WEBVTT - Diversity With Andrew 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:12.100 I find the word diversity has become so politically charged nowadays. 0:00:13.080 --> 0:00:17.440 You know, as a buzzword, as a dirty word. You know, 0:00:17.460 --> 0:00:20.890 we see it caught up in terms like the AI, 0:00:21.630 --> 0:00:26.490 in the debates around immigration and representation and all the 0:00:26.590 --> 0:00:33.100 culture wars that have captured so much of the world's 0:00:33.140 --> 0:00:36.880 attention as of late but what has my attention recently 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:39.640 the kind of diversity that i want to focus on 0:00:40.500 --> 0:00:45.100 is the diversity that we are losing that we are 0:00:45.220 --> 0:00:49.419 critically losing right now we're living through what many scientists 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:54.100 describe as the sixth mass extinction species are disappearing at 0:00:54.160 --> 0:01:00.060 a rate driven overwhelmingly by human activity languages are dying 0:01:00.630 --> 0:01:04.860 Indigenous knowledge is disappearing and entire cultures have been erased, 0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:11.560 assimilated or reduced to museum pieces. We are, in our lifetimes, 0:01:11.640 --> 0:01:15.610 witnessing a profound loss of what author David Harmon calls 0:01:15.970 --> 0:01:20.330 biocultural diversity, the combined diversity of life and human culture. 0:01:20.890 --> 0:01:22.649 And all of this has happened at the same time 0:01:22.709 --> 0:01:27.899 that diversity itself has become so politically controversial. So the 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:29.940 question I want to talk about today is why we 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:33.020 should even care about diversity in the first place. Why 0:01:33.080 --> 0:01:35.780 does it matter that thousands of languages exist? Why should 0:01:35.830 --> 0:01:38.530 we care if a species disappears? Why does it matter 0:01:38.550 --> 0:01:40.949 whether there are countless different ways for people to live 0:01:41.050 --> 0:01:45.050 and think and create and organize themselves? Typically, we speak 0:01:45.069 --> 0:01:49.170 of diversity as an unquestioned value, as something that some 0:01:49.190 --> 0:01:52.730 people like or dislike, are opposed to or in favor 0:01:52.750 --> 0:01:56.120 of politically. But I want to make a deeper argument 0:01:56.520 --> 0:02:02.780 that diversity is one of the fundamental conditions that makes life, creativity, 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:07.580 and freedom possible. Welcome to It Could Happen Here. I'm 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:12.030 Andrew Sage, Andrewism on YouTube, and I'm joined again by. 0:02:12.050 --> 0:02:16.209 James, it's great to be back. I'm excited about this one. Yes. 0:02:16.230 --> 0:02:19.850 So I suppose to start with, what would you say 0:02:19.870 --> 0:02:23.380 are the kinds of diversity... that come to mind, you know, 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:25.900 when you hear the term and why would you say 0:02:25.940 --> 0:02:28.640 that it is something that you value if it is 0:02:28.660 --> 0:02:30.310 that you value it? I assume you do. 0:02:31.340 --> 0:02:35.169 Yeah, I do. Like there's like a very liberal way 0:02:35.470 --> 0:02:36.929 of understanding diversity. 0:02:37.010 --> 0:02:37.250 Right. 0:02:37.750 --> 0:02:41.109 And I think sometimes even the libs getting better at 0:02:41.150 --> 0:02:44.260 this libs used to use the word tolerance and A lot, 0:02:44.300 --> 0:02:48.459 which I despise as, as a way of talking about diversity, right? 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:50.669 Like it's like a, I sort of, I don't like it, 0:02:50.700 --> 0:02:52.840 but I'll allow it to exist approach. 0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:54.970 Yes. Like I'll put up with you kind of. 0:02:55.150 --> 0:02:58.410 Yeah, exactly. Like, yeah, it's not getting us to where 0:02:58.430 --> 0:02:58.910 we want to get. 0:02:58.970 --> 0:02:59.150 Right. 0:02:59.310 --> 0:03:02.730 But like, I enjoy that there are people who obviously 0:03:02.770 --> 0:03:05.190 like are diverse in the way that neoliberalism wants us 0:03:05.210 --> 0:03:07.350 to think about diversity in terms of race, in terms 0:03:07.389 --> 0:03:11.950 of sexuality, in terms of neoliberalism is kind of waffling 0:03:12.010 --> 0:03:17.429 on gender. but also like just approaches to the way 0:03:17.490 --> 0:03:20.350 we live our lives, right? Like our cultures, our ways 0:03:20.389 --> 0:03:24.400 of organizing, our ways of being with one another. My 0:03:24.500 --> 0:03:28.180 life is so much richer because I've been exposed to 0:03:28.220 --> 0:03:31.440 that kind of diversity, right? Like I get to travel 0:03:31.700 --> 0:03:36.430 a lot and seeing how people approach all kinds of 0:03:36.490 --> 0:03:40.210 issues has really helped me with ways of dealing with things, 0:03:40.250 --> 0:03:43.430 of crossing the bridges we come to in organizing, in 0:03:43.550 --> 0:03:46.870 trying to live our better lives, because I've been able 0:03:46.930 --> 0:03:49.380 to learn from the ways that they have developed to 0:03:49.410 --> 0:03:51.260 doing it, which is very different from the way we 0:03:51.300 --> 0:03:53.660 do it, right? And so I think that kind of 0:03:53.700 --> 0:03:55.380 diversity is also super important. 0:03:56.180 --> 0:04:00.260 I agree. Absolutely. I think that a lot of times 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:04.980 as well, the conversation is really focused on diversity as 0:04:05.020 --> 0:04:09.380 it relates to people but you know even before we 0:04:09.420 --> 0:04:13.440 get to diversity within our species there is the diversity 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:17.500 that you know transcends our species the diversity of all 0:04:17.520 --> 0:04:22.210 the species of planet earth you know the variation as 0:04:22.410 --> 0:04:24.370 a feature of the world we live. 0:04:24.250 --> 0:04:28.070 In yeah i think that's also like super valuable right 0:04:28.089 --> 0:04:31.419 like and in a way that we can't I was 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:33.790 thinking about this this morning. I was hiking this morning 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:38.590 and like capitalism lacks a means to ascribe value to 0:04:38.630 --> 0:04:41.710 that kind of thing, right? Like I was thinking about 0:04:41.730 --> 0:04:44.710 that in the US, they've proposed to rescind the roadless rule, 0:04:44.750 --> 0:04:48.049 which allows you not to build roads into national forests 0:04:48.290 --> 0:04:51.800 in certain infantry roadless areas. And like there is a 0:04:51.860 --> 0:04:57.700 way of ascribing value to timber, right? You can talk 0:04:57.740 --> 0:05:00.620 about board feet of timber and like, There is a 0:05:00.680 --> 0:05:05.440 way of ascribing cost to roads, right? We can estimate 0:05:05.480 --> 0:05:08.299 how much it will cost to build roads into this area. 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:14.790 But there isn't a way of ascribing value that works 0:05:15.270 --> 0:05:19.040 to the forest being there. to all the things in 0:05:19.060 --> 0:05:22.740 the forest that are not commercial timber being there, right? 0:05:22.820 --> 0:05:25.740 The plants, the animals, the insects. 0:05:25.760 --> 0:05:31.860 It's like the quantifiable value versus like the unquantifiable value, basically. 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:35.409 Yeah, like they're not productive to capital, but they do 0:05:35.490 --> 0:05:38.750 give us something that is valuable. And because capitalism can't 0:05:38.790 --> 0:05:41.469 ascribe value to them, it sometimes fails to protect them, right? 0:05:41.490 --> 0:05:45.310 We've seen this in North America. It's a great example, right? 0:05:46.380 --> 0:05:49.600 Yeah, yeah. Like, how do you ascribe value to a view? 0:05:50.020 --> 0:05:50.200 Right. 0:05:50.360 --> 0:05:52.960 I mean, there's an extent to which we see some 0:05:52.980 --> 0:05:57.740 of that value being wrapped up in the price of, like, 0:05:57.940 --> 0:05:59.560 a house. You know, like, if a house is on 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:02.400 a hillside and has a great view of the ocean 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:05.060 and stuff, people will say, oh, well, we could jack 0:06:05.100 --> 0:06:07.820 up its price on the market because, you know, people 0:06:07.860 --> 0:06:12.480 will pay for that view. You know, a similar concept with, like, 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:16.229 the way that... Hotel rooms might be more expensive on 0:06:16.250 --> 0:06:19.740 the higher floors because you get that kind of panoramic 0:06:19.800 --> 0:06:23.359 view of the city or whatever. But that doesn't really 0:06:23.540 --> 0:06:29.440 capture the experience. It is a crude approximation of the 0:06:29.500 --> 0:06:33.310 experience of waking up in the morning to the sun 0:06:33.370 --> 0:06:36.690 coming over the horizon, the sea in the distance, the 0:06:36.730 --> 0:06:40.910 birds making their way out into the world. None of 0:06:40.930 --> 0:06:44.460 that is captured in the number. It's just a way 0:06:44.870 --> 0:06:50.290 of trying to capture that in order to facilitate exchange. 0:06:51.370 --> 0:06:54.830 Yeah, exactly. It's an attempt to ascribe value to something 0:06:54.850 --> 0:07:01.160 that inherently doesn't fit in that system of the cash exchange, 0:07:01.500 --> 0:07:06.440 which is what makes it valuable and beautiful. But capitalism 0:07:06.480 --> 0:07:10.870 will never really be able to protect those things. Like even, 0:07:10.890 --> 0:07:13.770 you know, in the US we have public lands, right? 0:07:13.810 --> 0:07:17.940 But like, no fucking way. Even like Theodore Roosevelt, right? 0:07:17.980 --> 0:07:19.760 Like all the politicians now are like, oh yeah, we 0:07:19.780 --> 0:07:22.800 love Theodore Roosevelt, blah, blah. You know, most US politicians 0:07:22.840 --> 0:07:26.140 I think would love to be compared to Roosevelt. And 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:27.820 this is not someone who I think is a fantastic 0:07:27.860 --> 0:07:31.670 human being, like morally. But you couldn't do that today. 0:07:31.890 --> 0:07:35.030 Like capitalism is too rapacious today to ever say like 0:07:35.090 --> 0:07:37.870 we are taking... hundreds of thousands of acres and just 0:07:37.890 --> 0:07:41.950 setting them aside because, like, they're nice and it's nice 0:07:41.990 --> 0:07:43.870 for us to have them. So we're going to keep 0:07:43.910 --> 0:07:48.330 them that way. Like, it wouldn't function now, even in 0:07:48.410 --> 0:07:49.670 a way that was possible then, you know? 0:07:50.130 --> 0:07:53.890 Yeah, and I mean, arguably, even that time, those things 0:07:53.930 --> 0:07:59.040 being set aside, a person who had witnessed the old 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:03.000 growth forests of the past, when they were, you know, 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:05.840 in more recent memory, they might even be able to 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:09.030 see that This is such a fraction of the value 0:08:09.050 --> 0:08:13.010 that has been lost. Yes, we're preserving some of what's left, 0:08:13.130 --> 0:08:16.200 but I don't know if you've seen those pictures of 0:08:16.220 --> 0:08:21.100 those ginormous trees that they just chopped down as they 0:08:21.140 --> 0:08:25.700 made that westward expansion into California and whatnot. They didn't 0:08:25.740 --> 0:08:26.660 even use most. 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:26.880 Of the wood. 0:08:26.900 --> 0:08:30.060 They ended up having to discard it, burn it, whatever. 0:08:30.080 --> 0:08:31.210 I didn't know that. 0:08:31.490 --> 0:08:34.730 But this is like centuries worth of growth that was 0:08:34.750 --> 0:08:36.449 just destroyed. 0:08:37.570 --> 0:08:40.370 Yeah, the only reason I think we protected these things, right, 0:08:40.410 --> 0:08:44.270 was because there was a sort of realization that, oh shit, 0:08:44.570 --> 0:08:48.350 we've gone way too far with this capitalist exploitation of things, right? 0:08:48.370 --> 0:08:52.699 Like with this desire to impose ourselves on the world 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:55.200 as it has been for a long time. And like, 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:58.000 that doesn't make up for that, right? It's like your 0:08:58.020 --> 0:09:00.100 analogy of zoos that you used at the start, right? 0:09:00.140 --> 0:09:04.200 Like having the last passenger pigeon die in a zoo, right? 0:09:04.929 --> 0:09:07.390 doesn't make up for killing all the passenger pigeons. Even 0:09:07.429 --> 0:09:09.670 while that passenger pigeon was alive in the zoo, right? 0:09:09.910 --> 0:09:10.150 Yeah. 0:09:10.390 --> 0:09:13.010 Like that's not a trade anyone would make, I guess. 0:09:13.050 --> 0:09:15.490 No one would be like, Oh, I have to think 0:09:15.530 --> 0:09:17.740 about this. Like, is anyone ever going to sit around 0:09:18.420 --> 0:09:22.740 and worry about there not being enough mines or enough 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:28.220 roads or enough logging operations, right? Compared to like, I 0:09:28.260 --> 0:09:31.240 worry about that not being enough forests, worry about there 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:35.660 not being enough wilderness places, you know, like, uh, It's 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:41.220 something that we've failed future generations, I guess, in preserving 0:09:41.260 --> 0:09:42.060 that diversity. 0:09:42.960 --> 0:09:48.700 Yeah. And, you know, as we speak of preserving, preservation, conservation, 0:09:49.260 --> 0:09:53.530 I think there's a tendency within those who value diversity 0:09:53.970 --> 0:09:56.650 that can lead to a sort of a misdirection or 0:09:56.890 --> 0:09:59.870 it can lead to maybe a misplaced aspiration, I would say. 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:05.620 because obviously change itself is not bad you know change 0:10:05.640 --> 0:10:08.730 is inevitable extinction has always been part of the history 0:10:08.750 --> 0:10:12.510 of life ecosystems have always been in flux always evolving 0:10:12.550 --> 0:10:18.330 the borders of you know ecosystems have been moving throughout 0:10:18.870 --> 0:10:24.170 deep time Similarly, cultures have always evolved and mixed and 0:10:24.250 --> 0:10:29.089 some have faded away. So we can't necessarily reject change, right? 0:10:29.110 --> 0:10:36.480 And reject the processes by which cultures and environments may change, 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:41.020 even in response to human intervention. You know, we look 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:43.679 at the forests of North America, since we've been focusing 0:10:43.720 --> 0:10:46.920 on that example, and many of those forests were engineered, 0:10:47.510 --> 0:10:52.330 you know, by human activity. So the Amazon rainforest also 0:10:52.390 --> 0:10:56.579 shows some evidence of human engineering in terms of the 0:10:56.670 --> 0:11:01.220 terra preta, the soils being this very rich soil that 0:11:01.260 --> 0:11:03.980 was deliberately designed by the indigenous peoples. 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:07.600 Yeah. The same with like, I've been reading a lot 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:12.579 on indigenous cultural use of fire for the last few 0:11:12.600 --> 0:11:15.380 weeks here since I got back from Spokane and thinking 0:11:15.420 --> 0:11:21.270 a lot about like how It's a very Western perspective, right? 0:11:21.330 --> 0:11:24.810 To be like the wilderness is the thing that humans 0:11:24.870 --> 0:11:27.810 don't touch and have no engagement with. And then everything 0:11:27.890 --> 0:11:30.670 else humans use as they wish, like to create it 0:11:30.710 --> 0:11:34.890 as this binary distribution, right? Of like the correct way 0:11:34.929 --> 0:11:37.830 to deal with places that are beautiful or special is like, 0:11:38.290 --> 0:11:40.740 just fucking leave it. And the correct way to deal 0:11:40.750 --> 0:11:45.239 with everything else is just fucking pillage it. Like there's 0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:48.740 a way to find balance that they're, We struggle with 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:51.839 it under capitalism, right? Capitalism has struggled to provide us 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:52.219 with that. 0:11:53.059 --> 0:11:55.480 Yeah, I mean, one of the bases of capitalism is 0:11:55.540 --> 0:12:00.030 private property, which as defined under Roman law is the 0:12:00.110 --> 0:12:04.349 right to use and abuse one's own. Right. Use and 0:12:04.390 --> 0:12:07.329 enjoyment and abuse of one's own to the limit of 0:12:07.350 --> 0:12:11.179 the law, which is a stipulation that had various interpretations 0:12:11.260 --> 0:12:14.540 over the years. But we shouldn't be surprised then that 0:12:15.370 --> 0:12:19.170 when something comes under the purview of capitalist property, that 0:12:19.870 --> 0:12:24.180 it has led to such detrimental effects. What is alarming 0:12:24.320 --> 0:12:28.340 about our current situation is not the change that is 0:12:28.380 --> 0:12:31.219 taking place. It is the speed and the scale of 0:12:31.260 --> 0:12:33.960 that change. You know, we don't know exactly how many 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:37.040 species we are losing or have lost. We don't even 0:12:37.090 --> 0:12:39.929 know how many species currently exist. We could even talk 0:12:39.970 --> 0:12:45.420 about the definitions of species and how that taxonomic system 0:12:45.500 --> 0:12:49.300 has evolved with time. But for that discussion, I leave 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:51.980 it to a book that I read on the subject 0:12:52.020 --> 0:12:54.780 that I quite enjoyed, which was In Light of Our 0:12:54.820 --> 0:13:00.070 Differences by David Harmon. But regardless, we're still talking about 0:13:00.210 --> 0:13:05.689 thousands to hundreds of thousands of species lost each year. 0:13:06.170 --> 0:13:08.849 And these are losses that are not happening in isolation 0:13:08.890 --> 0:13:11.970 because we know that every ecosystem is made up of relationships. 0:13:12.530 --> 0:13:15.990 They remove one species, and you can risk disrupting everything 0:13:16.020 --> 0:13:20.490 connected to it. Thankfully, these systems are typically quite resilient, 0:13:20.590 --> 0:13:23.310 so a species loss doesn't have to lead to the 0:13:23.390 --> 0:13:27.590 collapse of the entire ecosystem, but there are species that 0:13:27.929 --> 0:13:32.190 are foundational. Then the disappearance of that single species can 0:13:32.210 --> 0:13:36.350 trigger cascading effects that threaten the entire ecosystem. There's also 0:13:36.370 --> 0:13:40.689 often a lag between our realization that a species has 0:13:40.790 --> 0:13:45.570 fallen below its minimum viable population and the death of 0:13:45.620 --> 0:13:49.670 the final individual of that species. As you mentioned, the 0:13:49.790 --> 0:13:53.150 last passenger pigeon in the zoo, I was reminded of that. 0:13:54.050 --> 0:13:58.640 We see that also happening with human cultures, particularly with language. 0:13:59.620 --> 0:14:03.120 From what I've read, about 44% of living languages today 0:14:03.260 --> 0:14:07.500 are now endangered. Some have fewer than a thousand speakers remaining, 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:11.520 and others are spoken by fewer than 10 people. And 0:14:11.720 --> 0:14:14.200 I know from what you told me of your travels, James, 0:14:14.220 --> 0:14:18.300 that you actually have met people who have spoken some 0:14:18.340 --> 0:14:20.130 of these endangered languages, correct? 0:14:20.930 --> 0:14:26.190 Yeah, certainly. I think about languages that I guess I've 0:14:26.230 --> 0:14:32.210 heard people speak that are less hegemonic. Certainly, I can't 0:14:32.270 --> 0:14:35.240 imagine there are very many speakers of Marshallese, for example, 0:14:35.250 --> 0:14:39.540 in the RMI language. many indigenous languages, right? Like I 0:14:39.570 --> 0:14:42.770 know that Embara like have made a great deal of 0:14:43.070 --> 0:14:46.050 like progress, educating young people in their language, right. And 0:14:46.070 --> 0:14:49.430 like making sure that they, they keep that. I was 0:14:50.070 --> 0:14:53.930 just talking to some like Yoemi and Otam friends this morning. 0:14:54.310 --> 0:14:54.510 Right. 0:14:54.750 --> 0:14:58.730 I think those languages are doing relatively well for indigenous 0:14:58.770 --> 0:15:02.359 languages in what is now the United States. but like 0:15:02.480 --> 0:15:05.470 it's only through the concerted effort of people from that 0:15:05.530 --> 0:15:06.830 community to keep them alive. 0:15:06.890 --> 0:15:07.050 Right. 0:15:07.070 --> 0:15:10.670 Like, I don't think the state has attributed a diversity 0:15:10.750 --> 0:15:14.470 value to those languages and languages. Like they give us 0:15:14.510 --> 0:15:16.430 a way of understanding the world that is different. That's 0:15:16.450 --> 0:15:18.400 why I like to try and learn at least a 0:15:18.410 --> 0:15:21.560 little bit of different languages. Like they, they give us 0:15:21.640 --> 0:15:25.280 a way of seeing things. I think about like, uh, 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:28.690 all the Basque words for rain, right. Or, uh, I 0:15:28.710 --> 0:15:32.460 was diving the other day with like a sea lion 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:34.400 and I was talking to a Spanish speaking friend about 0:15:34.420 --> 0:15:38.880 like in Spanish, they're like wolves of the sea, right? 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:42.480 Lions of the sea. It's kind of interesting. They do 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:44.460 have like a kind of a wolf-like vibe to them 0:15:44.480 --> 0:15:48.140 if you've ever hung out with sea lions. In terms 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:52.730 of what? Like their social structure? Yeah. And like their, like, 0:15:52.850 --> 0:15:54.930 I think people see sea lions as like this big 0:15:55.010 --> 0:16:00.320 cuddly kind of cute thing. And like, they're fucking killers, 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:00.680 you know? 0:16:00.780 --> 0:16:03.780 Oh, trust and believe I don't. I don't trust those 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:04.340 guys at all. 0:16:04.700 --> 0:16:06.840 Yeah, no, they're like, they will fuck. 0:16:06.860 --> 0:16:10.979 I don't trust any mammal that chose to live an 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:13.880 aquatic way of life. Okay, there's something fishy about that. 0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:16.640 I love that. 0:16:16.780 --> 0:16:17.420 Pun intended. 0:16:17.820 --> 0:16:22.020 Yeah, I love that as a category. You know, they're mean. 0:16:22.700 --> 0:16:23.380 They'll come at you. 0:16:35.190 --> 0:16:38.530 As you were mentioning, there are like, according to the ethnologue, 0:16:38.570 --> 0:16:44.170 at least 7,170 living languages in the world today. Our 0:16:44.190 --> 0:16:48.150 lowest underestimations of the amount of cultures, that is, an 0:16:48.610 --> 0:16:54.630 accumulation of knowledge, values, customs, technologies, social practices. Our lowest 0:16:54.700 --> 0:16:57.000 estimate of the number of cultures on Earth is like 4,000. 0:16:57.000 --> 0:17:00.920 There are definitely, certainly more than that. Especially if we 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:04.460 are using language as a proxy for cultural diversity. Right. 0:17:04.859 --> 0:17:10.660 And even within languages, there's tremendous cultural diversity. Yeah. Biologically, 0:17:10.700 --> 0:17:12.840 we have a lot of diversity as well. I neglected 0:17:12.880 --> 0:17:18.290 to mention, you know, blood types, heights, hair textures, all 0:17:18.330 --> 0:17:23.710 of these have emerged across the continents. We've spread out across, 0:17:23.750 --> 0:17:26.830 I mean, obviously the concentration of that diversity is in Africa, 0:17:27.270 --> 0:17:31.780 where we began. But even our adaptations to different environments 0:17:32.390 --> 0:17:36.469 is a form of diversity that... is necessary, you know, 0:17:36.510 --> 0:17:39.100 to maintain as I'll get into some of the arguments 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:42.139 for why later on. But so I didn't know that 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:45.820 Basque had all the different words for rain, but I 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:48.900 am reminded, I think that there are different words in 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:52.760 Inuit languages for describing snow. 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:57.570 Yeah. Like, uh, the, um, I think it's in Yupiak 0:17:57.619 --> 0:17:59.970 have a bunch of words for snow and ice and 0:17:59.990 --> 0:18:02.730 like different textures of it. I'm trying now to find 0:18:02.850 --> 0:18:05.869 Basque words for, uh, uh for rain so i can 0:18:05.890 --> 0:18:10.590 remember some of them yeah lanbroa is drizzle or mist 0:18:11.150 --> 0:18:14.219 i know ziri miri is like a light rain it's 0:18:14.240 --> 0:18:16.580 like the noise it makes i always thought that was 0:18:16.619 --> 0:18:19.420 a really sweet one i had uh that's a fucking 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:24.640 throwback a uh a cornish anarchist who spoke cornish right 0:18:24.850 --> 0:18:26.870 one of the languages that is not hegemonic and it 0:18:26.950 --> 0:18:30.790 is probably relatively endangered even as european languages go right 0:18:31.770 --> 0:18:33.590 I think it's probably having a better time now than 0:18:33.609 --> 0:18:35.430 it was when I was younger, but it was relatively 0:18:35.470 --> 0:18:36.990 rare to encounter a Cornish speaker. 0:18:37.130 --> 0:18:38.610 Cornish that's Cornwall, right? 0:18:38.890 --> 0:18:39.210 Correct. 0:18:39.270 --> 0:18:39.430 Yeah. 0:18:39.450 --> 0:18:41.949 Yeah. It was teaching me all these beautiful words for 0:18:41.990 --> 0:18:46.030 like a different wildlife and different like natural phenomena that 0:18:46.070 --> 0:18:49.710 sort of have an onomatopoeic quality to them. But like 0:18:50.190 --> 0:18:53.450 for some reason, just like the sort of beautiful way 0:18:53.490 --> 0:18:56.110 that they showed of relating. I don't want to like 0:18:56.130 --> 0:18:58.310 a noble, savage Cornish people. 0:18:58.369 --> 0:18:58.469 Right. 0:18:58.490 --> 0:19:00.090 But I just thought that they showed a different way 0:19:00.130 --> 0:19:03.340 of understanding the world and our relationship with it and 0:19:03.380 --> 0:19:06.530 these animals and like how they, how they appear. And like, 0:19:06.590 --> 0:19:09.129 it struck me as really special that that person was like, 0:19:09.150 --> 0:19:12.210 like kept that knowledge and, and that that person shared 0:19:12.250 --> 0:19:14.570 that knowledge with me. Um, this was at some like 0:19:14.590 --> 0:19:19.129 event in Barcelona when I'm like, you know, 21 years old, 0:19:19.130 --> 0:19:21.480 19 years old, something like that. Uh, and it just 0:19:21.540 --> 0:19:24.580 really struck me that, uh, like there was so much 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:27.200 beauty in, in seeing the world through the lens of 0:19:27.260 --> 0:19:29.419 that language. And it would be a real shame if 0:19:29.460 --> 0:19:30.119 we ever lost that. 0:19:30.940 --> 0:19:34.430 Yeah, and I mean, that's just one case study. Every 0:19:34.530 --> 0:19:38.050 other endangered language, I'm sure you could point to similar 0:19:38.570 --> 0:19:41.810 novelties in, you know, how they engage with the world, 0:19:41.869 --> 0:19:43.530 how they describe and see things. 0:19:43.930 --> 0:19:44.470 Sure, yeah. 0:19:45.270 --> 0:19:47.930 And we can extend from language to culture, you know, 0:19:47.970 --> 0:19:51.669 different cuisines, different ways of... you know, engagement with foods, 0:19:52.130 --> 0:19:55.260 you know, different forms of architecture and music and ways 0:19:55.300 --> 0:19:59.859 of telling stories. Yeah. Ways of raising children, ways of 0:19:59.920 --> 0:20:02.780 celebrating and of mourning. Yeah, definitely. 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:04.800 Like there's a lot that I feel like I've learned 0:20:04.859 --> 0:20:07.950 about so many of those things from being lucky enough 0:20:08.010 --> 0:20:11.050 to spend time in different places, right? I guess I 0:20:11.050 --> 0:20:14.270 can give an example from, this is in my book, 0:20:14.330 --> 0:20:16.130 if people want to read more about it, but like 0:20:16.609 --> 0:20:19.170 one of the things that a friend in Kurdistan said 0:20:19.210 --> 0:20:21.430 to me was that like they'd lost a friend, right? 0:20:21.450 --> 0:20:24.540 This friend had died fighting against the Islamic State. One 0:20:24.560 --> 0:20:26.220 of the things that they said was like, because of 0:20:26.280 --> 0:20:28.960 this institution of tech mill, which is like a form 0:20:29.000 --> 0:20:32.460 of collective criticism, it doesn't quite work in English to 0:20:32.480 --> 0:20:34.360 call it collective criticism because you think of Maoism, which 0:20:34.420 --> 0:20:37.740 is not, but because they had like, shared with this 0:20:37.790 --> 0:20:41.930 person their goals, their aspirations, their hopes. And then this 0:20:42.010 --> 0:20:45.209 person through this institution of TechMill had helped them be 0:20:45.250 --> 0:20:49.370 accountable to their own hopes for themselves, that they were 0:20:49.410 --> 0:20:51.830 a better person because of the time they had spent 0:20:51.869 --> 0:20:54.609 with this person. And now that this person was gone, 0:20:56.070 --> 0:21:00.219 they carried him with them in their ways of being 0:21:00.420 --> 0:21:03.760 because he had helped them be a better person. They 0:21:03.780 --> 0:21:05.080 shared it with me at a time when I had 0:21:05.140 --> 0:21:08.419 like lost a dear friend. And it was a really 0:21:09.090 --> 0:21:11.210 beautiful way of me processing that. Like, I'm not a 0:21:11.250 --> 0:21:14.030 person who is like a religious person. I don't, I 0:21:14.090 --> 0:21:17.290 have that belief structure to process it. But like, that 0:21:17.350 --> 0:21:20.390 gave me a sense of an afterlife, which was more 0:21:20.430 --> 0:21:22.889 concrete for me, which I could understand, which I could see. 0:21:23.440 --> 0:21:23.700 Yeah. 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:24.840 And like, it really helped me. 0:21:25.260 --> 0:21:27.140 The afterlife of memory. Yeah. 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:30.440 And of like, like we are all co-created by our community, right? 0:21:30.460 --> 0:21:32.350 Like I didn't make myself the way I am. 0:21:32.369 --> 0:21:32.830 Yeah. 0:21:32.940 --> 0:21:35.070 I was made the way I am by my interactions 0:21:35.109 --> 0:21:37.350 with people who care about me enough to help me 0:21:37.390 --> 0:21:42.530 be better. And the idea of that person who helped 0:21:42.550 --> 0:21:46.250 me co-create the person I am, like still existing in 0:21:46.290 --> 0:21:48.540 the person I am was very powerful to me. Like I, 0:21:48.890 --> 0:21:54.440 it's like a, concrete psychological benefit I got from interacting 0:21:54.460 --> 0:21:56.000 with people who helped me see the world the way 0:21:56.020 --> 0:21:56.470 they see it. 0:21:57.280 --> 0:22:01.420 Absolutely. You know, I'm glad for all the languages that 0:22:01.500 --> 0:22:05.430 still exist and still give us, you know, these words 0:22:05.450 --> 0:22:08.909 for things. Because if nation states had their way, there 0:22:08.930 --> 0:22:12.630 would be like 10 languages left on earth. Yeah. I mean, dramatic. But, 0:22:13.470 --> 0:22:16.830 you know, right now, most of humanity speaks a relatively 0:22:16.950 --> 0:22:22.700 small number of languages. The 23... Most spoken mother languages 0:22:22.760 --> 0:22:26.880 are gone for like 4 billion people, somewhere around there. 0:22:27.200 --> 0:22:30.980 And then the 200 most spoken languages are over 88% 0:22:30.980 --> 0:22:34.330 of the world's population. That's crazy. And this is, of course, 0:22:34.369 --> 0:22:41.409 due to nation building, due to economic pressures, globalization. Basically everywhere, 0:22:41.770 --> 0:22:46.250 the pressures of the status quo have led to indigenous 0:22:46.390 --> 0:22:51.290 and regional languages, minority languages. And if not for the 0:22:51.650 --> 0:22:57.869 concerted efforts of these language communities to maintain their way 0:22:57.910 --> 0:23:00.149 of speaking and to pass it down, we would have 0:23:00.190 --> 0:23:01.990 lost so many more as it is. 0:23:02.010 --> 0:23:03.780 Yeah, definitely. 0:23:04.440 --> 0:23:07.160 As you mentioned, by the way, the words that you've 0:23:07.180 --> 0:23:12.360 picked up over the years from different languages and your 0:23:12.380 --> 0:23:15.700 attempts to explain those words to me, I was reminded 0:23:15.960 --> 0:23:18.939 of a work of fiction that I'd read. I think 0:23:18.960 --> 0:23:22.980 about two years ago. It's a book called Babel by R.F. Kuang. 0:23:23.540 --> 0:23:28.420 And it's kind of like a fantasy historical fiction where 0:23:28.560 --> 0:23:32.660