Latest / Drawn of History / Investigative Journalist Nate Halverson _ This Past Weekend w_ Theo Von _510(M4A_128K)

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Investigative Journalist Nate Halverson _ This Past Weekend w_ Theo Von _510(M4A_128K) · Drawn of History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Today's guest is an independent writer, journalist, and reporter. He
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: contributed to the documentary The Grab, which is all about
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: the money and power controlling the food industry in America
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: and beyond. Outside of that, he writes for the Center
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: for Investigative Reporting. I'm really fascinated to spend time with
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  Speaker 1: today's guest, Nate Halverson.
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  Speaker 2: Shine that light on me.
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  Speaker 1: I'll sit and tell you my story.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Shine on me.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: And I will find a song. I've been singing. Nate Halverson,
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  Speaker 1: thanks for coming, man.
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  Speaker 2: Dude, are you kidding me? Thank you so much for
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: having me.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I appreciate it, man. I watched The Grab. which
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: is the documentary that you guys are putting out. And
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  Speaker 1: just so I'm clear, what was the goal of the documentary?
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  Speaker 1: Because to me, it seemed like you're trying to show
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  Speaker 1: that a lot of land or arable land, is that
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  Speaker 1: land that can grow crops? Yeah. Okay. A lot of
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: land that can sustain crops is being bought up by
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  Speaker 1: different countries, that it's kind of like a land grab
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  Speaker 1: for that land right now. because they're not making more
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  Speaker 1: of it.
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  Speaker 2: That's it, man. I mean, it, it is in the
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  Speaker 2: 21st century, it's looking more like, you know, oil was
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  Speaker 2: the commodity of the 20th century, you know, gold diamonds,
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  Speaker 2: these things, but in the 21st century, it looks like
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  Speaker 2: the rich and powerful are increasingly turning to control food
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  Speaker 2: and water as you know, like the basic necessities. Um,
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  Speaker 2: and we're just seeing a ton, whether it's foreign governments,
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  Speaker 2: you know, wealthy wall street corporations are all beginning to
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  Speaker 2: turn to it. You know, I think now Bill Gates,
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  Speaker 2: his family, they're the largest farmers in the U S right.
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  Speaker 2: Like they have, they're now the largest farmland owners in
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  Speaker 2: the U S. Right.
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  Speaker 1: And that's interesting. Cause he's obviously a guy with a
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  Speaker 1: lot of foresight, a guy who's able to kind of
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  Speaker 1: envision the next step, obviously from his past, from his
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  Speaker 1: history of being able to like acquire, uh, companies that
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  Speaker 1: are doing that, um, in different realms. Um, you kind
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  Speaker 1: of broke this story that this was happening years ago. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Because before this, I mean, when I, before I started
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  Speaker 2: working on this dude, I do nothing about any of this, right?
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  Speaker 2: Like I came into a cold Turkey and I was
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  Speaker 2: asked to look at, uh, China's largest meat company buying
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  Speaker 2: the world's largest pork company, which was based in Virginia.
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  Speaker 2: And at the time Congress was kind of freaking out,
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  Speaker 2: you know, like his China buy-in, you know, our meat supply. Um,
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  Speaker 2: and so I started, I was asked to look into
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  Speaker 2: it cause I had this background and dig it into
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  Speaker 2: Hong Kong financials where this meat company was publicly traded.
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  Speaker 2: And I went to China. I talked to folks in
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: the U S I talked to people in the U
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  Speaker 2: S intelligence and it turns out, yeah, like the Chinese
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  Speaker 2: government was behind, uh, this purchase that's effectively one in
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  Speaker 2: four American pigs. And the reason is because the Chinese
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  Speaker 2: government kind of clued into something before other folks. which
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  Speaker 2: is that in the 21st century, food is power, right?
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  Speaker 2: Like you need to control food to control your political future.
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  Speaker 2: And so the Chinese government began putting into these five-year
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  Speaker 2: plans that they put out an effort to go overseas
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  Speaker 2: and begin buying up food and water resources so that
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  Speaker 2: they could control it.
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  Speaker 1: So it's a strategy that was happening.
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  Speaker 2: Definitely.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 2: Yep.
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  Speaker 1: And so they want to get the pigs because that's
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  Speaker 1: a source of food. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: It's a source of food and that's a source of,
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  Speaker 2: you know, for China political stability.
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  Speaker 1: Right. If you have food, then the people will eventually
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  Speaker 1: follow you. It's like, yeah, you'll do anything to eat.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, that's exactly it. And, and, you know, like I've
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  Speaker 2: now traveled the world. That was like the first one
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  Speaker 2: that the first food story that I looked at, you know,
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  Speaker 2: and I, I thought like, okay, it's a story about food.
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  Speaker 2: It's a story about farming, you know? So I was
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  Speaker 2: surprised when I'll, you know, then I'm talking to us
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  Speaker 2: intelligence people.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 2: And then I'm talking to like people in the defense department, right?
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  Speaker 2: Like all of a sudden food is this like big
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  Speaker 2: national security. And so as I began traveling the world,
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  Speaker 2: I mean, I began going to other countries where those
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  Speaker 2: governments were using the food supply to control the population, right?
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  Speaker 2: And I think that's what people are worried about going
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  Speaker 2: forward into the 21st century is that by controlling the food,
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  Speaker 2: you can control the people.
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  Speaker 1: Right. They're just thinking, okay, how do we need to
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  Speaker 1: control the people next? How do we still have control
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  Speaker 1: over people? And they start to look at what can
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  Speaker 1: become a scarcity. Yep. And they believe it's food.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And so like the country I had gone
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  Speaker 2: to was, was Venezuela. Um, and Venezuela at the time
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  Speaker 2: was having all of these food riots, right? Like people,
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  Speaker 2: people you'd go and you'd work your nine to five job,
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  Speaker 2: and then you'd come home and there'd literally be a
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  Speaker 2: one mile line, long line to get into the grocery store.
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  Speaker 2: And there's no way you're going to work like a
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  Speaker 2: 10 hour day and then stand in line all night.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 2: And then go back. And so, you know, I was
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  Speaker 2: talking to these guys that were working class that had jobs.
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  Speaker 2: And they were literally eating out of dumpsters. I saw
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  Speaker 2: these dudes eating raw meat.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 2: And he's like, I've got a job. He's like, I
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  Speaker 2: just can't afford food. And so then I went to this,
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  Speaker 2: you know, like secret location, this, this, this warehouse full
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  Speaker 2: of food after watching people like starving people, people scraping
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  Speaker 2: by trying to survive without a food in Venezuela. I
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  Speaker 2: went to this government warehouse full of food on a
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  Speaker 2: Sunday when it was supposed to be closed and who
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  Speaker 2: was there. It was a bunch of Venezuelan military and police.
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  Speaker 2: They were open. The government has opening it up. And
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  Speaker 2: these guys, these big buff dudes were wheeling out cartfuls
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  Speaker 2: of food that like I hadn't seen in like my
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  Speaker 2: one week there. And they were giving the authority, like
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  Speaker 2: the authorities were giving the police and the military, the
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  Speaker 2: guys that were knocking down the population food so that
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  Speaker 2: they would of course continue to control the population.
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  Speaker 1: But how do you start to see that it becomes
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  Speaker 1: a bigger story though?
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  Speaker 2: I mean, I just, it was crazy, man, because I
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  Speaker 2: just started seeing these dots, like these stories that you
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  Speaker 2: would see around the world, you know, like, oh, this
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  Speaker 2: country is running low on food and its people are
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  Speaker 2: migrating out. Or like this, this country just bought up,
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  Speaker 2: you know, like half the farmland in like Madagascar. Right.
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  Speaker 2: You know, like when I think Dai Wu out of
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  Speaker 2: South Korea bought up, like made like a secret deal
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  Speaker 2: for like half the farmland in Madagascar. And then the
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  Speaker 2: people rise up and overthrow in the countries in civil war.
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  Speaker 2: And you, you begin seeing these stories and then you
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  Speaker 2: begin being like, oh my God, like, all of these
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  Speaker 2: seemingly separate stories are all connected as part of this
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  Speaker 2: like bigger trend.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 2: And that's when I began tapping into people who were
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  Speaker 2: beginning to follow it, like in the shadows, right? Like
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  Speaker 2: the government, the intelligence community, others were beginning to sort
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  Speaker 2: of piece this together. But it, for my reporting anyway,
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  Speaker 2: it appears that like it really was the Chinese government
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  Speaker 2: was probably the first to wake up to this, to
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  Speaker 2: really tap into it. And there's a reason for that.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, the leadership of China went through the great famine, right?
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  Speaker 2: Like Xi Jinping has told stories about living through the
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  Speaker 2: great famine, which was the late fifties when estimates are
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  Speaker 2: that like, man, 37 million people died, um, as a
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  Speaker 2: result of starvation in China, in China.
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  Speaker 1: Wow.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. And so when you go through a period where
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  Speaker 2: you're looking around and dude, I've heard, I mean, like
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  Speaker 2: stories I don't even like to tell because they're so awful,
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  Speaker 2: about what it's like, you know, if you have 37
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  Speaker 2: million people that actually died as a result of starvation,
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  Speaker 2: that means you got like 100 million people that are close, right?
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  Speaker 2: And people are just like doing desperate, crazy things. And
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  Speaker 2: so when the leadership of China can remember that, like
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  Speaker 2: they are more keyed in when that trend starts, you know,
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  Speaker 2: poking up its head, when there are these, you know,
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  Speaker 2: when there are these forecasts that things are going to
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  Speaker 2: get more and more dire in the future, they moved
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  Speaker 2: quickly to begin to sort of control food and water
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  Speaker 2: supplies for their population.
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  Speaker 1: Right. So they're kind of like, obviously they're a little
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  Speaker 1: more sensitive to it, but you noticed that they were
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  Speaker 1: kind of at the head of the trend.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: My father grew up in Nicaragua and he grew up
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  Speaker 1: there like in the 1910s. Okay. And so he would
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  Speaker 1: tell me stories about people starving and um, kids in
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  Speaker 1: his village and stuff eating dirt and like their stomachs
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  Speaker 1: becoming distended.
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  Speaker 2: That's right.
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  Speaker 1: Um, literally making dirt, like people say mud pies and
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  Speaker 1: stuff that kids make like, but literally making mud pies
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  Speaker 1: and eating.
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  Speaker 2: Them, you know, just to like be able to put
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  Speaker 2: something like, right. You're putting something in.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Where in Nicaragua was your dad?
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  Speaker 1: He's from Bluefields, Nicaragua.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, sure. Out in the coast.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. So I'm not, I know his, some of his
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  Speaker 1: family was down there, um, being missionaries and that's how
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  Speaker 1: his parents met each other. But, um, Yeah, he would
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  Speaker 1: just tell me stories like that when I was a kid,
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  Speaker 1: and it was just unbelievable. I mean, I've even thought–
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  Speaker 1: I've been on a fast for a couple days and
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  Speaker 1: seen– and this is a little off topic, I guess,
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  Speaker 1: but I've seen a guy at Best Buy. I had
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  Speaker 1: been on a fast for four days. I'd seen a
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  Speaker 1: guy at Best Buy.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And I was like, I could eat that guy. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: It was, and it was like– I'd never had a
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  Speaker 1: thought like that before. I've been to Best Buy probably
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  Speaker 1: 70 times. And I'd never thought, you know what? I
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  Speaker 1: could eat one of these sales attendants or whatever. But
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  Speaker 1: it was just in my head. It was like a
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  Speaker 1: little bit of that hunger was like, what are we
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  Speaker 1: going to do here if this guy looks the other way? Yeah, dude.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. I know, man. It's weird. Like, and that's what
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  Speaker 2: it comes down to. And that's the thing that like,
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  Speaker 2: and then people are surprised. They're like, why are all
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: these Venezuelans coming to our border? And you're like, because
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  Speaker 2: they're hungry. They've been staring at other people thinking about
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  Speaker 2: eating them. So they're like, maybe it's time to leave.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. You don't even think that that's one of the
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  Speaker 1: reasons why people were coming up. What are some of
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  Speaker 1: the other dots you start to connect? Because I see
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  Speaker 1: in the documentary, there's like land that's bought in Arizona.
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  Speaker 1: There's a huge focus on land that's bought in Africa.
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  Speaker 1: Like what are some of the other dots you start
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  Speaker 1: to connect that really make this in your mind, like
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  Speaker 1: bring it to a boil kind of besides just. paranoid Chinese, like,
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  Speaker 1: and with, with a forethought. Yeah. Right.
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  Speaker 2: Uh, I mean, you're right. It was, it was all
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  Speaker 2: over the place. It was like, you know, I began thinking, okay,
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  Speaker 2: so if China's focused on this, like what other, you know,
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  Speaker 2: wealthy countries are focused on this. And, um, and you know,
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  Speaker 2: lo and behold, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia was one, right.
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  Speaker 2: Because believe it or not, even though it's a desert country,
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  Speaker 2: it had these huge underground water reserves, aquifers, underneath the desert.
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  Speaker 2: And that's why like, you know, there are Springs, you know,
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  Speaker 2: flowing to the surface of the desert that are mentioned
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  Speaker 2: in the Bible 2000, whatever years ago. And started in
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  Speaker 2: like the nineties, they began using their oil derricks to
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  Speaker 2: tap into that water and actually use that water to
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  Speaker 2: grow wheat in the desert. So this like wheat country
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  Speaker 2: by the nineties was the world's sixth largest exporter of wheat,
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  Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia. but dude, that water doesn't last, right?
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  Speaker 2: And so they drained it. And so like those springs
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  Speaker 2: that are mentioned from 2000 years ago, they wouldn't dry.
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  Speaker 2: And so then it's like, where are they gonna go?
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  Speaker 2: And that was the question I had in my head. Okay,
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  Speaker 2: so like if they drained their water with this program,
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  Speaker 2: like where are they? Yeah, man, that's when I found
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  Speaker 2: them in like, the Arizona desert and I'm talking like
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  Speaker 2: saguaro cactuses, Wiley coyote, like desert desert. And they were
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  Speaker 2: doing the same thing, pumping up this ancient water that
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  Speaker 2: doesn't get replenished from rain. Cause it's there from like
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: the last ice age or something. And then they use
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  Speaker 2: that water right there to grow alfalfa. And then they
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  Speaker 2: ship the alfalfa from Arizona, basically to Los Angeles, put
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  Speaker 2: it on a ship and then ship that alfalfa, which
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: is hay all the way back to Saudi Arabia, because
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  Speaker 2: that's how you move water. Like you couldn't fill enough
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: oil tankers full of water to effectively move water. What
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: you do is if your water short, you use the
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  Speaker 2: water wherever it is to grow the crops. And then
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  Speaker 2: you ship the crops because we use 70 to 80%
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  Speaker 2: of our, the water, fresh water around the world. We
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  Speaker 2: use it for food. That's what we need fresh water for. Okay.
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  Speaker 1: So if one entity shows up in another space and you,
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  Speaker 1: and grows a crop, really what they're using is water.
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  Speaker 1: That's the real resource. Because they could grow it at
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: home if they had the water.
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  Speaker 2: 100%. China doesn't have the water to grow enough food
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  Speaker 2: to feed its population.
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  Speaker 1: Wow. And even with the pigs, does that come back
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  Speaker 1: to water too or no?
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  Speaker 2: Even more so. Because, right, like you can grow alfalfa
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  Speaker 2: in the Arizona desert and then you can ship all
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: that alfalfa back to Saudi Arabia. Or like in the
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: case of pigs, you can grow all of the grain, right,
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  Speaker 2: that the pigs are going to eat here in the U.S.
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  Speaker 2: And then you feed that grain to the pigs and
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  Speaker 2: then you ship the pigs back. And so like a
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  Speaker 2: pig is an even more concentrated form of water. They
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: call it like virtual water is what an economist would
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: call it.
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  Speaker 1: Wow. So wait, explain that part to me one more
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  Speaker 1: time about the pig.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. So like, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So you would grow the grain here.
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  Speaker 2: Yep.
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  Speaker 1: With the water here.
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  Speaker 2: Yep.
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  Speaker 1: And then you would feed the pig here. Yep.
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  Speaker 2: And then you, then you slaughter the pig here and
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  Speaker 2: then you send the meat back.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 2: And so now you've used the water to grow the
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: grain here and animals require a lot of livestock feed.
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  Speaker 2: So it takes even more grain than if like you
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: were just eating like a, a meat free diet. It
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: takes just more water to eat a meat filled diet.
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  Speaker 1: Right. Okay. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: And so then you, you grow the grains here, you
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: feed it to the pig, the pig, the pig craps
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: all over the place. You end up with these like
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: giant manure lagoons, which are toxic. Those are here. And
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: you slaughter the pig and then you ship the meat back.
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  Speaker 2: So you get stuck with the shit and they get
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: the meat. Wow.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: And so how does, like for the example in, in Arizona,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: how does that affect like Americans? Like how does that
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: affect us?
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  Speaker 2: Totally. So like, When I broke that story about the
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: Saudis in the Arizona desert in 2015, the locals didn't know.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: They knew that their groundwater, the water that they relied
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: on for their homes, it was getting lower every single year.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: What they didn't know was that some other country had
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: run out of water and had come here to grab
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: that water. And so when I broke that story, people
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: are like, yeah, our water's been going down and it's
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: just been getting worse. And so what ends up happening
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  Speaker 2: to the people here I talked to people and they
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: were like, one woman, she was a nurse from California,
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: worked her whole life, wanted to retire somewhere more affordable.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: The desert's beautiful, man. It's beautiful out there. And so
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: she and her husband get this little ranch, small piece
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: of property, super modest, double wide trailer. They drill a
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: well and now they got water and they got their lives.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: They're going to retire there. The grandkids can come visit. Well,
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: what happens is these big international farmings move in. they
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: keep drilling deeper and deeper and pumping more and more
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: water up. And pretty soon these families are going like, dude,
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: I can't pay half a million dollars to drill a
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: well deep enough to find the water that's still there.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: And so they're at risk of losing like everything, like
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: all their life savings that they put into their homes.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Right. Because now their land has been sold out kind
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: of from under them.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: Really, or their water has been sold out from under them.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: But isn't there an agency that would protect the homeowners there?
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: Isn't there some sort.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: Of No, I mean, the law is, is that if you,
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: it's different in every region, but in this part of Arizona,
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: if you buy a piece of land, you can pump
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: out as much water as you want. Doesn't matter how
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: it impacts your neighbor. Wow. Yeah. So like if you're,
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: you know, a multi-billion dollar corporation, you can go in
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: there and buy up land, put in the deepest well
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: and just suck out as much water as you want. And,
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: you know, the folks living modestly around you, their water
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: goes away and that's just tough. You know, that's how
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: the law is written.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, it says right here, according to the United
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: Nations World Water Development Report 2024, 2.2 billion people will
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: still lack access to safe drinking water and 3.5 billion
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: will not have access to safe sanitation by 2024. But
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: that's about drinking water, I think.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Cause drinking water is that the same as water for
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: that you're talking about?
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: Well, like if you're pumping water to grow crops, you're
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: eventually going to, you could have the potential of taking
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: away somebody's drinking water. And that's what I see. Right.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: But like when it turns to like quantity, like what
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: we're actually using water for, like, you know, cause people
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: will say this to me like, Oh, Nestle bought up
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: this aquifer. They're going to bottle it. They're going to
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: use it up. And I'm like, okay, but like put
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: in perspective, one 10th of 1%, one 10th of 1%
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: of the freshwater we use is for drinking. 70 to
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: 80% is for growing crops.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: Wow. Right.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: And so when you're talking about somebody tapping an aquifer
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: to bottle water, like one 10th of 1% is how
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: much we as humans drink, right?
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: It's nothing.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: It's nothing. What we're pumping water out of aquifers for it,
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: like huge, huge rates, huge amounts is to grow food.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: Right. Yeah.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: And so these are, and then like, and if, if,
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: you know, like if it were just drinking water, that
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: was an issue, there are ways to move around enough
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: water to get everyone drinking water in theory.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: Um, but when you start talking about food, that's when
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: you're talking about like what people really need to move
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: water and they really need water for is for food.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So drinking water, we can, we have enough water
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: for that.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: Pretty much, man. I mean, like the vast amount of
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: water like you use as an individual is the food
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: you put into your body and not the water that
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: you drink.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: Got it.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: Like vast.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: Understood.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: So, okay. So you start to connect some of these dots.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: You see the, um, the issue in Arizona from Saudi Arabia.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Are there other things like that happening around America or
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: is that just kind of a one-off?
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: No, no, it's happening around America, right? Like it's going
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: through this pretty big transitionary period where like I think like,
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: and maybe, you know, you and I are roughly the
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: same age. I think like a lot of people still
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: kind of have this view of like farmers as like,
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: you know, Willie Nelson's farm aid, right? Like small, medium-sized farmers, like,
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: you know, both of them, you know, my family, we're
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: all farmers in Minnesota and Iowa. My dad grew up
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: barefoot on a farm, right? Like we kind of envision
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: it as like these smaller farms, but increasingly what they
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: are are these really large farms, increasingly owned by like
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: Wall Street pension funds foreign governments or foreign corporations, right?
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: Like that's been the trend line is that these smaller farmers,
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: these medium, medium sized farmers are getting bought out by
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: bigger and bigger conglomerates. Um, and so like we're in
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: this transitionary period in the U S is to like
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: how food is getting made.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: I see. And so not getting made by smaller farmers,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: but getting made in by larger corporations that could have
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: other interests in the farm is just a, uh, pass
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: it or just a placeholder.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: That's it. It's a, it's a, you know, it's another
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: profit mechanism because, you know, like if you're a country
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: and you're like, we need to buy up food and
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: water resources to make sure our people get fed and
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: that they don't overthrow us.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: And if you're, if you're wall street and you're looking
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: at that, you're like, Oh, if there is a crunch
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: on food in the future, food prices are going to
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: go up. And if food prices go up, that's a
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: profit margin.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: And so like, I've read these, these reports put out
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: by some of the biggest, you know, investment banks, And,
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: you know, they're just saying, you know, water is the
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: new oil, food's the new gold of the 21st century.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: Like this is where things are going to happen. He
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: says right.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: Here, as of December 31st, 2022, foreign entities owned about 43.4
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: million acres of U.S. agricultural land and forest, which is
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: about 3.4 of all agricultural land and almost 2% of
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: all U.S. farmland. I wonder if it's grown since then.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: Well, there's two things about that is- Because that doesn't
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: seem like that much. No, it's a trend line. But
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: the other thing was, is I pulled all of that data.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: And when there's an old law in the books that
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: says if you're a foreign company you need to register
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: if you're going to buy us farmland some states just
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: ban it outright but um the the i looked and
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: i was like i know that this farm is owned
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: by a foreign corporation and it wasn't in the database
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: yeah and so like the government wasn't really following up
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: and making sure and so like i have great you
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: know those numbers to me come with a huge asterisk
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: which is like it requires them to report it. Not
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: everyone's reporting it. And the government doesn't seem to be
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: following up to make sure.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Right. Understood. Yeah.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: And then the other thing is, is like you have
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: huge amounts of foreign wealth that are then put into
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: intermediaries like BlackRock or something, right? Like these huge asset management.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: And what does BlackRock got? $ 9 trillion that they manage.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: And so you'll have a sovereign wealth fund from another
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: country that'll put money there. And then, so then BlackRock
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: or some subsidiary, a BlackRock or a subsidiary of a
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: subsidiary of BlackRock might own the land, but the financial
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: backing is a foreign government.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: I see. So there's just like a lot of loopholes
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: and like hidden LLCs, that sort of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Well,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: how much of the land in America can be used?
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: And even on the planet, if you know, it can
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: be used to grow crops.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's interesting, man. I don't know. how much of
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: the land, I mean, like what you see in the
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: Arizona desert, it's like, it's desert. But if you pump
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: up the water, then you can grow alfalfa. Right. And
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: so it kind of comes down to like, do you
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: have the water there to do it? What we know
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: is what they'll say is that like some huge percent,
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: 40 or 70%, I can't remember off the top of
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: my head, some huge percent of the world's, you know,
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: remaining available farmland is in Africa.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: And so that's why there's this huge push from, now
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: for corporations to go down and to try to grab
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: up land in Africa, because now the, you know, they'll say, oh,
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: Africa is going to feed the world.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: Africa is going to feed the world, but I'm not
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: saying no, but I'm just, I remember 20 years ago
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: when we were having to do, they had the, wasn't
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: there the annual music every year to feed Africa? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: And, uh, um, and, and, and, and, and again, man,
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: the problem with that, that, that thing is, is like,
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: so then I went to Africa. I was like, okay,
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: so where's all of this vacant land? And it wasn't vacant, man.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: People had ancestrally been living on that land and they'd
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: been farming for their needs, you know, for their families, right?
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: And what had happened was, is these huge international corporations
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: had come in and just moved people off. And so
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: I was visiting these places where people were literally dying,
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: having had their land taken from them by one of
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: these international corporations that then could ship the food to
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: a wealthier country, you know, whether that was Europe, China
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: or Saudi Arabia, um, you know, they were literally had
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: their land taken from that, everything taken from them. Right.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: And you saw it firsthand.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: I saw firsthand. Yeah.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: There's a really tough part in the documentary where there's
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: a woman crying, really breaking down, um, because of the
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: fear of losing, uh, their land. She was really having
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: a tough time with it. You know, that was pretty
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: hard to watch.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, that stuff's a downer and, and, and what's,
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: you know, and, and when I, when I showed the
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: film to people there that are fighting back against this,
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: what they didn't see is that it's part of this
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: like giant international trend, right? Like it really is where
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: you've got like, again, like intelligence communities, governments, like all
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: like kind of behind this big push in this big movement.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: Um, and, and like you said, it's like when you're,
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: when you don't have access, to water because somebody upstream,
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: let's say, has dammed the river to grow food. And
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: now you don't even have drinking water. Oftentimes the thing
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: that's going to get you is your body begins to
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: just slowly get sicker and sicker from not having food
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: or good water. You just, you pick up a parasite,
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: you pick up a disease, your body just becomes way
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: more vulnerable, you know?
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: Oh, you even, yeah, you pet a strong shrimp and
• 24:08
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• 26:44
  Speaker 1: in Africa, it's even more prevalent, you're saying. Yeah.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: And I think what, I think, you know, it does
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: seem to be, I talked to a bunch of African
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: investigative journalists at this thing in DC and they saw
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: the documentary and they came up to me after and
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: they're like, dude, I've been seeing this in my country.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: I didn't realize it was part of this like giant
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: international trend, right? Like it's all sort of tied in.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: And that's how, that was like the same revelation that
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: I had as I started digging in deeper and deeper
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: was just how interconnected these things are.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: Right. Cause like, you know, when you say that, like, yeah,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: what do you mean when you say that?
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: I just mean, like, I think the dude was from
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: Sierra Leone and he was talking about a big rice
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: farm that had come in and plowed down the forest
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: and moved people off their land. And then they were
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: exporting the rice to wherever, you know, a wealthier country.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: And he's like, you know, how do I contextualize that? Like,
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: it's obviously an injustice, right? Like people have been their
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: ancestral lands been taken from them. But like, where does
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: that fit in? And then you see, oh, it fits
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: in that like people in Arizona are basically dealing with
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: the same thing. Maybe not to the same degree, but
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden they're finding what like was once
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: there's being taken by somebody else.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: I see. You know?
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: And I think like, I think the, and so that's
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: what I mean. It's just like, there is this big
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: little push and yes, I do think it's probably happening.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: And these kinds of numbers are super hard to get.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: And this is the only reason I hesitate. Anecdotally, I
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: would say, yeah, it appears to be happening most prevalently
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: in Africa. Um, but like getting any good numbers on that,
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: like nobody, the UN, you know, like they're not going
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: out and, and, and nobody's going out and like documenting
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: every single instance. So, Right. As a journalist, I always hesitate.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: So like in the documentary, you've seen it. We like,
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: just to give you a sense of what we go through,
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: I took every single fact that's mentioned in that documentary
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: and I put it into a spreadsheet. And then me
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: and a woman who's now a fact checker at the
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: New Yorker, we went through every single fact that's in there.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: And then we put three sources making sure it was true.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: And then we hired an outside fact checker to fact
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: check our fact check, you know, like, Like, and so
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: like I always, and that's like, that's the value to
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: me of good investigative journalism is like, we're going to,
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: we're going to put in that extra effort so that
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: like everything is documented. And so, you know, I love
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: this format because this is how, like when I'm hanging
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: out with friends, this is how we talk.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: And we're like sharing knowledge. And like, as humans, we
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: sit around the campfire. This is how we've been telling stories.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: And I love stories, you know? Um, but I'm always
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: like a little hesitant because I'm like, I don't got
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: a fact checker behind me to whisper in my ear like, oh, Nate,
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: you screwed that fact up. And she doesn't have a
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: fact checker behind her to be like, oh, no, you
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: screwed up the fact check on the fact check, you know?
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: Right. So, yeah, you're just having a yeah, you're just
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: doing your best.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: You know, but you obviously spent a lot of time
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: investigating it. Yeah. And what at what point do you
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: start to go down a trail with investigative journalism where
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: you're like, I've already gone too far. I have to
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: fluff this thing up to at least make it hold
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: the value of the weight that I've already put into it.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: with my time. Is that a weird question? Or does
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: that ever happen?
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: Well, you made me laugh when you said fluff. Yeah.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: Like, no ever get going on a story. Yes.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: And you abandon it.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: You just, you're like, there's not enough here. Even if
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: you spend a long time.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah. What often happens, man, is, is you'll be like, huh? I'm,
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: this is what happens to me. I'm like, huh? I'm
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: curious about that.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: And then I'll start like digging into that. And that
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: thing that I started digging into, I'll be like, oh no,
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: actually that makes sense. You know, like, I don't think
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: the world needs to know more about that. I don't
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: think it's going to make anyone's lives better. I don't
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: think it's going to change anyone's perception on how they
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: interact with the world. But as I was doing that,
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: like I started seeing this other thing, right? And then,
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: so then I start looking into that other thing and
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: I'm like, well, that is pretty interesting. But in the
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: process of looking into that, then I'm like, holy shit,
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: look at that thing over there. And then I'm moving
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: in and these things are sometimes, you know, they can
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: be totally unrelated. Oftentimes they're somewhat related. And then it's
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: that thing that I end up really going after, right?
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: And so I would never, I don't want to waste
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: my time. I don't want to waste your time. And
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: I don't want to do an injustice to a story
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: by being like, well, I spent time on looking into a,
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: and now I have to do something on a, right.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: Cause oftentimes it's just a slowly shifts into B. And
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: the next thing I know, I'm like, dude, I think
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: people need to, would want to know about C, right?
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: Like I think people should take a little break from
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: their lives and lives are tough. Lives are complicated. We've
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: all got so much going on. I want to like,
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: you know, I want to honor people's time, but I'm like,
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: but I think C is probably worth their time.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: What parts of this, as you went through this, did,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: did it start to like, um, be like, okay, this
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: is something that makes me realize I have to keep
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: going here.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: Oh, I, you know, with this one, I think it was,
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: it was kind of early on because again, man, it's
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: like when, when, you know, before this, I'd been doing
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: organized crime and now I'm doing food and I was
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: asked to do it. And I'm like, okay, it's a
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: food story. You know, like it's not going to blow
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: my mind.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: It's like Papa John almost history.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, dude. And I was just like, but then all
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: of a sudden I'm like, wait a minute, this you're
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: an intelligence officer for the CIA or you were, and
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: you're like telling me X, Y, and Z. Like, that's
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: pretty interesting. Well, let me go talk to somebody else
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: to try to corroborate that or get like another hot
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: take on it, you know? And it just kept building.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, and then I started seeing the stakes, right?
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: Like I, but the number of people that it was
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: going to impact. And we're talking about like billions, you know,
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: like we're talking about, you know, when you have wall
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: street saying, this is going to be the biggest trajectory.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: When you have the world economic forum saying, this is
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: one of the top fives existential threats to our species.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: You start going like food and water, you know? And
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: you're like, this is probably worth my time. And a
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: lot of sleepless nights. At some point you just realized,
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: I just think this is this story. This is what,
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: so can I tell you like, When I, when we,
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: so we made a film, right. And I, I'm super
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: lucky because I worked with this amazing director, Gabriella Copperthwaite,
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: you know, and she knows how to tell an amazing story.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: The grab, the documentary.
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's just like, she made this thing like an
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: international ripper.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: And, and, but when we're going out and we're, we're
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: pitching it to the studios, they're all like, well, what
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: do you want to come with this? And I wanted,
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: I wanted what I wanted to happen when people see
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: this documentary is the same thing that happened to me.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: When I started working on this stuff, it shifted my
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: perception of how I see the world. Like I fundamentally
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: see the world differently now having worked on this story.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: And so I wanted people to have access to that
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: same information because I think when you begin to, when
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: you see this, and I don't know if this was
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: your experience or not, but when you see it, you're like,
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: oh shit, like food isn't just food. Food has become
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: like a weapon. Food has become like a power tool
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: for governments to control people in other countries. Like it
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: becomes way bigger.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: Like how, yeah, how would we see that start to,
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: show up in our daily lives.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: Oh man, food prices.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: Go to the grocery store.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: I mean, do you remember during COVID when, when they
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: were like, Oh, everybody can stay at home except people
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: that work in slaughterhouses. We got to get everybody that
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: works in slaughterhouses back. Cause we're really worried that there's
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: not going to be meat on the shelves. Well, dude,
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: as I recall during that time, pork exports to China
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: increased by So the executives of these big meat companies
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: are like, oh, we got to get everybody back. We're
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: worried about getting meat. And then they were shipping more
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: meat to China.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Well, it might've even been their, um, their farms.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, they own, they own, you know, this company
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: that's in China. Um, that was, you know, this deal
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: that was backed by the Chinese government. Yeah. They, oh,
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: they control one in four American pigs.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah. Can you bring up that article that we're
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: talking about if you can? On April 28, 2020, President
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump issued an executive order invoking the Defense Production
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: Act to keep meatpacking plants open. The executive order exempted
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: plants from state and local orders to close nonessential businesses
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: but did not solve plants problems with sick workers. Wow.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: It's interesting.
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's just interesting because if people are going
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: to need to eat, people are going to need meat.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: You're going to need people to be able to continue
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: to eat or they're going to freak out. So even
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: if they're stuck at home, as long as they can
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: get a burger, then they're going to keep going until
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: their next burger.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: You're right, though. I mean, you kind of like put
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: your finger on it, man. It's like food is that
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: one thing that people want to keep going, right? Like
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: the Chinese government, everybody. And that's kind of what takes
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: you to the Arab Spring, right? Like when you saw
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: all of these Middle Eastern governments getting toppled, right? Like
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: the Arab spring.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: It was like, what do you mean the Arab spring?
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: But Arab spring was like a little over 10 years
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: ago now. And it was that period where you just
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: saw civil wars breaking out across like North Africa and
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: the middle East. And those things never happen. It's just
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: like one single issue. They're like super complex. People don't
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: like their leaders. They don't feel like they have hope.
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: But increasingly the thing that the intelligence community is saying
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: is driving those issues is is food prices. You know,
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: like you were talking about food prices here, where we
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: were talking about food prices here in the grocery store,
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: but like Americans, man, we only spend about 7% of
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: our income on food, on groceries, right? Other countries, dude,
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: they spend like 50%. So whatever they're making, like half
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: their paycheck is going to food. And so when food
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: prices go up for us, it's only going up on
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: like 7% of what we're spending on, right?
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: Right. So it's not hitting us overall as much.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: Why do they spend so much on food?
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: Because in, I mean, we're just a wealthy nation, you know,
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: and so we have bigger incomes.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see. So we have larger income.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: So obviously, yeah, if you're making $ 100 a day, then
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: that's just seven bucks a day, where if you're making $ 100,
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: if you're making $ 10 a day. That's it. Then $ 7
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: is 70% of your income. Yep.
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: And a lot of people, you know, like we're buying
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: food that's like finished. We're buying processed food. We're buying
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: things you can like open a package and eat. But
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: a lot of people in these other countries, they're just
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: buying like commodities like grain and they're baking their own bread.
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: And so when those prices, you know, basically double, all
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: of a sudden those people are seeing– 50% of their
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: income almost eat up their entire income and they can't
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: feed themselves. They can't feed their kids. And I think
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: that's what it comes down to, right?
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: So in the Arab spring, there was a ton of that.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: It was a ton of that food prices shot up,
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: you know, they went to historic highs, um, and that
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: sustained and people started taking to the streets, right? A
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: whole grievance of issues, but this was a big one. Um,
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: and you saw it move just across these countries.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And how was it alleviated? How did they, Like
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: what kind of catharsis did they get into? Is catharsis
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: the right word or no?
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: A lot of, a lot of them just took out
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: their leaders.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah. Like Egypt overthrew their leader.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: Didn't they? Yeah, that's right.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: And so you just saw, yeah. So you saw like, man,
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: you saw you, this, and this is the thing about
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: the 21st century is like, that was probably the first
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: blip that we saw like that. And the forecast is
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: for an increasing number of those. And when countries fall
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: apart because of civil wars, oftentimes their people then migrate out.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: And then they put pressure on the countries around them
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: because now they've got to feed more people because now
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: you've got a failed nation next to you. And it
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: became almost like almost like a domino effect.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: And are the forecasts saying that there is going to
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: be like less water, that there's going to be less food?
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: Like where are we getting those forecasts from? Yeah.
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: So, um, we could pull something up, but it's like,
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: like 70% of the world's population or some number is
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: going to be living in some form of water scarcity
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: by like 2050. It's like a huge number, right. Of
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: people that are dealing with water shortages. And again, like
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: usually you can eke out enough water for your drinking water.
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: But can you, do you have enough water to grow
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: the foods you need to eat or for somebody else
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: to grow the foods you need to eat? Um, and so,
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: and then the other thing we're looking at, it's like
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: some places are going to have, you know, people are
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: going to have droughts, of course, but then some places
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: are going to have flood floods and too much water
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: can have the same impact as not enough water.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: Like we just saw this in Pakistan where like their
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: crop was wiped out by this, these massive floods that
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: just kill off the crops.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I used to work on a soybean and corn
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: and cotton farm for a couple of years. And, um,
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: it was amazing how like water was just. I mean,
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: you would stand around and talk about it. You would
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: go look at a radar. You'd ask somebody if they'd
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: seen any water. Totally. It was just crazy. It was awesome.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: unbelievable how that was the biggest thing. Yeah. That was
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: the biggest thing. It was like, is it going to rain?
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: Is it not? How are you going to manage your
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: crops if it doesn't? And then how are you going
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: to get subsidized by the government if it doesn't happen
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: at all?
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. And what happens is in those countries
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: that that are dealing with all these economic hardships, these
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: dictatorial leaders weren't subsidizing the farmers, right? And what's worse
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: is they were given like their buddies access to whatever better.
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: And so this is what you see in Syria.
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: Are getting full groceries.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's it.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: It's crazy how quick you will become the Gestapo in
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: that moment, you know?
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Food becomes the ultimate currency. Yeah.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: What else were you going to say? I interrupted you.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: Well, I was going to say something similar in Syria where,
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: you know, a drought hits Syria and, you know, all
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: of these farmers are losing their crops. People are having
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: to move into the cities. Food prices are going up. And,
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: you know, rather than being like, okay, the government being like, okay,
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: we need to make sure everyone's taken care of. from
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: what I've read, wasn't in Syria at the time, but
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: it was like Bashir was just giving subsidies to like
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: his buddies, you know? And then you just, you're building
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: up this, this, this, this, you're just building up a
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: lot of anger, right? And you can't feed your kids.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: It's like, and this is what the, when I, when
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: I talk to people that are in the intelligence community,
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: this is the thing they say. It's, it's not when this,
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: and this sounds shitty, but this is what they say.
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: It's not when the lowest income, the people that are
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: the poorest can't eat. that you see a country topple
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: because unfortunately those people have already adjusted their mental mindset
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: to just being shit on.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: It's when the middle class can eat people that are
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: used to being comfortable.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: Right. And with Honda Accords.
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: Yes. And then when they can't afford to eat and
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: when they're, they're having to tell their kids, sorry, we
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: can't eat today. We got to wait till tomorrow.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: Those people take to the streets.
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: Fuck.
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: And then they overthrow governments, you know, and sometimes the
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: government turns out better. And sometimes the government turns out
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: worse and people live in violence and bloodshed for years,
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: you know? So it's, yeah. And this is kind of
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: the trend line that we're seeing.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: And you believe it's an overall trend after all your
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: research and all your digging, you believe that it's an
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: overall trend that's going to continue.
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: It's totally, it's, I think personally, I think it's solvable.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: Okay. Right.
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: I think it's solvable, but it is, it is the
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: trend line that we are on that, it, that, that like,
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: if we don't get into another lane of traffic, this
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: is the direction that this road is heading.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: Got it.
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: And this is straight up from like the, the, the,
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: the us government, I keep saying intelligence community, right? But
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: there is the ODNI, the office of director of national
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: intelligence that oversees the CIA, the DIA, the Nick, all
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: of these intelligence agencies. And the highest level work product
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: they do is something called a national intelligence estimate. And
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: they did a national intelligence estimate on, on water in
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: the year 2012. So basically they came out and the
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: guy who was spearheading, and this is like the highest
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: level work product, the intelligence U S intelligence community does
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: said business as usual, you know, is going to be
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: a catastrophe, right? Like, and that was their prediction basically.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: And, and they, they lay out solutions like we can
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: move things, right. But it, you know, it has, that's
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: going to have to happen on an international level. And like,
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: we look at our domestic politics and we're like, there's
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: a mess. And you look at international politics and you're like,
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: there's a real mess. So, you know, we all are
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: going to keep doing what we can and we all get,
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: you know, keep living.
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: But like, but still this is, I mean, having foresight is,
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: is super important, especially in a time where it's like,
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: we don't even, there's so much artificial sight that you
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: don't know what is foresight anymore. You know, there's so much, um, manipulation.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: You just, it's so hard to know what's real on
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: March 22nd, 2012, the national intelligence council, which you're saying
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: is a conglomerate of all of those.
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: The Nick exists underneath the ODNI.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: Okay. Yeah.
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: The ODNI, but yeah.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: Release the unclassified report, the intelligence community assessment on global
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: water security. The report concludes that several regions of the world,
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: such as North Africa, the middle East and South Asia
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: will face major challenges coping with water problems. And that
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: during the next 10 years, many countries will, Important to
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: the United States will experience water problems that will increase
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: the risk of instability and state failure, exacerbate regional tensions,
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: and distract them from working with the United States on
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: important policy objectives. Yeah, I guess how you barter and
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: trade and deal with things is going to become a
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: lot different.
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: You mentioned Africa, and you guys go into a lot
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: in the doc. Why does Africa always get screwed? I mean,
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: since the beginning of time, whether it's the British coming
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: in or a foreign entity coming in and enslaving or claiming,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: whether it's them enslaving each other, whether it's the tribes
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: that just can't get along, whether it's a government that
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: starts up and then sells out, why do they have
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: so much trauma there?
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, man, it's a good question. And I always try
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: to operate from like a a place of historically informed journalism, right?
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: Because some of these trend lines are massive. And, you know,
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: what we saw was that Western Europe for some centuries
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: just had this intense power as they sort of globalized
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: the world and Africa had a lot of resources that
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: they wanted. And they went in there and they grabbed
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: them and they created artificial boundaries and borders around, you know,
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: that suited Western Europe. Like Africa got carved up into
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: territories that suited Western Europe and their treaties so that
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: they wouldn't fight with each other in Europe.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: And, and that wasn't always the, the boundaries that of
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: like the, of the governments in the nations that had
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: lived there. Um, and you know, that, and you go
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: back even farther than when Western Europe was sort of the, the,
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: the international dominant player, right? Like you look at Genghis Khan, right.
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: Genghis Khan born in the central steeps of Asia, the
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: dude became a slave. then went from being a slave
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: to controlling like the entire Mongolian empire. Then they went
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: into China and they took over China. Then he pushes
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: East and starts taking over Eastern Europe. And then he
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: drives down into Southern Asia, you know, the middle East
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: dude controlled the largest empire of any human in history.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: And when he, this is the thing, and I'm getting
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: a lot of this. Yeah, totally.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: Denver nuggets. It's like the, kind of in one person,
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: but go on. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah.
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: And he gets to Europe at that time. And, and
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: I'm getting this from this, this guy, Jack Weatherford's book,
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: Genghis Khan and the making of the modern world. He's
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: a historian in Minnesota, somewhere, one of those, one of
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: those colleges. And When Genghis Khan gets to Europe, he's
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: looking around. He's like, these people are too dumb and
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: too poor for me to bother conquering. You know, like
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: they didn't even have pants at that point. Like pants
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: are an Asian invention, right? Like pants came from Asia.
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: At that time in Europe, people were just wearing cloaks.
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: Like they didn't even have pants yet. You know, the
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: gunpowder came from China, movable type from China. And so
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: Genghis Khan gets to Europe and he's like, these people
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: are too dumb, too poor and too ignorant. And he
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: just drove South into the middle East where people were
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: doing like algebra and advanced math and like had all
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: of this technology. Right. And then that set up these
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: trading routes and those trading routes connected some of these
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: great advanced technologies from the middle East and from Asia.
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: And they started working their way into Europe and then boom,
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: Europe has the Renaissance and boom, the Renaissance blows up
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: into the industrial revolution. And then that industrial revolution, now
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: you have like the Pope carving up the entire world
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: between Spain and Portugal, like Portugal gets one half, Spain
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: gets the other half, and then they're going down and
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: they're carving up Africa.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: And, and then you just, you, you, you get to
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: where we are today, which is that, you know.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: Africa never had a strong say in how they were
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: and what went on.
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: In the, in the, in the last few centuries.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: What things did you notice when you started to explore
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: some of this stuff happening in Africa?
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: What issues in what sense?
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: Like, I guess like the ownership, like who was doing the,
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: like you say, land getting bought up that had ancestral value,
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: of course. Who was doing that? Like who was, is
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: it hard to know who was doing it?
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: Well, oftentimes it's really hard to trace back who's doing
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: it because you can be like this rush. It can
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: just be these layers of LLCs. and who ultimately is
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: behind this LLC can be really tough. Like I can
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: go there and be like, okay, so this is the
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: white South African dude or white Zimbabwean dude who now
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: is in like Zambia. And he's, you know, moved people
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: off their historic ancestral land. And he's doing this like
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: super modern farming. Right. And, and these other people that
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: had been there for the families have been there for
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: centuries are now like dying. Right. Cause they don't have
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: access to even enough drinking water, much less enough water
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: to grow food.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: Um, And I can see that, but then I look
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: at the property ownership and it's just a jumble of
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: LLCs and that can be pretty tough. But in the film,
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: one of the things we were able, we got this
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: like trove of information documents. I mean, we see that
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: in some cases, it's the leaders of foreign governments that
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: are paying essentially mercenaries to go in and gobble up
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: these resources, right? And one of the ways they do it,
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: and these emails that we get we see they just
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: talk about giving gifts to the chief, right? And and
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: you know essentially bribes right right is how i'd interpret
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: that and.
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: What is a mercenary just so everybody knows well.
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: A mercenary is effectively somebody who can provide military logistics
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: on behalf of another government.
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: Okay so like how would i use a mercenary.
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: Well, you could use a mercenary to go into– Are
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: they good guys or bad guys? Oh, they can be–
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: this is interesting. You brought up Rwanda just a minute
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: ago and I'm trying to remember the name of the
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: actress that was going to hire a mercenary outfit to
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: go in like when no one on the international level
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: was stopping the Rwandan genocide. This this Hollywood actress wanted
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: to hire a mercenary group to try to go in
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: and stop it. Right. Like so like she was using
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: it potentially like she thought of using it as this
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: force of good. But so there are these examples of
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: people wanting to use these types of groups to like
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: quell violence, to bring stability.
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: To to move food into into areas that are being
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: controlled by warlords. Right. Like so you can you know,
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: sometimes people make an argument that you need to meet
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: force with force to do good. And then you also
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: see them being used by corporations to make deals with
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: warlords to extract resources. And those tend to have a
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: more deleterious or fucking make life shittier for the people
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: who live there.
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: Did you see some of that? What were some of
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: the things that you saw people struggling with?
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: Oh, dude, just feeding themselves, having shelter, like super basic stuff.
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: Super basic stuff. And it sucks. It sucks to see
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: that stuff. I don't want to see that stuff. And
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: then I got to carry it home. You know, and then,
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: you know, it's like it's that thing they always say,
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: like you see these people who have done nothing wrong
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: or just like struggling to survive. Yeah. You know, and
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: I go in there is essentially like a storyteller. And
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: I'm like, you know, and they're like, dude, like we
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: need food. We need water. And you're like, oh, you know, like,
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: what can I what can I do? That's not my role.
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: My role is to tell people about what's happening to you.
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: And then I fly back to San Francisco and I
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: turn on the faucet and I can drink fresh water,
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: you know? And you're like, you know, so these are the, these,
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: this is, these are some of the challenges, um, of
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: going in. And anyways, I went off a little bit,
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: but like, yeah, I've seen this shit, you know? And like, there's,
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: you know, there are stories I've heard and there are
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: things that I've seen that, you know, like I, I wish,
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: you know, wish didn't happen to people. And then I
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: wish that I didn't have to experience firsthand, you know?
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: Do you feel like we're doing the same thing in
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: other countries though?
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: The US government or like US corporations?
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like are we doing the same thing that's happening
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: here in other places?
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: For sure. For sure.
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So is it all just even out?
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: Well, no. I mean, I would say that It, if
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: you're like, if, if, if you're looking at it like, oh,
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: China's a bad guy or the Saudis are the bad guys,
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: but you know, the U S is, is, is okay.
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: It evens out in that sense, right? Like we have
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: massive corporations that are going in and are contributing, I think,
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: to this pattern of people who are living on land,
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: losing their land or people whose water supplies are being
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: taken from them.
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: And, and it's destabilizing the world is like the short
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: of it. And then you end up with a destabilized
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: world and you end up with like mass migration. And
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: you end up with countries being like, we don't want
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: any more immigrants, you know? And you're like, yeah, but
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: they left because they were hungry. I'm like, why were
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: they hungry? Like what was happening to them?
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: Right. And so you, you're not getting just immigrants. You're
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: getting starving in some cases. Increasingly.
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: That is the case. Like I, there, at one point
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: the state department said the reason, you know, the, the
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: number one reason people were leaving Guatemala was because they
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: were hungry and think about Guatemala, man. Like think about
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: that region of the world. What have they given us? Avocados, chocolate,
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: I think tomatoes come from that region, right?
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah. What's that thing called when you go under the
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: stick or whatever?
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: Under the stick.
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: The limbata or whatever?
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: I don't know that. The limbo?
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: Limbo, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: Those countries have given us so much food. How is
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: it possible that a country that is the source of
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: so many, you think of tomatoes, you're like, oh, Italians
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: must have invented it, right? You're like, no, man, that
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: came from the Americas. Potatoes came from the Americas. Chocolate
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: came from the Americas. Avocados came from the Americas. And
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: how do you have now a region like that where
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: half of the children are stunted because they're not getting
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: enough calories and nutrition? And so people are leaving Guatemala
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: because there's not enough food. And that's crazy because this
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: place is growing plenty of food.
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: So what's happening to the food?
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: It's just being exported to wealthier countries.
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: So do you think that some of the reason for
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: China's low water supply is because of us?
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: No, I don't think that's the case with China. I
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: think China's a really interesting example, right?
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: Because we manufacture a ton over there.
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, totally.
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: No.
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: China's an interesting case, right, man? Because this is like,
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: I don't think this is well enough known, but one
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: of the greatest achievements, in my opinion, of the 20th
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: century was what China accomplished. And that was pulling 400
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: million people out of poverty in like three decades, right?
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: Like you'll hear people talking about all of the great
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: achievements of of our species, you know, over the last,
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: you know, whatever, 50 years. And they'll be like, you know,
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: we've reduced, we reduce poverty and hunger by this much.
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: 80% of poverty reduction, as I understand it, 70 or
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: 80% of poverty reduction in the world is what China accomplished.
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: One country, 400 million people they pulled out of poverty
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: in like two or three decades. Gosh. They now have
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: the world's largest middle class, right? I think their middle
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: class might be bigger than the entire population of the U.S.,
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: The challenge there, man, is that they want to eat
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: diets more like our diet, right? Like in the 1980s,
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: you basically had a country full of vegetarians because they
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: couldn't afford meat. Now you have the world's largest middle
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: class and they want to eat more meat, right?
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: They want sausage patties.
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: Exactly, man. And to have meat, you have to grow
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: more grains, more feeds for the animals. It's kind of
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: an inefficient way to develop a calorie. And they don't
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: have enough water to grow enough grains for to be
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: able to feed all of the animals that the people
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: want to eat.
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: Right. So they're doing it over here.
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: They're doing it over here. They're doing it in Brazil.
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: They're doing it across the world.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: Oh, so they're doing it in a lot of places. Yeah. Yeah. Wow.
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: Probably this might even be one of the fewer places.
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: It's just that the U S is an agricultural superpower, right?
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: Like we are one of the largest exporters of food
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: in the world. Um, and this, you know, then takes
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: you to like, so who are the other ones? And
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: you're like, well, it turns out now Russia is, and
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: that's not by accident. Putin has built the country up
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: over the last 15 years to be a food superpower, right?
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: And then you're like, well, huh. So if Russia is
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: becoming a food superpower, what does that tell me about
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: the Ukraine war? Because you know what Ukraine's been known for, man?
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: Ukraine is the breadbasket of Europe.
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: It has for centuries been considered the breadbasket of Europe.
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: And And when the Nazis, they invaded Poland, but what
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: do they do right after that? The first place they
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: invade when they go into USSR.
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: Stop over in Ukraine for a little bit of bread.
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And Hitler said it, we need to control food
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: to keep our soldiers fed. And people don't realize this,
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: but the Nazis had what they called the hunger plan.
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: And by controlling Ukraine, they intended- according to these little
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: known documents that historians have unearthed from the Nazis, they
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: intended to starve 30 million people to death by controlling Ukraine.
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: And if you're the leader of like Russia, and you're
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: trying to build a food superpower, and just below you
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: is the most fertile soil, and that country was deeply
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: aligned to your country until like 2010, and now all
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: of a sudden it's moving its way to the West, Right.
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: It was thinking about going into NATO, right? Yes. Ukraine was.
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And then moving in closer to Europe and that
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: food supply, you know, and so that historically that food
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: supply has been used as a weapon against Russia.
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: It's been used as a weapon against others.
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: It's a huge strategic asset. It's Ukraine's biggest strategic asset.
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: And so you think that that basically for water is
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: one of the reasons why we're why that war is
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: going on.
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: I think all of these things have many facets and
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: are super complicated, but I, when you're saying what is
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: Ukraine's strategic importance and its food production of food, and
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: you see Putin saying, you know, like in the film, I,
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: you know, cause I went to Russia in the film,
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: I go to Russia and we sit down with the largest, the,
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: the CEO of, of Russia's biggest beef company. He says, yeah,
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: Putin came to me. He said, whatever you guys need,
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: because food and water are going to give us more
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: strategic power in the future. then all of our weapons
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: and oil does, right?
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, some of my fattest friends have the
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: most guns too, to be honest with you.
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: Because they want to keep eating.
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: I think they just, you know, if you're fat and happy,
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: you'll start shooting, I feel like. And if you're not happy,
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: you'll start shooting. So it's really kind of a.
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right. The circles meet in the back.
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's like on this end, it's kind of fireworks, like,
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: but on this end, it's like, I need to survive.
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 58:27
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  Speaker 2: And so I just think you start seeing like a
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  Speaker 2: bigger picture, you know, like you start seeing how these
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: things interplay with each other.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No, I look, that's what, I mean, yeah, that's
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: cause I, I was watching the documentary. I was like, well,
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: is this just kind of fear? Is this creating fear?
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: And then that's why I wanted to get to talk
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: to you. I was like, I was just, I was like,
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: is Nate like just creating fear here is the director
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: or are they, is this just a trend that they're seeing?
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: And is this like something that they really believe in
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: and notice?
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, dude, that's a great question. Thanks. Thanks for that.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: Cause it is like, It doesn't do anybody any good
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: to just be afraid, right? Just to like stress people out,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: bum people out. But no, I mean, I think like
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: fundamentally when the landscape is shifting in front of us
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: and like the most powerful people are shifting with that landscape,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: like I'm a big advocate of the everyday guy, right?
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, dude, we got to empower ourselves with
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: that same information. You know, we have to know how
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: this thing is shifting, right? Because otherwise those people in Arizona,
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: they just see this big farm come in and they're like, Well, okay.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: What they don't know is that it gets part of
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: this big international trend and they're coming for the water.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: Right. They don't know that their own government is, is
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: allowing that, which in some ways are nice things that
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: America does allows, you know, and that we've also, we've
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: done a ton of like of open handedness, you know,
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: but there does become a point where, yeah, if it
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: gets back to survival that you're going to change your tune. Yeah.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: And America, I don't know if you'll do it as
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: a country, but you, as an individual, you won't have
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: a choice, but to do it. Right.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: I think for, for some people, yeah. I mean, food
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: prices will probably continue to climb.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: And people are going to have to make like real,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: you know, lifestyle decisions based on that. You know, we'll
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: probably see food potentially becoming a bigger and bigger percentage
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: of our like take-home incomes, but you know, potentially, you know,
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: like that's the trend line. Um, especially, yeah. So I think,
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: you know, I think, I just think it, it, information
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: is power.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: And what I'll tell you is that the most powerful
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: have access to better information today. I think that the
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: disparity of information between the powerful and the everyday person
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: has just grown. Like we always talk about income disparity
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: and it's a real thing. Totally. I get it. But
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: information disparity, man, it, it might even be worse.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: A hundred percent. Even just to go to accredited news
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: sources online, not to get information, you have to pay
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: for it. Yeah. Right.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: Even to get what used to be just a newspaper. Right. Yeah.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: You have to pay for that information. So whether you
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: even believe that it's going to be true or not
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: to have information that's even kind of sourced, you know,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: that's put together, that's formatted, that's not done by AI.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: You're having to pay for that. Yeah.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: And I hope that we get back to more of that, man.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: Cause that's how it used to be when we were kids, right?
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: Like you'd, you'd pay of a newspaper subscription.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: Right. I think people decided they couldn't trust the news anymore.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of that has occurred in the
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: past 10 years for sure. I think– I feel like
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: the news– every time I turn it on, I feel
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: like it is– there's some lobbyists behind it. There's some–
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: I mean people say Big Pharma all the time, but
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: we have so many drug ads on our television. It's
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: like– it just feels– I wouldn't be surprised if it's– compromised.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: That's what it feels like. I, the news industry is
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: in a tailspin and I'll give you my two cents
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: for what it's worth. Cause I've been a journalist now
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: for like 25 years, some insane amount of time. I
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: can't believe that. Um, but when I started, um, as
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: a daily newspaper reporter, like we had a nice big staff, man,
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: like we had, we had librarians on staff, we had
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: researchers on staff, you know, we had photographers, a sports desk,
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: a business desk, you know? And, um, and I, I think,
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: I don't know, man, it was like, there's like, third,
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: as many journalists as there used to be, right? Like
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: if there's fewer people doing anything, it's going to be
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: a shittier job. You're going to get a crappier product.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: And so, and, and, and, and the trend line that,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: that gutted journalism wasn't initially that, cause I totally agree.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: All the stats say what you're saying. People don't trust
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: the news like they used to, but it wasn't in
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: the trend line. Wasn't that people stop subscribing. What happened was,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: is that newspapers used to make huge profits from things
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: like classified ads, right? Like You know, we used to
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: read the classified ads in the back, right?
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: So you could meet a woman or even adopt a pet.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: Get a new BMX bike or like a dirt bike,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: like a new car. Like it was all back there, right?
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: And that stuff, man, that subsidized the journalists. And so,
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: of course, that went away and that was like a
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: lion's share of the profits, right?
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: Craigslist kind of killed that in a way. Totally.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: And it's fine. Technology is going to do and like
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: the newspapers didn't, they didn't react in time. You know,
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: they lost this big thing. And so like, you just
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: started seeing the industry shrinking and shrinking. And now the
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: layoffs in the last two years have just been like brutal.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: But the, the, the problem there is man is like,
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: I could quit journalism and I could go become a
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: private researcher doing the exact same thing I'm doing now
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: as an investigative journalist. But instead of giving it to
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: the public, I would be giving it to hedge funds.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: I'd be giving it to super wealthy people that would literally,
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: I'm not shitting you would pay me four to five
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: times what I'm getting paid now. Right. And, and, and
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: that's actually what's happening.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: And so like, you have the public who is increasingly
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: just getting not as good a much information, especially if
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: you're in like a local news market, right? Like you're
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: not getting information. People aren't paying for it. There are
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: fewer journalists and then the wealthiest are paying for it still.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: And they're getting incredibly in-depth information.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: Right. And now you're starting to see privatized spaces have
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: the journalists almost on their side, working for them to
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: give them information that better helps them to market to
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: the everyday person. Yeah.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: And I wouldn't say call that person a journalist, but that,
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: that same like deep researcher investigative project, right. Especially in tech, man.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: Well, I think it's like, you know, they had, even
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: if you look at the case of the opioid epidemic, right.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: And that there was a documentary, there was a television show.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: I can't remember the name of it.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: All the beauty in the bloodshed was a doc that
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: came out that looked super deep at the opioid or,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: I can't remember Alice Gibney, maybe on HBO looked at
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: the opioid epidemic too.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: This one had Michael Keaton.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: You know, is that a real person? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know Hollywood, so I don't know
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: actors and I don't know the space as well, but yeah.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah. They had this, there you go. Dope sick. They
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: had this, this series came out. It's unbelievable. It's how, um,
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: it's how the opioid companies pay, like basically hired people
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: that had been working on the food and drug administration
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: to come and work for them. So they could work
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: the loopholes. Totally.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: And I mean, I'll just tell you my two cents.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: The reason that we often know stories like this, like
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: how FDA former employees were then going is because a
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: journalist went in and dug it out and published it, right?
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: Like these types of fictionalized versions get written off of
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: like hard work of investigative journalists. And there are fewer
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: and fewer people pulling out stories like this. And I'll
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: tell you, man, as a journalist, like my problem 20
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: years ago, was that I was always worried that some
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: other journalist was going to scoop the story and get
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: it before me. Today, my problem is that people are
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: coming to me with important stories and I don't have
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: the time to work on them because I'm already working
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: on something and I don't even have another journalist I
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: can tell them to go to. We're just not getting
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: out as many important stories like that as we used
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: to because there's just fewer of us. And there are
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: more people working for the lobbyists. There are more people
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: working for the PR firms that are spinning stuff. And
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 2: so this is we're getting into this really imbalanced place
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: of information and.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: The dark time. And that's why conspiracy theories rise.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: I totally agree.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: Because it's like, well, people are going by their gut.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: People are looking to fill a void and people want
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: some truth. I think if you don't have truth, you
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: can feel it.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so. And I always say, and this
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: is the other thing, man, is for me, journalism, it's okay.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 2: So like take a football, right? Like the, the surface
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: of a football is is imperfect right it's why a
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: quarterback spirals the ball because if you if you throw
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: the football without spiraling it because the surface of the
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: football is fancy yeah yeah it's like imperfect it just
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: flops around yeah and and and but you spiral it
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: and all of those imperfections get smoothed out and journalism
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 2: is the same way like no journalist is the voice
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: of god but when you've got 10 journalists covering the
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: same thing you're going to get as close to the
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: to the obtainable version of the truth as possible because
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: you have 10 different people that are competing to get
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: it out. They're going to check each other. They're going
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: to point out if somebody else misses something or screws
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 2: something up. And you get at the closest possible obtainable
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: version of the truth. Now when you just have one person,
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: it's like a football that's not spiraling anymore. It just
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 2: gets totally off kilter. And I think we're getting closer
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: to that. And I think that's like in a democracy
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 2: when we're supposed to be an informed group of people
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: that are going to go to the ballot box and vote.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: you know, it's a problem. If we were in China,
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 2: it wouldn't matter because the government's going to tell us
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 2: what to do anyway. But in a country where we're like, no, no,
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: we need to be informed so we can go to vote.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: That becomes a problem.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: How does that end for us?
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: Was that football analogy, the dumbest analogy you've ever heard?
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: It just kind of came to me.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: No, I thought it was pretty good.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: Okay, cool.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But I'm also dumb a lot of times. So
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: it's like, I wouldn't have asked me, but I thought
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: it worked for me. All right, cool. I'm easily, I'm
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: easily susceptible to just whatever. But, um, But yeah, I
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: wonder what does that look like for us if we,
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: when you get to a place where you don't trust,
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: I wonder if it's that we don't trust authority now.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: But I never trusted authority.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: Right. I never trusted authority either. But I always thought
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: there was this level of integrity maybe in the distance
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: that I, maybe I thought I'm, it's so hard for
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: me to figure out what I feel like is missing
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: these days. I feel like as individuals, a lot of
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: us are missing purpose and our purpose is being, um,
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: farmed out to technology and to big corporations instead of
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: things that are meaningful.
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: I think we're losing community.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: Yes. And then that's going to happen too. You have
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: no purpose. You don't have a local newspaper. You don't
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: have like a local place where everybody can even go
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: meet up. People aren't going to church. So there's, at
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: that point, you're just a lot of strangers living near
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: each other.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 2: I think that's it, man. I think that's a huge
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: problem in this country.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: And how does that change? I wonder, you know, like,
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: what does the future of that look like? Do we
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: just turn into like these lemmings just waiting for the
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: next cheeseburger?
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 2: Like, you know, I, I, I, you know, I, I've
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: done some investigative reporting on big tech and, um, that's
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 2: a space, you know, like that I, I, you know, like, man,
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 2: my reporting has shown me like things that just like
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: as a human, as a person concern me, you know,
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 2: like I it's like really cool because they're, they become these,
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 2: these beautiful creative spaces.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 2: And, and, and like, as people that are artistic and
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: like to share their stories, people get on there and
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 2: they can connect with communities and there's all these great
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: things that happen. But I increasingly see those spaces as
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: a hunting ground for big tech companies to target specific
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 2: people and take them down. And I'll give you one
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 2: of the examples I'm talking about is that I did
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 2: this investigative prod prod where I got this investigation where
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: I got internal emails from inside of Facebook and I
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 2: got documents from inside of this company that was like
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 2: a social casino company. It was essentially like you could
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 2: play games on your phone that looked like a slot
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 2: machine and you would never win any money. Like you
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: just gotta understand it. You would never win any money back.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: And if you used up all your coins that they
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 2: get in the day for free, you would then have
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 2: to buy more coins. something like 99% of people never
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: pay for coins. It's like 1%. And then it's something
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: like one 10th of 1% drive, like 97% of the
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 2: revenue at that company. And those companies that again, you
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 2: can never win your money back. We're now generating more
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 2: revenue than the Las Vegas strip billions and billions of dollars.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: So who were the people that were spending money? Well,
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 2: I found one of those women. She was living outside
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 2: of Dallas. She was living modest middle income. She spent $ 400, 000
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: buying virtual coins that she could never win back. So
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 2: who does that? Right? Well, it turns out that a
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 2: certain slice of people, very small, slight have a type
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 2: of brain that can get super fixated on this. Like
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 2: they compulsively can't stop. And the technology companies divide the
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: devised algorithms. They use artificial intelligence. where the CEO of
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 2: one of these companies said the first time somebody opens
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 2: that app and starts playing, they can identify them from
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 2: all of the little habits and immediately mark them as
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 2: what they would call a VIP or a whale, right?
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 2: And they would put them down this path where they
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 2: would actually get a special representative, like an actual human
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 2: who would call them. This woman outside of Texas who
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 2: lost 400,000 when her mom died, they sent flowers to
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 2: her mom's funeral, right? Like they immediately identify that you
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 2: have this type of brain that's going to keep spending
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 2: money that you can't, A, you can't afford, and B,
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 2: you'll never get back. And they just target you and
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 2: they push you and they pull as much money out
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 2: of you as they can. That's, that's what I see, man.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 2: I see this, like, I see now, like people are
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 2: spending their time on there, but people are watching you
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 2: spend your time and they're building your behavior and they're
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 2: looking for your weakness. And as soon as they can
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 2: exploit your weakness, man, they are going to grab everything
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 2: they can.
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: Wow. It's really the debt. It's the devil. It's what
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: you would think of as the devil. Using yourself against
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: you even.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, look.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: What if your own shadow could fucking pick your pocket?
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: What would your life be like? You know what I'm saying? Like,
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, maybe that's a crazy thing. That's almost as
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: bad as your football thing, but... But no, bro, it's the,
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: it's the dark arts. It's like the algorithm learning you
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: and learning you and learning you massaging you and all
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: that matters. But is it, is it for profit or
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: is it for control? I don't understand.
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 2: I'm guessing it's probably both.
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: I just don't understand how that behooves anybody. Like who
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: closes their eyes at night and was like, yeah.
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 2: Dude, those companies that I just talked about went from
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 2: nothing to in like 2009 to 2010 to being billion
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 2: dollar companies. And they were owned by a few dudes
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 2: who started them up. Like it behooved those dudes. Those
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 2: dudes are killing it. I found one of the women
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 2: who worked at one of these companies who was pushing
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 2: this woman outside of Dallas to spend all of this money, right?
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 2: And I got on her Instagram. That girl was just
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 2: flying around the world, living it up. Egypt, oh, look
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: how cool I am now. Oh, look at me. And
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 2: I'm photos in front of the Sphinx. Now I'm in Italy.
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 2: eating in Tuscany, right?
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: Right. Living this life. And in the meantime, she's just
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: encouraging people to lose their money.
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: And can we name these people or is it kind
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: of private information?
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 2: Well, I can, you know, I mean, I wrote my story.
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 2: Susie Kelly is the woman outside of Dallas. Let's see,
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 2: Product Madness. Is that the name of the company that
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 2: was targeting? I want to pull up the story to
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 2: make sure I was getting this right, because this is
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 2: the challenge I have as an investigative journalist. I misspeak
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 2: just a little bit. I can get sued.
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. We can get sued as well.
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 2: And so I always want to be accurate.
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 2: And so, you know, we can pull up the story
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 2: and cause I did this story now. What was that? Six,
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 2: seven years ago.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: Um, these are companies where you can't win really.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 2: No, you can't win your money back.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: But you, people have like figured out that there's a
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: type of person with a behavior, um, that can, that
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: it's basically definite, a definitive victim. Right here, it says
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: social casinos now use behavioral analysis software to quickly identify
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: people who are likely to become big spenders. Behaviors like
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: increasing your bet or playing frequently are signals to the companies.
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: And they target these players with heavy marketing and label
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: them proto whales. As Brotons explained to a room full
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: of game developers back in 2015.
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 2: And if I remember correctly, that guy, Jose Broton was
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 2: like a Stanford graduate, you know, uh, in like computer
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 2: science or something took that knowledge. you know, they pair
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 2: it up with like, essentially like behavioral scientists, psychologists, and
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 2: then they just start getting better and better at focusing
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 2: on these people who they can extract from.
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, man. It's like, you're up against it. And sometimes though,
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: there's a part of people that go to gamble like that.
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: There's a part of them that wants to, sometimes I
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: think that there's a part of us When I'm amazed
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: that we don't stand up sometimes as a population. Right.
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 2: I don't think we always know that's the problem, man.
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 2: I don't think we have the information to know this story.
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 2: Like how many, like that to me, that story is
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 2: mind blowing that that's going on.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: Right. Cause you, yeah. How many people are gambling on
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: their phone or looking at playing solitaire and then it
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: turns into a finite. Yeah. Right.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 2: Um, or, or how many of us are just aware
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 2: in which like the patterns of ads that we see
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 2: are like, Oh, because they have your behavioral profile. Right.
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 2: Like you're getting a pattern this way or your newsfeed
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 2: looks this way or you're getting content this way. And
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 2: how is that affecting you?
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 2: Like how is that affecting your everyday decisions? And in
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 2: Susie's case, it was affecting her everyday decision to the
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 2: point where she was lying to her husband. She was
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 2: taking out, if I recall correctly, second mortgages on her
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 2: homes and spending $ 400, 000 that she did not have. I
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 2: had the emails, the messages back and forth with her
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 2: and the rep from that company. And she was begging
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 2: them to cut her off. I've spent $ 4, 000 last night.
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 2: Please don't let me, cut me off. Oh, Susie. No, Susie,
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 2: we love you. We'd hate to see you leave. Here's
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 2: a billion free coins. You know, if you still want
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 2: to quit when you're done with that.
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: It's a drug dealer. Well, that's what's interesting to me too.
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: It's like, when would we stop allowing certain things you
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: would think like even pornography, right? Like I've fallen victim,
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: victim to it, obviously. And, um, a lot of people
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: use it. Right. But it's like at a certain point
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: I recognize, Oh, I'm not using this safely. Right. Like
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: I go use it when I'm feeling down or when
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: I'm agitated or something, it's like, and then, um, just
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: like it's bad. We know it's probably bad for us. Right.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: I'm not disparaging any of the people that use it
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: or that, that perform it. I have friends that are
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: in the industry. It's not anything against any person, but
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: I wonder if overall, sometimes we know that it's hurts
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: us or like they just had that documentary on Ashley Madison.
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 2: Right. Yeah.
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: And it was so strange. You had this couple, um,
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: pushing the company and they're married and the, the husband
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: was the owner. And they're saying, well, we don't cheat,
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: but you might need to, right? Life's short, have an affair.
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: It's just evil, it feels like.
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 2: I mean.
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: Why would we allow that? It seemed like if you
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: took a vote amongst people, do we want this in
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: our lives?
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: That most of them would probably say no, but if
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: you are tempted with it, if it comes in, like
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: if a cat comes on your, if you tell me, hey, man,
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: do you want a free cat? I'll tell you, dude, honestly,
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: you can fuck off, right? Yeah, yeah. I'll tell you
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: straight up. But if a cat keeps coming on my porch, dude,
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go out there and touch it. You
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: know what I'm saying? Yeah. Like at some point, even
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: if I might be like, man, fuck this thing, I
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: might be out there petting it at the same time. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: So it's like, you know, and is that our responsibility?
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: And now the cat's in your pocket. Yeah.
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 2: You carry the cat around in your pocket with you
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 2: all the time.
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: I guess you can get a baby cat. But yeah,
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: it's like, I guess I often wonder, like, is that
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: just our responsibility to And, or is there, should there
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: be a, yeah, I guess you can't depend on the government,
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: but you would think as a society, we wouldn't want
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: these things. Does that make sense to you?
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 2: No, dude, totally makes sense. And I think part of
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 2: it is like, these things are being developed in, in
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 2: San Francisco, Silicon Valley, wherever faster than like, we can
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 2: learn about them and adjust to them.
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: The government's always a few years behind. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 2: And, and, and, and again, like I I mean I
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 2: don't– I mean obviously I'm biased because I'm an investigative journalist.
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 2: But like this is the role that I think we're
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 2: losing in our society as journalism keeps going away is
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 2: because like in that story that we were just talking
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 2: about with Susie and the social casinos, those dudes would
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 2: sue me if I got it wrong, right? Like they
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 2: are going to ask for a correction if I got
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 2: something wrong, right? And they didn't, right? In the end–
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 2: Susie and a bunch of other people got 155 million
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 2: bucks back from them.
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: Really? Yeah. Fuck yeah. Right.
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 2: So, you know, and, and, and like, I don't have
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 2: it out against anybody, man. I just want good information
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 2: out there in the public. You know, like it empowers
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 2: all of us, even if like, dude, it could be
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 2: the same piece of information. And from that same accurate,
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 2: good piece of information, you might decide that A is
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 2: the best course. And I might decide that B is
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 2: the best course. But to me, that's a democracy because
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 2: now you and I are cashing out whether A is
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 2: better or B is better, but we're operating off the
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 2: same good information.
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: Right. Yeah. And if you're saying that other, that information
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: is also becoming like what's valuable and what isn't, and
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: that there's better information out there that obviously corporations can afford,
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: that they can afford the researchers now to privatize them
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: and put them to work for themselves, then yeah, for
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: the regular person, it just gets a little interesting.
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 2: Dude, I'm never going to have good enough information to
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 2: tell you who are the people most likely to compulsively
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 2: spend on something, right? Those companies do. But if I'm
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 2: given enough time, I can probably find out what the
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 2: companies are that have that information that are targeting people
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 2: like Susie. And I can at least make us aware
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 2: of it. So we probably as a society will never
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 2: have access to that. We probably don't want all of
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 2: us to know who the compulsive gamblers are.
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 2: But at least we want to know who the companies
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 2: are that are targeting people who have that behavior.
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Right.
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 2: Or targeting people for whatever their weaknesses.
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 2: Cause we all have them and we all have our weaknesses.
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: Right. Yeah. And they can all just be, it can,
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: they can almost be mathematically equated.
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 2: Now are mathematically equated now.
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: And then that's used to attack us. I mean, that's
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: the scary part. It's like, I want to say it's
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: like our reflection is using the fact that it's our
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: reflection against us. I don't know. I can't know what
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to say.
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 2: No, you know what it is, dude? I think you're right, man.
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 2: It's like they're creating like a data profile, like a
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 2: virtual one of us, like evil Kirk from Star Trek, right?
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 2: And then like that person's telling them our weaknesses, right?
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 2: It's like, you're looking in, you're like, God, that's like
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 2: a version of me they've created. And that person is
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 2: ratting me out and they're coming at me with that
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 2: dude's info. Yeah.
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, and it's getting stronger and better, that technology.
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And then it also makes you a little bit
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: upset at yourself because you're the one feeding into the
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: same thing that's, you know, beckoning you with things that'll
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: end up being painful to you.
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And I look, I have a stoic philosophy on
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 2: these things. Like I, I believe that we can't control,
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 2: you know, what happens outside of us, but we can
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 2: control how we react to it. Right. And I think
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 2: this is something like you and I were talking about
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 2: cold plunges or like, you know, just like how you
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 2: can reset, like, and it's super uncomfortable, but like you
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 2: can control your body and your body's like, dude, I
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 2: do not want to go in that cold water. And
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 2: you're like, no, no, I control you. I'm going to
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 2: dip you in there for two minutes. Cause I know
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 2: that when I get out, I'm going to feel better.
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 2: And part of it is personal responsibility. Part of it
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 2: is being like, I control me. I'm going to set
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 2: the phone down.
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 2: I'm going to delete that app.
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 2: Like we do have personal, but we also shouldn't be
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 2: targeted in that way.
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: Right. It's crazy to let somebody continue to be targeted.
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: It's like at a certain point you would stop a
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: pedophile from coming near a child. You know, at a
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: certain point, if somebody had a hatchet and somebody was
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: just trying to sit there and eat a sandwich, you
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: would stop the hatchet guy from bothering the sandwich eater. Yes.
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: You know, it's like.
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Could the sandwich eater get up and leave the restaurant,
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 2: but maybe the solution is just getting the hatchet guy
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 2: out of the restaurant.
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Right. Yeah.
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: Instead of making this huge hullabaloo, like now every sandwich
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: eater can only eat sandwiches in this air or yeah.
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: It's just.
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 2: Cause some sandwiches are good, man. You don't, you just
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 2: want to sit there and finish your sandwich.
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, dude. Yeah. in the end it comes down
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: to our own personal responsibility for now. That's it.
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 2: I think that's a piece of it. And I also
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 2: think we should be demanding better environments for ourselves and
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 2: our children. I don't have kids, but you know, I
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 2: always bring in kids cause people seem to be more responsive,
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 2: you know, but I think kids are living in, yeah.
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 2: And they're living in that environment.
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 2: And I don't know that those, you know, I think
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 2: we just need to be more proactive about what are
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 2: the environments we want as a society.
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: Right. But how do we get this? Because it feels
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: like everybody has kind of the same things in mind,
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: but we never seem to get them. And it feels
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: even more like the voting is coming from the other side,
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: like that it's big business. Like, you know, like tech
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: is the new fossil fuel. I've said that for a
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: long time where it's like, that's the thing that's power.
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: It's like, you know, they control everything.
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 2: It feels like they have a lot of information, man.
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 2: They do. They do.
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Trump's information. Then I wonder.
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 2: Well, I think like people like the, like if all
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 2: of us have better information, right? Like again, like we can,
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 2: we can push like the part, like the documentary, man,
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 2: like you were talking about it earlier. Like, you know,
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 2: like I do think there's stuff in the documentary. It's
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 2: going to freak people out, freak me out when I
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 2: learned about it. Right. So at the end of the day,
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 2: it's the point of it just to freak people out. No,
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 2: it's to be like, you know, we have no national
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 2: water policy in the United States. You know that we
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 2: have no national water policy.
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: So that means that, uh, People from anywhere or any country, whatever,
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: can move here and use our water to grow their crops.
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: Is that true or no?
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 2: It's true in some places. Like different states, different counties
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 2: have different laws, right?
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 2: But we have no national water policy that just says like,
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 2: wait a minute, wait a minute, water is a big deal.
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 2: let's make sure that we're not using it for just
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 2: like any old thing. Let's make sure that just like
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 2: as a general rule of thumb, we're using it for
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 2: like the best purpose.
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: Right. Right.
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 2: And then let's help states and counties in these places
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 2: come to the decision. What's the best purpose. We just
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 2: don't other countries do right. Other countries have put that
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 2: in place.
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: But if water is such a solid, like a, if
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: it's so important for the future, wouldn't that be one
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: of the first things we would do probably.
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 2: But this goes back. It's like, I don't know that
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 2: people know. I don't know if just like, When I
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 2: go to family reunions, I don't know that all my
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 2: family knows. And a lot of my families, they're like farmers, right?
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 2: But I don't know that they know that this is
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 2: the trend line that's happening, right? And so you put
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 2: this documentary out there, not to freak people out, but
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 2: so that we all just have this baseline of information, right?
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 2: And then we can push our elected officials who, and man,
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 2: you hear about all the different lobbies and all that
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 2: push the government around. The agricultural lobby is one of
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 2: the most, if not the most powerful lobby in the country. And, and,
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 2: and part for really good reasons, man, you screw up farmers.
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 2: Like you can really jack up a country. Like oh yeah,
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 2: we need to support farmers growing foods. Great. Right. And
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 2: they should have a voice, you know, but at the
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 2: same time, like communities that are around the farms and
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 2: others and who's coming in and who's controlling it, that
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 2: needs to make sense too.
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 2: And so it needs to be a conversation and until
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 2: people have good information, it's tough to have a good conversation.
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 2: So whether or not we're talking about tech. And like
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 2: people targeting you because they're a big technology company and
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 2: they know that you're going to be compulsive about this
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 2: one thing and they can extract something from you, whether
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 2: it's like how you choose to behave or how you
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 2: choose to spend or whether it's like, you know, foreign company,
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 2: foreign countries coming in or Wall Street coming in and
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 2: pumping out water in places that really need that water
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 2: right there. You know, like we just need good information.
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, because the days are over where people have
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: anybody else's best interest a lot over. Like it's where
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: companies certainly don't cause they're not an individual. Yeah. It's
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: a spreadsheet. They're thinking with a different, yes, they are.
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: They're thinking it's a spreadsheet trying to have a brain.
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 2: Yes. And so like how, if you're China, right. And
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 2: you now have like some of the biggest sovereign wealth funds,
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 2: you know, which is, what does that mean? Oh man, it's,
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 2: it's crazy. Cause you know, I have friends I grew
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 2: up with some of them got advanced degrees from college
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 2: and some of them barely graduated high school. I mean,
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 2: I was somebody that barely graduated high school, but, you know,
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 2: they didn't go to college, right? And so like, I
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 2: have a huge spectrum of people I love. And someone
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 2: will tell me about like the Illuminati, the Illuminati are
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 2: controlling things. I'm like, dude, no, but go look at
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 2: sovereign wealth funds, right? Sovereign wealth funds are countries like
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 2: China that are pooling together these huge pools of cash,
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 2: trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars. And then they
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 2: can use that strategically to buy things, you know, to
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 2: drive the market's how they want. Now here in the
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 2: United States, we just believe that the profit is how everything.
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 2: So like, Oh, if you can make more money doing
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 2: a than B, then you should go do way. Cause
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 2: that's how our system operates. But China goes, no, no,
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 2: we want to create the most jobs we can for
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 2: the country. And therefore we're going to take all of
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 2: our assets. We're going to try to create the most jobs,
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 2: not the most profit, but the most jobs.
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 2: And so then what happens is you have Smithfield foods,
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 2: one in four American pigs, And you have a Chinese
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 2: company and they go like, we don't care necessarily about
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 2: per se driving the maximum profit, right? Like our government
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 2: is saying to us that we need to go overseas
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 2: and buy up food and water. So we'll pay you
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 2: a 30% premium over the share price. Well, for the
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 2: American company, that's like 30% premium over the share price.
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 2: Like I have a fiduciary responsibility to my shareholders. Like
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 2: I have to sell the company. Like I have to
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 2: give you guys the company. Otherwise I can actually legally
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 2: get in jeopardy here for saying no to that offer.
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 2: Because I'm, I am, I'm legally obligated to return profits
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 2: to the shareholder. Well, the Chinese company is operating under
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 2: a completely different system.
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 2: And so that's where you begin to see, gosh, this
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 2: is probably super in the weeds, but that's where you
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 2: begin to see like this international power play. And like,
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 2: you're talking about like where the U S is so
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 2: focused on profits that China's like, cool, you're super focused
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 2: on profits.
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: We're focused on the future.
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 2: And we can manipulate you because you're super focused on profits.
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: Oh, because if they own a fourth of the, of
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: the industry. Yeah.
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 2: Or they, they just know, like the American company is
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 2: always going to do whatever is most profitable. And, and,
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 2: and we don't like, so we can buy that, you know,
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 2: like they, they, they know how our system works and
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 2: they're getting better at manipulating that system. It was like
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 2: right out of the gate when I started looking at this.
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: So instead of this American company saying, hey, this is
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: an American company. Let's keep it here. Let's keep it American.
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: It's a part of like– it affects our GDP, all
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: these sorts of things. They just think, oh, for profit,
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: and China knows that. So it's like let's just pay
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: more and we'll definitely get it.
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 2: That's exactly it.
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: It's a wrap.
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 2: That's it.
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: Because the way that the American company is built, their
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: shareholders would get upset if they didn't. If they took
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: a vote, the shareholders were like, why didn't.
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 2: You do it?
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: We would have made dividends or whatever.
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 2: Not only why we didn't do it, but we could
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 2: sue you and probably win if you didn't return us
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 2: the max profits. And so China has sovereign wealth funds,
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 2: which are literally trillions and trillions of dollars of pools
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 2: of cash.
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: Whose money? Is it theirs?
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 2: It's their money, yeah.
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: Individuals or the government?
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 2: The governments. Okay.
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 2: And the government can decide how to allocate that.
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 2: And so the, you know, if, if the U S
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 2: had that, you would always be allocating it for whatever's
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 2: going to make you the most profits. China's going to
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 2: be allocating it potentially for whatever gives them the most
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 2: political strength, whatever makes them the most powerful country. It's
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 2: very different. And that's what sovereign wealth funds are. And
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 2: they've become huge. They're like, as I understand, I wouldn't
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 2: talk to this professor, this academic at Stanford, who's one
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 2: of the foremost experts in the country on these things.
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 2: As I understand it, they're fairly new. The Middle Eastern countries,
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, they also have really big sovereign
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 2: wealth funds. China's got really big sovereign wealth funds. Surprisingly,
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 2: Norway has a really big sovereign wealth fund. But they
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 2: can use these things strategically, especially against a profit-driven country
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 2: like the US.
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: Wow. So it's crazy to think that being profitable could
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: be your weakness.
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 2: That's interesting, right? Yeah.
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: Wow. The world's largest sovereign wealth fund as of December
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: 2022 was China Investment Corporation, managing assets reaching around 1.35
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: trillion U.S. dollars. Where do we rank in that?
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 2: Pull up like the top 10 list of sovereign wealth funds.
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: Norway, Qatar, GIC, the one we just talked about, National Welfare. Oh, no,
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: China Investment Corporation.
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 2: And Tamasek, that's Singapore.
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: Public Investment Fund could be us, but who knows? Saudi Arabia. Huh?
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: So those are the big 10 biggest sovereign wealth funds.
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: So those can really.
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 2: Somebody's got to have a list for how much assets
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 2: each of them have at 1.7 trillion seems.
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: Small to me, but we're not even on the top
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: 10 list.
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 2: We don't, we don't operate a sovereign. As far as
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 2: I know, we, the U S doesn't operate a sovereign
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 2: wealth fund like this because it's not how we think.
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 2: Got it.
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Hmm.
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: You start to, yeah. You don't, uh, you don't think
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: about how perspective and mindset, um, affects how an entire
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: country operates, really. No, the United States does not have
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: a federal sovereign wealth fund, but several states do. These
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: funds are usually smaller than international SWFs and can serve
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: different purposes. For example, the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation, established
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: in the early 1980s, has roughly $ 67 billion in assets
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: and was created to ensure that Alaska citizens benefited from
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: oil extracted from state lands. Wow. So that's important.
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 2: And that's like Norway too. Norway's is very similar to
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 2: Alaska where it's like they, they, they are an oil
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 2: wealthy nation. And so they created a sovereign wealth fund, um,
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 2: to bet, to benefit the citizens.
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's smart. Texas also, it says has two sovereign
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: wealth funds, including the Texas permanent school fund, which was
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: founded in 1854 and manages 46.5 billion in assets to
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: benefit public schools.
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: That's pretty incredible.
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: Just to think that they had that forethought. Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 2: Totally.
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: And they're going to think maybe I'm going to own
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: the land, the schools on just different things like that.
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And then, so these foreign countries have these massive
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 2: pools of cash that they can use strategically.
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 2: It gets interesting, man. You start like seeing the, the, the,
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 2: the chess players on the board, like moving in different ways.
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: What states are, um, are looking out for their land?
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: What states are kind of at the head of the forefront?
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: Were you able to notice any of that?
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 2: Uh, off the top of my head, You know, so like,
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 2: I think Iowa has a law that, that foreign companies, uh,
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 2: can't own farmland in Iowa. It's off the top of
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 2: my head. And, um, but like, is it, you know,
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 2: like the question is, is like, does it really matter
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 2: if it's a foreign company or a domestic company, if
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 2: they're doing good by the local people?
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 1: Right. Right.
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 2: Like ultimately in that, like, who cares? Like, are you
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 2: doing well by the local people? Is there enough water there?
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 2: Are you creating jobs? Like, you know, is it like people,
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 2: local people prospering? Like that's like, I don't know, at
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 2: the end of the day, like what people are going
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 2: to care about.
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: Right. Right.
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 2: Like I think what becomes dangerous is when you see
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 2: these things that are just like highly extractive to the detriment,
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 2: you know, of the local folks who are seeing their
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 2: water disappear, who aren't seeing like a lot of job creation,
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 2: you know, like.
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: Right. There's no return on it for them. Right. And
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: especially if it's their space, you know.
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 2: I even pulled up on that Saudi farm. I remember,
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 2: I think I pulled up visas and they were bringing
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 2: in workers, if I'm recalling correctly, from the Philippines, you know?
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 2: So they'd be like, well, we're creating jobs. And I'm like, man,
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 2: you guys are pulling visas. So you're bringing in workers
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 2: from the Philippines to work on your farm. Yeah. You know?
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You probably have, yeah. You probably have farmers right
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: in the area that would do it.
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So, yeah. So these things are so.
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: Many loopholes and stuff. There's so many tricky ways out there.
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: So when you look at like places not having enough water.
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: America has a lot of water.
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 2: Totally.
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 2: And a lot of land in a small population.
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: Okay. So we're probably in a really good space.
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 2: We're in a good space. Right. Yep.
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: What places aren't in good spaces?
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 2: And we're in a good space, except for like these
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 2: like regional examples, right? Like places in the West and
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 2: the Southwest, places that are going to get potentially a
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 2: lot hotter, you know? So I got these classified cables
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 2: answering your question, like what places aren't in a good space?
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 2: I got these classified cables and I'm from the U.S.
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 2: embassy that had gone.
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: Cables, what does that mean?
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 2: Like diplomatic cables that the State Department was sending back
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 2: from its embassy in Switzerland back to the U.S. government here.
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 2: Sometimes that stuff goes to like the CIA, the State Department, other.
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: But cables, what's the term? It's paperwork or information?
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like a report they'll send back. Got it.
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 2: And so some folks from the U.S. embassy in Switzerland
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 2: had gone to the headquarters of Nestle. And Nestle is
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 2: like the world's largest food company. And the chief economist
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 2: at Nestle sort of gave them a tour and like
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 2: a perspective from the world's largest food company about how
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 2: screwed up everything was. And they talked about the regions
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 2: that were going to get hit hardest by not having
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 2: enough water. And so that's like China. It was like India,
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 2: the Middle East. but it was also the Western United States,
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 2: you know, like the Western United States is in a
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 2: pretty tough spot when it comes to having enough water
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 2: to keep doing all the things they're currently doing. Um,
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 2: and so, um, yeah, and that was like the hot
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 2: take from Nestle was like, you know, forget about it.
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 2: That time it was like the, the, it was 2009.
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 2: It was the great recession. And Nestle is just like,
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 2: forget about it. That's going to resolve itself. The world
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 2: is running out of enough water to feed everybody.
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: Right. Yeah. Yeah. And so do states start to plan ahead?
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: You think some of them would?
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 2: I think some of them do. These things like water,
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 2: people will always tell you water is super local, right?
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 2: And so some counties, some regions within states and some
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 2: states themselves are doing better than others. And some countries
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 2: are definitely doing better than others just in terms of
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 2: like planning ahead, you know? And it is solvable, man.
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 2: That's like the thing with a lot of the issues
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 2: that we face, you know, like we can do, we're
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 2: a super smart species, you know, like we've, we've done
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 2: a lot of stuff. We could still do a lot
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 2: of stuff. We just have to move off of the
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 2: trend lines that we're currently headed on, you know?
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: And those trend lines are more like me, me, me
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: instead of us. Is that it? Or is it like,
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 1: cause is there enough water for everybody?
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 2: Uh, there is enough water to grow enough food that
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 2: everyone in the world could eat. Not even like today, man,
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 2: which we were, do we 7 billion people or so?
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 2: Like there's enough water to grow enough food to feed
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 2: 10 billion people. You know, like it's not just a
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 2: population issue. It kind of goes back to what I
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 2: was saying about China, where it's like they just now
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 2: they're just wealthier, man, and they're eating more meat. And
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 2: Nestle in that in that classified cable said, like, if
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 2: everyone in the world ate as much meat per capita
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 2: as Americans do, we would have run out of fresh
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 2: water in the year 2000. Wow.
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 2: And I'm not a vegetarian. I'm not a vegan.
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 2: I'm just like, this is what the world's largest food
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 2: company is saying. you know, and, um, I know people
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 2: love beef and I know people love steak, you know,
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 2: and like it's there, but like, but that's all of it.
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 2: But when it comes to like, how can we shift,
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 2: how can we take some personal responsibility to putting us
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 2: in a place we want to be? That's one area
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 2: we can look at. And it's not even saying like,
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 2: you need to become vegetarian or vegan. It's just like,
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 2: how much meat do you need to be a healthy human? Right.
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 2: And you got people with obesity and heart attacks, you know,
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 2: and all these issues.
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: Oh, you got people damn snorting meat out there. You know,
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: you got some real, um, mammal pervs out there, you know,
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 1: people who will just cook anything that wandered up on
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: their porch, even and eat it and won't even share
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: with their spouse either.
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 2: I had a buddy that had a t-shirt and this
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 2: is in San Francisco. So he definitely, he definitely pissed
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 2: people off, but his shirt said, uh, meat is murder. delicious,
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 2: delicious murder. Just trolling people.
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's definitely, definitely. People love it. Well, you do
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: have businesses like Bill Gates is starting like a Beyond Meat.
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 1: Is that his company or no?
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 2: I can't remember if he invested in that one. There's like, yeah,
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 2: Beyond Meat, Impossible Burgers.
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's Impossible Burgers maybe.
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of those guys got really, they got funding.
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 2: And again, those were like, that's a way to Replace
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 2: meat with a less water intensive meat substitute, you know,
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 2: something that tastes like meat.
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 1: Right. Yeah.
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: So that's one way that people could preserve water. Probably
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: we still have to grow the.
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It just requires a lot, lot, lot less water
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 2: to eat a grain than it does to feed enough
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 2: grains to eat an animal. Got it. Yeah.
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: And what about other methods that people, you hear about
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: like desalinization, you hear about cloud seeding.
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure what other methods they are. I believe
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: cloud seeding is very expensive. Yeah.
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 2: And I don't know as much about cloud seeding. And
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 2: I remember like one of my buddies, he learned I
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 2: was doing this and I'd moved off organized crime. And
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 2: I was looking at this, you gotta look at cloud seeding.
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 2: And I was like, dude, that's some conspiracy shit you
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 2: read online. And I looked into it. I was like,
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 2: oh no, people do really do cloud seeding. Like I
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 2: think the ski resorts were doing cloud seeding. I think
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 2: the Israeli government was doing cloud seeding. But yeah, I
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 2: think it's expensive. It hasn't really found a practical application.
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 2: As far as I know, this isn't my area of expertise.
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 2: Like desal, desal I'm more familiar with.
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 1: Cloud seeding is a weather modification technique that improves a
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: cloud's ability to produce rain or snow by introducing tiny
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: ice nuclei in a certain types of sub freezing clouds.
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: So you have a cloud that's already there. And I
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: guess you then, it looks like just fire ice particles
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: into it.
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 2: Precipitates the rain out or something.
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 1: Four-hour operation. A four-hour operation that seeds 24 clouds can
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: cost around $ 5, 000. Wow. So rich people could have rain
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: or something if they wanted to have like a Noah's
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 1: Ark party or like the perfect storm if they wanted
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 1: to do a perfect storm reenactment of that movie. Per
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 1: acre cloud seeding operation can cost around 40 cents per
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: planted acre. or $ 10 to $ 15 per acre foot for
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 1: additional water. That's in Utah.
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 2: Well, that's actually not, you know, this is not my
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 2: area of expertise, but $ 10 to $ 15 for an acre
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 2: foot of water, that's a lot of water, and that's
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 2: a really low price. So if that, you know, and
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 2: that's in Utah specifically, right? So they're going to have
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 2: their own, like, climatology, their own hydrology, like, so it
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 2: can be super specific. But $ 10 to $ 15 for an
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 2: acre foot is really cheap for water. Mm-hmm.
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 2: Because you start talking about desalination plant and now you're
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 2: talking about $ 2, 000 per acre foot.
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: So that's very expensive.
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And like we're growing tomatoes typically with like $ 50
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 2: per acre foot water and an acre foot just, it's
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 2: actually super simple. It's how, if an acre foot is
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 2: the equivalent of flooding an acre of land with one
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 2: foot of water. Okay.
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The global cloud seeding market is estimated to have
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: a valuation of $ 131. 4 million in 2023. Over the forecast
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: period from 2023 to 2030, it is projected to experience
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: substantial growth with an estimated compound annual growth of 5.8%.
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: By 2030, the market is expected to reach a value
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: of $ 194. 4 million. So it's getting more popular. They're saying
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: this is a Market Insights website. So if I don't
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: know if that's legit or not, but what else does
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 1: it say? Anything else on there? Here's an article right here.
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: Not since Charlemagne was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 800
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 1: AD has the American West been so dry. A recent
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: study in Nature Climate Change found the period 2000 to
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: 2021 was the driest in 22 years and more than
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 1: a millennium, attributing a fifth of that anomaly to human-caused
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: climate change. Hmm. Lake Mead and Lake Powell have reached
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 1: their lowest levels ever, triggering unprecedented cuts in water allocations.
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 1: Cloud seeding operations have also expanded in water-stressed regions outside.
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: Let me see. Within the past two years, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming,
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: and California have expanded cloud seeding operations. So they're trying it.
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I remember the ski resorts doing it
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 2: and people doing it. I wonder how much water ultimately
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 2: you're going to be able to squeeze out of the
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 2: atmosphere by shooting these minerals up into it. But, yeah.
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and how effective is it? Like if you spend
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 1: the money to shoot the water, to put the particles
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: out there. But cloud seeding should not be thought of
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: as a response to drought. Experts agree. For one, in
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: a drought, there are likely to be fewer seedable storms.
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 1: That's a good point. And when there are storms, even
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: the estimates from cloud seeding companies themselves show the practice
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 1: increases precipitation by only around 10% in a given area.
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 1: That might be worth the effort when every acre foot counts,
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: but it's not going to end a drought across an
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: entire region. So you have to have a storm already there.
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 2: I see, yeah.
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: So that's kind of interesting.
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 2: Super interesting.
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 1: You can't just completely create a storm. Not yet anyway. Right. Right.
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 2: It's like terraforming the earth at that point. Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: That gets right. That gets, yeah. When it becomes like
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: air Sims or whatever, it's going to get weird. And
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 1: what about desalinization?
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 2: It's super expensive. Okay. Because like, basically it, it takes
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 2: a ton of energy, like electricity to basically push water
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 2: through what's just like a giant filter and pull out
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 2: the salt or whatever it is that's contaminated the water.
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 2: And so it ends up, the water ends up costing,
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 2: you know, a hundred times what, you know, farmers can,
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 2: are paying for it now. And oftentimes it makes crops unaffordable.
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 2: So it's good for like drinking water. People use desal
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 2: all the time for drinking water and for some industrial use,
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 2: but at the price, it becomes very difficult to create
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 2: food with that expensive of water.
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: Are some countries saying you can't buy land here? Some
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 1: countries are like that, right?
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 2: For sure.
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: Right. Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 2: They, you know, and, and, And they're saying you can't
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 2: grow that type of crop here because it requires too
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 2: much water, right? Other countries are getting really selective as
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 2: to how their water is going to be used and
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 2: what it can be used for.
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 1: It's so tough for us today because we've manipulated so
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 1: many other markets and done things ourselves, you know? You
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: would go upstream from your neighbor and split that river,
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: split that creek that's headed your way if you had to.
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 2: And that's what you're seeing. And that's, you know, people
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 2: are just seeing like, The river their village relies on
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden now is diverted and it's for
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 2: a palm oil plantation, right? And that's more and more
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 2: what you're seeing.
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: In Africa and places like that, you mean?
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Central America, like Guatemala, I think has one of
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 2: the largest expanding palm oil plantation in the world.
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah. What do you think? there's a way, a solution? Like, yeah,
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: what do you look at is?
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 2: Well, first off, I think people just need to know
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 2: what's happening.
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 2: Just like bottom line. Like you're saying.
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 2: Bottom line. And then, dude, we just need to empower
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 2: and push our government to putting forward like the best minds.
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 2: You know, I think like right now, basically the laws
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 2: that we have on the books for water around this
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 2: country are from like the 1800s, right? Like when water,
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 2: when there were few people, there was water was plentiful.
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no gargling water in church and stuff. You're like,
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: that shouldn't be in the state doctrine, you know? Yeah.
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 2: And now, and now water's tight and there's a lot
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 2: more people. And so we, you know, they need to
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 2: go back onto the books and revise the laws to
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 2: be like, okay, so what do we want our water
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 2: laws to look like in this place? Given the realities
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 2: we have now in the 21st century and not the
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 2: 19th century, right? Like it's, it's like all this stuff, man,
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 2: it's kind of common sense, but we're just not getting
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 2: it done. Yeah.
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 1: And it's like, how is it tough to get it
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: done when, um, a lot of the great minds, it
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: feels like are working on the other side of popular sentiment.
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: Is that a fair statement? Yeah.
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 2: How do you mean? Like which?
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: Like that the best researchers and a lot of great
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: journalists and lobbyists even are working for bigger companies or
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 1: in the private sector more to garner information and learn
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 1: information to give that to the private sector to better
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 1: do their doings that they're doing. Does that make sense?
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 2: It does. I think, you know, journalists are always going
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 2: to try to give the information to the public. There's
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 2: just fewer of them.
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 2: And yeah, I think the private sector has a lot
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 2: more resources to manipulate, you know, the markets to what
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 2: they want.
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 2: Which oftentimes can be quarterly profits or annual profits. Um,
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 2: and we need our government to be like, okay, okay, okay.
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 2: But what's in our long-term best interest, right? Like what
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 2: do we want for, for your, for your kids and
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 2: your grandkids? Um, and I think that's where, where we
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 2: really need to be pushing folks. Yeah.
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 1: And some of the, some of the companies are doing it,
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: not because they're beholding to their stockholders who are the
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 1: very people who are wishing they wouldn't that companies wouldn't
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 1: do this sort of thing. That's really. Crazy. Isn't it?
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, dude, you, you, you seen the duck and
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 2: it's like in the duck, man, it's like, so Holly
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 2: Irwin is, is the County supervisor in Arizona that we follow.
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 1: And what County is that in?
• 1:50:44
  Speaker 2: It's in La Paz County.
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 1: Okay. Right.
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 2: And that's like a deeply red County. You know, Holly is,
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 2: is a Republican, like a conservative Republican. And now she's,
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 2: she's fighting for what people might be like, that's an
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 2: environmental issue. No, she's fighting for the water of the country,
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 2: of the County.
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 2: And she's working with Democrats, which is great. Like you
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 2: got Republicans and Democrats coming together finally to like work
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 2: on something and come up with solutions. But what I
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 2: showed to Holly was, and she didn't know this, you know,
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 2: she's like, oh, the Saudis have come, they're taking our water,
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 2: you know? And I said, but Holly, look here. this
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 2: is your pension fund from the state of Arizona. Look
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 2: what it's invested in that farm right over there. That's
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 2: shipping hay to China and the UAE that was bought
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 2: with your pension fund money. Like it's your own pension fund.
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 2: Your retirement fund is, is helping export the water that
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 2: you need to stay, to be here and for people
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 2: to retire here.
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 1: But how I'm not following that.
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 1: Right. So like how they use the money. So they
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: had a pension fund. Yeah. But the Saudis came in
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 1: and bought the land.
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 2: So that's a separate one, right? So you got the
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 2: Saudis are there. But there's another big farm owned by
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 2: a company out of North Carolina. And the Arizona State
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 2: Pension Fund gave a bunch of money to that, to IFC,
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 2: this company out of North Carolina. And then IFC rented it.
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 2: to a company from the United Arab Emirates that's controlled
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 2: by the brother of the ruler of the country, that's
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 2: controlled by a guy whose job it is to control
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 2: national security in the country. And so they're shipping it overseas.
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 2: And so at the end of the day, Holly's pension fund,
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 2: she's fighting so hard to keep the water there in
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 2: her county so her people can stay there. And then
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 2: her own pension fund is financing a deal that's shipping
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 2: water overseas.
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 1: Right, because it's more short-term profit than it is a
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 1: long-term vision.
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so how do you try to align those things?
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 2: How do you align with Holly wants money to retire on,
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 2: Holly wants water for her county to live on for
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 2: the next 100 plus years?
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 1: Right. Wow. Interesting, man. What were some other– there were
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 1: some other stories that I was investigating that you had–
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 1: or that I was researching that you had looked at.
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 1: One that I found was interesting was this Somali pirate scenario.
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, isn't that interesting? So this was a guy from
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 2: the intelligence community who told me this and wasn't the
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 2: only person that told me this. But he just said, look,
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 2: Somali pirates, we think of them as pirates. They took
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 2: to the high seas. But what they were, they were fishermen.
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 2: They were just fishermen along the coast. And foreign trawlers
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 2: from other countries, I think his example was primarily China,
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 2: were coming in and just depleting the fishing stocks. So
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 2: these guys that are on the Somali coast, they got
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 2: pretty basic systems for fishing. And then these big badass
• 1:53:31
  Speaker 2: boats come in with these super deep nets and they
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 2: just scoop up all the fish. So what do the
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 2: dudes do? The same thing you and I would do
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 2: if somebody was doing that to us. We come together,
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 2: we sit around, we have a drink. We're like, dude,
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 2: how do we stop that? And we're like, dude, next
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 2: time one of those things come through, we're going to
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 2: go out there in our shitty little boat with some
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 2: guns and take it over and tell them to stop
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 2: doing it. And we create like a little small Coast Guard. Well,
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 2: that sounds like what they kind of did, right? And
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 2: so then they have a little Coast Guard and they're
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 2: trying to fight back against these trawlers. And then they
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 2: take one hostage and they're like, dude, you guys have
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 2: been taking all our fish. Give us money and we'll
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 2: give you your boat back because you've been taking all
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 2: our fish. And they do, right? And then they're like, well,
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 2: that kind of escalates because maybe we should get a
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 2: bigger boat. hijack a bigger boat next time because now
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 2: we don't have any fish like we're not selling anything
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 2: we can't buy our kids books.
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 1: Now they're in the boat abduction business yes yeah.
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 2: Right and so that's how these things evolved it started
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 2: as some dudes just being like we just wanted to
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 2: protect our fishing stock right to being like now we're
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 2: taking over huge oil tankers and demanding and then and
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 2: then what ended up happening then the oil tankers hire
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 2: mercenaries or private security corporations to come in oftentimes former
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 2: like special forces guys or you know, guys that have,
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 2: that have a background working for, for a national military service.
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 2: And they come in with guns and they're blowing everyone up.
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 2: And you're like, these dudes at the beginning of this story,
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 2: these dudes just wanted their fish.
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 1: Right. They just wanted their food supply.
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 1: Which is so ironic because it's really the same other,
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 1: same thing we're talking about.
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 2: It is, man.
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 1: It's like, they just wanted to eat. Yep.
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 2: It's super basic.
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 1: And when they did, when you're not eating two months later,
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 1: you are a pirate.
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It turns out, man, If we solve like something
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 2: super basic, like just making sure everyone around the world
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 2: has enough food, we're going to see, because this is
• 1:55:13
  Speaker 2: the other thing is like Boko Haram. Again, I mean,
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 2: I could go on to these stories forever, man.
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 1: And what is Boko Haram?
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 2: It's a terrorist organization in Nigeria and in that region
• 1:55:23
  Speaker 2: of the world. Well, that was where Lake Chad was.
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 2: And if you look back on maps, satellite maps of
• 1:55:28
  Speaker 2: Lake Chad, like 30 years ago, it was the giant lake.
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 2: And now it's just like a pond. It's shrunk way
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 2: down because people have been diverting the rivers that flow
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 2: into it. for farming fields and the people that lived
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 2: there that were fishing out of that, it was a
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 2: huge lake, they lost their livelihoods. And then people start
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 2: getting pissed. They start getting radicalized. People are hungry. Then
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 2: like some people with crazy ideas start being like, well,
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 2: you join my group, I'll feed you. People are taken
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 2: from us all of a sudden, you know, just like,
• 1:55:55
  Speaker 2: and it just spirals, man. And then you just end
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 2: up with these crazy groups that are abducting children, that
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 2: are blowing things up. And like the beginning, like the
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 2: origin of that story was like, people got thrown into
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 2: shit by not having their basic necessities met like food
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 2: and then things spiral out of control. Right. A little
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 2: like Mad Max kind of style.
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You know, I mean, it could get really weird everywhere.
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So that's what like, that's what we're hoping doesn't happen.
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 1: Right. But then, you know, it's life. It's always going on.
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 1: Society is always going on in some form or other,
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 1: whether we end up in tribes or whatever, you know,
• 1:56:32
  Speaker 1: it's like, that's humanity. You know, you start to get
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 1: this idea of what humanity is based on your own
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 1: childhood and things you've heard or, and also the safety
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 1: that we feel in America.
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 2: Don't you feel like we've lost our tribes, our community though?
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 2: Like everyone's got their little, like a hundred percent suburb.
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 2: They don't have to interact with anybody anymore.
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 1: And like a hundred percent, everybody's just like, like, yeah.
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 2: And it's, um, I feel like a country of loneliness, man.
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 2: I feel like half the problems we see is just
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 2: because people feel isolated and lonely and depressed. And they're
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 2: not like, They're not like in a community anymore. They're
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 2: not seeing the same people every Sunday or they're not
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 2: going out like, dude, I play ice hockey, right? I
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 2: play ice hockey and those dudes are awesome. And I
• 1:57:11
  Speaker 2: am so lucky to be able to go and see
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 2: that same group of cool dudes and just play hockey
• 1:57:15
  Speaker 2: and have that community. And like, I think a lot
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 2: of us in so much of our communities around what
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 2: going out to the bar and getting drunk. And like,
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 2: I used to drink a lot. And now I think
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 2: alcohol is a shitty drug. Right. Like, I think it's
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 2: bad medicine. Like, you know, I think I view like,
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 2: you know, a lot of this stuff, I think they
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 2: should be viewed medicinally.
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 1: And yeah, it's just like sports piss almost. I mean, yeah,
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 1: I don't drink. I mean, I prefer cocaine probably, but
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 1: that's not even that good for you. And it's like.
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: I think, um, yeah, I definitely feel you though. It's like,
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 1: where do you meet up with people? I mean, I
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 1: go to a recovery meeting, so I've seen people there
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 1: all the time. So you have like some semblance of groupness,
• 1:57:53
  Speaker 1: but yeah, it's like everybody gets their food delivered. A
• 1:57:55
  Speaker 1: lot of times the family, it's just.
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 2: You're staring at a phone, your food's getting delivered. You're
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 2: not going outside. And it's like, how do we reinstill
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 2: like a stronger community in the U S right? Because like, I, okay, dude,
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 2: I have a little cabin and a town, like a
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 2: hundred people. And those people are across the board politically
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 2: on the spectrum. And it doesn't matter if somebody's voting
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 2: one way and somebody else is voting the other way.
• 1:58:20
  Speaker 2: If somebody's like house floods, people are going to show up.
• 1:58:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Right.
• 1:58:23
  Speaker 2: People are going to help each other out. Like that's,
• 1:58:25
  Speaker 2: that's what it is to be a good person. It's
• 1:58:27
  Speaker 2: not who you vote for or what you necessarily like
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 2: your political ethos. It's like, dude, did something bad happen
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 2: to you? Does your community come out and support you?
• 1:58:34
  Speaker 2: That's community. And that's what I feel like we're losing, right?
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 2: We're so distracted about, I feel like petty crap right
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 2: now that we're forgetting it's time. We just need to
• 1:58:42
  Speaker 2: show up for each other. Yeah.
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 1: I wonder if you're going to see more of an
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 1: influx towards like religious services. even not even entirely for religion,
• 1:58:52
  Speaker 1: but for community. It's like some of the first places
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 1: you go back to for community. Like one of the
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 1: things I always loved about church was just seeing like
• 1:58:59
  Speaker 1: the kids play together. You're all sitting there in peace.
• 1:59:02
  Speaker 1: Even it's like, if you, if you're just in your
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 1: own thoughts, like thinking of something bigger than yourself, no
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 1: matter what your denomination was or whatever, or yeah. Yeah.
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 2: So I grew up, my dad was a Lutheran pastor and, uh, and,
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 2: and I, you know, I don't, I don't go to,
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 2: I don't go to church anymore. I don't follow those
• 1:59:18
  Speaker 2: beliefs anymore. but I miss that Sunday get together, man,
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 2: because you would show up and you know, there would
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 2: be like a tax preparer there and he knew you
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 2: would see them every Sunday and you could rely on them.
• 1:59:29
  Speaker 2: There was a mechanic that was there and you knew
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 2: that they'd show up every Sunday and you would rely
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 2: and they weren't going to screw you. And there was
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 2: a sense of community, like in that community where people
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 2: that had vocational trades across the board and you could
• 1:59:39
  Speaker 2: trust each other and you can know each other and
• 1:59:41
  Speaker 2: you can ask them questions. You could get knowledge, you
• 1:59:43
  Speaker 2: could share experience, you could carry each other, right? Like
• 1:59:46
  Speaker 2: showing up to that one place every week and having
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 2: that community That's what I feel like so much is
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 2: what that's been lost.
• 1:59:53
  Speaker 1: I feel like it'll be a few generations and I
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 1: feel like there will be a rebellious generation that will
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 1: throw off the VR headsets and masturbate naturally if there's
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 1: a way to do that into the ocean or whatever
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 1: and reclaim what it feels like, or at least go
• 2:00:10
  Speaker 1: in search of what it feels like to be human.
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, man.
• 2:00:13
  Speaker 1: That's what I, I think. would probably happen.
• 2:00:17
  Speaker 2: And are you talking about this with other buddies too?
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 2: Cause I feel like I'm having this conversation more and
• 2:00:20
  Speaker 2: more with buddies. Like, dude, how do we create community again? Like,
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 2: like I said, it can be as simple as like
• 2:00:26
  Speaker 2: finding a good hockey team.
• 2:00:28
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 2:00:28
  Speaker 2: And just like, cause after every game, man, it doesn't
• 2:00:30
  Speaker 2: matter if that game starts at 10 30 PM at
• 2:00:32
  Speaker 2: night and we're not in the parking lot until midnight
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 2: or like 1 AM dudes are going to stand around
• 2:00:36
  Speaker 2: and drink a beer and just catch.
• 2:00:38
  Speaker 1: Up, have a blast, have a nice time. It's the
• 2:00:41
  Speaker 1: same after any real get together. People always kind of
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 1: mill around, see what's going on. You and one buddy
• 2:00:45
  Speaker 1: or two guys might stay late if one of them
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 1: is having a problem and they'll talk about it. If
• 2:00:49
  Speaker 1: everything is cool that you're out of there kind of
• 2:00:51
  Speaker 1: like one of the first couple of guys out but
• 2:00:53
  Speaker 1: you're joking around. Yeah, I think that thing is– I
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 1: feel like we would find ways. In the end, I
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 1: feel like you just believe enough in something that we
• 2:01:06
  Speaker 1: can't create outside of us that's inside of us that
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 1: would lead us to victory. in some sense, like some
• 2:01:16
  Speaker 1: human spirit or something that will prevail. It always kind
• 2:01:19
  Speaker 1: of feels like that. I think it just feels like
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 1: we're down maybe two rounds to one right now.
• 2:01:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah. You know, I feel like it's tough for that
• 2:01:26
  Speaker 2: human spirit to connect through a phone. Yeah.
• 2:01:28
  Speaker 1: I think it's hard, man. And I think there's a
• 2:01:30
  Speaker 1: lot of like, I have to be doing something all
• 2:01:33
  Speaker 1: the time. There's a lot of factors in it. It's
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 1: interesting to think about. Um, Before you leave, I know
• 2:01:38
  Speaker 1: you worked in organized crime. You mentioned that a little
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 1: while ago. Yeah. And was you– what did you do
• 2:01:43
  Speaker 1: in it? Bookies or what was it?
• 2:01:45
  Speaker 2: Pretty close, man. It was a lot of casino work.
• 2:01:48
  Speaker 2: It was a lot of Asian organized crime. I went
• 2:01:50
  Speaker 2: over to Macau, which became like– Oh, that's by Hong Kong, huh? Yeah, yeah.
• 2:01:54
  Speaker 2: I went there once. Hong Kong or Macau?
• 2:01:55
  Speaker 1: I went across the ferry there. I went to both
• 2:01:57
  Speaker 1: of them.
• 2:01:57
  Speaker 2: That's a fun ferry ride, right?
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was nice, dude. Some lady I think was
• 2:02:01
  Speaker 1: either flirting with me or trying to tell me I
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 1: had something on my shirt or something.
• 2:02:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 2: It's a wild place, man. It's, it's, uh, they do
• 2:02:08
  Speaker 2: more revenue than Vegas does now. It became massive. When
• 2:02:11
  Speaker 2: I was there, it'd become just like in a very
• 2:02:13
  Speaker 2: short period, it'd become massive. Um, and I was over
• 2:02:16
  Speaker 2: there because we were looking into how, what the U
• 2:02:19
  Speaker 2: S government largely considered was organized crime, people connection to triads,
• 2:02:23
  Speaker 2: et cetera, were working inside of the casinos to bring
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 2: money from mainland China that could be gambled in Macau.
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 2: Cause at that time there was like, I think it
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 2: was a $ 5, 000 cap, right? Like this was the law.
• 2:02:35
  Speaker 2: Like you could only bring 5,000 from mainland China into Macau,
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 2: but then you'd go and you go into the casino
• 2:02:39
  Speaker 2: and people are betting like 500,000 us per hand. You're like, well,
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 2: how is that money? And it was basically this informal
• 2:02:46
  Speaker 2: credit network, which is like, we know you're good for
• 2:02:49
  Speaker 2: it in China. So we'll spot it for you in Macau.
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 2: But if you don't pay your debts, you're probably going
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 2: to be found burned up and shot in your car. Wow.
• 2:02:58
  Speaker 2: You know? And so like, that was the ecosystem. And
• 2:03:01
  Speaker 2: then these big us casinos were operating in that ecosystem.
• 2:03:04
  Speaker 2: And so how does all of that? Yeah. So I
• 2:03:06
  Speaker 2: went over there and like my job was to try
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 2: to get these guys to go on camera, to open
• 2:03:10
  Speaker 2: up to me and to tell me about this operation.
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 2: And as one of the us, you know, casino bosses,
• 2:03:15
  Speaker 2: a white guy from America said to me is like,
• 2:03:19
  Speaker 2: he's like, man, that dude who's casino you're staying in
• 2:03:21
  Speaker 2: for the six weeks you're here is known if people
• 2:03:24
  Speaker 2: say stuff he doesn't like for hanging them out their window,
• 2:03:26
  Speaker 2: you know? And like, that's where I was staying.
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 1: And, um, yeah, and it was, it was a rough start. Yeah. Yeah.
• 2:03:32
  Speaker 1: And so it was, um, you just down there looking
• 2:03:35
  Speaker 1: and we say triads, what does that mean?
• 2:03:37
  Speaker 2: Triads are like a British word for what they would
• 2:03:40
  Speaker 2: describe as Asian organized crime networks. Um, and, and the
• 2:03:44
  Speaker 2: triads actually have this super interesting history that go back
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 2: to martial arts, um, to the Shaolin temple. and to
• 2:03:50
  Speaker 2: like all the way back to like the overthrow of
• 2:03:52
  Speaker 2: the emperor, man. It's like, it gets like, that's why
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 2: the triad guys are known for being such badasses with
• 2:03:57
  Speaker 2: regards to martial arts. Like I still get calls from
• 2:04:00
  Speaker 2: federal prison pretty frequently from a guy named Raymond shrimp boy,
• 2:04:04
  Speaker 2: chow and shrimp boy, shrimp boy.
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 1: Amen. Yeah.
• 2:04:08
  Speaker 2: And, uh, dude, just crazy badass martial arts guy. Um, but, uh, yeah,
• 2:04:13
  Speaker 2: he'll call, you know, he, he, I, and I, I
• 2:04:16
  Speaker 2: went to him because I knew I was going to
• 2:04:17
  Speaker 2: Macau and he hadn't been arrested. Now he's, Now he's
• 2:04:20
  Speaker 2: in prison doing, I think, multiple life sentences. But that's
• 2:04:26
  Speaker 2: just a different world, man, because you're operating in a
• 2:04:30
  Speaker 2: world of violence.
• 2:04:31
  Speaker 1: Right. That's how they solve it there.
• 2:04:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Things are punishable by real violence. Yes, exactly.
• 2:04:39
  Speaker 1: And it's kind of organized.
• 2:04:41
  Speaker 2: So it's difficult to go in as an investigative journalist
• 2:04:44
  Speaker 2: into that. And so the first thing I'd always do
• 2:04:46
  Speaker 2: is just tell people right away, like, I am an
• 2:04:48
  Speaker 2: investigative journalist. I'm looking into this, you know, that's my role.
• 2:04:52
  Speaker 2: And I don't necessarily need to push people for answers
• 2:04:54
  Speaker 2: right away, but like, I don't want anybody thinking that
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 2: like I'm sneaking around behind their.
• 2:04:58
  Speaker 1: Back or like trying to be transparent about it.
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 2: Super transparent.
• 2:05:01
  Speaker 1: So there's a different level of respect. If you come
• 2:05:03
  Speaker 1: in like that over there.
• 2:05:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And I do that with everybody. Like as a journalist,
• 2:05:07
  Speaker 2: if I'm working on a story, I always identify myself
• 2:05:10
  Speaker 2: as a journalist right away. You know, like this is
• 2:05:12
  Speaker 2: what I'm working on. This is my interest, you know,
• 2:05:14
  Speaker 2: and then over there, it's like, we don't got to
• 2:05:16
  Speaker 2: deal with that right away. You can just, identify me
• 2:05:19
  Speaker 2: as a person, you know, in, in parts of China
• 2:05:21
  Speaker 2: that I've traveled to, one of the things people want
• 2:05:23
  Speaker 2: to do when they're going to get into business with
• 2:05:26
  Speaker 2: you is they just want to get hammered with you.
• 2:05:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:05:28
  Speaker 2: They just want to get hammered. Cause they want to
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 2: see what kind of drunk you are. Are you going
• 2:05:31
  Speaker 2: to be a total dick when you're drunk? Or are
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 2: you going to still just be like kind of funny
• 2:05:35
  Speaker 2: and happy and upbeat and like honest, or what kind
• 2:05:37
  Speaker 2: of drunk are you? Um, and so like, there are
• 2:05:40
  Speaker 2: just different ways. And so sometimes you identify who you
• 2:05:42
  Speaker 2: are and then you just kind of a human for
• 2:05:44
  Speaker 2: a little bit, just like, just hang out.
• 2:05:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I never wanted to be Chinese that much, really.
• 2:05:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, I haven't not wanted to be it, but
• 2:05:53
  Speaker 1: I haven't, I'll be honest, yeah, I haven't really wanted
• 2:05:55
  Speaker 1: to be it. I guess I would be willing to
• 2:05:56
  Speaker 1: be it, but I don't, I would probably think about
• 2:05:59
  Speaker 1: it a lot more than I have recently. Why do
• 2:06:04
  Speaker 1: Chinese businessmen insist on getting you drunk? That's interesting. In
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 1: a culture where relationships can make or break you in business,
• 2:06:12
  Speaker 1: getting drunk with a potential business partner is often viewed
• 2:06:14
  Speaker 1: as a crucial way of solidifying that relationship and showing
• 2:06:17
  Speaker 1: that you are, in fact, friends. Let me think. Is
• 2:06:29
  Speaker 1: there anything about the liquor? Anything more about booze? Alcohol
• 2:06:33
  Speaker 1: is a very long tradition in Confucian society. Confucius, who
• 2:06:36
  Speaker 1: advocated only eating at mealtimes and not in between, made
• 2:06:40
  Speaker 1: an exception for wine. He said only wine drinking is
• 2:06:43
  Speaker 1: not limited. So Confucian really liked to have that. He
• 2:06:48
  Speaker 1: liked to have a little sip in the daytime. No shade.
• 2:06:52
  Speaker 1: No shade. Before you go, have there been stories that
• 2:06:56
  Speaker 1: you wanted to go to and you just didn't have
• 2:06:57
  Speaker 1: the time?
• 2:06:57
  Speaker 2: Oh, dude, that's all the time. That's like the thing
• 2:06:59
  Speaker 2: that haunts me most right now. Just like really important
• 2:07:02
  Speaker 2: stories that people come to me and they want me
• 2:07:04
  Speaker 2: to look into. And it's just like, it's super tough
• 2:07:08
  Speaker 2: to find the time. You know, there's just too many
• 2:07:10
  Speaker 2: things that I would love to be able, I wish,
• 2:07:13
  Speaker 2: you know, Yeah. So it happens.
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And who funds like investigative reporting? Who funds like
• 2:07:20
  Speaker 1: guys like you?
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 2: So I work at a nonprofit called the Center for
• 2:07:23
  Speaker 2: Investigative Reporting. It's like a super old nonprofit. It's been
• 2:07:26
  Speaker 2: around since the 70s. It was a bunch of Rolling
• 2:07:28
  Speaker 2: Stones reporters. When Rolling Stones used to be based in
• 2:07:31
  Speaker 2: San Francisco, they ended up moving it to New York
• 2:07:35
  Speaker 2: and a bunch of the reporters didn't want to move
• 2:07:36
  Speaker 2: to the East Coast. They liked San Francisco. And one
• 2:07:38
  Speaker 2: of those guys was one of my mentors, Lowell Bergman,
• 2:07:41
  Speaker 2: who– I don't know if you ever saw the movie
• 2:07:43
  Speaker 2: Insider with Al Pacino. But Al Pacino was playing Lowell.
• 2:07:46
  Speaker 2: Lowell was the one that got the documents from inside
• 2:07:49
  Speaker 2: the tobacco companies that showed that like they knew that
• 2:07:53
  Speaker 2: it was a carcinogen. They knew it was addictive and
• 2:07:55
  Speaker 2: they were hiding and not being straight up with Congress.
• 2:07:58
  Speaker 2: So I work at a nonprofit, which is a super
• 2:08:00
  Speaker 2: fortunate place to be because we're not profit. Like, you know,
• 2:08:03
  Speaker 2: I worked on this documentary, that documentary could make a
• 2:08:07
  Speaker 2: gazillion dollars and I'm not going to make a dime more.
• 2:08:09
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 2:08:09
  Speaker 2: It's just not like what the drive is.
• 2:08:11
  Speaker 1: Right. Right.
• 2:08:12
  Speaker 2: You know, like, and so, um, and it's also because
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 2: investigative journalism is improfitable. Um, Really? Yeah, no, dude, letting
• 2:08:19
  Speaker 2: me spend a year and a half diving into like,
• 2:08:22
  Speaker 2: is Facebook and the social media company targeting your weakness?
• 2:08:26
  Speaker 2: It is not profitable. Um, and so we have to
• 2:08:29
  Speaker 2: get foundations and others to give us money, to give
• 2:08:32
  Speaker 2: us the time and people, people donate to us to
• 2:08:35
  Speaker 2: give us the time to look into this stuff so
• 2:08:37
  Speaker 2: I can just share it with the public. It would
• 2:08:39
  Speaker 2: be hugely profitable if I wanted to take that, my
• 2:08:41
  Speaker 2: same skills and go work for a hedge fund.
• 2:08:43
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 2:08:44
  Speaker 2: I can make four or five times what I make. Right. Um, and, but, but,
• 2:08:48
  Speaker 2: people are willing to, to, to pay me to do it,
• 2:08:51
  Speaker 2: you know, like a modest salary, like I'll, I'll do it, man. Like,
• 2:08:54
  Speaker 2: cause I love stories, dude. I love stories. I love,
• 2:08:58
  Speaker 2: like I used to sit and I was a little
• 2:09:00
  Speaker 2: kid and I used to tell my, my grandma, my
• 2:09:01
  Speaker 2: mom's mom, just tell me a story from your mind,
• 2:09:04
  Speaker 2: you know? And she would just wax and, and, and
• 2:09:06
  Speaker 2: now meeting people, you know, like, I just like to
• 2:09:08
  Speaker 2: hear their stories. Like what's their background, where'd they come from?
• 2:09:11
  Speaker 2: You know, it doesn't have to be like totally revelatory.
• 2:09:14
  Speaker 2: It's just like, we're all so complex. We're all so interesting,
• 2:09:16
  Speaker 2: you know? But when I can spend time diving into
• 2:09:19
  Speaker 2: something like Susie Kelly's story where like this crazy technology
• 2:09:23
  Speaker 2: company identified that her brain had this weakness and targeted her,
• 2:09:27
  Speaker 2: then I want to spend a bunch of time and
• 2:09:29
  Speaker 2: share it with people, right? Because we know it's not
• 2:09:31
  Speaker 2: just happening to Susie.
• 2:09:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, and it's so sick that that would happen.
• 2:09:35
  Speaker 1: It was almost if you saw someone who was disabled
• 2:09:36
  Speaker 1: and somebody, someone had a broken leg and someone kept
• 2:09:39
  Speaker 1: kicking a minute, you know? Yeah.
• 2:09:42
  Speaker 2: And, and, and that's, and I, dude, I think that's
• 2:09:44
  Speaker 2: a really good analogy. And then like they were kicking
• 2:09:46
  Speaker 2: them because it was making them money.
• 2:09:48
  Speaker 1: Right. Yeah.
• 2:09:48
  Speaker 2: And you're like, what are you doing? How are you?
• 2:09:51
  Speaker 2: And I don't, I don't get it. I'll just tell
• 2:09:53
  Speaker 2: you that like fundamentally on a personal level, I don't
• 2:09:56
  Speaker 2: get it. Cause I couldn't do that.
• 2:09:58
  Speaker 1: You know, like, yeah, that's the thing that's tough. It's like,
• 2:10:00
  Speaker 1: and then sometimes I feel like, am I normal or
• 2:10:02
  Speaker 1: am I the weirdo that gives a fuck about stuff?
• 2:10:06
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying? Is that ever crossing your mind?
• 2:10:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, dude, it does. It does. Um, And I don't know.
• 2:10:11
  Speaker 2: I think, I think whatever, I think we're all broken
• 2:10:13
  Speaker 2: in our own way. And whatever my little broken way
• 2:10:15
  Speaker 2: has made me an investigative journalist. Um, but whatever.
• 2:10:20
  Speaker 1: It feels fun though, to be Paul Revere or whatever,
• 2:10:22
  Speaker 1: even though somebody said he was trying to meet men.
• 2:10:24
  Speaker 1: That's the only reason he was going.
• 2:10:26
  Speaker 2: Through town or whatever.
• 2:10:27
  Speaker 1: That's what I've heard. But, um, but to be that
• 2:10:30
  Speaker 1: kind of guy, who's like, you know, trying to, you know, like, yeah,
• 2:10:34
  Speaker 1: we've always loved the underdog, dude. We are, you know, underdog.
• 2:10:37
  Speaker 1: That's who you, you want the underdog, you know? Yeah. Yeah.
• 2:10:40
  Speaker 1: Like everybody's like, everybody wants a nude picture of like, um,
• 2:10:45
  Speaker 1: Pam Anderson or something. You know, I wanted a new
• 2:10:47
  Speaker 1: picture of Aaron Brockovich on my wall, you know?
• 2:10:50
  Speaker 2: No kidding.
• 2:10:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
• 2:10:52
  Speaker 2: That was a bad asset. Uncovered a lot of stuff
• 2:10:54
  Speaker 2: and got a lot of good out there in the world.
• 2:10:55
  Speaker 1: And pretty dimey too in her time. I'll say that.
• 2:10:59
  Speaker 1: And I think it's a compliment, Aaron, but, um, What
• 2:11:03
  Speaker 1: else do we have? Anything else that we wanted to
• 2:11:05
  Speaker 1: talk about? I don't, I feel like we covered a
• 2:11:07
  Speaker 1: really good bit, Nate. So we can, people can donate
• 2:11:09
  Speaker 1: to the Center for Investigative Research?
• 2:11:12
  Speaker 2: Reporting, yeah.
• 2:11:13
  Speaker 1: So the Center for Investigative Reporting, that's a legitimate company?
• 2:11:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, man. It's a legitimate nonprofit. And, you know, people
• 2:11:19
  Speaker 2: can even just check it out. We got a radio
• 2:11:22
  Speaker 2: show we do that's just all investigative journalism.
• 2:11:24
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 2:11:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah. We print, you know, we work with other folks
• 2:11:27
  Speaker 2: and we have the documentary out. I mean, at the
• 2:11:29
  Speaker 2: end of the day, dude, just trying to get good
• 2:11:30
  Speaker 2: information into people's hands and like call to account, like
• 2:11:33
  Speaker 2: people that are targeting other people. Yeah.
• 2:11:36
  Speaker 1: If you don't have food, you'll get so caught in
• 2:11:38
  Speaker 1: the moment. You don't even have a chance to look
• 2:11:40
  Speaker 1: ahead at that point. It's going to be moment to moment.
• 2:11:43
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's totally right.
• 2:11:45
  Speaker 1: So then it's a wrap.
• 2:11:47
  Speaker 2: Then, then you're just trying to get food for you
• 2:11:48
  Speaker 2: and your family and you start doing weirder and weirder stuff.
• 2:11:51
  Speaker 2: And even people that, you know, do you ever record McCarthy?
• 2:11:56
  Speaker 2: He wrote like the road. Yeah, dude.
• 2:11:58
  Speaker 1: He wrote some real.
• 2:11:59
  Speaker 2: No country for old men.
• 2:12:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Strange stuff. Super.
• 2:12:02
  Speaker 2: And I love it. But like the road, he basically
• 2:12:05
  Speaker 2: breaks it down to like, oh, are you willing to
• 2:12:07
  Speaker 2: kill it? Like if it comes down to it, would
• 2:12:10
  Speaker 2: you kill somebody else to eat them?
• 2:12:12
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 2:12:13
  Speaker 2: And like you're a good person if you're willing to
• 2:12:15
  Speaker 2: just like be like, damn, I'm just going to have
• 2:12:17
  Speaker 2: to starve to death because I'm not going to murder
• 2:12:18
  Speaker 2: somebody else to eat them. Or are you going to
• 2:12:20
  Speaker 2: murder somebody else to eat them? Like kind of bifurcates
• 2:12:23
  Speaker 2: humanity along that, along that track.
• 2:12:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:12:25
  Speaker 2: And people get weird, man. People get weird when the
• 2:12:27
  Speaker 2: basic necessities aren't there.
• 2:12:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You'll say that you wouldn't, right. But you would
• 2:12:31
  Speaker 1: also say you would not, I wouldn't eat out of
• 2:12:33
  Speaker 1: a dumpster. If there's a dumpster outside right now, I
• 2:12:35
  Speaker 1: would not go eat out of it, but give me
• 2:12:37
  Speaker 1: three days without food.
• 2:12:39
  Speaker 2: Right. If you're about to eat a dude in Best Buy, right. Like, yeah,
• 2:12:42
  Speaker 2: you're going to eat out of that dumpster.
• 2:12:44
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what's crazy. You would eat
• 2:12:48
  Speaker 1: that alley sashimi, baby. You'd eat whatever out of there.
• 2:12:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. And you'd be, you'd be stoked. And dude,
• 2:12:53
  Speaker 2: you know, like, yeah.
• 2:12:55
  Speaker 1: Those are crepes. That's what I keep yelling.
• 2:12:56
  Speaker 2: Those are crepes. I'm going to go foraging with you.
• 2:13:00
  Speaker 2: I'm going to be in just garbage. You'd be like, dude,
• 2:13:02
  Speaker 2: that's a crepe. And I'd be like, really? I'm in.
• 2:13:05
  Speaker 1: I think you got to trick yourself. It's all crepes, bro.
• 2:13:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah. We're both just going to like mentally just redesign
• 2:13:11
  Speaker 2: whatever garbage we're eating.
• 2:13:12
  Speaker 1: That's a wet napkin, homie. What are you talking about, brother?
• 2:13:15
  Speaker 2: Don't tell me that.
• 2:13:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:13:17
  Speaker 2: It's gotta be nutritional value.
• 2:13:18
  Speaker 1: That's a damn crepe. Um, Nate Halverson, thanks so much.
• 2:13:23
  Speaker 1: The grab it's coming out on Netflix.
• 2:13:25
  Speaker 2: No, it's coming out on June 14th in theaters.
• 2:13:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:13:29
  Speaker 2: And then people can rent it online and then, uh, um,
• 2:13:32
  Speaker 2: and then it'll be on one of the streaming platforms
• 2:13:34
  Speaker 2: in the fall.
• 2:13:34
  Speaker 1: Okay. So the grab it's coming out on June 14th
• 2:13:37
  Speaker 1: in theaters. Um, Yeah, it's really interesting, man. Just thought-provoking
• 2:13:42
  Speaker 1: to get me to start thinking like, yeah, what are–
• 2:13:44
  Speaker 1: because you just think, oh, that's just a farm in
• 2:13:46
  Speaker 1: my neighborhood. Or you just think like, oh, that's just
• 2:13:50
  Speaker 1: the way things are. That's just the way things go.
• 2:13:53
  Speaker 1: You don't sometimes see like maybe the chessboard that's being
• 2:13:57
  Speaker 1: put together or that's already been– the plays that have
• 2:14:00
  Speaker 1: already been played. Nate Halverson, thanks so much for being
• 2:14:04
  Speaker 1: an investigator and for spending time with us.
• 2:14:06
  Speaker 2: Hey, Theo, thanks so much for having me on, man.
• 2:14:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you bet, man.