On this episode of Skeptico, a show about looking for a hero.

The final part of the secret is that you deserve to feel miserable.

Look at you, so robotic, so vain. Any bit of culture you have is ruined by self-importance and egotism. There is no doubt. You all are in need

of a hero. Someone brave enough to confront me and control me. But this will not come to pass.

I am the villain you are stuck with. Besides, what hero would want to save you?

And finding it very, very close to home. What hero would want to save you?

And finding it very, very close to home, like in the mirror.

And it's in many ways anti-human, anti-life.

It's just like, ah, humans or whatever, we should just enhance ourselves and forget about it. So I have this very skeptical, conspiratorial

lens of what's happening in the world. I think we need to be very careful about some of the

things that might sound benevolent and maybe some of the people involved have a benevolent

intent. But who knows, what could that do to our soul? It is love and light, but we've got to be

tough, and that's something I don't see as much in the spiritual world. That first clip was from the very excellent Mouthy Buddha, and the second is from

today's returning guest, Mark Gober, who came to talk about ET, and we'll end up talking

about a lot of other stuff as well.

Stick around. I think this is a great conversation with a truly, truly great and important thinker.

Welcome to Skeptico, where we explore controversial science and spirituality with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics.

I'm your host, Alex Sikaris, and today we welcome back Mark Gober to Skeptico.

Mark, if you're at all familiar with this show, especially the last couple of years,

you will definitely remember the interviews that we've had with him.

The first was a few years ago back.

He wrote this really amazing book,

...