Good afternoon. My name is Fermi Okumlami, and I use he, him, his pronouns.  I'm wearing glasses and a wooden bow tie, a blue sweater, and a blue blazer. In my background, you can see some shelves and a plant with a American flag and some plaques. I identify as an individual with a disability and you can't see, but I'm seated in a manual wheelchair. It is my distinct pleasure to be able to deliver this keynote for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Math entitled Disabusing Disability, hoping to demonstrate that disability is not inability. Now, I tell people that I don't like giving talks, and anyone that knows me will then say that's a bold face lie because you love talking. Now I said, I don't like giving talks, I never said I don't like to talk. So what I'm hoping that this will eventually be is a conversation, because I will then talk for this next sort of period of time and I know we're afterwards going to be able to engage in a conversation about these things because if my voice is the only one contributing to this conversation, I feel as though I've done a disservice to all of you, because whether you know it or not, each of you has a perspective or an opinion on this topic, whether you have engaged in this conversation or not. So the hope today is to have a conversation about disability, but to then show you how disability is a unique thread that actually cuts across much of society to then talk about what it is that we can do to be more accessible, more equitable, and more inclusive. So I tell people that I also identify as a black man, a Nigerian man, a Christian man, a physician, a father, and I tell people that is all of these identities wrapped into one that contribute to the lived experience that I have. And therefore I want to be very clear that I am not the first or the best or the only, I am merely an end of one sharing my own lived experience and perspectives to add to the course of voices to engage in this conversation, because we are all much more similar than we are different and we can learn from our differences instead of separating ourselves because of them. So I always give credit to some of my students and staff that have assisted me in putting the initial iteration of these slides together. And without further ado, let us begin. So I often start with this image now to assist those that may not be able to see it on this slide and is split into two halves. It's an image that many people have probably seen before. With three individuals, same three individuals on both half of the screen, and they are attempting to watch what looks like a baseball game on the other side of a fence. Now on one side of these three individuals I like to call them tall, medium and short. Each of them is standing on one box. With that one box, the tall individual can see the game. The medium individual can see the game as well but then the short individual cannot see through the fence to the game. And underneath that it says equality. Now on the other half of the slide the same three individuals tall, medium and short are trying to watch the same game but now the boxes have been moved. The boxes have been moved such that the tall individual is no longer on any box, and he can see that medium individual is still on one box and can see but now the short individual is on two boxes and can now see. With that image it says equity. Now a lot of people have used this slide for many many different reasons and I usually ask people well what is the situation in which you have seen this slide used, and people talk about diversity equity and inclusion conversations. People talk about team building people talk about conversations about how equity and equality are not the same thing. But equality is giving everyone the same thing whereas equity is giving people what they need. Now very often when I give this presentation people will speak about this as a positive slide. Yet there was one time where I posted the slides online after my talk, and someone who did not speak up during the presentation made a comment that went such as this. Why don't those insert racial slur here by tickets like everyone else and watch the game from the inside. I will repeat that. It said, why don't those insert racial slur here by tickets like everyone else and watch the game from the inside. I say this not to be jarring or controversial. But I say it because we often fail to recognize that when we see an image to different people may be looking at the same thing and seeing something very different. When we look at this people often talk about how we need to remove the fence, people talk about a third slide that says justice with no fence whatsoever. And people look at the slide trying to see this as a positive thing as to how we can strive for equity or equality or both. But we don't recognize at times that people look at this and they see a completely different problem. I am not assigning any sort of good or bad to those different perspectives I nearly bring them up because if we don't recognize that people are not always on the same page when they start in a conversation. We are never going to get to the point where we come to a conclusion that it's going to be satisfactory for all. Similarly, I showed this slide and at one point there was a softball player that then raised their hand and said you know, we didn't put the fence there to keep people out. We had the fence there to keep things in. If we didn't have a fence we wouldn't know what a home run is if we didn't have a fence, and there's a busy road on the other side of the fence we put ourselves in harm's way, each time we have to run across that road. And so in fact if we knew that there were people trying to access this game, we would absolutely try to figure out how to accommodate them. We want people to watch our games. And therefore when we have conversations with people on both sides of the fence, when we acknowledge and address what the barriers may actually be, then we can come to a conclusion that is going to that fit for everyone. Now I start off with this cartoon because it's much easier to talk about these things with a cartoon rather than real people. People don't get as uncomfortable when you talk about it in this way, especially when the reality of our world is more like this. There's an additional pain to this slide, which has a third segment in this third segment those same people are there except in this one, the tall individual is standing on many many boxes well above the field and can see the game. That medium individual is still on one box and can see the game and now the short individual is standing in a box sized hole. Under that image it now says reality. When we talk about resources when we talk about how we allocate resources. This is what the reality tends to be. And if we then can have a conversation about how we can reallocate resources to make sure that everyone has what they need. Then this conversation gets even trickier. Because often when you show this slide someone will say why does the tall individual have to give their slide up for the short one. Really we don't know what that short individual did to then dig themselves into the hole that they are currently standing in. And it is not my responsibility to provide something to support that person. But once again as I say I use this slide to open up conversations to discuss what equality what equity what reality are, and how we can work together to them provide what everyone needs. Because who knows what happened to that have that individual in that whole. That hole may have been put there long before they arrived that whole can be one of the systemic injustices of sexism or racism or ableism that they did not create. And that same vein all of those boxes that the tall individual is standing on, maybe privileges that they did not do anything to create themselves. Before when we have conversations about how we allocate resources without taking into consideration the privileges and the prejudices and the systemic injustices that may have led to the situation that people are in. We miss the conversation entirely. And so I'm sure at this point someone out there is wondering when is this conversation going to center around disability.  This image now which I hope to use to sort of encapsulate this entire conversation and then lead us into the discussion that we need to have. Because in that first slide I didn't mention, but that those of you who are cited could see is that the individuals in the first few slides could have been considered people of color. There's something else that some people make an assumption about in those first few slides, and it is that all of the individuals identify as male gender. And then additionally based on the look of the image. It is something that people can say we cannot directly see disability represented, even though I remind people that not all disabilities are visible. And so I then use this slide to then drive the point home and have the conversation to say, if we truly want to include everyone if we truly want to make a world that is inclusive and accessible. We need to identify and recognize those that are not in the picture, those that do not have a seat at the table, identify what their needs may be and provide them with the resources that they need to be successful and have access. So in this new this new image we have individuals that have different skin tones. Based on the hair and the clothing, we can make assumptions about the fact that we are trying to now have more than one gender represented. Additionally, there's an individual sitting in a wheelchair that I used to then say we're going to represent disability in this conversation, and I will admit that at the end of this it took me quite some time till I saw this myself, but I then reflect on the rainbow in the top corner of one image, and then represents the LGBTQ population as well. So when we talk about the resources we can go back to the initial slide and see that when we look at how many resources were needed for equality and equity, it was the same number of boxes. It merely took a redistribution of those resources to then provide equity as opposed to equality. So I want to tell people that as a wheelchair user and a proud wheelchair user myself that no number of boxes that you provide me would give me access. And therefore if we use the same would that we had to build that box, and instead we build a ramp will be providing that access and individual like me may need. And one of the phrases that I use is that everyone can use the ramp. Now not everyone can use the stairs. So why don't we build more ramps to provide access for individuals and science technology engineering and math. Instead of assuming that everyone is then being given access by the boxes that you're used to giving. Now depending on how intricate some people look at these slides they'll say oh well Dr open mommy by the looks of this it takes a lot more wood to make that ramp that it does to give the box. So people will sometimes that is the case. And if we're going to say that because of the resource that needs the resources that we need we're not going to provide the access that someone deserves that just because one person has a different need that they no longer deserve to be included they no longer deserve to have access. Because that is not the case, especially when it comes to the laws that we even have. We still have 31 years after the Americans with disabilities act, which was hoping to try to clearly just make the floor for what accessibility can be. We still have spaces that are not accessible or inclusive, and we need to then provide the resources to at least fill the hole upon which some of our marginalized groups are sitting it, which does not even fully address the lack of accessibility and most of our spaces. I tell people that when I experienced these slides and when I think about how we can apply this to the real world. I recognize the fact that I use racism and ableism just as two things that I have experienced to try to then continue the threat of this conversation.  One of the things I tell people is that the past may not be your fault, but that the future will be. Because if we don't recognize that our society our country and our world at times was built upon a framework that had the haves and the have nots that clearly then determined who was worthy and who was not a space in which this country that previously I was not even considered 100% human. You were permitted to then hang me to end my life to enslave me to own me as property. And so this is not dwelling in the past it's merely reflecting on the past that was the foundation upon which our nation was built. And so while we have come a long way we still have a long way to go. And racism is a systemic framework. It's not necessarily something that points fingers at individuals, unless those individuals are not doing anything to dismantle those structures. So similarly ableism is that same thing. It's the recognition that our world was not created with disabled body minds in mind. There are so many things that are still inaccessible in this world, and we don't recognize those things until we ourselves need some form of accessibility. I go on to this next slide to show what my life had used to be. I tell people that I was born to two Nigerian physician parents, we moved to this country for my parents to redo their residency training. And then we went to Indiana where they took their faculty positions I, I went to private schools most of my life I went to boarding school at Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts. I played all sorts of sports I sang I danced I acted I was a leader of class teams I was a president my class, and I was involved in many things I say this not to pat myself on the back. But I had a diversity of experience and opportunities, and those were the types of things that I thought gave my life value. The images that I'm showing here from me during my Stanford college days running track and feel the triple jumping into the sand after being an academic all American athlete that was considering taking time to go to the Olympics. I went straight to medical school at the University of Michigan, where I then completed all four years and then matched into orthopedic surgery residency at Yale. I have an image of my family here who have supported me throughout my family of physicians and PhDs and lawyers. And it was these things that I thought gave me value until in my third year of orthopedic surgery residency. I experienced a spinal cord injury which then left me paralyzed from my chest down with minimal use of my upper extremities. And I will admit that at that point. I asked myself what value do I now have. If I'm no longer able to be an orthopedic surgeon if I'm no longer able to be this athlete that is jumping through the air and into the sand. I will tell you now. Now I will tell you that, despite being a physician that took care of individuals with disabilities myself. I did not see the inaccessibility of the world in which I lived. And now as I see worlds on both sides of the stethoscope as I like to call it. I experienced these things with a perspective that allows me to recognize the systemic inequities that I was unintentionally perpetuating myself. I did not intentionally live in a world that was complicit to the ableism that still created this inaccessible world. But it wasn't until I then saw that for myself that I recognized it. And while I mentioned that the past may not be our fault, but the future will be. I then asked what it is that we are going to do to make someone's tomorrow better than they're yesterday. Because when I was there in that hospital bed asking myself what, what purpose I then had and what impact I could still make on the world I recognize that I was looking at this through a lens of an ableist framework. That made it me feel as though I wasn't going to be able to accomplish as much. And unfortunately the reality of our space is that because of the inaccessibility of our lived experiences in the environment we are in. It is the unfortunate reality that many things may be more difficult for individuals with disabilities, because we're not providing that access. Now once again when we say that everyone can use the ramp while not everyone can use the stairs. There are people that too often we see disability as this small minority population, and that we are not going to provide resources for this small group of individuals in exchange for the masses that we need to support at the same time. But once again when we see that some of the small things that we can do are actually going to provide access for all, and not just access for one. We will no longer prohibit individuals from being able to that actively engage in communities. We will no longer see someone with a disability and say that they cannot be a doctor, or an engineer, or a scientist in some way, just because we haven't seen someone do it before. What is important to recognize is that even with disability disability is not the inability disability is not a negative. No more than my black skin is a problem disability should not be seen as a problem either. The reality of it is is that the reason that disability and blackness are seen as negatives is because of the way that we treat individuals in those communities. It is a society that needs to change. It is those structures that need to be more accessible and inclusive, and we need to stop perpetuating this belief that disabled body minds are the things that need to be fixed. Because if we recognize the diversity of thought and the experience that exists in every single one of us if we see that disability is just another identity that I have that does not define my entire being. The fact that I wear glasses or use a wheelchair is no more special than the fact that I am a certain height or certain weight or certain religion or certain gender. And the goal should be to recognize that a diverse set of thoughts and experiences and perspectives are actually going to make all of the work we do better. We're going to then recognize the shared humanity and everyone that we interact with and see the importance of different sets of opinions and thoughts and experiences. And especially in the work that we do a homogenous group of individuals is not going to lead to best outcomes and best ideas. And so if we recognize that the disability community actually cuts through everyone. Disability is the one thing that every single one of us may or will encounter at some point in their lives, whether they then identify as being disabled, whether it's a temporary or permanent disability. And so therefore we need to create structures and programs and policies that recognize the shared humanity and all of us. And if we center some of the STEM work that we do the educational work that we do around disability. We will see that the accessibility created for that is then going to make all of our work better. And the pandemic has demonstrated that we are able to then shift on the drop of a hat and create new ways of doing things. And many, many of my disabled colleagues over the past year and a half, have then recognized that the things that the disability community has been asking for for a long time are now the things that are being implemented for the masses, despite the fact that the minority had been asking for it. So this is meant to be critical but it's meant to say that we should not return to the status quo as we hopefully start to emerge out of this pandemic. Instead we should take notes and see the fact that we can recognize the ability to do things differently. We do see that there's flexibility in our ability to then work in a variety of ways. And hopefully we now see that some of the things that we were so rigid about not being able to change. We can use them to make sure that everyone is included. Whether it has been the fact that people needed to work remotely for health reasons to take care of their family to take care of their children. We now see that we can flex our workspaces we can change the way that things are done in order to accommodate individuals. Now once again this is a framework that if we had centered around disability prior to this, we would have already seen that we have the ability to do these things. But once again using disability as that example of quantities that we can do and how we can view the world through the lens of disability is going to be exceedingly helpful. Now I tell people that despite feeling like that in that hospital bed I, I was afforded opportunities based on the resources that were provided to me. Now in this image I show a standing frame wheelchair in one slide I'm standing at a, at a slide looking at a microscope to diagnose a woman who had ruptured her membranes of the obstetrics and gynecology ward. Using my standing frame wheelchair I was still able to then access the microscope, and then in the next image I'm fully gowned and gloved about to access someone's heart vessels through a catheterization. There was this chair that gave me the access to be able to do what I was still able to do. And so what people did in this setting was they assumed competence, rather than limiting me or judging me based on what they thought I couldn't do. They worked directly with me to allow me to demonstrate what it was that I could. Now the boxes or the ramp or whatever it was that I needed at this situation was a standing frame wheelchair. Had it not been for someone who knew that these things existed and provided me with that access, I would have not known and those working with me would have not known that these things were possible. How many more things are out there that we are not familiar with. How many more ways can we find to them provide the access that people need. The story that I was told when I returned to my orthopedic surgery residency and was giving a grand rounds there. One of my orthopedic faculty has said to me, you know, this is a story that I want to share about something that I think is similar. His son was colorblind and was in kindergarten or first grade and his homework said color the circle blue. You know, was racking his brain day in and day out. Not sure how his young son, who was colorblind was getting his homework done when it said color the circle blue. Then one day he finally asked his son and said, your son, how are you getting your work done on your color blind and it says to color the circle blue. And his father looked at him with this perplexed look and said, Dad, I never use crayons that aren't labeled. I tell this story to then reflect on the fact that sometimes a barrier that we may perceive is not as difficult to the person that experiences it. And the solution that we may come up with is one that could be very simple, that that person has already identified themselves, or that someone else has already created something to address it. So when we then see an individual with a disability and we automatically think that they're not going to be able to do X, Y or Z. Let us engage in conversation with that individual to see how we can accommodate them in the lab, how it is that we can make sure that their workspace is accessible, what the things are that we can do to then still allow this person to have the access. And one of the roles that I play now I, I direct the student accessibility and accommodation services at University of Michigan. And one of those things is that our testing accommodation center and our services for students with disabilities. And too often there are people that feel as though by providing accommodations, we are lowering the bar for these individuals in their work. And too often people then say you know science or engineering or medicine are very difficult fields and not everyone is equipped to be in them and so perhaps you should then find some other type of field or work that you should be in. We're really doing this for you and we just don't want you to have a difficult time. Now I do think that some of those people are well intentioned and what they are saying. And it might merely be because they're not familiar with some of the resources that exist. The standing frame wheelchair or the crayons with labels. And so how many labeled crayons are there that we have not identified yet. And this is have we not untapped to them be able to provide everyone with equitable access to those same opportunities. Because once again I tell people that providing access does not guarantee success. And giving these accommodations is not an unfair advantage. It is not eliminating the need for the student or this employee to that work hard and do their work. We're really providing the same access that individuals need to have these equitable opportunities. And then each one of us is still responsible for putting our time in to then make sure that we can then be successful.  And so often we have these conversations about diversity equity inclusion about accessibility, yet we don't know what we can do in our day to day lives to then make change. Now what I am trying to do and what we are trying to do in our work is we're trying to reconceptualize what some of these equitable opportunities are. And then this image here you will see a combination of images of individuals with and without disabilities participating in different sporting activities. As a physician as an athlete as an educator. I believe that the power of sport can truly be an educational tool. It can allow people to then build teamwork skills and resilience and hard work. And so therefore one of the pillars that we use here is trying to provide equitable opportunities through sport, because health and wellness and fitness are rights that everybody should have access to. The ability to then play sports or engage in fitness is something that disability should not exclude you from. And so therefore what we do is we are trying to demonstrate that while adaptive sports to some are seen as sports for people with disabilities. We actually pitched this as adaptive sport or sports that everyone can participate in together, regardless of the disability. So here's one example of the things that we can do. And here we've got our example of the wheelchair tennis national championships last year that our University of Michigan program came in second place at our first year of competition. And that this program is meant to then describe and show to the rest of our institution through having students that are getting their education and kinesiology, studying medicine, epidemiology, social work. And we can then be that example for what disability can mean in our community. Because oftentimes people say that you cannot be what you cannot see. And at other times people say that representation matters. And while I agree with those sentiments I also think that at times there needs to be that first person who is going to be something that others have never seen. So as I tell you I come into this conversation with some humility to recognize that I did not know certain things about disability before I then lifted. And now this is the reason why I am passionate about doing this work. And I must admit that I don't know that I would have had this same passion for it. Had it not been for my lived experience.  There should be a way that you can then recognize the inaccessibility, the inefficiency, the inadequacy of the world we live in based on allowing individuals that may not have the same lived experiences you to have a seat at the table, and to actually listen to their voice and to recognize what are the things that we haven't been doing to them provide access for more. Because disability is still very much stigmatized in our world. We spend a lot of time talking about the physical, the visible disabilities that people see, and not as much time talking about the non apparent or invisible disabilities. But if you can start to understand the barriers that have literally and figuratively been put in my way as a black physician with a wheelchair, then you may be able to imagine the individual with dyslexia or anxiety or bipolar or depression, or dyscalculia, or any other disability that other people cannot see. But if we do not create access for the more obvious things that people can see are needed. The message that we are giving is that we do not want individuals with disabilities at our spaces, or we do not think that there are individuals with disabilities already in our spaces. And therefore, while some people are very comfortable speaking up and advocating for themselves. As a great Judy human said in Crip Camp, she is sick and tired of being grateful for accessible bathrooms. And so what are we going to do to then make sure that each of us within our own spheres of influence are going to do something to then improve the accessibility of the spaces that we are in. Because you don't have to have that same lived experience yourself. To then appreciate the inaccessibility of the world that we are in. And perhaps by then recognizing now that each one of us can learn from someone else and engage in conversation to then see what inefficiencies and adequacies, what things are still missing. Perhaps then we can move forward together to address the ways that we can create a society that is better tomorrow than it was yesterday. The slide that we close with really just shows some of the things that we have been doing to try to demonstrate that here. We've got different competitive sports between wheelchair basketball wheelchair tennis ambulatory track and field and para question that students can participate in. And we are also embedding adaptive sports into the curriculum of the PE programs of sixth graders and Ann Arbor public schools. And we are also embedding adaptive sports and inclusive recreation initiative, and then we're encouraging clinicians within the health system to then be more familiar with adaptive sport opportunities through our prescription to play grant initiative as well. And so once again this is not to focus on sport but it is using sports health and wellness is using disability as this vehicle to recognize that whether it is ableism or racism or sexism or xenophobia. There are individuals within our communities that have historically been marginalized and left out. And that the STEM fields in particular have a lot that they can do to be able to recognize that all of us still have the ability to contribute to these spaces. And even if we may not at the beginning be able to recognize what resources needed to then provide that accommodation. So what we're going to do is include people in these spaces, ask the questions of what barriers they've experienced, and then start to make these changes that once again will benefit all and not just one. So therefore I appreciate the opportunity that the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine have then provided to them engage in these conversations. We have opportunities to continue these conversations beyond the time that we are here together. And I once again come to you humbly to say that I am just an end of one. The experience that I have is just the experience that I have. And I tell people that when you have met one person with a disability, you have met one person with a disability. And when you have met one black man, you've met one black man and so therefore I encourage you not to take the things I have said, and then apply them directly to the next black man you see or the next disabled man you see, but rather to recognize that this is just going to add to the context of the conversations that I hope you will continue to have. And perhaps you will start to learn some perspectives from people that you have not seen before. Thank you for this opportunity to engage and share with you and go blue.


Understanding the importance of logical fallacies when people of influence are making statements is absolutely critical. While the common conception of an argument is two people fighting with each other, an argument is just a person trying to persuade your opinion. Without understanding flawed arguments, we can be persuaded based on fallacies rather than legitimate reason. While this may not be a big deal when your friend is arguing for you two to order pizza instead of Chinese food, it becomes an issue when someone with a massive influence uses logical fallacies to influence the opinion of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, on a very serious accusation. Like over one million other people, I watched Blair White's video about Shane Dawson. Blair White is a YouTuber who has called out problematic behavior many times, so her audience wanted to know if she'd quote unquote keep that same energy for Shane Dawson's recent accusations. As I watched her video, one of the worst logical fallacies arose and it was a critical part of the video to support her argument. While she didn't directly accuse Shane of misconduct with minors, she used flawed logic while also getting emotional. You know, one of the things that definitely made me realize this was an important video to do is when all these things started coming out about Shane, I had a very real conversation with my fiance and he asked me, Blair, give me an honest answer. Do you think Shane Dawson is a p- My reaction was, I don't think so?  Like why are you even asking me that is a problem. In this video, my goal is not to attack the character of Blair White. Personally, I believe she's a good person who has some different opinions than myself, but I respect her opinions. She's someone who has faced her own backlash due to her controversial opinions, but she still stands by what she believes. Although I'm not going to discuss the character of Blair, it's extremely important to break down the logical fallacies of her argument because this is a serious subject. I don't personally know Shane, but he's being accused of things that some people never come back from. These types of accusations can ruin a person's life. So when the stakes are this high, we need to use critical thinking and address logical fallacies when they arise. The last thing any critical thinker wants to do is attack someone based on a flawed argument riddled with logical fallacies. More importantly, this has everyday applications as well within our own friend and family circles, rumors and gossip spread. Part of the human experience is people sharing information about one another. Without realizing it, we're being persuaded by flawed arguments. But when we practice spotting logical fallacies while consuming content, it better helps us be critical thinkers in our everyday life. So in this video, we're going to discuss Blair White's use of the argument from ignorance fallacy, but after that we're going to talk about the fallacies from the crowd. But before we get started, if you're new to the Rewired Soul, make sure you subscribe and turn the notification bell on. Here at the Rewired Soul, we believe critical thinking is a key towards mental and emotional well-being. By learning from real-world scenarios, we can build upon a foundation of emotional intelligence. My reaction was, I don't think so.  Like, why are you even asking me that is a problem. Emotions are an interesting thing, and it's actually fascinating how they're created. I'm currently reading how emotions are made by the neuroscientist Dr. Lisa Feldman. As Blair gets emotional while stating she can't say for certain that Shane hasn't done these things, it's something to take note of. This is a prime example of how lacking critical thinking can affect our emotions and even ruin friendships. So what is the argument from ignorance fallacy? Also known as the appeal to ignorance, this fallacy is when a person claims or assumes that something is true because it hasn't been proven false. Appeals to ignorance are often used by creationists. They'll argue that you cannot prove that God doesn't exist, therefore he must exist. They'll also commit another fallacy by moving the goalpost. When presented with strong evidence that supports the Big Bang theory, they'll argue, well, how do you know that God didn't create the Big Bang? While the debate about creationism versus evolution may never fully go away, we need to realize that the argument from ignorance fallacy is dangerous when we're using it to gauge relationships. The argument from ignorance also makes something unfalsifiable. As you may remember from the last video on Ghost, good scientists and skeptics do what they can to disprove a theory in order to confirm it. For a moment, I want you to ask yourself if Blair's argument from ignorance is falsifiable. When Blair says that she can't say for certain that Shane hasn't participated in misconduct with a child, ask yourself, what evidence would Blair need to be certain? Short of being able to produce footage of Shane's every waking moment since birth, there is no way to say this for certain.  And let's make no mistake, Blair and Shane were friends, so this is very relevant to the topic at hand. For example, every night I go to bed at about 10 p.m. because I'm an old man and I like to wake up early. Meanwhile, my beautiful girlfriend Tristan doesn't come to bed until about 1 a.m. Imagine if a rumor circulated that Tristan was cheating on me. And then, like Blair's fiance, someone asked me if I could say for certain that Tristan isn't cheating. Well, each night there's at least three unaccountable hours where hypothetically she could be cheating. Or what if Tristan were questioned about me? I wake up two to three hours before her each morning. I could be doing anything in that time frame. Are you starting to see how the argument from ignorance can ruin our relationships? When making arguments for a serious claim such as Shane potentially being a predator, the burden of proof is on the accusers. Why? Because disproving an argument from ignorance can sometimes be impossible. If you don't believe me, pause this video and run through a few of your own real-life scenarios and think about how difficult it would be to disprove an argument from ignorance. Again, Blair didn't say that Shane is guilty. But when looking at her burden of proof, all she has is what she deems tasteless jokes. If your strongest evidence of such a serious accusation is jokes made publicly, following that logic, we'd have to lock up three quarters of the entire population of stand-up comedians. It's important to realize that the premise of the argument isn't about Shane's character. We're discussing how a creator is using the argument from ignorance logical fallacy in a video that has over one million views. Again, as discussed in the intro, we need to understand logical fallacies because flawed logic may persuade us. And this is why, in the next section, we're going to discuss two logical fallacies the community uses which appeal to popularity and authority. So, Blair White is just one person. And one person using logical fallacies isn't a huge deal for the rest of us. Unfortunately, Blair using this flawed logic may have destroyed her relationship with someone she once called a friend, but we're now going to talk about the much bigger issue. Since making her first video on Jeffree Star and then following it up with her video on Shane Dawson, she's gained over 40,000 subscribers. As of recording this video, she's only 21,000 subscribers away from the coveted one million subscriber mark. Aside from reaching over one million views on her video about Shane using the argument from ignorance fallacy, with every new milestone of subscribers, it's now more crucial that she applies critical thinking to her arguments. While it'd be great to live in a world where we're all individual thinkers who objectively look at facts and develop our own opinions, this is far from the case. As you've learned from this video and previous videos, we must stay vigilant in order to avoid our own cognitive biases. And it's even more important that we aren't persuaded by flawed arguments that use logical fallacies. The two logical fallacies that affect the community are the appeal to celebrity and appeal to popularity. With the amount of influence that Blair White and other influencers have, it's of the utmost importance that they present a sound argument when making such widely viewed videos. So, what are these two logical fallacies? First, there's the appeal to celebrity. The appeal to celebrity is a logical fallacy that states that since a celebrity has the opinion, it must be true. This often occurs due to a cognitive bias known as the halo effect. The halo effect is when we take one positive attribute of a person and then believe it makes the person infallible. For some reason, we believe that since a person has reached celebrity status, which is so admired, they must know what they're talking about. A prime example of this was when the actress and model, Jenny McCarthy, went on a world tour claiming that vaccines cause autism. People cited her opinions in an appeal to celebrity as a way to say that her opinions have as much weight as credentialed scientists. Just because Jenny McCarthy is rich, famous, and attractive does not mean that she has any credibility when it comes to debunking medical scientists. Recently, in Dave Chappelle's special, titled 846, where he discusses George Floyd in the BLM protest, he discusses how flawed the appeal to celebrity is. Chappelle discusses how just because he's a celebrity, it doesn't mean his opinions matter more than anyone else's. He's actually had this stance for quite some time. In his 2004 stand-up special, For What It's Worth, he joked about the fact that MTV asked Ja Rule what his thoughts were on 9-11. Right now, you may be acknowledging how the appeal to celebrity fallacy isn't valid evidence for an argument, but it's something we see daily. How many times does a friend send you a video that validates their opinion because the person saying it is a celebrity? More importantly, how often do you share a video because a celebrity has the same opinion as you? If you don't have any first-hand experience with the appeal to celebrity fallacy, look no further than a Twitter debate where comments are filled with links to arguments celebrities have made. So, when Blair White is using her argument from ignorance, it's no longer just her opinion. This isn't mere speculation either. With a quick Twitter search, you can see how many people have tweeted out her video using the appeal to celebrity fallacy. Lastly, let's discuss the appeal to popularity fallacy. This logical fallacy is when someone states, everyone is saying X, therefore X must be correct. We must remember that just because something is a popular belief, it doesn't mean that it's true. We're social creatures and we often look to others to form our opinions, but this doesn't make the argument any more valid. For years, the popular opinions of the time were that the earth was flat and that the sun revolved around the earth. When a creator like Blair White makes a video, the appeal to popularity is used quite frequently. As people try to defend their argument, they often use this fallacy by pointing to the amount of views or the like to dislike ratio. As we discuss critical thinking skills and persuasive arguments, it's a bit scary to think about. Blair White is just one person who used the argument from ignorance fallacy and has persuaded at least 68,000 people. 68,000 people is also a conservative estimate because not everyone who agreed with her liked the video. But now there are those using that number as a way to commit the appeal to popularity fallacy, which is rooted in a flawed argument. So now that we know that Blair White used logical fallacies to form her opinion about Shane and now that we have thousands of people appealing to celebrity and popularity, what's the solution? Now that we've come to the conclusion of the video, I feel like I've kept my promise of criticizing Blair White's flawed argument and not her as a person. As we've discussed, it's absolutely crucial that we're aware of logical fallacies and hone our own critical thinking skills to avoid being persuaded by flawed arguments. We're all human and no matter what we want to believe, we'll never be fully objective. We're emotional, social creatures and unconsciously our opinions are often formed quickly and based on the information provided by others. But in situations like this, it's absolutely crucial that we pause, take a step back and ask ourselves how sound an argument is. Shane Dawson is currently facing serious accusation and as people in the community, we must use critical thinking before rushing to judgment. This is a man who has been on YouTube for over a decade and I believe the least we can do is rationally look at the evidence without being persuaded by flawed arguments. Right now there is an enormous amount of videos being made trying to expose Shane, but we must remember that we shouldn't appeal to celebrity or popularity. Studies have shown that as a way to not be exiled from the group, we'll conform and completely lose independent thought. I think a perfect example as to why we need to be independent thinkers comes from the famous Solomon Ashe study on conformity from 1951. In this social psychology experiment, one participant was brought into a room with seven other people. As part of the study, the one participant didn't know that the other seven people were actors. For the experiment there was shown these two pictures and asked which one matched the target line length. In one variation of the experiment, the seven actors were first asked for their answers and they all gave the wrong one. What Solomon Ashe found over 12 clinical trials was roughly 75% of people conformed and gave the wrong answer knowing it was incorrect. Based on the wisdom of the crowd theory, we figure that they must all be right and we're missing something so we conform even though things aren't adding up properly. What's even more fascinating was that all it took in another variation of the study was for one of the seven actors to give the correct answer for people to feel that it was okay to not conform. So, before you appeal to authority or popularity, will you blindly agree with the crowd or will you be the one that gives others the permission to not conform? Alright everybody, thank you once again for making it all the way through an entire video and I hope you learned some things. So keep an eye out in your day to day lives and see if people are using logical fallacies to try to persuade your opinion. Whether you're watching YouTube content or you're watching the news, ask yourself, is this using an argument from ignorance? Is this appealing to popularity or is it appealing to celebrity? But also, even more importantly, keep an eye out in your own relationships because when our emotions go up, the logical part of our brain goes down and we stop thinking rationally and this can cause a lot of interpersonal conflicts. Alright, something that I've had to personally work on is sitting back when I start to get heated and think rationally about the situation and even challenge my own thoughts and the own fallacies that my mind is coming up with. So if you need help with your mental health or with setting boundaries with people in your lives and confronting people if maybe they're trying to persuade you and things like that, don't be afraid to ask for help. Personally, I use BetterHelp online therapy. It's affordable online therapy and if you would like down in the description and in the pinned comment, I have an affiliate link which means you get affordable online therapy and a little bit comes back to support the channel and all the work that I put into these videos. Alright, but anyways, that's all I got for this video. If you liked this video, make sure you give it a thumbs up and if you're new, what are you waiting for? Make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell and a huge, huge thank you to everybody out there who supports the channel, whether it be over on Patreon or buying my mental health books or the merch from the merch store. I appreciate you. Alright, thanks again for watching. I'll see you next time.


Throughout our history, people have been able to simply disappear. Before forensic science or DNA testing, it was quite easy for a person just to change identities. It was probably also fairly easy to hide children who were at risk. At risk because of who their parents were, who their bloodline was, especially when it came to the warring families of Europe. But before we go any further, you know what to do. Please hit that subscribe button and give us a like. A very special thank you to all of our patrons and our producers here on Esoteric Atlanta. Without you guys, we most certainly would not be able to do what we do. We appreciate you so much. If you would like to join our Patreon community, there is a link down in the description box below. Welcome to Esoteric Atlanta. My name is Bryce and today on Mystery Monday, we are going to be talking about Casper Hauser. Before we go into our subject at hand, I do want to remind you guys that our yoga intensive online course is going to be starting on Sunday, November 20th at 2 p.m. If you missed our last video with Embi and me as we talk about this course, I will put a link to that video down in the description box below. If this is a course that you are interested in taking, I will also put a link to book the course down in the description box below. Once again, this course is not affiliated with Esoteric Atlanta, the channel. We will not be talking about conspiracies or any type of truth or stuff on this course. This course will strictly be dedicated to the theory and practice of yoga. This course also includes two sessions with Emmy for Reiki and will end on Sunday, December 11th. Only serious students should apply for this course as this course is going to be very, very intense, hence why it's called an intensive. I also have an email address down in the description box below. If you would like to email me specifically regarding this course, if you have any questions or concerns, again, I ask with this particular email, please only send the emails regarding this course. The Esoteric Atlanta email address does get jam-packed full of emails and I don't want to lose. I want to kind of keep this organized, so please only people who are asking about the course send emails to that email address. I also want to remind you guys that as a traditional yoga teacher, I am not affiliated with the yoga alliance or any teacher training. In my opinion, the yoga alliance is completely cabal. It's not true yoga nor do they teach true yoga, nor can anyone become a yoga teacher in 200 hours. That's just ridiculous. In fact, my teacher in India takes this so seriously that if I were to be involved with the yoga alliance or with a teacher training program, I would lose my authorization. So if you think by taking this course that I'm going to give you some hours for a teaching credentials to the yoga alliance, I'm sorry, I cannot do that. And I would highly suggest that you rethink maybe your relationship with the yoga alliance, again, just in my opinion, especially if you're interested in true real authentic yoga. All right, with that being said, let's get into the story of Casper Houser. Now I have to admit something to you guys. I thought I had heard of every strange story out there, but this one was a new one for me. I was actually planning on doing a whole other Mystery Monday this week, but I ran across this story and I was like, who the hell was this guy? I have so many different thoughts and opinions on the subject and I cannot wait to hear your opinions and your conspiracies down in the comment section below. On May 26th of 1823, a boy wandered into Nuremberg, Germany from the woods outside of the town early one morning. The boy looked to be about 16 years old. However, the first thing people noticed about this boy was that he had the walk of a toddler. His clothes were fairly dingy and his shoes were way too small for his feet as his toes poked out through the shoe. He did have a nice silk bow tie on with the initials KH on the silk bow tie. Eventually, a local shoemaker approached the boy. The boy had two letters on him. One was a letter that was written by this boy's supposed caretaker. The caretaker said in a letter that this boy was of no relation to him and that the letter should be sent to the captain of the fourth squadron of the Sixth Cavalry Regiment, a man named Captain Von Wessings. The caretaker also went on to say in the letter and I quote that the boy was kept hip and that the boy never even saw the identity of the caretaker or his family. In his words, he said he was raised a step from the house in order that nobody might know where he was brought up. The letter also claimed that the little boy could read and write and that he did not have parents. But if he did have parents, he would have been a learned man, meaning that this boy was of high birth. The caretaker also said that the boy never knew the caretaker's identity as well because if his identity had been known, then the caretaker ran the risk of losing his own life. The caretaker said that when he brought the boy into town, he made the boy walk in front of him with his eyes down on the ground, where the caretaker eventually left him on the edge of town, hoping that the boy himself would wander into the town center. The second letter was an older letter. It was a letter that was allegedly written by the young boy's birth mother. Her identity was not mentioned in the letter, although she did say that the boy's birthday was April 30th, 1812. She instructed the caretaker to please raise her son and raise her son to be a cavalryman and that when he was of age 16, 17 years old, that he was to be sent to the captain of the cavalry to be of service. And so allegedly, according to the caretaker, this is what he did for the boy.  Now the mother had mentioned that her son had been christened with the name Casper. And the man had said he'd given the boy the last name Houser. Now we know that that Houser is the German word for house, or it also means someone who protects someone else. Now after reading these letters, the shoemaker also noticed that not only did this boy Casper toddle like a toddler, just learning how to walk, but his speech was also like that of a young child. Whenever a horse would try to buy, Casper would point at the horse and say horse. Again, a bit like a two or three year old would do, not a 16 year old kid. He also would repeat the phrase, I want to be a cavalryman. I want to be a cavalryman. But the shoemaker said that it didn't seem like he actually understood what he was saying. As the shoemaker started to ask him more questions, all Casper did was repeat the questions that had been asked to him. The shoemaker did eventually get the boy to Captain Wessings and Wessings turned around and brought the boy to the police. The police decided that even though there appeared to be a delay in learning, it was clear that this young man Casper was not an idiot, nor was he a madman.  In today's language, we would probably say he is not, he has no learning disabilities, nor is he mentally handicapped or mentally ill.  And this is when they also started to notice even more peculiar behaviors coming from Casper. Again, Casper would listen intently to what people around him were saying, repeating what they were saying, almost as if he was trying to learn the language. The jailer's 11-year-old boy came around and would hang out with Casper, and that is really how Casper learned how to speak German, was from the 11-year-old little boy. They also noticed that Casper would easily cry. He was very emotional, almost like again, he was stunted in growth, like a small child throwing a temper tantrum or a small child to his missing, his parents. They also noticed that even though the shoes he came to town in were too small for him and his toes poked out of the soles of the shoes, his feet were as soft as the palm of a hand. Meaning that it was pretty clear that this kid was not used to wearing shoes and was also not used to walking around that much. No calluses had formed on his feet. I mean by the time you're 16, your foot's pretty formed when it comes to calluses and strength in the sole of the foot. You think about it, infant's foot or baby's foot, they're very soft. And that's how this 16-year-old's foot appeared. The jail that Casper was kept in was called Lugsland Tower, which is still around to this day. And while in this tower even more peculiar things started to happen, they realized that Casper would often get sick if he ate food that wasn't bread and water. In fact, the only thing he seemed to want were just bread and water. They also gave Casper a candle for when it got dark out and he was so mesmerized by the candle that he would go to touch it and burn himself. They also gave Casper a mirror. And he was very confused by the mirror and would often go to look behind the mirror to see where the other boy was who was staring back at him. Eventually the town decided that they would raise money for this poor child. He kind of became adopted by the town of Nuremberg. It seems that it was kind of like an old-fashioned GoFundMe where they were finding funds to figure out who this kid was, get him schooled, get him medically treated, get him taken care of. And during this time Casper was brought in and studied by a local professor by the name of Frederick Dahmer. Dahmer started working with Casper intently. Dahmer and some of the police would take Casper into the woods to try to get him to recount where he had been. Only every time they took him into the woods, he would have a mental breakdown and start crying like he was desperately afraid of the forest. As Casper started to learn how to speak, he started to tell them stories of his childhood. Casper claimed that he had been kept in a dark cell that was about six feet long and three feet wide with only a straw bed to sleep in. He confirmed that he only ate bread and drank two kinds of water. One was clear water and the other was bitter water. He said every time he drank the bitter water he would fall asleep into a deep deep deep sleep. When he would awake his hair would have been cut and his nails trimmed and his clothing cleaned up. He also claimed that in this little jail cell he was kept in there was a bucket for him to use the restroom. For entertainment Casper said he only had a couple of toys, a toy horse and a toy dog all made from wood. And that whole time Casper claimed that no, he had never actually seen his captor. Dahmer started to notice that Casper had a very very keen sense of sight in the dark. He could see things in the dark than others could. In fact Dahmer even noted that sometimes Casper was better in the dark than he was in the light as if again he had been kept in a dark cell for most of his life. Casper talked about how he would have this reoccurring dream. In this reoccurring dream he was in a huge castle with an elaborately dressed woman. It was speculated by Dahmer that these weren't dreams but were memories from a time, a life before Casper was sent to live with his caregiver. Dahmer speculated that Casper's imprisonment started around the age of three. Hence why most of his mannerisms when first found in the town, the next that of a three-year-old. Very soon the story of Casper Hauser became one of the biggest sensations all across Europe. Now we have to remember it in the 19th century, during this time of our history there were no reality shows, there were no radios, there were no actors and actresses that were super, super famous like we have now on covers of magazines. The only celebrities, the only gossip anyone ever really had was that of the royal family, they were the local celebrities.   This is the strangest thing ever. Well over time Dahmer started to notice other things about Casper Hauser that perhaps Casper wasn't always honest. In fact Dahmer would catch Casper in a lot of lies. On October 17th of 1829 Casper did not show up for his lunch. He was found in Dahmer's basement bleeding from a wound in his forehead. He claimed he had been attacked by a man, a hooded man dressed in all black while he was using the restroom.  Casper said the man was going in for the kill, he was trying to slit Casper's neck but Casper moved and therefore got a slash across his forehead. Now Dahmer did not believe this story. Dahmer again thought that even though Casper's case was very interesting, he noticed and was starting to notice patterns of lying. He believed that Casper cut himself for attention. And then again on April 3rd of 1830 another incident happened. A gun was heard going off from Casper's bedroom. When help ran up to the bedroom they found Casper laying on the floor bleeding from his right side. He claimed that he had been climbing up on some bookshelves trying to retrieve a book when he accidentally knocked down a pistol. The pistol went off and hit him across the right side of the head. Was this just a simple accident or again was this another way for Casper to try to garnish attention. Soon after that Casper was moved to another house, the house of Baron Von Tutcher. Very soon this Baron also noticed a habit of Casper lying and being greatly attention seeking. In 1831 a British nobleman by the name of Lord Standhope took interest in Casper and Casper's story. It seems that Lord Standhope believed that Casper was lost nobility or aristocracy. And Standhope had this theory that Casper wasn't German but rather Hungarian. And so Standhope came and collected Casper and brought him all over Europe seeing if there was anything that would trigger any memories. However nothing triggered memories but Casper did start to remember some Hungarian language. Towards the end of their escapades throughout Europe Standhope also started to lose faith in Casper Hauser's story. It seemed that Standhope started to believe or come under the suspicion that Casper Hauser was a con artist. In 1832 Standhope transferred Casper Hauser to the home of Johann Mayer. It is noted that even though Standhope was doubting Casper at this time he did continue to pay for his expenses. In 1832 Casper did get himself a job as a copyist in a local law office. Which is good because by 1833 many of Casper's patrons who had been supporting him started to pull back support as they started to doubt Casper's credibility. It is said that on December 9th of 1833 Casper Hauser and Johann Mayer got into a huge fight. Apparently they were fighting over the holiday season. Casper was still under the impression that Standhope would be joining them for Christmas and then after that he would be going off to England with Standhope. And the only reason why I bring up this argument that happened on December 9th is because of the timeline after this fight. Now if we believe Casper's story then this fight really has nothing to do with what happened but if we think Casper is a con man then this or an attention seeking con man I should say then this fight has everything to do with what happened a few days later. On December 14th Casper came home with a deep wound in his chest. He claimed he was lured into a garden where he was handed a bag and then he was stabbed. Casper got people to follow him to the garden where a bag was found with a note inside. It was a hand written note in pencil and it was written backwards almost as if someone had written the letter while looking in a mirror. The author gave the initials MLO but no one has a clue who this person was. People also noted that it had been snowing that day and instead of two sets of footprints there was only one Casper's footprints. Casper ended up succumbing to his injuries on December 17th 1833. His last words were reportedly I didn't do it myself. Now here's some things I failed to mention at the beginning of the story. The alleged older letter that was written by allegedly Casper's birth mother with the letter written by the caretaker were written in the same handwriting. This handwriting also matched the handwriting of the letter written in pencil and the garden where Casper had been allegedly stabbed. Not only did all the handwriting match on all three letters but they also matched the handwriting of Casper himself. Not only that but the same spelling and grammar mistakes were made in the letters that were commonly made by Casper. People started to believe that Casper Hauser stabbed himself in order to regain sympathy and regain interest into his story. With that being said if he did stab himself he accidentally killed himself. Lord Stanhope himself even admitted after Casper's death that he had been tricked by this boy that he firmly believed he was a con man and in fact Lord Danford actually wrote a book published a book about the experience called Tracks Relating to Casper Hauser but the story doesn't end here. You know like when you watch Dateline and for half of Dateline you think this person's guilty and then the other half of Dateline you think another person is guilty. Same thing with this case of Casper Hauser. With all of that evidence it's easy to say yes this kid was a con man. He created a story to get attention and garden patrons for his life but then things get super interesting. Around this time in Europe there was a lot of up people going on. We have the Napoleon Wars. We have so much happening. The French Revolution I mean shit is popping off left right center and because of all of this the ruling elite of Europe were also fearing for their lives and embattlement with each other and many people including a lot of the nobility across Europe who were very interested in Casper Hauser believed that Casper was a lost prince. A lost prince of one family specifically. Now again yes as I'm saying this with all the evidence we have up to now you're probably thinking yeah right the kid used that used this hostility to create a story around himself so that he wouldn't he wouldn't have to work like the rest of us do and he could literally be just like the Kardashian of Europe and have his life a reality show and have patrons paying for him everywhere he went but once we start looking at forensic DNA your opinion might change. The first test our modern day test was ran in 1928 a hundred years after Casper first appeared on the scene in Nuremberg and this study found that Casper probably stabbed himself but as we see so back the other way in 2005 a forensic analysis said that it was unlikely that Casper stabbed himself. A forensic analysis something they didn't have in 1928 and certainly didn't have in 1828 or 1833 a forensic analysis was saying you know it's kind of unlikely that this kid actually stabbed himself he might have been telling the truth someone might have actually stabbed him so who the hell was Casper Hauser. There is no evidence of him existing before 1828 before he actually came into the town of Nuremberg and you might be thinking well it was 1828 the kid was kept in a dungeon for most of his life there would be no records of him however if you remember from the letter his mother sent with him the mother whose identity we don't know she said that Casper had been baptized by the name Casper hence why the caretaker called him Casper and again the last name Hauser meant a house or someone who protects someone else so Casper was a baptized baby that was now being protected by someone else because the mother asked that to happen. What kind of a powerful mother is able to ask a complete stranger to raise her baby for her and hide his identity and and make sure that no one knows he's there make sure no one sees them. Hauser being the the clue here with this is a kid that needed to be protected and I find it interesting that this letter said that when he was 16 17 years old he could be released out into the world to go and be a cavalryman almost like then he would be protected by the military and he would almost be back in higher ranking which is what people were originally thinking was his birth rank. Now we don't know who this caretaker was and I think if we knew who the caretaker was that would answer a lot of questions because my question is even if some princess came knocking on your door and said hey boo can you raise my baby for me I would think you would need some sort of payment some sort of compensation and what mother would just leave her child and not ever go see her child unless her lives weren't so much danger that she was doing the best she could to try to keep her child alive. Now since no as I was saying before since there was no record of any Casper being anywhere and yes this is the 1800s it's not like we are now they didn't have social security numbers all that kind of stuff but you know they did have they did have baptismal records and there has been no baptismal records found with this name Casper for this time confirming this story but to play at devil's advocate if this child was of high noble birth and if because of that his life was in danger maybe the mother just said that to give him a new name I don't know of any Prince Casper's Casper doesn't really even seem like a very princely name to me I like the name though but I don't think a prince would be Casper I mean I know that the royal family got kind of pissed when Henry named his son Archie although I think that's going to be a cute name but uh that's not really a regal name is it? Many suspected that he was the lost prince of Grand Duke von Baden and his wife Stephanie. Now Stephanie was the adopted daughter of Napoleon I believe she was technically like his niece and it is believed that Casper was their child so therefore heir to their power and the Duke von Baden passed away a few years after Casper's birth which would match the memories that Casper had and would match Frederick Dahmer's original thought that Casper had lived in a palace up to the age of three and then was removed from the palace at three those dates match again this was for Casper's protection he was a small child Stephanie the wife the prince says the Duchess was vulnerable and the situation she was in I mean you're Napoleon's adopted daughter backslash niece was it possible that this prince needed to be hidden away in order to save his life in 1998 they removed blood from underwear that were supposedly the underwear worn by Casper Hauser on the day he passed away they pulled DNA from some of the descendants of the von Baden family and the DNA did not match however in 2002 they were able to exhume some of the hair left over on the body of Casper Hauser and they ran that DNA on the hair that was legitimately Casper's against the blood on the underwear and that DNA did not match meaning that the blooded underwear used in 1998 was not the blood of Casper so after they established that the hair Casper did not match the blood meaning that wasn't Casper's they took the hair and compared the DNA of the hair again to the descendants that they know of of the von Baden family the DNA match that came up said that the DNA of Casper and the descendants were very very closely related meaning that the theory that Casper was the missing son of Duke von Baden was a viable theory after all now I've watched many discussions on this DNA testing and and and why they can't be 100% conclusive or not conclusive and a lot of it came down to that the only descendants left were female whereas Casper were male and the missing links and some of the DNA come came from the mycondrial DNA which comes from the mother's line and so if we're looking at the von Baden family Stephanie the mother which is the more dominant of the the solitaire DNA would not come into play with the descendants of the von Baden's who are not related to Stephanie if that makes sense like the Duke's brother's kids or brother's descendants who are not related to Stephanie except via marriage and so that was the one discrepancy that these scientists saw is that the only people they had to test against Casper's hair that were alive were people that would not have the same mitochondrial DNA as Casper and so it seemed from my layman's perspective listening to them talk that they actually did believe that he was the prince because the only discrepancies were from the fact that his mother was different from the mitochondrial was different from these descendants if that makes sense I hope I'm making sense I'm not a scientist why can't they just exhume the Duke why can't they just exhume the Duke and Stephanie and let's be done with it pull the hair off of the you know the bodies and test and see if that's their parents but here's the thing these are royal people they're royal people we know a thing or two of our old people right they're not just going to go exhume their bodies and so the best we have is testing Casper's DNA with descendants of the von Baden family to see what the likelihood is of them being related and it is highly likely according to the most recent DNA tests that they are related so here's my theory I think that both theories can be true what do I mean by that I know a thing or two about emotional trauma I don't know if they really understood emotional trauma like we understand emotional trauma back then as we do now I do think that Casper was the missing prince however I think that Casper had such a horrific adolescent childhood that his need for attention blew up from the age of three to sixteen he had no human interaction except for a caretaker who never spoke to him or never saw his identity he lived in total darkness in a cell he was never outside he had to go crap in a fucking bucket for Christ's sake he slept on a straw bed whenever his nails were trimmed hair was cut or bathed he was knocked out by some type of drug to knock him out and then all of a sudden he's pushed into the world a world he's never seen before he's shocked he doesn't know how to speak he can hardly walk I mean the last time he was allowed to walk he was a toddler so he still toddled at sixteen yeah the letter was right if he had been raised by his parents he would have been a very learned man because his parents were fucking royalty he's not stupid he doesn't come from stupid people as he started to recuperate and remember things I think he was so longing for human love you can't get those years back you can't get those developmental years back where children should be held and loved and cuddled and played with and so at sixteen seventeen eighteen years old he went about seeking that love when his story started to die down when people had all this interest and were coming to him and interested him and paying him attention and he felt that he felt that community that connectedness and all of a sudden the story died down and they went away maybe he did act up maybe he did lie to try to get people back to try to get that love back maybe maybe some of the other incidents that happened to him were of his own doing for attention but if he was the missing prince and there was a price tag on his head and all this tabloid media scrutiny back in the eighteen hundreds I'd say that loosely tabloid from the eighteen hundreds were constantly doing features on him where who is this kid you can't tell me that those that wish to destroy the line would come in and do something about it because one other thing that I'll leave you with Duke von Baden and Casper 20 21 years old when he passed away looked identical almost like a father and a son. Alright you guys let me know your thoughts your opinions and your conspiracies down in the description box below if you're ever in Germany there is a statue dedicated to Casper Hauser and you can visit his grave if you're from Germany let me know if you've seen this statue this monument or if you know things about this story that I don't know that weren't available in my research. Alright guys I hope you're having a wonderful day and I will talk to you soon. Bye!


So right now. I'm using a very old Panasonic VHS or what the hell is it VHS see how I don't know Let me get my get my glasses on here VHS see so That's what we're starting with is this one right here and They're gonna move over to camera number two all right and Well, I'll show it to you. I'll show you the camera. We're gonna use next during this vlog Seven different cameras. I thought it'd be neat We're gonna use this one It's a JVC this one It's a JVC And then we'll move on to other ones. So stick around Okay, guys, so I got this board here Damn it every time and I've got these two boards here Hope you can hear me See those are tongue and groove and I got this board here I'm gonna build me a shelf. I'm gonna start on it today This evening. I'll be recording this. I'm gonna make my own Floating shelf and I'm gonna do it My way, so I don't have to go buy the brackets and stuff. So There we go This one's not gonna matter because it's gonna have a rod through it see how that the tongue is broke off But that's okay, you'll see that later in a later video so This is the second camera we're vlogging with So let's get the third one we're on camera three another JVC Go ahead and start this old girl up always fired right up every time This is camera three. Let's move on to camera four shall we?  It's an old Sony. It's a Was one of them handy cams. It's got the coral Zeus Lens in it. I like this one because I can go right to night shot Without even stopping the camera So it's pretty older one. It takes one.  So this one's pretty cool. I don't know where I set my big light. I got a big guy The big IR light Yeah, so this is what camera for so I use this one quite a bit This is one that I stuck up in the attic to see if I could find that animal. This is the one I used for that so All right, what's on the screen here? I got something on here. Okay. I don't know what it is Okay, so Got seven minutes of battered But so I kind of like this one. It's it's really awesome as you can see that the The difference in that and that's just with the IR light that's built into it. So it works pretty well. I do like it What I give for this one like 10 bucks online It's pretty good. I've used it in different several different occasions. So Let me get you off the tripod here We'll go outside And we'll we'll check it out outside. Okay, so right back there behind me That's where the That's where I'm going to put my my shelf to put some camera equipment on batteries and stuff So that's where I'm gonna put that So and it doesn't have a bad picture for an old camera I'm not sure what year these things are but They're getting up there. It's not as old as the other three, but as you can see Got a hell of a zoom on it If you can hold it steady, it'll zoom and that's not that's not even halfway up Let's see if we can zoom in On this mailbox down here if I can hold it steady enough. Yeah It's not even halfway Not sure what the zoom is on it As you can see that's a good ways away It is three mega mega pixels So Yeah, I kind of like it Like I said, there's my wood So I'm just uh Feel terrible guys just doing some Logging today. I'm gonna get started on my shelf. I got to go get some sandpaper I don't have I don't have any sandpaper. I gotta get that stuff sanded off before I do anything But I'm gonna show you guys also how to Find a stud without a stud finder in your wall. It's pretty easy.  All you need some magnet. All right, so let's move on to camera Five Okay guys, so I wanted to show you Okay, this is This is with the built-in IR light and this is with The the big IR light see the difference and it's almost dead There you go. There's the back door about 12 feet away So yeah, that's that's pretty good. Yeah, I like it awesome All right guys, we're on camera five. This is the Vivitar It's one of the ones we bought at the thrift store. It's the DVR 6 10 I think we gave five bucks a piece for them for those two which it'll be coming up next I have it on the charger Right now charging up Which it's pretty cool. This camera kind of sucks, but so that's pretty cool So that's that one. So this is camera five. We're gonna move on to camera six next So I'm just vlogging with different cameras today. So I'm not really gonna talk about a whole lot, but that's what we're doing So hang tight. Okay guys, we're on the next camera We're on the Vivitar the DVR 558 HD It's another one. We got it that thrift store.  It does have a light on it It does have touchscreen. Although the screen does flip out. It will not rotate so I can see myself So I don't even know if I'm in the shot or not. So Bear with me. It's not a good selfie camera. So let's go on to the next one Okay guys, you can see behind me here. I'm Editing videos. Well, actually I'm referring them from the old cameras So that way then I can edit then I'll be doing my editing the camera. I'm using now is that What do you call them and it's one of them cheap Chinese cameras and our A and D O E R. It's an HD v2 What's that say? Z 210 Z 20. I don't know. Anyway, it's a cheap damn camera But this is the first new one we bought when we right after we got together Wasn't gathered too long. We bought this one. So it's still holding in there This is the one I had to take all apart and everything So that's that one Now let's do another one Okay guys As you can see Maybe monkey's back to get off work I'm on the GoPro now. I'm not sure what number of camera this is but I Guess you'll see in the in the end of it But this is our cheap GoPro I don't know if I'm in shot or not, but So there's another one. Oh, it's getting late in the day. This was a pain I had none of the problems with my With Technical on my computer and everything man. I don't know what was going on couldn't get anything to work But it should be all working now. So All right Onto the next camera okay, guys, sorry about the wind and We got the air conditioner on just thought I'd come over and check out the bee situation I am now on our everyday camera Well, I call it every day camera the one I use 90% of the time Yeah, they're still there Sam, I don't know how I'm gonna get rid of them. Look how deep that went in. I'm getting the hell away from them things so Again, I don't know what number I'm on on this camera. Maybe See Yeah nine number nine So, you know all these cameras work as you can see some of them work better than others My phone actually has a pretty good picture on it It's just hard to hold it still because it's a it's a cell phone, you know But it does have a great picture for for one thing. So I'm really surprised to that But something on my foot All right This is what I say this was camera eight Now this camera nine Yeah, all right, let's move on to camera 10. It's going to be the The $20 black web dash cam So we're gonna use it next Sit tight don't go anywhere Okay guys, so This is camera number 10 This is like I said in the last clip. This is the black web camera from It's made by Craig. We bought a Walmart for 20 bucks It is a dash cam, but we use it for the webcam now and it seems to do pretty good for a $20 camera So this camera is number 10 and the next clip you will see camera number that way you won't see it But I'll be using it in the next clip Okay guys all the cameras we use today now there's one that's not on there Because I'm using it right now and it's my phone But this first one it kind of had a bad tape in it so it didn't you know act that great And I don't know why the time stamp was still on it.  I thought apparently I didn't But they're in order on how we filmed today. So There's everything All right in order. So we used Let's see one two three four five six seven eight nine Ten and the one I am using So okay guys, so there you go. That's all the cameras we used.  Hope you're enjoying your weekend and Y'all be cool and stay safe I'm gonna get off here. I don't feel well. So Like I said monkey's home mouse and what's been a little time with her while I'm editing my videos. So Guys, thanks for watching appreciate it. Remember she bear the myth man a legend. I'm gone for now. Bye. Bye guys. Take care


D.A.V. and Auxiliary National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and I'm joined with Kerry Rogher of Semper Fi, Bar and Grill. Kerry just received the Arthur H. and Mary E. Wilson Award for Top Venture Impacting Veterans. It's a $10,000 award that we give every year at the Washington, D.C. Veteran Entrepreneurship Success Summit. And just congratulations. This is a wonderful honor. Thank you. Thank you. This is really kind of fun. I wish this was spendable, but that's okay. It's been a true honor to receive this award. This is really humbling for me. In the ecosystem of the D.A.V., there's hundreds, if not thousands, of successful veterans. And two have been selected for this. It's just truly been an honor for me. Wonderful. And just catch us up a little bit with what's happened since receiving this award. What have you been able to do with Semper Fi, Bar and Grill and moving on into franchising your business? Thanks, Brian. It's been crazy. It's been an amazing ride. What we did is we took the grant money that we won and we converted it into a video to start the sales process for franchising. We put that video up on Facebook and we were able to capture the tension of a lot of people. The pipeline was just fantastic. And out of that pipeline, we found ourselves a veteran who actually was just transitioning out of the military. So we have made a huge transition impact with this one. He's an Army veteran in Fort Gordon, which is in Georgia. His wife is a Navy veteran and we moved them from retiring in April to owning a restaurant in the end of June. It's been absolutely fantastic. And through that entire process, we've also gone through the rebranding structure. Because as we learned over the past eight years, Semper Fi, Bar and Grill, although it's a great marine thing, that this Army guy, this Army veteran, wasn't necessarily interested in the brand Semper Fi, Bar and Grill. So we rebranded to Rally Point Grill because of course we know in the military that Rally Point is a place where everybody gathers. So it has just absolutely exploded. It's amazing. I've got three more in the pipeline. We're working in the southeast right now around the major military installations and just seeing a lot of amazing things happen. That's incredible when you talk about that idea of giving a veteran a chance to own a business. Was that part of the vision all along? What do you hope Semper Fi and Rally Point becomes in communities and for veterans? Brian, it's been an evolution. As we as we were running Semper Fi, Bar and Grill, it was really in 2020 when I started to realize what our mission truly was. And that happened after we got shut down. We live in great state of Georgia. So it was about six weeks or so and we were back open again. And when the veterans started coming back in is when I really started to realize what we meant to the community, that we created this place where they felt like they fit in and they felt like they belong and recognizing myself and my journey after being a Marine to even today has been over 30 years. There are many times when I feel like I don't fit in. So Rally Point Grill is creating that place where veterans fit in and they feel like they belong. And we know that this concept will be welcome in every community in America. So we have the honor of creating those spaces where veterans feel comfortable. They feel honored. They feel welcome, great food, great service, the whole nine yards. But on the backside of that, we've got a three pronged approach to be able to help veterans get started in business. So our first one is really simple. It's a basic franchise model, right? So if I find a veteran who's a prospect who's qualified, they go get the funding, they start the franchise, we're off and running and we're supporting them through this journey. And they have the use of all of the things that we've learned. The second one is actually really, really cool. And that is that we've realized along the way that the veterans net worth compared to their civilian counterpart net worth is often not equal. And therefore, it's actually harder for veterans to earn to gain capital. So we have set out with a campaign so that we can raise the funds. We're doing the fundraising to get the capital to be able to do the investing so we can actually be the lender for the veteran. It does a number of different things. Number one, it speeds up the whole process. We can get a restaurant open in 45 days. We just did it. But the third way is also really cool. And that's called our pathway to ownership where we're working on a program right now where we can bring a veteran into the fold, into the system. They'll actually work at a company store for the first five years. They'll learn everything about how to run a restaurant over the first five years. They'll earn ownership along the way. And at the end of five years, we've cleaned up their credit. We've proven to commercial lenders that they can successfully run an operation. They have five years of P&L ownership. They also have an ownership stake in the company. So we can then go get the financing and convert that into their store. So we're just, we're so excited about the opportunities we have not only to give back to the community, but to give back to other veterans who want to be in the food service industry. Well, it's wonderful. And I've had the honor and privilege to go visit Semper Fi Barn Grill. It is, there's something special about it. And there's no doubt these rally points that are going to be opening up all over the place. They're going to be special as well. And congratulations once again, Carrie. And follow us. Be sure to follow us on social media for more updates coming from convention. And we'll