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E5: WHO's incompetence, kicking off Cold War II, China's grand plan, 100X'ing American efficiency

July 11, 2020 / 01:32:00

This episode of the All-In Podcast covers topics including the World Health Organization's handling of glyphosate, the U.S.-China relationship, and the impact of COVID-19 on schools. Guests include Chamath Palihapitiya, David Sacks, and David Friedberg.

David Friedberg discusses glyphosate, its use in agriculture, and the controversy surrounding its carcinogenic classification by the World Health Organization. He explains how political motivations influenced the IARC's decision, leading to significant lawsuits against Bayer.

The conversation shifts to the U.S.-China relationship, with the hosts debating the implications of China's rise as a superpower and the potential for a new Cold War. They discuss the need for U.S. leadership and strategic partnerships to counter China's influence.

The episode also touches on the reopening of schools during the pandemic, with Friedberg emphasizing the importance of social interaction for children. The hosts express concerns about the mixed responses from schools and the potential long-term effects on students.

Finally, the discussion includes the upcoming presidential election, with insights on Biden's strategy and the potential impact of political ads on social media platforms.

TL;DR

The episode discusses glyphosate controversies, U.S.-China relations, school reopenings, and the upcoming presidential election.

Video

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hey everybody welcome to the all-in podcast this  is our fifth episode as you know we regularly   publish this podcast well every two to four weeks  something like that and just to give you a little  
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idea of how well this is going the podcasts peaked  at number 10 in zag podcast even though we never  
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publish it and we're only 400 so tell your friends  about the podcast so we could be number one and  
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just dunk on traditional media which is full of  people who have us as the guests chasing number  
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ten on what Apple Apple technology podcasts  we literally raced I mean it went from like  
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we debuted in the 20s then the teens and then boom  we hit number 10 and I was talking to somebody in  
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media who has us on as guest and I was like listen  I formed a super team and we're now getting more  
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traffic I'm sorry who are you talking to just like  a mirror where you were just looking yourself I   mean you are so [ __ ] arrogant after that shitty  video what video are you buried - what oh my god  
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you want me to say it tell the listeners you are  a me just somebody an a how somebody made a cut  
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of the billion times Jason mentioned he was an  early investor in uber all right take it easy  
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Virgin Galactic slash slack investor I don't I  don't say anything I know the companies on the  
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Chiron the lower third every time you're on CNBC  everybody my problems I have too many unicorns to  
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mention just one right they just go with one  dimension they just go with PayPal and knows   Peter T Oh David David I have a question why is  there a picture of two pregnant men behind you for  
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men to be impregnated this is a recent picture of  Jason I on the golf course and I'm not sure who's  
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more out of shape you look like you're about  the class in fairness it's a hundred degrees
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it's a hundred and six degrees at 80% humidity and  I kid you not this is the this was the second and  
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third time I play golf this was the third time  and I'm gonna just ask D frame David Freiburg is  
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here of course he's our science friend buddy and  shabbath property is here how many holes I want  
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one of you to set the over-under on how many holes  we completed each day the maximum number of holes  
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we are eluded for okay Chamorro a lot of four and  you're taking me over it was Sachs five five and  
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there is a there's a there's a red door every five  holes so that may have had something to do with it  
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I took nine because I figured Jason was on his  rights to the hot dogs well that's where the red   doors were the hot dogs are you know you know why  I said I said these two these two dorks with ADHD  
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can barely make it an hour doing anything and so  if you think an average Brown takes four hours and  
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basically you know you get through four holes  in about an hour and then you want to give up   we got to the fifth hole I am addicted to golf  now I don't know if you guys know this you can  
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gamble on golf okay so I I the biggest match I  ever played was as was a five hundred thousand  
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million dollar NASA I don't know what at NASA is  I lost I lost one and a half that's LS 750 K what  
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what is it Matz that I bet NASA NASA is basically  a gambling bet on a per hole basis not it we we  
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had we had just a ton of fun and it was great  because this was the first time I've ever it's   the single best aspect of golf in my opinion  if you gamble it makes that game one of the  
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most incredible games because people with mental  fortitude who cannot play it all can show up and  
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literally make hundreds of thousands or millions  of dollars yeah we were playing for hundreds of  
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dollars per hole so let's just leave it at that I  thought we play hundred dollars holes so it was it   was just for fun but man I I don't know about you  guys do we have some we know if we know somebody  
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who's got a membership in one of these places I'd  love to go back out again but it was great fun and  
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Shadow Creek come to Shadow Creek in Vegas we can  play it's probably the best gambling golf course   in the world okay I'm in so let's get to business  for those of you who are tuning in for the first  
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time Chimel Paulo Hypatia is my co here co-host  here on the podcast we've been friends since we  
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both did a very brief tour at AOL he then went  to work for Mayfield which is a venture firm you  
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might not have heard of he stayed there for about  27 weeks before going to work for Mark Zuckerberg  
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he secured the bag then started his own venture  firm it grew way too big and he kind of got bored  
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having to manage 100 people so now he's running  his home office venture firm and doing two deals  
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a year the one you've certainly heard of is Virgin  Galactic where he's taking people to space and he  
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did ass back for that IPO B and IPOC are lined  up from what I understand will correct me if I  
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am wrong and he'll be packing two more companies  once a year I guess we'll be the pace is that   correct Chema among other things but yeah yeah and  then David Sachs has now become and David Freiberg  
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have become regulars we've decided we're gonna  stick with this foursome as it goes because we're  
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getting a really nice passing of the ball around  topics and David Sachs went to Stanford with folks  
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you know like Keith roboy Peter teal during an  era where they were a bunch of huge nerds who  
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created a way to transfer money on Palm Pilots  called PayPal it didn't work until they decided  
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to move it to email I'm not sure who's idea who  gets credit for moving it to email sacks sacks  
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who decided like hey Adam silence is his way of  saying me cuz it was it was an abject failure  
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when you tried to send money between Palm Pilots  Peter Thiel's original idea but then somebody woke   up and said well why don't we just do this over  email but he hasn't said let me tell you the names  
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at PayPal he has not said yet musk teal Hoffman  left chin silenced radio silence so far David  
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sacks Jeremy Stoppelman Chad Hurley from YouTube  cherry Stockman for Yelp anyway he was part of  
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that cohort then he made a movie called thank you  for smoking which was Jason Reitman first film  
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jason reitman then went on to great success that  film actually made money sachs was so absolutely  
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depressed by how long it took to make one film and  how painful it was he then decided to go create   a billion dollar company and under three years  called Yammer which Chamath made a ton of money  
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on any cackles about regularly and then david  freiburg is with us he is just the smartest kid  
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at the table but somehow figures out how to lose  tons of money to us in poker he created clara calm  
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and sold it to monsanto he created Metro Mile and  he created Itza which felt horribly but that just  
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goes to show you nobody even remembers what Itza  is but they do remember his giant multi-billion   dollar companies and he now is running his own  startup studio which is making incredible ly  
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interesting companies can I talk about the one  thats related to beverages or not not yet okay  
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anyway there's a company related to beverages that  is so game-changing I said no literally you can't  
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say it he showed it to us under friend EA I just  said can I talk about the beverage company yes  
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or no I'm trying to give the guy goddamn plug  here but anyway he says he can can't do a plug   I'm not doing a plug but I'm teasing it and I  think he's literally sitting on what could wind  
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up being the greatest snow successful company of  the entire group it's not period okay let's jump  
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in I want to talk let's turn out the David you  sold climate to Monsanto for a billion dollars  
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back in the day when it was shocking to people  that amount of money it still is but you know  
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you were one of the first sort of quote-unquote  unicorns and then you you know we're right in the   front seat in Monsanto probably could have been  CEO if you wanted I want you to talk to me about  
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what is going on with Bayer Monsanto roundup and  I want to use that as a jumping off point to talk  
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about the World Health Organization so roundup is  a molecule known as glyphosate and it's been used  
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as a herbicide for decades and for decades it was  very well studied the US EPA and the FDA and you  
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FDA and global health organizations have studied  it carefully because of its incredible use it is  
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it biodegrades the core molecule glyphosate  biodegrades you know in a couple of days and  
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it is a very effective herbicide so when farmers  grow stuff they don't want weeds growing in the   field and roundup was a pretty effective way at  getting rid of weeds so you could get more crop  
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per acre or more yield per acre a long time  people thought that roundup like many of the  
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traditional persistent chemical herbicides  was carcinogenic and people were concerned   about that and as a result there was a lot of  studying done in fact before I sold my company  
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to Monsanto I spent a lot of time researching  roundup and glide to say to make sure that it   was safe that I wasn't selling my company to what  everyone was saying was the devil at the time and  
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from a scientific basis I felt pretty comfortable  about the the data the studies the research that  
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had been done when I was at Monsanto there was  a bit of a political event that took place at  
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the World Health Organization the World Health  Organization runs a group called IARC the it's a  
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Cancer Research Institute that's part of the w-h-o  and there was a gentleman who was politically  
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trying to get himself on that council to make the  case that glyphosate was carcinogenic and years  
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later a Reuters reporter identified how he was  able to get this council to disregard a number  
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of scientific findings and studies including the  US EPA and other very wide broad ranging studies  
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by international organizations and showing that  roundup or glyphosate was non carcinogenic but   the political process by which he was able to  get on the council get that data excluded from  
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a study and then get IARC to declare roundup  or glyphosate a possible carcinogen or probable  
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carcinogen then triggered a bunch of tort lawyers  in the United States to start suing Monsanto and  
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now Bayer because Bader bought Monsanto a number  of years ago for causing cancer and the data is  
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absent but the way the US court system works is  if you have some probable definition and you can   get a jury to say yes and the probable cause was  there's a probable carcinogen label applied to it  
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by IARC and this Reuters reporter years ago did  a great job highlighting how whole thing was kind  
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of politically motivated and and the data and the  science from a broad range of scientists including  
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the triple-a s a lot of scientific membership  organizations very definitively and clearly show  
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that glyphosate is non carcinogenic but you know  it was super troubling and frustrating now look  
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this doesn't bother me personally anymore I have  no interest whatsoever but it turns out that these  
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lawsuits are now gonna cost Monsanto and now Bayer  which bought Monsanto somewhere between ten and  
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fifteen billion dollars to settle this and this is  all a function of some political hacking that took  
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place at the w-h-o so for a long time I've had a  bit of a concern about how the WHL operates and  
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the process by which they do scientific assessment  and validation and a lot of this has obviously   become much more apparent with the coronavirus  crisis and their response with respect to masks  
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and treatment and so on so that's a little bit  of the background I think you're referring to   tomorrow and so you get your math if you want to  know I mean like it to me I I think that this is  
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such an interesting thing I I wanted to use it  as this on-ramp to the w-h-o largely because   it's like V inaptitude keeps compounding in that  organization I just read that we still don't have  
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a definitive posture on masks from the w-h-o and  that they are finally ceding ground to the idea  
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that the corona virus could partially be spread  in air I mean this is so bizarre because it's  
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the middle of July there are three million cases  and half a million people who have died and we  
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are still there and so you know when I saw that  Trump pulled out of the w-h-o you know in this  
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weird way the way he did it was kind of cartoonish  and stupid and you know kind of an insolent child  
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but the reason he did it was actually pretty  reasonable because this organization is not a  
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scientific or health body it's an academic body  and you know you can see this in universities  
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where all of a sudden things tilt away from  facts and it tilts towards you know all kinds  
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of very very very small points of sort of like  political capital that people fight over and so  
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these politicized organizations are incredible  and to the point at which we saw you know this  
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past week the report that well over 250 of their  own scientists who they rely on said hey it's very  
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clear that this is an airborne phenomenon aerosol  tiny micro particles of aerosol when people talk  
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when they sing when they cough when they sneeze  all this obvious stuff floats in the air and if   you ever closed air conditioned you know location  like say a church in the south or a hotel or a  
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casino it's not a good idea to be in there and  it's especially not a bad idea bad idea to take  
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your mask off so now the w-h-o is over - and Trump  as you said in his just horrific ly comical way  
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can explain as we're very clearly explaining that  this is a political organization that is funded by  
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a duopoly of superpowers that have many issues  which we're going to get into today and we it's  
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they're able to say who the duopoly is sex when  you look at this being our token conservative  
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here and you see the Trump win how frustrating is  it for you that trumps delivery and it's persona  
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when he is right and a person can't be wrong  all the time I'm proof positive of that you  
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you have to deal with the fact that he doesn't is  such a stupid inane way that you don't actually  
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get credit for the win well you know Trump is  often the the bull in the china shop and you  
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know kind of disrupts the status quo by throwing  a grenade into it but frequently there there are  
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good reasons why this house quote needs to be  disrupted and the the New York Times laid out  
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the case in a news story on who the the one that  reported the scientists complaining that you were  
00:15:02
talking about it was just a straight news story  but it almost came across as an expose because  
00:15:07
whose incompetence was laid out so starkly the  fact that they were slow on mass and opposed them  
00:15:16
and I think kind of lied about them and then and  to be downplaying the airborne nature of the virus  
00:15:25
in favor of maintaining this narrative that it's  spread through touching surfaces or fomites which  
00:15:31
I think people are realizing now is much much less  likely and so yeah you do kind of have to wonder  
00:15:38
whose side is is who on and the the New York  Times article kind of suggests why they do this  
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which is when they issue a declaration they have  to think about the ramifications in all of their  
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member countries and so what ends up happening is  they sort of start with the policy implication or  
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political result that they are thinking about and  they kind of reverse-engineer the science and you  
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know the article talks about how you know if who  were to come out and and sort of be very clear  
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about airborne transmission that could affect  spending or you know political budgets and all   these different countries and so they've been  reluctant to do that so yeah it's a it's a it's  
00:16:21
a organization that's sort of political first and  then reverse engineers the science to fit that and   you know what this reminds me of it's like when  you have giant investors on the board of a company  
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the management team comes out and now they've  got to present like a pivot or an acquisition   or whatever it is and they're thinking well okay  we've got this funding source these people own 26  
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percent of who this person owns 22 percent we've  now got to present it to them and what are the  
00:16:48
ramp down stream ramifications luckily there's  an alignment in a single company the alignment  
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is we won't want the company's share price to go  up but here in the world it is not equally aligned   what is in China's best interest what's in the  --use best interest and what's in America's best  
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interest might be radically different and they  are literally funding them correct your mouth well   there's a they are there there's a there's this  thing called sailor's law right which many of us  
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kind of have seen play out which is that academic  the the saying is something like academic politics  
00:17:19
are so vicious because the stakes are so small  and in this interesting way the w-h-o has lost  
00:17:25
the script because they fight over politics who  gets to say what who's being positioned and they  
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lose sight of the real down street in my opinion  the downstream implications of the things that   they have because if they actually just thought  from first principles and tried to be a truly  
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independent body that said we are going to take  the capital we're given from the countries that   are supporting us and actually do the best and  actually publish like what is the best thing to  
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do for example in the case of coronavirus and be  definitive and iterate we'd be in a much better  
00:18:02
place but a lot of what is allowed the posture  around coronavirus to transition from a health  
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issue to a political issue in many ways has been  because organizations like the w-h-o and the cdc  
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are political bodies and their academic bodies  and so the incentives of the players within  
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these organizations are not to necessarily you  know project the right public health positioning  
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they are at some level to think about their own  career trajectory and the political machinations  
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that happen within the organization that are blind  to normal citizens like us that just consume the  
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output and then so when you see something like an  inability to give a definitive ruling on things  
00:18:46
like masks or you know other things you just kind  of scratch your head and wonder is it that they're  
00:18:52
dumb and the answer is no it's not that they're  dumb they're just motivated by very different   things than public health all the time which might  be including keeping their jobs and the fact that  
00:19:01
we had David friedenberg on this podcast and then  Sachs you know chiming in after it surely after  
00:19:07
just definitively saying first principles why  wouldn't you wear wet wear a mask what is the  
00:19:12
possible downside and Friedberg saying hey I'm  getting some testing equipment we should just  
00:19:17
be doing mass testing Freebird when you look at  this and how when we started the podcast I think  
00:19:24
in March or April we were very clear as people  not in the with the exception of herself not   in the health care space in any way why can't  they what would be a better structure for the  
00:19:36
WHO and or is there a better structure than just  a bunch of you know randos like us on a podcast  
00:19:42
very easily seeing through first principles  that a 79 cent mask is a no-brainer that   getting testing math testing and recording it  every day and doing sampling what is the better  
00:19:53
solution here for governance or for dealing with  these type of you know really large problems and  
00:20:01
ones that kind of have a clock that's the other  thing about this problem is this this problem came  
00:20:08
with a countdown clock you had to make a really  fast decision in order to protect yourself and we  
00:20:14
made a really drawn-out decision now we're paying  the price I mean I think under the circumstances   you outline you know you need leadership right  so you need probably a country or some entity  
00:20:24
to step forward and lead with respect to being  proactive and aggressive with action because any  
00:20:31
multinational oversight body or political body is  gonna be kind of you know molasses tout it's gonna  
00:20:40
be stalled out with the the processes and the  competing interest as you guys have highlighted   so the libertarian argument would be let the  free market drive outcomes and you know some  
00:20:49
folks will succeed and some folks will fail if  we want all of humanity to succeed then you know  
00:20:54
the likely scenario is what we've seen with with  world wars and such which is you need leadership   you need one organization or one entity or one  national body to step forward and say this is what  
00:21:03
we're doing and we're gonna lead and the world  was absent leadership over the last six months   historically the US has filled that void but that  certainly wasn't the case this year and so you  
00:21:15
know it seems to me like you're not gonna find a  political governing system multinational governing   system that's gonna be successful in solving these  kind of existential global problems overnight you  
00:21:25
really need someone to step forward and the u.s.  is kind of leaving a bit of a gap this might be  
00:21:31
a good segue because the question next is who's  gonna fill that gap going forward yeah so let's   make that segue when you look at the the duopoly  that currently is I would say on par now I don't  
00:21:42
think we can say we're the superpower anymore and  that China is an up-and-coming superpower it's   pretty clear they are an equal superpower I don't  know if anybody here disagrees with that right  
00:21:51
now but if we have an edge it's a very minor one  at this point how do we look at health problems  
00:21:58
with an authoritarian country where individuals do  not vote and there is a god king who has recently  
00:22:06
said I will be the god king for the rest of my  life for sure how do we manage this relationship  
00:22:13
with China Friedberg then we can pass it over so  from a healthcare perspective let's start there  
00:22:20
for sure and then whatever other major issue you  would like to then segue into climate change comes  
00:22:27
to mind trade comes to mind Human Rights comes  to mind I would imagine the biggest the argument  
00:22:33
that your geopolitical commentators would make  who are probably more experienced than experts   in this than any of us would probably relate to  you know the degree of influence you know the  
00:22:44
question of who has the most influence globally  maybe kind of the way that you define who has the  
00:22:50
most power globally and so you know in the  current circumstance you can look at trade  
00:22:57
balance between China and other nations you can  look at trade balance between the US and other   nations and you can look at the balance sheet the  assets and and the debt owed and you're right I  
00:23:05
mean a lot of people are making the case that  that we're kind of reaching a point of parody   through some metric or some set of equations here  and at this point there's there's going to be a  
00:23:15
jockeying for leadership globally in terms of  influence and so that will have ramifications  
00:23:20
with respect to things that are global in nature  like global pandemics and I think this is a really  
00:23:28
kind of key for a moment a flashpoint moment for  us because we are facing that sort you know we did  
00:23:34
face that circumstance this year and obviously  we took the raw end of the deal we've we failed   most I mean we all concur on that we thought we  did worst China is just like an extremely good  
00:23:45
example of focusing on strategy while the rest of  us focused on tactics you know the last 20 years  
00:23:50
have been punctuated by the United States spending  literally trillions of dollars on endless wars and  
00:23:57
unnecessary military infrastructure and all kinds  of wasted pork barrel spending and programs that  
00:24:04
just have resulted in zero ROI for the United  States and it's taxpayers and citizens and  
00:24:11
instead what it China do they basically went  around the world and they used the equivalent  
00:24:17
amount of dollars and they said every war that  the United States fights is a war that we can   essentially be silent on let them do that dirty  work and what we will do instead is we will go and  
00:24:27
basically buy and own large swaths of Southeast  Asia large swaths of Africa which is you know the  
00:24:34
emerging labor pools that will drive GDP forward  for us and what they've essentially created is  
00:24:40
not necessarily a voting bloc but a productivity  bloc and that's what's so you know interesting and  
00:24:48
also really important to understand which is  that China is fighting not an ideological war  
00:24:53
they're fighting an economic war and it is one  where they are buying you know member states to  
00:25:01
join them with their capital and so we've kind of  like not seen it and it's unfortunately happened  
00:25:08
right under our nose so now what we need to do  is we need to sort of wake up to this reality   and have a very aggressive point of view around  what you know matter so by the way this is also  
00:25:19
why and I'll hand the mic to David after this but  this is also why I think like we have completely  
00:25:25
wasted so much time focusing on you know all these  other countries that just don't matter anymore and  
00:25:31
you know I don't say that emotionally I just say  it practically like every single minute we spend  
00:25:36
on Russia is just the wasted time this is a you  know country that just won't fundamentally matter  
00:25:42
in the world over the next 15 to 20 years large  swathes of Europe you know they're ideologically  
00:25:48
aligned but they just don't matter the United  States has to develop a really specific strategic  
00:25:55
viewpoint on the fact that it is US versus China  whether we like it or not and it starts in things  
00:26:04
like public policy but it stretches to everything  including capitalism technology intellectual  
00:26:10
property healthcare and this war will not be  fought on the ground with guns it'll be fought  
00:26:19
with computers and it'll be fought with money yeah  no need to realize owns and joint ventures sacks  
00:26:25
what are your thoughts here on this coming Cold  War you know we beat the Russians in the cold last  
00:26:31
Cold War and to jamaat's point the only thing they  have really going for them is they're incredibly  
00:26:38
sinister KGB style information warfare and the  decreasing value of their oil and irrelevance  
00:26:48
which is why they have to do things like mess with  us on social media I mean that literally I feel  
00:26:53
like it's like the last couple of dying techniques  they've got in their playbook from you know the   80s as the KGB and they got a KGB agent running  the country when we look at China how do you frame  
00:27:05
our relationship with them and what would be the  best practice for the next ten years midterm well  
00:27:13
I think I think what you've seen just really in  the last couple of weeks is a critical mass of   scholarship and punditry declaring that we are in  a new cold war with China and I think you know of  
00:27:26
all the momentous news events that have happened  this year from kovat to you the riots and protests  
00:27:34
I think that the most newsworthy and historically  important event will be the beginning of this and  
00:27:43
the recognition that we are now in cold war too  so takedown court tick-tock is part of it I mean  
00:27:50
it's paradoxical about a dance app is literally at  the tip of the spear I mean I think any tick-tock  
00:27:55
is sort of at the fringes I think the the Cold  War to to David's point started when the United  
00:28:01
States basically embargoed Huawei from getting  access to 5g technology and I know that sounds  
00:28:07
like a very sort of like thin thread that most  people don't understand and we can unpack it in   a second but in my opinion that sort of you know  at the beginning of this year was when I started  
00:28:17
to pay attention and try to understand this issue  more because it seemed like wow that's a that's  
00:28:22
a shot across the bow and declaring China as the  clear you know sort of a clear and present danger  
00:28:27
for American sovereignty and the NBA tik-tok  being cultural ramifications of that and which  
00:28:33
are differences he talks irrelevant who cares  well it's it's is it in tax well what tick-tock  
00:28:39
and all we have in common is that the the sort of  proxy battles of Cold War - will be fought between  
00:28:48
these sort of client corporations whereas you know  Cold War one you have these you know sort of these   proxy these sort of client states fighting these  proxy wars cold war - you have more of these like  
00:28:59
client corporations fighting these proxy wars  so you know it's that's the sense in which I  
00:29:07
think they're they're related the what tick tock  shows is a company that's desperately trying to  
00:29:14
maneuver so they don't become one of the first  economic casualties of cold war - they appointed  
00:29:20
a American as CEO they've pulled out of Hong Kong  so they're not subject to to those regulations and  
00:29:29
they're desperately maneuvering so they don't get  banned in the United States they want to preserve   their market access but I think there's a very  good chance that they will get shut down in the  
00:29:39
u.s. they've been shut down in India and today's  July the 10th and right before we went on the  
00:29:45
breaking news was at Amazon basically asked all  their employees delete to delete tik-tok because  
00:29:50
of a security threat so it's happening I think  that tick-tock unless they basically have bike  
00:29:56
dance cell under 20 or 30% of the company and  get it into the hands of Americans it will get  
00:30:03
banned and I think that there will be a massive  destruction in enterprise value book can I tell   you why tick-tock doesn't matter and or doesn't  matter as much I think David you're right that  
00:30:11
it's sort of like collateral damage it it almost  is like you know it'll exist but whatever the  
00:30:18
Huawei thing in my opinion is so important because  it shines a light on two things the first is that  
00:30:24
you know what happened essentially as the United  States told tsmc you know you cannot basically  
00:30:30
give Huawei access to the 5g chipsets and the 5g  technology that they would use to essentially kind  
00:30:36
of like you know implement their spyware and then  sell it into Western nations effectively and so  
00:30:42
then what what it does is it puts China in the  posture of having to figure out how do they get   access to this stuff and you know the most obvious  answer is to invade Taiwan and take over tsmc and  
00:30:53
you know why would they do that well obviously  that has huge geopolitical ramifications but   they could only do that again going back to the  first comment is because they've already bought  
00:31:01
so many nation states into their productivity  bloc that it's still on a balance a worthwhile  
00:31:07
trade and it allows them to solve their version of  Taiwanese sovereignty completely and definitively  
00:31:15
and basically say look we've we've now solved  Hongkong you know Macau is already solved and  
00:31:20
now we're gonna solve Taiwan and put the whole  thing to bed and now we have access to this   critical technology that we need so that's why I  think sort of like what happens with Huawei sort  
00:31:30
of what happens with TSM see what happens on 5g  is so important because if you're going to force  
00:31:35
China you know to basically have to buy Western  technology in order to get access to a critical  
00:31:41
piece of you know Internet infrastructure they're  gonna be put to a very very difficult test about  
00:31:47
what they have to do and then they will have  to be much more transparent on the global stage  
00:31:53
about what their ambitions really are and how far  they're willing to go and I think that's you know  
00:31:59
that's a lot more important than you know a bunch  of kids dancing to short videos well and and just  
00:32:05
just to add to that point you know so I think your  mouth is right that these these sort of chips the  
00:32:12
5g chips these other chips are that they're the  new oil you know in terms of their geopolitical  
00:32:17
significance you know obviously all of our  technology or our iPhones are advanced event  
00:32:24
weaponry it's all based on these these chips and  and 70% of them are fabricated in Taiwan and and I  
00:32:35
think you know what one of the huge blind spots  of American trade policy over the last thirty  
00:32:41
years is is kind of not to notice that that this  key technology that's really the substrate for  
00:32:49
all of our technology for our economy has now been  many it's now been moved and it's manufactured you  
00:32:58
know in Taiwan whose sovereignty China does not  recognize and it's constantly you know threatening  
00:33:05
with the risk of being of being annexed so you  know we have a tremendous vulnerability there  
00:33:11
and you know at the same you know II finally  after about 40 or 50 years of declaring that  
00:33:17
we'd be energy-independent we've achieved that  but now we have this new dependency on these  
00:33:22
chips that and Pharma and manufacturer I mean  and we and we it seems like now manufacturing  
00:33:29
we're starting to realize hey Elon was right  we need to be able to build our own factories   and guess what American spirit American ingenuity  American focus American capitalism we can do it we  
00:33:41
have the wherewithal to do it there's no reason we  cannot make these chips here sorry I don't buy it   that we're we're gonna be this dependent forever  we just need to have the will and the leadership  
00:33:52
to say we're going to do this whether it costs  us an extra 50 cents per chip and well the fact  
00:33:58
the fabrication of these chips is incredibly  complicated I mean they're they're basically  
00:34:05
so let's buy the companies they're microscopic  yeah and it takes years and like several years  
00:34:10
to set up the you know the facility to do this  kind of fun why don't we buy those companies now  
00:34:16
why don't we just take it just Ramat spoink which  was very clear which is hey this is an economic  
00:34:21
this is a ledger this is you know a cheque writing  exercise to win this war why don't we take out our  
00:34:29
checkbook and buy fifty percent of these companies  now and put them on the Nasdaq if they're not   already there it requires real leadership at  the end of the day it needs to be led by the  
00:34:40
United States government the reality is that you  know lithography has gotten so advanced I mean  
00:34:46
like look I have you know companies that are you  know taping out chips at like seven nanometer and  
00:34:51
I don't I don't have supply or diversity I don't  know I can't basically choose you know nine folks  
00:34:58
to bid it out against of which you know five are  domestically in the United States there are two   right and so you know you kind of just deal with  the complexity or the lack of diversity that we  
00:35:07
have and Jason your point is exactly right which  is the first and most important decision here  
00:35:13
is one that's philosophical which is again saying  that era of efficiency at the sake of all else is  
00:35:20
over and we are now moving to an era of resilience  which inherently is more inefficient but in that  
00:35:28
inefficiency we will rebuild American prosperity  because it rebuilds American industry and it  
00:35:34
rebuilds American jobs there's another example  that I want to build on David's point which is   let's all believe and a test that we all care  about climate change for a second and we all want  
00:35:45
the world to be electrified okay well electricity  and electrification requires two very very basic  
00:35:55
inputs okay one is a battery and the second is an  electric motor right make sense so far yep well  
00:36:03
inside an electric motor there is one critical  thing that you need to make it work which is a  
00:36:10
permanent magnet the permanent magnet spins around  and that's how an electric motor works okay why  
00:36:16
is that important as it turns out that permanent  magnets need special characteristics that are only  
00:36:24
provided by a handful of very very specific rare  earth materials that we need to mine out of the  
00:36:31
ground and refine those materials actually exist  in many places including the United States yeah  
00:36:37
we stopped mining for them but right now China  controls 80% of the supply of rare earths they can  
00:36:44
choose how they price it they can differentially  price to their own companies which means that the   battery and engine manufacturers inside of China  can now lead on electrification which means China  
00:36:55
can actually lead on climate change before the  United States can unless we have leadership that  
00:37:01
says at a governmental level on down we are  gonna make this a priority we're gonna fund   it we're gonna make sure that their onshore mines  we're gonna make sure that those mines are clean  
00:37:10
we're gonna build a supply chain domestically and  we're gonna subsidize this is what governments do   best it's not Act it's just incentivize on things  like climate so I don't know Freiburg has spent  
00:37:21
a lot of time on climate change so he has a PS  probably a lot of ideas on this but whenever you   look at any of these things health climate food it  all comes down to the United States versus China  
00:37:31
Strada versus tactics Freebird look I'm not sure  I'm not sure I think that the Chinese action is as  
00:37:42
deterministic as we think it is or as we kind  of frame it where it's China's got this grand  
00:37:47
plan they're gonna beat the US and they're gonna  control things and make decisions that that hurt  
00:37:52
us I think a lot of this is China if you think  about it less of that black and white there's a  
00:37:58
continuum and the continuum is one of influence  and one of creating an environment whereby these  
00:38:03
things can happen so China for example made  capital readily available for the agriculture  
00:38:11
industry to be able to buy buy assets and so the  companies inside of China which aren't controlled  
00:38:18
the Chinese government isn't telling them what  to do the Chinese government has set a policy   that enables them to increase their prosperity  and as a result increase the prosperity of the  
00:38:28
Chinese people you know when I was at Monsanto  we were we'd bid for the largest AG chemicals  
00:38:34
company in the world based out of Switzerland it's  called Syngenta and we bid like forty four billion   dollars to buy this company and the largest  chemical company in China called CEM China bid  
00:38:45
47 billion dollars and acquired the business and  they now own the largest add chemicals company in  
00:38:50
the world China also bought Smithfield and they  bought they put a bunch of people in Canada hey   free bird how much of that money do you think came  from the CCP and and what involvement you think  
00:38:59
the CCP had in putting their thumb on the scale of  making sure that transaction went that direction   look I mean ultimately wherever the the capital  comes from it's no less equivalent than what you  
00:39:10
would see in the United States where Treasuries  fund the central bank which funds banks which fund  
00:39:16
lending to corporations which ultimately make  but do you think the leadership said hey we're  
00:39:21
winning this at all costs so here's what happened  in 2007 there was a CCP internal doctrine that was  
00:39:28
published and it's now reasonably well known and  there was a speech that was given that started   this aggressive action in agriculture and as a  result Chinese citizens started moving to Canada  
00:39:38
and buying farmland in Canada they started moving  Australia buying farmland in China they started   building these facilities in Argentina and Brazil  and Africa and the Chinese government set out you  
00:39:47
know a strategic objective and provided the  capital and enabled industry and people to go  
00:39:53
after pursuing these interests but the CCP didn't  say here's the roadmap it's not like here's the   specific plan for what we need to do they had a  general high-level kind of point of view that I  
00:40:02
think drove all that action and all that behavior  and so you know it's I would say it's it's not as  
00:40:07
perhaps coercive as we might think it is in terms  of the CCP wanting to target and attack us they're  
00:40:13
trying to increase their influence around the  world they're kind of increased their own security   and increase their own prosperity and at some  point there's only so many resources globally  
00:40:21
there's only so much land so much magnets that  you know they and they're winning in the markets  
00:40:26
and you know we're kind of crossing that threshold  now where they're actually like a competitor you  
00:40:31
know the only difference between this is and  it couldn't be my point is I just don't want   to frame it as like I just think it's a it's a  misstatement to frame it as China has this grand  
00:40:41
plan to come after the US and they're evil and  that's what they're doing I mean you know this   is where I think they're completely wrong David  respectfully yeah in that I believe this is an  
00:40:50
ideological war and if you you can't diminish  what's happening in Hollywood tik-tok and the NBA  
00:40:59
and other sports where China is explicitly saying  if you put a villain in our in a movie if you talk  
00:41:06
about Tibet in a movie we are going to not play  that movie and we're going to start funding your  
00:41:11
movies and so they are absolutely using the vector  of culture and chamalla I think you're also wrong  
00:41:17
here where you're saying tick-tocks not important  tick tock is something that a generation of kids   absolutely are in love with and those kids are  like hey boomers stay out of our platform and so  
00:41:29
and in the ideological issue here Freebird which  I think that you're under playing is they want  
00:41:36
to win and they want to spread their ideology  which is the ideology of authoritarianism they  
00:41:44
are not going to win Africa and then suddenly  say you know what would be great for Africa if  
00:41:49
we made the entire continent democracies that's  not in their best interest how's it different  
00:41:54
than Trump tweeting well Freiberg I think that  it's it's inconceivable to me that the Chinese  
00:42:02
when they do this grandiose planning and they  do that you know the political theater of having   the thousands of people in the Chinese you know  assembly hall once a year that you know in GG bing  
00:42:11
talks that they haven't developed a multi-faceted  multi-layered plan that they're executing in part  
00:42:18
I think this is why is using ping essentially  wants to be this ruler for life inside of China   because he I think they have a 20 or 30 year plan  and I do think it is to disrupt the United States  
00:42:30
and I don't think that they believe though which  is the smart thing that there's one silver bullet   I just think that they're gonna take a thousand  shots on goal whether it's you know monopolizing  
00:42:39
the rare earths or you know figuring out how  to basically put spying software in the hands  
00:42:45
of millions of Americans that's where I think tick  tock is actually really important it's essentially   a vehicle to spy and backdoor into Americans or  whether it's you know introducing a digital yuan  
00:42:56
so that we can try to disrupt the you know the the  use of the US dollar as a reserve currency of the  
00:43:01
world they probably have a list of a thousand  tactics and they're gonna go and execute them   and I don't begrudge them that I just think it's  it's it's well-organized machine I just think we  
00:43:12
now need to counterpunch sacks yeah I mean so  China is on a mission of national greatness I  
00:43:20
think the immediate goal is to is to assert its  hegemony over Asia and to kick the u.s. out of  
00:43:27
that region but I think ultimately now they see  in their sights potentially being the number one  
00:43:33
country in the entire world because of the because  of the chaos that kovat has wrought over here I  
00:43:40
think and in fairness David the incompetence of  Trump thus far I mean like you know it's it's not  
00:43:45
fair to think that the Chinese Politburo versus  Trump and his cabinet are an equal match forget  
00:43:50
their political persuasion yeah I mean they  clearly seem emboldened and you know just in   the last few weeks and months we've seen the  ending of the two systems and Hong Kong which  
00:44:00
was a 50 year commitment they made and I think  the 1984 so they abrogated on that well it's a  
00:44:08
commitment that yeah you having to do that three  or four months before our Trump is looking like  
00:44:14
he's not gonna be in office so talking about shots  on goal this may be their only shot to do this and  
00:44:20
well there's the whole want yeah but just do they  go after Taiwan in the next hundred have a window  
00:44:25
I think we have to be extremely clear that Taiwan  is a red line for us and that we're committed to  
00:44:31
the security of Taiwan because if we show any  hesitation or weakness there they will they will  
00:44:36
seize on that and would try to do that would Trump  put his foot down because he did nothing when it  
00:44:41
came to supporting I think we need to attract  away from any given President of the United   States because they they change every four or  eight years and I think we need to have a bigger  
00:44:50
discussion which is like I said over the next 40  to 50 years are we comfortable with do all duopoly  
00:44:56
power structure in the world which is the United  States and China because that's effectively what   we are today or are we the shining city on a hill  once again and if so what are we willing to do to  
00:45:06
make sure that that's the case and I think that's  independent of your political persuasion in your   party right well the good news here is that both  Trump and Biden are basically racing to sort of  
00:45:18
position themselves as the more hawkish candidate  on China which is to say that this recognition of  
00:45:24
Cold War 2 is now I think bipartisan which if  you want to sustain a policy in this country  
00:45:30
over say 40 years like we did in containing the  Soviet Union you have to have bipartisan support  
00:45:36
for that and so it does seem like finally as a  country I think we are kind of getting our act  
00:45:41
together on China I mean obviously there will  be disagreements within that larger context but  
00:45:48
it seems like now people are waking up to the  threat that that china represents to you know  
00:45:56
to America being that I'm one country in the world  and I think yeah by the way I agree with I agree  
00:46:02
with Sachs I mean I think that's exactly what's  happening and and what will happen here and and  
00:46:10
it'll certainly it'll be a big hill to climb I'll  just highlight and I'll ask the question of chima  
00:46:15
you know per his point earlier let me ask you guys  how many factories do you think exist in China  
00:46:21
take a guess 11 million to point eight million  now how many do you think exist in the United  
00:46:28
States 150,000 close back to Norfolk 2000 and has  about 83 million factory workers and we have about  
00:46:35
12 so you know ch amok if we do end up in Cold  War 2 where you know we escalate the tension and  
00:46:44
escalate the divide how do we end up you know  having avoiding $2,000 $3,000 iPhones how do we  
00:46:52
get all the televisions we want for 500 bucks how  do we do that given that you know to catch up with  
00:46:58
this production capacity will end up costing many  tens of trillions of dollars of invested capital  
00:47:04
that China has invested over decades well this  is such a brilliant this is a somewhat fabulous   question and I think I don't have the answer but  here's the way that I think about the solution  
00:47:12
you know the the thing that we had before was  in my way in many ways like this kind of like  
00:47:18
perverted sense of globalism and I think that  we we you know we thought that globalism equals  
00:47:24
utopia and that's not true it's actually more  like a chessboard which means you have you know  
00:47:30
two different sets of colored pieces competing  against each other and each piece on the board  
00:47:35
in many ways as a country so you know we can look  at that as a Geographic skew and say like we need  
00:47:40
to really consolidate you know North Central and  South America has a block as a productivity block  
00:47:47
and so David that's where we need to have more  trade within those areas so that we can actually  
00:47:52
build up production capacity in places that can  absorb and produce low-cost labor or low-cost  
00:47:58
items to compete with to china bloc that may be  a solution I mean that is an incredible point  
00:48:04
Chamath which is why with the rhetoric with Mexico  which would love relationship with us is so so  
00:48:12
dumb we're talking about factories they would love  for us to put more factories on there and whatever   country is good for this work our way down the  peninsula yeah go to go down the peninsula go  
00:48:23
go to Honduras go to El Salvador go to Guatemala  where your weii paralyzed they won't work yeah are  
00:48:29
screaming for work which is why they're trying  to enter the United States the best ways to not   build a wall take all that money and fuel it  into production and manufacturing and warehouse  
00:48:40
in those places in which they're leaving in the  first place and if we thought like China we would  
00:48:45
go ahead do it Freiburg sorry no you can't  successfully sustain a cold war with China   without global partnership and I think you know  this notion of nationalism and isolationism in  
00:48:57
the United States will not work in a world where  we are also trying to compete globally with China  
00:49:04
and are raising the stakes in a global cold war  you can't have it both ways so you know either  
00:49:10
the the current administration policy needs to  change I'd love to hear Sachs's point of view   on this or you know or we need to have a change in  administration and actually you know re-engage on  
00:49:19
it on a global basis with partner States well okay  so I think that the the point about about well I  
00:49:28
think what what some people on the right would say  is that being able to buy cheap goods at Target is  
00:49:35
not worth the hollowing out of the American  industrial base that happened over the past   thirty years and that was a catastrophic mistake  and you know this is what got trump reelected was  
00:49:44
shattering that that blue wall in those Rust Belt  states so I think we can kind of look back on that  
00:49:51
and wonder whether that trade-off was really worth  it but moving forward I think the balance is gonna  
00:49:56
be to realize that trade does create wealth you  know all wealth in fact comes from trade whether  
00:50:05
at the level of individuals or nations if it  weren't for trade all of us would be subsistence   farmers or something like that but we also have to  realize that trade creates interdependence because  
00:50:17
I stopped making certain things in order to buy  them from you and so in order to engage in trade  
00:50:22
we have to trust each other I have to trust that  that you one day won't decide that your ability  
00:50:29
to manufacture antibiotics is strategic and you  might deprive me of them in order to facilitate   some geopolitical interest and so I think what  we're waking up to with you know production of  
00:50:40
you know pharmaceuticals or n95 masks you know  PPE and now chips is that we've had this real  
00:50:49
blind spot with respect to trade we've basically  offshore so many of the elements are necessary for  
00:50:55
our national survival and I think those elements  have to be brought back so that America is safe  
00:51:01
and independent but with respect to you know so  many other things I think it's fine for us to get  
00:51:09
them through trade whether you know it could be  a peril or toys or so many other goods that you   know we do want cheap goods I want to do an only  strategic I want to do a mental exercise we all  
00:51:17
for our living try to come up with 100 X 1000 X  solutions whether we're creating the companies   or betting on the companies when everybody to  just think for a second of the United States  
00:51:27
as a startup company and a 10x 100x idea for how  we can not only maintain our position but maybe  
00:51:37
become the shining hill where we actually lead the  world towards democracy towards human rights I'm  
00:51:45
going to start with the one that I just happened  to it hit me while you all were talking which is  
00:51:50
why I love doing this podcast because I get such  inspiration listening to you guys you know pass   the ball around we haven't added a state to the  United States in a pretty damn long time what  
00:52:01
if we said to Puerto Rico what if we said to the  Dominican Republic what have we said to indoors I  
00:52:06
mean and I don't want to make this into a exercise  in colonialism but if we said you know what Puerto  
00:52:14
Rico how do you feel about being the 51st state  because we're already 80% of the way there and   what if we said the United States is going to  and this is just a crazy hundred x idea we're  
00:52:24
going to start taking countries that maybe love  democracy that would love to be part of the United  
00:52:29
States and and having a bridge towards becoming  part of this block whether it's how Puerto Rico  
00:52:35
is Jason the United States can barely function  as it is that's why I'm giving you the freedom  
00:52:40
to say this is a hundred x exercise as a start-up  because if we put out crazy ideas like this maybe   we can pull people towards thinking like the  chessboard of how to play 3d chess or how to  
00:52:51
win the chessboard not just move the pawns back  and forth well I think the first thing America has   to do is is decide whether it wants to whether it  still thinks that national greatness is important  
00:53:03
and whether it wants to compete to to be the  leading power in the world because right now  
00:53:08
it seems like we're hopelessly divided and our  guns are literally drawn on each other and you  
00:53:17
know you've got this all out assault going on on  capitalism you have sort of canceled culture and  
00:53:23
America just seems hopelessly divided and I don't  know if Americans still think it's important to  
00:53:30
be the number one power in the world so what are  the thought experiment on how to make Americans   realize this is important or if anybody else wants  to jump in here with a 10x idea of America good  
00:53:39
well I I have an overlaying theory that I it this  is sort of kind of me spitballing so bear with me  
00:53:46
but let's do it you know there's a there's this  concept called the Overton Window right which is   sort of like the the minimum ly viable acceptable  surface area of dialogue at which case it starts  
00:53:56
to sort of you know get extreme I might I would  theorize I would tell you that the Overton Window   is the smallest that's ever been and there's  basically nothing that you can talk about that  
00:54:06
is relatively benign without it being politicized  and and there's no gradation anymore it's a very  
00:54:13
binary thing you're either in the Overton  Window which for example would be like you   know vegetables matter or looking both ways across  the street matters and outside the Overton Window  
00:54:25
honestly is black lives matter as an example you  know and it gets politicized on both sides masks  
00:54:32
you know if a balaclava when you're skiing because  your face is cold is inside the Overton Window  
00:54:37
that same balaclava when you go to the drug store  so that you can actually you know either prevent  
00:54:43
disease one way or the other is outside the  Overton Window you know making sure that police  
00:54:49
you know are there to protect you in a time of  need is now outside the Overton Window because  
00:54:57
it's framed in in the lens of police brutality  so the Overton Window has shrunk so we we have  
00:55:03
very little surface area where we can actually all  agree without getting into a fight Heidi like each  
00:55:08
other I totally agree with that I mean we have  this we have this sort of epidemic of cancel   culture going on and I guess Jason you recently  experienced this oh my lord I mean for the love of  
00:55:18
God what happened Jason tell us what happened  listen I I look at Twitter as a place to have  
00:55:25
vibrant discussions and you know ten years ago it  was kind of where the Overton Window was most open  
00:55:31
you could have a discussion about anything and we  had a discussion about you know my feeling that as  
00:55:38
a former journalist and we're doing random acts of  journalism here that I just thought the New York   Times was just way too biased and that they picked  aside in order for their business to survive and I  
00:55:49
actually believe that I believe they picked the  side of Trump I'm sorry the side of anti Trump   in order to get subscriptions because their  advertising business has been demolished by  
00:55:59
the duopoly of Facebook and Google this led to the  circling of the wagons of the journalists which I  
00:56:07
was part of but listen it's pretty easy to hate me  I understand that I'm a loudmouth and so now I'm  
00:56:12
getting piled on by the journal and and you were  an early investor in who absolutely forget that   let's forget I think that a third or fourth I they  tell me the third or fourth anything so there's a  
00:56:25
journalist at said publication I'm not going to  say her name because I don't want any harassment   of anybody nobody does who said people are stupid  for going back to work and they're idiots and I  
00:56:39
said you know this is a very convenient thing  for a journalist who works behind a keyboard who   makes $100,000 a year to say because those people  are literally not going to be able to feed their  
00:56:50
kids if they don't go back to work and this led to  her saying I was harassing and stalking her then I  
00:56:57
was in Clubhouse the new social network where you  talk and the same journalist was in the audience  
00:57:03
and I said to the people who were talking just  be aware there is a journalist in the audience   because even though this is a private beta this  could wind up being in the New York Times which it  
00:57:14
did not that discussion but another one that was  covertly taped and I don't know it was covertly   taped by journalists or not but it did wind up  in the press anyway this whole thing turns into a  
00:57:25
giant fight and table house sounds like some dark  S&M sex club in Berlin Hey no no that's here's  
00:57:33
what I think is most entertaining house H la us  house club house yeah let me what I think it's  
00:57:40
most entertaining about this is that the the New  York Times journalist was in this vicious battle  
00:57:47
with Balaji who's a Silicon Valley founder and  personality and they were arguing and then Jason  
00:57:52
somehow comes running over and starts involving  himself in this feud and it's like and it's like  
00:58:01
Balaji gets fouled but Jason takes the flop you  know and all of a sudden then all of a sudden   Jason's talking about you know how he's getting  Doc's ball geez the guy who is like called out in  
00:58:09
the New York Times but somehow Jason Jason takes  the flop but anyway so here's what's happened  
00:58:15
I'm only telling the story I'm not trying to get  victim points give a [ __ ] about that it's July  
00:58:22
4th I think I put the kids down for the nap we you  know stakes are going on the grills [ __ ] great  
00:58:29
day and then I'm on the peloton trying to be just  a little less fat so I can be less fat than Saks  
00:58:36
so that the photo that we're Sachs is using I  just come out 5 percent less fat than Saks and  
00:58:42
I look and I had posted a picture of the tree line  outside my house two of the beautiful blueSky on  
00:58:49
July 4th and I said listen everybody take a break  from Twitter go spend time with your family which   is what I was about to do a 37-year a private  equity douche from Boston does a reverse image  
00:59:02
search on the tree line finds a bigger picture  of the trees finds a picture of my pool based on  
00:59:07
that bigger picture in Google reverse image search  and all these other tools and then DOCSIS me which   basically means releasing your address he releases  my address in my thread where ok because so i DM  
00:59:21
him and he's using his real name and he's got a  LinkedIn profile and I said do you realize how  
00:59:27
dangerous this is he goes well you're stalking  said journalists I said I am not stalking the  
00:59:32
journalist was she said you're stalking her so if  you apologized to her and you take down the mean   stuff you said about horror I'll take down your  home address and I said a [ __ ] this is illegal  
00:59:42
number one and number two you gonna lose your  Twitter account and then I said number three we're  
00:59:49
connected your boss because you have a you're  using your public name your boss is connected  
00:59:55
to 14 people of which like half are very close  friends of mine and I'm calling your boss and I  
01:00:04
have all these screenshots of you doc see me what  do you think is gonna happen on Monday and I just   gave him my phone number in this weakness sick  to your face okay let me just finish the story I  
01:00:15
tell the guy here's my phone number he calls me I  said hey I know that you're a kid I know that you  
01:00:21
did something rash but this is actually you know a  kind of a dangerous thing because you know there's   serious mental illness in whatever point 1 percent  of the population there's millions of people in  
01:00:29
now involved in this discussion it could be a  security concern for me I'm not gonna post your   address please don't post mine delete the tweet he  was I refused to delete a tree until you whatever  
01:00:38
and I said okay well I'm gonna call your boss on  Monday we know these people in common she's going  
01:00:44
to fire you and you're gonna lose your job now I  know you're only 23 or 24 and this doesn't matter   to you and he goes uh I said how old are you said  37 I said you're 37 year olds are you married you  
01:00:54
said yeah I'm married I got a six-year-old they  said now you want me to make you lose your job   because you're so mad at me over nothing I said  I don't want to call your boss on Monday and and  
01:01:04
tell them what you did because it will certainly  result in you being fired and he goes oh I said  
01:01:10
you might want to go talk to your spouse about  what you did and maybe get her perspective she  
01:01:15
writes me an apology letter we deleted it's all  water under the bridge but I've been trying to   tell people you have to be very careful when  this gets too personal because there are your  
01:01:25
dog whistling two crazy people who then might do  something crazy anyway end of story I backed off  
01:01:30
the whole discussion because I just don't want to  I want to finish my second book and I want to do   podcast with guys like you and have a great time  with my life and not be involved with a bunch of  
01:01:39
idiots and if so I want to go back to this Overton  Window concept for a second so again just my idea  
01:01:47
so you take the word matters the word matters is  in the Overton Window nobody can argue that the  
01:01:53
word matters is offensive if you if you prepend  that word with vegetables it stays in the over  
01:01:59
too window if you put looking both ways before  you cross the street now cash we're still there  
01:02:05
going over to window if you say black lives as a  term just without the word matters that's probably  
01:02:11
in the Overton Window sure you put black lives  matters it's out the Overton Window and both sides  
01:02:16
politicized I think the left politicizes with  this cancel culture and basically like an extreme  
01:02:24
form of political correctness and then the right  politicizes by you know in in their way a vein of  
01:02:30
hypersensitivity and then a doubling down on this  notion of an attacking of individual freedoms and  
01:02:36
free speech and in all of that both of these two  groups miss the fact that they're both sort of the  
01:02:43
same and they they're they're wronged in the same  way but they're both not listening in the same  
01:02:48
way right so if I have to put something in the  Overton Window that would address the us-china  
01:02:54
Cold War thing here's what I would say we all need  energy we all need food and we all need technology  
01:03:01
right we need to sort of warm our houses we need  to feed our bellies and we need to be able to be  
01:03:06
productive in some way so that we can make money  and I think that everybody in the United States  
01:03:13
can agree that on these three dimensions there are  some really simple things that we could do that  
01:03:20
basically double down on us sovereignty and allow  us to basically be more on the offensive so I'll  
01:03:27
give you a couple of ideas on the energy side is  we need to continue to support energy independence  
01:03:35
and that will require subsidies and the reason  why that's important in my opinion is that then  
01:03:41
what happens is it hastens and accelerates Russia  and the Middle East not becoming relevant anymore  
01:03:50
because they are forced to monetize their oil  sooner the Middle East probably disintegrates into  
01:03:57
30 countries you know the Middle East was just a  kind of a random exercise of you know basically  
01:04:03
Americans and Europeans after the war divvying up  a bunch of things it has no sensitivity to culture  
01:04:08
or language or anything so that probably you know  - in a very different direction and Russia itself  
01:04:15
and Russia becomes less important because they  just have to monetize otherwise they will lose   their only source of revenue so that's one thing  on energy that I think we could do that I think is  
01:04:24
relatively politically acceptable and inside the  Overton Window second is on food which is that  
01:04:31
we have to double down on creating a completely  independent food supply inside the United States  
01:04:37
and there are ways again where if we don't need  to be building tanks and having 90 trillion  
01:04:43
dollar programs for aircraft carriers anymore we  could pour that money into US farms you know and  
01:04:49
give people like Friedberg a lot more money to go  and actually make sure the united states has food   security that in any situation and scenario we  can feed the three hundred and thirty-odd million  
01:05:00
people inside of our borders and then the for the  the third thing is on technology which is there  
01:05:06
are a critical bunch of inputs whether it's 5g  chips rare earth materials or minerals things like  
01:05:14
cobalt and lithium which we need for batteries  for climate change that we can go and basically  
01:05:20
co-opt because those things are concentrated in  countries like Chile in places like in places like  
01:05:26
Africa where we can actually do a better job of  instilling government governance and security so  
01:05:34
that's my Jason back to your thing these aren't  sexy ideas but they would work and I think they   would work by both Republicans and Democrats and  it's non-controversial I'll even put punch up the  
01:05:44
food part there's no reason why you know the same  way we made water and public schools you know kind  
01:05:52
of a given in the United States nobody really has  to worry about going getting water nobody has to   worry about getting a basic education learning  to read let's say it's not perfect obviously  
01:06:01
why not make healthy produce and some amount of  healthy food so affordable in the United States  
01:06:08
that it's essentially free right and then you  think about food security like how are we still  
01:06:16
discussing food security with the amount of money  and prosperity we have in this country make it   free we've we've almost made energy free we have  energy independence I'll say a Manhattan Project  
01:06:26
to make energy and food as free or de minimus  as water would be just an amazing thing for us  
01:06:33
to rally around because then people can work on  the next thing in their life their careers their   family their pursuits Freiburg what do you think  of the Overton Window and would you add something  
01:06:42
to it that we can all agree on that we could work  on together and maybe unify the country as opposed   to pulling guns on each other in the parking lots  because of the color of our skin I'm reminded of  
01:06:52
a great moment in history when Will Smith and his  friends blew up the UFO that came to attack Earth  
01:07:00
nothing brings us together like a common enemy  so it could be that the unification is gonna be  
01:07:08
you know in part driven by this cold war - and  creating a common enemy in China it's gonna work  
01:07:15
for both the right on the left and create a lot of  opportunity of jama' highlights and manufacturing   and food production as there's a lot of tools  available to us I think we could all sit here  
01:07:23
and speculate and I could pitch and plug all the  companies I'm involved in I think are gonna play a   role but I do think it's it's that moment where  you know we are gonna coalesce around a common  
01:07:34
enemy and well I would be good if you actually  shared one or two of those projects you're working   on if you can actually we think well I mean I  think here what you're working I've shared this  
01:07:43
before but I do think biomanufacturing which is  that the technology whereby we engineer the DNA  
01:07:51
of microbes and those microbes then make molecules  for us in a big fermentation tank in the same way  
01:07:57
that we make beer or wine biomanufacturing can be  used to make flavors and fragrances and now we're  
01:08:03
making materials like silks and plastics plastic  equivalents and and more interestingly proteins  
01:08:09
for human consumption to replace animal proteins  and the cost of production and the cost of energy  
01:08:15
associated with making these materials these  molecules these proteins through bio manufacturing   is literally several orders of magnitude less than  the traditional technique which is just insane if  
01:08:26
you think about it in first principles basis of  growing [ __ ] corn feeding it to a cow letting  
01:08:31
the cow grow up feeding it hundreds of gallons  of water killing it chopping it up transporting   it to a restaurant I mean the amount of energy  that goes into making a pound of ground beef is  
01:08:39
insane and the the greenhouse gas emissions and  so on so I do believe that there is a big wave of  
01:08:45
bio manufacturing as an industry that is coming  on the US this century and it will hopefully by  
01:08:50
the end of the century be the primary way that  we're kind of producing a lot of the molecules   that we consume and that we use for clothing and  materials so then that does what to factories  
01:08:59
because you know you did explain earlier they a  number of factories if we can bio produce that's  
01:09:04
right only our steaks not only our corn so I  mean we could bio manufacture steel plastics  
01:09:11
cars not so much steel but alternatives to leather  alternatives to cloth alternatives to so close to  
01:09:18
clothes food so imagine instead of a traditional  factory think about a factory historically being  
01:09:23
purpose-built so you build all these components  to make one thing cement all this money making a  
01:09:28
giant machine that you put stuff in on one end  and the same thing comes out over and over the   other end and that's classic industrial revolution  1.0 and you know 20 century industrial revolution  
01:09:38
output in this century we are gonna build these  giant printers they're not going to be single form  
01:09:45
machines that make one thing over and over they're  gonna be systems that are giant fermentation tanks  
01:09:50
and in those fermentation tanks it's like you  program them with software and the software in   this case is genetic software you edit the genome  of these organisms they take stuff on the input  
01:09:59
and they make on the output a bunch of different  stuff a replicator like in Star Trek and if there  
01:10:05
was seasonality and people needed something over  the summer for July 4th versus what they need in  
01:10:10
Christmas or in the winter and ski season the  same factory makes that thing where 10 20 30  
01:10:16
40 50 years from this having an impact on the  economy yes and we're seeing it now I mean look   the number of artificial animal protein companies  and the funding that they're getting its I think  
01:10:27
highlighting investor interest and appetite in  backing the capex needed to get this to become   a reality right now perfect day just raised 300  million dollars this week impossible foods rates  
01:10:37
forty million dollars from the Qatar Investment  Authority you know obviously beyond meat is   where they're I mean these companies are using  these techniques of genetic engineering to make  
01:10:48
microbes that make the proteins and the flavorings  liquid 50 we put five hundred million into the PPP  
01:10:55
if we put 500 I'm sorry 500 billion and put 500  billion into this how much would it accelerate  
01:11:00
it pretty substantially and I think it goes from  food to Pharma to materials and that's probably  
01:11:07
you know where you would see the be impact but  again one system can make different materials  
01:11:13
can make different so we could be independent  of other countries for food to Chalmers point   and also Pharma which we are way to depend in  correct on China yeah we're definitely a net  
01:11:23
exporter by the way you know our largest export  partner is China so most of our soybeans in the  
01:11:28
United States that we produce and soybeans  are grown on 160 million acres on the US and  
01:11:33
it rotates half-and-half each year with corn but  about two-thirds of our soybeans historically get   exported to China so we are already food secured  from a net resource perspective it's just the rest  
01:11:44
of the infrastructure in terms of turning that  stuff in the meat and other stuff is where we're   you know we probably have to build up a little bit  in transmittance sacks let's swing the ball over  
01:11:52
to you when you hear the Overton Window idea is  when you hear about this bio chemistry slurry tank  
01:11:59
revolution that Freebirds working on how does that  change or evolve your view of our relationship  
01:12:07
with China and the political mess we're in  right now in 2020 yeah well I think Cold War   2 does provide a lens to rethink and reevaluate a  lot of these domestic political fights and so for  
01:12:20
example are the big technology companies you know  Google Facebook and so on are they these you know  
01:12:27
even when ah police that need to be broken up or  are they the crown jewels of the American economy  
01:12:32
that needs to be protected from Chinese espionage  you know is the free enterprise system this you  
01:12:39
know horribly you know oppressive racist thing  or is it actually the engine of prosperity that's  
01:12:47
built this country you know is freedom of speech  an outdated principle or is it something we we  
01:12:55
want to you know that that should be canceled or  is it something we want to fight for and I think   that you know when you start thinking about these  issues you know in the you know through the lens  
01:13:04
of Cold War 2 it provides an opportunity to kind  of re-evaluate them and think about what's really   and and hopefully it can provide a little bit of  a Unova unifying force in America not because we  
01:13:17
want China to be an enemy but just because we  want to maintain a sense of national greatness  
01:13:23
and I you know it's not something I just want to  give up on I have a question for Friedberg are our  
01:13:31
schools gonna be back in the fall because I cannot  deal with my kids being at home yeah I think it's  
01:13:37
gonna be a mixed bag it seems like I mean if  you follow this this is a political decision   right it's not a scientific decision and so there  are different politics around nationally that are  
01:13:49
affecting this and there are some schools that  seem like they've got processes and methods of  
01:13:55
being comfortable some of them were just throwing  everything out the window and say I don't give a   [ __ ] if the kids got to go back to school and  some of them who are being very conservative  
01:14:01
and saying you know we're not ready for that we  can't take the risk so you'll definitely see a   mixed bag I don't know where you're living Jamaa  I don't know what's gonna happen per se but it's  
01:14:10
definitely a local apology Friedberg is it safe to  send our kids back to a 10-person pod in a school  
01:14:17
in California I mean that's like asking if it's  safe to cross a train track you know you can look  
01:14:22
left you can look right but yeah you're crying  you know a busy train intersection during during  
01:14:27
rush hour right you know it's hard to say what  level of safe is safe we know that kids are less  
01:14:36
susceptible to any sort of health risk themselves  from the virus and it looks like there's a lot of   studies showing that they're likely less the virus  is less transmissible through kids especially kids  
01:14:46
under the age of 14 and so it seems like there's  there's some theories that say that look it's  
01:14:52
these h2 receptors whereby the virus enters the  cells really start to present when you turn 10  
01:14:57
years old at a greater rate and you know it scales  up to 14 and above 14 you're kind of an adult from  
01:15:03
an h2 receptor point of view and then there's the  severity of the infection as we all know is really  
01:15:09
more of a significant issue for much elderly  people so when you take those factors into   account the virus is likely less transmissible  amongst children therefore a bunch of kids get  
01:15:19
together they're not going to transmit it to each  other and and it's likely going to be less severe   even if there is an infection for kids the risk is  just about are the teachers comfortable and what  
01:15:28
happens when they go home and there have been a  number of letters that you guys have probably seen   op-eds and whatnot written in papers by teachers  saying I'm nervous to go back to school I don't  
01:15:37
want to teach this fall I don't want to take  the risk for my health I take care of my mom   or my dad or what have you and so there's a lot of  competing interests let's go let's go around the  
01:15:46
horn of who's sending their kids back to school  I'll start I posted on Calacanis comm yesterday   that we've decided as a family that we're starting  a micro school we put out a call for a teacher and  
01:15:58
you know just looking at teacher salaries they  don't get paid particularly well in our society  
01:16:03
as we all know they're underpaid so we think we  can come over the top and provide a you know a   better financial arrangement for a teacher and  then have one to five students and we're going to  
01:16:14
just create a micro school that's hard that's our  current plan our kids did go to camp this summer  
01:16:20
in a small ten person or less pod and we felt  that was safe everybody was tested and it was  
01:16:27
outdoors but for me being indoors at a school with  300 pods of 10 and I think the best teachers are  
01:16:35
not going to show up and are my kids don't learn  over Xoom I don't know about your kids but it's   not working so we're starting a or we're gonna  roll our own school and hopefully find one or two  
01:16:44
families who want to chop up the cost with us or  we'll we'll just pick up the tab and invite one or   two families if they don't have the means to do it  but what we're gonna we're going to go solo for 20  
01:16:54
21 free burger mouths what do you thinking right  now because we're only seven eight weeks out from   this right we're less than two months I really  think like look not everybody Jason is going to  
01:17:04
be in a position to hire teachers in fact most  everybody won't be agree I think it's I want to  
01:17:10
send my children back to school I refuse to create  some alternative reality for them I think it's  
01:17:21
really important that they are with their friends  I think that we're not really thinking strongly  
01:17:26
enough about the social implications for you know  children let's just say like you know you take an  
01:17:33
8 year old or an you're old or a ten-year-old and  you deprive them of their friends for a year I   mean that's an enormous part of their life where  they like a prison sentence they've been socially  
01:17:43
isolated you know I just think it's a really bad  outcome so I think that obviously from a public  
01:17:52
health perspective we want to keep our teachers  safe I just think that it's so important that we  
01:17:58
realize that you know we are going to impact  an entire generation of kids I think that if   you're 18 or 19 and have had you know 18 or  19 years of normal teenage them you know and  
01:18:09
and and growing up that it's okay if you miss a  year or you have to you know do your first year   of college remotely like it sucks but you can deal  but I really worry about these kids in in primary  
01:18:21
school and middle school it's really unfair yeah  I mean with our plan was to try to get to four or   five students small bubble and then you know have  outdoor the problem is than the Northeast I just  
01:18:33
got to school it's you're inside with a heating  system of the clothes ventilation scheme that was   built in 1920 and I think it avoids the real key  thing which is like I don't think you go to school  
01:18:44
to learn as much as you go to school to socialize  socialize I mean you learn as a by-product because  
01:18:52
everybody socializes not everybody learns right  agreed and so there it's it's an enormous ly  
01:18:59
important formative experience for a child to be  around 15 or 20 of their other kids and to be in  
01:19:04
the playground to deal with all the adversity that  comes with normal life of a kid that's the biggest  
01:19:10
thing that I think we're depriving them of and  I understand that you know there's an important  
01:19:16
reason to hold these kids back but I just want to  appreciate that behaviorally and psychologically   this is not gonna be for free hmm Freebird sacks  what would you know I I guess I agree with both  
01:19:30
mouth and free bargain on this that the there  are huge benefits to going back and the risk  
01:19:37
to kids are low in terms of getting it and also  they're less viral if they do but Israel sort  
01:19:44
of a strong recent counter example where they  recently open schools and now all of a sudden   they've got a spike so you know we're gonna send  our kids back but I expect it to be a little bit  
01:19:55
of a [ __ ] show I think that the schools will  reopen and they'll do all this plan a there'll   be all these like pods and half days and smaller  groups and that kind of thing and then somebody's  
01:20:05
gonna they'll be like one case either a kid or you  know one family and then all of a sudden they're  
01:20:11
gonna shut down again I guess I you know they're  spending all this time planning but I wonder   if they're really gonna have contingency plans  for what happens when there's a case or yeah I  
01:20:21
think they'll just shut down it's just it it's too  scary for a child to die or a teacher to die and  
01:20:28
people at the overreaction to it will be to shut  everything down right and then we're gonna be back  
01:20:35
to our kids when we sent our kids to camp for the  three weeks they went man it was just they were  
01:20:41
different kids right and such a mots point they  did their little social animals they need to roll   around like little baby tigers and and play and  if they don't have that it dramatically affects  
01:20:51
behavior and we saw it in only three months I  mean 12 these kids are gonna go mental yeah I  
01:20:57
think that basically where the country is at is  that we're an undeclared Sweden you know we've  
01:21:03
basically that the virus has become endemic it's  everywhere you know we've basically given up on  
01:21:09
trying to contain or stop it and and so now we're  just on this path to hurt immunity and you know  
01:21:17
it's basically what Sweden did except we haven't  declared that's what our plan is and so it's   haphazard and but it's it seems like kind of were  by default it is headed for herd immunity Freiburg  
01:21:29
as we wrap up here and I got one final question I  want to do after this and then we'll wrap Freiburg  
01:21:34
what's your thoughts kids in schools I know you  have kids I'm not sure the ages if they're like   would be going back to it I think they're a little  bit on the younger side so if you did have eight  
01:21:44
nine ten twelve year olds sending them back to  school starting your own what are your thoughts   yeah I mean I'd I would probably be a little  ridiculous and send them and test them every  
01:21:53
other day at home and you know you can get this  back to Dickinson test system now for 250 bucks  
01:21:59
it's a handheld device and these test strips cost  20 say the name of it again the vector Dickenson  
01:22:05
it's a vector with a V B BB ways that alright  are they available yeah you can buy them through  
01:22:11
medical retailers and yeah the handheld device  that they use in hospitals and stuff today it's  
01:22:17
2 or 50 bucks and there's a little test kit that  you buy it'll probably cost 20 to 30 bucks it'll  
01:22:22
be available next month per test or 15 to 20 bucks  and it takes five minutes to get a result and so  
01:22:29
you literally could do it in the school yard  before they go into the building yeah it's that   you could test you I would test my kids every day  if I had a my kids or my one kids in preschool the  
01:22:39
other ones do but you add I do a little pinprick  on their finger in no no if you can just do a   little swap in the nose so okay yeah deep no swab  or you know halfway there's data that shows now  
01:22:49
that you can actually do a throat swab and you  know get a pretty good reading on it so you know   whatever the protocol is it probably me pretty  non-invasive and you can get a result now that's  
01:22:57
expensive for most people you know that's not  expensive for a school not expensive for a school  
01:23:03
that's right and so I think that company will do  well with that testing system they've launched   because it actually tests not for the RNA but for  the protein is this a public company yeah and the  
01:23:13
stocks done well and and and this test does really  well because a test for the protein not the RNA so  
01:23:18
it's actually a much you know much easier test  scientifically to do you're not trying to pick  
01:23:25
up specific nucleotides or nucleic acids you're  trying to pick up a protein and so it's yeah it's  
01:23:32
pretty effective all right yeah if the election  was held today we always like to talk about this  
01:23:38
a bit they wanted SLOS when we talked about it  we talked about Oprah last time that was our   sleeper candidate I'm changing but I'm changing  our yummy Duckworth Tammy Duckworth is now my  
01:23:47
sleeper vice presidential I'm with I'm with the  Tomas on that absolutely 100 now who's gonna win  
01:23:55
if the election was held today Sachs I'll let you  go first since it's the most heartbreaking for you
01:24:03
Biden Biden strategy is working his strategy is  basically to say nothing to be you know tied in  
01:24:09
his basement and and but it's working because  even though he's a cipher I think people he's  
01:24:17
basically a protest vote against Trump and Trump  you know is you know seen as very divisive and  
01:24:24
inflammatory and I think the American people at  this point just want to push a button and make  
01:24:30
it stop and right now Biden seems like the make  it stop button yeah okay and should Biden I'll  
01:24:38
add to the question to be a bit too will end on  this to this double question who wins today and   should buy it in debate Trump or is it better for  him to just opt out of the debates and not risk  
01:24:47
it buy-ins would you advise well I think buying  strategy right now I was working I don't know   why he would change it I mean so he should not  there's three debates on the books he agreed to  
01:24:56
should he do the three debates yes or no if you  were advising him so I think he probably will  
01:25:03
not be able to to duck that these debates forever  I think I mean it seems unlikely that you know if  
01:25:11
you are advising him would you tell him to do  it or not I would I think I would tell him is  
01:25:17
strategy is working which is to say nothing and  don't go to the debates if you can get away with  
01:25:22
it I'm not sure he'll be able to get away with  it so I think eventually people eventually the   American public will turn its attention to the  election but part of part of the reason why his  
01:25:31
strategy is working is because Trump is running  such a bad campaign in fact it feels like Trump  
01:25:37
hasn't even really started to campaign there's  no logic to it for sure yeah well it's you know  
01:25:43
normally what the incumbent does especially when  they've got a lot of money is they use this summer  
01:25:48
to define the opponent they start running a  lot of ads seeking to define their opponent  
01:25:54
and and you know where are those ads where is that  attempt to define Biden I mean I think it I think  
01:26:01
it's hard because you know cuz it's it's hard to  define Biden as as a radical who represents these  
01:26:10
woke mobs Biden doesn't even know how to say the  word woke correctly I think he's called him woke  
01:26:16
so that's absolutely right by my four-year-old  who needed her diaper change right all right  
01:26:24
but but the fact that Biden is so clueless and  seems like so out of touch actually helps them  
01:26:29
because I mean the way the way for Trump to win  the election okay let's let's put it that way is   to make the alternative to trump the destruction  of Mount Rushmore right I mean if if Trump can  
01:26:43
somehow convince the American public that the  election of Joe Biden means the ripping down  
01:26:48
of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln and and  Mount Rushmore and the destruction of capitalism  
01:26:54
that is the way for him to win that's the you  know but he has to actually listen well yes he  
01:27:03
has to actually be able to tag Biden with that why  didn't we tortilla why did Peter teal drop Trump  
01:27:10
he's you've got a 30-year relationship with Peter  teal you talked to him on the regular why did teal  
01:27:15
drop him I don't know that he has I think you have  to get him on the show to talk all right there you   go good deflection best DC who wins and should he  do those three debates Biden yeah yeah I think you  
01:27:28
can't get away from them I wouldn't make it a  big issue because the debates are gonna be kind   of this random crappy kind of experience you know  I I don't even know whether they'll be in the same  
01:27:39
place I think they should try to make sure that  they're not in the same place so that it's done   almost over zoomed like you can you can [ __ ]  the effort the the usefulness of these debates  
01:27:49
in many ways there really isn't much that can  happen in the debates the reality is that people  
01:27:54
aren't voting for Biden they are voting against  Donald Trump any chance Trump wins and they are  
01:28:01
voting against the sheer incompetence of him and  his family and you know it's going to be very  
01:28:10
difficult for him to overturn it there is one thin  path for him to win which is to absolutely shower  
01:28:19
America with money close to the election day so  if there is a Multi multi trillion dollar stimulus  
01:28:26
bill that passes and it literally puts money into  the hands of working Americans especially in the  
01:28:33
swing states it could work now the one thing I'll  tell you is if you looked at the exit in Georgia  
01:28:39
it's scary because there were 230,000 I think more  Democrats out of the exit polls in the Georgia  
01:28:47
primary than there were Republican now just hold  the phone here for a second because under no  
01:28:53
calculus on electoral college did we ever have to  think that there is probabilistically any chance  
01:28:59
that a Democrat wins Georgia and I think what this  speaks to is a changing demographic longitudinally  
01:29:07
and this is not a racial thing meaning this is  an age thing where these young people are very  
01:29:13
different politically and so if you think that  there is an even remote chance that Donald Trump  
01:29:21
loses Georgia don't even worry about Minnesota  and Pennsylvania and Florida because he would have  
01:29:29
already lost those in order to lose George also  this pandemic and work from home is gonna result  
01:29:35
in people if it is a sustained work for me we have  scarred the American economy guys and we don't  
01:29:41
reduce our extent of the injury because you know  you know the extent of the injury when you get you  
01:29:47
know step out of the chair that first moment the  cast gets taken off and you put a little pressure  
01:29:52
on the leg to see how bad it is and we don't know  how bad it is except we know that it's pretty bad  
01:29:58
so you know I think that all roads kind of  look like Biden I think the very narrow path  
01:30:06
that Donald Trump has is you know a Multi multi  trillion dollar stimulus built directly into the  
01:30:12
hands of Americans Freiberg is he gonna win yes  or no should he do the debates yes or no if the  
01:30:18
vote were to happen today he would win Joe Biden  would win I think he's actually more likely to  
01:30:24
win based on news that just hit the wire which we  haven't talked about today which is it looks like   Facebook is gonna ban all political ads this year  what yeah I do that obviously the Facebook invite  
01:30:36
for survival right now that ad camp amazing how a  bunch of advertisers taking a one-month pause all  
01:30:42
of a sudden brings Zuckerberg to the table amazing  how my my well-timed short thesis tweet plays Oh  
01:30:49
yum yum so I think that works that obviously works  to Biden's favor all right that's the case and  
01:30:54
then - my point on the debate if I were Biden what  I would do right now is I would go on Twitter and   I would say release your tax returns and I'll  debate you and I would repeat that tweet twice  
01:31:02
a day and love it the Thurber gets the dunk 360  Danza dungeon that's a card Eldersburg for free  
01:31:12
burger wins the debate this show is sponsored  by nobody however I'm gonna ask my bestie see  
01:31:18
if somebody were to make a $25,000 donation to  charity would you allow me to read an ad for 30  
01:31:26
seconds during the pot at some point no but I'll  match it to wherever you want to go no [ __ ] ads  
01:31:32
ever I love and I love you guys I miss you love  you bestie see I love you love you free love  
01:31:39
you sacks was great playing golf let's get let's  go off let's [ __ ] golf man I'm losing my mind   we'll see you a little let's do a little small  little NASA boys a little time you buy on the all  
01:31:54
in podcast tell your friends to tune in if they  want to listen to something intelligent bye-bye

Episode Highlights

  • Golf Adventures
    The hosts share their hilarious experiences on the golf course, including gambling.
    “I am addicted to golf now!”
    @ 03m 00s
    July 11, 2020
  • WHO Critique
    Discussion on the World Health Organization's handling of health issues and political influences.
    “This organization is not a scientific or health body, it's an academic body.”
    @ 12m 51s
    July 11, 2020
  • China's Economic Strategy
    China focuses on global influence through economic means, buying up resources and labor pools.
    “China is buying and owning large swaths of Southeast Asia and Africa.”
    @ 24m 27s
    July 11, 2020
  • Cold War 2 Begins
    Experts declare we are in a new cold war with China, marked by economic competition.
    “The most newsworthy event will be the beginning of this and the recognition that we are now in cold war too.”
    @ 27m 13s
    July 11, 2020
  • The Importance of Rare Earths
    China controls 80% of rare earth materials, crucial for technology and electrification.
    “China can lead on climate change before the United States can unless we prioritize it.”
    @ 36m 55s
    July 11, 2020
  • Cold War 2: A Bipartisan Effort
    The need for bipartisan support to effectively address the challenge posed by China.
    “Cold War 2 is now I think bipartisan.”
    @ 45m 24s
    July 11, 2020
  • The Overton Window Concept
    A discussion on how the Overton Window has shrunk and its implications for dialogue.
    “The Overton Window is the smallest it's ever been.”
    @ 53m 46s
    July 11, 2020
  • Food Security in America
    Proposing a Manhattan Project for food security to ensure healthy produce is affordable.
    “Why not make healthy food essentially free?”
    @ 01h 06m 08s
    July 11, 2020
  • The Future of Bio Manufacturing
    Bio manufacturing could revolutionize how we produce food and materials, drastically reducing costs and environmental impact.
    “The cost of production through bio manufacturing is literally several orders of magnitude less.”
    @ 01h 08m 15s
    July 11, 2020
  • Rethinking Factories
    Factories of the future may not be traditional; they could be giant fermentation tanks programmed with genetic software.
    “Imagine instead of a traditional factory, think about a factory historically being purpose-built.”
    @ 01h 09m 18s
    July 11, 2020
  • Impact on Education
    The pandemic's impact on children could have lasting effects on their social development and education.
    “We are going to impact an entire generation of kids.”
    @ 01h 17m 52s
    July 11, 2020
  • Facebook's Political Ad Ban
    Facebook is set to ban all political ads this year, impacting the election landscape.
    “What?”
    @ 01h 30m 24s
    July 11, 2020

Episode Quotes

Key Moments

  • WHO Discussion12:51
  • Cold War 227:13
  • Trade Interdependence50:17
  • Common Enemy1:07:00
  • Future Factories1:09:18
  • Political Landscape1:30:06
  • Charity Donation Offer1:31:18
  • Golf Talk1:31:39

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown

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