WEBVTT - CLASSIC: Natural Disaster and Revolution 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:04.920 Friends and neighbors, fellow conspiracy realist. Back in twenty twenty, 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:08.800 towards the very end of the year, guys, as we 0:00:08.800 --> 0:00:12.479 were gearing up for as we were gearing up for 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:16.680 what they call Thanksgiving in the United States, we had 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:23.000 a really deep conversation about natural disasters and revolution. 0:00:24.000 --> 0:00:29.040 Yeah, when empires deal with something like a major flood 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:35.280 and it destroys infrastructure, right, But then we've got historians, anthropologists, 0:00:35.280 --> 0:00:37.600 all these folks coming through trying to understand what happened 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:41.239 to an ancient civilization, And often it's thought that it 0:00:41.320 --> 0:00:45.160 was a rival civilization, somebody that tried to just take 0:00:45.200 --> 0:00:46.560 over and raise a city. 0:00:46.680 --> 0:00:51.000 Let's say, but what if it was just the weather slash, 0:00:51.040 --> 0:00:53.120 the climate slash, some disaster. 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:56.080 I was just saying to a really interesting interview with 0:00:56.160 --> 0:01:00.080 a famous production designer named Jack Fisk, who worked on 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:03.000 on the recent Marty Supreme and a lot of Terrence 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:05.200 Malick movies. And he's just a really fascinating dude and 0:01:05.720 --> 0:01:07.520 a great historian because a big part of what he 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:11.240 does as a production designer is look into historical references 0:01:11.240 --> 0:01:13.800 and photos and just understanding how to create the world 0:01:13.880 --> 0:01:17.040 of very specific times and history and he pointed out 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:20.280 that at the end of the day, what makes the 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:24.759 most perfect storm no pun intended circumstances for a revolution 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:27.959 is when people can no longer feed their children, is 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:31.080 when people can no longer have the things they need 0:01:31.120 --> 0:01:36.000 to survive. Not ideology that's almost like a luxury. We 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:40.040 are talking about situations, circumstances that lead people to revolt 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:43.000 because they are not able to live. 0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:51.280 And as we find in tonight's classic episode, multiple investigations 0:01:51.600 --> 0:01:56.720 with the benefit of retrospect have found a troubling correlation 0:01:58.000 --> 0:02:04.160 that not all revelations are falls or rises of empires 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:09.919 are necessarily the fault of the humans involved. That's so nuts. 0:02:09.960 --> 0:02:13.519 Like the natural world, you might be one hurricane away 0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:17.720 from living in a different country. That's what we're talking about. 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:19.080 Whoa's roll it. 0:02:20.600 --> 0:02:25.040 From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:29.440 riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or 0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:32.480 learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A 0:02:32.560 --> 0:02:34.280 production of iHeart Radio. 0:02:44.639 --> 0:02:47.280 Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:48.280 my name is Nolan. 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:50.959 They call me Ben. We're joyed as always with our 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:55.720 super producer Paul Mission Control. Decades most importantly, you are you, 0:02:55.720 --> 0:02:59.520 You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:04.880 want you to know. We've got a real optimistic one today, 0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:10.160 my friends. We're talking about the hazard of natural disaster. 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:15.359 And this was inspired in part by some earlier conversations 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:18.280 we had on and off air, but most recently it 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:23.640 was inspired by a moment in our episode on the 0:03:23.639 --> 0:03:28.040 Bronze Age collapse where we found that several different scientists 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:34.080 propose a volcanic eruption in Iceland, of all places, may 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:38.920 have played a direct role in that that collapse that 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:43.120 went across multiple large civilizations. And one of the questions 0:03:43.120 --> 0:03:48.840 we asked is how could this have such a tremendous 0:03:49.240 --> 0:03:51.520 impact on these civilizations? 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:54.400 Yeah, it's a real Who done it? It turns out 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:55.040 it was people? 0:03:55.640 --> 0:03:58.720 Yeah, well, well people were the ones in the end 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:02.640 who you know well to who would hold a weapon 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:06.560 and attack right someone? But where we're looking at the 0:04:06.640 --> 0:04:10.160 root causes of what what made those people decide that 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:13.440 it was the correct time to attack a city, to 0:04:13.520 --> 0:04:17.320 revolt to a good point, and it has all you know, 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:19.719 it kind of harkens back to a couple other episodes 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:22.760 ben that we did in the past, so specifically thinking 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:27.320 about the solar activity and mass excitability and humans how 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:31.120 we react to solar changes, as well as the episode 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:34.360 Can Weather Make You Crazy, where we looked at how 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:38.120 weather itself can affect our minds and our moods and 0:04:38.240 --> 0:04:42.360 our decision making. There's a lot of interesting stuff going on. 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:45.479 Here and that's one of that's still one of my 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:47.960 favorite titles of a show we've done. I think it 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:51.960 was we called the Solar Excitability one Slaves to the Sun, 0:04:52.400 --> 0:04:56.680 which sounds like a nineteen seventies band or maybe. 0:04:56.279 --> 0:04:56.600 Like a. 0:04:58.080 --> 0:05:00.760 Oh what's what's that Australia. 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:02.360 Group Anti Donna? 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:07.280 Yeah, oh no, Silver Empire of the Sun. Yes, their 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:11.400 album would be Slaves to the Sun. But you guys 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:15.640 are right, and there are other examples of this. But 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:20.640 first we need to examine what we mean when we 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:25.240 say natural disaster. So here are the facts. 0:05:25.320 --> 0:05:28.560 Really quickly, just as a caveat. This isn't a leaf 0:05:28.600 --> 0:05:31.159 blower today, folks. But there is a small screaming child 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:35.039 in my house. So if you hear that, just know 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:38.279 knowing it's okay, everything's fine. My daughter is babysitting for 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:40.120 her little sister in the other room, and I don't 0:05:40.120 --> 0:05:41.560 have the heart to go down there and tell them 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:44.160 to keep it to pipe down. I'm gonna text them shush, 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:46.479 see what happens. But just wanted to put that out there. 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:51.200 Speaking of natural disasters, I'm just kidding. Your child is 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:53.120 just natural disaster. 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:56.240 She is an unnatural abomination. That is what she is. 0:05:56.839 --> 0:06:00.760 Okay, So back to natural disasters. We all use this 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:02.880 phrase all the time, and we have a pretty good 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:07.040 sense of what it means. It's a catastrophic event that 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:11.560 comes from the natural processes of planet Earth. Earth was 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:13.880 doing this stuff all the time. We only call it 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:19.160 a disaster because it's bad for humanity. It's still you know, 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:22.240 we're a very small piece of this. This includes all 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:24.919 the stuff you've heard before, all the biblical fire and 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:31.760 brimstone things, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:32.160 so on. 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:35.040 Yeah, even wildfires can be put in there, especially if 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:39.400 they are caused by lightning and drought conditions. And in 0:06:39.480 --> 0:06:44.000 previous episodes, we've explored humanity's ongoing conflict with these things 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:47.640 that we consider natural disasters, including the question of whether 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:50.200 or not in the past, at some point we have 0:06:50.440 --> 0:06:54.240 found a way to harness these things to send them 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:58.840 out against a country with which we are having conflict, right, 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:00.920 or whether or not we can to harness the weather 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:04.760 in some other way for a good purpose. And you know, 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:08.200 you may remember cloud seeding as something we explored, even 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:12.440 how something that doesn't seem connected to this topic, like 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:17.040 fracking can actually cause things like earthquakes, and you know 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:18.280 that's some creepy stuff. 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:20.080 Well, and I was being a smart alec at the 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:21.600 top of the show and I said, it's a who 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:24.520 done It turns out it was people. I was just, 0:07:24.600 --> 0:07:27.200 you know, winking and nodding at climate change. I mean, 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:29.440 you can call it a natural disaster all day long, 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:33.520 but the activities of humans, to a varying degree depending 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:35.840 on which scientist you ask, probably has something to do 0:07:35.880 --> 0:07:39.320 with the frequency of these natural disasters. 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:43.640 That's all frequency and severity, right, Yes, so it goes. 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:46.720 I would be careful with the word harness, however, because 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:49.240 harness could mean a couple of things. It could mean 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:53.640 opportunism after a disaster strikes, and it could mean to 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:56.960 the extreme degree, which I think we've proven fairly conclusively, 0:07:57.440 --> 0:08:04.440 manufacturing of disaster. I would point to cloud seeding operations 0:08:04.640 --> 0:08:08.480 on the US side in the Vietnam War as a 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:14.280 weaponized weather. That's an example of creating natural disasters in 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:17.480 that case, specifically flooding. And to the point about fracking 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:20.640 that you make mat which I greatly appreciate. We don't 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:25.400 have evidence that someone purposefully created earthquakes with fracking, but 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:29.000 we do have evidence that fracking has an unforeseen side effect, 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:34.480 which is increasing the likelihood of earthquakes by a measurable amount. 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:36.480 Yeah, I think. I think by using hardness, I was 0:08:36.520 --> 0:08:39.600 going back to some of the allegations about Tesla and 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:44.120 building a machine that could actually create an earthquake that 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:45.199 we looked at a long time ago. 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:50.320 Yeah, Wordcliff Tower is related to that, I believe. And 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:53.600 you know, the thing about Tesla that still bugs me 0:08:55.040 --> 0:08:58.959 is what happened to his notes after he passed away. 0:08:59.200 --> 0:09:02.760 You know, that's the big, big piece of that conspiracy. 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:06.720 So here's something that a lot of people throughout history 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:08.600 have had a big problem with in the world of 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:15.040 natural disasters. It's this, natural disasters are non discriminatory. A 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:18.320 hurricane doesn't just hit the poor zip codes, you know 0:09:18.360 --> 0:09:22.720 what I mean. An earthquake doesn't not shake a church 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:26.920 or a mansion. It shakes everything that it hits, so 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:34.439 we as humans just simply try to survive when these 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:37.679 things strike, get ourselves back together and sol draw on. 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:40.400 It reminds me of something. I can't remember which show 0:09:40.600 --> 0:09:42.840 I talked about this honor or whether it was just 0:09:42.960 --> 0:09:46.200 us hanging out off air, but it reminds me of 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:52.120 how humbling birds are for humanity. Think about it. We 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:56.040 have so much technology. We can take people to the Moon. 0:09:56.480 --> 0:09:59.920 For Pete's sake, we are gone to as a spe 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:03.800 ses accomplish our first round trip to an asteroid, which 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:07.280 started in twenty sixteen. Just landed took a sample of 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:09.800 an asteroid. It'll be back in twenty twenty three. But 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:12.360 there's one thing we can't do. We can't stop birds 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:15.280 from crapping on things. We haven't figured it out. The 0:10:15.320 --> 0:10:18.640 closest technology we have for that is either eradicating birds, 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:22.320 which I know you're on board with NOL, or building roofs. 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:24.160 So the natural. 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:28.200 Umbrellas you know, the umbrella is a second, A strong second. 0:10:28.640 --> 0:10:30.520 I feel like an umbrella is a portable roof. 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:33.080 Absolutely. Do you know what when you put it like that, 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:35.839 you got me well, and there are there are specific 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:39.800 things you can put on let's say, railings in other 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:42.480 places that will prevent birds from landing there, or will 0:10:42.480 --> 0:10:45.320 discourage birds from landing in certain areas. 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:48.839 Yeah, you see them in like subway stations or signage 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:51.280 for storefronts and strip malls and things like that. They're 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:51.880 like little. 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:54.839 Spikes, but that can't stop from the poop from coming out. 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:59.600 Oh streets our example too, because when we think about 0:10:59.679 --> 0:11:05.200 that building, those deterrents on benches or statues, or the 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:09.400 eaves of roofs and buildings, it's a lot like the 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:13.080 way we would try to build levees, right, we try 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:16.840 to shore up a coastline. We can't stop a hurricane 0:11:17.040 --> 0:11:21.120 anymore than we can stop birds from pooping everywhere. We 0:11:21.240 --> 0:11:27.040 can only try to mitigate the disaster and the potential aftermath. 0:11:27.520 --> 0:11:30.920 So that's why the bulk of scientific research into natural 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:34.360 disaster it doesn't really it doesn't really hinge on how 0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:38.240 we can stop these historically, It hinges on how we 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:43.160 can predict when these unavoidable events will occur. You know 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:43.600 what I mean? 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:49.480 Yeah, no, absolutely, Yeah, there's no way to stop that 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:53.880 volcano from erupting currently, unless you know, you toss a 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:57.080 nuke down there and just classify the whole situation, which 0:11:57.120 --> 0:12:01.480 you know is an option I guess at some point. 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:04.240 And every time it happens, we're seeing especially this year, 0:12:04.320 --> 0:12:06.840 my goodness, we are seeing it in the United States 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:11.200 happen time and time again. A terrible natural disaster occurs. 0:12:11.520 --> 0:12:14.440 We have somewhat of an outlook on it. We know 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:18.120 it's coming for at least a week, few days, maybe, 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:21.880 especially with the hurricanes that have been just pummeling the 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:27.120 Gulf Coast in other areas, and it rolls through, power 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:29.040 goes out for a lot of people, People lose their 0:12:29.080 --> 0:12:33.560 homes to terrible tragedies on a personal human level. And 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:37.000 then as a whole, society picks itself up as much 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:41.720 as it can, allocates disaster funds as much as it can, 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:44.440 and as much as the governments of various states and 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:48.000 other places localities will allow, and then we just keep 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:49.520 going until another one. 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:53.720 Hits yep, and we hope that we can use our 0:12:53.840 --> 0:13:00.840 previous experience to better handle these once again unavoidable could catastrophees. 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:07.880 It's it sounds pretty fatalistic, right. It's an existential crisis 0:13:07.920 --> 0:13:12.080 of some sort. We're always as humans dealing with natural disaster. 0:13:12.280 --> 0:13:15.439 We have a lot in common with the story of Sisyphus. 0:13:15.600 --> 0:13:19.559 We just keep rolling that great stone we call civilization 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:22.400 to the top of a hill to watch it fall 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:28.000 back down again and start from square one, pick ourselves up, 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:32.440 stumble along, and we still, you know, try to build 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:36.160 things that will last. There's something beautiful about that when 0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:40.160 we consider that all of civilization is a lot more 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:44.080 like one of those meditative Buddhist sand paintings than we 0:13:44.120 --> 0:13:46.720 would like to suppose. It gets wiped away so easily, 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:47.160 you know. 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:53.680 I recently rewatched the anime film Akira, which is all 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:58.760 about the destruction of Tokyo and rebuilding of Neo Tokyo, 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:00.920 and it's really fair. Thing is I watched a little 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:05.720 mini documentary about how Japanese culture and their attitude toward 0:14:05.800 --> 0:14:10.240 technology and their pop culture and in anime and their 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:14.280 film world is very much driven by the fact that 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:18.120 they were in large places blown up, you know, by 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:22.200 the United States with the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. 0:14:22.480 --> 0:14:26.760 And what an interesting cultural benchmark to affect the way 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:30.000 you think about technology, especially having to completely kind of 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:33.880 rebuild society and rely very heavily on technology, but also 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:36.200 kind of fear it in a weird way. I thought 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:38.680 that was a really interesting point in the documentary. 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:43.400 Yeah, I've heard that. I've heard that line of reasoning before. 0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:45.560 I think it's I think it's a really compelling theory 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:50.560 that has a lot of sand to it. We see 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:56.240 in there a microcosm of a larger historical trend, you know, 0:14:56.360 --> 0:14:58.600 and it's one that continues today. It's one that is 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:03.240 not going to stop. Every single year, natural disasters wreak 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:07.960 billions upon billions of dollars worth of damage across this planet. 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:13.800 The wealthy, the poor alike, any religion, any any set 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:17.040 of values doesn't matter when the hurricane or the tsunami 0:15:17.080 --> 0:15:21.480 comes calling. In fact, they have brought so much damage 0:15:21.600 --> 0:15:26.160 that it's difficult to estimate the exact cost. There's one 0:15:26.240 --> 0:15:32.560 stat that's interesting and still just a ballpark. From nineteen 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:37.880 eighty five to nineteen ninety four, studies show that natural 0:15:37.880 --> 0:15:42.760 disasters cost about thirty six billion dollars a year. Now, 0:15:42.880 --> 0:15:46.880 from two thousand and five to twenty fourteen, the damage 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:51.440 inflicted is around one hundred and forty two billion dollars. 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:53.840 So that means a couple of things. If we want 0:15:53.840 --> 0:15:59.000 to unpack it. First, it means that we have more 0:15:59.080 --> 0:16:04.520 stuff to wreck, right. We also have more inflation in general, 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:09.120 that's a trend, So we just have more potential or 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:12.840 more I guess liability or risk people might call it. 0:16:13.520 --> 0:16:19.200 But secondly, it means that things are increasing. Inflation alone 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:23.480 cannot explain this cost, and studies indicate the damage wrought 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:27.160 by natural disasters may go much much further than a 0:16:27.360 --> 0:16:28.600 financial bottom line. 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:36.520 But what if revolutions are caused not just by human factors, 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:44.120 but somehow guided by the planet itself. Well, we're going 0:16:44.120 --> 0:16:47.000 to talk about that very thing after a quick word 0:16:47.040 --> 0:16:48.040 from our sponsor. 0:16:55.280 --> 0:17:00.600 Here's where it gets crazy. So are we accusing Earth 0:17:00.640 --> 0:17:06.479 itself of conspiring defoement revolution? Yes, it sounds I mean, yeah, 0:17:06.640 --> 0:17:10.560 we are. It might sound preposterous, But the scary thing 0:17:10.640 --> 0:17:14.040 is this does seem to be the case. There's a 0:17:14.800 --> 0:17:19.840 fascinating paper about this very thing. It's called Natural Disasters 0:17:19.880 --> 0:17:24.480 and the Risk of Violent Civil Conflict by researchers Philip 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:26.800 Nell and Margaline Righarts. 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:30.560 Yes, and in this study they argue that the occurrences 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:34.119 of natural disasters such as an earthquake maybe or a 0:17:34.240 --> 0:17:38.280 volcanic eruption, maybe a flood, let's say a hurricane, anything 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:41.800 really anything at all, a heat wave, an epidemic, massive 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:46.280 forest fires, a plague, all of this stuff. Whenever there's 0:17:46.320 --> 0:17:50.600 something like that occurring, it is going to increase the 0:17:52.080 --> 0:17:57.080 possibility of some kind of violent conflict within society, or 0:17:57.080 --> 0:17:59.960 at least the the risk of something like that occurring. 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:02.560 And at first you think, no, there's no way those 0:18:02.560 --> 0:18:05.600 things could be connected, but then you start going down 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:09.000 just go, just go down the pathways of your mind 0:18:09.000 --> 0:18:12.679 a little bit and imagine how much tension something like 0:18:12.760 --> 0:18:17.960 that causes within a society and everything from any kind 0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:22.040 of government, religious, whatever, whatever the controlling powers are, and 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:26.440 the people as well as the people with each other, 0:18:26.640 --> 0:18:30.240 the inner conflicts. It's it makes so much sense when 0:18:30.280 --> 0:18:34.200 you if you allow yourself to really to think about it. 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:35.840 I don't know what I'm saying. 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:38.480 Bah wait, but wait, guys, aren't we in the middle 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:43.880 of a disaster and uh uprising or fine? 0:18:43.920 --> 0:18:45.320 Everything's fine, everything's fine. 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:47.600 It feels like you just describe what's going on in 0:18:47.640 --> 0:18:50.000 our world literally right now. I'm just okay, all right, 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:50.760 I'm gonna let it go. 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:55.360 Arguably, humans are the disaster, uh if you look at 0:18:55.400 --> 0:19:01.600 the planet overall, which I know sounds sanctimonious. So let's 0:19:01.640 --> 0:19:05.320 say the disasters that are humans. I like where you're 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:08.440 going though, Matt, Could you trace this out because are 0:19:08.440 --> 0:19:10.280 you saying there's some sort of pattern? 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:15.360 Perhaps I'm saying there's definitely a pattern, you guys, if 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:17.920 you take a look at the study, or at least 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:20.439 what they did for this study. They took data from 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:23.880 one hundred and eighty seven political units from the year 0:19:23.960 --> 0:19:28.920 nineteen fifty to two thousand, and they were just going 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:33.480 through and systematically exploring the relationship between natural disasters, occurrences 0:19:33.520 --> 0:19:40.240 of any natural disaster, and violent uprisings or civil civil 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:45.000 conflict within a society. Right, how do these things work together? 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:47.639 And they found something pretty terrifying. We've actually got a 0:19:47.680 --> 0:19:48.880 quote from it right here. 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:53.240 Yes, it says natural disasters significantly increase the risk of 0:19:53.359 --> 0:19:57.000 violent civil conflict both in the short and medium term, 0:19:57.600 --> 0:20:02.160 specifically in low and middle end countries that have intermediate 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:08.400 to high levels of inequality jeez. Okay, mixed political regimes jeez, 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:14.280 and sluggish economic growth. Rapid onset disasters related to geology 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:18.280 and climate seem to pose the highest overall risk, but 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:21.600 different dynamics apply it to what they call minor and 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:23.040 major conflicts. 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:25.879 So let me let me walk us back here for 0:20:25.920 --> 0:20:30.399 a second. There are some important things political units. That's 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:33.840 an umbrella term, or I guess for this show, it's 0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:39.080 a portable roof term. It describes everything from a local 0:20:39.160 --> 0:20:43.359 tribe or a community to something like the British Empire, 0:20:43.560 --> 0:20:46.960 you know what I mean. And that is where we 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:50.520 see the different dynamics they're sketching out to what they 0:20:50.520 --> 0:20:54.679 would call minor and major conflicts, so like a regional, 0:20:55.720 --> 0:21:01.679 short lived conflict between two tribes or a major multi 0:21:01.720 --> 0:21:06.240 party conflict like World War two or something. And of course, yes, 0:21:07.080 --> 0:21:10.080 their study only goes back to nineteen fifty, so this 0:21:10.160 --> 0:21:16.280 is post World War two. But we know from previous 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:21.280 episodes and from a wealth of other research that this 0:21:22.080 --> 0:21:26.520 is at best a cover version of a very old 0:21:26.720 --> 0:21:33.399 original song of terror and heartbreak. We looked at earlier civilizations, 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:40.000 ancient civilizations that mysteriously disappeared for centuries. People thought, well, 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:46.119 maybe this group of highly advanced people just left this 0:21:46.280 --> 0:21:49.080 metropolis they worked so hard on because they got tired 0:21:49.080 --> 0:21:52.040 of it. Maybe they just said, you know what, it's 0:21:52.080 --> 0:21:55.119 time for a new chapter. But later studies have shown 0:21:55.520 --> 0:22:01.040 that disaster plays a huge role in this. Like what's 0:22:01.080 --> 0:22:06.480 the example of Khmer Empire in modern day Cambodia. There's 0:22:06.520 --> 0:22:12.440 this beautiful former metropolis called Angkor Watts, which you can 0:22:12.520 --> 0:22:17.520 visit today. For a very long time, people didn't know 0:22:17.600 --> 0:22:23.600 exactly why ankor Watt went into decline, but now we're 0:22:23.720 --> 0:22:28.719 pretty sure that it collapsed due to prolonged drought. The 0:22:28.760 --> 0:22:33.880 weather changed, and when the weather changed, the people had 0:22:33.920 --> 0:22:38.080 to change their routine and their lives and the rules 0:22:38.320 --> 0:22:42.280 of the governing system at that time, those rules no 0:22:42.400 --> 0:22:45.560 longer applied because they were not able to address the 0:22:45.600 --> 0:22:50.560 problems people were having, and so the empire collapsed. 0:22:51.119 --> 0:22:55.160 Yes, yeah, no, that's that's a really great point. Well, 0:22:55.160 --> 0:22:57.440 and you know, we talked about this. We keep mentioning 0:22:57.480 --> 0:23:01.960 of the Bronze Age collapse something like that, where we 0:23:01.960 --> 0:23:06.240 we thought, or the belief was that somehow this volcanic 0:23:06.359 --> 0:23:10.080 eruption way over in Iceland had something to do with it. 0:23:10.440 --> 0:23:13.919 And as we explored it, we realized that it's not 0:23:14.520 --> 0:23:20.399 just because a volcano exploded, Like the volcano exploding it 0:23:20.480 --> 0:23:25.480 in itself is not what caused the revolutions and the 0:23:25.840 --> 0:23:30.480 uprisings to occur. It was almost like dominoes were set 0:23:30.600 --> 0:23:34.240 up for collapse to occur. They're all just sitting there 0:23:34.280 --> 0:23:37.320 waiting for something to knock them all down. And that 0:23:37.400 --> 0:23:43.200 volcano just went up boot And we're gonna get into 0:23:43.200 --> 0:23:45.959 more details about that here in just a moment. But 0:23:46.000 --> 0:23:48.000 the the you know, one of the first things we 0:23:48.040 --> 0:23:54.840 need to talk about is the limited lifespan over you know, 0:23:54.920 --> 0:24:00.000 the past several millennia of a civilization, of a large civilis, 0:24:00.359 --> 0:24:07.240 especially of an empire, something large and unwieldy, and we've 0:24:07.359 --> 0:24:09.320 seen some things in the past, We've looked at it, 0:24:09.680 --> 0:24:16.280 but it's, uh, there's this tendency for empires, for big ones, 0:24:17.760 --> 0:24:21.360 the collapse a bit of a bit of a schedule. There, 0:24:21.440 --> 0:24:23.400 a bit of a cycle that happens. 0:24:24.480 --> 0:24:27.160 Some people would argue that's the case. Yeah, you can. 0:24:28.400 --> 0:24:34.639 You can read studies that attempt to treat empires like 0:24:34.760 --> 0:24:38.600 natural disasters in the following ways. They assume that empires 0:24:38.680 --> 0:24:42.480 are unavoidable and that the collapse of empires is also 0:24:42.880 --> 0:24:48.639 likewise unavoidable. And so if these two assumptions hold true, 0:24:49.000 --> 0:24:53.359 then researchers find themselves attempting to do the same thing 0:24:53.600 --> 0:24:57.800 that scientists concerned with disaster do. They ask themselves, how 0:24:57.840 --> 0:25:00.320 can we predict this, how can we model it? How 0:25:00.359 --> 0:25:05.120 can we mitigate the collapse of a civilization. That's where 0:25:05.119 --> 0:25:11.160 we come into the varying theories that civilizations may have 0:25:12.880 --> 0:25:15.480 some sort of expiration date. You know, one of the 0:25:15.560 --> 0:25:18.479 numbers that we hear thrown around pretty often is something 0:25:18.640 --> 0:25:23.359 like two hundred, two hundred and fifty years. That should 0:25:23.400 --> 0:25:28.800 really bother every US resident in the audience today, because 0:25:29.160 --> 0:25:33.400 the US celebrated its bicentennial in nineteen seventy six. 0:25:33.480 --> 0:25:36.080 Hey, but we're not an empire, right, It's not like 0:25:36.119 --> 0:25:40.320 we've got troops stationed all over the planet and control 0:25:40.359 --> 0:25:46.160 a bunch of other territories. Wait a second, I want. 0:25:45.960 --> 0:25:49.040 To really quickly the idea of empires being inevitable. 0:25:49.320 --> 0:25:50.240 Is that sort of just a. 0:25:50.119 --> 0:25:54.080 Product of like human nature and never having enough and 0:25:54.119 --> 0:25:57.720 just the idea that someone's eventually gonna slide into an 0:25:57.760 --> 0:26:01.919 empire building role just out of here, you know, megalomania? 0:26:02.200 --> 0:26:04.919 Or is it a matter of like organization of society 0:26:04.960 --> 0:26:07.520 and making sure everyone has everything they need. Because I 0:26:07.560 --> 0:26:11.080 feel like civilization and empires aren't the same thing true. 0:26:11.200 --> 0:26:14.840 There have been a lot of very uncivilized empires. Kidding 0:26:14.880 --> 0:26:18.239 with that one. Yeah, it's an excellent question, Noel. So 0:26:19.440 --> 0:26:22.879 you will find the argument that empires do not exist 0:26:22.920 --> 0:26:25.720 in the modern day, that instead we are a somewhat 0:26:27.200 --> 0:26:33.600