January 4, 2022 • 41 mins
It's the post-New Years Q&A episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
What's new my year ship? Yeah, new year, same ship.
I'm Robert Evans. This is behind the retired We retired
this bit? Who where is this time for a new bit?
(00:27):
This is it could happen here the podcast about how
things sometimes feel like they're falling apart sometimes and maybe
we can do things about that. You know what's falling
apart is me because I, during my break woke up
at like one thirty every day and now it's someone
speakable hour in the morning. I hate this the time
(00:49):
you part the time for for For one of our
first episodes of the New Year, we have decided to
subject ourselves to your para social whims um and we
are going to be doing maybe one, maybe two Q
and A episodes. Um uh giving AI's to your cues.
(01:09):
And I've been in the cue. It's okay. I've been
told that our producer Sophie has a list of questions
already prepared so that I can stop talking and she can.
Now you've been told you're the one who posted the thread.
Sophie said that she would read them. I did volunteers tribute,
but I might, I might. I might take that back.
(01:32):
It's you how much at some point. Yeah. Uh, let's
let's let's start with let's start with a simply a
good one. Uh. What has been your favorite episode slash
topic to research in this past season? So since we
started season two? Oh god, Um, I enjoyed the metaverse
(01:56):
Facebook episodes because there's a part of me that really
likes shitting on bad tech industry stuff. Um. It fills
a deep part of me just just really comprehensively thinking
about how how terrible the vision of the future these
people have it. So that was probably my favorite. I
(02:16):
liked the Climate Leviathan stuff. Um, the Climate Leviathan, climate Behemoth,
climate mal climate X, kind of four quadrants. I I
liked learning about that, like, jeez, almost a year ago
actually by the time I started researching for the show. Um,
and I'm decently happy with the way that those topics
were presented and how they keep popping back every once
(02:39):
in a while. I think in terms of just the
favorite episode I recorded, it was probably the interview with
the Common Humanity Collective people, just because like listening to
a bunch of people who have very sophisticated and well
developed mutual aid project and then listening to you know
that them talking about their political development and how they've
been sort of solving their problems was really reassuring and
(03:02):
cheerful in a lot of ways. And then research wise,
was definitely the Spooky Area fifty one episode where I
was like, oh, I'm gonna do a fun episode about uh,
the government and aliens and it was like, oh no,
here's every war crime ever and like sixteen people almost
killing everyone on earth. This is This is Probably probably
(03:24):
the most fun I had was with the Chaos, Magic
and Esotericism episode just how silly it is? Um? Yeah,
that one. That one also was just just a pleasure
to record. I also loved having Corey doctor rowan um
because that was cool. That was cool. That was that
(03:46):
was very cool, how cool of us. I've enjoyed our
our fiction episodes with Margaret and with Rebecca those those
have been great. And I've loved having st Andrew. Yeah,
that has been also very cool, fantastic. What were gonna say,
Robert nothing, Oh great, this person says. I think I've
got my head wrapped around mutual aid, community resilience and
(04:08):
all the stuff you talk about. Any tips on how
to effectively communicate it to people who might not be
at least initially open to it. H Um. I mean
it kind of depends on why they're not open to it, right.
So it's it's a matter of are they just somebody
who has a lot of faith in in systems as
(04:30):
they exist, or they someone who's kind of coming at
it from more of a traditional like liberal, um status
perspective where they think the option is to get in
line with you know, the Democratic Party and support that
and that will make things better. Um. Like basically, are
they a top down er um, or there's somebody who
rejects it because it's like communism um, and they don't
(04:51):
they don't think that people have any kind of fundamental
responsibility to themselves. Um. Because you are going to have
kind of a different approach to trying to each either
of those people. Um if they're coming at it from
kind of more of a right wing standpoint, but they're not,
you know, uh talking about shooting vaccine doctors. Um, they're
(05:13):
just kind of conservative. I think the way to do
it is to sort of hearken back to some of
these very traditional ideas of like, um, American homesteaders and
and independent you know, communities on the frontier and self
reliance and how mutual aid is people taking responsibility UM
for their communities rather than you know, this idea I
(05:36):
think a lot of conservatives have of like people UM
just kind of lazily taking charity. How it's it's different
from charity, and that it's a community UM seeing its
own needs and becoming independent as much as as possible
on the state from the state UM by trying to
meet its own needs. And how that UM is better
(05:56):
for people than just sort of UM like being dependent
upon government programs. I think that's kind of the way
in which to reach out to those people with that
idea if they're coming at it from more of a liberal,
top down approach, UM, I think you can get more
into the weeds and may argue about kind of inefficiencies
(06:17):
within the system, problems within the system. I think one
thing to really point out that will probably still be
fresh to a lot of people of that persuasion is
how frightening the first couple of weeks of quarantine were
and all of the supply line issues and kind of
the early breakdown, and be like, look, um, that didn't
go away, like right, you can see that that we're
still dealing with a lot of this and we're still
(06:39):
having supply line disruptions and the state really has not
kind of even under Biden sailed and to clear the gap.
And so we need these community resiliency programs, UM. And
you can you know, depending on the kind of person there,
you can also sort of point out, um, the degree
to which there is our attempts at kind of avatage
(07:00):
of any sort of of of of top down government
programs by the right, and how UM that's part of
why you need community resiliency programs because you can't guarantee
who's going to be in the White House, you can't
guarantee what's going to continue to get funded. Um. And
outside of kind of any of the the structural issues
um that make that stuff difficult. So I think, UM,
(07:21):
that's kind of broadly speaking, the two different ways you
you can broach those conversations with people, depending on the
tendencies they're they're looking at it from. Uh, let's let's
let's get into an unpleasant one. What's the gang's outlook
on this year's election and how do you think it
might position us for Do we see more violence sitting
(07:43):
up to the next presidential election? Well, I know we'll
be doing a prediction z is episode later. Um. But
as for this election, I have I've not looked at
anything about it. I think the Steelers are going to
take it all? What what? Well? What's border are the Steelers? Um?
One of them? That's great? Uh? I mean yeah, I
(08:10):
mean I feel like if Democrats want to keep the
power that they currently have, they will probably need to
do some type of symbolic action that makes people think
they actually do things. I mean, they've managed to have
control of every and done absolutely nothing that they so
(08:32):
I'm guessing if they want to keep that, they should
probably do something really soon, um or else I don't
see people being super eager to vote in two for
the Democrats. Yeah. Yeah, I mean one of the issues
they've got is this this thing that you know, kind
of the technocrats always have where you know, as we
as Corey pointed out when we had them on, there
have been some really positive moves by the Biden administration
(08:53):
in terms of like appointments and how different kind of
agencies are being handled. Um. But when it to the
things that he actually campaigned on, like, it just hasn't
it hasn't happened, should it? It ain't been done? Um,
like the closest we've gotten recently is yet another kick
the can down the street a little bit for student
loan repayments, And I agree, I think they need to do.
(09:16):
There's like two big things they could do that might
have a significant shifting effect. One of them would be
student debt forgiveness, and one of them would be fucking
de schedule marijuana. Even without Congress, Biden could could not
actively make marijuana not and like that would be number
one politically, the easiest fucking win in the world because
(09:38):
the vast majority of Republicans don't give a shit about
that anymore. Um, it will piss off cops, which is
probably why you won't do it. But like, those two
things could have an impact on mid terms. That's certainly
a thing that would like you can campaign on more.
But I don't. I don't know that I think he'll
do that. And of obviously I guess another big old
payment to stay home, But I think that shipped un sailed,
(10:00):
Like honestly, like, I don't think they want to win,
so they can sit there and then and go, oh, yeah,
we can't do anything because Republicans control the House, and
you guys need to like you guys need to like
save us in this is the most important election of
our lifetime. It's like, and they will keep doing this
over and over and over again until literally the seize
(10:20):
boil and everyone, you know, everyone is being heard into
concentration camps. Like they will just keep doing this and
and like I think that's that's the thing that's actually
important about the two cycle is that like the Democrats
have you know what, you know what the rejection of
Brinie Sanders sort of is is the Democrats essentially going,
we are not a popular party, right, like we we
are not a party that is going to like like
(10:41):
we will not even give the pretense of like having
a base that we represent and we do things for
like we're just we're just in it for ourselves. We're
in it's just like, you know, give all of our
weird like black Rock friends positions in the government, and
we don't you know, and it's you know, it's it's
we we don't have a policy agenda, and we don't
care if we lose because if we lose, all you
people just have to go put us back into office
(11:02):
because the alternative is just more death camps. Yeah, I
mean I think there's a broad belief like within kind
of the Democratic Party that things are still business as
usual and that the Republican Party is still a political party,
and so kind of the handing off and switching of
power is fine. That's seen as business as usual, rather
than the Democrats are the Republicans are continually ratcheting away
(11:26):
from there being any chance of a switch of power,
um at least through legal means. Like that's the whole
thing they're doing. And the failures to pass any kind
of voting rights and the failures to see like a
voting right reform as an existential issue for not just
the party, but like the concept of uh democracy in
this country is is I think evidence that. However, you
(11:50):
kind of try to rationalize in your head why it's happening.
There's a real disconnect between the party leadership and understandings
of the new nature of reality. Yeah, well that the
other thing. I mean, they'll be fine, right, like outside
of like another January six killing them all, Like, they'll
be fine. It doesn't like for them, it basically doesn't
(12:10):
matter if Republicans take power. Maybe maybe some of them
will get impeached. They'll be like a show trial for
like two people or something, but like they're gonna be fine,
and you know, that's that's the thing that motivates all
of their thinking, is that they can they can survive
another public administration. Like we're you know, we're dying under
both of them. And you know, like, I mean, this
is this is partially you know, if you want to
talk about sort of the COVID response for a second,
(12:32):
in the relation that has to the election, it's like, yeah,
the Democrats are just like completely given up even the
pretense of doing literally anything about COVID literally because literally anything, yeah,
go out and die, like so we can talk about that.
That's a separate Yeah, yeah, that's a separate issue, I think,
just in terms of like how how to interpret what
they're doing with COVID and the degree to which I
(12:54):
think they even have a chance of uh whatever. Um.
But yeah, it's like they don't care if we live die,
like we care if we live or die, and we're
gonna have to do stuff on our own outside of
this because they're just gonna kill us. All. Yeah. I
mean I think that it's hard for me to tell
where the elections are going to go precisely. Uh Biden's
(13:17):
polling certainly isn't great. It's also not like wildly out
of step with how where presidents often are kind of
at this point UM in in their cycle. So and
also it's pretty normal for the party that just won
the presidential election to lose at the midterms. That's more
normal than not UM, I think. So, I think the
(13:39):
big questions are number one, like the degree to which
it's a wide sweep, which is going to depend on
the actual impact a lot of these UM efforts to
kind of restrict voting and jerrymander, Like what the actual
on the ground impact is UM, and the degree to
which we've seen an actual shift, because one of the
things that the polls don't often tell us is like, yeah,
(14:00):
Democrats are not popular. Most people seem to be aware
that a lot of promises have gone unfulfilled, But it
doesn't also mean that they like the Republicans UM, who
as the party of Trump, are still kind of widely
disliked by people. So it's kind of unclear to me
what precisely is going to go down, by which I
mean whether or not it's going to be a pretty
(14:22):
normal midterm, whether the Republicans pick up some seats or
like a nightmare blowout. Um And I do think that
has a lot to do with whether or not Biden
and like does a couple of the things that a
president can do unilaterally that would be really easy for
other people to campaign on. Um. Like he they have to,
(14:43):
like if they actually do want to win, they have
to they have to make a couple of big hail
mary's they have to do again, Biden has to do
a couple of the big things that a president can
do and then say, Okay, see I did a thing,
put more Democrats in, and we can do this other
big thing that a president can't do on his own
or something like that. Like I just don't see, um.
(15:04):
I mean, you know, anything could happen. Still, it's fucking January.
I think there's a positive if you want to be
in terms of things that are making me kind of optimistic,
um and and in terms of things that are better
about when the Democrats are in powder and then the Republicans,
you can bully the Biden administration to taking broadly positive action,
which is what happened with student loan repayments, right. That's
(15:24):
why that did get kicked down. The can a couple
of kick down the road a couple of months. Um.
And so I do think there's potential in um harassing
the Biden administration to taking actions that can make Democrats
more popular. Um. That would not be the reason to
do it. The reason to do it is so that
people don't starve trying to pay back student loans. Um.
(15:46):
But it does point to, I think in an avenue
of hope. UM, if we're trying not to be complete
doomers in January of two. Yeah, and speaking of avenues
of hope, it's time for an adverb. Ah. The only
thing that gives me hope is the products and services
that support this podcast are the heck we are we
(16:21):
are I've i've I have a question. I would like
us to talk about uma new year book list. Oh yeah,
that's so simple. So what's what's some I think we
could answer this like? And then they also someone else
followed up with saying, recommend some books that maybe not
(16:41):
just left this theory of climate change, also some like
fiction stuff as well. And I'm just gonna say the
books that I'm reading or is on my reading list,
not I'm not gonna recommend books I've already read. I'm
just gonna say the ones I'm currently reading. UM. I'm
still making it through hyper objects for an upcoming episode. UM.
I picked up a really a book I wanted to
(17:02):
get for a long time called Islands of Abandonment, which
is about um people, Well, no, it's it's it's about
places that have kind of been forgotten and regrown or
taken to have been kind of reclaimed by the area
that they were, that they were built on. And then
I also have a random few books on alchemy that
(17:23):
I'm going through as well. That's most of my books. Horrible.
UM I read. The last book I finished in was
in the Garden of Beasts, which is by what is
his name? I think it's Eric larson Um. He's a
guy who's written He wrote like Devil in the White
City and a couple of other books that people have
(17:45):
probably read Eric larson Um, And it's about the first
US ambassador to Nazi Germany or what becomes Nazi Journey.
He gets sent there right before, like like months before
Hitler takes power, and the book largely traces he and
his family's journey in Nazi Germany from like kind of
(18:05):
didn't really care about German politics and were often broadly
sympathetic towards the Nazis. They melt met like his daughter
kind of is very much like on board with the
Nazi revolution for like the first half year that she's there.
She's also like simultaneously dating the head of the Gestapo
and the Soviet um like assistant ambassador, which is fascinating. Like,
(18:28):
it's a very interesting book, um, And the story like
the journey this kind of family goes on realizing like
what the Nazis are in the perspective of that. It's
it's very well written. Um, it's very detailed. I really
enjoyed it. The thing that I liked the most was
the detail it goes into about the kind of the
fates of because it's it's a more you know, obviously
(18:50):
as much of a nerd on the history of fascism
as I am, I've read a lot about the Night
of Long Knives. This did the best job of kind
of going into detail about the kind of dudes who
the dudes who were purged in the Night of Long Knives.
So these guys who were Nazis in that they wore
swastikas and they were part of the party and whatnot.
But also weren't Nazis enough to not get purged And
(19:12):
in a lot of cases were like starting to fall
out of love with the party when the Night of
Long Knives had And so it's these it's really interesting,
UM and I recommend it to people. And the last
book I started in the first book I finished in
two was called Ministry of the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson,
who is UM an interesting science fiction author, in part
(19:35):
because Ministry of the Future is about climate change. UM.
It is a a science fiction look at about like
a thousand different potential solutions to climate change. And Kim
Stanley Robinson is actually like an expert UM. He works
for the Sierra Center. I think it's called UM. He's
won a bunch of awards for his work on like
(19:56):
trying to like posit different solutions to climate change. He's
he he understand he's not like coming at this from
the perspective of an even even a well researched author.
He's he's writing from the perspective of someone who is
an actual scientific expert in what happens and how the
different solutions might work. And the thing that's really interesting
about Ministry of the Future is it's this fascinating melange
(20:18):
of UM. Like a number of the character the Ministry
of the Future is this kind of hypothetical new U
N agency that's put in place after a horrible wet
bulb um heat event kills twenty million people in India UM,
and they're they're kind of trying to push for very
technocratic solutions to climate change. So, like one of the
(20:39):
big things the book focuses on a lot is this
idea of a climate coin, which is a kind of
UM international backed by banks, cryptocurrency that that pays as
a kind of long term bond for sequestering carbon, so
that like countries like Saudi Arabia that have huge oil
reserves actually make more money by using to pump out
(21:01):
oil and thus get paid in these coins. So it's
really technocratic solutions like that. And then also terrorist groups
that may be funded by this U N agency building
fleets of drones to murder people on commercial air flights
UM in mass in order to cripple the entire air
travel industry and stop carbon emission and carrying out mass
assassinations on like CEOs of of oil companies living in
(21:25):
their private islands. So it's this really interesting mix of
like kind of liberal politicians and like bankers like working
out these very wonky solutions to things, and like terrorists
who have lost people in climate emergencies mass murdering um billionaires,
uh and and so it's it's a very it's the
whitest possible ranging look at kind of different solutions to
(21:47):
climate change and how they might work. And it's a
very optimistic book. UM. And there's there's elements of it
that I kind of the optimism I kind of disagree with.
I think oddly enough Kim doesn't give enough weight to
the day dangers of authoritarian populism and and the threat
I think they present to any of these kind of
potential solutions. But it's still a very well thought out
(22:08):
look at climate change and I think really worth reading
UM if you want something that will both bring up
different because he also goes into a lot of like
very scientific solutions, like pumping up water from underneath glaciers
in order to stop glaciers from sliding, and like slow
the rate of melt and all these these other kind
of like very much like technical here's a thing that
(22:30):
we can do that will reduce the effect of this
specific Um kind of climate change. It's really a very
good book. Um and it's apparently was Barack Obama's favorite
book of the year, which, considering the degree in which
it talks about murdering politicians and business leaders, is interesting
to me. I think he was maybe more paying attention
(22:50):
to the carbon coins stuff than the shooting oil industry
executives in their face while they're sleeping. Well, he was
also a fan of parasite, so walty. He may just
have been told this is a book you should say
you like, but it is. It is a very good book.
It is really worth reading. Um and it's it's it
is a work of science fiction. But honestly it's like
(23:12):
it's also it's well again, Kim really understands his stuff
from a technical level, so I think it's pretty unimpeachable
from that point of view. There are some kind of
sociological areas where I don't think the book. I think
there's some ship missing, particularly as regards the problems authoritarianism
(23:32):
is going to cause in reaching for these solutions. But
I think it's still really really valuable. And Chris, we're
going to hear your responses, but first capitalism here you
(23:54):
are reading read few things, um, and reading more Chwang,
which is a theoretical journal about China that writes a
lot of very very good stuff. They have probably the
best account I've ever seen of just what was going
on during the socialist period and then also the sort
of transition to capitalism. That's those are those are those
(24:15):
are issues one and two, and they just published an
issue about it, basically, how the pandemic response happens in China.
It's it's absolutely fascinating. Um. It's also about sort of
is this something that Yeah, I've talked about a lot
of their stuff on the show, sort of obliquely or directly,
but like, you know, one of one of the big
things is about how, in a lot of ways, the
(24:35):
pandemic reveals the sort of weakness of the Chinese state
and in a way that you know it is you
don't see really because both both you know, both the
Chinese state and this sort of like American media have
this vested interest in showing like China's is sort of
like all powerful authoritarian police state or whatever, like the
miliar image of it is like this isn't but you
know what what you really see is that like this
(24:59):
this state has a very strong ability to intervene in
like one province at a time, and they can you
know when when when they focus, when they focus all
the sort of administrative power on like one area, right,
they're extremely effective. They can't really do it in you know,
multiplayers at the same time. And this means that you're
dealing with all the sort of regional government stuff and
it's it's very interesting. The the other thing that I have, well, okay,
(25:21):
so do do we want to talk like a little
bit about the dawn of everything or do you want
to save that for just like yeah, I I'm down
to talk about that at any point. Yeah, ok, yeah,
that's definitely on my list. That is a long one
that's less of a read I think where most people
are going to be less of a read in one
sweep than like maybe for over the course of the year,
like gradually. Yeah. Yeah, it's very very dense and very long,
(25:45):
but very readable. Like not to say that it's like
dense in the I gotta like slog through this textbook.
It's extremely readable. It's just like there's a lot in
there and you're gonna want to pause and think about ship. Yeah.
So so not everything is this is the last book
David Graeber ever wrote, and it's David Wenn Grow also.
(26:06):
They wrote it together, and it's it's this basically an
attempt to reassemble I guess, early human history. And but
the thing that they're doing that that's that's really unique
is that so they they're David wen Grows as archaeologist,
(26:29):
David Graeber's an apologists, and they're they're going, you know,
so they spent a whole bunch of time going through
the sort of early archaeological records, and what they find,
basically is that none of the things that you see
make any sense at all unless you're willing to unless
you're willing to accept that people you know, years ago,
(26:53):
and then even you know, people like four hive thousand
years ago, we're as smart as we are and have
the have the capacity to recreate and redesign their own
political arrangements selfconsciously, which is something that doesn't sound that weird,
except everyone assumes that they can't, and that you know,
everyone that's you know. One of the other things that
they're they're really sort of heavily doing here is trying
(27:15):
to break this idea that you know, human society sort
of evolves in these this linear progression. You know, you
start out with like these small hunter gatherer bands and
they get more complex quote unquote, eventually they developed farming,
and farming developed the state. And the answer is just
you know, when you look through the actual archaeological record,
none of this is true. You have, you know, they
(27:36):
have a lot of very interesting sort of historical examples
of this, looking at like what looked like incredibly democratic
and egalitarian cities, and then you know, on the outskirts
of those cities you have the emergence of the states
among things that look like states, among barbarian groups. And
they have and what I think is maybe the most
interesting part of it is that they're they're very concerned
(27:56):
with the question of human freedom, but freedom in a
way that like we don't but freedom on a level
fundamental enough that like we can barely imagine it. So
they have these things called the Three freedoms, which is
one of them is so that the first one is
the freedom just move to leave and to it's it's
a freedom to to you know, be in a place
(28:18):
and then leave and know that you will be cared
for when you get to wherever you're going, Yeah, these
kind of networks that were set up so that people
could travel that have like the descendant of those ideas
is sort of the way if you ever if you've
ever spent time in the Middle East, not in like
hotels and ship like it's that same idea that kind
of deeper than religious belief about the importance of that
(28:40):
has gotten added to like Islam and into a number
of other faiths in the area. Like, but this idea
that like there's nothing more sacred than taking care of
a of a guest um like and and how that
that that existed to enable kind of a sort of
cross cultural contract and contact and like recreational trap in
(29:00):
a way that I think it would be deeply surprising
to people who just sort of assumed everyone before a
certain age died within five miles of their house or
was you know, yeah, part of a band of wandering hunters. Yeah.
And it's it's interesting in that like, like like we
we in a lot of ways travel less than early
people did, because you know that people would just leave
and people, you know, people just didn't like their families,
(29:22):
and so they'd walk like five miles and they they'd
come to a place and they'd be accepted. And yeah,
and you know, and like the second one, I think
the one that I is the the one we have
the least capacity I think to understand, which is just
the ability to disobey orders. Just like anyone tells you
do something, you could just tell them know at any time.
And it's not only can you just tell them no,
(29:43):
Like the social expectation is that you is that you
don't act, is that it's it's it's it's not just
that you have the ability to do it, it's that
someone giving you an order is treated as weird. And
this is a thing that you know, like this, this
is the thing. This is a freedom that used to
exist and no longer does. It was sort of destroying
various ways, along with sort of the third free to
talk about, which is about how people have the right
(30:05):
to sort of just shift and recreate their their social
political arrangements. And yeah, and people used to do this
sort of I mean people, you know, a lot of
the what their early part of the book is about
is about how societies you there there's a lot of
societies that would you know, flip seasonally, right, so what
like one half of the year you have this just
like absolutelycatorship the either half of the year. It's like, well,
(30:26):
it looks like a hippie commune. And you know the
fact that we do not like the fact that like
we we we just don't like it, cannot conceive of
completely shifting our political arrangements like that is It's also
there's this fascinating discussion of like the fact that and
this is kind of counter to what I had always
(30:47):
kind of thought that like once as a group groups
of people when they when they made the decision to
like move to agriculture um and like set founded cities,
that it was kind of a one way street. You know,
you you you just keep going along that road. And
there's actually multiple examples of people's like this, what what
happened to the British Isles, or at least in what
(31:08):
is currently Great Britain. People's like developing agriculture, settling down
and then being like oh, you know what, fuck this
and like going back like that that should should happen
all the time. And and one of the things that's
really kind of optimistic about the vision of of the
sweep of human history in the dawn of everything is
the idea that like, no, we don't have to keep like,
(31:30):
it's not inevitable that we just keep doing more of
what we're doing now. All throughout history, large groups of
people have been like, it's time to let's do something else,
let's make a radical change, like it happens, um, And
it's probably more normal to do that than it is
to do what we've been doing. And when you I
think one of the things that kind of one of
the things that leads to the sense of inevitability of
(31:51):
development along the lines that we have is is the
fact that we only really have about ten thousand years
of even vaguely reliable like data or vaguely comprehensive data
on human history. But people have been around for tens
of thousands of years longer than that, and for most
of it we've been a lot more experimental than we
are now. And it's it's always possible for people to
(32:14):
try different things in a way that um, maybe seems
impossible to us now but but necessarily won't for our kids.
Oh yeah. The last thing I would tell people to
listen to if they're looking for a fictional optimistic thing
is Corey Doctors walk Away. UM, give it a read.
And if you're and if you're looking for like a
a like a beautiful like not to get your head
(32:37):
out of the One of the things I'm really passionate
about is plants. And I have this beautiful book called
The Planet Media and it's really helpful for caring for
your house plants. And it's just like aesthetically just so.
The photographs are beautiful and it's one of my favorite
things to give friends and family. To check that one
out as well. Another another plant book that I just
(32:57):
got for somebody that I really like. I think it's
called Wicked Plants. It's about all the poisons plants that
you can get, um and the ones all the like
the poison plants you can cultivate in your own garden.
And that's been a lovely read. Um, and I do
hope to set up a decent poisoned garden here in
the spring. So very excited. Yeah, me too, It's going
(33:18):
to be great. Well, let's get to another question. Um,
do you guys want like a fluff question or like
a real question? Uh, let's do a fluff one and
we can start the next episode with a real, real
juicy fluff daddy. All right, Okay, that's a little gift
to all of you at home. On the topic of hobbies,
(33:45):
so so I just Garrison likes poisonous plants. I like
non poisonous plants. Uh, what hobbies are you into that
we may not know about? Um? I guess I can
only say one thing here. Really, Well, I don't know. Yeah,
you should be really careful about how you answer this one.
(34:06):
I know what your hobbies are. Let's have everyone else
go first. UM. I just got into three D printing.
I'm currently trying to figure out how to get a
BS to act adhere properly. Yeah, that was the problem
I had with my printer is that it would I
would get like a decent way through the first part
of the print, and then part of it would come
(34:28):
curl off, so then it wouldn't print them next layer
on correctly. Then it messed up the print. And yeah,
I was between mental health stuff and that at the time.
I was stday on my printer. This is when I
just gave up because it was too much. So I'll
be excited to see how you get past this turtle. Well,
I've I've got a glass bed coming in, so I'm
gonna yeah, and I've I've got the enclosure. One of
(34:51):
the issues I'm having is just that I'm having a
heating issue with the bed. It won't heat up. It
stops before it gets to one tin, which is what
it should be able to go up that high. But
it's just, yeah, can you manually heat it up? Hotter? Um,
it doesn't seem to matter. It doesn't seem to matter
if I if I said it, like I can't obviously,
like you can. You can set it up to heat,
(35:11):
but it just keeps I keep getting that like loud
error beep. So there's like there's this is going to
be it's going to be a process of jiggering to
to to figure it out. Um, but you can come out.
Yeah I have, I have. I've I have a similar
problem with my setup right now that I've been trying
to troubleshoot for like half a year. Um, I can
(35:32):
manually control the heat bed and it does get that hot.
But still I think it may just be a leveling issue.
I may need to like clean the bed. I also
should just talk to someone who has done more three
D printing than me. Um. But yeah, yeah, but it's
it's it's fun. I I enjoy it. It's very it's
radically different from the stuff that I like do for
a living um, which is always my favorite thing for
(35:54):
like a a task to engage in in order to
be relaxing, because it's it's not all like reading and writing.
It's very different. It's very different. So so far, I'm
enjoying it. And I already I printed the thing I
need to do to make the the bio um, the
biolab for like the four Thieves stuff. If you want
(36:15):
to check out our episode with Michael from the four
Thieves Vinegar Collective. I've three D printed that part, so
I'm ready to get the other parts and put that
thing together. Um, I'm just trying to figure out how
to print other stuff with better plastics and whatnot. But yeah,
it's it's fun. So far. I'm I'm enjoying it a lot.
Um Maybe I'll get bored, Maybe I'll wind up spending
(36:36):
way too much money on different three D printers, like
the ones that lift the goo out of the res
printers are there there's so they're much like this is
what this is what Corey Doctor was talking about, Like
like they are much better at the filament printers in
a lot of ways, but a lot of like a
lot of the stuff. A lot of the really useful
(36:57):
machines that you can make with three D prints require
you to use filament right now, um, but the resin
ones are like so much more elegant. They're beautiful. Um.
I also am really interested in the idea of printing wood,
which I did not realize until recently you could do.
But it's absolutely possible with certain kinds of printers. Um,
And that seems pretty dope. So I don't know, we'll
(37:19):
see how. Maybe I'll be tired of it in a
month because my mental health will take a dive, But
so far I'm pretty excited. Cool Chris, what do I do? Uh? Well, Okay,
So before the pandemic, I was getting into rock climbing,
but unfortunately, like like I like rock climbing, I'm not like, oh,
(37:40):
it's like the best thing you can do for you.
It's a lot of fun. But unfortunately, I mean, it's
not like the worst pandemic thing you could possibly do,
but like it's no, Yeah, if you get up high
enough on the rocks, COVID can't get up there. It's
like the opposite of a bear. It's really bad. At climbing. Yes,
(38:02):
so I guess the other what do I even do? Is? Okay?
So my other thing okay, so so deep like deep
Twitter lure. People probably know this about me, but I
am I have been for a very very long time,
like an inveterate fan of competitive StarCraft two. Okay, I
am awful at it, Like I am terrible at that game.
(38:25):
But I have watched so much StarCraft two, like I
I StarCraft two has become enough of my life that like,
like the game was part of my radicalization process, Like yeah,
I wake up extremely early or stay up extremely late
and watch Korean StarCraft two and non Korean StarCraft two
and yeah, it's it's a good time. It's I My
(38:48):
favorite thing about StarCraft in general is thinking about the
fact that Blizzard was initially trying to make a Warhammer
forty video game, and Games Workshop was as always to
parent it off their I p to let it happen,
and thus lost how many god knows how many. They
would be worth more money than most countries like that
been printing an impossible amount of money, like Indy Chambers
(39:16):
would have been able to buy a mountain of cocaine
to live inside, but but no, instead we got all
of the infrastructure of modern esports m hm, which it
seems fine, like it's whatever. I don't care, but it
is very funny to me that they were like, nah,
this doesn't seem like a good financial decision for games
(39:37):
Workshop the StarCraft thing, Like I wonder like that. That's
the kind of thing where it's like, if they made
that much money, would they all just retire? Like well,
I mean it's a publicly traded company, like the stock
the shareholders would have made a fortune and the but yeah,
I I don't know. It's very it's very funny that
they didn't think that was going to be worth it.
(40:00):
Let's see in terms of how these people may not know.
I do really like cooking. I talked cooking classes for
a long time. Um. That's been the main cook in
my family since I was a very little kid, so
I definitely definitely enjoy that. Um. I did go to
film school for a few years. I want to get
back into making short video projects. I've been writing some random,
(40:25):
kind of new weird genre esque stuff that I would
love to like rent a studio space and actually shoot
some silly things in the next year and throw them
up online just for kind of my own fun. Um.
And then I also been still doing random occultism stuff. Um,
(40:45):
that's kind of how I feel my time. Yeah, it's fun. Yeah.
I think that's an answer. That is an answer. We
did it. That's an answer, and more importantly, that's an episode.
It is an episode. That is an answer. That is
a single content. You all got a content out of us,
and be proud of yourselves. Replicate and reproduce another content
(41:10):
tomorrow that's more as to your cues. So a content
every day except for the weekends, because that's the promiss
that we make in some holidays. It could Happen Here
is a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts
from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media
(41:32):
dot com, or check us out on the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
You can find sources for It could Happen here, updated
monthly at cool zone Media dot com slash sources. Thanks
for listening.
What's new my year ship? Yeah, new year, same ship.
I'm Robert Evans. This is behind the retired We retired
this bit? Who where is this time for a new bit?
(00:27):
This is it could happen here the podcast about how
things sometimes feel like they're falling apart sometimes and maybe
we can do things about that. You know what's falling
apart is me because I, during my break woke up
at like one thirty every day and now it's someone
speakable hour in the morning. I hate this the time
(00:49):
you part the time for for For one of our
first episodes of the New Year, we have decided to
subject ourselves to your para social whims um and we
are going to be doing maybe one, maybe two Q
and A episodes. Um uh giving AI's to your cues.
(01:09):
And I've been in the cue. It's okay. I've been
told that our producer Sophie has a list of questions
already prepared so that I can stop talking and she can.
Now you've been told you're the one who posted the thread.
Sophie said that she would read them. I did volunteers tribute,
but I might, I might. I might take that back.
(01:32):
It's you how much at some point. Yeah. Uh, let's
let's let's start with let's start with a simply a
good one. Uh. What has been your favorite episode slash
topic to research in this past season? So since we
started season two? Oh god, Um, I enjoyed the metaverse
(01:56):
Facebook episodes because there's a part of me that really
likes shitting on bad tech industry stuff. Um. It fills
a deep part of me just just really comprehensively thinking
about how how terrible the vision of the future these
people have it. So that was probably my favorite. I
(02:16):
liked the Climate Leviathan stuff. Um, the Climate Leviathan, climate Behemoth,
climate mal climate X, kind of four quadrants. I I
liked learning about that, like, jeez, almost a year ago
actually by the time I started researching for the show. Um,
and I'm decently happy with the way that those topics
were presented and how they keep popping back every once
(02:39):
in a while. I think in terms of just the
favorite episode I recorded, it was probably the interview with
the Common Humanity Collective people, just because like listening to
a bunch of people who have very sophisticated and well
developed mutual aid project and then listening to you know
that them talking about their political development and how they've
been sort of solving their problems was really reassuring and
(03:02):
cheerful in a lot of ways. And then research wise,
was definitely the Spooky Area fifty one episode where I
was like, oh, I'm gonna do a fun episode about uh,
the government and aliens and it was like, oh no,
here's every war crime ever and like sixteen people almost
killing everyone on earth. This is This is Probably probably
(03:24):
the most fun I had was with the Chaos, Magic
and Esotericism episode just how silly it is? Um? Yeah,
that one. That one also was just just a pleasure
to record. I also loved having Corey doctor rowan um
because that was cool. That was cool. That was that
(03:46):
was very cool, how cool of us. I've enjoyed our
our fiction episodes with Margaret and with Rebecca those those
have been great. And I've loved having st Andrew. Yeah,
that has been also very cool, fantastic. What were gonna say,
Robert nothing, Oh great, this person says. I think I've
got my head wrapped around mutual aid, community resilience and
(04:08):
all the stuff you talk about. Any tips on how
to effectively communicate it to people who might not be
at least initially open to it. H Um. I mean
it kind of depends on why they're not open to it, right.
So it's it's a matter of are they just somebody
who has a lot of faith in in systems as
(04:30):
they exist, or they someone who's kind of coming at
it from more of a traditional like liberal, um status
perspective where they think the option is to get in
line with you know, the Democratic Party and support that
and that will make things better. Um. Like basically, are
they a top down er um, or there's somebody who
rejects it because it's like communism um, and they don't
(04:51):
they don't think that people have any kind of fundamental
responsibility to themselves. Um. Because you are going to have
kind of a different approach to trying to each either
of those people. Um if they're coming at it from
kind of more of a right wing standpoint, but they're not,
you know, uh talking about shooting vaccine doctors. Um, they're
(05:13):
just kind of conservative. I think the way to do
it is to sort of hearken back to some of
these very traditional ideas of like, um, American homesteaders and
and independent you know, communities on the frontier and self
reliance and how mutual aid is people taking responsibility UM
for their communities rather than you know, this idea I
(05:36):
think a lot of conservatives have of like people UM
just kind of lazily taking charity. How it's it's different
from charity, and that it's a community UM seeing its
own needs and becoming independent as much as as possible
on the state from the state UM by trying to
meet its own needs. And how that UM is better
(05:56):
for people than just sort of UM like being dependent
upon government programs. I think that's kind of the way
in which to reach out to those people with that
idea if they're coming at it from more of a liberal,
top down approach, UM, I think you can get more
into the weeds and may argue about kind of inefficiencies
(06:17):
within the system, problems within the system. I think one
thing to really point out that will probably still be
fresh to a lot of people of that persuasion is
how frightening the first couple of weeks of quarantine were
and all of the supply line issues and kind of
the early breakdown, and be like, look, um, that didn't
go away, like right, you can see that that we're
still dealing with a lot of this and we're still
(06:39):
having supply line disruptions and the state really has not
kind of even under Biden sailed and to clear the gap.
And so we need these community resiliency programs, UM. And
you can you know, depending on the kind of person there,
you can also sort of point out, um, the degree
to which there is our attempts at kind of avatage
(07:00):
of any sort of of of of top down government
programs by the right, and how UM that's part of
why you need community resiliency programs because you can't guarantee
who's going to be in the White House, you can't
guarantee what's going to continue to get funded. Um. And
outside of kind of any of the the structural issues
um that make that stuff difficult. So I think, UM,
(07:21):
that's kind of broadly speaking, the two different ways you
you can broach those conversations with people, depending on the
tendencies they're they're looking at it from. Uh, let's let's
let's get into an unpleasant one. What's the gang's outlook
on this year's election and how do you think it
might position us for Do we see more violence sitting
(07:43):
up to the next presidential election? Well, I know we'll
be doing a prediction z is episode later. Um. But
as for this election, I have I've not looked at
anything about it. I think the Steelers are going to
take it all? What what? Well? What's border are the Steelers? Um?
One of them? That's great? Uh? I mean yeah, I
(08:10):
mean I feel like if Democrats want to keep the
power that they currently have, they will probably need to
do some type of symbolic action that makes people think
they actually do things. I mean, they've managed to have
control of every and done absolutely nothing that they so
(08:32):
I'm guessing if they want to keep that, they should
probably do something really soon, um or else I don't
see people being super eager to vote in two for
the Democrats. Yeah. Yeah, I mean one of the issues
they've got is this this thing that you know, kind
of the technocrats always have where you know, as we
as Corey pointed out when we had them on, there
have been some really positive moves by the Biden administration
(08:53):
in terms of like appointments and how different kind of
agencies are being handled. Um. But when it to the
things that he actually campaigned on, like, it just hasn't
it hasn't happened, should it? It ain't been done? Um,
like the closest we've gotten recently is yet another kick
the can down the street a little bit for student
loan repayments, And I agree, I think they need to do.
(09:16):
There's like two big things they could do that might
have a significant shifting effect. One of them would be
student debt forgiveness, and one of them would be fucking
de schedule marijuana. Even without Congress, Biden could could not
actively make marijuana not and like that would be number
one politically, the easiest fucking win in the world because
(09:38):
the vast majority of Republicans don't give a shit about
that anymore. Um, it will piss off cops, which is
probably why you won't do it. But like, those two
things could have an impact on mid terms. That's certainly
a thing that would like you can campaign on more.
But I don't. I don't know that I think he'll
do that. And of obviously I guess another big old
payment to stay home, But I think that shipped un sailed,
(10:00):
Like honestly, like, I don't think they want to win,
so they can sit there and then and go, oh, yeah,
we can't do anything because Republicans control the House, and
you guys need to like you guys need to like
save us in this is the most important election of
our lifetime. It's like, and they will keep doing this
over and over and over again until literally the seize
(10:20):
boil and everyone, you know, everyone is being heard into
concentration camps. Like they will just keep doing this and
and like I think that's that's the thing that's actually
important about the two cycle is that like the Democrats
have you know what, you know what the rejection of
Brinie Sanders sort of is is the Democrats essentially going,
we are not a popular party, right, like we we
are not a party that is going to like like
(10:41):
we will not even give the pretense of like having
a base that we represent and we do things for
like we're just we're just in it for ourselves. We're
in it's just like, you know, give all of our
weird like black Rock friends positions in the government, and
we don't you know, and it's you know, it's it's
we we don't have a policy agenda, and we don't
care if we lose because if we lose, all you
people just have to go put us back into office
(11:02):
because the alternative is just more death camps. Yeah, I
mean I think there's a broad belief like within kind
of the Democratic Party that things are still business as
usual and that the Republican Party is still a political party,
and so kind of the handing off and switching of
power is fine. That's seen as business as usual, rather
than the Democrats are the Republicans are continually ratcheting away
(11:26):
from there being any chance of a switch of power,
um at least through legal means. Like that's the whole
thing they're doing. And the failures to pass any kind
of voting rights and the failures to see like a
voting right reform as an existential issue for not just
the party, but like the concept of uh democracy in
this country is is I think evidence that. However, you
(11:50):
kind of try to rationalize in your head why it's happening.
There's a real disconnect between the party leadership and understandings
of the new nature of reality. Yeah, well that the
other thing. I mean, they'll be fine, right, like outside
of like another January six killing them all, Like, they'll
be fine. It doesn't like for them, it basically doesn't
(12:10):
matter if Republicans take power. Maybe maybe some of them
will get impeached. They'll be like a show trial for
like two people or something, but like they're gonna be fine,
and you know, that's that's the thing that motivates all
of their thinking, is that they can they can survive
another public administration. Like we're you know, we're dying under
both of them. And you know, like, I mean, this
is this is partially you know, if you want to
talk about sort of the COVID response for a second,
(12:32):
in the relation that has to the election, it's like, yeah,
the Democrats are just like completely given up even the
pretense of doing literally anything about COVID literally because literally anything, yeah,
go out and die, like so we can talk about that.
That's a separate Yeah, yeah, that's a separate issue, I think,
just in terms of like how how to interpret what
they're doing with COVID and the degree to which I
(12:54):
think they even have a chance of uh whatever. Um.
But yeah, it's like they don't care if we live die,
like we care if we live or die, and we're
gonna have to do stuff on our own outside of
this because they're just gonna kill us. All. Yeah. I
mean I think that it's hard for me to tell
where the elections are going to go precisely. Uh Biden's
(13:17):
polling certainly isn't great. It's also not like wildly out
of step with how where presidents often are kind of
at this point UM in in their cycle. So and
also it's pretty normal for the party that just won
the presidential election to lose at the midterms. That's more
normal than not UM, I think. So, I think the
(13:39):
big questions are number one, like the degree to which
it's a wide sweep, which is going to depend on
the actual impact a lot of these UM efforts to
kind of restrict voting and jerrymander, Like what the actual
on the ground impact is UM, and the degree to
which we've seen an actual shift, because one of the
things that the polls don't often tell us is like, yeah,
(14:00):
Democrats are not popular. Most people seem to be aware
that a lot of promises have gone unfulfilled, But it
doesn't also mean that they like the Republicans UM, who
as the party of Trump, are still kind of widely
disliked by people. So it's kind of unclear to me
what precisely is going to go down, by which I
mean whether or not it's going to be a pretty
(14:22):
normal midterm, whether the Republicans pick up some seats or
like a nightmare blowout. Um And I do think that
has a lot to do with whether or not Biden
and like does a couple of the things that a
president can do unilaterally that would be really easy for
other people to campaign on. Um. Like he they have to,
(14:43):
like if they actually do want to win, they have
to they have to make a couple of big hail
mary's they have to do again, Biden has to do
a couple of the big things that a president can
do and then say, Okay, see I did a thing,
put more Democrats in, and we can do this other
big thing that a president can't do on his own
or something like that. Like I just don't see, um.
(15:04):
I mean, you know, anything could happen. Still, it's fucking January.
I think there's a positive if you want to be
in terms of things that are making me kind of optimistic,
um and and in terms of things that are better
about when the Democrats are in powder and then the Republicans,
you can bully the Biden administration to taking broadly positive action,
which is what happened with student loan repayments, right. That's
(15:24):
why that did get kicked down. The can a couple
of kick down the road a couple of months. Um.
And so I do think there's potential in um harassing
the Biden administration to taking actions that can make Democrats
more popular. Um. That would not be the reason to
do it. The reason to do it is so that
people don't starve trying to pay back student loans. Um.
(15:46):
But it does point to, I think in an avenue
of hope. UM, if we're trying not to be complete
doomers in January of two. Yeah, and speaking of avenues
of hope, it's time for an adverb. Ah. The only
thing that gives me hope is the products and services
that support this podcast are the heck we are we
(16:21):
are I've i've I have a question. I would like
us to talk about uma new year book list. Oh yeah,
that's so simple. So what's what's some I think we
could answer this like? And then they also someone else
followed up with saying, recommend some books that maybe not
(16:41):
just left this theory of climate change, also some like
fiction stuff as well. And I'm just gonna say the
books that I'm reading or is on my reading list,
not I'm not gonna recommend books I've already read. I'm
just gonna say the ones I'm currently reading. UM. I'm
still making it through hyper objects for an upcoming episode. UM.
I picked up a really a book I wanted to
(17:02):
get for a long time called Islands of Abandonment, which
is about um people, Well, no, it's it's it's about
places that have kind of been forgotten and regrown or
taken to have been kind of reclaimed by the area
that they were, that they were built on. And then
I also have a random few books on alchemy that
(17:23):
I'm going through as well. That's most of my books. Horrible.
UM I read. The last book I finished in was
in the Garden of Beasts, which is by what is
his name? I think it's Eric larson Um. He's a
guy who's written He wrote like Devil in the White
City and a couple of other books that people have
(17:45):
probably read Eric larson Um, And it's about the first
US ambassador to Nazi Germany or what becomes Nazi Journey.
He gets sent there right before, like like months before
Hitler takes power, and the book largely traces he and
his family's journey in Nazi Germany from like kind of
(18:05):
didn't really care about German politics and were often broadly
sympathetic towards the Nazis. They melt met like his daughter
kind of is very much like on board with the
Nazi revolution for like the first half year that she's there.
She's also like simultaneously dating the head of the Gestapo
and the Soviet um like assistant ambassador, which is fascinating. Like,
(18:28):
it's a very interesting book, um, And the story like
the journey this kind of family goes on realizing like
what the Nazis are in the perspective of that. It's
it's very well written. Um, it's very detailed. I really
enjoyed it. The thing that I liked the most was
the detail it goes into about the kind of the
fates of because it's it's a more you know, obviously
(18:50):
as much of a nerd on the history of fascism
as I am, I've read a lot about the Night
of Long Knives. This did the best job of kind
of going into detail about the kind of dudes who
the dudes who were purged in the Night of Long Knives.
So these guys who were Nazis in that they wore
swastikas and they were part of the party and whatnot.
But also weren't Nazis enough to not get purged And
(19:12):
in a lot of cases were like starting to fall
out of love with the party when the Night of
Long Knives had And so it's these it's really interesting,
UM and I recommend it to people. And the last
book I started in the first book I finished in
two was called Ministry of the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson,
who is UM an interesting science fiction author, in part
(19:35):
because Ministry of the Future is about climate change. UM.
It is a a science fiction look at about like
a thousand different potential solutions to climate change. And Kim
Stanley Robinson is actually like an expert UM. He works
for the Sierra Center. I think it's called UM. He's
won a bunch of awards for his work on like
(19:56):
trying to like posit different solutions to climate change. He's
he he understand he's not like coming at this from
the perspective of an even even a well researched author.
He's he's writing from the perspective of someone who is
an actual scientific expert in what happens and how the
different solutions might work. And the thing that's really interesting
about Ministry of the Future is it's this fascinating melange
(20:18):
of UM. Like a number of the character the Ministry
of the Future is this kind of hypothetical new U
N agency that's put in place after a horrible wet
bulb um heat event kills twenty million people in India UM,
and they're they're kind of trying to push for very
technocratic solutions to climate change. So, like one of the
(20:39):
big things the book focuses on a lot is this
idea of a climate coin, which is a kind of
UM international backed by banks, cryptocurrency that that pays as
a kind of long term bond for sequestering carbon, so
that like countries like Saudi Arabia that have huge oil
reserves actually make more money by using to pump out
(21:01):
oil and thus get paid in these coins. So it's
really technocratic solutions like that. And then also terrorist groups
that may be funded by this U N agency building
fleets of drones to murder people on commercial air flights
UM in mass in order to cripple the entire air
travel industry and stop carbon emission and carrying out mass
assassinations on like CEOs of of oil companies living in
(21:25):
their private islands. So it's this really interesting mix of
like kind of liberal politicians and like bankers like working
out these very wonky solutions to things, and like terrorists
who have lost people in climate emergencies mass murdering um billionaires,
uh and and so it's it's a very it's the
whitest possible ranging look at kind of different solutions to
(21:47):
climate change and how they might work. And it's a
very optimistic book. UM. And there's there's elements of it
that I kind of the optimism I kind of disagree with.
I think oddly enough Kim doesn't give enough weight to
the day dangers of authoritarian populism and and the threat
I think they present to any of these kind of
potential solutions. But it's still a very well thought out
(22:08):
look at climate change and I think really worth reading
UM if you want something that will both bring up
different because he also goes into a lot of like
very scientific solutions, like pumping up water from underneath glaciers
in order to stop glaciers from sliding, and like slow
the rate of melt and all these these other kind
of like very much like technical here's a thing that
(22:30):
we can do that will reduce the effect of this
specific Um kind of climate change. It's really a very
good book. Um and it's apparently was Barack Obama's favorite
book of the year, which, considering the degree in which
it talks about murdering politicians and business leaders, is interesting
to me. I think he was maybe more paying attention
(22:50):
to the carbon coins stuff than the shooting oil industry
executives in their face while they're sleeping. Well, he was
also a fan of parasite, so walty. He may just
have been told this is a book you should say
you like, but it is. It is a very good book.
It is really worth reading. Um and it's it's it
is a work of science fiction. But honestly it's like
(23:12):
it's also it's well again, Kim really understands his stuff
from a technical level, so I think it's pretty unimpeachable
from that point of view. There are some kind of
sociological areas where I don't think the book. I think
there's some ship missing, particularly as regards the problems authoritarianism
(23:32):
is going to cause in reaching for these solutions. But
I think it's still really really valuable. And Chris, we're
going to hear your responses, but first capitalism here you
(23:54):
are reading read few things, um, and reading more Chwang,
which is a theoretical journal about China that writes a
lot of very very good stuff. They have probably the
best account I've ever seen of just what was going
on during the socialist period and then also the sort
of transition to capitalism. That's those are those are those
(24:15):
are issues one and two, and they just published an
issue about it, basically, how the pandemic response happens in China.
It's it's absolutely fascinating. Um. It's also about sort of
is this something that Yeah, I've talked about a lot
of their stuff on the show, sort of obliquely or directly,
but like, you know, one of one of the big
things is about how, in a lot of ways, the
(24:35):
pandemic reveals the sort of weakness of the Chinese state
and in a way that you know it is you
don't see really because both both you know, both the
Chinese state and this sort of like American media have
this vested interest in showing like China's is sort of
like all powerful authoritarian police state or whatever, like the
miliar image of it is like this isn't but you
know what what you really see is that like this
(24:59):
this state has a very strong ability to intervene in
like one province at a time, and they can you
know when when when they focus, when they focus all
the sort of administrative power on like one area, right,
they're extremely effective. They can't really do it in you know,
multiplayers at the same time. And this means that you're
dealing with all the sort of regional government stuff and
it's it's very interesting. The the other thing that I have, well, okay,
(25:21):
so do do we want to talk like a little
bit about the dawn of everything or do you want
to save that for just like yeah, I I'm down
to talk about that at any point. Yeah, ok, yeah,
that's definitely on my list. That is a long one
that's less of a read I think where most people
are going to be less of a read in one
sweep than like maybe for over the course of the year,
like gradually. Yeah. Yeah, it's very very dense and very long,
(25:45):
but very readable. Like not to say that it's like
dense in the I gotta like slog through this textbook.
It's extremely readable. It's just like there's a lot in
there and you're gonna want to pause and think about ship. Yeah.
So so not everything is this is the last book
David Graeber ever wrote, and it's David Wenn Grow also.
(26:06):
They wrote it together, and it's it's this basically an
attempt to reassemble I guess, early human history. And but
the thing that they're doing that that's that's really unique
is that so they they're David wen Grows as archaeologist,
(26:29):
David Graeber's an apologists, and they're they're going, you know,
so they spent a whole bunch of time going through
the sort of early archaeological records, and what they find,
basically is that none of the things that you see
make any sense at all unless you're willing to unless
you're willing to accept that people you know, years ago,
(26:53):
and then even you know, people like four hive thousand
years ago, we're as smart as we are and have
the have the capacity to recreate and redesign their own
political arrangements selfconsciously, which is something that doesn't sound that weird,
except everyone assumes that they can't, and that you know,
everyone that's you know. One of the other things that
they're they're really sort of heavily doing here is trying
(27:15):
to break this idea that you know, human society sort
of evolves in these this linear progression. You know, you
start out with like these small hunter gatherer bands and
they get more complex quote unquote, eventually they developed farming,
and farming developed the state. And the answer is just
you know, when you look through the actual archaeological record,
none of this is true. You have, you know, they
(27:36):
have a lot of very interesting sort of historical examples
of this, looking at like what looked like incredibly democratic
and egalitarian cities, and then you know, on the outskirts
of those cities you have the emergence of the states
among things that look like states, among barbarian groups. And
they have and what I think is maybe the most
interesting part of it is that they're they're very concerned
(27:56):
with the question of human freedom, but freedom in a
way that like we don't but freedom on a level
fundamental enough that like we can barely imagine it. So
they have these things called the Three freedoms, which is
one of them is so that the first one is
the freedom just move to leave and to it's it's
a freedom to to you know, be in a place
(28:18):
and then leave and know that you will be cared
for when you get to wherever you're going, Yeah, these
kind of networks that were set up so that people
could travel that have like the descendant of those ideas
is sort of the way if you ever if you've
ever spent time in the Middle East, not in like
hotels and ship like it's that same idea that kind
of deeper than religious belief about the importance of that
(28:40):
has gotten added to like Islam and into a number
of other faiths in the area. Like, but this idea
that like there's nothing more sacred than taking care of
a of a guest um like and and how that
that that existed to enable kind of a sort of
cross cultural contract and contact and like recreational trap in
(29:00):
a way that I think it would be deeply surprising
to people who just sort of assumed everyone before a
certain age died within five miles of their house or
was you know, yeah, part of a band of wandering hunters. Yeah.
And it's it's interesting in that like, like like we
we in a lot of ways travel less than early
people did, because you know that people would just leave
and people, you know, people just didn't like their families,
(29:22):
and so they'd walk like five miles and they they'd
come to a place and they'd be accepted. And yeah,
and you know, and like the second one, I think
the one that I is the the one we have
the least capacity I think to understand, which is just
the ability to disobey orders. Just like anyone tells you
do something, you could just tell them know at any time.
And it's not only can you just tell them no,
(29:43):
Like the social expectation is that you is that you
don't act, is that it's it's it's it's not just
that you have the ability to do it, it's that
someone giving you an order is treated as weird. And
this is a thing that you know, like this, this
is the thing. This is a freedom that used to
exist and no longer does. It was sort of destroying
various ways, along with sort of the third free to
talk about, which is about how people have the right
(30:05):
to sort of just shift and recreate their their social
political arrangements. And yeah, and people used to do this
sort of I mean people, you know, a lot of
the what their early part of the book is about
is about how societies you there there's a lot of
societies that would you know, flip seasonally, right, so what
like one half of the year you have this just
like absolutelycatorship the either half of the year. It's like, well,
(30:26):
it looks like a hippie commune. And you know the
fact that we do not like the fact that like
we we we just don't like it, cannot conceive of
completely shifting our political arrangements like that is It's also
there's this fascinating discussion of like the fact that and
this is kind of counter to what I had always
(30:47):
kind of thought that like once as a group groups
of people when they when they made the decision to
like move to agriculture um and like set founded cities,
that it was kind of a one way street. You know,
you you you just keep going along that road. And
there's actually multiple examples of people's like this, what what
happened to the British Isles, or at least in what
(31:08):
is currently Great Britain. People's like developing agriculture, settling down
and then being like oh, you know what, fuck this
and like going back like that that should should happen
all the time. And and one of the things that's
really kind of optimistic about the vision of of the
sweep of human history in the dawn of everything is
the idea that like, no, we don't have to keep like,
(31:30):
it's not inevitable that we just keep doing more of
what we're doing now. All throughout history, large groups of
people have been like, it's time to let's do something else,
let's make a radical change, like it happens, um, And
it's probably more normal to do that than it is
to do what we've been doing. And when you I
think one of the things that kind of one of
the things that leads to the sense of inevitability of
(31:51):
development along the lines that we have is is the
fact that we only really have about ten thousand years
of even vaguely reliable like data or vaguely comprehensive data
on human history. But people have been around for tens
of thousands of years longer than that, and for most
of it we've been a lot more experimental than we
are now. And it's it's always possible for people to
(32:14):
try different things in a way that um, maybe seems
impossible to us now but but necessarily won't for our kids.
Oh yeah. The last thing I would tell people to
listen to if they're looking for a fictional optimistic thing
is Corey Doctors walk Away. UM, give it a read.
And if you're and if you're looking for like a
a like a beautiful like not to get your head
(32:37):
out of the One of the things I'm really passionate
about is plants. And I have this beautiful book called
The Planet Media and it's really helpful for caring for
your house plants. And it's just like aesthetically just so.
The photographs are beautiful and it's one of my favorite
things to give friends and family. To check that one
out as well. Another another plant book that I just
(32:57):
got for somebody that I really like. I think it's
called Wicked Plants. It's about all the poisons plants that
you can get, um and the ones all the like
the poison plants you can cultivate in your own garden.
And that's been a lovely read. Um, and I do
hope to set up a decent poisoned garden here in
the spring. So very excited. Yeah, me too, It's going
(33:18):
to be great. Well, let's get to another question. Um,
do you guys want like a fluff question or like
a real question? Uh, let's do a fluff one and
we can start the next episode with a real, real
juicy fluff daddy. All right, Okay, that's a little gift
to all of you at home. On the topic of hobbies,
(33:45):
so so I just Garrison likes poisonous plants. I like
non poisonous plants. Uh, what hobbies are you into that
we may not know about? Um? I guess I can
only say one thing here. Really, Well, I don't know. Yeah,
you should be really careful about how you answer this one.
(34:06):
I know what your hobbies are. Let's have everyone else
go first. UM. I just got into three D printing.
I'm currently trying to figure out how to get a
BS to act adhere properly. Yeah, that was the problem
I had with my printer is that it would I
would get like a decent way through the first part
of the print, and then part of it would come
(34:28):
curl off, so then it wouldn't print them next layer
on correctly. Then it messed up the print. And yeah,
I was between mental health stuff and that at the time.
I was stday on my printer. This is when I
just gave up because it was too much. So I'll
be excited to see how you get past this turtle. Well,
I've I've got a glass bed coming in, so I'm
gonna yeah, and I've I've got the enclosure. One of
(34:51):
the issues I'm having is just that I'm having a
heating issue with the bed. It won't heat up. It
stops before it gets to one tin, which is what
it should be able to go up that high. But
it's just, yeah, can you manually heat it up? Hotter? Um,
it doesn't seem to matter. It doesn't seem to matter
if I if I said it, like I can't obviously,
like you can. You can set it up to heat,
(35:11):
but it just keeps I keep getting that like loud
error beep. So there's like there's this is going to
be it's going to be a process of jiggering to
to to figure it out. Um, but you can come out.
Yeah I have, I have. I've I have a similar
problem with my setup right now that I've been trying
to troubleshoot for like half a year. Um, I can
(35:32):
manually control the heat bed and it does get that hot.
But still I think it may just be a leveling issue.
I may need to like clean the bed. I also
should just talk to someone who has done more three
D printing than me. Um. But yeah, yeah, but it's
it's it's fun. I I enjoy it. It's very it's
radically different from the stuff that I like do for
a living um, which is always my favorite thing for
(35:54):
like a a task to engage in in order to
be relaxing, because it's it's not all like reading and writing.
It's very different. It's very different. So so far, I'm
enjoying it. And I already I printed the thing I
need to do to make the the bio um, the
biolab for like the four Thieves stuff. If you want
(36:15):
to check out our episode with Michael from the four
Thieves Vinegar Collective. I've three D printed that part, so
I'm ready to get the other parts and put that
thing together. Um, I'm just trying to figure out how
to print other stuff with better plastics and whatnot. But yeah,
it's it's fun. So far. I'm I'm enjoying it a lot.
Um Maybe I'll get bored, Maybe I'll wind up spending
(36:36):
way too much money on different three D printers, like
the ones that lift the goo out of the res
printers are there there's so they're much like this is
what this is what Corey Doctor was talking about, Like
like they are much better at the filament printers in
a lot of ways, but a lot of like a
lot of the stuff. A lot of the really useful
(36:57):
machines that you can make with three D prints require
you to use filament right now, um, but the resin
ones are like so much more elegant. They're beautiful. Um.
I also am really interested in the idea of printing wood,
which I did not realize until recently you could do.
But it's absolutely possible with certain kinds of printers. Um,
And that seems pretty dope. So I don't know, we'll
(37:19):
see how. Maybe I'll be tired of it in a
month because my mental health will take a dive, But
so far I'm pretty excited. Cool Chris, what do I do? Uh? Well, Okay,
So before the pandemic, I was getting into rock climbing,
but unfortunately, like like I like rock climbing, I'm not like, oh,
(37:40):
it's like the best thing you can do for you.
It's a lot of fun. But unfortunately, I mean, it's
not like the worst pandemic thing you could possibly do,
but like it's no, Yeah, if you get up high
enough on the rocks, COVID can't get up there. It's
like the opposite of a bear. It's really bad. At climbing. Yes,
(38:02):
so I guess the other what do I even do? Is? Okay?
So my other thing okay, so so deep like deep
Twitter lure. People probably know this about me, but I
am I have been for a very very long time,
like an inveterate fan of competitive StarCraft two. Okay, I
am awful at it, Like I am terrible at that game.
(38:25):
But I have watched so much StarCraft two, like I
I StarCraft two has become enough of my life that like,
like the game was part of my radicalization process, Like yeah,
I wake up extremely early or stay up extremely late
and watch Korean StarCraft two and non Korean StarCraft two
and yeah, it's it's a good time. It's I My
(38:48):
favorite thing about StarCraft in general is thinking about the
fact that Blizzard was initially trying to make a Warhammer
forty video game, and Games Workshop was as always to
parent it off their I p to let it happen,
and thus lost how many god knows how many. They
would be worth more money than most countries like that
been printing an impossible amount of money, like Indy Chambers
(39:16):
would have been able to buy a mountain of cocaine
to live inside, but but no, instead we got all
of the infrastructure of modern esports m hm, which it
seems fine, like it's whatever. I don't care, but it
is very funny to me that they were like, nah,
this doesn't seem like a good financial decision for games
(39:37):
Workshop the StarCraft thing, Like I wonder like that. That's
the kind of thing where it's like, if they made
that much money, would they all just retire? Like well,
I mean it's a publicly traded company, like the stock
the shareholders would have made a fortune and the but yeah,
I I don't know. It's very it's very funny that
they didn't think that was going to be worth it.
(40:00):
Let's see in terms of how these people may not know.
I do really like cooking. I talked cooking classes for
a long time. Um. That's been the main cook in
my family since I was a very little kid, so
I definitely definitely enjoy that. Um. I did go to
film school for a few years. I want to get
back into making short video projects. I've been writing some random,
(40:25):
kind of new weird genre esque stuff that I would
love to like rent a studio space and actually shoot
some silly things in the next year and throw them
up online just for kind of my own fun. Um.
And then I also been still doing random occultism stuff. Um,
(40:45):
that's kind of how I feel my time. Yeah, it's fun. Yeah.
I think that's an answer. That is an answer. We
did it. That's an answer, and more importantly, that's an episode.
It is an episode. That is an answer. That is
a single content. You all got a content out of us,
and be proud of yourselves. Replicate and reproduce another content
(41:10):
tomorrow that's more as to your cues. So a content
every day except for the weekends, because that's the promiss
that we make in some holidays. It could Happen Here
is a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts
from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media
(41:32):
dot com, or check us out on the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
You can find sources for It could Happen here, updated
monthly at cool zone Media dot com slash sources. Thanks
for listening.
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