Name: What Innovations of the Past Tell Us About the Future
Uploaded: 2023-10-07T17:42:22.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'What Innovations of the Past Tell Us About the Future' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-10-07. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'What Innovations of the Past Tell Us About the Future' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-10-07. Transcript available.

The Joe Rogan Experience
Look at North Korea.
That's the best example.
You know, if you want to see a state where...
I mean, we have very little news from there.
Very few people get out, but the ones that do...
Horrific.
George Orwell's 1984.
It's happening right now.
Somewhere. Yeah.
I mean, I kind of thought that was an interesting idea
on America's original sin
is slavery.
There's no way to change the past.
But one thing you could do
if you can't work out reparations
and people don't seem to be able to work out what to do with that,
but one thing you could do is make America's foreign policy.
Why don't we just stop slavery?
Who couldn't get behind that?
Right. Globally.
To say, well, just...
You've got an incredible military.
There's injustice going on in the world.
That idea of being the world's policeman.
I don't know. I mean, freeing slaves?
Who could disagree with that?
Who's putting up a case against it?
The problem is that you're addressing
the way the United States interfaces with the world
as if we're just trying to do overall good.
That's not really what happens
with this whole empire building thing.
It's what's really going on
is controlling resources
and coming up with some reason
that you have to intervene
in order to acquire these resources
or control these resources
or protect your resources.
I think it's...
You know what I think that is?
Short money.
Short money.
Because what's a resource?
There's things that are resources now
that won't be in 20 years.
You know what the biggest industry in the world was in 1903?
Beavers.
Very close.
I'll pass you.
I'll give you a C.
Whaling was the biggest industry in the world in 1903
and whaling disappeared overnight.
Like in a year and a half it was gone.
Those towns were just emptied
the whale oil wasn't required anymore
because suddenly we discovered petrochemicals.
Electricity too.
Petrochemicals was really the thing.
Yeah.
Whale oil, electricity, Edison, all of that stuff for Tesla.
It's really interesting how that industry just fell away.
It's like the story of horse manure in New York City.
You know this?
No.
So horse manure...
You know why the brownstones have got steps up to the front door?
You ever wondered about that?
Why is the ground floor not on the ground floor?
Why is it up steps?
Why?
Horseshit.
Really?
There was horseshit everywhere.
They've always got those metal scrapers by the side,
yeah, to get the horseshit off.
You know the old movies, they always talk about smelling salts.
There's a lot of references to smelling salts.
Yeah, the smell was horrific.
If a horse died in the street, you had to wait for it to atrophy,
to cut it up and take it away.
New York was the sound.
Cobbled streets, metal wheels on the carts.
Horses everywhere.
So they made a law to say, right, horses, we're going to put a tax on them.
Didn't change anything.
Made another law the next year.
We're doubling the taxes.
Right, we're going to do a thing with...
We're going to say if you have a horse, then you have to do this, you have to
do that.
Whatever it was.
Kept on, kept on, kept on.
And what stopped it?
Henry Ford.
Mmm.
Cars came along.
All gone.
There's five of them left in Central Park.
Right.
All gone in no time.
Whaling disappeared over the night.
That thing of like, what's a resource now?
America trying to get resources overseas.
I mean, I don't want to sound like a Boy Scout, but I think freeing slaves
would be a much better thing to do than trying to get control of an oil field
somewhere where you go, that's not going to be a resource in 10 years' time.
Yeah, the problem is it's a resource now.
And it's a phenomenal one in terms of the amount of money that you could
acquire.
But I mean, cobalt wasn't a resource.
Right.
20 years ago.
Right.
And now we really need cobalt.
And suddenly, I mean, the things that are happening to get it are just horrific.
Yeah.
I had Siddharth Kara on the podcast.
He's a journalist that went to the Congo to document this and brought back
video footage.
The Democratic Republic of Congo?
Mm-hmm.
Any country with Democratic in the name, that's a fucking red flag, isn't it?
That's a red flag.
They go, hey, we're Democratic.
Are you, though?
Are you?
Yeah.
I mean, it's hell on earth out there.
It's happening right now.
I think that thing of like people saying, well, I would go and make a
difference.
Well, there's stuff going on now if you want to get involved.
Well, what's so ironic is that it's one of the most horrific conditions that
human beings are imposed, that's imposed upon human beings.
But yet it is required in order for you to have a cell phone and complain about
the injustices of the world.
Yes.
Every single person that has one of these things, you have in it minerals that
were carved out of the ground by people living in the most insane conditions.
Child labor.
Child labor.
Slavery.
With babies on their back that are breathing in this cobalt dust.
Horrific.
Yeah.
Health consequences.
Everything.
All the above.
Abject poverty.
No electricity.
I mean, here's like the big thing in the way.
I mean, again, gratitude.
Go back to gratitude.
We don't live there.
Anyone listening to a podcast is, you know, we're doing great.
What can we do about it?
I don't know.
I mean, this is part of the anxiety of the modern world because we're
surrounded by problems, told about problems that we can have.
We have no agency there.
Yeah.
We can't sort of do anything.
But it's, I don't know.
I mean, it's what's going to be the next resource because environmentalism is
clearly their right.
Yeah.
It's fossil fuels.
It needs to stop.
But we've already got the downside volatility from splitting the atom.
We've already got all the weapons.
We could already destroy the world.
We've got all of that.
Why are we not building?
And the tests have been done, right?
There's nuclear submarines.
Mm-hmm.
You know what the range is on a nuclear submarine?
Yeah, it's insane.
It's unlimited.
It's unlimited.
They can go forever.
Yeah.
I mean, it's crazy.
Why isn't every town powered by one of those?
Yes.
Well, people have this bad taste in their mouth because of the few disasters
that have existed when nuclear power was not.
Fukushima, right?
Yeah.
What's the death toll on Fukushima?
It's very low.
But the toxic pollution.
I think it might be nothing.
I think it's one person.
But the toxic environmental effect of them not being able to shut down that
reactor is pretty devastating.
Yeah, I tell you what it's not as devastating as fossil fuels.
Mm-hmm.
So it's as opposed to what is always the question.
Right, burning coal.
Right.
So burning coal, endlessly burning coal.
Yeah.
And anyone that says the environmental problem could be fixed by us cutting
back is living in a dream world.
Right.
Because you go, well, you can't deny that we owe a debt to future generations
and we owe a debt to people that are in different geographies to us.
Mm-hmm.
Like there's no way you can say with good conscience, well, you need to cut
back China and India.
I mean most people in the world, a third of the world don't have flushing
toilets.
Right.
Like they're living in poverty.
Mm-hmm.
The idea that they won't need energy is insane.
Right.
Insane.
And we've nailed the technology.
Mm-hmm.
And we just never, we got nervous.
But worse than that, Germany shut down their nuclear power plants.
I mean people have shut them down.
Yeah.
Because there's this, there's this negative connotation.
There's this negative association that people have with nuclear.
Well, I mean, I don't know about, I'm not an expert, but Fukushima I think was
a 40-year-old technology.
Yes.
Yes.
There is new tech in that now.
Yes.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, I can't understand why, like the big oil companies.
Why isn't someone, like instead of just going, you've got to, every time there's
an oil spill
you've got to clean up the seabirds better or, you know, the Gulf of Mexico
disaster was
horrific what happened.
Mm-hmm.
You go, why don't you just say you've got to invest half of your profits in
nuclear?
Mm-hmm.
Take it private.
Private seems to get things done quicker than governments.
Yeah.
The real problem is there's still an insane amount of money to be made from
fossil fuels.
You know, that there's a desire for it and there's a market for it and people
are already
making money doing it.
I don't know though, but okay.
So, if you want ants, put down sugar.
Mm-hmm.
The incentives need to be there.
Yeah.
So, let's put down some...
BP could be the next traditional oil major to invest in the quickly evolving
nuclear fusion
sector.
I mean...
Join a list of companies including Chevron, E&I, and...
But that happened after I said it, right?
May 19th.
I said...
What?
A few months ago.
Ah, change the date.
Jesus.
That would...
I think that's kind of the...
Because those guys, you go, would you buy stock in Shell Oil today?
I wouldn't.
Because if you're buying stocks and you said, look, I'm going to leave my kids
a bunch of
stocks and shares.
Mm-hmm.
What do I think is going to be there in 30 years time?
Yeah.
I'm sure...
And I don't know whether it'll be like someone gluing themselves to a jumbo jet.
I think it's going to be...
It's going to be someone goes, there's more money to be made, like in New York
with Henry
Ford, and like the whaling industry.
You know, if those guys want to make money, they went and they worked for
Rockefeller.