Speaker 1: Pushkin, This is solvable. I'm Ronald Young Jr. I'm San Fragoso,
Speaker 1: host of Talk Easy with San Fragoso. What if we
Speaker 1: called our parents more, our friends, had better, more fullhearted conversations,
Speaker 1: the kinds we always say we don't have time for
Speaker 1: or just too busy to have listeners. Tis the season
Speaker 1: for problem solving. I mean, that's solvable. We're always steeped
Speaker 1: in it. But this is the time of year that
Speaker 1: the rest of America takes a few extra minutes to
Speaker 1: look carefully at their lives, then set goals, carve out resolutions,
Speaker 1: make fresh intentions for a better life. Hi. I'm Tim Hoffitt.
Speaker 1: I'm the host of Cautionary Tales. The problem I'd like
Speaker 1: to see solved is creating more beautiful, lie walkable neighborhoods.
Speaker 1: If we could solve this problem, that would be good
Speaker 1: from mental health, it'd be good for the economy, good
Speaker 1: for jobs, good for the planet. There's so many ways
Speaker 1: in which this is a problem worth solving, and it
Speaker 1: seems like it shouldn't be such a hard problem. We
Speaker 1: think some problems really should not be too hard to solve.
Speaker 1: And I usually bring someone with the wealth of knowledge
Speaker 1: and a roadmap to tell us how. But we have
Speaker 1: a special episode today, a chance to peer behind the
Speaker 1: curtain with the team that makes Solvable possible. Each week,
Speaker 1: I've invited my colleagues to sit down and talk about
Speaker 1: the things we'd like to see solved. We'll also hear
Speaker 1: from some other pushkin podcast hosts about problems they'd like
Speaker 1: to see solved. And as you're listening, if you think
Speaker 1: of something you'd like us to solve, tweet us at
Speaker 1: Pushkin Pods using the hashtag solvable. Here we go, Hello, team,
Speaker 1: Why don't we go around the table and introduce ourselves
Speaker 1: so that everyone knows what voice matches to what role.
Speaker 1: I'm Sasha, I am the managing producer of Solvaball, and
Speaker 1: I'm coming at you hot from Brooklyn, New York. I'm Joscelyn,
Speaker 1: senior producer of Solva Ball, and I'm joining this chat
Speaker 1: from Minneapolis. I'm David. I do research for the show,
Speaker 1: and I'm at my parents' house in Connecticut for the holiday.
Speaker 1: Look at us. I guess I didn't say I'm in Alexandria, Virginia,
Speaker 1: but here we all are, and I'm so glad that
Speaker 1: you guys get to join me on Mike Today. Welcome,
Speaker 1: happy to me here. All right, So I assembled you
Speaker 1: all because I wanted to talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: problems that we want to see solved next year. I know,
Speaker 1: we guys, we work on this show and we talked
Speaker 1: to a lot of luminaries, but we don't never really
Speaker 1: get to talk to each other about problems. And I
Speaker 1: don't know about y'all, but do you guys feel like
Speaker 1: you guys think more about problems differently since working on
Speaker 1: the show. For sure, I totally do, Yeah, definitely more optimistically.
Speaker 1: I feel I hear about a problem and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: someone's probably going to figure this one out. It's no biggie,
Speaker 1: and then we'll have about the show right right exactly.
Speaker 1: I think it just makes me, like forces me to
Speaker 1: think more specifically, like you have to do something, you know.
Speaker 1: So I like that our researchers bringing it back to
Speaker 1: the ground for us, where like, yeah, it all gets done,
Speaker 1: and he's like, actually have to work hard to find
Speaker 1: the people in a practical way. You guys take it
Speaker 1: for granted, like this takes some effort. So what we
Speaker 1: did was we each of us. I asked you to
Speaker 1: come with a problem that you'd like to see solved
Speaker 1: in the next year or in any time in the future.
Speaker 1: Big or small, doesn't matter. David, Let's start with you.
Speaker 1: What problem would you like to see solved? We talk
Speaker 1: a lot about like serious issues, so I figured i'd
Speaker 1: talk about something with lower stakes. I guess right now,
Speaker 1: there's a global graphics card shortage. Oh wow. It's mainly
Speaker 1: driven by COVID. But like personal computer PC part components
Speaker 1: all around the world are really hard to come by
Speaker 1: right now. And as you guys know, I love video
Speaker 1: game and I play a lot of PC games, and
Speaker 1: I like building computers when I need to know every
Speaker 1: few years. But I've been saving up money for a
Speaker 1: long time and I was really looking forward to my
Speaker 1: next build. But when the pandemic started, it became almost
Speaker 1: impossible to buy graphics cards, which is the most important
Speaker 1: part of your computer if you like gaming, because I mean,
Speaker 1: that's what renders everything, that's what makes everything look beautiful,
Speaker 1: that's where a lot of its visual processing power comes from.
Speaker 1: And there's just a huge global shortage right now, and
Speaker 1: there's a lot of reasons for that. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: sort of just like a classic supply chain issue. And
Speaker 1: manufacturing issue. But it's also a little more complicated. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of bots that people have made because
Speaker 1: everyone knows that these things are in demand and hard
Speaker 1: to get, so like all these like you know, ingenious
Speaker 1: teenage trolls have like set up these automated bots that
Speaker 1: will buy up all of Nvidia's cards in like seconds
Speaker 1: and nobody can get them. And then there's this whole
Speaker 1: push during the pandemic of crypto mining, So a lot
Speaker 1: of people have been mining bitcoin during the pandemic, and
Speaker 1: that's when that's where graphics cars are super useful. And
Speaker 1: so those people, I think are botting as well to
Speaker 1: buy everything. And so if you're just like a normal dude,
Speaker 1: like what else am I supposed to do during lockdown?
Speaker 1: Like I need to play my video games, all right,
Speaker 1: So it's hard. It's just hard to buy graphics cars
Speaker 1: right now, and I wish someone would fix that. David,
Speaker 1: are you optimistic that they'll fix the supply chain issues
Speaker 1: or do you think that somebody will come up with
Speaker 1: some other method to replace the video card as we
Speaker 1: know it now? Like, how do you think what direction
Speaker 1: do you think they'll take it to solve it? I
Speaker 1: think in twenty twenty two. I think they've had a
Speaker 1: whole year twenty twenty one to kind of wrap their
Speaker 1: heads around with the logistical problems are. I think in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two they will fix like the supply chain
Speaker 1: problem that they're having, like they've been. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of companies that make graphics cards are like investing
Speaker 1: in I don't in their plants and ways that make
Speaker 1: it more that they can meet demand. I wish they
Speaker 1: would solve more like the boding problem, and some of
Speaker 1: them haven't tried. Some of them have, you know, in
Speaker 1: video released a new graphics card or whatever, they'll only
Speaker 1: sell it at best Buy in like the brick and
Speaker 1: mortar retail store, and people will like camp out or whatever.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't really work because you can only provide
Speaker 1: like X number of graphics cards. And I don't have
Speaker 1: a tent, so and I'm not going to sleep out
Speaker 1: for a freaking you know, computer card whatever. I'm not
Speaker 1: like one of these crazy bitcoin people, So so I
Speaker 1: don't know, there's there are challenges, like I I'm not
Speaker 1: entirely sure like what their supply chain fixed would look like,
Speaker 1: and I don't even know what the demand is going
Speaker 1: to look like this year, because I wonder if it's
Speaker 1: gonna it's gonna remain that high, if things will change,
Speaker 1: if people are coming out of lockdown and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: I love how much you've thought about that, talking about
Speaker 1: it a little too much. Resale market. Oh yeah, there
Speaker 1: is what I mean, I think they're teenagers. But what
Speaker 1: these like scalpers do, they're scalpers. What they do is
Speaker 1: they they buy up these cards with their bots, you know,
Speaker 1: for six hundred dollars, five hundred dollars a piece, real fast,
Speaker 1: and you know, a couple months later they'll selve for
Speaker 1: like twelve hundred or like twenty four hundred, you know,
Speaker 1: like multiple thousand dollars, and they just make, you know,
Speaker 1: make easy money that way. So it's a it's prime
Speaker 1: for scalping. It's like somebody's going to college off of
Speaker 1: video cards video card fund, Yeah, for school, David, that's
Speaker 1: a great problem. I think it's I like that it's
Speaker 1: like it personally affects you, but it actually is something
Speaker 1: that's probably affecting lots of people. And I think the
Speaker 1: bot problem being solved is probably something that would fix
Speaker 1: a lot more than just video cards shortages. I know personally,
Speaker 1: I like Jordan's sneakers and Nike's generally, and there's a
Speaker 1: boding problem with people buying the shoes as soon as
Speaker 1: they come out, like almost like they're they're gone immediately.
Speaker 1: So I would love to see the boding problem solved
Speaker 1: as well. You know. That's things because I was thinking
Speaker 1: maybe we just need some version of like three D
Speaker 1: glasses where if the you know, video card is really weak,
Speaker 1: they just send everyone, you know, a special pair of
Speaker 1: like high Death Beautiful, real cheap and easy just quick
Speaker 1: quick fix for twenty twenty two. But those would get
Speaker 1: botted too, yeah, real low Fi Consolation Prize. We also
Speaker 1: reached out to hosts of our fellow push gim shows
Speaker 1: for their ideas on problems they'd like to see solved
Speaker 1: in whatever frame of time they chose. Here's our first one.
Speaker 1: I'm Michael Lewis, host of Against the Rules, and the
Speaker 1: major problem in the world that I would like to
Speaker 1: see solved is baseball. How do you make it less boring?
Speaker 1: It's got an aging fan base, declining ratings, and the
Speaker 1: games keep getting longer and longer. I have thoughts about
Speaker 1: how to solve it. I mean, you could do it
Speaker 1: in a stroke by say, like putting a lion on
Speaker 1: the field, like not one of those lazy zoo lions,
Speaker 1: but a line from the savannah. It would get interesting instantly.
Speaker 1: Everybody would watch that, and it's very Roman. It would
Speaker 1: be a very Roman solution to the problem. You could
Speaker 1: turn the stadium into a casino where the fans it's
Speaker 1: ideally suited as a game to bet on everything that
Speaker 1: happens because there's so little action and there's so much
Speaker 1: time between the action, So that'd be another way to
Speaker 1: solve it. I don't think that the little things that
Speaker 1: baseball is thinking about doing around the edge is making
Speaker 1: the bases a little bigger so they're easier to steal,
Speaker 1: and moving the picture back and all that stuff. I
Speaker 1: don't think that's going to address the fundamental problem. I
Speaker 1: think that the game is out of step with the
Speaker 1: age we live in, and so figuring out how to
Speaker 1: change it in a way that preserves it but interest
Speaker 1: people is going to be very hard. And if you
Speaker 1: can figure that out, climate change is a breeze. That
Speaker 1: was Michael Lewis, host of Against the Rules Are Sister
Speaker 1: podcast here at Pushkin. What do you guys think is
Speaker 1: baseball too boring. I mean, baseball is definitely boring. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's too boring. The how boring they slid?
Speaker 1: This is what I love about it. It is such
Speaker 1: an intensely psychological sport because there's just so much standing
Speaker 1: around and so much that happens when you know you're
Speaker 1: standing at the base and your opponent is standing right
Speaker 1: next to you and they like joke around but also
Speaker 1: or adversarial. I don't know. I think baseball is just
Speaker 1: boring enough. There's a lot of passive, aggressive chumminess, Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like in baseball. And then and then there's
Speaker 1: also outright like brawls I guess when like they cleared
Speaker 1: the dugouts or whatever, But that's rare. Being there live
Speaker 1: makes it a lot less boring, But watching it on
Speaker 1: television there's little entertainment value. And then most of the
Speaker 1: fights happen all when there's unwritten rules that are broken,
Speaker 1: and I am not a fan of rule, and baseball
Speaker 1: leans heavily into unwritten rules, which there's a big debate
Speaker 1: about that as well. John, what do you think. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm with you in terms of like watching it versus
Speaker 1: watching it in person. Versus watching it on TV. I
Speaker 1: don't think I've ever watched a whole baseball game on TV.
Speaker 1: The psychological challenge is not just for the players on
Speaker 1: the field, as for the audience too. We have, like,
Speaker 1: you know, how how much consumerism will we fall prey to,
Speaker 1: how much unnecessary snacking? How many times will we get
Speaker 1: up and stretch? Will we accidentally clap just because something happened,
Speaker 1: not because it's a team we're looking for to win.
Speaker 1: But I actually think I love organized sports. I think
Speaker 1: they're really fun. I love team sports especially. It makes
Speaker 1: me and it makes me think about like how much
Speaker 1: fun I had playing them when I was a kid
Speaker 1: and still when I play them now. And but I
Speaker 1: do think it's boring, and I do think that they
Speaker 1: could probably pick it up, Like doesn't need to be
Speaker 1: that many innings. I think that's the easy fix, Like
Speaker 1: just make it fewer innings like little. I think it
Speaker 1: should just it should just make it one inning, one inning,
Speaker 1: That's it. I think the only pushback I have to you, Jocelyn,
Speaker 1: is that unnecessary snacking is an oxymoron all snacking. So
Speaker 1: I don't like the way you put that at all.
Speaker 1: It feels very just that's fair. That's fair. It's funny
Speaker 1: to hear. Michael Lewis, the author of one of my
Speaker 1: favorite books of all time, Moneyball, called Baseball Boring. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Moneyball totally blew my mind. It's incredible. Yeah, Like chess
Speaker 1: is theoretically satisfying, but the action of chess moments moment
Speaker 1: can be very slow. That's why speed chess is awesome,
Speaker 1: and that's why people see that, because it forces you
Speaker 1: to fight. Michael suggests putting a lion in the field.
Speaker 1: So I think I think changing the rules of baseball
Speaker 1: to make it a little more fast paced, maybe a
Speaker 1: little more like score heavy, like basketball or hockey or
Speaker 1: something or such. It on double speed. Yeah, maybe that's
Speaker 1: the that's the answer. I don't know. You need to
Speaker 1: You might need to change the rules. I feel like
Speaker 1: you guys stumbled onto something that about baseball, though, which
Speaker 1: is that like, the more you know about baseball, the
Speaker 1: more interesting it is. It's fun if I know what's happening,
Speaker 1: But when I don't, I'm like, I don't care. So
Speaker 1: I hear the crack of the bat, So I think
Speaker 1: if they can find a way to solve that the
Speaker 1: line on the field, I think would solve that. So Joslyn,
Speaker 1: tell me what problem did you bring to us today.
Speaker 1: I feel like Michael Lewis kind of threw it down
Speaker 1: when he said, like, if we can solve baseball, then
Speaker 1: climate change is easy. Climate change is so huge, And
Speaker 1: we talked about this several different ways on the show,
Speaker 1: like there's ways we can break it down into smaller parts.
Speaker 1: So one of the small parts that I feel like
Speaker 1: I would love to see solved is emissions from planes.
Speaker 1: Why can't planes be electric if we're putting all this
Speaker 1: energy into electric cars, but we know that planes gobble
Speaker 1: up way more fuel than cars, although there are more
Speaker 1: cars on the road and cumulatively cars are more responsible
Speaker 1: for overall co two. I'd still really love to see planes.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's just personal interests because I love flying and
Speaker 1: visiting people and exploring the world and I don't want
Speaker 1: to feel terrible about that all the time. So I
Speaker 1: admit that it's self interest, but it's also global interest.
Speaker 1: I feel like electric planes, I'd love to see that happen.
Speaker 1: I feel hesitant about electric planes because I feel like
Speaker 1: the potential for them to drop out of the sky.
Speaker 1: It's just I don't know why I just in my head,
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, what if it runs out. I can't
Speaker 1: even keep my phone charged, so the idea of it
Speaker 1: falling out of the sky bombs me. But I will
Speaker 1: say while you were talking, I was like, well, maybe
Speaker 1: a hybrid plane then that would definitely cut down some emissions,
Speaker 1: like using both electrical elements and fuel elements. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: or like if things get bad, you could all everyone
Speaker 1: could just plug their own phone into their individual charger
Speaker 1: and give a plane like a little extra boots on
Speaker 1: an electric plane in no uncertain term. I am never
Speaker 1: boarding an electric plane, oh man, or maybe when I'm
Speaker 1: like one hundred years old. But I do see the
Speaker 1: seriousness that you see in the issue. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: the safety issue is definitely legit, and it's going to
Speaker 1: take some time before that's a norm and people feel
Speaker 1: comfortable doing that. But I think, like Joscelyn, I think
Speaker 1: you touch on something that's like really true and resident
Speaker 1: in that, like people are more willing to like sacrifice
Speaker 1: their car on day to day because it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's that's like whatever. I can find ways around that.
Speaker 1: But when it comes to like visiting family or going
Speaker 1: to see something far away or see a wonder you've
Speaker 1: always wanted to see, Like paying for that fuel is
Speaker 1: like almost always worth it psychologically, and it's like people
Speaker 1: are more willing to get on that gas guzzling plane,
Speaker 1: you know, versus like maybe cutting out a couple commute
Speaker 1: trips in their car every week. So I think there
Speaker 1: should be more touch and paid to that. And I
Speaker 1: think you have a good point. Thanks. I mean planes.
Speaker 1: I think it's estimated they're responsible for about three percent
Speaker 1: of the CO two, so you know, we're not fixing
Speaker 1: climate change with this one. But they're more efficient per
Speaker 1: person I think than cars because you can put a
Speaker 1: lot of people on one plane, so we could all
Speaker 1: work from home and then save up our carbon carbon
Speaker 1: credits for seven wonders of the world and our family,
Speaker 1: not in that order. I think carbon credits is I
Speaker 1: think somebody heard that their ears perked up in terms
Speaker 1: of a solution good they're for us building up. So
Speaker 1: let that Let's hear from another one of our pushkin
Speaker 1: hosts about one of the problems they'd like to see solved. Hi.
Speaker 1: I'm doctor Laurie Santos. I'm the host of the Happiness
Speaker 1: Lab podcast, and what I would like to see solved.
Speaker 1: Is behavior change. So many of the big problems that
Speaker 1: face us right now, things like climate change and the
Speaker 1: addiction crisis, and even political polarization, their problem of human behavior.
Speaker 1: This is true for lots of the tiny problems we
Speaker 1: face too, like the fact that it's tricky for me
Speaker 1: to get up and exercise in the morning, or the
Speaker 1: fact that I don't get enough sleep. What we know
Speaker 1: from the social science is that behavior change is hard.
Speaker 1: We need great solutions to figure out how it works.
Speaker 1: And so that's a big problem I'd love to see solved. Sasha,
Speaker 1: do you struggle with changing your behavior? Um? Calling out
Speaker 1: the question, I do and I don't. I'm like very
Speaker 1: structured and formulaic. Once I have a behavior in place,
Speaker 1: pretty sure of habit, but I am open to new habits. Um,
Speaker 1: you got any anything I need to course correct on.
Speaker 1: This is the same space. What if that was a
Speaker 1: leaded for me? Actually it's more I think the challenge
Speaker 1: is more building positive habits, like when I get like
Speaker 1: when it's been a few months since I seriously exercised
Speaker 1: or whatever, and like trying to just just jog a
Speaker 1: little bit every day. That's hard, and I can read
Speaker 1: all like the self help and watch all the motivational
Speaker 1: videos I want, but I feel like, at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, it's just like this, you have to
Speaker 1: flip the switch inside yourself and like go and do it,
Speaker 1: And I think that's really hard. Lauri's talking about like
Speaker 1: fixing human behavior. There's a lot of bad behavior out
Speaker 1: there that I wonder if as external regulators we can
Speaker 1: really fix, and if there are if those people even
Speaker 1: want to fix their own bad behavior. I just wonder
Speaker 1: to what extent we can actually modify how people act
Speaker 1: at all. It makes me think of that episode we
Speaker 1: did with pre Compost. Actually I think about that episode
Speaker 1: a lot. She was talking about health at every size
Speaker 1: and the ways that we decide what's good and bad,
Speaker 1: and thinking about how scarcity plays into it. She was
Speaker 1: talking about, you know, foods that we say we can
Speaker 1: only have a little bit, or we can have a
Speaker 1: lot of this, but only a little of that. But
Speaker 1: I think the same thing could go for all sorts
Speaker 1: of behaviors that we qualify as good and bad. Of course,
Speaker 1: there are some that are like clearly bad, you know,
Speaker 1: like murder a little bit, it's not okay, but you
Speaker 1: know how desperately we have to buy a present, and
Speaker 1: then we put all this pressure on ourselves to like
Speaker 1: have a certain job and work a certain lifestyle and
Speaker 1: da da da da, and it becomes this negative cycle.
Speaker 1: Whereas like, if we could frame it as like I'll
Speaker 1: give her a hug and that will be really meaningful,
Speaker 1: then we remove all those other layers of pressure that
Speaker 1: lead us to do something stupid and bad. Quote unquote
Speaker 1: thank you for absolving me of finishing my Christmas shopping, Jocelyn.
Speaker 1: I am going to take your lead on this and
Speaker 1: just give everyone a hug. Sasha, while I have you,
Speaker 1: why don't you tell me what your problem is. My
Speaker 1: problem is everyone's problem. And I think that we are
Speaker 1: behaving badly in America as a democratic nation, and specifically
Speaker 1: the one that touts itself as the most democratic nation.
Speaker 1: I think we're really failing to uphold that promise. So
Speaker 1: what I would like to see is a really concerted
Speaker 1: effort to save voting rights in this country, to really
Speaker 1: re establish us as an actual functional democracy in the
Speaker 1: truest sense of the word. So, I know, like voting
Speaker 1: doesn't solve everything, but it is, you know, one of
Speaker 1: the best tools that we have to at least try
Speaker 1: and solve things. So I would like to see the
Speaker 1: Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights
Speaker 1: Advancement Act past by Congress, who we voted for and
Speaker 1: who in some ways seem to have forgotten that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you're right. I think voting is the basic
Speaker 1: building block of democracy, and it seems like people in
Speaker 1: power are really taking steps in order to retain power,
Speaker 1: which erodes the basic building blocks of democracy. And I
Speaker 1: think if we don't fix that, I don't know what
Speaker 1: shape we're going to be in in the years to come,
Speaker 1: because we already see changes that are happening now as
Speaker 1: a result of that erosion of the basic building blocks.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think we can all imagine what sort
Speaker 1: of shape we're going to be in. We were very
Speaker 1: close to being in this shape earlier this year, even,
Speaker 1: And I just hope that everyone takes as seriously as
Speaker 1: they need to the threat that we saw this year
Speaker 1: around the conversation of stolen elections. And you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not super confident that this is going to solve
Speaker 1: itself without a concerted effort on behalf of the people
Speaker 1: who believe that we need to fix this. By the
Speaker 1: next election. Now, our next post has something that's I
Speaker 1: would say that is rites adjacent or if not right,
Speaker 1: aligned with rights. So let's hear from him about the
Speaker 1: problem he'd like to see solved. I'm justin Richmond, host
Speaker 1: of Broken Record from Pushing in Industries. I would love
Speaker 1: to see the policing problems solved. And I know this
Speaker 1: is a hard, multifaceted problem with what would probably need
Speaker 1: to be a multi pronged approach to completely fix the
Speaker 1: system as it stands. But I think one of the
Speaker 1: things that really needs to change is police culture. How
Speaker 1: do you change the culture by enriching the hiring pool.
Speaker 1: It should not be an anomaly for say a twenty two,
Speaker 1: twenty four, twenty five year old recent college graduate with
Speaker 1: the liberal arts degree to go into policing, But how
Speaker 1: do you encourage that a federal program where you subsidize
Speaker 1: up to fifty percent of this person's salary so that
Speaker 1: they make fifty percent more than someone starting that position
Speaker 1: would without a college degree. I think an influx of
Speaker 1: this type of person could go a long way towards
Speaker 1: changing police culture. Maybe I love that he has this
Speaker 1: type of proposed solution, Like I love this idea because
Speaker 1: it means that he spent some time thinking about it,
Speaker 1: and I think people's knee jerk reaction is to look
Speaker 1: at something like this and immediately poke the holes in it.
Speaker 1: But the truth is, policing in the state that it's
Speaker 1: in right now in the United States it needs serious reform,
Speaker 1: and these are the types of ideas that we need
Speaker 1: in order to actually make the improvements that we need
Speaker 1: to see. David, what do you think. I think he
Speaker 1: is a really good point about changing the hiring pool
Speaker 1: for American policing. You know, in other countries, particularly in Europe,
Speaker 1: people have to go through a rigorous academic collegiate process
Speaker 1: and get advanced degrees. Yeah, and joining the police force,
Speaker 1: maybe it's thought of as something a little more prestigious
Speaker 1: than it is the way it's thought of in this country.
Speaker 1: But I think the sort of militarization of the way
Speaker 1: we treat our cops and the way we militarily police
Speaker 1: certain people in this country incentivize this sort of lowest
Speaker 1: commons denominator recruiting method that brings in people who are
Speaker 1: willing to tow the military industrial policing line. And that
Speaker 1: is a cultural problem, and that's not going to change unless, ironically,
Speaker 1: unless we start thinking of and treating our cops in
Speaker 1: a different way, maybe less as I don't know dogs
Speaker 1: of the state and more like more like legal workers
Speaker 1: or attorneys or something like that. So I think he
Speaker 1: has a point there. I agree. I have mixed feelings
Speaker 1: about higher education and whether everyone needs to go to
Speaker 1: college to have like a successful career or be seen
Speaker 1: as a success in our culture. So I hesitate a
Speaker 1: little bit to feel, like, you know, policing or any
Speaker 1: job has to require a college degree, which is then
Speaker 1: more expensive. But I do like the idea of varying
Speaker 1: the training and thinking about different ways to think about
Speaker 1: and teach civic engagement civic enforcement, like connection to community,
Speaker 1: what we owe each other, how to manage when people
Speaker 1: are struggling in those systems and acting out because of
Speaker 1: those challenges. So I hesitate on the academic side, but
Speaker 1: I like the reframing side. I got to back David's
Speaker 1: last justin on this would because I feel like we
Speaker 1: would never make that type of argument about doctors or
Speaker 1: lawyers or like dentists or people that like really need
Speaker 1: extensive training in order to enact the duties that they
Speaker 1: actually do and when you walk into a dent and
Speaker 1: there are bad dentists, bad doctors, and bad lawyers, we
Speaker 1: know that, but we like protect the quality and the
Speaker 1: integrity of those roles by requiring more from them. Academically,
Speaker 1: I think there needs to be an academic requirement and
Speaker 1: an intelligence requirement, and I think there has to be
Speaker 1: a standard and a bar to actually be a cop.
Speaker 1: I think the idea of just wanting to do it,
Speaker 1: or you know, just having the aptitude to be a
Speaker 1: cop is should not be enough to Actually I don't
Speaker 1: think I said you just want to be the cop. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that sounded like I was just like just yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm going to back to Jocelyn here. Not that I
Speaker 1: wasn't even sure we were taking sides, but if we
Speaker 1: are and taking Joscel inside, you're you're not wrong, Ronald.
Speaker 1: Like if you want to be a doctor, you have
Speaker 1: to go to med school. Like if you want to
Speaker 1: be a cop, you have to go to cops school.
Speaker 1: That's not what they call it, police academy. Like the
Speaker 1: movies like this does exist, and I think for good reason,
Speaker 1: like you said, but I really like what David hit
Speaker 1: on at the end, which is that like reevaluating and
Speaker 1: repositioning the role that cops play in communities will attract
Speaker 1: a different type of applicant. You know, you're you're just
Speaker 1: going to attract a different type of person with different messaging.
Speaker 1: So I think, yeah, I'm with Jocelyn that it's less
Speaker 1: about you know, what college you go to or what
Speaker 1: degree you have, and just more about what how cops
Speaker 1: exist in America right now. I think I agree with that,
Speaker 1: but I will say, like police academy is like a
Speaker 1: max two to three months, and yeah, you go to
Speaker 1: med school for four years, you go to law school
Speaker 1: for two to three years. That's where I feel like
Speaker 1: it's lacking because in cases of when we're talking about
Speaker 1: collegiate education, because I feel like you could be conflicted
Speaker 1: on education, but I feel like the trade off is
Speaker 1: then to say who do you want to be a
Speaker 1: police officer? And I feel like, for me, at the
Speaker 1: bare minimum, if it is going to be police academy
Speaker 1: that's in a non collegiate setting, I mean I need
Speaker 1: them to have like six months of emotional intelligence training,
Speaker 1: six months of implicit buiance training, like and then before
Speaker 1: they even touch a gun, you got to get this
Speaker 1: certificate and then it's like, now you can touch a gun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that kind of plays into what I was thinking in
Speaker 1: terms of the education piece, too, is that you don't
Speaker 1: go see a doctor for everything that's bothering you. Sometimes
Speaker 1: you see a PA or a nurse or some other specialists.
Speaker 1: And I think the same should go for police, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe certain branches of police should have more understanding of
Speaker 1: like the human mind. And maybe they're all called cops,
Speaker 1: but they have different styles of training in different areas
Speaker 1: of expertise, so they're more on the lines of social
Speaker 1: workers and community intervention specialists and non violent communication experts
Speaker 1: and neighborhood watch teams, and that they're all part of
Speaker 1: a public safety team. Like I don't think every cop
Speaker 1: needs to be a surgeon. We need more pas and
Speaker 1: nurses in police care. But I mean PA school is
Speaker 1: two to three years, nursing school is too. Like if
Speaker 1: we're talking about education, there's going to be an educational
Speaker 1: and a multi year educational component to any of any
Speaker 1: of the roles that you just listed. All right, I'll
Speaker 1: get on board with upping everyone's baseline human relational quotient
Speaker 1: or what's that called when people can like emotional intelligence yeah,
Speaker 1: if they come up with some agreement on what the
Speaker 1: baseline is, but they'd certainly need that same two years
Speaker 1: of like you said, HRQ before you could even hold
Speaker 1: a gun step foot out there. Yes, that's right, you
Speaker 1: coined that that acronute. All right, let's let's let's end
Speaker 1: on a lighthearted note. I have a problem that, okay, obviously, yeah,
Speaker 1: have fun with that everyone. I have many problems. The
Speaker 1: problem that I brought to you today is pretty light
Speaker 1: and it's kind of half solved. But I don't think
Speaker 1: it's solved. The death and it really bothers me. We've
Speaker 1: been in pandemic for nearly two years now. You know,
Speaker 1: we've baked remotely, We've done things on zoom. You know,
Speaker 1: we've stood across the room. We've touched the glass on
Speaker 1: either side of the windows to see our loved ones
Speaker 1: drive by birthday parties. We've done all of that with
Speaker 1: all this technology. And maybe this is due to the
Speaker 1: graphic video card shortage. David, I don't understand how we
Speaker 1: have not come up with an effective and stable way,
Speaker 1: universal way for all of us to watch the same
Speaker 1: thing together at the same time. And when I say that,
Speaker 1: I want to sit down on my couch and I
Speaker 1: want to watch a movie with David and my home
Speaker 1: television at the same time he's watching it, with no
Speaker 1: latency speeds, none of that in between. I would be
Speaker 1: able to watch every act at the same time like
Speaker 1: he's in the room with me. Now, I know people
Speaker 1: are gonna tell me a bunch of apps like there's
Speaker 1: watch Party as you could do it on Discord, that
Speaker 1: type of thing. What I'm saying is there's no way
Speaker 1: for me to just turn my TV on and do
Speaker 1: it as simply as I could stream stuff by myself,
Speaker 1: and the options a lot of times are not embedded
Speaker 1: in the actual streaming apps themselves, Like, for instance, if
Speaker 1: you look at something like Disney Plus, they have some
Speaker 1: options for you to watch together, but then you might
Speaker 1: be only able to do it on an iPad, not
Speaker 1: on your television, not on your laptop. I've thought this
Speaker 1: a lot. They have a lot of different varying degrees
Speaker 1: of this, but there's not one universal way for all
Speaker 1: of us to do it unless we just turn on
Speaker 1: cable television. Then we can yell on each other on
Speaker 1: the phone. So clearly there is a way for this
Speaker 1: to exist, but it seems like in the streaming age,
Speaker 1: we have not truly solved a way for us to
Speaker 1: be watching things together. And I thought that by now
Speaker 1: month ump team of the Global Pandemic, that we would
Speaker 1: have figured it out, that I'd be sitting down and
Speaker 1: being like, hey, y'all want to watch this movie. Hey,
Speaker 1: let's watch it at this time or whatever, you know,
Speaker 1: And That's what I'd like to see solved. I think
Speaker 1: this is the perfect time to shout out a solvable
Speaker 1: episode that we did called remote Music Collaboration online in
Speaker 1: real time is solvable. All the musicians and ensembles, we're
Speaker 1: feeling that so intensely, and probably most of them continue
Speaker 1: to And like you said, there's these small niche fixes
Speaker 1: that people have figured out. And we actually talked about
Speaker 1: one of those awesome solutions on our show, um before
Speaker 1: you were hosts. But so you know, we don't shout
Speaker 1: out shows that. No, I'm just kidding, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It was a really inspiring episode because it made it
Speaker 1: feel like those latency issues could be solved. I will
Speaker 1: say in my friend group, I am the most annoying
Speaker 1: person about this. I like, I have such rules about
Speaker 1: like if you miss the queue to start the movie,
Speaker 1: You're like out of the group text like I like that,
Speaker 1: and everyone a link. I'm not even kidding. I send
Speaker 1: everyone a link to the world clock website and I'm
Speaker 1: like when this, like, you better be cued up to
Speaker 1: zero zero zero zero. Sasha has solved it. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and I've lost all my friends along the way. Website.
Speaker 1: It's amazing, I know. And it like it always like
Speaker 1: always goes awry immediately. But I will say I think
Speaker 1: about the sort of corollary to this a lot ronald Um,
Speaker 1: which I don't know. Maybe this is another conversation we
Speaker 1: can have another time. But like what you said about
Speaker 1: cable TV is so true, and I think that humanity
Speaker 1: um has certainly lost. Like we've gained a lot with
Speaker 1: streaming and this like individualized cultural consumption that we can make,
Speaker 1: but I think that humanity it has lost something by
Speaker 1: devaluing appointment TV. And like you see it like during
Speaker 1: the Oscars or like basically like the oscars presidential debates,
Speaker 1: like maybe the super Bowl if that's your thing, but
Speaker 1: there are so few things now where like the entire
Speaker 1: world is watching together. If you're on Twitter during the Oscars,
Speaker 1: everyone is in conversation and yeah, I just wish that
Speaker 1: like Appointment TV came back, Seinfeld lost, like any of those, Yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly lost. So we're recording this on a Monday, and
Speaker 1: yesterday was Sunday was the Succession season finale, and spoilers,
Speaker 1: I haven't watched it, please especially. My point, that's exactly
Speaker 1: where I was going with this, is that I can't
Speaker 1: even like I want to talk about it with people.
Speaker 1: And I have several friends who are like, I haven't
Speaker 1: watched yet. And now I'm like, well, you're on the
Speaker 1: clock because I want to tell you about and I
Speaker 1: can't have this moment because you're out here being like
Speaker 1: I can't sit down at nine o'clock. Well, Sunday nights
Speaker 1: they watched this show. We all need to be watching.
Speaker 1: So yeah, no, I agree. I would love the return
Speaker 1: of Appointment to V. We've seen some of it with
Speaker 1: shows like Insecure, shows like Succession. People are still watching
Speaker 1: those in bulk. But I now, because of people's schedules,
Speaker 1: were separating them and I think there needs to be
Speaker 1: maybe another way for us to just be able to
Speaker 1: be like, all right, we're not going to watch it
Speaker 1: on Sunday, but we've created some sort of link together
Speaker 1: where we can all watch it on our televisions like
Speaker 1: in the in our most comfortable settings in our own homes.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, I will invest in whatever app you're
Speaker 1: building for TV CO. It's called ron Has Problems dot Com.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you guys joining me today. This has
Speaker 1: been a great and fun conversation. Yeah. Thanks for getting
Speaker 1: us together in real time to do the same thing. Yes,
Speaker 1: this is solvable. Listeners, what are the problems you'd like
Speaker 1: us to solve in twenty twenty two? Tweet us at
Speaker 1: Pushkin Pods and use the hashtag solvable. We'll be away
Speaker 1: for a couple of weeks, but back at in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two with fresh episodes of Solvable. Solvable is produced
Speaker 1: by Josin Frank, researched by David John, booking by Lisa Dunn,
Speaker 1: editing help from Keyshelle Williams. Very special thanks to Maggie
Speaker 1: Taylor and our fellow Pushkin hosts. Our managing producer is
Speaker 1: Sasha Matthias, and our executive producer is mio Lebelle. I'm
Speaker 1: Ronald Young Jr. Thanks for listening.