WEBVTT - CZM Book Club: Cool Zone 2055: The Peace Department 0:00:01.840 --> 0:00:11.080 Cool Zone Media Dinah Wars, Dinah Wors, Dinah Wars. Hello, 0:00:11.400 --> 0:00:14.480 Welcome to cool Zoned Media book Club, the only book 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:19.560 club about Dinah Wars, probably unless you started German book 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:22.960 Club to study cools owned media book clubs Dinah Wars, 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:26.560 which you could, except if you had a book club 0:00:26.600 --> 0:00:31.400 about it, you probably find all the lot inconsistencies. But anyway, 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:34.680 I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy. And in case you hadn't 0:00:34.720 --> 0:00:36.880 figured it out, this is a Dinah Wars episode of 0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:39.959 Cool Zone Media book Club, which means this is an 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:43.559 episode from thirty years in the future. That's right. We 0:00:43.760 --> 0:00:48.680 got exclusive access to podcasts from thirty years in the future, 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:53.680 including the one that we're about to run. So here 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:59.400 it is, Hello and welcome to cool Zone twenty fifty 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:03.000 five to Survive the Dino Wars, the show where we 0:01:03.080 --> 0:01:06.560 cover all things World War three point five, all things 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:09.520 Dino Wars. We've got news from the front and we've 0:01:09.520 --> 0:01:12.840 got news from the back. We've got everything you need 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:16.440 to know about triceratops's except how you're supposed to pluralize 0:01:16.440 --> 0:01:19.160 that word, because we don't know. And everything you need 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:23.119 to know about the Nazi zombies we've got analysis, we've 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:28.320 got how to's, we've got our most generous sponsor. That's right, 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:33.800 Dino Cadence, the world's premiere chain of dinosaur riding academies. 0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:38.280 Every single one of our locations has passed our extensive 0:01:38.319 --> 0:01:42.720 certification program, not just once, not just once a year, 0:01:43.160 --> 0:01:46.559 but every season. So you know that, if it says 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:50.360 Dino Cadence, the teachers are well trained and paid well, 0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:53.760 that the dinosaurs are well trained and well cared for, 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:58.920 and the students like you receive a world class education. 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:03.920 Joined the war for human and dino liberation, Join the 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:08.880 war on climate change in fascism, Join the war against brutality, 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:14.960 Join the worldwide revolution. Tuition is free, but spots are limited. 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:21.080 So apply to Dino Cadence today. Okay, so that's out 0:02:21.120 --> 0:02:24.639 of the way. There's a quote that is regularly misattributed 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:27.040 to Lenin, who is a terrible man to whom so 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:31.320 much is misattributed. People like to pretend that Lenin said 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:34.800 there are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:40.639 when decades happen. A man named Himero Aridius, the Mexican 0:02:40.680 --> 0:02:45.120 poet and environmentalist, did say something similar, though he said, 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:48.480 there are centuries in which nothing happens, in years in 0:02:48.520 --> 0:02:53.760 which centuries pass. It is very hard to believe that 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:57.720 we've only had six years with dinosaurs. World War IIE 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:00.800 feels like a lifetime ago, and the pre war years 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:06.839 before that unimaginably distant. We have always lived with dinosaurs. 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:10.320 It feels like when I access my old memories, which 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:13.200 forgive me I'm in my early seventies. I do so 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:17.239 more and more often. I struggle to understand what the 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:20.680 night sky sounded like without the cries of giant reptiles 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:25.480 setting down for bed. It is the terrible curse of 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:29.120 human history that most new technologies are turned first to war, 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:33.480 turn first to destruction before they find their way to 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:37.040 peacetime use. We unlocked the atom so that we could 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:40.240 punish Imperial Japan and kill hundreds of thousands of its 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:43.800 civilians in one of the greatest war crimes in human history. 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:48.320 Our desire to kill our fellow humans has always brought 0:03:48.320 --> 0:03:54.480 out our ingenuity. Of course, X vivogenesis and dinosaur de 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:58.840 extinction was developed during peacetime, but it was the dinos 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:02.240 Versus Zombies's armory that really got de extinction going at 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:06.200 any kind of scale, and today, like I promised last week, 0:04:06.800 --> 0:04:09.680 I'm at one of the world's oldest and largest crushes, 0:04:10.200 --> 0:04:14.320 a simply massive compound somewhere in rural Finland where extinct 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:17.479 species are resurrected. I can't say the name of the 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:21.120 place on air, not during wartime, so I'm going to 0:04:21.160 --> 0:04:25.440 call it Punelu, the ancient Finnish Land of the Dead. 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:30.200 There are three different facilities here, each with their own staff, headquarters, 0:04:30.240 --> 0:04:35.000 and even social norms. There's the Center for the Eradication 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:39.360 of the March of Time aka the Research Department, which 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:44.159 d extincts new animals. There's the Center for Application of 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:46.719 Muscle and Bone for the purpose of Liberating the Earth 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:51.880 aka the War Department. And then there's the Center for 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:56.480 the Cohabitation of Flora and Fauna aka the Peace Department. 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:00.760 The War Department is far and away the largest of 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:04.480 the three departments, receiving sixty percent of the grounds, seventy 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:07.560 percent of the personnel, and seventy four percent of the funding. 0:05:08.800 --> 0:05:11.600 I understand why this is the case. I used to 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:14.359 be an activist journalist. Well, I used to be just 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:17.159 an activist back in my youth. A decade of work 0:05:17.200 --> 0:05:20.240 i've been milking for street cred ever since. But these 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:24.120 days I'm a war journalist. Most of us didn't set 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:27.920 out to be war journalists, war bookkeepers, war chefs, war 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:33.720 graphic designers, war crocheers, war animal trainers, war doctors, war pilots, 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:37.640 or war anything. We simply set out to live our 0:05:37.680 --> 0:05:42.880 lives as free people, and war came to us. So 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:45.880 the War department is the largest, and I understand why, 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:49.760 and it still makes me sad. But this episode isn't 0:05:49.760 --> 0:05:53.160 about the War Department, nor is it about the Research department. 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:58.839 Wartime secrecy prohibits me from reporting on those departments anyway. No, 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:01.760 the reason as I am in Finland was because of 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:03.920 an invitation I got from an old friend who works 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:07.480 in the Peace Department. Doctor Schuart Lumpo, a Dutch Finn 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:09.839 I met in the twenty thirties at a climate change 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:14.480 conference in Dublin. He was a zoologist then studying how 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:18.200 native species were migrating with the changing weather. He just 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:21.080 walked out of a German prison after serving six years 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:24.120 as part of the Bremen twelve. Maybe you remember the 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:27.039 Bremen twelve. It was a big deal at the time, 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:29.919 but there have been so many big deals in the 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:32.920 intervening decades that it's hard to keep track of them. All. 0:06:34.200 --> 0:06:37.839 The Bremen twelve were convicted of eco terrorism. Do you 0:06:37.920 --> 0:06:40.320 remember when eco terrorism was seen as a bad thing. 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:46.040 Each of the Bremen twelve were prominent scientists and environmental engineers. 0:06:46.800 --> 0:06:49.120 They released a paper in twenty twenty nine with their 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:52.000 names attached, in which they laid out why direct action, 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:57.240 including destructive direct action and potentially violent direct action, was 0:06:57.279 --> 0:07:00.240 the only feasible method by which humanity could con front 0:07:00.240 --> 0:07:03.839 climate change. The paper came out the same day that 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:07.360 they bombed a Tesla factory under construction and what had 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:10.840 been considered a critical forest for the remaining biodiversity of 0:07:10.920 --> 0:07:16.880 mainland Europe. They all went to prison. Naturally, I was 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:20.480 excited to meet doctor Lampo, But do you know what else? 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:24.640 I was excited about the opportunity to spend my entire 0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:30.400 life interweaving anti capitalist podcast content with advertising from whoever 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:35.560 pays us enough money. This podcast is brought to you 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:38.000 by the Council for calling your friends when you're feeling sad, 0:07:38.040 --> 0:07:39.880 instead of assuming they don't want to hear from you. 0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:42.800 The Council for calling your friends when you're feeling sad. 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:44.680 Instead of assuming that they don't want to hear from you, 0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:47.680 would like to remind you that it's actually rude of 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:49.960 you to not call your friends when you're feeling sad, 0:07:50.280 --> 0:07:53.400 because it's rude to assume what people want, and rude 0:07:53.400 --> 0:07:55.280 of you to cut yourself off from the people who 0:07:55.320 --> 0:07:58.760 care about you. So put down your doom scrolling phone 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:05.320 and pick up your hauling phone and call your friends today. 0:08:06.240 --> 0:08:09.760 This podcast is brought to you by the only domesticated 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:12.440 Animals should be kept as pets Society, who would like 0:08:12.480 --> 0:08:15.600 to remind you that no de extincted animals have been 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:19.680 truly domesticated. While dinosaurs and saber toothed tigers can bond 0:08:19.720 --> 0:08:22.200 with humans and even be trained and may serve as 0:08:22.240 --> 0:08:26.040 comrades in arms in a struggle against global fascism, they 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:29.320 are not suited for living inside with us. Just because 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:34.160 there's dinos, don't forget dogs. Just because there are giant cats, 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:37.560 don't forget the regular ones. And just because you can 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:41.280 ride up Bronto doesn't mean you should forget about horses 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:08.080 were back. It's strange to think back to the twenty 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:12.680 thirties and the early days of direct action against climate change, 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:16.200 so many movements rose and fell. If you look back 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:18.680 in the Cool Zone archives, you'll see the week of 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:22.679 coverage we gave to Besteele Day two. This time it's personal. 0:09:23.520 --> 0:09:26.240 You'll see our interviews with Goblin and Orc, the non 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:30.800 binary couple who lived and eventually died like the Bonnie 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:35.280 and Clyde of industrial sabotage, and who can forget the 0:09:35.360 --> 0:09:41.040 double Green Ira in their campaign for Irish unification and ecosocialism. 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:45.800 Those early days, those opening salvos, were full of some 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:49.520 of the bravest people to ever walk and defend the earth. 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:54.520 In the twenty forties, though it got easier, the Vishnu 0:09:54.559 --> 0:09:57.080 Shield is more or less the greatest weapon in the 0:09:57.080 --> 0:10:00.760 war against the misuse of technology that has ever been developed. 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:04.880 A single person with a single briefcase sized device can 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:09.440 shut down five city blocks of technology. Of course, that's 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:13.040 been used to evil effect too, but frankly, I think 0:10:13.080 --> 0:10:15.959 the human portable tactical EMP is the best thing that's 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:21.120 ever happened to environmental activism. All of that is besides 0:10:21.200 --> 0:10:24.560 the point. After my friend doctor Lumpo got out of 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:26.720 prison and I met him at the conference in Dublin, 0:10:27.360 --> 0:10:29.720 we stayed in touch off and on, and he's even 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:32.600 been on this show before. In one episode from twenty 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:36.440 forty six, talking about the migration of native species and 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:40.000 how it impacts both home gardening and also commercial food production. 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:43.920 He'd retired from a life of crime, but even as 0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:45.920 he talks about the horrors of his time in a 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:49.600 German private prison, he never spoke of a single regret. 0:10:51.240 --> 0:10:54.040 And now he works in the peace department in a 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:58.560 nameless research facility in cresh in an undisclosed location in Finland, 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:03.160 even though like me, he is years past retirement age. 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:06.320 When he heard I was in Finland for Dino Khan, 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:12.160 he reached out and here I am a lifetime ago, literally, 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:15.320 not even in this century. I went to Finland for 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:18.480 the first time. I was a teenager in the US, 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:21.679 and by strange circumstance, I was dating a Finnish girl. 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:25.000 I had fallen atop her while crowdsurfing to Blondie at 0:11:25.040 --> 0:11:27.760 a festival in DC, and we had fallen in love. 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:31.160 She pierced my ear with a safety pin and shoplifted 0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:34.560 me an earring. It was all terribly punk rock, and 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:36.920 she signed her name with the a's and it circled. 0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:40.360 Her father had been in the Finnish embassy, and when 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:43.680 he was promoted back to Finland, her and I stayed together. 0:11:44.640 --> 0:11:47.480 So I was only sixteen when I flew alone to Helsinki. 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:51.560 We didn't last past high school. Her and I. Somewhere 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:55.280 in some old notebook of teenage poetry, I scrawled the 0:11:55.320 --> 0:11:59.960 phrase Finland is a fever dream. Fifty five years later, 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:04.720 it still is. Finland had half expected to fall to 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:08.319 Putin's Russia. Russia has always liked invading Finland whenever it's 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:12.800 feeling bored, and since then Finland has become, alongside Lagos, 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:17.560 the center of internationalist resistance. Lagos is the political, in 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:20.960 some ways cultural hub of the revolution. Finland is the 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:26.680 technological center, simply because it's where dinosaurs come from. The 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:29.120 first time I spent much time in rural Finland, I 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:33.040 was a traveling anarchist activist in my twenties. A festival 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:35.679 and conference invited me there because of my work writing 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:38.760 about anarchism and fiction. If I remember correctly, and my 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:41.280 ability to remember things correctly has become less and less 0:12:41.280 --> 0:12:45.240 certain as time marches onward musta pispola. It was called, 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:47.920 I remember the mural they'd thrown up for a Finnish 0:12:47.960 --> 0:12:51.680 anarchist wh'd been killed by the Israeli army in Palestine. 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:54.520 Back then, I stayed in a village somewhere outside of Thampiay, 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:57.200 with a house of green anarchists, and I spent some 0:12:57.360 --> 0:12:59.679 time on one of the thousands of lakes that dotted 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:03.280 the country side. Some folks had built a sailboat entirely 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:06.800 from trash, the hall from old barrels, The deck was 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:10.920 woven from discarded fire hose. It was near midsummer and 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:13.520 the sun refused to set, and we hung out on 0:13:13.559 --> 0:13:18.640 the lake for endless hours. If I ever retire, maybe 0:13:18.640 --> 0:13:21.280 I'll retire to a cabin on a lake in Finland. 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:25.680 More likely, I won't retire until it's to assisted care 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:29.160 or a hospital somewhere. As long as I can write, 0:13:29.360 --> 0:13:32.040 I'll write, And yes, as long as I'm an old 0:13:32.040 --> 0:13:35.560 woman with a platform, I'll do stereotypical old woman shit 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:38.839 like get lost thinking about the old days, despite the fantastic, 0:13:39.080 --> 0:13:42.920 terrifying world I live in today. But all of that, 0:13:43.640 --> 0:13:45.840 even the I wonder if I can get away with 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:48.200 rambling about Finland and the nineties and oughts. Part of 0:13:48.240 --> 0:13:52.040 it ran through my head while a young friend led 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:54.720 me through the Vishnu shield on a horse drawn sleigh, 0:13:55.480 --> 0:13:58.200 bundled up against the Finish winter that wasn't half so 0:13:58.360 --> 0:14:01.960 cold as it would have been in my youth. I'm 0:14:02.000 --> 0:14:05.240 not allowed to describe the unnamed facility in any detail, 0:14:05.360 --> 0:14:09.720 not physically. While satellite imagery has been greatly disrupted through 0:14:09.720 --> 0:14:14.720 the proliferation of AI hacking tools and the occasional Vishnu satellite, 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:18.080 it's still reasonable to presume the fascists occasionally get eyes 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:21.520 on the countryside of Finland. Or maybe I'm not in 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:23.760 Finland at all. Maybe this whole thing is a sigh 0:14:23.800 --> 0:14:26.960 up and I'm actually in the indigenous controlled regions of Siberia. 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:36.120 Who knows. So there was a sleigh, and and I 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:38.840 entered past a gate that probably had security of some kind. 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:43.200 Being vague is my least favorite part of wartime journalism. 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:46.720 The grounds itself are not Vishnu shielded, I'm glad to say. 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:50.600 And I transferred from the sleigh to a glorified golf cart, 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:53.680 occasionally throwing up a half hearted complaint that I could 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:58.360 walk just fine, which is half true. Doctor Schuward Lampo 0:14:58.520 --> 0:15:02.640 met me hell in his hand, goofy smile across his face. 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:06.400 He's a trans man who has aged quite gracefully, with 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:09.800 a full white beard without mustache in that strange twenty 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:13.880 thirty style. He's got crow's feet for days. As as 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:16.480 long as I've known him, I gave him a hug 0:15:16.920 --> 0:15:19.320 and he took me on a tour. But do you 0:15:19.400 --> 0:15:21.440 know what else? I gave him? First pick at these 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:26.240 sweet sweet deals. This podcast is brought to you by 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:30.240 Simpy Steve's Soft Serve, the only ice cream brand that 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:34.640 sounds euphemistic but isn't. Simpy Steve's Soft Serve is collectively 0:15:34.640 --> 0:15:37.840 owned by six people named Steve, only four of whom 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:40.080 had to change their names to Steve in order to 0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:43.680 join the collective. They make the finest soft serve ice 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:46.880 cream on the planet, with all those viral flavors that 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:52.000 you love, like dust and rust, Nazi tears, and vanilla. 0:15:52.440 --> 0:15:56.120 Simpy Steve's is entirely plant based except for the flavor 0:15:56.320 --> 0:15:58.880 a lot of your enemies, so you can rest assured 0:15:58.920 --> 0:16:01.920 that animal agriculture had nothing to do with your favorite 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:05.960 ice cream. Warning, consumption of blood of your enemy's ice 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:08.560 cream is considered cannibalism by at least six territories worldwide, 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:10.680 and the Council for the Investigation of War Crimes is 0:16:10.720 --> 0:16:14.880 currently working on a report on that particular flicker. This 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:18.560 podcast is brought to you by the Read Octavia Butler Council. 0:16:19.120 --> 0:16:21.560 Do you remember when in the year twenty sixteen, a 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:24.600 far right fake Christian ran for president under the slogan 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:28.560 make America a great Again? How about the Los Angeles 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:32.720 fires of twenty twenty five. Who could have predicted such 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:37.720 a thing? Well, the science fiction author Octavia Butler, That's who. 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:40.720 If you want to read the most eerily prescient science 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:43.560 fiction author of the twentieth century, then you want to 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:47.840 read Octavia Butler. Start with Parable of the Sewer and 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:50.200 then keep going until you spend half your time telling 0:16:50.240 --> 0:17:12.879 everyone you know, God has change and we're back. Doctor 0:17:12.920 --> 0:17:15.240 Lampo took me off to the far corner of the 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:19.520 large estate where the Peace Department does its studies. To 0:17:19.560 --> 0:17:22.320 be honest, I don't mind that I'm not allowed to 0:17:22.320 --> 0:17:26.480 cover the War Department or the Research Department. It has 0:17:26.520 --> 0:17:29.439 always been complicated for me as a lifelong vegan and 0:17:29.520 --> 0:17:33.280 a longtime animal lover to reconcile my politics with our 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:36.040 use of animals in war, it would be still more 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:40.600 complicated for me to witness how the proverbial sausage is made. 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:43.960 I'm sure the de extincting process is not without suffering 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:47.399 and experimentation, and I'm sure the study of dinosaurs in 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:51.560 war is no nicer. To be clear, I don't believe 0:17:51.560 --> 0:17:54.679 the facility runs tests like how many bullets can this 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:58.919 Tyrannosaurus survive being shot with? But the War Department raises 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:02.520 dinosaurs from eggs to warrior in the fastest possible ways, 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:06.159 including a number of growth acceleration technologies that I am 0:18:06.200 --> 0:18:11.000 not privy to discuss the details of. And it's just well, 0:18:12.119 --> 0:18:17.600 it's war. Younger scientists and likely younger listeners are more 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:21.320 fatalistic about such things. If your brain wasn't fully formed 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:24.400 before World War III, you will likely accept a lot 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:27.600 more suffering and death than us. Old softies are likely 0:18:27.640 --> 0:18:32.360 to The age. Discrepancy between scientists and the Peace Department 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:36.720 and the War Department is immediately apparent. It's white haired 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:41.160 over here in the Peace Department. It's also idyllic, an 0:18:41.160 --> 0:18:44.240 old science fiction dream of a happy Mars colony or 0:18:44.240 --> 0:18:47.439 something we drove up to the entrance of a gigantic, 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:51.240 clear plastic dome, and I dismounted and walked through the 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:56.680 entrance into a peaceful garden of gazebos and flowers and butterflies. 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:02.760 Throughout it all small and medium dinosaurs roamed freely, cooing 0:19:03.000 --> 0:19:07.320 and clucking. The whole thing is heated to something like 0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:11.000 eighty five degrees fahrenheit, I was told in Celsius. But 0:19:11.040 --> 0:19:13.359 the older I get, the stranger of things. I picked 0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:16.280 to become stubborn about, like speaking in the human centered 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:20.840 Fahrenheit instead of the science minded Celsius. We walked along 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:23.199 a mulched path, and I marveled at the beauty of 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:27.040 everything around me. What is it that you all do here, 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:32.359 I asked doctor Lampo. Every species in this pavilion, with 0:19:32.400 --> 0:19:36.320 the exception of ourselves, as Homo sapiens, was considered extinct 0:19:36.400 --> 0:19:40.199 by the year twenty forty five, he told me. I 0:19:40.240 --> 0:19:43.920 looked around at the flowers and butterflies, and insects and birds. 0:19:44.320 --> 0:19:47.560 Besides the dinosaurs, they all seemed like species that were 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:50.480 quite normal to me, species I'd spent most of my 0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:55.840 life around. I even probably had the rate of extinction 0:19:55.920 --> 0:20:02.679 in our lifetimes has been simply astounding, the doctor continued. 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:06.120 When I was coming up in the sciences, a lot 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:09.919 of discussions in both academic and activist circles was around 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:14.240 the primissy of native plants to habitat restoration, which makes sense. 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:18.639 Invasive species tend to throw off well established balances between 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:23.399 species and destroy the equilibrium of a given ecosystem. But 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:25.760 the thing is, and this is what you saw me 0:20:25.800 --> 0:20:29.920 present about. The day we met, a warming world shifts 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:34.119 that balance. In the northern hemisphere, plants and animals creep 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:38.000 their way north. In the southern hemisphere they go south. 0:20:38.920 --> 0:20:42.280 Species also move further up into mountains, and the deserts 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:47.159 expand everywhere. Before ex vuogenesis, we were working with a 0:20:47.240 --> 0:20:51.679 dramatically shrinking pool of biodiversity. Our attempts to restore and 0:20:51.720 --> 0:20:56.160 preserve habitats, even shifting to adjust for climate, were hampered 0:20:56.200 --> 0:21:02.080 by well lack of remaining options. De extinction alongside the 0:21:02.160 --> 0:21:05.440 Vishnu Shield are the two most powerful tools we've ever 0:21:05.480 --> 0:21:08.840 developed to help us mitigate the worst effects of climate change. 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:13.359 All across the world, scientists are building these test gardens 0:21:13.760 --> 0:21:16.320 to see what sort of ecosystems we can build and 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:21.760 what climates We anchor everything with native species, although sometimes 0:21:21.800 --> 0:21:24.760 they are native species from slightly further south or north, 0:21:25.320 --> 0:21:27.960 but supplement them with species sometimes from all over the 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:31.520 world and now from all over the history of the world, 0:21:31.640 --> 0:21:34.320 to see how they relate and see what is compatible. 0:21:36.160 --> 0:21:40.639 Where did dinosaurs fit into this, I asked, Well, because 0:21:40.640 --> 0:21:44.240 we want them to, Doctor Lompo said, We've got other 0:21:44.320 --> 0:21:48.320 reasons besides that dinosaurs were adapted for a warmer world, 0:21:48.359 --> 0:21:50.159 so they can teach us about what life in a 0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:54.199 warm world can look like. Dinosaurs are generally larger than 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:57.480 the average animals today, and they can fit complex niches 0:21:57.520 --> 0:22:01.360 within an ecosystem. Those are the reasons I'm probably supposed 0:22:01.400 --> 0:22:05.320 to give you, but frankly, we do it because we 0:22:05.359 --> 0:22:09.440 want to. Dinosaurs are neat God has changed and things 0:22:09.480 --> 0:22:12.920 are changing, and our general rule is the more biodiversity 0:22:12.960 --> 0:22:15.640 we can add to an area, the better, the more 0:22:15.640 --> 0:22:20.960 resilient it is. Well, what happens if a de extincted 0:22:21.000 --> 0:22:26.400 species breaks containment and becomes an invasive species elsewhere. That's 0:22:26.400 --> 0:22:30.080 happened several times already, and it'll keep happening, doctor Lompo said, 0:22:30.359 --> 0:22:34.080 with a cavalierness that shocked me. If we had discovered 0:22:34.080 --> 0:22:37.080 this technology in the nineteen forties instead of the twenty forties, 0:22:37.720 --> 0:22:40.400 I think it would be the foremost concern on any 0:22:40.440 --> 0:22:43.960 of our minds. But it's simply not that way anymore. 0:22:44.680 --> 0:22:50.320 The thing is, the world, without our help is dying. Rather, 0:22:51.320 --> 0:22:55.680 it was killed. The Earth was killed fifty years ago, 0:22:56.200 --> 0:22:59.960 and its death throes are long and arduous. We didn't 0:23:00.240 --> 0:23:04.480 stop climate change. Left to its own devices, the Earth 0:23:04.520 --> 0:23:07.840 will always find some sort of equilibrium. But it's quite 0:23:07.840 --> 0:23:10.800 possible that the equilibrium it will find this time might 0:23:10.880 --> 0:23:15.639 be the destruction of multicellular life on Earth. That's an 0:23:15.680 --> 0:23:20.640 extreme scenario, but not an impossible one. The mass extinction 0:23:20.760 --> 0:23:23.760 we've caused could very easily make the end of the 0:23:23.840 --> 0:23:27.840 dinosaurs the original end of the dinosaurs seem like a 0:23:27.880 --> 0:23:32.480 minor course correction. We are skating on the brink of 0:23:32.560 --> 0:23:36.920 destruction even still, and it's only through Vishnu technology and 0:23:37.000 --> 0:23:39.840 ex vivogenesis that we've been able to course correct the 0:23:39.880 --> 0:23:44.240 tiniest bit. I know we're all caught up right now 0:23:44.359 --> 0:23:48.040 in the global war against fascism, and that's an essential fight, 0:23:48.760 --> 0:23:52.520 but it is and always has been, the less important fight. 0:23:53.480 --> 0:23:58.479 Fascism is the mini boss climate change is the big boss. 0:23:59.400 --> 0:24:02.200 Fascism is a threat to all human life on Earth. 0:24:02.880 --> 0:24:06.280 Climate change is a threat to all life on Earth period. 0:24:07.200 --> 0:24:09.320 It's a threat to the only life we know to 0:24:09.400 --> 0:24:15.320 exist anywhere in the universe. The stakes really are that high. 0:24:15.400 --> 0:24:18.320 And to be clear, the fight against fascism is not 0:24:18.400 --> 0:24:21.960 a distraction. We need to destroy fascism in order to 0:24:22.000 --> 0:24:25.879 get to the big thoughts, and a global society that 0:24:25.960 --> 0:24:30.320 combines the best parts of decentralization and federation is exactly 0:24:30.359 --> 0:24:34.920 what we need to start to address climate change. Think 0:24:34.960 --> 0:24:39.480 about this is a strange comparison, perhaps, but I grew 0:24:39.560 --> 0:24:42.239 up in the nineteen nineties as a gay man. I 0:24:42.359 --> 0:24:45.680 wasn't around for the AIDS crisis, but it was this very, 0:24:46.080 --> 0:24:49.520 very present and recent and raw wound in my community. 0:24:50.680 --> 0:24:53.560 During the AIDS crisis, when gay men were essentially abandoned 0:24:53.600 --> 0:24:58.800 to die by conservative society, no essentially killed on us 0:24:58.840 --> 0:25:04.000 by medical neglect, some doctors and patients turned unorthodox means. 0:25:04.720 --> 0:25:08.440 As new experimental drugs came online, people volunteered to test 0:25:08.480 --> 0:25:12.639 them outside of accepted protocols. Because aides had more or 0:25:12.720 --> 0:25:16.040 less one hundred percent mortality rate at the time, so 0:25:16.119 --> 0:25:18.199 you might as well, try to help everyone around you, 0:25:18.280 --> 0:25:23.280 and hey, what if it saves you. That's the attitude 0:25:23.320 --> 0:25:26.040 that has spread across the environmental research community over the 0:25:26.080 --> 0:25:30.600 past few decades. The Earth is in trouble, dire trouble, 0:25:30.720 --> 0:25:36.280 existential trouble. Every native ecosystem is essentially doomed unless we 0:25:36.359 --> 0:25:40.600 course correct and fast and hard. We should try to 0:25:40.680 --> 0:25:44.680 keep de extincted species contained, for sure, we should try 0:25:44.720 --> 0:25:48.479 to experiment as safely as possible, but being too slow 0:25:49.080 --> 0:25:54.480 and too cautious will doom us. It's like driving up 0:25:54.520 --> 0:25:57.720 a steep dirt road. I suggested. You have to commit. 0:25:58.840 --> 0:26:02.880 You have to COMMITO agreed. We're trying things that would 0:26:02.880 --> 0:26:06.080 have been unethical to try only fifty years ago, but 0:26:06.240 --> 0:26:10.240 now it would be unethical to not try. The ecosystems 0:26:10.280 --> 0:26:12.320 we are likely to be living in one hundred years 0:26:12.320 --> 0:26:15.960 from now might look more like the ecosystems from sixty 0:26:16.000 --> 0:26:19.000 five million years ago than they look like the ecosystem 0:26:19.359 --> 0:26:23.200 of sixty five years ago. And we want those ecosystems 0:26:23.240 --> 0:26:26.280 to be full of life and diversity. We want them 0:26:26.280 --> 0:26:29.639 to be beautiful and fulfilling to live in. And yeah, 0:26:30.359 --> 0:26:35.600