Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry's over there
Speaker 1: actually sitting in today, and uh, this is stuff you
Speaker 1: should know about. Think tanks, the thinking this kind of tanks.
Speaker 1: There are fish tanks. They don't think at all, well,
Speaker 1: they barely think. They think, this water feels a little
Speaker 1: warm for me, and then they think what's water, what's
Speaker 1: being wet? And then that's about it. And then they're like,
Speaker 1: how about some of those tasty flakes? Yeah, give me some,
Speaker 1: and that's it. Think tanks. There's a lot more thinking
Speaker 1: going on in these kind of tanks. Like stink tanks,
Speaker 1: it depends on your opinion, and uh that's everybody's opinion.
Speaker 1: So yes, I guess they are more like stink tanks
Speaker 1: these days. This is one of those weird ones where
Speaker 1: I for forty seven years just sort of had this,
Speaker 1: never dug in on what a think tank was. I
Speaker 1: hear it, and now it kind of assumed I knew
Speaker 1: what it was. That was kind of right. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a good it's a good term for something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was like, within this is this like a bunch
Speaker 1: of smart people sitting around think thinking about smart stuff? Exactly.
Speaker 1: That's kind of right, That's exactly what it is. It's like,
Speaker 1: it's like a place where people sit around and think
Speaker 1: about things that eventually hopefully affects public policy in a
Speaker 1: positive way. Is what you're ultimately hoping for. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: b I think we don't mean if you went by
Speaker 1: a think tank, they would all just be sitting around.
Speaker 1: M hmmm. I think it depends on the day of
Speaker 1: the week or if it's right after lunch, like there's
Speaker 1: a ton of research and study. Oh, I see stuff
Speaker 1: like that. They're not just pulling stuff out of thin air. No. No,
Speaker 1: that's the point of think tanks is they are groups
Speaker 1: of people, UM nonprofit organizations in the US we should
Speaker 1: say yeah, which will get to the finer points of
Speaker 1: UM who say, you know what, we see this problem
Speaker 1: in America and or the world or wherever. Great Britain
Speaker 1: has plenty China has a bunch, and they say, how
Speaker 1: can we solve this problem. Let's get to it. We're
Speaker 1: gonna we're gonna take this problem on and figure it
Speaker 1: out through pragmatic science and evidence based research. We're going
Speaker 1: to come up with a solution to this problem. And
Speaker 1: then the next step is to get it out there
Speaker 1: to the public, to policy makers, to get people talking
Speaker 1: about it. And then once enough people talk about it
Speaker 1: and there's a public debate over it, ideally, if it's
Speaker 1: a good idea, it will be adopted as public policy
Speaker 1: and that problem will be solved in a in a
Speaker 1: good way. Yeah, And that's the ideal function of a
Speaker 1: an ideal think tank, which is to say it is nonpartisan,
Speaker 1: it is fact based, and it doesn't have an agenda necessarily.
Speaker 1: But things have changed over the years, as we will
Speaker 1: see fairly recently, Chuck seems like and and think tanks
Speaker 1: can be very much slanted. But well, we'll get into
Speaker 1: all that. That's just sort of a long winded setup.
Speaker 1: That was a good set up, though, Man, should we
Speaker 1: go back and check on oural buddy Plato. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: Plato his academy. The Academy was some people say it
Speaker 1: was sort of the world's first think tank, which makes sense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he would get dudes and they would sit around in
Speaker 1: the garden and I would imagine drink wine and talk
Speaker 1: smarts and philosophy and kind of you know, like it
Speaker 1: was high minded stuff for the day to sit around
Speaker 1: and think about sort of what was going on around
Speaker 1: them and how they could impact change. Yeah, or thinking
Speaker 1: about the nature of reality or existence. Um, they once
Speaker 1: decided that knowledge was uncertain and life is essentially craps
Speaker 1: game based on probability rather than absolute truth. If you
Speaker 1: step back and think about it, that is the basis
Speaker 1: of quantum mechanics. Could you imagine if they had access
Speaker 1: to LSD back then, I know, I don't think it
Speaker 1: would have been too terribly different. Well, yeah, they were
Speaker 1: sort of traveling down that road anyway, but that was
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's pretty impressive some of the stuff
Speaker 1: they came up with. This is again, you know, we
Speaker 1: did a skeptics episode. Skepticism episode, you know, um, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: not skepticism, a stoicism. And remember is this is where
Speaker 1: this stuff was. All these different philosophies were all like
Speaker 1: kind of grew from this academy. So you can make
Speaker 1: a pretty good case that it was the world's first
Speaker 1: think tank. Yeah, it's a little it's not the first
Speaker 1: modern think tank, but it it qualifies in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways. No, there was one in eight thirty one,
Speaker 1: in Great Britain, the Duke of Wellington established what was
Speaker 1: called the Royal United Services Institution, which studied like military science. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then here in the US in nineteen ten, the
Speaker 1: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which studied the results of
Speaker 1: military science. Right, and that's still around, uh, Carnegie man,
Speaker 1: I mean they still have endowed many things. Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: well in doubt that they are very well in doubt. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then of course the Brookings Institution, which maybe the
Speaker 1: most famous modern American think tank to this day, This
Speaker 1: is the one you probably hear about the most. Uh.
Speaker 1: It was founded by Robert Brookings in nineteen sixteen. And uh,
Speaker 1: they had a lot of it. I mean they still
Speaker 1: have a lot of influence, but they had a great
Speaker 1: deal of influence. UM kind of post depression with FDRs.
Speaker 1: New Deal helped construct the New Deal helped construct the
Speaker 1: Marshall Plan after World War Two. That was that was huge,
Speaker 1: very huge. So both were for sure. The New Deal
Speaker 1: definitely was, but the Marshall Plan was. There was a
Speaker 1: survey done, if I think, like four fifty historians and
Speaker 1: they the number one most important thing that any government
Speaker 1: has done since UM, World War two between World War
Speaker 1: two and the century was the Martiall Plan. Like it
Speaker 1: it not only like brought Europe back from World War Two,
Speaker 1: it set Europe on a path away from communism, where
Speaker 1: if you're not into communism, that was a great positive benefit, right.
Speaker 1: And the way it did that was in two years
Speaker 1: based on this economic plan. In two years, it got
Speaker 1: Europe or ravaged world War two ravaged Europe back to
Speaker 1: production levels higher than the production levels it was at
Speaker 1: before World War Two in two years. So it just
Speaker 1: went back to normal plus better. And Europe said, I
Speaker 1: kind of like this capitalism thing, and Western Europe went
Speaker 1: that way. I was kind of curious because Brookings, the
Speaker 1: Brookings Institution, gets a lot of like left leaning critics
Speaker 1: SYSM today, so I kind of wonder where that all
Speaker 1: came from. And uh, the article I read said that
Speaker 1: is a victory of the conservative side to have Brookings
Speaker 1: labeled liberal just from kind of pounding it in the press,
Speaker 1: even though it's history and its member board throughout the
Speaker 1: history has not been liberal at all, and it has
Speaker 1: been filled from the top down over the years with
Speaker 1: rank and file Republicans and conservatives from like the Reagan
Speaker 1: era on through Bush one and two. Okay, so they've
Speaker 1: they've gotten it across is liberals, so that liberals will
Speaker 1: swallow the stuff that Brookings is is putting out there. No,
Speaker 1: I know what they undermine their own think tank. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's not their own think tank. It's
Speaker 1: not a conservative think tank. Well it's centrist, like almost
Speaker 1: right down the middle for right. But I think they
Speaker 1: want to advance their own uh with their conservative think tanks.
Speaker 1: They want to advance them, so they label Brookings is superliberal,
Speaker 1: just so anything centrist is liberal. I think that's what
Speaker 1: it is. I can't remember who scored it, but somebody
Speaker 1: has a liberal score between zero and a hundred for
Speaker 1: think tanks, and Brooking scored like a fifty three, right
Speaker 1: down the middle. Like apparently, as far as think tanks go,
Speaker 1: it's about as centrist as you possibly can get. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they've been around for a long time. Yeah, makes
Speaker 1: a lot of sense. Yep. So, um, it's not just Brookings.
Speaker 1: Brookings is definitely one of the most famous around the
Speaker 1: world and has done quite a bit of stuff, but
Speaker 1: there's plenty of others. There's Um, the Rand Corporation is
Speaker 1: a very famous think tank which did you know RAND
Speaker 1: is actually am I don't know what you call it,
Speaker 1: but it's supposed it started out as R and D
Speaker 1: like Research and Development RAND Corporation, And from what I understand,
Speaker 1: they've come up with the ideas for computers, the Internet, uh, spy, satellites,
Speaker 1: the space program, all that stuff that America could in
Speaker 1: the mid twentieth century technologically. Yes, the Rain Corporation, like
Speaker 1: thinkers were the ones who came up with this stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I knew some of that, and I don't
Speaker 1: I don't think it fully hit home that they were
Speaker 1: a think tank. Yeah, with the name like the Rain
Speaker 1: Corporation sounds like just a corporation, but but they're they're
Speaker 1: like a think tank that's really specifically there was specifically
Speaker 1: zoned into America's technology progression. I guess, yeah. I mean
Speaker 1: a lot of think tanks can be specialized like that,
Speaker 1: Like some are very very much just concentrate on economics,
Speaker 1: some concentrate on social issues in that case technology, and
Speaker 1: then I think some like Brookings are sort of a
Speaker 1: little more broad. Yeah, they'll they'll take any case, right,
Speaker 1: they'll take all comers. Yeah. So after World War Two, um,
Speaker 1: like there were think tanks before, like you said, Brookings,
Speaker 1: Carnegie Um, the Royal United Services Institute in the UK,
Speaker 1: there were like there were think tanks prior to World
Speaker 1: War Two, but after World War Two they really proliferated.
Speaker 1: And the reason they started was government was just kind
Speaker 1: of government it was in the in the early twentieth century.
Speaker 1: It was just just this. It was. It wasn't anything
Speaker 1: like you see it now. It wasn't this monolithic behemoth
Speaker 1: that has its tendrils in every aspect of people's lives
Speaker 1: or anything. It was a little too far the other
Speaker 1: way where it didn't quite know what it was doing.
Speaker 1: So some of those early philanthropists like Carnegie Um and Brookings,
Speaker 1: they they endowed these think tanks to kind of help
Speaker 1: government out to basically be like the research arm for government,
Speaker 1: to help direct the best way for America to go.
Speaker 1: And that's how it started out. And then after World
Speaker 1: War Two, when America had like all this cash and
Speaker 1: all this forward momentum, think tanks really popped up and
Speaker 1: and there were all these kind of competing and then
Speaker 1: sometimes harmonious um voices from these think tanks to say
Speaker 1: go this way, go this way, let's say this way,
Speaker 1: but they all had something in common, and that was
Speaker 1: that they were staffed by very smart people who did
Speaker 1: very deliberate, very good research, who produced policy positions that
Speaker 1: lawmakers could then take themselves and go out to the
Speaker 1: people and say, see, this is what I'm talking about,
Speaker 1: here's the data, here's a sound bite for you to
Speaker 1: make you understand it. That's what things tanks did, and
Speaker 1: in a way they were They very much were along
Speaker 1: the same track as lobby lobbyists, which we did an
Speaker 1: episode on that that was pretty good too. But think
Speaker 1: tanks stopped short of lobbying allegedly, Yeah, because they kind
Speaker 1: of had to um. Starting in nineteen they were granted
Speaker 1: tax exempt status, which is a very big deal because
Speaker 1: there's a lot of money involved in many of these.
Speaker 1: I've been trying to get that for myself for years,
Speaker 1: and you're right, it is a very big deal. The
Speaker 1: Church of Josh, just get it going. That's so I'm
Speaker 1: wearing this robe right now. Uh. In the nineteen fifties, though,
Speaker 1: is when Congress really kind of because they were tax exempt,
Speaker 1: had to get involved and say, hey, listen, you gotta
Speaker 1: walk a line here. You politically, you can't um if
Speaker 1: you want to keep this tax exemption. Now, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: we for sure do. Um. They said, you can't be partisan,
Speaker 1: it's got to be good information. You can't um slant
Speaker 1: things a certain way or support officially support or endorsed candidates. Um,
Speaker 1: you are here to educate with your objective work. And uh.
Speaker 1: That went along for a while, and then we started
Speaker 1: getting think tanks that set out to do just that um,
Speaker 1: which they are called advocacy. Advocacy think tanks now, which
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how they managed to skirt unless they
Speaker 1: change the rules, skirt those rules and say, hey, we're
Speaker 1: gonna be a conservative think tank or or liberal think
Speaker 1: tank and still be tax exempt. The do you know?
Speaker 1: The only thing that I can tell is that they're
Speaker 1: still technically producing a public good if or if they
Speaker 1: believe that they're producing a public good, even if they
Speaker 1: have conservative alignment or a liberal alignment. They're trying to
Speaker 1: move society along in a way that they think is
Speaker 1: good or for the betterment of society. Stuff. Dude, That's
Speaker 1: what I've been telling I mean, could we be a
Speaker 1: think tank? Absolutely not. I mean think about it, like,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess we could. I think that there's
Speaker 1: a I don't Okay, let me take that back. No,
Speaker 1: we absolutely couldn't because we can't be brought to you
Speaker 1: by we don't have we don't have time. I don't know,
Speaker 1: that's a good question, but we don't have. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: couldn't advertise and have like you couldn't get advertiser money
Speaker 1: and be tax exempt. That's just like a doubt. If
Speaker 1: the Brookings institutions papers have like Burger King coupons on them,
Speaker 1: you never know. So we'll get to why we can't
Speaker 1: be later on. But one of the things about about
Speaker 1: think tanks is they're they're the reason they have a
Speaker 1: tax exempt status is what they're doing is producing work
Speaker 1: that furthers the public good. That's why they're supposed to
Speaker 1: have tax exempt status. What you're pointing out is a
Speaker 1: really good thing to point out, Like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of stuff here that that they could
Speaker 1: lose their tax exempt status for. And if we fast
Speaker 1: forward to three or five years from now, I think
Speaker 1: we're going to start seeing them lose tax exempt status. Um,
Speaker 1: they just haven't yet, I think is what it is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because some of them flat out like it's so obvious
Speaker 1: when they come around like uh, when the Democrats were
Speaker 1: beaten in two thousand, they got together and they started, uh,
Speaker 1: left leaning thinkers got together and started the Center for
Speaker 1: American Progress, which is an economic organization. It says it's nonpartisan,
Speaker 1: but it literally says, as a quote, their goal is
Speaker 1: to develop new policy ideas, critique the policy that stems
Speaker 1: from conservative values, lanches the media to cover the issues
Speaker 1: that truly matter and shape the national debate. So it's
Speaker 1: they're they're kind of flat out saying like we're out
Speaker 1: too prove, not just have an opinion about Maybe that's
Speaker 1: a distinction, out to prove that conservative economic values are
Speaker 1: bad for the country. Basically, Yeah, is that the difference.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's like, here's our data. I honestly don't know, dude.
Speaker 1: It's not a bunch of op eds thrown together. It's
Speaker 1: so so No, it's not supposed to just be op eds.
Speaker 1: It's supposed to be backed by data. Yeah. But but
Speaker 1: I mean, like Center for American Progress, or like the
Speaker 1: Heritage Foundation, or like ALEC, h the American Legislative Exchange Council,
Speaker 1: like these are like and we're gonna do a whole
Speaker 1: episode just on ALEC one day. Okay, seriously, but they're
Speaker 1: like little, they're like Kareem Abdul Jabbar, like karate training
Speaker 1: islands for liberals or for conservatives or for um rich
Speaker 1: billionaire follow worse, like it doesn't matter, Like that's what
Speaker 1: they are there there. They come up with new ideas
Speaker 1: to push their agenda, and then they train activists to
Speaker 1: go out and get that message out, to change people's minds,
Speaker 1: to get themselves on CNN or Fox News or whatever,
Speaker 1: and to shape the public discussion on on something. It
Speaker 1: has a lot of the contours of what think tanks
Speaker 1: used to have, but there's this whole other layer of
Speaker 1: like like seeing you and grizzle there that that that
Speaker 1: I think tanks aren't supposed to have. Should we take
Speaker 1: a break? All right, we'll take a break in we'll
Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about the Heritage Foundation right
Speaker 1: after this. All right, nineteen eighties, the Heritage Foundation, which
Speaker 1: you briefly mentured, mentored, that's the new mentioned before before
Speaker 1: he broke. They came about broke, they said, all right,
Speaker 1: it's nineteen eighties. We got Ronald Reagan in there. He
Speaker 1: is watching movies or asleep most of the time, so
Speaker 1: we have a good opportunity. That's how they want you
Speaker 1: to think he has a good Did you see the
Speaker 1: numbers about his uh movie watching? No? Oh man, it's great.
Speaker 1: Like a movie fan, it's great. How many movies did
Speaker 1: he watch? Your day? He watched a lot of movies.
Speaker 1: And this is like back when they just had like reels,
Speaker 1: right films trip. I guess they probably just you know,
Speaker 1: cue the projector when he he and Nancy wanted to
Speaker 1: watch it a good old fashioned western starring me. Can
Speaker 1: you do the rest of the episode as ready? No? Uh?
Speaker 1: So they came along and they said, all right, Reagan's
Speaker 1: in in office. Here are our recommendations. What up I
Speaker 1: would call a blueprint for grabbing the government by its
Speaker 1: frayed New Deal lapels and shaking out forty eight years
Speaker 1: of liberal policy. And it came by way of two thousand,
Speaker 1: more than two thousand recommendations, and they tried to institute
Speaker 1: about two thirds of them. Yeah. Reagan was like, great,
Speaker 1: here's my thanks for the outline for what I should do. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so two thirds, like he said during his two terms,
Speaker 1: is what he tried to implement. And then, of course
Speaker 1: when Bill Clinton gets in there, the Progressive Policy Institute, Um,
Speaker 1: I don't know if it was two thousand plus, but
Speaker 1: they offered similar recommendations. And that's how it goes the
Speaker 1: think tanks right now. Yeah, because if you're a lawmaker,
Speaker 1: and again we said this in the Lobbying episode two,
Speaker 1: you're not necessarily like some smart whip crack sharp person. No,
Speaker 1: I think we've seen that played out. You can just
Speaker 1: like give people to vote for you. Yeah, on both
Speaker 1: sides of the aisle. It's just a crack at like
Speaker 1: you know Trump or anything. Oh no, no, no no, I
Speaker 1: mean on all up and down the House and Senate. Right.
Speaker 1: You don't like to think they're all geniuses, but they're not.
Speaker 1: They're not. And you don't have to be smart to
Speaker 1: hold office. Um, you just have to get people to
Speaker 1: vote for you. Again, which is why I think tanks
Speaker 1: have flourished for so long, why lobbyists have flourished for
Speaker 1: so long, because they're the ones who do the research
Speaker 1: and write the policy and say, here you go. You
Speaker 1: want to go look smart, here you go, buddy. We
Speaker 1: even like highlighted some sound bites for you to go,
Speaker 1: say two people and get the get into the twenty
Speaker 1: four hour news cycle. And that's one of the big
Speaker 1: roles that think tanks played today is by and and
Speaker 1: have you know, especially since World War Two, is by
Speaker 1: going to policy makers and being like, here's your agenda,
Speaker 1: take your leave as much as you want. But all
Speaker 1: of this is backed by data, like it dovetails with
Speaker 1: what you want to do with the country, and it
Speaker 1: is just gangbusters stuff. It's high quality, well researched stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really interesting because I think there are still think
Speaker 1: tanks that only craft U only do research and present
Speaker 1: it and say do what you will with it. But
Speaker 1: those seem to be more and more gone by the wayside.
Speaker 1: Two ten was a real watershed year. It feels like
Speaker 1: for think tanks. Yeah, like you mentioned ALEC, which we're
Speaker 1: going to cover in full, but I mean they are
Speaker 1: they are a bill writing organization. They call them model bills.
Speaker 1: But I mean when when you hear a senator or
Speaker 1: something said, you know, we crafted this legislation, well, that
Speaker 1: probably means is an organization Like ALEC handed them the
Speaker 1: legislation and said here, you know, here it is if
Speaker 1: you want to use it, and you probably should want
Speaker 1: to use it. That's so. That is so ALEC I think,
Speaker 1: does in many ways qualify as a think tank. They're
Speaker 1: not add percent standard think tank, but actually writing the law. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and for the lawmaker to go into do and go
Speaker 1: into Congress and introduce it as their own bill. That's
Speaker 1: a little beyond what think tanks to think tanks were
Speaker 1: like write a paper that says, here's this problem in America,
Speaker 1: here's some ideas to solve it. Here's this research to
Speaker 1: back up those ideas, go write a law based on it.
Speaker 1: What things like ALEC does is take it a step further.
Speaker 1: But ALEX still qualifies as a think tank. And ALEC
Speaker 1: is part of something called the State Policy Network, which
Speaker 1: apparently is there's one in every state and Puerto Rico.
Speaker 1: And they're like a confederation of think tanks that basically
Speaker 1: sit around and figure out ways to sue local, state
Speaker 1: and federal law lawmakers over laws, to try to get
Speaker 1: laws overturned, like they used the courts rather than the legislation.
Speaker 1: But um, it's still the stated goal is to affect
Speaker 1: public policy and turn it in one direction or another. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what was what was the website that you sent? Source Watch? Yes?
Speaker 1: Source Watch called them, uh, called ALEC a corporate bill mill. Right,
Speaker 1: So they're just churning out hundreds of bill a year.
Speaker 1: Not all of them get used, but many of them do.
Speaker 1: And it's just I don't know. I don't think a
Speaker 1: lot of Americans realize that a lot of actual legislative
Speaker 1: policy is being written by McDonald's. Yeah, exactly, it's crazy.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to do the alquum. We're both going
Speaker 1: to be well, our cars are gonna blow up right after,
Speaker 1: but by god, we're gonna get that episode. Maybe we
Speaker 1: should make that or like last episode in the year whatever,
Speaker 1: what's twenty years from now, two thousands now? That was
Speaker 1: eighteen years ago. I used to love that bit though. Um. Alright,
Speaker 1: so we got to talk about money here because this uh,
Speaker 1: they are not, um, the independent most times these days
Speaker 1: they're not the independent organizations that you think they are. Uh.
Speaker 1: They used to be funded by these endowments and um.
Speaker 1: More and more, it's it's corporation ends, large businesses. Sometimes
Speaker 1: private individuals of course, will give. And sometimes it's a
Speaker 1: great work around for campaign finance laws. Instead of directing
Speaker 1: you know, you know, tens of millions of dollars like
Speaker 1: you can't do to a campaign, you can throw it
Speaker 1: in a think tank that will probably get a better result. Anyway,
Speaker 1: that's new the time was it used to be like
Speaker 1: in my day, right, a rich philanthropist would say, I
Speaker 1: hate poverty and the effects that has on Americans. Go
Speaker 1: figure this out. I'm gonna fund to think tank. And
Speaker 1: that's how you're dedicated to like just go make that happen.
Speaker 1: And that's what think tanks were originally born from. And
Speaker 1: that's largely the the only kind of oversight they worked
Speaker 1: under is they were trying to end poverty, or they
Speaker 1: were trying to work against communism, like these huge, haughty goals.
Speaker 1: Now they're being micromanaged. That's one thing that's happening to them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And the idea that the these think tanks are not
Speaker 1: suede or influence are affected by their donors is not true.
Speaker 1: And the sort of the biggest problem going is that
Speaker 1: now you have legislation being drawn up by think tanks
Speaker 1: because corporations are paying money to get research that looks
Speaker 1: like it's in their favor. Yeah. So, so one of
Speaker 1: the problems is the like, there's not as many philanthropists
Speaker 1: who are just endowing think tanks with no strings attached anymore.
Speaker 1: There are plenty of philanthropists out there still that are
Speaker 1: are funding think tanks, but their donations are directed, their
Speaker 1: results oriented. They're very technocratic, right, they want to see
Speaker 1: bang for their buck. Whereas before it was just like
Speaker 1: to make America a better place and that was it.
Speaker 1: There wasn't a lot of like um um, nobody's feet
Speaker 1: were being held to the fire, you know. Now it's like,
Speaker 1: we want you to further this specific agenda, which is
Speaker 1: um uh, we want to make sure that St. Louis's
Speaker 1: children there's not a single one malnourished any longer. Which
Speaker 1: is great, it's a great goal. There's nothing wrong with
Speaker 1: that goal. But it's just so very narrowed and tailored,
Speaker 1: and there's ways that you can hold the think tank accountable,
Speaker 1: which is good in one hand, but it's also basically
Speaker 1: the introduction of like a corporate management to think tanks,
Speaker 1: which that's not really how they were originally formed, and
Speaker 1: it's having a weird effect on them. So think tanks
Speaker 1: are starting to say, all right, we thank you for
Speaker 1: this money. We'll go save the children of St. Louis.
Speaker 1: But and by the way, shout out at St. Louis.
Speaker 1: That was a great show that um so again saving
Speaker 1: the children St. Louis good stuff, but we've got all
Speaker 1: this other stuff we want to do too, So to
Speaker 1: keep that going, we're gonna have to also go find
Speaker 1: sources elsewhere. And again you can find them from other
Speaker 1: other people, but one of the places they're finding them
Speaker 1: from his corporations. And that it's having a big negative
Speaker 1: impact on think tanks right now. Yeah, and it goes
Speaker 1: both ways. In the past, you know, eight or ten years,
Speaker 1: conservative billionaires of says that here they funneled a hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty million dollars to about a hundred groups and
Speaker 1: think tanks, uh to do things like discredit climate change science, um,
Speaker 1: which I mean, dude. The Koke Brothers and x On
Speaker 1: Mobile specifically funded a couple of think tanks called Atlas
Speaker 1: Economic Research Foundation and the International Policy Network to basically
Speaker 1: to basically question the science behind climate change to further
Speaker 1: fossil fuel interests, which is, see you guys in hell
Speaker 1: for that one like that, What a crummy legacy to
Speaker 1: leave on Earth just to make a few extra bucks.
Speaker 1: Forget future generations they can all burn. Forget all the
Speaker 1: endangered species that are on the brink of extinction that
Speaker 1: are oh wait no, they're now extinct. It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: because we made a few extra billion dollars. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: that's despicable. Well what uh, it's funny. I just watched
Speaker 1: the movie Chinatown for a movie Crush episode and there's
Speaker 1: that You ever seen that? Yeah, you know, most a
Speaker 1: lot of that movie is about It was originally titled
Speaker 1: Water and Power, you know, because it's about you know,
Speaker 1: this weird uh political situation in Los Angeles and nineties
Speaker 1: where they were diverting water to the valley which was
Speaker 1: a desert and all these rich fat cats that were
Speaker 1: getting the water diverted there, we're buying up land in
Speaker 1: the valley, like hundreds of thousands of acres because they
Speaker 1: knew it was going to be a lush green valley soon.
Speaker 1: So all that really happened in l a Chinatown was
Speaker 1: based on that. But there's that great scene when Jack
Speaker 1: Nicholson is Jake get us uh confronts John Houston about
Speaker 1: you know, he's the big bad guy no across and
Speaker 1: he says, you know, how much money do you need?
Speaker 1: How much how many more things can you buy? Or
Speaker 1: this or that? And he says, what are you trying
Speaker 1: to secure? And he looked at him and he said,
Speaker 1: the future, Mr gittis and that's what it is. They're
Speaker 1: they're not after more billions to buy more planes and
Speaker 1: are bigger house. They're trying to leave that they that's
Speaker 1: what they want out of their legacy, is they're trying
Speaker 1: to affect the future and in their own specific way,
Speaker 1: right But they're affecting the future in the worst way
Speaker 1: possible according to us. And the problem is not according
Speaker 1: to them, you know, but if you if you pull
Speaker 1: enough people and just ask them plainly, if you took
Speaker 1: money and billionaires in power and all that out of it,
Speaker 1: do you want a better future for humanity and for
Speaker 1: earth a hundred years from now? I would guess the
Speaker 1: majority of people would say yes. And if you can say, well,
Speaker 1: these guys are actually doing the opposite of ensuring that
Speaker 1: right now, how do you feel about that? Most people
Speaker 1: would say I don't feel so great about that. The
Speaker 1: problem is that most people would also follow up with,
Speaker 1: but what can we do? Right? They're they're rich, and
Speaker 1: that's a great point. Let what can you do? Let
Speaker 1: me hop back on Facebook and find a goat video.
Speaker 1: That's when the hopelessness sets in, and that's what's causing
Speaker 1: the paralysis in our our world right now is hopelessness.
Speaker 1: That's that's not grim at all. By the way, everybody
Speaker 1: be sure to listen to my new podcast, uh The
Speaker 1: End of the World with Josh Clark. It's it's a
Speaker 1: really uplifting coming very soon. Yeah, coming this fall sometime eventually.
Speaker 1: Just stuck up on your happy bills. Uh So. In
Speaker 1: two thousand thirteen, however, on the other side, uh left
Speaker 1: leaning weekly magazine The Nation um revealed the positions of
Speaker 1: the left leaning Center for American Progress and other think
Speaker 1: tanks in DC are shaped by interest of their donors.
Speaker 1: So it happens on both sides of the aisle for sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, yeah, No, it's an equal opportunity screwing that
Speaker 1: the world is getting from lobbying from think tanks, from
Speaker 1: from wealthy interests. Like, it's it's both both sides. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So they're effectively unregistered lobbyist organizations now to a large degree,
Speaker 1: and because their tax exempt, they're not obligated to release
Speaker 1: financial statements or reveal their donors. So I'm surprised it
Speaker 1: took that long for people to be like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: we can really take advantage here. So let's let's take
Speaker 1: another break and then we'll get well, it will spell
Speaker 1: out what the advantages are of hiring a think tank.
Speaker 1: All right, Chuck, we're back a little warm under the collar.
Speaker 1: I feel like we should mention this thing with the
Speaker 1: Walton Family Foundation quickly, because that's interesting. I think this
Speaker 1: is a great example of what I think tank can
Speaker 1: do these days. Yeah, it's UM. Obviously, the Sam Walton
Speaker 1: family of Walmart fame. UH. They fund a lot of
Speaker 1: conservative think tanks. I think most people know that. UM.
Speaker 1: But then they also fund funded one and think tanks
Speaker 1: backed by Barack Obama when it came to the Affordable
Speaker 1: Healthcare Act, and you're like, wait a minute, why would
Speaker 1: they do something like that if they are a conservative
Speaker 1: family supporting conservative causes. Then you do a little poking around,
Speaker 1: and it turns out that uh, critics would say that um,
Speaker 1: the healthcare bill that forced employers to pay for their
Speaker 1: employees healthcare tax. Walmart was like, this is great because
Speaker 1: we can afford to do this, but our mom and
Speaker 1: pop competitors can't. So we're actually gonna try and get
Speaker 1: this push through. Even though at its face it doesn't
Speaker 1: quite make a lot of sense, it makes sense to them,
Speaker 1: like why would Walmart take on the cost of their
Speaker 1: their employees healthcare because they know that they can go
Speaker 1: back to sleep. Everybody stop asking quests. Really interesting, it is,
Speaker 1: it's fascinating. But that's one thing you can do is
Speaker 1: donate to a think tank that's furthering your agenda. And
Speaker 1: because think tanks are now largely agenda driven, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of think tanks out there that can help you out.
Speaker 1: And there's a new thing that's happening with think tanks
Speaker 1: these days is they're starting to solicit corporate donations. And
Speaker 1: one of the saddest stories is the story of the
Speaker 1: Brookings Institution, the most centrist think tank that has put
Speaker 1: out the Martial Plan that helped figure out the New
Speaker 1: Deal and it's and how it addressed the depression, like
Speaker 1: has done all this amazing stuff. Is now they hired
Speaker 1: a lobbyist for their strategic development chief and they're now
Speaker 1: soliciting corporate donations left and right, and they're basically this
Speaker 1: is this is what you can get, Like if you
Speaker 1: hire a think tanker, I'm sorry, you're you're not supposed
Speaker 1: to say higher. If you enter into a partnership or
Speaker 1: donate to a think tank and your your corporation or
Speaker 1: a very wealthy person. You What the think tank will
Speaker 1: do is they will basically get your ideas out there.
Speaker 1: They will deploy. So first of all, let's say there's
Speaker 1: this really great New York Times article about them. What
Speaker 1: was the name of that company, the Lennar Corporation. They
Speaker 1: wanted to build in San Francisco. They wanted to redevelop
Speaker 1: the site in San Francisco, which whatever, apparently there was
Speaker 1: pushback on it, or they were getting some sort of
Speaker 1: pushback from the residents of San Francisco. So I guess
Speaker 1: the Brookings Institution went to them and said, hey, we've
Speaker 1: got some ideas for you. We can support this as
Speaker 1: basically like a great idea of cities of the future,
Speaker 1: and and we're going to lend the credibility of our
Speaker 1: experts in our think tank to your project and make
Speaker 1: it like a champion kind of thing, like a blue
Speaker 1: type and archetype for how to further cities in America
Speaker 1: your development projects. Their their home builders, but but with
Speaker 1: Brookings Institution behind it, there was a veneer of something
Speaker 1: bigger than building homes, bigger than redeveloping, something about the
Speaker 1: future in progress, and Brookings like went to them and
Speaker 1: in exchange for four grand Brookings like added this credibility
Speaker 1: to it, got talking heads out there on the news
Speaker 1: to talk up this development and like what it meant
Speaker 1: for the future. And um, one of the other things
Speaker 1: they did and can do is they can set up
Speaker 1: summits conferences on cities of the future and get the
Speaker 1: home builders and lawmakers into the same room to hang
Speaker 1: out together. And so that's lobbying. Sure, there's no other
Speaker 1: way to put it. That is lobbying, and they were
Speaker 1: doing it on behalf of a specific corporation. There should
Speaker 1: be no tax exemption whatsoever any longer. It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: what side of the aisle you're on. If you're a taxpayer,
Speaker 1: you are funding that bye bye through these tax exemptions
Speaker 1: because we foot the bill for tax deduction. So if
Speaker 1: a single corporation's interests are being served, even if society
Speaker 1: in general is benefiting in some way, that's too much
Speaker 1: of a slippery slope. That breaks the tax exemption status.
Speaker 1: And then that that should go away. And that, sadly
Speaker 1: is is apparently where Brookings the direction Brookings is going. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and others too, I should say, oh, sure, sure, um,
Speaker 1: even the ones that aren't maybe as outright uh are
Speaker 1: on his bald face about this stuff. Um, Like a
Speaker 1: lot of scholars say that you know, bought and paid
Speaker 1: for research is sort of the exception. Still. But even
Speaker 1: even so, there's still places where you know, you may
Speaker 1: not it. Um, you may not push out certain research
Speaker 1: if you think you're it might piss off your boss. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is the same thing or sort of self censor
Speaker 1: yourself if you think, like, oh man, I don't know,
Speaker 1: like we're getting donations now, like this might not please them,
Speaker 1: it might make them look bad, so I probably should
Speaker 1: just avoid this conclusion. Yeah. So maybe not of like
Speaker 1: completely inventing a study or something, but being very selective
Speaker 1: in what you choose to research or how you research
Speaker 1: it or what you release is uh, you know, it's
Speaker 1: another version of the same thing. It totally is. And
Speaker 1: one of one of the other things that they've been
Speaker 1: found to do a lot of think tanks um, or
Speaker 1: one of the new things that think tanks do is
Speaker 1: they will circulate drafts before there's a final draft two
Speaker 1: donors like what do you think about this? And sometimes
Speaker 1: their opinions will be incorporated into the final draft. That
Speaker 1: is the antithesis of the spirit of think tanks and
Speaker 1: what they were originally meant to do. They were supposed
Speaker 1: to be, like, here's the facts, here's the research to
Speaker 1: back it up. It is what it is. We think
Speaker 1: you can apply it to make the world better in
Speaker 1: this way, not what you know, what do you guys
Speaker 1: think does this? Does this jibe with the kind of
Speaker 1: sinks you selected for this redevelopment because we can change
Speaker 1: this part to to jibe with the sinks you chose.
Speaker 1: You know, that's just not what it's supposed to be.
Speaker 1: And the reason that I think tanks are doing this
Speaker 1: is they are in um existential danger through the death
Speaker 1: of expertise that I remember I talked about in the
Speaker 1: Elimination Diet episode. The problem is, it's not like America
Speaker 1: just said we're sick of expertise, we're tired of you experts,
Speaker 1: like you're always right, and we're tired of here and
Speaker 1: you're always right. People got tired of being lied to
Speaker 1: and misled and misinformed and manipulated, and they finally said,
Speaker 1: you know what, experts, that's enough enough of you are
Speaker 1: full of it, enough of you have let your credibility
Speaker 1: be co opted. We're just not going to listen to
Speaker 1: any of you anymore because we don't know who to trust.
Speaker 1: And the experts brought about the death of expertise themselves
Speaker 1: in large part. Yeah, and there's another Uh. There was
Speaker 1: this article from the Washington Post called or think Tanks Obsolete,
Speaker 1: which sort of argues along those lines um about and
Speaker 1: also incorporates the Internet and the length of like a
Speaker 1: research cycle, like with the Internet and Twitter and Facebook
Speaker 1: and things like Ted talks. Uh. There's a guy, Donald Abelson,
Speaker 1: a professor at University Western Ontario, wrote a book called
Speaker 1: The Think Tanks Matter, where his conclusion basically is that
Speaker 1: the marketplace of ideas, he says, has become congested and
Speaker 1: you don't have time anymore to do a twelvemonth research
Speaker 1: proposal to come to the following conclusions. When hundred Ted
Speaker 1: talks over that twelve months will be published. Not picking
Speaker 1: on ted talks are great, No, it's a good example though.
Speaker 1: But you can push out of Ted talk. You can
Speaker 1: push out uh Facebook live video as as an economist
Speaker 1: and have a lot of sway you can They mentioned
Speaker 1: in here the UH and the article about vaccines for instance. UH.
Speaker 1: When as far as it goes with the vaccines. The
Speaker 1: Rand Corporation one of the largest thing thanks that we
Speaker 1: already mentioned. They did like a very thorough deep dive
Speaker 1: in research, uh, debunking the notion that vaccines cause autism.
Speaker 1: And it took a long time. But you can get
Speaker 1: on Facebook and go to a group called Educate before
Speaker 1: You Vaccinate and watch videos by non experts in people
Speaker 1: are swayed these days by this stuff like why wait,
Speaker 1: you know, the site the new cycle is so shortened.
Speaker 1: You can't wait for a long deep dive research paper
Speaker 1: to come out with some abstract summary that no one
Speaker 1: reads anyway. And apparently now they're you know, they're written
Speaker 1: in such a way where they will just say, uh,
Speaker 1: abstract summary, this stinks. We shouldn't do it, you know,
Speaker 1: they become so opinionated. I don't know, man, it's just
Speaker 1: it's it's depressing to think that Facebook and Twitter have
Speaker 1: outsized a think tank as far as they definitely have influence. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and YouTube and basically anything that gives a voice to
Speaker 1: the average person, which on the one hand is really
Speaker 1: cool and great sort of democratizes it in a way,
Speaker 1: but but at times, but it's tied into this death
Speaker 1: of expertise in a really toxic manner. You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, Like the two that that democratization of like
Speaker 1: a like giving everybody like a mouthpieces, not in and
Speaker 1: of itself like a bad thing, but when since it
Speaker 1: coincided with the loss and trust and experts and expertise,
Speaker 1: That's what where the problem came from. And that was
Speaker 1: the reason why we couldn't be a think tank. Sadly,
Speaker 1: we could be a think tank now, but we couldn't
Speaker 1: be a bona fide think tank because, Chuck, we don't
Speaker 1: have enough time in any given week to do so
Speaker 1: much thorough um primary source research into stuff. If we do,
Speaker 1: if we released one of these every couple of months,
Speaker 1: sure we could be like a real think tank, but
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be near least fun six episodes a year.
Speaker 1: People would love that, Yeah, they love you. Got anything else? Nope,
Speaker 1: I guess I don't either. Sorry for going off, everybody,
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. I'm sure I'll gets an email, But
Speaker 1: what els is worth it? Uh? If you want to
Speaker 1: know more about think tanks, well, I don't know, go
Speaker 1: on the internet and look up some think tanks and
Speaker 1: see if there's any that you agree with. A lot
Speaker 1: of them have like daily interpretations of news that kind
Speaker 1: of go through their lens. Um it's it's it's a
Speaker 1: way to keep up with things. Uh. And you can
Speaker 1: also read this article on how stuff works just not
Speaker 1: a think tank, called how think tanks Work. And since
Speaker 1: I said that's time for listener mail, I'm gonna call
Speaker 1: this a ballpoint pen addiction for just pin addiction. Hey guys,
Speaker 1: been listening for a couple of months or so, new listener.
Speaker 1: You were my first foray into podcast. I just really
Speaker 1: enjoy listening to you two. I saw the Ballpoint Pin
Speaker 1: podcast and I could not pass it up. I have
Speaker 1: a bit of a pin problem, you see. I own
Speaker 1: many many pins, especially the gael type inc rollerball pins.
Speaker 1: You got taken a test by quite a few people
Speaker 1: who were just like Josh Clark harresy gel pins. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of I guess traditionalists to bhoopoo
Speaker 1: that I think they're great. I got a lot of
Speaker 1: support for that one too. I agreed, we got a
Speaker 1: lot of pin recommendations. It was good to see. Uh.
Speaker 1: And here's another one. I own many many pins, especially
Speaker 1: the gel Inc roller ball pins. I also own a
Speaker 1: collection of Sharpie's in various tip widths and colors. I
Speaker 1: probably have a couple of gallon size zip block bags worth.
Speaker 1: You mentioned the way certain pins right on certain types
Speaker 1: of paper. I think it's probably the rollerball gel pins
Speaker 1: that work best on the thermal paper that they use
Speaker 1: the most restaurants. And I was talking about signing the check.
Speaker 1: I think that's what she's talking. We still never found
Speaker 1: out what that thing is called thermal paper. No, No,
Speaker 1: the thing that the check comes out in the little portfolio,
Speaker 1: the clamshell. Someone actually said, did you see that this
Speaker 1: great couple sent in a picture of a clamshell check
Speaker 1: delivery system. What are they called? I don't know, check Catty.
Speaker 1: We're gonna we're gonna name them clamshells. Now, that's the
Speaker 1: new name for him. So I have a favorite pin,
Speaker 1: though guys by them by the box. Uh. It's the
Speaker 1: pilot V ball B green pin, the point five millimeter.
Speaker 1: I love the way they feel when they write. I
Speaker 1: can't go back to ballpoint pins. Use them at work.
Speaker 1: I carry at least three in my bag and I
Speaker 1: draw and doodle with them. Using them on a newsprint
Speaker 1: pad is my favorite thing when doing word art. Sorry
Speaker 1: for the ramble, guys, have a great day. That is
Speaker 1: from Davini and Barry, Davini Berry, Davini and Berry M. Berry.
Speaker 1: I wasn't going okay, well, I didn't know if Davini's
Speaker 1: middle initial was M, or if I was missed hearing
Speaker 1: you and Davini and Berry. It's actually Davina, excuse me,
Speaker 1: Davina M. Berry. If I would have said Davina and Barry,
Speaker 1: that would have been much more clear. Or Embury. It
Speaker 1: might be Davina Embury. What does it say Davina or Davinah?
Speaker 1: Oh God about d E. Thanks d It's d I.
Speaker 1: At any rate, we're glad that you started listening to us.
Speaker 1: We appreciate and thanks for taking the time to let
Speaker 1: us know about the Your benediction um totally fine with us.
Speaker 1: If you want to let us know about something you're
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