The Joe Rogan Experience - #1402 - Boyan Slat

Episode Date: December 17, 2019

Boyan Slat is an inventor, entrepreneur and former aerospace engineering student. He is the founder of The Ocean Cleanup organization: https://www.theoceancleanup.com/

Three, two, what's up, fella? How are you? Good to see you again, man. Likewise. I've been reading that you are having some great success with your machine, finally. Everything's up and running. Last time we talked, you had yet to implement it, actually, out in the wild. And now you explained to us what happened.

You had some bumps in the beginning, right? Yes. Yeah. So it's been quite a few years. Finally, something's happening. So we launched our first ocean system from San Francisco in September of last year. And we took it out. And roughly two months later, we figured that, first of all, it wasn't catching plastic.

So what we saw was that the system was moving at roughly the same speed as the plastic so maybe you just take one step back the idea and how it works so so of course we have this great pacific garbage patch between here and hawaii twice the size of texas 100 million kilos of plastic doesn't go away by itself and the idea was to to have this artificial coastline that is driven by the forces of the ocean we we put it in there and the plastic naturally accumulates against it and kind of stays in there so we can then periodically get it out because the the the big challenge is that although there's a lot of plastic it's it's spread out over this this vast area so we first

have to concentrate it before we can take it out because if you were to simply troll the ocean for plastic with boats and nets, it would just take forever, really. So the idea was to have those artificial coastlines. We deployed the first one, and then what we saw was that somehow the system was moving at the same speed as the plastic. So you can imagine if this is like your Pac-Man and this is your catch and it's moving at the same speed,

it's not going in. And sometimes it did go in, but it went out again. We got a video of it, what it was doing. Oh, that's great. Yeah. So this is the basic idea, but it wasn't doing that. And then we thought, okay, that's all right. We'll learn from it.

We'll try and adjust the systems. And then literally exactly a year ago, the system broke into two. And so at the structural failure, forcing us to tell the whole thing back to land and go back to the drawing board. So we didn't have the best start of this year. How much time has been lost? Or how much time has been spent, I should say, in the beginning phase, the initial version that you launched versus where you're at now?

So we've been going on at this since 2013. Oh, wow. Six years. Yeah, so basically after five years, launching it and seeing it break into two that wasn't the best start of the year I could have imagined but then went to the drawing board and the team

really took it well and we took those lessons into account adjusted the design and relaunched really just a few months later, so in June and this time we made the system a bit more modular so we could try different things to try and adjust the speed, make it go faster, make it go slower. And then what we figured was, well, the system isn't going fast enough. What if we actually turn the problem into a solution?

What if we turn it around and actually slow it down so that it goes slower than the plastic? And then what we figured that that actually works. And in October, we announced that we're actually catching plastic. And really just last week, the first two shipping containers full of plastic were landed in port. Wow. So it's really recently up and running the way you expected it. Now, how long does it take to accumulate two shipping containers full? So that was roughly a month, month and a half. And how big are these shipping containers?

20 foot, so probably two of these rooms. So the only thing that's really stopping it from getting more is like the actual size of the net itself. Yes. So that's the next step. So now that we kind of went from zero to one, we have the basic principle of catching plastic confirmed. zero to one, we have the basic principle of catching plastic confirmed. We now have to make it bigger before we can build a whole fleet of them because we reckon we need maybe 50 or 100 of them to really clean up half this patch in five years.

That's the objective. Half the whole patch in five years. That's the real objective? That's what we want to do. Wow, is that really possible? If you have enough systems, yeah. That's incredible. Now, where are you at in terms of trying to get these systems made and implemented?

So now we just finished this first step with the system number one. That's how we called it. And the next step is to develop what we call system two, which is indeed going to be a bigger version. And the idea is to minimize the amount of vessel use that you need for it so that comes because boats are really fucking expensive um yeah the boat that we have costs roughly 15 000 euros per day to keep running well just one boat so boat you don't want boats to you know Do you anticipate that it ever gets to a point where the amount of money that you can generate from the actual resource of physical plastic can actually pay for the whole experiment?

I mean, I hope so. That's what we want to trial next year by making products from the catch that we make. And the material itself hardly has any value. It's really the story to it. You should make straws so people don't feel guilty. It's a recycled straw. Yeah, throw them in the ocean. Yeah, that's a terrible idea.

It would be a very sustainable business model. Yeah, just keep going. What are the products that you're thinking about ah well we have a few ideas we so it's still kind of under development so i think in september we should be ready to launch the first one but i think it's going to be things that that are durable that don't end up in ways that you actually that will retain their value so can last for a very very long time and And that you actually want and ideally carry around so you can talk about it with other people.

Actually now, just last week, with that first plastic onshore, we said, okay, now we welcome our supporters to actually make, well, I shouldn't call it a reservation, but kind of make a down payment so that you can be first in line so if people go to our website they can actually put in the 50 bucks and get the right for the first ever products made from the great pacific garbage patch so you're just trying to figure out what products will have the most sustainability what products people keep for the longest yeah and things that people want right you don't want some kind of gimmick that's just going to be this paperweight.

Flip-flops seem like an easy one, right? Yeah. Don't they? I mean, people love to buy flip-flops if they bought flip-flops, especially people that are like sort of like outdoorsy type folks. Sure.

Appreciate the beach. Maybe I have to write these things down. Flip-flops? That's a pretty easy one. Any other ideas? What else, Jamie? What else would be a good one? Belts. Flip flops. That's a pretty easy one. Any other ideas? What else, Jamie? What else would be a good one? Belts.

People like belts. Shoes. Any flip flops. Yeah, shoes. Like definitely some Yeezys. Some dope recycled. Yeah, some recycled sneakers. Like what is foam?

Like the foam that they make running shoes out of. That's a very specific type of – that's not actual plastic, right? It's probably made out of something else. It's a type of plastic. We might be able to foam this material as well. I think we've done tests with that. Oh, really? Turn it into foam?

Yes. Oh, through some sort of a process. Yeah. I mean, you could make athletic shoes. That would be easy, right? But you'd have to have a way to incentivize people to recycle them. It would be so ironic for those fucking things to wind up back in the ocean. There's got to be a way to do that.

If you have your own company drop-off points in cities where when they're done with their stuff, if it's broken down or it's old, you could throw it into this bin, and you will ensure that it gets converted back into raw materials and utilized again. Right, yeah, circular economy. Yeah, that would be a great move.

And people would do that if you made it easy for them. It's sort of like recycling bins. If you make it easy for them, they'll throw their bottle in there. So you have these two cargo ships or these two cargo containers uh filled with this plastic stuff um what do you do with it now yeah so so now it's going to europe unfortunately there isn't really any useful recycling infrastructure in the u.s so um so we set up this this um infrastructure in in europe to be able to first sort it and then shred it and then recycle it

and then make those first products out of them. So hopefully, and hopefully with that, then generate the cash needed to continue running the cleanup. And of course, now it's still small scale.

Eventually, we should have those number of shipping containers every day, probably. So do you have like a group of people that's trying to come up with ideas of what to make out of the plastic? Yeah, it's a little team inside the O2 cleanup working on that. And yeah, so they, I think they said that by September, they should be ready to launch the first product. That's great, man. That's the whole idea behind it's beautiful. You have a river system too as well, right?

Yes. So that's the other thing, right? So on one hand, we need to clean up what's running in the ocean. It doesn't go away by itself. And basically the only way to deal with that is to just go out there and clean it up. But of course course then there's this other side of the equation, which is there's still huge amounts of plastic flowing into the ocean

every day, mostly from countries in Central America, Southeast Asia, where people are kind of at this stage of development or countries are at a stage of development where the people are wealthy enough to consume a lot of things that are wrapped in plastic, yet there isn't any waste infrastructure yet to take care of it. So you literally see people on scooters just drive to a bridge to dump their municipal waste into the river because that's simply the easiest way to get rid of it.

To your point, what's easiest, people will do. And so it's not really that people don't care there or that they are less civilized or something, but it's really a combination. There's a lot of people and there is no infrastructure that they can make use of. So then back in 2015, we were like, okay, maybe at some point in time,

this ocean thing will work out, who knows. But then we're stuck with this problem that there's still so much plastic flowing in that we would just have to keep going forever. And that would just be not very motivating. And we want to be this project with a beginning and an end. So we're like, okay, so where's the plastic coming from? And then we figured, you know, probably rivers.

Rivers are like these arteries that carry the trash from land to sea because when it rains, plastic washes from street to creek to river to ocean. But then we found out that there is 100,000 rivers in the world. So that's kind of a big amount if you want to do something about it. So we started doing measurements in rivers. And then what we found was that just 1% of rivers are responsible for 80% of the pollution. So really just a very tiny amount of rivers, if you were to tackle those, could really address the majority of the plastic going into the ocean. And it's mostly like these relatively small rivers in capital cities like Manila, like Jakarta, like Kuala Lumpur. We have very high density of people.

Near the coast, that's where most of the leakage, most of the emissions occurs. So since 2015, we've been kind of as a secret side project, been working on seeing, well, can we actually develop something to intercept the plastic in those rivers? And we just launched it a month ago. We call it the Interceptor. We just launched it a month ago. We call it the Interceptor.

And it's this scalable system that's almost like plug and play. So you bring it to a river and you install it and it just works. It's fully autonomous, solar powered. So this is all real, the real plastic that's being pulled out of this river from your machine. Yeah. That's incredible. This was the prototype. Dude, that's incredible. This was the prototype. Dude, that's amazing. This was in Jakarta.

For people that are just listening, we're looking at this thing pull enormous amounts of plastic out of this river. And it's also doing so in, and they're stacking it into these bags. It's a large physical quantity of stuff. Oh yeah. And then maybe you can actually pull up the video of Interceptor 2 in Malaysia. So we already have two of them in real life as we speak.

How does it avoid doing anything with fish? How do you avoid catch accidentally? Oh, my God. Is that real? Yeah. So this is the Klang River in Kuala Lumpur. And it's, according to our model, it's like the fifth most polluting river in the world. So 1% of all plastic going into the world's oceans

is coming from that one river. This is unbelievable how polluted this is. This is crazy. It's 10 million kilos per year, roughly. Just looking at it, it looks like a wasteland. That's so sad. Yeah. So then we now have four interceptors.

Two of them have already been deployed. Here's the one going to this Klang River. I kind of wanted to make it look like a spaceship, just so people would like it. It has this barrier that concentrates

the plastic to the mouth of the interceptor where you have a conveyor belt that then scoops it out of the water. Again, fully solar and battery powered. And then deposits it on to this moving shuttle conveyor, which then distributes it across these big dumpsters. It can hold roughly 50 cubic meters of trash. And, yeah, it just works by itself so it's um that's what it does how much this that's an insane amount of garbage that you're pulling out of there you when you look at it visit visually folks you can watch the video what is the name of this video

jamie so people need to find it rivers interceptor 002 cleaning in malaysia is the title of the youtube video it's crazy now and you're not catching any fish in this? Oh, yeah. So because this barrier is non-permeable, the current just flows underneath it. Basically, the sea life can just pass it. Actually, at one point, we had this giant lizard, which was probably two meters.

We should probably post that photo. It was actually kind of climbing onto the barrier and then it just swam around it. Two meters, really? Yeah, one and a half. What kind of lizard is that? I don't know the name, but it was... Some kind of monitor or something?

Monitor, you're right. Yeah. Where's that? Do you see an image of that? No? I'll post that next week. Oh, you haven't posted it before oh okay he was looking for it yeah i thought you were saying it was out there um so it's safe for fish um what about the the stuff that doesn't float on the very surface right so the the system goes down one meter and what we measured is that really almost all the plastic is in that top layer. So, sure, it won't be 100% efficient, but I think it's really about having this pragmatic thing that catches most of it.

And most importantly, leaves wildlife alone because everything else can just swim underneath that. Exactly. Yeah, that's great. Great. And so this plan that you had when it's been six years running, how much of your daily time is devoted to this? Oh, I don't think there's much free time at all. Especially past year, I've not had a single free day.

Not a single? Yeah, just 9 a.m. to usually 9 p.m. in the office. It's been busy, but I think it was worth it. Looking where we were beginning of the year to where we're now. Well, now that you've actually pulled these cargo containers filled with plastic out of the ocean, that must give you an extreme feeling of satisfaction, right? You've actually made it work. It's moving now. So I was kind of hoping for that feeling. But then when you get to that point, you're like, okay. But you can really only see the amount of work that's still ahead of you.

So it's actually really hard to enjoy successes in a way. I should probably get better at that. It's hard. Well, particularly what you're doing, you have a monumental task in front of you. And what you're doing is rightly being applauded by so many people, but I don't know how many people are actually helping you. You have a crazy thing that you're doing. You're trying to pull the plastic out of the ocean.

When people find out about the Great Pacific garbage patch, they get panicky. They're like, what? How long has this been going on? How do I not know about this? Because so few people, I mean, I would think like maybe 40% of the population understands that there's a gigantic patch of garbage in the middle of the ocean. And it was discovered 20 years ago. Yeah.

Exactly 20 years ago. That's crazy. And still it's there. It's just been growing. So. And it was discovered 20 years ago. Yeah. Exactly 20 years ago. That's crazy. And still it's there, just been growing. So 1998, no one had a goddamn clue. Nope. And then they went, wait, hey, what's going on here? Yeah. What is all this garbage?

And it keeps getting bigger and bigger, right? Yeah. It's actually quite a good story. This is this sailor called Charles Moore who was participating in a sail race between Hawaii and California. And while others would go further north, he thought, well, let's try and cut off this piece. And then he was looking at the water and he just saw all that trash. And then he went back.

He was shocked about it. And then he decided to take some measurements, publish the results and that kind of popularized that whole concept of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It's a weird thing to see when you see drones flying over it and you see the footage of it and it's also a lot of it is a lot smaller than people think of it because it's broken down by the ocean, right? Yeah, so that's what happens over time is that these larger objects have basically entered the ocean

due to the working of the waves as well as the sun breaks down into these smaller and smaller pieces, which is actually not really a good thing because these smaller pieces are then easier to ingest for fish and other wildlife. So the smaller it gets, in a way, the more harmful it gets as well.

And fortunately, what we see is that still 92% of the plastic is still non-microplastics, so big stuff. But of course, if we don't clean it up over the next few decades, all of that big stuff will also become microplastics, and then we're in a much worse state. Is the cleanup of those microplastics and then we're in a much worse state is the uh cleanup of micro those microplastics possible or is it just something that needs to be sort of rethought out well so uh that was actually one of the positive surprises that we that we had this year is that

the cleanup system in the patch wasn't just catching plastic not just the big stuff it was also catching most of the microplastics. So down to one millimeter. Because it all gets clogged up with all the other stuff. Is that what it is? We're not exactly sure how it was able to do that. But we just saw huge amounts of those microplastics in the system. It probably has to do something with the radiation of the waves. So you have that big pipe that keeps the system together.

And because waves are kind of crashing against it it reflects waves as well and almost like a lens it was concentrating those microplastics into one patch in the middle of the system which so it was kind of just holding on into into the system so it was so that's that was really um we weren't expecting to collect microplastics, but there we were. That's pretty cool. So now where are you at in terms of trying to expand it to a point where you could, you know, really get this goal of half of the plastic of the ocean in five years? Yeah. So it would probably be easier if we had one goal, but we now set two goals for ourselves.

One is the 50% in five years for the patch. But the other one is that we want to have interceptors into the 1,000 most polluting rivers, the ones that do the 80%, in the next five years. So we'll be pretty busy. Really, really busy. Yes. As if you're not busy enough. Yeah.

How many people are working in your organization? About 100. And I think the team has been now better than it's ever been. So fortunately, there is definitely a lot of help. But we're still recruiting quite, I think, another 20, 30 people coming out here. So definitely there is a lot of work to do. What has this ride been like for you from being this really young guy when you figured this out? How old were you when you came up with the idea?

The first idea is when I was 16, but really founded the organization when I was 18. Yeah, so that's really young. 18 to where you are now, just being constantly involved in this process. What has that been like for you? Educational, I would say. So really when I started and when I look back at when I started, I really didn't have a bloody clue what I was doing. And I suppose that was a good thing, because if I would have known how complicated and how big it would have to become in order to actually take some plastic out of the ocean um i probably

wouldn't have started it it was just too big and i remember doing the um giving my first presentation back in 2012 and somebody approached me and he said, okay, it's a great idea. It's going to cost like tens of millions of dollars. You're going to need a team of maybe 100 people to get this to a point that it could actually work. And I thought this guy was crazy. No way you can. So that's why I started a $2 million crowdfunding campaign to get it started.

And yeah, he was closer to the truth than I could have ever imagined. When you think about the amount of time that you're investing in this, how do you see yourself ever getting off this ride? Is this what you want to do for the rest of your life? No. So I simply want to solve problems, and I think this is kind of a good starter problem. I think it's very feasible to actually solve it.

It's, by the way, hilarious that you're talking about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch as a starter problem. Oh, well. What kind of ambition do you have? problem oh well what kind of ambition do you have that's one of the most perplexing problems with garbage and waste today yeah but i do think it's solvable and it's um i think it is too according to you and what you're saying but to call it a starter problem is hilarious well yeah and i mean i think this was the exciting thing for me is that it's Well, yeah.

And I mean, I think the exciting thing for me is that I can pick this problem as the first one because I believe it would not just be solvable, it's solvable by a relatively small group of passionate people. And yeah, so of course, what I hope is that with the Oshikling, we can kind of create this blueprint of how you solve a problem and how you make civilization a bit more sustainable so that hopefully with that blueprint we can

not only solve more other problems in the future but also inspire others to do the same thing. Well, that's a beautiful sentiment. And do you have any other things that you want to try to solve once you've sort of stepped away from this? Yeah. So I really – there's definitely not going to be a shortage of ideas. So I keep this little booklet that's kind of overflowing. But what I realized is to be successful with the cleanup, I really need razor-sharp focus, and I can only do one thing at the same time.

Ideas are like viruses, and when they enter your mind, it kind of expands and evolves, and it's really quite dangerous, actually, to have new ideas. I forgot who said that, but somebody recently I heard saying, the best thing you can do is having one great idea and then never having any other ideas for the rest of your life. So just because to be… Your resources.

Right, to achieve something, you need full focus. I think it was Stuart Brand, by the way. It's a good thing to say. It's accurate. What do what do you think though about what i was going to get at was do you uh ever conceive of a possibility of coming up with something that removes carbon from the atmosphere that's a giant issue with us right right um carbon emissions so definitely i i believe negative emissions, I think you refer to them, will be required to make the goals to kind of keep the warming in check. However, it's a much more difficult problem because if you think of the ocean, it's basically a two-dimensional problem. It's plastic on the surface, and fortunately, it's not even the whole ocean.

It's kind of concentrating in these accumulation zones. So the garbage patch, although it's twice the size of Texas, it's still 1.6 million square kilometers, while the ocean is like 300 million square kilometers to my head. So it's really just maybe less than a percent of the ocean which needs to be cleaned. And again, it's a two-dimensional problem. Well, the atmosphere is three-dimensional. So it's just this one-dimensional increase. It's just a huge, huge challenge. So I do think it needs to be tackled. It's definitely an exciting problem to think about.

I do think that's definitely not a good starter problem to work on. No. Wasn't there something, Jamie, that we had talked about where they had figured out a way to make these building-sized, essentially vacuum cleaners they were going to put in the center of certain cities? I believe it was in Asia, maybe perhaps China. They'd come up with this. I don't know if they implemented it yet, but the idea was to have these enormous things in place that look like a skyscraper.

And really, it was just a huge vacuum cleaner for carbon. Sure. I know of a few companies that work in it. I believe Carbon Engineering is one. There's also one out of Switzerland. I forgot the name. But definitely good, smart people are working on that problem. I'm not sure where they are in terms of the economics and scalability.

This right here? When he mentions carbon engineering is this one. Okay, so that looks like giant fans, like a huge building filled with fans. We believe humanity can solve climate change. Yikes. Imagine like we have filters for air the same way we have filters for water. Direct air capture technology. Carbon engineering.

More than 10 years in the making that can capture carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere. And look at that machine. Try to get a close-up on what that thing looks like it looks like giant fucking washing machines right like it's washing the air doesn't it look like giant washing machines wow i mean it seems like it's feasible it doesn't seem like it's something that's impossible yeah but it's i think just it's the scalability that that's the challenge. Well, it's also funding. Like if you drive over or fly over Manhattan, rather, and see the density of the structures and how many buildings are in there, you know that people can make some pretty insane shit.

Right. Why couldn't they make some giant insane vacuum cleaner for the air that's as big as a city block? Of course, a lot of it comes down to economics. Our system is not very good at valuing things that are long-term or directly benefit ourselves um so so definitely people tax it they'll find a way to make it profitable is this another one rendering of what one would look like to capture 1 million tons of co2 per year whoa sounds like it looks like it'd be noisy. Oh, yeah. Probably annoying as fuck. Look at those fans.

That's so weird, though. Like, the whole array of fans. Like, okay, that seems like a way to do it. Looks like somebody built a giant computer and tried to cool it or something. And then they'll have all this carbon. What the fuck do they do with that? Burn it? What do they do? Yeah, I don't know.

What do you, you make shit out of it? What do you do? Make diamonds? Imagine that. Diamonds are a girl's best friend. You make shit out of it? What do you do? Make diamonds? Imagine that. Diamonds are a girl's best friend. You make it out of the carbon that you pull out of the air. That would be a good business model. That would be a great business model. This would be like a green diamond, right?

A diamond that's actually made and it's all pressured by solar power. They use solar power to fucking smash it. Carbon fiber too. Is that the same carbon fiber? I don't know. Is it the same shit? Yeah, why not, right?

It must be. It's carbon, right? So carbon is how they make it's coal right which is essentially carbon right do they make diamonds from carbon or they make diamonds just from coal what is coal coal's like burnt shit right there's many many forms in which carbon exists yeah so i know they are still structures they are doing that now where they are making um commercially Many forms in which carbon exists. Yeah. So different crystal structures. They are doing that now where they are making commercially made diamonds. Diamonds are made of carbon. So they form as carbon atoms under a high temperature and pressure.

They bond together to start growing crystals. That's why a diamond is such a hard material because you have each carbon atom participating in four of these very strong covalent bonds that form between carbon atoms. I've never read that word out loud. Covalent? Have you ever read that word out loud? Covalent, I believe. Is that how you say it?

I've never even seen that word. So these bonds that form between carbon atoms. So I know they're doing that now. They're making diamonds with certain machines. High pressure, high heat. Yeah. That would be hilarious. That would be a good thing, too, because they would put a dent in the actual diamond market,

which is this weird lockdown fucking strange market. Because diamonds aren't nearly as valuable as they're set out to be. De Beers takes these diamonds and they stockpile them. And they only release a certain amount of them. And they keep the price very high but it's all engineered like the profit like diamonds used to be far more rare than they are now but with uh the innovation in mining technology and their ability to get to diamonds they couldn't get to before they have a lot of diamonds like it's not as valuable as it appears when you go to buy one okay didn't know that so we can make carbon diamonds

bro and actually plastic again it's just carbon chains oh that's right yeah we could even make diamonds out of ocean plastic whoa that would be the ultimate green diamond imagine like if you're like a really um ecologically minded rapper you wear all your ice. Could come from the ocean. Let everybody know. From trash to treasure. Yes. There you go. Dude, that's the fucking, that's the signature of the company.

In quotes. From trash to treasure. You're trying to write these things down. Boy and diamonds. How about that? I like it. Yeah. Dude.

You could be the first guy to do this. Here we go. A plastic. This is an ocean diamond whoa earth is crushing the ocean into salty diamonds that's a dope looking diamond too what is that it's salt i guess uh recreated salty diamond deposits in a high pressure high temperature experiment suggesting that many of earth's diamonds form when the mantle crushes ancient seabed minerals oh isn't science and the earth cool i mean if you do get to do this here's another problem okay here's a big one for the ocean we're depleting it of seafood of life i mean we you know i had um how do you say his name again

sahoyas right louis sahoyas who uh directed the cove on yeah and we were talking about um the deplenishing deplenishing of the wildlife in the in the ocean and when you start looking at it on a grand scale like how much fish they're pulling out of the oceans it's very sobering you know sure maybe you can come up with a way to replenish the fish in the ocean so we can continue eating sushi what do you think so so maybe just zoom out a bit and realize what is so because of course plastic pollution climate change overfishing i think it's all part of one big problem to make civilization sustainable. And the way I look at it is that, of course, over the past 200 years, humanity has made tremendous progress.

So, of course, since agricultural revolution 10,000 years ago, humanity has been kind of stagnant, no progress, or just very, very slow progress, number of people, lifespan. It was all kind of flat. Nothing really happened. And then since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, when we learned how to utilize science and our knowledge, collective knowledge, to turn that into progress, basically every possible metric for humanity has improved tremendously.

If you think of wealth, health, violence, education, rights, all these things. I know you've had Steven Pinker on. He's much more knowledgeable on that topic than I am. He's much more knowledgeable on that topic than I am. So truly, at this point in time, it has never been a better time to be alive for humans than today. Not saying that it can't get better, but we have made tremendous progress by, on one hand, imagining things that don't exist yet,

so inventing technologies and also inventing institutions. And on the other hand, our human ability to collaborate effectively in large numbers, which includes the corporation, which is a very effective way for people to work together. Now, all that progress has also had its negative side effects, which are most pronounced, of course, in the area of the environment where we put things into an environment that shouldn't belong there then the question is, well, how do we solve that? And, of course, one hand is to say, okay, it's kind of the, yeah, maybe the Luddite is maybe a bit of a negative way to phrase it, but the sort of reactionary approach of saying, okay, we should consume less. You know, corporations are bad.

Technology is bad. We should all get rid Corporations are bad. Technology is bad. We should all get rid of all those things. And I think the modern environmental movement, which is really kind of this romantic movement, has this image of back in the day, everything was great and we lived in harmony with nature. So let's get rid of all this modernity and try and return to that pure original state.

What I, however, believe is that, first of all, I don't think it's a very realistic thing. People want to keep their iPhones and their cars and people want to move forward. And at the same time, I don't think it's really the most effective way to solve these problems because it would be like fighting a leopard tank with bow and arrow. Technology is nothing more than an enabler of human capabilities. It enhances our power. So why not use that power to also try and solve these problems as well? So rather than try and reject business, reject technology, I truly believe that we should embrace those forces that make us human and has created this amazing world to also try and solve these negative side effects as well.

And that's why I believe the overconsumption of fish is not going to end by people all becoming vegan, but rather through fake meat. I think that the transport emissions are not going to be solved by people not flying anymore or not going anywhere anymore. Realistically, people are going to fly more, so we better invent technologies that allow people to do that without harming the environment. And the same thing, I think, would be the case for plastic

and really other energy uses as well. No, I think that's a very wise way of looking at it, and it's a hopeful way of looking at it. And it's funny that today, even though you're dealing with statistics and factual information like the fact that it's safer to live today, there's less violent crime, it's easier to get by, there's more technology, more innovation, medical technologies improve radically. All these things are true. But you still have to say, it's not where we want it to be. Right.

I'm not saying that the world's – you have to say that, even you. Even though you're – I mean, look, it's the worry about people barking at you. So worry about people... It's still terrible in parts of the world. It's still terrible for people of color. It's still terrible for trans. I get it. I get it.

I get it. No one's saying that there's not room for improvement, but you have to say that. You, even though you felt compelled, you're like, it's still not perfect. Yeah. And I wonder why it's so so controversial i think it's important to learn from the things that we do well and then apply that i don't think it is that controversial

i think it's a trick i think uh there's just a lot of people looking for every single opportunity to complain even to someone like you who has objectively done nothing but good. You say one thing. I mean, Steven Pinker took a ton of heat for saying that. And even though he's talking about actual scientific statistics, he's not saying the world's perfect and everyone should shut up. What he's saying is we should look at this from a bird's eye view, look down and understand

that although there's much work to be done, we're in a great place in comparison to the rest of human history. And it's helpful to realize that progress is possible. Just imagine that there's something that feels intuitively right, as if every step forward would also have to equal a step backward elsewhere. Yes. And I don't think that's the case. There's plenty of things that you can invent that are not that. And we see it, for example, with carbon right now that there's countries where, like Sweden, GDP has grown a lot past 20 years, carbon emissions have gone down.

So they call that the decoupling. And I think what's really the main challenge in this century is to decouple human progress from those negative side effects. And I think the way to do that is not reactionary. It's really, again, through innovation and through collaboration. I agree with you. And I think that a lot of times people just assume that these are the consequences of innovation. There's a pro and a con to everything. Because there has been so many things. There have been so many things that are inventions that

there are a pro and a con to it but that doesn't necessarily mean it has to be that way no and even if things have a pro and a con it doesn't mean the pro is as big as the con right so um and if that would be the case all the technology every technology would be neutral and it wouldn't matter what you invent, but it would mean that an atomic bomb is morally as neutral as an ocean cleanup system, which I just don't find plausible. So I do believe that inventors, entrepreneurs, they put certain morality into their creations,

into their technology. There is a certain use that you prescribe with your invention. I mean, you don't use nuclear bombs to wash your car, right? I mean, you use it not for benign uses, unless maybe you want to terraform Mars, which some people propose to do with atomic bombs. I don't know whether that's a good idea. which some people propose to do with atomic bombs. I don't know whether it's a good idea.

But yeah, I don't think technology is neutral. It has a morality. So what that means is that as long as we consistently develop net positive technologies, eventually the world does get better and better. If, say, a technology is 60% good and maybe has 40% downside, okay, but then we can invent a solution for that 40%. And maybe that's, again, net positive. And you kind of get this cascade of ever-improving world. No, I think what you're saying sounds beautiful.

And if more people thought the way you're thinking, I think the world would be a better place. I like the positivity. I like the optimism in what you're thinking, particularly in terms of what's possible with innovation. Yeah. Well, I just don't think that being against something is very productive.

It doesn't really move us forward. So rather than protesting against the things that I don't agree with, and there are certainly things that I don't agree with, but again, I don't think it's very helpful. Rather than doing that, I'd much rather build towards a future that I do agree with. Listen, man, I think what you're saying is very, very logical. I wish more people thought like you. You're a great role model for a lot of kids to use your energy in a positive direction.

It can be done. Yeah, sure. I mean, I think we agree with your chart. Yeah. Do you think that, um, I mean, when, when you're looking at this, um, this possibility of getting 50% of the ocean's garbage out in five years, do you think that's realistic in terms of like the resources that you have, have, the funding that you have and all that stuff? And if not, how can people help? Do you have a website where people can donate? Yeah, so definitely we don't yet have both.

We don't have the technology ready yet to really clean up the patch. The river is a different story. We're really ready to scale. But on the ocean, we still need some iteration. And of course, the funding isn't there yet. So of course, on our website, theoceancleanup.com,

people can donate. People can also... Okay, cool. There it goes. Support the cleanup. And so you have... Is it like PayPal or what is it? Yeah, anything you want. And you can make... You can join the queue for the products. That's excellent. Beautiful.

And so are you getting a lot of success with that? People are contributing? So definitely so far has been enough to keep the development going. So it hasn't really been the limiting factor. But of course, if we want to scale, we're going to need a lot more resources. So definitely a lot of help will be required there in the coming years.

It's amazing that this is taking you so long and that you've been working on it so hard that you have all this energy to be able to pursue something like this. I mean, was there ever a time while you're doing this where you're like, Jesus Christ, I don't know how long I'm going to be able to pursue something like this i mean it was there ever a time while you're doing this we're like jesus christ i don't know how long i'm gonna be able to do this um is it sustainable like this every day no days off constant yeah so probably i should take a few days off hell yeah end of the year yeah this this year has been tough do you feel guilty if you take time off? Ah, yeah. Yeah? Yeah.

So I usually feel that with a lot of my, that's probably the case for everyone, that a lot of my strengths are at the same time also my weaknesses. So I think I'm pretty creative, so it's good. But at the same time, it means that I really have to force myself to not be distracted by new ideas. I think I have a good work ethic, but the downside is that it's also very hard to slow down. And I do realize that taking breaks.

Eventually, it is better. The best ideas that I've had were during times off. Even the ocean cleanup idea was I was 16, was scuba diving in Greece. I'm more plastic than fish. That was during a break. I should probably take a few days yeah man just go you know go somewhere where you could just take a few naps just relax recharge you know get your system back online perfectly yeah though i think one signer to make is that, you know, with everything that I've ever done in my life, I've always been very, um,

obsessed about it. And I think when, you know, it's something that you cannot really stop thinking about it. It's, it does, it never really feels like work either. So it's,

um, a calling. Well, yeah, I just wouldn't be able to imagine just having a normal job doing something you're not passionate about it's um so so you know i i never really how miserable would it be to just be in an office and have to stare at the clock waiting for 6 p.m until you can go home right that must be that's like right my biggest nightmare for a lot of people that's their life and have to stare at the clock waiting for 6 p.m. until you can go home. Right.

That must be – that's like my biggest nightmare. For a lot of people, that's their life. Well, yeah, I don't mean to offend anyone here. Look at you being nice again. Go in your times. Yeah. No, I agree with you. I understand exactly what you're saying.

A lot of people don't realize that the biggest asset they have in their life is their time. And to spend that wisely, you have this 80,000 hours of, which I believe is like 40 years, 40 hours a week. Turns out that's 80,000 hours that you can use for anything. And I do believe that people often have a lot more potential than what they turn out to be doing if they were to realize how valuable that time is. And sort of the classic model also for more wealthy people is to work very hard and then to kind of donate here and there. But probably you could be a lot more effective if you were to just use your brain, use your time

directly on working something that matters. Well, I think what you just said is like legitimate inspiration talk you know there's a lot of uh people that should i write a book you should well i mean just a video i think is good enough just a video of you explaining your philosophy you have accomplished so much and your idea you're that you're doing is so noble and actually effective there's something that people need to hear sometimes about uh different people's philosophies on how to spend their time and their energy and your your perception of instead of wasting it on other things just concentrate on something that you think is going to

make an impact something that you're drawn to something that and yeah when you do that then you have a cause and you have a thing that you're working towards it's not just simply showing up and doing something that someone's paying you to do that you don't necessarily want to do, which is a trap. A lot of people find themselves in that trap and they need to hear people like you talk sometimes.

That's as inspirational as anyone who's like a professional, inspirational, or motivational speaker for a lot of folks. Maybe more so because you're actually doing something. Yeah. Well, probably my words carry more credibility once the oceans are actually clean and yeah it'll help but just the fact you got two cargo holds filled with two cargo containers i mean who the fuck has that no one

you know a couple people have some bags yeah you know and on the rivers we yeah i've put that amount every day now really yeah every Yeah. Every day on the rivers. Wow. When you see that horrible pollution drifting downriver, when you see that stuff, does that feel almost like impossible to capture all of it or pointless because people keep throwing it in there? Well, of course, that's the thing.

So we don't position these interceptors as being the solution, the ultimate solution for the whole process. So, of course, eventually you have to make sure plastic doesn't end up in the ocean or in the rivers in the first place, right? But I was standing. So a few weeks ago I was in Indonesia and Malaysia to see the machines and talk with government people there. Indonesia and Malaysia to see the machines and talk with government people there.

And I was standing on the interceptor and you see this constant, literally, torrent of plastic going into the interceptor. And I was looking upstream and I realized, well, there's more than 5 million people living in the catchment area of this river. And they have limited infrastructure they consume so much and just trying to imagine all that plastic not ending up in the river

with just such a diffuse source five million people was just so hard to imagine. And of course, that's where we have to go to. But realistically speaking, it's going to take a while. It's going to take maybe two decades, three decades, something like that. So I think rather than kind of staring at kind of the perfect solution and really just working on that, which, of course, is very important, I think we also need to be a bit more pragmatic and also realize, well, okay, it may take 20, 30 years. Let's at least make sure that during those 20, 30 years, we don't have 10 million kilos of plastic flowing out of this river into the ocean. You'd have to have some sort of cooperation with the people that are doing that and chucking that plastic into the river.

So, hell yeah. Someone's got to figure out a way to get to them. So, I do hope that the interceptors can have a positive influence upstream as well. Or people say, good, I don't have to worry about it. They've got a thing now. Yeah.

It's the best place to throw your plastic because they've got a thing now. Yeah. It's the best place to throw your plastic because they've got a thing that scoops it up. Guilt-free dumping. Yeah. No. That hazard is called the, or that risk is called moral hazard.

It's a phrase from economics where in the insurance industry it's kind of a thing where people make more damage once they're insured because they're less worried. I don't buy it that much as an argument for the plastic problem because it's not like it's a conscious cost-benefit analysis

whether you're going to throw something on the street or not. It's more of an unconscious thing. You just do it, right? Or at least I hope you don't, but some people do. And then it's with that same logic why

maybe municipalities should also stop sweeping the streets. And maybe we shouldn't even collect garbage at people's houses because it only incentivizes the creation of garbage. So I don't think that is such a... You don't believe that though, right? No.

And then there's this other effect called the broken window effect, which I think it was back in the 60s in New York. What they found is that in streets and neighborhoods where you have buildings that show obvious sign of decay, like broken windows or litter, that actually would incentivize other unlawful activities.

So the similar effect has been observed with a park. If a park doesn't have any litter, people litter less than when there is litter on the ground. So rather I think it's the opposite. If you truly believe that the ocean is going to be polluted forever and it doesn't really matter, it's already dirty, that's not really a strong motivation to not litter. But if you say, okay, well, ocean is clean now,

they love effort for that and yeah once once it's clean i think that would actually be a motivation to to to not litter i think you're 100 right i think some of those uh videos where you see uh shorelines that are so thick i don't know what part of the world it, but that are so thick with plastic you can't even get into the water. Like you can't wade out there and swim. Yes. It's so disheartening and you wonder where the world will be if not for people like you that are trying to come up with a solution. Where the world will be in 50 years. 50 years ago this wasn't the case.

Now it is if you could see like a time-lapse video of these oceans from like go back to like 1900 to 2019 and then go back before 1900 does relatively unchanged for thousands of years right and then all of a sudden this massive change very quickly with the industrial age yeah but again i believe this is a transition phase it's like our modern civilization being in its sort of teenage years and we kind of have to grow out of it. I couldn't agree more.

I hope this worry that we all have will translate into improvement and progress. And I always say the same thing, that we're in some sort of adolescent stage of society and thing, that we're in some sort of adolescent stage of society and evolution, that we're in this weird sort of state

where we're aware of how much we can change our environment, but also still contributing to the detriment of our environment in a non-sustainable way, and then eventually it's going to have to come to a head. You know, when you see people screaming about climate change and all these different things, I mean, this is people realizing that there's a lot going on that maybe not everyone is completely and totally aware of. But I'm with you.

I think it's good to be optimistic. It's healthier to be positive. And I think it's logical that people will find a way out of this. I really do. Yeah. logical that people will find a way out of this. I really do. Yeah, well, I'm not sure whether we'll be right. I'm not sure either. I hope we are. I think

eventually it's going to be fine. It's just a question of how long is it going to take? How much damage will have been done in that period? Realistically, it's the only way there is a chance that we figure this out, right? Have you faced any opposition to this? Is there anybody that thinks this is a fruitless idea? Because I know there were people that were actually, I was very shocked.

I read people that were actually happy that your project didn't work the first time. I'm like, what the fuck, man? There's people that, I think it's a young thing. Like because you're this really hopeful, young, intelligent guy who comes up with a solution. I think it probably – wow, you think he's so fucking smart? Fuck him. I hope it fails.

And when it failed, people actually enjoyed it. Yeah. Did that hurt? No. Did that hurt? No. So for me, yes, of course, really since the beginning, 2013,

there have been people, a relatively small group of people, but there have been people that have been opposing it. And most of them, ironically enough, are people that care about the ocean because they don't feel it's the right way to tackle the issue. But the way I deal with it is, at least what I used to do in the beginning,

now unfortunately there aren't many new arguments anymore, but just basically write them out, every single argument, rationally analyze them, no emotions. Emotions only model your thinking in that way, and make a distinction, okay, is this something where this person has a point? If so, great, because rather have somebody else pointing it out to me than us having to learn it in the field and having a necessary failure. And if the person doesn't have a point, and if it's just assumption or unfounded or whatever, then it's very easy for me to just ignore it. And then the question is, well, what motivates people to be negative?

And I think there's probably four reasons. First of all, it's genuine skepticism whether it can be done. And I think that's healthy. And I think we've proved most of those arguments wrong now. But of course, there's still the whole scale up thing, which we still have to do. So there's still a bit of that, but it's kind of morphing now to a few other things. I think one thing is human risk perception, which sometimes I think is a cause of some opposition where it's very easy for people to ignore the baseline when they look at risks.

So you can, for example, say, okay, nuclear power, super risky. We shouldn't do that. But then if you compare it to the baseline of other sources of energy, that's actually probably the least risky source of energy there is. Even solar energy causes more deaths per megawatt hour than nuclear power because people fall off roofs. hour than um than than nuclear power because people fall off roofs so so it's it's really so if you ignore the baseline and if you say okay um doing this cleanup we shouldn't do it because there's all these potential risks right of um you know potentially there is some sea life that may

be caught potentially there are are these moral hazards. There's all these risks. And basically, best thing to do is not do it. What people then are ignoring is sort of the certain hazard of these hundreds of millions of kilos of plastic that's already in the ocean. And if you were to kind of pose the opposite question and say, okay, so if I were to go to the ocean right now

and just dump the equivalent amount of plastic that we were to take out, we'd dump it into the ocean, would you think that's a good plan? And then, well, probably the answer is no. So I think there's a bit of this, you know, of course what we're doing, it's new. There are risks involved. But as long as we map them well, we take things step by step, I think they're manageable. And there are definitely not risks or reasons to not do it because, of course, the baseline is that there is already doing a lot of harm being done by the status quo.

So I think that's one argument behind people's opposition. There's also a bit of what I call zero-sum game bias where people are saying, well, you shouldn't do this because the resources would be better spent elsewhere. I saw an op-ed in Wired a few weeks ago where people were saying, well, or just one person actually was writing where this person said, you shouldn't worry

about the plastic pollution issue. You shouldn't do anything about it because climate change is the biggest issue and all our attention should go there. Plastic pollution is just a distraction.

That's foolish. Well, yeah, I think, you know, there's seven and a half billion people in the world and um we can do more than one thing at the same time i think yeah i mean should you not wash your dishes because your carpet is dirty i mean it doesn't make any sense both of them are a problem clean both of them this is this idea that you should only think about climate change it's like oh don't think about the giant pacific garbage patch it's twice as big as texas are you

fucking serious it's a dumb argument both of them are important to think about the giant Pacific garbage patch that's twice as big as Texas? Are you fucking serious? It's a dumb argument. Both of them are important. To think about both of them are important. But a part of writing an article today is writing something that people will get upset about. That's part of it is like generating outrage. Clickbait stuff. Having controversial opinions. Being a contrarian.

All those things are profitable today. I mean, it's a giant part of why people write articles. They don't write articles. They don't write articles. They don't write articles to state an objective, well-thought-out perspective always. Sometimes people do. But a lot of times people make some click-baity bullshit and they kind of twist a story and twist an idea of who you are, twist it to sort of make their narrative more compelling, be more compelling and sell more or click more and get more ad sales. Yeah. I wonder whether that's in part behind the growing tribalism and polarization that you see everywhere.

Social media. I mean, the fact that Facebook's algorithms, in a sense, support outrage, right? Like these things are designed to support my friend ari shafir tested this and it's really interesting because he tested it to find out what did it what does it actually support what it actually supports is what you're interested in and if you're interested in being outraged it'll show you the things that outrage you so he decided to just only youtube puppies yeah and that's all youtube would show him it's puppies he's like no you assholes this

is what you're into if you're into fucking getting mad about uh the border and getting mad about the climate and getting mad about abortion and getting mad about whatever the fuck it is that's what it'll show you because that's what you're interested in right you know my youtube feed is mostly muscle cars and fights why because that's what i'm interested in you know i'm just that's you know and occasionally science things yeah but that's just because that's what i'm interested in you know i'm just that's you know and occasionally science things yeah but that's just because that's what you search for that's it'll show you what you search for i'm sure you're somewhat happy that it shows you those things yes sure i don't think i don't think it's as sinister as people want to say it is i think the the issue

is human nature we are compelled to get upset about things, and I think a lot of it is people that feel disempowered in their own existence, the people that you were talking about that are stuck in cubicles and that are staring at that clock waiting for the buzzer to ring so they can go home. Those people are online. They're tweeting. They're taking a shit and tweeting, fuck this guy's little kid thinks he's going to fix this fucking shit.

There's a lot of what's going on. There's a lot of people that are upset. It's fun to be upset when your life sucks. It's fun to shit on somebody. It's fun to get mad about the border. You're living in fucking South Dakota. You're nowhere near the border. What are you worried about?

What you're worried about, you're just angry. People are just angry. These aren't logical discussions that people are just angry you know it's like these aren't logical discussions that people are having they're shout-offs and and it's it's a natural part of human nature to get upset about stuff and you know and even someone who's doing something as beautiful as your perspective and or your your idea instead of just saying look this this guy is doing something amazing we need someone like this who's just as innovative and just as inspired to try to tackle this climate issue. And we need more people like him.

This is amazing. Instead of that, like, you're spending your resources incorrectly. Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah. He got you, though. You're talking about it. Yeah. Sure.

And, yeah, I suppose it's, you know, from the perspective of the person who writes that, it's you know from the perspective of the person who writes that he thinks he's got a point yeah and and indeed if you're just saying what everyone else says nobody would see your

opinion exactly that's a big part of it well there's journalists are fucked right now and it's not their fault it's just print journalism is almost on the way out in terms of like buying things journalists are fucked right now and it's not their fault it's just uh print journalism is almost on the way out in terms of like buying things buying newspapers and buying magazines their numbers are radically down sure so they resort to online things well the in the online world you have so much competition you have competition from a million different things

that people can choose to look at or read. And to get them to read a fucking article, you got to have something good in there. So you have to distort. You have to inflame. You have to get people polarized. You got to get them upset. You got to paint a picture that makes you want to click on it. Like, what is he doing? That fucking idiot's wasting his time trying to pull... Doesn't he know what Greta Thunberg has been saying? How dare you? And that's what's going on, man. But it's just a fun, weird time for humans.

There's a lot of negative things, but there's also a lot of positive things. It's a fun, weird time. There's a lot going on, and it's happening very, very, very quickly. And the prognosticators, the people that are trying to have some sort of an idea of where this is all going, no one really knows. And change is happening at such a rapid pace that it scares everybody.

So they're looking to define things, and they're looking for control, and they're looking to be the person who's got it figured out, because nobody's got it figured out right it's madness the earth is heating the fucking ice caps are melting the fish are disappearing people are eating dolphins it's madness it's madness out there the fucking garbage patch is growing and growing and growing and if it wasn't for someone like you who's actually acting and doing something about it, it would just get worse. You have a workable solution. You should be applauded. Yeah.

Fuck that guy. You heard me. Right, Jamie? I don't think it was specific. Fuck that guy. Fuck him hard. Fuck him hard, right? Yeah. Jamie agrees.

Consensus. Yes. Consensus is fuck that guy. Consensus doesn't create clicks. That guy is trying to make a living. Or there or they yeah they're trying to make a living you know i mean i don't understand it's like in this day and age like you have to have things you have to write about so they write about things and it might not necessarily be um you know honest so how do you incentivize the truth that's the question again again i think we're in this transitionary

phase and i also think technology is going to make a lot of what we're concentrating on obsolete i think um we are really really close to some crazy breakthroughs in terms of distribution of information that's going to make it obsolete and people aren't going to care as much about clickbaity things because you know you're going to be able to feel things from digitally created media i mean i think we're very very close to augmented reality becoming an essential part of people's lives you know the same way your phone has become an essential part of your life 20 years ago no one carried a phone around it was very rare and you would you know 1999 i mean a small percentage of people had phones on them now it's 100 right all this stuff is happening at this exponentially increasing rate when they implement augmented reality and who was telling us that apple's like somewhere around 2021

man i might have been i've been looking that up yeah i mentioned it once or twice you definitely did um might have been you um but some other folks have brought it up too that apple's really close and they're they're in the process right now of developing some sort of augmented reality goggles and they'll be like glasses like you know you put on a pair of, you know, just like this. But you'll be seeing all these things in front of you. You'll be able to move them around. You'll be able to see navigation. You'll be able to turn it on and off.

It'll probably work on Siri. You'll be able to talk to it. And you're going to be able to get video and information written, podcasts, all these things, music. It's going to come through this and probably this is one step in this ever increasing trend of us getting further and further immersed in technology and augmented reality will lead to some sort of uh impossible to determine virtual reality where it's indistinguishable from regular reality we We're like 50 years away from literally being in the matrix. Yeah.

So I think it's underappreciated how much our behavior is also guided by technology. I mean, of course, we have our genes, our genotype, which kind of lies at the most fundamental level of how our behaviors are formed that's why you know there is such a thing as human nature but then there is this whole sort of cultural layer but that what we humans created around us which um i call the technosphere maybe other people have different names for it, but it's indeed everything read. We interact with something like 30,000 inventions or 30,000 technologies through our entire lives.

That's a huge amount. And I think that environment that shapes your behavior, it decides what kind of genes are expressed. And the interesting thing is that it's not just a natural environment, but it's an environment we create. So probably when you think about people being born thousands of years ago, their genes were very, very similar to the people today, yet how they behave is completely different.

Look again at violence. And why is that the case? It's thanks to these inventions, not just physical inventions, but also cultural inventions and institutions that we created that shapes our behavior and you know probably you know human nature is the human behavior is very hard to change unless it actually benefits what what we do look at you know smartphones how fast that happened versus how long it takes for smoking to go away. One is incentivizing the continued use of it through addictive products,

while with smartphones, again, it's something that you want to use. So I just wonder whether that interaction between humans and the technology that we create kind of incentivizes inventors to become morally better and better because they – did he lose me already? No, no, no. Okay. So the question is – Well, people are incentivized primarily by profit, right? Right. But the behavior that people express is kind of shaped by the world they live in.

And who knows? Maybe a person today is more incentivized to do good things because of the environment that has been created rather than a thousand years ago. No, I think that's absolutely the case. And I hope that people's ability to express themselves through social media, although it's often negative and bitchy, sometimes also it can give you a sense of the moral landscape of the culture. Like not just the people on the far fringes that are the the most angry and vehement about things but people that have objective real rational thoughts like the the

the fact that you were able to read that article and objectively assess whether or not someone has any good points or not if we could all do that about everything you know if people had that sort of perspective instead of being so reactionary, instead of being so angry about things, just look at criticisms, look at possibilities, look at all these different things, and then shape technology to fit within our ethical and moral boundaries. And also, it's very profitable, right? Because if things don't feel – if you don't have like a guilty feeling about buying something, like every time I get a plastic straw now, I feel guilty, right? If there was something that people – where they innovate to the point where you don't feel guilty supporting products and you feel like this company has the same sort of ethics and ideas that you have, that's all good. And I think we're moving more towards that. But again, we're dealing with a very short window of time where human beings have had to adapt to this incredible amount of change that takes place during a small period of time.

Yeah, it's kind of the, one way to look at problems is that it's kind of this chasm between human nature, human behavior, and how we want the world to be. And indeed, social media, that's the case. But similarly for environmental problems. We humans are driven by certain things. Self-interest is definitely a big part of it. And yet, that's not creating the world right now that we want to live in

because the technosphere, the technology that is the interface between the world, so sort of nature and human nature, that interface is not compatible with both. So you either have something that's compatible with human nature, so it's like a big car with a V8 engine, but that's not compatible with nature. Or you have something that's compatible with nature, which is probably walking, but it's not really compatible with human nature because we're lazy and greedy. It's cold outside and you got to get somewhere in a snowstorm. Exactly. lazy and greedy.

It's cold outside and you got to get somewhere in a snowstorm. Exactly. So ideally what we do is rather than trying to change humans, which I don't think is a very futile activity because there is such a thing as human nature. We have genes, we have this evolutionary history, uh, rather than trying to change that,

I think it's much more effective to change the, the technology around us that, um, you know, enables our, you know, our inner desires and behaviors to be positive rather than the negative i agree with you i think it's going to be difficult though to get that same sort of positive result um when it comes to our addiction to technology our addiction

to smartphones in particular. I mean, for a long time, it was like televisions, right? Like people talked about how much kids watch TV. Kids watch TV eight hours a day. It's so much. It's so bad. You don't really hear that anymore. Right.

You hear about phones. And this is sort of an undiscussed rapid shift in what we waste our time doing. Right. And most of it is what you hear people talking about. And most of the use of these phones, I'd be willing to bet a giant chunk of that social media. Yes. Right? Yeah.

And I suppose that's, again, this sort of infantile stage of that technology, I suppose. Now we're infantile. It was adolescent before. Now you're dropping it down. I think you're right. Yeah. I mean, again, probably we can engineer social media and our information technology to incentivize people to do good things but indeed now it's it's probably incentivizing the the use of scrolling through timelines because you watch more ads i also i

think it's our bodies and our minds and the way we view the world it's we're not designed to live in this digital realm sure this is a completely new thing for the species. And I think we don't really know how to handle the dopamine rush that we get from clicking on Instagram and scrolling through your feeds and checking your DMs and reading your emails and constantly interacting with people and checking, did he text me back? Oh, what did he say? Oh, well, that's interesting. What about this and that and this and that?

You're just all day, all day interacting with some digital device. We're not made for this. We're supposed to go outside. And then you have very bright engineers somewhere in a big shiny building, A, B testing all day to see whether a red dot on a certain icon in the social media app makes people click more or less. Yes. Yes. Yeah.

Well, Instagram is kind of dabbling with this idea of taking away the likes. Right. Like, what if we just didn't show anybody the likes? Right. You don't know how many likes you get. You put up a picture, it's just a fucking picture. Move on. Yeah.

No. You put up a picture. He got 70,000 likes for that picture. Right. What the fuck, man? You check it. Check it an hour later. 74, up a picture. He got 70,000 likes for that picture? Right. What the fuck, man? You check it. Check it an hour later. 74,000.

Right. Ooh, it's going viral. Yes. That's weird. That likes thing is one of the weirdest drugs. Nobody saw it coming, and people get addicted to saying things that get likes, right? Putting things up that are socially conscious to let everybody know how virtuous you are.

Give some likes. Give some likes. Yeah. And it's all making use of, I suppose, the flaws of our human nature. What I'm worried is that one day those likes will actually be a physical feeling. Oh, yeah.

You get like a... A little jolt, a little love jolt oh and they'll engineer the system to get you to seek those constant love jolts yes why not i mean if they look if if they're gonna give you augmented reality we are how many generations i don't know away from something something being embedded in your body right people have already decided to do that. Was it a guy or a girl embedded a fucking Tesla Model 3 key in their arm so that they didn't ever have to have their key in their pocket? They could just walk up to their Tesla and the fucking door unlocks.

Does that and you climb in. Software updates. Key doesn't work anymore. I bet it runs out of batteries. They batteries they gotta cut you open like a fish I mean what the fuck are people doing those are people at the fringes they are at the fringes but there's more of them than you think

and if they make it more if they make it simple like a flu shot I wonder whether there's any innate fear or a flu shot, bang. I wonder whether there's any innate fear or aversion towards crossing that

interior-exterior boundary with technology. Fear is a good way of looking at it, right? What is fear? Is it fear if you agree to do it? Look, is it fear if you decide to get a face tattoo? Right? It's up to you, man. If it's fear if it's fair it's like hey man my credit card company told me they'd give

me 10 off if i stick this you know this credit card chip under my skin somewhere yes i suppose if you again incentivize it with um you know with selfish interests yeah maybe it will take off there's that and there's also the the big concern is what if these i mean we're talking about income inequality in this world a big one would be what if there's a jump that you can make in enlightenment in intelligence access to information number crunching the ability to assess risk versus reward. This is all done computer-wise, and it's done through some sort of additional piece of hardware that they give you or put in your body, but it costs a lot of money.

So the people that can afford it initially are the people that have money in the first place. So the wealthy people are ready because it's very valuable. But then the people that really need it the first place. They're the wealthy people already because it's very valuable. But then the people that really need it, they can't afford it. So by the time it becomes something, all the money's gone. Everybody's chewed it all up. Everybody's figured out how to hack the system. You should become a writer for Black Mirror.

That seems like a Black Mirror episode. It seems like it would work, right? Yeah. Well, that's what people are worried about when it comes to longevity too right they're worried about technological innovations that are allowed people to you know nanobots and all sorts of different weird things are going to repair cells and allow people to live for extended periods of time but then who are these people going to be are they going to be the king class you know are they going to be this super duper

wealthy people of the future that are going to, you know, hold this over the poor folks who can't afford the technology? Yeah.

Yeah. So, it truly seems like the technologies that we're developing or at least are not too far away, our institutions

aren't ready yet to really cope with those um because definitely that would be probably increase inequality quite a lot yes that that is one of the major concerns when it comes to this sort of uh rapid change that we're facing right now you know another one of course is artificial intelligence there's there's people that I respect very, very much that have a very negative view of what the future of artificial technology is going to mean to the human race. Sam Harris. Elon. Elon.

Yeah, both of them scare the shit out of me every time I talk about it. Yeah. Yeah. Sam and I did an episode and he talked about artificial intelligence and the rise of it and the fact that once it's uncorked, it's really not going to be able to be put back in the bottle. Yeah. And we talked about it for like an hour and a half. And after it was over, like the rest of the day, I was bummed out. Sure.

I was like, this is inevitable. Yes. So personally, I have a very, I suppose, a very optimistic and pessimistic view of technology at the same time. I think on one hand, it allows us to improve the world. And that's what we've seen. And it's gradual and it continues, probably because people want to solve their own problems and with that inadvertently solve other people's problems. That's how progress happens, I believe. But then at the same time, while the world is getting a lot better,

it's also getting riskier. I mean, 2,000 years ago or even 200 years ago, there was no way to wipe out humanity. There simply wasn't. Even if you wanted it to happen very badly, you could scream, wouldn't happen. Now, though, there are actually people who have the power to do that. Rapidly.

The whole of humanity could be wiped out in a day. Yeah. And now it's fortunately just a few people. But imagine if that goes from a few people to quite a few corporations to maybe right even everyone i think there's a there's this um you know this this sort of brain teaser or a mental experiment that nick bostrom uh came up with that says well what if you could have kind of this atomic bomb that you could just make yourself in your microwave?

It's like, well, maybe at some point in time it would just not be economically feasible anymore to rebuild cities because just – Oh, my God. So I don't know. So on one hand – so I think that's kind of the scary, you know, risky aspect of it. But at the same time, when you think of it, I would much rather trust or entrust an average person today with the button for nuclear detonation device than somebody a thousand years ago. Oh, for sure. One of the mongols or

someone some savage just like let's do it um nick bolstrom freaked me out man we had a conversation about uh probability of life being a simulation that's very high probability it's more probable that we're in a simulation now than we're not and my puny monkey brain to some logic yeah yes that's the that's where it gets weird like we deal with the the number of potential civilizations out there the number of human beings the amount of time that life has had a chance to evolve not just here but everywhere in the entire universe where the possibilities that a simulation has occurred already very high where the possibilities that we're in the entire universe where the possibility is that a simulation has occurred already, very high, where the possibility is that we're in a simulation right now, also pretty high. Simply because there's only one base layer of simulation.

So, yeah. Also, life seems fake. Right? It seems weird. There's so much of it that seems like, boy, this is... A few weeks ago I saw a duck in a pond just making infinite circles. That's definitely a glitch. Yeah.

Yeah. Someone needs to fix the code. Debug that shit. Yeah. Of course, it's lots of fun to think about those things, but relatively depressing things that we'll likely never know.

Well, maybe. Maybe one time somebody will figure out the solution. This dystopian view of the future, I get the perspective. I get the dystopian perspective. But right now, as we said, according to Pinker, according to statistics, things are really better than they've been before. And my concern is that – my concern is one of the things that Elon said, we're the biological bootloader for artificial life. I mean, look, when a caterpillar makes a cocoon, it doesn't know what the fuck it's doing. It just does it.

It just makes a cocoon and becomes a butterfly. fuck it's doing it just does it you know it just makes a cocoon it becomes a butterfly right well you know we're buying the iphone 36 and the cyber trucks and and trying to get a solar-powered plane right off the ground we we're probably giving in to this thing with this look what we have right now is more than sufficient for survival if If we had just decided, if we got all the people in the world to say, hey, watches, we make watches that keep perfect time. Computers, they get online, it's great. You can download YouTube videos. Cameras, they're very clear.

They take very clear pictures. TVs look great. Everything looks great. Internet speeds, pretty fucking good, man, especially with 5G. Let's stop. Everybody stop. Stop. stop making stuff stop just everything we have right now just keep making it no no new innovation let's just enjoy life together right that sounds like it's that sounds so logical but yet also so ridiculous like no one's gonna agree to that no one's gonna that iphone 37 is already in

production bitch it's gonna be better and faster it's gonna wrap around your dick and keep you comfort at night it's they're gonna figure out better stuff no matter what forever it's part of what makes people people we have this unquenchable thirst for innovation and that's one of the weird things that freaks me out about this move towards technology is that materialism, which seems to be this like really standard behavior with a giant percentage of the population, like people are really into things. have the newest greatest things is what propels innovation because there's a financial incentive because people are making money off of selling you these better watches that you don't really need or these better cars or these better computers and all these things just keep getting better and better and better and better and a lot of it is fueled by this weird desire that people have for stuff which doesn't make any sense like where that come from well that might be the stuff

that makes the caterpillar make the cocoon yeah i mean it's probably just making use of the same um biological mechanisms as social media right it's you feel like you need it yep tricks little tricks yeah and next thing you know they go listen we have two options either we let artificial life take over and be the superior life form or we merge. Let's just make friends. Let's just make friends with artificial intelligence. Take this little chip, boy on. Yeah.

Well, so probably if it's possible, and it likely is, it's probably pretty inevitable that it's going to happen. I think it was Edison that said that, I never invented anything. I just took elements of what was there. Probably the quote is a lot better than I'm paraphrasing now. But it's kind of, if it's possible, it's kind of there. It's in the air. It just needs to be invented.

Yes, you just have to discover it. Marshall. So probably that's going of there. It's in the air. It just needs to be invented. Yes, you just have to discover it. Marshall. So probably that's going to happen. But what does give me hope is that to my point of the nuclear detonator a thousand years ago versus now, it seems like we are getting more responsible and our ability to foresee the future allows us to invent things,

but it also allows us to kind of think about the risks and to try and mitigate the risks before they happen. And I don't think there's nearly enough attention given to these existential risks, given to these existential risks. But the fact that some people are thinking about it is, yeah, it's kind of hopeful. No, I agree. I really do. And I'm posing these things about this dystopian potential future just because it really is probably something that we should think about. But I am hopeful that as technology improves, our understanding of humans improves along with it

and and also that perhaps some technology like i'm not exactly sure what this neural link thing is with elon that he's coming up with but i think something some of it has to do with a much more rapid access to information sure you know that has to do with a much more rapid access to information. Sure. You know, that has to do with, uh, increasing bandwidth. Yeah. Increased bandwidth. Yeah.

I, hopefully that will become, I mean, you don't want to say hopefully some fucking wires they stick in your brain will become standard because that seems, that seems like we are merging. I mean, that is merging,

right? That's, that's, that's the merge with technology. Marshall McLuhan said the greatest thing about this. He said, human beings are the sex organs of the machine world. What a great quote, right? That's one of those quotes you just go, whoa. That is exactly what it is. The machine world can't make itself. Needs us. If we do make artificial life, and McLuhan, I think wrote that in the sixties.

Yeah. I think that's from, um, what is the book? He's got a book, uh, media something, but,

um, what is the book? Marshall McLuhan. So, so it's, um, it's a broader point that our, well,

the understanding media or media? Understanding media. That's it. 1964. Yeah. 1964. Imagine if that got called it in 64. So definitely, it's a broader point a lot of people make that we are, in a way, enslaved

by our technology. I think in the book Sapiens by Harari, Yes. Great book. he makes the point about grain enslaving us because with the agricultural revolution 10,000 years ago, wheat didn't really become better, according to him. It was just a worse way of living than the hunter-gatherers did. But it was very good for the population of grain, and there was no way back for us. So I suppose, yeah, that's the thing with all our inventions. There are these lock-in effects that can kind of lock us into an inferior position. Yeah.

So, of course, the risk with artificial intelligence is that a similar thing happens, and that's not very benign. And, yeah, we didn't foresee those consequences that we will be locked in in the year 2065 or whatever. It's one of the more fascinating things about people, though, that we have the ability to contemplate the possibilities, that we have the ability to look at this and go, oh, okay, what are we doing here? Hold on. Right. Hold on. We're making a mistake here.

Look what wheat's got us doing. Look what rice has got us doing. God damn it. Look how much people there are in the city. There's so many people in the city. What do we got? We're going to feed all these people. Shit.

Right. We didn't think of this. We just kept breeding. And, you know, that's the big concern when people start developing into new areas. Right. When people start expanding the technological or the rather societal sprawl. When you see these urban sprawls just slowly encroaching on new land and pushing out into areas where there was no houses before.

That's always weird for me when I drive by a place like Boulder, Colorado does a really good job of limiting the amount of construction that gets done there. They're pretty fierce about it. But even they have been sort of lightening up a little. Things have been getting built. And every now and then I'll drive by. Like if I'm in Colorado, I'm like, oh, that wasn't there before. Now it's there.

Everybody thinks it's harmless. No big deal. Just a new building. It used to be an open field. Who's that helping? It's not helping anyone. And then another building outside of that and another building. And then you had the ability to look in time 50 years from now.

You'd see this spread where this weird wart of humanity starts moving across the globe. There's this cool feature in Google Maps or Google Earth where you can have time lapses from satellite photos in the past six years. For example, if you look at Dubai

30 years ago, nothing. Dubai is a crazy example. That's a crazy example. That place is so strange it's like las vegas and steroids yeah las vegas on steroids with its own um islands they man-made islands the shape of the world like all the different continents in the world you've seen that yeah and it's not doing like it's some of it apparently they have to like keep adjusting because the tide rises. Is this the Google Maps thing?

There's another one. There's another one in Dubai. Oh, my God. This is insane. This is insane. It's happening so fast. How many years is this spanning? 20?

Oh, my God. That's amazing. Actually, some of our engineers used to work for the dredger, and they actually helped build the palm islands. And apparently, the problem is that the water doesn't really move in the arms of the palms, so it kind of gets stinky and algae. So, this prime real estate, that's just… Stinks. Oh, no. Really? Oh, that makes sense. But the water in between it would get stale. so this prime real estate that's just stinks oh no really oh that makes sense that the water in between

it would get stale of course that makes sense fuck this is bonkers this video is bonkers here you see the these are actual oh there's the

yeah that's the thing so all that water inside yeah it doesn't get recycled it doesn't move around no how the fuck they had to do that to keep the like uh an ocean break right i suppose the water from smashing into it

like the outside rim you can't just pump everything so now what do they do with all the stinky water you just accept it good question that fucking world's tallest building is bananas right that thing i've seen pictures that people have taken from the top floor it doesn't even look real like all you flat earthers you need to go to dubai get up there you could literally see the curve yeah and when you stand at its foot like because of its shape it looks even taller can you see the curve from up there see if um go to uh i don't think so i don't think so on airplane, you can't see it either. You can kind of see it.

That's true. With a bit of... Yeah, you got to kind of see it. Yeah. Yeah. You got to be way up. Right. Would you go on one of those Virgin's trips?

Do they do a Virgin spaceship, fly above the earth and look down? Once there's good safety statistics. Right. Good for you. Fuck early adopting. Right. Good for you. Fuck early adopting. Yeah. It's probably not good to be an early adopter

in the space area. What kind of psychos would want to be on that first flight? Well, I suppose Richard would have to go on one of the first ones

himself, right? Oh, if I was him, I would clone myself and put a fake me on that and see if that bitch blows up. I wouldn't trust it. Stunt double. Yeah.

What is this, Jamie? Is this from? Oh, my God. I'm getting vertigo just looking down. I am freaking out. I get like legit. This is all GoPro. So this is like what flat earthers use to show that the earth is actually flat.

It's the perspective shift. But just the height of that goddamn thing makes my palms sweat. I was there last year, and there was somebody sticking her phone out of the slot. Yes. No. No. No.

Oh, god damn, people are crazy. Yes. Imagine if she dropped it, and it fell, and just went right through someone's fucking head. Like, literally like a missile. Boom. Your head would just explode. Imagine getting hit in the head with a cell phone from a mile up.

Motherfucker. That's good. Motherfucker. People are so crazy. I'm going to take a picture and write it down. I don't care. Click. It would take so long, too.

That puts the word burst mode on a new perspective to that term. They should have an alarm that goes off when someone drops something. Someone can quickly hit an alarm. And by the time it hits the bottom, the bottom part will hear, They can all back away from the building. These guys are on the tip top. No, shut the fuck up. Oh, my God. They're hanging on.

Are these Russians? Dude, look at my hands. No, shut the fuck up. Oh my god, they're hanging on! Are these Russians? Dude, look at my hands. These kids with his dad, it looks like. Oh, his dad's crazy too. Great, you're both fucking nuts. Dude, my hands are sweating right now. I can't handle these. Ugh. Um, that dude that we've had on, James, uh,

Kurt, with a K. Chief? Is thatman? Kingman? James? The guy who does those. Is that it? Kingman, right? He does these videos from these fucking places. Kingston. Thank you. Sorry, James. He's American? I smoke a lot of weed. No, he's, uh, he lives in England. Okay. And he, uh, takes these videos where he's like i smoke a lot of weed no he's uh he lives in england okay and he uh takes these videos where he's like hanging on by one hand with a fucking selfie stick yes looking down these giant skyscrapers and my hands sweat so hard right just watching those i can't imagine if i was actually doing that what a terrible fucking instinct or a terrible thing that

happens to people when you see people hanging on to something, your hands sweat. So do your hands sweat when you're hanging on? Yeah, that's just not helping you. That's the worst thing that could happen is your hands get all slippery. Fuck, man. I'm just looking at his channel. It looks like he recently had an accident.

He has a video posted on September 11th that says the day I nearly died and he's got a big old stitches gash. Well, we talked to him about that when he was on the podcast. Does he think about that? But he's kind of locked into that now. You're sort of married to this idea that you're the guy who goes up there and does that. You can't just say, well, I've done it.

No more. It's like the grain. Yep. It's like the grain. He's married to the thrill. Well, Alex Honnold is the best example of that, right? He's this free solo guy. Oh, yeah.

A free solo climber that goes El Capitan with no ropes. Did you watch the... Yes. Fuck that. Did you keep your eyes open? I've had him on the podcast a couple of times. He freaks me out. I just don't understand how he can do it. I get it. You know, I get... That's his thing. He's passionate me out. I just don't understand how he can do it. I get it.

That's his thing. He's passionate about it. Again, sweat. My hands are so sweaty. It's just a weird thing that people do where they try to activate their adrenal glands. They try to activate their thrill glands. Yeah, I do respect that. It's his passion

and he, he follows his passion. Some people clean the ocean. Some people, uh, climb a 45 degree angle backwards up the sides of a mountain.

I wouldn't, wouldn't want to be his family, but. No. Right? I'm trying to, it looks like he might have stopped doing that.

I mean, he might be getting paid to still do it as like a stunt person for movies because he did one for a movie recently. But he has a video from this year recently that says YouTube demonetized all his videos and he's just been posting car stuff. YouTube demonetizes videos?

Why? Because they don't want to incentivize? Probably. Oh, wow. That's interesting. He's had a video explaining it. He could probably talk about it. But I guess at the end of climbing, YouTube demonetized me, August 22nd. Wow. That's interesting. He's had a video explaining it. You could probably talk about it. But I guess at the end of climbing, YouTube demonetized me.

August 22nd. Wow. That's interesting. There you go. That's interesting. Huh. Being more realistic. Yeah, but here's the thing.

They demonetize it, but yet they still have it up. And they still have an algorithm that will click you after his video and suggest a bunch of other shit they're going to monetize but it might not have ads on it right his video i'm sure it doesn't have ads on it but that doesn't mean it's not effectively a part of their system like that that sort of uh that's gets revenue because you know they're going to recommend a bunch of videos that do have ads and you're going to keep clicking i think they're as far as youtube stands is just like do have ads and you're going to keep clicking. I think they're, as far as YouTube stands, it's just like, if an advertiser saw their ad on this video,

we can't be a part of that. Well, I think also from YouTube's perspective, almost all of it is illegal. Very good point. That's, I think that's a big one. Like,

I don't think you could do illegal shit on YouTube and get money off of it. Then they would be responsible in some sort of a way. Right. Makes sense. Boy, I'm over here fixing the world, dude. Yeah, done. Anything else? Do we cover it all, basically?

Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Of course, theoceancleanup.com, if people want to help. OceanCleanup, theoceancleanup.com people want to help oceancleanup theoceancleanup theoceancleanup.com people please go there and help we'll help too

we'd love to contribute love to be a part of this for sure if there's anything else we can do if there's anything that you need promoted

or you want to let people know we'd be happy to help but thank you thanks for being you man thanks for inventing this and thanks for pursuing this so doggedly and being so obsessed with

what is an incredibly worthy cause. Appreciate you, man. Well, thanks so much. My pleasure. All right, bye everybody. See you. See you.