Kevin Dolan of Exit joins me to talk about his new piece, "How We Can Be More Self Reliant in the Event of a Major Natural Disaster." He talks about the failure of the federal government to prepare for a major natural disaster, and how communities can step up to fill the void.
00:03:04.600Of course, disaster is horrible and we have to be prepared,
00:03:08.620but recognizing that that responsibility is no longer going to routinely fall on the federal government.
00:03:14.300They just do not have the capacity, perhaps, or have the willpower or are actively malicious
00:03:20.620in their distribution of the willpower and the resources to do these kinds of things.
00:03:26.580Can you talk a little bit about the failure that we've seen in the last hurricane
00:03:31.200and the way that conservatives or those on the right or just those that are currently worried
00:03:36.940about the direction of the government are going,
00:03:38.340what they might be able to do to step up and fill that gap?
00:03:41.100Yeah, so obviously other commentators can speak more to the reality on the ground.
00:03:48.460A lot of people who know more about what's specifically going on,
00:03:52.380but just from what I'm observing, it's not only like a failure to help,
00:03:58.820it's also like interfering with ordinary people's ability to help.
00:04:03.980And it's very much this calcification, ossification of what I've heard called the vitocracy,
00:04:14.240the rule by veto, where just everything is denied, nothing's allowed, nothing's permitted.
00:04:19.980Because if you fly in with your own helicopter, then that might cause a problem,
00:04:27.640cause some liability issue, somebody might get mad.
00:04:30.860And so in order, me as a bureaucrat, I don't get any like rewards if everything goes well.
00:04:37.300I only get punishments if things go poorly.
00:04:40.100And so what my objective is just to like defray responsibility as much as possible.
00:04:46.600And, uh, and so you're seeing that with, you know, all sorts of sort of the types of aid
00:04:55.100that they're trying to distribute, the types of relief they're trying to offer,
00:04:58.280where they're like coming in on helicopters to pick people up or, or, or trying to distribute aid.
00:05:02.940Um, it like represents both in the immediate sense, like a risk to the sort of local bureaucrats,
00:05:09.820uh, uh, control of the situation that might, might lead to, you know, embarrassment or problems for them.
00:05:16.260But in the bigger picture, it's also like kind of a challenge to the state itself,
00:05:20.920uh, because it is, it is highlighting the extent to which the state is not serving the people in this really basic way.
00:05:28.760And it is made much more dramatic when it is cast in relief against the quantities of money and support that we are just throwing hand over fist overseas.
00:05:42.440Yeah. You can imagine a world in which the government just doesn't have the ability to solve all these things or runs out of money in some way,
00:05:51.800but it's a very strange thing when you observe our Congress finding hundreds of billions of dollars for Ukraine,
00:05:59.440finding all kinds of money for Israel, finding all kinds of money.
00:06:03.180We just, they're just announced that they're sending money to Lebanon.
00:06:06.520You know, we're very concerned about the modernization and the readiness of Lebanon while people in North Carolina are drowning.
00:06:13.120Like, you know, there's a lot to be said.
00:06:15.900There's debates about foreign aid and, and what the value is of kind of, uh, the projection of power through the global American empire.
00:06:27.680And there are a lot of people debating, okay, did FEMA send the exact money that was earmarked for this relief aid to, to these illegal immigrants?
00:06:36.420Are they, you can chase down all those dollars.
00:06:38.720I have people who are documenting it, documenting that I want to bring them on and that's going to happen.
00:06:43.580But today we're not here to hash out every little earmark and whether the money is flowing exactly where it's supposed to be.
00:06:49.840The point is that when the government needed to draw funds for the empire, it can find them.
00:06:56.060It can find them all day, all at once.
00:06:58.500And then you get someone like my work is stepping up and saying, oh, sorry, we're just out of money for the actual thing.
00:07:12.140This is just basic government one-on-one functioning.
00:07:15.600And it's got infinite money to send the, to pay the, the, the bureaucrats in Ukraine to pay off their pensions and these kinds of things.
00:07:22.140But, but it doesn't have money to do that.
00:07:24.740And it just becomes very clear that whether a specific dollar amount was properly allocated or maybe, maybe too much went to some foreign country.
00:07:32.760Ultimately, what's really important is that when the people that the government is designed to serve or supposed to serve are in desperate need, it simply can't find that money more.
00:07:42.420Just the, the, the infinite well of money just ran dry.
00:07:45.000Yeah, and it's, well, I mean, it's, it's sort of a problem that they have created for themselves, at least in terms of messaging, where all of these fiscal crises, all of these like monetary problems, all of these foreign policy problems, they're, anyone who says, you know, hey, this is an irresponsible use of like the, the sort of the treasury,
00:08:13.680the, the, the, the, the, the, the state's wealth and state's resources has been answered for like 15 years with like, well, there's infinite money in the federal reserve.
00:08:25.340There's, it's like this system is not constrained by money.
00:08:29.400Um, and what that, what that paradigm of the way money works, what that paradigm is intended to obfuscate is the sense in which every printing of money is a dilution, right?
00:08:46.100There is, you're always taking resources from somebody to distribute to somebody else.
00:08:49.960And so, uh, they have had a long time where, frankly, a lot of the, uh, the people who, uh, had their stuff taken from them were overseas.
00:09:03.160Um, in terms of what, what our monetary policy, uh, how it actually cashed out in outcomes for, for people.
00:09:11.240Um, and so they never had to make a lot of like internal compromises.
00:09:15.360They never had to say no to this party to say yes to that party.
00:09:19.700And, um, I, I'm not convinced that like, in this case, they really, like, there was a, like, I don't think, uh, secretary Mayorkas was like, oh shit, I'm sorry.
00:10:05.980Like we've got, you know, what, what does that mean?
00:10:08.900Which reasons in particular, why those regions are not worth building back?
00:10:13.240We're, we're building housing for illegal immigrants in Ohio.
00:10:17.240You know, with that, they're, they're enriching the community.
00:10:20.440What, why, you know, and it becomes, like you said, that unfortunately is a very sinister discussion here where we start to recognize, oh no, they don't want to do this.
00:10:28.780Like they could find, uh, if we shook the federal reserve couch cushions, you could find the money to pay for the rebuilding of Georgia and North Carolina.
00:10:37.940They don't want to, they hate these people.
00:10:40.980They, they want them, their communities to fail.
00:10:44.600It's hard not to draw that conclusion when looking at all the other things we seem to be able to find money for.
00:10:51.480But yeah, and I think there's probably an extent to which, uh, it's a football.
00:10:57.820It's sort of like how, um, the, the U S military loses all its war games, because when you lose war games, you get to go back to appropriations and get a pile of money to, to make it so that America will win the war game.
00:11:11.440Like there's probably an extent to which this is just sort of, um, you know, uh, the baby bird asking to be fed, right?
00:12:05.900I was just going to say, what's cool about it, uh, if there's anything cool about it is, is watching the way that Americans have responded.
00:12:13.760Um, because it's, it's very, uh, there's a lot of spontaneous organization happening and that spontaneous organization is, is like multi-purpose.
00:12:27.260Like it doesn't, the, the, the people who are forming bonds right now and establishing themselves as credible and competent, uh, in a, in a crisis.
00:12:35.040Those, those, those people, uh, the, the, the, the, uh, uh, social power that they are building in this crisis does not go away when the crisis is over.
00:12:46.100Um, and that's, that's, that's sort of the thesis of, of the post, which is that, that, uh, the way the mandate of heaven is, is, is reclaimed, uh, sort of from an incumbent is, uh, it, it rarely starts with a fight.
00:13:01.640It usually starts with being credible and competent in ways that the state is not.
00:13:08.420Um, and, and, and, and establishing yourself, you know, not as a, uh, not as an agent of chaos and agent of destruction, but as the, the guarantors of good order, guarantors of, of public safety and public health and sort of, uh, sliding into roles that the state is not fighting you over roles.
00:13:31.660The state is abdicated and, um, this is a situation where, you know, FEMA, et cetera, like they're trying to push back.
00:13:46.700They're trying to sort of, uh, stop this help from getting through, but they really can't like, like in, in, in broad strokes, like they can threaten, they can sort of, you know, warn people.
00:14:01.460People cajole people, but like, they're actually not going to like jail people for trying to bring disaster supplies to a disaster area.
00:14:11.240Like, I just, I don't, I don't see that happening as, as, as, as malicious as you might think they are.
00:14:20.780Um, and part of the chaos of our present situation, part of what makes it so volatile and interesting.
00:14:29.240Is that they are no longer in complete control of the, uh, instruments that generate the narrative.
00:14:39.240And so, you know, as, as, as malicious as you may believe them to be, they face a lot of constraints.
00:14:46.000And one of the constraints is they're going to let this help get through.
00:14:49.400Um, yeah, you included this picture, uh, which I think might be the picture of the, of the disaster.
00:14:57.480Like for me, that kind of solidifies what's going on here, the mules carrying, you know, supplies over the mountain when, when nothing else can get through.
00:15:06.260And it, it, there's a couple of incredible things happening here.
00:15:10.860First, the idea that any government would actively restrict aid in a disaster is just absolutely wild.
00:15:20.280And when you recognize, you know, at first people, Oh, how, why would you do this?
00:15:57.240And so the reason that they're pushing back is not just that, Oh, well, you know, we just don't like these people and we don't want to help them.
00:16:05.160But because their plan is actively saying, no, we need to isolate the assistance so that it only flows from us.
00:16:33.420That, that is something that is so, and like you said, they can't stop all of this.
00:16:38.100Ultimately, there's just no way to do it.
00:16:39.920But the fact that they would even try that they would even, even put that just as so incredibly damning that I don't have words deficient, sufficiently explain the level of evil.
00:16:50.980But, but ultimately it really is understanding that tied in with all that money and tied in with that system.
00:16:59.500Ultimately, as you point out is sovereignty.
00:17:10.280Those that are dependent on a government, that person, that group, that government are sovereign over them.
00:17:16.460And if those people in that region aren't dependent on the federal government, if help comes from elsewhere, then that is power that the government is losing.
00:17:27.600And they recognize that just as much as we do.
00:17:30.740They know that that is something that they are failing to achieve when they lose control and other people actually help.
00:17:37.060Yeah, and there's a comparison to be drawn to the anarcho-tyranny in the cities with police sort of standing down and refusing to prosecute criminals.
00:17:50.760Like, most of us grew up in an environment where...
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00:18:40.700And when, you know, the summer of love went down, a lot of people started to realize, like,
00:18:48.720Oh, like, these police officers are actually not here to protect us from criminals.
00:18:54.500They're to protect the criminals from us.
00:18:56.440They're to prevent us from stopping this, from getting involved, because that would be a major power leakage.
00:19:01.100And, you know, in earlier times, when, you know, law enforcement felt like it was executed competently and more or less in the interests of the community,
00:19:13.580I don't think most of us really pushed back on, like, the monopoly on violence.
00:19:18.020We were, like, sort of like, well, yeah, you know, that's who's in charge and you don't want to interfere.
00:19:21.800And with, with, because you can make it more complicated.
00:19:25.360Like, like, the stuff FEMA is saying about, like, oh, yeah, you're messing up our flight paths or you're, you know, you're getting in the way and you're creating problems.
00:19:34.840Um, and if FEMA were actually, like, on top of it and handling it competently and didn't seem like they were, you know, like, actively trying to impede, uh, people getting help.
00:19:49.140Then I think we would all go, like, oh, yeah, you know, you should probably go through the proper channels and you should probably, you know, make sure you report to your designated, you know, because, because you would believe that, like, you would actually be put to work in some kind of a useful way.
00:20:00.920Um, I mean, I did that, uh, in, in 2005, I was, uh, graduating senior in high school and me and a buddy, uh, went down after hurricane Katrina to Houston and just, uh, kind of walked around until somebody put us to work.
00:20:15.820And, and yeah, it was like the official channels.
00:20:17.620There was official, you know, for all the, for all the talk about how, um, you know, chaotic the, the, the Katrina situation was, you know, there, there were people who could, who could put us to work and we felt like we were doing good.
00:20:28.020And, uh, yeah, in this case, it's very much like, no, stay away.
00:20:34.380Like, don't like, don't, don't get involved.
00:20:48.940It does actually make more sense for these things to flow.
00:20:51.900There's a reason you set up this architecture.
00:20:54.200If you actually plan to do the work, right.
00:20:57.780But as you say, same, the same problem you're having, you know, people are being denied aid or being turned away when they try to help in North Carolina for the same reason, Daniel Penny is in jail.
00:21:12.160It's, it's, it's because they represent an alternative to a system that has decided it's no longer doing that job and no one else is allowed to do it either.
00:21:23.700It's not, it's not that it exists and it's just, uh, you know, there's a, you know, some problem somewhere.
00:21:28.700It's like, no, we're actively not going to do this, but we can't let you do that because that will make us look bad.
00:21:39.660We're going to hold this, but you can't do it either.
00:21:41.860And, and this is really where that crack forms.
00:21:44.940And I want to get deeper into that with you.
00:21:46.340Cause like you said, in the piece that creates opportunity for leadership.
00:21:50.440And I think that's the really critical thing.
00:21:52.420Obviously the, the problems, the issues, the, the downright atrocities that are happening with our government and these disaster efforts.
00:22:00.080And what I can imagine is only going to be much worse as what's right now.
00:22:03.820Category five is bearing down on Florida, planning to go up a, a corridor that has already been hit by this storm, uh, or the, the previous storm in a similar way.
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00:24:10.180So as you already pointed out, you have these moments where regimes start to lose a grip.
00:24:19.240And it's not because necessarily there's some immediate conflict.
00:24:23.800There's not that civil conflict breaks out right away.
00:24:26.880It's that in these areas that are domains of sovereignty for the state, there's a failure.
00:24:34.580There's a competition because a space has opened up.
00:24:38.320It's weak regimes that see this kind of failure, not strong ones, not competent ones.
00:24:43.560And so what a lot of people observed, of course, in the case of, say, Ron DeSantis in Florida, is that a moment where the pandemic was clearly being used for political gain, where enemies were being punished and the aid was being withheld and people were being treated in ridiculous ways.
00:25:01.880He carved out this safe space, the safe moment for Floridians and many people concentrated there.
00:25:09.660And the reason that DeSantis continued to build momentum is in these moments, whether it be, you know, the culture war with Disney, whether it be schools and education and DEI and gender stuff, in every one of these moments where the state was trying to force these things down and there's no other resistance, he stepped in.
00:25:29.120And again, you see this with hurricane stuff.
00:25:31.980Again, two years ago in my area, we had a devastating hurricane.
00:25:35.620They were told that the bridges to the barrier islands, which still had large populations on them, were completely wiped out and they would be out for years.
00:25:43.660And DeSantis said, rip out every permit, get rid of all of it.
00:25:54.260And these things went up in weeks and months instead of years.
00:25:57.680And that's the kind of thing that gains you loyalty, right?
00:26:02.220For someone who grew up in this area and loves this area and watch that happen, that is something that puts me ride or die when it comes to DeSantis being a governor in my area.
00:26:13.420And even though, you know, we've got another devastating hurricane coming this direction, I know we're going to be in a better place than Georgia or North Carolina is, if only because the competent leadership that exists there is going to make a huge difference.
00:26:26.520And I think that's the kind of thing that you're talking about in that article, where that opportunity to build those local and regional power structures really pushes back against the state as a whole.
00:26:38.700I mean, several of the examples that I've used on my podcast, I mean, I've talked about Taliban, I've talked about Hezbollah, which, you know, obviously don't endorse Taliban or Hezbollah.
00:26:49.360But viewing them as alternative power structures that are pushing against an overwhelmingly militarily superior opponent and winning, that's something that's worth studying.
00:27:03.440And in both cases, you find that, like, a lot of times it gets chalked up to like, oh, you know, they just, they won because they were so ruthless.
00:27:14.780They won because they were, they were so, you know, willing to go places we wouldn't go.
00:27:20.540And maybe there's some truth to that in some domains, but, but, but really, it was about the provision of services that the existing power structure could not provide.
00:27:30.960Like, like, a lot of people don't know that Hezbollah started as like clinics and schools and like, like job help, like, like job training, like, like an NGO.
00:27:42.960And they started doing like neighborhood watch patrols, which when the civil war broke out, became, you know, militias.
00:27:50.040And then once there was war with Israel, they were sort of able to justify holding on to their armaments while the whole rest of the country disarmed.
00:27:59.420Because they were like, well, we're right on the border with Israel, we have to keep fighting this war with them.
00:28:03.280And of course, they ended up like actually deliberately prolonging that war so they could hang on to their weapons.
00:28:07.560But, but, but it's about establishing themselves as the place you go.
00:28:17.120Like, if you, if you, if you're, if your home got bombed out by artillery or rocket, you found your like Hezbollah neighborhood rep, and he would like quote out, you know, here's what needs to be done to rebuild your house.
00:28:29.620And, you know, here's how we're going to, you know, get you, make sure you got groceries for the next couple of weeks.
00:28:33.780And, and, you know, if, if, you know, if you lose your job, you go to your Hezbollah guy, like that's who you go to.
00:28:39.220And similarly with the, with the Taliban, a big part of what they would do to get people bought into their program was they would go to bat for you with respect to like your water rights or your grazing rights.
00:28:54.220And they would say like, we're running the, you know, like, like, like, Kabul has their, like, equivalent of a county recorder who says, you know, where all the water rights are and where the, where the sort of boundary lines for the land are.
00:29:09.680And, you know, they've got theirs, but like, you know, local warlords and bureaucrats are like just stuffing their pockets and, and, you know, drawing the lines, however they want them.
00:29:20.060But we're going to be like, honest and fair, and we're going to actually have like Islamic courts that, that, that hash out who things belong to.
00:29:29.880And so then, you know, the guy who, who owns some, some grazing rights in some territory that's contested, you know, when the Taliban comes and says like, hey, it's time to put a rifle in your son's hand and have him go fight for us.
00:29:41.440He's, he's not exactly fighting for like Sharia or the caliphate or, or, or, or the, the, the, the warlords interests.
00:29:49.200He's fighting for his own water rights.
00:29:50.780He's fighting for his well or his sheep or whatever it is.
00:29:53.480And so by, by providing this like very seemingly pedestrian, like essentially like counter county recorder's office type service, they were able to get a ton of buy-in and, and that, that space was opened up precisely because the Kabul government was failing to give people sort of recourse justice in, in terms of these land disputes.
00:30:17.160And it was, and it was just obviously corrupt and everybody knew it.
00:30:20.260And so, uh, similarly, uh, the, the alternative power structures that emerge, uh, from, from these crises, you look at, you look at South Africa as well.
00:30:34.920Like, like the fact that, um, I had, I had a podcast episode with canine Reaper, who's a, I think he calls himself a community safety activist.
00:30:42.480Um, there's lots of like euphemisms for basically they're like, they're like private police and, and they're able to like, they're able to exercise so much more latitude in terms of like their sec, not their second amendment rights, but they're, they're, they're, they're right to bear arms.
00:30:59.180They're right to, uh, protect themselves with weapons, um, than Americans are just because the state can't really contest those rights and actually needs their help just to maintain basic order.
00:31:11.440And so, uh, you know, when people talk about like, like the, the, the problem with like the, the militia movement in the nineties, and I mean, there was a lot of problems with it, but one of the problems was that they were trying to contest space that the federal government was still, uh, competently executing and defending.
00:31:33.060And so the difference between those guys and like the South African community safety guys is the South African community safety guys are doing something that like everybody acknowledges is an urgent present need.
00:31:46.880Like for everybody, like for everybody, including the government, even, you know, the government may, you know, hate people who look like canine Reaper because he's a, he's a white guy, he's English.
00:31:56.480Um, but it doesn't matter because they actually need the help.
00:31:59.400They actually, they actually value what he's doing.
00:32:12.800And that would never be permitted in the U S because of the decline of state power in South Africa.
00:32:18.660And, and so I guess the, the, the point of the whole piece was like the way to build power is by being useful and doing things that everybody acknowledges need to be done.
00:32:30.720There's this kind of like Jordan Peterson, like clean up your room, uh, uh, character to it.
00:32:35.880Like, you know, take, take responsibility for something that nobody else is taking responsibility for.
00:32:41.160And like, one of the cool things about living through a catastrophic, like competency crisis and failure of all our institutions is that there's all kinds of responsibilities being abdicated right now.
00:32:52.320And, um, so it's a target rich environment.
00:34:33.400That's the one thing people know about it.
00:34:35.500And when this hurricane comes again, I promise you, people are going to be looking to that church and say, how do we solve this problem, right?
00:34:46.760That is, that is something that no election can buy you, right?
00:34:50.320That, that is a reputation for order, for stability, for competence.
00:34:55.780It's that simply, you can't get through just some kind of political process in and of itself.
00:35:01.560This is politics in its most basic and most organic creation.
00:35:06.560And so you're absolutely right to say that, you know, we're, we're not excited about, you know, as I've pointed out in my own book, the total state, when it comes apart, most people are going to be in a terrible place.
00:35:18.480They're not going to be prepared for this moment when these things come apart.
00:35:21.540But it is this moment now where guys can build these things, where people can step up and take that responsibility that will allow your community to succeed through these things.
00:35:32.380And it will be the intentionality that you put towards this stuff and your willingness to do the work and assume this responsibility that no one else is willing to assume that will make the difference when things like a hurricane, a natural disaster, or some other failing of the federal government affects your area.
00:35:49.780You will build that credibility and people will rely on you along with, of course, you doing the very good thing that you are doing on top of that in order to create a situation where your community is a better place and you have real leadership.
00:36:04.200You know, there's something that, that, that matters.
00:36:06.260It's not just votes tallied somewhere.
00:36:08.480It is a tangible thing that saved your community.
00:36:16.460And yeah, and I think when you're talking about that sort of being the foundation of the state, I totally agree.
00:36:20.460I think a lot of people have, because they're, because they're very jaundiced with respect to our present government, they sort of take a negative view of, of, of states in themselves or even of power.
00:36:35.320Um, but I would argue that like, when you, when you, when you sort of read about like the primordial origins of the state, it's like, it's like primarily like families and tribes trying to take care of themselves and trying to take care of each other.
00:36:50.140And, um, the people who rise to the top are not always like bandits and raiders.
00:36:58.460Like they're very often like sort of the, the, the, the dragon slayer, the, the, the, I've got this, this, uh, verse, um, that black and orange thing in the back there.
00:37:08.120You can't read it obviously, but it's Isaiah 58.
00:37:10.460Um, it's my favorite scripture and talks about, um, being the repairer of the breach and the restorer of paths to dwell in.
00:37:16.160Um, and I think that's sort of the role that we should see for ourselves is, uh, and, and it talks about inheriting the waste places.
00:37:26.920Um, it's, it's a very, it's a very powerful scripture.
00:37:30.300And I, I think it, it's, it's almost like an instruction manual for what we're trying to be.
00:37:35.180Um, so, so yeah, uh, be, be of service, be useful, be credible.
00:37:39.960And like, you know, in my case, um, I have never been, you know, I'm, I'm not a pipe hitter.
00:37:47.260I, I, I don't know how to like, you know, clear a door or anything.
00:37:51.040Um, so, so what I have tried to do is to connect the most useful people that I can and, and help them help each other and, and, and connect them with resources, connect them with funding.
00:38:03.260Like, like, like be kind of in between, um, because I'm not all that useful in a concrete sense myself.
00:38:12.160Um, so, so, but, but I mean, like when you look at, when you look at who succeeded in the, uh, the collapse of the Soviet Union in, in the civil war in the, the Balkans, um, even, even in South Africa, any, any, any period of like extended chaos.
00:38:29.920Um, it's not necessarily, it's, it's usually not like the people who bugged out to a farm who do well, who thrive.
00:38:40.720Uh, it's usually the people who like figured out how to get stuff, who like figured out like how to, you know, if you, if you needed to get a friend through a checkpoint or you needed, you needed a connection on some cigarettes or some vodka or some diapers or, you know, all kinds of things.
00:38:57.060Um, the people who knew how to get stuff and how to, and how to solve problems for other people.
00:39:04.920And, you know, obviously some of those people were like also criminals.
00:39:08.380And so like, you can, uh, I guess what I would say is.
00:39:13.040Well, you know, talking about Taliban, talking about Hezbollah, we're talking about like the, the, the Russian mafia and the, who became the oligarchs.
00:39:19.180Like, we're not saying like, these are, these are great people who are exemplary in all ways, but like, uh, it's not, um, the way to power is not strictly just by being like the most monstrous.
00:39:36.060Uh, the way to power is by finding ways to be useful.
00:39:38.760And like, sometimes the people who are the most useful, like are also, you know, bad people in other ways, but like, you can just be useful.
00:40:11.680You have that capacity, but it is really, again, the, the ability to make civilization possible, to facilitate these things, to be the resolver of problems in any given, better be a material, whether it be social, whatever it is.
00:40:26.020You're the person that people turn to.
00:40:27.980You're the organization that people assume will be in charge.
00:40:31.460You're the one that is going to step into that breach.
00:40:33.980And in these moments where the state is failing or choosing to fail, or, you know, whatever, however you want to, you know, parse the incompetency or malice, you know, a debate.
00:40:47.480Ultimately, when those positions open up and those opportunities open up, when people are yearning for that need, that leadership and that guidance and that facilitation, the fact that you're standing there and you're willing to make a difference and you're willing to get that done is just going to put you on another level.
00:41:06.260And I think it's really important for people to recognize that there are so many ways to do this, right?
00:41:36.740Like these are the, the social spheres that are exerting influence in our community and that we can rely on, on, on a regular basis, that it's essential to not just recognize that you need to, you know, take a step, but you need to find other people, like-minded people who are willing to bind together and do that and do the hard work when no one else will, because you're not, this is not a project you can just do on your own.
00:42:04.620Like there's, we, we are, we are a hundred percent social creatures.
00:42:08.600We are, we are built to, to live and work and act in tribes.
00:42:12.820And I, I did a, I did a podcast about de-territorialization a while ago, which is kind of a big fancy word for sort of being shaken loose from your evolutionary context, the context in which all of your adaptations were developed.
00:42:26.560Um, and so having to, having to sort of survive from first principles in an environment to which you are not well suited, uh, which is sort of where we're all heading.
00:42:36.980And, um, one of the reasons that, uh, human beings are able to be knocked loose from pretty much any context and still be like the apex predator of, of whatever environment they find themselves in is our ability to, uh, intelligently problem solve and use technology and our ability to mob up and work together.
00:43:02.460Um, essentially, you know, your, your, uh, your digits, your ability to manipulate the world with your, uh, with your hands and your ability to, to lead and organize others with your voice.
00:43:13.360And so, uh, essentially exits all about that.
00:43:16.400It's, it's about, it's about developing both of those skillsets, making us more competent, uh, sort of shape rotators and word cells as it were.
00:43:24.660Um, and maybe your audience doesn't know what that means, but, but, but, but, but it's a very online set of phrases.
00:44:06.580Um, the, the future is so, uh, volatile and so nebulous right now in a way that it maybe never has been before.
00:44:13.840And so my, my sort of thinking is you got to look for what's meta adaptive.
00:44:18.060You got to look for what's, for what makes us more adaptive, regardless of the circumstances.
00:44:22.540Well, I hate to break this to you, but now James Lindsay is going to accuse you of being part of my globalist plan of regionalism.
00:44:29.080We've done nothing but talk about regionalism today.
00:44:31.740And that's exactly what the WDF wants us to think, right?
00:44:34.740Like that's George Soas is really thinking, you know, if I can just get Kevin and Oren to devise this, you know, uh, system where groups work on their own and provide for their community, then I will have conquered the globe.
00:44:48.440Uh, but we will, we'll have not done anything to dispel that, that conspiracy theory.
00:44:53.060I take, I take cash, I take check, I take crypto, George, reach out.
00:45:51.760Uh, and of course, if you'd like to get these broadcasts as podcasts, you need to subscribe to the Oro McIntyre show on your favorite podcast network.