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Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome to it could happen here. I am

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Speaker 1: Robert Evans, and this is the show where we talk

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Speaker 1: about how everything is kind of falling apart and how

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Speaker 1: we might put it back together again in a way

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Speaker 1: that works better than it did before UM, or do

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Speaker 1: something different that is even anyway. Whatever. It's a show

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Speaker 1: about the future and about the messed up present UM

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Speaker 1: And as a result of that, one of the things

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Speaker 1: we talk about a lot is self sufficiency. We've had

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Speaker 1: a number of episodes kind of covering the values of

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Speaker 1: like replacing your lawn with food, guerilla gardening, that sort

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Speaker 1: of stuff. And one of the critiques we get is

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Speaker 1: people saying, well, you know, that's never gonna work on

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Speaker 1: a large scale. It's never going to replace industrial agriculture

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Speaker 1: or whatever. And that's perfectly true. But the point we're

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Speaker 1: going for here and why we encourage these kind of

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Speaker 1: resilience building activities is because they do improve the ability

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Speaker 1: of communities to resist when they need to resist, and

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Speaker 1: also provide opportunities by which people can reimagine their relationship to,

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Speaker 1: for example, all the food supply chain, or reimagine the

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Speaker 1: relationship to their community, and the kind of things that

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Speaker 1: communities provide for each other rather than having them shipped

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Speaker 1: in by Amazon. UM. And when we start talking about that,

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Speaker 1: when we start talking about improving community resiliency for things like,

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Speaker 1: you know, a general strike or even potentially more radical stuff.

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Speaker 1: One of the big issues that any community has to

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Speaker 1: confront is not just food, but medicine. I'm I do,

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Speaker 1: and I'm sure a lot of other people have friends

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Speaker 1: who cannot survive without medications that are very like reliant

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Speaker 1: upon existing supply chains UM and to some extent, even

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Speaker 1: the stability of the government, you know, UM, getting your insulin,

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Speaker 1: getting your medication for whatever kind of disease you have

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Speaker 1: that that needs constant medication. There's a bunch of different

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Speaker 1: reasons why people are reliant upon the medical um supply

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Speaker 1: lines and upon the kind of pharmaceutical industry. And that's

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Speaker 1: one of the big when we talk about building more

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Speaker 1: resilient communities, one of the big hurdles to jump. Well. Today,

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Speaker 1: my guest is someone who is working on bridging some

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Speaker 1: of these problems. UM. His name is Michael Lawfer, and

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Speaker 1: he is the founder of an organization called the Four

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Speaker 1: Thieves Vinegar Collective. They are bio hackers UM, and they

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Speaker 1: are working on cracking certain pharmaceutical medications to allow individuals

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Speaker 1: with resources that are generally available to people who are

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Speaker 1: not rich or pharmaceutical companies UM to produce life saving medications. UM.

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Speaker 1: The number one thing you would have heard of from

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Speaker 1: four Thieves is the EPI pencil, which we'll talk about

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Speaker 1: it a bit. But first, Michael, thank you for coming

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Speaker 1: on the show. Thanks so much for having me. It's

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Speaker 1: exciting to be able to shot and talk with you

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Speaker 1: and all the people surrounding you who are trying to

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Speaker 1: just unfunned things a little bit. Yeah, yeah, and I

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Speaker 1: most of the conversation I want to have today is

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Speaker 1: on the unfucking of things variety. But I do think

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Speaker 1: we should start with a little bit technical talk first.

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Speaker 1: Can you give people an idea of what kind of

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Speaker 1: medications you and other people in the collective have figured

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Speaker 1: out how to produce UM and what kind of resources

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Speaker 1: and individual needs to be able to do some of

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Speaker 1: this stuff. Sure. So, from a technical perspective, most of

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Speaker 1: the things that we focus on are what's called small

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Speaker 1: molecule chemistry, and to kind of describe that blanketly, if

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Speaker 1: you can draw the molecule in a cocktail napkin. It

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Speaker 1: probably qualifies as a small molecule if it's one of

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Speaker 1: these things that like, you know, if you look at

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Speaker 1: the diagram for the molecules approaching, it's got big ribbons

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Speaker 1: that are colored and stuff that's a that's a biochemic thing,

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Speaker 1: and it's a whole different set of problems. Now, the

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Speaker 1: mean focide that we've had have been surrounding access to abortion,

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Speaker 1: access to hive medications, access to hepatitis C medications, and

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Speaker 1: access to reversal of jug overdose medications. So that's been

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Speaker 1: sort of our main focus, but there's been a handful

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Speaker 1: of others. The things that we tend to look for

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Speaker 1: our where are there things that there's a great need

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Speaker 1: and there's a huge barrier, And so you see those

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Speaker 1: in those places a lot, because the three main barriers

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Speaker 1: that tend to pop up between somebody and access to

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Speaker 1: the medication they need are either price or legality or

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Speaker 1: lack of infrastructure. And typically the weirdness that comes up

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Speaker 1: mostly surrounds price because of intellectual property laws and marginalization

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Speaker 1: of people who suffer from particular ailments or seem to

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Speaker 1: suffer predominantly from particular ailments. And so if you're if

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Speaker 1: you're poor, and you're in a class of people that

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Speaker 1: is seen as something not to be cared about because

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Speaker 1: they're not a strong voter base, then the ability to

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Speaker 1: move access away from those people and put in more

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Speaker 1: barriers and raise prices becomes easier to defend. UM. So

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Speaker 1: the first drug that we focused on was a an

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Speaker 1: anti parasitic um. Toxoplasmosis is a parasite that's pretty innocuous

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Speaker 1: for most people anybody when you get from cats, right

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Speaker 1: or is this not Gandhi? It is. It is the

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Speaker 1: one you get from cats, and it's really fascinating parasite

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Speaker 1: too if if if you ever dig into the behavioral

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Speaker 1: biology of it, it's really really fascinating parasite. UM, I

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Speaker 1: probably have it. Yeah, I have three cats. I definitely

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Speaker 1: have it. So and so it's not a big deal

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Speaker 1: for those people, but if you have a massively compromised

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Speaker 1: immune system, especially with people with HIV or advanced stages

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Speaker 1: of cancer, and that's why it was labeled sort of

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Speaker 1: you know HIV drug, it's not it's a it's an

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Speaker 1: anti parasitic, but it's used almost exclusively by people who

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Speaker 1: are an advanced stages of cancer. Uh, people with fairly

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Speaker 1: compromised immune systems from HIV or something else, and then

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Speaker 1: pregnant women. Um, And it's not that big deal. If

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Speaker 1: you have access to the medication, you can merely take

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Speaker 1: it and eradicates from body. Uh. The difference was is

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Speaker 1: that something that was a short course of treatment you

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Speaker 1: take I think for um, you know, four doses the

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Speaker 1: first time around, and then one dose each day subsequently

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Speaker 1: for something like ten days. Um, And that's not a

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Speaker 1: big deal when each dose each was about thirteen and

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Speaker 1: a half dollars. And then Martin cry jacked up the

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Speaker 1: price to seven fifty a pill, and so we're like, well,

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Speaker 1: this is ridiculous. So that was the first one that

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Speaker 1: we went after. Then of course access to abortion drugs, um,

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Speaker 1: that's a big one. That's pretty topical lately. We released

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Speaker 1: a video maybe three months ago on how you can

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Speaker 1: make your own abortion pills without too much fuss. This

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Speaker 1: would be mythopristone, right, Uh, mithopristone and Mr Pristall. So

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Speaker 1: you can do it with just Mr Purstall, or you

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Speaker 1: can do it in combination. And when you do it

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Speaker 1: with just the one with just miso, you have about

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Speaker 1: an eighty five percent chance of it working. And if

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Speaker 1: you have both, they bumps it up to about and

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Speaker 1: what is the like what when you're doing this? And

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Speaker 1: we'll talk a little bit with the hardware, but like

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Speaker 1: what is the re agent that you have for this?

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Speaker 1: Because I know that's been a big part of some

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Speaker 1: of the discussions is like how do you get the

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Speaker 1: thing as you make the medicines from which is easier

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Speaker 1: for some than it is for others. Sure, there are

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Speaker 1: a couple different ways that you google about that. The

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Speaker 1: the interesting but more difficult way, of course, is to

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Speaker 1: do the chemistry from scratch, where like you say, get

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Speaker 1: access from the agents, you do some chemistry, and you

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Speaker 1: end up with the active pharmaceutical ingredient, which we lovingly

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Speaker 1: referred to as the API, and then you package it

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Speaker 1: somehow into a tablet or a pill or or some

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Speaker 1: other means of ingress into the body. Um. The instructions

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Speaker 1: that we distributed skip the difficult part because mr. Pristal

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Speaker 1: is an ulcer medication, and so for instance, if you

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Speaker 1: have access to Mexico or are in Mexico, it's kind

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Speaker 1: of not a big deal because as an ulcer medication,

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Speaker 1: it's over the counter, and you can just go in

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Speaker 1: and say, oh, you know, my grandmother can't get out

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Speaker 1: of bed. She needs this ulcer medication. I need just

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Speaker 1: a little bit of it to get her through the weekend. Um,

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Speaker 1: and then no problem. Uh. Not so easy in places

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Speaker 1: where it's a little more controlled, like the US. However,

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Speaker 1: one amazing trick when looking for medicines, access to medicines

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Speaker 1: that are generally blocked from people that the existing power

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Speaker 1: structure tries to disenfranchise from access is you look and

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Speaker 1: see if it's similarly used for other classes of person

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Speaker 1: or being that the infrastructure does care about. So interestingly,

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Speaker 1: you look for ulcer medication, you say, well, like, who

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Speaker 1: else has ulcers that you know, people might think are

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Speaker 1: important people. That doesn't really come up, and there are

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Speaker 1: other ulster medications are a little bit better. However, there

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Speaker 1: are a lot of really wealthy people in the United States,

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Speaker 1: and really wealthy people tend to keep horses and horses

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Speaker 1: interestingly um or something or maybe more some ungodly percentage

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Speaker 1: of domesticated horses have ulcers. UM. Now why that is

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Speaker 1: I'm not entirely clear about, but my own theory is

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Speaker 1: that it has something to do with taking a gigantic

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Speaker 1: wild animal and putting it into a very small box

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Speaker 1: for most of its life. Yeah, it doesn't seem like

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Speaker 1: the thing that horses evolved to do. Yeah. So, so

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Speaker 1: that said, people who are horse owners typically have to

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Speaker 1: treat them constantly for ulcers, and the best thing for

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Speaker 1: that is Mr. Perstal. And so you can get Mr.

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Speaker 1: Crystall powder in a tub from places that, yeah, feedstore

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Speaker 1: or something. Yeah, I go to a feed store every week.

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Speaker 1: I'm sure I could buy a bucket of this ship probably,

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Speaker 1: So it comes in tubs. And the other thing that's

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Speaker 1: great about it coming in a tub is that it's

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Speaker 1: already in with a buffer. Part of the thing about Mr.

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Speaker 1: Crystall is that the dosages in micrograms, and that's very

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Speaker 1: hard to weigh unless you have a really high precision scale.

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Speaker 1: Even your good drug dealers generally don't have a scale

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Speaker 1: that can do that. Right. So, but the magic is,

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Speaker 1: this isn't a tub with a bunch of inert powder,

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Speaker 1: and it's it's already mixed up to be homogeneous. And

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Speaker 1: so what you can do is you can do a

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Speaker 1: little bit of back of the envelope arithmetic, and you

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Speaker 1: can measure out much larger quantities and know how much

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Speaker 1: active ingredients you have and then pack that into a tablet.

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Speaker 1: Now yeah, um, I mean that makes so much sense.

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Speaker 1: And it's also like like the you have kind of

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Speaker 1: the dark side and light side version. It's kind of

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Speaker 1: the light side version of all of those people buying

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Speaker 1: up ivermectin for for nonsense. It's like, well, no, there's

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Speaker 1: reasons to buy, you know, like, uh, livestock medication especially. Um.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I have a lot of friends who took

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Speaker 1: fishing antibiotics back in the day, and this is kind

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Speaker 1: of a much more um using it in a much

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Speaker 1: more rigorous way to provide people with something that can

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Speaker 1: is getting it will be getting increasingly difficult to access

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Speaker 1: in a lot of parts of the country. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: just such a smart way of approaching it, I think. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And one of the things that becomes philosophically a bit

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Speaker 1: sticky is when you end up talking about the importance

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Speaker 1: of independent management of one's own health and decision making

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Speaker 1: not coming from above. There's this difficult moment that I've

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Speaker 1: had kind of having to cop to the reality that

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Speaker 1: if you're building mechanisms to empower people to have access

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Speaker 1: to make decisions about managing their own health. H Part

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Speaker 1: of that entails realizing that that will also lead to

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Speaker 1: a lot of people making what I might think are

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Speaker 1: bad decisions, but that the important thing is that it

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Speaker 1: doesn't matter what I think. That people should not be

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Speaker 1: controlled by other people, and if they make bad decisions,

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Speaker 1: that sucks, and hopefully we can help that, but not

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Speaker 1: not lamenting the importance of or not not backtracking, not

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Speaker 1: having some sort of retrograde about offering more access even

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Speaker 1: if people misuse that access to the miss manage their

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Speaker 1: own health. Mismanagement of health happens no matter what right.

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Speaker 1: It happens constantly, and people will ignore things that seem

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Speaker 1: like they're bigger problems and don't get them addressed. And

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Speaker 1: so I have to sort of retreat into this idea

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Speaker 1: that more access to more tools is better and that's

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Speaker 1: just the way of it. And yeah, the problem, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, the problem with ivermectin isn't the problem. The

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Speaker 1: problem is that that people have access to ivermectin, and

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Speaker 1: so they're taking it in a way that is harmful

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Speaker 1: to them. The problem is that people have been have

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Speaker 1: have been blinded by disinformation and so are making a

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Speaker 1: horrible health care decision. The fact that they have it's

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Speaker 1: possessed to veterinary medication is fine, right, exactly, And and

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Speaker 1: it's and it's interesting that you say that because I

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Speaker 1: have a friend of Doctors Without Borders and they are

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Speaker 1: starting a couple of pretty strong programs to try and

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Speaker 1: combat misinformation, because just from a metric standpoint, they look

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Speaker 1: for sort of like, what's killing the greatest number of

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Speaker 1: people at the greatest rate in the worst way, And

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Speaker 1: currently the thing that's killing the most people in the

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Speaker 1: worst way at the greatest rate is misinformation. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's that's really the great danger. And one of the

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Speaker 1: things I found really interesting about kind of what you

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Speaker 1: all have been doing because obviously the question of how

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Speaker 1: to fight the misinformation in the medical sphere is a

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Speaker 1: much larger conversation without simple answers. When it comes to

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Speaker 1: a question like, oh, hey, this pharmaceutical company jacked up

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Speaker 1: the price by what seven for this necessary medication for

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Speaker 1: people a lot of people who have HIV UM What

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Speaker 1: are we The solution to that is simple, You find

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Speaker 1: a way for them to get it without paying hundreds

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Speaker 1: and hundreds of dollars per dose. UM the question. Some

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Speaker 1: of the work you all have done is with very

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Speaker 1: uh mass needed products like the the mythopres don't like

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Speaker 1: the epipencil um, where there's large numbers of people who

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Speaker 1: need it. But a lot of what I think, one

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Speaker 1: of the things I think is really cool is y'all

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Speaker 1: are also working on hacking medications that are very niche like,

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Speaker 1: very very few people have this particular disease, and so

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Speaker 1: the medication is the costs as much as a fully

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Speaker 1: loaded Toyota tacoma, you know, in order to sometimes far

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Speaker 1: worse than that. Because of this Orphan Drug Act that

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Speaker 1: got past in the US and equivalence that exists in

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Speaker 1: other places, you have all of these allowances that are

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Speaker 1: granted to people who invent I put in air quotes

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Speaker 1: m because really they just purchase the rights to it

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Speaker 1: um these these orphan drugs where when you talk about controls,

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Speaker 1: it's kind of the most tragic incidents of that entire

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Speaker 1: because what's happening is you've got somebody who has a

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Speaker 1: very rare disease, and in many cases you have something

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Speaker 1: that's the difference between somebody who just cannot function and

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Speaker 1: they're dealing with their life kind of moment to moment

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Speaker 1: there they're mostly cared for, and if they have access

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Speaker 1: to a particular medication, then they can go through life

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Speaker 1: in a fairly normal sort of way where they don't

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Speaker 1: need to be an assisted living, where that they can

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Speaker 1: do sort of basic things for themselves, and that that

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Speaker 1: seems so much more predatory. I mean, it's important, of course,

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Speaker 1: you know, to look at things with that macro lens

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Speaker 1: as well and say what can what can do a

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Speaker 1: lot of good for a lot of people. But then

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Speaker 1: the sort of micro ethical lens needs to come out

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Speaker 1: from time to time and say, all right, well here's

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Speaker 1: something that only affects a few hundred thousand people across

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Speaker 1: the world. But these are people who can just go

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Speaker 1: through life normally if only they had access to a

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Speaker 1: little bit of medicine. And the only reason they don't

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Speaker 1: is because of misplaced average or all averice is misplaced

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Speaker 1: because yeah, and you're you're you're providing individuals or a

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Speaker 1: way for people to to help individuals who have this

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Speaker 1: problem and who can't couldn't possibly afford this because they

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Speaker 1: don't have health care or something a way to deal

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Speaker 1: with these illnesses. Um and oftentimes like even even people

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Speaker 1: who are ensured get the medication that they need or

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Speaker 1: don't get an affordable rate because it's not seen as critical. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's like, oh, well there's a there's a solution that's

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Speaker 1: not as good, but it's much less expensive. So that's

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Speaker 1: the only thing we're going to cover. And so yeah,

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Speaker 1: and you're saying, well, it should be your decision whether

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Speaker 1: or not this is something you want to treat this way,

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Speaker 1: and we're this is a way if you, you know,

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Speaker 1: have access, this is a way for you to kind of,

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Speaker 1: as you've been saying, like take your health care and

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Speaker 1: your ability to get medication into your own hands and

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Speaker 1: produce the things that you need without needing to beg

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Speaker 1: an insurance company or go fund me eight dollars or whatever. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: does go fund me to break my heart so much. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's especially when people say, oh, look, how great somebody

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Speaker 1: got the money that they needed, and I say, look,

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Speaker 1: I am happy that people get healthcare, but this should

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Speaker 1: be entirely unnecessary. And the fact that this comes up

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Speaker 1: is criminal. Yeah, we can, we can as a species

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Speaker 1: produce this ship for less than the cost of like

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Speaker 1: a lamp, you know, Like, why why don't why isn't

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Speaker 1: this available? Um now, I And that's what I think

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Speaker 1: is kind of so powerful about what y'all are doing,

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Speaker 1: And is that so so often we kind of get

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Speaker 1: stuck in this like the horror of how bad health

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Speaker 1: care is, of how funked up the pharmaceutical industry is,

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Speaker 1: and then we get our relief from that in these

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Speaker 1: stories of people like crowdfunding so they can get their medication.

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Speaker 1: And what you're saying is, well, what's actually much more

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Speaker 1: inspiring than that is people just making finding ways to

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Speaker 1: make what they need. Um. Again, the kind of the

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Speaker 1: most popular popular is the wrong word. The most press

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Speaker 1: y'all have received, I think is for the epipencil, which

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Speaker 1: is an EpiPen is a device that you take that

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Speaker 1: is used when people are going into anaphylactic shock, which

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Speaker 1: is when they have an allergic reaction that will kill

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Speaker 1: them if untreated. Generally, UM and it you injected into

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Speaker 1: your muscles or generally, like an EpiPen does the injecting,

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Speaker 1: you just kind of put it in place. Um and

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Speaker 1: it it is a life saving medication when people need it.

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Speaker 1: It's the choice between that and death. UM. And they

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Speaker 1: are very expensive. There is a company that owns the

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Speaker 1: patent because of how the EpiPen actually does the injecting.

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Speaker 1: The actual medicine is very cheap and very easy to make,

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Speaker 1: but it's unbelievably expensive and people die as a result

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Speaker 1: of lack lack of access. UM, and you've provided a

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Speaker 1: way using both kinds of this thing called a bio

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Speaker 1: lab that people You've developed plans that people can build

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Speaker 1: it for themselves in order to make this, and also

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00:21:11,160 --> 00:21:15,040
Speaker 1: using a three D printer, you can make UM an epipencil,

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Speaker 1: which is a little less kind of a more analog version.

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Speaker 1: I think, I guess you'd say, uh, no, it's it's

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Speaker 1: it's equivalent. It's equivalent. It works the same way. The

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Speaker 1: things that are different about it that UM are critical.

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Speaker 1: The first one that you mentioned, of course, is that

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Speaker 1: you can you can build it for a little over

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Speaker 1: thirty dollars US, and you can reload it for about

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Speaker 1: three dollars, unlike the EpiPen, which is I think it's

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Speaker 1: about fifty dollars for yeah, UM, and that might be

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Speaker 1: for a pair, but even so to UM. But the

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Speaker 1: other two critical differences are that EpiPens are single use,

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Speaker 1: so you can't test whether it's faulty or not until

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Speaker 1: you use it, And there have been a lot of failures.

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Speaker 1: In fact, there was a big EpiPen recall a bunch

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Speaker 1: of years ago, and there were just these tragic, tragic stories.

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Speaker 1: Some guy had to watch his little kid die. He

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Speaker 1: had had a pair of EpiPens. The kid went into shock.

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Speaker 1: He used it, the thing failed, He brought the other one.

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Speaker 1: The other one failed, and they're in the air and

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Speaker 1: you can't land in fifteen minutes and the little kid died,

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Speaker 1: which just and I'm sure there are dozens of dozens

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Speaker 1: of stories like that, that just happens to be one

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Speaker 1: of the ones I know. So one of the things

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Speaker 1: that's great about the epipencils because you're putting it together

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Speaker 1: yourself and it only takes four parts, you can test it.

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Speaker 1: You can make sure that it works as many times

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Speaker 1: as you need to. You can dry running with saline

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Speaker 1: and just double check that it does what it's supposed

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Speaker 1: to um and so it's safer. So the fact that

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Speaker 1: it's you can control yourself, you can reload it, and

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Speaker 1: you can test it. All these things fix a lot

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Speaker 1: of these immediate problems that come with and it still

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Speaker 1: has the benefit that everybody wants from the EpiPen, which

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Speaker 1: is that it doesn't require um, you know, measurement or

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Speaker 1: like knowing how deep to press the needle before you

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Speaker 1: depress the plunger. All of that happens automatically, and it

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Speaker 1: happens very quickly. UM. And yeah, we as you say,

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Speaker 1: we've got a lot of pressed for that because essentially

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Speaker 1: a good timing. We've released at the same time that

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Speaker 1: Heather Brush was lying to Congress about why they hit

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Speaker 1: raised the price on the EpiPens and then so it

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Speaker 1: was in the public eye. Yeah, and and that's that's

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Speaker 1: a huge one, being able to produce that because that

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Speaker 1: is I mean, there's a tremendous number of people who

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Speaker 1: rely on UH EpiPens um and and I think the

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Speaker 1: potential of that project is staggering UM. And there's some

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Speaker 1: there's some you know, we when we talk about kind

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Speaker 1: of the different people who are who are working on

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Speaker 1: similar problems to you, there's also a group of people

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Speaker 1: who are working on UM cracking insulin, being able to

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Speaker 1: produce insulin UM. And Yeah, the Open Insulin project is

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Speaker 1: an amazing group of people, incredibly important. They're yeah, they're

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Speaker 1: working on mm hmm probably the largest scale public health crisis.

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Speaker 1: I mean in terms of queries that we get. I

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Speaker 1: think we get people asking about insulin more than anything else.

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Speaker 1: And I always say, oh, yeah, they're very, very bright

394
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Speaker 1: people already work around this. Go talk to the open

395
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Speaker 1: insulin um and and they're just amazing. I want to

396
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Speaker 1: move on because I want to talk about kind of

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Speaker 1: the more um philosophical dimensions of some of this. But

398
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Speaker 1: before we get into that, i'd like to so, like,

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Speaker 1: you know, one of the things you and I've been

400
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Speaker 1: talking about a little bit behind the scenes is I

401
00:25:14,760 --> 00:25:18,080
Speaker 1: am not a technically savvy person, but I'm I want

402
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Speaker 1: to try and i'd like to be able to like

403
00:25:20,760 --> 00:25:23,320
Speaker 1: produce an epipencil. I want to like understand this it

404
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Speaker 1: kind of and and potentially be able to contribute UM

405
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Speaker 1: in a more direct sense, in part because I'm curious,

406
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Speaker 1: like how how doable actually is this? For I consider

407
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Speaker 1: myself a pretty normal person when it comes to like

408
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Speaker 1: technical understanding, right, Like, I'm reasonably handy, but I'm not

409
00:25:40,080 --> 00:25:42,159
Speaker 1: I'm not a chemist. I'm not a I'm not a

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Speaker 1: I haven't really I have no I have no prior

411
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Speaker 1: experience three D printing or anything like that, what is

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Speaker 1: what is required in terms of financial investment, and what

413
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Speaker 1: is kind of your general estimate in terms of time

414
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Speaker 1: to get up to you know, a kind of the

415
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Speaker 1: level where you can start learning how to do some

416
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Speaker 1: of this stuff. I think the barrier to entry is

417
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Speaker 1: pretty low, depending on how you want to start. As

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Speaker 1: I said, there are different avenues to doing it. You can,

419
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Speaker 1: of course one of the one of the greatest hacks.

420
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Speaker 1: If if anybody listening this doesn't pick up anything else,

421
00:26:20,840 --> 00:26:24,080
Speaker 1: here's the best hack in terms of getting access to medication.

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Speaker 1: You have a medication you don't have access to for

423
00:26:27,440 --> 00:26:32,119
Speaker 1: whatever reason, assuming it comes in a capsule form, you

424
00:26:32,160 --> 00:26:35,960
Speaker 1: can merely go to a chemical supplier, purchase the active

425
00:26:36,200 --> 00:26:40,240
Speaker 1: pharmaceutical ingredient, wait out, put it into a capsule, and

426
00:26:40,280 --> 00:26:43,919
Speaker 1: you've made your medication. That's a very simple thing, you know.

427
00:26:44,040 --> 00:26:46,240
Speaker 1: That takes nothing more than being able to read a

428
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Speaker 1: scale and scooping powder into a little you know, capsules.

429
00:26:50,359 --> 00:26:54,600
Speaker 1: The next step up, there are things that you can do.

430
00:26:54,640 --> 00:26:56,160
Speaker 1: They're a little more involved. If you want to build

431
00:26:56,160 --> 00:27:00,240
Speaker 1: an epic pencil, again, this is three or four hearts,

432
00:27:00,280 --> 00:27:04,040
Speaker 1: depending on how you count. You take the needle from

433
00:27:04,359 --> 00:27:07,399
Speaker 1: one syringe needle set on you put it onto a

434
00:27:07,440 --> 00:27:09,680
Speaker 1: different syringe needle set, and then you put it into

435
00:27:09,680 --> 00:27:14,639
Speaker 1: this auto injector, this design for needle phobic diabetics. You

436
00:27:14,760 --> 00:27:18,240
Speaker 1: load it with the up and ron and you close

437
00:27:18,320 --> 00:27:22,560
Speaker 1: it up and you're done. Then if you want to

438
00:27:22,640 --> 00:27:25,479
Speaker 1: step into this a little bit further, if something is

439
00:27:25,960 --> 00:27:29,119
Speaker 1: so barriered for whatever reason that you can't get the

440
00:27:29,160 --> 00:27:33,720
Speaker 1: actual ingredient, then you might start messing around with our

441
00:27:33,760 --> 00:27:37,840
Speaker 1: micro lab. The micro lab, I would say probably takes

442
00:27:38,080 --> 00:27:43,200
Speaker 1: around a hundred dollars US to build um it, but

443
00:27:43,400 --> 00:27:47,960
Speaker 1: it's not super technical. Our latest version doesn't require any soldering.

444
00:27:48,119 --> 00:27:51,560
Speaker 1: Everything snaps together, which is really nice. You can plug

445
00:27:51,600 --> 00:27:54,960
Speaker 1: everything in UM. All the wires are just screw terminals,

446
00:27:55,000 --> 00:27:59,480
Speaker 1: which is really convenient. UM And it takes some time,

447
00:28:00,200 --> 00:28:05,320
Speaker 1: and you do have to load some code. But we're

448
00:28:05,320 --> 00:28:10,520
Speaker 1: looking to release a a new set of documentation in

449
00:28:10,560 --> 00:28:14,199
Speaker 1: the summer that will be very very stripped down of

450
00:28:14,640 --> 00:28:17,080
Speaker 1: here's your bill of materials. You can order all of

451
00:28:17,119 --> 00:28:21,360
Speaker 1: this stuff. Here's how you can put the disk image

452
00:28:21,520 --> 00:28:24,480
Speaker 1: onto the SD card that you put in and you

453
00:28:24,520 --> 00:28:31,320
Speaker 1: should start it and it will wake up and work independently. UM.

454
00:28:31,359 --> 00:28:35,520
Speaker 1: We had a video of our head hardware guy actually

455
00:28:35,600 --> 00:28:40,480
Speaker 1: building the micro lab from just parts that we're sitting on,

456
00:28:40,680 --> 00:28:43,080
Speaker 1: laid out on a table, and I think all told

457
00:28:43,080 --> 00:28:46,680
Speaker 1: it took him about forty five minutes, maybe a little

458
00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:50,080
Speaker 1: bit longer, but again, like granted, this guy's a hardware

459
00:28:50,160 --> 00:28:54,600
Speaker 1: specialist and he you know, designed it, so for somebody

460
00:28:54,600 --> 00:28:57,320
Speaker 1: who's not done before, it might take an afternoon, but

461
00:28:57,520 --> 00:29:01,520
Speaker 1: it's not. It's not a pro bitively long or involved

462
00:29:01,560 --> 00:29:04,760
Speaker 1: project that you know, would take you weeks to put together,

463
00:29:04,960 --> 00:29:12,600
Speaker 1: or any specialized understanding of you know, biomedical engineering or

464
00:29:12,600 --> 00:29:16,360
Speaker 1: anything like that. Now, UM, I kind of want to

465
00:29:16,360 --> 00:29:18,000
Speaker 1: move at this point because I think that gives people

466
00:29:18,400 --> 00:29:20,760
Speaker 1: an idea of what's actually necessary and they can go

467
00:29:20,840 --> 00:29:23,600
Speaker 1: to y'all's website, UM or look up you have plans

468
00:29:23,640 --> 00:29:25,840
Speaker 1: on a get hub if they want to kind of

469
00:29:25,880 --> 00:29:29,200
Speaker 1: look at what's what's involved, and it's um some of

470
00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:31,400
Speaker 1: it seems a little daunting to me, like look looking

471
00:29:31,440 --> 00:29:33,960
Speaker 1: at the construction of the bio lab, But I'm that

472
00:29:33,960 --> 00:29:36,040
Speaker 1: that's going to be a project that I'll be engaging

473
00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:37,640
Speaker 1: in over the next couple of weeks, so we'll keep

474
00:29:37,640 --> 00:29:41,040
Speaker 1: people updated on how I do there. UM I want

475
00:29:41,040 --> 00:29:44,520
Speaker 1: to move on to talk Michael about what you see

476
00:29:44,560 --> 00:29:50,320
Speaker 1: as kind of the I don't know, the the the

477
00:29:50,480 --> 00:29:53,880
Speaker 1: potential from kind of a revolutionary perspective, from a perspective

478
00:29:53,880 --> 00:29:58,360
Speaker 1: of actually building dual power of this project. And obviously

479
00:29:58,400 --> 00:30:00,240
Speaker 1: you are and I think what would would be called

480
00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:03,600
Speaker 1: the early stages of this idea of kind of democratizing

481
00:30:03,600 --> 00:30:09,720
Speaker 1: and decentralizing the production of life saving medications. UM. Although

482
00:30:09,760 --> 00:30:11,400
Speaker 1: I guess you could argue in some ways it's kind

483
00:30:11,400 --> 00:30:14,120
Speaker 1: of a return to more traditional attitudes about health care

484
00:30:14,120 --> 00:30:17,840
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways. Yeah, there's a cyclic nature there,

485
00:30:18,200 --> 00:30:21,800
Speaker 1: and in the sort of zen mind, beginner's mind, we'd

486
00:30:21,800 --> 00:30:24,880
Speaker 1: like to think that the revolution is always in its

487
00:30:24,920 --> 00:30:31,120
Speaker 1: beginning stages, right. Um. That to say, over the past decade,

488
00:30:31,200 --> 00:30:37,120
Speaker 1: roughly looking at trying to find ways to give people

489
00:30:37,600 --> 00:30:44,120
Speaker 1: more independent access that doesn't require infrastructure to medicines and

490
00:30:44,160 --> 00:30:54,680
Speaker 1: medical technologies. The the hope really is to create a

491
00:30:54,800 --> 00:31:01,440
Speaker 1: certain amount of cultural shift. I remember one point a

492
00:31:01,480 --> 00:31:05,440
Speaker 1: friend of mine, who as a business school graduate, asked

493
00:31:05,440 --> 00:31:09,240
Speaker 1: me a very sort of like business school type question

494
00:31:09,360 --> 00:31:15,400
Speaker 1: where he said, how would you measure success of your project? Um?

495
00:31:15,440 --> 00:31:19,640
Speaker 1: And I said, well, we cease to exist as an organization,

496
00:31:20,280 --> 00:31:21,640
Speaker 1: and he kind of had this moment of like, what

497
00:31:21,720 --> 00:31:25,760
Speaker 1: do you mean we shouldn't be pushing this right, the

498
00:31:25,880 --> 00:31:30,160
Speaker 1: ideas that eventually the concept of managing your own health

499
00:31:30,280 --> 00:31:36,960
Speaker 1: is sufficiently normalized that it's not something that has to

500
00:31:36,960 --> 00:31:40,200
Speaker 1: be explained between people. But somebody says, oh, yeah, I

501
00:31:40,320 --> 00:31:47,120
Speaker 1: just I just did that up in my micro lab um.

502
00:31:47,400 --> 00:31:50,680
Speaker 1: In the same way that when you look at the

503
00:31:50,760 --> 00:31:57,240
Speaker 1: shift that happened between oh, you know, the mid eighties

504
00:31:57,320 --> 00:32:03,280
Speaker 1: in the mid nineties, where computers were this strange, scary

505
00:32:03,360 --> 00:32:07,640
Speaker 1: thing that was you know, we're only accessible or usable

506
00:32:07,680 --> 00:32:11,440
Speaker 1: by people who were very specialized. Is something that you know,

507
00:32:11,560 --> 00:32:13,800
Speaker 1: everybody knew about and everybody kind of had and everybody

508
00:32:13,880 --> 00:32:16,280
Speaker 1: sort of used. And the same sort of thing that

509
00:32:16,400 --> 00:32:22,280
Speaker 1: happened between the period of time I don't know, maybe

510
00:32:22,760 --> 00:32:27,000
Speaker 1: ten twelve years ago and now with with three D printing,

511
00:32:27,040 --> 00:32:30,960
Speaker 1: where like stereo lithography and rapid prototyping was again the

512
00:32:31,040 --> 00:32:34,440
Speaker 1: specialized thing that a bunch of people who were essentially

513
00:32:34,480 --> 00:32:38,720
Speaker 1: at the machine tool industry had started to spearhead. And

514
00:32:38,760 --> 00:32:41,200
Speaker 1: now you say, three D printing, everybody knows what it means.

515
00:32:41,800 --> 00:32:46,040
Speaker 1: In the same sort of way, I'd very much like

516
00:32:46,120 --> 00:32:52,960
Speaker 1: to see a cultural shift where when somebody is unwell,

517
00:32:54,320 --> 00:32:58,240
Speaker 1: that when discussions between people happened, that instead of the

518
00:32:58,600 --> 00:33:04,080
Speaker 1: have you had that looked at it, or you might

519
00:33:04,160 --> 00:33:09,520
Speaker 1: instead here from somebody saying well have you read up

520
00:33:09,560 --> 00:33:13,880
Speaker 1: on that? You know, to see people actually engaged in

521
00:33:13,920 --> 00:33:19,400
Speaker 1: their own health and not going through this very typical

522
00:33:19,520 --> 00:33:22,840
Speaker 1: process of outsourcing responsibility. Now, it's not to say that

523
00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:27,200
Speaker 1: like experts aren't good people with whom to consult, right, Yeah,

524
00:33:27,280 --> 00:33:31,320
Speaker 1: we're not talking about replacing the idea of medical professionals

525
00:33:31,320 --> 00:33:34,360
Speaker 1: who can help you understand what your health and diagnose

526
00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:37,760
Speaker 1: and stuff like. Yeah, but there is again this drastic

527
00:33:37,840 --> 00:33:43,720
Speaker 1: difference between going to a doctor and essentially just like

528
00:33:43,920 --> 00:33:46,640
Speaker 1: throwing the problem on their desk and saying fixed it,

529
00:33:47,040 --> 00:33:50,560
Speaker 1: call me when it's over, versus going to a doctor

530
00:33:50,560 --> 00:33:54,960
Speaker 1: and saying, hey, i'd like to talk about this, I'd

531
00:33:55,000 --> 00:33:58,200
Speaker 1: like to know more about what's wrong here, and I'd

532
00:33:58,240 --> 00:34:04,240
Speaker 1: like to discus us what the options are and what

533
00:34:04,840 --> 00:34:09,920
Speaker 1: seems best. Um that would be great on a lot

534
00:34:09,920 --> 00:34:15,480
Speaker 1: of levels. And and then these questions of access to

535
00:34:15,520 --> 00:34:21,240
Speaker 1: medication then become even more relevant because when you're talking

536
00:34:21,560 --> 00:34:24,319
Speaker 1: with a doctor and the doctor says Okay, well we

537
00:34:24,320 --> 00:34:27,719
Speaker 1: could try this therapy, but your insurance won't pay for it.

538
00:34:27,760 --> 00:34:30,799
Speaker 1: This three hundred dollars. You can say, all right, well

539
00:34:30,880 --> 00:34:32,799
Speaker 1: let's just do a little thought experiment and if that

540
00:34:32,880 --> 00:34:35,000
Speaker 1: fell from a truck, what would I do with it?

541
00:34:35,480 --> 00:34:37,759
Speaker 1: And then maybe you can go home and say, you know,

542
00:34:38,200 --> 00:34:40,000
Speaker 1: I'll call you and let you know how it goes.

543
00:34:42,239 --> 00:34:47,600
Speaker 1: I that's that's really my my grant, Hope. And there

544
00:34:47,640 --> 00:34:49,600
Speaker 1: are so many different ways that that can play out.

545
00:34:50,440 --> 00:34:53,600
Speaker 1: In fact, I'll tell you a hilarious story in regards

546
00:34:53,640 --> 00:34:57,160
Speaker 1: to this, which was in I guess it was when

547
00:34:57,160 --> 00:35:01,920
Speaker 1: we presented it, Hope. UM. I called Martin Shakraley's cell

548
00:35:01,960 --> 00:35:05,319
Speaker 1: phone from stage UH to try and ask him what

549
00:35:05,360 --> 00:35:09,319
Speaker 1: he thought about what we were doing, given that I

550
00:35:09,400 --> 00:35:12,320
Speaker 1: was handing his drug out for free, UM and showing

551
00:35:12,320 --> 00:35:15,319
Speaker 1: people how to make it. And he didn't answer the

552
00:35:15,320 --> 00:35:17,000
Speaker 1: phone when I called him then, but he called me

553
00:35:17,040 --> 00:35:22,360
Speaker 1: back a few hours later, which was really hilarious. We

554
00:35:22,480 --> 00:35:25,480
Speaker 1: actually chatted for a while and the guys, I mean

555
00:35:25,560 --> 00:35:30,280
Speaker 1: a little detached from reality, but he's he's no dummy, UM.

556
00:35:31,040 --> 00:35:33,359
Speaker 1: And when I sort of described what we were trying

557
00:35:33,400 --> 00:35:38,640
Speaker 1: to do with the micro lab, he had some interesting insights,

558
00:35:38,640 --> 00:35:40,600
Speaker 1: and he said, yeah, you know, one way I can

559
00:35:40,640 --> 00:35:45,480
Speaker 1: imagine that working really well is if somebody with a

560
00:35:45,560 --> 00:35:52,760
Speaker 1: little more knowledge of pharmaceutical medicine were too, maybe build

561
00:35:52,760 --> 00:35:56,160
Speaker 1: one of these and serve a small community. I think

562
00:35:56,239 --> 00:35:59,719
Speaker 1: that could be very efficient. And I was like, that's

563
00:35:59,719 --> 00:36:05,160
Speaker 1: a good saw it you chiseling bastard Um. Yeah, I

564
00:36:05,160 --> 00:36:07,560
Speaker 1: mean that there's a degree which that's That's kind of

565
00:36:07,560 --> 00:36:10,759
Speaker 1: how I see the most realistic potential. This is not

566
00:36:10,840 --> 00:36:13,319
Speaker 1: every individual making all of their medicine, but kind of

567
00:36:13,360 --> 00:36:16,160
Speaker 1: like you know we had during the fires last year,

568
00:36:16,200 --> 00:36:18,720
Speaker 1: when when our local and state governments during the heatwave

569
00:36:18,800 --> 00:36:22,160
Speaker 1: this year like completely shut the bed. We had different

570
00:36:22,239 --> 00:36:25,080
Speaker 1: mutual aid collectives do things like we are providing people

571
00:36:25,080 --> 00:36:27,400
Speaker 1: with like oh it's a blizzard, We're providing people with firewood.

572
00:36:27,680 --> 00:36:30,520
Speaker 1: We are providing people with cooling stations because of the heat.

573
00:36:30,560 --> 00:36:32,480
Speaker 1: You know, we are providing people with they've just fled

574
00:36:32,480 --> 00:36:35,320
Speaker 1: their houses. We have kits that have food and basic

575
00:36:35,400 --> 00:36:38,160
Speaker 1: necessities so they can get through mutual aid collectives that

576
00:36:38,200 --> 00:36:40,120
Speaker 1: are like, well, we are making we specialize and we

577
00:36:40,120 --> 00:36:42,799
Speaker 1: can produce this and this and this medication like these

578
00:36:42,800 --> 00:36:44,680
Speaker 1: three and we have and here's the information you can

579
00:36:44,719 --> 00:36:46,759
Speaker 1: find online about our process. You know that we know

580
00:36:46,840 --> 00:36:48,719
Speaker 1: what we're doing, and if you need these things, you

581
00:36:48,800 --> 00:36:50,480
Speaker 1: let us know and we we get them to you.

582
00:36:50,760 --> 00:36:52,960
Speaker 1: And here's different ways in which people can volunteer if

583
00:36:53,000 --> 00:36:55,120
Speaker 1: you want to help engage in this mutual aid process,

584
00:36:55,120 --> 00:36:58,440
Speaker 1: even if you're not someone who's going to be doing

585
00:36:58,480 --> 00:37:00,480
Speaker 1: a lot of the technical stuff. We need people to

586
00:37:00,520 --> 00:37:02,160
Speaker 1: go pick up parts, so we need people to do this,

587
00:37:02,200 --> 00:37:07,000
Speaker 1: and you can help us here, you know, And I think, yeah, yeah,

588
00:37:07,080 --> 00:37:08,759
Speaker 1: And I think in a similar way, right, a lot

589
00:37:08,760 --> 00:37:11,399
Speaker 1: of that sort of thing is already happening in other

590
00:37:11,560 --> 00:37:14,160
Speaker 1: realms right where it's the sort of thing where you

591
00:37:14,360 --> 00:37:17,279
Speaker 1: you might be building something, or you you see some

592
00:37:17,320 --> 00:37:19,719
Speaker 1: project on GitHub or whatever, and some there are these

593
00:37:19,880 --> 00:37:22,759
Speaker 1: STL files and you go, oh, gosh, well I don't

594
00:37:22,760 --> 00:37:24,600
Speaker 1: want how to do that, but oh right, x y

595
00:37:24,680 --> 00:37:27,520
Speaker 1: z down the street as a three D printer. I'll

596
00:37:27,520 --> 00:37:30,280
Speaker 1: go ask her. She's really good at making these things.

597
00:37:30,719 --> 00:37:32,799
Speaker 1: And you say, hey, look, I have this thing. Would

598
00:37:32,800 --> 00:37:35,920
Speaker 1: this be difficult to print? And with their experience, they

599
00:37:35,960 --> 00:37:38,439
Speaker 1: can kind of look at me like, I know that

600
00:37:38,440 --> 00:37:41,040
Speaker 1: that shouldn't be too hard. Um, you know, I I

601
00:37:41,080 --> 00:37:42,719
Speaker 1: have some time this weekend, maybe I can make that

602
00:37:42,800 --> 00:37:46,080
Speaker 1: for you. And in the same way, you say, hey,

603
00:37:46,160 --> 00:37:48,920
Speaker 1: it looks like I seem to have this rare infection

604
00:37:49,600 --> 00:37:54,080
Speaker 1: from whatever whatever, or I have this odd condition. Um,

605
00:37:54,120 --> 00:37:57,080
Speaker 1: I wanted to try this medication because it might be

606
00:37:57,120 --> 00:38:00,360
Speaker 1: really helpful, but it's not legal in this kind treat

607
00:38:00,640 --> 00:38:02,920
Speaker 1: Do you think you can put this together? Again? You know,

608
00:38:02,960 --> 00:38:05,520
Speaker 1: you call somebody and whoever's on the other lines, and so,

609
00:38:05,560 --> 00:38:09,120
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I have a micro lab. I can try

610
00:38:09,120 --> 00:38:11,080
Speaker 1: and put a program together for that and see if

611
00:38:11,080 --> 00:38:13,480
Speaker 1: I can make it for you. That sort of thing,

612
00:38:13,520 --> 00:38:19,160
Speaker 1: I think is a potentially really positive avenue for that

613
00:38:19,280 --> 00:38:22,920
Speaker 1: sort of thing to proliferate and again eventually to have

614
00:38:24,120 --> 00:38:31,200
Speaker 1: a cultural shift where the idea of medicine and medical

615
00:38:31,280 --> 00:38:36,800
Speaker 1: technology not being something that is comes down from above

616
00:38:36,920 --> 00:38:42,239
Speaker 1: from some authority, but instead is something that's managed by

617
00:38:42,719 --> 00:38:46,480
Speaker 1: people who are part of your community, who you already trust.

618
00:38:46,760 --> 00:38:49,240
Speaker 1: I mean, that's why going to a doctor is so scary.

619
00:38:49,320 --> 00:38:52,399
Speaker 1: They seem to be the arbiter of your fate. They're

620
00:38:52,400 --> 00:38:56,120
Speaker 1: going to tell you whether you're well or not, and

621
00:38:56,120 --> 00:39:01,880
Speaker 1: and that is just the truth, and much better to

622
00:39:02,040 --> 00:39:05,040
Speaker 1: have it where people are making up their own mind

623
00:39:05,239 --> 00:39:09,640
Speaker 1: based on learning about their own health and consulting with

624
00:39:09,680 --> 00:39:14,280
Speaker 1: people who can give them perspective. Um. And if there's

625
00:39:14,440 --> 00:39:17,880
Speaker 1: more of that, and if it's closer to the person

626
00:39:18,000 --> 00:39:22,360
Speaker 1: who's actually suffering, that I think will be on the

627
00:39:22,400 --> 00:39:26,879
Speaker 1: whole much better. Yeah. It's this the and this gets

628
00:39:26,920 --> 00:39:28,839
Speaker 1: tangled up in a lot of the more toxic things

629
00:39:28,880 --> 00:39:31,120
Speaker 1: we've seen this year, But it's this this understanding that

630
00:39:33,160 --> 00:39:37,319
Speaker 1: with any given problem, if individuals trying to solve that

631
00:39:37,360 --> 00:39:40,760
Speaker 1: problem have more autonomy, and part of autonomy is knowledge,

632
00:39:41,680 --> 00:39:45,799
Speaker 1: that's nearly always better. Um. The problem, of course is

633
00:39:45,840 --> 00:39:47,680
Speaker 1: that like we we get into this situation, we are

634
00:39:47,719 --> 00:39:50,920
Speaker 1: now where some people take I'm take some people some

635
00:39:50,960 --> 00:39:54,160
Speaker 1: people use I want to take control of my health

636
00:39:54,200 --> 00:39:57,319
Speaker 1: care to you know, do stuff that's nonsense. And that

637
00:39:57,400 --> 00:39:59,680
Speaker 1: brings us back to the question of like, yeah, you

638
00:39:59,760 --> 00:40:02,239
Speaker 1: need in for the quality of the information that you're

639
00:40:02,280 --> 00:40:05,200
Speaker 1: getting is very important, right because if if you're if

640
00:40:05,239 --> 00:40:08,160
Speaker 1: you if your research is some YouTube video that has

641
00:40:08,160 --> 00:40:10,960
Speaker 1: convinced you that you need to you know, take this

642
00:40:10,960 --> 00:40:13,480
Speaker 1: this horse paste or something, then yeah, that's not good.

643
00:40:13,520 --> 00:40:17,280
Speaker 1: But that doesn't change the fact that like with food,

644
00:40:17,440 --> 00:40:20,799
Speaker 1: like with with everything, that you need to survive, the

645
00:40:20,920 --> 00:40:26,600
Speaker 1: more of a role you have in understanding that, deciding

646
00:40:26,760 --> 00:40:28,759
Speaker 1: what to do with that, understanding where it comes from

647
00:40:28,800 --> 00:40:32,600
Speaker 1: and how it is produced. Um. Not just like, not

648
00:40:32,680 --> 00:40:34,759
Speaker 1: only is that I think more satisfying as a human,

649
00:40:34,800 --> 00:40:42,200
Speaker 1: but it's it's also critical to to your well being. UM.

650
00:40:42,239 --> 00:40:46,120
Speaker 1: It's critical to like on two levels, right on two levels,

651
00:40:46,160 --> 00:40:52,560
Speaker 1: because not only when your health is taken from you,

652
00:40:54,560 --> 00:40:57,080
Speaker 1: it doesn't deprive you of life, but it deprives you

653
00:40:57,200 --> 00:41:02,880
Speaker 1: participating in any of the acts that make life meaningful.

654
00:41:03,719 --> 00:41:06,680
Speaker 1: And part of that key thing that makes life meaningful

655
00:41:06,920 --> 00:41:14,120
Speaker 1: is having a participatory role in the things that decide

656
00:41:14,160 --> 00:41:17,919
Speaker 1: the trajectory of your life. And so when you go

657
00:41:18,560 --> 00:41:24,320
Speaker 1: to the lengths of managing your own health, two things happen.

658
00:41:24,840 --> 00:41:29,160
Speaker 1: First off, your health improves, assuming you've made good decisions

659
00:41:29,160 --> 00:41:34,160
Speaker 1: and get lucky. But second, you're also having a participatory

660
00:41:34,320 --> 00:41:39,680
Speaker 1: role in your life, and that makes life more meaningful.

661
00:41:40,320 --> 00:41:44,600
Speaker 1: And it beyond just kind of the self actualization benefits

662
00:41:44,719 --> 00:41:48,000
Speaker 1: from from a perspective of actually enabling people to participate

663
00:41:48,520 --> 00:41:52,080
Speaker 1: in the move for radical change in our society. One

664
00:41:52,200 --> 00:41:54,839
Speaker 1: necessary element of that to any of the kind of

665
00:41:54,880 --> 00:41:59,520
Speaker 1: things that we need is a belief in your own

666
00:41:59,560 --> 00:42:03,720
Speaker 1: agent see and power. Um. And also and a freedom

667
00:42:03,760 --> 00:42:07,080
Speaker 1: from the kind of fear that comes from feeling helpless.

668
00:42:07,120 --> 00:42:10,160
Speaker 1: And there is I think probably no feeling worse in

669
00:42:10,280 --> 00:42:15,280
Speaker 1: the world than feeling completely helpless about a treatable medical problem. UM.

670
00:42:15,320 --> 00:42:17,120
Speaker 1: I mean, it's one thing I just went through my mom,

671
00:42:17,160 --> 00:42:19,040
Speaker 1: when when you get a disease where there's just nothing

672
00:42:19,040 --> 00:42:21,319
Speaker 1: that science can do, right, We're like, yeah, you've got

673
00:42:21,360 --> 00:42:24,279
Speaker 1: this cancer, and there there ain't ship anybody has for you.

674
00:42:24,280 --> 00:42:28,560
Speaker 1: You know, that's one kind of horrible, but I think

675
00:42:28,600 --> 00:42:31,879
Speaker 1: it's a lot less terrible than you. I have this

676
00:42:31,960 --> 00:42:34,399
Speaker 1: thing that we can deal with, but I either can't

677
00:42:34,400 --> 00:42:35,879
Speaker 1: afford it or I don't know that I'll be able

678
00:42:35,920 --> 00:42:38,080
Speaker 1: to afford it. I had a horrible I lost my

679
00:42:38,239 --> 00:42:41,480
Speaker 1: job in my healthcare in seventeen and so did a

680
00:42:41,520 --> 00:42:43,319
Speaker 1: person who was on my healthcare with me that I

681
00:42:43,320 --> 00:42:48,000
Speaker 1: love very much. And I got this, you know, hired

682
00:42:48,040 --> 00:42:50,480
Speaker 1: here in healthcare a couple of years later. And it

683
00:42:50,560 --> 00:42:55,279
Speaker 1: happened that a month before the the I started my

684
00:42:55,360 --> 00:42:57,920
Speaker 1: health care at this new job, this person who was

685
00:42:57,920 --> 00:43:00,879
Speaker 1: on my healthcare with me UM diagnosed with a brain

686
00:43:00,960 --> 00:43:03,160
Speaker 1: tumor and thankfully not a cancerous one, but the one

687
00:43:03,200 --> 00:43:05,080
Speaker 1: that they had to take medication for that would have

688
00:43:05,120 --> 00:43:10,400
Speaker 1: been would have bankrupted us, you know, without the without insurance.

689
00:43:10,560 --> 00:43:14,200
Speaker 1: And thankfully it worked out fine, the timing worked out okay.

690
00:43:14,239 --> 00:43:16,000
Speaker 1: But there's not a week that goes by that I

691
00:43:16,040 --> 00:43:20,000
Speaker 1: don't and it it's it's it is something that makes

692
00:43:20,000 --> 00:43:23,040
Speaker 1: you less willing to take risks, less willing to participate

693
00:43:23,239 --> 00:43:26,160
Speaker 1: in in things that because you have in the back

694
00:43:26,200 --> 00:43:28,239
Speaker 1: of your head, well, I have to I have to

695
00:43:28,320 --> 00:43:30,120
Speaker 1: keep this job, I have to keep this insurance, I

696
00:43:30,160 --> 00:43:34,400
Speaker 1: have to y yeah that And that's another thing that

697
00:43:34,440 --> 00:43:39,040
Speaker 1: I find so heartbreaking. There's so many people that I've

698
00:43:39,520 --> 00:43:45,560
Speaker 1: I've met totally outside of my activism who lament about

699
00:43:45,560 --> 00:43:48,080
Speaker 1: working a job that they hate, and I say, gosh,

700
00:43:48,080 --> 00:43:52,640
Speaker 1: for you know, I mean, you consider just bailing on

701
00:43:52,680 --> 00:43:55,600
Speaker 1: it and looking for something else and trying something else.

702
00:43:55,680 --> 00:44:04,080
Speaker 1: And they have this total paralysis of saying, but if

703
00:44:04,080 --> 00:44:08,400
Speaker 1: I quit my job, I won't have healthcare mhm and

704
00:44:08,400 --> 00:44:13,200
Speaker 1: and and mind you like, these were people who were

705
00:44:13,960 --> 00:44:17,960
Speaker 1: incredibly healthy. These were not people who had any regular

706
00:44:18,520 --> 00:44:22,239
Speaker 1: visits to healthcare. They're just scared that if something comes up,

707
00:44:22,600 --> 00:44:25,279
Speaker 1: they want people to handle it. And it's it's a

708
00:44:25,480 --> 00:44:29,480
Speaker 1: perfectly well grounded fear. But as you point out, what

709
00:44:29,560 --> 00:44:34,240
Speaker 1: this does is it works as this sort of shadow

710
00:44:34,960 --> 00:44:42,480
Speaker 1: oppressive mechanism to keep people from exploring, trying things, as

711
00:44:42,480 --> 00:44:46,200
Speaker 1: you say, taking risks, or or just doing things that

712
00:44:47,239 --> 00:44:54,000
Speaker 1: don't involve a an optimization toward a stable state of

713
00:44:54,120 --> 00:44:56,520
Speaker 1: maybe just like yeah, maybe I'll start a small business

714
00:44:56,520 --> 00:44:58,480
Speaker 1: and yeah, it probably will fail, but that will be

715
00:44:58,520 --> 00:45:03,280
Speaker 1: a cool adventure. And most people, you know, so many people,

716
00:45:03,560 --> 00:45:08,680
Speaker 1: maybe not most, but many, many people, um get just

717
00:45:08,920 --> 00:45:13,120
Speaker 1: terrified into this state of inertial paralysis. Yeah, and it

718
00:45:13,160 --> 00:45:16,400
Speaker 1: contributes to people being afraid to take to the street

719
00:45:16,440 --> 00:45:19,000
Speaker 1: to protest the police because maybe they get arrested, and

720
00:45:19,040 --> 00:45:21,400
Speaker 1: maybe they get fired, and then you know, maybe their

721
00:45:21,440 --> 00:45:25,200
Speaker 1: kid can't afford their Like there's a thousand ways. I think, honestly,

722
00:45:25,239 --> 00:45:28,680
Speaker 1: the fear of losing your health care is in some

723
00:45:28,760 --> 00:45:31,960
Speaker 1: ways as great a greater counterrevolutionary force than any law

724
00:45:32,040 --> 00:45:34,759
Speaker 1: enforcement agency could hope to be, because the fear is

725
00:45:34,800 --> 00:45:39,560
Speaker 1: so much more immediate to so many people. Nobody talks

726
00:45:39,640 --> 00:45:42,520
Speaker 1: about that. And thank you so much for mentioning it,

727
00:45:42,560 --> 00:45:45,439
Speaker 1: because it's something that like, oftentimes I try to bring

728
00:45:45,520 --> 00:45:49,200
Speaker 1: up when I'm discussing things in public for it, and

729
00:45:49,200 --> 00:45:51,520
Speaker 1: and oftentimes people kind of raise an eyebrow on me

730
00:45:51,560 --> 00:45:53,759
Speaker 1: and be like, that's what's the big deal, And I'm like, no, no,

731
00:45:54,080 --> 00:45:57,800
Speaker 1: Like you look two layers deep. There's something that's really

732
00:45:57,840 --> 00:46:06,160
Speaker 1: working against people being able to exercise protests, and it's, uh,

733
00:46:06,200 --> 00:46:10,360
Speaker 1: it's it's it's this really silent, terrifying force that seems

734
00:46:10,360 --> 00:46:15,960
Speaker 1: to underlie everything. And if you could alleviate that, if

735
00:46:16,000 --> 00:46:18,719
Speaker 1: you can get to the point where people are like, yeah,

736
00:46:18,719 --> 00:46:21,160
Speaker 1: the hell with it, you know, I don't need a

737
00:46:21,360 --> 00:46:25,400
Speaker 1: job to take care of me, then all of a sudden,

738
00:46:25,719 --> 00:46:31,919
Speaker 1: so many possibilities just blossomed in the mind. Yeah, if

739
00:46:31,960 --> 00:46:33,960
Speaker 1: you have, like it, say, if you're a parent who

740
00:46:33,960 --> 00:46:38,320
Speaker 1: has a child with you know who, who's insolent dependent. Uh,

741
00:46:38,480 --> 00:46:41,560
Speaker 1: there's not a lot of difference in my mind between

742
00:46:41,640 --> 00:46:44,560
Speaker 1: the fact that between someone holding a gun to your

743
00:46:44,560 --> 00:46:47,200
Speaker 1: head and your boss being able to fire you and

744
00:46:47,239 --> 00:46:49,839
Speaker 1: take away your your kids access to that insulent there's

745
00:46:49,880 --> 00:46:54,439
Speaker 1: not a tremendous moral difference to me. Um, I'd say

746
00:46:54,480 --> 00:46:57,720
Speaker 1: getting a gun to your head is actually more likely

747
00:46:57,760 --> 00:47:02,080
Speaker 1: to survive that for it's less inevitable. You could talk

748
00:47:02,160 --> 00:47:05,520
Speaker 1: your way out of that, and yeah, whatever, but there

749
00:47:05,560 --> 00:47:07,520
Speaker 1: are any number of things that might go wrong there.

750
00:47:07,600 --> 00:47:10,400
Speaker 1: But if somebody takes takes away your insulin, that's the

751
00:47:10,680 --> 00:47:14,000
Speaker 1: end of the story. Yeah, I guess the more salient

752
00:47:14,080 --> 00:47:16,840
Speaker 1: point than the comparison issues. They're both acts of violence,

753
00:47:17,239 --> 00:47:19,600
Speaker 1: and in every way that's meaningful, I think they're both

754
00:47:19,600 --> 00:47:23,399
Speaker 1: acts of violence. And one way that when I rail

755
00:47:23,719 --> 00:47:28,080
Speaker 1: against intellectual property as a concept and intellectual property law,

756
00:47:28,719 --> 00:47:31,400
Speaker 1: the example that I give is they say, if somebody

757
00:47:31,400 --> 00:47:34,759
Speaker 1: were dying and you knew how to save them, would

758
00:47:34,800 --> 00:47:39,399
Speaker 1: you ever not tell them how and just watch them die? Say,

759
00:47:39,719 --> 00:47:41,960
Speaker 1: oh no, that idea belongs to me, and I'm not

760
00:47:41,960 --> 00:47:45,960
Speaker 1: going to share unless you pay me. Like no human

761
00:47:46,120 --> 00:47:50,319
Speaker 1: being that I think I've ever heard of would do that.

762
00:47:51,080 --> 00:47:57,440
Speaker 1: And yet this happens every day because we've sort of

763
00:47:57,520 --> 00:48:02,680
Speaker 1: carried these questions of copy into patents and despite the

764
00:48:02,680 --> 00:48:04,719
Speaker 1: fact that they are hundreds of years old and not

765
00:48:05,080 --> 00:48:10,279
Speaker 1: applicable anymore, assuming they were ever applicable, and people just

766
00:48:10,400 --> 00:48:13,239
Speaker 1: die because people say, oh, well, we can make more

767
00:48:13,239 --> 00:48:25,239
Speaker 1: money if we do it this way. There's a fascinating

768
00:48:26,280 --> 00:48:29,160
Speaker 1: thing going on there when you really drilled into that idea.

769
00:48:29,160 --> 00:48:31,120
Speaker 1: Because I suspect. There are a lot of people who

770
00:48:31,160 --> 00:48:36,520
Speaker 1: have who are are integral in propping up this system,

771
00:48:36,560 --> 00:48:39,040
Speaker 1: both of kind of medical intellectual property and of just

772
00:48:39,120 --> 00:48:41,439
Speaker 1: like the pharmaceutical industry, the way that it works people

773
00:48:41,480 --> 00:48:44,239
Speaker 1: in politics, huge numbers of people who are integral in

774
00:48:44,760 --> 00:48:48,480
Speaker 1: some facet of keeping that going, who also, were they

775
00:48:48,520 --> 00:48:51,439
Speaker 1: to see an individual and immediate medical distress, would never

776
00:48:51,600 --> 00:48:55,160
Speaker 1: think of like try getting their debit card number or

777
00:48:55,160 --> 00:48:58,640
Speaker 1: whatever like asking them, would would without thinking attempt because

778
00:48:58,680 --> 00:49:00,800
Speaker 1: that's what people do, and it's I mean, this is

779
00:49:00,800 --> 00:49:02,440
Speaker 1: where we get into kind of some of these more

780
00:49:03,080 --> 00:49:07,640
Speaker 1: philosophical anarchist ideas about what hierarchy does and what these

781
00:49:07,680 --> 00:49:11,520
Speaker 1: structures do, because structures enable people to participate in evil

782
00:49:11,520 --> 00:49:15,200
Speaker 1: that they never would as an individual. Um, yeah, there's

783
00:49:15,239 --> 00:49:19,759
Speaker 1: this easy route that many easy routes that pop up

784
00:49:20,440 --> 00:49:25,280
Speaker 1: that allow people or force i should say force people

785
00:49:25,360 --> 00:49:29,040
Speaker 1: to be displaced from their humanity in that sort of

786
00:49:29,080 --> 00:49:33,080
Speaker 1: way where yes, of course, you you help somebody up

787
00:49:33,080 --> 00:49:36,640
Speaker 1: off of subway tracks if they've fallen. Yes of course,

788
00:49:36,719 --> 00:49:40,239
Speaker 1: if somebody were drowning, you drag them out and save them.

789
00:49:40,640 --> 00:49:44,600
Speaker 1: And yet just because it's a degree removed and it's

790
00:49:44,840 --> 00:49:49,560
Speaker 1: mediated by an agency. Suddenly it's so easy to forget

791
00:49:49,680 --> 00:49:54,680
Speaker 1: and ignore and be sort of complicit. And yeah, and

792
00:49:54,719 --> 00:49:58,000
Speaker 1: I just to go back around to what four Thieves

793
00:49:58,080 --> 00:50:00,319
Speaker 1: is doing and what y'all are doing it. It's one

794
00:50:00,360 --> 00:50:04,600
Speaker 1: of the few projects going on right now that fits

795
00:50:04,760 --> 00:50:08,800
Speaker 1: what my idealistic nineteen year old brain thought the Internet

796
00:50:08,840 --> 00:50:10,840
Speaker 1: would be sixteen fifteen, Like when I when it was,

797
00:50:10,920 --> 00:50:14,000
Speaker 1: when things were newer and a little less We're like, oh,

798
00:50:14,120 --> 00:50:16,120
Speaker 1: this is like one of these days, Well, this kind

799
00:50:16,120 --> 00:50:19,919
Speaker 1: of ship's gonna happen um. And that is I think,

800
00:50:19,960 --> 00:50:23,000
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's not without value from again a

801
00:50:23,040 --> 00:50:26,600
Speaker 1: revolutionary perspective, the fact that it is pretty rad. You

802
00:50:26,640 --> 00:50:30,200
Speaker 1: know well, I mean I will not deny the fact

803
00:50:30,200 --> 00:50:33,160
Speaker 1: that it feels good, you know. There. I think that

804
00:50:34,880 --> 00:50:36,799
Speaker 1: I think that we all grew up with that sort

805
00:50:36,800 --> 00:50:42,000
Speaker 1: of hope and belief that we were gonna open these

806
00:50:42,120 --> 00:50:44,040
Speaker 1: new doors and they were going to be these new

807
00:50:44,080 --> 00:50:48,080
Speaker 1: possibilities and things that we have been reading about in

808
00:50:48,120 --> 00:50:52,400
Speaker 1: science fiction. We're going to become real and and there's

809
00:50:52,680 --> 00:50:57,640
Speaker 1: there's a great satisfaction in not just witnessing your childhood

810
00:50:57,760 --> 00:51:00,600
Speaker 1: dreams become realities, but actually, you know, having a hand

811
00:51:00,640 --> 00:51:04,600
Speaker 1: in it. Uh, it's there's there's something quite satisfying about that.

812
00:51:04,640 --> 00:51:08,879
Speaker 1: I will yeah, I will admit, well, I think that's

813
00:51:08,920 --> 00:51:11,640
Speaker 1: a pretty good point to close out on today. I

814
00:51:11,640 --> 00:51:13,600
Speaker 1: don't need to take up too much more of your

815
00:51:13,600 --> 00:51:16,360
Speaker 1: time right now, Michael. But but as I told people,

816
00:51:16,400 --> 00:51:19,160
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be I'm gonna be trying to get into

817
00:51:19,200 --> 00:51:21,799
Speaker 1: some of this because I find it just both fascinating

818
00:51:21,840 --> 00:51:27,680
Speaker 1: and incredibly hopeful. Um. In a world where it seems like, uh,

819
00:51:27,719 --> 00:51:31,120
Speaker 1: there are constantly forces conspiring to strip people of their

820
00:51:31,160 --> 00:51:34,240
Speaker 1: ability to take control of critical aspects of their lives,

821
00:51:34,680 --> 00:51:37,560
Speaker 1: you and your your colleagues in this are trying to

822
00:51:37,600 --> 00:51:43,680
Speaker 1: give people opportunities to take some some power back for themselves,

823
00:51:43,760 --> 00:51:47,960
Speaker 1: and I just think that's it's pretty dope. Thank you

824
00:51:48,080 --> 00:51:51,080
Speaker 1: so much. Yeah, and see your listeners. If there are

825
00:51:51,080 --> 00:51:52,920
Speaker 1: people out there who like what we're doing and you

826
00:51:52,920 --> 00:51:57,239
Speaker 1: want to support the project, please go find somebody who

827
00:51:57,320 --> 00:52:00,279
Speaker 1: needs your help but doesn't deserve it, and then help

828
00:52:00,320 --> 00:52:05,360
Speaker 1: them anyway. Yeah. Yeah, that's always a good thing to do. Um, Michael,

829
00:52:05,400 --> 00:52:08,200
Speaker 1: anything else, any like a thing else you want to

830
00:52:08,280 --> 00:52:10,320
Speaker 1: kind of put this is normally this section where people

831
00:52:10,320 --> 00:52:13,239
Speaker 1: plug websites or projects or anything, you've got anything in

832
00:52:13,239 --> 00:52:17,719
Speaker 1: particularly you want to throw out there right now. Uh sure,

833
00:52:17,400 --> 00:52:20,200
Speaker 1: We're hoping to do a bunch of big releases in

834
00:52:20,239 --> 00:52:23,799
Speaker 1: the summer um, so look for those. In the meantime,

835
00:52:24,960 --> 00:52:28,759
Speaker 1: we're always looking for help, So if you're out there

836
00:52:29,040 --> 00:52:32,879
Speaker 1: and you'd like to be assisted in the project, uh,

837
00:52:33,040 --> 00:52:35,560
Speaker 1: please get in touch. There's the contact us page on

838
00:52:35,600 --> 00:52:38,560
Speaker 1: the website. And by the way, this do not have

839
00:52:38,640 --> 00:52:41,480
Speaker 1: to be a technical person we're looking for currently, we're

840
00:52:41,480 --> 00:52:44,480
Speaker 1: looking for writers. We have a lot of documentation that

841
00:52:44,520 --> 00:52:46,919
Speaker 1: we need to do, So if you're out there and

842
00:52:47,040 --> 00:52:53,799
Speaker 1: you have you know, background in in language, then that

843
00:52:53,800 --> 00:52:56,560
Speaker 1: would be great. If if you're somebody who feels that

844
00:52:56,600 --> 00:53:00,160
Speaker 1: you're entirely without skills, please get in touch. We have

845
00:53:00,239 --> 00:53:03,239
Speaker 1: any number of endless small tasks that just need to

846
00:53:03,239 --> 00:53:05,640
Speaker 1: be taken care of because we don't have enough people.

847
00:53:06,280 --> 00:53:09,400
Speaker 1: So if you'd like to participate, we'd love to have you.

848
00:53:09,640 --> 00:53:13,640
Speaker 1: Please get in touch and in the meantime, keep each

849
00:53:13,680 --> 00:53:17,320
Speaker 1: other healthy, keep each other. Thank you so much, Michael,

850
00:53:18,000 --> 00:53:23,520
Speaker 1: thanks so much for having me. It could happen here

851
00:53:23,520 --> 00:53:26,200
Speaker 1: as a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts

852
00:53:26,200 --> 00:53:28,800
Speaker 1: from Cool Zone Media, visit our website. Cool zone media

853
00:53:28,880 --> 00:53:30,680
Speaker 1: dot com or check us out on the I Heart

854
00:53:30,719 --> 00:53:33,799
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts,

855
00:53:34,320 --> 00:53:36,440
Speaker 1: you can find sources for It could happen here, Updated

856
00:53:36,520 --> 00:53:39,959
Speaker 1: monthly at cool zone media dot com slash sources. Thanks

857
00:53:40,000 --> 00:53:40,560
Speaker 1: for listening.