Dark Horse - Weinstein & Heying - This Reflects Badly: The 319th Evolutionary Lens with Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying
Aired: 2026-04-01
Duration: 01:23:59

[00:00:00]  Hey, folks, welcome to the Dark Horse Podcast live stream 319.

=== Canceling Beloved Holidays (04:52) ===

[00:00:12]  No, come on.
[00:00:14]  319?
[00:00:15]  How would, no, too many things divide into it.
[00:00:19]  So many.
[00:00:20]  It's not a huge number, but more than two.
[00:00:25]  Four, in fact.
[00:00:26]  Four.
[00:00:26]  All right.
[00:00:27]  I have no idea what they might be.
[00:00:29]  11 and 29.
[00:00:30]  11, 11 and 29.
[00:00:31]  Yeah.
[00:00:31]  That's beautiful.
[00:00:33]  Okay, well, I'm Dr. Brett Weinstein.
[00:00:35]  You are Dr. Heather Hyang.
[00:00:37]  It is April Fool's Day.
[00:00:39]  April Fool's Day, and you're not going to see this coming, but everything we're going to talk about is true as far as we know.
[00:00:46]  I'm actually...
[00:00:47]  But some of it, a lot of it maybe, we wish wasn't.
[00:00:50]  We wish this were an April Fool's episode.
[00:00:52]  We wish these were jokes.
[00:00:53]  Yes.
[00:00:55]  I will say I am now resolutely against April Fool's Day on the basis that every day is now April Fool's Day, and we do not need to compound the problem with one day in which we pretend... that the outlandish things that we are faced with are not true, ha ha ha, because so much that we are told is not true.
[00:01:14]  Yeah, you get like, it's almost like there's holiday creep.
[00:01:18]  Certainly there has been with Halloween.
[00:01:21]  You're not referring to me.
[00:01:23]  There's holiday creep.
[00:01:26]  And with Halloween, which is a holiday that I've never understood or been interested in, but yeah, as a kid, you know, dressed up and whatever, but it just, I've never understood adults' fascination with it.
[00:01:38]  Except that it speaks to some of the same things that like Mardi Gras does, that exploring the liminal, taking on a different role, being some, you know, putting on a different persona for a period and seeing how it goes.
[00:01:53]  But that has obviously become a year-round phenomenon for many people as well.
[00:01:56]  So good point.
[00:01:58]  You know, how many of these, you know, okay, how about St. Patrick's Day?
[00:02:02]  Well, some people are just drinking all the time, but, you know, maybe that was always the case.
[00:02:07]  Yes, although I now realize that you and I. are guilty of this in a way that I think either of us would defend ferociously, which is that you have so completely mastered the phenomenon of the Thanksgiving feast that we often end up doing more than one in a year.
[00:02:25]  Yeah, but it's not year-round.
[00:02:27]  Right.
[00:02:27]  No, it's definitely not a year-round thing.
[00:02:30]  But it has doubled the...
[00:02:33]  Sometimes.
[00:02:34]  Well, I guess I...
[00:02:37]  Because you and our delightful children, one of whom is about...
[00:02:41]  We're about not to have teenagers anymore.
[00:02:44]  Anyway, our younger son is going to turn 20 over the weekend, and that's rather extraordinary.
[00:02:49]  But because the three of you all declare that you love the traditional and traditionally inspired dishes that I make for Thanksgiving, I often make the same thing for Christmas.
[00:02:59]  Yep.
[00:03:00]  And, you know, it leaves days and days of delicious leftovers.
[00:03:04]  And if anyone is like, I don't really like turkey or I kind of am not into the thing, you know, we wouldn't be doing it.
[00:03:09]  Yeah, no, everybody likes it.
[00:03:11]  Yeah.
[00:03:11]  Whereas the universal cosplay that crept out of Halloween and the...
[00:03:18]  What did you...
[00:03:19]  Oh, April Fool's Day.
[00:03:20]  That's how we got here.
[00:03:21]  That's how we got here.
[00:03:23]  You are suggesting that every day has become a de facto April Fool's Day, and therefore we should just...
[00:03:30]  You're arguing for the cancellation of a beloved holiday is what you're doing.
[00:03:33]  I think we could revisit the matter were the world to return to a basically interpretable state.
[00:03:38]  Which you know it won't, and therefore you're arguing for cancellation.
[00:03:41]  Pretty well.
[00:03:42]  Which is frankly shocking.
[00:03:44]  Coming from you?
[00:03:45]  Actually, it's one argument you could make that I'm woke.
[00:03:48]  Is that I'm arguing to cancel April Fool's Day.
[00:03:51]  Cancellation being the sine qua non of woke.
[00:03:54]  Yes.
[00:03:55]  This was my point.
[00:03:56]  That's your point.
[00:03:57]  Yes.
[00:03:57]  Well, here's the thing.
[00:03:59]  Somebody, in response to my suggestion this morning that we get rid of this terrible holiday.
[00:04:05]  Oh, you'd said this publicly.
[00:04:06]  I did say this publicly, and somebody suggested, which I thought.
[00:04:09]  See, it's funny, you have two totally separate lives, and they come together sometimes here.
[00:04:14]  And sometimes I hear from people that are like, how could you not know he said this?
[00:04:18]  Like, I don't pay attention to all of the other things that he does publicly.
[00:04:22]  But in any case.
[00:04:23]  I assume that you will say the important things to me directly.
[00:04:25]  Yes.
[00:04:26]  Yeah.
[00:04:27]  And I do.
[00:04:27]  I don't think I very frequently do.
[00:04:29]  tweet something that you and I haven't had a discussion about or something like that.
[00:04:33]  But in any case, someone proposed that actually what we could do is we could reverse the holiday and on April 1st, people are required to tell the truth, which I think would be fantastic and would also cause Goliath to crumble in his tracks.
[00:04:50]  Yeah, it would cause market failure.
[00:04:53]  It might cause the market to return to being something other than a casino.

=== Mitophagy and Aging Cells (03:39) ===

[00:04:56]  Right.
[00:04:57]  That would be good.
[00:04:59]  Wouldn't that mean market failure in the current environment?
[00:05:02]  Well, the problem is that's a reserved term.
[00:05:04]  Oh, okay.
[00:05:05]  Yes, market failure is...
[00:05:07]  Sorry, didn't know.
[00:05:08]  Yeah, that's when markets screw you where they're supposed to be creating wealth and the market fails to do that for various reasons.
[00:05:15]  Yeah.
[00:05:17]  No, we can't use reserved terms.
[00:05:18]  No.
[00:05:19]  No, sir.
[00:05:20]  We have to reserve the reserved terms for what they're reserved for.
[00:05:22]  Yeah.
[00:05:24]  I guess we do.
[00:05:25]  Okay, we had a great Q&A on Sunday.
[00:05:27]  Go check it out on locals.
[00:05:29]  This is the first of a four-pack of Evolutionary Lens episodes, live streams we're doing today, Wednesday, next Saturday.
[00:05:35]  The following Wednesday, the following Saturday, and then we're off for a couple of weeks.
[00:05:40]  So keep coming back for these live streams, and you're doing some Patreons this weekend, and we've got all sorts of good stuff happening.
[00:05:47]  Yes.
[00:05:47]  Here.
[00:05:49]  Here, now, soon.
[00:05:51]  Yes.
[00:05:51]  All those things.
[00:05:52]  You know, all the things, as the kids now say.
[00:05:56]  Do they?
[00:05:56]  I'm pretty sure they do.
[00:05:58]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:06:00]  Okay.
[00:06:01]  We have three sponsors at the top of the hour, as we always do.
[00:06:04]  Three great sponsors, and...
[00:06:07]  You're acting like you're freaking out, but you're not really.
[00:06:10]  I always have a little trepidation about the reading, but you know.
[00:06:14]  You got this.
[00:06:15]  I'm going to power through.
[00:06:16]  Are we there?
[00:06:17]  Our first sponsor this week, Heather, is Timeline.
[00:06:21]  Timeline makes Mitopure, which contains a powerful postbiotic that is hard to find, no, hard to get from your diet.
[00:06:28]  No, hard to get from your diet alone colon urolithin A. Urolithin A is found primarily in pomegranates and has been the subject of hundreds of scientific or clinical studies, many of which find that it enhances mitochondrial function.
[00:06:41]  And cellular energy and improves muscle strength and endurance.
[00:06:44]  But how does it work?
[00:06:46]  Your mitochondria are the powerhouse of your cells, as your high school biology teacher tried to tell you.
[00:06:53]  Like everything living, they decay over time and get damaged.
[00:06:56]  The older we get, the more likely we are to have damaged mitochondria, which accumulate in joints and other tissues.
[00:07:02]  This is in part because mitophagy, the process by which damaged mitochondria are removed from cells, becomes less efficient the older we get due to a fascinating process called senescence.
[00:07:12]  The age related decline in mitophagy.
[00:07:15]  not only inhibits removal of damaged and excess mitochondria, but also impairs the creation of new mitochondria, which results in overall decline in cell function.
[00:07:24]  MitoPure from Timeline works by triggering mitophagy.
[00:07:30]  The journal Cell Reports Medicine published research in 2022 that in part reads as follows.
[00:07:37]  Targeting mitophagy to activate the recycling of faulty mitochondria during aging is a strategy to mitigate muscle decline.
[00:07:44]  We present results from a randomized placebo-controlled trial in middle-aged adults.
[00:07:48]  where we administer a postbiotic compound, urolithin A, might appear, a known mitophagy activator at two doses for four months.
[00:07:56]  The data shows significant improvements in muscle strength.
[00:07:59]  With intake of urolithin A, we observe clinically meaningful improvements in urolithin A on aerobic endurance and physical performance, but not a significant improvement in peak power output.
[00:08:09]  Furthermore, in 2016, research published in Nature Medicine found that in mice, the beneficial effects of urolithin A on muscle physiology were independent of diet or age.
[00:08:19]  Take two soft gels of Mitapure a day for two months, and you may see significant improvements in your muscle strength and endurance.
[00:08:25]  Mitapure enhances your cells' ability to clean themselves up and regenerate new, healthy mitochondria.
[00:08:30]  In combination with regular physical activity, Mightapure can help you stay strong and healthy into old age.

=== SaunaSpace Wellness Deals (03:12) ===

[00:08:36]  Timeline is now offering 20% off your first order of Mightapure.
[00:08:40]  Go to timeline.comslash dark horse and use the code DARK HORSE to get 20% off your first order.
[00:08:47]  That's T I M E L I N E.comslash DARK HORSE.
[00:08:53]  See, that wasn't so bad, was it?
[00:08:55]  It was a little rough at the beginning, but you know, we got there.
[00:08:57]  You got through it.
[00:08:58]  Yeah.
[00:08:59]  I even. slid in a few little pointers to fascinating material elsewhere and nobody was any the wiser.
[00:09:08]  Not anymore.
[00:09:09]  No.
[00:09:10]  I've now blown my cover.
[00:09:11]  Yes, you have.
[00:09:12]  Our second sponsor today is SaunaSpace, which makes amazing saunas and therapeutic lights.
[00:09:17]  SaunaSpace combines red light therapy, near-infrared, and deep radiant heat for whole-body results at home.
[00:09:23]  They don't make harsh LED panels or giant wooden boxes.
[00:09:26]  After over 10 years of R&D, SaunaSpace has developed a proprietary sun-like firelight set.
[00:09:31]  Spectrum.
[00:09:32]  It's flicker-free, glare-free, and comfortable to use with long-life incandescent bulbs that stay consistent for more than five years.
[00:09:39]  If you've looked into saunas or red light therapy, you know that the market is a mess, full of claims that seem designed to obscure rather than heal.
[00:09:44]  It's hard to know if any given product is effective or what frequencies it produces or whether it emits harmful electromagnetic radiation.
[00:09:51]  The only product I have found that clearly lives up to its scientific and health claims is SaunaSpace.
[00:09:56]  SaunaSpace has two flagship products, the Glow and the Firelight Sauna.
[00:09:59]  The Glow is a single, large light that can be used by the desk or bedside.
[00:10:03]  It can alleviate screen fatigue and the ill effects of blue light and helps with skin, mood, and energy concerns.
[00:10:08]  It's great to use at night as your only light source, and it also works as spot relief for sore backs, tight shoulders, or cramps.
[00:10:13]  Our 15-year-old cat has been using the Glow for several months now and looks like a much younger cat.
[00:10:19]  I know that sounds like a crazy thing to claim, but I'm pretty convinced that that is at least part of what is going on.
[00:10:25]  He looks way younger than he did five years ago.
[00:10:28]  Yes, he still cannot turn it on himself, which I think I'm grateful for.
[00:10:32]  Yes.
[00:10:34]  Yes, indeed.
[00:10:35]  SaunaSpace's Firelight Sauna is a full-body sauna that promotes sweat and also provides red light and near-infrared therapy.
[00:10:42]  It is beautiful and powerful and contributes to deep detox, pain relief, and better sleep.
[00:10:46]  From stress relief to healing and recovery, this sauna is amazing.
[00:10:49]  The cat likes the sauna too.
[00:10:51]  The Firelight Sauna offers short, fast sessions with no preheat necessary.
[00:10:55]  You flip the switch and start sweating in minutes.
[00:10:57]  It's a beautiful canvas sauna that is lightweight and fits into a spare room or corner.
[00:11:00]  You can start small with the glow, their single full-spectrum red and infrared light, or go all in with the Firelight Sauna.
[00:11:07]  All SaunaSpace products are built with integrity and handmade in Missouri with organic cotton, bamboo, sustainable unfinished basswood, and medical-grade stainless steel.
[00:11:16]  No toxic glues or plastics, and no off-gassing.
[00:11:18]  The grounding mat and optional silver lining upgrade blocks environmental EMFs like Wi-Fi to enhance healing, and you get a 100-day home trial and outstanding customer care.
[00:11:27]  Take your wellness to the next level with SaunaSpace.
[00:11:30]  Dark Horse listeners get an exclusive 10% off-site-wide offer when you shop at sauna.space.com.
[00:11:36]  And now, through April 26th, every sauna purchase also includes a free...
[00:11:40]  glow infrared therapy light, a 695 value with your order.
[00:11:45]  That's Sauna.space slash DARK Horse.

=== Non-Toxic Caraway Cookware (03:18) ===

[00:11:49]  That's cool.
[00:11:50]  It is glow free with it.
[00:11:51]  That's yeah that's, it's really cool because you know the sun is awesome uh, but you know it's a destination.
[00:11:56]  You're not kind of, you're not really, you're not hanging out in the sauna, whereas the glow, which we've had for several years now, which I found um, which I found years ago, and we use it as the only light at night uh often, and it's just completely fantastic and it's really a different, it's got a different, totally different set of use cases than a sauna.
[00:12:18]  Yeah, you can, you can integrate it with other things that you're doing um, and lovely that when you use it at night, it doesn't disturb your ability to go to sleep because that that red spectrum does not trigger your pineal gland to think it's noon.
[00:12:36]  Unlike the first story we'll be talking about once we get through the ads.
[00:12:40]  Where it can be noon whenever you want it if you've got the money.
[00:12:43]  Yeah.
[00:12:43]  Fantastic.
[00:12:44]  Okay.
[00:12:45]  Actually fantastic is our final sponsor this week, which is Caraway, which makes high-quality non-toxic cookware and bakeware.
[00:12:52]  If you want to cook more while eating better and decreasing your exposure to toxins, you can do all three by using Caraway.
[00:12:57]  As winter breaks up and spring shows up, maybe you're cooking fewer stews and braises, moving towards lighter fare like roasted chicken.
[00:13:05]  Or eating the very earliest berries and shoots.
[00:13:07]  Maybe you want to make a perfect chocolate cake or bright and chewy lemon bars.
[00:13:10]  With caraway, do you?
[00:13:12]  You want some of that?
[00:13:13]  Right now?
[00:13:13]  I mean, yeah, but we'll talk about that.
[00:13:15]  You just gave me a look.
[00:13:16]  You're like, why are we talking about this?
[00:13:17]  Right, suddenly.
[00:13:19]  With caraway, all of this deliciousness, from roasting to baking, from a quick omelet cooked on the stovetop to a long simmered soup, is easy to accomplish.
[00:13:26]  Caraway's cookware and bakeware is functional, beautiful, non toxic, and easy to clean.
[00:13:30]  What more could you want?
[00:13:32]  Modern life is full of hazards, not least the non stick coatings on cookware and bakeware.
[00:13:36]  We threw out all our Teflon cookware decades ago because Teflon's toxic.
[00:13:40]  And yet over 70% of cookware in the United States is made with Teflon, and 97% of Americans have toxic chemicals from nonstick cookware in their blood.
[00:13:47]  When you cook with Teflon, it only takes two and a half minutes for a pan to get hot enough to start releasing toxins.
[00:13:52]  And when was the last time you cooked with a pan and used it for less than two and a half minutes?
[00:13:56]  Enter Caraway.
[00:13:57]  Caraway kitchenware is crafted with sustainable, non-toxic materials like FSC-certified birchwood, premium stainless steel, enameled cast iron, and naturally slick ceramic to help you create a safer, healthier home.
[00:14:08]  Caraway makes several lines of non-toxic cookware and bakeware.
[00:14:12]  Our favorites are their stainless steel line and their enameled cast iron.
[00:14:15]  All of Caraway's products are free from forever chemicals and their enameled cast iron is offered in six stylish and beautiful colors.
[00:14:21]  These pots are strong and highly scratch resistant, the last generations.
[00:14:24]  And Caraway also offers butcher blocks to cut on, glass lids for non-toxic cooking with a view, and a new bar set which is crafted from rust resistant 304 stainless steel.
[00:14:33]  We're cooking with Caraway and now Zach is too.
[00:14:35]  Zach, our oldest son, who is in his first college apartment.
[00:14:38]  He says it's amazing, which we know to be true, and we know that he will be cooking with it for a long time to come.
[00:14:43]  Caraway's cookware set is a favorite for a reason.
[00:14:46]  It can save you up to $190 as opposed to buying the items individually.
[00:14:50]  Plus, if you visit carawayhome.com slash DH10, you can take an additional 10% off your next purchase.
[00:14:56]  This deal is exclusive for our listeners, so visit carawayhome.com slash DH10 or use code DH10 at checkout.
[00:15:03]  Caraway, non-toxic kitchenware made modern.

=== Hubris in Tech Giants (13:27) ===

[00:15:07]  Fantastic.
[00:15:09]  It is fantastic.
[00:15:10]  It is fantastic.
[00:15:12]  You have something that's not fantastic?
[00:15:14]  Oh, I know a few things.
[00:15:15]  Yeah.
[00:15:16]  One of them is a company that I learned about during our Q&A this last weekend.
[00:15:22]  You'd already heard of it.
[00:15:23]  But the question who came from the man who presents himself as Gnome Inkfeather was about the company Reflect Orbital.
[00:15:35]  Mr. Inkfeather, to use his pseudonym, says of them, and this turns out to be true, so I'm just going to use his language here, says they plan to put 18-meter mirrors in space to reflect sunlight down onto the night sides of Earth at will or on demand.
[00:15:49]  Not only do they plan to pollute the night sky with daylight, but also use it for advertising.
[00:15:52]  I imagine military applications as well.
[00:15:56]  And he goes on.
[00:15:58]  I'd never heard of them.
[00:15:59]  I thought, sure, this is a joke.
[00:16:01]  Maybe it's an early April Fool's Day thing.
[00:16:04]  Well, turns out, no.
[00:16:06]  So let's just walk through a little bit of their site and see what it is that these people are planning.
[00:16:13]  Can you see my screen?
[00:16:14]  Awesome.
[00:16:15]  Okay, so this is the homepage of Reflect Orbital.
[00:16:19]  Sunlight after dark being their tagline.
[00:16:22]  Let's just go through a little bit of what they've got.
[00:16:24]  Reflect Orbital delivers a spot of sunlight on demand with a constellation of in-space mirrors.
[00:16:30]  Precise area.
[00:16:31]  They claim, five kilometer diameter and up, highly localized configurable, in which you can adjust the intensity and location on demand.
[00:16:39]  Order sunlight instantly in approved locations, without new infrastructure.
[00:16:42]  Now, before you be, before you say wait, now it's already happening.
[00:16:47]  It is not already happening, but they've got two satellites, either up now or scheduled to be up and start doing.
[00:16:54]  Uh, start doing, not dramatizations, but um testing um, more than testing, actually uh display demonstrating to potential clients this year and we'll get to the schedule.
[00:17:05]  They've got uh here soon.
[00:17:08]  Precise and uniform dynamic, no grand infrastructure yeah, easy setup and onboarding, they say for the client who calls up and says yeah, i'd like some it's.
[00:17:16]  It's, it's 11 p.m here and it's kind of dark.
[00:17:18]  Can I get some sun?
[00:17:19]  And the setup basically involves you put out the chaise lounges, yeah.
[00:17:23]  Grab some iced tea yeah, what's possible with a spot of sunlight?
[00:17:27]  They say energy, expand solar potential, making clean power dispatchable and available when you need it.
[00:17:32]  Now, if you dig into their actual um claims about how much solar they're going to be able to generate, it's quite low.
[00:17:39]  So I'm surprised that they're highlighting that because even they know that that's not the main thing that they're actually trying to do.
[00:17:46]  What they're really trying to do is light up everyone, light up the earth.
[00:17:51]  Response, illuminate disaster zones and search and rescue missions.
[00:17:54]  That sounds admirable.
[00:17:55]  That's a use case that sounds admirable.
[00:17:57]  Industrial, extend working hours, improve safety, light remote sites.
[00:18:01]  And agriculture, tailor growth cycles, extend seasons, boost yields.
[00:18:05]  Confuse birds.
[00:18:07]  Confuse everyone.
[00:18:08]  The big picture, sunlight is the most valuable and powerful resource in the solar system.
[00:18:13]  About 2.2 billion times more sunlight misses the Earth than hits it, which means humanity can only use a small fraction of our sun's power.
[00:18:21]  And our constellation intercepts the solar energy R, that being reflect orbital's constellation, intercepts the solar energy that misses us and enables humanity to use it.
[00:18:29]  I'd be surprised that number is that low, given that the sun is radiating in all directions and the Earth isn't close to it.
[00:18:37]  I feel like they just picked a number with a bunch of zeros out of a hat.
[00:18:40]  Let's go with this one.
[00:18:41]  It sounds plausible.
[00:18:42]  I agree.
[00:18:43]  It seems too low.
[00:18:44]  Okay, so check, this is their plan.
[00:18:46]  Our constellation of markets expand over time, in which constellation is their satellites.
[00:18:52]  In 2026, 2, 2027, 36, in 2028, they're hoping for over 1,000.
[00:18:57]  By 2030, over 5,000.
[00:18:59]  By 2035, over 50,000 of their satellites, space mirrors, going around the Earth, allowing people on Earth to call them up and say, hey, I'd like a spot of sunlight here.
[00:19:12]  It's just about that time.
[00:19:13]  So let's see what happens when...
[00:19:16]  under light when, when you click on light here light without limits because, of course, imagining that we have limits is so what yesterday?
[00:19:26]  20th century human, realistic light without limits.
[00:19:33]  They say light is evolving.
[00:19:36]  Interesting claim.
[00:19:37]  Interesting claim, smarter, more sustainable, endlessly accessible.
[00:19:41]  Reflect orbital.
[00:19:42]  Delivers large area lighting after dark for any use case.
[00:19:45]  Yeah yeah, light is evolving.
[00:19:47]  Lighting, lighting is evolving.
[00:19:49]  Could make that Right?
[00:19:51]  Okay.
[00:19:51]  So they're, you know, they do.
[00:19:52]  Oh, wait.
[00:19:53]  Civilizational.
[00:19:53]  They've also got civilizational.
[00:19:54]  What's possible with a spot of light?
[00:19:56]  Replace streetlights, reduce light pollution, enhance urban life.
[00:19:58]  Yeah.
[00:19:59]  Enhance urban light, because that's that's what cities need is to have every moment feel exactly the same.
[00:20:05]  Yeah yeah, i'm going to invest in companies that make eye masks.
[00:20:09]  If this happens god uh okay, so they just continue uh, with the same kinds of claims, uh, we're launching the future of sunlight, I just like that.
[00:20:19]  You know the number of crazy like taglines in here.
[00:20:22]  Hubris is incredible, really remarkable uh, and then we're gonna go to their facts, which is um, maybe the most damning part of the whole site.
[00:20:33]  And I also read some of the press on these guys.
[00:20:37]  It's a couple of young guys with some mechanical engineering background who saw a need, apparently, saw an opportunity.
[00:20:48]  Slucky young sociopaths.
[00:20:52]  I'll go there.
[00:20:53]  Fine.
[00:20:56]  I think actually the problem, I think it's worse than that because I don't think the techno-hubris, the techno... techno-optimism.
[00:21:08]  The techno-optimism that we see behind so many of the really egregious errors of this age mostly can't be attributed to sociopathy.
[00:21:18]  It's attributed simply to hubris, which is a much more common.
[00:21:22]  And both sociopathy and hubris are human, but it's worrying that I think it's attributable to a very common problem, which is I don't know anything about evolution.
[00:21:33]  I don't know anything about biology, anything about evolution.
[00:21:36]  I think that we live in a clockwork universe, a machine-like universe in which all the things are like machines that I do know how to deal with.
[00:21:44]  And therefore, all I have to do is switch a few things, and voila, I will have solved a problem.
[00:21:51]  So maybe sociopaths, but it's not required here.
[00:21:55]  Well, I don't think it's required, but I do think that it falls out of the game theory pretty naturally.
[00:22:01]  Because if you imagine, this is not an in-obvious idea.
[00:22:05]  The idea that it was actually proposed in the 70s first.
[00:22:09]  So there you have it, if I have that right.
[00:22:10]  The point is, who do you expect to find deploying this?
[00:22:17]  You expect to find people who find nothing objectionable about it.
[00:22:21]  In other words, game theoretically, this is a tragedy of the commons where, if you know, 50 modern folks or companies have thought about this idea and rejected it because of the implications.
[00:22:36]  You expect to find the company that didn't reject it is most likely to be driven by people who have some defect that results in them not seeing it.
[00:22:46]  No, but there's an assumption built into what you just said, which I don't think is right.
[00:22:49]  What you said was if 50 companies have considered this idea and rejected it because of the implications.
[00:22:55]  And what I believe I have gleaned from going through some of what they've got online and some of what the media has written up about them is that this is only now technologically feasible.
[00:23:08]  So to the degree that this has been considered before, it has not been possible.
[00:23:13]  No, no, I know that.
[00:23:16]  So it's not a lot of other companies rejected it, and that demonstrates that they weren't sociopaths.
[00:23:23]  I was imagining 50 companies in modern times when it has become possible, right?
[00:23:30]  Let's say post-Starlink, where we now know that it is possible for a corporate entity to deploy... an array of globe covering satellites i mean i think maybe that's the second of them there was a failed uh project to deliver i think it was gps uh what was its name i can't remember ethereum it can't be because that's currency.
[00:24:00]  But something along those lines was deployed.
[00:24:02]  It failed for economic reasons, and the satellites were either repurposed or had to be pulled down.
[00:24:11]  But anyway, the point is we now know we've got a successful entity that has deployed a net of satellites, globe covering.
[00:24:20]  And so the point is, well, what else could you do if that technology is now in the range of a corporate power?
[00:24:26]  And so I'm imagining a lot of people have run through this idea because it's obvious.
[00:24:34]  Many of them will have rejected it for business reasons, the risk here of the investment it takes to initiate such a project and the likelihood that it fails.
[00:24:43]  I mean...
[00:24:44]  Well, I guess my objection to you deciding because you and I can see so many obvious reasons not to do this and to do everything we can to get in the way of anyone's ability to cause us to lose our night sky.
[00:25:03]  I mean, we write about this in Undergatherer's Guide, right?
[00:25:08]  One of the fundamental things about living on the planet that we do, that we have night and we have no idea what all that means for who we are and how we are and how we make meaning in the world.
[00:25:19]  But I don't, I just don't, it's not at all clear to me that what is clear to us about the value, much of which is implicit in having darkness, in having a night sky, in having things that cannot be technologically lightened, is obvious to most people.
[00:25:40]  And, you know, those things that aren't obvious to the techno-optimists, just because it's not obvious to them doesn't make them sociopaths.
[00:25:48]  In fact, if it were obvious to them and they were ignoring it, that's evidence of sociopathy.
[00:25:53]  Okay.
[00:25:54]  So you've just won the argument, and then I'm going to take it back from you.
[00:25:59]  You're right.
[00:26:00]  There's a path there from a myopia rather than a moral dysfunction.
[00:26:06]  Yeah.
[00:26:08]  But these people are going to use it for advertising.
[00:26:10]  They're monsters.
[00:26:11]  Well, I don't actually see that on here.
[00:26:13]  I don't, but I'm not saying that.
[00:26:16]  All right.
[00:26:17]  Then I will back my argument off and I will say, if they're going to advertise with this, they are monsters.
[00:26:24]  Fair enough.
[00:26:24]  Right.
[00:26:25]  And clearly so.
[00:26:26]  Yep.
[00:26:27]  I will grant that.
[00:26:28]  But let's look at, I'm not saying they're not.
[00:26:30]  I just, I just.
[00:26:30]  Yep.
[00:26:31]  No, I appreciate the caution.
[00:26:33]  I think it's the right way to think about things.
[00:26:35]  I would say, you know, I was being flippant.
[00:26:38]  De facto sociopaths would be expected to, you know, people who can rationalize.
[00:26:42]  Yeah, but I mean, I think.
[00:26:44]  You know, one of the things, one of the things that we, all of us, hopefully learned during COVID is how very human, really horrifying mass delusions are.
[00:26:57]  Yeah.
[00:26:58]  And so much, some of it, you know, we talked a lot about fear driving people and certainty we've talked a lot about.
[00:27:07]  But hubris, which is, I guess, hubris and certainty are related to one another.
[00:27:11]  Fear and hubris are quite different.
[00:27:14]  And they, and the. techno-optimists, the so-called rationalists and the Silicon Valley bros and the disruptors, they've all got way more hubris than they have sense or imagination.
[00:27:32]  They're not, it seems, interested in imagining what is actually true outside of the scope of what they already know.
[00:27:38]  They're just interested in moving fast and breaking things, whichever one was at Zuckerberg.
[00:27:44]  I don't remember who said that.
[00:27:46]  No, that's going to be Musk, I think.
[00:27:48]  But anyway, it doesn't matter.
[00:27:50]  It's the ethos.
[00:27:51]  And, you know, there are realms in which that is wise.
[00:27:57]  But the point is, doing things at scale is not one of those realms.
[00:28:00]  If you're trying to innovate something, move fast and break things, may very well be the mindset that gets you to the awesome wealth-creating thing.
[00:28:10]  But the problem is the very human capacity to and instinct to rationalize and the evergreen fact of intervening in complex systems creates unintended consequences that you can't predict means that the mindset of like, well, why shouldn't we?
[00:28:34]  Right.

=== Losing Historical Context (06:53) ===

[00:28:35]  Obviously, there are use cases in which, you know, if there's a catastrophe and people are under rubble and the rescue workers are trying desperately to get them out, you know, could we imagine collectively that it would be a good idea to bring some light to that situation?
[00:28:54]  You know, sure, there are use cases.
[00:28:56]  You can imagine a famine that's threatened by a crop failure, that you have a brief frost and that some country is going to have mass starvation if you don't get through the next 70. two hours of cold, right?
[00:29:11]  Is that a defensible use case?
[00:29:13]  Yes.
[00:29:14]  But the point is, that's the thin end of the wedge that gets you to something unholy.
[00:29:21]  And the unholy thing is a threat to the environment.
[00:29:24]  Oh, can you prove it?
[00:29:24]  Do you know exactly what it is?
[00:29:26]  Do you have the data?
[00:29:27]  And the answer is no.
[00:29:28]  We're going to find out the ways in which this is a disaster later as the birds don't get to their breeding grounds or whatever other thing it is.
[00:29:38]  And the point is, We're constantly playing catch-up ball where the point is you're going to have to create the catastrophe for me to describe it precisely enough to explain why you shouldn't have done that fucking thing in the first place.
[00:29:51]  And the point is that we can't run a planet like that.
[00:29:53]  The power to do things at this scale now exists.
[00:29:56]  So, you know.
[00:29:58]  And this, I mean, this is going to sound like a tiny little piece of this puzzle, but it certainly should not, the onus should not be on those of us who are saying, don't mess with the complex system under which all life on Earth has evolved for billions of years.
[00:30:14]  Right.
[00:30:15]  But, oh, what exactly is going to happen?
[00:30:17]  Well, I can make predictions about effects on migration and phenology and breeding schedules and animals and such.
[00:30:24]  But A, I don't have to be right about that.
[00:30:26]  But also, this is maybe just a little bit too arcane, but we are losing our ability even to compare what happens in the future with what has happened in the past because our museums, our collections of where organisms have been, where, under what circumstances are being either destroyed or moved off site into places that they're at risk of basically disintegrating.
[00:30:52]  Like, you know, some of the value of natural history collections is precisely so that as conditions change, we can have a way to quantify the fact that things have been changing.
[00:31:02]  And if we lose access to the past, as we are losing access to, then it will be just so much, you know, sort of arm waving, like this feels different than it used to.
[00:31:10]  Well, we had, you know, we had extensive museum collections and they are disappearing.
[00:31:17]  Yes.
[00:31:17]  And the number of places in which we strangely lack for the evidence that would allow us to detect how much of a change there has been is many.
[00:31:29]  And I would say you're one place that you will all have encountered, I've been saying for decades, what happened to the insects that used to splatter the windshield?
[00:31:43]  Now this is commonly discussed, but at first it was like, am I imagining something?
[00:31:46]  Did I have a road trip that went through a particularly dense thing and I'm misremembering?
[00:31:51]  No, this, at least in the West, and by which I include, you know, 10, 12 western states.
[00:31:57]  Every summer road trip required a lot of work.
[00:32:01]  Multiple times a day to clean off windshields.
[00:32:04]  Yes, and it was very difficult to do.
[00:32:06]  And so this existed into your and my driving and taking road trips of our own so that we were responsible for our windshields and it was like an actual problem for seeing.
[00:32:15]  Right.
[00:32:15]  Right.
[00:32:16]  So the point is, no, that memory is crystal clear in so many living minds that we can nail this one down.
[00:32:22]  But the point is, let's suppose you didn't have that, right?
[00:32:25]  Let's suppose that the order of technological innovations had made the destruction of the insect. populations precede the invention of the car, right?
[00:32:36]  Well, then the question is, how do those of us who remember that there were vastly more insects establish that that's not something about the fact that we moved where we lived or we're misremembering because of a particularly intense summer or something like that?
[00:32:51]  It's very hard to establish.
[00:32:53]  Likewise, all the people saying, you know, the sun used to be yellow.
[00:32:57]  Now, I don't know what to do with that claim because I remember it as they do, but I don't know that memory is a valid check on The thing and the problem is all of the stuff you would typically use to check this doesn't work, right?
[00:33:14]  The photographic stuff has biases in it at its most basic level.
[00:33:18]  So you can't just go back and look at old photographs because the technology has changed.
[00:33:21]  So you need baseline data.
[00:33:24]  Well, the sun used to be more yellow is, as you say, it's a different sort of a claim.
[00:33:31]  There were more insects.
[00:33:33]  Road trips felt different.
[00:33:36]  That exists across an entire generation, at least for people who lived in... a wide swath of the United States.
[00:33:43]  And I assume it was also true in the South and the Midwest and the East Coast.
[00:33:46]  I just don't know.
[00:33:48]  But one of these for which I think largely anthropological data, which is to say human stories, are providing the evidence, and it's sufficient in this case, is the salmon runs in the Pacific Northwest and even down into California, right?
[00:34:05]  Along the eastern edge of the Pacific Rim, along the west coast of North America, which is to say the eastern edge of the Pacific.
[00:34:12]  You, we hear stories and even we, growing up in southern California, where there were weren't any salmon but um, in living memory I don't, I don't think they ever got, I don't think there were any rivers in Socal, um that had salmon yeah, but in central central, central California up uh, into uh Alaska, Bc and and further up Alaska, and then, of course, all the way around the Pacific Rim, you hear stories about just rivers being so teeming with salmon at the right time of year that you could barely tell that it was not a solid mass of salmon.
[00:34:42]  And uh, those stories are replicated across river system, across individuals, across, but corrected for, you know,
[00:34:54]  sort of from the moment that basically Western anthropologists started recording the stories of native elders up until, I don't know when, up until we started putting the dams in and then we started spraying our chemicals on the agricultural crops and all of the other things that have made the salmon fisheries collapse.
[00:35:13]  But they have demonstrably collapsed and that is true even though You know, we've actually been, we took students to one of the still existing traditional salmon fishing spots along the Columbia River Gorge back when we were still professors.

=== Climate Change Villains (03:17) ===

[00:35:29]  And it looked to me like there were a lot of fish, but it's nothing compared to what people report there having been not too long ago.
[00:35:36]  Right.
[00:35:36]  And, you know, destroyed in multiple ways, multiple ways in which each individual change sounded reasonable.
[00:35:45]  And, I mean, at some point, you should probably continue with the frequently asked questions.
[00:35:52]  But at some point, we're going to have to have a discussion about how to protect our right to have a planet.
[00:36:00]  That is intact, how that gets balanced against the nanny state instinct to forbid you to do anything at all.
[00:36:10]  Right, we can't be paralyzed by the inability to do normal stuff.
[00:36:15]  Even that has a minor impact yes, and you can't be allowed to just gamble on all of our planet by doing things at scale and discovering what's wrong with them.
[00:36:26]  And you know um, you and I talk in the book, and we've talked many times here about the principle of reversibility.
[00:36:36]  The question is, can you reverse what you're doing now?
[00:36:38]  This is interesting.
[00:36:40]  Arguably, you can stop using this if it turns into a disaster, but the question is, once the technology exists, it exists.
[00:36:47]  It exists and it will be defended by corporate entities that don't want their profit stream cut off um, and you know there will be damage done in the meantime.
[00:36:58]  And then there's a question about, you know, this huge network of satellites and what impact it has.
[00:37:03]  So anyway, We have a whole set of rights that we don't, rights that are effectively God-given, rights that are not defined because, you know, gee, how did our founders forget to mention protecting the night sky from maniacs, right?
[00:37:19]  How could they possibly have missed that?
[00:37:22]  Well, for obvious reasons.
[00:37:24]  And so the point is our rights that would have been defined if they understood the danger aren't defined.
[00:37:30]  And anything that's not defined is treated as fine.
[00:37:33]  And so anyway, that is really the discussion for all of these things.
[00:37:37]  weather modification for climate, for geoengineering and climate, all of these things.
[00:37:43]  The question is, who the fuck are you people that you think you have the right to play these games, even if you think you're doing it for the right reason?
[00:37:50]  Yes.
[00:37:51]  Who are you that you get to decide for me that the climate needs to be changed?
[00:37:56]  You don't get to do that, and yet you are.
[00:37:58]  No, and we've talked about this before, too.
[00:38:01]  They all think they're doing it for the right reason, in part because we live in a world where people, are informed of what they think villains look like from cartoons, right?
[00:38:11]  And so, you know, the really evil guy, you know, rubbing his hands together in a cave somewhere, that's not what villains look like.
[00:38:19]  They have convinced themselves.
[00:38:21]  I mean, this was one of the important contributions of the now late great Bob Trivers, was his work on self-deception, that it is, you know, the most basic point, which is obvious in retrospect as so much of the best evolutionary biology is, is that if you're going to lie about something, it is far easier to be convincing to the person who you're lying to if you have first convinced yourself of your own lie.

=== Space Energy Risks (15:04) ===

[00:38:46]  And so being deceived yourself that you're actually a good person, really working on behalf of the people who just need light on earth, and what about if you put mirrors in space, is much more compelling.
[00:38:58]  And it will make, of course, to come full circle, it much more difficult to discover the actual sociopaths because they've convinced themselves first.
[00:39:06]  Yeah, well, and we don't have a good enough taxonomy.
[00:39:09]  actual sociopaths who lack the capability for sympathy.
[00:39:14]  And you have facultative, which is probably normal for humans.
[00:39:18]  There are realms in which, you know, if you're a soldier on a battlefield, you have to be de facto sociopathic to just do the job.
[00:39:26]  But then there are, you know, functionally sociopathic people who are working through mass rationalization, you know, the boardroom in which people are very excited about the billions that might be made.
[00:39:40]  through this new venture and then they figure out how to tell the story so it sounds like they're doing something noble and um and then you get to the advertising it's like oh you people were lying yeah okay so let's just show uh again this is reflect orbital uh this company uh founded just a few years ago and is aiming to put 50 000 plus space mirrors up so that we We can never have night.
[00:40:02]  Of course, that is not their claim.
[00:40:04]  But so that you can have day on demand if you have enough money to do so.
[00:40:08]  What is reflected sunlight?
[00:40:10]  Natural sunlight redirected from space with mirrors.
[00:40:13]  The same sunlight we see every day, simply redirected at a time when it is not typically accessible.
[00:40:17]  Hey, what could go wrong?
[00:40:20]  How is this different from artificial lighting?
[00:40:22]  Artificial lighting relies on things like poles.
[00:40:26]  Other things do, but they actually say poles.
[00:40:29]  It's okay.
[00:40:30]  So, I mean, that's sort of obvious.
[00:40:32]  There's no ground infrastructure.
[00:40:33]  What areas can it illuminate?
[00:40:35]  Anywhere on Earth.
[00:40:36]  Then they say, the light will not spill out of the defined service area.
[00:40:41]  And this may be a tiny point, but Earth has an atmosphere.
[00:40:49]  Part of what makes life on Earth possible is indeed our atmosphere.
[00:40:54]  Without it, we wouldn't be here.
[00:40:57]  What an atmosphere does, among other things, is it reflects light.
[00:41:02]  And so whereas on the moon, if you... put a spotlight on a piece of the moon that was facing away from the Earth, they'd be right.
[00:41:11]  The light would not spill out of the defined service area.
[00:41:13]  But on Earth, it will.
[00:41:15]  Of course it will.
[00:41:17]  Just like after the sun has set, you still have light in the sky for a while.
[00:41:21]  So that's just a lie.
[00:41:25]  Yeah.
[00:41:25]  That's just inherently a lie.
[00:41:26]  Unless, so it's obviously a lie.
[00:41:30]  Unless defined, unless their service area is like what we're intending and then they're...
[00:41:34]  They've got a spill zone, but even that's not going to work because clouds, right?
[00:41:38]  You're going to reflect this through a cloud that is going to be visible from a great distance away, which means some of the light escaped, which doesn't mean that the amount of light that escapes in that circumstance is going to have an important impact.
[00:41:49]  But the point is you can't.
[00:41:51]  You can't say this cleanly and you simply don't know what the impacts and also important impact you know so.
[00:41:57]  Okay, let's just hold on on that.
[00:42:00]  When dealing with sea turtles and watching a nest hatch, it is very important that you not wear a headlamp that is on, because the sea turtles Look for the line of foam that is lighter in color and they go towards it.
[00:42:17]  So the headlight, the headlamp distorts their path and actually gets them killed because they have to get to the water quickly in order not to get picked off.
[00:42:25]  So are you telling me that your illuminating a cloud at night doesn't have that potential for other creatures?
[00:42:33]  You couldn't possibly know that.
[00:42:35]  Yeah.
[00:42:35]  Now we can tell a clean story about human technology effect on sea turtles, because it exists at human scale and it's a charismatic.
[00:42:45]  Organism that humans go to and go to with light, and we have we have seen the effects.
[00:42:50]  Most of the effects will not be known or knowable right.
[00:42:54]  They simply won't be.
[00:42:55]  You know.
[00:42:56]  Especially think about this.
[00:42:57]  What are you going to get if they've got a nice defined beam of light?
[00:43:01]  It's going to be a circle in the sky.
[00:43:04]  There are things that navigate using the moon right, so it's not hard to spot ways in which this could be an important impact.
[00:43:14]  And the question is, how exactly did you get the right to sell this capacity to people just based on the fact that they've got the money?
[00:43:24]  Yeah.
[00:43:25]  Okay, let's just go through the rest of their frequently asked questions.
[00:43:28]  Can the light be adjusted?
[00:43:29]  Yes, it can effectively be turned on and off by rotating the satellite.
[00:43:32]  And then timing can be scheduled so that it operates only during requested hours.
[00:43:37]  Okay.
[00:43:38]  Requested by whom?
[00:43:40]  Who gets to make the request?
[00:43:41]  Who gets to say, I don't want that request met?
[00:43:44]  Who benefits from this technology?
[00:43:46]  Anyone needing clean, controllable, safe light can benefit.
[00:43:50]  Applications range from extending solar generation hours without requiring any new land or ground infrastructure to illuminating precise areas for operations in remote environments.
[00:43:58]  Check out our products to learn more.
[00:44:00]  Is it safe?
[00:44:02]  We design for safety in three ways.
[00:44:05]  So they don't answer if it's safe.
[00:44:08]  They just say they're designing thinking about safety because they can't know and safe for whom, right?
[00:44:14]  That remains an unspoken question.
[00:44:16]  Can it be avoided?
[00:44:17]  Yes, we will only provide redirected light when it is specifically requested and approved by the appropriate local authorities.
[00:44:22]  In addition, we will share positions in advance so that scientists and other stakeholders can plan around the service.
[00:44:29]  Other stakeholders, meaning every single life form on the planet?
[00:44:35]  Everything can just know what you're doing and schedule what?
[00:44:40]  Plan around the service.
[00:44:42]  So every life form on the planet is now going to be paying attention to you guys to plan around your service because what?
[00:44:47]  You wanted to make a bunch of money and, you know, cloak it in like this will be useful.
[00:44:55]  It's extraordinary.
[00:44:56]  Scientists and their stakeholders.
[00:44:58]  As if scientists and I don't know who, but there must be some other stakeholders who care about whether or not there's light in the sky.
[00:45:03]  Well, stakeholders is one of these very clever terms where the point is, oh, well, if...
[00:45:08]  We're going to define the stakeholders.
[00:45:11]  These are the people who get a say.
[00:45:12]  It's basically a translation of seat at the table.
[00:45:15]  You may have noticed that often those of us who suffer from policy, let's say the clear-cutting of the forests of the Pacific Northwest, many of us who suffer from the fact that that was done didn't have a seat at the table.
[00:45:31]  The point is they're defining— Nor were we in on any of the profits.
[00:45:36]  That went to Weyerhaeuser.
[00:45:38]  I used to be angry at the citizens of the Pacific Northwest because the point is, look, You're defending some of them on the basis that this is necessary for jobs, but these people are exporting the natural wealth of the region and you didn't even get your cut, right?
[00:45:56]  How did you miss the fact that this is not about a small number of loggers?
[00:46:01]  This is about the fact that this was a resource that belonged to all of us that somebody privatized and sold and you didn't get your cut.
[00:46:07]  You didn't even get your cut, right?
[00:46:10]  That money could have gone to other things and then at least you'd be able to argue that the benefit had... counterbalance the cost, but no, it was just, it was the rape of the environment based on savvy corporate entities.
[00:46:25]  Yep.
[00:46:27]  Yep.
[00:46:27]  There you go.
[00:46:29]  What will it look like on the ground?
[00:46:31]  The spot is brightest on the ground with minimal sky glow in the air.
[00:46:35]  Again, if there are no clouds.
[00:46:37]  Right.
[00:46:37]  Right?
[00:46:38]  Which I don't, I did not do a thorough search, but I don't find any mention of weather, atmospheric conditions, anything.
[00:46:46]  From within the spot, it will look and feel like the given brightness level.
[00:46:49]  Bright moon to high noon.
[00:46:50]  Those are the options there.
[00:46:52]  That's the span.
[00:46:54]  Bright moon to high noon with a star-like spot passing overhead.
[00:46:59]  How can I request the service?
[00:47:01]  Contact us.
[00:47:02]  Okay, so you know the organization Dark Sky International?
[00:47:06]  They are defending, they are trying to defend the right of life on Earth to have dark skies.
[00:47:14]  They are alarmed, as you might imagine.
[00:47:17]  Here we have a piece from... them from end of December of last year, Dark Sky International opposes Reflect Orbital's proposed orbital illumination system.
[00:47:27]  It's a good piece.
[00:47:28]  It's about what you would expect.
[00:47:29]  I don't think I need to read anything from it.
[00:47:32]  And a few months later, that is to say, last week, I think it was, yes, March 25th, Reflect Orbital put on their site, Reflect Orbital seeks collaboration with Dark Skies.
[00:47:43]  Not Dark Sky International, but Dark Skies.
[00:47:47]  What is that?
[00:47:47]  How would you collaborate with Dark Skies?
[00:47:49]  What are they even claiming?
[00:47:51]  And the piece...
[00:47:52]  Looks like it was put together in a hurry and it doesn't really make any sense.
[00:47:56]  And if you're not paying a lot of attention, it sort of looks like.
[00:48:00]  They've just always been open and they're just really hoping to get the attention of the dark sky people because they're in Clearly this is a response to dark sky international saying hold up stop you have no right and Here we have three months later.
[00:48:14]  What invitation to collaborate reflect orbital says expanding access to clean energy from space has the potential to be a powerful tool to meet humanity's energy demands again They're pivoting between light and energy and I didn't spend any time on their energy claims, but they're crappy like at this you know the idea basically is that They can shine They can reflect sunlight onto existing solar arrays at night and have those solar arrays not be offline at night.
[00:48:41]  But even they estimate that you're going to pick up a percent or two in terms of value in terms of these solar arrays.
[00:48:50]  It's a bad model.
[00:48:51]  Well, if you just think about how much surface area you would need to collect sunlight that wasn't going to hit the Earth from in order to materially alter the amount of solar energy collected with the exist, it doesn't.
[00:49:07]  It superficially doesn't pass the smell test and also, as always is the case, you and I have talked about the um purged double glazed windows that are now currently used to meet the um, the energy standards for construction, and never in the calculation is the question of Okay,
[00:49:34]  these purged dual glass panels fail.
[00:49:39]  So when you say purged, you mean purged?
[00:49:41]  Are they vacuum inside or are they nitrogen?
[00:49:43]  I think they're argon or there's some inert gas in there, which has obvious benefits.
[00:49:49]  You increase the R value of the windows, but you also cause the windows.
[00:49:52]  So, from a user's perspective, it's like a wetsuit.
[00:49:54]  Yeah, but you, well, and it's better than air.
[00:49:57]  It's better than allowing free flow of air the way old storm windows used to do because the R value is higher.
[00:50:03]  But.
[00:50:04]  You have to replace them every now and again.
[00:50:06]  And the point is there's a lot of energy hidden in the, oh, well, okay, you just took a bunch of resource.
[00:50:10]  You threw it in the landfill.
[00:50:12]  You needed new resource.
[00:50:13]  You had a factory run.
[00:50:14]  You had to, you know, move it with trucks.
[00:50:16]  So the question is, okay, did this just feel good because the R value on the window went up or was it actually an energy savings?
[00:50:23]  And, you know, and this is going to be a quality of life argument rather than an actual, actually did you save energy argument, which I think is a very strong one.
[00:50:32]  But with regard to quality of life, old single-paned windows or single-paned windows where if you lived in this sort of environment, you put storm windows up in the winter, as we did at our house in Michigan, didn't fail.
[00:50:44]  They could crack some, you know, some kid could hit a baseball through it to, you know, to borrow something from 50 bucks.
[00:50:48]  But simple de reglaze.
[00:50:50]  Yeah, exactly.
[00:50:51]  Simple de reglaze.
[00:50:52]  And that was going to be a rare incident.
[00:50:55]  And that doesn't become any more or less likely with single versus double glazed or now they're even doing triple glazed.
[00:51:00]  Whereas almost everyone who has been around any kind of modern buildings has had the experience of having one of these seals fail and having the window become more mope.
[00:51:11]  more opaque over time.
[00:51:12]  Yeah.
[00:51:12]  And, you know, sometimes you don't fix it right away because it's expensive or you feel like it's not that bad yet.
[00:51:19]  I'm going to get as much life out of this as possible.
[00:51:22]  But meanwhile, your quality of life looking out that window is degraded day by day by day.
[00:51:27]  Whereas with a single pane window, okay, you're paying more in energy costs from, you know, in terms of your utility bill, you may be paying less overall over the length of the entire window if you include all the costs of having to replace it when the seals fail.
[00:51:42]  And The experience of having a window is degraded often because when the seals fail, they fail in a way that you don't fix it right away.
[00:51:53]  And it just reminds you constantly that you have something that needs to be done and that your life isn't perfect.
[00:51:59]  Right.
[00:52:00]  Now, in this case, we have to factor in the immense energetic cost of putting things in space and maintaining them and communications with them.
[00:52:11]  So, you know, if they're making a small increase in the efficiency of solar panels at some large expense to put them where they are, that is not inherently a net benefit.
[00:52:22]  And if there is a benefit, it's small.
[00:52:24]  So the point is it's kind of a trying to find a synonym for smoke and mirrors.
[00:52:31]  It's confusing here.
[00:52:32]  Well, yeah, the whole energy part of their claim seems like a stretch because that's what people in the startup and especially the tech community are so focused on right now because of the draw from AI, because of the coming need for so much more energy than we appear to have access to.
[00:52:49]  And so I think they will be able to light up the earth.
[00:52:55]  And I think that's horrifying.
[00:52:57]  I am not compelled that even they think that they will be able to even offset their own energy use with what they're doing.
[00:53:03]  But energy... is such a big piece of what people are interested in investing in right now that I think that that's why that's here.
[00:53:10]  There's also the risk of abuse.
[00:53:17]  For example, given, I mean, we are well down the road of unthinkably awful weapons and, you know, multiple layers, you know, psychological weapons, weapons that, you know, drive people to madness, soldiers to madness so they can't fight, things like this.
[00:53:39]  But, you know, is this going to be, you know, we're watching the wholesale bombing of civilian populations now.
[00:53:47]  Is this going to be used to drive people insane until they cry uncle?

=== Taxing High Earners (15:26) ===

[00:53:51]  Right?
[00:53:51]  One could imagine that.
[00:53:53]  Yeah.
[00:53:53]  It used to be you put speakers outside the house of someone that you've got on house arrest or something, and you just blare music at them all night long.
[00:54:03]  Well, let's do it with light, too.
[00:54:04]  Yeah.
[00:54:05]  Who knows what else?
[00:54:06]  I mean, the fact is, you know, mirrors are a... multi-use technology.
[00:54:14]  And the question is, is there some private reason that this network would be desired?
[00:54:20]  You know, one could imagine things, beams being redirected from the ground.
[00:54:26]  You know, so anyway, there's a lot here you would want to know.
[00:54:30]  And what we already know is pretty frightening in light of the fact that they're tampering with, you know, the master complex system on which we all depend.
[00:54:42]  And they're doing so from a, you know, what me worry kind of let's look at all the upsides version in which they're downplaying obvious downsides that are already obvious, let alone all of the ones that we're not going to know until after they do this.
[00:54:59]  Right.
[00:55:01]  They should stop.
[00:55:02]  You should stop.
[00:55:03]  Yes.
[00:55:04]  And if you're tempted to argue back, think about whether or not the advertising claim is true.
[00:55:09]  And if it is, go to hell.
[00:55:14]  All right.
[00:55:17]  We live in the state of Washington.
[00:55:18]  Yes.
[00:55:19]  Shall we talk a little bit about the state of Washington state?
[00:55:22]  The state of Washington state.
[00:55:23]  Yes, it's not what you would hope.
[00:55:25]  No, unfortunately it's not.
[00:55:26]  Excuse me.
[00:55:29]  Let's start.
[00:55:34]  By the way, I'm going to check the calculation on the fraction of the Earth's sunlight that misses the Earth.
[00:55:40]  It may be right, but I think it's a fun exercise to figure out whether that's right, and I'm going to see if I can do it.
[00:55:48]  Yeah, I mean, it feels calculable.
[00:55:51]  Well, let's put it this way.
[00:55:52]  If the sun was a point source.
[00:55:54]  So, just a reminder of what you're talking about, the claim from Reflect Orbital is that the Earth collects.
[00:56:01]  The Earth misses like 22 billion, I don't even remember what the exact number was, but misses some extraordinary amount of the sun's energy.
[00:56:11]  And shouldn't we try to collect some of that?
[00:56:13]  Which it does, because the sun is radiating in all directions, and we're only in one direction, and we're not very big, and we're not very close.
[00:56:18]  Exactly.
[00:56:19]  All of those things.
[00:56:20]  All directions, not very big, not very close.
[00:56:22]  All those things are calculable.
[00:56:25]  Yeah, you can calculate it.
[00:56:26]  Let's put it this way.
[00:56:27]  The one thing I'm not sure how to calculate is thinking about the size of the sun as a non- point source.
[00:56:35]  That's going to be, it's going to make the calculation harder.
[00:56:38]  But anyway, I'll see if I can figure it out.
[00:56:40]  All right.
[00:56:41]  Not right now.
[00:56:42]  No, no, no.
[00:56:43]  We got other stuff to do.
[00:56:44]  State of Washington State, which is here on Earth.
[00:56:47]  I'm free.
[00:56:50]  No, I think it's best we move on to...
[00:56:52]  Okay.
[00:56:55]  Let's see.
[00:56:57]  Hold on.
[00:56:57]  I'm not sure I'm in the right place.
[00:56:59]  I wanted to start this discussion by saying that, yeah, I guess this is where I did want to start.
[00:57:06]  Okay.
[00:57:09]  We have Washington State has an affordability crisis.
[00:57:12]  You can show my screen here.
[00:57:14]  It's an executive summary from some recent analysis about the state of Washington ranks as the fifth most expensive place in the nation.
[00:57:25]  And and okay, fifth most expensive turns out that's after let's see I'll find the we're after I'm not seeing the It's like California and New Jersey and DC, and there's one other state that's ahead of us.
[00:57:45]  But Washington state, the cost of living, the change in the cost of living is far outpacing the change in the cost of living of any other state.
[00:57:54]  And so here we have Washington is in green for those of you who are colorblind, Brett.
[00:57:59]  That's the top line.
[00:58:02]  And it's also labeled with letters, which doesn't affect the colorblind.
[00:58:07]  Change since 2013 in relative change in regional price parity.
[00:58:13]  6.1% here.
[00:58:16]  And California is going up, but not as fast.
[00:58:19]  Florida is actually going up some, but not more since 2019 than California, but still hasn't hit California.
[00:58:29]  Arizona is having a bunch of weird surges.
[00:58:32]  And then various other states are actually going down.
[00:58:37]  Oh, here we go.
[00:58:37]  Here's the list.
[00:58:39]  Currently, according to a new analysis, Washington ranks fifth most expensive in the U.S. based on overall price levels trailing only California.
[00:58:48]  D.C., Jersey, and Hawaii.
[00:58:50]  And then even more concerning, Washington's cost of living has increased faster than any other state over the past decade.
[00:58:56]  Relative prices have risen more than twice as fast as in California.
[00:59:00]  Is that because the quality of our services has gotten so good?
[00:59:05]  Oh, man.
[00:59:06]  Our quality of service is crap.
[00:59:09]  So it's not that then.
[00:59:10]  Yeah.
[00:59:10]  No, it's not that, unfortunately.
[00:59:13]  It's really, really not.
[00:59:14]  So let's see.
[00:59:17]  Oh, no.
[00:59:17]  Actually, I think if I go right here.
[00:59:20]  Bob Ferguson, our governor.
[00:59:23]  This is from yesterday.
[00:59:27]  It's time we fix our regressive tax code, Ferguson writes on X, and address affordability in our state.
[00:59:32]  That's why I signed the millionaire's tax into law yesterday.
[00:59:35]  It will provide free breakfast and lunch to all K-12 students, eliminate sales tax on diapers, extend the working families tax credit to 460,000 households, and provide the largest tax break for small businesses in state history.
[00:59:47]  Bullshit.
[00:59:48]  Who pays?
[00:59:49]  Less than one half of 1% of Washingtonians.
[00:59:53]  Okay.
[00:59:54]  A lot has been made of this.
[00:59:57]  Let me just give a little background and let me have my screen back so I can see some of my notes here.
[01:00:03]  This legislature, Washington State Legislature, passed this so-called millionaires tax a couple weeks ago.
[01:00:12]  And it was understood then that Ferguson was promising that he was going to sign it.
[01:00:17]  And it's, I believe, the 11th similar tax in the nation to be passed, which is to say an income tax that is aimed at high earners only.
[01:00:29]  I will say in just sort of full disclosure, this is not a tax that would affect us, that does affect us.
[01:00:36]  It would be great if we could imagine making enough that it would affect us, but it doesn't yet.
[01:00:42]  So that's not exactly where this critique is coming from.
[01:00:48]  But there are several things about this tax that are remarkable, especially on the heels of several other things that Washington State has done recently.
[01:00:56]  So this is a 9.9% income tax on all income over a million dollars.
[01:01:03]  in a state in which it is unconstitutional to have an income tax.
[01:01:07]  Voters have over and over and over again rejected referendums calling for income tax.
[01:01:14]  And in fact, the first foray that the state made into what has widely been understood to be another kind of income tax, which is the capital gains tax, which was voted in a couple of years ago, was snuck in on the basis that instead of calling it an income tax, which it patently is because some people make their money through capital gains rather than W-2 salaries, was by calling it an excise tax.
[01:01:35]  which is a tax on transactions.
[01:01:37]  That's just a semantic game.
[01:01:40]  They are just playing semantic games in order to collect more of our money, which, to your earlier question, well, at least we must live in the best state in the union.
[01:01:49]  Our cost of living is going up twice as fast as California's.
[01:01:52]  We are already the fifth most expensive place to live.
[01:01:54]  We must have the best schools, the best roads, the best infrastructure, the best ferries, the best everything.
[01:02:00]  Well, no, and we'll get to that.
[01:02:02]  But first, let's talk about the revenue.
[01:02:06]  We went from being a state with a zero income tax, because that is what is constitutionally required, to a state that is now starting in a couple of years going to have a 9.9% income tax on high earners, on people making only on the amount of money that you make after your first million.
[01:02:23]  But a few things.
[01:02:26]  No one imagines that it's going to stop there, that that $1 million income cap or income limit is where it's going to end.
[01:02:34]  And indeed, already within the same ledge session, there has been a suggestion to lower that number to 100.
[01:02:41]  I've seen either 125,000 or 135,000.
[01:02:43]  So, all righty.
[01:02:45]  Now, that's one random progressive dude in Olympia who's proposing that, but he's in the legislature, and this is a very blue state with a lot of history in let's collect as much tax money as we can, and let's do as little as possible in terms of offering services and goods to the people of Washington as we possibly can.
[01:03:04]  We also have, with regard to this tax, it has a marriage penalty.
[01:03:10]  And exactly as you might expect for the West Coast, right?
[01:03:13]  We are going to discourage monogamy and fidelity and stability and loyalty because why not?
[01:03:19]  It's a twofer.
[01:03:20]  We can tax rich people and we can discourage marriage.
[01:03:22]  What do I mean by a marriage penalty?
[01:03:24]  Whereas some of the other states that have income taxes on high earners like California and New York, there's a number, call it a million, usually it's a million.
[01:03:35]  And if you make over a million and your spouse makes over a million, the over a million is taxed.
[01:03:41]  But if you make... over a million and your spouse makes less than a million and the total is less than two million, you're not taxed because you're two people, right?
[01:03:54]  In Washington, according to this new tax, as well as in Massachusetts and at least one other state that has these millionaire taxes, There's a marriage penalty.
[01:04:02]  That one million number goes to you if you are a single person or if you are a couple, which means that high income earning dual income couples who are not by most metrics exceedingly rich may well get taxed now because they're married.
[01:04:23]  There is a benefit to getting divorced for a number of upper middle class people under this tax.
[01:04:29]  This tax has been compared to what's happening in Massachusetts.
[01:04:32]  which several years ago imposed a high earner marginal tax of 4% on top of their base rate of 5%, which is a very different situation.
[01:04:44]  They still have a total income tax that's similar to what Washington states is going to be.
[01:04:48]  They have a 9% total for high earners, and we're going to have a 9.9% for high earners above a million only.
[01:04:55]  But there was already a tax rate of 5%.
[01:04:58]  And so one of the arguments that has been made by sociologists and economists who say there's not going to be any movement away from Washington as a result of this because look what happened in Massachusetts.
[01:05:09]  Millionaires didn't move.
[01:05:10]  Well, millionaires suddenly had an additional 4% in Massachusetts.
[01:05:15]  And in Washington, millionaires, all of the income above a million are going to be taxed at about 10%, which is a pretty substantial difference.
[01:05:24]  Yes.
[01:05:24]  And of course, there's a question about what motivates it.
[01:05:30]  There's a question about what it's real.
[01:05:33]  effect is going to be.
[01:05:34]  And one of the things that is clear is A, there is a desire, you know, they've now broken through a forbidden barrier to the income tax.
[01:05:47]  So now the point is income tax is a thing, and now we can juggle around what the income tax applies to, and the threshold can be moved towards regular folks.
[01:05:56]  But the point is, for really high earners, this is going to drive them out because it makes it very difficult to It's an arbitrary cost of continuing to live here,
[01:06:12]  and there are other places you can live so well so they i listened to a little npr podcast today uh that was purporting to assess to to look at this question and um i don't have it linked here I can put it in the show notes.
[01:06:29]  But they're interviewing a sociologist from somewhere on the East Coast who's written a book who specializes in do millionaire taxes actually cause people to move?
[01:06:38]  He has access to all this IRS tax data and he says no.
[01:06:42]  But of course, we don't have access to his analysis, so I can't say how good his analysis is.
[01:06:50]  One of the points that he makes that I think is a reasonable one is that once you have created a life and a business in a place that has all of your community around you, but not just all your personal community, but all your business community around you, it's not necessarily easy to pull up stakes and just move to a new place.
[01:07:09]  He argues that look, the poor are actually more mobile than the rich because the poor have less keeping them to a place, which in terms of the sheer numbers might be right, but a few things are 100% true, that when people are imagining or when people are thinking about like, okay, I'm the next reflect orbital people, God forbid, and I'm looking for a place to go and have my startup.
[01:07:34]  Am I now going to move to a state that 10 years ago, Washington was understood to be, especially compared to the other West Coast states, but really across the board. and a remarkable place for business because it had no capital gains taxes and no income taxes.
[01:07:49]  And our B&O taxes, our business taxes are weird and I'll get to that in a moment.
[01:07:53]  Like they're a little bit, they're strangely punitive, but they're pretty low compared to what a lot of other states do.
[01:08:00]  But they're not changing.
[01:08:02]  We're not getting rid of those because of the new taxes.
[01:08:03]  They're just adding on to the other ones.
[01:08:06]  But if you were a startup in 1998 or 2008 or 2018, you might well have looked at Washington because there's a great tech sector.
[01:08:17]  There's great food.
[01:08:19]  In August, the weather is fantastic.
[01:08:21]  And there are all sorts of other reasons to be here.
[01:08:24]  But you don't decide to come to Washington at this point, given that there are now both extraordinarily high capital gains taxes.
[01:08:33]  and high income taxes for income over a million in an environment when literally 10 years ago there were neither.
[01:08:40]  It was zero for both.
[01:08:42]  And that is a radical change.
[01:08:44]  That is one of the things that I think is missing from the conversations, that just the turning on a dime into a state that penalizes all the ways of generating revenue is, of course, going to drive some people away.
[01:09:04]  work on IRS data notwithstanding, but definitely affect people as they decide where to move their startup to, where to start their startup.
[01:09:14]  At worst, it just simply slows down the same process.

=== Sabotaging the Wealth Base (13:04) ===

[01:09:18]  And the point is, some people are going to move, even though it's difficult.
[01:09:22]  And even in that analysis from NPR, the point is, oh, what you're really saying is having a business traps you under our punitive tax regime.
[01:09:31]  Okay.
[01:09:32]  Well, trying to steel man it.
[01:09:38]  People who create businesses in places that are traditional businesses have facilities, have staff, have employees, have all sorts of stuff around them that makes it hard to move.
[01:09:48]  Right.
[01:09:48]  Because where you have been successful is where you will continue to be successful.
[01:09:52]  And picking up stakes and moving, if you've got any sort of infrastructure and personnel, is very difficult.
[01:09:59]  Right.
[01:09:59]  And this is exactly what I'm saying, is that statement from NPR is equivalent to saying these people are trapped by the fact that what they have is difficult to move.
[01:10:10]  So that only goes so far.
[01:10:12]  If you have a high tax rate that basically is a weight on the ankle of any business here, that weight can only get so large before people will move.
[01:10:26]  But if at the same time, and I must say the thing that is most galling about this is our services are absolutely crappy and poorly managed.
[01:10:38]  And so the idea that at one level, not only are we among the most expensive places to live, at the level of taxation.
[01:10:50]  But the rate we are now outpacing others at the rate at which our taxation rate is going up at the very same time.
[01:10:59]  But not only that, but also just the cost of living to the first graph that I showed.
[01:11:04]  So cost of living through the roof, taxes on all sorts of things.
[01:11:07]  We didn't give up one tax for another.
[01:11:09]  We're just adding new taxes and adjusting the way they work.
[01:11:12]  But at the same time, it's like a finger in our eye that Our problem with homelessness and crappy roads and ferries that are long overdue for being replaced, all of this stuff, where is the freaking money going?
[01:11:27]  Honestly, this would not be an issue for most of us if the place was well managed.
[01:11:33]  But it's almost like it's being deliberately mismanaged at the same time that we're seeing punitive taxation.
[01:11:38]  And the combination of those two things is galling.
[01:11:41]  Yes.
[01:11:42]  So let's just go through a little bit more of the taxes.
[01:11:45]  One more thing.
[01:11:45]  I just want to finish the point about what happens if you do this.
[01:11:49]  If you stop businesses from starting here.
[01:11:51]  And if you drive people so that they move elsewhere, even though it's difficult to do, then the point is the tax base dries up.
[01:11:59]  which then forces you to become even more predatory for the people who've stayed.
[01:12:03]  And that's really the thing, right?
[01:12:04]  They're setting themselves up so that they have to go after more and more people because the people who are starting new businesses are not going to do it here.
[01:12:12]  And that means, you know, basically my point is if you actually cared about the values that these Democrats claim to care about, then you have to think about what actually generates the most tax revenue.
[01:12:23]  You don't want a punitive taxation scheme because what you really want is wealth to be created that you then tax.
[01:12:32]  And the point is you want people to start businesses here and making it inhospitable is like cutting off your nose despite your face.
[01:12:40]  Yeah.
[01:12:40]  And so that to that point, I'm going to I'm going to come back to the capital gains and the estate taxes, the B&O taxes, which I mentioned, which are the business taxes.
[01:12:49]  When we moved here from Oregon and we lived in Portland and in Multnomah County and in Oregon and we had incredibly high taxes.
[01:12:56]  And so when we moved here four years ago from from Portland, Oregon, our taxes went down substantially.
[01:13:05]  in part because Washington still was priding itself on being a place that was good for small businesses.
[01:13:14]  But I remember figuring that our bookkeepers were making mistakes.
[01:13:20]  And when I was seeing the B&O taxes coming through every month, I was like, this doesn't make any sense.
[01:13:27]  Why are we paying tax on all of this given that we had all of these expenses?
[01:13:33]  Surely you've made an error.
[01:13:34]  You're calculating our tax based on our gross... income as opposed to our net income after all of our expenses, well, that's how P&O tax in Washington is actually assessed, believe it or not.
[01:13:43]  Like I can't even say it with a straight face.
[01:13:45]  It's based on, it's assessed on gross, which means that a, rather than net, which means that a business with small margins, an early business, a restaurant, any early business where they're probably putting a lot in and they don't expect to be making much yet.
[01:14:00]  And they're just hoping that they can get to that point.
[01:14:02]  And maybe it's six months down the road or two years down the road, but they have enough, you know, built in that they can, they can make it work as long as they.
[01:14:09]  you'll start making a profit by some point in the future, as soon as they make any profit at all, they are paying the same tax rate on those profits as someone who was entirely profit, who had no expenses whatsoever, which means that your taxes in the state of Washington, your business taxes, can actually not just eat up all your profits, they can actually send you into the red at the point that you finally started being in the black.
[01:14:33]  So again, the B&O taxes aren't a super high rate.
[01:14:37]  They're slightly variable and they are going up too.
[01:14:39]  Like that's a new thing.
[01:14:39]  They're also going up, but they're not that high.
[01:14:42]  But the fact that they're on gross receipts rather than net is extraordinary.
[01:14:46]  They're higher than they look.
[01:14:47]  They're higher than they look.
[01:14:48]  And they specifically penalize businesses with slim profit margins, which is to say small businesses and young businesses.
[01:14:57]  And this is why when I was reading Governor Ferguson's tweet and he said, you know, we're going to help small businesses.
[01:15:02]  No, no, you are not.
[01:15:04]  You are absolutely not.
[01:15:05]  There is no way that this is helping small businesses.
[01:15:09]  So sales taxes are also expanding.
[01:15:12]  In the state.
[01:15:12]  They're already very, very high.
[01:15:14]  Sales taxes um, apparently.
[01:15:16]  Uh, the new income tax is going to relieve what was it?
[01:15:18]  Sales tax on diapers, great thanks um, but now it's going to.
[01:15:22]  Except for diapers, there's going to be sales tax on things, as there always have been, but also now services.
[01:15:27]  Sales tax on services now as well, which is new.
[01:15:30]  That's huge yep.
[01:15:31]  The estate tax is near, or at, the highest in the nation.
[01:15:34]  It's actually just been dropped um a little bit, but the tiered estate tax begins at 10 and the top rate is 35 in the state of Washington, 35.
[01:15:44]  That is huge.
[01:15:45]  And then capital gains tax, which was brand new in 2022, is 7% for gains under a million.
[01:15:52]  And again, that 9.9% number for gains over a million.
[01:15:56]  And again, this was, I've said this already, but this was the first foray.
[01:16:00]  into an income tax for the state of Washington in which they started playing around, playing their little semantic games like, oh, that's not an income tax, that's a transaction tax.
[01:16:08]  Okay, you know, you believe what you want and I hope you can't sleep at night because you're taking endlessly.
[01:16:18]  The taxation is going up, the cost of living is going up.
[01:16:22]  And again, well, at least the parks are amazing and the schools are amazing and the streets are great and law and order is intact and their homelessness is dealt with and none of those things are true.
[01:16:33]  None of those things are true in the state.
[01:16:34]  And the state is repressive in regards to our rights.
[01:16:40]  They've enabled themselves to institute what I think are no exception medical mandates on the basis of vague claims of public value.
[01:16:52]  So the point is, it's either like a mental disorder where people who have no experience with the way things actually work cannot discover that their fanciful notions from some essay they wrote aren't true in practice.
[01:17:13]  Which they're still mad.
[01:17:14]  They got to be.
[01:17:16]  Or, or it's actually some kind of sabotage.
[01:17:20]  Either, you know, there's a leak, the money is going somewhere that we can't see.
[01:17:26]  And so the services collapse and the hunger for more revenue is insatiable.
[01:17:32]  But the fact that there are other states with much lower tax burdens. in which the services actually work, in which the states are actually well governed, tells you something isn't right here.
[01:17:46]  And one of the things that might not be right here is you're making an inhospitable environment for the people who create wealth.
[01:17:54]  And I'm not arguing that that's a pure fact.
[01:17:56]  As I've said many times, you know, all great fortunes typically have a wealth creation aspect and a rent seeking aspect.
[01:18:06]  So I know it's a mixed bag, but the point is you want the wealth created in your state.
[01:18:11]  because it makes your people, especially your people who are close to the bottom, better off.
[01:18:16]  You want your state to be well run.
[01:18:18]  You want the services to function.
[01:18:20]  And so to create a punitive tax environment is sabotaging the very people that you claim you're doing it to help.
[01:18:30]  You want the state to run well and you're making it run like crap.
[01:18:34]  That's going to result in less wealth created here, which means that your punitive taxes are going to have to go up, not down.
[01:18:41]  So it's a death spiral is what it is.
[01:18:43]  Yep.
[01:18:44]  So.
[01:18:46]  You were filling up your truck the other day.
[01:18:47]  Yes.
[01:18:48]  And gas prices were high enough that actually you and two other people at the pump started having conversation about the fact that you were paying $6.50 a gallon.
[01:18:56]  It wasn't $6.50, but it was above six.
[01:18:57]  It was above six.
[01:18:58]  Yeah.
[01:18:58]  Okay.
[01:19:00]  For regular.
[01:19:01]  That's not fancy gas.
[01:19:03]  For regular.
[01:19:05]  Over $6 a gallon.
[01:19:06]  When we were in Hawaii in February, I was shocked that our gas prices in Washington were higher than they were in Hawaii.
[01:19:12]  And I looked into it and I found out that our fuel taxes in the state of Washington are actually third highest in the country.
[01:19:20]  But at least those fuel taxes are going to make amazing, like amazing transportation infrastructure in the state, right?
[01:19:28]  Well, no, actually not.
[01:19:31]  Really not.
[01:19:32]  So if I show my screen one last time here, this is from the Reason Foundation.
[01:19:35]  The annual highway report finds that Washington's highway system ranks 48th in the nation in overall cost effectiveness and condition.
[01:19:42]  So we have the third highest fuel taxes in the nation and the third worst highway system across all of these metrics.
[01:19:51]  In fact, we're dead last across a number of metrics.
[01:19:53]  capital and bridge disbursements, maintenance disbursements, other disbursements, which is to say, where does the money go?
[01:19:58]  Right.
[01:19:59]  Right.
[01:19:59]  Fuel taxes are collected, but in terms of dispersing it to capital and bridge disbursements, maintenance, other, I don't know.
[01:20:07]  Like it just, we just, we live with the potholes and the failing, you know, I don't, actually, ferries don't show up here because this is across all states and, you know, maybe it's, it's probably niche somewhere in here and I don't know exactly where, but, you know, we're not doing terribly.
[01:20:22]  I guess you could say not terribly in like other fatality rate.
[01:20:25]  We're only 38, but like we're not good in anything here.
[01:20:29]  Like nothing.
[01:20:30]  We're like we're literally 48th in the nation in our highway infrastructure, even though we have the third highest fuel taxes in the nation.
[01:20:41]  That right there, is just such a perfect summary of the situation.
[01:20:47]  TEAM BLUE in Olympia is is crying more loudly than ever that they just need more money and then they'll fix the problems.
[01:20:56]  And taxes are going up, cost of living is going up, everything is more expensive and no one is claiming that life in Washington is getting better.
[01:21:06]  Yeah.
[01:21:06]  It's just not.
[01:21:07]  Right.
[01:21:07]  So let's put it this way.
[01:21:09]  If you knew nothing else, you just knew that the cost of living and doing business here is high and the services are crappy.
[01:21:19]  What that says is the very best case is gross mismanagement of the state, right?
[01:21:26]  There are worse cases, you know, that this is fraud or sabotage or something.
[01:21:30]  But the point is best case scenario is gross mismanagement of the state by the people who control it, which of course are the Democrats.
[01:21:37]  I'm not saying the Republicans are any prize, but the Democrats on the West Coast have demonstrated that at best they have no fucking idea what they're doing.
[01:21:47]  Yeah.
[01:21:48]  And could functional systems be better with more money?
[01:21:55]  Usually that is the case.
[01:21:57]  When you have non-functional systems that demonstrably don't do anything good with the money they've got, you don't keep not even asking, but demanding more money for those systems.
[01:22:07]  That's not how you fix a system.
[01:22:09]  Especially when the key element is the tax base and you're sabotaging it de facto.
[01:22:16]  Yeah.
[01:22:16]  Right?
[01:22:17]  You're sabotaging the thing that makes wealth and then you're looking for sources of wealth that you can tax.

=== Fixing Broken Systems (01:36) ===

[01:22:22]  Gee, I wonder what happened.
[01:22:24]  I hear Coeur d'Alene is lovely this time of year.
[01:22:28]  Increasingly this time of year, yes.
[01:22:30]  Yes.
[01:22:31]  Now, I mean, a lot of people are going across the word Idaho, which among other things has, you know, it actually has a flat five-something percent. income tax rate, 5.3 maybe, something like that.
[01:22:47]  But it also has the very first, actually a friend of ours who wrote the legislation and got it passed in Idaho, the very first health freedom bill in the entire United States that guarantees that you shall not be forced to get any sort of medical procedure or shot or pill or anything, no matter what, that that shall not be mandated on a human being, which is remarkable.
[01:23:14]  Yeah.
[01:23:14]  Remarkable.
[01:23:15]  Yep.
[01:23:17]  Yeah.
[01:23:17]  All right.
[01:23:19]  We there?
[01:23:19]  I think so.
[01:23:20]  All right.
[01:23:21]  We'll be back on April 4th, on Saturday, on our younger son's birthday, talking more about, you know, probably not Washington because I'm sort of Washingtoned out at the moment.
[01:23:35]  We'll still be here, but we'll be talking about, you know, the news of the day all through an evolutionary lens as we do.
[01:23:42]  And until you see us next time, be good to the ones you love, eat good food, and get outside.
[01:23:47]  Be well, everybody.