Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: 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 take a look at a recent Yahoo. Finance column that goes in on the point that not only is America an overprivileged nation, but but states that, and I quote, no society has ever been more overprivileged than the United States in 2020.
And later on we'll take a look at a recent study that makes some pretty bold predictions about the presence of intelligent life in our galaxy, the Milky Way, and also kind of throws in there information or a position about the tendency for advanced civilizations to destroy themselves and what that means in the search for intelligent life in the Milky Way.
Joining me today is a man who is here with me not because of what podcasting can do for him, but for what he can do for podcasting. Tunde Ogunlana Tunde, are you ready to give the people all you've got today?
[00:01:18] Speaker B: Yes, sir. I'm impressed with the alternative universe. John Kennedy quote.
I love it. Hey, man, that's you, man. That's you.
[00:01:26] Speaker A: All right, so now we're recording this on January 4, 2021.
And first of all, we'd like to wish everyone a happy New Year and thank you know, everyone that's listening and in the new year and you know, wish you a happy New Year.
[00:01:40] Speaker B: Tunde Thank you, sir. You too.
[00:01:42] Speaker A: Thanks, man.
[00:01:43] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: Now, over the holidays we saw this column and it's from Rick Newman, who's a senior columnist for Yahoo. Finance. And the column's entitled America the Overprivileged. And it goes into how Americans, the reactions from Americans to some of the adversity faced in 2020 reveals that the nation has a huge problem with being overprivileged. Now, Newman does specifically note that some Americans did face real adversity here with death from friends and family or the economic pain that the pandemic has brought to us. And that is just around in our society in general. So he specifically appear to make an exception for that, like the real adversity and focus more on kind of the manufactured oppression or things that people really grabbed a hold of that just showed that they were not used to dealing with any type of adversity or people telling them that they couldn't do something or something like that.
In fact, he submitted that selfish rubes. And this is a quote, selfish rubes defined 2020, pointing to things like the rampant Covid hypocrisy and manufactured Claims of oppression and with masks and things like that. So Tunde in with all the problems we are facing as a nation today. Things like the COVID pandemic and rising wealth disparity despite the productivity gains that we see on an ongoing basis, systemic injustice in the justice system, political polarization to the point of gridlock.
Where do you think being over privileged falls in all this?
[00:03:22] Speaker B: I think it falls in there.
Where it falls, I'm not sure, but I would say over privilege is a little bit of a loaded word. But I do agree that we have not faced adversity as a society in a long time.
Probably even in my whole lifetime in terms of I'm in my 40s. This country hasn't. I mean, 9 11, I would say was something we shared as an adversity type of moment. But we didn't really sacrifice as a nation. All of us, like maybe the nation that sacrificed in the past, you know, we didn't have a draft, let's say, for the military.
So unfortunately, you know, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that ensued over the next, you know, definitely decade, but we know that we still have a presence in both those countries. We might not be at a full war, but, you know, it's the same kind of guys in the military and gals being recycled. So instead of having 20% of this country participating in that conflict, for example, we have 1%, and they're the ones bearing the brunt of it all. And the rest of us get to kind of escape that type of sacrifice and still benefit from the hard work they've done to keep us safe. So that's one kind of small example that comes to mind in my lifetime where I think in generations past, that type of event happening to our country, like let's say Pearl harbor, the whole country got mobilized. You see what I'm saying?
[00:04:44] Speaker A: Well, yeah, I think that the key piece there actually, like, because people have faced adversity in our life like that, you know, we have issues with, you know, we had this summer, you know, as far as, like the racial issues, you know, people getting killed, things like that by law enforcement, we've had. And wherever your position on that, that is trauma and adversity that's being faced by certain segments. But I think the key point that you're making is that nothing that our entire society has had to bear the brunt of, so to speak, everyone felt, or for the most part everyone felt a sense of a connection that we have to respond to that. And everyone was asked to contribute because one of the big Distinctions. I remember this from 20 years ago when we were talking about 9, 11, and the response and so forth was that it's not like they raised taxes after that in order to finance the military response either. So there was no draft, meaning it wasn't something that society at large was going to contribute towards. And just with bodies.
And there was no increased cost in terms of. There is no inconvenience on the day to day life of many people or most people. And so whereas In World War II you have entire industries that are going to start making tanks now we're going to. And then the government had to. And all of the people had to contribute to a response.
And so therefore you end up with a different type of. It builds a different type of generation, so to speak.
[00:06:08] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I think that's a great point you make about building a different type of generation. I mean like they say, right? They call that generation of world that fought in World War II the greatest generation. I think you make a good point. Doesn't mean every single person out of those millions of people were great people. It just means that collectively they sacrificed in a way that I'm sure prior to that generation we saw the country had generations that sacrificed. You could say the Civil War, the revolution. And I'm sure there's examples in between. But I think post that era, really Post World War II, we haven't been asked to sacrifice in the last, let's say 75 years in this country in the same way. Now that's why I appreciate the way you led into this conversation with.
We need to acknowledge, even in the last year, as much as there's examples of Americans being overprivileged, like wearing a mask is the worst thing that we've been ever asked to do.
There are a lot of people that have had adversity in the past year, like you mentioned, if someone lost a loved one or if they were in an economic sector that was very hard hit, like restaurant or hotel or airline, however, and that's what I mean.
[00:07:16] Speaker A: And that is a reason to have.
[00:07:20] Speaker B: Or to have an axe to grind. And that's what I was gonna say is that's why I shouldn't have said however, I meant to just say that. So in that same example, I'm sure that between 1945 and 2021 there's been people with a lot of adversity. I mean you talk to about the police stuff. Let's talk about all the people in the civil rights movement that fought so hard in the 60s and there's three LIM.
I mean, that's adversity.
So I don't want to get here and say we're a bunch of spoiled brats in that way, but I would say that Post World War II, we've continued to climb up Maslow's hierarchy as a society.
And I think there's good and bad with that. Right. I mean, the good part is obviously we've achieved certain things that society set out and aspired to long ago, like pretty much full literacy in this country up until this year, past year with COVID pretty much undernourishment and lack of food was not a huge problem in the United States.
So those are things that societies, large societies in the past, had a very hard time dealing with. And so we were able to perfect those things through technology, through doing things like infrastructure back in the middle of the 20th century, like building the highways and all that, and to be able to deliver food en masse from farms in Central America down to the coast, all that kind of stuff. So in a way, our ingenuity, whether it be the kind of traditional technology or. You made a good point. It got me thinking about post 9 11, that we didn't raise taxes. What I would say is the financial engineering as well, allowed some of this, that we didn't have to take responsibility because now we could go into deficits. And the hardest thing I got to do is buy a Treasury bond now in order to finance, you know.
[00:09:07] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, some of that that goes into. I think that the author used the term over privileged and I. But I think it more aligns and there's some overlap here with entitlement.
And that's kind of like. It seems like everyone wants that. Not everyone. It seems like a lot of people want the benefits. And to claim the benefits of a society like, you know, the United States with the free enterprise, with the government of the people, by the people, for the people and so forth. But they don't necessarily wanna put in the work to maintain those things, or they take those things for granted. They think those are just a part of some birthright or even their birthright that they can exclude other people from. And so I look at it, it's almost like a lot of the problems that we see, as you've pointed out, the entitlement issue or overprivileged issue comes from the fact that a lot of the major problems that have derailed societies over time haven't come up. So it's kind of like as a result, when you're not dealing with these major wars with millions of people dying, or a pandemic every five or 10 years where people have to really get all on the same page or people just die or just falling out like crazy. Then we get a sense of, or we start to develop this sense of entitlement, this sense of accomplishment, but that this stuff doesn't happen to us because we're just that great. Where we could have just been fortunate or some of it could have been that our parents or the people that came before us came up with some solutions, but somebody who's 40 years old now wasn't the one that came up with those solutions. And so when you look at it like that, it's almost like, and this goes to a point that you make a lot of time with the entropy where we almost have to go through some of these struggles to, so that people can learn that the sacrifices about, the sacrifices that need to be made about what has that you have to give, you have to put in to society in order to get stuff out or to get out what you want to get out of it. It's not just something that comes to you just because, it's just not yours just because of who you are, how you were born or whatever. And so hopefully the experiences that we're seeing now, essentially this may be the natural result of the successes that were had. And what we're seeing now is how we refresh that tree, so to speak.
[00:11:33] Speaker B: Yeah, you're going to have me go on a tangent real quick because what you just described, you hit my cynicism of humanity nail on the head. You know why I'm concerned for the long term future of our species.
And I say that in all seriousness because you're right. I've thought about this years ago, right? Like we can pass down through genetics, right? Hair color, skin color, eyes shape, nose shape, all that stuff, hair texture and all that. One thing you can't pass down is experiences and memories. So it goes back to the point you just made is like society gets to a point where it's bad and then people figure it out with a lot of pain.
And then it just kind of, after three, four generations, it goes back to being bad again. And there's a joke in my industry, you know, wealth management, that it takes three to four generations for a family to go from a T shirt to a T shirt. And the idea is that, you know, when talking about wealthy families that somebody started the family wealth in a T shirt, you know, some guy hammering nails into a floor or whatever, you know, Carpenter or something, he might have started some sort of very successful business.
And then the kids, they saw, you know, mom and dad working very hard and they were raised with that work ethic. So usually the next generation can carry the business and the wealth forward. They appreciate what they grew up seeing and they got that instilled with it.
[00:12:57] Speaker A: They saw the build, correct? Yeah.
[00:12:59] Speaker B: And then usually the third generation, the grandkids, depending if they're raised properly by the family, they can also appreciate it because they still have that grandma and grandpa, if they're still around, able to tell them, hey, this is what really happened, you know, blah, blah, blah. But usually by that fourth generation, because usually their grandparents aren't around.
And now you've had a couple of generations that have grown up in privilege, so that fourth generation doesn't appreciate it. And it's been studied statistically, it's like an 80% chance that the fourth generation squanders everything.
And if you look back, this actually alludes a bit to the topic we'll be talking about next, that throughout the US history of the last 250 years or so, you've had literally hundreds of thousands of families that have had the equivalency of wealth of today of, let's say 5 million plus, but it only lasted one or two generations and then literally was squandered to zero and people going into bankruptcies and all that. So that's why it is this kind of entropy over time over the wealth. And actually that's not to get totally off tangent, but that's kind of the idea of America too, that we don't have kings and potentates and these kind of your wealth going through generational lines in that way. So in that way, I think that that's a micro example of how that can happen maybe just in a few generations. And I think what we're talking here is maybe a macro example of. You're right, that your example alluding to the fact that we don't have huge wars anymore. I mean, look at the Iraq and Afghanistan.
Every death is a sad sacrifice.
But we have a war for almost 20 years.
And I say only not to be flippant about it, but just say that the death rate I think is still under 10,000 troops. U.S. troops. I know we can talk about the civilians and all that stuff in those countries, but that's unheard of. I was watching a documentary about Okinawa and those islands that they were taken in the Pacific, man, literally in one week, 7,000 guys got killed in Okinawa. And you know, and just you look at the amount of carnage in wars past, so our technology and our ability to do pinpoint strikes from the air and all that, maybe we don't need as many soldiers. So in one sense you're right. It's like the goals of society and progress have been achieved in one way, but in the other way it's made us kind of fat and lazy. The rest of us in society that aren't out there, you know, taking the fire.
[00:15:33] Speaker A: Well, yeah, I think that's the key point because when you talk about the only so so and so many deaths, it's not about the. And it's not to diminish the people who make that ultimate sacrifice. It's actually speaking in reference to the effect on the rest of the population. When it's a larger number of people, then more people are personally affected and then that has a larger, more substantial effect on the population. So, you know, and that's kind of what we're talking about here. When you.
But you don't have sacrifice in turn, from a collective good standpoint, you don't have that going from a financial standpoint, you don't have that going to address large scale conflict or some other. And now the pandemic is the type of thing that in some scenarios could be that type of adversity that could bring people together. In this case, we failed.
We as a nation, we're unable to come together to deal with something like this, a large scale adversity or event like this.
[00:16:36] Speaker B: Let me cut in real quick that the last show we did is exactly why we can't come together.
Because in World War II, they didn't have social media to deal with. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
[00:16:45] Speaker A: Like if we had World War II, they had social media, we'd be Japanese.
[00:16:49] Speaker B: Didn't really bomb Pearl Harbor.
President's just making that up.
[00:16:53] Speaker A: He's got a deep state.
[00:16:54] Speaker B: He wants you to do something else. Turning you into communists. Don't believe that hype.
[00:16:59] Speaker A: Yeah, no, you're right, you're right. Like all of those things, that's a new kind of, you know, new hurdle. That's a new piece of the cocktail, you know.
[00:17:07] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:17:08] Speaker A: We don't necessarily know that prevents us because one of the things about the pandemic that was notable to me was that countries that over the past 20 years had dealt with pandemics more routinely, more commonly, some of the Asian countries were able to deal with this more quickly because their people were used to the type of sacrifices they were going to be asked to be made in order to Keep the thing under control.
And in our. In our case, we were like, sacrifice. What, me? No way. It was kind of the mentality from a lot of people, and a lot of those things only work when it's a collective. So, you know, ultimately, you see. Okay, so that's where we are. You know, we see this issue of entitlement. We see this issue of over privilege.
You know, like, what do you think? Well, and we kind of talked about kind of how we get to this. But what do you think the biggest factors are that get us to this point?
[00:17:56] Speaker B: I think, look, this is a huge bowl of stew with a bunch of ingredients. So I think it'll be difficult to pinpoint every single one. And then you got millions of people collectively that I'm sure they march to the beat of their own drum as to why they behave certain ways. But I think if you were to look at. Just take a few strands and lay them out here. I think part of it is the stuff we already covered, the ability for us to have a much easier lifestyle now with technology than we ever had as humans. So we are kind of complacent in general.
[00:18:28] Speaker A: And I think it's a human tendency, when you have it good, to attribute the reason that you have it good to your own, to yourself.
You don't look and say, hey, I'm standing on the shoulders of all these people that have done all these things. It's just like, no, I'm just that dope.
[00:18:43] Speaker B: Yeah. No, I think. And I think there's some psychological.
There's been proof of that through certain psychological studies, just how people think.
So those can all be researched and reviewed. And I think that another part of that is, you know, and you know me, I'm big on this. It's just a lack of. Kind of knowledge about the past. And that's why I want to be very clear. This isn't that everyone has to have a PhD and all that. I just think we collectively don't have, you know, we don't teach history enough as to why certain things have come about. I mean, why do we really have the type of government we have is because a bunch of guys were escaping, you know, kings and stuff from Europe and didn't want that. They wanted a freer society. Yeah, I think that's part of it. And then another part is there's two other pieces, I think, that are very important and that are unique to strains in American culture.
One is, I would say, I just call it the cowboy syndrome.
You know, the kind of. The idea after the Louisiana purchase in the mid-1800s of the frontier. Man is a very real thing in American culture. And the American.
You know, I feel it sometimes. You know, get off me. Government. Get off. You know, I want to be the Lone Ranger. I want to get my horse, go out west with my woman and my kids, literally, and my cowboy hat. And I want to go find a pile of land and leave me the hell alone. And I just want to farm it. And I'm going to do my own thing. And I want to deal with you city folk. You know, there's. I think every American, there's a part of us that has that streak of independence. And in a certain sense, I'm sure there's something very healthy to that. And there's probably what we're talking about might be the negative side of it.
I think the other example, unfortunately, is the history we have around race in this country and the uniqueness that America brings with the U.S. constitution and bill of Rights.
Because at the time they were written, those great documents in the late 1700s, people like you and I weren't really in mind at that time.
I'm sure that the founders couldn't envision a time where we would have the kind of ability to be mobile in this society like we are today. So I think what happens is.
And what I'm alluding to are things like the term that all men are created equal.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Those things in the Bill of Rights. What happens is you have a country that was founded on racial division and segregation and hierarchy, really, for the use of capitalism, for free labor. It made sense, okay, we're gonna bring in slaves from Africa. That means we gotta separate everybody. And the way that America did it, which was very unique, was separating by race and skin color. And so. Cause no other country's really done it that way.
So what happens? Fast forward 200 years later.
There's a lot of that still permeating just in our culture, that certain people are real Americans and certain people aren't. Or certain people deserve certain things in this country, while others may not be entitled to it.
And I think.
[00:21:43] Speaker A: Which is the definition of entitlement, you know.
[00:21:45] Speaker B: Exactly. And that's the funny thing, because I used to hear that word thrown around a lot of minorities in this country.
And what I saw in the last. Not only this past year of 2020, but let's just say in this past decade or so is. And maybe going back to the former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, yelling, let's take our country back.
[00:22:07] Speaker A: Which is the definition of entitlement as well.
[00:22:09] Speaker B: Yeah. Which is after she lost her election. I mean, that's where my naiveness struck me, because I remember when she said that, and I said to myself, I thought this was everybody's country. What you mean, take it back? You know, your political ideas lost this election like anyone else. You have a right to compete in the space of ideas. And I'll listen again for the next election.
And that's it. Like, this is all our country. And when.
To me, that was like a battle cry that set it off, because then we've spent the next 12 years watching AS.
And I had this joke for you over the last few years, like, is America, is the United States an idea or is it a race?
Because what is an American? And I think one of the most beautiful speeches I have ever heard about this actually came from Ronald Reagan in the 80s.
And it's a shame because he's so eloquent that he probably would be seen as a rhino today, because he made that very statement. He said, anybody from around the world can move to the country of Japan, but they'll never be Japanese if they're not born and raised and are Japanese. Anyone can move to Germany and become a German citizen, but they'll never be like a true German. And he named a few more countries just as examples. And he said, only in America can you come from anywhere else in the world. And once you're a citizen, you're American.
[00:23:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:29] Speaker B: And I thought that was.
[00:23:31] Speaker A: It captures it because it's not like it's not an ethnic group. American is not an ethnic group. And so it captures that. But, you know, there is. And you know, I've told you this before, you know, like, there is a Jim Crow is entitlement through the law. Like, that's what it is. It is legal entitlement. I am entitled to greater privileges under the law than you because of this thing. I do not control and you do not control. It's something inherent in me. And so I always wonder, like, how those things filter down in the psychology of America when you have just it built into the law. Over. I mean, and obviously slavery is entitlement in terms of, like, those types of things build entitlement. I am. I should get more stuff because of the color of my skin. I should be able to do stuff to you that you can't do to me because of the color of my skin. I always wonder about that stuff. Just from a psychological standpoint. Those are the type of things that can Influence somebody and them not even know.
[00:24:33] Speaker B: Well, you're 100% right. And unfortunately, I think it influences, you know, let's say, I know there's a lot of sides to this, but let's say down to 30,000ft, both sides of this in America, specifically, meaning, let's say blacks and whites. You talked about slavery and all that. I think it's permeated both sides. Meaning, I think, you know, one side has a superiority complex. Not everybody, but you know, enough that we still deal with it. And I think on the other side, a lot, maybe a majority, unfortunately have an inferiority complex. And so I think that the two kind of tie together and it's this symbiotic.
[00:25:09] Speaker A: You know, what's interesting about that, by the way, is that I would argue that those complexes would be the default and you can only overcome them if you're aware of the tendency of whichever person you are to be in that. If you're aware of the fact that as a black person that you would have. Because of what you've experienced in America, you would have a tendency for an inferior complex. That's the only way to overcome that. And then the same thing with. If you're a white person, if you're aware that there's a tendency for there to be because of. Not because of you, but because of what you've experienced, what you see all around you.
If you're aware of that, then you can get past it. But if you're not aware of it, then a lot of that stuff programs you on autopilot.
[00:25:50] Speaker B: Yeah, no, and it's true. I think that all goes into the. Just for me to wrap it up, these are all parts of the ingredients that go into the making that big stew. That's our American culture. And like I said, I pull out a few of the ingredients, but I know there's probably a whole bunch more and a whole bunch that have nothing to do with race or religion or anything. It's just kind of humanity and where we're at.
[00:26:10] Speaker A: So, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's. How we got here is it's interesting to look around and just try to see the different factors that could influence that. Because it is jarring to see. You know, like, you look back, you learn in the history books how you know the nation relatively. I mean, again, by no way or no means are we putting on rose colored glasses and saying there were no problems in the 40s or whatever. Like there were big problems, but that there was a collective will to do something bigger than any one person or any one group or whatever.
And that collective will allowed a lot to be accomplished. Because ultimately, I think the point of a conversation like this is to how do we get back to what needs to happen? Do we need crazy stuff to happen to us? Is that the only way to get back to a generation that feels that kind of shared connection?
[00:27:09] Speaker B: You know, maybe it's a. I didn't think of to tie it to the concept of, let's say that the pandemic or anything, but yeah, maybe that pain is needed for a society to collectively be able to come together and say, you know what, let's put these little nuances to the side that we once called very important and just figure out how to solve this.
[00:27:29] Speaker A: Because, well, that's Maslow's hierarchy. That's your point when you bring that up.
[00:27:32] Speaker B: Yeah, it is.
[00:27:33] Speaker A: I mean, and actually, my biggest concern is that it seems to be cyclical. It seems to be like that you just have to experience the pain and in order to. For society to value the things to address problems. Like, it seems related when I read something like this, and the reason it just really stuck out to me is because it seems like as a society, and I say all of us just collectively, and then I believe in collective will, so to speak, you take the temperature of everybody or everybody that wants to participate, and then you get a good temperature of what everyone's seeing, so to speak. And it seems like that society at large doesn't even value the characteristics in serious leadership unless there is a serious problem.
If there aren't serious problems, then we just would rather be entertained or we'd rather just screw around or fight over stupid stuff because we just feel like fighting and you got to fight about something like siblings almost type of thing.
If there's no like. And the siblings, I guess, to give the whole siblings example, like siblings, it's a known kind of thing that siblings will fight and fight and fight, but then if one of them's picked on outside of the house, then all the siblings will, you know, come together and deal with it, you know, but inside the house, they're fighting amongst each other all the time. And so it does. I wonder and I worry from this since I'm. I'm the new Tunde you know, because I'm like, it seems like we need bad things to happen in order for us to take things seriously, in order for us to either ourselves be more involved or to even value in the leadership that we're looking to. We're selecting the characteristics that would allow us to address our issues. And then you throw in social media into that. And not just the way that that allows people to purposefully mislead us, but then also just how that wreaks havoc on our psychology. And I don't know. I really don't. Like you said it in jest, man, but I'm over. My head is blown about what I'm talking about.
[00:29:37] Speaker B: Here's what. I'm gonna make you laugh because you
[00:29:40] Speaker A: said it in jest, but I didn't lead onto it. But it really blew my head up when you were like, if Pearl harbor happened in social media time, we might not have done anything about it.
[00:29:51] Speaker B: No, it's amazing, right? You know, people like sitting there quite well. I think that was fake, you know, like it did. That's, that's, that's a, you know, that's a fake video. That's all that fire and the warships. But now it's funny. So you'll appreciate my joke here because I'm having a dry January that you put me onto. This is like my fourth or fifth year not taking the whole month of January with no alcohol. I can't use the word that I would use to describe how I feel because then we'd have to take a shot. So I can't do that.
[00:30:20] Speaker A: I did it for you.
[00:30:21] Speaker B: I would say that. I appreciate that. I've been a good sith in this engagement and I've brought you way over to the dark side.
I turned you into a bad Jedi, bro.
Because this is exactly why I'm half glass empty a lot of times.
You're right. We need as collectively not individuals, but I think as a society's need to see bad things happen.
[00:30:45] Speaker A: Unfortunately, that's the point being that as long as you have a government of the people, then the people are gonna have to feel pain.
[00:30:52] Speaker B: Yeah. This could be one of the downsides that can't go away just based on human nature. Right.
[00:30:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:59] Speaker B: And one of the things. So a couple of things from what you said, and then I know we'll jump to the next topic soon.
As you were talking and we're talking about the pandemic, it reminds me that what I thought or can look back now and say was probably good, quiet leadership. And this is not again to be political because I'm going to name two very different administrations, both Bush in 03 and then I think Obama in 09 or 2010. Their administrations dealt with SARS and H1N1. But what the difference is, we never really heard much about it.
[00:31:34] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:31:34] Speaker B: And that kind of looking back now, that tells me, well, they were probably effective in dealing with it.
They had the right people behind the scenes at the CDC and hsa, and those were both very different men, Bush and Obama. But they were both the type of leaders that said, okay, well, obviously I don't do that shit for a living. I don't look at infectious diseases every day for the last 30 years. So you know what? Let me bring some people in that, do that and let me listen to them and then let me put the wheels that I have at my disposal of this massive infrastructure we call the United States government in place and let me team up with the state governors and do it, and we can do it quietly. We don't have to be on the news every night and all this stuff from the beginning. And so it's like it took this pandemic for even me to appreciate that they probably did a great job at leading quietly and that's why we never heard of it. And it's kind of in. That goes back to.
[00:32:29] Speaker A: I mean. Well, the crazy thing, by the way, is just they didn't take it personally.
[00:32:35] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:32:35] Speaker A: They didn't take the virus personally. So they were focused on competence and projecting, like, competence and confidence. And so, like, it's just like it's a completely different experience. And yes, you then appreciate, like, oh, wow, the way they did that was really good. And so I'm with you 100% on that.
[00:32:52] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I'm saying. This isn't a political statement because both administrations were almost polar opposite in terms of conservative and liberal type of thing.
But it's just that political ideology aside, effective leadership and the character of the leader actually matter more than the ideology of the politics to me, because through my life I've seen it. And then I look at.
And not to pick on the current administration. I know so many people do it, but the entitlement attitude, I've never seen it on display in my lifetime in the United States. Like I have in the past two months post November 4th.
[00:33:28] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:33:28] Speaker B: Yeah. Not every. Not everybody. I want to give a lot of quality people, including. I was impressed with Tom Cotton today and his comments about he's not getting on board with this stuff they're trying to do up there because it's unconstitutional.
And so what I'm saying, though, there's some people that, you know, when they. What's that term? When what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine? Yeah, they play those parlor trick games and did the Things that they did to Obama with the Supreme Court guy and Merrick Garland and we would never do it in the last year. And then boom, you know, you know what, eight days before an election or something, they sworn a Supreme Court justice. And so you know that, you know
[00:34:12] Speaker A: what that is though? Because I do want to move on. But I know the point that you're making and it's a really good point because what we've seen over the last two months is an entitled. I am entitled to, to win elections. Like not even like I'm entitled to run.
[00:34:25] Speaker B: I don't have to compete for the vote. I'm just gonna. It's mine, it's mine.
[00:34:30] Speaker A: I'm entitled to win regardless of what else happens.
And so that is. Yeah, you're right. I mean that's country back more entitlement than we're used to.
[00:34:39] Speaker B: Yeah, that was worse than.
That's where let's take our country back led to. And I'm not saying it's all her fault, but I'm just saying that, you know.
[00:34:46] Speaker A: Well, but that was giving voice to that.
[00:34:48] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I meant by. That was the battle cry. That was the first time publicly I heard literally an elected official at that level. Well, she wasn't elected but you know, running for Vice President of the United States say something like that.
And now it's culminated to this where we have people that refuse to concede after losing an election. And one thing, I actually really appreciate this and thank God it's these guys and they're this bad and this sloppy and this buffoonery because all they've done in their behavior, in the way. Cuz they could have gone about this different and it might have been successful and that's probably a whole nother show we could get out with that kind of strategy. But in the way they've done this, all it's done is solidify the fact that the presidential election actually went to Joe Biden. Yeah, because it's funny, even that double checked and triple checked, double checked. The first time in my life that they live streamed the electoral college votes. I mean the most boring parts of our mechanics of government have been on display. So it's been unintentionally a great learning experience for most of us out there who didn't see these kind of things working out. And then even the funny thing that some of these recounts were done by hand and then the entitlement still led people to blame voting machines and all those kind of things. So it's just, it's been glaring this last two months, actually, that there is a strain of this country. And I'm sure it's a minority strain, but they're very vocal.
So it's kind of like we gotta stop and I'll deal with them and they won't let everyone else move on with just, you know, let's just have a democracy and have elections and, you know, you win and you lose type of thing.
So, you know, we'll see how this plays out, I guess, this week. But I wanted to kind of finish that topic there that, you know, right as we're speaking is the most. I'm looking at some of the most entitled people I've ever seen in the positions of government in our country. And it's just fascinating.
[00:36:42] Speaker A: Yeah. And the whole thought of ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country is, like, totally lost.
[00:36:49] Speaker B: Oh, no, that's. Yeah. That's a long time ago.
[00:36:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And so, I mean. But that's. That's where we are now. And that's what I meant as far as, like, the. When there's nothing really wrong, then these type of characteristics are not as, you know, like, they can be acceptable to a lot of people. You know, like, whereas if we were dealing with heavy stuff all the time, then people would want people that are not erratic, they would want people that are very competent and so forth. So, you know, unfortunately, it looks like that as an advanced civilization, we have to go through these cycles to bring ourselves back to progress. Like, we can't just be on a trajectory that takes us straight, you know, to the top, so to speak. Which that was the other. The other one we wanted to speak on today kind of, you know, it came out and said that in a way that was. Now for a little background, there's been just the explosion of the ability for us to see deep into the Milky Way to our galaxy, to see further and further away with our telescopes and the radio telescopes, microwave telescopes, all those different things, see different things, different types of things. We're finding Earth, like planets on stars all throughout the galaxies, whether they're larger or whatever, how close they are. But just the idea that there are other planets that are harboring life or that could have harbored life at some point in the future. People seem to be coming pretty comfortable with that.
And what the authors of this new study, we were just looking at this past, from this past month talking about actually that Earth is in a relatively remote area of the Milky Way. So our solar system Is out at the outer bands or something really far away from the center of the galaxy. And then it's also very late developing. So their theory is that the civilization, all the life, or not all the life, but a lot of the life that would have existed in our galaxy probably existed 5 billion years ago. And all that existed closer to the center of the galaxy and around each other. So in close proximity to each other, and then went far away from us. We're an outpost, basically. And, you know, that's interesting to a reasonable degree. But they had a quote in there that I just had to discuss with you today.
Because what they're talking about is that they think a lot of the advanced civilizations that would have existed previously or would have been long gone by now, because they say there's a tendency for advanced civilizations to destroy themselves.
So how is that just kind of buried in the story?
Is that accepted knowledge?
Because, hey, we're in advanced civilization today.
[00:39:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I know it's fascinating. And I think when I saw that part of it, I thought, okay, that could be us projecting a bit, too. I mean, look, every advanced civilization
[00:39:37] Speaker A: on
[00:39:37] Speaker B: our planet may have eventually destroyed itself. And, you know, it's funny, too. I was watching. It's funny how sometimes you see certain things at the right time. I'm sitting there watching one of these National Geographic, you know, type of things on the Netflix documentaries. And I was talking about the shallow sea. So, like the coral reefs. And it was talking about the sea otters off the Pacific coast and how they eat sea urchins.
And that helps keep the kelp. Basically. There's like a forest in the Pacific there. It's underwater, and all that big kelp and all that. It keeps the kelp healthy.
Because if the sea otters weren't there to cull the sea urchins, they'd eat up all the kelp. They would eat up all the kelp and destroy it. And then they showed some sections where, I guess otters either got. They moved or something. And they showed a filming underwater. And it was just like this barren wasteland with nothing but sea urchins and no greenery at all.
And so it's not even just that advanced civilizations will destroy themselves. You know, unadvanced can do it unintentionally, too. Cause then what they were saying is most of those sea urchins that were being filmed are gonna die because they basically have eaten all the vegetation. And 80% of those are just gonna starve to death.
[00:40:49] Speaker A: No, I get what you're saying. So without an external predator to keep them in check, they would destroy themselves. So actually maybe the advanced part is the most important part. An advanced civilization, meaning a civilization that doesn't have something on top of it to keep it in check.
[00:41:05] Speaker B: Correct. And that's a really good point, man. Yeah. And the thing is, is that, but even where I felt that we're projecting because we only experience the Earth, I was just thinking like, okay, well, who's to say that life didn't develop on some other ecosystem in a way where maybe life didn't have to compete in the natural selection way like life has to compete here.
But that's, you know, so that's a little bit of a takeaway. I had. But in reality, I just, I find all this stuff really fascinating and it's fun and enjoyable because this is really a tech play in the big picture because the technology is advancing so rapidly, the amount of computations, calculations.
I mean, now you can buy a TV that has 8k. So imagine what the Kepler telescope has. That was X amount of billions of dollars to produce. And it's funny because my 9 year old's starting to get into this stuff and he's into Star wars. So we talk about galaxies and all that.
And he asked me, you know, kids ask you some profound questions. Cause they're so simple.
[00:42:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:42:04] Speaker B: He just said, daddy, how do they, how can they take a picture of the whole galaxy from in it? Yeah, like from here. Right. And I'm like, he's like, how do we know how it looks? How can I, how is there pictures of a whole galaxy and it's so big.
And so I explained to him about the Hubble telescope and that, you know, it can take a certain section of space, a photograph, but then they might take, you know, thousands of photographs and
[00:42:27] Speaker A: piece them all perspectives.
[00:42:29] Speaker B: Was cool, was he didn't, he didn't know what the Hubble telescope was. So I pulled up my iPad and I just went to Google Images and typed it in and it was right there, hovering over the Earth, a picture of it. And then I explained to him and I pointed to the sky and said, you know, if you have a telescope from the Earth, you've got the cloud cover, you've got, you know, atmosphere, you've got a whole bunch of kind of distracting stuff. But if you go to space and take the picture, you got a clear shot.
And then I, of course, when he left and he was satisfied with the answers, I stayed on my iPad and started reading some of the articles about it. You know, just this Tell. And it was just fascinating that really all this knowledge we have, this deep space stuff is really over 40 years. That's it. Yeah. And it's, and then you think about all the human history of, you know, people looking up at the night sky and, you know, the, you know, 10,000 years ago, you know, people, people having societies built around, you know, all these things. And then, you know, we did the show about the 3,000 years ago, the Mesopotamians coming up with astrology that we use today, the modern astrology. And then, and then all the way forward to let's say Galileo being in prison because he just had a telescope and said, hey, I think this thing works a little different than what you guys are saying, you know, and all that. And it's like, then all this even more awesome stuff because of the technology we're able to have and to put things in space happens in this short, very short period of time. So I think it's fascinating like you're saying this idea that the galaxy is 13 billion years old and we had things like the Drake Equation that talked about, you know, the probability of extraterrestrial life.
[00:44:06] Speaker A: Well, it throws out some equations that you can try to figure it out.
[00:44:11] Speaker B: That's what I mean.
[00:44:12] Speaker A: It doesn't have enough information for it to be meaningful though.
[00:44:15] Speaker B: But it also does because what this article is so fascinating and makes you wonder is the relativity of time.
[00:44:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:44:22] Speaker B: And like we are so self centered as humans that we think everything has to happen right now.
[00:44:27] Speaker A: Like we're here right now.
[00:44:29] Speaker B: Yeah, because you've seen those polls of how many Christians think the Armageddon is going to happen in their lifetime is like 50%.
[00:44:35] Speaker A: And that, that's the same if you,
[00:44:37] Speaker B: I know, I was going to say if you ask Christians, 100 years, 100
[00:44:40] Speaker A: years ago, same thing.
[00:44:41] Speaker B: So, so I think that's, we, we all assume that aliens have to exist right now, intelligent life has to visit us now and it's only now and blah, blah, blah. And you know, but I think, you know, for anyone listening that's a little bit more into this stuff and knows some of the stuff about, let's say Mars. You know, it's becoming, the evidence is becoming very plausible that Mars had life at some point.
[00:45:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:45:02] Speaker B: But that point, as you've alluded to, could have been a billion years ago.
So. Yeah, I mean, well, that'd be relevant to us now. You know, whatever that society was, it
[00:45:10] Speaker A: could be relevant, but it could be something that, like, it's not something we can really consider in the Sense of. And that's kind of.
This stuff is interesting to me in two senses. One, the universe is so big, and I mean, forget the universe, the galaxy is so big that it's hard for us to really conceive that kind of size. Like to us, a skyscraper is big.
To us, the Earth is almost inconceivably big. And so, of course, people have been fascinated by the sky forever and what could be out there and so forth. But yeah, like the, the mindset that we're or the getting our heads around, as you pointed out over the last 40 years or so, all of the stuff that's going on and how unremarkable the things that are happening here kind of are. And then as you pointed out with the time, so you got the distance and you got the time, then so you put this time thing in where the Earth is, you know, five, you know, like our solar system, what about five billion years. Then you go back to the galaxies, like they were saying, like 13, something like that.
And there's just a lot going on and there are a lot that has gone on and a lot that's going to go on. And so the exploring it now is interesting. You know, I'm always interested when I see stuff about it. But also at the same time, you know, I look at it as kind of the unknowable as well. Like, so you're looking into an abyss, basically. And if you might see a sparkle and you might not, and if you see a sparkle, you probably don't even know what to make of it.
[00:46:39] Speaker B: And the other thing just to share real quick, because you said about the Milky Way, I'll just quote real quick here. It says we're likely a frontier civilization.
And what they say is that these researchers now quote, is found that the probability of life emerging based on known Factors peaked about 13,000 light years from the galactic center and 8 billion years after the galaxy formed. So you're right, that would be 5 billion years ago.
It says Earth, by comparison, is about 25,000 light years from the center.
So what that tells, let's just say hypothetically, there was a civilization just as advanced as us in that 13,000 light years from the center belt, and we're way out here, we're 8,000 light years. No, sorry, my math is off. We're 12,000 light years now. A light year is a distance that light can travel in one year. Yes, that distance is 6.3 trillion miles.
And now multiply 6.3 trillion now by 12,000.
And like you said, that number is so big, I can't even fathom. I'm not going to pretend to figure it out right now. But my point is that the distances we're talking about, what I come to the conclusion is this whole idea that we're going to escape the Earth when we pollute this thing and all that is asinine.
And, you know, we need to suck it up and, you know, we talk going back to, let's say, segue back to the first part of it. We got to stop being so entitled and start pulling our bootstraps up and doing what we got to do to make sure this planet is stable for a long time or else. If not, I don't see us going anywhere. No.
[00:48:18] Speaker A: Yeah. These distances are not for us to be hopping and jumping.
[00:48:23] Speaker B: And I'm. And I'm not a real fan of trying to live on the moon right now. So, you know, I would. I do like palm trees. I like the beaches, you know, that we have here in South Florida. I'd like to continue, you know, enjoying this, you know.
[00:48:34] Speaker A: All right. All right. Well, now I think we can close it up from here. But I think the way you tied it up was good, man, because. Yeah, that's kind of the, you know, regardless of whether the thought that advanced civilizations tend to destroy themselves as a projection or not, it's a projection based on Earth. And so we need to overcome that. We need to. It seems like we need to get close enough to where we can see the end and then be able to pull it back, you know, in order for us to really properly respond. Like, it seems like we're just not equipped to respond until we can see the end of the rope. So, you know, I guess we just like to keep it interesting as human beings and, you know, so be it.
[00:49:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:49:10] Speaker A: So we appreciate everybody for joining us on this and. And until next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:49:14] Speaker B: I'm Tunde Walana.
[00:49:15] Speaker A: All right, subscribe Rate review. Tell us what you think and we'll talk to you next. Done.
