In this episode, we started with an apology to Professor George Kent, whom we had a chance to interview to talk about his article “The Benefits of World Hunger” and his books. We drew some parallels between what’s happening in the world today and what was happening after the fall of the Soviet Union, discussed shrinkflation, and the Swiss government banning electric heaters that the population rushed to buy. The announced planned power cuts, the replenishing Earth’s petroleum supplies, thorium salts fission that is more effective than nuclear and does not kill birds.
In this episode, we started with an apology to Professor George Kent, whom we had a chance to interview to talk about his article “The Benefits of World Hunger” and his books. We drew some parallels between what’s happening in the world today and what was happening after the fall of the Soviet Union, discussed shrinkflation, and the Swiss government banning electric heaters that the population rushed to buy. The announced planned power cuts, the replenishing Earth’s petroleum supplies, thorium salts fission that is more effective than nuclear and does not kill birds.
There's quite a lot of motion in the Notion this time. Guys, before we move forward, we need to correct something. In the eighth episode from July 11, 2022, we talked about an article written by Professor George Kent, "The Benefits of World Hunger," I think everyone by now knows, it made a lot of waves in the news. And we were telling, like how a professor at the University of Hawaii, specialized in food insecurities and children, how can he write such atrocities? Luckily enough, we had the chance to interview Professor Kent, actually, he is a really nice person. And he explained to us that he is a retired professor right now, he said out of the blue, this article, which did not gain any popularity at the moment. And he wrote it as a sarcastic article, really, to attract attention to the problem of world hunger, why it is there. And we had a chance to clear things up and really had a great talk about all the problems related to hunger. And this is really important to know that we don't know why United Nations published this article and why they hastily removed it from the website. And he told us that he was not informed of either or these things. But the thing is that he is really passionate about human life and the problems of hunger. And this was his way of expressing that we have these problems precisely because someone is interested in them. And this someone is the elites of this world, who are benefiting from people having nothing to eat and being eager to work for almost nothing just for food. With these being done, we present our apologies to Professor Kent, and I think that we will have another time to talk with him. And you know, there's an interesting thing he told us about, he wrote several books, and all of them on this topic. The first book was "The Political Economy of hunger, the silent Holocaust," printed back in 1984, he told us that there was one book that gained precisely zero attention. And after this, actually, he wrote this article. Oh, it's called shrinkflation.
Taliy:
It's interesting that he was writing books on the topic of regulating infant formula so many years ago, before it became the crisis in the US that it was this year with infant formula. And basically, we see how a society can be polarized on any topic. They want artificially, like yesterday, the problem did Yes, it's shrinkflation. And like for anyone who grew up not exist, there are 179 countries where this problem does not exist. Somehow, it becomes an issue in one country. And this is what we see here in the US today, it is so many things related to food, especially becoming an issue. And one of the problems is that lines becoming larger and larger in local food banks. And in some of them as much as 30%, more people come in for free food weekly. And those are families that are the first time visitors at the food banks. So we're seeing this trend. It's not yet a catastrophe, but it's getting there. At the very same time, we're seeing that the economy is deflating. You know, I've been talking to my friends this week. And they were complaining not only about the prices going up for food in the grocery stores, here and there, you can see like something you used to buy for$5, all of a sudden is like 6.99, something that used to be$10 as 12.99. But sometimes they say price stayed the same. But they opening the package, and there is way less food in the very same box. in Eastern Europe during the 1990s, it's not a surprise like we've all seen this, we all witnessed this. We know these are the signs. That's what happening when your country is falling apart, or when it already fell apart, and there's this is how you Europe the consequences of the economical catastrophe. And when I was talking to this person that grew up in Eastern Europe, in Ukraine, and his friends asked him what's going to happen to the US next and he said it's gonna be 1991. And they say, what, what what happened in 1991? Was it the Iraqi war, was it the Afghanistan? He said no Soviet Union fell apart and it was mostly for economical reasons. And now we seeing that US is getting there with more than 10% inflation in less than a year. And now we see this huge bill aimed at precisely making the economy green. And we know that that did not help any single country to lower the prices for energy. So look at this holistically, you have inflation of currency, you have lack of basic products like food, and you printing a lot of money to spend them on things that makes your energy production more expensive. And the bills for energy is gonna go up. Now look into the future only like two or three years into the future. And it's easy to predict the result of these things. And of course, like, you know, when the economy is booming, when it's thriving, when you have a lot of extra money as it was only two years ago, then people start investing into innovation technologies, different projects, they tend to risk more with their money. They start talking about investing into NFTs, crypto currencies, metaverses, but right now, it's changing a lot. One of the best quotes of this week was by Mark Cuban, he said, the dumbest thing you can do is to invest into Metaverse property. And if you did not realize it by now, then I guess people still gonna learn it right now. Not everyone understands it. But sharks of the business like Mark Cuban definitely understand that only, only the real investments, real products, real assets, threedimensional gonna cost something, the rest of it all those booming NFT's and cryptocurrencies are very flaky, not something that you can rely on during the times of economical crisis. And we are most definitely facing it right now.
Alexey :
Yeah, just a quick aside on the shrinkflation, just today, we've been with the kids to grab a snack outside, I ordered a large bottle of water. Oh, it was a glass bottle and stuff. But the kids they poored the glasses, oh, the bottle is finished. And my daughter is looking at the back of the bottle and says it's 70 centiliters. And I said, yeah, you see, this is shrinkflation. Because usually a big bottle of water, it was one liter, than it was 0.75, and now it's 0.7. And I remember also, when my parents, it was in beginning of the 2000s. My mom is saying, look, I remember these big bars of chocolate, they were 500 grams, and they cost I don't know, two Swiss francs or something like that. And right now there are 400 grams, and they cost six and a half. So this is what you see how you can notice the shrinkflation. And this is why I always teach my kids look at the price per ounce, because this is what you're paying for. Don't look at the size of the box, because it can be a small box, but it can be full. Otherwise it can be a big box, but really like there'll be now maybe 1/5 at the bottom of the actual product itself. Going back to this topic of Metaverse, I don't know man, I send you this article today about Switzerland's thinking about banning electric heaters. Because with the rising gas and oil prices, people are thinking ahead. They are buying these electric heaters the sales during the summer period rose 300% .This is enormous. I mean, usually you either already have a heating system and or like your maybe need to buy once in a lifetime one extra heater where you don't have enough if it's a private home, something like that. 300%! And the government is already fast on its tracks, you know, oh, we need to ban these because our power grid will not support it. And just before that I told you this story that they're saying, making this announcement that this winter we may have power cuts, power shortages. So buy candles. I mean guys, why are we even talking about Metaverse if we don't have enough electricity, because we went green? If we don't have enough electricity to heat our homes, do you think we will have enough electricity to power all the server farms? And even a computer at home used to access this metaverse? I am confused. Either we have these things like either the metaverse is something that we all going to access. This is why people are buying real estate because later they think that they will be leasing it or renting it. I don't know like whatever or somehow have a return on investment. But if people generally are advised to buy candles to prepare for power shortages during the winter? Yeah, I don't know, I don't see people powering up these powerful machines required for virtual reality. Because you know, anyone who dealt with cryptocurrency mining, or anything like that knows that these beasts, the graphic cards they are power hungry, you really need a lot. Well, on the other hand, they might serve as a heater. But I think that a normal heater consumes less electricity. In general, when we see this kind of contradicting information, I think it's really done, you know, to create this situation where your brain just says, Stop, I'm out of here.
Taliy:
Yeah, definitely. When I was watching news about Switzerland, you know, the heaters going up, and the government already has to take limitation measures. Like, you know, I think whenever government is trying to put their hands on to something like this strictly ban heaters or it already sounds like you've guys, you failed somewhere, like you messed up. And now you're just trying to force people to do something against their will. So you executing your power against the people, why provide them with energy, you've been elected to create a safe environment to create a safe space there where people feel like they don't have to over prepare for the winter, just not to freeze to death in their houses. That's so simple. But when government starts advising people that you should buy an extra blanket, you should wear a warm jacket at home, you should not take shower. The question is like, why do I need such government? Get me a government who can provide me enough energy. And if this government cannot, maybe some, some other government will. And the what we've been seeing this past winter was quite crazy, because switch to the green energy completely destroyed European energy production. And those countries who rely on nuclear, by the way, the cleanest and most reliable source of energy, nuclear and gas, we cutting those. And we going back to coal, and we trying to replace it with solar panels in those parts of the world where it doesn't make sense. I understand if it was Sahara Desert, or I don't know, anywhere by the equator, but they've placed them at them, one of them most northern European countries. The solar panels got covered with snow. And it just doesn't make sense from the perspective of a normal person. But then you have to see the goal of the people who doing it, like if the goal was to make money, or let your friends make some money on the solar production, or whoever got the contract. Like, you know, it's very interesting. From any perspective, again, we taking consumerism in general, we're not only talking about the energy production is just one standout industry. It's the same with refugees, like only in one year in 2015-16. So even outdated statistics. Right now the situation didn't get better. But only that year, Germany has spent on refugees $20 billion. And most of them went as contracts for the companies who built this not even a hotels, it's not a sustainable place for living. It's a temporary housing.
Alexey :
You mean like shelters or something like that.
Taliy:
Yeah, shelters, they have warehouses turned into shelters. But not only they paid for like constructing those which were construction companies, but they also were paying something like 25 euros a day per person per each person in that shelter camp only for staying there. So it's a very profitable business, it became a super profitable business. And those, of course, those who got involved into those schemes, they are interested in constantly maintaining that high level of unemployed or immigrants who have no other place to go to sustain themselves. They want them to stay there because it's profitable. Same here with a green energy. If you invested into production of solar panels, you're gonna be pushing for this kind of laws. You're gonna be finding scientists who backing up this crazy idea that the climate change on Earth has never had natural variability. It never went up and down the temperature was always the same even though it's against not only common sense, but hard evidence as we know from the history.
Alexey :
It's really sad that being, let's say, so technologically developed, having all these gadgets, computers, cameras, microphones, what have you, and not being able to use them. Because we were so dumb to switch to renewable energy, but when will it rewnew? When will it renew, like, will it renew for the next civilization that will live on this planet or for whom will it renew? We need to all think about what are our needs, and what we need to do in order to fulfill this need. You know, also, we need to think about our planet, as a closed ecosystem. Everything stays on this planet, every molecule is being reused. Everything like there is a cycle life cycle for each molecule. Well, maybe we don't know something yet. And I also read this thing about fossil fuels are renewables, that actually they renew as well, because we were told this over and over that oil is precious. So it will end we will run out of oil very soon, very soon. This is why the prices are going up. But then there are facts that prove that wherever they were pumping oil, it came back, it was replenishing. So this whole idea of saying, Oh, it's precious, we can not have any more, once it's finished, it's finished, you will not be able to fill up your tank and everything. That is not true. At the end of the day, we don't even know how our planet works. Yet, we're making assumptions, and already moving straight to the edge of the precipice, you know, to jump all together, without food without electricity, I mean, without any form of energy. When we look at all this progression, we are almost on the edge of becoming something bigger with the internet, that we can connect all together and create better things. We are saying, no, no, guys, please turn off everything in your house and go buy a candle. It's sad...
Taliy:
Yeah. And you know, I just cannot wrap my head around how this narrative came out that we have to choose only between something that's bad for the environment, or the solar panels and wind turbines. If you go online, which reels of Donald Trump ranting about wind turbines, New York Times or Fox they making fun of that, like, they kill birds, they kill birds. Well, they do kill birds, but they say, Oh, the cats are killing more birds. Yeah, but the cats killing like small, tiny little birds. And the wind turbines are killing the Red Book, eagles, and so on the big amazing birds that are really on the edge of extinction. When it comes to solar panels, it's not even that you have to collect this energy from the solar panels, you know how the power grid works, whatever energy is being produced has to be consumed somewhere or stored in the batteries. So the problem is not the solar panel itself, although it's not recyclable up until these days, but the problem is where to store this energy. And then it comes to the problem of batteries and the batteries is the real problem. And with all this renewables, it's crazy, because we still have as you said, we don't know how oil is being produced we know. Like theoretically, they say it is basically renewable because it is the CO2 that was taken out of the atmosphere, through the trees through whatever is stored in the earth. And now we basically by digging it out, we just return it back to the atmosphere or we're not taking it as an additional CO2 from somewhere there. It's going back to the atmosphere where it was taken from. But also we have nuclear plants and they are the cleanest and they're the best and most reliable source of energy. We're closing those instead of making it really safe. Instead of finding spots on our planet where we can build those safely. We are closing we're shutting them down. You know, when I was checking how they're being made and different countries are taking different approach. So after what happened in Fukushima, Japan shut down all of its nuclear plants. Germany did the same with theirs. And that's when I remember even some politicians were making fun of them, like you making yourself so dependent on Russian oil and gas. But for some reason, they didn't listen. And it also made them dependent on French nuclear power, because that's where they buying their electricity now and what they did in France, it was actually very interesting. They were building nuclear plants on top of the hills and the hills inside they emptied them out. So if something's happening with a nuclear plant, there explosives inside of the hill, they blew it up. And the whole thing goes underground and burries itself. So it's like, Wow, you really thought it through, if something happens, the whole thing is just collapsing goes underground. And you can have it as a measure of precaution. So we can just shut down this technology to say, we're not gonna use it, or we can figure out ways of actually developing it. And if we look even more into the past, we're still returning to the beginning of 20th century, when so many breakthrough technologies were introduced. And so many great scientists were thinking towards getting the energy from unlimited source getting free energy. But then the official so called promoted science, which mostly was theories of Albert Einstein, and so on, they were opposing strictly to it. And they also came up with things like the highest speed in the world is the speed of light, and nothing can be faster than speed of light, which is a ridiculous statement, because of the quantum physics proved that this is, this is ridiculous, it doesn't make sense. There are much faster connections between the elements than speed of light. And we know nothing about it. And we don't even learn it because of the dogma that exists in physics. And this dogma is set by big names like Einstein. And this is really slowing down the progress of the humanity. So the fact that they put this same stigma on free energy, and they stopped developing it. And even now, there are companies that invest into magnet energy generators, and they get in some results over there. If our society wasn't that stigmatized and that much keen on the idea that free energy is impossible, maybe we could get something out of that to at least it would be a better investment than the solar panels and windmills for sure. Because those energy sources are just the most damaging for the environment and the most unreliable, you cannot. You can have it as an addition to your whatever backyard here and there, or you can put it for fun on your car. Yeah, I'm talking about solar panel, it'll be fun to watch a huge propeller on the car. But it's not reliable to replace their whole energy production with this thing, simply because it doesn't work.
Alexey :
I remember we had an interview maybe about a year ago with a guy named Jeremiah Josie, and he's the founder and CEO of the Thorium Network. And he told us that everything even nuclear power, the coefficient is at the best 80 to one, you know, whatever energy you're producing, and the thorium salts, actually it's molten salt reactor, we will link to it to their website, it's called thethoriumnetwork.com. And they explained that actually, he explained to us during the interview that you have salt and they call it fission, and they don't call the reactor, they call it a burner. Basically, these things like 2000 to one, the coefficient of energy being produced in compared to what you introduce. The idea is not new. It was available since 1945. Somehow, one PhD in physics, I think it was Dr. Victor Stenger, who discovered it in 2012. We will not go into detail at how this works. But basically, it's not a nuclear reactor, but you don't have the radioactive waste or whatever. But the funny thing is that there are more simple ways of as you said that the generators using for example, magnets or vortexes of gas injected into water and they already worked. In Eastern Europe, there was one I think, in Ukraine, one in Russia, or whatever it was in the USSR anyway. And they were heating a hangar with school buses, let's say like this. They were heating up this whole thing, high ceilings and everything during winters to 25 degrees and it consumed only 2000 kilowatts or something like that. Why am just telling all this, it's not to tell about different options and stuff. But just to say that we have many possibilities that are already existing. We don't even have to imagine because we are facing an energy crisis right now. We are facing an energy crisis, because when the government says prepare for power cuts, we are not looking at these technologies that could save lives. And why? Maybe it was for the same reason that Professor Kent wrote his sarcastic article that no one is really interested in solving these problems. Because while you have people who struggle, they don't have adequate food. They don't have adequate energy supplies. They're freezing to death. You can basically do anything to them, and then they will accept whatever you want from them just to be able to sustain the life of their family.
Taliy:
Yeah, absolutely. Whenever a new bill is being passed, ask yourself a question who's making money out of it, who did pay the lobbyists to bring this paper into the office of a politician in Washington, who later turned it into some sort of a bill which is being passed.