Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - 235: Our New Normal (How The Coronavirus Changed Our Lives) | Ear Biscuits Ep.235

Episode Date: April 6, 2020

Some things may never be the same. Whether it be temporary or forever, R&L discuss how the coronavirus pandemic has changed various aspects of their daily lives in this episode of Ear Biscuits! To l...earn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 This, this, this, this is Mythical. Make your nights unforgettable with American Express. Unmissable show coming up? Good news. We've got access to pre-sale tickets so you don't miss it. Meeting with friends before the show? We can book your reservation. And when you get to the main event, skip to the good bit using the card member entrance.
Starting point is 00:00:24 Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. Shop Best Buy's ultimate smartphone sale today. Get a Best Buy gift
Starting point is 00:00:39 card of up to $200 on select phone activations with major carriers. Visit your nearest Best Buy store today. Terms and conditions apply. Welcome to Ear Biscuits. I'm Rhett. And I'm Link. This week at the round table of dim lighting, it's still not that dim and we're still not at the table because we're still at our own homes. How you think the table's doing? How long is this gonna last? The table's just sitting in there in the studio,
Starting point is 00:01:12 just being at the table. Oh, I'm sure it's doing fine. Yeah, it's doing good, man. It's lonely. Sadly, like a lot of people these days. Don't mean to start on the downer. We are going to talk about the silver lining. We're gonna try to be positive and we're gonna look to the future.
Starting point is 00:01:29 And what type of impact does this experience going through weathering this virus, what lasting effects is it gonna have? What ripple effects is it gonna have? How is it gonna impact the future of our lives indefinitely? And like you said, I think in a positive way, because I mean, one of the things that has been helpful for me as I get anxious,
Starting point is 00:01:59 get fearful, get frustrated with the fact that we're cooped up in the house, is to think about the good that will come from this. And I think there's gonna be, there's quite a bit, there's quite a bit to be excited about in terms of the future. It's growing pains. Yeah, I've got a number
Starting point is 00:02:21 of thoughts related to different categories. As I'm adapting to this new lifestyle of staying at home with my immediate family, I'm starting to take note of things. It's like, wow, this is different, but it's not worse. This is better. I wonder if I'm going to keep this habit even after things change. So I've got a number of things that I'll bring up. And then you know what?
Starting point is 00:02:50 This can serve as kind of like a time capsule episode where we go back to and we see how right or wrong we were. Do you have any bold predictions that you're prepared to make? Well, my prediction is that at some point, I won't be in the corner of my living room making this podcast, as is evidenced just by the fact that right at the beginning of this recording,
Starting point is 00:03:13 when I got, which I had to do every time we get ready to do anything in here, is I'm like, okay, guys, I'm recording. And then the thing that came back, one person said, noise. I think my wife said, can't we live our lives? And then I think that came back, one person said, noise. I think my wife said, can't we live our lives? And then I think my son said, why don't you do this in the garage?
Starting point is 00:03:30 So again, the family has still not adapted to what's happening. Even though, I mean, I hate to drive this home. And you're not talking about the virus anymore. You're talking about your job. Yeah. Being in their faces. Interestingly, my job is actually an important part
Starting point is 00:03:48 of the family dynamic. Last time I checked. Now my wonderful, beautiful wife is standing at the top of the steps down into our sunken living room and just staring at me incredulously because she's listening. She looks great.
Starting point is 00:04:06 She's got her Jason Isbell shirt on that has a dinosaur on it. Why are you reducing her to only what she looks like? Well, I'm not doing that. I just know, I know what she likes. I know how she likes me to talk about her. I love you. I love all of you. I love all of you.
Starting point is 00:04:25 I love all of you. You're all great. Now go away. Well, one of the things that has been an immediate change for me is the way that we're approaching food. I think this is the case for people all over the world. Now, we are in a very privileged position
Starting point is 00:04:45 because we still have access to all the food that we want essentially, right? I mean, you may not get as many things as readily as you got them in the past, and we're making do with a little bit more. We're cooking for ourselves a lot more than we normally do. We're eating leftovers, which this is going to sound pretty privileged,
Starting point is 00:05:11 but most of the leftovers at our house get eaten by the adults. Like I'll eat leftovers. Right. My kids are spoiled rotten, man. I'll eat leftovers. If another day comes, the next day comes and we're like, we're having leftovers, the look of grief and disappointment on my children's faces
Starting point is 00:05:34 is just a sign that they're spoiled rotten. But now we don't have a choice at this point. We would have a night of the week that would be leftover night and we tried to make it into something that would seem more like an event. Like Christie would say things like, it's leftover night, you know?
Starting point is 00:05:53 And you're- How'd that go over? Cheer is not usually cheers. No. But yeah, now there's a heightened sense of, okay, there's a little bit of this left. I'm a tupperware that thing up and I'm a put it away. And then you're, you know, cause you just don't know when you're gonna get some of that
Starting point is 00:06:14 from the grocery store again. Like a little bit of, we had, I mean, we are occasionally ordering takeout. It's a stressful time. Especially after that video that Ellie sent around. Ellie shared a video. There's this one doctor, I guess he's in Seattle who- A lot of people watch this.
Starting point is 00:06:32 He's had a few videos go viral, but he talks about what you should do when you bring groceries home and when you bring takeout home. And I shared that video with a little, our friend chat group, which Jesse of course is in. And she was like, you cannot share this video with someone who has OCD
Starting point is 00:06:51 because they will just go down this rabbit hole. So I said, okay. And never come back. I'll be the one to be responsible for the disinfection process when things come through the door. It's very stressful. I mean, it's one thing when you've got like a couple, like two bags of carry out,
Starting point is 00:07:08 but it's another thing when you order groceries and they show up. Like yesterday we had groceries show up, which by the way, we had ordered probably five or six days in advance. And so you're trying to figure out what you're gonna be out of, and you're trying to figure out, well, if they don't have this,
Starting point is 00:07:31 then they're gonna try to substitute. If they don't have anything, I'm trying to get something else just so we have well-rounded meals. Now, Christy handled that order, but I knew how stressful it would be when all that was dropped off at the door. And I was like, I'll be on the front lines
Starting point is 00:07:46 of kind of bringing this stuff in. Yeah, so we bring in all the bags, we put them down on the floor in the kitchen. You tell me if you go through this much trouble. And then I pull out all the items that are packaged, put them in a pile, throw away the bags, and then spray down and then spray down and then wipe down every square inch
Starting point is 00:08:08 of everything that's pre-packaged that's potentially been handled, that's coming into the house. I mean, it was a lot of groceries. It was like for five people. So it was like a half hour process to get this thing done. And it's very stressful because you start to feel like, you start to feel like you're exiting some sort of
Starting point is 00:08:37 nuclear contamination zone, you know? It's, and to me, that's one of the first things I've been thinking about is, But to me, that's one of the first things I've been thinking about is, as much as I overthink everything, now I've been thinking about the level of contagion, how easily things can be spread and all the things that I'm touching. I mean, this is, I'm sure,
Starting point is 00:09:04 a common experience to a lot of people. And I just don't know if that's gonna go away when this virus is in the past. Well, I mean- Am I gonna be a fist bumper? Am I gonna be somebody who brings in the groceries and wipes them down? No, no. I don't think
Starting point is 00:09:21 I'll be wiping out the groceries. No, because that would be irrational. I mean- Well. I don't think I'll be wiping on the groceries. No, no, because that would be irrational. I mean- Well, I know, but I will be thinking about it more often. Yeah, well- I mean, like, not handshaking or touching people for such a long time. Let's wait, let's wait to get into that because I think that there's a whole conversation
Starting point is 00:09:39 we can have about what this means about proximity to people and greetings and stuff, but going back to the groceries, I mean, first thing I will say, because I don't want to alarm people, I don't want people to think that the process that you just outlined is necessary for everybody because most of the research,
Starting point is 00:09:59 or the research suggests that the virus does not easily spread through takeout food or through groceries, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a risk. It just means that it's significantly lower risk than actually being in the proximity of somebody who is infected and breathing in like an actual, you know, droplet that's in the air.
Starting point is 00:10:20 But that doesn't mean that there isn't some risk. So if you wanna eliminate the risk or minimize the risk, then you can go the extra mile. Not doing, you sound like you're doing exactly what the guy described in the video. He got all the way down. Yeah, once you send me the video, I'm gonna do exactly what's in the video.
Starting point is 00:10:35 Yeah, but he was washing each piece of fruit for 20 seconds with soap. You're not doing that, are you? Christy handled that stuff, so I don't know if she went that far. We're just being- Probably did though. We're trying to leave the external bags and we're doing takeout like once to twice a week.
Starting point is 00:10:52 We're trying to minimize that. But leaving those external bags on the porch and then when you can kind of empty out the contents of a package onto a plate or something like that and then throwing away that and wiping everything down, sticking to hot foods instead of cold foods. I just, what I'm trying to do is just mitigate it,
Starting point is 00:11:12 minimize it, but knowing that you can't really eliminate the risk. But I mean, the thing that scares me more than anything is like if I have to be in close proximity with somebody, which I really haven't. The only, during this, and so we're recording this on, what is it, the 31st of March, that we're actually recording this?
Starting point is 00:11:35 Yeah, yep. And so obviously we're still in lockdown. Lockdown's been sort of a federal lockdown's been pushed through the end of April. California will probably go longer than that. I saw that the governor of Virginia said there was gonna be a lockdown through June 10th, subject to be updated, but he went ahead
Starting point is 00:12:00 and said to June 10th, a stay at home order, basically. The only thing that I've done is there was that one time I had to go over to the creative house to accept the delivery of a desk. My desk finally came in and I like met the guy. How'd that go? Well, I met the guys out in the front and I stayed, I was like 20 feet from these dudes outside.
Starting point is 00:12:24 And I was like, all right guys, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm going to describe to you, I'm gonna go inside, I'm gonna open up the doors and leave them open so you can walk in. I'm gonna come back out, I'm gonna describe to you the room and the location that I want this desk to be set up in and then I'm gonna go into the backyard and I'm going to wait.
Starting point is 00:12:45 So in other words, I don't wanna be in the same house at the same time. Because I've been doing good about this quarantine thing. Yeah. And now, first of all, the two guys who were delivering and setting up the desk volunteered, they were like, well, we don't have it. And I was like, I didn't say anything like,
Starting point is 00:13:03 well, you typically asymptomatic, you could be the 25% or more people who are asymptomatic who have it, but are still contagious. Or you could be the 100% of people who usually get the disease and have it, are asymptomatic for the first two days, but also are contagious. But I didn't break that out.
Starting point is 00:13:20 I didn't wanna be that guy. It's frustrating that it's just not getting through to people. Well, that's another thing we'll talk about is people's inability or unwillingness to process the facts around this stuff. But anyway, so I said all that, and then I'm in the backyard and the guy,
Starting point is 00:13:38 he's like, sir? I'm like, oh no, they've run into a problem. And I kinda like stick my head into the living room and I can see in the hallway and I can see that they've got the desk sort of like stood up and they're like, this desk is not going to fit into, that we can't get it in there.
Starting point is 00:13:55 And he was like, I've been doing this for 13 years. And at that point- It ain't gonna happen. I took a deep breath. And you told him to just put it in my room. Well, actually, nice desk. No, I explored this option. I was gonna do this without your permission.
Starting point is 00:14:13 I was gonna put my desk in your room and just switch our offices and see if you ever noticed. But it's not the location of my office. It's the width of the doors in the creative house are 29 inches, which are too small to get anything in there. So there's no room that it can fit in except the living room. So I told them to take it back.
Starting point is 00:14:35 But before I told them to take it back, I went up to them. I held my breath and walked into the house. You know, I can hold my breath for quite some time. I had a conversation without breathing, which I have been practicing lately. Which we've discussed, yes. And I was like, okay. By the time I was running out of breath,
Starting point is 00:14:53 I was like, all right, you're right. I don't think this is gonna fit. Just return it, and then I ran outside again. You ran outside? Yeah. But your face is turning blue. I probably did breathe inside a little bit, but that was a week ago, and I probably did breathe inside a little bit. So, but you know, that was a week ago
Starting point is 00:15:06 and I'm still feeling okay. I mean, I get as much delivered as possible, but I ordered takeout from this one place and I went to pick it up. And I'd done this before and you know, you go in and they've got a rack and your stuff's on it. You've already, we've already paid, there's no touching of credit cards or even signing of anything, you just take it.
Starting point is 00:15:29 But some people, they haven't figured all that out. So I get there and it's like, I gotta sign a thing. I didn't wanna sign a thing, now I'm touching this pen. Yeah, what the hell? What is wrong with people, man? I don't understand why they just can't get with the program. Figure it out. And then even worse, they had this coffee bar
Starting point is 00:15:52 and that's where you went to pick up the stuff. But there was a guy sitting. You should have just said, I'm not signing it by the way. Say, screw it, what are you gonna do? Sue me, I'm not signing it. I signed it and I had my antibacterial spray and I immediately sprayed myself and walked out
Starting point is 00:16:10 and sprayed myself again. Sprayed my hand, you know. Sprayed myself. There was a guy who had gotten coffee and they gave it to him in a to-go mug and then he sat down in the aisle where everyone has to pick up. And he's like just within a few feet of people.
Starting point is 00:16:29 And he's an older guy. And he's talking to everybody that comes in because I don't know, maybe he lives alone. He's probably lonely. He just sat there and they should have told him he had to leave. And here I am, I'm like, am I the one to tell this guy, sir, you really don't need to be here for your health
Starting point is 00:16:50 and the health of other people. Everyone has to come in too close proximity to you and you're talking. You're, and you're, what's the word when you like, you boom your voice? You're projecting. You're projecting your voice so that people can hear you at a distance,
Starting point is 00:17:09 which is projecting stuff into the air, man. It's like. Well, just to give you an idea. This is why I didn't talk to the guy, because if I started talking to him, I didn't wanna get angry with him. Yeah. So I didn't say anything.
Starting point is 00:17:22 Well, and so there might be people who think that, we're gonna talk about this. There might be people who think that we're overreacting, that we're overreacting, that the experts are overreacting. But just to get, what you're talking about with the projecting of the voices. So did you hear about the chorus group that got together? 60 people got together like a week or two ago.
Starting point is 00:17:48 Before everyone really understood, maybe two, three weeks ago, before anyone really understood the seriousness of what was going on, they got together for one practice in a room, all singing. 60 people, 45 of them have tested positive for COVID-19. Being in the same room with people who are talking, much less singing.
Starting point is 00:18:14 Projecting and singing. Just breathing is a risk. It's like, this is, again, this is not, it is not rocket science, it is science, but it isn't a mystery. It's not a surprise. There's people, oh, we didn't know this was gonna happen. This is a surprise how quickly it's spreading. No, it is not.
Starting point is 00:18:34 It's people who have been talking about it the whole time. Why are we so surprised? So, all right, let's take a short break. And it's scary. I just wanna get the scary part out of the way so that on the backside of this break, we can be more positive. Because now I'm worked up.
Starting point is 00:18:50 I know with some of the stuff we're gonna talk about, we're gonna get worked up again. Oh, I'm gonna get worked up. But I mean, there's people dying. I mean, you know, Joe Diffie is dead, man. Right. Poor guy. You know, it's like, I had a lot of good memories to Joe Diffie is dead, man. Right. Poor guy. You know, it's like,
Starting point is 00:19:07 I had a lot of good memories to Joe Diffie songs. I actually felt really sad. You know, it's like- But he does have, he has the quintessential song about what to do to him after he dies though. Prop me up beside the jukebox when I die. And if- I wanna go to heaven, but I don't wanna go to night.
Starting point is 00:19:23 The main thing that I thought about is the fact that I just don't feel as prepared as Joe Diffie. Are they gonna do that to him? Are they gonna, is he currently propped up beside, put some, put a stiff drink in my hand, fill my boots up with sand? Sadly, and I'm not joking. I know it seems that we're making light
Starting point is 00:19:42 of Joe Diffie's death, we're not. I think the reason that it's not gonna happen is because of this damn virus. It's like if he had died in another way during normal times, they might actually be considering that, but there's no, you can't have a funeral. You can't have a funeral. I mean, you can have an online funeral.
Starting point is 00:19:59 You can talk about famous people that you're fond of dying. I mean, they're heart wrenching, tragic stories. I just can't bring myself to read about them anymore of people's loved ones passing away. And it's, you know, let's not get into it, but it's scary and it's taking too long to sink in. And it's taking, again, two weeks ago, it was said by the people who were trying to get it to sink in,
Starting point is 00:20:32 it's not gonna happen until people start dying, until people you love start dying. Yeah, that's what it takes for some people. You know, we have this disconnect. We have this disconnect. You know, I operate under this disconnect a lot. It's like you watch the news and you hear about bad stories
Starting point is 00:20:47 and it's like that stuff happens to other people, it doesn't happen to me, it doesn't happen to people. I don't, it must be a defense mechanism because I'd like to think I'm not the only one who has that tendency. We talked about it some last week, but. I think there's a number of reasons. We can get into it. There's a number of reasons.
Starting point is 00:21:06 But I do think there's some positives. We'll get into that. We will get positive. What was the last thing that filled you with wonder that took you away from your desk or your car in traffic? Well, for us, and I'm going to guess for some of you, that thing is... Anime!
Starting point is 00:21:21 Hi, I'm Nick Friedman. I'm Lee Alec Murray. And I'm Leah President. And welcome to crunchy roll presents the anime effect it's a weekly news show with the best celebrity guests and hot takes galore so join us every friday wherever you get your podcasts and watch full video episodes on crunchy roll or on the crunchy roll youtube channel so so how do we want to get into some positivity? I want to talk a little bit about
Starting point is 00:21:48 just this idea of conservation and how that applies personally and then what that might mean for the world because- Oh, you're talking about like leftovers? Yeah, well, I'm not going back to that specifically, but I am saying that it has made the scarcity or at least the perceived scarcity of some of these goods, toilet paper,
Starting point is 00:22:10 for who knows why being one of the chief ones that there's a perceived scarcity of toilet paper. That's not actually true. There's just a few people who have it all. And I don't think they've got especially dirty buttholes. I just think they got panicked. Yeah. This perceived scarcity has changed the way
Starting point is 00:22:31 that I approach my meals, but also the amount of toilet paper. I do use paper towels like the McLaughlin family. We can go through a saplings worth of paper towels like in McLaughlin family is, we can go through a saplings worth of paper towels, like in a meal sometimes. Just a disregard for how much we are consuming. And this is a problem in America, this is a problem in the Western world.
Starting point is 00:22:57 But the thing is, is that, you know, as these developing nations become industrialized and they kind of move into this, you know, as these developing nations become industrialized and they kind of move into this consumer-based culture, they're all consuming at the same rate, right? We know that's a problem. Like the earth has been sort of shouting for a while, like, this is a problem. There's not enough if you're all gonna act this way.
Starting point is 00:23:21 But it makes me think, as I was trying to evaluate what's this doing to me personally, I was thinking about Jesse's grandmother who died last year, I think she was 92. So she was basically born right around the time of the depression. And she had this tendency to be incredibly, like she would conserve in ways that we would laugh at.
Starting point is 00:23:47 Like she would put aluminum foil over some food and then she would like serve it. And then she would take the aluminum foil off and she would wash it and she would fold it back up and put it back in the drawer. I mean, this woman used aluminum foil over and over again. In fact, one time, one Christmas, her sister, Aunt Betty, got her aluminum foil
Starting point is 00:24:11 or tin foil as they called it, as we called it in the South, for Christmas. It was like, that was your Christmas present. And those things that seem- So that she could throw it away more readily or just because- Just because she knows how much she values it. It's just like toilet paper has become currency.
Starting point is 00:24:30 I haven't bought anything with toilet paper. You could try it. I could? If you draw a picture of George Washington on it, it'll definitely work. But yeah, just this idea that it's like, hmm, there is a limited amount of stuff, but not just that,
Starting point is 00:24:48 but I think it draws into focus for me, this idea that the steady stream of goods is always going to be there. Like we took it for granted that everything that we need is always going to be there. You don't have to be there. You don't have to stock up. You don't have to have extra of anything.
Starting point is 00:25:09 You don't have to be prepared for anything. Now, you know me and being a prepper light, I do have quite a bit of stuff ready. But it's not lifestyle stuff. Yeah, but it's like emergence. I haven't gone into any of it yet because it's just like freeze dried food. But do you think, so you're saying that
Starting point is 00:25:26 you think this will affect your lifestyle moving forward? I think it will and I think it will, my hope is that it will change the way our kids, you know, because I think the only people who really have a sense of this are probably boomers because they were at least they can kind of remember a time where things were a little bit less available. But they've all bought into the same lie
Starting point is 00:25:52 that we've all bought into, that we can get whatever we want whenever we want it. And it doesn't, and damn the consequences. It doesn't matter what that means about people. It doesn't matter what it means about the earth. But I think we're beginning to see that, no, there's consequences to that hyper-consumerism. Not just this idea of conservation as a,
Starting point is 00:26:16 well, I don't know if it's gonna be there, but just beginning to examine, hold on, it's not just that the supply chains are susceptible to things like a virus. It's not that the fact that we've got a global economy and we're getting our stuff from other places that then could be affected and we're all interdependent and we're susceptible to certain things.
Starting point is 00:26:39 That's all true. But it just makes, for me, there's been a few things throughout this that have just kind of begun to seem a little gross. And one of them is this idea that we can have whatever we want, as much of it as we want, whenever we want. It just seems like an irresponsible idea. But if it doesn't get practical,
Starting point is 00:27:00 it's not gonna take hold. Like, I think it has to come down to, okay, I'm out of paper towels. I cannot get more paper towels. So I'm gonna start using hand towels and then I'm gonna put them in the laundry. We have a few rolls of paper towels left and I'm thinking about just taking them out
Starting point is 00:27:21 because we have hand towels. Yeah. And once you discover a hand towel works just as good as a paper towel. It's just, especially if you're a kid and you're not the one doing laundering the hand towels, there's no impact to you, you know? Except, okay, now that I've wiped up this thing
Starting point is 00:27:43 or I've wiped my hands or whatever, I don't know where to put it. Oh, you got, well, you need to hang it up and let it dry. And you can use it again. You don't have to just throw it away. So it's really just a habit. And it's once you exchange to doing the hand towels and you get used to it for a few weeks or a few months,
Starting point is 00:28:03 I think at that point, then you can say, you know what, let's not go back. I'm using much less toilet paper. I'm using my bidet to a whole new level. Oh, the bidet is the smartest thing I've ever bought in my life. But I realized how much toilet paper I was still using in combination with my bidet.
Starting point is 00:28:22 And I'm like, you know what? I shouldn't have to use two squares. And that's just to dab off, just to dry off. Well, there is an air dryer, but it takes forever. It takes too long. And it doesn't really work that well. It also kind of sends toilet stink throughout your room. It can't be an ideological change of mind.
Starting point is 00:28:47 It has to be a habitual change of mind. And I think as the weeks go on, that's what will make the difference. So, but then I think there's, and I think that's positive. I think another positive, when I'm talking about the groceries coming in and I'm talking about how stressful that is and everything, but I'm also thinking, you know what?
Starting point is 00:29:08 It took me 30 minutes to wipe everything down, but in the long run, when this is over, I'm not gonna be wiping anything down. And by the way, how long would it have taken to shop for all these groceries that I just spent all this time wiping down if they weren't delivered to me? I saved all of that time.
Starting point is 00:29:25 Man, grocery delivery is pretty nice. Even if I don't get exactly what I want, they swap it out with something else and there's a little bit of a surprise. You don't know exactly what you're gonna get. Ooh, look at what I got today. It feels like I'm going back to a milkman experience, man. I always wondered what that would be like.
Starting point is 00:29:44 Ooh, look, the milkman's here. I wonder what kind of milk I got. Is it strawberry? Is it chocolate? Did they do that? I don't think so. I think it was mostly just milk. Unless your milkman was a Nesquik rabbit.
Starting point is 00:29:55 Mine wasn't, because I never had one. Well, and there's some people who, I know they do like the grocery delivery, but the vast, vast, vast majority of people don't do that. You go and you shop for your groceries because, well, you know, I'll remember something else that I need or this will strike my fancy. But we're actually learning,
Starting point is 00:30:18 even with so many things being swapped out, that like we had a crap ton of groceries come yesterday and it's gonna last us a few weeks because we're trying to minimize the amount of touch points that we have with new deliveries. I think that's something that's gonna keep going. Like, I mean, the way that shopping has moved to Amazon over the past five years,
Starting point is 00:30:45 whenever I want something, the first thing I think is Amazon, except for groceries. And I think this is putting me over the edge to like have groceries delivered. So I think that's another silver lining. Well, but how, okay. But that's, I find that somewhat problematic, right? Because the whole Amazon thing,
Starting point is 00:31:05 Amazon has its own issues that it's dealing with. I think that any major company like that that is trying to serve that many people and do it for profit. I'm not saying order from Amazon, I'm saying order from your local grocery store. Well, no, well, yeah. I'm saying that habit will continue.
Starting point is 00:31:29 No, but I'm saying you have to evaluate, like that may make your life easier and it may get you off of the road, but it is also putting a delivery person on the road, meaning that from like a carbon standpoint, I don't know. I've never looked into this. I don't know which one is more, but I think one of the things is like, I have a tendency, for instance, when I order stuff from Amazon, as I think of it,
Starting point is 00:31:55 I'll just order it. And it just, it's one trip, it's one box. Whereas there's a more responsible way to do that, to put things into a larger order. Just as that's a small thing that then, okay, I can make this one trip from one delivery person as opposed to three or four. But I do think that some of the- But what I'm asking is what, we're really talking about what in the future, how are our future lives gonna be different
Starting point is 00:32:24 because of this experience? And I'm just saying, I'm gonna be ordering a bunch of things that I didn't order before. I think groceries is the chief amongst those. Yeah. Well, I mean, let's talk about what you were talking about earlier, which is we can get back more into like the societal,
Starting point is 00:32:42 financial, sciencey stuff in a second, but the greeting. Like the, yeah. The idea of greeting. Because I mean, obviously at some point, well. I don't think I'll ever go back to a handshake. Okay. Just to put it simply. Well, because there's an acceptable alternative for it. But before we get to handshakes though,
Starting point is 00:33:02 just the idea of being in closed spaces with people, right? I mean, one of the things that I've been noticing is as I watch television and I see groups of people, like crowded places, I can't help but think about the virus. Now that's gonna go away. We're not gonna be a species that no longer gathers together in public spaces.
Starting point is 00:33:27 But I mean, this particular, depending on who you talk to, I mean, and there's a range of predictions, but this is probably going to be something that subsides a little bit over the summer and then comes back again in the fall. It looks like it's gonna have some seasonality to it. We're not gonna have a vaccine by the fall, I doubt.
Starting point is 00:33:51 I mean, that would be an unprecedented timeline. Maybe that'll happen, but it doesn't look like it will. And so we may actually be dealing with it even a year after that. So this particular virus may be something that affects public gatherings for 18 to 24 months. But I think eventually when we get past this, we're gonna be thinking differently about it. But the thing is, and again, comparisons-
Starting point is 00:34:19 Here's how I'm gonna be thinking differently about it. I'm not gonna shake hands. I'm not gonna be touching railings. Like all the stuff that everybody touches, I'm gonna have an instinct to not touch those things because now I have an appreciation for how easily things can be on, how germs can be on there.
Starting point is 00:34:40 Like, I'm gonna be more of a germaphobe, man. I think I'm just gonna, I'm gonna have my hand in my sleeve and I'm gonna be more of a germaphobe, man. I think I'm just gonna, I'm gonna have my hand in my sleeve and I'm gonna be opening doorknobs or, I already, whenever I would push on a door, I would think about the place where the least number of people push, especially children. So I'll reach really high and then push on a door.
Starting point is 00:35:02 Yeah, I do that all the time. I've been doing that for years. But I couldn't even tell you exactly why I was doing it. I was like, yeah, because a lot of people touch there and that's gross. But I hadn't really made the connection that now is like firmly in place. That there is something there that then will be on me
Starting point is 00:35:21 that then will go in my mouth. I'm having Mandela in this thing, man. Well, but the question is that- I don't think I'm ever gonna go all the way back. But my question is, is if everyone began to, I'm split on this because I feel like if everyone behaves in this hypervigilant way during normal times, not now, but during normal times,
Starting point is 00:35:42 everybody's using hand sanitizer, everybody's avoiding each other, nobody's talking, nobody's touching, nobody's shaking hands, nobody's touching doorknobs and stuff like that. Everybody's putting hand sanitizer on every surface. I need to talk to an expert on this, but my thought is that that may make us as a species long-term more susceptible to things.
Starting point is 00:36:05 I mean, one of the reasons that when, if you read Guns, Germs and Steel, you see that one of the reasons that the Western Europeans, when they came to America, very few of them died and many of the Native Americans died was because- Because the Native Americans did not have doorknobs. Yeah, they had been living in these open spaces and they weren't crowded together,
Starting point is 00:36:28 but all the Western Europeans had been in cities and gathered together, so they had all this resistance to viruses. We're gonna keep, these viruses are gonna keep coming. You're gonna have a lot more deaths from falling because people aren't gonna be using handrails. That's a- People aren't gonna be steadying themselves.
Starting point is 00:36:46 Like I'm gonna, this is how I'm gonna go now. Because of this experience, I'm gonna fall down something. No, but what I'm telling you is that if everyone does what you're doing, it may actually make us more susceptible to the next round because there will be another round. I don't know. I will have fallen downstairs before that happens.
Starting point is 00:37:06 But yeah. But it makes me think differently about just flu season in general. I don't think about flu season. Now, and I know that comparisons between COVID and flu are unhelpful, very unhelpful. But the fact is, is that the seasonal flu, if it's a bad one, kills thousands of people.
Starting point is 00:37:27 Well, it kills people every year, sometimes tens of thousands of people. And I don't get the flu shot. I mean, I very rarely get the flu shot. But, and the reason I don't get it is because I feel personally invincible. So I think like, oh, I might get the flu, but it's not gonna kill me.
Starting point is 00:37:45 This is, I have to make an appointment. But now I'm thinking about my own, I'm not just thinking about my own situation, I'm thinking about how I contribute to everyone's situation. So me getting- I never thought about the flu shot in light of society. Yeah, me getting the flu shot is not about me, it's about society.
Starting point is 00:38:04 Getting the flu shot is about the people who I might come in contact with that are susceptible and not being the a-hole who's like, oh, I might get the flu and then I might interact with someone who's susceptible and they die. It's like, oh, that's a big change for me. But I do think it is gonna also, I think the greeting thing is a big thing
Starting point is 00:38:24 because there's currently an alternative and there's no way, there's zero chance that shaking of hands and getting together and getting really close to each other in large and tight environments is gonna be a regular thing in 2020. Like that's not coming back in 2020. You know, I'm not saying there won't be some gathering,
Starting point is 00:38:44 but it's not coming back soon. I mean, when concerts and going to the movies and parties start happening again, well, I think there'll be a little bit of time where we appreciate it. And then there'll be time when we're old, when we'll say, oh, you know, you can go to parties anytime you want,
Starting point is 00:39:01 but there was a time when we couldn't do that. Couldn't party. You had a party't do that. Couldn't party. You had to party in your house. Couldn't party. On a video chat. What about video chats? How do you think video chats, which are, I mean, everybody's doing it.
Starting point is 00:39:17 I tend to enjoy you more via video chat. So I mean, maybe we can conduct our whole relationship like this. You don't mean that. That's just a funny thing that you've said. I can't hear you chewing. Interestingly, even though you've got those ear pods in. I was eating cereal when we were doing,
Starting point is 00:39:35 last week we were doing the test, the technical test, I was eating cereal and you seemed to be able to hear it. Yeah, actually I could quite a bit. For some reason I could. Oh, you know the reason I couldn't really hear when we recorded that GMM because you were eating liquid, you were drinking liquids. You weren't chewing. Yeah, I wasn't chewing it.
Starting point is 00:39:54 So I take that all back. I'd rather be in person. I'd rather be next to you. I think it's good for, I think a whole group of people, I think the majority of people are realizing that they can conduct a meaningful conversation and a meaningful relationship on a screen.
Starting point is 00:40:15 And I just think that a lot of people who were making phone calls before are going to be making video chats moving forward. Well, think about the video chat that we had with our close friends from college. You know, we have been in contact, loose contact with these guys who were like our best friends in college. And you know, many, many months-
Starting point is 00:40:40 For months via text. Many, many months would go by where we wouldn't, there would be no contact at all. But then we recently reconnected and we started like a WhatsApp chat. And then during all this, since everyone has sort of figured out the video chat thing, we were like, let's do a Zoom call.
Starting point is 00:40:58 And nothing changed about our proximity. It wasn't like we used to be together like last year and now we're apart. It's like, no, we went to college together, but we got on and we had this, we know we talk to each other. And I think people are getting over the awkwardness of it. I think there's the technological barrier,
Starting point is 00:41:17 like, I don't know how to do it, you know? Which everyone can do it at this point, young and old can do it. But also there's an awkwardness to a video chat that- That you get over. I think everyone is being forced to get over it really quickly. Yeah, so I think it's drastically accelerated
Starting point is 00:41:38 that type of relationship and that type of connection. I mean, I think about how far I am from family members and I just think that there's a greater chance of being more connected when this thing is over as a result of this, which is nice. You know, I mean, the kids have started schooling over video chats and they're figuring all that out and making sure that they remember that people can see them
Starting point is 00:42:06 and that people can hear them unless they turn their camera off. It's like, it's this new awareness of whenever I'm in front of a screen, people are gonna start to assume that they're being watched versus the opposite, because we're gonna learn that lesson. Well, and also the idea of people-
Starting point is 00:42:23 I think that's something we won't go back and we'll have this comfort level with being seen and heard and basically watched whenever we're on a screen. It'll be the exception. It'll be the rule, not the exception. But people are learning their lesson. I don't know if you saw, there was that Zoom chat that the video, a portion of the video from it went viral a couple of weeks ago where there was a work video chat
Starting point is 00:42:48 and one of the women on the call has her computer and then all of a sudden you see her get up and walk down the hall and then all of a sudden she sets the laptop down on the bathroom floor. The camera is pointing right up at her. She pulls in her pants and pees. What? Yes.
Starting point is 00:43:06 And like you hear, and there's the main person who's talking, who's like leading the discussion, starts like, who slows down a little bit and everybody starts looking and like covering their mouths and laughing and stuff. Why didn't they say, hey, Tina? Well, no, she like looks down.
Starting point is 00:43:23 Girl? She like looks down while she's peeing and sees her legs on the screen and then suddenly closes the laptop. Oh my gosh. People are, well, and another example of my dad was in a call with some people recently, like a Zoom call, and he and his people in you know, people in,
Starting point is 00:43:45 of, you know, in his sixties and seventies, who he's also having these meetings with. Yeah. They started, well, his friend was like, okay, I'm hosting this Zoom call and we're gonna start the meeting at like six o'clock, but you can get on the Zoom call at any time that you want to kind of like just talk or whatever.
Starting point is 00:44:02 And like my dad goes on there like four o'clock, just like to check and make sure everything's working. And like he can hear this guy and his wife having a conversation in their house because they haven't muted themselves. So I think one of the things that's gonna happen is people, there's this adjustment period, people are gonna be caught doing and saying things
Starting point is 00:44:23 about other people. That thing that always happens sometimes when you realize that you're saying something about someone that you wouldn't want them to hear, and then you're like, hold on, did I accidentally butt dial them right before this happened? Or is this conference call muted? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:44:39 Did I hit mute or did I hit mute and unmute really quickly? And now I'm saying something that they're hearing. Yeah, I mean, and Lily was watching this TikTok sketch last night and I happened to look over her shoulder and it was some girl, of course, that she didn't know. She wasn't dancing, she was doing something comedic, which was nice.
Starting point is 00:44:59 She was crying for the laughs. Why is this girl crying? Well, then she goes on to talk about how when you're in your classroom chat, if you like read the fine print, it says this, well, when you're in your video classroom, that the chat feature on the side is permanently recorded and the teacher can see that.
Starting point is 00:45:24 Not only can the teacher see after the fact the entire chat that's taking place, they can also see the private messages between students in the classroom. On Zoom? I actually don't- Or on Google Classroom? On Zoom. I don't know which and I actually don't know if it's true, but she was making fun of it, and I kind of can believe it.
Starting point is 00:45:49 But again, I don't know for sure. That seems like a flaw in the system, if that's the case. Well, being able to see the classroom chat later. Well, that seems right, as the host. Seems right. But the private messages? But like direct messages? They're just direct messages between students. It's like, yeah, should the teacher be able to hear
Starting point is 00:46:07 what two students are whispering to each other in the back of the classroom? No. I don't think so. I don't think so either. So maybe she was wrong and it's just sending shockwaves through TikTok. And also to me, you'd have to look into that yourself,
Starting point is 00:46:22 but that's one thing. Working from home, that's another thing. I mean, first of all, I do not like it. I'm sure there are people who are discovering that they can work from home and they can get everything done and they can- Those people don't have children. There's more, yeah.
Starting point is 00:46:40 There's more freedom associated with it or whatever. I mean, it is gonna change the workplace landscape. There's gonna be, there's savings associated with it or whatever. I mean, it is gonna change the workplace landscape. There's gonna be, there's savings associated with it depending on the business, I guess. Oh, I think one of the biggest changes that'll take place, I mean, yeah, definitely people who have like brutal commutes will find ways to work from home because a lot of people are instituting
Starting point is 00:47:05 work from home policies out of necessity. Now, some businesses can't continue to function working from home, but a lot of them can. And so those people who kind of discovered- And once you find a way for weeks, and you're like, I must, at least giving my Friday at home and my Monday. Yeah, and it actually makes decisions,
Starting point is 00:47:25 it can be a beneficial thing for a lot of reasons because you got somebody who's working from home, therefore they're not driving, you know, so they're not contributing carbon to the atmosphere by driving, but they're also not wasting an hour or two hours, whatever, just being on the road. And so they've got more free time.
Starting point is 00:47:47 And then the employer, if that person doesn't actually have to be present, the employer doesn't have to provide a space for them, which means a smaller building. Like there's definitely a lot, but I think that one of the practical ways that it'll be implemented is right now, when you're sick, one of the reasons you stay home is because you feel like crap.
Starting point is 00:48:06 Another reason you stay home is so you don't become, you don't affect other people. That is gonna happen a lot more. People are gonna be like, I'm sick. I actually think I could probably work, but it would be irresponsible for me to go in. And also I can do my job from home and I can go into this meeting via video conference.
Starting point is 00:48:25 Having people who are at home sick or just needed to stay home to do something because they had a doctor's appointment or because they needed to watch their kid, suddenly those people, it's not gonna be weird to pipe them in on a video conference because we will all have the experience in doing it and it's not like, oh, the person on the video chat
Starting point is 00:48:44 is somehow less of a contributor or less significant because we all remember that time when we were all on video chats. I think that that's gonna be a huge, huge change. It's gonna change the way sick leave is looked at because you're gonna be able to stay home and you're sick, and work. But you're still working.
Starting point is 00:49:04 And we're gonna have to figure out what does that mean for hourly employees, what does that look like? What does that mean? All right, and I'll shift it one more time because I know you wanna talk about this, but so I'll just tee it up. The view of science and scientists, what they're saying to us.
Starting point is 00:49:33 Yeah. I hope that that changes in a positive way as a result of this. Because if you look back weeks ago at what science and scientists were saying about what most likely will happen and now it is, and we didn't wanna hear it. We didn't wanna come to grips with it. So we opted for it to get worse
Starting point is 00:49:58 before we started to do enough. I hope there's a lesson learned there that translates into the silver lining. Well, there's's a lesson learned there that translates into a silver lining. Well, there's definitely a lesson learned there. Okay, this has been very discouraging to me. This has been incredibly infuriating, honestly. Now I've been infuriated with people who refuse to listen to plain science for a long time,
Starting point is 00:50:19 but this, the timescale of what we knew and then how we could, everything has been condensed and clarified in this situation. Now, this is a distinct, it's not distinctly, but it is very much an American issue, right? Like I can't imagine what the rest of the world is thinking. They're like, you guys, there's so much like pride in being in America, being an American, but yet what we lead the world in
Starting point is 00:50:47 in many ways is just almost aggressive ignorance. It's like this isn't, we're really the only place in the world right now that's experiencing this pandemic to this degree where people, the general population has a distinctly polarized opinion about what's actually happening because of the political polarization in our country, which is just mind blowing to me. Now, more and more people who played it down,
Starting point is 00:51:20 including our president, are coming around to the reality and beginning to around to the reality and beginning to listen to the people who said this all along. But the things that I've heard like- It's taken bodies in refrigerated trucks outside of hospitals for that to happen. Yeah, right.
Starting point is 00:51:36 But the thing is, is that- But and I just wanna redeem that. I wanna redeem those bodies. I want to know that we won't make these mistakes again. Go ahead. But I think that, okay, there's lots of people saying that no one knew this was gonna happen.
Starting point is 00:51:51 I've heard that so many times. No one could have known this was happening. What? Are you freaking nuts? No, we've been being warned about this for so many people for so many years that this exact scenario with this exact timeline, with the exact exponential curve of infections and deaths, even where it potentially would come from,
Starting point is 00:52:17 like all this was very much written on the wall, said in TED Talks, written in books, written in articles, and anyone who was paying attention even a little bit should not have been surprised by this. But in one sense, it's very difficult to be prepared because if you think about it from a political standpoint, it would be very difficult, especially in our country, to convince people that disaster preparedness on this level for a pandemic was worth investing in, right? It's like everyone's struggling to figure out
Starting point is 00:52:52 what we're gonna do with our money if somebody is like, "'Guys, we're gonna have a surplus of masks and ventilators. "'You're gonna get votes for that?' No, everybody's gonna be like, "'You're crazy, why are you spending all that money "'on something that might not happen?' So it took an event. Probably won't happen.
Starting point is 00:53:06 It took an event like this. But the thing is, is that, because what we're talking about is, I think in America there is this distrust of authority, which is a good thing, right? But there is a distrust of expertise, which is a bad thing. And people have lumped them together. So the whole idea of questioning authority,
Starting point is 00:53:27 people have talked, they're like, you can never do a lockdown in the US like you did in China because we don't have an authoritarian government. And I think that, and also the whole point, like the principle, founding principle of America is independence from an oppressive government, right? And so I think that that's a healthy thing. I think that questioning authority is,
Starting point is 00:53:49 there's a healthy, positive place for that. But in the past generation or so, that has gotten conflated with questioning expertise and thinking that people who are experts in certain areas, scientists, namely, are part of a deep state conspiracy on all sorts of issues. But again, they've been saying it from the very beginning. They were like, okay, this is when it's going to get here. There was literally a dude who said, this will be beginning to infect large numbers of people in the US the week of March so and so or whatever.
Starting point is 00:54:29 He said that in January and you know what happened? That week is the week that it was like, oh, now we've got clusters, we've got community spread. Is he a prophet? Does he have a crystal ball? No, he just has studied this before. But that doesn't keep a bunch of stupid ass people from going on Facebook
Starting point is 00:54:46 and talking about something they have no idea about. Like the amount of drivel that has come out of people's mouths and off of people's keyboards, these armchair experts, it's like, I don't know about this stuff. I'm not gonna claim to know about it. I haven't read these books. I haven't studied this,, I'm not gonna claim to know about it. I haven't read these books, I haven't studied this,
Starting point is 00:55:06 but I can recognize when someone has and understand that, oh, they're all saying basically the same thing. There may be a range of projections, but they're all basically saying the same thing. They're all saying, this is gonna seem like we're overreacting, but just trust us, these things operate according to very established
Starting point is 00:55:24 principles, very established mathematical projections, and this operate according to very established principles, very established mathematical projections, and this is what's going to happen, and here's what we have to do to minimize that. And now, one of the things I'm already seeing is just because the level, the projections have come down, people are like, I told you the experts were wrong. They said that two million people were gonna die,
Starting point is 00:55:42 and now they're saying that 200,000 are gonna die. See, science fails again. It makes me want to harm someone when I hear people say things like that. But, because the simple reality is, the projections have changed because the practices that the experts suggested are being implemented. We want the projections to change.
Starting point is 00:56:04 And some people and some governors and some leaders have actually said, we're actually going to get ahead of this and we're going to institute these things before they become a huge problem. We want the projections to change because we want people to actually do what the experts are suggesting. But again, there is this tendency to question, to be like, I think I might know more than this
Starting point is 00:56:32 because I have a communications degree. You know, it's like, I don't understand. It's not just Southern people who have these opinions, by the way, but. Well, the reason I go into that Southern accent is because that's where I'm from and where I'm from, that's the best way to characterize that mentality. Now, so as a Southern man with a Southern accent,
Starting point is 00:56:54 I have the right to go into a Southern accent to make fun of people. And I stand by that until it becomes offensive in 2025, and then I'll stop. Is that another prediction? So, okay. But can any positive come from this? I think that's the question.
Starting point is 00:57:07 Well, of course, yeah. Yeah, I, okay, so a couple of people have, I'm not, this isn't something I came up with, a number of people have made this connection. But this is, there's very little difference between this and climate change, right? Again, in America, it's the only nation on earth where there's like a legitimate,
Starting point is 00:57:32 like a large section of the population that doubts the reality of manmade climate change, that humans are causing climate change and also climate change stands the potential to be catastrophic, and we're already beginning to see the effects, right? There's a huge group of people driven by, not science, but ideology,
Starting point is 00:57:53 who think that this is just all a scam. When the people who have devoted their lives to studying this, who are not part of a deep state conspiracy, who are just people who are after the truth, have been sounding the warning bells, and they've said, this is what's going to happen. These are the projections.
Starting point is 00:58:11 This is the worst case scenario. This is the best case scenario, but this is the range of scenarios based on what we're doing right now. And if we don't adopt these drastic measures, then this many people could die. Now, it's not as precise precise and it's not as short term as the COVID-19 thing,
Starting point is 00:58:29 but it's all the same factors are in play. You got people who don't know anything about the situation who go on a website and find some information and then parrot it on Facebook and everybody, you know, there's so much false information that is parroted. There's this idea that people who believe in climate change are part of a deep state conspiracy.
Starting point is 00:58:47 There's a lot of people who are like, even if climate change is real, we can't implement the measures that the scientists are suggesting because it'll kill our economy. Again, another thing that is perfectly in line with COVID-19. And maybe, just maybe, and again, like you said, it's taking people being in refrigerated trucks
Starting point is 00:59:09 for people to see this. These guys who were not motivated by anything other than a desire to understand and communicate the truth have been saying this, have been warning us, and here's what's happening. See, what we said was gonna happen is happening and how to prevent it is exactly how we said we should prevent it.
Starting point is 00:59:30 And yes, it is going to negatively affect the economy on some to some degree, but we'll get through it and we will recover. I just don't- The same principles are in place. I would love to think that we as humans are, and especially as Americans, are learning our lesson to listen to the scientist
Starting point is 00:59:51 and to take action, to take drastic action for something that's happening. Drastic things are happening. But you see glaciers melting, who cares? You know, you show the sad polar bear. Hey, it's cyclical, man, it's cyclical. And you, the wildfires, all the natural disasters, it's just, I'm just afraid that not enough people
Starting point is 01:00:25 are going to learn a lesson from this to- Well, here's the great news. You don't have to have a lot of them learn their lesson. You just have to have enough to change policy. That's the beautiful thing about our country. I think- You don't have to have 98% of people agree. Right now, we have a political ideology in this country
Starting point is 01:00:51 that while there are some healthy questioning authority things that come from that ideology, some other things have been glommed onto it, including this distrust of expertise. And so that group of people are driving policy and keeping real change from happening. But we were almost there. We were almost there as a country.
Starting point is 01:01:15 Both parties were kind of aligned and said, "'This is a real deal. "'We need to take some action.'" And then 2016 happened, and a lot of things are moving in the wrong direction. But what I'm getting at is I feel like this is going to impact some people's mentality to be like, hmm, maybe I shouldn't just read a book
Starting point is 01:01:39 or go on a website and just suddenly think that 97% of the people who study this are wrong. I just don't know how catastrophic this needs to be. And it already is in many ways. People's lives are wrecked. People are dying. People's livelihoods are disintegrating. But I don't know how bad it needs to get for it to really shake us up permanently in order to be able to apply these lessons to climate change because it's so applicable.
Starting point is 01:02:16 But I'm just afraid that, I don't know, because the worse it gets, the more money we're gonna have to spend and band together in order to rebuild the economy. And we're going to want to start around and also spend a lot of money to, you know, all the support structures we're putting in place to get everyone back on their feet
Starting point is 01:02:38 and to get the economy back on its feet are things that are part of the Green New Deal to accommodate for people who are in industries which are harming the environment in order to give them a support structure to continue to be a contributing part of the economy and society, you know, and not to, for their lives not to,
Starting point is 01:02:58 their livelihood not to disintegrate. So it's just, you're gonna spend a lot of money to fix this problem of COVID-19. Is there gonna be any money left over to spend on this initiative that like, by the way, it's not something that's predicted that might happen, it also is happening. That's something again, the president keeps saying,
Starting point is 01:03:19 hopefully this won't happen again for centuries. It's like, dude, what? It's going to happen again. We knew that it was going to happen. They said it was going to happen and it will happen again for centuries. It's like, dude, what? It's going to happen again. We knew that it was going to happen. They said it was going to happen and it will happen again. And it will happen more often, actually, the more we continue to grow and there's more people and we're more crowded.
Starting point is 01:03:37 Travel and connections. I mean, it's a lot different than it was 100 years ago. But I think that the good news, something that we can be hopeful about with what you said, is that first of all, there are things happening as a result of this virus that directly impact carbon emissions, right? And I'm not just talking about like factories
Starting point is 01:03:55 being shut down, which are, all of a sudden there's no tourism in Venice, Italy, so the canals are clear for the first time in recent memory. That's not a sustainable thing. We don't want there to be no tourists. We want people to travel. We want people to make things. We do want the economy to come back.
Starting point is 01:04:12 But something as simple as thinking differently about consumerism and consumption, that is going to have an impact on just the amount of goods that are produced and what we think we actually need. And I think that that is gonna have a positive impact on climate. These supply chains being so global,
Starting point is 01:04:35 which I think it's great that we're connected as humans and the imaginary borders that we place around ourselves, or we're beginning to see that they are just that, they're imaginary. You can't keep the virus out. The virus doesn't know that there's a border around your country. Doesn't see people the way that people see people.
Starting point is 01:04:53 But we necessarily will have to move manufacturing closer to the people who need those manufactured goods. And that is going to have a drastic impact. Because basically when all this stuff got outsourced globally and all the stuff is being produced in mass quantities and then shipped all around the world, all of that has increased carbon emissions drastically.
Starting point is 01:05:15 But if we bring those supply chains back closer to home, it'll be good for local economies. It'll be good for the environment. So I think that part of the economic recovery because of this could actually have some of those green technologies and strategies. So, which ultimately will in the long term make us healthier as an economy
Starting point is 01:05:38 and be able to address the depressing problems of climate change. I'm trying to be hopeful. There is hope, Link. I'm trying to be hopeful. There is hope, Link. I'm trying to be hopeful, trying to be positive. You know, it's like, I mean, that is the exercise. I mean, that is the challenge for all of us is to, whether we're looking to the future or looking to the next five minutes
Starting point is 01:05:59 is that we need to continue. And I'm shifting gears here in order to conclude this thing. It's our challenge to remain positive and to channel our energy into things that enrich our lives and the lives of other people. So, how many weeks is this gonna go on? I don't know, we're gonna keep having these discussions every week.
Starting point is 01:06:25 Be a part of it. Hashtag Ear Biscuits. Let us know what you think about these light predictions that we've made. But also, you know, I just want to take it as an opportunity to encourage you to love yourself and love those around you, and that includes the people around you via video chat. To just channel your energy into things that enrich your lives and the lives of others. And continue to find the silver linings.
Starting point is 01:07:01 I think with where we are, I don't know that we did a great job of it today. You know, it's like I tend to have this like frustration. Like when I think about everything we've been talking about, there's still a lot of frustration that's coming out. And it's hard to have a lighthearted discussion when these things are going on. And I think that's the reality. I think these things,
Starting point is 01:07:29 it's good to be frustrated about these things. Yeah. Because we deserved better, you know, than the response that we've gotten. And people should have been more responsible. People should have listened to the experts. You shouldn't have to see people die in order to believe that someone who has devoted their lives
Starting point is 01:07:57 to studying something that is pretty well understood were telling you the truth. So it is something to get upset about because listen, people, that mentality, the mentality of not believing experts has directly led to an untold number of deaths already. Yeah. And it will continue to lead to more deaths.
Starting point is 01:08:20 So that's something that's worth being upset about. Yeah. It's okay to be upset about that. That's right. But again, like you said, Joe Diffie's death will not be in vain because ironically when people see these people that they look up to that they loved die,
Starting point is 01:08:37 whether they be, everyone will know someone who suffered from this. And many people will know someone who died personally, but you'll also, people who have created things that you love are gonna die from this. And I think little by little, it's sinking into more and more people. And there's no way that that can't have
Starting point is 01:08:59 some sort of charitable impact on people. So it won't be all in vain. I'll give a recommendation, it's my week. If you haven't hunkered down and watched Lord of the Rings, get your hand on the extended versions. You got, you know, the longer the movie, the better. And the versions that we watched, one of the extended ones,
Starting point is 01:09:19 and then we started watching the extras, which is my actual recommendation, because we've already made the recommendation of the movies. Well, do you know how long the extended- My family's going through the extras now. But do you know how long the extended version of Return of the King is? Let's see, it goes from three hours to three and a half.
Starting point is 01:09:40 It's four hours and 52 minutes. What? I bought it last night. I had the DVD set extended edition and you know me, I've cleaned out so much stuff over the past few years and like I just get so aggressive. I got rid of them because they weren't Blu-ray and I was like, I can just rent them online.
Starting point is 01:10:04 Well, it turns out you can't. You have to buy the extended version, especially if you wanna see all the extras. You can see some of them on YouTube, which we've watched, but they're like varying quality. I don't know how you get your kids to sit through that. They love it. My kids, Christy doesn't watch it.
Starting point is 01:10:16 Regardless of how good the movies are. But my kids love these extras. My kids love the movies. It's like 15 hours of extras. Well, no, but I'm talking about the length of the movie. So my kids love the movies. It's like 15 hours of extras. Well, no, but I'm talking about the length of the movie. So my kids love the movies, but then like we'll be getting into the third hour and they're like, how long is this movie, dad?
Starting point is 01:10:32 Like, it isn't like I'm ready to stop watching it, but it's like, they don't watch things that are that long. And the idea of them watching a movie for four hours and 52 minutes. Well, I would divide it up into three sittings, which you have, again, you can do that. But my kids are really getting hooked on the production. I think they're all wanting to be movie producers now.
Starting point is 01:10:55 May change their mind next week, but it's the most in-depth, behind-the-scenes footage of any movie, and there's no movie as worthy of it as Lord of the Rings in my opinion. So I think it's worth the $50 to buy the whole, and make sure you get the extended version, not the theatrical version when you buy the Blu-ray DVDs
Starting point is 01:11:15 so that you get the extended scenes as well as the extras. That's my rec, man. Hashtag Ear Biscuits. Yeah, we'll keep talking. We promise that, we promise that we're, you know, we're not gonna keep talking about the virus. There are other things happening and there's other things to talk about. So we'll talk about something different next week.
Starting point is 01:11:36 Or maybe we won't. I don't know what we're gonna talk about next week. Well, but we'll also invite you into the conversation because I really enjoyed when we talked about everybody's secret hobbies or whatever it was that we talked about. So we're gonna have something different, but we'll keep talking about this as long as we're doing it,
Starting point is 01:11:57 but we're not gonna do it next week. We'll take a break from the heavy stuff. But we will do an episode. So we'll talk at you next week. Every week, every week.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.