Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign hello, welcome to Call It Like I See it presented by Disruption. Now, I'm James Keys, and in this episode of Call It Like I See it, we're going to discuss the Metaverse and the huge technological, social and financial opportunities that many say it will be providing in the near future, future.
And later on, we're going to react to recent reports that microplastics are now in addition to being found in our water and our air and our food, or surprise, surprise, being found in our in people's bloodstreams.
Joining me today is a man who's been known to get jiggy with it. Tunde. Ogonlana Tunde, are you ready to explain how we will never see you attacking them because you'd rather be playing ball with Shaqing them?
[00:01:02] Speaker B: Well, since I've never been on tv, no one's got a chance to see my beautiful open hand slap. But maybe one day I'll get the chance.
Maybe one day I'll win an Oscar and I can snipe the guy who's introducing me, huh?
[00:01:19] Speaker A: Anyway, now we're recording this on March 28, 2022. And today we wanted to take a closer look at the Metaverse, which honestly sounds like just another buzzy tech word for some promised revolution, but actually in this case is in fact another buzzy tech buzzword that is a promised revolution.
Now, briefly, the Metaverse has been described as connected, persistent virtual realities where we live digital lives alongside our real lives.
Now that still it doesn't really break down what it is. So really what you can think of it as an online world and that someone can immerse themselves in or immerse a digital version of themselves in and do or experience things virtually, meaning, you know, like you're not really there, but the, your, your senses can be put, placed there and an avatar of yourself or whatever.
So if you consider like a conventional social media platform, like a virtual message board where you can read and post things in a through a two dimensional profile, Metaverse platform could allow you to immerse yourself as a three dimensional character, which a lot of times they call avatars in a virtual school or a virtual neighborhood or any three dimensional space, and where you can not only interact with others, but also move around and attend events taking place and apparently invest in digital assets and make money off of things.
So Tunde, to get us started, what do you make of all this talk that the Metaverse is the next big thing in tech and, and apparently all this money that's back in that talk up in the form of investment in the companies that are going in this direction. Should we all be trying to make money and buy up virtual property metaverse platforms at this point?
[00:03:08] Speaker B: Well, that second one I'll have to refrain. As a licensed financial planner and person in the industry, I can't give you advice as should you be buying and trying to make money in the metaverse.
[00:03:19] Speaker A: So poorly worded question, withdraw, withdrawn before.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: The compliance department comes and shuts down this podcast. Now look, that's obviously that second question is definitely something that I think will probably game out a bit in terms of the long term outlook of, of maybe the ability to, to really treat the metaverse kind of like the real universe. Right. Like on the planet Earth, like, like can you buy land and can you make investments in the metaverse and all that?
[00:03:49] Speaker A: Yeah, like virtual space versus real space.
[00:03:52] Speaker B: Yeah. But going back to the first one of what do I make of all this and is it the next big thing in tech? I mean, I think you're talking to a guy that was told about Bitcoin when it was $11 a coin and said that that would never work.
That first got someone to ask him to buy Tesla at $20 a share and said no one will ever buy a battery car. And who decided to stop looking at Google when I hit $200 a share. Cause I thought it was too expensive.
So I'm not the guy that's very valuable.
[00:04:21] Speaker A: So whatever you say, we need to.
[00:04:24] Speaker B: That's what I thought in preparing for the show. I was like, well, if I say it's gonna be something big, then it probably will fail.
And if I say it's not gonna work, that means it'll probably take off. So you guys figure it out from here.
But no. So the idea is, I think the infrastructure, the idea and what everyone kind of knows so far about the Metaverse, it appears that it can be something real.
And I think we've talked about it. That a great example to me is a film called Ready Player One.
That was a Steven Spielberg film from just a few years ago.
And I remember watching that film and after being done watching it, thinking, yeah, I could see this happening one day.
[00:05:06] Speaker A: So.
And that's 2018. So it's relatively recent, you know, sci fi. But yes, it was about people immersing. Immerse. Immersing themselves into virtual worlds and doing things. And, and there were real world implications and there were companies making a lot of money on it. Like it's. Yeah.
[00:05:24] Speaker B: And there was also the ability, it seemed at least to have a certain level of wealth in the game. Like you can make money, lose money for different reasons, all that. And you can make transactions in terms of buying and selling things and trading things with people. So, yeah, I remember watching that and thinking, this looks like it could be real with what I know of technology and where it's going.
[00:05:43] Speaker A: So, yeah, well, I'll tell you this, the way I look at things like this, and my answer is I think it looks to be the next big thing. And I would buy into that, so to speak. Not literally, but just buy into that from a conceptual standpoint. We'll get into reasons for hesitation or reasons for skepticism later, but the reason I look at it as something to really look at seriously is because the hardest thing from a market standpoint to gauge and to just create, so to speak, out of nothing and or at least to create in a reliable way is demand. It's just people wanting something. And if people want something, you can figure out a way to make money on it. But there's a plenty of things floating around in the world that people have made or try to sell and everything. And if there's not demand for it, none of it really matters. The entire advertising industry is built around trying to create demand for things, and that's directly or indirectly, but it seems like people do want stuff like this, you know, like. And that's taken it out of the context of my own self. Personally, I'm not person who's big on social media, never really have been, and. But I can look at it and say, yeah, people want this in general. And so therefore, if, if that's the case, then what form it ends up taking is going to be really difficult to predict in advance. But maybe the general trends as you see technology emerging, and if there are people adopting that technology and people trying to do that kind of stuff, then it looks to me like something you can pretty much be for sure that there's, there's. If there's. That will. If there's that demand, then businesses will find a way to meet that demand and it will expand out in ways that we can't even imagine. I mean, I see this as a patent attorney. There are a lot of great ideas that never get off the ground. And it's not because the idea isn't great, it's just that it never, it didn't catch at the right moment or it didn't catch the right eye from a, you know, an influencer standpoint, tastemaker standpoint or whatever. So that's kind of what I'm saying. Like Is that really, when you're evaluating these things, a lot of times it's not looking necessarily at whatever the implementation is at the moment, you know, in the metaverse, these implementations, that it's through platforms in the same way social media is done through platforms or whatever. It's these platforms that create. That create the bones to allow people to create virtual realities. And. And so it's not necessarily looking at the capabilities of it, it's whether or not people are gravitating towards it or it fits into some kind of need that people either have or want. And like I said, with the social media, I don't know if anybody really saw some. Some people got it implicitly or just understood it, you know, at an emotional level, but other people didn't really see that. No, people do want to put all their thoughts out there all the time. And then. And so, like, it just caught some people by surprise. But other people were like, no, of course everybody wants to. Everybody wants to do something where they can put all their pictures out or their thoughts out.
Yeah.
[00:08:26] Speaker B: And I think that really speaks to, you know, that's the part we can't see. Right. What are the capabilities, what are going to be all the offshoots of this type of technology? Just like, like, for example, I mean, some of the stuff I read in preparing it today was pretty interesting. You know, a lot of the medical potentials were things that I didn't think of because I'm still thinking of it as a recreational tool, kind of like, you know, I've, you know, my little pet passion of fighter jets.
[00:08:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:55] Speaker B: And my love for that. So one of my favorite things, sometimes when I got nothing to do, I've got the PS5 VR set and there's a game called Ace Combat 4. And no, I haven't been paid by anybody to do these plugs, but, no, it's just. I'm sorry, it's. Ace Combat 7 is the game, and it's. I. I can put on this VR headset and literally feel like I'm taking off an aircraft carrier and an F18 Hornet, you know, fighter jet. And it feels real. It's pretty cool. And I kind of think about it like, wow, imagine in just 10, 15 years how much cooler it'll feel. Right. And so. And so I was only thinking of this Metaverse stuff kind of like, I talk about that film Ready Player One, like, as a game, as something to escape kind of reality and, you know, when you need some downtime.
And that's why I got fascinated reading about A lot of the medical uses where, you know, they're looking at, you know, from training surgeons, so maybe they don't have to, you know, experiment on real bodies or cadavers. They can go right into settings, just.
[00:09:54] Speaker A: Get reps, you know, seeing spatially how things are. Let me, I'm gonna ask you about that in a second. But yeah, one thing I'll point out is that actually the games and recreation a lot of times is where these things show proof of concept, because that's where you can turn the investment into dollars more quickly, is that the people will. It doesn't have to be fully formed, a fully formed metaverse, you know, Roblox, for example, it doesn't have to be fully formed for 9 to 13 year olds to jump on it and love it, you know, and so, but if you're going to do it, it has to be fully formed more so or it has to be much further along from a development standpoint to be used for a medical purpose or for therapeutic purpose, like, you know, some of the things we see. So I think that what you're seeing there is just a natural evolution as well. You know, Facebook started for students, you know, and then it evolved from there. So, and that's to your point that you just made that we can't look at what it is now and necessarily understand what it's going to be, but we can see the trend. And I think that's what we see here is the trend. And we. As long as you can open your mind up, either if you're a person that thinks like this already or if you open your mind, if you're not a person that thinks like this and you just kind of see how people treat things and say, okay, well, is, is this something people are going to want to do or that enough people are going to do and then you can see the direction it's going. But I wanted to ask you about where you were going anyway is what kind of the, what's of the capabilities that we at least understand now, the applications, the capabilities. What interests you the most in terms of the directions? Is it the medical stuff or the PTSD stuff, or what interests you the most in there?
[00:11:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think what interests me the most is flying a fighter jet that looks like I'm really flying and maybe one day having like a whole contraption where I'm going upside down in my house, having the whole like I'm pulling GS. So that's really what, if you really want to know, that interests me. But I do. But for the sake of the audience, I'll act like an adult. I'm not a 10 year old kid and get off my fighter jets and get back on the more serious stuff. Which is. Yeah, I mean, I think that the health side is pretty cool because you know, not only about like where I was going with the ability to train medical professionals or to be able to, I mean, imagine how cool it would be to put on your VR headset and literally go into your doctor's office virtually.
[00:12:07] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:07] Speaker B: So it's not just like a tele app where you're just looking at the screen on your phone like you actually are sitting down in the lobby waiting and you know, somebody's greeting you and that would just be kind of cool. But you really didn't leave your house, you know, just a different experience.
So all that stuff is cool. I think I read some stuff about how, which I found very interesting.
People with dementia and Alzheimer's, it's helping them because something about their long term memories. So there was a company right now that is filming things around the country. So they gave an example. They just got finished filming the entire drive of Route 66 from Chicago all the way to San Diego Pier. And what they said is they've been showing older people like imagine someone who's in their 80s right now that may have taken that drive in the 1960s in college or something like that, that that person might not remember what they had if they have dementia. Right. They might not remember what they had for breakfast or what they did last week and all that. But deep in their brain those memories from, from earlier in their life are still there.
[00:13:08] Speaker A: Correct. It's more so like they don't know how to access them anymore, but they're still there. So. But go ahead.
[00:13:14] Speaker B: But, but that's what I was saying. So they've done these studies where by people that used to be motorcycle riders when they were younger or things like that, they put these headsets on and just let them for like a couple hours just be in the VR with the, going on the drive down Route 66. And what they were saying is the car that was driving had a 360 degree cameras and all the stuff that it could take, all the right images and, and they find positive effects on these people. Not so much that they begin remembering what they ate last week or whatever, you know, this morning for breakfast. What it does is it, it improves their moods and it makes them happier. Happier because they're able to remember parts of their life that they found to Be pleasant. So that was interesting is they're doing. And they were working as a, you know, the thing I was reading they're working on one now for diving that basically it's just hours of letting someone experience like they're diving in underwater in the ocean. Because again, that's a soothing thing for a lot of people to be in water and this and that. They were saying how they're going to start using it on, on elderly people that have Alzheimer's and dementia as a way to just again, kind of give them something to do and something to kind of look forward to every day as opposed to just sitting in a nursing home doing nothing.
[00:14:26] Speaker A: No, that's an interesting.
[00:14:29] Speaker B: So those are things that I would have never thought of. I guess that's my.
[00:14:32] Speaker A: Yeah, well, now that. Because now when you're talking Metaverse, there are like, it's still very broad because what you're speaking of in particular is virtual reality there. Like, you put a headset on that seals you off and then you look around basically, and what you see isn't what's around you, it's what's being shown to you through these, these glasses, so to speak, or these screens that are right in front of your face. There's other forms, you know, that are. That it takes the form of. With augmented reality, where you can. You have like some. That's like the, the Google glasses or different things like that now. But it'll be more where you look through something and it put whatever you're looking at, it will give you information, talking about what's going on in front of you. So like if you're looking at a store shelf, for example, when you have these things on, it can actually tell you, you know, what's going on with these products that are right there. Anything like that, or in a medical context, if someone's looking at that while they're performing a surgery, it can do a lot for you. So the possibilities really are endless because what you're doing basically is plugging. You're basically plugging someone into an information ecosystem as well that can be overlaid or made a part of either something they had done in the past or information they may not, they either may know or want to reference or things they're not even familiar with at all. So the capabilities from that standpoint, being able to present information in that way is, is. So it's, it's endless as far as possibilities. Now, for me, I did that. The medical slash therapeutic stuff was what really interests me. Because right now it's very limited what you're talking about. Like, okay, yeah, you can do this ride from. From Route 66, but conceivably it can. Once you open it up in a Metaverse context, it can be a world that you could just interact in. And, you know, it could. It could look like the 1960s and you could walk around or whatever or.
[00:16:17] Speaker B: You know, let me stop you on there, actually, just. But I'm sorry to interrupt you, but you put something in my mind on a serious note, because I'm thinking of the elderly population as relates to things like dementia and as like the positive uses that we could potentially see.
But I think what surprised a lot of us, I mean, I know you and I, when we've talked about things like social media 15 years ago or so, when it was MySpace and all that versus now, I don't think anyone would have thought that the. That the biggest demographic that has been susceptible to things like misinformation online and all that are actually the elderly people. You know, like the baby boom generation has shown that they're the ones that are the clickbait people. They're the ones that get kind of moved into all these different belief systems in social media. And as you said it, I'm realizing, yeah, because usually the older population aren't, you know, they're not younger, they're not building their families. They're not, you know, trying to, you know, build their careers and do things like that. They're usually already past all that and they're retired. So they have the time to go and explore. And, you know, what I'm getting at is it hasn't gone too well with social media and that demographic. A lot of it's been more negative than positive.
And I never thought of it, but that could be the negative result too, of something like this, where you got all these old people that can sit there and put on these headsets and they get lost in these virtual worlds.
[00:17:42] Speaker A: Well, yeah, I mean, but that could be a negative or a positive. You know, it depends, because this is where I was going to go with it, actually reading one of the pieces that we're looking at in preparation, talked about how even pain management can be enhanced through the virtual reality approach, where you have somebody puts on a headset or whatever and, you know, is immersed. But that works for pain management. And really the thing is, is that we don't know how deep our minds go. Like, we are not good at navigating relatively like we're good at to some degree, but there's much more going on in our minds and depth in our minds that we don't know than what we do know. And so that, to me, is ultimately the kind of. The possibility that I look at as the greatest potential here is it may let us explore into our own minds and find out more about ourselves by immersing us into these virtual simulations or whatever. Or just like for all we know, it could end up in some. We immerse ourselves into our own mind, you know, and that may be terrifying, you know, or it could be enlightening, you know, who knows? But I do think, though, that there needs to be some thought on the potential negative implications. Now, as with the positive stuff, we don't necessarily know the direction it would take, but we've seen with social media in very recent times how it can go poorly in looking at what can go wrong. Or is there anything that stands out to you as like, hey, this is what we really need to watch out for or anything like that?
[00:19:11] Speaker B: No, I actually do. I should say actually not.
[00:19:16] Speaker A: No.
[00:19:17] Speaker B: The things that I.
Because it's like I look at social media as such a good example of something that I think was created with great intentions.
And no one, really, I don't think. I mean, I look back now and I've read things where some people did call out that this could get ugly. Right. That you'll see the worst of people on these things and all that. But most people didn't. They did think everybody would just be disciplined emotionally to stick to sharing pictures of babies and cats.
[00:19:43] Speaker A: Well, but it seems like also, though, with that, the alarm started getting raised further along in the development, though, I guess to their credit, like, it didn't seem like the alarms were raised initially as much as people were developing. And it's like, hold up, this, this is cool. But hey, this could really work out in a really negative way. But. But that's, you know, that's neither here nor there. Your point is still well made. Go ahead.
[00:20:04] Speaker B: So what I'm getting at is we've seen the negative side of social media because what happens is people get to hide behind. Like, most people don't treat each other to their face negatively, but when they have the veil of secrecy that the Internet provides, we've seen that people can be very nasty to each other. Right?
[00:20:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:24] Speaker B: And that's my concern.
[00:20:25] Speaker A: Secrecy, the distance, you know, the person that you're talking about isn't right in front of you or isn't within arm's reach or whatever. Yeah.
[00:20:32] Speaker B: And it allows for this kind of dehumanizing of others, you know, more. So I think that you don't see the humanity in someone else because you're not in their face, right? You're able to hide from a long distance and behind a screen. So that's kind of my concern is, you know, you could have just like some people have become addicted to certain things on the Internet or addicted to social media.
I'm pretty sure we'll have the same issues of people being addicted to the metaverse. If it really becomes that robust, like in the movie Ready Player one, some people probably could get more harmed. You know how we've had all those studies that have come out about Instagram and the rate of depression and suicide increase in teenage girls and things like that? I mean, why wouldn't we see potential negative effects like that with a more virtual domain? You know, this is on a screen that's not even like a virtual world, right? Imagine if you're really putting a helmet on and the whole harassment you're getting online from, from your peers in high school is actually like, that's almost like you feel like you're walking around and they're picking on you. You know, like, that could be worse.
[00:21:35] Speaker A: But I mean, that's, it's. The thing is, I mean, what you're saying basically is that we can't create a space that will protect us or save us from the dark side of humanity. Correct?
All that stuff, it is a virtual world.
All that stuff's gonna come with it. And so what we can do or what you hope is gonna happen is at minimum, that there's some foresight in terms of understanding that. Because what we seem to see with social media is that that wasn't either that wasn't fully appreciated at the time, or it was actively ignored. You know, and so we, we can see now very good examples of how. Okay, no, no, no. The dark side of humanity is coming no matter what. If people are coming, so is that. And so what can we do to. To make it so that that's not as tied to a platform success or tied to a platform's popularity? Because right now, social media, business model, negativity is what drives it. And so we're in a bad situation there. So ideally, when the metaverse platforms are created, we can be set up in a way where negativity isn't such a vital part of the business model. And so the other part about it, though, I was going to say with that in the business models and so forth. You mentioned people getting addicted to social media. Well, that's by design. I mean, like, that's the other thing about the business model that we see with the social media is that because their currency, because their value is based on how long someone's on it, then what they do for market reasons is figure out ways to hack your human, you know, like your human, human beingness, so to speak, your mental biases, your, your weaknesses, everything like that. They try to break into all that stuff and get you addicted because that means more money for them. And so ideally, again, it can be, with foresight, it can be set up to where that the business model isn't set up screwing people up.
Excuse me, the business model isn't set up around how good can you screw people up? And that's how, that's how much money you can make and so forth. So, but I do want to like, the metaverse has been talked about as far as kind of the next stage of the Internet. So as we head to that from a financial standpoint, I mean, and I'll harken back to the dot com bubble and you've made some good analogies about that. Like do we, what, what we're seeing now as far as the early adopters, is there, is there anything we can kind of surmise from that as far as where it's going or, or what, what's happening here? Or is this, are we just in for the complete unpredictability and you know, we'll just see what happens type of thing?
[00:24:01] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's a good question. There's definitely going to be economic activity general. I mean there already is, which I'll bring up in a second economic activity being generated in generally in the metaverse. Like you're saying there's not, there's various ways that one can enter the metaverse. But, and I'll give you an example, like there, there's land in the metaverse that's being sold.
[00:24:23] Speaker A: Certain platforms will sell, I guess not.
[00:24:26] Speaker B: Real property, but yeah, but virtual property. Yeah. And I'll give you an example. There's two. One is called Decentraland, the other is called Sandbox. They're two of the biggest metaverse platforms for selling real estate.
A year ago, the article I'm reading says that both were selling lots for under $1,000.
And the, and the, currently the, the value of those same lots are at around $13,000.
So something went up 13 times in a year in this and I think it's, you know, kind of like the dot com bubble that you mentioned earlier.
It's hard to tell Is this some sort of euphoria like the.com was?
And it, you know, are people going to get hurt that get in at the top or near the end and get a wipeout just like the dot com bubble?
Or is this something that will be a little bit more sustainable from the outset? I think it's too early to tell but I do think that there's definitely economic activity going on in, in this space and that I don't think it's going to stop, put it that way.
[00:25:27] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, and that's kind of how I look at it. That was where, you know, my point with the demand thing. Like there's people want to be there and people want to do things there. Like it's interesting virtual land in these platforms though because the scarcity of land is a big part of the value of land. And you know, like land can be here, land can be there, but obviously in a virtual thing it can, it's not fixed to reality. And what like you can't just create, fabricate more land. So there's the question of how it's going to grow from a virtual standpoint is one that's open, so to speak. Now the creation and this is where things like NFTs, non fungible tokens come into play because you can create unique things and that's bottom line what a non fungible token is.
It's a unique asset, so to speak. It's a unique thing and confirmed by code and encryption you can prove that this is this one, this is what it is. Now whether that has value depend on what it is that is represented by that and who wants that or not. But just the concept of creating something unique, if it's something unique that people want, that's how you can value things, can increase in value. So ultimately I say all that to say there is you can see structurally from like supply and demand still governs a lot of this. And so you can see how people could get excited about something. There can be unique things created and then therefore those things could be something that people would want and then that would create the demand and if the demand exceeds the supply because there's only a thousand of them created of these unique things created. So you can see how that can work.
But I think the, and you actually said this to me offline and the area where you look at this from the dot com bubble, that's very instructive is that a lot of times and I said you've made this point. Well, I think in the past people look at the dot com bubble as a washout, but it wasn't really a washout as much as it was a culling. It just like there were companies that came out of that and are now some of the biggest companies in the world. And it's just that all of the companies there were a hundred and representative. There were a hundred and only two got through. But those two are huge now. You know, in the 98 either got bought up or they, they just went out of business. So what, we don't know who the winners are going to be right now. It could be a decentraland or it could be something else that doesn't even exist now, or that's really small right now. And so that's the risk, I think. And if you're looking at this from a, from a. Oh yeah, this has so much potential. It's like, well, yes, conceptually it has a lot of potential, but which ones of these things are going to be the winners and which ones are going to be the losers? And most of them that we see are going to be the losers. There's going to be a few winners though, and the winners are going to be huge. And so that's the part that makes it so unpredictable. But honestly makes it kind of, you know, like, kind of interesting, you know, like, because if you knew exactly this is what's going to happen, you know, then I mean, you're Biff from back in the future, you know, like, it's like, oh, well, you just pick all the winners. But ultimately there's, there is, but the bones are there for value to be created and for value to grow in some form. The question will be though, whose value grows and whose value dissipates or goes away.
[00:28:38] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's, I, that's why it is a good analogy that something, you know, some sort of wipeout will probably happen with all of this activity between crypto, nft, metaverse, all that.
[00:28:50] Speaker A: Yeah, the guy who said that was pretty, pretty sharp, man.
[00:28:54] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, the guy who said it, he was so worried about a wipeout he didn't get into Bitcoin at $11. But anyway.
But no. So it just, you know, when it comes, how it comes, who knows. But again, just like that doesn't mean the metaverse goes away. The other thing before we jump to, I think to recognize that could be one of the pitfalls that came to my mind as you were talking is this idea of fraud. I mean, think about how bad things are now with cybersecurity, cyber fraud, people getting ripped off Just randomly. So I could see the guys that know what they're doing, the right hackers and those that want to be criminals in the cyberspace area will be able to hack people's metaverse accounts. So they might be able to create lookalike things where you buy something from that looks legit or like you're putting your money in your chase ATM in the metaverse, but it's really, you know, some phony one. So I think. Well, and I think there's room for a lot of.
[00:29:52] Speaker A: Because what you're saying is true. And like, we see it like with the phishing and stuff like that, with a lot of these things, these digital wallets and so forth, it's your password and that's it. And if you get your password phished, your. Your all your money can be gone. And because the way the blockchain works, it's not coming back. Like, it's. It's not like the bank will be like, oh, yeah, you're insured for up to $100,000 or up to $250,000. It's like, no. If somebody gets your password, any assets you have stored associated with that can be gone and untraceable. So it's. The risk of fraud and having no recourse is very high with stuff like this. It's secure as long as you are able to protect your stuff. But as you said, with cybersecurity, being able to protect your stuff is not a given in any context.
[00:30:34] Speaker B: Yeah, and it's interesting too, because you're right. Let's say you own a bunch of real estate in the real world.
You generally know how to protect that, right? It's physical stuff. Yeah, but imagine if you had a bunch of stuff in the virtual world, like properties and all that, and then someone came and hacked your system and stole it all, like, literally in a split second. Like, how do you explain you don't.
[00:30:56] Speaker A: Know who it is? Like, if somebody, if you own a building and somebody tries to steal it from you, and I mean, the person has, like, they can't not be there in order to steal it from you. And so there's a certain level of connectivity.
[00:31:08] Speaker B: It's been a while since I picked up a building and walked away next to time. You need my services, sir, I'll be ready.
[00:31:13] Speaker A: There you go. There you go. Push ups. There's a certain level of disconnectedness where these things can happen in a metaverse type of context and virtually. And generally that, you know, is. Is just going to be a whole nother Thing and, and how society tries to deal with that will be, you know, create opportunities, we create problems that we got to solve. So. But I think we can jump from there, man. Speaking of creating problems that we have to solve, apparently people. Well, the people that were tested, I believe this was over in Europe, they tested people's blood and found microplastics in them. Now, microplastics, we did a show on this not too long ago how microplastics are in our water. They're in the air, they're in the food. And this is like microscopic pieces of plastic. And so now they're in the human bloodstream, and nobody knows what that means as far the assumption is, which seems like a safe assumption, is that it's bad for us. But how bad, how it's going to be bad, no one really knows. And so, Tunde, I mean, how disturbed were you to find out that scientists now can detect and observe microplastics in human blood?
[00:32:17] Speaker B: I'm so disturbed that I can't speak.
No, I mean, seriously, I read about it and then I remember talking to my wife and saying, so this is how bad we screwed this planet up.
I could eat. Perfect.
I could eat, you know, no fat, no butter, no salt, all that. And, you know, but the article said that basically, you, over time, your arteries could get clogged and you could have clogs in your internal organs from microplastics. Yeah, and that's what I'm saying. Like, I really, I was telling her, like, wow. So no matter how healthy you try and be now, you know, just our environment has so much of plastic in it now. Because they were saying it's. We breathe it in our nose.
[00:33:04] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:33:05] Speaker B: You know, like, it's just kind of in the air. It's every water bottle, every food packaging is so much of it. And so it's. It's literally impossible to totally avoid it. If you live in any kind of urban or suburban setting. I mean, you literally have to go really off the grid and have your own farm and.
[00:33:23] Speaker A: No, that's the, that's the point. No, you cannot avoid it.
[00:33:26] Speaker B: No, you're right.
Yeah.
[00:33:28] Speaker A: Well, hold up. This stuff is been found at the top of Everest. Like there. There's no promote in that.
[00:33:33] Speaker B: The wind's blowing it everywhere. And, and that's what I mean. It's just. It's just, it. It was pretty shocking to me. I mean, that's the thing, right? It's shocking, but at the same time, it's not unbelievable. Like you said, we already did Shows about. I remember the one we did, it was like a year ago on microplastics that they found them at the most deepest part of, like, the Mariana Trench or whatever, that thing that's seven miles deep from, you know, below sea level. And they found it in shrimp down there. So, you know, it's, it's, it's. It's just, you know, at some point we're going to have to deal with this. And I think the longer we take as a society in terms of the whole globe dealing with it, the more painful it is going to be to deal with. And I think it's going to end up being like the pandemic, you know, the COVID pandemic, which we're just not going to want it, but the Earth is going to force us to deal with it on the Earth schedule and not ours.
And just like the pandemic, everyone's gonna be moaning when they can't have as much plastic and have much thing. But, you know, instead of trying to have some sort of soft landing from right now, everybody still wants to fight about it.
[00:34:37] Speaker A: Well, I mean, I'll tell you this, I'll say this, but don't take me wrong, so give me a little bit of Runway to try to lay this out.
Often many of us in our culture kind of worship the, the Western culture, the Western way of life. But I will say this. This is one of the clear limitations. The Western culture, the Western way of life, capitalism and all that, it's all built on constant consumption. More, more, more, more, more. It is not a culture that seeks to find balance or that sees balance as a virtue.
And that's not. There are cultures in the world that do.
And so. And I'm not saying this to say that the, the Western culture is terrible or the Western culture should, you know, like, I'm just observing. I'm calling it like I see it. And so I, I think that part of the problem that we have because.
Well, part of the problem. I should finish the thought. Part of the problem that we have is that we don't know any other way.
All we're doing, like, we are talking about this right now. There's microplastics in our blood. And right now the forecast is that we're going to be consuming much more, using much, much more, much more plastic over the next 20 years. Like, it's not like, oh, yeah, it was all screwed up, but then, you know, like, we now see the value and balance, and so we're ramping it down now. Like, no we're still making things worse on an increasing basis because that's all we know is just consumption, consumption, consumption. If we have a problem, we're going to dig our way out and if we happen to be in a hole, then we're just going to keep digging because digging that digging is the only thing we know how to do, so to speak. And so I think that ultimately for us to try to get clear of stuff like this, there's going to have to be a shift in the way that we approach our day to day or our cultural values so to speak. Because as long as everything's going to be based on just all out consumption all the time, you know, you just more and more and more and more and more we're seeing the same thing with the environmental stuff.
We cannot get a critical mass of people to, to sign up for renewable resources. You know, like it's and renewable resources logically sounds like an amazing idea like oh, you mean we could just make as much of it as we want.
But, but because of the way, because of the way our culture is kind of just, it doesn't appeal to us as much as drill baby, drill. Like that's just that as emotionally resonates with our culture more than. So I mean I just think that's, that's a limitation of it. I mean the culture has done a lot of good things, you know, and driven you know, taking us to the moon, you know, but at the same time, you know, like as with everything, you know, like there's things, the blessings and curses, you know oftentimes can come from the same thing.
[00:37:17] Speaker B: Well, that's why I was going to say though it's less about things like even consumption and capitalism and more about our inability to just want to change.
[00:37:27] Speaker A: Well, I'll tell you this. When I say like I'm saying capitalism and I'm saying a cultural thing in terms of kind of a, a creed so to speak and it's just an approach. I'm really not trying to indict capitalism from this.
[00:37:38] Speaker B: No, I didn't say you were because I, I recognize that that's not what you were doing. Yeah.
[00:37:43] Speaker A: Can be part of the solution here. I just think.
[00:37:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:45] Speaker A: More so about the how, how we approach problems. It's it. We're a consumption based and I mean again that that's, that served us wells in many areas but in this area in particular we, it doesn't we humans in, in our type, like it's not a given for humans to have such a huge footprint basically that we take as a grant, we take it for granted because we live here, but it's not a given. Like trying to find balance with our surroundings is not something that is like the, the craziest idea in the world, but that is offensive in, in a sense to the kind of the Western culture, so to speak. And I, and again, I'm not saying it to indict it. I'm just, I'm just observing it.
[00:38:23] Speaker B: You know, I think you're right because the, the Western culture, I mean, there's one thing I remember reading something about kind of the Europe in the 1700s, 1600s, and one of the, you know, if you can picture that the kings used to have and the noblemen would have these huge gardens, you know, and one of the ideas and the kind of cultural thing about that was the bigger and more pristine and more elaborate your garden was. And remember, I'm talking about big, like acres of stuff. Not like me and you in the front of our yard type of thing, but you know, where they would make those mazes out of hedges and stuff, big time stuff that. Because what it showed was your ability to dominate nature.
[00:39:03] Speaker A: Dominate nature as a, as a ruler.
[00:39:05] Speaker B: Like you were such a good king and you were so badass that you could even control nature.
[00:39:10] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:39:11] Speaker B: Like you, even nature had to bend to your will.
[00:39:13] Speaker A: Well, now you're with. Now you understand what I'm saying because. Yeah, I'm talking deeper than. I get it that it wasn't dominating nature is a part of the fabric of that.
[00:39:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Whereas like to your point where let's say the Native American culture, most tribes in the Native American cultures didn't want to dominate nature. They looked at humans as an extension of nature and that there was a partnership. So I get what you're saying.
[00:39:35] Speaker A: I mean, other cultures around the world too. It's not just the Native American.
[00:39:38] Speaker B: I mean, it's.
[00:39:40] Speaker A: We're not going to go down that.
[00:39:42] Speaker B: That's a whole different story. So.
[00:39:43] Speaker A: But it's a.
[00:39:44] Speaker B: But here's where I wanted to go on this. But here's my concern is because it's less about.
I think it's more about us and how we've evolved in our culture. Now, I know not all countries and cultures behave like us. And I'll say this, I'm a proud American. So I don't want people thinking, I hate, I hate Americans. But there is one. There are certain areas of our culture where we do need to step it up and we are soft. And you know, again, people saying that wearing a Mask is an oppression. Like we're in slavery or something. Is a joke. And then think about it. Like I thought about it, every time I go to the grocery store, they give me plastic bags. But when I was a kid in the 80s, I remember they had paper bags at the store. Why don't we just go back to paper bags?
There are simple steps that could be taken.
Just like when we did the show about the disappearing butterflies. One of the simple things I remember just putting milkweed on the side of every road.
And then certain plants that are real cheap and could just be planted would help the butterflies on their journey because. And that's it. And something simple like just having a law, a regulation that says no more plastic bags in America. Paper bags. But then I thought to myself, look at how many people complain when the industry tried to go to plastic. From plastic straws to paper straws. Remember the last few years? I remember going to lunches and dinner, and people were sitting there complaining for minutes, like, making these big, oh, I can't believe this straw sucks.
And I'm looking at her thinking, this is like the littlest thing we can do, like, literally.
[00:41:19] Speaker A: And then I see a picture of.
[00:41:21] Speaker B: The video of the sea turtle that's got a poor thing. He's got a straw stuck in his nose. It's bleeding. They're trying to take it out with tweezers because it accidentally, you know, went through his nose somehow in the water. And it's just like.
That's what I mean by. People are so selfish. And that's what I mean that they. There's no ability to sacrifice the smallest thing for someone else because you're being asked to. It's all about this hyper individualism. Me, me, me. And at some point, that's what I mean.
I know that individualism is something that's stronger in the American culture, and that's something that I embrace. It's a good thing in certain ways.
But in other ways, like the virus, we do got to remember that we are in a collective society. And the virus didn't care about politics or state borders. And it's just like the natural disasters, other things.
We all got to come together in certain ways. And you would think the environment and the ability to do something like have a paper bag or have a paper straw wouldn't be something that takes someone out of their comfort zone.
[00:42:19] Speaker A: Well, that's. That actually, that takes me to my point and that my underlying. What I was saying about the cultural thing is. And. But also bookending it with saying that the culture's brought us good things. Is that what we have to recognize a lot of times is that with most, like, while it's appealing particularly to, like, you know, the juvenile mind or the kid mind, that something is all good or something is all bad, most things have a positive side and a negative side. And so, like, the kind of culture that we're talking about that has led to amazing things also has a negative to it too, in terms of other things. And so if we can recognize that, accept that, and then try to figure out ways to counteract that and say, okay, well, we kind of tend more towards this, so let's make sure we make a little bit extra effort on this other area, then we can get a better result. We can try to improve our weaknesses. You lean into your strengths and you bring up your weaknesses, so to speak.
I mean, that's. Sports teams do it all the time. You know, good companies do it all the time. Like, that's how you improve, that's how you advance, is you lean into your strengths and you try to bring your weaknesses up. And so certain characteristics bring certain strengths. Let's lean into those and then. But they also come with certain weaknesses. Let's acknowledge and let's try to work with those. And I want to say one other thing on this, and that is always remember, to your point, your focus defines your reality. So what ends up happening is there's just not focus on this, you know, like this issue, this environment issue, like the things that can go wrong and so forth, because the problems are remote, because, you know, it doesn't drive clicks or because whatever, it's not something that is focused on. So it really just doesn't become our reality as much as things that may affect us less, but that are talked about all the time. And so therefore they're focused on, therefore becomes people's reality. So that's what you see when you see these kind of imbalanced reactions where people are super crazy passionate about remote issues. And then issues that affect every single person are like, who cares? Because it's just not their focus. So, I mean, I think.
[00:44:21] Speaker B: But I think part of it is they're being driven. Both different people are being driven to different focuses based on their ecosystem, right? So that's why.
[00:44:31] Speaker A: Based on what they think will capture their attention as opposed to what's good for them or what's information they need to know. It's just, will they. Will this get them addicted or will this keep them watching? And if we got to tell somebody to eat their broccoli you know what? We're just not going to do it because then they'll turn off the TV and find somebody that's telling them they're the greatest thing in the world. And so we just have to keep telling them they're the greatest thing in the world and they're a victim because these other people are trying to hurt them. Like that's the message that sells. That's the message that makes money. And so that's the information people get and so end up. Ends up being people's realities are based on these, you know, just these things, whatever things people think. So keep their attention.
[00:45:06] Speaker B: Yeah, no, that's what I'm saying is that. And that's why it's interesting now with this fractured ecosystem of information we have because those different passions are so strong. Like, right, there's some people that the environment is their main thing. That's all they care about because they're emerged and that focus has emerged in those kind of ecosystems where with other people, they think it's a hoax. You know, like that's not the last thing on their mind. And their thing is, you know, Dr. Seuss or whatever the, you know, the thing to worry about is. So it's just interesting, man. And that's why I do feel like, you know, just to finish off the whole thing right from the beginning of the discussion for me, I feel like we're not going to deal with it. The earth is going to force us to. And it's going to be painful because we're not able to have a shared vision to how to deal with this as a, not only as a country, but think about the whole world.
[00:45:54] Speaker A: Well, but that's where. And we'll wrap after this, but I want to say. And that's where America, United States, as a leader in the world could really step up and take its place. And that part of the reason the world doesn't care is because we've signaled that it doesn't matter. And actually, if you want to compete with us, you have to not care as well. You know, like you, you, if you start caring about stuff like that, you're going to be tying one hand behind your back as far as trying to deal with us. So it's one of those things. I mean, you push for better. I mean, you always push for better. I would hope that that's something, that this is something we all face, a threat we all face. And so you would think that we can get more people on board with it, but ultimately it needs to be more people's reality. So, I mean, that's why we talk about it here. I mean, because it just needs to be something that's on our minds and. And we can start accounting for it in our individual decision making and in our collective decision making as more people have it online. So we appreciate everybody for joining us on this episode of Call It Like I See It.
You can find the podcast wherever you get podcasts, subscribe to it and rate it, review it, tell us what you think, and until next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:46:56] Speaker B: I'm Tunde Lana.
[00:46:57] Speaker A: All right, and we'll talk to you next time.
