 in the morning and the prisoners rebelled against the guards. Wake up calls of whistles and clanging of batons. The prisoners refused to leave their cells to eat in the yard, ripped off their inmate number, tags, took off their caps and insulted the guards.

Cait: In response, the guards sprayed fire extinguishers at the prisoners to reassert control. That is so dangerous. Have you ever breathed in fire extinguisher air?

Kait: I've never, I've never seen one opened before, like in, in real life, but I know

Cait: I, when I was younger. Literally thought it would be cool to shoot it in my basement and . It's like white smoke, like in like a haunted house and it suffocates you.

Cait: It feels like ice air going into your lungs.

Kait: Yeah. It's really cold. Yeah, it's bad.

Cait: Yeah. That was like the dumbest thing I ever did. I got

Kait: meant for fire, not humans.

Cait: Exactly. I learned it the hard way. and I actually, I said that was the dumbest thing I've ever did, but I don't think it was so three backup guards were called in to regain the control of the prison. So now there's more guards than prisoners. They called in the three extras guards, removed all of the prisoners' clothes, removed their mattresses and sentence the main instigators to time in the hole. So like solitary confinement.

Cait: In order to restrict further acts of disobedience, the guard separated and rewarded prisoners who had minor roles in the rebellion. The three spent, there was three, like good prisoners. They spent time in the good cell where they received clothing, beds, and food, and the rest of the jail population was denied.

Cait: All of that stuff, like no clothing, beds, or food.

Kait: That's so fucked up.

Cait: But this is what also is, so after about 12 hours, the three had to return to their old cells that lacked beds.

Kait: Why.

Cait: So they were just treated nicely for three, for 12 hours. Guards were allowed to abuse their power to humiliate the inmates. They had the prisoners count off and do pushups.

Cait: They began to become more aggressive, taking away the prisoners'. forcing them to use buckets kept in their cells as toilets, and then refusing permission to empty the buckets. And neither other guards or Zimbardo himself intervened knowing that their actions were observed, but not rebuked. Guards considered that they had approval for doing their actions.

Cait: So because they're not, they don't have anyone saying like, Hey, can you not do that? They just keep. The first prisoner to leave the experiment was Douglas Corby. He was prisoner 86 12. After 36 hours, he had an apparent mental breakdown in which he yelled, Jesus Christ, I'm burning up inside and I can't stand another night. I just can't take it on anymore. Upon seeing his suffering, a research assistant named Craig Haney re release Corby.

Kait: Oh, thank you, Craig.

Cait: Craig. Well, this is, this part is strange. I mean, not strange cuz it does make sense why he did it, but then he is kind of like in denial. So in a 2017 interview, Corby stated that his breakdown had been fake and he only did it so that he could leave and return to studying for his graduate is exam.

Cait: He had originally thought that he could study while he was imprisoned, but the prison staff would not allow him. Zimbardo stated that he had to treat the breakdown as real and release the prisoner further. Zimbardo believes that his interview was fake or a lie, sorry. In 2017, Zimbardo said he was lying about faking it because in 1992, a documentary film came.

Cait: And it was called Quiet Rage. Corby stated that the prison experiment had deeply affected him and that the experience actually led him to later become a prison psychologist. So, I mean, I mean, Zimbardo has no right to make a judgment, whether it was fake or real, I feel like at this point, but it definitely had to affect affected him, like maybe he was embarrassed

Kait: was his PhD in?

Cait: psychology

Kait: I mean, he would be qualified to like,

Cait: Oh, that's true. But I mean,

Kait: to like, you know, assess the mental breakdown. But

Cait: I mean, he does have a good point because I maybe he was just embarrassed, like in 2017. He was like, my breakdown was fake. Be like, I just wanted to leave because I wanted to study,

Kait: Or in the documentary, it was closer to the event, and so he wanted to keep the lie going, but now it's been so many years, so he doesn't care anymore.

Cait: Right. It could go either way.

Kait: Yeah.

Cait: There's another ethics All the ethical dilemmas,

Cait: I know. So, The abuse continued daily and day five was a visitation day. The day was scheduled for visitations by the friends and family of the inmates in order to simulate the real prison experience, , so they really like went all out on this. Zimbardo and the guards made the visitors wait for long periods of time to see their loved ones. Only two visitors could see any one prisoner and only for 10 minutes while a guard watched. I mean, it's not like they're like planning to be in jail forever, but still, they thought it was gonna be two weeks.

Cait: 10 minutes is not long. parents. That's when parents grew concerned about their son's wellbeing and whether they've had enough to eat. Some parents left with plans to contact lawyers to gain early release of their children, so that was kind of like, I wonder how young they actually were.

Kait: I mean, they, they had to have been over 18, but like, if you're like, like think about

Cait: your

Kait: college, you know,

Cait: Yeah,

Kait: Like if my mom had visited us in this experiment, she'd be like, get them the fuck out

Cait: Exactly. Yeah, she would. She would flip out. She would've grabbed you and pulled you right out. And then Me too, on the way out.

Kait: She'd be like, let's go. I'm taking the

Cait: coming too. . Oh my God. Yeah. But you probably would've been a guard. It would've been. Like loving it. Remember when we were that for Halloween, you and Flo were the cops and I was a robber or burglar?

Kait: I wouldn't l, I wouldn't love doing that. I like having like positions of authority, but I wouldn't fucking torture people. poop bucket. Empty the poop bucket. People.

Cait: Yeah. That's disgusting. Sanitary. It was the

Kait: would empty the poop bucket, Kate. I would empty the poop bucket.

Cait: I'm crying. That's hilarious. Oh my God. All right, so where was I? poop bucket. On that same day, Zimbardo's colleague, Gordon Bauer arrived to check on the. And he questioned Zimbardo about what the independent variable of the research was, because like we were saying, why was he involved? Christina Mass Lock also visited the prison that night, and she was distressed after observing the guards, abusing the prisoners, forcing them to wear bags over their.

Kait: What the fuck?

Cait: Yeah, so this actually shows that even when other people were coming to observe, the guards didn't care. Like they kept acting like crazy people, well, I shouldn't say that, but like abusive people.

Kait: He kept acting like

Cait: challenged Zimbardo. Yeah, like wild. She also challenged Zimbardo about his lack of caring oversight and the immor immorality of the study.

Cait: Definitely immoral. Finally, she made evident that Zimbardo had changed, had, sorry, I'm stuttering so bad today. It's the LA Cologne again, guys. Lalo.

Kait: She's

Cait: 200, yeah. 270 milligrams of caffeine per serving. I think it is.

Kait: Aren't you supposed to water it down

Cait: I don't think so.

Kait: or is that,

Cait: I water it down with.

Kait: I'm thinking of like the coffee, like concentrate.

Cait: Oh, concentrate. Yeah, I don't buy that. Could you imagine if I bought that?

Kait: time I drank that and didn't water it down. I didn't know you were supposed to. I felt like I was on crack.

Cait: Oh, it probably tasted like syrup, like strong coffee syrup.

Kait: I mean, it's not, yeah, it was strong. I put like oat milk in it and I was like, wow, this is the strong I, it like tasted like espresso

Cait: Ooh, maybe I should buy the concentrate.

Kait: I didn't have that much of it and I felt like I was going insane.

Cait: Guys, I promise I'll chill on the lock CL for the next episode.

Kait: half a glass.

Cait: I know cause I keep jumping ahead cuz I'm all like worked up anyway because the story actually bothered me too, so it doesn't help. But this is crazy. So here we are. Christina Mash, however you say her last name, she was also.

Cait: Checking in on how the experiment was going, and she made evident that even Zimbardo had been changed by his role as the superintendent. She said that he was acting like someone she didn't recognize and didn't like, and her direct challenges prompted Zimbardo to end the experiment the next day.

Kait: Good.

Cait: Yeah.

Cait: How crazy. So day six, the experiment ended and they were all paid the full amount for 14 days worth. So they made about $1,500 each.

Kait: Oh, okay.

Cait: That's, I mean, that's really good for at least the guards. It's good for the prisoners too, but they're being abused.

Kait: would sue the school after this

Cait: Yeah. Like take your money and then sue the school. The results of this experiment examined human nature and the effects of authority. It turned out that personalities of the subjects was found to have little influence despite the test before the prison experiment, it was the title that defined how the subjects were acting.

Cait: It also showed that conformity was strengthened by allowing some participants to feel more or less powerful than others. The people's behavior were altered to match the group stereotypes and it shows that we conform to others even if it's passive.

Kait: Mm-hmm.

Cait: It also showed that it's clear that people's desire to be a good subject is much more prevalent than to be a subject that does good.

Cait: So they were like really trying to be the best guard by acting. . But oh, also this, like, I didn't like write this down, but I saw that this study obviously like helped jails and like I know, I'm sure there's Kate's like nodding her head. I'm sure there's abuse

Kait: muted because there's a, there's a, an ambulance just sitting under my. Window with the siren on, you can probably hear it.

Cait: well, it adds ambiance to my story. I like.

Kait: great.

Cait: my good friend, her fiance, my best friend, one of them. Anyway, sh he is a prison guard and he's like the nicest guy. It's like so crazy. Like he doesn't really tell us too much like stories, but

Kait: My uncle was a corrections officer for, Like 20, 25 years.

Cait: really,

Kait: Yeah.

Cait: what an interesting job. All right. I'm gonna lighten this story up a little bit. This is what I originally wanted to do, but there wasn't enough information, but this is really funny. So in the UK a show came out and it was called Boys and Girls Alone and . They put a group of 10 boys aged 11 to 12, and 10 girls aged like 11 to 12 in separate houses alone.

Cait: They were provided with food, money, toys, and cleaning equipment for the experi. But other than that, they were left of their own devices and there was a note like the show crew would come and intervene if there were issues of safety. There was a clear difference between how the boys and how the girls behaved.

Kait: Yeah. Duh,

Cait: I know, I'm not shocked to hear this at all. The girls cooked, cleaned and organized the fashion show for entertainment purposes while the boys set about immediately trashing the house and writing on the.

Kait: fuckers,

Cait: I know.

Kait: And why do men run the world? Look at what they do to homes.

Cait: home? I know the boys separated after a few days into groups, into two groups, sleeping in two different bedrooms, and then they would attempt to antagonize each other.

Cait: One group decided to keep the other group awake after the, they decided to have an early night constantly trying to enter the room and make loud noise. . An argument broke out between the boys after one of the boys' t-shirt shirts was painted and covered in shaving cream. But beyond a few minor arguments and an annoyances, no one was hurt.

Cait: So at least there's that. The girls I know, little boy, ugh. I mean we, we know we've babysat little boys and girls and there's a difference.

Kait: there's a big difference.

Cait: The girls found a neighbor's cat. They let it in the house and they all began to take care of it. They moved all their beds into one room and cooked and ate together, but the girls did end up mildly bullying each other, and two of the girls ultimately decided to leave the house before the experiment was over.

Kait: mean, yeah, that's gonna happen when you, it's just group dynamics.

Cait: Oh my God. Yeah. It's just so funny. That's all I had on that, but I thought that was a really cute way to end.

Kait: That's funny. I loved that.

Cait: I'm, so, I'm just like picturing all these kids just like running a house.

Kait: should have been a sociology major.

Cait: I love it. I'm so interested on this stuff. I took a couple classes. I wish I'd, whatever, coulda, whata, shoulda

Kait: There's still time. My mom went back to school at 40.

Cait: I don't, I can't imagine going back to school now for myself at.

Kait: I'm in school.

Cait: That's what I mean for myself. You're crazy.

Kait: like school. I like learning.

Cait: I like learning too, but I like learning like independently.

Kait: I don't like academia. I think higher education sucks and is fucked up, but I like learning

Cait: Yeah. And I hate how expensive school is.

Kait: Yeah. I'm gonna be in debt for the rest of my life. It's fine.

Cait: That's just how it is.

Kait: Yeah. But you know what? At least you'll have to call me Doctor

Cait: I love it. I can't wait.

Kait: We have to change the logo once I get my PhD with to, with Kate and Dr. Kate.

Cait: Caitlin, do you want us to, I mean I will cuz I,

Kait: No, I literally, I say all the time, I'm joking right now. I don't ever wanna be called Doctor. I have professors that some of them have us call them doctor, but most of my professors are like, please call me by my first name.

Kait: And I'm like, yeah, that's the vibe. It's like not,

Cait: is Tommy going to be a doctor?

Kait: no, he's his masters.

Cait: Okay. Because then you guys would've been the doctor's Lan

Kait: the doctors maid. Well,

Cait: I love when like, it's two, two doctors.

Kait: Doctor. Doctor.

Cait: Yeah.

Kait: It's like a song Doctor. Doctor

Cait: Wait, that literally is a

Kait: I know.

Cait: Kate, what are you telling me about

Kait: Oh my goodness. It's not a funny story, but it's kind of funny, but it's not funny.

Cait: I need a little bit of funny After that,

Kait: I am not gonna give you a lot of details. I'm just gonna tell you that I'm gonna talk about the inventor and Taylor Franz Rael, I hope I'm saying his last name right? I listened to a video a couple times and now I feel like I'm saying it wrong, but you know what?

Kait: That's what we do here. We say things wrong and we apologize later, and try not to do it again.

Cait: oh, Kate, you just reminded me. Oh my God.

Kait: What? You scared me.

Cait: I botched Julian Kaka. That's the right, how do I say her last name? Julian Kaka. I botched her name so bad everyone.

Kait: learned that from Morbid when

Cait: I don't know. Yes. I don't know why I was saying I was literally pronouncing it as I read it. Kopecki. That's not even close.

Cait: I'm so embarrassed and I'm so sorry and sad about it. She was amazing. Is amazing. She's still kicking,

Kait: is amazing. And Julian, maybe spell it like you say it.

Cait: Yeah. Kaka not, not kopecki. Everyone. I'm sure you were screaming at me every time I said her.

Kait: Yeah. Wait, that was fucked up of me to say. Spell your name however you want. We will do better to figure out how to pronounce things.

Cait: Exactly. We're putting that on the list. I need to do a little bit more research when it comes to stuff like that.

Kait: I do try to, like, I google like how to pronounce this and then I'll listen to it over again where it's like the robot going like, cop cop, cop, cop. You know, when it, when it does that, you press a little sound thing and like, I don't like, I listen to this last guy, this guy's last name and I, maybe I should pause and do it again. I'm pretty sure it's Rael Reich, elt, Reicht Reich, elt.

Cait: Sounds good to me.

Kait: He's Austrian. Okay. These are my sources. We're sorry, Julian. Co. Co. Kaka. co. Coka. Kaka. Haka. We suck. And we're sorry.

Cait: I know we're still learning.

Kait: Yeah. Okay. Here are my sources. For the inventor and Taylor Franz Rael an article from all that's interesting.com by Gabe pti. An article from atlas obscure.com by Eric Grund Hauser wonders of the world.net.

Kait: A weird history video on YouTube. I'm not saying like, oh, it's a weird history video. The channel's literally called Weird History explain that stuff. Dot com and of course Wikipedia. Okay, so I don't know where to put my notes cuz my desk is so packed.

Cait: See, this is why I had an iPad.

Kait: Fran Rael was born on October 16th, 1878, in what was the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but is today the Czech Republic. He moved to Paris from Vienna in 1898 and in Paris he opened a successful dress making business that catered mainly to Austrians on trips to Paris, which is such a specific. Niche, I feel

Kait: But you know what, go Franz. He's doing his thing. So Franz became really fascinated with the early inventions of the airplane, and he read so many stories about plane crashes and he really wanted to get involved and increase safety for pilots. And so this is when he had the idea for a parachute suit or an aviation suit.

Kait: And just for context around planes the Wright brothers took their first successful flight in 1903. The first person to die in a powered plane crash was Thomas Selfridge in 1908. And this right now, when Franz had this idea was 1910. So he started to develop this design with the thought that the pilot could wear something that was light enough, so it was comfortable when flying, but sturdy enough to save the pilot's life.

Kait: And he started to create some prototypes and would test them by suiting up a dummy and tossing the dummy off of his apartment roof. His first prototype was successful, but he only threw that dummy from the fifth. Which is not that high up. That's like how high my building is. And like if I jumped out of my window, I, I would break legs, but I, I would live,

Cait: you probably would

Kait: His first prototype, oh wait, I said that already. Ooh, . So I lost my place in my notes. I would've done this anyway if I had an iPad. Okay,

Cait: I know it's awful.

Kait: the rest of his prototypes failed miserably. The design he made was su supposedly inspired by bat wings. And if you look at images of him dressed in it, it looks like , like a poorly made Halloween costume.

Cait: We have to post the picture of him.

Kait: yeah. I'm sorry, Franz, but you looked silly. So Franz eventually presented it as his idea to the country's leading aviation organization. Should I say this with a French accent?

Cait: No

Kait: Okay.

Cait: I mean you can,

Kait: no.

Cait: feel

Kait: Arrow Club de France. After sh after showing them the design, they told him that the surface of. His device was way too weak and that he would break his neck.

Kait: But Franz was determined, so he went home and he just kept making prototypes. He even tested one himself jumping from a window 26 feet off the ground.

Cait: Oh,

Kait: He broke his leg.

Cait: oh. I knew that wasn't gonna end well.

Kait: he insisted that the suit would work if it were just dropped from a higher distance. His theory was that the drop distance for these prototypes was too short for the flaps to deploy properly.

Kait: And just to add here that the, a functional fixed canopy parachutes already existed

Cait: That was what I was going to ask.

Kait: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And a parachute had already been invented that worked for high altitudes, but no parachute existed for people leaping from planes or for low altitudes.

Cait: Okay, so what were the power shoots used for? Like packages?

Kait: yeah, like dropping shit.

Cait: oh, like bombs,

Kait: and not bombs.

Kait: You don't put a parachute on a bomb that

Cait: I, I think I've seen it in a movie.

Kait: would blow up in the air if it were,

Cait: I think I've seen it in a movie. I,

Kait: was it a

Cait: be making this. No, it was probably a cartoon.

Kait: know what I'm talking about either, so I don't wanna deny what you're saying.

Cait: it might have been like Loony Tunes.

Kait: Oh God. All right. We'll have to look that up. We'll post that too. So I'm, I'm unsure still if I'm gonna include this, but I'm gonna say it anyway and we'll figure out if it's worth it. I'm gonna go over the physics of parachuting from a plane very quickly just to compare and contrast. So Skydivers make. Really easy parachuting. But it's not easy. This has nothing to do with parachuting, but for Tommy's birthday, I took him indoor skydiving

Cait: Oh, I wanna try that at I fly.

Kait: it? Yeah, it was so fun. But you're in this tube that like is shooting air at like a very high speed. So you can lift up in the air and they have a guy standing in there and he holds you.

Kait: And if you hold your position properly, he doesn't have to hold onto you. And then what he'll do is if you pay for the extra to go high up. They'll spin you around and then he jumps up and then you go really high up. And that was like terrifying and also really exciting. But then afterwards, like he'll do tricks and they triple the wind speed and he's like doing back flips.

Kait: He's going up, he's going down and it's like I couldn't even.

Cait: Control. Like what you were doing,

Kait: my own body and like I'm pretty strong, like I can hold my body in a position, but like it was really hard with the wind. So they have to like practice a lot to do that kind of shit.

Cait: huh?

Kait: So back to skydiving and parachutes. When you jump out of a plane, you're moving 10 times faster than a race car.

Kait: Like you're only in the air for 30 to 40 seconds. That's how fast you're moving. And skydives usually jump between 10,000 and 14,000 feet. And opening a parachute perfectly in those conditions is really difficult. So parachutes are, and I had, I did not know this at all. I thought parachutes were just like a big like little balloon type looking thing.

Cait: That's what I thought.

Kait: No parachutes are actually three shoots in one. And they get packed into the single backpack. So there's the main shoot, a reverse parachute in case the main shoot fails, and a tiny little shoot at the bottom of the can container called the pilot shoot that helps the main shoot open. So if you go skydiving, you wait till you're clear of the plane and you trigger the pilot shoot, which rapidly opens and creates enough force to tug the main shoot.

Kait: The main shoot is packed really carefully into the pack that the, so that the ropes connect to your harness and like open correctly. The main shoot is designed to open in a delayed way so that your body, that's why there's the the pilot shoot, and then the main shoot, it's so you start to slow down and your body isn't like jerked mid-air and it so that way you don't get injured.

Kait: Parachutes have to endure considerable force so that they have to be, they have to be made from like really strong materials. Originally parachutes were made from canvas or silk, but now they're made from nylon or Kevlar because. Pathetic materials, and they're just cheaper to produce, but they're just as strong.

Kait: All this to say, parachutes are a lot more complicated than they look, and that's for safety reasons. So Franz wasn't actually that far off with his idea because. Like parachutes, his idea relied on increasing the surface area of a falling person in an attempt to slow their dissent. So instead of the person being attached to an overhead campy, like a parachute franz's, parachute suit was like integrated into the actual flight suit, like bat wings.

Kait: But that was part of the problem. Franz's parachute suit was half, was made of half waterproof fabric and half silk with a system of rods and belts that the wearer can control with the parachute supposedly being able to deploy during the fall in 1911, the Arrow Club de France. Offered a prize of 10,000 francs to anyone who could create a safety parachute for aviators that did not exceed 25 kilograms, which is 55 pounds in weight.

Kait: So like the parachute did, couldn't be heavier than

Cait: See that is a problem. Making something like for someone's safety, turning it into a fucking contest. Like just wait until it happens.

Kait: Well, it's gonna make people do stupid shit.

Cait: Exactly.

Kait: Well, I'm gonna tell you the stupid shit that happens.

Cait: Oh God. Here we go.

Kait: Yeah. So Franz was determined that a considerable height would be the difference, improving the success of his parachute. So he began lobbying with the Parisian police to let him test his invention from the Eiffel Tower. After a year of basically begging them, they.

Cait: they were like, fine, just get it over with. Leave us alone.

Kait: February 4th, 1912, Franz Rekt arrived at the Eiffel Tower at 7:00 AM Now, when the Parisian police originally like agreed to let this happen, it was under the understanding that Franz was gonna use a test dummy and drop a test dummy from the top of the Eiffel Tower. But when Fran showed up, he was wearing the suit.

Cait: Oh no.

Kait: So which made his friends start to freak out and a security guard they all went off to have, and they're like, dude, you are not jumping from, are you outta your fucking mind? That's not happening. And Franz like, shouted back at them. I intend to prove the worth of my invention. Like, put your ego down, Franz.

Kait: Put it down.

Cait: just the notch.

Kait: So there was a pretty sizable crowd gathered as well as a bunch of different people from the press. Franz made his way up to the first platform of the Eiffel Tower, which was about 200 feet off of the ground. His friends pleaded with him saying, it's like it was really cold that day. It was way too windy.

Kait: Like it's way too, it's, it was too risky of a day. And there was a fellow parachutist who knew that that was a word. Yeah,

Kait: this other person who also did parachuting, Warren Franz, that his parachute would not have enough time to deploy. But Franz was determined that his adventure would work.

Kait: So by 8:22 AM Franz had reached his position at the top. He stepped up onto a small table next to the ledge edge of the platform and ripped up a newspaper to study the direction of the wind. He turned to his friends and said, Abian to, which means, see you later, or See you soon in French. But then Franz hesitated for about 40 seconds, like peering over the edge.

Kait: Looking around, peering over, and then finally he propelled himself off of the edge. His parachute folded around him and he plummeted

Cait: No.

Kait: grass. Yeah. The paper, petite Parisian wrote Two seconds later in a pitiful wreck, he lay on the icy grass. He fell almost standing. Blood trickled through his mouth, nose and ears.

Kait: His right arm and leg were crushed. His skull and back were broken. Death was instant.

Cait: Oh,

Kait: Yeah,

Cait: I thought you said this was funny.

Kait: well, it was funny up until this point, I said it was also sad,

Cait: Oh, I missed that part.

Kait: I said, it's funny and sad, and funny and sad.

Cait: Alright, is it get funny again?

Kait: Not

Cait: Poor guy. Aw man. I feel bad for him now, but that was really

Kait: I don't feel that bad for him. It was his own hubris,

Cait: Yeah. Now he's like famous.

Kait: I guess,

Cait: Now we know what not to do.

Kait: for making a dumb decision. So police rushed to his side, but France had already succumbeded to his industry in his industry.

Cait: that too.

Kait: He succumbed to Jah industry. He succumbeded to his injuries. His fall left a six inch hole in the ground.

Cait: Whoa.

Kait: He was only 33 years old.

Cait: Ooh.

Kait: Yeah. Another paper whose name I cannot pronounce because it is very French and I'm sorry and I'm not even gonna attempt it. Roe. He was dead and there was nothing more to do, but carry home the body of this inventor who had believed just a few seconds earlier to finally grasp fortune and glory.

Kait: There was a lot of cri criticism of Franz after his death papers called him a mad genius that deserved only half the title, A victim of his fate. Others blamed the Parisian police for letting Franz jump at all, which like. Why, like I couldn't find anything about police being present there, but if you're gonna allow someone to do this, like maybe show up and make sure he doesn't fucking jump himself.

Cait: exactly like you. Yeah. Gave him. And he's going against it. So

Kait: Yeah. The police got really defensive and said that the, that Franz told them that he was gonna use one of his dummies and that he, they were just as surprised as everyone else when he jumped himself. It. It took, it takes like an hour and 15 minutes to climb to the top of the Eiffel Tower. You had plenty of fucking time to stop

Cait: they were, they were watching.

Kait: I don't know if they were there. That's the thing. I couldn't find anything that said that there was police presence, but like there fucking should have been. What's really tragic about this is that all of this was really in vain because the year before this happened, an inventor in Russia had already invented the sack para.

Cait: Oh

Kait: It just wasn't like as widely known. Yeah. An autopsy later on revealed that Franz died from a heart attack on the way down, so hopefully he didn't actually feel the impact of hitting the ground.

Cait: So from having a heart attack, from being so scared when he was falling?

Kait: Yeah. I would shit myself if

Cait: No. So that actually triggers a heart attack.

Kait: I guess.

Cait: Wow.

Kait: Not all the time, but I think this guy had a heart attack because he realized that his fucking parachute wasn't working.

Cait: Wow.

Kait: Yeah. Yeah, so that is the story of Fry's Reich out, the Taylor who jumped from the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Cait: Bravo. Wow. I am so thankful that we did not have to invent like anything

Kait: like you and me personally.

Cait: personally. Yes. Thank God we were born in the right time. I would not survive as an inventor.

Kait: Yeah, when anywhere anyone asks me if like what decade I would go back to, I'm like, I'm good right here.

Cait: Yeah, like maybe the future, if anything,

Kait: Nah, I'm good where I am.

Cait: to the nineties.

Kait: Yeah.

Cait: Nah, I like where we are too.

Kait: Yeah. I'm just chill where I'm at.

Cait: I'm not inventing anything or testing food and poison and my God, it's wild.

Kait: I mean, they sold fucked up shit in the nineties.

Cait: True.

Kait: What would you do without the internet? Kate? What would you do without social media?

Cait: Well, we had it kind of right in the

Kait: did not have social media. No, social media started really with Facebook

Cait: When was

Kait: in the early two, like 2004.

Cait: Hmm. Yeah, you're right. I wouldn't have survived

Kait: Yeah. . I mean, you did survive. We were, we lived through the nineties.

Kait: Kate, I don't know how old you're trying to make people think we are

Cait: Yeah, you're right. No, we're actually really lucky. I'm, I think we grew up in such. Like spot, we got to witness like what it's like to be live without technology and what it's like to have it.

Kait: Yeah. Being a millennial people, shit on it. But I think it's really cool because we, you know, really experience the. Birth and growth of technology. It's kind of

Cait: Yeah. We got to see it like happen before our eyes. We ended up with like these giant brick phones into what I have, like the iPhone 14 now, like.

Kait: Oh my god. I remember my first cell phone was from Nextel and it was one of the walkie talkie phones. It was literally a brick and, and I remember my first boyfriend ever also had a next cell phone, so we'd like walkie talk each other be to save money cuz you, cuz of the minutes of texting

Cait: Yep. That was the one pro, that type of phone.

Kait: Yeah, because that didn't cost minutes. So we could like, I mean, it was free. The plan we have is free nights and weekends, but if it, it was like a Monday and we were off from school for a snow day, we could like, that was like the sound it made.

Cait: Gen Zers, if you could imagine and live in our shoes for one minute, every time you would send a text, like it would count like it. The

Kait: God. What about how long it would take to te text someone? We didn't have keyboards. You have to press the numbers. Yeah.

Cait: And then everyone's like, we already know, they either like lived through this or it's in their history books,

Kait: in the history books. Oh my God.

Cait: that one button that would connect to the internet and if you pressed it, it would charge your parents like $10,000

Kait: Oh my God. I

Cait: time it would connect.

Kait: was afraid my, my stepdad used to threaten to remove that button.

Cait: Oh my God, the struggle was real. Everyone, thank you so much for listening. Thank you for the continued support. Keep downloading, keep DMing us. We love the messages we're receiving.

Kait: And click those stars. Take a second, write a review.

Cait: Yeah, we wanna, we want this to be our jobs. Like we love doing this. This is one thing that I love doing, so.

Kait: Yeah, this is my favorite. If you have questions, comments, concerns, story ideas, reach out to us at Contact us@stumbleuponpod.com. You can find us on all the socials at Stumble Upon Pod and check out our new logo. And yeah. Thank you for tuning in.

Cait: thanks everyone. See ya.

Kait: Bye.