The Rich Roll Podcast - Roll On: Keeping Your House Clean

Episode Date: October 29, 2020

Welcome to another edition of Roll On—my bi-monthly deep dive into (semi) current events, topics of audience interest, and of course answers to your questions. Commanding co-host duties as always is my hype man Adam Skolnick, an activist and veteran journalist perhaps best known as David Goggins’ Can’t Hurt Me co-author. Adam has written about adventure sports, environmental issues and civil rights for outlets such as The New York Times, Outside, ESPN, BBC, and Men’s Health. He is the author of One Breath and is currently hard at work on a novel. Some of the many topics explored in today’s conversation include: • The impending U.S. presidential election; • how the coast of Los Angeles was once a legal dumping ground for DDT, and the implications of this oceanic pollution; • the documentary ‘The Perfect Weapon’ and the rise of cyber warfare; • Nina Schick and her investigation into the world of Deepfakes; • thoughts on sustainability, stability, and the power of community; • and Rich's newest offering, 'Voicing Change’. In addition, we answer the following listener questions: How do you manage burnout? How do you live in alignment with your values? How do you navigate body dysmorphia and eating disorders as a man? Thank you to Randall from Nebraska, Robel from Montana, and Evan from Fullerton, CA for your questions. If you want your query discussed, drop it on our Facebook Page, or better yet leave a voicemail at [phone].  The visually inclined can watch our exchange on YouTube. And as always, the podcast streams wild and free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Enjoy! Peace + Plants, Rich

The Rich Roll Podcast. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because, unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. at recovery.com, who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety,

eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take

the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment.

And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com, who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal

needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life and recovery is wonderful. And recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment

option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. All right, let's do the show. We are back, we're here, and we are ready to take a roll call in another edition of Roll On with my bestie, my hype man, Adam Skolnick, journalist, environmentalist, large personality here. Oxygen room. To edify us and soothe our soul in another conversation about semi-current topics of interest pertinent and possibly not, depending upon how this goes. It depends on your point of view, I guess.

How are you doing? Good, man, good. I've been able to get some actual exercise this week and like, you know, out there five, six days and I did a six mile swim run, which was fun. Which was kind of the first long, like not long, but. How's the sleep? You're able to bank a little bit

so you can get out there with the baby. He's sleeping like six and a half hours one time and then four hour shifts, but much, much better. Yeah, he's growing. He's really growing up. That's cool. Yeah. Well, good to be back with you.

A lot has happened since we last sat down in our personal lives and in the world, of course. Before we get into it, be sure to hit that subscribe button if you haven't already. I appreciate that. Hit that notification bell so you can be alerted when we post a new video. What we do here is we break down some events of the day.

We kind of share some stories from our personal life. There's a loose format that's continuing to evolve, I suppose. And we answer, in that's continuing to evolve, I suppose. And we answer, in the second half, we answer listener questions. So if you'd like your question considered for us to discuss, you can leave us a voicemail at 424-235-4626.

So last weekend I was in Austin. Yes. My uncle, who is my dad's older brother, is in his final days of life. He's somebody that I'm not super close with, but my dad wanted to go out and be with him for the last time. And I went out to do the same, but also to support my dad.

So the circumstances under which my first experience traveling were not exactly fantastic, but it was really nice to see my dad. And I'm really glad that I went. It really brought us together, brought us much closer. We were able to have some deep and meaningful conversations about life. And it just reminded me how precious life is

and also how fleeting it is and how when these moments arise, these opportunities to be with the people that you love, how you have to seize them. And I wasn't looking to jump on a plane and travel in the middle of a pandemic. I haven't been on an airplane since this whole thing began, but I was willing to kind of roll the dice

to have the experience that I had. And I'm glad that I did. It was meaningful. I posted about it on Instagram. You said your uncle was actually upbeat too, right? Or he was- My uncle was, well, he was alert and basically looking at

maybe another 24 to 48 hours, unless he wanted to have a feeding tube inserted because he wasn't able to digest food. Initially he passed on that, which is why my dad and I jumped on a plane at the last minute to go see him. He changed his mind and decided he did want a feeding tube. So he's still with us now,

although it's kind of up and down. So I was not able to actually see my uncle after all of that because they would only allow one person a day to visit. And I didn't wanna take up that day spot because he had his kids coming into town from all over the place. And I just felt it was inappropriate,

but I was there for my dad to basically be with him for the better part of a day where he, so my uncle is like eight years older than my dad. So my dad grew up as the youngest and there was a lot about his older brother's life that he didn't know and he wanted to ask him before he passed. So that was kind of a cool thing.

That is cool. Yeah. How did he handle everything? Was he pretty emotional? My dad was, yeah. My dad was, yeah. And my uncle was, still is, he's still around, an amazing guy.

He went to Yale and then he got his PhD in physics from Princeton in the department that was made famous by Einstein, who had since retired by the time my uncle was there, but that legacy kind of still lived on, like it's this amazing program. You have a beautiful mind, guys. Yeah, and he went on to design, like help design like the nuclear power plants

for submarines, like he's like you know, he's like a genius. Yeah, right. And he was also an expert at the French horn who probably could have been a symphony musician. So he was an amazing guy. Yeah, he's amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But one thing about being outside of Los Angeles

and being in Austin was just a reminder of what a cool place that is. I was able to go swim at Barton Springs, the pool was open, running around the lake and just being in kind of a little bit more of an urban environment than I'm used to living out, you know, in the countryside out here. It was nice and definitely lifted my spirits.

It was interesting though, I thought, I would have thought there would be a lot of people pushing back against the mask thing. And basically everyone was wearing masks. Except the guy who decided to sit next to me on the flight home. What? You can't take your mask off on a plane.

Right, I mean, they make a big announcement. Like you've gotta wear your mask unless you're eating or drinking, but he ordered a cocktail and then proceeded to nurse that cocktail for almost the entire flight and kept his mask off for the whole time. Sheesh. They should put like non-mask wearers.

They should say you can fly, but you're gonna have to fly in the cargo hold. Or just exert a little bit of courtesy, like put your mask on in between sips if you're gonna sip this thing for the entire time. You should get a time limit with your drink. But I got tested. When I got back, I'm fine,

but it was a little bit hectic. So you didn't have COVID. Traveling, yeah. Yeah, were you stressed going in? Was the airport like a ghost town or was it pretty busy? I haven't been in an airport. Well, I was in, I had connecting flights

cause it was a last minute reservation. Flying back, I had to fly through Phoenix and that airport was mobbed. Really? That was a little bit dicey. Crazy. Being around that many people. Yeah.

But it was good. I had a cool experience when I was swimming. Have you swum at Barton Springs in Austin? No, I've never been to Austin. So it's this amazing, one of my favorite pools in the world. It's basically crafted out of the lake, which is really a river.

Right. An outdoor pool that I think was built as a public works project, maybe as part of the New Deal. Okay. I'm not quite certain. But it's like swimming in a giant quarry. That's maybe, I don't know, 300, 350 meters across.

Amazing. And I'm swimming and I get to one end and I'm kind of catching my breath. And this guy swims up to me, probably about my age, maybe a little bit older. And he's like, hey, I love the podcast. He wants to talk about the podcast. And it turns out he's a retired army colonel

and master flight surgeon who had been deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq and Jordan, like all over the world. And from what I gather, like was a pretty high ranking military officer for a long time, who's now living in Galveston, I believe, and is the chief medical director for this kind of burgeoning industry that's popping up around space tourism, like space travel. Like he's, from what I understand, and I might have this wrong,

he's in charge of like trying to create the systems and the infrastructure for how you're gonna medically screen people when eventually, you know, they're gonna get on these SpaceX or Virgin Galactic flights and go into orbit. Go into the orbit. Which was pretty cool. And the reason I bring it up. You have to have like a heavy medical screening for that, right? or Virgin Galactic flights and go into orbit. Go into the orbit. Which was pretty cool. And the reason I bring it up.

You have to have like a heavy medical screening for that. Right, you can't just have. I would imagine, I would imagine. My point being that every time I think I have a handle on who the typical podcast listener or viewer is, I think, oh, people that are eating a vegan diet or they're into triathlon or running or, you know, being in nature, like an army colonel isn't the first person that comes to mind. And it always is touching to know that there's a broader diversity in the people that

are tuning in than I would have suspected, which I think is great. That's great. It shows you the breadth of people that are interested in this subject matter as well. So it's like gives you kind of hope about the world too. For sure. People from all walks of life interested. Yeah, I'm sure someone's listening to you in a prison somewhere. I've gotten emails from people in prisons, which is wild.

Yeah. Yeah. So what do we got today? What do we got? We got, well, I think you have something special that you wanna talk about. I do. You got a book out or about to come out. I do. Yeah. I do, it's been a big past couple of days.

First of all, we launched a brand new website. So I wanna thank all the people at Emory Agency who have been working hard behind the scenes to create the next iteration of richroll.com. We launched the first version of that last night. So that's pretty cool. And we've got a lot of bells and whistles to come. Basically what I want to do, what we're working on is twofold. One is taking all of this content that we've created in the eight years of doing the show and better organizing it so that the site becomes an educational destination.

In other words, breaking the podcast into categories that align with very specific topic headers like the microbiome or addiction and recovery or meditation and then organizing the top episodes in each category accordingly. And then also providing additional resources like books and documentaries and other ways for people to more deeply immerse themselves

in that specific subject. So we're working on that now that will launch soon. And also this new subscription offering that I'll get into later. But the big thing today, in addition to the podcast with Matthew McConaughey dropping, which is very exciting. Yes, we were watching a little bit of that this morning

and at the house. So yeah, it's cool. That's very cool. What's funny about these things, we'll get into the book in a second, but what's interesting is when I scheduled that, which was a while ago, I should have realized that he was gonna be on every podcast

because he was on every television show. There's no reason why he wouldn't pop up on every podcast. But for some reason, I deluded myself into thinking I had not an exclusive, but maybe an inroad that other people didn't have. And then, of course, he's on all the top shows, which is great. He should be. Right.

So my hope, I mean, I haven't listened to all those other episodes, but my hope is that I got some interesting things there that are a little bit different from what you're going to find in the other podcasts. My question is, how do Dan Buettner and Matthew have the same nickname for each other? I know. I think- That seems weird, that seems strange. I know, well, I think Matthew was the one who came up with the nickname for Dan

and then Dan just, as Matthew said, boomeranged it back onto him. I like that Dan thought he was Bradley Cooper for like three days. But you have to understand, Dan is the most charming person you're ever gonna meet. And he does all of that like on purpose. That was hilarious.

So I went up and saw Dan in Santa Barbara the other day and rode mountain bikes and went hiking with him, which was great. Yeah, I saw that post. That's cool. He's such a beautiful guy. He's awesome. In any event, the book, Vo's cool. He's such a beautiful guy. He's awesome. In any event, the book, "'Voicing Change."

He's in that book. Dan is in that book. Matthew is not, but he will be in a future iteration that I suspect. Yeah, volume two. "'Voicing Change' is this book that I basically completed during the pandemic that we're self-publishing. It's essentially a compendium of the podcast, timeless wisdom and inspiration lifted from the show itself. And the motivation

behind it really was to create a keepsake for the fans or a way to go back to meaningful episodes and see those words that were uttered auditorily, obviously, in print as a reminder, and also as an introduction to people who are not familiar with the show to get a sense or an idea of what it's all about. So basically, we took 50 guests that we've had over the years, which was no small thing to try to figure out who would be most appropriate. Of course, there's gonna be people, it's been eight years, we're coming up on eight years. Yeah, there's gonna be people missing that are certain people's favorites, et cetera.

Like you can't, you know, it's like 50 out of 550, you know, you're not gonna be able to hit everyone. But I think we got it, we canvassed a really good cross section of the people that we've had. And we transcribed all of those episodes and we took out, we lifted out the most kind of relevant, pertinent, impactful things that those people said. We put that in there.

I wrote introductions for each of the guests. Some of the guests contributed essays like Russell Brand, Mishka Shubali, John Joseph, a couple other people. And there's some, my friend, Jeff Gordnier wrote the introduction. I'm really proud of it. And it's really a coffee table book. It's a beautiful book.

It's a beautiful book. The idea is you can leave it out. Yeah, it's like art book quality. So here's, for those that are watching on YouTube, here's the box that it comes in, which is kind of like a pizza box. You open it up, here's the book, just like that. Lift the book out.

I'll just take this one. And you can see, I'm not gonna go through the whole thing, especially for people that are listening, but you can see it's, you know, there's beautiful photographs. It's really, you know, meant to be open to any page and you can kind of enjoy. Was it hard to figure out the lineup?

Like, did you move the pieces around? Like where to put the different people and like build a crescendo or like have, or did you put all the athletes in one section, all the academics and all that? No, we curated it. I tried to mix it up kind of like the way that we do on the podcast itself,

like not too much of any one thing in a row. Yeah. And, you know, making sure that there's an appropriate ratio of males to females and the like. So I'm really proud of it. It was certainly a team effort. Everybody who I work with on the show

worked very hard to put it on. I didn't do it myself. So very excited about it. It is officially available for pre-order now. Pre-order? Exclusively on my website. We're not selling it on Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Like I said, we're self-publishing it.

You're gonna ship it from here? We're shipping globally. You can ship anywhere. We have flat shipping within the United States for $10. And of course it's more expensive if you're international. And it's only a print book, right? Only print, yeah, only print. No Kindle or digital.

You know what it reminds me of? It reminds me, I remember when I was younger, I was like super stoked on this Playboy interview collection, like anthology was like 50 years of the Playboy interviews. And that's what I think about with this book, but obviously from your perspective, because I've always told people,

I think you're one of the best interviewers in all of broadcasting. That's how you got this job, by pandering to my ego. Have I told you that? Yeah. You got those emails? So yeah, so I think it's so perfect

to have that kind of as like complimentary to the podcasts that are coming out. You can go back and look at your favorites. You know, I know I think of some of my favorite episodes still, so. Yeah, I appreciate that. I mean, it's really, you know, just a way to canonize the mission of the show

to further honor all the guests and also to honor the audience, to give them a little piece of this. Do the guests know that they're in this beautiful book? Yeah, I mean, we had to get releases from them. Yeah, they all know and they're all being shipped a book right now. They're not gonna be surprised.

Yeah. That role guy put me in his book. Right. No, they all had to sign off on it. Including your boy Goggins. We're gonna talk a little bit more about him in a minute. The book is shipping November 10th, but it is, like I said, available for pre-order now.

So if you wanna learn more about it and reserve your copy, go to richroll.com slash VC or voicingchange.com. I like it. Check it out. Super proud of it. And I wanna thank everybody who I worked with, who worked very hard to create it. It's a beautiful book. Nice work. Yeah, man.

There's another big thing coming up that we've all been thinking about. We can't help but think about it. It's everywhere. Even if you're not in the United States, which is weird, right? You know what? That's what's so funny is that, about it. It's everywhere. Even if you're not in the United States, which is weird, right? That's what's so funny is that, but it's not that funny.

Like, so the debate, people in Australia watch the debate. Right. And they like it because it's entertaining. I remember when Rob Ford was the mayor of Toronto. Right. I loved Rob Ford stories. I couldn't get enough Rob Ford stories.

I love them because he was so wacky and they couldn't get rid of him. And now we have not a Rob Ford, but we have our own situation where people who don't live here think it's hilarious. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. With very real world ramifications. With very real world ramifications that affects everyone. But we have a week to go. This is a very unique moment in history. We've never seen anything quite like this before. I mean, because we weren't around

during the Woodrow Wilson pandemic. What do you think? Where are we in this moment, Rich? I think we're at a very important turning point in the history of our country. And I wanna say upfront that this podcast has never been a political podcast. I'm certainly not a political pundit.

And for anybody who's been tuning in for a while, there shouldn't be any confusion about where I stand on all of this. In the event that it needs to be said, I'm casting my vote for integrity and for character and for the environment and for stability. And so I'm voting for Joe Biden, the Biden-Harris ticket. and integrity and that we dispense with this narcissistic, egomaniacal, compulsively lying orange goblin and vote him out of office once and for all so that we can move forward with some level of cohesion for the future of our country. Yeah, hear, hear man.

The way I try to explain it to people who are maybe leaning Trump, and I don't know that many, but I do know some. And what I try to say is, if you care about the ocean, and you care about the environment, you cannot vote for Trump. he's already trying to reduce the size of marine protected areas. He's trying to open up previously protected land to development. He's waiving environmental laws to build a border wall. There's so much I could go on and on and on. If you care about the ocean, you care about the land, you care about animals, there's really only one vote you can possibly make. And that's not even getting to the part if you care about people. And I think the divisiveness that you're mentioning, it's time to vote for love over fear. One guy's kind of playing into this big, the big hack and helping to divide us and helping to hack us. And the other guy,

he's not the most captivating candidate we've ever had. Yeah. I mean, it's not like, you know, Biden is the choice candidate of all time. I'm not saying that, but to the people who, you know, leave comments and point out all of, you know, Biden's misdeeds or, you know, his failures or, you know, why he's not perfect. That's not the decision that we're here to make. We're not adjudicating that right now. We're adjudicating between Trump and Biden. And so who is it gonna be?

You know, Biden, for whatever you might think of him, and the debate stage is not necessarily the best place for him to reveal his gifts, but he does seem like a nice guy and we could use a little more nice guy around here. He's certainly a decent human being who has a heart and is capable of compassion. Yes, and that's what we need.

I think we need a little bit of that right now. But we don't know what will happen. A lot could happen. You know, I'm optimistic so far, the turnout in the mail-in voting is through the roof in terms of youth doing it. That is a good sign. But there's also this idea that mail-in ballots always skew blue. It's called the, what is it, the blue shift.

And the night of, the election day ballots could reveal a Trump victory at first that would shift later, which could be problematic. So we don't know how it's gonna go. It could take a day to find out who won. It could take weeks. It could take over a month. I think that we're so used to knowing that day and somehow if it takes longer,

it seems more suspicious when in reality, it seems like the longer it takes, we should trust the result more, but we're just not wired that way? No, the longer it takes, the more we so distrust in those results. And I think two things. I mean, I think first of all,

it's highly unlikely that we're gonna have decisiveness at the end of election day. Yeah. I think that it's more likely than not that it's gonna take weeks or months. So the election is certified on December 9th, right? Yeah. So that's-

Is it December 9th or 14th? I forget. I can't remember. It's somewhere around that time. I think it's unlikely that we'll know before that date, but my hope is that upon that date, that we will have some level of certitude. And the second thing is short of a landslide and with the foundation that Trump has been laying around distrust of results, what happens in the event that,

and I think, you know, potentially likely event that he just decides he's not gonna leave. Right, so there's a great radio lab episode we can link to that's called What If that came out and my buddy Reese Pacheco at WSL Pure sent me that, so shout out Reese. And they did these war games with some Washington insiders, people who worked at the Pentagon,

people who worked for the Democratic Party, Michael Steele, the Republican. I think he ran the Republican Party at one point. A bunch of people that you've heard the names of, and some people you haven't, but have higher up in Washington. They got together and they did kind of war game scenarios, like where they'd actually roll dice, like it was a little D&D, a little kind of brainstorming, you know, war room stuff. And different people got divided up into teams and they played,

I'm Biden campaign, I'm the Trump campaign, I'm so-and-so and so-and-so. And they revealed, the two takeaways are, it is possible that a governor or a legislature in a state level could send electors that are not bound by the popular vote in a state. Although the Supreme Court has ruled that that's unconstitutional, that could still happen. It is possible. It's also possible that the Joint Chiefs of Staff

can decide who they trust to give the nuclear codes to. And they have the power to take them from Trump and give them to Biden in a disputed election. So all these things could, there are what if scenarios. I mean, I personally am optimistic about a blue, a big blue wave, but you know, what do I know? I thought we'd win. Yeah. I thought Hillary I thought we'd win. Yeah.

I thought Hillary Clinton would be the president. Well, if we know anything, it's not to put too much trust in the way things have gone down in the past. And that truly anything can happen. We need to be prepared for anything happening. Which brings me to the new segment, the quick five. Are you ready for the quick five? I'm not sure I am.

This is the quick five. You're just springing this on me. I'm gonna give you- I don't know where this is gonna go. I'm gonna give you a subject and I want a quick five takes from you. Five things from the top of your mind. Okay? All right.

Quick five. So tell me why, explain to me why, no matter what happens on election day, whoever wins, even not election day, whoever wins the election period, why everything will be okay. whoever wins the election period, why everything will be okay. Have you ever seen that Charles and Ray Eames film, The Power of 10?

I have not. So it's a little short film that these designer, the legendary designer couple create all the furniture and architecture created. It's on display, it's on permanent display at the Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, which is where I saw it as a kid and I never forgot it. But it's basically a telescoping up

from somebody sunbathing in a park in Florida and it moves upward in altitude at the power of 10, like every, at interludes of a couple seconds or whatever. So you, until you see this person, you know, like a drone flying above them, and then from the perspective of an airplane and then from orbit, and then you just further and further distance yourself

from them. I like it. Until you gain some perspective on just how small all of us are on this tiny little blue orb hurling itself through space. And our biggest problems are then placed into proper perspective. Over the course of history, regimes have risen and fallen,

empires have dominated the planet and then been overthrown. Humanity somehow finds a way to prevail. So that's one big- Basically in the greater scheme of things, I think we're gonna be okay. In the greater scheme of things? We're dealing with something that's very dramatic, not to diminish, I think,

the impact of what's gonna happen can have on everyday lives all over America and the world and what has happened, of course. But we have air to breathe. We still have clean water to drink, which we're gonna get into more about that in a minute. And we can all find things to be grateful for.

And there are only so many things that we have control over. We can cast our vote. We can make our voices heard. We can assemble. We can do all of these things that we have fundamental rights to do. But ultimately, we have to find a way to trust and have faith in a plan that exists, lives and breathes outside of ourselves and to continue to live our lives with some level of peace that we can't control everything.

So let's see if we have five things. One is, this is all smaller than we think it is. When you look from space, this doesn't register. Right. To the simple things. That's kind of nihilistic though. Yeah, but I kind of like it. It's a little dark, but I like it.

Then you have, we have the air to breathe. We have water to drink. If we have food on the table, if we're feeling safe, that's, you know, we can take- And we have each other. And we have each other. Then you said something about, what else? The serenity prayer, essentially.

Yeah. Understanding and appreciating that there's only so many things that we can control and those things are very limited. So if you remember that and you control what you can control, then everything will be okay in your world. Right.

And also that every problem doesn't need to be your problem. And what I mean by that is we're all in some sense victims of a new cycle that wants us to believe that every problem is our problem and it ratchets up our anxiety, but doesn't give us a productive outlet

for that energy, right? So we don't have to hang on every facet of the news cycle. Yes. I didn't watch the second debate because my mind's made up. I didn't really need to see it. I caught some clips of it later, but I don't need to be informed at the micro level

on that specific decision because I've made that decision. And I don't need to ratchet up my anxiety and threaten my own sort of sense of equanimity over that event. You made the right decision because I was watching it with Zuma and about 20 minutes in he expressed exactly how I felt about it

when he threw up all over my shirt. Right, and are you better for having watched it? No, it was terrifying. It's not as if you were gonna change your mind. No, and the problem, the reason I don't like it is because God, Biden's great, but he does have, because he has a history of stuttering and it's harder for him,

debate format's not a great place for him. And then Trump is the more commanding presence. And unfortunately, people are drawn to that. So if you're a supporter of Biden and you really want this thing to change, it's only going to drive your anxiety because you're going to look for reasons why. A perfect example of something you can't control. Right. But the one thing I would also, that's great, by the way, what you just said is that like, basically keep it into, you can't make the world's problems, your problems all the time. You got to get through your day. And that's one way, making it okay, right?

You do have the control to make your life okay, to make your life better on the individual level. At least we do here. And that's one thing I think, a fifth thing, I'll add a fifth thing for you, is that remember when the COVID started and there were empty shelves everywhere in the grocery store and people were terrified that they were building the remote hospital at Dockweiler State Beach. And I was joke texting with my buddy. I'm like, hey, dude, if I end up in a trailer in Dockweiler, please come get me. And he's like, me too. And so that kind of thing was happening.

And we were all kind of wondering what was gonna happen next, but the food systems did not break down. The power systems did not break down. We did not break down. We had people step up. We had people in hospitals step up. There are good people throughout this country

in every city and every town trying to make it work and not trying to divide, but trying to make it work. And that is what I rely on. We are bent, but we are not broken. And no matter what happens, we won't be broken. And that's my, I believe that we won't. And so that kind of faith I have, it's not even a spiritual faith.

It's just faith on what I've seen with the caliber of people that do exist in this country in both parties and that we can be bent, but we're not gonna break. And that's what's happened so far. I think that's a great point. I believe we talked about this previously. I can't recall, but we have this sense that,

or many of us have this sense that Twitter and these social media platforms are a proxy for where most Americans are mentally, emotionally. And in truth, Twitter is like 2% of the American population. 2% of the American population is on Twitter. And we over index for the importance of the conversations that are going on there as a litmus test for the conversations that are going on

at the Panera breads across America. And I just don't think it's accurate. And as somebody who just traveled and was in a bunch of airports and talking to a lot of people along the way, I'm always left hopeful from those exchanges, realizing that the tactile one-on-ones that you have with people when you go out on the road

are very different from the picture that gets cast on social media, which gives us this sense that we're more fractured than I think we actually are. And I think we are being tested and our systems, our institutions are being challenged and they are being bent, but I have faith in our democratic processes. And I think that democracy is more resilient than perhaps we are willing to trust at the moment. And we're gonna find out, but I don't think that we're on the precipice

of democracy completely failing. I don't believe that. And even though we talked about kindling and civil war, I don't think we're gonna have that either because quite frankly, that takes a lot of effort and Americans are not really gonna leave Netflix and the couch to go fight a civil war over a presidential candidate.

I suspect there'll be whatever happens, there'll be skirmishes. There'll be skirmishes. But I don't see that escalating into, you know, some kind of systemic cultural warfare that's going to, you going to betray our institutions wholesale. I agree. And I think that what you were just talking about

relates to that there was an op-ed by some political scientists that I read in the New York Times, I think the last couple of weeks. And it was that it talked about that Twitter percentage, but it also talked about that actually 80% of Americans don't give a fuck about politics even now. Even with this, we're supposed to be so polarized, but 80% of Americans actually are not that polarized.

They're kind of in the middle. And it used to be when I was, kind of really was in my activist days before I was writing for a living, that kind of thing would be discouraging because you'd think, oh God, 80% of people are apathetic. But now it like is comforting. Yeah, 80% of people are apathetic, but now it like is comforting. Yeah.

Yeah, 80% of people just wanna get on with it, you know? And that's actually comforting for me now. And you know, I don't know what that means. Maybe it's because I'm a dad now or something, or I don't know. You're getting soft. I've gotten soft. Your revolutionary streak is.

Yeah, but my feet are still not soft. Yeah. I'm not are still not soft. Yeah. I'm not tender-footed. Well, we'll have more information in a week. We'll know, we'll know, we'll know next time for the election. I'm glad it's happening. Yeah. We're getting to the point.

And to kind of close this section out, I mean, just, you know, look, regardless of your political perspective, go and have your voice be heard. Yes. Cast your vote and participate in this democratic experiment that still is continuing to evolve.

Just know if you vote for Trump, you hate whales and dolphins and baby dolphins. Okay. Just kidding. All right, man. What do we got next? That was a joke, friends. So next, the big story.

I think that kind of like this whole thing with the election, it kind of teases to this theme of, we need to be responsible for cleaning our own house, for taking care of our own shit and like making sure that we really close the loops within ourselves and within our communities and within our country. And this story kind of gets into that in a way.

It's a story about barrels of DDT that were discovered in the deep water, 3,000 feet deep in the channel between Catalina and Palos Verdes. Which is essentially for people that don't know, just off the coast of Los Angeles, it's about, what is it? Like 28 miles from Palos Verdes to Catalina.

Yeah, and it's somewhere in the middle there in the channel and 3,000 feet deep. They dumped these barrels. Some of them were actually hacked with an ax in order to sink them because they were floating. So they were just leaking DDT So they were just leaking DDT. They're just leaking DDT. This was in the 70s.

Yes. Even before that, I think it was prior to the 70s, somewhere between the 40s and the 70s because it was over a period of time. But so this was, I think, Pulitzer level reporting from Rosanna Shia. She's an environmental reporter at the New York, at the LA Times, excuse me, it's the LA Times story.

And it kind of points out that DDT is this nightmare that never ends. For those who don't know, I'm not gonna try to pronounce DDT. I'm not a scientist and I'd screw it up. Do you know how to pronounce that word? It's a very long word. It's the longest word I've ever seen.

I don't. But it first was synthesized in 1874, became a Swiss chemist, kind of discovered its insecticide properties. And then it was deployed in World War II by the Allies to control malaria and typhus among troops and civilians, mostly in the South Pacific. And then it was deployed as an insecticide, as a pesticide all over the United States. And it was kind of responsible for the agrarian revolution,

all this food, you know, people gave DDT props for allowing us to grow incredible amounts of food and export it. And kind of fuel prosperity is what people thought. It was, it's basically the precursor to what would later become glyphosate. Right. It was the OG glyphosate.

It was the OG pesticide. It was the OG. Right? Right. And by the way, it's dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane. All right. I believe is how you pronounce it. So Paul Hermann Müller from Switzerland, he's the guy that first kind of found

these pesticide properties, but strangely he was not in favor of utilizing it as a pesticide because he knew that we don't know how it's going to interact with life. And we don't know the long, and it needs to be studied for years. And he was right, of course, that it should have been discovered for years because then sometime around 1962, a marine biologist named Rachel Carson, you probably have heard of because of her books, Silent Spring.

She was able to trace it or posited that this rampant use of DDT and pesticides in general were killing birds. And not just any birds, but peregrine falcons, bald eagles, lots of birds. And like all of a sudden the sky was silent in spring. She was a marine biologist, by the way, her book, The Sea Around Us, which was published in the early fifties is absolutely incredible. I read it recently, won the national book award.

She's amazing. She's like on that Mount Rushmore of women in science with Jane Goodall and Sylvia Earle. Right, and basically DDT is almost entirely responsible for the near extinction of bald eagles. Right. Which is crazy. That is crazy.

And certainly it chased them from the Channel Islands here. And so basically this company in LA after the war, Montrose Chemical Corporation, opened a plant in Torrance in Southern California here, and they cashed in big on the DDT kind of boom. The US used to make 80 million pounds of DDT every year. It's incredible. And then anyway, after Carson's book,

1972, finally a law was passed saying you can't use DDT anymore. It was traced to harming the environment. And human health. And human health. And then, yeah. So it's crazy. Basically, some of that DDT was getting

into the sewage system and flowing offshore right around Palos Verdes in 200 foot deep water, very close to shore. That became a super fun site. And that was very, you know, Montrose Chemical Company and the EPA were in a big legal battle over that. But no one really paid attention to the fact

they were also dumping barrels of the stuff in the deep water. That was kind of, nobody even knew about it until like seven years ago, five to seven years ago. And at the time it was legal to do so? It was legal to do so. It was legal to do so. It was legal because- You could just go out into the ocean and dump whatever

because the ocean is so vast, it'll just absorb whatever toxicity it's faced with. And it reminds me of that scene in Mad Men. Do you remember? Which one? There's one scene in one of the episodes where they're having a picnic, like on a park, and they've got all this food out and you're

like fast food or whatever. And then when they're done, they just get up and walk away and they just leave all their garbage sitting there on the park. But the drapers were kind of greedy people. But that was a cultural more of the time. People used to just throw their paper drink cup out the window when they were driving and never think twice about it. Well, right. Well, that's the big problem with the plastic in Southeast Asia, because it used to be when you went and got your noodles at the stall, it was wrapped in a banana leaf and you could throw it out and nothing would be a problem. And now it's in a plastic bag. And for years, people didn't realize the problems. Now it's been corrected now, but it was a cultural thing that

had to shift, like give a hoot, don't pollute, it has to happen everywhere. So how does this reporter discover this? Like, this is kind of a big breaking story. I mean, it was published in the LA Times and they did kind of one of those beautiful graphic, photograph heavy, you know, kind of presentations of it where it's very much a visual story

as it is a journalistic story. Yeah, so, I mean, I think that this, an academic from UCSB had kind of was studying methane, not leaks, I guess, methane seeps in the deep water and had gotten access to a ROV, a robot that could kind of go down there and study this. And they completed their studies and still had a little time.

And I think he had a hunch that there was something going on and there were barrels out there. I mean, he'd been following that a little bit. And he was able to locate, he and a research assistant were able to locate about 60 of these barrels just leaking DDT everywhere and take samples.

And periodically people had been onto this story, but what I think makes the report so great is that she spent the time to go back into the logs and was able to trace them to Montrose through the logs and through kind of people had still had these files, they still existed. Right. And so she could trace it to Montrose

and Montrose had paid a hundred plus million dollar settlement to the EPA without admitting fault. And that had this, one of those beautiful legal kind of ties, ribbons on top, which basically is supposed to anything you discover falls under, Right. Everything you discover falls under this.

So this discovery doesn't obviate that settlement. Like that doesn't expose them to any additional liability. From what, from my read on that story, it doesn't seem to be. settlement. Like that doesn't expose them to any additional liability. From my read on that story, it doesn't seem to be. Yeah. So, but someone's, yeah. So who's gonna clean it up? Right, so now we're faced with trying to clean this up.

And are these barrels, I mean, if they've been down there forever, are they still leaking? They're still leaking. Apparently DDT does not dilute very well. It depends on the samples they're getting, but one sample was 40X, the Superfund site at Palos Verdes,

which I've been to that Superfund site offshore on a boat and you still see people fishing there. I mean, it's like, and that's the point, right? So we treat the ocean and it's not just us, by the way, it's all over the world. The ocean has been treated historically that way because we didn't have an understanding because the dominator culture that we developed in, that we all grew up in,

does not look at things holistically or never hasn't to this point, right? That's what we all wanna push for. We wanna push for a holistic view of land and life. And we've just never gotten there. But what that means is like people are actually fishing for, you know, in areas where fish have come up with lesions and tumors, you know, where sea lions have been found

and dolphins have been found dead with a high concentrations of DDT in their blubber. I mean, this is all detailed in this story. And it just makes me think like, you know, the way that we view, I mean, first of all, the ocean gives us every second breath and we're treating it like a dumping ground. And we just gotta change that, that has to change. Well, there's just this sense that it's so vast that we can't possibly harm it.

And yet, you know, fishing has become overfishing by definition, we've completely overfished the oceans. The statistics on the denigration of coral reefs are like staggering. I just read something like the other day about how half of the Great Barrier Reef is now dead. Half of it. We are past that tipping point

where every additional strain on the ocean has very serious downstream implications. And we've got to reverse this. It's unbelievable that we treat this resource in this way. And it's really a mindset shift as much as it is anything else. Yeah, I mean, we're at a point now where we know what the ocean does for us, right?

It's absorbing carbon. it's giving us food, it's giving us oxygen, we know that. And yet even today, there are companies lining up to try something called deep sea mining to get precious minerals we need in our tech. And in remote South Pacific countries that are giving them the permits, it's all lined up to go. And we don't know the ramifications of the silt

that's gonna come up from that, how that will affect life at the deep sea or in the mid sea. It's happening right now. And we just make this mistake over and over again, this idea of short-term gain financially for a long-term problem that we have to live with like DDT. They didn't think, that's the thing we have to live with like DDT. They didn't think this, that's the thing is the people dumping this DDT

didn't think it was gonna hurt the ocean like you said. Right, but they were cutting, they were, they were cutting corners. They were cutting corners, this was a shortcut. Yeah. And if the barrels didn't sink, let's just poke holes in them and let the DDT flow out. I mean, they had to know like, this is not good,

but like who's ever gonna find out, you know? Right. And to your point of this being kind of an example of the importance of cleaning house on an individual level, it's the idea that these corners that we cut or these things that we try to push aside and rationalize always come back. Yeah. Right. The DDT is always found.

Yeah, it doesn't break down. No. Right? It remains there and it took many years, but it was ultimately discovered. So how do you think about how that applies to our individual responsibility? Well, I mean, I think we as a culture, I see it in a lot of different places

where we don't want to take responsibility because it's a lot of work. And on an individual level, sometimes we don't wanna do the little things at the house and batten down the hatches and like put away the clothes. Right, or put the recycling stuff in the recycling and do the composting and all of that. We don't want to, because it's a pain in the ass.

But if you don't do those kinds of things, there are ripple effects in the future. You could look at the Supreme Court justice that's happening right now, right? Like we're putting someone on the Supreme Court in a way that was, Obama was not allowed to put his justice on Supreme Court because it was election season.

The Republicans are doing the opposite, are doing the exact opposite of what they said was right then. And we're putting someone on the Supreme Court who doesn't tell us how she feels about things. And we've gotten to the point where it's so partisan. Like Ruth Bader Ginsburg was 97 to three approved. Bork was 100 to zero or something.

And we're putting someone on there that it's completely partisan, just like Kavanaugh, forced through, completely partisan. And these kinds of things have ripple effects. You know, like we're not, both parties don't wanna even clean, control their own house, their own damage. Yeah.

Bork was a hundred to zero. Something like that. And he didn't make it cause he smoked a little pot. Something like that. Right. Yeah. I think that's what it was. Yeah. That derailed him.

That derailed him. Yeah. Yeah. And so, I don't know. I think of the thing and you have to clean your own house or it will come back and bite you. Your house will burn down. And so we're at that point now with the U.S. where we do need to understand what we're doing to our land, understand what we're doing to our people,

understand what we're doing to our food. We need to make big changes now because it's tick-tock with climate change, tick-tock with nature. And the more closely we can align with nature, the more we can vote in favor of the ocean and in favor of nature, it will benefit us in the end.

It's not really a choice anymore. No. Which makes the election all the more pertinent because of this issue, if for no other issue. Yeah. All right, let's move on. Moving on. Yeah, what do we got now?

The teachable moment. We should point out that the Arctic Ocean still is not frozen. Oh, right. In late October. A record date for freezing, no ice in the Arctic. I don't know why I'm laughing. Or maybe not.

It's not funny. Right. You're just tired, bro. Because this is a film review podcast, right? We had to do another film. The documentary that we selected to talk about in this edition is The Perfect Weapon on Netflix, which is a pretty compelling deep dive into cyber warfare,

how it originated, the current state of cyber warfare, the implications of it and what the future looks like. I watched it the other night. I was terrified at what I discovered and what I learned. How did it land for you? My biggest takeaway is that I wanna see the interview now. Oh, the interview. The movie.

The movie. The Seth Rogen movie. The Seth Rogen movie. The movie is basically, it kind of traces the origins of cyber warfare and kind of breaks down what exactly this is about and takes us up to the present and how nation states are kind of weaponizing

hacker communities to disrupt countries like ours. And it starts with a dissection of the Stuxnet virus, which is the first time that the United States used cyber warfare techniques in an offensive way, as opposed to kind of, you know, in an offensive way, as opposed to kind of, you know, defending our systems against being hacked. They actually were able to infiltrate Iran's nuclear program which was completely blocked off from the internet, right? What do they call that? Like air gaps where all the computer systems

are not networked and not connected to any outside, you know, internet access. Somehow they were able to get a thumb drive into one of these computers and it disrupted their systems, but did it in such a subtle way that it was somewhat imperceptible and allowed the United States

to kind of tweak with their machinery and their equipment to derail it. Yeah, grounded their reactors to a halt or something at one point, right? Basically, yeahail it. Yeah, ground their reactors to a halt or something. Basically, yeah, basically. It begins there, then somehow- That's the cyber Pearl Harbor, right? Yeah, basically.

And it gets leaked, this virus. Somehow it gets leaked and people become aware of what they, that's why we've heard of it, right? The Stuxnet virus. And the next time that it gets used in accordance with the way the documentary tells the story is when Iran hacks the Sands Casino. Right, because Adelson, right, Sheldon Adelson.

Well, he went on television and spoke sideways about Iran in a non-flattering way. Something about how we should- Well, he wanted Iran to bomb Iran. We should deploy nuclear weapons to their deserts and who cares anyway. And that was deeply offensive to Iran for obvious reasons. So they patiently take their time

looking into his, you know, Sands Casino empire. This is a guy who's a billionaire. Venetian. Basically. And figure out a vulnerability, find their way in and completely disrupt his entire operation that way, really out of spite. Yeah, they took like, they were in there for like two weeks

and like really took their time to figure out how to destroy it or something, isn't that right? Or is that the new thing? Yeah, no, they were very, they were patient. I mean, I think that's a hallmark of all of this. Like it doesn't have to happen overnight. They wait, they wait, they wait, they do their homework. And-

It cost them $40 million. The important point being the asymmetry here because we're a superpower and we put so much money into defense does not make us impregnable to these attacks that can be launched by a small number of young people who have advanced computer hacking skills. So it doesn't take a smaller nation state

or a third world country to completely derail a superpower when you have this capability, which is not that expensive. Right, right. And they were, I mean, these were state agents that did that. And it cost, I mean, these were state agents that did that and it cost, I think what it cost them $40 million,

they said, and then North Carolina, North Carolina, North Korea, excuse me. North Carolina. North Korea did the same thing, right? Cause the interview was the next thing that queued up, which was basically a comedy about a guy with a popular interview show that Kim Jong-un happens to be a fan of.

Right, James Franco plays the character of a talk show host, a controversial kind of outspoken talk show host. Seth Rogen is his producer. The concept for the movie is Kim Jong-un is a fan of the show and wants to get on. So they travel to North Korea to have him on the program. And it's a satirical, and the government says, well, if you're gonna do that, of the show and wants to get on. So they traveled to North Korea to have him on the program.

And it's a satirical, and the government says, well, if you're going to do that, like we want you to assassinate him, right? So that's the setup for a satirical comedy that Seth Rogen and his writing partner sell to Sony, set up at Sony, and it's going forward. North Korea gets wind of this. They're not happy. And that's what sets in motion what ultimately became the big hack of Sony that we're all aware of where all the emails were exposed. And computers were, 70% of the computers were basically destroyed.

Right. It cost them tens of millions of dollars. They had like a snipey, like producer gossip and racism accusations and all sorts of nastiness that was seeping out. And some of that leaked out to the media, but then some of it was leaked out to WikiLeaks. And that's one of the big takeaways for me for this

is that WikiLeaks was very available to North Korea and Russia to do their bidding. Yeah, that's interesting. And I've always thought that about Assange. It's like, you know, there are people on the progressive left who like to think of Assange as this guy, he's all about civil liberties and let us see the dirty secrets of the governments. And I guess I understand that. But at the same time is he's got, he's basically become an agent for other governments with

zero transparency. And I mean, there's no other way to read that when he's taking fruits of Russian hacks of the DNC, which is the next thing that's in this documentary, or the North Korea hacks of Sony. I mean, what other way is there to look at WikiLeaks other than a political operation? Right, so it fast forwards to the DNC hack

and basically takes us up to present by demonstrating the evolution of these tactics from what were originally, you know, basically inserting viruses into networked computer systems to now a virus of ideas, right? By basically propagating memes and other kind of ideas- Fake news.

Into people's social media feeds, the people themselves then do the work of the hacker for them by amplifying these messages that essentially pit people against each other and destabilize our institutions. Yeah, we've been hacked basically. Right. We as a people have been hacked.

Yeah, not in the sense of our computers necessarily being hacked, but our consciousness has been hacked. The result being the disruption of the stability of our nation, which is the goal that they're trying to achieve. It's always been the goal, right. Right. And you even see that in the handshake

between Putin and Trump, where you could totally see Putin is the alpha in that famous photograph, you know, and he's basically, they want the country to flail. Right. Right. Yeah. Well, the alarming kind of takeaway

and the reason for bringing it up is that this is not going away. And these methodologies are only becoming more savvy and sophisticated, less easy to detect and more virulent with time. So it's not going away. And I don't know that there's much

that we as individuals can do other than to make sure that our own houses are in order in terms of our own security, et cetera. And understanding that anything that you share online is there forever, I think is also important. And to know that you need to approach the information in your timeline with critical thinking skills, because we don't always know

where these things are coming from, which brings up another thing that I wanted to talk about, which is the advent of deep fakes. There was a podcast last week, Sam Harris's podcast with a woman called Nina Schick, who is an expert in the emerging technology around deep fakes. And I think it's quite terrifying

as this technology continues to develop and iterate on itself, the idea that videos you watch, people can be manipulated to say and do anything. And it's not gonna be very long before we bridge the uncanny valley and it will be imperceptible to the eye and the ear whether something is real or something has been fabricated.

And with that comes the most virulent power to disrupt society. Because when you can't trust the veracity of anything that you see or hear where does that leave us in terms of our ability to communicate let alone run a functional society what is to prevent somebody from weaponizing that technology to pit world leaders against each other and lead us to the brink of nuclear annihilation. Like it truly is terrifying. And much like doping in sports, the technology is always in advance

of the detection methodology. What do you think? What's the- I think it's scary. I think about my kids, my youngest daughter, and I wonder about the world that she's going to inherit, where when you see a video of somebody speaking, you have to think, is that really the person? Did they really say that? And myself, as somebody who's in the public sphere, who has recorded thousands of hours on the internet and been on lots of videos, how hard would it be once this technology

is adequately sophisticated to make me say anything and have it appear to be real? So on a personal level, it's scary, but think about anybody saying anything. I think the one takeaway I have on that is that, I mean, my hot take is that tech doesn't work that well. And hopefully it'll just won't, you'll see glitches. You'll see the glitch.

You would hope, but I would, you know, listen to this podcast and you may think differently after listening to it. I mean, that is, I will listen to it. That is, you know, one thing from the movie that I think could play to this is that the reason that we have such, we had a hard time with fake news here in this country,

especially during the 2016 election and even up to the 2018, they kind of stop it at the 2018 midterms, was that there was this small office in St. Petersburg, Russia, called the Internet Research Agency, which was basically, sounds like to me a state operation, but it was with like hackers that were going in and creating, not even hackers,

but they were creating real Facebook accounts. Like memes and yeah. And they were like becoming, and they were ingratiating themselves into different forums and they were spreading these bullshit stories. And all the way up to COVID, this was going on. themselves into different forums and they were spreading these uh bullshit stories um and all the way up to covid this was going on and creating events yeah in the real world where they would

protest they would they would schedule opposing groups to show up at the same place at the same time for the sole purpose of fomenting chaos yeah and um i think clapper Clapper was the head of intelligence at that time. And I think he was under Obama and then he stayed on for a period of time. And he left. And the guy that took his place, at least under cyber command, General Nakasone. Yeah. Nakasone came in in 2017, I think, and did a much better job and really cared about securing the 2018 election. And what they did is they went in and they destroyed IRA. They destroyed the internet research, whatever, is that what they called it? Agency. Agency, yeah. Completely destroyed it and made them,

basically muted them in the run up to 2018. And that's what gives me hope when we were talking about before is that there's people like Nakasone out there. Who understand it and are up to the task. I mean, I think the thing with Clapper is that, you know, this guy's a septuagenarian or what he's been in intelligence forever.

He's a traditionalist and these tools are unlike anything a guy like that had ever seen in his career. And it's not his fault that he was ill equipped to be able to deal with it because it's so new and different from traditional warfare methodologies that he was reared on. Totally, it feels like a Gladwell thing waiting to happen. Like Clapper, the old guard who's like really brilliant

and has had this great career, but couldn't handle this one thing. He kept getting bested even after he, you know, was apprised of what was actually going on. He was always playing catch up and coming from behind. He was in North Korea negotiating for the release of prisoners while Sony was being hacked. Right. That's, that's put in there. Right. Another not necessarily relevant aside is that one of the primary talking heads in this movie, The Perfect Weapon is a woman called Amy Ziegert, who is somebody that I dated in my twenties briefly

that I knew, I haven't talked to her in a very long time, but she's essentially a genius, graduated magna cum laude at Harvard, did a Fulbright scholarship in Hong Kong, worked at McKinsey in New York City for a couple of years, which is where I met her, then went and got her PhD in political science at Stanford. I believe Condoleezza Rice was her thesis advisor

and she became very close with Condi. And Amy has done a lot behind the scenes for I think a couple of administrations and served unofficially in a variety of capacities. Became a professor at UCLA and is now a professor at the business school at Stanford. And she's also a member of the Hoover Institute, which is a conservative think tank,

but she's distinguished herself as one of the world's leading experts on cyber threats, cyber warfare, cyber terrorism, and basically in counterintelligence at large. And it was just cool to see her in the movie speaking so eloquently and informed about the gravity of this predicament, this situation that we find ourselves in.

Yeah, she was great. I mean, the fact that there's all these brilliant minds kind of coalescing around this stuff has to be encouraging, although the deep fakes does sound scary. It is. But it's okay, man. You have a really cool podcast, so I'm sure she knows about it. Yeah. No. It's a cool podcast until the deep fakes make me say something that I never said. Yeah, then we're gonna get a lot of phone calls for the listener questions. Yeah.

All right, cool. So we ready to take a break for a minute? Let's take a break. We'll take a break. We'll be back with a little show and tell and listener questions and more goodness. Boom. Show and tell. All right, we're back. Hey.

Show and tell. What do you got for me? Well, we got the book. We did it already. You go first. I'm not going to redo it. He already did the whole book. Voicing change. I had it all open here. What happened? I got pushed away. That's my big show and tell. Get the book, but we already talked about that. So I'm not gonna belabor that point. What do you got? I got my Goggins it t-shirt.

So David Goggins just released his swag line, his apparel line. Yes, in fact, I'm gonna take- Goggins it? The coat off. Goggins it. You know, because it's good for me because the first I ever heard of David Goggins

was on your wonderful neighborhood podcast. And after hearing him talk about his hundred mile run, because at the time I hadn't started running again from a foot injury. And I thought, no, I can't, or no, from a, yeah, from original foot injury. And I can't run. And hearing that, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna start running.

And April and I started saying Goggins it to each other whenever we wanted to quit in a workout or something like that. And so the fact that Goggins it is inaugural clothing line. Basically what was happening was people were putting out a bunch of bullshit clothes using like taking souls and using his kind of- Oh, they were kind of pirating his-

They were pirating and sometimes they would just put it out there. Sometimes they'd say, hey, is this cool? And he'd have to say no, and they'd have to scrap it. I mean, even Sylvester Stallone put out round 14 t-shirts. You can go on Sylvester Stallone's website and you can buy round 14 t-shirts. Obviously that's a connection to Goggins and his book.

And so he's like, I might as well do it myself. And so he's got this great line of using his phrasing and he has this kind of Trident style DG logo um, right. He's got this logo. That's that, that's a Trident and I've got it. It's in the blackout form. This is the logo and then taking souls in the back. And so it's his favorite, his best catchphrases. He's got a Merry Christmas shirt. It's great. I mean, it's fun. It's fun. Clothing fits well. I love it. It's so shop.davidgoggins.com. Good for him. And I bought this, by the way, this is not swag, this is not advertorial.

I paid. He didn't send it to you as his co-author? No, because I want, you know, I support the fam. That's cool, well, good for him, man. Especially, you know, his whole thing is speaking gigs now, right? So with COVID, I would imagine he's probably not doing as much of that as he could be ordinarily.

And he's doing okay. Gotta make a living, is he? Yeah. It's cool. Here's the one thing that, here's the one, you know, thing that keeps coming up for me though, is would David Goggins ever wear anybody else's line?

No, he never did. He always wore plain no logo stuff. Yeah, with anybody else's statement on it. So people that truly wanna be Goggins-esque would eschew that, would they not? Yeah, but there's something inspirational about him that like for me, that Goggins is perfect because it's like, it's something that I actually created.

I thought of it myself, like without even knowing it was something. I think he's kicking around LA right now. Yeah. A buddy of mine texted me the other day and he was out running somewhere in Los Angeles. I won't say where. And he came across Goggins who passed him.

And so he ran to catch up to him and he said, hey, David, can I pace you for a little bit? And he goes, no, I run alone. And he just darted off, which I respect. Yeah, man. As somebody who enjoys my alone time running. And he was running only a few days after the 240 mile race.

Right, that's what's crazy. Yeah. Cause it's only been like a week and a half race. Right, that's what's crazy. Yeah. Because it's only been like a week and a half or two weeks. Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. And I heard some stories about the race.

It was, yeah, incredible. Taking souls. He's out there doing it. And so, yeah, so don't worry about his speaking gigs. He's selling some books. I'm glad. Yeah. All right, what are we doing?

Are we doing listener questions? Listener questions. Let's go some books. Good. I'm glad. All right. What are we doing? Are we doing listener questions? Let's go for it. Okay. Here's Randall from Nebraska. Hey, Rich and Adam. This is Randall from Nebraska. I need to ask both you guys, it is a question for both of you. How do you handle when you get burned out? I've been running, primarily road running. I did my first marathon, and I really thought I was going to make it to the end of the year trying to get 2020 in 2020. And I'm just feeling burned out, and I'm not sure what to do to rejuvenate. I've been more vegan than normal. Just curious. Rich and Adam, how about her? Thanks for the show. I appreciate what you guys do. That's a great question, Randall.

I think it's very relatable and also not surprising. If you do any one thing for too long, you're gonna burn out or at a minimum get stale, right? And if you want to have longevity in whatever it is that excites you, you have to take breaks or you have to mix it up in order to rejuvenate yourself. So my first piece of advice would be to loosen your rigidity

around the road running. Is there a trail? Can you go running on a trail? Can you get on a bike? Can you go do yoga virtually through some class online? Like find a way to spice up your regimen to keep it fresh. And ultimately, if all you're doing is running all the time, A, not only are you going to get tired of it, B, it's not going to make you the best runner that you can be. I think the best athletes are the ones that

are connected enough to themselves to understand when they're starting to get stale and innovating on their routine to make them a more like resilient athlete through functional fitness, strength training, core training, other types of exercises, both endurance and strength oriented, flexibility oriented that ultimately, you know, keep you engaged in your fitness journey because sustainability is the name of the game, right?

If all you're doing is one thing and you're sick of it at this point, you're not gonna be able to go the distance unless you interrupt that routine with new and fresh things. Like not to belabor Goggins, but look at what David does. Like he runs crazy amounts and I think he sets an example that most people are never gonna be able to live up to,

but he's also in the gym and he's doing pull-ups and he's improvising in hotel rooms and he's always doing things, I think, for his own sanity, keep him engaged in what he's doing by not it just being very monochromatic or one-dimensional. And that's just exercise stuff. But yeah, I mean, keeping it fresh in your life can be, I think tapping back into the beginner mind

and do something, pick up something that you're really a beginner at. And if you've run a marathon and you're good at distance running, maybe that's not it. Maybe like Rich is saying, picking up a different fitness modality, but it could also be something

completely unrelated to fitness, taking a cooking class or doing something completely different just to kind of refresh your mind. There's something about being new at something. This kind of hit me when I've been kind of in the same old rut of swimming and free diving and writing.

And that's kind of what my whole life was. And, um, went and volunteered at the wildlife center near your place and was helping with marine mammal rescue and feeding marine mammals. And I'm like doing something completely different. I'd never thought I would do it. And, um, and it just like completely lit me up. It was like so fresh and different and new that I loved it. I mean, even volunteering.

So I would keep a real open mind. The new thing doesn't even have to be fitness related. It could be anything. Right, I think that's a great point. You know, on the fitness tip though, I remember when I finally retired, when I retired from swimming and college, like I never thought I'd swim again.

I was so over it. Like the idea of jumping into a swimming pool just seemed like the last thing that I would ever wanna do. And the idea that I found my way back to it and figured out a new way to fall in love with it was something I never would have predicted, but also something I don't think I would have been able to perpetuate

if I'd just gone back to swimming. Like it was triathlon, the mix of those three disciplines that always keeps it fresh. Like if I was just riding my bike or just running, I think I would have difficulty perpetuating that. So that's an example of mixing it up within something that still is a sport itself.

But the idea of going out of your comfort zone and trying new things, I think is super important. Like you hitting the, but the idea of going out of your comfort zone and trying new things, I think is super important. Like you hitting the gym with the weights again, throwing weight around. Yeah, exactly. And that, and that's also a function of feeling a little bit, you know, not rejuvenated around doing the same thing that I've been doing for like over a decade at this point. Right. And this guy's run, you know, Randall, it sounds like you've, you've done one marathon. So, you know, there's an argument to be run, you know, Randall, it sounds like you've done one marathon. So, you know, there's an argument to be made that you're still in the starting gate of this exploration of running. And the fact that you're already having difficulty motivating yourself, I think, is a pretty strong indicator that you need to figure out a different relationship with this discipline that can keep you engaged. And a lot of it is, I don't know him,

I don't know you well enough to presume anything and I don't wanna overly project, but if you're feeling burned out after one marathon, perhaps you're putting too much pressure on yourself or you're too performance oriented that it feels laborious or like a chore rather than being something that should be fun and should bring your life joy. So if you can recalibrate your relationship to it, so you're approaching it and embracing it

from a perspective of joy and exploration and curiosity, as opposed to a rigid relationship where you're, you know, wed to your garment and caught up in the numbers and overly focused on performance gains, I think you'll find, you know, perhaps an opening to enjoy it a little bit more. I love that your advice about trails because it could be the road is just- Right, he lives in Nebraska.

So I don't know what the trail situation is where he lives. But maybe there's still, you know, get off the road maybe. Yeah. Okay. Let's hit Missoula, Montana. Hey, Adam. Hey, Rich. My name is Robel, and I'm from Missoula, Montana.

I got kind of a unique name, and I'm kind of just curious if you've ever met another Robel. My parents gave it to me, and I have yet to find another one, so that'd be kind of cool to know if you know a Robel out there. But anyways, I had a question in regard to navigating living in alignment with your values. I know that there's a lot of issues with corporations, big ag, all those things. But in terms of like corporations, would you consider living in alignment with your values if I'm not purchasing on say Amazon to get all my things, but I have a Roth IRA with stock in Amazon and I'm making money and I'm kind of vested in that community. I'm just having trouble kind of navigating if it's even possible to perfectly live in alignment with your values.

And I'm just curious if you're that anal or maniacal about it, or do you just do your best part? Thank you so much. I appreciate your guys' work and roll on. Thanks guys. I don't know another Robel. Do you? I've never met another Robel. You're my first Robel. Yes. The very first. You'll always have a place in our heart, Robelle, for that alone. Robelle from Missoula. It's an aspiration.

You can't, if you become overly rigid with these things, you're gonna drive yourself crazy. The idea is to always be striving to improve, to bring your actions into greater alignment with those values. But I think if you're overly stringent or strident about the minutiae, ultimately, my answer is not dissimilar from the response we gave Randall. You're going to burn out and it won't be sustainable because you're not going to be able to adhere to it over the long haul. And I think getting caught up in the details and the minutiae is to threaten losing sight of the bigger picture.

So all we can do is try to tackle the biggest levers, the most important, the most impactful things that we can do to align those actions with our values and understand that nobody's perfect. We live in a material world. Nobody is living without making some kind of impact on the planet, deleterious. The idea is to try to reduce that. But if you lose sight of the forest for the trees and get caught up in like the diapers, like Adam was, you know, we talked about, you talked about like the diaper situation with you

and like, and being, you know, caught up in that. Yes. But in the grand scheme of things, like you're doing more than most. And, you know, I would say, Adam, that you're in relatively very good alignment with those things. But not everything is gonna fall into place perfectly.

My diaper game could be upgraded. Yeah, you could. Yeah. Osher, my buddy Osher texted me, what's up Osher, and said, tell Adam to relax a little bit about the diapers. He's doing good. He might, thank you, thank you, Osher. Osher. He might. Thank you, Asher. Asher.

Thank you, Asher. On the other hand, I've gotten like three messages this week on different advice, but always very kind and nice advice. Helpful, good. And I will, we will upgrade, but I didn't expect to talk about diapers with Robel's question.

I agree. I think it's always gonna be a moving target. There's always, your life's gonna change. It's gonna expand and contract. Nothing is static. And so you do the best you can. I think there are ways to be the most impactful is kind of like bring your own

and looking at your diet and things like that. That's probably, the diet is probably the single best way you can make a move on kind of like bring your own and looking at your diet and things like that. That's probably, the diet is probably the single best way you can make a move on kind of big pollution stuff. Taking a tip from like the drawdown blueprint playbook, focus on the things that move the needle the most and moving towards a more plant-rich, plant-centric diet is a huge thing. If you can develop a garden

and start growing some of your food, like these are huge things. And not getting caught up in like, well, I ordered this thing from Amazon and I should, it's like, yeah, there's better ways of doing everything, right? I think that the interesting existential dilemma that he's pointing to though, which I share,

is that the market economy is kind of problematic for sustainability. I mean, it's problematic for a more egalitarian society. The fact that the stock market dictates so much of the moves companies make is the reason that they squeeze wages. It's the reason that wage growth has not kept up with CEO pay even close. It's the reason that we have environmental problems and a political landscape where money is buying votes, you know, in favor of special interests. All this comes back to the market economy. And so, you know, if you're being good about not buying stuff through Amazon because of the extra packaging and you're vested in Amazon as a stock, you know, what are you doing? And I am sympathetic to that because for a long time,

I wasn't an Amazon customer at all. I did become an Amazon customer. Now, like to be completely transparent, a good part of my living is based on sales through Amazon, the book sales. So, you know, like I'm a party to all of that. And I do understand the tension there and like does that align with who I am? And, you know, I mean, to be quite honest with you, I stopped thinking about it that much, you know, and I just try to keep it more simple than that. But I like that, Robel, that you're bringing it up

because I think it is fair to bring up and I understand where you're coming from and I don't have a perfect answer for you. Yeah, I think we'd all benefit from doing an honest objective inventory of our behaviors and our kind of daily practices and how they implicate these problematic systems, but we live in a capitalist society

and short of completely reconfiguring how we live our lives and the way our government functions, there's going to be things that we do that are not great. And all we can do is try to continually iterate on know, iterate on what we do to, you know, bring those things closer into alignment. There you go. I mean, there are shareholder activists that kind of like that try to organize shareholders

to go and push companies towards a social or environmental goal. There is kind of that whole movement as well. It'll be interesting to see where things go, but I guess the short answer is not that maniacal or anal about it. Right, but Robel could become an activist shareholder and start accumulating lots of shares of Amazon.

Yeah. And then he can show up at the shareholder meeting and make a big stink. And Bezos would have to talk to you. Right. All right. Last one, we're going down to Fullerton, California. Hey, Rich and Adam.

My name is Evan. I'm 26 and I live in Fullerton, California. I've been a big fan of the podcast for a few years now. And as a graduate student pursuing my Master of Public Health degree, the discussions are very inspiring. In my early 20s, I experienced some body dysmorphia issues and even developed somewhat of a binge eating disorder as a result of competing in bodybuilding shows. I was just wondering what your thoughts are on eating disorders among males and if this is also an

issue that you encountered within the ultramarathon community. Over time, I've developed a better relationship with food. However, I believe that it is an issue that needs more discussion, especially among males. So thank you both so much for taking questions and for all that you do. Thanks. That's a great question, Evan. I'm really grateful for this question because I do think that it's kind of a sleeping lion or an elephant in the room that doesn't get enough airtime or discussion. or an elephant in the room that doesn't get enough airtime or discussion. There's plenty of conversations

around eating disorders in females. And it's almost never discussed how that dysfunction impacts men. But I think it impacts tons. More than you think. And tons of dudes. I think more so now than ever with social media and everything.

Oh yeah, 100%. So whether you're a body builder or a gym rat who's trying to basically inhabit an impossible physique or you're a runner or you're a triathlete or a cyclist who's trying to drop weight and get super crazy lean. And I've been part of that community. I've noticed those tendencies in myself. I've seen it in other people. And basically, I think it's, I don't know if I would call it an epidemic, but I think it's a very real thing that doesn't get enough airtime or discussion. And I think it's important to shed light on the fact

that it does exist and it exists in numbers, I think that would surprise a lot of people. There's a swimmer I know named Antonio Arguelles, who was the seventh ever to do the Ocean Seven, the seven channel swims around the world. Mexican swimmer I've written about before for the New York Times. And then I actually helped him write his book, which is published in Spanish in Mexico. And I think there's an ebook in English now called The Forever Swim.

And he tells a story, a similar progression to you. He came up in swimming in Mexico and ended up swimming at Stanford. he came up in swimming in Mexico and ended up swimming at Stanford. But when he was in high school, he moved to Northern California in high school as a way to kind of train and try to get better and make the Olympic team. And in senior year, his times were suffering

because he was a bigger guy and he had bulimia. And he never talked to anybody about it. He's just kind of recently started to talk to people about it. And he has a lot guy and he had bulimia and he never talked to anybody about it. He's just kind of recently started to talk to people about it. And he has a lot of heart for people who are like chubbier kids that are athletes. You just don't see that many that are, there are a lot of great athletes

that are just bigger guys. And so he had that a lot. So Antonio Arguelles is someone I think you should look to and he's accessible online. So that's the first experience I had with talking to someone about it in depth. And it was, he was suicidal. He had all sorts of issues with it

and he was able to write himself. But you know, it takes therapy sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know of a prominent male athlete or otherwise, who's taken this cause up to speak about it publicly at a high level. Maybe there is somebody who's doing that, I'm not sure, but somebody certainly should.

And I would couch this by saying that I'm certain that the eating disorder statistics would show that this is a much bigger problem among women. Like the pressure on women to adhere to a certain physique and the appearance pressures that they're shouldering outweighs what males endure for sure. So I wanna be sensitive to that, but at the same time,

I think it's important to acknowledge that this is a very real problem among males. And I think Instagram culture is exacerbating this when you see ripped dudes and Photoshopped images of guys. And I think there is more pressure on men and young men to look a certain way. And there's a more robust, like kind of body conscious culture around males

than there used to be maybe even five or 10 years ago. No doubt about it. So let's talk about this more. I should maybe try to find somebody to come on the podcast and talk about it. I mean, I've talked about this with some women athletes. I had Amelia Boone on and I had Dotsie Bausch, but I've never had a guy come on to talk about this.

And it totally affects performance. I mean, Antonio, he writes about it in his book, all about his experience in senior year level. And he was trying to compete for an Olympic spot at that point, you know, like, and to see his times eroded. Took a while though. He was able to still succeed for a while

before his body really started to suffer. Break down. Break down. Yeah. I think it's a great question. I appreciate your kind of being open on this subject. I wanted to say to all the young listeners out there, I do feel for you guys, this COVID thing is just continuing to drag on.

It's a real bummer. And I feel for like people seven to 27, to be honest with you. Like I can't imagine having to deal with that at a young age. 100%. You know, I mean, it's easier for us because we have a stable life and we have weight.

We're not in that, like young people need the community a little bit even more and rely on it. And so I really feel for you guys and thinking about you guys. Yeah, I agree. I had a final thought I and thinking about you guys. Yeah, I agree. I had a final thought I wanted to share about that. Yeah.

I think, oh, well, two things. First of all, in the case of the guy that you wrote about, one of the good things is, is that when you become a marathon swimmer, like you gotta get, you kind of gotta get fat. That's right. He calls it his bioprene. Yeah, you get to put on a ton of weight

because you need that fat layer to keep you warm in the open water. All the open water marathon swimmers are like big people. They tend to be, but there's like, Kim Chambers even thinks that there is, it's like the same idea with yardage equals faster times was an old concept in swimming, you know, in training, humiliating yardage.

She thinks that's a- An outdated concept of marathon swimming. That's interesting. Yeah. But she's just kind of after doing it is when she's realized that. Yeah. And when you look at sports like wrestling, boxing, MMA, and cycling and triathlon, where weight is, you know, highly pertinent, whether you're trying to cut weight to make weight for a fight or you're focused on your power to weight ratio, which is critical in cycling. It's all about like getting as lean as you can

without sacrificing power and finding that inflection point. And most people take it too far. I got too thin at one point. I was like 158 going into the 2011 Ultraman. And when you're in that state, you don't realize that you're too light. Like, you're just like, I can get lighter, you know?

And it's dysfunctional. And, you know, I immediately put weight back on after that and I've never gone to that place again, but I can see how it happens. And being an addictive personality myself, who's had issues with food, you can lapse into this and it takes on an energy of its own and becomes a thing before you have

any objective perspective on it. And I think with dudes, you can hide it or because there's not a permissiveness around talking about it, that it perpetuates more than it should because dudes don't feel confident being vulnerable with other dudes like, hey, I have a eating disorder. Like you just don't hear those conversations

in a male locker room or anywhere else. And to the extent that we can create a welcome environment for those conversations to happen, I think we could all be better off. Evan's starting it right now. He is. So Evan, thank you for that. Thank you, sir.

I think we did it. Are we done? We did it. We rocked another one. I think this might be the most succinct roll on that we've done. Is it? We're gonna land this plane.

How long we've been at it? It's been a while. Yeah, we've been here for? It's been a while. Yeah, we've been here for a while. Are you bored? Are you bored of yourself? I'm never bored of my own speaking voice. I could keep going.

I feel good. And as we head into the election a week from now, I maintain my optimism. Me too. I believe, I believe, I believe in three things. The Lakers, the Dodgers, and old Joe. One down, one on the brink, and old Joe bringing up the rear. I believe in, I believe in myself, the American people,

and our democratic institutions. Vote for dolphins and rainbows. Okay. Cast your vote, participate in our democratic experiment. Yeah. And we'll catch you on the other side. Just vote, it's okay. We love you anyway.

I love you. I love you, Adam. I love you too, Rich. Good. We'll be back in two weeks with more Roll On. Until then, you can follow Adam at Adam Skolnick on the socials. I'm at Rich Roll.

Pick up or pre-order, I should say, the new book, Voicing Change, on the new Rich Roll website, richroll.com slash VC or voicingchange.com. Leave us a message if you want your question answered on the show, 424-235-4626. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.

You could check out the show notes as always on the episode page for this episode, where we'll have links to everything that we talked about today, to watch the documentaries and to read the news articles, everything that we discussed. You can also submit your question

on our Facebook group. And that's it. That's it, man. Right on. Be good out there. Right on, right on, right on. Right on, right on, right on. That's right, man.

To the generally heroic Adam Skolnick. To the generally heroic Rich Roll. I'm gonna call everybody GH. GH now. That's the thing. Cool. I wanna thank everybody who helped put on today's show. Jason Camiolo for audio engineering,

production, show notes, and interstitial music. Blake Curtis for videoing today's show. Jessica Miranda for graphics. Allie Rogers for portraits. Georgia Whaley for copywriting. DK in the flesh here today. Yeah. For advertiser relationships and theme music

by Tyler Trapper and Hari. Appreciate the love you guys. See you back here in a couple of days with another great episode. Until then, go to the ballots, cast your vote. If you're an American, if not, if you're not an American. Congratulations.

All right. Peace. Glance. Namaste. Thank you.