Speaker 1: Guess what, mango? What's that? Will? So I don't want
Speaker 1: to stereotype, but that's right, stereotype alert. Now. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you've noticed this, but the writers we've hired
Speaker 1: who grew up on farms always have this amazing work ethic,
Speaker 1: Like they all seem to get up early and just
Speaker 1: crank out work, whatever the circumstance. They don't miss deadline. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's true. One of my favorite teachers in high school
Speaker 1: grow up on a farm too, and he used to
Speaker 1: sing the virtues of what farming teaches you growing up,
Speaker 1: and he was the same way. He was like off
Speaker 1: at a crack of dawn and just so focused. Yes.
Speaker 1: So I was looking this up and there's actually this
Speaker 1: great story from Iowa about the origin of Highway six
Speaker 1: or whether it's predecessor, called the River to River Road,
Speaker 1: and it went across the state. Now, apparently, on June
Speaker 1: nineteen ten, ten thousand farmers and some volunteers started working
Speaker 1: on building this road at nine am. Do you know
Speaker 1: how long it took him to finish? I don't know,
Speaker 1: like a month, one hour. It took the farmers one hour.
Speaker 1: By ten am they were completely done. It almost feels
Speaker 1: like that movie Dave. Do you remember this? So there's
Speaker 1: this scene where they give the job of balancing the
Speaker 1: congressional budget to a hard working, honest accountant and he
Speaker 1: balances the budget in one night. It's that level. If
Speaker 1: you ask a ragtag group of farmers to build you
Speaker 1: a highway the width of the entire US state, they'll
Speaker 1: have it done in an hours. I know, and I realized.
Speaker 1: I got this story from the Root six Tourists Association website,
Speaker 1: and it may be apocryphal, but it made me wonder.
Speaker 1: If farmers work as hard as they're known to, and
Speaker 1: if the science of farming is only getting better, then
Speaker 1: why are people across the globe still going hungry? And
Speaker 1: what will it take to actually feed the world. That's
Speaker 1: our big question today. Yeah, hey, their podcast listeners, welcome
Speaker 1: to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always
Speaker 1: I'm joined by my good friend Man Guesh Ticketer. In
Speaker 1: today's show, we're talking about what it will take to
Speaker 1: feed the world, scientists playing by the year of two
Speaker 1: thousand and fifty, the population will be at ten billion people.
Speaker 1: That's a ton of people and a lot of hungry
Speaker 1: mouths to feed. So we're going to try to answer
Speaker 1: that big question, and along the way, we've got an
Speaker 1: incredible guest, William McCaskill, a professor of philosophy at Oxford
Speaker 1: and the founder of Effective Altruism. Yeah, he's amazing. He
Speaker 1: essentially invented moneyball for charity, which sounds like a marriage
Speaker 1: of two things that aren't supposed to go together. It's
Speaker 1: like one of those pitches you hear from an off
Speaker 1: brand shark tank and you know it's it's like uber
Speaker 1: but for gymnastics. But his work is really awesome. And
Speaker 1: we've got another nerd hero on today as well. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. We've got Josh Miller from farm Shots and
Speaker 1: he invented this program in college and it's pretty incredible, wonderful. So, Mango,
Speaker 1: I've got to tell you, I'm going to start with
Speaker 1: the fact that's going to disappoint you. Oh yeah, what's that? Well,
Speaker 1: because today's big question is about how we're going to
Speaker 1: feed the world. One of the first things I looked
Speaker 1: up was what we can do to be more responsible
Speaker 1: with our food choices. I do not like where this
Speaker 1: guy I know and scientists have this list of eleven
Speaker 1: things we should rethink eating. The usual suspects are all
Speaker 1: on there, like beef, which always gets knocked because of
Speaker 1: the amount of land and water that goes into raising cattle. Sure,
Speaker 1: like that's a big vegetarian battle cry, how the land
Speaker 1: could be better used to grow other things, and that
Speaker 1: a kilogram of beef takes like twenty times more water
Speaker 1: than growing grains, which is sort of true. It takes
Speaker 1: three times more water to grow beef than raising chickens,
Speaker 1: and according to new scientists, you could provide ten to
Speaker 1: twenty times the protein if that land was used to
Speaker 1: plant legumes. But that isn't what's interesting. Beef is at
Speaker 1: the top of the list. Then there are things like
Speaker 1: nuts and chocolate because they suck up a lot of
Speaker 1: water and resource. But additionally, there are two things I
Speaker 1: know you love. What's that coffee and you're ready for it?
Speaker 1: Fry French fries. Yeah, French fries shouldn't be on that list.
Speaker 1: I knew you were going to be happy about this.
Speaker 1: For you listeners out there, Mango as a vegetarian in college,
Speaker 1: which pretty much meant about eight of his diet was fries.
Speaker 1: I really want to say it was because there weren't
Speaker 1: enough vegetarian options. But the truth is I just really
Speaker 1: love fries. They're delicious. I don't know if I ever
Speaker 1: told you this, but when I was ten or eleven,
Speaker 1: we had to do one of those exercises in math
Speaker 1: class where we did a budget for when we were
Speaker 1: grown up, and so we were handed out salaries, I
Speaker 1: mean hunted for apartments, and we budgeted for things like
Speaker 1: toilet paper and household supplies using coupons, and we also
Speaker 1: had to plan out a menu, and I remember thinking
Speaker 1: food is a great place to save. So I just
Speaker 1: decided to stock my fridge with French fries and frozen
Speaker 1: burritos and pizzas from Sam's Club getting hungry. And the
Speaker 1: whole idea was just to spend like a hundred fifty
Speaker 1: dollars a month on food. And when my teacher inspected
Speaker 1: it and asked me if I wanted to revise it,
Speaker 1: I was like, nah, I'm good. I was just supremely
Speaker 1: confident that a plate of fries for dinner every night
Speaker 1: wasn't just tasty, it was sensible. Makes sense to me.
Speaker 1: I mean, can you imagine if we had to commit
Speaker 1: to our clothing and food choices for life at age
Speaker 1: and about how terrible we'd look and feel. We're probably
Speaker 1: wearing umbros and hyper colored shirts to work every day
Speaker 1: and eating nothing but bags of gummy bears. I know,
Speaker 1: but I still don't get what French fries are so
Speaker 1: bad for the earth? I mean, and coffee, I can
Speaker 1: see that. Like a while back, I read this thing
Speaker 1: that growing tea takes up more land, but coffee is
Speaker 1: a much more difficult crop to rays. That's right. For
Speaker 1: every single cup of coffee you drink, it takes five
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty cups of water. Can you believe that?
Speaker 1: I can't, which is why I only drink diet mountain dew.
Speaker 1: It's a very principal decision I made a long time ago.
Speaker 1: But fries around the list because of food waste. As
Speaker 1: a French fried connoisseur, you probably already know this, but
Speaker 1: apparently French fries don't taste good when they're cold. Yeah.
Speaker 1: My wife and I do this thing where we guess
Speaker 1: how long it will take for a fast food fry
Speaker 1: to go from like hot and crispy and totally delicious
Speaker 1: to completely limb. And it's stunning how fast it can
Speaker 1: transform into something totally unappealing. I like that, this is
Speaker 1: the thing you guys actively do. It's also crazy how
Speaker 1: many fries are thrown out because they aren't good after
Speaker 1: ten to fifteen minutes. So in the UK, New Scientists
Speaker 1: reports that fries or chips as they call them, account
Speaker 1: for ten percent of all food waste, but the potatoes
Speaker 1: are only part of it. Fried foods in general are
Speaker 1: considered wasteful because of all the oils and fats that
Speaker 1: go into frying up all the deliciousness. So if we
Speaker 1: use the land for veggies instead, it would be a
Speaker 1: better source of calories for the population, Which is like
Speaker 1: a total Sophie's choice for me, choosing between eating French
Speaker 1: fries and saving the world. You can't do that to me. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry, But let's back up for a second.
Speaker 1: What actually is the state of world hunger? I mean,
Speaker 1: there's so many different things written up about this that's
Speaker 1: kind of hard to keep up. And part of what's
Speaker 1: confusing to me is that I recently read we currently
Speaker 1: produce enough food to feed everyone in the world. Well,
Speaker 1: those things aren't mutually exclusive. So close to a billion
Speaker 1: people go to sleep hungry every night, which is heartbreaking,
Speaker 1: And in two thousand fifteen, the Food and Agriculture Arm
Speaker 1: of the u N showed that there were seven hundred
Speaker 1: nine million under nourished people in the world. And while
Speaker 1: over the past couple of decades we've started to see
Speaker 1: the numbers drop on that, you have to imagine that
Speaker 1: this could get worse if we don't start to get
Speaker 1: a real handle on this. But you're right, there actually
Speaker 1: is enough food to feed everyone. How's that. Well. Gordon Conway,
Speaker 1: who's a fellow at the Royal Society and this heavily
Speaker 1: respected agriculture ecologists, points out in his book One Billion Hungry,
Speaker 1: if we were to add up all the world's production
Speaker 1: of food and then divide it equally among the world's population,
Speaker 1: every man, woman, and child would receive a daily average
Speaker 1: of over twenty hundred calories. That's enough for a healthy lifestyle,
Speaker 1: which is amazing. But on the other hand, it's not
Speaker 1: like humans are great at sharing, Like, we're not vampire bats.
Speaker 1: Vampire bats, Yeah they sound so blood thirsty, Well they
Speaker 1: are blood, but they're also super considerate. Like if a
Speaker 1: vampire bat has a couple of bad nights of feeding,
Speaker 1: it can actually starve to death because the creatures roost
Speaker 1: together if one bat notices that another is hungry, it'll
Speaker 1: be a good roostmatee and regurgitate some food for it. Roostmates.
Speaker 1: Such a great word. I like the idea of a
Speaker 1: little bad advertising on Craigslist looking for three hundred other
Speaker 1: roostmates to share one bedroom in Bushwick. So the vampire
Speaker 1: bats aren't the only ones. I mean, humans are empathetic too,
Speaker 1: and they do share food. There was that wonderful story
Speaker 1: of the man in Saudi Arabia who put a fridge
Speaker 1: out on a sidewalk and then filled it with leftovers
Speaker 1: for anyone to take. And that trend started to spread
Speaker 1: across the Middle East of people stocking fridges on the
Speaker 1: street with fresh water and food for anyone in need.
Speaker 1: And there are those little food pantries that have popped
Speaker 1: up in America and across the world. You know, people
Speaker 1: do care. It's just that a lot of little food
Speaker 1: pantries aren't going to add up to feeding a billion
Speaker 1: hungry people. Sure, so being more thoughtful about how and
Speaker 1: what we will be part of the solution, as we'll
Speaker 1: be figuring out a better food distribution mechanism. But part
Speaker 1: of the question too is what is it that's keeping
Speaker 1: people hungry. And I think I have an answer for you.
Speaker 1: So I've read some amazing research from Marthea Sen and
Speaker 1: you know sends this Nobel Prize winning economists, and he
Speaker 1: showed how famines aren't really caused by droughts or widespread
Speaker 1: food shortages so much as the rooted in poverty. So
Speaker 1: how so Well, when I first read that, I thought,
Speaker 1: how can that be? I mean, a famine has to
Speaker 1: be caused by droughts and crop devastation. But his point
Speaker 1: is that statistically, if you look at these food crises,
Speaker 1: there's little or no decline in the we're all food
Speaker 1: supply in the greater region. Like he analyzed the famine
Speaker 1: from nineteen three in Ethiopia where weather patterns caused a
Speaker 1: small region of the country, this province called Wallow to
Speaker 1: suffer and because the population was impoverished, their ability to
Speaker 1: grow and purchase food was severely affected, but the overall
Speaker 1: food production in the country wasn't substantially different from years before.
Speaker 1: And he showed this over and over in other places,
Speaker 1: including in Bengal and other countries where the diminished purchasing
Speaker 1: power of wages was the root cause of starvation, not
Speaker 1: overall food supply. In fact, there's this wonderful series called
Speaker 1: Hungry Hungry Humans. Actually, do you remember the magazine Meat Paper,
Speaker 1: Meat Paper, of course, so that beautiful indie magazine with
Speaker 1: all those photographs of meat from a few years back, right,
Speaker 1: I know, it's so good. I don't even like me
Speaker 1: that much, but I loved looking through it. But one
Speaker 1: of the former editors there, this Berkeley journalism professor named
Speaker 1: Nathaniel Johnson. He spent six months investigating the food crisis
Speaker 1: in a series called Hungry, Hungry Humans. And one of
Speaker 1: the things he pointed out that Marthea Sen also says
Speaker 1: is that one thing that can help curb of potential
Speaker 1: famine is free press. And it's simply because in democracies,
Speaker 1: politicians have to get reelected, and as long as someone
Speaker 1: is shedding light on a food or economic problem is
Speaker 1: going to get addressed before it becomes a total crisis.
Speaker 1: But you have to imagine the internet and the spread
Speaker 1: of mobile phones is also great for spreading that knowledge.
Speaker 1: And you know, currently there's some amazing apps trying to
Speaker 1: address the problem by connecting food donors with those in need.
Speaker 1: But part of what's interesting to me is that a
Speaker 1: little investment in infrastructure might also solve some of these problems.
Speaker 1: We don't think about this, but roads and access to
Speaker 1: villages and town centers actually play a big part in
Speaker 1: bringing people out of poverty. Like Johnson interviewed a farmer
Speaker 1: from Ethiopia who told him it takes her four hours
Speaker 1: just to walk from her farm to the nearest town.
Speaker 1: And his point is, can you imagine if you have
Speaker 1: to walk four hours every time you need to get
Speaker 1: seeds or fertilizer or anything to raise your crops. And
Speaker 1: that's not even taking into account getting your food to market.
Speaker 1: Just imagine how much time she's losing. So a good
Speaker 1: paved road would ease her situation and helped her have
Speaker 1: more of a successful farm. And there's hard evidence that
Speaker 1: shows this bears out economically, Like there was a study
Speaker 1: in India in the nineteen nineties that showed for every
Speaker 1: million rupees that was spent on a road, which at
Speaker 1: the time was like fifty dollars, eight hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: one people were lifted out of poverty. And that's not
Speaker 1: just them but their future generations. So what you're saying
Speaker 1: is we just need to get like ten thousand farmers
Speaker 1: from Iowa over to these remote locations across the globe
Speaker 1: and get a few roads built in under an hour. Exactly.
Speaker 1: It's that simple. But before we charter some planes and
Speaker 1: launch our farmers without borders who adopt a highway program,
Speaker 1: why don't we break for a quiz? Sounds good to
Speaker 1: me for a quiz. Today, we've got Josh Miller on
Speaker 1: the line, and Josh is a fascinating guy because he
Speaker 1: created a company called farm Shots right out of his
Speaker 1: dorm room. Josh, welcome to part time Genius. Hey, thanks
Speaker 1: for having me. Now, Josh, you graduated in two thousand
Speaker 1: and sixteen, so you're pretty fresh out of college. Tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit about farm Shots and what inspired
Speaker 1: you to create it. Yeah, so we got started. It
Speaker 1: would have been the sophomore year I had at Duke,
Speaker 1: So it's kind of I had of this love for
Speaker 1: agriculture and I was studying engineering at the time. I
Speaker 1: really wanted to find a way to put the two together,
Speaker 1: and there wasn't really anything out there that kind of
Speaker 1: did that, except for making tractors, which wasn't very exciting
Speaker 1: and so and so, I uh, I went back and
Speaker 1: I did some research and it turned out in the
Speaker 1: sixties and seventies, there was a lot of research into
Speaker 1: sensing vegetation, uh from half a days, particularly for finding
Speaker 1: areas where there might be a disease or a bug
Speaker 1: out of the farm. The problem was, back in the
Speaker 1: sixties and seventies, there weren't really ano satellites for that
Speaker 1: to be useful. Right, you got an imagine it was
Speaker 1: really low resolution, maybe once a month. So if you
Speaker 1: passed forward to when I was about to start the
Speaker 1: company would have been around two thousand and fourteen. There
Speaker 1: were all these kind thing is coming out of a
Speaker 1: woodwork that you know, aboard Elon Musk's rockets, and all
Speaker 1: these tiny rockets that we're going up to space. We're
Speaker 1: putting these tiny, tiny satellites that are about as big
Speaker 1: as your forearm in space. So all that research back
Speaker 1: in the sixties and seventies and then be applied to
Speaker 1: these hundreds and and almost a thousand new satellites have
Speaker 1: gone into space since that research had happened. And so
Speaker 1: I went out and I said, okay, you know, can
Speaker 1: can we turn this Neohle product that actually helps farmers
Speaker 1: um And it turned out we could, And I went
Speaker 1: ahead and I built the first version of the software. Uh,
Speaker 1: and I'm a terrible engineer, and so it was probably
Speaker 1: the most awful, like you, piece of software exemplified. But
Speaker 1: but these guys loved it, right, it made sense and
Speaker 1: it was something that they wanted to buy. Um. And
Speaker 1: if you fast forward to where we are today, you know,
Speaker 1: three years later, Uh, the company's operating about thirty different countries.
Speaker 1: We're on about ten million acres internationally, very significantly. That's
Speaker 1: very cool. So so, Joshua, what keeps you optimistic about
Speaker 1: the future and growing enough to to feed the world
Speaker 1: as we're talking about today? Yeah, you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: kind of funny because we talked about there's a good
Speaker 1: amount of urban growth going on in places like the US,
Speaker 1: where you have cities kind of expanding outwards and outwards,
Speaker 1: which means more people. And at the same time, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of what's getting converted to this kind of
Speaker 1: used land is farm land. Um. So the question is
Speaker 1: you've got more people causing less farm land. How do
Speaker 1: how do you kind of feed those sorts of people?
Speaker 1: And so I think that's an ever pressing problem that's
Speaker 1: going to go on for hundreds of years. Any ideas
Speaker 1: you know, we've got to take a shrinking amount of
Speaker 1: acridge and turn that into more food. And the homely
Speaker 1: way you're gonna be able to really do something like
Speaker 1: that is through applications of technology. M hm. We certainly
Speaker 1: appreciate what you're doing with the business, and congratulations again
Speaker 1: on on its success. So um, so, something equally important
Speaker 1: is the quiz that we're playing today. Uh, Matt, mango.
Speaker 1: What's what's our game that we're playing with Josh today?
Speaker 1: It's called farm Raised where all the answers are people
Speaker 1: or characters who grew up on farms. And what is
Speaker 1: Josh playing for? As always our listeners playing for a
Speaker 1: chance to win a handwritten note from us to his
Speaker 1: mom or his boss, singing his praises. All right, so
Speaker 1: this should be easy. What we will do is we
Speaker 1: will give you a bit of pop culture and you
Speaker 1: tell us which farm boy or girl we're talking about. Okay,
Speaker 1: we've got five questions for you. The steaks are very high. Okay,
Speaker 1: how many do I have to get? Right? Well, we'll see,
Speaker 1: we'll see. We'll have to turn to the judges in
Speaker 1: a bit. So um they are I'll go ahead and
Speaker 1: warn you they are incredibly difficult questions. So let's see
Speaker 1: what we can do, all right. Question number one. This
Speaker 1: superhero grew up on a farm in the town of
Speaker 1: Malville and was raised by his adopted parents, Ma and
Speaker 1: Paw Kent, who kept him away from Kryptonite. Who would
Speaker 1: this be, Well, Superman, it's Clark Kent, alright, one for one.
Speaker 1: Question number two. We'll see, we'll see. They may get harder,
Speaker 1: so we're not alright, So here we go. This pop
Speaker 1: star behind Shake It Off famously grew up on a
Speaker 1: Christmas tree farm in Pennsylvania. Also, at the two thousand
Speaker 1: ten Grammy Awards, she won more Grammys four than Elvis
Speaker 1: would ever win. Being three. Who was this artist Taylor Swift? Wow?
Speaker 1: So smart? Alright? Question number three? This Civil War general
Speaker 1: who later became president went into the military because he
Speaker 1: was a terrible farmer. Also, he once got a speeding
Speaker 1: ticket for traveling too fast on his horse. Who would
Speaker 1: this be? Oh? Wow, um wow, Yes, I have a
Speaker 1: feeling he knew that when it was just kind of
Speaker 1: pausing for dramatic effects. I think that's right. Well, I
Speaker 1: almost said Abraham Lincoln, and then I was like, oh wait,
Speaker 1: that's question number four. This Star Wars hero grew up
Speaker 1: separate from his twin sister on a moisture farm in Tattooing.
Speaker 1: This was years before he would train with Yoda. Who
Speaker 1: are we talking? Oh this is Skywalker. Yes for the
Speaker 1: final question, you know, take your satellites to that. All right,
Speaker 1: here we go question number five. This rancher's daughter grew
Speaker 1: up to be the first woman on the U. S.
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. While serving on the court, she used to
Speaker 1: run a jazzer size class in the building for clerks.
Speaker 1: Who was this? Oh? Wow, do I get like a lifeline?
Speaker 1: Can he go? Five for five? First woman on the U. S.
Speaker 1: Supreme Court? The first woman on the U Supreme Court? Uh?
Speaker 1: Do I get that? So? I'm no life? Can't call
Speaker 1: my mom? Uh? So the middle name would be the
Speaker 1: opposite of night Daddy O'Connor. So tell tell us what
Speaker 1: tell us what he wanted today, Mango, Because Joshua an
Speaker 1: astounding five for five. In addition to this hen written
Speaker 1: note we're sending him, we're also going to send him
Speaker 1: a sender day O'Connor finger puppet, which is a collector's
Speaker 1: item because it's the only sender day O'Connor finger puppet
Speaker 1: we could find online. So congratulations Josh so much for
Speaker 1: playing Gosh. Thank you. So before we get back to
Speaker 1: this question of how to feed the world, I want
Speaker 1: to talk about carrots mango, specifically baby carrot. Okay, so
Speaker 1: here's the thing. You and I have basically grown up
Speaker 1: with baby carrots, right, They've always been around and offered
Speaker 1: as this nutritious option with lunches and whatever. But the
Speaker 1: truth is there a pretty recent invention. According to the
Speaker 1: Carrot Museum, which, as you know, is my go to
Speaker 1: for all carrot related knowledge, this California farmer, Mike Eurosic
Speaker 1: was throwing out a ton of his carrot crop because
Speaker 1: they looked deformed. They were perfectly good, but because consumers
Speaker 1: don't want to buy a gnarled carrot, farmers in the
Speaker 1: eighties would regularly toss out about a third of their crop.
Speaker 1: So Eurosi decided why not try to remarket this thing.
Speaker 1: He took a peeler and trimmed down the carrots and
Speaker 1: came up with two varieties, baby carrots, which obviously took off,
Speaker 1: and bunny balls, which did not. Yeah, I think they
Speaker 1: were supposed to look like cheese balls, but I pretty
Speaker 1: sure they could have used the different name. And while
Speaker 1: this took place in the eighties, my point is this
Speaker 1: their innovations, both big and small, which can create less
Speaker 1: food waste. Carving a cute character two out of a bigger,
Speaker 1: uglier carrot is certainly one thing. But here's something that's
Speaker 1: even stranger. Scientists in Virginia Tech have figure down a
Speaker 1: process to make the cob part of the corn on
Speaker 1: the cob edible. Basically would turn all of that undigestible
Speaker 1: cellulos into good starch, which would have the potential to
Speaker 1: feed millions more people. That's so insane. Do you think
Speaker 1: future generations will still eat corn the same way and
Speaker 1: hold cobs horizontally like at a tradition or do you
Speaker 1: think they'll start attacking it more like a banana. That's
Speaker 1: a good question. Who knows. But here's another innovation. Apparently
Speaker 1: scientists that Texas A and M figured out a way
Speaker 1: to make cotton seed, which are currently poisonous, into an
Speaker 1: edible product. And according to Scientific American, the proteins and
Speaker 1: the cotton seed that are already being harvested every year
Speaker 1: would be enough to feed five hundred million people. That's
Speaker 1: that's just insane. So of the one billion people out
Speaker 1: there going hungry right now, some crazy corn and cotton
Speaker 1: seed could actually feed half of them. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: assuming chefs can sell people on the taste. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: guess that's true. Like how the US government taught people
Speaker 1: to eat calamari, right right, Like back in the nineties,
Speaker 1: the government was worried about over fishing off things like
Speaker 1: cod and had dick, so they asked chefs and restaurants
Speaker 1: to use squid as a replacement. And before then squid
Speaker 1: was really only used for bait. And this is great
Speaker 1: salon piece on this from two thousand fourteen, but the
Speaker 1: government basically sent out approved test recipes and even encouraged
Speaker 1: the use of the word calamari because it sounded so
Speaker 1: much fancier and more exotic. But the funny thing is,
Speaker 1: because restaurant owners didn't want to overwhelm customers, they only
Speaker 1: serve the squid and appetizer form and that's mostly where
Speaker 1: it stayed on menus. Well, they'll be surprised if you
Speaker 1: see all you can eat cotton seed appetizers at your
Speaker 1: local olive garden soon. But let's get back to farming,
Speaker 1: because I think there's some interesting stuff we should talk about.
Speaker 1: So one thing we should mention is that while food
Speaker 1: waste and wealthy countries is mostly about people tossing out
Speaker 1: leftovers and developing nations, it's mostly about food spoilage. Again,
Speaker 1: this is something Nathaniel Johnson talks about, but he reports
Speaker 1: that between thirty and forty percent of food grown around
Speaker 1: the world is lost annually, whether that's spoilage from not
Speaker 1: being sealed in airtight containers or being refrigerated properly, or
Speaker 1: even things like vermin. And his point is if farmers
Speaker 1: could deserve even a fraction of this food better, that
Speaker 1: could actually lift their economic prospects, meaning hopefully less famine,
Speaker 1: but also address some of the hunger issues. Well, I
Speaker 1: know that's an area of study that's getting attention. Actually,
Speaker 1: there's a super simple invention from the guy Mohammed bah
Speaker 1: ah Bah of Nigeria, and it's one of my favorite things.
Speaker 1: So you can guess that food spoilage is a particularly
Speaker 1: big problem in tropical and desert regions where fruits and
Speaker 1: vegetables can go bad quickly. But his non electric refrigerator
Speaker 1: is so simple it's incredible. He basically showed that if
Speaker 1: you take two earthen pots, and you fill the outer
Speaker 1: pot with wet sand, and then put your food in
Speaker 1: the inner pot, and you cover the system with a
Speaker 1: wet cloth. Well, the evaporation from that wet sand will
Speaker 1: suck the heat out of the inner pot and keep
Speaker 1: the food chilled as low as four degrees fahrenheit. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So Baba has given away hundreds of thousands of earthen
Speaker 1: pots in the last decade or so to increase food security.
Speaker 1: That is so cool. I believe he actually want a
Speaker 1: Rolex Design Award for this simple yet elegant design. But
Speaker 1: speaking of design, let's talk about the future of farming. Now,
Speaker 1: let's skip over the robot pickers and driverless tractors and
Speaker 1: get directly to vertical farms. I love vertical farms just
Speaker 1: because they look so cool. And Jetson's like, I mean,
Speaker 1: instead of doing your farming horizontally, why not just rotated
Speaker 1: by ninety degrees. I love this idea too, so, especially
Speaker 1: because it makes eating farm to table meals easier in
Speaker 1: cities where there aren't large patches of green to farm on.
Speaker 1: But what's interesting is that there are a lot of
Speaker 1: people criticizing the idea. They see vertical farming as a
Speaker 1: gimmick because to actually give each plant light and water
Speaker 1: them indoors, you have to use electricity, which means you're
Speaker 1: not taking advantage of all the natural resources that outdoor
Speaker 1: farming does. So what's the solution. I know, they're floating farms,
Speaker 1: where they're basically farming done on barges and man made islands,
Speaker 1: but again I've read that's just a supplemented region's food security.
Speaker 1: It couldn't be done in a big enough way to
Speaker 1: really address hunger issues. Well, floating farms are definitely interesting,
Speaker 1: but my favorite of the futuristic farms is the floating
Speaker 1: vertical farms. Floating and vertical, best of both worlds. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean these things are so theoretical, but they're beautiful.
Speaker 1: And the outdoor floating vertical farm basically takes advantage of
Speaker 1: the sun and rainwater, it doesn't need land to work,
Speaker 1: and its shaped like a giant roller coaster loop, which
Speaker 1: not only looks really cool, but avoids casting shadows on
Speaker 1: the crops on the inside so they can get sunlight equally,
Speaker 1: which is pretty cool. I mean, if we're talking pure theory,
Speaker 1: and this isn't Jetson's futurism here, but it is idealistic.
Speaker 1: The thing that totally blew me away was that if
Speaker 1: we could use the available land in the Congo, that
Speaker 1: could essentially feed all of Africa. Wait what, I know,
Speaker 1: it sounded insane to me too, But according to the
Speaker 1: u n's Food and Agricultural Organization, climate change is going
Speaker 1: to aggravate food charges on the continent. But the Democratic
Speaker 1: Republic of Congo is in this unique position. It has
Speaker 1: giant territories on both sides of the equator. Basically, there's
Speaker 1: always a rainy season in the country and only a
Speaker 1: fraction of the arable land is being used. I mean,
Speaker 1: apparently there are over eighty million hectares of land that
Speaker 1: would be great for farms. And of course the DRC
Speaker 1: has been rife with horrible wars and political issues that
Speaker 1: have prevented that di element. But according to a UN representative,
Speaker 1: the region has the potential defeat up to two billion people,
Speaker 1: which if we're targeting, maybe that's enough time for the
Speaker 1: country to solve its internal conflicts. Plus it only takes
Speaker 1: our Iowa farm core like an hour on roads. Yeah,
Speaker 1: making peace in the Congo and settling the land does
Speaker 1: sound optimistic, but so do's trying to get the entire
Speaker 1: world to go vegetarian, which we'll talk about after this break.
Speaker 1: Over the past fifteen to twenty years, we've witnessed the
Speaker 1: emergence of data and carefully gathered information being applied to
Speaker 1: several different fields to make people more effective at what
Speaker 1: they do and how they process the world around them,
Speaker 1: whether that's recognized through stories like Moneyball and Baseball or
Speaker 1: Nate Silver's five twenty nine. In the world of politics
Speaker 1: and sports are through so many interesting works and behavioral economics.
Speaker 1: It's been interesting to watch as scholars help us approach
Speaker 1: these fields with careful reasoning and not just what our
Speaker 1: gut tells us. And today's guest is helping the world
Speaker 1: apply this kind of information gathering and careful reasoning to
Speaker 1: the world of altruism. In fact, he's the founder of
Speaker 1: a fascinating organization called Effective Altruism. Will mccaske all, welcome
Speaker 1: to Part Time Genius. Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 1: So we'll tell us a little bit about how you
Speaker 1: got into this field and decided to start Effective Altruism.
Speaker 1: I got into this field because I was deeply concerned
Speaker 1: about a problem of global poverty. It seemed to me
Speaker 1: that given that I was, you know, from the middle
Speaker 1: class family of a well lost country, and there were
Speaker 1: a billion people living on the time less than a
Speaker 1: dollar a day, I just thought, well, why shouldn't I
Speaker 1: be doing this? And I made a decision to give
Speaker 1: away most of my income over the course of my life,
Speaker 1: to set a cap at what's now about twenty five
Speaker 1: pounds a year it's dollars, and give away everything above that.
Speaker 1: Now I'm not going to be super rich, but I'm
Speaker 1: going to have an okay income as an academic h
Speaker 1: and so over the course of my life that would
Speaker 1: be between one and two million dollars. And having made
Speaker 1: that decision, I thought, well, this is now a pretty
Speaker 1: big decision that I'm making in terms of trying to
Speaker 1: help other people. And so I thought, well's what's absolutely
Speaker 1: crucial is to figure out not just can I use
Speaker 1: this money well or not or will it not be wasted?
Speaker 1: But actually, how can I use this money to have
Speaker 1: as big an impact as possible? And from that seeds
Speaker 1: this general idea of asking the question, how can we
Speaker 1: do as much good as possible with our time and money?
Speaker 1: That could who game what's known as the effective answers.
Speaker 1: How did your family react when you decided to catch
Speaker 1: your salary and give the rest of it to charity. Honestly,
Speaker 1: my mom said that's unethical. They took a while getting
Speaker 1: into it, but now I think they're um supportive. It
Speaker 1: was definitely, Yeah, I'd imagine that's that's such a big decision.
Speaker 1: It's kind of incredible. Yeah, And so, well, what are
Speaker 1: the biggest mistakes we tend to make in giving the charities?
Speaker 1: I think one major mistake that we make is to
Speaker 1: look at overheads costs. So that's where as a way
Speaker 1: of assessing the efficiency of the charity, you look at
Speaker 1: how much money does this charity spend on administration and
Speaker 1: fund raising versus how much does it spend on the program.
Speaker 1: And it's just a really bad way of assessing whether
Speaker 1: the charity is good or not, because if the charity
Speaker 1: is implementing some sort of lousy program, and there are
Speaker 1: some programs that do nothing, some that are even harmful,
Speaker 1: then no matter how low the overhead costs are, it's
Speaker 1: still not going to be a good charity. Whereas you
Speaker 1: could have a charity focused on a really effective program,
Speaker 1: but it just needs to spend say a third of
Speaker 1: its finances working out what are the most effective ways
Speaker 1: to help. So, in general, what we should be thinking
Speaker 1: about is how much money is going in and what's
Speaker 1: the good outcomes that are coming out. And this is
Speaker 1: just completely normal and how we think about perch in
Speaker 1: goods in general. If you were deciding between buying a
Speaker 1: mac work or buying a PC, you wouldn't ask yourself
Speaker 1: or how much does tin cook get paid or how
Speaker 1: much are they spending on the administration. You just care
Speaker 1: about the quality of the product and how much that
Speaker 1: product cost m So how does someone as an outsider
Speaker 1: figure this out? You know, like if the standard person
Speaker 1: at home trying to figure out, like I I know
Speaker 1: I want to give a little bit of money to charity,
Speaker 1: what's the best way to make sure it is effective? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think the key thing to bear in mind is
Speaker 1: just in the same way as you know, most people
Speaker 1: shouldn't find invest on their own because it's just too
Speaker 1: hard and you're going to end up getting burned. In
Speaker 1: the same way when it comes to charities, I think
Speaker 1: the best thing to do is just to find some
Speaker 1: experts really trust and then go on the basis of
Speaker 1: their recommendations, and the two places that I recommend most highly.
Speaker 1: One is give Well that Give Wealth, the organ which
Speaker 1: makes recommendations charvities that do more quantifiable UM interventions working
Speaker 1: in the developing world to improve bubal health and development,
Speaker 1: such as the Against Malaria Foundation that I mentioned. And
Speaker 1: then the alternative is at my own organization. On the
Speaker 1: website effective Altism dot org. You can go to donate
Speaker 1: effectively and you can choose one of three different cause areas,
Speaker 1: so global health and development is one, but also farm
Speaker 1: animal welfare and programs to have a positive impact on
Speaker 1: the very long run future of human civilization and which
Speaker 1: we have identified as particularly neglected and high priority causes UM.
Speaker 1: And then an expert will return one of the most
Speaker 1: effective chravities to be giving to in these areas and
Speaker 1: then donate. So you might not get quite the same
Speaker 1: kind of warm glow or warm fuzzy feelings from donating
Speaker 1: through this, but you will have pens or hundreds of
Speaker 1: times when potentially well, thank you so much for giving
Speaker 1: us so much to uh to think about. And as
Speaker 1: our way of saying thank you, we want to we
Speaker 1: want to give you one of our quizzes that we
Speaker 1: have and in every episode, so h so, so mango?
Speaker 1: What game are we playing with Will today? This is
Speaker 1: a game called Who Is the World? And it's pretty simple. Basically,
Speaker 1: we're going to give you a clue about one of
Speaker 1: the many many musicians who participated in We Are the World,
Speaker 1: and you have to guess who it is. So We
Speaker 1: Are the World was the epic nineteen eighties supergroup song
Speaker 1: that raised over sixty one million dollars for humanitarian aid
Speaker 1: in Africa, and there were a lot of famous people singing.
Speaker 1: So we're going to give you a weird clue about
Speaker 1: one of the singers and you just have to guess
Speaker 1: who it is. Are you ready to play Who Was
Speaker 1: the World? Okay, here we go, alright? Question question number
Speaker 1: one this We Are the World. Singer used to be
Speaker 1: in a band with Art Garfunkle, where his hit song Mrs.
Speaker 1: Robinson was originally titled Mrs Roosevelt? Who are we talking about? Simon?
Speaker 1: You got it? Exactually the song was originally about Eleanor
Speaker 1: Roosevelt before the lyrics were changed. All right, he's one
Speaker 1: for one. Question number two, This We Are the World
Speaker 1: folk singer and recent award winner of a Nobel Prize
Speaker 1: in Literature famously introduced the Beatles to pot He also
Speaker 1: took a week long vow of silence when Elvis Presley
Speaker 1: passed away. Who are we talking about? I didn't know
Speaker 1: those facts. It sounds like Bob Dylan. Al Right, he's
Speaker 1: two for two, three left, Here we go. Before his death,
Speaker 1: This We Are the World singer was trying to build
Speaker 1: a fifty foot robot replica of himself that would wander
Speaker 1: the Las Vegas desert with giant laser lights. You might
Speaker 1: know him better as the King of Pop. Oh, good guests,
Speaker 1: but this was actually who was at Mango? Michael Jackson.
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson, Michael Jackson cool? Alright's okay, here we go,
Speaker 1: This we are the World. R and B Legend claimed
Speaker 1: that Mick Jagger stole a number of her moves when
Speaker 1: she and her former husband Ike opened for the Stones
Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties. Who do you think this is?
Speaker 1: She has the most famous legs and show business. According
Speaker 1: to George W. Bush, you know I was born you
Speaker 1: were born in nine seven. This is unbelievable what you've accomplished.
Speaker 1: That had no idea? Okay, this was who was this?
Speaker 1: Mango it's Tina Turner. Tina Turner. Alright, so this last one,
Speaker 1: here we go, this we are the World Star was
Speaker 1: actually a Bible salesman before he became a country star.
Speaker 1: You might know him better as the red Headed Stranger. Yes,
Speaker 1: Willie Nelson, exactly Nelson. All right, So how did we'll
Speaker 1: do today? Mango? Will went three for five, which still
Speaker 1: entitles him for our biggest prize, our total admirations. Congratulations. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you, so I hope everyone will check out effect
Speaker 1: Altruism will Thank you again for all the work that
Speaker 1: you're doing and for really giving us a lot to
Speaker 1: think about. Okay, well, thank you for having me on.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about vegetarianism, which is often touted as
Speaker 1: one way to help be the world. You were vegetarian
Speaker 1: for a while. Why did you fall off the wagon? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I was a vegining from about age twelve until I
Speaker 1: was twenty two, I think, and then I moved to Alabama.
Speaker 1: That's right. I do have to say when you finally
Speaker 1: decided to eat meat, and we went to dream Land
Speaker 1: barbecue that only serves ribs and watched you eat that
Speaker 1: single rib slowly, just kind of licking at it. That
Speaker 1: has to be one of the weirdest things I've ever watched.
Speaker 1: But that's exactly the problem. Like, we made that pilgrimage,
Speaker 1: which was so amazing because it's just a shack in Tuscaloosa,
Speaker 1: but when we got there, the only things on the
Speaker 1: menu were a rack and a half rack. I mean,
Speaker 1: the half rack is the vegetarian option. Also, the T
Speaker 1: shirts are just amazing because there's just you know, there's
Speaker 1: like the white shirt with the hand Dan's just like
Speaker 1: pulling across the shirts so groty good. I love it.
Speaker 1: But let's not talk about my inability to commit to vegetarianism.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the world's inability to commit to vegetarianism. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so this is how our power researcher Gabe explained it
Speaker 1: to me. Basically, the world would be better off if
Speaker 1: we were vegetarian. The meat industry is responsible for about
Speaker 1: fifteen percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, and all
Speaker 1: that grazing land, which if you added up, is about
Speaker 1: the size of Africa, could be better used for growing
Speaker 1: other foods. But the problem with everyone going cold Turkey
Speaker 1: vegetarian is that there are a lot of people who
Speaker 1: make their livelihood off the production and sale of animal products.
Speaker 1: In fact, it's over a billion people, and the majority
Speaker 1: are small scale farmers in developing nations. So if the
Speaker 1: world just switched to being vegetarian overnight, not only would
Speaker 1: jobs be lost, but good meat would be wasted and
Speaker 1: people would starve. But if we made a slow switch,
Speaker 1: any eased then to it kind of like dipping your
Speaker 1: toe into pool. But doesn't that feel impractical too. I
Speaker 1: can't imagine convincing any of my state loving friends that
Speaker 1: they should go vegetarian. Yeah, it's certainly going against the grain.
Speaker 1: I mean, four to five percent of the population in
Speaker 1: the US is vegetarian right now, and when the money
Speaker 1: flows into places like India and China, the populations that
Speaker 1: gain wealth are actually using that money to eat more meat.
Speaker 1: Of course, one glimmer of hope here is that meat
Speaker 1: substitutes are getting better and better. Their seaweed that was
Speaker 1: recently discovered that tastes like bacon. I'll believe it when
Speaker 1: I taste it, which is certainly a start. Their new
Speaker 1: plant based products like beyond meat and the impossible burger
Speaker 1: that supposedly taste like beef, and even ooze fats was
Speaker 1: squeezed on a drill, and their cultured meats or test
Speaker 1: tube meets, which are still a decade or so away,
Speaker 1: will basically grow meat in a lab without ever having
Speaker 1: an animal involved, which is all awesome, but let's get
Speaker 1: back to the original question, what will it take to
Speaker 1: feed the world. I mean, clearly it's complicated and there's
Speaker 1: no silver bullet solution, so people are trying everything. There's
Speaker 1: talk of flour made from insects, there's precision agriculture, which
Speaker 1: could use technology to monitor crop health and increase crop yields.
Speaker 1: There's so many potential solutions for slivers of the problem.
Speaker 1: Plus all the things that we talked about, new styles
Speaker 1: of farming edible cotton seeds, reducing food waste and developing
Speaker 1: nations a reduction and how much meat wheat, oh and
Speaker 1: possibly farming the congo to All of those things would
Speaker 1: get us there, and also just trying to help lift
Speaker 1: the poorest to the poor out of poverty by giving
Speaker 1: them better roads and access to information. But all of
Speaker 1: that would take real, unified commitment from a number of
Speaker 1: big countries and that's a difficult path. But the interesting
Speaker 1: thing is there are a lot of positive indicators. For instance,
Speaker 1: in two thousand fifteen, the UN announced there were nearly
Speaker 1: eight hundred million under nourished people in the world, which
Speaker 1: is a lot, but that number was actually down two
Speaker 1: million from the nineteen nineties, despite there being two billion
Speaker 1: more people living on the planet now. So a lot
Speaker 1: of economists and journalists are actually hopeful, which is a
Speaker 1: good thing. That is a good thing. And speaking of
Speaker 1: good things, what do you say we indulge in a
Speaker 1: friendly little fact off? M m m. It sounds so
Speaker 1: much more menacing when you put it though, but let's
Speaker 1: do it all right. Here's a sweet one to kick
Speaker 1: it off. Did you know that if we switch from
Speaker 1: using sugarcane is the source of sugar to sugar beets,
Speaker 1: we would save over two hundred thousand gallons of water
Speaker 1: per ton of sugar produced, which could be channeled into
Speaker 1: growing bananas or something else. I guess no, I think
Speaker 1: it has to be bananas. Did you know in Congress
Speaker 1: nearly passed an American hippo bill? Didn't The idea was
Speaker 1: to bring hippos to the Bayou to eat invasive plants
Speaker 1: while using them as a new meat source, and editorial
Speaker 1: pages of the time praised the idea and called Hippo's
Speaker 1: Lake Cow Bacon Lake bake it all right. So I'm
Speaker 1: feering off course here because you used the hippo facts
Speaker 1: and I'm going to match you with another hippo. Did
Speaker 1: you know that the eighteen fifties England went through an
Speaker 1: intense phase of hippo mania when the first one, named
Speaker 1: o Bas was brought to the London Zoo. So thousands
Speaker 1: of visitors each day crowded and to see him. Novelty
Speaker 1: hippos were sold, and there was even a popular polka
Speaker 1: written for him. O Bach was so popular that Charles
Speaker 1: Dickens was jealous of all the attention he received. That's
Speaker 1: so good, you know, I can't top a Dickens hippo fact.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna bring it back state side. Do you
Speaker 1: know that David Copperfield tried to launch a magic themed
Speaker 1: restaurant in Times Square? According to the New York Times,
Speaker 1: the restaurant was supposed to have seventy foot gargoyles, a
Speaker 1: bar and banquette that looked like it was floating on air,
Speaker 1: sections of tables that would disappear from view on occasion.
Speaker 1: And this is the best part. Every hour, a giant
Speaker 1: spinning saw would appear to cut a dinner guest into
Speaker 1: how nice. That's a nice touch. Of course, the Time's
Speaker 1: article claimed the greatest trick about the place was how
Speaker 1: thirty four million dollars in investment magically disappeared in the
Speaker 1: restaurant never came to be. It's quite the trick. That's
Speaker 1: pretty brutal. All right, here's a strange one. According to
Speaker 1: a two thousand fourteen study from Westminster University, hungry men
Speaker 1: find heavier women more attractive, and it goes the same
Speaker 1: way for women. They like their men huskier when they're hungry.
Speaker 1: Apparently it takes about six hours of not eating for
Speaker 1: your preferences to change. Um. So, Eric Carl's The Very
Speaker 1: Hungry Caterpillar was originally about a bookworm named Willie. The
Speaker 1: book changed when Eric and his editor realized there was
Speaker 1: no transformation. At the end of the book, the bookworm
Speaker 1: was just fatter instead of, you know, turning into a
Speaker 1: beautiful biter pie. Alright, So at nine study on leeches
Speaker 1: found that drinking beer makes leeches lazy and undisciplined. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and apparently they're attracted to garlic, but if they eat
Speaker 1: too much of it, it kills them just like vampires.
Speaker 1: That's brilliant. I know. The authors of the study even
Speaker 1: went on to win an Ignoble prize for their research. Well,
Speaker 1: if feeding beer to leeches is good enough for the ignobles,
Speaker 1: it's good enough for me. I think you win this round.
Speaker 1: And speaking of prizes, who do you think we should
Speaker 1: give today's award too? Well? I kind of want to
Speaker 1: give it to whoever came up with the phrase late
Speaker 1: cow bacon as a synonym for hippopotamus, But I think
Speaker 1: a better winner might be the inventor Sarah Collins, who
Speaker 1: invented the Wonder Bag. It's this amazing invention that's basically
Speaker 1: a non electric slow cooker where you bring your ingredients
Speaker 1: to a boil in a pan or a pot, then
Speaker 1: wrap them in this bag and it keeps them cooking
Speaker 1: for you. The amazing thing is that of staple foods
Speaker 1: cooked in Africa end up burned because they're cooked on
Speaker 1: an open fire. So this not only saves food from
Speaker 1: being wasted, but it also saves a considerable amount of
Speaker 1: money on energy and allows families to do other things
Speaker 1: instead of spending so much time gathering firewood and tending
Speaker 1: to fires. Plus it's got a great name, the wonder Bag.
Speaker 1: Wonder Bag. I like it. Sarah Collins, you'll be getting
Speaker 1: a certificate from us in the mail to put on
Speaker 1: your fridge. And I think that's it for today's episode
Speaker 1: of Part Time Genius. Thanks so much for listening, k
Speaker 1: Thanks again for listening to Part Time Genius. Be sure
Speaker 1: to subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast, And because
Speaker 1: we're a brand new show, if you're feeling extra generous,
Speaker 1: we'd love it if you'd give us a rating on
Speaker 1: Apple Podcast. Part Time Genius is produced by some of
Speaker 1: our favorite geniuses. It's edited by Tristan McNeil, theme song
Speaker 1: and audio mixing by Noel Brown. Our executive producer is
Speaker 1: Jerry Rowland. Our research team is Gabe Bluesier, Lucas Adams,
Speaker 1: Autum white Field, Madronto, Austin Thompson and Meg Robbins. Jason
Speaker 1: Hok is our chief cheer leader.