April 2, 2024 • 40 mins
Ever found yourself questioning the quirky blend of senses known as synesthesia or wondering how a simple car accident could spiral into an opioid addiction? We've roped in Bedford Williamson, a cherished voice on our show for the third time, to tease apart these intricate topics with us. Our lively banter soon gives way to a deep dive into how our daily commutes and healthcare decisions could be inadvertently fueling a public health crisis. We're pulling back the curtain on the opaque links between transportation, chronic pain, and the surge in opioid dependencies, urging a fresh perspective on the roles we play in this complex issue.
The asphalt battlefield of cars versus bikes takes center stage as we probe the radical notion of car bans and accident illegality. We dissect the cultural phenomena like Critical Mass and the friction between cyclists and drivers, musing over a future where bike lanes rule the roads. Our conversation steers us through the implications of a car-centric lifestyle, connecting the dots to the opioid epidemic, and pedaling the idea that perhaps the remedy lies not on four wheels, but two. Join us as we navigate the thorny discussions around infrastructure and the health of our communities, proposing transformational shifts that could pave the way to a healthier society.
Wrapping up this journey, we cross oceans to compare drug policies from Portugal's groundbreaking stance to Oregon's recent teething problems with decriminalization. The complex tapestry of healthcare support services, our penchant for quick fixes, and the American healthcare system's love affair with immediate, aggressive interventions come under scrutiny. From philosophical musings to personal survival stories, like emerging from the ashes of a house fire, we're connecting personal trials with societal challenges, wrapping up a conversation filled with insights that promise to linger in your thoughts. Listen in; it's an episode brimming with revelations that could very well reshape the contours of our society.
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Comments? Feedback? Questions? Solutions? Message us! We will do a mailbag episode.
Email: solutionsfromthemultiverse@gmail.com
Adam: @ajbraus - braus@hey.com
Scot: @scotmaupin
adambraus.com (Link to Adam's projects and books)
The Perfect Show (Scot's solo podcast)
The Numey (inflation-free currency)
Thanks to Jonah Burns for the SFM music.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You got the orange mic cap.
That's pretty sick, bedford.
The rest of us just have theblack cap.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
This one matches my breath it's orange.
You got orange.
Were you sucking down orange?
Speaker 3 (00:12):
fantas this morning.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
What's going on?
Oh, you ate an orange.
No, just needs the color.
You're having somecinnesnes-thesia over there.
That's dismayo, are you?
Smelling colors and seeing,sounds and tripping on
cinnesnes-thesia Do you believethat?
I don't believe that crap.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
It's science.
You're like oh, I smell this?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
No, you don't, you're just making that crap up, come
on.
Sounds like French fries Oliver.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Sacks.
Right, it isn't Oliver Sacks,the neurologist.
He put it in his books One ofhis books, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
The man who thought it was.
That sounds like a name of aguy you shouldn't trust.
So you think they're justsaying?
Speaker 1 (00:48):
that yes.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
They're just like a little weird kind of disorder.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
I think they put him in functional MRI and it fires
the wrong sort of the brain.
I don't know.
I think it's a true thing.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Is it like you're like, I smell music, is that?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Cynesthesia is when you have a sensory perception
that crosses from one sense intothe other.
You're like is that you can'tsmell?
Is?
Speaker 3 (01:10):
that hip hop?
Is that no, oh no.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
No, that's jazz.
Oh jazz, no jazz.
This jazz is giving me gas.
You know it can't be real,right?
Yeah, it can't be real.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Should we do a solution?
Oh, have we not already Welcometo Solutions for the Multiverse
everybody?
Speaker 1 (01:36):
I'm Adam Brouse, this is Scott Malpin, and we're
visited again today by BedfordWilliamson.
Welcome, bedford.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
The only person Good morning, good afternoon and good
night universe Bedford Truman,right now.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
The only person to be on the podcast three times?
Well, I've been on it threetimes, well, ok, thanks a lot
for diminishing me the onlyperson besides the co-hosts Wow,
ok.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
I guess I don't count , cool.
So should we do a solution?
You have one for me, ok?
Speaker 1 (02:03):
we're going to solve the opioid crisis.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Oh great, I've been needing to.
I've got a solution I've beenwanting to solve that, ok, it is
very sad.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
It is very sad and very bad, but a solution would
be good and happy if we couldsolve it.
Ok, so my solution is protectedby claims.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
No, wait, I think you're reading from the wrong
thing there.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Protected by claims and public transportation is the
solution to the opioid crisis.
I will share some stats withyou, the most common so.
People get addicted to opioidsbecause they get prescribed
opioids Right.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
OK, and opioids are pill heroin?
Speaker 1 (02:41):
OK, yes, and so every year, 300 million Americans
suffer from opioid use disorder,oud OK, 500,000 people in
America are addicted to heroin.
80% of all new heroin users areto replace opioids.
All of those are prescribed, sothe opioids are all prescribed
(03:02):
to start with.
Ok, here's the issue Cars arecausing the opioid crisis.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
I'm convinced of this now.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Yes, well, not cars.
I mean, if you drive your carperfectly, then you won't.
But car accidents, which so farin our society we've made
unable to eliminate, caraccidents are causing basically
a huge like.
So much of the opioid crisisthat it's a crisis If you
eliminated.
Adam hates cars.
Yeah, I hate cars, but this iswhy you should hate cars.
(03:31):
So here, 43% of car crasheslead to injury, like a
significant injury.
Right, ok, most of those areinjuries to the neck, back and
lower back.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
That's the main thing that gets hurt in a car crash
Makes sense the middle part ofyour body, yeah, you get like
wrenched right, you get bashedand then you get OK.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
So there's 5.2 million car accidents in America
, which means if 43% of themlead to serious injury, then
that means 2.3 million injuriesa year happen.
And even low impact caraccidents can commonly be the
cause of back, neck andheadaches, especially to
headaches, neck pain, back painand lower back pain.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Right.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
These are all.
The most common prescription ofopioids is for this type of
pain.
Ok, ok, so there hasn't been astudy.
This is why it's on solutionsfrom the multiverse and not, I
don't know, the New York Timesor something.
There hasn't been a study thatdirectly asked these questions.
So there hasn't been a studythat says of the back pain and
(04:41):
head pain, how much it becomesfrom car accidents.
And then of the people who haveopioids from a back pain and
car pain car cause, back pain,neck pain how many of those
people become opioid addicted?
There hasn't been a study toshow that this is a regression
analysis.
There is.
We need that's what we need.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
I don't know what that means.
This is a regression analysisalgorithm.
What it we're looking at?
The Explain it to the me's inthe world, though You're just
looking at it.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
The dumb dumb's, as Scott likes to say.
Ok, ok, wow, knocking you downthis episode.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
What's a regression?
Speaker 2 (05:08):
analysis.
Is that Cause we're lookingback?
Ok, at the data, ok.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Well, that was easier than I thought it would be, and
you?
Speaker 2 (05:14):
can do a simple one with this, with just two planes
up and down, this and this, yeah, x and Y, yeah, yeah, it's just
a line of best fit.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
That's what we call it in high school a line of best
fit.
So you do a bunch of datapoints and then you say is there
a line, Is there a correlation,Gotcha?
So yeah, but, there hasn't been, so the limitation.
Use that for trends.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
You might use that for a trend and you might be
able to find the.
Do that by the year too.
For the accidents, and you cansee, oh, this part of the year
had the most accidents torelease.
It correlates with the mostopioid prescriptions, and then,
when that prescription runs outafter the accident, you might be
(05:53):
able to find the point fromaccident to heroin addiction.
Right Might be a gradient thatyour probability can discover.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Do this, and you might even find that there's
this whole section of where theTeslas just start crashing into
each other over and over again,but with that you'll be able to
pinpoint where you can focusyour resources for help.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Yes, right, because you know what the car accidents
are, if you know, car accidentsare a precursor then, you could
say where there's more caraccidents, and that could be a
test of this theory too.
You could say let's look atwhat parts of the country or
what places have more caraccidents, see if then there's
more.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Yeah, I call it regression analysis actually.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
I've been toying with this term.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Yeah, but then you want to take that and do an
ensemble modeling Right.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Oh my god.
And then you want to put acouple of these algorithms
together and get a betterpicture, that's right.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
I did try to look up the data on why.
What are the most commonprescription causes for opioids?
And it was back pain.
Back pain is like the majority.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
It's like a huge number.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
And then headaches and neck pain is like up there
like crazy.
And then leg pain, which alsocar accidents can cause leg pain
because your legs are rightthere and can get smashed in.
But the problem was they didn'tsay what was the cause of the
leg pain, back pain, neck pain,headaches.
All we know right now, withoutsomeone actually going and doing
this study, is car accidentsare causing a huge amount of
(07:22):
back pain and back pain is themost common cause of opioid
prescription.
That's all we know.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
So you're saying it's just like you know there's
overlap.
We don't know exactly theoverlap You're saying to address
the opioid problem.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
where are you going with this.
So now, okay.
So here's the thing.
You actually you can't justlike.
I mean, we over prescribeopioids in America, for sure,
and that was one of the mainproblems.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Well, you got your license, not me, man, you can't
be a doctor anymore.
That's why I'm a podcast.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
The natural step.
But so we can't.
You know, if someone's in pain,it's not ethical to not give
them some solution to their pain.
Like you know.
If you're lying in bed at night, you know, and you just have
this, like you know, aching pain, like that's torture.
I mean you're literally that'slike torture.
You need something, so you haveto do something.
Okay, so you can't really cutback too much on giving.
(08:18):
I mean you can cut backreasonably.
I mean we were over prescribing, so you can cut back, okay, but
you can't cut back more thanwhat would actually solve
people's pain.
Otherwise you're literallytorturing people and that's
unethical.
So I was like, well, that kindof puts us between a rock and a
hard place.
Right, that's a dilemma.
So I was like, well, what thehell is causing all the pain?
(08:42):
And let's do a preventativething.
Let's say, let's get rid of allthe causes of the pain.
That they need theprescriptions.
So, I said what the hell arethe causes?
And I, at last, I don't know.
I got opioids, you know, for mywisdom teeth and I was like, is
it wisdom?
I mean, is it surgery?
Is surgery?
The main cause of opioids Isbroken bones.
(09:04):
You know the kids falling outof trees or something.
And it turns out the main cause, I found, is back pain, neck
pain and head pain and leg pain.
That's the main cause.
So then I started to think whatthe hell causes that.
Turns out it's the five millioncar accidents a year.
That's what causes that.
(09:24):
And so I said, well, shit, ifwe did, if we got rid of the car
centrism of our society, wewouldn't just be getting rid of
car centrism, we'd be gettingrid of the opioid crisis.
And I thought that's a damngood solution.
That's a good solution on therolls first, Because obviously
very pro biking, very pro publictransit very anti-monoculture
(09:46):
car.
I'm not against cars.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
I'm just against Banning cars.
What's the no?
No, no, no, no, no.
Just we don't want to bananything, nope.
Banning accidents, ooh, that'sgood.
Well, if you could Hold on,let's make accidents illegal.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
I was planning on an accident later though.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
I was planning on an accident, I mean it's hard to go
full force on this to me,because you don't know what this
means Taking all these cars offthe road, all these people on
bikes.
What does that create?
What do you mean?
You already?
Speaker 3 (10:13):
know Bike gangs.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Have you ever seen?
Speaker 2 (10:17):
what's that at the end of the month?
Speaker 3 (10:19):
while those bikers run around.
What's that called Criticalmass?
Speaker 2 (10:22):
That was last night, that is scary right you try to
cross the street and watch it.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
all these bike errands Terrify them.
They're like a mob.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
They're not scary of cars, you can see people's faces
.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
If a car hits you, you'd like die, I think people
in cars are more respectful thanbike riders, because bike
riders says I'm not going to doas much damage, Get out of my
way, I'm going to like this.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
I have a teammate now .
We're two against one on you.
No, no.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
I agree.
I don't like critical mass andI don't like that attitude.
I do not like that attitude ofbikers.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Bicyclists are rough.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
They can be jerks.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Yeah, they can be jerks.
Bikers are got an attitude.
When you see someone in a caryou're like I don't really want
to get out their car.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
No, but cars are really jerks.
I mean cars, think about carcar people like curse each other
out constantly.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
They stay in their car.
Yeah, a biker will touch you.
Bikers will like to.
Well, they'll bang on your car.
Bikers will touch your person.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Bikers.
You can see them, you'll touchyour car, they'll bang on your
car if you cut them off orwhatever.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
They'll hit your car, they'll kick your car.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Yeah, they'll kick your car.
They'll scream at you too.
They'll scream at you, butthat's because, if you did,
something really.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
That's because they think they may get more hurt.
Well, they will.
A biker like kicks your car.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
But then if you like bump their bike with your car,
then they get all mad about it,like you're trying to run me
over or whatever, and they don'twant to follow the rules of the
street.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Well, they follow them in a different way, but
yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Well, they go through stop signs and lights because
they're like hey, I'm on a bike.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Well, their faces forward, so they can see.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
Yeah, this is a, this is a.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Cars.
Your back behind the hood ofyour car so you can't actually
see.
You need to stop and like see,but a bike, you're forward and
so you can actually see aroundthe corner.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
This is saying is a car, car, anti bike podcast,
right Critical mass every day ofthe week.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Yeah, critical mass every day of the week in the
city, right, whoa Well, I don'tlike critical mass.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
I think critical mass goes against what we should be
doing as a as a bike culture.
I really actually feel it's sadthat critical mass is like that
.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
You want one long bike with like a bunch of seats
on it.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Yeah, like a big tandem bicycle, everybody's
going.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
If we had no cars.
How many people are on bikes?
Just as?
Speaker 1 (12:30):
many right, I think you're, I think I, but the trick
is not, you can't jump.
The problem is what you'redoing is you're jumping to, just
like bikes.
What I'm saying is put in bikeinfrastructure that
disambiguates bikes from cars,and now you have fewer of what
you're saying.
You don't want interactionsbetween bicyclists and cars.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
But is that really so ?
Build the infrastructure.
That, of course, realistic.
You have to have only bike,only streets.
Then you can't have the bike inthe car.
That's where all the troublestarts.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
But you can Car cheers, but you can put the bike
bikes together over on one sideand a separator and then cars,
and now you've disambiguated.
That's called a protected bikelane.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
A protected bike lane is too small for the amount of
people, let's just jump to.
We have the infrastructure.
It's all here.
Is that realistic for no carsand all these people on bikes?
Speaker 1 (13:16):
I mean, that's what most of the rest of the world
does.
I mean, what are you talkingabout?
America's a unique country inthat it has like 80% car usage.
Other countries have only like40, 50% max car usage.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
But they have less people.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
No, the rest of the world has way more people than
we do.
America has 300 million people.
The rest of the world has 5.87billion.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
I was in Thailand and there was people on the
motorcycles, motorcycles.
It was like critical mass withmotorcycles Cross the street was
crazy.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Yeah, I've been in India too, and the people on
bikes and moped zipping in andout of lanes.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
It doesn't make it seem if it doesn't feel safer.
But yeah, that's where I'msaying protected bike lanes,
keeping separate for bicyclists.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Yeah Well, there's no opioid crisis in these, in
these not car centric citiesLike Copenhagen doesn't have an
opioid crisis, and it's notbecause, I mean sure, they don't
prescribe opioids as much, butthey also just don't have as
much chronic pain.
And the reason why is becausethey don't have, they don't
submit.
They don't submit 1% of theirpopulation to car accidents
every year.
(14:23):
Let's do it.
Well, I'm not saying it's a,it's not black or white, it's
not like do it or not do it,it's just should we install more
bike infrastructure, or shouldwe not?
Should we pay more for transit,or should we not?
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Should we make?
Speaker 1 (14:35):
transit free, or should we not?
I mean, these are justquestions about what we should
do in the very, very meantime.
And if one of the things thatgoes into the calculation is
there's all sorts of pros andcons, but what I'm suggesting
that's a new pro is we're gonnareduce the opioid addiction
because people are gonna haveless chronic pain because of me,
fewer car accidents.
That's a huge deal.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
What about the people who want to?
You're not limiting cars, right?
Speaker 1 (15:01):
No, there's no way.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
limits cars, you're just making more availability
for bikes.
Is there rebates?
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Safe bike infrastructure.
How do we?
Speaker 2 (15:08):
get there.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
I love the bike rebates.
You get a bike, you get 200bucks from the city.
That's great.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
No, not even that you turn in your car and you cash
it out for bikes.
Oh, that would be awesome Foryour whole family.
Oh, I love that.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Now, what if you have ?
Speaker 2 (15:19):
to give up.
That's a great idea.
That's like a solution for theyou give away the guns yeah
they'll buy back the car andgive you 500 bucks or 2000 bucks
for a bike.
You bike for your whole family,because you're like, hey, I got
a family, we got a car.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
That's a great idea.
The point is to be preventative.
This is a prophylactic episode,right Solution.
This is not like oh, you haveopioid addiction, now you don't
have opioid addiction.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
No, it's like you have it.
You can't help those people.
Yeah, fuck, you got chronicpain now.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Your body's already been smashed into tin can.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
You're like we're about solutions, but not for you
.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Well, I mean we need to make them comfortable and
functional society.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Well, you know what makes them most comfortable.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Opioids, more opioids .
Speaker 3 (15:57):
I mean it's opioids.
The big problem with opioids isthat you can't get enough of
them.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
That's the problem.
If you give everybody theiropioid every day, then they'll
be fine.
You know that's-.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
The number one problem is you can't get enough
of them.
The number two problem is youget too much of it.
Well, you go if you overdo it.
That's the last problem.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
But generally you're only gonna overdose if, like,
other problems in your life arebad.
If you can be a highfunctioning drug user, you know,
if you get your drugs every dayand you get clean drugs and you
can use exactly the rightamount and then you have a good
life, then you have what?
Speaker 3 (16:27):
are you endorsing here?
I'm just saying yeah, are youadvocating?
Speaker 1 (16:31):
I'm advocating for what's called a harm reduction
policy with regards to drugusage.
So, rather than a criminalpolicy, a harm reduction policy,
so a medicalized policy.
If someone is chemicallydependent on a chemical, then
you should provide them thatchemical in a clean, safe way.
Duh you know, but then if theirlife is total crap in other ways
(16:53):
no job screwed up family,screwed up healthcare, screwed
up everything yeah then they'regonna cope by taking too much of
the drug and they'll overdose.
But if they have a good life,they'll just do the drug every
day because they're chemicallydependent on it.
This is what Portugal justshowed with their.
They legalized all drugs andmade it like a medical issue.
Right.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
I know I was happy when I went to Portugal.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
I was like, eh, it'll be cool here because people are
just decriminalized.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
What is that like?
On this.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
I walked around.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
I saw someone run up to me and say hey man.
I was like whoa, whoa, what doyou want?
He's like hey, nothing man, Ijust got some cocaine, you want
some?
I was like no, get out of here.
He was like hey, don't be upset, I was just suffering you some
cocaine.
I was like okay, dude, bye.
But he was like what's yourproblem?
He was like I'll be nice to you, I'm just standing out.
Drugs, yeah, he's like hey man,I'm just being nice.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
This is Portugal, regular morning.
Cocaine merchant.
Geez, you don't have to.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
My wife was like you didn't have to be like that.
I was like, oh geez, he rightup on me.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
She's like we didn't even get to see what his prices
were.
Yeah right, no, he's free.
This is just Angel.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Dust Angel, dust Donnie, he's just handing it out
.
He's nice, this is like inHawaii, you're greeted with a
lei in Portugal.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
He's like I'm not doing anything wrong.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
You're at the drugs place.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
It's not illegal.
You're at the drugs place.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
You're like let me get this straight.
The first one is free.
They're like yes, but they'relike should I be asking?
Speaker 2 (18:16):
more questions.
They're like nah, just go aheadand take the real one, but they
don't have a problem there.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
No, they don't their drug users, although they did.
I watched the whole thing onthis.
They said so Oregon tried todecriminalize a lot of drugs and
then it kind of didn't work andthey had to rewind that and
criminalize a few back again.
And the guy this Portugal guywho was one of these drug guys
in Portugal who put this policyinto place, he explained you
(18:43):
have to have a lot of otherthings in place before the
decriminalization.
Like you have to have like freehealthcare and you have to have
like free access to all kinds ofcounseling and you have to have
like a low crime state, likeyou can't have a ton of poverty
and a ton of social contagionand pathologies and then
decriminalize drugs Like no,it's gonna become crazy.
(19:06):
People are gonna weigh, youknow weigh, abuse it and so yeah
.
So just the idea of like, oh,decriminalization is a solution.
It's like no, eliminatingpoverty, giving people the basis
services they need If you haveall of that in place, then you
can decriminalize drugs.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
It's like yeah, it's like a late stage, but until
then do harm prevention.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Until then, police drug usage, but also do harm
prevention for people whoselives are being damaged by it.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
I was editing a podcast for my work work and
they were talking about this,about back pain specifically,
and they were saying one of theinteresting things is that in
America it happens more becauseof our like one of the odd
results of our healthcare system, where you can go and see a
(19:53):
doctor very quickly, as opposedto somewhere like in Canada or
England where you might have towait a little bit is that a lot
of back pain they've found whereit will just kind of go away on
its own.
three or four weeks later andnot have a real explanation and
like doctors, will be able torun an MRI and look at it and be
like, well, we see things andwe could operate and people in
(20:15):
America are feeling.
If you're feeling the back pain, you're like, yes, operate or
do whatever you can, and sothere's a lot of unnecessary
operations or prescribing ofpain medications and stuff for
things that if you just had towait a little while and quote
unquote, tough it through a fewweeks, it might resolve itself.
I'm not saying that people whohave actual serious back pain.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
I'm not trying to cast like that.
I'm thinking that you shouldjust tough it through.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
But you was saying like there's a large chunk of
people where they think theywould need something and then it
kind of goes away.
And I've had that with my bodywhere, like I'll have aches and
pains and I'll book a PTappointment, a physical therapy
appointment, and I'm like fiveweeks away and by the time I get
there I'm like, well, I bookedit for my knee and it's not
doing the thing anymore, but youknow it's not squeaking.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Yeah, it's kind of feeling embarrassed, but it's
like, oh, it's a good thing.
It's a good thing.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
But I don't know if that's connected to.
I mean, it's all connected inour healthcare system and the
failings of it are all connectedto this whole like opioid
crisis where it's became aprofit thing and they're like,
oh, this is very profitable.
You're like, oh yeah, givingdrugs to people is very
profitable turns out.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
I mean, we definitely over prescribed, but we also we
also, you know we also did,though.
So here's the counterpoint,which doesn't get said much, but
I think it is important.
Before we had the opioid crisis, we had a pain crisis.
I mean, people were just lyingin bed in pain and weren't
getting the help they needed.
So the people who wereprescribing a lot of opioids
(21:48):
could argue back right at youand say no, you're the bad one
ethically speaking, because youwant to condemn people to lying
in bed in pain all day long inthis horrible chronic pain.
So actually, we're the goodones, and the opioid crisis is
sort of this other thing we needto deal with in some other way,
not by giving out fewer opioids.
So you can argue it both ways,but the real solution is to cut
(22:11):
that argument off and justprevent the chronic pain from
happening in the first place,and that's why we should get rid
of cars.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Could that also be a safer car standard?
Even higher car standards?
Anything you could do to makeyour car accidents, your cars
don't get crushed.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Yeah sure, but the problem is even I said the stat
there even low speed, low impactaccidents can cause very
significant back and neck andhead pain and leg pain and it'll
still lead to that.
So you know, like I agree with,yeah sure, cars should not be
allowed to drive faster than 85miles an hour, like literally
(22:51):
the car, you should just hit thegas all the way to the ground
and it just shouldn't go above85, because why do you ever need
to go faster than 85 miles anhour?
But even in a 30 mile an hourcrunch you can really screw your
back and your neck and yourlegs, your head.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
You can screw up your legs stepping down when you
don't realize that there's astep.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Like you know, I feel like I did that yesterday.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
I was walking off a I didn't realize.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Are you equivocating between that and a car accident?
Speaker 3 (23:16):
No, I'm saying I can.
What to me is severely injuremyself just by walking with no
speed or motors involved.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
So yeah, I'm thinking about it, I'm saying it's, I'm
saying that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, like
I can injure myself just doingnothing.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Put me in a car and motorize me Right, right and get
crunched from all differentdirections.
You know, yeah, you can get hitfrom the side, you can get from
the back.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
So you get these government rules on the car's
reduction right that's federaland then you go to these cities.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
No, I'm not saying to do anything like that.
I'm not saying I'm not sayingto restrict anything.
I'm just saying build more bikeinfrastructure, make public
transportation free.
If you do that, the researchalready shows People don't want
to be in their cars, they wantto be on their bikes and taking
nice, clean fast.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
I'm saying people don't want to be in their cars,
but sometimes it's a necessity.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
So you have regional You're in a cold area.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Detroit.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Detroit, Michigan.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
What are you going to do?
Ride your bikes and die in thewinter.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
So I'm from Wisconsin , madison, and Madison plows its
bike lanes and there arecyclists out 24, seven, 360.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
No, is that safe?
Don't let it totally safe.
It's not totally safe.
There's a lake in Madison wherebikes fall in and people die
every year.
These are lies Terrible, andthen think about this People
living in rural areas.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Maybe there's less cars, but they still have the
same percentage probably ofaccidents and they have to ride
their bikes further and further.
I have to get up at 5 am toride my bike to school Nobody's
saying you have to ride abicycle, son, get up and get on
your bike.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Adam says that you're not allowed to have a car.
I'm saying that Because you'regoing to get addicted to drugs.
Drugs are the reason why Adamsays you have to bike in the
rain.
I'm saying, if it is mandated,because it's true.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
No, it can't be mandated.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
All you're trying to do is get rid of the meat of the
move.
You know you're trying to getrid of the.
You know the main.
You know the chunk, the bigchunk.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
I think also, we live in a society where it's you're,
the sales pitch is you shouldbe able to solve whatever's
wrong.
You know what I mean.
Like you should be able to fixit and there should be a
solution for it, or and the ideathat like no, you're just like
this.
People won't accept that.
I think there was a time whenpeople would accept that and
(25:34):
they were just like you're justlike, like you limp now You're
just like all right, I limp nowuntil until my days are done,
Right, right.
And like now we have a, thereare means to do things that we
couldn't do before.
I think that gives people hope,but also that gives people
expectations, Right right.
Where they're like.
I shouldn't have to.
I shouldn't have to put up withany amount of pain.
I should be able to eat my cake.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
I should have my cake , eat it too, and then take a
Zempec and not be fat.
Yes, right, right.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Like you're.
Like you're telling me thesolution is eating right and
exercising Well.
There has to be a.
There has to be an easier one.
You know what I'm like?
No, that's the classic one.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Well, that's very hard to maintain.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Yeah, of course, with life happening work.
Of course.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Demand on your personal time.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Last time I went to Vegas I hung out with Tony Shea,
who died recently.
Oh whoa.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
You know Tony Shea, he was a billionaire.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Who is Tony Shea?
He made Zappos and he sold itto Amazon.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Oh yeah, and he's a billionaire.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
And then he did this thing in Vegas called the the
downtown project, where heinvested $350 million in
improving downtown, likebuilding more housing, building
more transit, but you know, biketransit.
More they built like a shoppingmall, the more grocery stores,
because like the downtown ofVegas was like a total food
desert, Like it was justhorrible.
(26:52):
So they basically trying to likebuild like an urban context in
downtown Vegas and I went thereand I was, we were kind of
invited, like some people that Iknew were kind of invited there
, and I went along with thembecause, we're all entrepreneurs
and they wanted us to come andmove there, to like do our
entrepreneurship there, nice,and we were like we're not gonna
move to Vegas, but it wasreally fun because they kind of
(27:14):
wind and dined us and, like TonyShea, came to dinner with us.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
That was a mysterious passing.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
It was wild yeah Candles.
He had a shed full of candlesand the candle shed burned down.
Wait, that's how he died,that's how he died.
He was doing a lot of drugs andhe just he like a lot of
dissociative drugs and he kindof lost his mind.
He got really obsessed withfire and so he had this shed
where he put like thousands ofcandles and he would like sit in
(27:39):
there and like commune withfire and then, burned down, died
.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Some say it could have been.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
That's a wild labor.
That's a wild labor.
What could it have been?
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Murder oh.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
By candle.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
There's a conspiracy out there, I bet.
I mean when a billionaire dies,yeah, and this is a healthy
bill.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
I mean, this guy's like 40 years old.
I mean he was young billionaire.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
Yeah, His heirs were like I don't know.
Tony, I think you should getmore into the fire stuff.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
That's a good move, actually, I think there was
something like he just changedhis will or something, hey maybe
I'm just adding we need helpyou.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Wow, he's directed.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
He's like, if you consider, like a thousand
candles in a shed.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
What would the house?
Well, they're promoting thatright now you can go to a
symphesy.
I've seen that.
I'm scared the candlelit pianoconcerts.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Have you seen that in the house?
Speaker 3 (29:00):
You know, I like and they're like stop, no, no, no.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
I'm a fire survivor.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
Really what?
Your house Fire Island.
Did you go to fire out the fire?
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Burned down.
We lost everything.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
I was in the fire.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
I was moments away from death.
What?
Speaker 1 (29:16):
What?
How'd you get out what was?
Speaker 2 (29:18):
the broke out a window and climbed out the third
what age was?
Speaker 1 (29:21):
when was this?
Wait a second.
How'd you get down from thethird floor?
That's a dangerous height.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Basically, I blacked out, I jumped or something.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Did you?
Did anyone catch?
You just landed on the ground.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Slaying there on the ground.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
What age are you when someone?
Speaker 2 (29:34):
walked by and took your jacket off and put it over
me, over like my charcoal body.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
But your family all survived.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
It was just me, and that's good, no one died.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Did other people die?
Speaker 2 (29:48):
No one died.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
But when you?
Speaker 3 (29:49):
were like when you were a kid or was in my adult
life.
I lost everything.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Did you have insurance?
Oh, you had, almost, I didn'thave fire insurance.
Now I do.
That was good.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
But I saw it was sad watching my neighbors lose all
of their things too.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
Right, right, right, holy cow.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
And the whole place was on fire was crazy Banging on
doors.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
It was like back draft.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
It was very.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
The fire was banging on doors like the movement of
the air pressure.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
I don't talk about it too often, but the last time I
had to talk about it I had juryduty.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
I was in the arson case.
Whoa and while they wereinterviewing me, they started
asking me questions and I waslike I have to disclose that I
am, you know fire survivor andthey were like get along here.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
I was like I may have some bias and some people.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
The other person wanted me you know the other?
Yeah, the prosecutor was likeyeah, let's they start probing
me about it, and then I justbawled out and start crying oh
yeah awesome In front of all thejuries.
It was embarrassing.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
No, it's not embarrassing I couldn't control
it, Wow sweetest shows you're ahuman.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
And then I was like hey, I can't do this.
They were like well, youpromise not to do this again
during trial.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Yeah, I was like oh my goodness, no, like I was,
like I had You're like, Iplanned this one.
I need to take a moment, youknow.
Yeah, yeah, well, we don't haveto talk about it.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Then I got kicked off the case.
I was like so happy.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Oh, they didn't like.
Okay, All those acting classespaid off, I'm just like wow,
Teach me how to burst into tearsso I can get out of jail.
No, I'm joking.
Wow, that's wild.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
I was gonna say on the opioid thing, I do jiu-jitsu
and so I encounter a lot ofguys who get back injuries or
neck injuries and then-.
From jiu-jitsu or yeah, fromjust finding stuff and then
start taking pain meds and thenget hooked on them.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
And so.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
I've always, for a very long time, I've been scared
of pain meds because I'm justlike no, no, no, if I have a
thing going on, I wanna knowthat it's there, I'll feel the
pain.
I am deathly afraid of gettinghooked because I think I have an
addictive personality and I'mlike, oh, I would probably Love
this, yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Too much.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
Yeah, I would be way too into it.
So I'm like I need to keep thatout of my life.
Yeah, so I can feel that that'sgotta be a huge challenge for
people.
And then, dealing with that, Idon't know where I'm going with
it, but it's just like, yeah,that's a monster of a thing to
try and deal with oh, yeah, yeahand if-.
Monkey on your back.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
yeah, I mean, these things are real chemical
addiction.
It seems hard to sell thisisn't like oh, I like getting
high, or like oh, I like youknow.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
No, no, no.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
This is like yeah, now I have to the sweetest
chemical dependence.
Now I have to feel, I have touse this to feel normal, yeah,
yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
But like it does feel hard to sell the idea of like
we're gonna attack that bymaking bike lanes, but if you
could draw the that's what thisepisode's about.
If you could connect those dotsfor people Right, right, right.
I think you could definitely.
I mean if you keep stack we'vebeen talking about protected
bike lanes before and if youkeep stacking-.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Pantasy of all social ills, of like All social ills.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
All we need to do is protect a couple bike lanes, All
bike lanes.
All social ills will be warped.
War will end.
Yeah, no war World peace.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Climate change is over.
Done Everything perfect.
Yes, the circle back to thedata.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
I agree, you gotta look at the data, and that's
where you can find the areas orthe times where you can help the
most.
Right, because you can onlyhelp so much and you gotta get
your penetration to Right whenpeople are most susceptible, or
right before that predictivetime for-.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Yeah, kind of high leverage.
What are those high leveragepoints you might have to?
Speaker 2 (33:30):
campaign, like they do the new car sales at the
beginning of the year, Like, hey, we got the brand new next year
car coming out.
That might be the time totackle this Like hey.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
You could also just take you could also find some
natural experiments Like, forexample, davis in California.
Davis, california, is like acrazy bike city, it's like tons
of bike lanes and stuff.
So you could then say what'sthe?
Opioid level here of addiction.
Also, where do those opioidpeople come from?
(34:00):
Did they emerge in Davis or didthey migrate?
Speaker 2 (34:03):
into Davis.
They biked in, they biked in.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
They actually rode on hot air balloons Very strange
phenomenon, but the opioid hotair balloon economy is pretty
powerful.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
I think it always goes back to education.
So you gotta get them in highschool.
High school bike clubs Everyonein high school Bike clubs.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Bike clubs Everyone has to take Don't talk about
bike club.
Bike fight club Everyone has tobike.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
I remember in high school you had to pass a
swimming test.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
You had to run through the house to pass P you
had to harsh high school.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
You had to pass those .
You had to take a swimming test.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
I'll throw in something about cars and stuff.
Okay.
So here's something.
Okay, where do you you guys aregonna know the answer already.
So we have to wear bike helmets.
You're supposed to wear a bikehelmet because, like, you could
hurt your head while you'rebiking, right, right, okay, Most
head trauma actually happens incars, so actually you should
(35:02):
wear helmets when you're in yourcar.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
When you're driving.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Everyone in cars should by law be required to
wear a helmet, because that'sactually where the most head
trauma happens.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Because they smash their head on.
What do you smash your head oninside?
I guess anything inside of thecar, the inside of the car, yeah
.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Or you hit your head on the dash.
So actually cars should wearhelmets.
I see your other plan.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
You're trying to make it so uncool to be in a car.
Well, this is why they Peoplejust stopped driving.
This is why they no one wantsto pile into their car and put
on their helmet.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
So helmet, helmet.
This is like a conspiracytheory, but it's not.
It's well documented.
Car companies and car peoplesupported bike helmets as a
thing because they were tryingto victim blame the bicyclists.
When the car would mow themdown and kill them and their
head would splatter like awatermelon, they'd say that's
(35:53):
the bicyclists fault becausethey don't wear helmets.
And then they created all this.
Like, you have to wear a bikehelmet In Holland and in Denmark
, where they have strong bikes,the bike culture nobody wears
helmets.
There's no helmets Because bikesare not dangerous if you're not
gonna be hit by a car, you know.
So yeah.
So actually, bike helmets arelike a Psyop against bicyclists.
You can fall off a bike andhurt your head.
(36:15):
Not chances are done Way moredangerous that you're in a car,
you get in a car accident andyou hit your head.
That's actually way more common, and so actually you should
wear car helmets.
So I'm starting a new carhelmet company.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Solutions Car helmets .
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Hey, these are stylish during flatable.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Oh, inflatable Flate on impact.
They can deflate them againlater.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
It would be easier.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
they come with the car, yeah they come with the car
we buy a car.
They come with two standards,driver side passenger.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
Yeah, mercedes helmets Build them into the roof
of the car.
They just come down onto yourhead.
That would hurt your neck.
Yeah, right, that way.
You need to have free movementof your head.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
But they already have these helmets for their bike
programs.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
You know their motorcycle programs they have
helmets.
And while you're doing helmetsin the car, do VR helmets?
Yeah, heads up display.
You're driving on a regularroad, no, no, no, now you're
driving an Mario Rainbow Rainbow.
Exactly, we went to the sameplace.
Change your AR glasses to yourin regular world, but it looks
cool.
You're not going to get peopleto wear a helmet for safety.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
That's not just called mushrooms.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Yeah, but you're still safe to drive, that's
right.
See, adam, you're not going toget people to wear a helmet for
safety and stars coming out ofpeople's exhaust while you're
driving across the Bay Bridge,even on bikes.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
You're just describing LSD.
People in the 60s did this.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
AR making the world look better Just making people
smile.
You're looking at people likeget out of my way.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
And they're like smiling, smiling faces.
You're living in a delusionalwonderland.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
Wow, I like that Every car needs four.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
Apple Vision pros.
God damn it.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
I want just the medieval AR everywhere I go,
everyone's in chain mail.
Everything's like torchesinstead of lights.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
It's torches.
They're all looking at yougoing.
What is this car you aredriving?
What is this metal?
Speaker 1 (38:08):
horse, and every you look at a car it turns into a
carriage.
Everything's horses andcarriages and stuff.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
It's safe.
Still, it's the same proportion.
You still see the same people.
This is the simplest solution.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
You go to a steampunk .
Speaker 3 (38:21):
AR Everywhere you look, it's all just steampunk.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
You look in the sky.
You just see airships.
You look around.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
No, you do.
Flintstones AR and you seeunderneath everybody's car.
You see their feet running.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Wow, this AR could have stop signs that are more
pronounced.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
Yep, when you're going through Real big 10 foot
tall stop signs.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Yeah, it could be.
Actually add more safety to theroad you could see the bike
lane with your AR glasses.
Speaker 3 (38:49):
Hey, this is the safety bike lane.
Watch out, nice green barrier.
Now I'm in.
I wasn't in until.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
As long as it's protected bike lanes and fewer
car accidents.
Until we have AR elements,which means there would be fewer
opioids.
Your opiates glowing, your hand.
Rainbow rainbow, a bike in.
Well, this was fun, guys.
I think we did it.
We did another one.
Speaker 3 (39:14):
Thank you, bedford, for being here again, and thank
you guys for joining us.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Yeah, see you guys week.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
Bye, cheers, all right.
You got the orange mic cap.
That's pretty sick, bedford.
The rest of us just have theblack cap.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
This one matches my breath it's orange.
You got orange.
Were you sucking down orange?
Speaker 3 (00:12):
fantas this morning.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
What's going on?
Oh, you ate an orange.
No, just needs the color.
You're having somecinnesnes-thesia over there.
That's dismayo, are you?
Smelling colors and seeing,sounds and tripping on
cinnesnes-thesia Do you believethat?
I don't believe that crap.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
It's science.
You're like oh, I smell this?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
No, you don't, you're just making that crap up, come
on.
Sounds like French fries Oliver.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Sacks.
Right, it isn't Oliver Sacks,the neurologist.
He put it in his books One ofhis books, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
The man who thought it was.
That sounds like a name of aguy you shouldn't trust.
So you think they're justsaying?
Speaker 1 (00:48):
that yes.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
They're just like a little weird kind of disorder.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
I think they put him in functional MRI and it fires
the wrong sort of the brain.
I don't know.
I think it's a true thing.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Is it like you're like, I smell music, is that?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Cynesthesia is when you have a sensory perception
that crosses from one sense intothe other.
You're like is that you can'tsmell?
Is?
Speaker 3 (01:10):
that hip hop?
Is that no, oh no.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
No, that's jazz.
Oh jazz, no jazz.
This jazz is giving me gas.
You know it can't be real,right?
Yeah, it can't be real.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Should we do a solution?
Oh, have we not already Welcometo Solutions for the Multiverse
everybody?
Speaker 1 (01:36):
I'm Adam Brouse, this is Scott Malpin, and we're
visited again today by BedfordWilliamson.
Welcome, bedford.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
The only person Good morning, good afternoon and good
night universe Bedford Truman,right now.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
The only person to be on the podcast three times?
Well, I've been on it threetimes, well, ok, thanks a lot
for diminishing me the onlyperson besides the co-hosts Wow,
ok.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
I guess I don't count , cool.
So should we do a solution?
You have one for me, ok?
Speaker 1 (02:03):
we're going to solve the opioid crisis.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Oh great, I've been needing to.
I've got a solution I've beenwanting to solve that, ok, it is
very sad.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
It is very sad and very bad, but a solution would
be good and happy if we couldsolve it.
Ok, so my solution is protectedby claims.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
No, wait, I think you're reading from the wrong
thing there.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Protected by claims and public transportation is the
solution to the opioid crisis.
I will share some stats withyou, the most common so.
People get addicted to opioidsbecause they get prescribed
opioids Right.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
OK, and opioids are pill heroin?
Speaker 1 (02:41):
OK, yes, and so every year, 300 million Americans
suffer from opioid use disorder,oud OK, 500,000 people in
America are addicted to heroin.
80% of all new heroin users areto replace opioids.
All of those are prescribed, sothe opioids are all prescribed
(03:02):
to start with.
Ok, here's the issue Cars arecausing the opioid crisis.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
I'm convinced of this now.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Yes, well, not cars.
I mean, if you drive your carperfectly, then you won't.
But car accidents, which so farin our society we've made
unable to eliminate, caraccidents are causing basically
a huge like.
So much of the opioid crisisthat it's a crisis If you
eliminated.
Adam hates cars.
Yeah, I hate cars, but this iswhy you should hate cars.
(03:31):
So here, 43% of car crasheslead to injury, like a
significant injury.
Right, ok, most of those areinjuries to the neck, back and
lower back.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
That's the main thing that gets hurt in a car crash
Makes sense the middle part ofyour body, yeah, you get like
wrenched right, you get bashedand then you get OK.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
So there's 5.2 million car accidents in America
, which means if 43% of themlead to serious injury, then
that means 2.3 million injuriesa year happen.
And even low impact caraccidents can commonly be the
cause of back, neck andheadaches, especially to
headaches, neck pain, back painand lower back pain.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Right.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
These are all.
The most common prescription ofopioids is for this type of
pain.
Ok, ok, so there hasn't been astudy.
This is why it's on solutionsfrom the multiverse and not, I
don't know, the New York Timesor something.
There hasn't been a study thatdirectly asked these questions.
So there hasn't been a studythat says of the back pain and
(04:41):
head pain, how much it becomesfrom car accidents.
And then of the people who haveopioids from a back pain and
car pain car cause, back pain,neck pain how many of those
people become opioid addicted?
There hasn't been a study toshow that this is a regression
analysis.
There is.
We need that's what we need.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
I don't know what that means.
This is a regression analysisalgorithm.
What it we're looking at?
The Explain it to the me's inthe world, though You're just
looking at it.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
The dumb dumb's, as Scott likes to say.
Ok, ok, wow, knocking you downthis episode.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
What's a regression?
Speaker 2 (05:08):
analysis.
Is that Cause we're lookingback?
Ok, at the data, ok.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Well, that was easier than I thought it would be, and
you?
Speaker 2 (05:14):
can do a simple one with this, with just two planes
up and down, this and this, yeah, x and Y, yeah, yeah, it's just
a line of best fit.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
That's what we call it in high school a line of best
fit.
So you do a bunch of datapoints and then you say is there
a line, Is there a correlation,Gotcha?
So yeah, but, there hasn't been, so the limitation.
Use that for trends.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
You might use that for a trend and you might be
able to find the.
Do that by the year too.
For the accidents, and you cansee, oh, this part of the year
had the most accidents torelease.
It correlates with the mostopioid prescriptions, and then,
when that prescription runs outafter the accident, you might be
(05:53):
able to find the point fromaccident to heroin addiction.
Right Might be a gradient thatyour probability can discover.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Do this, and you might even find that there's
this whole section of where theTeslas just start crashing into
each other over and over again,but with that you'll be able to
pinpoint where you can focusyour resources for help.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Yes, right, because you know what the car accidents
are, if you know, car accidentsare a precursor then, you could
say where there's more caraccidents, and that could be a
test of this theory too.
You could say let's look atwhat parts of the country or
what places have more caraccidents, see if then there's
more.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Yeah, I call it regression analysis actually.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
I've been toying with this term.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Yeah, but then you want to take that and do an
ensemble modeling Right.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Oh my god.
And then you want to put acouple of these algorithms
together and get a betterpicture, that's right.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
I did try to look up the data on why.
What are the most commonprescription causes for opioids?
And it was back pain.
Back pain is like the majority.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
It's like a huge number.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
And then headaches and neck pain is like up there
like crazy.
And then leg pain, which alsocar accidents can cause leg pain
because your legs are rightthere and can get smashed in.
But the problem was they didn'tsay what was the cause of the
leg pain, back pain, neck pain,headaches.
All we know right now, withoutsomeone actually going and doing
this study, is car accidentsare causing a huge amount of
(07:22):
back pain and back pain is themost common cause of opioid
prescription.
That's all we know.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
So you're saying it's just like you know there's
overlap.
We don't know exactly theoverlap You're saying to address
the opioid problem.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
where are you going with this.
So now, okay.
So here's the thing.
You actually you can't justlike.
I mean, we over prescribeopioids in America, for sure,
and that was one of the mainproblems.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Well, you got your license, not me, man, you can't
be a doctor anymore.
That's why I'm a podcast.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
The natural step.
But so we can't.
You know, if someone's in pain,it's not ethical to not give
them some solution to their pain.
Like you know.
If you're lying in bed at night, you know, and you just have
this, like you know, aching pain, like that's torture.
I mean you're literally that'slike torture.
You need something, so you haveto do something.
Okay, so you can't really cutback too much on giving.
(08:18):
I mean you can cut backreasonably.
I mean we were over prescribing, so you can cut back, okay, but
you can't cut back more thanwhat would actually solve
people's pain.
Otherwise you're literallytorturing people and that's
unethical.
So I was like, well, that kindof puts us between a rock and a
hard place.
Right, that's a dilemma.
So I was like, well, what thehell is causing all the pain?
(08:42):
And let's do a preventativething.
Let's say, let's get rid of allthe causes of the pain.
That they need theprescriptions.
So, I said what the hell arethe causes?
And I, at last, I don't know.
I got opioids, you know, for mywisdom teeth and I was like, is
it wisdom?
I mean, is it surgery?
Is surgery?
The main cause of opioids Isbroken bones.
(09:04):
You know the kids falling outof trees or something.
And it turns out the main cause, I found, is back pain, neck
pain and head pain and leg pain.
That's the main cause.
So then I started to think whatthe hell causes that.
Turns out it's the five millioncar accidents a year.
That's what causes that.
(09:24):
And so I said, well, shit, ifwe did, if we got rid of the car
centrism of our society, wewouldn't just be getting rid of
car centrism, we'd be gettingrid of the opioid crisis.
And I thought that's a damngood solution.
That's a good solution on therolls first, Because obviously
very pro biking, very pro publictransit very anti-monoculture
(09:46):
car.
I'm not against cars.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
I'm just against Banning cars.
What's the no?
No, no, no, no, no.
Just we don't want to bananything, nope.
Banning accidents, ooh, that'sgood.
Well, if you could Hold on,let's make accidents illegal.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
I was planning on an accident later though.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
I was planning on an accident, I mean it's hard to go
full force on this to me,because you don't know what this
means Taking all these cars offthe road, all these people on
bikes.
What does that create?
What do you mean?
You already?
Speaker 3 (10:13):
know Bike gangs.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Have you ever seen?
Speaker 2 (10:17):
what's that at the end of the month?
Speaker 3 (10:19):
while those bikers run around.
What's that called Criticalmass?
Speaker 2 (10:22):
That was last night, that is scary right you try to
cross the street and watch it.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
all these bike errands Terrify them.
They're like a mob.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
They're not scary of cars, you can see people's faces
.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
If a car hits you, you'd like die, I think people
in cars are more respectful thanbike riders, because bike
riders says I'm not going to doas much damage, Get out of my
way, I'm going to like this.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
I have a teammate now .
We're two against one on you.
No, no.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
I agree.
I don't like critical mass andI don't like that attitude.
I do not like that attitude ofbikers.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Bicyclists are rough.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
They can be jerks.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Yeah, they can be jerks.
Bikers are got an attitude.
When you see someone in a caryou're like I don't really want
to get out their car.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
No, but cars are really jerks.
I mean cars, think about carcar people like curse each other
out constantly.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
They stay in their car.
Yeah, a biker will touch you.
Bikers will like to.
Well, they'll bang on your car.
Bikers will touch your person.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Bikers.
You can see them, you'll touchyour car, they'll bang on your
car if you cut them off orwhatever.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
They'll hit your car, they'll kick your car.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Yeah, they'll kick your car.
They'll scream at you too.
They'll scream at you, butthat's because, if you did,
something really.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
That's because they think they may get more hurt.
Well, they will.
A biker like kicks your car.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
But then if you like bump their bike with your car,
then they get all mad about it,like you're trying to run me
over or whatever, and they don'twant to follow the rules of the
street.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Well, they follow them in a different way, but
yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Well, they go through stop signs and lights because
they're like hey, I'm on a bike.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Well, their faces forward, so they can see.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
Yeah, this is a, this is a.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Cars.
Your back behind the hood ofyour car so you can't actually
see.
You need to stop and like see,but a bike, you're forward and
so you can actually see aroundthe corner.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
This is saying is a car, car, anti bike podcast,
right Critical mass every day ofthe week.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Yeah, critical mass every day of the week in the
city, right, whoa Well, I don'tlike critical mass.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
I think critical mass goes against what we should be
doing as a as a bike culture.
I really actually feel it's sadthat critical mass is like that
.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
You want one long bike with like a bunch of seats
on it.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Yeah, like a big tandem bicycle, everybody's
going.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
If we had no cars.
How many people are on bikes?
Just as?
Speaker 1 (12:30):
many right, I think you're, I think I, but the trick
is not, you can't jump.
The problem is what you'redoing is you're jumping to, just
like bikes.
What I'm saying is put in bikeinfrastructure that
disambiguates bikes from cars,and now you have fewer of what
you're saying.
You don't want interactionsbetween bicyclists and cars.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
But is that really so ?
Build the infrastructure.
That, of course, realistic.
You have to have only bike,only streets.
Then you can't have the bike inthe car.
That's where all the troublestarts.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
But you can Car cheers, but you can put the bike
bikes together over on one sideand a separator and then cars,
and now you've disambiguated.
That's called a protected bikelane.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
A protected bike lane is too small for the amount of
people, let's just jump to.
We have the infrastructure.
It's all here.
Is that realistic for no carsand all these people on bikes?
Speaker 1 (13:16):
I mean, that's what most of the rest of the world
does.
I mean, what are you talkingabout?
America's a unique country inthat it has like 80% car usage.
Other countries have only like40, 50% max car usage.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
But they have less people.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
No, the rest of the world has way more people than
we do.
America has 300 million people.
The rest of the world has 5.87billion.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
I was in Thailand and there was people on the
motorcycles, motorcycles.
It was like critical mass withmotorcycles Cross the street was
crazy.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Yeah, I've been in India too, and the people on
bikes and moped zipping in andout of lanes.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
It doesn't make it seem if it doesn't feel safer.
But yeah, that's where I'msaying protected bike lanes,
keeping separate for bicyclists.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Yeah Well, there's no opioid crisis in these, in
these not car centric citiesLike Copenhagen doesn't have an
opioid crisis, and it's notbecause, I mean sure, they don't
prescribe opioids as much, butthey also just don't have as
much chronic pain.
And the reason why is becausethey don't have, they don't
submit.
They don't submit 1% of theirpopulation to car accidents
every year.
(14:23):
Let's do it.
Well, I'm not saying it's a,it's not black or white, it's
not like do it or not do it,it's just should we install more
bike infrastructure, or shouldwe not?
Should we pay more for transit,or should we not?
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Should we make?
Speaker 1 (14:35):
transit free, or should we not?
I mean, these are justquestions about what we should
do in the very, very meantime.
And if one of the things thatgoes into the calculation is
there's all sorts of pros andcons, but what I'm suggesting
that's a new pro is we're gonnareduce the opioid addiction
because people are gonna haveless chronic pain because of me,
fewer car accidents.
That's a huge deal.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
What about the people who want to?
You're not limiting cars, right?
Speaker 1 (15:01):
No, there's no way.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
limits cars, you're just making more availability
for bikes.
Is there rebates?
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Safe bike infrastructure.
How do we?
Speaker 2 (15:08):
get there.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
I love the bike rebates.
You get a bike, you get 200bucks from the city.
That's great.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
No, not even that you turn in your car and you cash
it out for bikes.
Oh, that would be awesome Foryour whole family.
Oh, I love that.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Now, what if you have ?
Speaker 2 (15:19):
to give up.
That's a great idea.
That's like a solution for theyou give away the guns yeah
they'll buy back the car andgive you 500 bucks or 2000 bucks
for a bike.
You bike for your whole family,because you're like, hey, I got
a family, we got a car.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
That's a great idea.
The point is to be preventative.
This is a prophylactic episode,right Solution.
This is not like oh, you haveopioid addiction, now you don't
have opioid addiction.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
No, it's like you have it.
You can't help those people.
Yeah, fuck, you got chronicpain now.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Your body's already been smashed into tin can.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
You're like we're about solutions, but not for you
.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Well, I mean we need to make them comfortable and
functional society.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Well, you know what makes them most comfortable.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Opioids, more opioids .
Speaker 3 (15:57):
I mean it's opioids.
The big problem with opioids isthat you can't get enough of
them.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
That's the problem.
If you give everybody theiropioid every day, then they'll
be fine.
You know that's-.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
The number one problem is you can't get enough
of them.
The number two problem is youget too much of it.
Well, you go if you overdo it.
That's the last problem.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
But generally you're only gonna overdose if, like,
other problems in your life arebad.
If you can be a highfunctioning drug user, you know,
if you get your drugs every dayand you get clean drugs and you
can use exactly the rightamount and then you have a good
life, then you have what?
Speaker 3 (16:27):
are you endorsing here?
I'm just saying yeah, are youadvocating?
Speaker 1 (16:31):
I'm advocating for what's called a harm reduction
policy with regards to drugusage.
So, rather than a criminalpolicy, a harm reduction policy,
so a medicalized policy.
If someone is chemicallydependent on a chemical, then
you should provide them thatchemical in a clean, safe way.
Duh you know, but then if theirlife is total crap in other ways
(16:53):
no job screwed up family,screwed up healthcare, screwed
up everything yeah then they'regonna cope by taking too much of
the drug and they'll overdose.
But if they have a good life,they'll just do the drug every
day because they're chemicallydependent on it.
This is what Portugal justshowed with their.
They legalized all drugs andmade it like a medical issue.
Right.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
I know I was happy when I went to Portugal.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
I was like, eh, it'll be cool here because people are
just decriminalized.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
What is that like?
On this.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
I walked around.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
I saw someone run up to me and say hey man.
I was like whoa, whoa, what doyou want?
He's like hey, nothing man, Ijust got some cocaine, you want
some?
I was like no, get out of here.
He was like hey, don't be upset, I was just suffering you some
cocaine.
I was like okay, dude, bye.
But he was like what's yourproblem?
He was like I'll be nice to you, I'm just standing out.
Drugs, yeah, he's like hey man,I'm just being nice.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
This is Portugal, regular morning.
Cocaine merchant.
Geez, you don't have to.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
My wife was like you didn't have to be like that.
I was like, oh geez, he rightup on me.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
She's like we didn't even get to see what his prices
were.
Yeah right, no, he's free.
This is just Angel.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Dust Angel, dust Donnie, he's just handing it out
.
He's nice, this is like inHawaii, you're greeted with a
lei in Portugal.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
He's like I'm not doing anything wrong.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
You're at the drugs place.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
It's not illegal.
You're at the drugs place.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
You're like let me get this straight.
The first one is free.
They're like yes, but they'relike should I be asking?
Speaker 2 (18:16):
more questions.
They're like nah, just go aheadand take the real one, but they
don't have a problem there.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
No, they don't their drug users, although they did.
I watched the whole thing onthis.
They said so Oregon tried todecriminalize a lot of drugs and
then it kind of didn't work andthey had to rewind that and
criminalize a few back again.
And the guy this Portugal guywho was one of these drug guys
in Portugal who put this policyinto place, he explained you
(18:43):
have to have a lot of otherthings in place before the
decriminalization.
Like you have to have like freehealthcare and you have to have
like free access to all kinds ofcounseling and you have to have
like a low crime state, likeyou can't have a ton of poverty
and a ton of social contagionand pathologies and then
decriminalize drugs Like no,it's gonna become crazy.
(19:06):
People are gonna weigh, youknow weigh, abuse it and so yeah
.
So just the idea of like, oh,decriminalization is a solution.
It's like no, eliminatingpoverty, giving people the basis
services they need If you haveall of that in place, then you
can decriminalize drugs.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
It's like yeah, it's like a late stage, but until
then do harm prevention.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Until then, police drug usage, but also do harm
prevention for people whoselives are being damaged by it.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
I was editing a podcast for my work work and
they were talking about this,about back pain specifically,
and they were saying one of theinteresting things is that in
America it happens more becauseof our like one of the odd
results of our healthcare system, where you can go and see a
(19:53):
doctor very quickly, as opposedto somewhere like in Canada or
England where you might have towait a little bit is that a lot
of back pain they've found whereit will just kind of go away on
its own.
three or four weeks later andnot have a real explanation and
like doctors, will be able torun an MRI and look at it and be
like, well, we see things andwe could operate and people in
(20:15):
America are feeling.
If you're feeling the back pain, you're like, yes, operate or
do whatever you can, and sothere's a lot of unnecessary
operations or prescribing ofpain medications and stuff for
things that if you just had towait a little while and quote
unquote, tough it through a fewweeks, it might resolve itself.
I'm not saying that people whohave actual serious back pain.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
I'm not trying to cast like that.
I'm thinking that you shouldjust tough it through.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
But you was saying like there's a large chunk of
people where they think theywould need something and then it
kind of goes away.
And I've had that with my bodywhere, like I'll have aches and
pains and I'll book a PTappointment, a physical therapy
appointment, and I'm like fiveweeks away and by the time I get
there I'm like, well, I bookedit for my knee and it's not
doing the thing anymore, but youknow it's not squeaking.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Yeah, it's kind of feeling embarrassed, but it's
like, oh, it's a good thing.
It's a good thing.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
But I don't know if that's connected to.
I mean, it's all connected inour healthcare system and the
failings of it are all connectedto this whole like opioid
crisis where it's became aprofit thing and they're like,
oh, this is very profitable.
You're like, oh yeah, givingdrugs to people is very
profitable turns out.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
I mean, we definitely over prescribed, but we also we
also, you know we also did,though.
So here's the counterpoint,which doesn't get said much, but
I think it is important.
Before we had the opioid crisis, we had a pain crisis.
I mean, people were just lyingin bed in pain and weren't
getting the help they needed.
So the people who wereprescribing a lot of opioids
(21:48):
could argue back right at youand say no, you're the bad one
ethically speaking, because youwant to condemn people to lying
in bed in pain all day long inthis horrible chronic pain.
So actually, we're the goodones, and the opioid crisis is
sort of this other thing we needto deal with in some other way,
not by giving out fewer opioids.
So you can argue it both ways,but the real solution is to cut
(22:11):
that argument off and justprevent the chronic pain from
happening in the first place,and that's why we should get rid
of cars.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Could that also be a safer car standard?
Even higher car standards?
Anything you could do to makeyour car accidents, your cars
don't get crushed.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Yeah sure, but the problem is even I said the stat
there even low speed, low impactaccidents can cause very
significant back and neck andhead pain and leg pain and it'll
still lead to that.
So you know, like I agree with,yeah sure, cars should not be
allowed to drive faster than 85miles an hour, like literally
(22:51):
the car, you should just hit thegas all the way to the ground
and it just shouldn't go above85, because why do you ever need
to go faster than 85 miles anhour?
But even in a 30 mile an hourcrunch you can really screw your
back and your neck and yourlegs, your head.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
You can screw up your legs stepping down when you
don't realize that there's astep.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Like you know, I feel like I did that yesterday.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
I was walking off a I didn't realize.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Are you equivocating between that and a car accident?
Speaker 3 (23:16):
No, I'm saying I can.
What to me is severely injuremyself just by walking with no
speed or motors involved.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
So yeah, I'm thinking about it, I'm saying it's, I'm
saying that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, like
I can injure myself just doingnothing.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Put me in a car and motorize me Right, right and get
crunched from all differentdirections.
You know, yeah, you can get hitfrom the side, you can get from
the back.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
So you get these government rules on the car's
reduction right that's federaland then you go to these cities.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
No, I'm not saying to do anything like that.
I'm not saying I'm not sayingto restrict anything.
I'm just saying build more bikeinfrastructure, make public
transportation free.
If you do that, the researchalready shows People don't want
to be in their cars, they wantto be on their bikes and taking
nice, clean fast.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
I'm saying people don't want to be in their cars,
but sometimes it's a necessity.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
So you have regional You're in a cold area.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Detroit.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Detroit, Michigan.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
What are you going to do?
Ride your bikes and die in thewinter.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
So I'm from Wisconsin , madison, and Madison plows its
bike lanes and there arecyclists out 24, seven, 360.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
No, is that safe?
Don't let it totally safe.
It's not totally safe.
There's a lake in Madison wherebikes fall in and people die
every year.
These are lies Terrible, andthen think about this People
living in rural areas.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Maybe there's less cars, but they still have the
same percentage probably ofaccidents and they have to ride
their bikes further and further.
I have to get up at 5 am toride my bike to school Nobody's
saying you have to ride abicycle, son, get up and get on
your bike.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Adam says that you're not allowed to have a car.
I'm saying that Because you'regoing to get addicted to drugs.
Drugs are the reason why Adamsays you have to bike in the
rain.
I'm saying, if it is mandated,because it's true.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
No, it can't be mandated.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
All you're trying to do is get rid of the meat of the
move.
You know you're trying to getrid of the.
You know the main.
You know the chunk, the bigchunk.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
I think also, we live in a society where it's you're,
the sales pitch is you shouldbe able to solve whatever's
wrong.
You know what I mean.
Like you should be able to fixit and there should be a
solution for it, or and the ideathat like no, you're just like
this.
People won't accept that.
I think there was a time whenpeople would accept that and
(25:34):
they were just like you're justlike, like you limp now You're
just like all right, I limp nowuntil until my days are done,
Right, right.
And like now we have a, thereare means to do things that we
couldn't do before.
I think that gives people hope,but also that gives people
expectations, Right right.
Where they're like.
I shouldn't have to.
I shouldn't have to put up withany amount of pain.
I should be able to eat my cake.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
I should have my cake , eat it too, and then take a
Zempec and not be fat.
Yes, right, right.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Like you're.
Like you're telling me thesolution is eating right and
exercising Well.
There has to be a.
There has to be an easier one.
You know what I'm like?
No, that's the classic one.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Well, that's very hard to maintain.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Yeah, of course, with life happening work.
Of course.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Demand on your personal time.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Last time I went to Vegas I hung out with Tony Shea,
who died recently.
Oh whoa.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
You know Tony Shea, he was a billionaire.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Who is Tony Shea?
He made Zappos and he sold itto Amazon.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Oh yeah, and he's a billionaire.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
And then he did this thing in Vegas called the the
downtown project, where heinvested $350 million in
improving downtown, likebuilding more housing, building
more transit, but you know, biketransit.
More they built like a shoppingmall, the more grocery stores,
because like the downtown ofVegas was like a total food
desert, Like it was justhorrible.
(26:52):
So they basically trying to likebuild like an urban context in
downtown Vegas and I went thereand I was, we were kind of
invited, like some people that Iknew were kind of invited there
, and I went along with thembecause, we're all entrepreneurs
and they wanted us to come andmove there, to like do our
entrepreneurship there, nice,and we were like we're not gonna
move to Vegas, but it wasreally fun because they kind of
(27:14):
wind and dined us and, like TonyShea, came to dinner with us.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
That was a mysterious passing.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
It was wild yeah Candles.
He had a shed full of candlesand the candle shed burned down.
Wait, that's how he died,that's how he died.
He was doing a lot of drugs andhe just he like a lot of
dissociative drugs and he kindof lost his mind.
He got really obsessed withfire and so he had this shed
where he put like thousands ofcandles and he would like sit in
(27:39):
there and like commune withfire and then, burned down, died
.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Some say it could have been.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
That's a wild labor.
That's a wild labor.
What could it have been?
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Murder oh.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
By candle.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
There's a conspiracy out there, I bet.
I mean when a billionaire dies,yeah, and this is a healthy
bill.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
I mean, this guy's like 40 years old.
I mean he was young billionaire.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
Yeah, His heirs were like I don't know.
Tony, I think you should getmore into the fire stuff.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
That's a good move, actually, I think there was
something like he just changedhis will or something, hey maybe
I'm just adding we need helpyou.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Wow, he's directed.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
He's like, if you consider, like a thousand
candles in a shed.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
What would the house?
Well, they're promoting thatright now you can go to a
symphesy.
I've seen that.
I'm scared the candlelit pianoconcerts.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Have you seen that in the house?
Speaker 3 (29:00):
You know, I like and they're like stop, no, no, no.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
I'm a fire survivor.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
Really what?
Your house Fire Island.
Did you go to fire out the fire?
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Burned down.
We lost everything.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
I was in the fire.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
I was moments away from death.
What?
Speaker 1 (29:16):
What?
How'd you get out what was?
Speaker 2 (29:18):
the broke out a window and climbed out the third
what age was?
Speaker 1 (29:21):
when was this?
Wait a second.
How'd you get down from thethird floor?
That's a dangerous height.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Basically, I blacked out, I jumped or something.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Did you?
Did anyone catch?
You just landed on the ground.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Slaying there on the ground.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
What age are you when someone?
Speaker 2 (29:34):
walked by and took your jacket off and put it over
me, over like my charcoal body.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
But your family all survived.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
It was just me, and that's good, no one died.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Did other people die?
Speaker 2 (29:48):
No one died.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
But when you?
Speaker 3 (29:49):
were like when you were a kid or was in my adult
life.
I lost everything.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Did you have insurance?
Oh, you had, almost, I didn'thave fire insurance.
Now I do.
That was good.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
But I saw it was sad watching my neighbors lose all
of their things too.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
Right, right, right, holy cow.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
And the whole place was on fire was crazy Banging on
doors.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
It was like back draft.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
It was very.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
The fire was banging on doors like the movement of
the air pressure.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
I don't talk about it too often, but the last time I
had to talk about it I had juryduty.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
I was in the arson case.
Whoa and while they wereinterviewing me, they started
asking me questions and I waslike I have to disclose that I
am, you know fire survivor andthey were like get along here.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
I was like I may have some bias and some people.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
The other person wanted me you know the other?
Yeah, the prosecutor was likeyeah, let's they start probing
me about it, and then I justbawled out and start crying oh
yeah awesome In front of all thejuries.
It was embarrassing.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
No, it's not embarrassing I couldn't control
it, Wow sweetest shows you're ahuman.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
And then I was like hey, I can't do this.
They were like well, youpromise not to do this again
during trial.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Yeah, I was like oh my goodness, no, like I was,
like I had You're like, Iplanned this one.
I need to take a moment, youknow.
Yeah, yeah, well, we don't haveto talk about it.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Then I got kicked off the case.
I was like so happy.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Oh, they didn't like.
Okay, All those acting classespaid off, I'm just like wow,
Teach me how to burst into tearsso I can get out of jail.
No, I'm joking.
Wow, that's wild.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
I was gonna say on the opioid thing, I do jiu-jitsu
and so I encounter a lot ofguys who get back injuries or
neck injuries and then-.
From jiu-jitsu or yeah, fromjust finding stuff and then
start taking pain meds and thenget hooked on them.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
And so.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
I've always, for a very long time, I've been scared
of pain meds because I'm justlike no, no, no, if I have a
thing going on, I wanna knowthat it's there, I'll feel the
pain.
I am deathly afraid of gettinghooked because I think I have an
addictive personality and I'mlike, oh, I would probably Love
this, yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Too much.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
Yeah, I would be way too into it.
So I'm like I need to keep thatout of my life.
Yeah, so I can feel that that'sgotta be a huge challenge for
people.
And then, dealing with that, Idon't know where I'm going with
it, but it's just like, yeah,that's a monster of a thing to
try and deal with oh, yeah, yeahand if-.
Monkey on your back.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
yeah, I mean, these things are real chemical
addiction.
It seems hard to sell thisisn't like oh, I like getting
high, or like oh, I like youknow.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
No, no, no.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
This is like yeah, now I have to the sweetest
chemical dependence.
Now I have to feel, I have touse this to feel normal, yeah,
yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
But like it does feel hard to sell the idea of like
we're gonna attack that bymaking bike lanes, but if you
could draw the that's what thisepisode's about.
If you could connect those dotsfor people Right, right, right.
I think you could definitely.
I mean if you keep stack we'vebeen talking about protected
bike lanes before and if youkeep stacking-.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Pantasy of all social ills, of like All social ills.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
All we need to do is protect a couple bike lanes, All
bike lanes.
All social ills will be warped.
War will end.
Yeah, no war World peace.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Climate change is over.
Done Everything perfect.
Yes, the circle back to thedata.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
I agree, you gotta look at the data, and that's
where you can find the areas orthe times where you can help the
most.
Right, because you can onlyhelp so much and you gotta get
your penetration to Right whenpeople are most susceptible, or
right before that predictivetime for-.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Yeah, kind of high leverage.
What are those high leveragepoints you might have to?
Speaker 2 (33:30):
campaign, like they do the new car sales at the
beginning of the year, Like, hey, we got the brand new next year
car coming out.
That might be the time totackle this Like hey.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
You could also just take you could also find some
natural experiments Like, forexample, davis in California.
Davis, california, is like acrazy bike city, it's like tons
of bike lanes and stuff.
So you could then say what'sthe?
Opioid level here of addiction.
Also, where do those opioidpeople come from?
(34:00):
Did they emerge in Davis or didthey migrate?
Speaker 2 (34:03):
into Davis.
They biked in, they biked in.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
They actually rode on hot air balloons Very strange
phenomenon, but the opioid hotair balloon economy is pretty
powerful.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
I think it always goes back to education.
So you gotta get them in highschool.
High school bike clubs Everyonein high school Bike clubs.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Bike clubs Everyone has to take Don't talk about
bike club.
Bike fight club Everyone has tobike.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
I remember in high school you had to pass a
swimming test.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
You had to run through the house to pass P you
had to harsh high school.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
You had to pass those .
You had to take a swimming test.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
I'll throw in something about cars and stuff.
Okay.
So here's something.
Okay, where do you you guys aregonna know the answer already.
So we have to wear bike helmets.
You're supposed to wear a bikehelmet because, like, you could
hurt your head while you'rebiking, right, right, okay, Most
head trauma actually happens incars, so actually you should
(35:02):
wear helmets when you're in yourcar.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
When you're driving.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Everyone in cars should by law be required to
wear a helmet, because that'sactually where the most head
trauma happens.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Because they smash their head on.
What do you smash your head oninside?
I guess anything inside of thecar, the inside of the car, yeah
.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Or you hit your head on the dash.
So actually cars should wearhelmets.
I see your other plan.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
You're trying to make it so uncool to be in a car.
Well, this is why they Peoplejust stopped driving.
This is why they no one wantsto pile into their car and put
on their helmet.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
So helmet, helmet.
This is like a conspiracytheory, but it's not.
It's well documented.
Car companies and car peoplesupported bike helmets as a
thing because they were tryingto victim blame the bicyclists.
When the car would mow themdown and kill them and their
head would splatter like awatermelon, they'd say that's
(35:53):
the bicyclists fault becausethey don't wear helmets.
And then they created all this.
Like, you have to wear a bikehelmet In Holland and in Denmark
, where they have strong bikes,the bike culture nobody wears
helmets.
There's no helmets Because bikesare not dangerous if you're not
gonna be hit by a car, you know.
So yeah.
So actually, bike helmets arelike a Psyop against bicyclists.
You can fall off a bike andhurt your head.
(36:15):
Not chances are done Way moredangerous that you're in a car,
you get in a car accident andyou hit your head.
That's actually way more common, and so actually you should
wear car helmets.
So I'm starting a new carhelmet company.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Solutions Car helmets .
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Hey, these are stylish during flatable.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Oh, inflatable Flate on impact.
They can deflate them againlater.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
It would be easier.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
they come with the car, yeah they come with the car
we buy a car.
They come with two standards,driver side passenger.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
Yeah, mercedes helmets Build them into the roof
of the car.
They just come down onto yourhead.
That would hurt your neck.
Yeah, right, that way.
You need to have free movementof your head.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
But they already have these helmets for their bike
programs.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
You know their motorcycle programs they have
helmets.
And while you're doing helmetsin the car, do VR helmets?
Yeah, heads up display.
You're driving on a regularroad, no, no, no, now you're
driving an Mario Rainbow Rainbow.
Exactly, we went to the sameplace.
Change your AR glasses to yourin regular world, but it looks
cool.
You're not going to get peopleto wear a helmet for safety.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
That's not just called mushrooms.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Yeah, but you're still safe to drive, that's
right.
See, adam, you're not going toget people to wear a helmet for
safety and stars coming out ofpeople's exhaust while you're
driving across the Bay Bridge,even on bikes.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
You're just describing LSD.
People in the 60s did this.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
AR making the world look better Just making people
smile.
You're looking at people likeget out of my way.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
And they're like smiling, smiling faces.
You're living in a delusionalwonderland.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
Wow, I like that Every car needs four.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
Apple Vision pros.
God damn it.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
I want just the medieval AR everywhere I go,
everyone's in chain mail.
Everything's like torchesinstead of lights.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
It's torches.
They're all looking at yougoing.
What is this car you aredriving?
What is this metal?
Speaker 1 (38:08):
horse, and every you look at a car it turns into a
carriage.
Everything's horses andcarriages and stuff.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
It's safe.
Still, it's the same proportion.
You still see the same people.
This is the simplest solution.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
You go to a steampunk .
Speaker 3 (38:21):
AR Everywhere you look, it's all just steampunk.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
You look in the sky.
You just see airships.
You look around.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
No, you do.
Flintstones AR and you seeunderneath everybody's car.
You see their feet running.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Wow, this AR could have stop signs that are more
pronounced.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
Yep, when you're going through Real big 10 foot
tall stop signs.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Yeah, it could be.
Actually add more safety to theroad you could see the bike
lane with your AR glasses.
Speaker 3 (38:49):
Hey, this is the safety bike lane.
Watch out, nice green barrier.
Now I'm in.
I wasn't in until.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
As long as it's protected bike lanes and fewer
car accidents.
Until we have AR elements,which means there would be fewer
opioids.
Your opiates glowing, your hand.
Rainbow rainbow, a bike in.
Well, this was fun, guys.
I think we did it.
We did another one.
Speaker 3 (39:14):
Thank you, bedford, for being here again, and thank
you guys for joining us.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Yeah, see you guys week.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
Bye, cheers, all right.
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