September 23, 2021 • 55 mins
What makes California's almond industry so controversial? Is Fitbit gamifying physical fitness? What more can people learn about video game addiction (and why is this research so important)? Ben and Matt explore all this and more in this week's Listener Mail.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:26):
My name is Matt. The guy that would normally speak
now is Noel, but he's not here today but will
be returning soon. They call me Ben. We're joined as
always with our super producer Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson.
Most importantly, you are you. You are here, and that
makes this the stuff they don't want you to know.
Last week we did something relatively rare for our show,
(00:49):
which is we took a brief day off from one episode.
For one episode one day. We didn't pay attention to
the internet, just the acord. Even more crazy stuff went wrong.
Crazy things are happening an apartment complex in a neighborhood
kind of north of us. Blew up. That happened. Yeah, yeah,
(01:10):
that happened. Uh. And as you are hearing this, we
don't know what will be happening if you hear this
the day it comes out, But we do know one thing.
The most important part of the show is you and
your fellow conspiracy realist. So we are as always immensely fortunate, grateful,
and excited to dive into this week's listener male segment.
(01:33):
And there's a funny thing that happens sometimes, Matt, where
I don't know about you, but I'll have something on
my mind, and does this make a good episode with
this be something that our fellow conspiracy realists are interested
in exploring with us, and these moments of synchronicity. Uh,
sometimes someone will send a voicemail or contact me on
(01:54):
social media or send us an email, and it will
be like they put their hand in some like body
horror away through my ear and like found that those
brain cells with that idea, they took them out and
then they just sort of like pop them into an
email or a message. And that's what happened with our
very first piece of correspondence, at least in my mind. Wow, Okay, well,
(02:18):
I just liked this email. I got a lot of
ice coffee going on, man, a lot of ice coffee today.
But this is something you mentioned at the very end
of our episode on maple syrup cartels or the one
maple Syrup cartel, And that's true. We mentioned alternative milks
I believe I don't know the exact quote, because every
(02:39):
one of these episodes that you hear now is one
giant run on conversation between Ben and Nolan. I and
I have no idea when they happen or where they happen,
but I know we talked about it. Um. But yes,
we got a message from someone we're going to title
nuts about milk. This person says, Hi, guys. While ordering
(02:59):
coffee's for work one day, one of my colleagues, who
lives in Los Angeles warned me about how bad almond
milk is for the environment. For one leader of almond
milk to be made, you need six thousand liters of water.
I was shocked. I'm not much of an almond milk
fan myself, but how is this information not more widely known.
(03:19):
She also said that there are lots of almond farms
in California, and because they require so much water, they're
contributing to the droughts that cause these terrible wildfires to happen.
Can you do a deep dive on big Almond and
see how deep the issue actually goes? What else is
Big Almond trying to hide? For now? I'm avoiding almond
milk altogether and telling everyone I know to do the same. Thanks,
(03:43):
nuts about milk. Yeah, so first, uh, nuts about milk.
Congratulations on your newfound telepathic abilities. A little freaked out,
but what a great suggestion. It is true, especially when
you consider how often in the re in past, almond
milk has been touted as something generally just not just
(04:06):
better for you, but better for the world because it's
not part of the traditional dairy industry. Those those things
may be true in many cases, but that doesn't mean
there's not stuff they don't want you to know about
almond milk and nuts about milk. I feel like you
nailed it. And this is this is kind of the
tip of a very thirsty iceberg. Iceberg is highly thirsty
(04:31):
thirsty iceberg. That's the street name. Now, it really is
all the icebergs out there. Oh, they just need more
water and then they needed to be colder. Um. Okay,
So we're gonna jump to a story that I think
maybe close to where a lot of the information out
there on the Internet about almond milk and water usage
(04:54):
where it arose, or at least where the general public
us kind of got hip to what is occurring. And
I use hip here on purpose because it is a
Mother Jones article written by a person named Tom Philpott
p h I L P O T T. And the
title is layoff the almond milk, You ignorant hipsters, Coming
(05:17):
in Hot, Coming in Hot. It was written July six,
was published rather July, and in here he really phil
goes into information about almond milk production and just about
how it is the it is becoming very very popular
(05:39):
as a milk substitute, a non dairy milk substitute, and
my goodness, as you're going through here, he's I mean,
it's very much their opinion, as you can tell by
the title is very much injected into this story. But
it talks about specifically what is in almond milk? Is
(06:01):
it mostly water? Is it a lot of water? What
are you getting besides water from this almond milk when
it comes to nutrients and other important things that your
body needs, and specifically how expensive it is. So that
kind of started this trend of thinking about almond milk differently,
like maybe it's not this wonderful savior of our breakfast cereals.
(06:25):
Uh as I admit I use almond milk and cereal
if I eat cereal. Um. Well, here's the thing. This
was a follow up article to another one that Phil
put out in Mother Jones two days previously on the
fourteenth of July, and that one was titled your almond
(06:49):
habit is sucking California dry. Here in lies most of
the information. It's got graphs you guys, of almond deduction,
how many almonds are are being produced, how much an
almond costs, uh, like in millions of dollars for the
for California specifically, and it also talks about the drought
(07:13):
in California and how much water in almond needs for production.
Within this article, he states that it takes one point
one gallons of water to produce one single, tiny little almond.
So he hits you with the amount of water it
takes to create one almond. Then he lets you know
that California in at the time was poised to produce
(07:37):
two point one billion pounds of almonds in that year.
And for just for a sense of perspective here, Uh,
they're about four hundred pieces when you're talking almonds, four
pieces per pounds. Four hundred almonds like raw almonds without pounds.
So that's like if people well you know, when you
(07:57):
hear up this gallon of water is an all injury.
How many billions of pounds? Uh, we need to emphasize
this is a lot of almonds. This isn't all the almonds,
but this is a lot of almonds. And in defense
of alments, I think they're delicious. They're good survival snack
to keep around because I can also suppress your appetite
(08:18):
a little bit, That's right. And and Phil goes on
just to point out that these farmers, as like large
companies that are also farming here and producing almonds, they
are many times dropping wells to get down to the
water that's underneath the earth, the aquifers, to really pull
enough water out of the earth to produce these things,
(08:41):
as well as using you know, municipal water to to
get what they need to grow these things. And my gosh, really,
let's just get down to kind of how he ends this,
and he's he's discussing demand, like why are this Why
is California producing this many almonds? Why is it eight
(09:01):
percent of the market essentially of almond production, and especially
in California where droughts happen all the time, it wasn't
necessarily at the levels that that we've seen California's droughts to,
you know, to get to the severity of issues there,
but wasn't doing so great. Um, He's just saying that
(09:23):
the deep need for us to have almonds, and specifically
almond milk is what's driving all of this stuff and
using up so much of the water there. And when
he says we, he's not just meaning residents of the US,
the residents of the world globally. Yes, And you know,
many people in California, many institutions in California are concerned
(09:46):
about this, and we're concerned about this. In January, the
University of California, San Francisco put out a story called
Almond Milk is taking a Toll on the environment, and
it's a similar story there talking about how much it
how much water it takes to produce this they say.
They site a New York Times article within this one,
(10:06):
citing that it takes approximately fifteen gallons of water to
produce sixteen almonds, which doesn't quite compute to what we
heard from Phil. That's not quite one point one gallons
per almond. That's a little under figure. You're going to
find that that number fluctuates a bit depending on the
source that you're looking at, but they do. They do
(10:27):
note that there are a ton of lands in California
that are being converted to specifically almond farmland, and uh,
the a lot of this land was previously wetlands out
in California, and just how that very much changes things
when you convert a wet land into farmland, and not
for the better. When it comes to helping hold back
(10:50):
some of these massive fires. Wetlands are one of the
best things that fire can encounter when it comes to
stopping that fire or at least slowing it down. There's
a ton of information in here. You can read all
about it. You can read about the Almond Board of
California and what they officially state when it comes to
the water usage of almond's. I want to keep going
(11:11):
down this rabbit hole a little bit further. I know,
we're just kind of barely touching on things were set.
We're painting the background. There's yeah, there's a ton. I
highly recommend everyone heads over to the BBC and reads
an article that came out in twenty nineteen called Climate Change,
which vegan milk is best, and it looks it's looking
specifically at dairy, rice, soy, oat, and almond milk. They're
(11:36):
looking at things like the number of emissions or the
amount of carbon emissions and other dangerous emissions like that
are produced per kilogram of whatever this thing is that
you're producing, whether it's soy or oat or almond, as
well as the land use, which is like how many
square miles of land do you actually need to produce
this stuff? As well as water use. And they've got
(11:59):
a eight graph here that really puts it into perspective.
If you're looking at almond milk, in the amount of
water that is needed to produce these things. For milk,
it's high. It is the second largest. When when it
comes to almond, oat, soy, rice and dairy. Below that,
you've got rice than oats, than soy. Then way way above,
(12:26):
categorically above the amount of water that it takes to
produce almonds, you have dairy milk there it is, Which
is the whole reason I wanted to talk about this
um not only because our Atlanta photographer wrote to us,
uh nuts about milk, but we this right here. As
I as I started tracking this down, this whole thing,
(12:48):
Ben feels to me like another dairy conspiracy. Oh you
think d M I is involved Dairy Management Incorporated. Check
out our Big Cheese episode. Yes, I can't prove this.
I cannot prove this. This is this is old Matt's
noggin coming up with stuff predicting the weather track in
(13:10):
the dairy because because if you if you follow the
track of that BBC article, uh, there's some great articles
that it then links out to and some research that
you can find in there. It breaks it all down.
But let's say maybe you don't trust BBC for one
(13:33):
reason or another. Um, but they do a great job
of citing I'm telling you, a really good job of
citing everything. You can jump to a website called truth
or drought dot com. This might be more of your speed,
may not be. I personally enjoy the BBC, but we're
not gonna talk about all that. You can read that
(13:53):
article yourself. The truth or Doubt website has an article
called myth almond milk is using all the water and
in here it sites specifically Tom phil Putts article the
Ignorant Hipsters one, as well as because that one really
went viral apparently I was not aware of that, but
(14:13):
but it also talks about the previous article, the first one,
and they say that I'm gonna read from their article
lies of omission, whether intentional or not, omitting altogether the
much higher water and ecological footprint of dairy and all
animal agriculture. They're saying, this is the tactic being implemented
(14:34):
by somebody, whether they know it or not, to make
almonds look bad and to just kind of forget about dairy,
milk and cows, sort of make almonds the face of
the ongoing drought problems. Exactly exactly, So I want to
jump down to a section where they compare almonds to
(14:55):
dairy when it comes to water and what the yield is.
So I'm gonna read some of this verbatim truth or drought.
I'm sorry, but here it is. They say that within
California almonds, the production of almonds used eight percent of
California's water, and it yielded of the US slash eight
(15:19):
percent of the worldwide almonds produced. So the amount of
almonds that's US eighty percent of worldwide almonds produced's okay,
eight percent of the water in California for most of
the almonds that the world uses. And then they go
to dairy in California, and they say that fiftent of
California's water is used to grow alfalfa. That's pay for
(15:44):
livestock feed, and that is part of the total of
forty seven percent of California's water used for meat and dairy.
And this does not include drinking water for any of
the cows or the cattle. So that's just the whole
extra thing that would need to be included in the
yield that you get for fent of the water to
grow all that food for all these cows is one
(16:07):
of the United States and one point four of global dairy.
So that's kind of hard when I when I say
it like that, in all of those things, but eight
percent of the water gives you of the US almonds.
Of the water in California gives you of the dairy
milk produced in the United States. And you can already see, folks,
(16:30):
that there's there's more to this story. There's more to unpack.
So what I suggest is we pause for a word
from our sponsors. Let's see if they are all nder
dairy related, and then we will return to explore this
just a little bit further. That's right, We'll be right back.
Don't forget there's all this stuff about almonds, milk and bees.
(16:51):
It's really you've got to look at that too. And
we have returned, So Matt, this is something that's been
on my mind as well, and that I think could
be a full episode because we're seeing we're seeing a
(17:12):
couple of things, so we're seeing people who do have
an angle perspective in a bias at play. Right. That
doesn't mean that what they're saying is untrue, but it
does mean that they may frame things in a way
they feel as advantageous to their point of view. And
this this happens all the time with any trade group.
(17:34):
Almonds are a little bit different from some other crops
because they can only grow in specific parts of the
world unless you build like an artificial indoor environment for them.
In California happens to be one of those places, which
is why it is such a behemoth in the world
of almonds, kind of like the same thing with Canada
and Mabel Syrup, honestly, and this is coupled with a
(17:57):
very serious problem, which is the search for solutions to
California's droughts, which are you know, a prime driver of wildfires.
They are also Uh, they are also increasingly going to
be a matter of concern to just people who happen
to live in California, you know. And when this kind
(18:20):
of stuff happens, when people are scared, and rightly so,
human beings tend to want a face or a symbol
to put on the problem. So you can give people
stats and graphs all day, but instead if you give
them a headline with I don't know, like how you
would make you know how Like political smear campaigns around
election time, they always have the picture of like the
(18:41):
politician they don't like, and then the music changes and
it goes like black and white and then it like
fades into red and it's like, Uh. Diane Bravawowitz wants
you to believe that she cares about libraries, but in
two thousands and seventeen she was caught walking past one
without going inside. Like if you vote for blah blah blah,
(19:06):
then you tell librarians like, how would you do that
with an almond? Um? Almonds want you to think that
they make the best milk and they're good for your
body and your environment. Uh, but psych or no, no, no,
(19:28):
no no no, Then they go but almond doesn't want
you to know that it's got a drinking problem, serious
drinking problem. It got caught in drinking up eight percent
of all California's water. Yeah, exactly like a vote for
almonds is a vote for deserts. Uh like. The The
(19:51):
thing is that these tactics, while they can be misleading
in while they're certainly not always made in good faith,
that doesn't mean the stuff that there's a is not true.
And especially when we're talking about something as interconnected and
as vital as a water system, have to realize that
there are a lot of people at play, and there
(20:12):
are a lot of people who are unknowingly participating in this.
Because when you're talking about water production in California and
how much water goes into the creation of an egg, right,
or a hammer or whatever, we also have to realize
that isn't all staying in California shipped to other places,
which means that these problems or these this controversy surrounding
(20:36):
almonds probably affects you in some way. Even if you
don't live in California, and even if you don't eat almonds,
even if you got like an analogy, it's still going
to affect you. In some way, So I think this
is worth exploring further nuts about Milt. Thank you so
much for this excellent letter. And this is not obviously
(20:58):
with this is not a hit piece, Matt. I think
you did a fantastic job of outlining some of the
things that are getting missed in a lot of the
true and anti almond headlines. Oh man, I yeah, I
couldn't agree more. Really appreciate you sending this message to us.
I am. I mentioned a thing right before the break here.
(21:20):
I've got another article I want people to look up.
They're they're actually there's two. One is from the Guardian.
The title is like sending bees to war The deadly
truth behind your almond milk obsession, which is a whole
different take if you get out of the water discussion
and you look at fungicides, pesticides, what almond, the things
(21:41):
that you need to make almonds, what that can do
to be populations, or what it is the effects that
that industry seems to be having on the populations as
well as a Popular Science article that came out in
seventeen titled the almond milk craze could be bad news
for bees. Again, they're looking at funges sides here, they're
looking at just several of the major issues, and really
(22:05):
it's the pesticide problem and other herbicides, anything that you'd
use to kill something that you don't want in an
agricultural process. These have been problems for a long time
since we figured out how to use them. I mean,
we've got you think about roundup TM or whatever are
It was specifically developed to kill things every really as
(22:28):
many things as it can while keeping the seed and
the plant alive because the seed got genetically modified so
it wouldn't get hurt by the pesticide. Also, shout out
to neo nicotinoids, a huge killer be populations. Everybody said
we were crazy and conspiratorial, and while those two things
maybe in some part correct, we were also correct about
(22:50):
neo nicotinoids. And so that's just one kind of pesticide
that spells trouble and quite possibly doom for the capital
t or depopulation. Yes, yes to or do, but yeah,
do check this out. Let us know your take. Love
to hear from an almond farmers when we're working in
the industry as well, because as we mentioned, trade groups
(23:14):
associated with almonds are are quick to point out that
they feel the issue has been mischaracterized. You know what
I mean, Well, yeah, I mean that we're gonna stop
talking about this now, I promise you. It's just just
through all those articles that we've cited today, where would
I just gave you tiny bits and pieces from all
of them, you can clearly see how there's confusion. There
(23:36):
seems to be confusion and or disinformation, misinformation that's that's
being put out there. Whether again as that that one
article stated, whether the writers of the articles realize it
or not. Yeah, I'd also like to recommend, just from
more perspective, checking out an article in The New Republic,
also written by Tom Pilpott with Julia Lurie December of en.
(24:00):
They talked about the real problem with almonds, and they're
the ones who mentioned something a lot of folks may
not have been thinking about, which is, are we moving
water we ship almonds to other countries? Is this resource extraction?
But we'll get to that in the future, and in
the meantime, you know, shout out to everybody who's like, guys,
I get it, there are problems in every big industry,
(24:23):
but I love almonds. Dudes. You could even say, like normally,
I'm I'm street lace. You know, I don't drink, I
don't smoke kind of vices except for almonds. I am
straight up addicted to a good almond, you know, put
it in milk, put in paste, make it, make it
a part of a confection. And I am in buddy,
(24:43):
are some kind of I don't know the Chinese cuisine.
Let's do that. I'm down throw almonds in there. Yeah. Addiction,
that's something we talked about. That's our that's our segue
word off. I thought I was a uh any any
missteps in that segway or mind. But we had recently
(25:05):
done an episode based on something we talked about in
a strange news segment, which was the nature of addiction
and video games, and Matt, you were sorely missed from
this episode. Hope we did you proud. Uh. It's something
that we got a lot of response from and as always,
we're very fortunate to have our fellow conspiracy realists from
(25:26):
all walks of life weighing in. And what we'd like
to do now is share with you an email that
we all we all read uh with wrapped attention. This
is something that NOL especially wanted to get out there,
and so we're thinking we could read this letter to
(25:47):
you in full and then maybe just talk a little
bit more about it. This email is called Gaming Addiction.
It comes to us from Ali and Matt. I was
thinking you and I can kind of round robin this one.
Let's do it. Do you want me to guest started? Okay,
here we go. Ali says, Hey, guys, are just finished
listening to the episode on gaming addiction, and I wanted
(26:09):
to reach out regarding some of the things you'll mentioned.
I work in the addiction treatment field, and I specialize
in working with process addictions. That's process addictions such as gaming, pornography,
and sex. First of all, thank you for tackling such
a difficult subject. At one point, you talked about psychological
addiction versus physical addiction and the different ways those can manifest.
(26:32):
Just to clarify, even if a behavior like gaming does
not create a physical dependency on a substance external to
the body like heroin or alcohol, there is still a
very real detox process from these behaviors. And Ali goes
on to say withdrawal from process addictions feels very similar
to cocaine withdrawal and notes this can also be true
(26:55):
of heavy marijuana use, which absolutely creates a physical dependence.
The idea that th HC is not physically addictive has
been largely abandoned by the medical community. Ali says, though
the symptoms may seem much milder than a substance they create,
she's referring to symptoms of video game addiction. They create
significant distress. The most common withdrawal symptoms are insomnia, anxiety, depression,
(27:20):
and irritability. Throw in night sweats too. If we're talking
about marijuana, this may not seem like a big deal,
but the anxiety and depression can reach debilitating levels for
some people, and in especially tough cases, to last up
to two years after the behavior stops. Let me amend
that I think Ali here is talking not just about
(27:40):
a gaming addiction, but process addiction exactly. I think that's
the umbrella under which all of this is sitting. Then
Ali continues, while I agree with your premise that it
is absolutely possible to enjoy gaming in a healthy way,
and that some people are leaning towards a moral panic
in this arena, gaming addiction is all so a very
(28:00):
real struggle for some, a struggle that all too often
gets overlooked, downplayed, or ridiculed. Yeah, and continues to say
right now. Process addiction treatment is the fastest growing area
of study and service provision in the treatment industry. Side note,
I loved your episode on the rehab industry. I've worked
(28:20):
with both ethical and non ethical treatment providers and could
stay on my soapbox all day about the craziness that
goes on in some places. However, despite the growing need
for clinicians who understand and can help with process addictions,
the American healthcare system seriously impedes people's ability to get
help if they are not financially well off. Insurance companies
will not cover treatment for process addictions alone, and individual
(28:44):
therapists who address these issues often do not accept insurance
and charge a rate that is unaffordable for many. Unless
someone can afford the astronomical self pay rates for treatment,
or they also have co occurring substance use or mental
health issues. There are not many routes for p bull
without means to seek professional help. Yeah, it's it's true. Unfortunately,
(29:06):
Fortunately ALI continues. The pure recovery world for process addictions
is also growing, with groups like online gamers, Anonymous sex
and Love Addicts, anonymous and gamblers anonymous. Many more people
are able to get help than ever before. I know
that was a lot, but I just wanted to chime
in and let you all know about some of the
additional complications that can go along with treating addictions like gaming.
(29:28):
Thanks probably do Ali. So this is a lot of information,
and we wanted to We wanted to give you the direct,
verbatim words because Ali here is an expert and we
know that we know that this potential exists, and we
(29:50):
talked at length about some of the problems with trying
to address the possibility of addiction, because what are you
gonna You're gonna make some kind of big other law
that says, hey, video game creators, you have to make
your games less good, you know what I mean, start
sucking a little more legally. But like, that's an oversimplification,
(30:12):
but it is. It is very true that addiction is
is a real thing, and it can take many many forms.
It's not, as we said before, it is not a
moral failing of any sort. But in the case of
something like video gaming, while it has precedence right gambling
for instance, Uh, the fact of the matter is that
(30:34):
in many ways this is a newer technology in the
grand scheme of things, and so there's still a lot
of research to be done and a lot of things
to learn, which is why this is such a quickly
growing area of study. It is it is weird to
imagine gaming in most not all instances as gambling, but
without using any money and without the possibility of winning
(30:57):
any money. Yes. Yeah, it's like if you've ever if
you've depending on where you live in the world, um,
if you've ever been in a gas station, may have
seen some things that look very much like, you know,
electronic slot machines, and and sometimes they have a big
sign over them, at least in Georgia, where they say
it's illegal for these games to result in actual money,
(31:20):
at which point the question becomes, why are you what
motivates you? Is it the dopamine release from playing the game?
Because people in general psychologically love to feel that we
have navigated rules successfully in a way that results in rewards.
The species is so into this, in fact, that sometimes
the nature of the reward doesn't matter. Dude, what what
(31:43):
is the reward in a gas station slot machine? Thing?
Is it? Like? I wonder if it's store credit? So
maybe I don't know, maybe I did know of an
illegal gambling den in a gas station here in Atlanta,
and they had they had the other slot things in
the front as kind of a red Harry, but in
(32:05):
the back, you know, as poker at all hours. I
did not participate. I literally saw the door open one day.
One of the guys who worked there was like, Oh, yeah, man,
don't tell anybody, but that's that's where the big money moves.
Still to this day, I wonder what was on the
other side of that door. But but Matt, one thing
(32:26):
that was interesting about this too, when we talked about
the nature of a reward in a process addiction is
um We talked in the earlier episode a little bit
about badges and achievements and trophies and video games, and
those are our brains recognized those as rewards, even if
they're not something we were expecting, right, Like, what's weird
(32:47):
trophy you got? And then well, we gotta I know,
we've got to go to a commercial break, But I'm
so interested in your experience, like, what what is a
strange trophy you've got? And you as well, Doc, what's
the weirdest trophy weird for achievement or you know, whatever
they call them. I can't think of a really great one.
I dude, I've been playing way too much Minecraft, which
(33:08):
you want to talk about an addictive game? God uh
to to you know? By my son and I've been
playing a lot, and it's just I think I got one.
I got one recently because I did something ridiculous. I
don't know. It had to do with my death. I
died in a way that I didn't expect to die,
and it was like, hey, you gotta achieve may congratulations.
You suck if he's some kind of Darwood award. All right,
(33:32):
Uh well, we're gonna pause for word from our sponsor
and we'll be back with another piece of correspondence from
your fellow conspiracy realist. But we're going to dive further
into the topic of gaming and addiction. And we're back. Ben.
(33:53):
I just found out what what it was called. It
wasn't I described it incorrectly. It was the ing my
son show me called a totem of undying, and I
got it because I completed a raid. Some people will
know what that is. My son was very excited about
this and it looks like a doll and I was.
I had it when I died and it said I
(34:14):
cheated death. So there you go. That was my weird achievement. Well, congratulations, Matt,
you've cheated deathfient. You got an award for it and everything,
and uh, I think it is amazing though, because again,
even if we're not asking for those things consciously, when
we get an achievement, it often feels like, you know,
(34:35):
the way you would feel if you've got a trophy
in real life. Yeah, totally. For me, it's about an upgrade.
If I can upgrade something, no matter what it is
in a video game, I'm gonna seek that out and
I'm gonna I'm gonna upgrade. I'm gonna get resources until
I've got way too many, and I'm gonna just keep
upgrading until i can't anymore. And I'm everything all about
(34:57):
the grind, all about the grind. Yeah, it's that. It's
a stinging box. Yeah, it feels like you're really getting
something done. It feels like you're checking boxes, you know,
But it's just in a virtual world and it probably
doesn't matter. Well, I mean, what is this world? Right?
We want to just jump into that? Okay, all right? Well,
(35:23):
well well, um that's it is a great question, and
there are compelling studies about neurochemistry which can give us
a solid explanation of why the human brain doesn't really
differentiate between uh some I R L award and some
digital award. And with this we go to a fantastic
(35:46):
email from fit bit Lady who asked us is fit
fit a gaming system? Here we go, Hey, guys, love
the show. I'm currently listening to our video games Addictive
and you were discussing badges and such, and it got
me thinking, I am not a gamer. I have zero time.
I'm a mom of three kids in three different grade
(36:06):
levels who do not give me any me time. My oldest,
who was fourteen years old, does game regularly. Anyways, you
were discussing the reward system used in video games, and
it made me realize that I am certainly a reward
driven human. I wear my fit bit religiously to track
my steps, and I get so excited when I win
a challenge or get a badge. I'm currently on a
(36:28):
step streak where I've gotten my steps seven days in
a row, and I was up late last night pacing
around the room to make sure I get my steps
for the day. Am I using my health tracking app
the same way that gamers use their game system. Very interesting,
signed fit bit lady, what do you think Yeah, the
answer is yes, fbl The answer is yes, uh, and
(36:52):
that is by design. This is something that Matt, you
and I back in the day had some first hand
experience udence with. It's a technique known as gamification, and
gamification is this brilliant, if not always um considerate method
(37:13):
of taking elements from any kind of game, the most
general ideas of how you would define a game, and
taking those elements and putting them into a non game situation.
So how do we define a game? Those are things like,
let's see, competition is a big one, right, um. And
(37:33):
then there are things like even if you're competing with
yourself like in solitaire, and then there are rewards, right,
and there are punishments or consequences. You know, it's still
taking the skinner vibe and putting it into things that
ordinarily may not have had that. Uh. What what do
you think are some good examples of gamification other than
(37:54):
fit that. You're absolutely right fit that lady, It is gamified. Sure.
A lot of the apps that I have tried out,
like newer apps that i've attempted in the past. Ones
that have to do with ordering food, with getting a ride.
A lot of those have small examples of gamification within them,
(38:14):
where you can get small rewards for using them in
a certain way or for ordering at a certain time
we're going for certain distance. The biggest one for me
in my world right now, my son just started kindergarten
and we signed up for an app titled class Dojo,
and the entire school system where he goes is using
(38:36):
it and on here the teachers throughout a day. Obviously,
I'm I just opened it up to check it out.
While I'm talking about it, I have to make sure
my notifications are all good cool um. Throughout the day.
His teacher when he's in class will give him points
and you can get positive points, neutral points, or negative points.
(39:00):
And uh, at least I've only seen positive points right now,
because as they begin the school year, they only give
the kids positive points as they learn it, at least
for the for the kindergarten level kids. Uh. And also
as the parents learned the app and everything. But then
the parents here's where it's super gamified. Been the parents
(39:22):
take it home and when the when your child is
save reading you can give him a point for reading
if he's listening and paying attention to give him a point.
Did he eat? Is he eating? Is he doing eating
his vegetables or whatever? Yeah? Did he help dad build
a Minecraft world? Negative points? You're giving him negative points? No,
(39:46):
I didn't do it. The system knows. It's like it's
like you're playing a video game. That's no, that's negative points. Yeah,
this is that's startling. How do you feel about that? Uh,
it's so new still, I guess for you guys, well,
it's weird. Um. I love that I can encourage him,
(40:09):
like if he was really into the app and killing
about it. I would love to be able to give
him some problems for doing something right, especially when it
comes to you know, attention based things and things that
really require his focus. Um. I would love to be
able to do that. But he doesn't care. Does he
get prizes there? Yeah? There are there are things that
(40:31):
the school will do associated with your levels. I think
I don't know. Well, I mean you had book it.
We had book it. Yeah, book it was like read
X amount of books and then you get a personal
pan pizza And I'll be honest with you, at the time,
it was the best pizza I ever I ever eight
because it so you know, I think that happens with
(40:53):
a lot of kids. I was so into myself. I
was like a proto Kogy West about it. You know
what I mean, step aside other pet pizza hut buying
pizza with your money, dude. That's why we're here. That's
why we're making this show because we were both book
it like things, kids are things somewhere in between. Before
the bee drops, let's continue. So the this is happening
(41:16):
fitbit lady, and this is something that is not again,
it's not inherently sinister, but we know that it drives
engagement because human beings like to play. You get points.
That's one of the defining elements of things that have
been gamified. You can get those badges, those achievements. You
might have something like a leaderboard which says it like
(41:40):
in any app. Let's say I'll just make something up.
Let's say you had a well I love the idea
of a food delivery app, and the food delivery app
is giving you points, and those the reward you get
ultimately is like a small discount, right, You get like
five percent offer, maybe even ten percent offers something and
let's say in addition to that leaderboard, and they're like, congratulations,
(42:03):
you've moved up to level four. And you might not
know what level four is in this context, but then
a leaderboard pops up and you're like, oh, level four
means in a two mile radius, I am the fort
most most influential user of this food delivery app. And
then for some people that's an immediate trigger to be
like no, no, no no, no, no, no no no, I
(42:24):
am level three at the very least, like that's that's
how it works. And then you can see a lot
of analytical data, right, performance graphs, how many steps did
you take? Right? How many times did you order from
this restaurant? Or how many miles did you drive? How
many accidents did you report for your fellow users? Right? Uh?
(42:45):
And then this builds a meaningful story about you. You
have a little version of you that you can customize sometimes,
and you might have competitors, but you can also have
people you team up with to cooperate with. So it's
founded a lot of things that may not ordinarily occur
to people, like a driving app, you know, apps are
crazy about this, but also simple, simpler, analog things like
(43:09):
book it, and the argument for something like fitbit, there
any health tracking app like this, is that this gamification,
because it keeps you engaged, helps you beat the statistics,
which usually the statistics for consistent use or consistent exercise.
Really uh, they often dip, right, It's the famous January
(43:32):
February dip post New Year, but it plays out pretty often.
So this is something in this case that is meant
to help users, but at the same time it is
meant to keep them plugged into the game. And I
think in the future, I think the future is gamification
or an increased frequency of it. Did we did you
(43:54):
guys bring up social media gamification? Maybe a little bit,
but let's let's talk about it now. Yeah. I think
we've talked about this before. And on any social media
there's the like, there's the heart, there's the all that stuff,
and there's the things you can do. And while you
don't get an achievement in the way you would on
(44:16):
an Xbox or something, your achievement is seeing some number
grow and just knowing that whatever you did is more
and more popular and more and more popular or or
nobody cares at all, which is an achievement in itself.
And there's another version of social media, online dating apps.
I'd love for everybody who wants to learn more about
(44:38):
this to read an article and wire by Nancy Joe's
sales called online dating apps are actually kind of a disaster,
and it's it's a huge industry. But these apps also
are gamified, you know what I mean, Like, there's something
about the payoff that happens when you when oh my gosh,
(44:58):
somebody also swiped on me. They like me. I have
value in a social context, which is people probably don't
maybe think about it in those transparent of terms. But
we know that this is gamification at work. We know
that there are is a lot of thought put into
(45:19):
the controversies surrounding gamification. If you like to read um,
if you like to read papers that do a good
job of giving the lay of the land. Um. There
was one I found called a critique in Defense of
Gamification by Erin Chia Yuan Hong, and this is free
(45:39):
to read online. It was published in and the Journal
of Interactive Online Learning. And the entire argument here is that, yes,
these pitfalls may exist right even to the point of addiction,
you know, but that gamification overall is beneficial because get
this reminds me of your story from just a second ago.
(46:01):
Gamification is a way to improve student engagement, motivation, attendance,
and academic performance. So the idea is, um, if you
look at a cost benefit analysis of this, overall, it
would be a good thing. But what what would you
see as some of the controversies criticisms surrounding gamification. I mean,
(46:23):
I'm interesting. Well, for me, the biggest criticism is just
keeping the users, the individual users mind in a constant
state of need two do the next thing, or to
get another thing, to get that dopamine hit. Um, that's
the that's the scariest thing. The most positive thing is
that it's true if I if I got something in
(46:46):
my house, I completed a chore outside, I mowed the
law and let's say, and it's like I walk in
the house and he goes and just lets me know
how you you mowed the lawn. Great job. I'd be like, cool.
And then it's like, you've mowed the lawn five times
in the past two months. You know, Like if that
was a thing, that'd be great. I'd be like, man,
(47:08):
I'm gonna mow the lawn again. I'm excited next time
I mow the lawn. You paid your mortgage and you
can and and like a kitching sound, you know, and
this this can nudge you toward behaviors. Right. We can't
be the only people who are thinking of the sesame
or social credit system in China. That's one of the
first things I thought of that in book it when
(47:30):
I heard what's what's happening in that kindergarten? Um gad.
It's not necessarily a bad thing. It's like any other technology.
It's it's all in the way it's used. We do
need to mention dopamine. This goes back to the dopamine
we talked about briefly in that episode. But dopamine is
a neurotransmitter. There are other types of neurotransmitters. All all
(47:52):
that really means is there's a chemical and this chemical
is a messenger that takes a signal from a neuron
across the side apps to another target cell, which could
be a couple of different types of cells. Why is
dopamine a special neurotransmitter Because it feels so good, it
feels so nice. It activates the pleasure center and human brains,
(48:13):
and it also has a part to play in your focus,
your attention, how you learn, how you're coordinated, how you're working,
memory operates, and it gives you this pleasurable feeling when
you have repeated achievements. And that's why, like does gamification
belong in a workplace, It's in a lot of workplaces,
(48:34):
you know what I mean, Like who's the top sales
person of the month or the week or the year.
I don't know. I think it's a powerful technology and
I think it could do some really amazing things. That
language apps are huge on gamification, and I'll tell you what.
I love them, honestly. Let me play a little game
and I'm learning a new language. That's cool. Like I
(48:59):
did due, you know, I do some other um slightly
more specific ones, but yeah, I'll do I'll sit on
my phone. I'm gonna see the little cartoon dance. You know.
I want to hear the song, the song that says
I did well? What was the Rice? One good example.
I still love Free Rice, man, I still mess with
(49:19):
Free Rice. Free Rice is a you in affiliated app,
but you can also play it on your desktop or
your laptop. And what it does is you guess the
correct definition for a word and every time you make
a correct guess, this organization awards like ten grains of
rice or something to feed people who are living in
(49:42):
a state of food insecurity. And the difficulty levels up.
So the first ones are very easy. They're like a
door is a blank blank blank blank, Yeah, I know
that I'm here, free rice for everybody. And then you know,
as you get higher up in the levels, I'm actually
gonna play that. After we were corp, you've got fun
that game is. But after after you get to these
(50:04):
higher levels, then becomes much much more difficult, and each
time you get something wrong you go down a little bit.
So it keeps you, it keeps you in that Goldilocks zone,
and it does does help with vocabulary. But the main
point of it is this gamification is supposed to be free,
cause what an excellent example, man. And people have been
(50:26):
asking about how far gamification will go for a number
of years now. Uh. One of the earliest examples of
gamification was something called four square, which some people may remember.
You would check in at a physical location, right, and
then if you checked in frequently enough, you became like
(50:48):
the monarch of that or the mayor whatever authority figure
of that of that blubbadubbas you know what I mean,
and your local dunkin Donuts. It is the rain of
Costco all hail and thinking of other silly titles of
(51:08):
all hail, the baronets of uh kind of what's the
store that people just a reference waffle house of waffle house.
There we go, No, just do it? Keep this whole
parted u the oh hell the baron of waffle house
(51:29):
long may syrup pore? Uh Yeah, okay, Well in the context,
it's not as creepy. But there's an excellent example, and
it's something that collectively society needs to be aware of
because it can really put some gas into your learning abilities.
It can put some gas into people's engagement with an
(51:49):
idea or a topic, you know. But it can also,
like you just mentioned in the mowing the law an example,
it can nudge people towards things and and so cases,
it can nudge them toward things that are maybe not
necessarily beneficial and not necessarily things they would have done
on their own. And that doesn't that is a separate
(52:10):
issue from addiction. That is pushing people right, and they
can be related. There is a venn diagram, but but
it's fascinating and it's something that we'll have to think
a little bit more about in the future. We're going
to call it a day for today and we'll be
back next week with more correspondence from you. As always.
(52:34):
Thank you so so much to Nuts for Milk, Thank
you so much to Ali, and thanks so much to
fbl fitbit Lady. If you want to take a page
from their book and reach out to us, we can't
wait to hear from you on your thoughts of droughts,
on your thoughts of big agriculture and almonds, on your
thoughts of video game addiction and what the future of
that might be, and then of course tell us the
(52:57):
weirdest things that you've found gamified. You know, in the end,
I I really don't care what achievements I get in
Minecraft as long as I find another fortress, because I've
never freaking seen one and I've been trying to find them.
I'm never gonna get to the end and find the
dragon if I can't find other fortresses. I don't know
if that'st even true. I don't. I mean, I'm I'm
(53:19):
so in because I'm just interested in the world and
sometimes the specifics of an achievement in in a game
or a game of Fight System don't really matter. You
just need to win, you know what I mean, Gus
feel that way, just wake up. You're like God, I
just need to feel like I won one thing every day.
(53:40):
But that's okay, and every night it's okay. We're gonna
make it through. Your first achievement is to find us
on social media where on Twitter and Facebook and YouTube
at Conspiracy Stuff on Instagram. We are Conspiracy Stuff Show.
If you want to not use social media, you can
use your phone and your mouth to contact us. It's
(54:00):
pretty awesome. We have a phone number one eight three
three st d w y t K. You have three minutes.
Those three minutes belong to you. Whisper conspiracies or sweet
nothings into our ears. While you're doing that, give yourself
a slick nickname. We love those. Tell us what's on
your mind, and uh, perhaps most importantly, let us know
(54:24):
if we can use your voice and our message on air.
But you might say, I don't care for phones. I've
got something that needs more than three minutes to be explained.
I've got links, I've got pictures I have taken of
this strange thing. In the woods, are in the sky.
How do I get these? Do you good news, fellow
conspiracy realists. We have an email address where you can
(54:46):
reach us twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.
All you have to do is drop us a line
where we are conspiracy at i heart radio dot com.
M h H. Stuff they Don't want you to know
(55:15):
is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts
from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:26):
My name is Matt. The guy that would normally speak
now is Noel, but he's not here today but will
be returning soon. They call me Ben. We're joined as
always with our super producer Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson.
Most importantly, you are you. You are here, and that
makes this the stuff they don't want you to know.
Last week we did something relatively rare for our show,
(00:49):
which is we took a brief day off from one episode.
For one episode one day. We didn't pay attention to
the internet, just the acord. Even more crazy stuff went wrong.
Crazy things are happening an apartment complex in a neighborhood
kind of north of us. Blew up. That happened. Yeah, yeah,
(01:10):
that happened. Uh. And as you are hearing this, we
don't know what will be happening if you hear this
the day it comes out, But we do know one thing.
The most important part of the show is you and
your fellow conspiracy realist. So we are as always immensely fortunate, grateful,
and excited to dive into this week's listener male segment.
(01:33):
And there's a funny thing that happens sometimes, Matt, where
I don't know about you, but I'll have something on
my mind, and does this make a good episode with
this be something that our fellow conspiracy realists are interested
in exploring with us, and these moments of synchronicity. Uh,
sometimes someone will send a voicemail or contact me on
(01:54):
social media or send us an email, and it will
be like they put their hand in some like body
horror away through my ear and like found that those
brain cells with that idea, they took them out and
then they just sort of like pop them into an
email or a message. And that's what happened with our
very first piece of correspondence, at least in my mind. Wow, Okay, well,
(02:18):
I just liked this email. I got a lot of
ice coffee going on, man, a lot of ice coffee today.
But this is something you mentioned at the very end
of our episode on maple syrup cartels or the one
maple Syrup cartel, And that's true. We mentioned alternative milks
I believe I don't know the exact quote, because every
(02:39):
one of these episodes that you hear now is one
giant run on conversation between Ben and Nolan. I and
I have no idea when they happen or where they happen,
but I know we talked about it. Um. But yes,
we got a message from someone we're going to title
nuts about milk. This person says, Hi, guys. While ordering
(02:59):
coffee's for work one day, one of my colleagues, who
lives in Los Angeles warned me about how bad almond
milk is for the environment. For one leader of almond
milk to be made, you need six thousand liters of water.
I was shocked. I'm not much of an almond milk
fan myself, but how is this information not more widely known.
(03:19):
She also said that there are lots of almond farms
in California, and because they require so much water, they're
contributing to the droughts that cause these terrible wildfires to happen.
Can you do a deep dive on big Almond and
see how deep the issue actually goes? What else is
Big Almond trying to hide? For now? I'm avoiding almond
milk altogether and telling everyone I know to do the same. Thanks,
(03:43):
nuts about milk. Yeah, so first, uh, nuts about milk.
Congratulations on your newfound telepathic abilities. A little freaked out,
but what a great suggestion. It is true, especially when
you consider how often in the re in past, almond
milk has been touted as something generally just not just
(04:06):
better for you, but better for the world because it's
not part of the traditional dairy industry. Those those things
may be true in many cases, but that doesn't mean
there's not stuff they don't want you to know about
almond milk and nuts about milk. I feel like you
nailed it. And this is this is kind of the
tip of a very thirsty iceberg. Iceberg is highly thirsty
(04:31):
thirsty iceberg. That's the street name. Now, it really is
all the icebergs out there. Oh, they just need more
water and then they needed to be colder. Um. Okay,
So we're gonna jump to a story that I think
maybe close to where a lot of the information out
there on the Internet about almond milk and water usage
(04:54):
where it arose, or at least where the general public
us kind of got hip to what is occurring. And
I use hip here on purpose because it is a
Mother Jones article written by a person named Tom Philpott
p h I L P O T T. And the
title is layoff the almond milk, You ignorant hipsters, Coming
(05:17):
in Hot, Coming in Hot. It was written July six,
was published rather July, and in here he really phil
goes into information about almond milk production and just about
how it is the it is becoming very very popular
(05:39):
as a milk substitute, a non dairy milk substitute, and
my goodness, as you're going through here, he's I mean,
it's very much their opinion, as you can tell by
the title is very much injected into this story. But
it talks about specifically what is in almond milk? Is
(06:01):
it mostly water? Is it a lot of water? What
are you getting besides water from this almond milk when
it comes to nutrients and other important things that your
body needs, and specifically how expensive it is. So that
kind of started this trend of thinking about almond milk differently,
like maybe it's not this wonderful savior of our breakfast cereals.
(06:25):
Uh as I admit I use almond milk and cereal
if I eat cereal. Um. Well, here's the thing. This
was a follow up article to another one that Phil
put out in Mother Jones two days previously on the
fourteenth of July, and that one was titled your almond
(06:49):
habit is sucking California dry. Here in lies most of
the information. It's got graphs you guys, of almond deduction,
how many almonds are are being produced, how much an
almond costs, uh, like in millions of dollars for the
for California specifically, and it also talks about the drought
(07:13):
in California and how much water in almond needs for production.
Within this article, he states that it takes one point
one gallons of water to produce one single, tiny little almond.
So he hits you with the amount of water it
takes to create one almond. Then he lets you know
that California in at the time was poised to produce
(07:37):
two point one billion pounds of almonds in that year.
And for just for a sense of perspective here, Uh,
they're about four hundred pieces when you're talking almonds, four
pieces per pounds. Four hundred almonds like raw almonds without pounds.
So that's like if people well you know, when you
(07:57):
hear up this gallon of water is an all injury.
How many billions of pounds? Uh, we need to emphasize
this is a lot of almonds. This isn't all the almonds,
but this is a lot of almonds. And in defense
of alments, I think they're delicious. They're good survival snack
to keep around because I can also suppress your appetite
(08:18):
a little bit, That's right. And and Phil goes on
just to point out that these farmers, as like large
companies that are also farming here and producing almonds, they
are many times dropping wells to get down to the
water that's underneath the earth, the aquifers, to really pull
enough water out of the earth to produce these things,
(08:41):
as well as using you know, municipal water to to
get what they need to grow these things. And my gosh, really,
let's just get down to kind of how he ends this,
and he's he's discussing demand, like why are this Why
is California producing this many almonds? Why is it eight
(09:01):
percent of the market essentially of almond production, and especially
in California where droughts happen all the time, it wasn't
necessarily at the levels that that we've seen California's droughts to,
you know, to get to the severity of issues there,
but wasn't doing so great. Um, He's just saying that
(09:23):
the deep need for us to have almonds, and specifically
almond milk is what's driving all of this stuff and
using up so much of the water there. And when
he says we, he's not just meaning residents of the US,
the residents of the world globally. Yes, And you know,
many people in California, many institutions in California are concerned
(09:46):
about this, and we're concerned about this. In January, the
University of California, San Francisco put out a story called
Almond Milk is taking a Toll on the environment, and
it's a similar story there talking about how much it
how much water it takes to produce this they say.
They site a New York Times article within this one,
(10:06):
citing that it takes approximately fifteen gallons of water to
produce sixteen almonds, which doesn't quite compute to what we
heard from Phil. That's not quite one point one gallons
per almond. That's a little under figure. You're going to
find that that number fluctuates a bit depending on the
source that you're looking at, but they do. They do
(10:27):
note that there are a ton of lands in California
that are being converted to specifically almond farmland, and uh,
the a lot of this land was previously wetlands out
in California, and just how that very much changes things
when you convert a wet land into farmland, and not
for the better. When it comes to helping hold back
(10:50):
some of these massive fires. Wetlands are one of the
best things that fire can encounter when it comes to
stopping that fire or at least slowing it down. There's
a ton of information in here. You can read all
about it. You can read about the Almond Board of
California and what they officially state when it comes to
the water usage of almond's. I want to keep going
(11:11):
down this rabbit hole a little bit further. I know,
we're just kind of barely touching on things were set.
We're painting the background. There's yeah, there's a ton. I
highly recommend everyone heads over to the BBC and reads
an article that came out in twenty nineteen called Climate Change,
which vegan milk is best, and it looks it's looking
specifically at dairy, rice, soy, oat, and almond milk. They're
(11:36):
looking at things like the number of emissions or the
amount of carbon emissions and other dangerous emissions like that
are produced per kilogram of whatever this thing is that
you're producing, whether it's soy or oat or almond, as
well as the land use, which is like how many
square miles of land do you actually need to produce
this stuff? As well as water use. And they've got
(11:59):
a eight graph here that really puts it into perspective.
If you're looking at almond milk, in the amount of
water that is needed to produce these things. For milk,
it's high. It is the second largest. When when it
comes to almond, oat, soy, rice and dairy. Below that,
you've got rice than oats, than soy. Then way way above,
(12:26):
categorically above the amount of water that it takes to
produce almonds, you have dairy milk there it is, Which
is the whole reason I wanted to talk about this
um not only because our Atlanta photographer wrote to us,
uh nuts about milk, but we this right here. As
I as I started tracking this down, this whole thing,
(12:48):
Ben feels to me like another dairy conspiracy. Oh you
think d M I is involved Dairy Management Incorporated. Check
out our Big Cheese episode. Yes, I can't prove this.
I cannot prove this. This is this is old Matt's
noggin coming up with stuff predicting the weather track in
(13:10):
the dairy because because if you if you follow the
track of that BBC article, uh, there's some great articles
that it then links out to and some research that
you can find in there. It breaks it all down.
But let's say maybe you don't trust BBC for one
(13:33):
reason or another. Um, but they do a great job
of citing I'm telling you, a really good job of
citing everything. You can jump to a website called truth
or drought dot com. This might be more of your speed,
may not be. I personally enjoy the BBC, but we're
not gonna talk about all that. You can read that
(13:53):
article yourself. The truth or Doubt website has an article
called myth almond milk is using all the water and
in here it sites specifically Tom phil Putts article the
Ignorant Hipsters one, as well as because that one really
went viral apparently I was not aware of that, but
(14:13):
but it also talks about the previous article, the first one,
and they say that I'm gonna read from their article
lies of omission, whether intentional or not, omitting altogether the
much higher water and ecological footprint of dairy and all
animal agriculture. They're saying, this is the tactic being implemented
(14:34):
by somebody, whether they know it or not, to make
almonds look bad and to just kind of forget about dairy,
milk and cows, sort of make almonds the face of
the ongoing drought problems. Exactly exactly, So I want to
jump down to a section where they compare almonds to
(14:55):
dairy when it comes to water and what the yield is.
So I'm gonna read some of this verbatim truth or drought.
I'm sorry, but here it is. They say that within
California almonds, the production of almonds used eight percent of
California's water, and it yielded of the US slash eight
(15:19):
percent of the worldwide almonds produced. So the amount of
almonds that's US eighty percent of worldwide almonds produced's okay,
eight percent of the water in California for most of
the almonds that the world uses. And then they go
to dairy in California, and they say that fiftent of
California's water is used to grow alfalfa. That's pay for
(15:44):
livestock feed, and that is part of the total of
forty seven percent of California's water used for meat and dairy.
And this does not include drinking water for any of
the cows or the cattle. So that's just the whole
extra thing that would need to be included in the
yield that you get for fent of the water to
grow all that food for all these cows is one
(16:07):
of the United States and one point four of global dairy.
So that's kind of hard when I when I say
it like that, in all of those things, but eight
percent of the water gives you of the US almonds.
Of the water in California gives you of the dairy
milk produced in the United States. And you can already see, folks,
(16:30):
that there's there's more to this story. There's more to unpack.
So what I suggest is we pause for a word
from our sponsors. Let's see if they are all nder
dairy related, and then we will return to explore this
just a little bit further. That's right, We'll be right back.
Don't forget there's all this stuff about almonds, milk and bees.
(16:51):
It's really you've got to look at that too. And
we have returned, So Matt, this is something that's been
on my mind as well, and that I think could
be a full episode because we're seeing we're seeing a
(17:12):
couple of things, so we're seeing people who do have
an angle perspective in a bias at play. Right. That
doesn't mean that what they're saying is untrue, but it
does mean that they may frame things in a way
they feel as advantageous to their point of view. And
this this happens all the time with any trade group.
(17:34):
Almonds are a little bit different from some other crops
because they can only grow in specific parts of the
world unless you build like an artificial indoor environment for them.
In California happens to be one of those places, which
is why it is such a behemoth in the world
of almonds, kind of like the same thing with Canada
and Mabel Syrup, honestly, and this is coupled with a
(17:57):
very serious problem, which is the search for solutions to
California's droughts, which are you know, a prime driver of wildfires.
They are also Uh, they are also increasingly going to
be a matter of concern to just people who happen
to live in California, you know. And when this kind
(18:20):
of stuff happens, when people are scared, and rightly so,
human beings tend to want a face or a symbol
to put on the problem. So you can give people
stats and graphs all day, but instead if you give
them a headline with I don't know, like how you
would make you know how Like political smear campaigns around
election time, they always have the picture of like the
(18:41):
politician they don't like, and then the music changes and
it goes like black and white and then it like
fades into red and it's like, Uh. Diane Bravawowitz wants
you to believe that she cares about libraries, but in
two thousands and seventeen she was caught walking past one
without going inside. Like if you vote for blah blah blah,
(19:06):
then you tell librarians like, how would you do that
with an almond? Um? Almonds want you to think that
they make the best milk and they're good for your
body and your environment. Uh, but psych or no, no, no,
(19:28):
no no no, Then they go but almond doesn't want
you to know that it's got a drinking problem, serious
drinking problem. It got caught in drinking up eight percent
of all California's water. Yeah, exactly like a vote for
almonds is a vote for deserts. Uh like. The The
(19:51):
thing is that these tactics, while they can be misleading
in while they're certainly not always made in good faith,
that doesn't mean the stuff that there's a is not true.
And especially when we're talking about something as interconnected and
as vital as a water system, have to realize that
there are a lot of people at play, and there
(20:12):
are a lot of people who are unknowingly participating in this.
Because when you're talking about water production in California and
how much water goes into the creation of an egg, right,
or a hammer or whatever, we also have to realize
that isn't all staying in California shipped to other places,
which means that these problems or these this controversy surrounding
(20:36):
almonds probably affects you in some way. Even if you
don't live in California, and even if you don't eat almonds,
even if you got like an analogy, it's still going
to affect you. In some way, So I think this
is worth exploring further nuts about Milt. Thank you so
much for this excellent letter. And this is not obviously
(20:58):
with this is not a hit piece, Matt. I think
you did a fantastic job of outlining some of the
things that are getting missed in a lot of the
true and anti almond headlines. Oh man, I yeah, I
couldn't agree more. Really appreciate you sending this message to us.
I am. I mentioned a thing right before the break here.
(21:20):
I've got another article I want people to look up.
They're they're actually there's two. One is from the Guardian.
The title is like sending bees to war The deadly
truth behind your almond milk obsession, which is a whole
different take if you get out of the water discussion
and you look at fungicides, pesticides, what almond, the things
(21:41):
that you need to make almonds, what that can do
to be populations, or what it is the effects that
that industry seems to be having on the populations as
well as a Popular Science article that came out in
seventeen titled the almond milk craze could be bad news
for bees. Again, they're looking at funges sides here, they're
looking at just several of the major issues, and really
(22:05):
it's the pesticide problem and other herbicides, anything that you'd
use to kill something that you don't want in an
agricultural process. These have been problems for a long time
since we figured out how to use them. I mean,
we've got you think about roundup TM or whatever are
It was specifically developed to kill things every really as
(22:28):
many things as it can while keeping the seed and
the plant alive because the seed got genetically modified so
it wouldn't get hurt by the pesticide. Also, shout out
to neo nicotinoids, a huge killer be populations. Everybody said
we were crazy and conspiratorial, and while those two things
maybe in some part correct, we were also correct about
(22:50):
neo nicotinoids. And so that's just one kind of pesticide
that spells trouble and quite possibly doom for the capital
t or depopulation. Yes, yes to or do, but yeah,
do check this out. Let us know your take. Love
to hear from an almond farmers when we're working in
the industry as well, because as we mentioned, trade groups
(23:14):
associated with almonds are are quick to point out that
they feel the issue has been mischaracterized. You know what
I mean, Well, yeah, I mean that we're gonna stop
talking about this now, I promise you. It's just just
through all those articles that we've cited today, where would
I just gave you tiny bits and pieces from all
of them, you can clearly see how there's confusion. There
(23:36):
seems to be confusion and or disinformation, misinformation that's that's
being put out there. Whether again as that that one
article stated, whether the writers of the articles realize it
or not. Yeah, I'd also like to recommend, just from
more perspective, checking out an article in The New Republic,
also written by Tom Pilpott with Julia Lurie December of en.
(24:00):
They talked about the real problem with almonds, and they're
the ones who mentioned something a lot of folks may
not have been thinking about, which is, are we moving
water we ship almonds to other countries? Is this resource extraction?
But we'll get to that in the future, and in
the meantime, you know, shout out to everybody who's like, guys,
I get it, there are problems in every big industry,
(24:23):
but I love almonds. Dudes. You could even say, like normally,
I'm I'm street lace. You know, I don't drink, I
don't smoke kind of vices except for almonds. I am
straight up addicted to a good almond, you know, put
it in milk, put in paste, make it, make it
a part of a confection. And I am in buddy,
(24:43):
are some kind of I don't know the Chinese cuisine.
Let's do that. I'm down throw almonds in there. Yeah. Addiction,
that's something we talked about. That's our that's our segue
word off. I thought I was a uh any any
missteps in that segway or mind. But we had recently
(25:05):
done an episode based on something we talked about in
a strange news segment, which was the nature of addiction
and video games, and Matt, you were sorely missed from
this episode. Hope we did you proud. Uh. It's something
that we got a lot of response from and as always,
we're very fortunate to have our fellow conspiracy realists from
(25:26):
all walks of life weighing in. And what we'd like
to do now is share with you an email that
we all we all read uh with wrapped attention. This
is something that NOL especially wanted to get out there,
and so we're thinking we could read this letter to
(25:47):
you in full and then maybe just talk a little
bit more about it. This email is called Gaming Addiction.
It comes to us from Ali and Matt. I was
thinking you and I can kind of round robin this one.
Let's do it. Do you want me to guest started? Okay,
here we go. Ali says, Hey, guys, are just finished
listening to the episode on gaming addiction, and I wanted
(26:09):
to reach out regarding some of the things you'll mentioned.
I work in the addiction treatment field, and I specialize
in working with process addictions. That's process addictions such as gaming, pornography,
and sex. First of all, thank you for tackling such
a difficult subject. At one point, you talked about psychological
addiction versus physical addiction and the different ways those can manifest.
(26:32):
Just to clarify, even if a behavior like gaming does
not create a physical dependency on a substance external to
the body like heroin or alcohol, there is still a
very real detox process from these behaviors. And Ali goes
on to say withdrawal from process addictions feels very similar
to cocaine withdrawal and notes this can also be true
(26:55):
of heavy marijuana use, which absolutely creates a physical dependence.
The idea that th HC is not physically addictive has
been largely abandoned by the medical community. Ali says, though
the symptoms may seem much milder than a substance they create,
she's referring to symptoms of video game addiction. They create
significant distress. The most common withdrawal symptoms are insomnia, anxiety, depression,
(27:20):
and irritability. Throw in night sweats too. If we're talking
about marijuana, this may not seem like a big deal,
but the anxiety and depression can reach debilitating levels for
some people, and in especially tough cases, to last up
to two years after the behavior stops. Let me amend
that I think Ali here is talking not just about
(27:40):
a gaming addiction, but process addiction exactly. I think that's
the umbrella under which all of this is sitting. Then
Ali continues, while I agree with your premise that it
is absolutely possible to enjoy gaming in a healthy way,
and that some people are leaning towards a moral panic
in this arena, gaming addiction is all so a very
(28:00):
real struggle for some, a struggle that all too often
gets overlooked, downplayed, or ridiculed. Yeah, and continues to say
right now. Process addiction treatment is the fastest growing area
of study and service provision in the treatment industry. Side note,
I loved your episode on the rehab industry. I've worked
(28:20):
with both ethical and non ethical treatment providers and could
stay on my soapbox all day about the craziness that
goes on in some places. However, despite the growing need
for clinicians who understand and can help with process addictions,
the American healthcare system seriously impedes people's ability to get
help if they are not financially well off. Insurance companies
will not cover treatment for process addictions alone, and individual
(28:44):
therapists who address these issues often do not accept insurance
and charge a rate that is unaffordable for many. Unless
someone can afford the astronomical self pay rates for treatment,
or they also have co occurring substance use or mental
health issues. There are not many routes for p bull
without means to seek professional help. Yeah, it's it's true. Unfortunately,
(29:06):
Fortunately ALI continues. The pure recovery world for process addictions
is also growing, with groups like online gamers, Anonymous sex
and Love Addicts, anonymous and gamblers anonymous. Many more people
are able to get help than ever before. I know
that was a lot, but I just wanted to chime
in and let you all know about some of the
additional complications that can go along with treating addictions like gaming.
(29:28):
Thanks probably do Ali. So this is a lot of information,
and we wanted to We wanted to give you the direct,
verbatim words because Ali here is an expert and we
know that we know that this potential exists, and we
(29:50):
talked at length about some of the problems with trying
to address the possibility of addiction, because what are you
gonna You're gonna make some kind of big other law
that says, hey, video game creators, you have to make
your games less good, you know what I mean, start
sucking a little more legally. But like, that's an oversimplification,
(30:12):
but it is. It is very true that addiction is
is a real thing, and it can take many many forms.
It's not, as we said before, it is not a
moral failing of any sort. But in the case of
something like video gaming, while it has precedence right gambling
for instance, Uh, the fact of the matter is that
(30:34):
in many ways this is a newer technology in the
grand scheme of things, and so there's still a lot
of research to be done and a lot of things
to learn, which is why this is such a quickly
growing area of study. It is it is weird to
imagine gaming in most not all instances as gambling, but
without using any money and without the possibility of winning
(30:57):
any money. Yes. Yeah, it's like if you've ever if
you've depending on where you live in the world, um,
if you've ever been in a gas station, may have
seen some things that look very much like, you know,
electronic slot machines, and and sometimes they have a big
sign over them, at least in Georgia, where they say
it's illegal for these games to result in actual money,
(31:20):
at which point the question becomes, why are you what
motivates you? Is it the dopamine release from playing the game?
Because people in general psychologically love to feel that we
have navigated rules successfully in a way that results in rewards.
The species is so into this, in fact, that sometimes
the nature of the reward doesn't matter. Dude, what what
(31:43):
is the reward in a gas station slot machine? Thing?
Is it? Like? I wonder if it's store credit? So
maybe I don't know, maybe I did know of an
illegal gambling den in a gas station here in Atlanta,
and they had they had the other slot things in
the front as kind of a red Harry, but in
(32:05):
the back, you know, as poker at all hours. I
did not participate. I literally saw the door open one day.
One of the guys who worked there was like, Oh, yeah, man,
don't tell anybody, but that's that's where the big money moves.
Still to this day, I wonder what was on the
other side of that door. But but Matt, one thing
(32:26):
that was interesting about this too, when we talked about
the nature of a reward in a process addiction is
um We talked in the earlier episode a little bit
about badges and achievements and trophies and video games, and
those are our brains recognized those as rewards, even if
they're not something we were expecting, right, Like, what's weird
(32:47):
trophy you got? And then well, we gotta I know,
we've got to go to a commercial break, But I'm
so interested in your experience, like, what what is a
strange trophy you've got? And you as well, Doc, what's
the weirdest trophy weird for achievement or you know, whatever
they call them. I can't think of a really great one.
I dude, I've been playing way too much Minecraft, which
(33:08):
you want to talk about an addictive game? God uh
to to you know? By my son and I've been
playing a lot, and it's just I think I got one.
I got one recently because I did something ridiculous. I
don't know. It had to do with my death. I
died in a way that I didn't expect to die,
and it was like, hey, you gotta achieve may congratulations.
You suck if he's some kind of Darwood award. All right,
(33:32):
Uh well, we're gonna pause for word from our sponsor
and we'll be back with another piece of correspondence from
your fellow conspiracy realist. But we're going to dive further
into the topic of gaming and addiction. And we're back. Ben.
(33:53):
I just found out what what it was called. It
wasn't I described it incorrectly. It was the ing my
son show me called a totem of undying, and I
got it because I completed a raid. Some people will
know what that is. My son was very excited about
this and it looks like a doll and I was.
I had it when I died and it said I
(34:14):
cheated death. So there you go. That was my weird achievement. Well, congratulations, Matt,
you've cheated deathfient. You got an award for it and everything,
and uh, I think it is amazing though, because again,
even if we're not asking for those things consciously, when
we get an achievement, it often feels like, you know,
(34:35):
the way you would feel if you've got a trophy
in real life. Yeah, totally. For me, it's about an upgrade.
If I can upgrade something, no matter what it is
in a video game, I'm gonna seek that out and
I'm gonna I'm gonna upgrade. I'm gonna get resources until
I've got way too many, and I'm gonna just keep
upgrading until i can't anymore. And I'm everything all about
(34:57):
the grind, all about the grind. Yeah, it's that. It's
a stinging box. Yeah, it feels like you're really getting
something done. It feels like you're checking boxes, you know,
But it's just in a virtual world and it probably
doesn't matter. Well, I mean, what is this world? Right?
We want to just jump into that? Okay, all right? Well,
(35:23):
well well, um that's it is a great question, and
there are compelling studies about neurochemistry which can give us
a solid explanation of why the human brain doesn't really
differentiate between uh some I R L award and some
digital award. And with this we go to a fantastic
(35:46):
email from fit bit Lady who asked us is fit
fit a gaming system? Here we go, Hey, guys, love
the show. I'm currently listening to our video games Addictive
and you were discussing badges and such, and it got
me thinking, I am not a gamer. I have zero time.
I'm a mom of three kids in three different grade
(36:06):
levels who do not give me any me time. My oldest,
who was fourteen years old, does game regularly. Anyways, you
were discussing the reward system used in video games, and
it made me realize that I am certainly a reward
driven human. I wear my fit bit religiously to track
my steps, and I get so excited when I win
a challenge or get a badge. I'm currently on a
(36:28):
step streak where I've gotten my steps seven days in
a row, and I was up late last night pacing
around the room to make sure I get my steps
for the day. Am I using my health tracking app
the same way that gamers use their game system. Very interesting,
signed fit bit lady, what do you think Yeah, the
answer is yes, fbl The answer is yes, uh, and
(36:52):
that is by design. This is something that Matt, you
and I back in the day had some first hand
experience udence with. It's a technique known as gamification, and
gamification is this brilliant, if not always um considerate method
(37:13):
of taking elements from any kind of game, the most
general ideas of how you would define a game, and
taking those elements and putting them into a non game situation.
So how do we define a game? Those are things like,
let's see, competition is a big one, right, um. And
(37:33):
then there are things like even if you're competing with
yourself like in solitaire, and then there are rewards, right,
and there are punishments or consequences. You know, it's still
taking the skinner vibe and putting it into things that
ordinarily may not have had that. Uh. What what do
you think are some good examples of gamification other than
(37:54):
fit that. You're absolutely right fit that lady, It is gamified. Sure.
A lot of the apps that I have tried out,
like newer apps that i've attempted in the past. Ones
that have to do with ordering food, with getting a ride.
A lot of those have small examples of gamification within them,
(38:14):
where you can get small rewards for using them in
a certain way or for ordering at a certain time
we're going for certain distance. The biggest one for me
in my world right now, my son just started kindergarten
and we signed up for an app titled class Dojo,
and the entire school system where he goes is using
(38:36):
it and on here the teachers throughout a day. Obviously,
I'm I just opened it up to check it out.
While I'm talking about it, I have to make sure
my notifications are all good cool um. Throughout the day.
His teacher when he's in class will give him points
and you can get positive points, neutral points, or negative points.
(39:00):
And uh, at least I've only seen positive points right now,
because as they begin the school year, they only give
the kids positive points as they learn it, at least
for the for the kindergarten level kids. Uh. And also
as the parents learned the app and everything. But then
the parents here's where it's super gamified. Been the parents
(39:22):
take it home and when the when your child is
save reading you can give him a point for reading
if he's listening and paying attention to give him a point.
Did he eat? Is he eating? Is he doing eating
his vegetables or whatever? Yeah? Did he help dad build
a Minecraft world? Negative points? You're giving him negative points? No,
(39:46):
I didn't do it. The system knows. It's like it's
like you're playing a video game. That's no, that's negative points. Yeah,
this is that's startling. How do you feel about that? Uh,
it's so new still, I guess for you guys, well,
it's weird. Um. I love that I can encourage him,
(40:09):
like if he was really into the app and killing
about it. I would love to be able to give
him some problems for doing something right, especially when it
comes to you know, attention based things and things that
really require his focus. Um. I would love to be
able to do that. But he doesn't care. Does he
get prizes there? Yeah? There are there are things that
(40:31):
the school will do associated with your levels. I think
I don't know. Well, I mean you had book it.
We had book it. Yeah, book it was like read
X amount of books and then you get a personal
pan pizza And I'll be honest with you, at the time,
it was the best pizza I ever I ever eight
because it so you know, I think that happens with
(40:53):
a lot of kids. I was so into myself. I
was like a proto Kogy West about it. You know
what I mean, step aside other pet pizza hut buying
pizza with your money, dude. That's why we're here. That's
why we're making this show because we were both book
it like things, kids are things somewhere in between. Before
the bee drops, let's continue. So the this is happening
(41:16):
fitbit lady, and this is something that is not again,
it's not inherently sinister, but we know that it drives
engagement because human beings like to play. You get points.
That's one of the defining elements of things that have
been gamified. You can get those badges, those achievements. You
might have something like a leaderboard which says it like
(41:40):
in any app. Let's say I'll just make something up.
Let's say you had a well I love the idea
of a food delivery app, and the food delivery app
is giving you points, and those the reward you get
ultimately is like a small discount, right, You get like
five percent offer, maybe even ten percent offers something and
let's say in addition to that leaderboard, and they're like, congratulations,
(42:03):
you've moved up to level four. And you might not
know what level four is in this context, but then
a leaderboard pops up and you're like, oh, level four
means in a two mile radius, I am the fort
most most influential user of this food delivery app. And
then for some people that's an immediate trigger to be
like no, no, no no, no, no, no no no, I
(42:24):
am level three at the very least, like that's that's
how it works. And then you can see a lot
of analytical data, right, performance graphs, how many steps did
you take? Right? How many times did you order from
this restaurant? Or how many miles did you drive? How
many accidents did you report for your fellow users? Right? Uh?
(42:45):
And then this builds a meaningful story about you. You
have a little version of you that you can customize sometimes,
and you might have competitors, but you can also have
people you team up with to cooperate with. So it's
founded a lot of things that may not ordinarily occur
to people, like a driving app, you know, apps are
crazy about this, but also simple, simpler, analog things like
(43:09):
book it, and the argument for something like fitbit, there
any health tracking app like this, is that this gamification,
because it keeps you engaged, helps you beat the statistics,
which usually the statistics for consistent use or consistent exercise.
Really uh, they often dip, right, It's the famous January
(43:32):
February dip post New Year, but it plays out pretty often.
So this is something in this case that is meant
to help users, but at the same time it is
meant to keep them plugged into the game. And I
think in the future, I think the future is gamification
or an increased frequency of it. Did we did you
(43:54):
guys bring up social media gamification? Maybe a little bit,
but let's let's talk about it now. Yeah. I think
we've talked about this before. And on any social media
there's the like, there's the heart, there's the all that stuff,
and there's the things you can do. And while you
don't get an achievement in the way you would on
(44:16):
an Xbox or something, your achievement is seeing some number
grow and just knowing that whatever you did is more
and more popular and more and more popular or or
nobody cares at all, which is an achievement in itself.
And there's another version of social media, online dating apps.
I'd love for everybody who wants to learn more about
(44:38):
this to read an article and wire by Nancy Joe's
sales called online dating apps are actually kind of a disaster,
and it's it's a huge industry. But these apps also
are gamified, you know what I mean, Like, there's something
about the payoff that happens when you when oh my gosh,
(44:58):
somebody also swiped on me. They like me. I have
value in a social context, which is people probably don't
maybe think about it in those transparent of terms. But
we know that this is gamification at work. We know
that there are is a lot of thought put into
(45:19):
the controversies surrounding gamification. If you like to read um,
if you like to read papers that do a good
job of giving the lay of the land. Um. There
was one I found called a critique in Defense of
Gamification by Erin Chia Yuan Hong, and this is free
(45:39):
to read online. It was published in and the Journal
of Interactive Online Learning. And the entire argument here is that, yes,
these pitfalls may exist right even to the point of addiction,
you know, but that gamification overall is beneficial because get
this reminds me of your story from just a second ago.
(46:01):
Gamification is a way to improve student engagement, motivation, attendance,
and academic performance. So the idea is, um, if you
look at a cost benefit analysis of this, overall, it
would be a good thing. But what what would you
see as some of the controversies criticisms surrounding gamification. I mean,
(46:23):
I'm interesting. Well, for me, the biggest criticism is just
keeping the users, the individual users mind in a constant
state of need two do the next thing, or to
get another thing, to get that dopamine hit. Um, that's
the that's the scariest thing. The most positive thing is
that it's true if I if I got something in
(46:46):
my house, I completed a chore outside, I mowed the
law and let's say, and it's like I walk in
the house and he goes and just lets me know
how you you mowed the lawn. Great job. I'd be like, cool.
And then it's like, you've mowed the lawn five times
in the past two months. You know, Like if that
was a thing, that'd be great. I'd be like, man,
(47:08):
I'm gonna mow the lawn again. I'm excited next time
I mow the lawn. You paid your mortgage and you
can and and like a kitching sound, you know, and
this this can nudge you toward behaviors. Right. We can't
be the only people who are thinking of the sesame
or social credit system in China. That's one of the
first things I thought of that in book it when
(47:30):
I heard what's what's happening in that kindergarten? Um gad.
It's not necessarily a bad thing. It's like any other technology.
It's it's all in the way it's used. We do
need to mention dopamine. This goes back to the dopamine
we talked about briefly in that episode. But dopamine is
a neurotransmitter. There are other types of neurotransmitters. All all
(47:52):
that really means is there's a chemical and this chemical
is a messenger that takes a signal from a neuron
across the side apps to another target cell, which could
be a couple of different types of cells. Why is
dopamine a special neurotransmitter Because it feels so good, it
feels so nice. It activates the pleasure center and human brains,
(48:13):
and it also has a part to play in your focus,
your attention, how you learn, how you're coordinated, how you're working,
memory operates, and it gives you this pleasurable feeling when
you have repeated achievements. And that's why, like does gamification
belong in a workplace, It's in a lot of workplaces,
(48:34):
you know what I mean, Like who's the top sales
person of the month or the week or the year.
I don't know. I think it's a powerful technology and
I think it could do some really amazing things. That
language apps are huge on gamification, and I'll tell you what.
I love them, honestly. Let me play a little game
and I'm learning a new language. That's cool. Like I
(48:59):
did due, you know, I do some other um slightly
more specific ones, but yeah, I'll do I'll sit on
my phone. I'm gonna see the little cartoon dance. You know.
I want to hear the song, the song that says
I did well? What was the Rice? One good example.
I still love Free Rice, man, I still mess with
(49:19):
Free Rice. Free Rice is a you in affiliated app,
but you can also play it on your desktop or
your laptop. And what it does is you guess the
correct definition for a word and every time you make
a correct guess, this organization awards like ten grains of
rice or something to feed people who are living in
(49:42):
a state of food insecurity. And the difficulty levels up.
So the first ones are very easy. They're like a
door is a blank blank blank blank, Yeah, I know
that I'm here, free rice for everybody. And then you know,
as you get higher up in the levels, I'm actually
gonna play that. After we were corp, you've got fun
that game is. But after after you get to these
(50:04):
higher levels, then becomes much much more difficult, and each
time you get something wrong you go down a little bit.
So it keeps you, it keeps you in that Goldilocks zone,
and it does does help with vocabulary. But the main
point of it is this gamification is supposed to be free,
cause what an excellent example, man. And people have been
(50:26):
asking about how far gamification will go for a number
of years now. Uh. One of the earliest examples of
gamification was something called four square, which some people may remember.
You would check in at a physical location, right, and
then if you checked in frequently enough, you became like
(50:48):
the monarch of that or the mayor whatever authority figure
of that of that blubbadubbas you know what I mean,
and your local dunkin Donuts. It is the rain of
Costco all hail and thinking of other silly titles of
(51:08):
all hail, the baronets of uh kind of what's the
store that people just a reference waffle house of waffle house.
There we go, No, just do it? Keep this whole
parted u the oh hell the baron of waffle house
(51:29):
long may syrup pore? Uh Yeah, okay, Well in the context,
it's not as creepy. But there's an excellent example, and
it's something that collectively society needs to be aware of
because it can really put some gas into your learning abilities.
It can put some gas into people's engagement with an
(51:49):
idea or a topic, you know. But it can also,
like you just mentioned in the mowing the law an example,
it can nudge people towards things and and so cases,
it can nudge them toward things that are maybe not
necessarily beneficial and not necessarily things they would have done
on their own. And that doesn't that is a separate
(52:10):
issue from addiction. That is pushing people right, and they
can be related. There is a venn diagram, but but
it's fascinating and it's something that we'll have to think
a little bit more about in the future. We're going
to call it a day for today and we'll be
back next week with more correspondence from you. As always.
(52:34):
Thank you so so much to Nuts for Milk, Thank
you so much to Ali, and thanks so much to
fbl fitbit Lady. If you want to take a page
from their book and reach out to us, we can't
wait to hear from you on your thoughts of droughts,
on your thoughts of big agriculture and almonds, on your
thoughts of video game addiction and what the future of
that might be, and then of course tell us the
(52:57):
weirdest things that you've found gamified. You know, in the end,
I I really don't care what achievements I get in
Minecraft as long as I find another fortress, because I've
never freaking seen one and I've been trying to find them.
I'm never gonna get to the end and find the
dragon if I can't find other fortresses. I don't know
if that'st even true. I don't. I mean, I'm I'm
(53:19):
so in because I'm just interested in the world and
sometimes the specifics of an achievement in in a game
or a game of Fight System don't really matter. You
just need to win, you know what I mean, Gus
feel that way, just wake up. You're like God, I
just need to feel like I won one thing every day.
(53:40):
But that's okay, and every night it's okay. We're gonna
make it through. Your first achievement is to find us
on social media where on Twitter and Facebook and YouTube
at Conspiracy Stuff on Instagram. We are Conspiracy Stuff Show.
If you want to not use social media, you can
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(54:00):
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Those three minutes belong to you. Whisper conspiracies or sweet
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(54:24):
if we can use your voice and our message on air.
But you might say, I don't care for phones. I've
got something that needs more than three minutes to be explained.
I've got links, I've got pictures I have taken of
this strange thing. In the woods, are in the sky.
How do I get these? Do you good news, fellow
conspiracy realists. We have an email address where you can
(54:46):
reach us twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.
All you have to do is drop us a line
where we are conspiracy at i heart radio dot com.
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