Speaker 1: Hello the Internet, and welcome to season two ninety nine,
Speaker 1: Episode two of.
Speaker 2: Daly's Like Yesday productive of My Heart Radio. This is
Speaker 2: a podcast where we take a deep dive into America
Speaker 2: share consciousness. And it is Tuesday, August eight, twenty twenty three,
Speaker 2: which of course means, oh.
Speaker 3: Tuesday, your boys slipping because the fever don'et cook his
Speaker 3: brain a little bit on the weekend.
Speaker 1: But he's back.
Speaker 3: Actually I'm back, folks until we love it. It's actually
Speaker 3: National Dollar Day. Don't know what that means, but someone's
Speaker 3: holding a bunch of singles. National happiness happens today.
Speaker 1: What dollars bribery underrated? There you go, the little children.
Speaker 1: But if that sounds weird when it comes to my
Speaker 1: own children getting them to do their.
Speaker 3: Oh for a dollar for a dollar, yo, you get
Speaker 3: My five year old woke up.
Speaker 1: This is this all has to do with like jetlag.
Speaker 1: But yeah, he woke up and did his They do
Speaker 1: like like Kuman, Yeah you know that, like they do that,
Speaker 1: and he he will fight me to the death to
Speaker 1: get like just one six traced. Usually this morning when
Speaker 1: wake up to write, it's just right. The sick he'll
Speaker 1: do it wrong on purpose. He'll draw, you know, he
Speaker 1: just he's Yeah, he got up before us and did
Speaker 1: his kuman today because there was a single dollar at steak.
Speaker 1: So shout out to natural national dollar death.
Speaker 3: Wow, but did you're younger? Did young the youther?
Speaker 1: So that was the elder. The elder was pissed that
Speaker 1: he got up before him. Kids. These children very competitive.
Speaker 3: I get it. You see a dollar ship. I was
Speaker 3: like when when I would be when my grandparents would
Speaker 3: baby sit me and like my cousins or some ship,
Speaker 3: and like my younger cousin will get like.
Speaker 1: A dogs, like, I'll do that eight times.
Speaker 3: Better try and take his dollar. Yeah. Yeah, anyway, it's
Speaker 3: also National CBD Ray Day, brath, National Mochi Day, National
Speaker 3: pickleball Day. Oh, I know that's contentious, Global sleep under
Speaker 3: the Stars night. Oh sure, National Frozen Custard Day. I
Speaker 3: love a frozen cluster. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I had some frozen custer core brothers back in Ocean City.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, kind of drips. It's still like so thick,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just it's delicious.
Speaker 1: It's a non Newtonian substance. Yeah, my name's Jack O'Brien aka.
Speaker 1: I hit him up, said I'm on those guys. It
Speaker 1: been a while, I think since ninety nine. We started
Speaker 1: talking work. I asked, what do you do? But then
Speaker 1: he said private equity and that's when I started talking.
Speaker 1: You aps. Nobody likes that private equity making cash on
Speaker 1: company's death throws. Have you heard of cold gas study?
Speaker 1: I think we should have a living wage. What's a
Speaker 1: fair wage?
Speaker 3: Again? Uh?
Speaker 1: That is courtesy of Johnny Davis folks sst Spice the Discord,
Speaker 1: and I'm thrilled to be joined as always by my
Speaker 1: co host, mister Miles Gray.
Speaker 3: Oh it's Miles Gray aka gray Man, a father of
Speaker 3: the Zeitchild.
Speaker 1: Champion for his son.
Speaker 3: You're the master of Burbank and Lancasham for everyone. I mean,
Speaker 3: you know Burbank like the street Yeah, you know, I
Speaker 3: wouldn't say like as a town like that's really my shit,
Speaker 3: but it's adjacent, you know, it is bordering. It does
Speaker 3: touch you touch elbows with North Hollywood. So yes, by
Speaker 3: just like when you're playing Civilization and you want to
Speaker 3: get a cultural victory, you know, the influence does spread
Speaker 3: past my borders into Burbank. So yes, thank you to
Speaker 3: Taxy cr for that one on the Discord.
Speaker 1: My man well, Miles, it is the Expert Guest episode,
Speaker 1: and we are thrilled to be joined in our third seat.
Speaker 4: Yes bye, nobody me. I read a fucking book, but
Speaker 4: a good book. I am a genius. I read talking
Speaker 4: about I'm going to tell you about it.
Speaker 3: Jack likes to do this and I keep telling him
Speaker 3: I can't read, but he won't tell me the book,
Speaker 3: and then he's like, I gotta tell you about it.
Speaker 3: I'm like, if you just told me about it, I
Speaker 3: could read it too.
Speaker 1: This thing I learned, it's in my brain now, so
Speaker 1: I got to tell you about it.
Speaker 3: Have you ever met people who would not share a
Speaker 3: book title with you because like they were they wanted
Speaker 3: to sit on that information. This is sort of pre internety.
Speaker 1: No, oh man, they'll be like I forget what it's called,
Speaker 1: or they're just like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, kind of like like they don't want other people.
Speaker 3: Like one of my older cousins didn't want to share
Speaker 3: Confessions of an Economic hit Man with me.
Speaker 1: Well, that's top level intel man, you can't tell you
Speaker 1: about that on that.
Speaker 3: I think he just liked it because like at the
Speaker 3: time when that book came out, like he was trying
Speaker 3: to be like the fucking Dulseki's most interesting mother in
Speaker 3: the room kind of thing. Yeah, you actually know about
Speaker 3: the like how why the Panama Canal is built. It's like, okay,
Speaker 3: hold on, let's.
Speaker 1: Not let's where'd you learn that?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 1: Top level clearance?
Speaker 3: You should really look at a lot of the engineering
Speaker 3: firms that do a lot of these like large scale
Speaker 3: infrastructural programs that are funded by the IMF And you're like,
Speaker 3: what what is this?
Speaker 1: What read competitors of an economic Amman? No you do,
Speaker 1: but yeah, just like that book felt that was a
Speaker 1: real phenomenon where you felt like you were getting, oh
Speaker 1: Cia briefed with some information that like you're like looking
Speaker 1: around as you're reading it, being like, is someone going
Speaker 1: to kill me for knowing?
Speaker 3: Am I about to get two to the back of
Speaker 3: the dome right now? Is basking Robbins for having this
Speaker 3: book out?
Speaker 1: I think the version that I had like looked like
Speaker 1: it was like printed on a dot matrix printer or something.
Speaker 3: It wasn't.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like a full ass book like from a
Speaker 1: good publishing house. It was like passed over to me
Speaker 1: by There's probably just somebody doing the same thing as
Speaker 1: your cousin like wanting to seem like they were like
Speaker 1: in on some hot shit, and so yeah, created a
Speaker 1: version that looked like shits. Anyways, that's a good that's
Speaker 1: a good book that kind of touches on some of
Speaker 1: the themes that the book I'm talking to you about
Speaker 1: today talks about that book I finished, The Ministry for
Speaker 1: the Future. Yeah, so we're gonna we're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: some of the themes, some of the reasons that I
Speaker 1: think it's you know, usually I'll read a book and
Speaker 1: then I'll just find really sweaty ways to like shoehorn
Speaker 1: the information I learned in the book into the conversation
Speaker 1: that we're having, the speaking of Trump elect vehicles, What
Speaker 1: what the fuck are you talking about? So this is
Speaker 1: just you know, we have these Evergreen Tuesday episodes. Is
Speaker 1: a chance for me and you too kind of have
Speaker 1: a more extended conversation about the subject.
Speaker 3: The reason being like, we have so many depictions of
Speaker 3: what like end same climate change disaster looks like, and
Speaker 3: we have really shitty examples. And when you have someone
Speaker 3: who's a little puts a little bit more thought into
Speaker 3: their hard science fiction rather than like Roland Emeric, you
Speaker 3: get things that are tied a little bit more to
Speaker 3: what's happening around us, and I think it's yeah, it offers.
Speaker 3: It's good because it gives you a good idea of
Speaker 3: another way to actually take in what is happening on
Speaker 3: the planet. But also, you know, we also there are
Speaker 3: many ways that we can combat this, because those ideas
Speaker 3: are also presented in the book. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but before we get to any of that, miles
Speaker 1: we do when it's just you and maybe like to
Speaker 1: give our listeners a chance to get to know us
Speaker 1: a little bit better. On the Monday trending we do
Speaker 1: our overrated Underrated. I thought this might be a fun
Speaker 1: time to do a little bit such history.
Speaker 3: What was my over my overrated was? Oh yeah, like
Speaker 3: dude dude reviews, Dude Barbie takes, dude by word, dude
Speaker 3: by mouth, Barbie reviews an underrated shout out Pedia like
Speaker 3: I stay fucking godd baby, and I don't even.
Speaker 1: Want some hot Pedia light takes.
Speaker 3: As someone who even drank as much as I did
Speaker 3: when I was younger, and like, yeah, who had just who?
Speaker 3: In my mind, hitting a volcano vaporizer and eating Jack
Speaker 3: in the box was how I did it? Like completely
Speaker 3: putting out the hydration element of it. I really feel
Speaker 3: like fucking stupid for coming to pedia Light this late
Speaker 3: in the game and not even a hangover for my
Speaker 3: fucking illness.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the thing I most recently googled, googled, goggled, googled
Speaker 1: was what we were talking about right before we started
Speaker 1: recording Toasted Subs. I did not realize this was a thing.
Speaker 1: And boy are their sandwich names a lot of fun. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Four people who know a lot about weed. I don't
Speaker 1: know that Jamaican red or Cali missed or weed strains.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so they're like kind of old tiny they're like
Speaker 3: like gen X strains, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Okay, I've heard of that.
Speaker 3: I like, yeah, exactly, you've heard of that because you've
Speaker 3: heard it in the eighties film.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I think it was the seventies. I
Speaker 1: think it was like blow when he was like first
Speaker 1: a weed dealer.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly like that and like and
Speaker 3: like sensy anything like sense it, like because that's from
Speaker 3: the word since sama and as in no seeds, which
Speaker 3: was like one of like the first moves. If you
Speaker 3: watch like Narcos Mexico's that's sort of like the or
Speaker 3: like origin crop that like one of the big traffickers
Speaker 3: sort of started with off with is like we need
Speaker 3: like some real hot quality shit no seeds and so anyway, Uh,
Speaker 3: but you are did you go to a chiba hud
Speaker 3: you are interested now since we.
Speaker 1: Were heard from you and super producer Justin and now
Speaker 1: I believe that it exists. I also don't don't think
Speaker 1: I knew how to spell chiba. I think it was
Speaker 1: spelling it with an I in their c h I
Speaker 1: b A.
Speaker 3: So oh, well that is the Japanese Uh, that's the
Speaker 3: region of course, the culture. So obviously obviously.
Speaker 1: Five oh is the name of the sandwich. That's all
Speaker 1: the pig baby dam genoah salami proshoot up at Ronny Bacon.
Speaker 3: Who I'm curious who the owner is, it says it's
Speaker 3: just some guy named Scott Jennings, which feels like that
Speaker 3: doesn't feel very chiba hut name.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Scott Jennings, Dude, there's a there's a video with
Speaker 1: this guy and a real flat rim chiba hut hut.
Speaker 3: Oh hold on, yeah, let me let's just let's hear
Speaker 3: this really quick. In case this guy says some really
Speaker 3: sick stuff about chiba Hut. Oh Jack, Scott Scott Jennings
Speaker 3: is here to fuck.
Speaker 1: Name Scott Jennings. I'm the founder of that chiba hust.
Speaker 3: High.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm a food so I do get high as well.
Speaker 1: So uh combined the two things. I was best at
Speaker 1: Arizona State. Arizona State sweatshirt with a surfboard. Uh. Does
Speaker 1: looks like he couldn't be further away from an ocean
Speaker 1: and slamming a brew with hand.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, you know what, Scott? You Okay, it looks
Speaker 3: you definitely present to someone who's been living that life.
Speaker 1: Scott Scott ye dude.
Speaker 3: Yeah. But they have fucking like kool Aid there, like
Speaker 3: out the fountain. Like I remember the first time I
Speaker 3: went to a cheeba Hut was in Eugene, Oregon. My
Speaker 3: friend was going to UFO and I was like, what
Speaker 3: the fuck is this and he's like, it's a wee
Speaker 3: names dude, and they have kool Aid. And for whatever reason,
Speaker 3: I love when places served kool Aid.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just purple kool Aid. I actually had that
Speaker 1: in Eugene, Oregon as well, but I don't think it
Speaker 1: was the Chiba Hut, but at a restaurant yeah, at
Speaker 1: a restaurant.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I know, like you know, like barbecue places
Speaker 3: will have them like and other like certain restaurants and
Speaker 3: like regionally they'll have it, but like you never see
Speaker 3: it in California. I think California is just like what
Speaker 3: the fuck kool aid? And I'm like, it's the best.
Speaker 3: You're already drinking a spartam me all days. Might as
Speaker 3: well just go a whole hog with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how about you? What's uh, what's something in your
Speaker 1: search history?
Speaker 3: Oh? Okay, So I finished the latest season of Righteous Gemstones.
Speaker 3: Big recommend you get you get some great uncle baby
Speaker 3: Billy in there? Oh you you maybe? Yeah? You got
Speaker 3: to the part where he was he was pushing baby
Speaker 3: Billy is Babo Bacha's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, baby Babo bnka baby Billy Babo Bachas.
Speaker 3: The way he says it with his like big fake
Speaker 3: teeth is just really something else. But as I watched
Speaker 3: the whole season, there is a there, like without spoiling anything,
Speaker 3: They're like Sturgel Simpson is is playing a character in
Speaker 3: it the Country Artists, and I've heard tell of him.
Speaker 3: I've not really like listened to his music, but in
Speaker 3: it he sings like this song, which I think is
Speaker 3: originally by the Gatlin Brothers called All the Gold in California,
Speaker 3: and it's just kind of like the way it was
Speaker 3: sung and like the arrangement was actually really fun, and
Speaker 3: like one of the first times I was like like
Speaker 3: this little country diddy here, and so I went on it.
Speaker 3: Like I was just looking at every conceivable cover of
Speaker 3: this song, like who else is saying it? Like who
Speaker 3: started singing it? I watched like eight versions of the
Speaker 3: Gatlin Brothers singing in the seventies.
Speaker 1: I didn't grab you just it's got a.
Speaker 3: Good it's the I think there's like at a certain
Speaker 3: point it becomes like a choral thing, like there's like
Speaker 3: multiple voices singing, so the harmonies become really good, and
Speaker 3: it reminded me of kind of like gospel like singing.
Speaker 3: So I think that and there's like there was a
Speaker 3: little bit of tambourine and shit in the background, so
Speaker 3: it felt it was very accessible from like the gospel
Speaker 3: perspective in my mind. I think that's what kind of
Speaker 3: opened the door. And then I just like the I
Speaker 3: think I just like the song too because it's kind
Speaker 3: of about like show business, but in this like very
Speaker 3: country way where it's like, hey, man, living in the
Speaker 3: spot that will kill a man out right, and it's
Speaker 3: just you know, it's you know, you don't want to
Speaker 3: you don't want to be chasing after all that glitters
Speaker 3: because it ain't gold.
Speaker 1: They got some of the best needle drops. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: the stand on the Word at the end of the
Speaker 1: it's like one of the first episodes after they like
Speaker 1: hit the guy with their car. I think they killed him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: drop right into Stand on the Word.
Speaker 3: It's whoever the music director is for Danny McBride and
Speaker 3: all of his projects there fuck and it could be
Speaker 3: him too, but my god, from like even Eastbound and Down. Yeah,
Speaker 3: like songs too where you're like, what the.
Speaker 1: Fuck this is fantastic, fantastical. Yeah, all right, let's take
Speaker 1: a quick break. We'll come back, uh and we'll get
Speaker 1: into the book that I read about climate change, the
Speaker 1: novelization of the Day after tomorrow. We'll be right back
Speaker 1: and we're back, And I gotta say, like, so, you know,
Speaker 1: I've read read the news for for this, for this job,
Speaker 1: but to this point, my and not really you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: you folks can tell I'm just I'm skimming here and there,
Speaker 1: But in terms of like my fiction intake. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: climate change fiction that I've taken in over the course
Speaker 1: of my life has mainly been Mad the Mad Max is, Yeah,
Speaker 1: all the Mad Max films, water World the Day after Tomorrow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think that's like, yeah, I mean twenty twelve.
Speaker 1: I think, like, seems like it should be a climate
Speaker 1: change parable, but it's actually because out of its way
Speaker 1: to say that, it's like something weird happening with a
Speaker 1: core of the Earth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, new neutrinos jack from a solar flare obviously are
Speaker 3: doing something a core or something. But it's also twenty
Speaker 3: twelve mins new that show, So it was a spooky year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, dude, did you did you buy in?
Speaker 3: Did you even party you think about twenty twelve? No?
Speaker 1: We I mean at Crrecked we definitely covered the bullshit,
Speaker 1: but we I did not.
Speaker 3: I didn't. I didn't believe it was not hard to me.
Speaker 3: I remember in two thousand and nine I started thinking
Speaker 3: about it. Oh yeah, I looks like damn, I'm twenty five,
Speaker 3: Like what can I get done? Like can I make
Speaker 3: my mom proud? Three twenty twelve? Sh because right now
Speaker 3: I'm like living with her and like just eating all
Speaker 3: her food and shit, like started struggling to get a
Speaker 3: job in the recession, like please, what do I do?
Speaker 1: But yeah, it was scariest of all years. There were
Speaker 1: those Mitt Romney videos. Yeah yeah, yeah, but uh, I
Speaker 1: don't know the solutions of those films, and in just
Speaker 1: like the popular imagination to a large degree seems to
Speaker 1: be everyone's gonna die and then you're left behind because
Speaker 1: you're the main character of the story to kill or
Speaker 1: be killed. I think the Day after Tomorrow I remember
Speaker 1: ending with people like on the space station looking at
Speaker 1: the globe and the US is like mostly frozen ice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then and they're like, yeah, but the air never
Speaker 1: looked so clean, and it's like that's the earth healing itself,
Speaker 1: killing us all off.
Speaker 3: So just yeah, just put just freezing North America is
Speaker 3: the solution. I mean, fine, so be it? I guess, yeah,
Speaker 3: do you have anything else to offer us?
Speaker 1: That does seem to be like sort of stylish nehilism
Speaker 1: seems to be the way that is, at least I
Speaker 1: think I default approached climate change until like we really
Speaker 1: started digging into.
Speaker 3: It, right, because like books like Man are not books,
Speaker 3: you know, novels like water World again. The novelization very
Speaker 3: fu fucking water World fucked me up so bad as
Speaker 3: a kid, like fucked me up because when didn't they
Speaker 3: come out like ninety four or some shit. I'm like
Speaker 3: ten years old. I went to see that the Magic
Speaker 3: Johnson Theater with my grandfather and he was like, wow,
Speaker 3: He's like that's I was like, what a movie hunt?
Speaker 3: And I was like shaken to my war as it
Speaker 3: can really yeah, And I was like.
Speaker 1: Because you were like, this is how we're gonna be living.
Speaker 3: And well, the logic made sense because like you knew
Speaker 3: about like the earth heating up and pollution and things
Speaker 3: at the time. Right now, we had just celebrated getting
Speaker 3: rid of styrofoam, I remember, and like CFC's and shit,
Speaker 3: and but like but the logic path of earth become
Speaker 3: warm ice cap ice melt, therefore the water everywhere vis
Speaker 3: a v Yeah. And I was a bad swimmer. I
Speaker 3: was a weak swimmer. Like I was a terrible swimmer.
Speaker 3: So there was nothing more terrifying than a world where
Speaker 3: everything was someone's pool party where I sucked at swimming.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so like there were multiple layers to it.
Speaker 3: And again that shit didn't really offer you any solution
Speaker 3: aside from like maybe you could find this map to
Speaker 3: find a fucking hidden island you could fucking live on
Speaker 3: or some shit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it was like you're gonna have to wear
Speaker 1: a T shirt to cover your weird chest hair because
Speaker 1: it's a pool party.
Speaker 3: Exactly, and I think the kids aren't ready to really
Speaker 3: accept that yet, or your three hairs you have on
Speaker 3: your armpit.
Speaker 1: My chest hair grew in. I still have a weird
Speaker 1: patch of chest hair, but it grew in asymmetrically.
Speaker 3: What do you mean, Like it favored one side of your.
Speaker 1: Chest favored one side and was very like it wasn't
Speaker 1: like a small amount came at a time. It was like, bam,
Speaker 1: there's a weird culture of hair. Like I was just
Speaker 1: like one tenth of my chest was were wolf right away,
Speaker 1: no way, yeah yeah, and just like down like the
Speaker 1: left chest guy the way you had to wait.
Speaker 3: So so also you were you were rocking, you were
Speaker 3: rocking the shirt in the pool kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Sweatshirt in the pool. No sweatshirt, no, but but yeah,
Speaker 1: that that was a thought that crossed my mind.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if that's if that's water World, then that's your
Speaker 3: your cross the bear too. But but yeah, no, I
Speaker 3: think all that to say is like so from time immemorial,
Speaker 3: my concept of climate change is literally skip any anything
Speaker 3: in the middle. It's just jumped to the like earth death,
Speaker 3: where like I'm holding the dust that was once my family.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it ignores like what the reality of the
Speaker 1: next you know, forty years is probably going to look like.
Speaker 1: So the goal of the Ministry for the Future is
Speaker 1: to imagine like the time between now and you know,
Speaker 1: when it's been. It's like people describe it as like utopian,
Speaker 1: but millions of people like die from climate change, which
Speaker 1: it seems like might be inevitable. But it's describes a
Speaker 1: possibility of like humanity changing the way that we live
Speaker 1: on the earth to actually like have a chance. And
Speaker 1: it's very I don't know, I kept waiting for it
Speaker 1: to like have like a plot twist or something where
Speaker 1: it's like and actually I was the one blowing up
Speaker 1: those planes because and instead it's just very it's kind
Speaker 1: of hyper like it feels like his goal the whole
Speaker 1: time is just like keep it realistic. And this is
Speaker 1: like the main character is a bureaucrat and you are
Speaker 1: just like kind of working through it, and it's I
Speaker 1: read a review that said it's interesting in the way
Speaker 1: that like the map of your hotel room floor becomes
Speaker 1: interesting when someone pulls the fire alarm, Like you are
Speaker 1: just like, okay, well this this is certainly relevant to me. Now.
Speaker 1: It's not like I'm not saying it's bad. It's definitely
Speaker 1: worth reading, but it's like it really delves into like
Speaker 1: there's long passages, there's just meetings with like finance people
Speaker 1: and stuff and like talking about how you would make
Speaker 1: this shit possible, but gives you a.
Speaker 3: Much more vivid, you know, idea of of like what
Speaker 3: potentially is was the work or the processes that we're
Speaker 3: going to undertake, rather than like, because I feel so
Speaker 3: much of what we're experiencing right now is just to
Speaker 3: be like, so are we ever going to get off
Speaker 3: fossil fuels? Yeah, and then we kind of feel really
Speaker 3: fucking just destitute and downtrodden and like, you know, hopeless
Speaker 3: because of just like focusing on one part when this
Speaker 3: is like a multifaceted issue with many ways to approach
Speaker 3: it to solve it. And I think that's what that's
Speaker 3: why I appreciate works like that that can kind of
Speaker 3: break our minds out a little bit of that like
Speaker 3: pattern of thought.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I truly just have a very difficult time imagining
Speaker 1: an end of capitalism because I like, it's a quote,
Speaker 1: like it's been associated with the author of this book.
Speaker 1: He's not the one who said it, and like when
Speaker 1: I've heard him interviewed about it, he's like, I don't
Speaker 1: I don't like that quote anymore. But like it's easier
Speaker 1: to imagine the end of the world than the end
Speaker 1: of capitalism. For me, that rings true, Like I just
Speaker 1: couldn't and and therefore every solution that like comes up,
Speaker 1: I'm like, but corporations are just gonna like fuck that
Speaker 1: out of existence, Like if you like any anything like
Speaker 1: that is just going to get ruined by us. And
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that I learned in
Speaker 1: reading this book is that it's hard to imagine the
Speaker 1: next forty years from inside the United States, and like
Speaker 1: especially from inside, like if you pay a lot of
Speaker 1: attention to the United States zeitgeist, like it is, it
Speaker 1: has not been leading us in a direction that would
Speaker 1: suggest like that these things are possible, right that we're
Speaker 1: going to be talking about. So I don't know, let's
Speaker 1: let's dive in. I mean, the first big question the
Speaker 1: book suggests that like the radicalizing event that that will
Speaker 1: bring about this sort of globe zeits change is that
Speaker 1: India sees a heat wave that kills like five million people.
Speaker 1: Like it's the there's a certain point at which if
Speaker 1: the humidity is high enough and the heat is high enough,
Speaker 1: your body just can't cope, like the human body can't cope.
Speaker 1: And so like it seems like if things don't change,
Speaker 1: this is something that's somewhat inevitable. And this radicalizes India
Speaker 1: as a country, and they start doing some of the
Speaker 1: things that have been like sort of controversial ideas that
Speaker 1: people have put out there, like you know, putting reflective
Speaker 1: material in the upper atmosphere to reflect to like basically
Speaker 1: dim the sun that we did miss snow piercer as anough, Yes,
Speaker 1: there is another cheerful look get on how we might
Speaker 1: address climate change. But they call it in the book
Speaker 1: like a double Pinatubo because Penttubo was the volcanic eruption
Speaker 1: and that most recently like significantly altered the temperature globally
Speaker 1: for a period of time like I think a year
Speaker 1: or two and so like the people of India drop
Speaker 1: like a double pentitubo on the rest of our asses
Speaker 1: over the objection from the un It's temporary, but it like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's the first thing that changes people and
Speaker 1: starts getting people motivated to all right, how are we
Speaker 1: going to deal with this?
Speaker 3: We need like because that can never happen again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that can never happen again. It's the largest mass
Speaker 1: death like in the history of them.
Speaker 3: And again, if you're just tuning and we're talking about
Speaker 3: a science fiction book period.
Speaker 1: Talking about if you're just joining us, this is Terry
Speaker 1: gros Stanley Roberts, but like it's science fiction. But a
Speaker 1: recent article in The New Yorker pointed out that we're
Speaker 1: actually like not far from the thing from that inciting
Speaker 1: incident happening Like this spring, or I guess it was.
Speaker 1: Last spring saw the most dire primonsoon heat wave in
Speaker 1: Indian history, and it was only a slightly lower humidity
Speaker 1: that prevented a real life, you know, event on par
Speaker 1: with what happens in the book. And still like lots
Speaker 1: of people die, lots of people are dying from heat already,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's just our I don't know, like it.
Speaker 1: We've talked, we've suggested that it's just you know, because
Speaker 1: it's hard to imagine and there aren't that many movies
Speaker 1: that depict people dying from heat, so you like, you
Speaker 1: don't really have it in your head, like what that
Speaker 1: looks like. And the pictures that come with it in
Speaker 1: newspapers are people having fun while opening up a fire
Speaker 1: hydrunt right, And so this is an event that like
Speaker 1: kind of makes it real for everybody in India at least,
Speaker 1: and that that that seems to be something that they
Speaker 1: also wrestle with that I'm glad they did. It's not
Speaker 1: like all of a sudden, everybody in Texas is like, man,
Speaker 1: what happened to the people in India is really bad
Speaker 1: and we need to act on it. In the book,
Speaker 1: they're like, it needs to happen to you or to
Speaker 1: like your community for it to be real too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and clearly we're I mean, that's usually how the
Speaker 3: US works, is like it has to literally be on
Speaker 3: your fucking doorstep, walk through the door, and fuck your
Speaker 3: shit up, and then you're like, oh, okay, yeah, so
Speaker 3: that's a thing.
Speaker 1: But yeah, he talks about an example of like a
Speaker 1: neighborhood that got destroyed by a tornado, and like the
Speaker 1: people the neighborhood over were like, yeah, well that was
Speaker 1: on them. They were they were in the path of
Speaker 1: that tornado. And it's like, well, that could have been anything.
Speaker 3: Well, it's like even like those like like small group
Speaker 3: of Republicans in North Carolina, they're like really worried about
Speaker 3: sea level rise. And yeah, like there other people like
Speaker 3: just shut up.
Speaker 1: They're like I live here and I'm watching it.
Speaker 3: The are you talking about?
Speaker 1: Right? Yeah, But anyways, so he wrote this book in
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen. He gave a speech this past April that
Speaker 1: he actually said the book is too bleak, Like he says,
Speaker 1: calling like the book talks about how the thirties is
Speaker 1: what he calls a zombie decade because of all the
Speaker 1: like institutions that are still coasting on the inertia of
Speaker 1: you know, the past order of things, right, which you know,
Speaker 1: banks running everything in the United States and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: even though they no longer serve us or you know,
Speaker 1: make sense in the world. And he thinks that's actually
Speaker 1: already too pessimistic, and like, to me, that sounds like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's a great description of the world as it feels
Speaker 1: inside America right now. In between yeah, just things that
Speaker 1: are coasting off of inertia. But he sees a lot
Speaker 1: of like really cool programs around the world that he
Speaker 1: finds encouraging. I do think this book kind of turned
Speaker 1: him into a public eco intotellectual, and so he is
Speaker 1: getting a lot of the information about like all the
Speaker 1: stuff people are trying, which is cool. It's it's stuff
Speaker 1: that doesn't get covered in the mainstream media. And that's
Speaker 1: probably why, you know, I want to talk about it
Speaker 1: so much, because it does feel like it's being kept
Speaker 1: like a secret right from us, and it's kind of
Speaker 1: important information.
Speaker 3: So what are the kind of departures from our you know,
Speaker 3: are our current norm that you know, that society moves
Speaker 3: into in terms of like addressing this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, everyone just needs to get a tesla and you're good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just get a Tesla and give you money and we're
Speaker 1: good here.
Speaker 3: Oh then all right, well, dude, it's been a great episode,
Speaker 3: right gang, you heard it.
Speaker 1: Get it Tesla, baby, get that tesla. No, actually, there's
Speaker 1: it's conspicuous in the omission that like he doesn't even
Speaker 1: bring up electric vehicles, or if he does, it's just
Speaker 1: like a like there's more adoption of this happening like
Speaker 1: in the early stages. Sure, sure, we actually like there's
Speaker 1: another thing for my search history is like car bloat,
Speaker 1: which is something I found about found out about over
Speaker 1: the weekend, which is that like, as people are making
Speaker 1: this transition to electric vehicles, they're also making the cars
Speaker 1: way way bigger on the roads. Yeah, and even in Europe,
Speaker 1: like Europe, I'm sorry, I picture Europe as like a
Speaker 1: bunch of people hunched inside, like those little tikes sides
Speaker 1: and you know those like plastic red and yellow. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: like that That's what I picture the shape of European cars.
Speaker 1: But like the third most popular highest sales car model
Speaker 1: in Europe in twenty twenty two is an sub like
Speaker 1: they're they're turning into I means. Yeah.
Speaker 3: We touched on just on the Normal Show about how
Speaker 3: like people who are like city planning and like do
Speaker 3: that kind of stuff, or just like cars are too
Speaker 3: fucking big for streets for fucking parking lots, Like you're
Speaker 3: not like what the it's eventually like the cars are
Speaker 3: literally gonna be too fucking big and people are gonna
Speaker 3: like fucking bump into each other not to mention that
Speaker 3: these cars are just like way fucking heavier and more
Speaker 3: tankish than ever too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's so much heavier like evs like it compared
Speaker 1: to the like similar size gas burning vehicle. It's not like, well,
Speaker 1: so you should keep burning gas, but it's just it's
Speaker 1: a good example of like how in the current system, right,
Speaker 1: like why I'm so cynical is like the current system
Speaker 1: will find a way to take it and turn it
Speaker 1: into like in this case, an arms race.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because it's like kind of yeah, consumer consumerist commodification
Speaker 3: fuck fest where it's like, oh, yeah, the way we
Speaker 3: get out of it is you buy this thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: It's like but that's more consumption when we're talking about
Speaker 3: what the so what the fuck?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so yeah, it's it's like breaking roads. And
Speaker 1: it's also it's like really scary because those car carriers,
Speaker 1: so the way the way that's being dealt with right now,
Speaker 1: by the way, just real quick, and then we'll get
Speaker 1: into the things that actually work. But just as an
Speaker 1: example of why this like hasn't naturally occurred to us,
Speaker 1: like this, this is what gets done with good ideas,
Speaker 1: is like so they get these giant like f one
Speaker 1: fifty pickup trucks that are twice the size of like
Speaker 1: an F one fifty and nineteen ninety three, but they're
Speaker 1: electronic and then they are like one of the complaints
Speaker 1: that people have is that when you have to like
Speaker 1: transport them, they put them on the back of those
Speaker 1: car carriers. Yeah, but they're so big that like they
Speaker 1: don't you can only fit like a handful of them.
Speaker 3: On the back of car wise like because yes, you
Speaker 3: can see them loaded up with like the normal combustion cars,
Speaker 3: but the uvs are so much heavier.
Speaker 1: Oh, those things are already the scariest things to be
Speaker 1: driving next to it all high walk like those car
Speaker 1: carriers where you like just see the weight, like you
Speaker 1: can just see it looks like it's like a drunk
Speaker 1: like three hundred pounds person just like teetering next to you.
Speaker 1: And I have seen bad boys too, So I'm already
Speaker 1: like terrified of what's going to happen with us. So
Speaker 1: the way that the shipping and you know, trucking industry
Speaker 1: is trying to deal with the fact that it's like
Speaker 1: you can't fit as many on is just asking for
Speaker 1: them to change the weight limit on car carriers so
Speaker 1: that they can carry see, right, more of them.
Speaker 3: We're at We're not salt, We're not a rise. We're
Speaker 3: not rising to the occasion with like actual solutions stupidity.
Speaker 3: So to make things more convenient for the sales objects.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so this novel asks you would imagine that,
Speaker 1: like they're like, as the consequences of climate change continue
Speaker 1: to become like realer and realer to people, you get
Speaker 1: a world where people are like, wait, what if instead
Speaker 1: of just doing that, what if we build more reasonably
Speaker 1: sized cars? Or what since cars don't actually work and
Speaker 1: electric vehicles are still polluting through the like manufacturing process,
Speaker 1: Like what if we found other solutions for getting around?
Speaker 1: Like what? Yes? So one of the things that he
Speaker 1: talks about is just the need to transition to a
Speaker 1: post capitalist system for world governance. Just generally, all right,
Speaker 1: just like that right? Easy? Easy does it? The point
Speaker 1: is that like the climate and inequality are part of
Speaker 1: the same problem, Like, the extremely wealthy will continue to
Speaker 1: make decisions as if the rest of us don't exist,
Speaker 1: because under the current system, like practically speaking, as far
Speaker 1: as they're concerned, we don't exist. They never have to
Speaker 1: see us, they never have to deal with the consequences
Speaker 1: of their actions to Also, capitalism is currently constituted, will
Speaker 1: continue to extract them, like burn fossil fuels if not
Speaker 1: otherwise encumbered, right, and so like the current system is
Speaker 1: set up to reward people for doing things that are
Speaker 1: bad for us, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, right, right, The incentives are things that are
Speaker 3: not moving towards solutions or anything. Yeah, or or they
Speaker 3: may be perceived as that in the beginning, but ultimately no, yeah, And.
Speaker 1: The most powerful country in the world is still the US,
Speaker 1: and it's run by capitalism without restraint, like proudly like right.
Speaker 1: So one of the things he uses the model of Mondragon,
Speaker 1: which is a worker owned collective in the Bosque region
Speaker 1: of Spain Espanna.
Speaker 3: By Basco Bosco.
Speaker 1: So this is a co op that it's a voluntary
Speaker 1: association ninety five autonomous cooperatives that you know, each co
Speaker 1: op's highest paid executive makes a most six times the
Speaker 1: salary of its lowest paid employee. There no outside shareholders. Instead,
Speaker 1: you have a tryout period and then if they like
Speaker 1: you enough, you get a chance to buy in to
Speaker 1: be a part owner of the company that you work for.
Speaker 1: Right there is like a CEO type person that's called
Speaker 1: a managing director. And you know, but the members themselves
Speaker 1: vote on many of.
Speaker 3: Everything, I mean everything.
Speaker 1: Of strategy, salaries, policy, The votes of all members, whether
Speaker 1: they're senior management or blue collar, all count equally.
Speaker 3: So like in it, he's saying that like like moving
Speaker 3: first of all, like we're going to be probably up
Speaker 3: moving towards worker owned collectives in order to survive. Yes,
Speaker 3: and and that is a really like that example. If
Speaker 3: you really like read up on there's like documentaries or
Speaker 3: you can find shit about the under gun like they it,
Speaker 3: it will blow your mind as an American labor to
Speaker 3: see that, you're like. And then so the person right
Speaker 3: there in the fact they own they also own the company,
Speaker 3: yes exactly. And then but what happens, like if they
Speaker 3: make less money, what about layoffs? Well, see they own
Speaker 3: the company. So then rather than answering to shareholders who
Speaker 3: are saying, why I need my fucking shareholder value to
Speaker 3: hold up, so you need to lop some heads off
Speaker 3: and do layoffs, they decide internally what has to be sacrificed,
Speaker 3: what can be dialed up, what can be dialed down
Speaker 3: in order for the company to keep going long term,
Speaker 3: And like that is such a completely different way to
Speaker 3: engage with what you do for work when you actually
Speaker 3: have ownership for it, which I'm glad to see something
Speaker 3: like that would seem normal, like would seem like naturally
Speaker 3: like a fair thing to somebody if you like presented
Speaker 3: the idea to them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, especially if the alternative of like just full blown
Speaker 1: unfettered capitalism or neoliberalism. The current form of capitalism we
Speaker 1: live under is just like we start to se see
Speaker 1: the evidence more clearly that it just doesn't like it's
Speaker 1: not possible. Going.
Speaker 3: They got fucking little kids working at the bars now, right,
Speaker 3: Like that's where we're at.
Speaker 1: And they can get their little hands inside the pint glasses, miles.
Speaker 3: And they can put help. Yeah, they keep the fruit
Speaker 3: flies out of the mixer bottles like no, this is
Speaker 3: but again yeah, like it we can see it play
Speaker 3: out because it is almost going like we actually already
Speaker 3: have a script. It's called idiocracy, right, yeah, yeah, it's
Speaker 3: that version frequently.
Speaker 1: But my brain, you know, is so like capitalism poisoned,
Speaker 1: like it immediately when you talk about like a co op,
Speaker 1: Like there's this quote in this profile of Mondar going
Speaker 1: in the New Yorker where Larry Summers, our favorite guy,
Speaker 1: Harvard president, so he must be liberal and smart, characterized
Speaker 1: co ops as intrinsically sleepy and short sighted. When you
Speaker 1: put workers in charge of firms and you give them
Speaker 1: substantial control over the firms, the one thing you do
Speaker 1: not get is expansion. You get more for the people
Speaker 1: who are already there. Wow, one is greedy and will
Speaker 1: try and fuck you, so you just have to fuck
Speaker 1: them back. Like it's just that very basic, like intrinsic
Speaker 1: kind of cellular greed capitalism model of humanity that I
Speaker 1: like grew up. It like that's how I thought for
Speaker 1: a long time the world worked. But yeah, so there's
Speaker 1: probably a good reason that like we don't know about it.
Speaker 1: Is it like has succeeded. Sorry did I cut you off?
Speaker 3: No, No, I'm just kind of just rambling on the
Speaker 3: side agreeing because yeah, I mean, like the it's just wild.
Speaker 3: When he's basically saying, it's like, yeah, the problem is no,
Speaker 3: just destructive growth, right, That's the thing that's the only
Speaker 3: thing about it. And when you hear people who work
Speaker 3: in work our own co ops or like even people
Speaker 3: in like in Mandre going there, like it's clear profit
Speaker 3: is important because you need that to help sustain a hisiness.
Speaker 3: But that is not the fucking be all, end all.
Speaker 3: It's to ensure the longevity of the of this project
Speaker 3: and just be able to have it be something because
Speaker 3: like these some of these people are like second generation
Speaker 3: in the co op where they're like, yeah, my fucking
Speaker 3: parents started this shit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and yeah, I know this is like to shepherd
Speaker 1: it as far as the like no growth thing is concerned.
Speaker 1: This started in I think the forties as like a
Speaker 1: four people, four students from like this priest who is
Speaker 1: the founder, like created a community college and then like
Speaker 1: worked with for the people who graduated from there, who
Speaker 1: were like really promising students. Like I don't think I
Speaker 1: have all of this correct, but like it started with
Speaker 1: like four people that he was like, I bet you
Speaker 1: guys would make a good company. And now they employ
Speaker 1: around eighty thousand people. Seventy six percent of those work
Speaker 1: and manufacturing co ops and our owners. And it's not
Speaker 1: like I think the only thing that I had really
Speaker 1: heard of as a co op in the US's like
Speaker 1: grocery stores or like little like boutique stores just like
Speaker 1: mondra go on, Like what one of the manufacturing companies
Speaker 1: makes bicycles at an industrial scale. Others make elevators, produce
Speaker 1: huge industrial machines using the production of jet engines, rockets,
Speaker 1: wind turbines. They have schools, large grocery chain, a catering company,
Speaker 1: fourteen technology R and D centers. They even have a
Speaker 1: McKinsey like consulting firm.
Speaker 3: Hey see, right, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty one, the network brought in more than
Speaker 1: eleven billion euros in revenue. So I don't know, like,
Speaker 1: I don't want this to be like and they've never
Speaker 1: had a problem, but it's it's so directly flies in
Speaker 1: the face of everything I've ever heard about socialism or
Speaker 1: like well the possibilities of like how an incentive structure
Speaker 1: can work because of being you know, raised in this country, right,
Speaker 1: And so the book just like generally creates a model
Speaker 1: of the present and near future where like things just aren't.
Speaker 1: I think I assumed, like the internet had this like
Speaker 1: pro promise when it first became a thing, and like
Speaker 1: websites and you know, the freedom of information, and I
Speaker 1: just assumed that like the fact that it inevitably got
Speaker 1: fucked up by the forces of capital, like it that
Speaker 1: it is inevitable and but like when you take a
Speaker 1: step back and like think about how things could work
Speaker 1: under a system where like the economy works to serve
Speaker 1: people rather than like people working to serve the economy.
Speaker 1: Like that's the line from the book that is like
Speaker 1: so basic. I'm embarrassed that I stopped and like wrote
Speaker 1: it down. But it seems profound that that was.
Speaker 3: Your real eyes, real eye.
Speaker 1: Oh what the fuck?
Speaker 4: Man?
Speaker 3: Hold on man, Yeah, totally, I know it's so simple.
Speaker 3: But again to when you've been propagandized and evangelized about
Speaker 3: capitalism from fucking the gam meat phase of your life,
Speaker 3: like yeah, it does. It does seem like it's just
Speaker 3: like you can't even imagine the inversion of something. It's like, no, what, Yeah,
Speaker 3: we got to help the economy, Like motherfucker.
Speaker 1: That there's nothing about social media that inevitably says that
Speaker 1: the the companies who provide that service would sell your
Speaker 1: information for marketing purposes. And it's kind of weird that
Speaker 1: like it turned into like a brainwashing like addictive, competitive,
Speaker 1: like fucked up thing like it Like, but that's what
Speaker 1: hyper capitalism does. Everything, like the blockchain is a cool
Speaker 1: technology and theory and hyper capitalism turned it into a
Speaker 1: fucking scheme, and like that's what people think of when
Speaker 1: they think of the blockchain, whereas like it could be
Speaker 1: a very valuable tool and probably will be into the future.
Speaker 1: They actually do talk about the blackchain event in the
Speaker 1: in Ministry for the future. They use it to just
Speaker 1: make it so that the hyper wealthy can't hide their
Speaker 1: money in tax savans, like all all money is, yeah,
Speaker 1: all money's online, so it can't be hidden anywhere. Like,
Speaker 1: and the way that that that's brought about is that
Speaker 1: there's like an attack on the Swiss banks where a
Speaker 1: lot of the hyper wealthy hide their money and it,
Speaker 1: you know, they lose they lose track of all the
Speaker 1: different accounts that they have, and basically they're like, all right, well,
Speaker 1: you need to make it so that this information is
Speaker 1: just publicly available, yeah, because the old system kind of
Speaker 1: no longer works. And I guess the importance of the
Speaker 1: internet like point that is that like now everyone one
Speaker 1: knows so much more than they did before. Like the
Speaker 1: Internet gives us access to all this information, all of
Speaker 1: these tools for accessing the information, and it's still just
Speaker 1: like a tiny drop, but it right, it's harder to
Speaker 1: fool people, and it's easier to kind of it's going
Speaker 1: to be harder to hide the realities of the ship
Speaker 1: from people, or at least it should be in theory, right.
Speaker 3: Right, right, It's I mean, it's interesting because so many
Speaker 3: of these things, right because I know another element because
Speaker 3: I've I've seen Kim Stanley Roberts speak before too, and
Speaker 3: he also talks out about like regenerative agriculture, and you
Speaker 3: know that for something, you know in my mind it's.
Speaker 1: Kim Stanley Robinson. I've said that before. I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: what did I just say Stanley Roberts. Oh I did
Speaker 1: just yeah, sorry, And I said Kim Stanley Roberts before.
Speaker 3: Anyway, like in other talks I've seen him give, just
Speaker 3: like about the book and just like other sort of
Speaker 3: like climate change, like like what's like what the fuck
Speaker 3: are we go by folks kind of talks. Is to
Speaker 3: also see like regenerative agriculture be brought up so much,
Speaker 3: which again feels like when the ultimate sort of theme
Speaker 3: like if there is any sort of quote unquote solution,
Speaker 3: it's like to completely like unfuck our heads with the
Speaker 3: idea that growth is good and we need to be
Speaker 3: seeking profits at all costs, and especially with regenerative agriculture,
Speaker 3: it's like a really good way to wrap your head
Speaker 3: around just how we do things in like the most
Speaker 3: backwards way because current like just gigantic mega agribusinesses we're
Speaker 3: all about, especially in America, just monocrops. It's like this
Speaker 3: piece of ground will only grow fucking soybeans or corn
Speaker 3: or whatever. When that's done, we're gonna fucking We're gonna
Speaker 3: boost the fucking because it's all about yields, what we
Speaker 3: can get from this. It's all about putting as many
Speaker 3: fertilizers in and all kinds of chemicals and shit to
Speaker 3: bring about higher yields. And then once we pull that
Speaker 3: shit out, we just let that patch of dirt stay
Speaker 3: fucking dirt and do let like don't let like nature
Speaker 3: do its thing like allowing like, for example, just like
Speaker 3: the soil erosion is a huge thing that I was
Speaker 3: not really like really understanding its connection to our ecosystem
Speaker 3: and the destructive way that we farm doesn't allow for
Speaker 3: our soils to actually regenerate the microorganisms that it needs
Speaker 3: and also allows for things like you know, better water absorption.
Speaker 3: So they're like versions of it, like no tail farming,
Speaker 3: Like we're not just fucking ripping shit up and allowing
Speaker 3: plants to put roots deeper into the ground, which means
Speaker 3: if they have they can go deeper into the ground photosynthesis.
Speaker 3: They can take that fucking CO two and put carbon
Speaker 3: directly into the soil. And another huge part of it
Speaker 3: I did not realize was that as a reservoir to
Speaker 3: capture carbon, the ground is like something like many times
Speaker 3: larger than the atmosphere in terms of its capacity to
Speaker 3: absorb carbon. And like when you look at something like
Speaker 3: that and you're like, holy shit, a lot of And
Speaker 3: again I'm doing a very like very simplified distillation of
Speaker 3: regenerative agriculture, but the idea that we need to be
Speaker 3: actually working in harmony with the earth actually also helps
Speaker 3: for things like the desertification of our land for drought
Speaker 3: and you know, carbon capture, and now.
Speaker 1: That miles, how do we ten x that? How do
Speaker 1: we scale that?
Speaker 3: And just okay, this is how we cannet that real
Speaker 3: quick forma yeah, yeah, bank play bank run on that.
Speaker 3: Yeah ude, what do you think VC play on that?
Speaker 4: There?
Speaker 1: Should Regenerate agriculture should be people's new social media. It
Speaker 1: should be people's new bank.
Speaker 3: Well, this is the thing. Then this is where this
Speaker 3: is where our old ways kind of slip in, right,
Speaker 3: because now many people are using the term but with
Speaker 3: interchangeable definitions. Whether that means it's regenerative in the sense
Speaker 3: in the process that we're doing, or that the outcomes
Speaker 3: are regenerative, and they mean very different things in terms
Speaker 3: of how we're interacting with the earth. So again, like
Speaker 3: when I read stories about that, and some people like
Speaker 3: the most optimistic forecast and the white paper that the
Speaker 3: study that this like forecast was based off of has
Speaker 3: been debated by other scientists, was saying that, like, you know,
Speaker 3: if you actually were able to properly do certain regenerative
Speaker 3: practices on like all of our grasslands and farmlands, and
Speaker 3: that just sort of became the norm, we would capture
Speaker 3: all of the carbon that's emitted right now already and
Speaker 3: have the capacity for more giga tons of carbon. Now,
Speaker 3: I think a more not getting completely carried away with
Speaker 3: that version of that. At least for me, that is
Speaker 3: heartening is the idea that we have all of these
Speaker 3: tools that we know work right, and whether that means
Speaker 3: it's gonna one hundred percent or even fucking thirty percent.
Speaker 3: Any reduction is a good thing along with all the
Speaker 3: other things we're trying to do as a as a
Speaker 3: as a species. But being able to see that those
Speaker 3: things are available, these are things that we are trying
Speaker 3: to implement. People are definitely trying to implement it. They
Speaker 3: are definitely like large interest groups that are trying to
Speaker 3: do it for many different reasons. But that helps me
Speaker 3: as a human being move away a little bit from
Speaker 3: the water world idea of where this thing goes and
Speaker 3: to know that like like they're there, we have the
Speaker 3: ways to do this, we just have to fucking put
Speaker 3: it together. Yeah, and that's the fucking hard part, right,
Speaker 3: But I think for me, it's better to have an
Speaker 3: idea of how to like to actually address the situation
Speaker 3: rather than to be completely resigned to the fact that
Speaker 3: it's going to overtake it. Like of the way I
Speaker 3: thought about police violence in twenty fourteen is very different
Speaker 3: than how I think about police violence and how to
Speaker 3: actually address it now now that I've I've done like
Speaker 3: more research, more work, more interacting, more conversations with people
Speaker 3: to know that it's not just like man, it's always
Speaker 3: going to be like this it's like, well, no, there's
Speaker 3: things like qualified immunity that are holding us back. And
Speaker 3: in the same way, it's really good to be able
Speaker 3: to also arm yourself with these kinds of points of
Speaker 3: knowledge because it goes a little bit less from like Okay,
Speaker 3: well I guess I'm gonna wear my football pads with
Speaker 3: spikes in it and face pain I burnt out in
Speaker 3: the desert to being like no, man, like, these are
Speaker 3: a lot of things like we need to be thinking
Speaker 3: about more and are there. But again, that's that's our
Speaker 3: main battle is to not is to be able to
Speaker 3: coalesce around these things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Kim Stanley Robinson, like in a in a speech
Speaker 1: from Kim Stanley Rock, I think I've been saying Roberts
Speaker 1: and that might have fucked everyone else up. But it
Speaker 1: was funny. When I googled his name a few weeks ago,
Speaker 1: I found a found I found a like what one
Speaker 1: of the Google hits was a transcript of one of
Speaker 1: our podcasts where I called him Kim Stanley Roberts.
Speaker 3: I know, every time I actually talk about it, in
Speaker 3: my mind, I say Swiss Family Robinson, Kim Stanley Robinson to.
Speaker 1: But that's a little empirical rap miracle.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yo, sorry, fever cooked my brain.
Speaker 1: But he he talks about how like in the years
Speaker 1: since the book, because the book does talk about regenerate agriculture,
Speaker 1: but he's like, I was a little bit skeptical that
Speaker 1: it was as big a deal as people were making
Speaker 1: it seem. He was like, I thought it might be
Speaker 1: kind of like AI, like this buzz where the people
Speaker 1: are throwing out and him like, this is just the
Speaker 1: solution and we can like knock it out and ten
Speaker 1: exit and scale it. And he's like, no, it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's actually a real thing. But again it's it really
Speaker 1: is like a thing that I've heard him say multiple times.
Speaker 1: Is that like and he says it a couple of
Speaker 1: times in the book. Also, is that like profit is
Speaker 1: inherently predatory and is inherently going to like that that
Speaker 1: can't be the motive of a world that gets out
Speaker 1: of this problem.
Speaker 3: So there's if that if that in any way is
Speaker 3: intersecting with what's presented to you as a solution, it
Speaker 3: is not. It's actually the problem and even as much
Speaker 3: and we see this so much like in how we
Speaker 3: re presented products as consumers as a way to do
Speaker 3: your part, et cetera. When you do you do a
Speaker 3: lot better. Is like if you fucking can find ways
Speaker 3: just to do things immediately around you. But yeah, it
Speaker 3: is That's kind of what's interesting or that's that's why
Speaker 3: it makes it so daunting, is that it's like, Okay,
Speaker 3: so the way out of this is the opposite of
Speaker 3: this eventually. Yeah, but I think at a certain point
Speaker 3: there there are too many people who are not benefiting
Speaker 3: from the current order of things that I guess our
Speaker 3: hope is that we can we just hit that critical
Speaker 3: mass or we're all realized, like it's I think something
Speaker 3: has to be drastically different.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, let's take one more quick break. We'll
Speaker 1: be right back, and we're back and just real quickly.
Speaker 1: I mean, some of the other ideas that they mention
Speaker 1: that I think are worth mentioning here. So I've heard
Speaker 1: a lot about like carbon credits and some financialization of
Speaker 1: like giving people a reason to do. Like he talks
Speaker 1: about how our current system incentivizes people to do things
Speaker 1: that are bad for the planet and bad for other
Speaker 1: human beings. So in the book, they like create a
Speaker 1: currency that is basically in the same way that the
Speaker 1: dollar was originally backed by gold, like the gold standard.
Speaker 1: This is backed by a carbon standard where but like
Speaker 1: a reverse gold standard where it's backed by the absence
Speaker 1: of carbon. So it's like, you know, all the oil
Speaker 1: or natural gas that is currently in the earth that
Speaker 1: hasn't been extracted, like money is created that represents that
Speaker 1: value and like gives it to the people who like
Speaker 1: have access, who have ownership over that energy, and then
Speaker 1: like they basically get paige over a period of time
Speaker 1: as long as they're like good actors. But it's it's
Speaker 1: an interesting idea that I think is only interesting to
Speaker 1: me because it it's about something that is the extinction
Speaker 1: of the entire species and many other speeds.
Speaker 3: That's our new gold standard is preventing that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's like it's kind of the idea which
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, but to your point, it's like when you
Speaker 3: look at where like you know, fucking funds go from
Speaker 3: like national banks or like the IMF and stuff like that,
Speaker 3: it's not we're not incentivizing people to to undertake these
Speaker 3: kinds of projects that are going to be a net benefit.
Speaker 3: It's like oh yeah, like some more drilling, okay, Yeah,
Speaker 3: like we'll finance that rather than realizing. But again, that's
Speaker 3: another subtlety that we have to be able to approach
Speaker 3: and is happening on a smaller scale, you know, like
Speaker 3: they do have funds set aside to be able to
Speaker 3: like help stable other nations that are going through like
Speaker 3: economic uncertainty. You know, obviously in the past that's been
Speaker 3: done with in a very coercive manner. But it's like
Speaker 3: it's like the conversations are changing there. I think it
Speaker 3: just feels very weird right now because we're like at
Speaker 3: the doorstep of hopefully a lot of things changing, so
Speaker 3: they just feel so fucking in between. Yeah, but my
Speaker 3: hope is that is moving that directly.
Speaker 1: So I don't know. I mean, he's also like he's
Speaker 1: pretty impressed by the IRA under Biden, the Inflation Reduction Act.
Speaker 1: You know, it's wild that they had to call it
Speaker 1: the Inflation Reduction Act to get it past, but it
Speaker 1: is a huge spend. It's a bit it's the biggest
Speaker 1: climate bill of all time, and you know, he says
Speaker 1: that like groups have estimated that one trillion dollars a
Speaker 1: year would be enough to get people to do the
Speaker 1: work to get us to a non apocalyptic future, which
Speaker 1: sounds like a lot, but the world domestic like the WDP,
Speaker 1: the gross domestic product for the world is seventy five
Speaker 1: trillion dollars a year, and we don't don't have a
Speaker 1: world if we don't spend that one trillion.
Speaker 3: So can we connect those dots? Yeah, and I think
Speaker 3: I think we are. There's an I think we were
Speaker 3: watching some Probably the same talk too, is that for
Speaker 3: where we're at, it is important to understand, Yes, we
Speaker 3: are watching the world literally burn at times flood in
Speaker 3: biblical ways we had never seen before, but that like
Speaker 3: I think he was li likening it to the San
Speaker 3: Francisco Bay and like a choppy, like the top of
Speaker 3: the fucking there's a cross chop. It looks really fucked up.
Speaker 3: There's disasters or setbacks and things like that, but ultimately
Speaker 3: the current is moving in the right direction. And that
Speaker 3: is again, it's not a cure all to like or
Speaker 3: to think that the work is done, but I think
Speaker 3: it definitely helps to at least understand a little bit
Speaker 3: and makes sense of that despite we are in this
Speaker 3: very chaotic transition, but there is in factor transition happening.
Speaker 3: It's not that it's just staying at one place. So
Speaker 3: in that sense, I'm like it helps me feel a
Speaker 3: little bit better while also helping to like know like, oh,
Speaker 3: these are the kinds of things like we're going to
Speaker 3: have to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, all right, Well that's kind of what I
Speaker 1: wanted to do with that episode, is just like kind
Speaker 1: of talk about some of these ideas that are giving
Speaker 1: me maybe not like outright hope, but like just I
Speaker 1: feel like I a lot of my pessimism was misplaced
Speaker 1: or at least like not not based on how things
Speaker 1: could actually go. I wasn't fully aware, and this book
Speaker 1: helped me to kind of deal with that. So but
Speaker 1: I'm like, as is very evident from you know, everything
Speaker 1: I've said here, I'm very early in my education process
Speaker 1: on this. So you know, zi gang hit us up.
Speaker 1: Let us know, like what we could be reading, what's
Speaker 1: interesting to you, If there's anything giving you home on
Speaker 1: this front, and yeah, I think that's going to do it.
Speaker 1: Anything else you wanted to.
Speaker 3: Cover, Yeah, there's there's no no I thought I did. No,
Speaker 3: I was gonna say something frivolous about Baskin Robbins again.
Speaker 1: But no, no, no, I'm a don't talk about it.
Speaker 3: Okay, but yeah, I think again, I just say, like
Speaker 3: to your point, it's always important when we're faced with
Speaker 3: the existential dilemmas like this, that we don't just take
Speaker 3: the water World route in our mind and just go
Speaker 3: and then it's water World yeacause that is truly like
Speaker 3: that is how you get that's the quickest road to
Speaker 3: apathy for any topic. Yeah, we're facing right now, and
Speaker 3: I think it's it's so much more you You feel
Speaker 3: a little bit more connected when you understand that, like
Speaker 3: this is something that many people are putting their expertise into,
Speaker 3: but there's also just that critical mass that we have
Speaker 3: to hit where we all can collectively say that, like
Speaker 3: this is how we have to do it, and you know,
Speaker 3: unshackling ourselves from the like the financial overlords. Well that's
Speaker 3: that's another conversation, probably for a different kind of episode,
Speaker 3: will probably Robert.
Speaker 1: Evans on Yeah, Yeah, I think there's like I noticed
Speaker 1: myself having this moment where I was like, there's like
Speaker 1: a narcissism about be wanting to be part of like
Speaker 1: the end times, and like there is as you imagine
Speaker 1: like that, oh no, this is going to keep going on,
Speaker 1: and there's going to keep being struggle and like the
Speaker 1: future and like this conflict never stops coming and you're
Speaker 1: just trying to do your part to like get people
Speaker 1: to a better place in this conflict, like the people
Speaker 1: who come after you. Like there's a I get why
Speaker 1: people want it to be Nah fuck that it's mad
Speaker 1: maths because there's like something that it appeals to the
Speaker 1: inherent like American narcissism, but it's actually like super unhealthy
Speaker 1: and bleak.
Speaker 3: Well, right, because you look at preppers and they're like, yeah,
Speaker 3: don't worry, dude, I'll eat I'll eat ten cans of
Speaker 3: food and that's all I get out of it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's like that's can I get you know what? It
Speaker 3: probably feels like that's how you're gonna do it, but
Speaker 3: the solutions actually seem a lot easier.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And you get talking about people, we miss each other,
Speaker 1: I believe, like I believe it or not. That's a
Speaker 1: probably a lot of problems are caused by the fact
Speaker 1: that we we miss hanging out people. Well, we miss you,
Speaker 1: all right, that's it. Where can people find your mouth?
Speaker 3: At Miles of Gray wherever? And you know all the podcasts, Yeah.
Speaker 1: You can find me at check underscore Brian, that's gonna
Speaker 1: do it for this episode. Back tomorrow, talk to you later.
Speaker 1: Back this happening.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the fever everyone's brain.
Speaker 1: Yeah, fever fever, Your fever fried my brain exactly. All right,
Speaker 1: we'll talk to you'all later. Bye, bye,