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How Primitive Will Our Descendants Find Us? · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, everybody out there in the Pacific Northwest or with
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  Speaker 1: access to an airport or a car rental place that
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  Speaker 1: and we'll see you guys in January.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: should know, the last edition of the two to the
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  Speaker 1: to the Deuce Tray.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: Oh, is this our final of the year?
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  Speaker 1: It is. It's the last one of twenty twenty three, Chuck.
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  Speaker 1: We recorded all of the episodes that we're ever going
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  Speaker 1: to record in the year twenty twenty three. Isn't that amazing?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah? And hey, you know, since you brought that up,
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  Speaker 2: can I say something?
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Sure?
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Spotify, who carries our show, as do all platforms, they
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: have this really cool thing they send out called the
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: wrap Wrap I guess is in year end wrap up
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  Speaker 2: kind of thing, and they they sent us as a
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  Speaker 2: show our own statistical analysis, but then they send individual
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  Speaker 2: users their own and we just had a lot of
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: great listeners sending us in their rap statistics like hey,
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  Speaker 2: I'm in the top one percent of stuff you should
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: know listenership, And it was just really neat to see
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: all that stuff coming in, So thank you.
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  Speaker 1: It really is. It's amazing and everybody's so proud of it.
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  Speaker 1: It's so great to see. So no matter what percentage
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: you're in, if you are proud enough to send an
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  Speaker 1: email or post it, kudos to you, because we're proud
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  Speaker 1: of you right back. I do think, though, Chuck, that
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  Speaker 1: we probably should shout out the person who wrote in
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  Speaker 1: with the far and away the largest number of listening
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  Speaker 1: minutes according to Spotify.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, who's that?
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  Speaker 1: That is Aravin Cancerla, who is in the top point
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  Speaker 1: zero five percent of listeners and based on the eighty
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  Speaker 1: thousand plus eighty six, seven hundred and seventy two minutes,
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  Speaker 1: I don't see how there could be anybody else in that,
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  Speaker 1: you know, in the remaining what point zero's five percent left?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. I did a little back of the envelope math
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  Speaker 2: and that that's something somewhere between twenty five and thirty
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: hours of stuff you should know a week.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, that just it's a lot.
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  Speaker 2: Doesn't seem possible. So I have suspicions that this person
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  Speaker 2: might have just played it on a loop so they could,
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  Speaker 2: you know, and then just went out shopping or whatever.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know. I think Aravin strikes me as a
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  Speaker 1: pretty straightforward person. So grats to Airvind and also seriously,
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  Speaker 1: thank you to everybody who listens to us so much
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  Speaker 1: that you get statistics at the end of the year
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  Speaker 1: that make you proud. I mean, that's amazing, guys. Thank
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: you very much.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks to Spotify. That's a cool service that they
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: or I don't know if is that a service, whatevers
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: cool thing they do.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: It's a service, it's a public service.
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  Speaker 2: We were downloaded in one hundred and sixty three countries.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, I didn't know there were that many countries.
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  Speaker 2: Which is we looked it up. It was actually something
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  Speaker 2: like one hundred and ninety. So like that's most of
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  Speaker 2: the countries.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say that's the vast majority of them.
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  Speaker 1: And by the way, everybody I knew that there were
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  Speaker 1: more countries than that.
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  Speaker 2: I was joking and quickly I saw that. I don't
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  Speaker 2: know if you went through that yet, Josh, but we
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  Speaker 2: our third biggest country of growth was Mexico. Oh, no way,
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  Speaker 2: And I'm gaming. I'm gaming. I'm aiming for a show
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  Speaker 2: in Mexico City. I'd like to do that. We just
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  Speaker 2: don't know if like people would come. So, you know,
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  Speaker 2: if we can get like a thousand people in a
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  Speaker 2: room in Mexico City, I think that might be a
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  Speaker 2: fun thing to do.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, especially if it's a room with seats.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, so we should get at least five hundred emails
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  Speaker 2: saying at least two people will come and then that
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  Speaker 2: means we might go all right, So anyway, should we
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  Speaker 2: get on with barbaric practices?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's because I find this endlessly fascinating. Olivia helped
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  Speaker 1: us with this, and basically what we're doing here is
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  Speaker 1: reversing what we already kind of like to do smugly,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: which is look back fifty one hundred, two hundred years
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  Speaker 1: and be like, look at how backwards and antiquated those
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: people were back then, Like even in as recent is
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: the nineties. I remember in the mid nineties, I was
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: I smoked on an airplane on the way to Amsterdam. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and like there was it was just like the last
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  Speaker 1: three rows were smoking. But it's not like it was
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  Speaker 1: sectioned off. There wasn't even a curtain. It's just like
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  Speaker 1: this is the smoking section, even though the entire plane's
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: being covered in your cigarette smoke. This was the nineties, man.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, the first time I flew to Europe there was
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: smoking in like that was it would have been ninety six.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean imagine that today. I mean you would
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  Speaker 1: literally go to federal prison if you tried to light
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: a cigarette on an airplane today.
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  Speaker 3: You know, Yeah, I mean it's about the fire, but sure, yeah,
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  Speaker 3: a few decades before that there was jello salad where
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  Speaker 3: it was all the rage and like the weirdest jello salad.
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  Speaker 1: If you've never just kind of taken a stroll down
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  Speaker 1: memory lane and looked up like pictures of jello molds
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  Speaker 1: from the fifties to the seventies, yeah, treat yourself and
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: go do that. But make sure you have not had
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: lunch yet, because you're gonna want to gag when you
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: see a lot of them. That's another fun thing to
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: judge people for being stupid with cello because I don't
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  Speaker 1: know if we said it yet. We're going to do
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  Speaker 1: the opposite. We're going to look forward and try to
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  Speaker 1: figure out what our descendants are going to ridicule us
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  Speaker 1: or look down at us about, right, what will we
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  Speaker 1: seem primitive or barbaric or ridiculous about?
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  Speaker 2: That's right? But what we have before us are seven.
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  Speaker 2: I think a little more serious things than jello molds
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  Speaker 2: and spanking kids is on up there. However, it really
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  Speaker 2: depends on who you ask, because about half of Americans
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  Speaker 2: still think and this is a quote, and this from
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  Speaker 2: a survey a couple of years ago from the American
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  Speaker 2: Family Survey quote, it is sometimes necessary to discipline a
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  Speaker 2: child with a good, hard spanking, and half.
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  Speaker 1: Of those respondents said almost under their breath feels so right.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, big change from you know, back in
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  Speaker 2: the day. They have another stat from sixty eight when
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  Speaker 2: ninety four percent of parents said, yeah, hit your kids,
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  Speaker 2: it's awesome.
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  Speaker 1: You drop. That's a big drop.
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  Speaker 2: But things are really changing because a third of the
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  Speaker 2: respondents between eighteen and twenty nine agree with spanking, compared
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  Speaker 2: to fifty percent of the overall survey. So it's something
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  Speaker 2: that's going out of fashion for sure.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems to be following a larger trend of
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  Speaker 1: moving away from social acceptance of violence in any form,
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  Speaker 1: and it's being supported by studies that find like, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's actually good if you don't spank your kids, because
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  Speaker 1: not only has there never been a study that shows
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  Speaker 1: it improves children's behavior, study after study keeps suggesting it
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  Speaker 1: does the opposite. It actually maladjusts children. I mean, I
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  Speaker 1: can't imagine what a well adjusted person I would be
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  Speaker 1: if I hadn't been spanked that handful of times when
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  Speaker 1: I was a kid.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I was. We're always trying to poke
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  Speaker 2: around to find, you know, the other opinion on something,
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  Speaker 2: just to take a look at it, and you know
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  Speaker 2: there are people who don't agree. I saw this one
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  Speaker 2: professor from the Oklahoma State Robert Larzelli. I can't even
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  Speaker 2: read my handwriting now, but he said that the studies
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  Speaker 2: that are out there are flawed for a couple of reasons. One,
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  Speaker 2: he says, these studies that say that if you spank
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  Speaker 2: kids more, there that leads to them actually acting out more.
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  Speaker 2: He's saying, no, kids, it's the kids that are acting
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  Speaker 2: out more that are it's a chicken in the egg thing. Yes,
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  Speaker 2: I've seen the ones getting spanked more.
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  Speaker 1: I've seen that, and I think I found in a
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  Speaker 1: Scientific American article there was at least one group that
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  Speaker 1: managed to control for that and basically have shown like, no,
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  Speaker 1: it's it's it actually does have this effect on kids.
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  Speaker 1: The problem that what'd you say, Lara Zelli?
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  Speaker 2: I think so if my writing is any indicator.
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  Speaker 1: That what Larazzelli's saying is that these studies don't they
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  Speaker 1: don't start following kids and from like birth to twenty
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  Speaker 1: five or thirty and then see you know where you spanked,
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  Speaker 1: where you're not spanked it's all just like they might.
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  Speaker 1: They might peek in on a kid who's in at
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  Speaker 1: the spanking age and look at their behavior. Then you
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  Speaker 1: just can't parse it apart. So there's not really good
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  Speaker 1: quality studies. But I saw it put like this. Even
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  Speaker 1: if there are no studies that conclusively show spanking is
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  Speaker 1: bad for kids or produces malajusted behavior in kids, there
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  Speaker 1: are plenty of studies that seem to suggest that. There
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  Speaker 1: aren't any studies that seem to suggest otherwise that it's
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  Speaker 1: it's actually good, it's actually it's effective to spank your kids.
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  Speaker 1: And so the argument that I've seen is like, why
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  Speaker 1: why do it? Then?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw a First of all, I'm a parent.
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  Speaker 2: I can't in a million years imagine hitting Ruby for
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  Speaker 2: any reason that's nice. It makes me want to cry
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  Speaker 2: just thinking about that. It's terrible for our family. But
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  Speaker 2: I did find a study from twenty eighteen that I
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: found in from NPR. They didn't do the study, but
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: they were, you know, did a thing on it.
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  Speaker 1: I'm sure they were hot and heavy.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: Oh of course it was what they claim. And it
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  Speaker 2: seems like probably one of the most robust studies at
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  Speaker 2: least that looks at countries that have banned spanking, because
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  Speaker 2: I think something like sixty two countries have banned spanking
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  Speaker 2: starting with Sweden in nineteen seventy nine.
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  Speaker 1: Did you even know there were that many countries?
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  Speaker 2: But they followed four or they used four hundred thousand
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  Speaker 2: children from kids from eighty eight countries, so that's pretty good.
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  Speaker 2: Fifty eight countries have the bands in thirty don't. I'm
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: not sure which one it is. But what they found
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: when what they were tracking was incidences of kids fighting,
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: like you know, getting in fights at school, right and
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  Speaker 2: in the countries that have banned spanking, there was a
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  Speaker 2: school fighting reduction by sixty nine percent in boys in girls,
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  Speaker 2: which is I mean, that is pretty substantial. I was
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: curious about the United States because you know, we both
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: grew up, like my dad was my elementary school principal,
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: and they were he spanked me and other kids. It's
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: ridiculous to think about, but apparently in seventy seven the
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court of the United States gave the power to
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: the states. These days, ninety percent of schools don't use
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: corporal punishment, but it is still legal in seventeen states.
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  Speaker 2: There are restrictions in place in a lot of those
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: like maybe your parents have to sign a thing. I said, sure,
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  Speaker 2: hit my kid. But seventeen percent of states you can
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  Speaker 2: still do this, with Mississippi leading the way in the
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: most spankings. And the other thing I found out that
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: we should point out is that black males are twice
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  Speaker 2: as likely to be spanked than anyone. And get this,
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  Speaker 2: sixteen point five percent of kids that are corporately punished
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  Speaker 2: in schools in America today are disabled. My god, usually
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: it's an intellectual disability. Wow. Is that so not disturbing?
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, of course it's disturbing. That's horrible. That's one of
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: the most horrible statistics you've ever spouted out. And I
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: should say, also just want to verify for the listeners
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: in any of those sixty two countries where spanking is banned,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: you're talking about like public spanking, like in school in
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: seventeen states. In schools, you're allowed to do that.
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  Speaker 2: Right, Yes, a teacher or a principal and they say
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: it's you know. And this is one of the other
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: problems that that professor had is that those studies, he says,
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: lump everyone in together as in, like the parents who
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: do it as the very last resort after several other
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: attempts at discipline or parents are just like, oh, you
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: screwed up, you know, let's hit you or whatever. And
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: apparently most, you know, almost all the schools, it is
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: a last resort, as in they've tried other things, but
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: you know, it's just I don't know, I got to
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: try not to judge people, but don't hit your kids.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Well, I was gonna say, it's it's legal in seventeen
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: states for schools to spank kids. It's legal in all
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: fifty states for a parent to spank kids. That's there's
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: not really anything coming down the horizon that makes it
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: seem like that's ever going to be banned. But it
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: does seem generationally like we're moving away from spanking pretty rapidly.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, my spankings as a kid, we're very infrequent and
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: very organized, as in it was never done in the
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: heat of anger, like just getting slapped or something. It
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: was like, all right, go to the bathroom and spend
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: ten minutes, you know, upset and card and then I
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: got spanked with a bolo paddle. You know, the little
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: bolo paddle games.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: I know, the bolo tie.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: No, the bolo paddle where you a little light plywood
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: paddle with a ball hard. Yeah, sure, that's that was
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: the spanking device.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: In mind, those things are made of like balsa wood.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it wasn't you bad. It's stung.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: But you know, how about all of your spankings that
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: had grown.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: Up that's usually involves leather.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: Okay, you you want to move on to the next one.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's let's move on to chemotherapy.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Okay. So chemotherapy is one of these things where, if
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: you start kind of putting it down today, what you're
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: talking about is our current modern medical miracle that since
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: the nineties has reduced the cancer death rate by twenty
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: five percent. Yeah, it's it's a really big deal that
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: we have chemotherapy now, it's saved a lot of lives.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is not poopoo in chemotherapy.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: No, it's not the reason why we can probably guess
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: that our descendants down the line are going to look
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: at chemotherapy is fairly primitive and barbaric is because it's
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: so indiscriminate in how it harms the body. It harms
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: the whole body in order to kill the cancer cells. Right,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: and we're moving it seems like much more toward far,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: far more specific and tailored medicine, and so all of
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: the side effects, in the horribleness that come with chemotherapy,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: even though it does save lives, will be going away
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: in future decades.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: It looks like, yeah, and it seems like and we're
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: going to talk about a few ways that things are
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: becoming more specific, but that seems to be the way
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: it's all trying to go is instead of just like
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: killing all the cells, let's see if they can just
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: specifically target cancer cells and then eventually, you know, get
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: down to you know, the human specific targeting of things,
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: which would be amazing obviously, yeah, you know, patient specific, right.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: But one of the first ones is antibody drug conjugates,
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: and this is a type of chemotherapy, but it combines chemotherapy,
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: like the drugs used in chemotherapy, with monoclonal antibodies, which
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: are you know, lab just like antibodies that we have
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: in our body, except they're created in a lab.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Right, And so what happens is we inject these drugs,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: these antibody drug conjugates into a patient with cancer, and
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: those antibodies are designed to go seek out that tumor
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: the specific kind of tumor that that patient has, Yeah,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: and attached to that tumor, that cancer sell and it
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: delivers that payload of chemo drugs to it, says here
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: you go, here's a nice little present, and then turns
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: around and runs, and then in the background, the cell
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: explodes and the antibody like ends up on its chest
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: but lives to fight another day.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. That's if we're headed in that direction. That's fantastic. Yeah.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: Vaccines is another one, the mr NA vaccines that we
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: detailed back when those came out for COVID. Two of
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: the most successful versions of those vaccines were originally brought
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: about to begin with as tumor vaccines, and the idea
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: is to use sort of that same technology to just
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: specifically target tumors themselves. So it's not like a vaccine
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: to prevent a disease. It's a shot that will essentially
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: specifically shrink a tumor.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, just like the mRNA vaccines for COVID train the
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: body to look for and respond to COVID viruses, saying like, hey,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: if you see anything with this little horn on it,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: the spike, go after it. They're doing the same thing
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: with tumors, right, So that's boosting the immune response. It's
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: also training immune response. So technically it does qualify as
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: a vaccine. And because like we talked about in the
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: COVID vaccine episode, this mRNA technology is just so you
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: can just it's just like ready to wear vaccines basically.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: Apparently, yeah, apparently they they have reached a turning point
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: and in the next five years a lot of cancer
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: researchers are saying We're going to see a lot more
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: cancer vaccines coming down the pike.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: Amazing. And then what I talked about earlier, like making
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: like targeting cancer cell specifically is like a great direction
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: to go, but really getting into personalized cancer care will
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: be the next step beyond that, Like, hey, I'm going
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: to identify exactly what kind of tumor that you have
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: in your body and not just maybe this kind of
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: tumor and you know, treat like get to patient specific
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: levels of treatment. And you know, I know we poo
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: pooed AI in certain respects, but this is a place
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: where AI can really probably do a lot of good.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we should just clarify or position on
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: it if I can speak for both of us. Sure,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: as long as AI is not taking over the world
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: or damaging humanity in some terrible way. I'm all for
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: all the great ways that can help things, and this
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: is a really sterling example of that.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it gave us a new Beatles song.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say that's right in the middle for me.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: But the I think what you were talking about was
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: taking a sample of the specific tumor that a specific
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: person has, analyzing its genetic makeup, and then looking at
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: that genetic makeup thanks to AI spitting out all of
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: the information that we need from analyzing that huge genome,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: saying oh, this is an achilles heel, this is another weakness,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: this is another way we can attack it, and then
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: tailoring the treatment for that specific tumor like that tumor,
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Like you said, now that kind of tumor that tumor
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: is getting at tech. It's so specific you could name
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: the tumor, name the tumor Melvin. Melvin is toast when
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: you're using precision or personal cancer treatments.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, this kind of stuff could even be possible. Now,
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: it's just really really expensive to target a specific tumor
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: for a specific human And so the idea is hopefully
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: with the help of AI, they can just reduce a
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: lot of the you know, the cost basically for doing that,
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: So it becomes instead of something that's not even you know,
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: not even something worth pursuing or able to be pursued
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: because of finances, something' is like, oh yeah, just step
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: right up and we'll spit out your treatment.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And as more more does the cost come down,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: more people use it, which means more people using it
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: allows for greater chance of new breakthrough. So yeah, hopefully
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: we're going to have cancer licked in the future. I
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: saw somebody suggest that it'll end up being kind of
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: like a chronic disease akin to diabetes in the.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: Future, just something you can live fairly healthily with.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you can manage and there'll be plenty of drugs
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: to keep you going amazing. You want to take a break, Yeah, okay,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: well then let's do that.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: All right. Next up on the list of things that
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: people may one day look back and say, why did
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: you do it that way? Dummies of the twenty first
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: century is organ transplants. We have a pretty great episode
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: on organ transplants somewhere in our back catalog. It feels
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: like a long time ago. It was a little while,
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: but what we're basically talking about, and again, organ transplants awesome.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: It's amazing how far they've come in the past, you know,
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: since they've been doing them. But rejection rates are still
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: an issue, up to ten to fifteen percent for kidneys
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: for instance. And then also the fact that you know,
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: transporting organs, getting them to the people in time can
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: still be an issue. Seventeen Americans die every day waiting
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: on organs. And it's also inequitable in that, you know,
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: generally people that have are the most funded, get the
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: most organs for transplant. But there's a better way forward, right.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I just want to say one I found a
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: stat that I found rather shocking. One in five donated
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: kidneys goes unused. It goes to waste, even though people
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: die waiting for kidneys. That's just how kluge the whole
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: setup is right now. Yeah, So, yeah, they're trying to
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: fix the process and the system and the organization in
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: charge of that in the United States, But like further
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: down the pike on a longer timeline, the goal is organagenesis,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: which is what it sounds like. It's creating entirely new
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: organs from cells from scratch. It's like watch this grow.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: You remember those little dinosaur sponges that you added water
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: to and they just grew, grew, grew. It's kind of
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: like that, but with fully functioning organs.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah. How far are we away from someone trying to
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: grow a human out in a lab?
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: I'm sure somebody's probably trying it already, but I don't
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: know how long it'll be till they're successful.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, we had Dolly the sheep, that Dolly was
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: a clone, right.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: Yes, And I don't know if everybody's read our book,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: and if you haven't, I'll just go ahead and share
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: with you a little fact from it. Yeah, passage of
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: dramatic reading. Apparently Dolly was named Dolly because she was
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: grown from a mammary cell. So it was a nineties
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: haha joke about Dolly Park.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think we might have said that in the
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: Delli parton episode.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: Didn't make or did If we did, I'll have to
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: go back and listen. If so, we'll edit this part out.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, the beers repeating, I think.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: Okay, So, yes, we're a little ways off, because not
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: only Chuck, are we not capable of growing human from cells.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: We're not capable of growing kidneys or hearts, but we
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: are somewhere. We've grown and successfully transplanted windpipes, bladders fairly
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: like simple organs and structures. But I mean simple as
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: like a relative term, because we're talking about something that
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: was grown from that person's own cells into the very
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: piece of equipment that they needed and then put in
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: them and it worked.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which is remarkable. I know that they can do
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: this with, at least right now, the epidermis. So if
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: you're a burn victim, you can get your own stem
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: cells and you can get some new epidermis of about
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: to say, just skin, but they're working on growing like
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: the entire thickness of the skin. They're not there yet,
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: but they can now grow epidermis from your own stem
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: cells in a lab and they transfer it to something
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: called fibrine, which is a protein that really kind of
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: helps your blood clot when you get a cut or something,
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: and then they put it on your body and it
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: just it goes and then you're done.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's it makes that sound.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: It takes you know, obviously it's a process. I was
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: just kidding around, But right now they can't like grow
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: skin that grows hair or sebaceous glands and stuff like that.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: But if you're a burn victim and you can get
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: you know, your own epidermis to replace you know, your
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: scarred skin on your body, then that's pretty amazing.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: It's kind of akin to laying sod, but with skin,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: you know. Sure, So right now, I think the state
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: of the art with organ and genesis that extra oh
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: trips me up and I like to add syllables. So
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: that's a real tricky one is growing organs in other animals,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: And as we'll see, hopefully we're going to be moving
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: away from that because to take that organ from the
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: animal and transplant it into a human, you kill that
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: animal in the process, right Like you don't. You can't
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: take a pig's heart and be like, good luck with
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: the rest of your life, because it doesn't have a
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: rest of its life. It's missing its heart. And from
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: a lot of the trends that I've seen, it seems
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: like a fairly safe bet that we're moving in a
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: direction where animal welfare is going to become more and
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: more and more important to where how we treat animals
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: will be maybe the most critical thing that people will
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: of the future will look back at us on you.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: Know, yeah, which that's coming up in a more robust
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: way in a second. But to finish this up, there's
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: also three D bioprinting, which is pretty amazing. I remember
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: telling the story one time. I've known two people in
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: my life who were born without an external ear, and
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: the process back then was they formed a sort of
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: a skeleton of the shape of an ear, and if
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: I'm not I'm not sure what it was made of,
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: I think cartilage. But if I'm not mistaken, that then
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: was there was like a skin bubble around it, and
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: then they would suck the air out of that skin
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: bubble very quickly to onto that cartilage to form you
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: know what looked close enough to an external ear. And
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: I say external like you know, the ear parts or.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know it's talking about.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: And I've known two people in my life that had
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: that done and they, you know, back in the day,
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: it was not like it is now. I think the
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: three D bioprinting of ears is much much further along
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: and they look much better than they used to. And
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: that's kind of the point, right, But they're thinking that,
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: you know, maybe one day we can three D bioprint
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: a liver.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty amazing, and that'll kind of come up well
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: in the next section two. So I say we move
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: on to the next section because it does kind of
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: tie into what we were talking about.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: Just now, that's right, let's do it.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: So getting meat from animals is probably something that will
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: really be looked down upon in the future because we
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: already have techniques that will that make it so we
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: don't really need live animals to create meat to eat meat,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: and yet we're still eating meat. And that's despite and
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: I'm very much guilty of this too, that's despite knowing
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: how horrific and terrible factory farming is for the animals themselves,
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: for the environment. People just really love meat and it's
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: tough to give up. So rather than forcing people to
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: give up, there's other alternatives that people are working on
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: to replace. We're going to need to do that too, because, apparently, Chuck,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: the growing demand for meat is going to be totally
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: unsustainable in the next couple decades.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, there are statistics like the UN will
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: throw out that say we're going to by the year
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: twenty fifty, the meat demand means we're going to have
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: to produce fifty to one hundred percent more meat than
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: we do now. But there's also other people saying, like, Hey,
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: this whole notion of you know, wealthier countries eat meat
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: because they can afford it and countries that are more
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: developing eat agriculturally largely or vegetarian because they're forced to,
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: isn't really the case any or at least moving forward,
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: it looks like because what they found is the emerging
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: trend is that people are eating less meat once they
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: get enough of wealth to afford it for a bunch
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: of reasons, and one of which is what you're talking about,
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: is there's just a forever changing way that humans look
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: at animals and animal welfare for one. And also you
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: red meat in the fact that it's terrible for your
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: body is another one.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: And terrible for the environment livestock raising that includes transportation,
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: tractor emissions, but also methane from the cow shooting ducks
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: all the time that it counts for fourteen and a
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: half percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. So it has
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: like this triple impact, triple negative impact on the animal's welfare,
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: the human body, and the health of the earth. And
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: for those reasons, it does seem like people in wealthier
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: countries are starting to move away from meat, and so
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: I think the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development they
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: released an Agricultural Outlook within the last couple of years
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: and they predicted that around twenty seventy five, the whole
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: world will start moving away from meat and that eventually
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: we're just going to stop eating what's called carcass meat
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: very appropriately altogether.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, can I tell you something really quick about a
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: Instagram all today. Yeah, it has to do with the
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: cows and the methane. Actually, our colleague, our old friend,
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: Tamika at work posted this, yeah, and it was a
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: video of a guy that was showed how they treat
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: bloat in cows. Have you seen this? No, when a
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: cow gets bloated with gas, they stick a needle into
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: the cow's stomach, releasing methane and they light that thing
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: so they can see a flame to judge like how
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: much gas is still in there. Oh wow, So there
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: was a video of a cow with a with a
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: blowtorch coming out of its side.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Essentially wow, what was the cow's expression?
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: Like, Well, all I saw was the cow, but the
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: guy who was hosting the video his expression was horrified
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: because he was like, you know, can you believe that
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: this is where we are in the world.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I totally can believe that. That doesn't surprise me at all,
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: to tell you the truth.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: And they're trying to help the cow, but it's you know,
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: the cows. The reason cow's there is because of factory partment.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: Right. Tamiko, by the way, has one of the better
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: non celebrity Instagram feeds you can find.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah to me, because this is great. It's good stuff.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: But what you were saying about moving away from what'd
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: you call it, carcass meat? Yeah, there are two main
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: ways that that's happening right now, and that is obviously
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: what they call novel vegan meat replacements, you know, fake meat,
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: impossible stuff, beyond stuff, and then lab grown meat, which
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: did we do a whole episode on lab grown meat?
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah? We did a while back.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: I thought so we should.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: Update it like we did the recycling episode, you know,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: like so much stuff has changed since total I'm sure, well,
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: we'll update it eventually. But lab grow meat or cultured
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: meat is exactly what it sounds like. You use a bioreactor,
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: sometimes a three D like bioprinter using animal cells to
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: recreate meat, and they I think the there's a consulting
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: group called at Kearney, they predict that by twenty forty,
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: which is not that long off everybody, the sixty percent
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: of global meat consumption will be from cultured or non
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: vegan meat replacements. Yeah, like that's significant. That's a huge change.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: Like there may be countries that are developing now that
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: won't even eat carcass meat when they become wealthy because
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: the replacements will have become so great there'll be no
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: reason to eat meat.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah. You know, if you ask the CEOs of beyond
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: it impossible, they're going to say, then fifteen years there
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: will be no more eating of meat. Yeah, that's a
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: little ambitious, and I think that, you know, maybe they're
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: trying to drive up the stock price, so that's probably
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: not going to be the case, but that that at
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: Kearney group prediction, like, that's that seems quite possible.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: I buy that, especially if there's a couple of challenges
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: that are overcome by then, which is you know, that's
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: seventeenth sorry, sixteen years now away, and that's plenty of
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: time to overcome some relative speed bumps. One is replicating no,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: I think they have flavor kind of locked, at least
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: as far as cultured meat goes.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, texture textures.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: The problem, because you don't want to eat like a
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: little a little scobie of beef that tastes just like
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: beef but looks like a scobi from a kombucha batch.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: No one wants to eat that. And yet Japanese researchers
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: recently showed I think according to freethink, this great website
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: I found in twenty twenty one, they recreated a Wagoo
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: steak which has got some of the most complex marbling
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: of fat mixed in with the meat that you could
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: possibly ever come across, and they faithfully recreated one. I'm
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: sure it cost them a million and a half dollars
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: to make that one steak, but there was a proof
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: of concept that it can be done. The other big
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: challenge is right now, when you're making that Wagou steak
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: from cellular culture, you actually need to take it from
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: an unborn calf as you slaughter the mom. I don't
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: think the mom has to be slaughtered. I think they
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: just take it while they're slaughtering the mom. Yeah, and
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: that's what they used to grow meat. Right now, and
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: a lot of people are like, no, still, I'm not
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: okay with that. It's still an animal suffers somehow, some way.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: And so there's a company called Meetable, a Dutch company
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: that said, we got this, we got our way around this.
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they made us sausage in July twenty twenty two
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: that was lab grown sausage, lab grown pork. But it
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: was it did not use I don't think we said.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: What it's called fetal bovine serum. Is that blood drawn
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: from the cow's fetus, and that's what you said, it's
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: typically used, but they didn't use that at all. It
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: was you know, there was no animal involved.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they used cells from like a live animal that
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: was unharmed by it.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: Well yeah, yeah, that's what I meant. No, no animal
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: involved is in their death?
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: Was not involved, right right, exactly? Yeah, the animal couldn't
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: have cared less either way. From what I understand they did.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: They were in the process of having they were being degassed,
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: so they had bigger fish to fry than somebody scraping
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: a few cells off their hind quarters.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: You know, it's like I got a blowtorch coming out
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: of my exactly.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: Uh, okay, I say we move on. Oh but first, Chuck,
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: let's take a break, because it's it's that kind of time.
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: Let's do it.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: Okay, we're back, Charles. We're talking about what people in
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: the future are going to think of us based on
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: the stuff we do today that may seem primitive, and
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: one of them might not seem well, it could seem primitive,
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: it'll seem quaint. Probably is driving a car yourself, Yeah,
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: or maybe even owning your own car, because the predictions
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: for the future are that car hailing apps will become
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: so ubiquitous that you're gonna need your own car less
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: and less and less. This is a prediction from Karas
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: Swisser Swisher the New York Times tech colonists. Sorry Kara,
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: that in not too many years, owning your own car
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: is going to become obsolete. And then eventually the next step.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: This is me adding to that prediction, those cars that
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: pick you up when you use a ride hailing app
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: will not have a driver in them. You will just
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: get in the back and go.
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, self driving cars has been in the
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: news a lot over the past you know, decade or so.
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: I remember being in San Francisco, a couple of years
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: ago and seeing a car with a crazy contraption on top,
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: and I was like, what in the world is that?
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: And is that a Google Maps or a Google Earth
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: like thing taking pictures.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: That car's wearing braces.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: Then I looked inside. It's like no, no, no, there's
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: no human in that car. And it kind of startled me.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: But just showing witchcraft, right.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: I did. I threw a Molotov cocktail out of it
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: all to care of that problem. But there was a company,
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: I think there were you know, there's more than one
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: company that's trying this stuff out, but there's a company
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: called Cruise, which just recently in October of this year. Well,
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: I guess last year now of twenty twenty three, the
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: California state government said you can't do this, you can't
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: practice this anymore, no more driverless practicing out of you
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: because well, for a lot of reasons building up to
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: what was called the incident, but minor incidents involved things
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: like blocking ambulances, stopping in the middle of an intersection,
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: rearinding a bus, running red light, stuff like that. But
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: the big incident was when a pedestrian finally was bound
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: to happen, was hit in downtown San Francisco when she
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: was hit by another car driven by a real human,
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: knocked into the other lane, and then the Cruise car
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: apparently braked but then rolled over her anyway, pulled her forward,
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: and then stopped on top of her.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: Just stopped. It was like, Okay, I'm fine, I don't
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: know what to do. I'm just gonna freeze right here
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: on top of this pedestrian. So yeah, Cruise is far
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: and away the only company from having problems with their
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: tech that they're working on. They're just the most recent
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: poster child of the problems with self driving cars.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah she didn't die, by the way, No, thank.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: You for saying that.
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: The point of this is, though, is that despite these setbacks,
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: we exist in the time of setbacks. In a couple
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: of decades, will exist in the time where were beyond
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: those setbacks and we have driverless cars. These setbacks don't
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: mean we're never going to have driverless cars. In fact,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: even people who are super skeptical of them right now
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: still admit we're probably going to have them at some
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: point in the future. It's just a question of when.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: And it seems like we're a little further behind than
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: we may have thought a few years ago.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know one thing that if it's not,
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: I think the road there may not be as abrupt
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: because we already see in newer cars a lot of
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: like things like lane assistance, Like your car will correct
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: itself and steer itself back if it sees that it's
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: driving off the road, like if you're drowsy or you're
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: on your phone, which you should never be, so you
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: see like lane assistants and stuff like that. You know,
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: if your speed like really really changes a lot. A
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: lot of times cars these days will send you an
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: alert that says, like, you know, are you okay? Maybe
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: you should pull over, stuff like that. So that's sort
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: of like these are the intermediary steps that will lead
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: to full automation, and they've already come a long way,
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: but apparently, again with the help of AI, they could
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: go a lot further.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, eventually the cars is going to start talking to
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: itself and you'll feel so left out you just don't
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: even get in the driver's seat anymore. But the whole
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: point of removing humans from cars is to remove humans
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: from the equation of driving, not for our convenience necessarily,
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: but for our safety because we're our own worst enemies
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: when it comes to driving. You found a stat that recently,
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: it was it like twenty twenty twenty twenty one.
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: Do you know it's twenty twenty one, But just over
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: the last few years, in general, it's been about thirty
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: to thirty three percent.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: Of fatalities involved at least one of the drivers being drunk.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: I couldn't find any statistics that also include drugs, but
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: just being drunk alone, thirty percent of people who die
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: in the United States die because one of the people
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: involved in that crash was drunk. That is unacceptable, but
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: it's humans. People do that. It's a terrible decision. People
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: think that that's not going to happen to them, and
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: it does, and it accounts for thousands and thousands and
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: thousands of deaths every year. Yeah, driverless cars don't drink.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: They have other problems right now, But as we work
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: them out, those problems will become a part of the past,
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: and drunk driving accidents will become a part of the
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: past as well, which will be great for everybody.
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, ninety four percent of any accident in
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: the United States involves some kind of human error. So
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: you know what I'm curious about is what the acceptable
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: percentage of driverless car error, because it seems like it
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: seems like human car error is just endlessly forgivable, to
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: the point where, you know, like every car these days
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: you shouldn't be able to start unless you can blow
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: into a breathalyzer like that technology is there.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're harder on computers than we are in ourselves,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: is what you're saying.
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: Huh, well exactly, So, like what if all of a sudden,
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: driverless cars they prove, like you know, they can reduce
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: total accidents by ninety percent, there would still be people saying, like,
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: in those ten percent of cases where someone died, it
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: was some AI computer or whatever.
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: So it's just I don't know, just find it really
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: interesting that we still allow people to get into a
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: car after they've been drinking and drive, even though the
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: technology exists to stop that from happening.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I think that it's a cognitive bias of ours.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: We tend to focus on the more sensational, and the
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: more sensational. Is a car being driven by a computer
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: killing somebody than a drunk dude killing somebody in his car. Yeah,
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: So yeah, there's just removing people from the equation should
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: increase safety. It should also probably increase or decrease pollution
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: as a result. There's somebody who came up with the
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: eye popping statistic that thirty percent of the traffic in
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: metropolitan areas is people circling the block looking for a
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: place to park. If you don't own a car and
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: you're not driving your own car, that goes away. So
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: thirty percent of traffic goes away instantaneously with that, Yeah,
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: I mean that you have me right there. Yeah, yeah,
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: So driverless cars almost certainly coming down the pike, as
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: long as AI doesn't take over the world, of course,
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: I think we should caveat this entire episode with that
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: all of this is going to happen if AI doesn't
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: take over the world.
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: Okay, that's right, And we're going to finish up with
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: a couple of shorter ones that I think you're just
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: pretty awesome and interesting. One is the fact that sort
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: of the current thinking is that we we tend to
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: tie like progress as a nation, definitely in the United States,
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: but in most places around the world, to how like
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: robust and economy is. It's like always tied to finances
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: on what kind of progress we're making, and there are
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: people that think like sort of like with the way
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: we're starting to look at animals, like, you know, one
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: day that's not going to be the most important factor
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: for humans, and things like the health of the earth
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: and human beings health and well being both physically and
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: mentally is the you should equate that with the success
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: of a nation, And one day they're going to look
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: back and say, you remember when we all that we
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: cared about was the fact that the stock market was flesh.
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because we GDP just tells you whether an economy
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: is growing or shrinking, right, That's basically all it tells you,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: And it leaves out a lot of stuff, like you said,
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: human well being, things like whether people are dying of
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: deaths of despair or whether they're generally happy, how many
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: resources are being depleted. Is anybody working on an alternative
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: that all of the stuff that creates that growing economy
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: just is totally ignored? Yeah, And I think that's what
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: that economist Kate Rayworth was saying, is like it's it's madness,
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: Like it's so ridiculous to just completely not count all
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: this stuff that really really counts in favor of just
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: this one metric, which is growth or shrinkage. And not
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: only is that probably going to be thought of as
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: ridiculous in the future. People younger people today, who are
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: becoming adults or who have recently become adults, they already
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: tend to think this way as a group. So it's
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: a pretty sure indicator that we're going to leave GDP
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: or growth behind as an indicator of the health of
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: an economy and start thinking more about the other stuff,
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: the more important stuff. And who knows what can result
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: from that, like what great cascading knock on effects that
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: that will have.
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you found this Princeton University bioethicist named Peter Singer
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: who talked about the fact that the circle of concern
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: as humankind and advances is expanding, And that's just a
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: wonderful thought. And you know, you see it in everything
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: from the fact that you know, we've laughed before it
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: like the mad Men episode where people used to just
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: willingly throw litter on the ground, to you know, we
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: look back at that as barbaric generally. And that's just
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: one small example. So as as humans are evolving down
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: the line, that circle of concern is expanding and people
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: are caring about more and more things that they didn't
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: care about before, and that's that's great.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And Peter Singer, by the way, is very famous
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: ethicists as far as animal rights are concerned in animal welfare.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: So yeah, his whole thing is like, we're gonna stop
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: focusing on conspicuous consumption and rather you'll be more considered
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: like a great person, not from your wealth, but from
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: your charity and your charitable giving, which would be great.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: And then that circle of concern kind of leads us
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: to our last one too, because the most recent inclusion
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: into the circle of conc is the environment, the earth,
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: the health of the earth, and that this one is
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: just a sure give me, there is no way that
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: we're not going to be looked down upon for this
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: by our descendants. So that is burning fossil fuels.
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean in five hundred years, who knows, maybe sooner.
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: It seems like people will definitely look back and say,
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: I can't believe that we used to burn fossil fuels
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: like we did. And for a lot of reasons, not
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: just the you know the process of removing fossil fuels
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: and all that goes into that, or even the climate
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: and the ozone, which are all huge concerns obviously, but
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: just things like pollution and air quality and the fact
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: that you know that kills people and that costs so
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: much money in healthcare. I think there was a study
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: from the University of Wisconsin in Madison that said if
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: we stopped burning fossil fuels all together, it would have
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: about fifty thousand premature deaths per year because of air
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: quality alone, and about six hundred billion dollars annually and
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: the US alone and healthcare costs.
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think even more than looking at us
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: as like dumb dumbs for ignoring that we're going to
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: be looked at, is kind of reviled because of the
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: future will have delivered our descendants because of the climate
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: change we just allowed to happen.
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: I saw who estimate that two hundred and fifty thousand
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: additional deaths per year are expected to come each year
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: between twenty thirty and twenty fifty because of climate change
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: from things like heat stress, malnutrition, insect born diseases. That
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: an additional quarter of a million people are going to
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: die every year because of climate change starting six years
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: from now. That's nuts. So I can only imagine what
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: the people of you know, twenty one hundred are going
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: to think of us. Hopefully they'll have everything under control
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: by then, but they're probably going to be pretty ticked
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: off that they had to go to the trouble.
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, you can see this coming because it
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: already happens now once again by seeing younger generations already
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: looking at previous generations as barbaric and how we treat
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: the earth.
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: For sure, I saw an RHS financial estimate or prediction
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: that the oil market will collapse this decade that we're
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: just based on trends, current trends now and the way
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: people think now that probably we won't be using oil
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: nearly as much in the next ten twenty years.
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: Very interesting.
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the future is interesting, Chuck, And it is the future.
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: As a matter of fact. It's almost twenty twenty four,
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: and I just want to say happy new year to everybody.
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: Huh, that's right, Happy new year everyone. We thank you
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: once again for your support. We say it all the time.
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: If there was no U, that would be no US.
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: We are always grateful that we are allowed to do
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: this job because you listen.
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you, and happy new year to everyone. Happy
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: birthday to you me Andy Birthday, Thanks Chuck, and we'll
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: see you guys next year. And if you want to
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: get in touch with this in the interim, in this
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: very short time left in twenty twenty three, you can
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: do it via email almost instantaneously. Wrap it up, spank
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: it on the bottom, put a sash onto this says
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, and send it off to Stuff podcast
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: at iHeartRadio dot com.
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.