Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: In this episode, we react to the recent Supreme Court decision, which essentially places us presidents above the law. We also look at criticism from the McKinsey study in 2015, which showed an association between companies with diverse leadership and profits, and also the concern that some experts are expressing over falling birth rates around the world.
Hello. Welcome to the call like I see it podcast. I'm James Keyes, and riding shotgun with me today is a man who could be considered by the hardest working man in podcasting. Tunday Ogun, Lana Tunde. Are you ready to show the people how you got that new bag?
[00:00:53] Speaker B: Yeah, but if I'm the hardest working guy, then the whole industry is in trouble.
So I think Mister Beast or some of these other guys out there might be a little bit harder doing a.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: Little more than you put a little.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: More into it, or I'm just extremely underpaid for the amount of work I'm doing. One of the other.
[00:01:10] Speaker A: So I'm just.
[00:01:12] Speaker B: We'll see. I don't see that one ever. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:01:15] Speaker A: That's just another one of those things. We'll have to take a look at it at another time.
[00:01:19] Speaker B: So maybe I'll get the Supreme Court to look into it.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: What about, hey, hey, some people can get the Supreme Court to jump in when needed, so maybe you can. So. But now, before we get started, if you enjoy the show, I ask that you'd subscribe or, like, on YouTube or your podcast app. Doing so really helps the show out.
Now, recording this, on July 2, 2024, until day yesterday, we saw the US Supreme Court rule that us presidents in many respects are above the law. Now, specifically, they say presidents are not subject to the law when performing, quote, unquote, official acts, which is the, the duties enumerated under the Constitution, the things that it says the executive branch president does. So they are immune from prosecution for doing any of that stuff, regardless of their purpose for doing that stuff. And then also that there's a strong presumption of immunity if they're doing anything that's even related to that stuff or touches that stuff in any way. So it's about as broad as you can imagine, functionally, without just saying that they're immune to anything. So all of this is in the backdrop of former President Trump's ongoing criminal prosecutions. And while Trump is the first president to face prosecution. And so this stuff relates directly to. And that the case that was decided was a case that he brought, it relates to, you know, a filing that he made the case brought against him, you know, in a filing he made. But the, the implications are much broader than that. You know, this pretty much can apply to any president now or in the future who wants to exercise power as a king. You know, it lays out the roadmap for that. So, tunde, just to get us started, what is your reaction to this, of this Supreme Court ruling and, you know, kind of this new age in this new era of the american experiment that we've entered where now we have leadership that is above the law?
[00:03:02] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, initially there's a little bit of shock, but then when I start thinking about it, I'm not that shocked.
This court appears to definitely have an ideological bend and to not be ashamed to flex kind of that muscle, so to speak. And we'll get into, and I'll explain why I specifically said that. But just, you know, to answer again, just, my reaction is just interesting, man. Here we are, the week of July 4 celebrating the declaration of independence. And for people that are watching YouTube, you can see I'm wearing my London, England shirt. And in celebration of the fact we left King George.
But like you said, this is definitely the potential for a game changer in the way that the United States conducts itself as a nation. This is the first time that, you know, the court has ruled in writing that a president is no longer held to the same standard as other citizens in certain respects and that in his office as president, he is immune from the law.
Now that, I guess we'll have to wait and see how presidents use that power. But the reason why I believe the founders of this country tried to defuse power by having three separate but co equal branches of government was specifically to avoid what the colonists rose up against and had a whole war and created a nation to separate themselves from a king. So, you know, I mean, that's my opinion, but.
[00:04:49] Speaker A: Well, I mean, that's not just your opinion, though.
[00:04:51] Speaker B: They broke that constitution of the United States and their right have backed that up.
[00:04:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:55] Speaker B: So this is going to be a different United States over time. Maybe not by tomorrow, but, you know.
[00:05:01] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think these are the types of things you see that lay the groundwork for the nation to become a different nation. I mean, there have been, there haven't been any shortage of people who aspired for king like powers. But up until now, the, the system, the, the constraints that are placed on the Constitution and like you said, the three co equal branches of government and so forth have constrained. I mean, Nixon, you know, under this logic here, Nixon could have very easily not faced any threat at all. You know, not, would not have had to resign or anything like that because he would have been able to say this was an official act. Essentially by ordering an official act, the president is the commander in chief. So by ordering the military to do things or ordering, you know, the lead is also the head of the Department of Justice, so, you know, law and head law enforcement officer. So by ordering the FBI to do things, like, the president can do things now, and it's part of his official act, depending on who he tells to do it. And all of that stuff is clear. All of that stuff can be, regardless of the purpose of it or anything. It doesn't have to be for some governmental purpose or anything like that. And so, and there are, like, sprinkle in, like, types of immunity that certain government official have, you know, like the, it can't be, you know, sued for, for defamation, you know, for the legislatures, you know, can't be sued for defamation for things they say as part of, you know, when they're debating and so forth. You know, prosecutors have a certain level of immunity in terms of how they bring charges. But this, none of this stuff is blanket in the sense that because the nature of the office of the president allows them, if they're, the executive, the chief executive allows them to do so many things, to execute vision and to execute what we're trying to accomplish, giving this person absolute immunity or this level of immunity is, it's particularly a risk. And this is one that, you know, again, what the founding fathers were very clear that they were trying to avoid. So I think we have to be honest with ourselves. You know, that just that we're going into something different now. This is not the nation that the founding fathers set up anymore, period. You know, like, we Americans do like to think of themselves and have always had a different view of who they are versus how their country actually runs. Like, oh, Americans, we're, we're about, you know, freedom, but, you know, there's, there's slaves there or there's, you know, we're about equality, but you got Jim Crow things like that. So it's always been kind of a disconnect between the way Americans think of themselves and what their nation is about versus what exactly was happening in practice. But right now, I think we should be very careful, especially, at least people who like the idea of all men under the law and so forth like that, to be aware that that's just not where we are right now. And not every president is going to try to exercise king like powers. But we know some that would. And so, or some people who would if they got into that office. Going into a different phase now, ideally, the Americans would be more, more conscientious in vetting in terms of who they would want to put in that office with these new powers. Now, that may or may not happen, but nonetheless, the office of the president now is not, and is not, that person is no longer operating in the same form of kind of society as the rest of us. They are separate from us and they can operate as a king should they so choose. And we need to be aware of that.
[00:08:10] Speaker B: Yeah. And, you know, it's amazing. I mean, it's like they retroactively went back and helped a former president make sure that he either won't be prosecuted for things, you know, crimes he committed against the United States that were crimes at the time that he's currently being prosecuted for by the United States.
And it's just, I mean, I'm just thinking of like the fake elector steam again. This is the benefit of propaganda. You know, one of my thoughts in all this was that Roger Ailes, the former founder and head of Fox News, won that, you know, his goal was to make sure there was never another Watergate and now he probably won't have.
[00:08:55] Speaker A: The takeaway from, you know, what happened with Nixon and Watergate was that, hey, we got to set up an apparatus so this never happens again. And, yeah, yeah.
[00:09:02] Speaker B: And basically we have now succeeded in like me and you, but as a nation, we've succeeded in making that happen. And that point what I'm making isn't just for the audience. I mean, just to break down real quick, the fake elector scheme was actually a crime. I mean, this is why I've got an issue with all media right now, because the way they talk about these things or the documents case, no, he stole classified secrets and put them in his house where he lives and then unguarded and then wouldn't give them back.
[00:09:33] Speaker A: Part is an important.
[00:09:34] Speaker B: So, so that's a crime, right? It's a crime to defraud the National Archives and have this whole conspiracy behind the scenes of which people have been put in jail. Many attorneys have already lost their, their bar licenses around the country that participated in this. So the courts have already said this was wrong and what the goal was was to send fake electors from states in replace of the electors that represented true american voters and use that to try and usurp the election. And that was going to be Mike Pence's job to disrupt everything on January 6. So the idea is that, yes, there were attempts to defraud the United States. And I'll say, okay, allegedly a crime was committed because the court cases haven't, haven't played out yet. But that's really what's been going on is the courts have been looking at were crimes committed and attempt to defraud the United States and defraud the legitimate voters and of the United States. And the Supreme Court just put a squash on all of it and said, nope, whatever you want.
[00:10:40] Speaker A: Person. Well, that's as it relates to the one person. Now we'll see later on it'll be okay. Yeah, the president will try, or certain presidents will try to say, well, anybody, if I order them to, if I order the, the secretary of defense to assassinate this person, then they are protected for they have immunity because they are following my orders. Like that will be how far stands out.
[00:10:59] Speaker B: Yeah. So it's effectively an immunity on doing whatever.
[00:11:02] Speaker A: Yes. And so I mean, this. And kind of what I was saying as far as the, like, we have to just be, we have to be aware of the new, new era we've entered, is that we are no longer a nation of laws, you know, like, we're a nation of men. You know, the system is not the supreme thing. What is supreme is the whims of the person who was in the presidency, because that person can do whatever they want to do. And, you know, like, it's, what's really interesting to me is we didn't see, prior to this, an outpouring of people who wanted the president to have king like powers. You know, like the last time I look at when and I want, I do kind of want to get into just how the supreme, this Supreme Court has, has remade the character of the country over the last, let's say, you know, 1015 years. And, but when the last time that happened was the Warren court, mid 19 hundreds, mid 20th century, and the Warren Court remade the country in many respects in terms of what they did with the segregation and civil rights and so forth and just rights in general. And it's recognized in history that the Warren court, they did a lot to change the nature of the country. And we're living through a moment like that now. But when the Warren court was doing that, this was like there were people in the streets. There were like, there was this mass outpouring, mass outcry for, you know, for a certain result, hey, we want more equality or anything like that. Right now, it doesn't seem like there's people in the street that are saying, hey, we got to have presidents that are immune to office. Or looking back further with Citizens United, we got to have corporations that can spend as much money on elections as they possibly want and things like that where the impetus for these types of rulings are coming from, seem to be coming from someplace that we're just not seeing. There's clearly an impetus, there's clearly an effort to put all this stuff in place, but it's not coming from the masses. It seems there seems to be coming from, you know, it's special interests and interest groups that are saying, hey, we want to advance a certain worldview or a certain view of how the nation should be. And kind of with everybody else looking at other stuff, we're just going to get to work and do all this stuff and really fundamentally change the character of the nation. And so, you know, like, what are your thoughts? You know, just kind of, and again, we're not going to get into individual, all the individual decisions because there's been a lot, you know, like, but just on the way over the last, you know, just again, the last 1015 years, really, you know, you could point to citizens united as kind of the, where this thing really started to fundamentally change because that was a decision that said, yes, you know, organizations, entities have equal free speech rights to actual human beings. And then, you know, which, again, is a fundamental shift in the way we look at things.
And, you know, just the nature of how, not necessarily, you could talk about the disconnect if you want, but just the nature of how this court has remade the american experiment and has done so.
If you're not following this stuff, you're not even seeing. There's not some mass outcry that they're doing this in response to. It seems like they're kind of, they have a plan and they're operating this plan, and the rest of us are kind of looking the other way.
[00:14:06] Speaker B: I'll start where you ended. Yes, the rest of us are looking the other way. And this, look, this reminds me of that whole Star wars thing of, you know, democracy dying to applause, you know, and the ability of, I mean, this is like every, it's the, let me back it up here because I got a lot going on my head. It's interesting, the level of projection by some.
And then, like, so I'm thinking of things like the deep, the concept of a deep state, right. Yeah, there's, there's a, yeah, there's a, we have a large country with 330, whatever million people, and it's very complex. Right. There's a lot going on here, a lot of from cars on the road that, you know, and those rules and laws to manufacturing and all kind of stuff. So, yeah. Is there a big bureaucracy and an administrative state that exists in the american government? Yes, of course. There's always been. Because as the country grew, you need a bigger apparatus to deal with a bigger country and more stuff. Right. You're a patent attorney, and I remember you telling me from the, you got out of law school to now just the amount of patents that have been issued because people keep inventing stuff. And those new things need to be regulated and needs, somebody needs to decide how they interact with the public and all that. So that is just a fact.
What you're talking about is an actual deep state that some people project onto others in our country. But there is really, it seems, a cabal of a small group of very wealthy people who want to influence government in a way that is outside the norms.
[00:15:47] Speaker A: It's opaque.
Supreme Court justices, let's.
[00:15:51] Speaker B: Yeah, no, yeah, well, what I'm saying is it's outside the norms of the democratic process of politics. Right. This is, this is to step around the voters, right. Because to your point, the public wanted things, let's say, back in the civil rights era, like integration generally. And there was a lot of public that didn't. But we saw both sides because both sides would be in the street arguing about it in protests and counter protests and all that.
[00:16:17] Speaker A: And in the sides were and who was on what side and, you know, arguing, you know, like, we got to work the issue out in public, you know, which is distinct from what. Not just, I want to throw in a couple of things and then I'll kick it back to you, but just, which is distinct from now, we don't really get to see. It's kind of opaque. We don't get to see who the sides are here and who is arguing for what. It's kind of like there is a group of people saying they're going to kind of maintain the status quo. There's radical people who are out here saying, hey, we're going to change this or change that. We can see it with abortion, for example, in contrast with abortion. There are people saying, hey, we're trying to get rid of this. And there's people saying, hey, we're trying to keep it. And so we can see those fights and then they can have it out and so forth. But in terms of the power grabs, in terms of presidential immunity or corporations, another recent ruling overturning the Chevron precedent, which was just last week, where it's like gutting administrative agencies ability to regulate companies. And so it's like giving more power to large corporations and so forth. And what it is is, well, let me, let me just, for the deep state thing, what we hoped and what I thought the deep state would be was the allegiance to the constitution that everyone in the government should have. And so, yes, if you get in the government and you are trying to do things that are contrary to the constitution, I hope there would be pushback against that from within the government because those people aren't supposed to be loyal to the person at the head of the government or the person at the head of their department. They're supposed to be loyal to the constitution. But what you're pointing out and what is apparent at this point, that there is also a deep state operating that they're not loyal to the constitution as it is.
They are trying to change the country in a way that they see would benefit themselves or that they like, and they're doing so outside the bounds of ways that are, that we can see, we can hear, we can evaluate, and we can decide with our voting. Here's how we want to do stuff. And to your point on the projection, that's what people, people are calling the people who are loyal to the constitution. They're trying to frame them as people in that kind of sense. And so it is, it's notable. The projection is notable from that standpoint. I think it's a good point you made.
[00:18:24] Speaker B: Yeah. And really what it is, because, you know, you mentioned the Chevron case, and I think this is part of the problem, which is not fixable, which is these guys have been doing a lot of work, and it's like that fire hose. Everyone's got a drink out of this fire hose of information. And, you know, it's, most of us Americans, number one, we're not, attorneys are trained in all this, you know, legal briefs and stuff like that. The second thing is, you know, it's a lot of stuff. So, example again for the audience, the Chevron case was, was, was, I guess, decided last week.
[00:18:55] Speaker A: Well, case that overturned the Chevron case.
[00:18:58] Speaker B: Chevron case.
[00:18:59] Speaker A: This is something I learned in law school.
It's legal precedent that provided for, allowed administrative agencies to actually enforce regulations, and you don't have to take them to court and all this other stuff, but within the actual administrative agency, you have regulations. You can say, okay, you guys violated this here. We're going to assess this fine and so forth. And so it streamlined the ability, hey, you're dumping poison into the lake or, hey, you said that this isn't your product, but it's not in your product or whatever you say, that lead isn't there. And in fact, we're testing and lead is there. And so you do things that are inconsistent with the law or regulations in some way and then we as an administrative agency, without going to court and everything like that, we can hold you accountable for that. And so that's been legal precedent for a while now and that got overturned this last week.
[00:19:44] Speaker B: Yeah, well, and I think you made an important statement right there, which is the holding to account being held accountable. And I think what we're really seeing is, and this is where I want to just go down a little bit of a rabbit hole here, which is you really go 30,000ft. What we're seeing is the dismantling of the ability to hold small groups of powerful, powerful interests accountable. And we just learned that the president of the United States will no longer be held to account while he's in his official position like the rest of us would be. And we've also learned, like you said, that certain, you know, large corporations or corporations just that are well heeled and doing certain things will not be held accountable by federal agencies. And I think one of the things I've seen, so for example, we have the recent ruling on bump stocks, which, you know, makes a semi automatic into basically an automatic weapon where it can fire four to 800 rounds per minute.
[00:20:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
It gives the shooter a lightning fast trigger finger. Like. Yeah, yeah. Like, I can't believe you said that.
[00:20:57] Speaker B: Yeah, so, so, but the bottom line is, again, these guys, what they're doing is really gaslighting the country and gaslighting the founding fathers and the spirit of the United States with all of this stuff. That's why I kind of, it's a lot to cover. That's what I mean. It's hard for people to the average person to keep up with all this stuff. But if you think about it, the idea of saying, you know, automatic weapons should not be legal in the hands of civilians for obvious reasons that not every civilian is responsible with regular semiotic, matic or single shot weapons. Imagine how much of a disaster if everyone had an automatic rifle. But in one context, the, you know, the Supreme Court will be constitutionalist saying, oh, well, the Second Amendment doesn't say anything specifically about the types of weapons and all this. Okay.
And then they also, what happens is by gutting the federal agency's ability to deal with this, and I know there's no equivalence for this necessarily on guns. But let's just say, like you said about the EPA or one of these organization or the FDA ruling about something that they're putting in food, a big corporation putting in food, what happens is the judges themselves now have said, no, we're going to be the subject matter experts. So me as a Supreme Court justice, I'm going to explain to you how a gun is the mechanics of a gun and a rifle, and I'm going to explain to you why a bump stock is this or that instead of going actual firearm experts. And this is what's going to happen over time with these kind of rulings, which is the judges themselves are going to begin to make decisions based on when a scientist in the FDA says, hey, if we put that into food, is going to hurt people, instead of having the FDA just make that decision based on scientific fact, and maybe the corporation can sue the FDA and they can take it on appeals and all that, and you can everybody.
[00:22:45] Speaker A: Well, and that drags it out. That makes it much more expensive and so forth. And the goal would be deterrence at that point and saying, okay, well, they're not going to try to regulate as much because it's like, what's going to be so expensive? And then, like you said, they're going to be like, hey, the tobacco industry for decades was able to muddy the science on whether cigarettes were bad for you. Yeah, fossil fuel, climate change, you know, like in these are issues that. So when you get to that, the debate of the scientists can be bought, you know, and so, well, let me.
[00:23:14] Speaker B: Go on with this, with this arc here, which is, which is basically what has happened is the manipulation of the Supreme Court over time with things like citizens United allowing so much money to go in, dark money to go into politics that's untraceable.
These guys have won. Now, this is the true, you know, again, the projection of people like George Soros, who might fund some liberal causes dwarfs the reality of the Harlan Crows, the Leonard Leo's, the Koch brothers, who spend billions of dollars in recent decades to make sure this happens. And so what's going to happen is this is why there's been such a big deal in the last decade about packing the federal courts by conservatives and people on the right, because now you're going to have judges from an ideological perspective when these cases get brought in front of them, will just make decisions based on what they believe, just like we saw what happened with the Constitution.
[00:24:06] Speaker A: These decisions become about ideology and not necessarily an understanding of the facts because again, how much can you become an expert on the facts? And, you know, over the course of a two week trial, you know, and so you're just going to kind of pick a side and say, okay, oh, I like the side. And that's, I think the inconsistency that you point out is, is, is kind of on point as well because. Yeah, and on one hand we're seeing, okay, the Supreme Court has to, it's textualist, it's originalist, and, and, but nothing in this decision right here is textless or, you know, like there, there's nothing.
[00:24:39] Speaker B: In the institution that said the president's immune.
[00:24:42] Speaker A: Yeah. It can't be prosecuted for, for committing crimes. And so, so, you know, it's, it's, we're seeing that now. Like at some point maybe there was some level of ideological consistency, but at this point we are entered, we've entered a point where the, the ends are, they're working towards the ends and whatever they, whatever logic they need to get there, they're using that to get there. And so, and that's, for me as a lawyer, that bothers, obviously, the public's not going to get too fired up about that. But what we're seeing, though, again, and we have to understand that it's not like this is where America becomes the different kind of a country we, America has been considered and considers themselves, Americans often consider themselves, you know, as it's an exceptional american exceptionalism and so forth. And if you look at the root of that word, an exception, you know, you do things differently than other nations do. What made America exceptional for all of this time was the supremacy of the law. The fact that we're having a document govern what happening, we've left that, basically. And so if we're looking at a Supreme Court that has just gone and basically said, okay, this is the, how we want the world to be, regardless of how, of the logic we need to get there.
It's not much different other than the kind of the ends as what the Warren court did in terms of, you know, when they, in terms of integration, civil rights and all that. But it's not, it hasn't that they've won. Basically. We are at a different point now where hopefully this motivates people to look more at the character of the leadership that they're putting in power because that's going to become more and more important.
The goal has been lately to kind of, hey, let's look at all the issues and just vote for the people that are saying the things that you like but we're really going to have to look at character more because in the setup that we have now, this, the character of the people who are making the decisions, who are putting judges in, and the character of the judges they're putting in a, is going to matter more and more because the laws, the Constitution is becoming less and less of a constraint on the behavior of our elected officials. And so again, I hope that Americans can respond to this because it's still a government of the people. But, you know, you get a say every couple of years or every four years or every six years, depending on the office. But once you, once you, once you have that say, then you're going to live with the character of that person forever, whatever period of that time. So I think that's going to be the biggest takeaway that thoughtful Americans are going to have to have, is that you're going to have to, the character of the person is going to matter moving forward a lot. And, you know, the, the individual kind of, you know, like the individual battles here and there. Like, oh, yeah, you might be a one issue voter and you vote for this, but if you put in somebody whose character say, hey, I'm never going to leave office, or, hey, you know, I want to be able to shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue, then, you know, like, we're going to have to live with a lot more other stuff just because you wanted that one little issue.
[00:27:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:30] Speaker A: So, but no, I think we can, we can close this up from there. I mean, this is something that we can go on forever on. But the, just like looking at this in a way on how the risk, what the responsibility it puts back on the voters, I think is important as well because, yeah, we're looking at like, oh, man, that's crazy. I can't believe they did that. But at the same time, you know, like the voters will have a say, you know, periodically. And so these, we're going to be more responsible on the voters because constitution is going to be less there, there has been a less there to help us in the past and moving forward. So, but we can, yeah, we'll wrap this section up. Please join us on part two and part three of this show as well. And we appreciate you for joining us on this.
All right. Our second topic this week, we saw some criticism in the Wall Street Journal on the idea that diversity, that diversity in leadership for companies and profits could be related. Now this dates back to a 2015 study by McKinsey that showed a correlation, not causation, but a correlation between certain companies they didn't disclose which companies, large companies that had a diversity in their decision making, you know, whether, you know, racial or gender or whatever, and higher profits. And so from that, you know, companies, you know, the kind of copycat world we live in, there were, there were efforts made to try to be more diverse and with the expectation that profits would follow from this. And so in this, the Wall Street Journal piece that we're looking at, and we'll have in the show notes, they were like, oh, well, that didn't happen. You know, that just by getting more diversity and so forth. And they essentially claimed that the McKinsey study was misleading in this way. And McKinsey studies, they're like, hey, well, you know, we didn't say it was, it was causation. We said it was, you know, that we found a correlation. And so there's been, it's been pointed out that other people haven't been able to replicate this and so forth. Now, some of that can be biased because if you don't want to replicate it, you can choose companies that wouldn't show that. But nonetheless, we wanted to discuss just from, consider the nature of the criticism. Is the criticism fair? And then maybe what may the criticism be missing? What context? So just your reaction to the criticism of the study and kind of the position taken by the author in that Wall Street Journal piece?
[00:29:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I think first you make a great point that all these studies can be skewed based on which companies you're looking at, so on and so forth.
I do think that the author, to me, represents something we've seen in our culture, which is a hostility to this idea of just diversity in general.
And here we can zero it in on corporate America and the decisions for DEi and hiring and all the, all the buzzwords and acronyms that get people fired up and triggered.
[00:30:20] Speaker A: But I can I, little texture on that. Just, I think I agree with you, but with the hostility, doesn't seem to be diversity in the abstract. It seems to be any effort to try to create more diversity or try to foster more diversity. Any effort, if it happens organically, then they're like, oh, yeah, that's fine, but if the state, or if individual actors take any effort, any effort to try to improve outcomes and create environments where there could be more diversity, they really seem to take offense to that.
[00:30:52] Speaker B: Well, I think it's both, actually. I think that, yes, when there's active measures to try and promote diversity, of course it's received with hostility by some. But I think that there's actually just unfortunately a natural hostility to, like, you're saying, the organic growth of diversity that we've just seen in recent decades.
Look, it's from a diversity kind of numbers standpoint. Everybody knows, has heard those numbers about, you know, the white Americans will be a minority in this country numbers wise, by, you know, some soon coming decade. 2040, 2050.
[00:31:28] Speaker A: I think it was 20, less than 50%. So it's like, it won't be any group that's larger than them, but they'll be, they themselves will be less than 50%. So, yeah, the other percentages will happen.
[00:31:39] Speaker B: That is something new in the american experience. And there's a lot of people who have been led to feel very insecure about that based on political leaders, you know, their media ecosystems, all that with ideas like the great replacement theory and all this stuff, which is real. Like, that's what I'm saying is there's a lot of that feeling with a lot of Americans, whether they fully subscribe to these ideas or it's just a kind of feeling that my group isn't being treated fair anymore. And I've seen it with personal friends of mine that I've had discussions with that have told me yet. I think that when I hear of a kid getting into an Ivy League school, I really do think that it's meaning a non white kid. I've had my friends say this to me, a couple of them, that I do feel like it's taken away from my kids ability to be in a similar situation in the university. Now, I had a good friend of mine tell me this. While his son is at one of the top universities in our state, but he was talking about the Harvard case with the thing. And I'm just thinking like, that's interesting. So your son's at one of the top universities, our state, doing a great job and having a great education, but yet because of something that has been in place to try and include others into the experience that your son is having, you look at it as someone taking from you. And I think that's just cultural, that we have unfortunately developed a culture of where many Americans.
[00:33:06] Speaker A: It's an entitlement, though. It's an entitlement because you only feel like it's being taken if you feel like you're entitled to that. Like that. That's kind of implicit in that. And, you know, it's telling that the. The mindset comes from, okay, well, I belong. You don't. So any effort to allow you to be there is disrupting this piece of I belong, and you don't you know? So like that, like a lot of that, it's difficult to unpack all that because a lot of it is implicit. It's built into the conversation, but we don't acknowledge it. And I'm not saying that to throw stones. I'm just saying the first for you to say if someone else is getting an opportunity, then that takes away from my opportunity. The implicit statement there is, it's my opportunity. I'm entitled to that and you're not. You know, if we're both entitled to it, then that same conversation is nonsensical. You see what I'm saying? So, but go ahead. I didn't want to cut you off, but I just wanted.
[00:34:00] Speaker B: And I realized too, that's why I figured. Let me get back to answering one of the main initial questions, which is about the kind of the study, the argument in this article that McKenzie was whether embellishing or doing causation stuff, whatever, about the results of the study as relates to profitability. Now, am I willing to believe that a non diverse company can be more profitable than a diverse company? Of course. It just depends on what industry they're in and how much profit they're making. And I'm going to assume Facebook isn't the most diverse company in corporate leadership, but they're extremely profitable or meta. Right. So, you know, that, to me, is an argument that is a little bit of a distraction. I think the bigger idea, and this is where I think a lot of these arguments become disingenuous. Because when it comes to whether Dei and all these, again, things that some people find so hostile, the idea is nothing. Saying that just because you have non white people in this company means it's gonna be more profitable.
What the concept is, is that if you have a workforce that reflects maybe more of the community that you're serving, that there will be an easier way to deal with everything from profitability to solving problems.
[00:35:17] Speaker A: I think it goes beyond that. I think it goes beyond that. And I do think that the people who are criticizing it are purposefully either. Either they don't see the point or they're purposefully trying to not engage with the point. The point of this is not that by, like you said, by hiring or by having people on the certain group of people that look like this on the board, or they're this gender on the board, that because of that, you will be rolling around in profits. The, the point is, is that companies that make efforts to find the best people, no matter what they look at, look like a lot of these efforts are to save people from themselves. What the real takeaway is is that discrimination is not profitable. Discrimination takes energy that could go towards finding the best, being the best, and actually put dictate energy and make it towards exclusion. Taking energy and putting it towards exclusion does not increase profitability and in fact, reduces profitability. The bigger point is that companies that have systems in place and approach things and mindsets that are governing that say, hey, we're looking for the best, no matter what they look like. Sometimes we might have to look a little harder in certain places, but we want to find the right kind of people. We want to empower the right kind of people, not because they're friends with my, you know, like, oh, I'm friends with this guy, let me just bring him in, or, you know, whatever, but I want to find the best people. Those companies tend to have better outcomes. That's the point, you know, so it's not about who's being hired. It's about the nature of the company and how they do business. And they take efforts to, to save themselves from the natural form of, oh, I know this person. So I'll just bring this person in whether they're the most qualified or not, whether, you know, everything like that. So to me, to obscure that piece, you know, because nobody's out here arguing that discrimination makes more money, you know, like, again, let's, let's, let's close off 40% of the population, or if you're talking gender, let's close off 50% of population or you're talking, you know, where certain races or whatever, let's close off. And we're not even going to look for bright people there that will put you in a less advantageous situation. The only kind of the caveat, so to speak, from that is the worldview of supremacy. Basically, if you just think that certain people are, are more capable, then obviously you would slip into this and say, and all would, there is nothing to gain from bringing in the best and the brightest from this group or that group. Because my group, so to speak, is the only group that has anything to offer. Outside of that logic, though, again, it's about, it's about the systems. And again, a lot of these things, it's similar to the first point, the first conversation we had. It's about the setup, the structure. If you have a strong structure, then a strong organization can flourish. If you make the organization about the whims of individuals. And this is what I like, this is what I feel comfortable with right now. I don't want to expand my horizons, then you inherently limit yourself and you put yourself in situations that may not end up being optimized as good as they could. So to me, I mean, I think it's. Whether it's. The author can see it or not. The author is clearly. The author of the Wall Street Journal piece is clearly missing the point on what the McKinsey study was establishing in terms of the way that companies who end up being more diverse operates, tends to allow them to flourish.
[00:38:34] Speaker B: Yeah, no, as you're talking, I'm thinking about the examples, right? Like the boom of the us economy post the civil rights era starting from the early seventies. I know our economy is too big for it to have one factor, but one could say, right, the end of kind of legal segregation in this country helped push the economy along. One could compare for the last 150 years, the economies of the segregated south versus the more integrated north and west of the United States. And even today, the remnants of that infrastructure. Most of the economic activity in this country comes from the diverse areas. All the places that certain people in this country hate, like the coast, big cities, things like that. If you look at every state, majority of the economic activity that pays for everything else in that states comes from the diverse areas. So the.
[00:39:31] Speaker A: Let me tie this point, because the thing is, again, it's. I would say that it's not necessarily because those areas are diverse, it's because those areas are diverse. They have to operate in a way where most of their energy doesn't go towards keeping people down. Mississippi probably has more problems because a large number of people spend a lot of their time and energy focused on trying to keep other people down. But, like, let's not make everybody the best they can be. Let's make certain people the best they can be, and let's spend our other time trying to keep these other people from being good. That's not going to be productive for your economy. You know, like, that's not going to help you move things forward, you know? And so it's, again, it's a. To me, it's really about more of the misplaced energy trying to hold things down and then say, man, I can't believe we don't grow as much as everybody else when you're spending 40% of your energy not trying to push up, but trying to hold down.
[00:40:18] Speaker B: Yeah, no, and I'm glad you brought that up because one could tell me, hey, well, Mississippi is a diverse state, and I think, you know, the black population is like 45% or something like that, but you're right. I'm not talking about diversity just because there's x amount of people of this or that in a certain given area. I'm talking about true diversity, which to your point is trying to have an ability, the ability to actually go out and include everyone. And in states like Mississippi, I mean, not to get off a tangent, right, but if you look at the things like that instead, the scandal with Brett Favre, that's, he's a drop in the bucket. The amount of money stolen from Mississippi citizens is an example of that where people are saying, well, we can just keep all this from all these people over here. What happens is when you don't support all these people over here, they're not doing that. There's no velocity of money in that part of the economy, in that part of the society.
[00:41:11] Speaker A: And so you're not able to harvest the best and the brightest, you know, whatever percent of them that are really, really bright or really, really hard working. You're not even able to pull them in and get them working towards pulling everything up because you're literally taking all your energy and saying, let's keep them excluded from this.
[00:41:26] Speaker B: And I think that's the example, James. Like, it's true. Like someone like me, I'm not going to put you on this, but when I look at these every, you know, all these people in these recent years that are so, like our governor, so hostile to this idea of diversity, equity and inclusion, like, and it's like, okay, I get it. You know, I know that, you know, we hate bleeding hard people and all this stuff, and. But it's like the level of hostility they have to this idea of just including other people. And we had that, you know, the quote earlier this year by a young YouTube guy when he was saying something like, well, you know, I don't want to think like this, but if I get on a plane and I see a black pilot, you know, I'm not going to be sure if he's qualified. And the interesting thing when I hear that kind of stuff is these people gin themselves up and talk to themselves in their own echo chamber. Because when I walk on a plane and I see a pilot of any group, black, white, asian, I don't care. My first assumption is, oh, this white guy, what pilot?
He was given a job because his cousin is the CEO or something. That's not what I'm thinking. My first thought is United Airlines or Delta, whoever I'm flying, obviously thinks this guy's qualified to fly a plane.
The example would be James if United Airlines called you and said, james Keys, I know you've been a great attorney, but we're looking for black pilots and we're going to put you on a plane right now. Like, that's my point. Like, these people don't stop to think that, not the ones that push this out, but the ones that consume it, which are a lot of people I got to deal with. They don't stop to think about. Do you think Delta Airlines really going to put a guy like me in a cockpit with no training and just say, yeah, because you're black, we're just going to give you a handout job and let you fly this plane into the ground and deal with the liability later?
It's such an affront to reality.
[00:43:16] Speaker A: And as you point out, it's a choice. It's a choice to say, okay, this is, when I see this, this is what I want to, this is what I want to think. Because like you said, the example, and this is the example I get. Like, if you want, you can always look, okay, well, I'm looking at this group and saying, oh, well, this person's probably there because, yeah, they, they, their dad probably knew somebody or something like that. You could choose to make think like that as well, you know, but you can also choose to say, okay, well, like you said, if, if this x next company, they don't want to get sued, so they're probably gonna, you know, find competent people and then keep it moving from there. The fixation on, like, I'm not really paying attention to the race of the pilot when I get on a plane.
[00:43:55] Speaker B: That's my point. You assume that they're qualified because they're.
[00:43:58] Speaker A: Sitting in a cockpit, because there's so, like, to me, what stands out about that is more so the fixation on it, you know, like, oh, you know, like, okay, what this person's here. What do they look like? What are they, you know, what's their background and stuff like that. It's like, well, why do you spend so much time worrying about that? You know, the, the idea of the zero sum comes into that and saying, oh, well, this person probably took away an opportunity from, you know, a person who could have been more qualified. But again, that, one, there's a lot of assumption baked into that. And two, that goes right back to that entitlement. And entitlement is just not a mindset for growth. I mean, and that's really the problem that we have to wrestle with is that the more people in our society that have these entitlement mentalities. We can't open this up for this group of people or anything like that because it'll take away my opportunities or opportunities for people like me. That type of entitlement actually is the most damaging thing from a growth standpoint, which, again, is kind of the point of the McKinsey study, is that it's not what the diversity, it's not the existence of the diversity itself. It's that the mindsets of the that led to the diversity tend to be more growth mindsets. They tend to be people who are less entitled about their. Where they need to be and where they should be, and that they, you know, hey, no matter what I do, no matter how much work I put in, this is mine because I was born this way or something like that. And so again, that's the piece that, again, you don't, you don't know whether that's just a blind spot or whether someone's purposefully ignoring it. So I'm not going to cast aspersion on the motives, but what is very apparent to me and what is always missing, or oftentimes missing from these discussions is not that the diversity is not the end, so to speak. The diversity. It represents an approach, a system that is a healthier system for encouraging growth and for getting the best out of the most people. And if we're in a society and we're all together, we should be trying to get the best out of most people if we want better outcomes. You know, like that, that kind of goes, that that's kind of obvious, you know, like, hey, if I'm on a football team, I want all 22 people, you know, like 22, you know, eleven offense, eleven teams. I want all of them to get their best. I don't want it to say, oh, well, let's. Let's screw over the, this group, this position group, and let's try to hold them down. That's going to make the whole team worse, you know? So anytime you're in a situation where it. You have a collective, and a nation can be a collective, a company can be a collective, all of that, you want to get the best out of the most people and create environments where people can flourish. And that's what the diversity that they're pointing to represents more than anything else. So anything else before we close this up?
[00:46:30] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you make a good illusion to the idea of a team, but that's where, unfortunately, we've got many of our fellow Americans who have been conditioned to believe that it's not about team America. It's about team, whatever. Their, they're, they're, they feel their group is right, their ethnicity or whatever. And so a lot of this does.
[00:46:49] Speaker A: Though, especially, you know, you talk about people you interact with, it goes back to, and this, some of this is, it goes on to the leadership of just, you know, of society. And what do you feel good about? You know, do you feel good about free market societies? Do you feel good about, you know, being in a democratic society or, you know, the constitution or do you feel good about your race? Like, oh, okay, well, I feel good about my race. If you feel good about. If you're told to feel good about your race, if you have. And some of this goes to, you know, Dubois and the psychic wage and all that stuff. But if your race is what you feel good about in terms of, okay, this is what gives me pride. Not your country or not you're the economic system or anything like that, then yes, if you see people of other races or other, if gender is what makes you feel good about yourself, you know, they, you see people of other genders doing well, that is offensive to you because the thing you have been told to feel good about, about yourself, the reason you are told to be proud of yourself, not because you live in, you know, a country that has, you know, like a constitution and unlike any government, you know, in history, the world, all that stuff. And it's been going for 200 years. Not that, but just because of your race, then, yes, success from, by people who are not in that race or not in that gender or whatever it is that you feel good about is going to bother you. And so some of that is if we want to be on the same team, so to speak, then we have to try to pump up the things that we share in common and say, okay, yes, we're all going to feel good about these things and then try to try to really double down on those and improve those as best we can. So, you know, and that's kind of, again, some people drive power from, from not doing that. Some people derive power from, from making people hostile to each other. But that definitely doesn't make the build the country up, you know, or if you're talking from a corporate standpoint, that doesn't build a company up to be as strong as it can be. And that's kind of the point.
[00:48:35] Speaker B: And it's a great point. Just to finish up here is really is a mindset because as you're saying, I'm thinking about, like, I'm a man, right, and I'm a tall guy. I'm six foot four.
[00:48:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:48:45] Speaker B: So these studies, like, taller men get, you know, deference in certain respects. You know, I think I've read something that most of this male CEO's of Fortune 100 companies are over six foot one.
So if someone were to come to me and say, well, because you're a man and you're tall and this and that, you know, you have a kind of, in our culture, there's a certain deference you're paid, and it might create an advantage.
And so for that reason, we're gonna support, you know, a certain amount of percentage of in your city, like, women owned businesses and maybe even businesses that can be run by people under five foot five.
My point is, is I wouldn't then redirect all my activity all day and act like that's gonna, that's the most hostile thing to me.
[00:49:28] Speaker A: But that's because of your mentality and that you don't associate your self worth with being six four. If you did associate your self worth with being six four, then you would have a problem with that, because it.
[00:49:40] Speaker B: Makes me realize that it's a mindset. Like, I'm not, like, I wouldn't be hostile because that does exist here in.
[00:49:45] Speaker A: Our county, but it is where you associate your self worth, you know, so, like, again, some things you can associate your self worth can be positive for an overall group, some can be not positive for the overall group and can make you adverse to members of the same group. So. Yeah, but I think we can wrap this topic up from there. We appreciate you for joining us on this, this second topic for the day, and definitely join us for the third topic as well.
All right, our third topic for the day, third and final tune day there. There is hand wringing all over. We've seen a lot this month on this. Not enough babies in the world.
Most rich or industrialized countries now are, have birth rates that are below replacement level, which is 2.1 or 2.2 kids per woman.
And so, all right, so many countries have fallen below that, some well below that. And then there are the countries that are, still have higher birth rates, are oftentimes the poorer countries, but generally speaking, the trend is still going down across the board. So everybody's saying, oh, what are we going to do? How are the younger generations going to support the older generations in 30 years or 40 years or whatever? So what's your take, man? Do you think that we got a baby problem or a lack of baby problem in the world, or is this all just kind of people not having something to worry about, so they figure out something new to worry about.
[00:51:04] Speaker B: So I'm trying to figure out how to incorporate Nick Cannon and Elon Musk into jokes about that they're going to help the world population because they have so many kids. But no, it's an interesting, because as you're talking, I can hear your old saying of the earth's going to be okay. And I think that that might be part of this. Right at the end of the day, I know that part of the reason why more advanced economies have less babies is because, you know, that's seems to be the way that the world has trended, that as people leave kind of the hunter gatherer stuff. And the agrarian lifestyle, I'll say the.
[00:51:45] Speaker A: Agrarian, the farmer lifestyle more than anything, it seems like.
[00:51:48] Speaker B: Yeah, that they have less babies. And so. And so. There's a few stats I'll cite in our discussion, but I just think that it just strikes me as inevitable that the population at some point will kind of reverse and decline because of the stress that our large population has been putting on the planet. And again, not to turn this into an environmental discussion, but at the end of the day, we're sucking on fresh water, we're killing animals to eat them and destroying habitat, natural habitats of those animals as we clear land to build houses and roads and things like that. So at some point, that would be unsustainable, I would assume, and that the earth would need to get back to some sort of equilibrium where humans are at a number where they're not taxing all these resources that the earth has offered to.
So, you know, that's why to me, this is not a surprise that the global population can diminish. Can that have negative effects from what we're reading about things like economic conditions, migration patterns and all that? Yeah, I mean, we should be prepared for all that, but I'm not surprised that that's the case.
[00:52:57] Speaker A: You know, I thought a couple things. I thought of, like, one was the matrix and two was the sapiens book we did not too long ago. So for the matrix, I remember that Smith, I think his name, was explaining at one point how I think, was playing with the Morpheus, how humans are the only organism, or not, or one of the few organisms in the world that don't find and then establish an equilibrium with their environment that humans have continued to consume and consume and consume. And the other organism like that would be a virus, so to speak. And that goes into the Sci-Fi and all that. But it's interesting to me that conceivably this would be, that this would be like, because nobody's, there's been no directive like, so to speak, that's like, okay, everybody in industrialized countries have less babies. It's just kind of naturally happening. And, you know, so maybe this is something about humans establishing some kind of equilibrium. The second thing with, with sapiens, it talked about how changes in the way humans lived affected how many they had babies, how they, how many babies they had when they had them, and so forth like that. So talking about hunter gatherers, the transition, you know, the agricultural revolution from the transition to hunter gathering societies to agricultural societies, one of the big changes was how many kids and how frequently you had kids. Hunter gatherers didn't have as many kids as societies that were, that had agriculture. And so for various reasons, you know, in terms of the mobility of it and then also just the need of farmhands and so forth. So it's nothing like the craziest thing in the world, that the birth rates as we're in, you know, post industrial now, information age and all that kind of stuff, it's not inconceivable that there could be changes from a global basis. And from a societal standpoint, in, as we leave the industrial and go into this information age, information age may be marked by less babies for all we know. And then if we're still able to, the efficiency in which we can grow food and all that, all the kind of stuff can, can be maintained, then maybe smaller populations can still support, you know, what they need to support and all that. So from that standpoint, it doesn't strike me as the end of the world. The other thing I'll say just real quick is that all the projections, though, I think they're doing a little too much with the projections like, oh, you know, by 2050, it's good, the birth rate is going to be this and then population is going to peak in 2080 and then 20, you know, or 2100 it's going to be this. And it's like, well, man, like 30 years ago they thought the population was going to be 11 billion. You know, like they were projecting that for 2050. And so we could chill on the projections a little bit. It's like, okay, here's what's possible. You know, I hear here's. But I don't think we should look at whatever they're projecting and saying that that's set in stone or anything like that. There's a trend. We can see a trend line. Okay? And if this trend line holds, then things will change, but we'll be okay. You know, like, there are reasons why this won't be the, this could be beneficial and we'll have to adjust. You know, one of the things that will probably be the most difficult is just as, you know, as if there's a rebalancing in that way. Resources are going to, may have to be distributed differently, you know, because there are going to be, they're going to be vast differences, information, age, on how productive people are. You know, like, there's, everybody's just not going to be out there growing their own food and eating it. Like, there are some people that are productive enough for a thousand people and other people that are kind of productive enough for one person. And so how do we make it so everybody can live or do we want to make it? Do we want a society where everybody can live? You know, according to some, I guess, some recent Supreme Court precedent, you know, as far as what the homeless people. We don't want a society where everybody can live. Like, so, you know, but whatever kind of society we want to make, you know, like, we'll have to make those decisions, but we'll be okay. I mean, honestly, to me, I think this would be less of a problem than a population that hits 12 billion personally.
[00:56:34] Speaker B: Yeah, no, that's what I was.
I agree with that. Like, I'd be more scared of us hitting like some crazy number, like 20 billion humans than going back, let's say, to 5 billion. You know, like, even that's a lot. I mean, you think? I think in the year 1900, the world population was estimated around one and a half to 1.8 billion. And so now we're at eight, just over 100 years later. So, yeah, I think. And then think about like, the shows we've done about the amount of, you know, I think it's 800 million tons a year of plastic being put into the earth. You know, all these things that it's just the more humans we have, the more, you know, this stuff is going to even more. We're going to pollute the earth and make it less sustainable for us long term.
But a couple of stats to read real quick that I find interesting. One is in 1950. From 1950 to 2021, the global fertility rate halved from 4.84 babies per woman to 2.23 around the globe. And the estimate is that by 2050 it'll be down to 1.83 and by 2100, 1.59. So I mean, look, just the stats we have in a 71 year period to cut to cut in half. That rate seems pretty dramatic. And if we go, we'll go from, in 150 years, if the. If the projection ends up being correct, from almost five babies per woman globally down to one and a half. So that is a market change. Now, my concern is based on even just the topic, too. We just did that emotionally and culturally as a society, kind of global society is going to get uglier if this continues to happen. Because number one is. Some of the articles I read discuss this rate of decline is not going to be the same everywhere. This isn't going to be like Hubble constant. Right? It's going to be like the Webb telescope showed us universe expanding in different, different speeds in different areas. And I think I. This fertility thing is going to be the same. It's happening in different ways in different places. So, for example, most of the developed world is assumed to continue to decline. The global birth rates, that would be United States, western and eastern Europe, you know, developed Asia, places like that.
[00:58:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Like even the largest, you know, they're looking at China and India as, you know, like the populations are going to start going down.
[00:58:57] Speaker B: Yeah, declining, but where it's going to grow, it's saying now 29% of all babies in the world are born in the continent of Africa right now. And the assumption is by 2100, the year 2100, that number will be 54%. So half.
[00:59:15] Speaker A: And again, that's still a projection based on current numbers. We don't know.
[00:59:18] Speaker B: Yeah, but I'll just say this trend continues. But that's where I'm going, is this world will have to deal with the reality that most humans are going to be born in Africa. And when we're talking about things like migration patterns that help economies. Right. And the idea of being able to grow population, this is what I'm saying is that there's going to be continued disruption in my migratory patterns caused by conflicts and climate change and all that. And I just think that the way that we as humans deal with other cultures and dealing with people that are dealing with disasters that got to go somewhere else, we're going to have a lot of conflict.
[00:59:52] Speaker A: I think that's been a constant all along anyway.
[00:59:55] Speaker B: Like that.
[00:59:55] Speaker A: That would be just more of the same. Like, there hasn't been some period where.
[00:59:58] Speaker B: It'S like, oh, worse.
[00:59:59] Speaker A: Everybody's. And chilling and nobody's moving around and nobody's upset about people moving around. I mean, but the thing to me, and here's this, is this the biggest takeaway is that, yes, those less developed countries now have the higher birth rates. But if they become more developed, based on what's happened everywhere else, they'll start having lower birth rates, too. Like, it seems to not be a function of the people that are there. It seems to be a function of the. The nature of the society at that moment. Like, once you hit us, once you get to a certain level of development and so forth, it seems like that it coincides with lower birth rates. And so, in the same way that it wasn't uniform, that hunter gatherer societies, once you have started having some hunter gatherer societies, become agriculture and have more babies, once the agricultural societies had more babies, the hunter gatherers didn't also start having more babies. It was when they became agricultural that they started to have more babies. So it seems to be maybe with more time, if you go 100 years into the future, it will be what we're going through now will be seen in a similar way as the agricultural revolution is that once we hit a certain threshold of the information age, having more babies was less necessary in societies. And naturally, humans just had less babies. In the same way that once you went into an agricultural society, having more babies was advantageous. And so people did that. They weren't told to do that. They saw it like it was just reacting to their environment. So, I mean, again, that us, as human beings react to what's going on culturally and so forth isn't the craziest thing in the world. It would almost to be expected. It would be weirder if we didn't react at all. And it's just maybe that happens over such long periods of time that when it's going on, we can't really, like, it's hard for us to sort out what's exactly happening. But again, it seems as development spreads and as the information agent on stuff spreads and, you know, and so forth, certain societies changed. It does seem to coincide with a lower birth rate in the same way that agricultural spread seemed to coincide with a higher birth rate. You know, so I, again, it doesn't seem like, it seems just like, okay, yeah, we're going through something right now, you know, and we'll be okay at the end is, I mean, I guess as long as we have leadership that is of the right character and that knows how to get the most out of a society.
[01:02:12] Speaker B: Well, that's my concern, is that history has shown that in times of change, that many nations will have leaders bubble up to the surface who want to use those changes as a way to continue to divide people and make them more fearful. I think and that's my point of saying, yeah, and that's my point of saying. With the ability for humans to move so freely around the world, I mean, we saw this last decade with the Europeans as relates to those who are looking to escape the conflicts in the Middle east, especially when ISIS started really rearing its ugly head. And so, you know, maybe like you're saying maybe 500, a thousand years ago, people, when someone was causing some mass slaughters in the Middle east, people couldn't just get up and take boats and rafts and all that and immediately, you know, powered by motors and all that, immediately get to another continent or get on planes or drive cars and trucks. Now they can't. And so it can go the other.
[01:03:11] Speaker A: Way though, too, though, as societies age, they could start trying to get more people from different places to come, you know, like that. It could go that way too. Like, we just don't know.
[01:03:21] Speaker B: The only time that's ever been tried is when they try and do that for free.
And that doesn't work out too well either.
[01:03:30] Speaker A: People have tried to force people to do it, you know, like that.
[01:03:32] Speaker B: I'm glass half empty today on this.
[01:03:34] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:03:35] Speaker B: I don't think this goes because the last thing I'll say, just as a joke is I was thinking, yeah. The more humans, if we have 10 billion people on the earth, the quicker pandemics can spread.
We need to get back to a smaller population where we got some, you know, mountain ranges and oceans that can, you know, we don't seem to work that well through global pandemics.
[01:03:54] Speaker A: No, no, for sure. For sure. So. But no, we can. We can wrap it up from there. But, yeah, I mean, again, I think that, I appreciate the experts noting this for us, but, I mean, yeah, I think we can't get ahead of ourselves. Like, this just is something that's happening. And I'd be more concerned if this was happening by decree, you know, or, you know, if this was happening, because.
[01:04:13] Speaker B: Can I tell my wife that I can do the world of service by going to have a bunch of babies with younger chicks?
[01:04:20] Speaker A: Hey, man, you gotta work, man. Hey, take your shot. I guess you shoot your shop if you go for it, but I don't know how far that would go for you.
[01:04:27] Speaker B: I don't show up for the show next week, then didn't go well, then.
[01:04:30] Speaker A: You shot your shot, but now that's what it means. Yeah. We appreciate everybody, for joining us on this episode of call. Like I see it, subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it, tell us what you think. Send it to a friend. Till next time. I'm James Keys.
[01:04:44] Speaker B: I'm Tunde. Winlana.
[01:04:45] Speaker A: All right, we'll talk to you next time.
