Episode 2389 CWSA 02⧸19⧸24
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 2 minutes
Words per Minute
147.60258
Summary
In this episode of the podcast, I'm joined by author and technologist Carl Sagan to talk about some of the great new technologies that are happening in the world right now, including DNA, 3D printing, and the ultimate murder weapon.
Transcript
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Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo
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good morning everybody and welcome to the highlight of human civilization where all
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of your mysteries will be solved all your questions will be answered and all of your
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concerns will be addressed but if you'd like to take it up to a level that nobody can even
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understand with their tiny human brains all you need is a copper mugger a glass a tanker
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chalice with tine a canteen jugger flask a vessel of any kind play that back at 1.5 speed i dare
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area. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine at the end of the day,
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the thing that makes everything better. It's called the simultaneous sip, and it's going
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to happen right now. Go. Oh, that is unbelievably good. I'm going in for two. Second sip. Anybody,
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anybody, join me. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yep. Nailed it. Well, I'm going to tell you about some great new
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technologies that are kind of cool. Did you know that DNA is a really good data storage device?
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That all of the data of who you are is stored on these little parts of your body. And it turns out
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that the technologists now at the Paul Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering at the
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University of Washington are trying to make DNA computer data storage, which apparently would be
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massively better and faster than what we're doing. Does that sound like something that might actually
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happen? Do you believe that someday we will have DNA based databases? I'm going to say no.
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I'm going to say no. I just don't see it happening. Now, I'm like the biggest technology optimist in the
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world. I think we're going to, you know, go to Mars and all that stuff. But I don't think we're going
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to have DNA storage. I would love to be surprised. So maybe. There's a story about some young folks who
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designed and printed a drone that would be, if you bought it, it would be under $500. And it calculates
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GPS coordinates without a signal using a camera and Google Maps. So in other words, it will know where
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it is the same way a human would, by looking around. Now, if you could make a drone with a 3D printer,
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that means you could have a drone that nobody knows you purchased. So it would be like an unmarked gun.
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So you could have your own, you know, phantom drone or a ghost drone. It'd be like a ghost drone.
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It would cost you almost nothing, relatively speaking. And you can't be jammed with GPS.
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So they can't jam your GPS. You know what this is, right? This is the ultimate murder weapon.
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So they don't talk about the chips. You still have to get a chip somehow, unless you can attach your
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phone to it. I was always assuming that the murder drones would just take a phone. You could just take
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an old iPhone and just connect it to your murder drone, and it would have all the intelligence that
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it needed. That's what I always figured. But I think these will be used for assassinations.
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And then later for various terrorist activities. So now we have a way for the ordinary person to
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assassinate people and leave absolutely no sign. How would you find it? Let's say you,
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well, I guess there would still be some fingerprints on the chip. So you'd have to give us some
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instructions. And so that would give you a little bit of a hint who created it, but not much. So you
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wouldn't have any trace of where it came from. And you wouldn't know where it originated from.
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It's the ultimate weapon. My book, The Religion War, is largely written around this development. So one of
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the big plot points is that it's a place where anybody can send a drone to any place else and kill
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somebody. So that's coming. Well, as you might know, the only thing I think about more than ancient Rome
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is ancient Egypt and their pyramids, because it fascinates me all the different theories of how
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they got built. So you got your ancient alien theory. Aliens did it. You got your advanced prior human
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civilization that died out theory. You got your theory that the Egyptians were just really good at
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doing hard stuff, because their workforce was so impressive. So good. So good. And we keep
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wondering, how is it that these gigantic rocks got transported from distant quarries and raised up to
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the top? And I was doing my usual thing where I was thinking, all right, what are they not mentioning?
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So I'm thinking of all the different, you know, ways that people are explaining how it happened and why
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we couldn't do it today so easily. And I'm thinking there's one thing that's like clearly left
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out. It's that the rocks were made on site. And so I said to myself, what are those rocks made of?
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And I Googled it yesterday. And they're made of limestone. And I said to myself, theoretically,
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could you make your own limestone rock? It turns out you can. All you need is pressure. Literally
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just pressure. You put enough pressure on some limestone, crushed up limestone that you could,
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you know, hold in your hand like sand. You just crush it. It turns into a rock that lasts forever,
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because that's exactly what a limestone rock is. It's something that was sort of powder that was under
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pressure for a long time and turned into a rock. But you can make one right away. Now, there's a video
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on YouTube. Some French gentleman tested this theory. And he put up some wood forms. And he put
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some limestone dust that was common to his area, which apparently is very common to the area where the
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pyramids are. So there's like powdered limestone laying all over the place. And you put it in a little
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form. You add some water and some clay. And you wait a little while. And it's a perfect rock.
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Now, I know what you're going to say. I know what you're going to say. Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott.
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Why do you come into areas in which you know nothing about and try to act like you're suddenly the
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instant expert on something you clearly don't know a thing about? Because what let me tell you one
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thing, Scott, if they had made the stones for the pyramid, that would really be obvious. Because
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I think stone experts can tell the difference between a natural stone and a stone that was made
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by somebody, you know, just making a stone. Easy to tell. It'd be obvious. And that's true.
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There's one exception to that. Limestone. If you cut a limestone in half, it would look exactly the
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same whether it was a natural one or a fake one. It would look uniform all the way through, like
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concrete. It would just look all the way. A real one would be no different than one that formed
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naturally, because it'd be basically the same thing. So is it possible that the most obvious
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solution is the one that really was true? That maybe the reason that we don't see hieroglyphs
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of them making the bricks is that we don't have them making any kind of bricks. So keep this in mind.
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We know that the ancient Egyptians knew how to make bricks, because part of the construction of the
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pyramid is ordinary bricks that we know how they were made. So if they knew how to make a brick,
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and we know it's possible to make a giant rock and just limestone dust that you press together and put
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some water and clay in, you think they didn't figure that out? They already knew how to make bricks
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out of, you know, stuff on the ground. Don't you think that's a little bit more likely that they
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made the bricks or the big rocks on site, so they didn't have to relocate them 500 miles or whatever
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they allegedly did? Now you say to yourself, but Scott, Scott, Scott, you idiot. You freaking idiot.
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I can't even stand listening to you, because the one thing we know is that the quarries exist.
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There are hieroglyphics showing that they went to the quarries, and I think the quarries are real.
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I think that they may have also had real quarried rocks, especially the granite, because you can't
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make granite. You know, I looked into it. You can't make granite. That kind of needs to be naturally
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made. So if they have granite parts, probably exactly what you think. Copper tools took a long time,
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and a lot of people, you know, got it done. But the only thing I'm adding is that apparently the
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hard part to understand is how they did it in the timeline they did. So you could solve for how long
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it took by imagining that there was real quarrying of real rocks, just the way they say, but they
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weren't the majority. If you imagine that the majority of them were made on site, then it solves your
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timing problem, which is the biggest mystery. Because I think we all agree that if you had
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infinite time, you could have carved all the rocks and carried them and put them where they
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are. It would just be really hard. But if you had a lot of time, you could do it. So I'm going to
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throw that into the mix only for fun. I wouldn't make any bets on it. But I love the fact that the
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most obvious solution, which is that they made the rocks on site, is the one we're not talking about
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the most. Now, there might be an obvious reason why it doesn't work and nobody mentioned it to me.
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But just put that, here's the only thing I want to do with this story. I want to use it to open
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your mind to how easy it would be for the most basic things we know or think we know to be completely
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wrong. I'm just opening the possibility so that your mind can imagine, oh my goodness, we could be
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completely wrong about all these pyramid stones. That's all I'm trying to get. Doesn't mean I'm right.
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I'm not going to assert that I'm right. All right, here's some good news. You want some good news?
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There's some financial literacy classes that are growing up in high schools. So a lot of middle
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schools and high schools are teaching financial literacy, which is such a good idea. I've actually
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been thinking about doing it locally, you know, maybe over the summer or something. Just offer a
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financial literacy class for any neighbors who want to send their kid. And, you know, just do it in one
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day. Teach them a little bit about buying a stock and having a checking account and, you know, getting a
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mortgage, just the basic stuff. And the way that I teach it to young people, because I've taught a
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number of young people basics, is if you learn just a few things, everything else can flow from those
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few things. So there's a real easy way to get started in it that allows you access to everything
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else sort of automatically. So for example, when I say, if you're thinking of buying stocks,
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get a diversified ETF. So once you understand what that is, every other thing that you could do
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has to be better than that. And if nobody can tell you why it's better than that, don't do it.
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You don't need to. And what you would find is every time you look into a new thing, it's like,
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well, maybe I should own a municipal bond. And then you start looking into it, you Google it,
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and then you compare it to your ETF, and you go, huh, you know, maybe a little bit of these, just in
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case for diversity, but really, maybe I don't need it if I'm young. So you give them one foot in,
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and they can figure out the rest just by Googling and comparing it to what they already know.
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So there is an easy way in. That's the only thing I wanted to add there.
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I saw a post from Sahil Bloom who said, one of the most underrated traits in business and life
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is reliability. He says, you can get damn far by just being someone who people can count on to show
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up, punch the clock, and do the work. I gave exactly this speech to a young person recently.
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Exactly. I said, you don't understand how easy it is to succeed in today's world. If you're the
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person who shows up on time, doesn't take unnecessary Monday and Friday sick days,
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does what you say you will do, and doesn't complain too much about it, unless there's
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something genuine to complain about, you're going to be in the top 20% of every workforce.
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You all know that, right? That all the adults already know this. It's something that children
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don't know. But every adult already knows that it's actually rare for people to simply follow
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up on what they said they would do. If you just do that one thing, you will rule, or at least be in
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the top 20% of every workforce. Now, at the same time, we're seeing estimates that 40% of the jobs will
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go to robots. I don't think it's going to be that dire. I think robots will create as many jobs as they
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take away. We'll see how that works out. But if you're worried about it, if you're worried about
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you'll be one of the employees who gets in the lower 50% and therefore you might be replaced by a robot,
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try the simplest thing first. Try being reliable. Try showing up on time. Try doing what you say you'll do.
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You'll probably be fine. You won't be in the bottom 50% that gets fired and replace your robots.
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We'll get to the bigger stories in a minute. I like these fun ones. These are all palate cleansers.
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Well, NBC News went full racist. They had a story today that says that black patients who have heart
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problems, and apparently there's a pretty high rate of heart disease in black Americans,
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that they might not do as well if they go to a non-black cardiologist. And the thinking here is
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that if you go to a doctor, in this case a specialist, who has, let's say, a greater appreciation for your
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lifestyle and culture, that you're going to get a better outcome. That's NBC News.
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Now, let's dig into this a little bit. What are they trying to tell me? And it was alarming because
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my doctor is female and brown, and I don't know exactly what her background is. Maybe Indian? I don't
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know. I mean, she's American, but I don't know what her ethnic background is. However,
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I have seen that she does generally a very good job, despite NBC News warning me that I will have
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bad outcomes if I don't match the race and probably ethnicity, too, of my doctor. So I'm at a big risk.
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Now, the only places I've seen this are just a few places. There was last year I went to my doctor
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and I was complaining about an arm problem. You know, I had some stiffness in one arm.
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And my doctor was completely stumped, but she was smart enough to recommend me to a specialist.
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So the specialist has exactly the same background as my regular doctor, so there's no difference in
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the resume. But the specialist was a white man. He was a white man. Because my doctor knew that
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I needed a doctor, at least for the hard stuff, I probably needed a doctor who was my same gender
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and same race. I mean, that's why NBC News has reported that that's important. And sure enough,
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it's the sort of thing I would have doubted. But here's how it went. I sit down with a doctor who's
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white, like me, and male like me. First question out of his mouth when I say my arm is all stiff,
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he says, do you like old 70s rock? And I was like, what? And he said, do you like old 70s rock
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sounds? I was like, you know I do. I mean, just look at me. You think I don't like 70s rock? Take one
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look at me, obviously. And then he said, do you ever air guitar? And there it was. Yeah, finally,
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finally when my doctor matched my ethnicity and my gender, finally, he was like a laser-focused target,
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and he found the problem. Indeed, I've been over air guitaring to 70s rock. Now, did my brown female
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doctor have any idea that I was at that kind of risk? No, no. So like NBC News, I'm going to double
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down on their advice. You need to find somebody who looks just like you, because the medical advice
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from people who don't look just like you could be way off. So next time, ask for a specialist,
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somebody who has the same talents as your doctor, but looks different, according to racist NBC News.
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Well, here are two problems we've got in the United States. Well, a few of them, actually.
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Our food is too expensive. Do you agree? Our food is too expensive, you know, relative to what we
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would like it to be. Let's see. We don't have enough manufacturing capacity, sort of in general,
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but we're talking about it a lot because of ammunition. We don't have enough people to make
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ammunition in case we get into a shooting war. And generally speaking, if we'd like to reshore a lot
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of China's business, we don't have the manufacturing capacity. So is it my imagination?
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Or did we, by pure luck, have two problems that are all self-solving, or three or four? I feel like
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all of our problems are self-solving. Huh. We have this gigantic recent labor force that may not have
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specific skills, but they can do manufacturing and farming. We've got, our food's too expensive,
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and we don't have enough manufacturing and farming. But we've got all these people who don't have jobs,
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who would like jobs, and are mobile, and are not tied to any specific part of the country.
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So if we wanted to centralize them in some large, empty part of the country in the middle,
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where they would get instant jobs, and we would get instant manufacturing, it would take a little
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while to build the factory, but we've got a lot of labor to build the factory as well. And then they
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would work the fields, and perhaps they would live in boxable homes, or ADUs, or instant pop-up homes
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that we'd now know how to make in volume. And we would solve all of our problems. Not only that,
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but we would be the only industrial country who's not in a recession, because we would figure out a way
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how to monetize our biggest problems. Because if there's one thing the United States does better than
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any country ever, and this is one thing you'll agree, one thing the United States consistently
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does better than any country that's ever lived in the entire world,
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is we figure out how to make a profit out of our fuck-ups.
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Well, how about we build you some private prisons?
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Food's too expensive, and we don't have manufacturing.
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In the short run, it's just nothing but expense and problem.
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In the long run, if we had a functional country,
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you know what, we got a lot of blank space here,
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If you build here, you don't even have to pay taxes.
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Now, Germany apparently is entering a recession.
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This will be a real good economic question for you.