backstorywithdanalewis

[backstorywithdanalewis]

Back Story with Dana Lewis on Wuhan and Pandemic origins

Speaker 1: (00:00) Dr. Fauci. Do you still support funding of the NIH funding of the lab and Wu Han Senator Rand with all due respect, you are entirely, entirely and completely incorrect that the NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain of function research in the Wu Han Institute. Do they fight Dr. Barrack We do not fund your barracks gain of function research. Dr. Barrett does not doing gain of function research, and if it is it's according to the guidelines and it is being conducted in North Carolina. Speaker 2: (00:46) Hi everyone. And welcome to another edition of backstory. I'm Dana Lewis, that was Dr. Anthony Fauci and Republican Senator ran poll squaring off over the origins of coronavirus. Paul accusing the national institutes of health of funding, risky Chinese research into bat coronaviruses in Wu Han. The research is called gain of function, which turbocharges viruses to spread to humans. The idea being that scientists can then anticipate the next pandemic outbreak in a laboratory it's risky science because there have been numerous lab escapes of the viruses on this backstory was COVID 19 created in the [inaudible] Dana Lewis / Host : (01:34) Lab. Did it escape? Did the Chinese cover it up? All right. Joining me now all the way from Taiwan is Dr. Stephen Quay. Hi, Steven. Dr. Steven Quay: (01:50) Hi, Dana. How are you doing great. Dana Lewis / Host : (01:51) Before we launch into the theories of the origins of COVID-19, let's just establish who you are, because it's important, right? Because we're talking about science. So you are part of the Paris group, which as I understand is a couple of dozen, just over a couple of dozen scientists with, um, some of them are mathematicians. They're not scientists, there's a lot of different disciplines in there, but that group was formed because, and what is its raise on Detra? Dr. Steven Quay: (02:21) It's mainly a curiosity around the origin. Um, everybody has, you know, pretty busy day jobs of, of one form or another, but we've committed to meeting once a month, uh, by zoom, um, for about four hours. And we usually have someone in the group where we have a group, someone outside the group present, uh, some scientific aspect of it. Uh, and then we have discussions. I mean, we've, we've put out two letters, uh, publicly to, um, support the who into, into support investigations, further investigations. And that occupies some of our time, uh, the logistics of getting those letters done on the sword. But, uh, and Dana Lewis / Host : (02:55) You are a doctor of what and what is really your specialty and your Dr. Steven Quay: (02:58) Strength. So, uh, I have an MD PhD, PhDs in chemistry, uh, taught at Stanford medical school for about 10 years. Yeah, it's a, it's pretty good school down there in the mid peninsula of California. Uh, my, uh, uh, residency was at the mass general at Harvard and I was in a Nobel prize winners laboratory at MIT. So during the day I was learning to be a doctor and at night I was doing photochemistry across the river at MIT. You're not a geologist. I know I haven't, I've invented a treatment for, uh, for a particular, uh, influenza, uh, using sir. And a, so I have 87 patents and I've invented, uh, seven drugs that are FDA approved, including the gadolinium that's used for MRI contrast. So, uh, about 80 million people have used that drug. So, uh, I'm, uh, I'm, I'm a really nerdy scientist. This is probably the core of Steve cuase. Uh, back in the day, 20, 30 years ago, I would take, take home an inch of before the internet, an inch of scientific papers that I xeroxed. And that was my sitting on the patio with a drink on Sunday afternoon. Uh, this is the way I spent my weekends. So fast-forward, I now do it on the internet. Dana Lewis / Host : (04:08) Let's talk about the origins of COVID-19 because you were also, I understand a signatory to this letter, um, from again about 26 scientists. I don't know if they're the same as the Paris group. I know some of them overlap, um, which essentially essentially says to the, who look, your investigation was flawed from the beginning, the, the membership, uh, that Chinese demanded in terms of the scientists that were on that panel essentially gave the Chinese government a veto and your findings. You tell me how you want to put it diplomatically, uh, just don't hold water. And we need to start Dr. Steven Quay: (04:48) Again. Uh, yes, that's essentially what the letter says. And, um, you know, there was a second letter that actually tried to offer a blueprint of, if you are going to start again, th these are the people you need. This is, these are the skill set of the people you involve. These are the steps you should take, et cetera, et cetera. So tried to lay it out pretty clear. Um, so with any sort of impetus, they have, they have the tools they need to do it right. A second time, Dana Lewis / Host : (05:13) The lineup on the theories, there, there is one that says maybe it was in bats and then it jumped to another host, and then it became, um, you know, it was then transmitted to humans and, and, uh, was able to replicate in humans and grow the other is a lab escape. Dr. Steven Quay: (05:32) Yeah. So, um, I've written a basing analysis of what, uh, of those two theories. Uh, I uploaded it on Zanotta. I think in the end of January, it's been viewed 140,000 times. So just for perspective, I written about 360 publications, scientific publications on various fields in that, uh, this one is one or two orders of magnitude, better than anything else I've ever written. The Bayesean Dana Lewis / Host : (05:58) Is kind of, um, of statistical math formulations on what are the odds, right. And, and I understand that you think through your Basie and calculations, um, that a lab origin was 99.8% possibility. Dr. Steven Quay: (06:18) Yes. Uh, in the legal standard is called beyond a reasonable doubt. So, um, basically it is a three-step process. You, you establish a prior probability based on whatever, you can get your hands on, you do an experiment and you see which way it leans. You drop it into base equation, which is a very simple bit of math. My eighth grade daughter does it routinely. And then you get a new unit to get a new outcome. So 26 pieces of evidence were run. My starting hypothesis was 98% probability. It came from nature. But as you said, I ended up, uh, greater than 99% from the laboratory. Okay. So let's Dana Lewis / Host : (06:53) Kind of walk through this a little bit. Um, first of all, in terms of hosts, if you go back after an outbreak of a pandemic, you generally find patient zero, and then you, uh, or patient number one or whatever it's called. And then you go back and you find the animal hosts. Um, in SARS 2003, there was an, an immediate host. So that was a, that was Dr. Steven Quay: (07:16) A cat. Yeah, it's called the civic cat. It was found four months after the first year patient. Dana Lewis / Host : (07:23) Then in 2013 with mirrors a camel, Dr. Steven Quay: (07:28) It took 10 months, but you're exactly right. It was the Campbell's SARS. We're more than a year into this 16 months, eight 80,000 samples of various animals around China. I mean, one of the biases is that you, you absolutely know China has to be motivated to find it in nature, right? I mean, I think that's an intrinsic either bias or preference, but so after testing 80,000 animals and not finding a single case of it, um, to me, that's one of the most screaming pieces of evidence that came out of the, who study that really needs to be addressed. Dana Lewis / Host : (08:02) Chinese would say they just never came from China that you need to go look in Thailand and Thailand or somewhere Dr. Steven Quay: (08:06) Else. One of the, one of the problems with any of this theory is the, the, the virus keeps a clock or a calendar or a diary. However you want to describe it, but basically you can use mutational analysis and phylogenetics to say which virus came before, which virus and therefore put them in chronologic order. Um, that is one of the important things I do in the Basie and analysis is the, the genetic patient zero. I don't believe it's patient. I don't believe it is the actual patient zero cause it's December 20th, thereabouts, but what's from a PLA hospital, every patient and every specimen from the seafood market is downstream from that. Uh, every, every Dana Lewis / Host : (08:46) Patient close to the Wuhan Institute of virology, by the Dr. Steven Quay: (08:51) Way. Yes. I mean, I, I actually did a separate investigation where, which concludes what I call the line to COVID conduit, which is, is basically looking at which hospitals where the December patients wind with the assumption that they went to the nearest hospital for where they live kind of, and then which, which of the nine subway lines they were near, all hospitals were along line too. And that is a, like a 180,000 probability, Dana Lewis / Host : (09:19) Right? Why is it important? Where does line to run to and Dr. Steven Quay: (09:21) From, I have some very unique features. So it's the closest station to the one in sort of neurology. So, uh, if, if a, if a, an asymptomatic worker came out and took the subway and they would go downstairs, it carries 1 million people a day in normal times, you know, obviously back then before that. So that's, so if you imagine it's a back and forth for people from the suburbs going to work as a half a million people, and that's probably coincidentally, but nonetheless, the number of people have infections. They said they had an in, in Ruan was 500,000. It also has the wet market as its closest, uh, is it's close to subway station. And in fact, the who said they had a map of the infections inside the wet market and they're they're asymmetric. So the west entrance has more infections than the east entrance. Dr. Steven Quay: (10:09) And it's the west end entrance that is closest to the line to subway. Now it gets really cool for amplification because the next station from the, from the, from the wet market is the station where the high-speed rail goes. So from that station, you can go to any corner in China that the high-speed rail services in a matter of hours, if you continue to the end of line to your, at the international airport. So you can literally go from the oneness neurology downstairs, never go outside again and come out doors in London or Paris or Dubai or Houston, um, being entirely indoors. So, uh, I'm, I'm really looking for someone to help me with an analysis show, how much amplification that subway connection probably had, because it's independent of whether it came from the market or the lab. It satisfies both of those, but carrying a half a million people a year and having those two major conduits inside of China and into the world, it probably is part of the reason this thing spreads so aggressively, where do you Dana Lewis / Host : (11:12) Think COVID-19 began? Some people trace it back to, uh, a bat cave, um, where several minors became sick. Uh, I think three of them died and those samples were later taken to the Wu Han lab, uh, where they were doing work on them, trying to understand the bad viruses. And if an indeed it came from a bad at all, it came from a cave. Dr. Steven Quay: (11:37) Yeah. Yeah. So, so we know that that again, after 16 months and literally thousands of animal testings looking for closest relatives, um, the closest relative is inside the came from inside. The one is a virology, a bad call, a bad virus called ROTG 13. It was collected in 2013. Uh, in those in they'll say minds with the miners were sick. Um, there were, uh, there were literally hundreds of samples collected and there, there are eight really critical ones that we would love to have the sequences for because we've seen phylogenetic tree. So Dr. She has, you know, done done presentations and she's, she's teased us with these other seven that are very, very close to our 13, but no one in the world knows outside of the one Institute knows what their sequences are. Uh, I think a lot of us suspect that probably a closer relative in the actual precursor to the gain of function research that led to SARS cov two is one of those other seven. My take is RTG is too far. Uh, you've got to come up with 1100 changes to get from RTG to deciders Coby to, I can do about 600 with kind of two quick things in the lab, but the other, the other 500 are, are too difficult. We know Dana Lewis / Host : (12:52) That that lab at one point was doing gain of function, which is essentially a scientific, uh, scientific term where you scientists and it's very controversial. It was banned in the United States at one point where scientists work with viruses and they try to strengthen them and try and determine when they may through mutations, jumped to humans and thereby head off the next pandemic. And then, you know, there's been a lot of denials by the Chinese that they were doing gain a function. And yet it, it was published at one point that the, the bat lady, the woman who ran the lab essentially was indeed doing gain a function, but did that lead to COVID-19? So you, do you want to, you want to try and string some of that together for me? Dr. Steven Quay: (13:34) Well, there's, uh, look a doctor, she, Dr. Barrack have worked together. Uh, they are either they're one and two, and you can, you can pick, which is which it depends on the day and in the year probably, but they're the number one and two coronavirus, uh, scientists in the world, uh, doing synthetic biology, which is gaining function, which is basically taking them apart, putting them back, back together, mixing, mixing pieces from different species of viruses, Dana Lewis / Host : (14:00) A backbone or element Dr. Steven Quay: (14:02) Well, well, with, with, with, they're always, they're always a bad virus backbone. So, so this Corona virus, no matter where it ends up, started at some point in time in bats and whether the intermediate host is a, is a camel or a civet or, or something else, uh, in this case, we think it's probably a humanized mice. Um, but nonetheless, and, and then, and then it jumps to humans, but what's Dana Lewis / Host : (14:24) A humanized mice mouse. Dr. Steven Quay: (14:27) Yeah. It's a little, it's a little scary, but so you take, you take a mouse embryo and you put human genes into the embryo. Um, so that when it's born, it's a, it's a mouse, but it has human lungs, respiratory system. So if you want to test what will happen precisely in humans, uh, it's, it's a great model for that. Now, Dr. Barrick developed that model and he, his mice physically went from North Carolina to, to the one Institute that's documented again and in publications where she, she thanks him for his mice. It just sounds Dana Lewis / Host : (15:00) Like dark arts, quite frankly, but I'm not a scientist, Dr. Steven Quay: (15:04) You know, it's well, it's, it's, it is. Um, and by the way, Dana Lewis / Host : (15:08) I mean, I'm not, I'm not altogether naive either because I've talked to, I, you know, I, I was based in Russia covering biological, chemical, uh, warfare, the dismantling of the former Soviet union's, um, incredible programs and, uh, an assistant secretary of defense, not a Republican or Democrat in that case under the Obama administration told me that, um, the gain of function research is highly controversial and should be banned and was banned. And, uh, it's high, high risk, you know, again, a dark art in, in, uh, in essence. Dr. Steven Quay: (15:44) Well, it absolutely is, again, in my basing analysis, I talked about the fact that it's, it's absolutely published for 30 years. There has been on average 0.9. So that rounds to one, one laboratory acquired infection per year in Asia. So, uh, these are, these are Cyrus, COVID one, uh, you know, other viruses one a year. So, um, you know, you're just playing Russian roulette with, uh, the 7 billion people on the planet. Dana Lewis / Host : (16:08) There is no good explanation. Uh, I'm reading this, this, this was written by Nicholas Wade, who I interviewed about a week ago. There is no explanation of why a natural epidemic should break out and Wu Han and nowhere else, there is no good explanation of how the virus acquired. And I'm hoping you can explain this it's furin cleavage site, which no other SARS related beta Corona virus possesses. What does that mean? Dr. Steven Quay: (16:37) Yeah. So it's one of my five facts that I, that I talk about that are not in dispute. So there, there are five facts about this event that every person, every scientist agrees to, but they, and they all lead to the conclusion that came from a laboratory. So one of them is, is this unusual fear in sight? Okay. So the spike protein is how the virus gets into cells. It's basically like a key and the lock that the cell has is called [inaudible]. So it's a protein on the surface of your lung cells and the spike protein binds to it. And then a second step has to happen where the other part of the spike protein makes a hole in your membrane and injects the RNA, and then it takes over the cell and then it makes a million of its own copies. So in order for this, so th this, this, the spike protein is one big protein. Dr. Steven Quay: (17:26) So in order to do that physical process of injecting the RNA, it has to actually physically move and, and the, and the, and the, the, the binding part, you got the binding parts of the ACE two, and you've got the other Proctor. This part has to physically move like a hundred nanometers, which is a huge distance on a molecular level to get the, to get, to let the RNA go into the cell. So the spike protein has to be clipped. So most spike, most beta coronaviruses clip it at a place called [inaudible] one, there's only a couple enzymes that will clip it there, which means there were only a couple kinds of cells that it can go into. So we've known since 1992, 11 different laboratories have done a new doctor, Dr. Barrick and doctor. She had the willingness to dos since 1992, 11 labs have put fear in, in coronaviruses and 11, 11 times it does one thing. It makes it either more, in fact, more transmissible or more lethal or all of the above. Uh, and the reason is it, it gives a new way of activating that spike protein with, uh, with an enzyme called furin, which is our enzyme. So basically the, the virus is very economical. It doesn't bother having an enzyme to activate itself. It knows with this, with this new, pure insight, uh, that we'll be able to get into a cell. Dana Lewis / Host : (18:39) You've never found fear in cleavage sites in natural occurring, uh, proteins, or what do you want to Dr. Steven Quay: (18:46) Call it? So, so look at the virus. Kingdom is very big. So influenza uses them all the time, all the time. Um, certain other viruses use them all the time, beta coronaviruses and never seem to use them. So, so we've, we have over 2000 sequences of beta Krone viruses from nature. And the number of Ference sites is zero. It was one is, so I was going to be too. So there's no natural fear on site, in any beta coronavirus. That's just, I mean, look at zero out of 2000, you asked a statistician what the incidence in the population is, and it's, it's, you know, under a 10th of a percent, Dana Lewis / Host : (19:22) It tells you, it tells you what about COVID-19 that fear in Cleveland site? Dr. Steven Quay: (19:28) So it has, it has it, but, Dana Lewis / Host : (19:31) And it tells you what about the fact that it has it Dr. Steven Quay: (19:34) Okay. So if there's, it doesn't, it tells you it was lab created well, yeah, so basically, yes, it's never been found in nature in that class of viruses and in, in, in 11 virus, in Landon laboratory, since 1992, it's purposely been put in, uh, including coronaviruses to make them more effective. So that's one layer of the, of the fear site, which makes it special. I call it the, the immaculate immaculate cleavage site, because it literally has to be if it came from nature, um, the next level is the genetic level. So the, the, the fear inside is four amino acids in a row. Now I worked with golden Cron at MIT. You've got the Nobel prize for the genetic code. So there's three basis in the code for every amino acid. So it's, it's redundant. So, so your genetic blueprint that makes proteins has three nucleotides, one amino acid, three one three one three one. Dr. Steven Quay: (20:30) So there's six different three letter words for one of the amino acids in the Ference. I call our genie there's six different words for the same amino acid. It's redundant humans, like a particular letter word CGG bad. Coronaviruses hate CGG out of the 64. So if there's four nucleotides and three letters in a coat on, you know, that's, that's, you know, that that is 64 different possible codes. So the least popular code on for Corona viruses is CGG they hate it. They absolutely hate it. And yet here it is, here are two of them together. Now I've looked at 580,000 Cotons in beta coronaviruses with the help of a computer. And there are not, there is not a single example of, of the, of the two together. CGG CGG next to each other, Dana Lewis / Host : (21:28) Back to Nicholas Wade last line, where he says the natural emergence theory battles of bristling array of implausibilities. Dr. Steven Quay: (21:38) Yeah. So, so I've been, uh, you know, I've been working with Nicholas for about six months weekly, uh, with, uh, with, uh, you know, some of the science behind, behind some of his writing. So, yes. Um, so that, that's a very that's, that's absolutely weird. Now, why, why would the flip side of that is, is there a, is there a laboratory reason why you'd put CGG CGG in, because if you think about it, if you've got six possibilities for the first Argentine six for the second that's 36 combinations, right? Dana Lewis / Host : (22:10) I mean, why would you, why, why as a scientist, would you put Dr. Steven Quay: (22:14) It in? Yes, exactly. Why is a scientist? Would you put it in? So we know that nature is never going to put it in in 580,000 code ons. It's never appeared there before. So nature hates it. Why in the heck would a scientist do it? If there's 36 possibilities, it's very simple. There's a, there, there, there is an old technique where if you, if you inserted something genetically and you want it to follow it in your experiments, you would put in what's called a restriction site. So you'd put in a set of amino acids that gets clipped by a, by an enzyme. You can buy off the shelf. And then when you run a gel, if the protein isn't, if it's still in there and intact, the protein runs very high on a gelatin. And then if it's been cut accidentally or it's been lost or something, you don't see it. So it's, it's a very common laboratory technique. The one in suits that they've been doing it for years, where you, you, you know, when you do an assertion, you purposely put in one of the restriction sites, so you can follow it in the laboratory. Uh, that's the only one of the 36 that has a restriction site like that. So a lot of motivation for putting that in there. Dana Lewis / Host : (23:23) Well, the allegations have been that, um, the us national Institute of health provided funding for gain of function, experiments, and move on. And then you had this very telling, uh, Senate intelligence committee investigation last week, where a representative, um, Republican Senator, sorry, ran poll then, you know, gets in this, w what looks almost like a court examination with Dr. Fowchee, um, who was the head of the national Institute of health, um, were you in front of this group kind of categorically say that COVID-19 could not have occurred through serial passage in a laboratory Fowchee? I do not have accounting of what the Chinese may have done. I'm fully in favor of further investigation of what went on in China. However, I'll repeat again, the NIH and the NIH aid category, categorically had not fund funded gain of function research to be conducted in the Wu Han Institute of neurology. Does that ring hollow? Dr. Steven Quay: (24:23) Um, I think it does. I mean, it may be, you know, in a really lawyerly court, like way, you know, there's a technicality. So what we have is we have the grants that EcoHealth was funded, and we have the subcontracts to, to sort of Realogy inside those grants. So we know exactly what was expected of the WIB inside the grant that EcoHealth got from NAA ID, which is funky cheese, uh, Dr. [inaudible], uh, work it's clearly, it's clearly a gain of function research. Now, the money didn't go from, from an NIH to Han and went from NIH to eco health, to Wu Han, if that really is what he's relying on, it's, it's disappointing, but, um, I don't have another explanation. Now, he actually also said during that interview that there was no gain of function research being done. And I think on the face of it, the document, the not on the face of the documents that are available to the public, uh, you don't have to even do a foil request. Dr. Steven Quay: (25:22) You can just go online in the NIH. You can see, uh, they're describing Ghana function research in the five-year grant that was funded the fund of the one Institute. They don't call it, gain a function. We don't call it, gain a function, but to describe, but what they describe is gain of function. So the gain of function is a very broad definition of just increasing the, the, the transmissibility lethality, uh, or infectivity of a, of a, of a virus in human, in human population, uh, and using humanized mice and, and improving in purposely causing testing to test for spillover potential is exactly that the, the, I mean, it's, again, I will try to pretend to be interested in what they were doing. So the idea was, can I deal with how close to SARS cov one, so we know Colby wants spilled over, and then we know that there are these virus that are 60% similar in 70% and 80% of the 9%. Literally what they were saying is what percent doesn't have to be like SARS Coby one. So we know it spills over, and then we can use that number to go out in nature and say, well, here's a virus that's 85. So it's not likely here's one that's 92. So it's likely giving them the benefit of the doubt. That's probably what they were trying to do. But, um, we know we know what the outcome is. Dana Lewis / Host : (26:36) Steven, just a couple of quick questions as well, before I let you go. The, um, the data that was online, some of it from the Wu had labs, some of it that you required a password. I understand all of this appears in September, it's taken down in September. So October, November, you know, some three months before the official outbreak, although a lot of people think that they already had cases well into November. Um, what, what do you make of that? And how important is that data Dr. Steven Quay: (27:10) Critically important? I mean, uh, 3:00 AM, September 19th, the server that was available for the world for most of it. And it also did have a password protected carbon, but, you know, Steve quake could have gotten on it the day before, but it's taken offline. Uh, now they, they slept up and they said, well, it's taken offline because of hackers around the COVID infection. And then they realized, oh my gosh, this was in September. So I'm not sure. They're still saying that's a pretty big slip up. Well, it's, it's, it's out there. I mean, that's, that's how it is with cameras anyway, but, um, it's not available to this day. So I asked Peter dash Jackie in a, in a public forum here, uh, maybe two months ago, uh, where if, uh, if he would provide access to those files, uh, and he literally said, it's, it's on the record there that, um, he knows what's in them. He's looked at them and there's nothing there of interest. Uh, and that I, then that that's the basis for not providing them Dana Lewis / Host : (28:05) And show him, show him to the world, because right now that lab is under look. I mean, I, I think you, you tell me if this is an overstatement, but it seems to me that there is a consensus amongst the scientific community. Now that at the very least there are huge gaping, uh, gaps in the China, Chinese official story on that lab. So if you want your lab, if you really want to support your, your suggestion to the world, that it didn't originate in the lab, then make all the data available. That's the best thing that they could do right now to the who or Dr. Steven Quay: (28:38) Whoever agreed, uh, whether they would do that or not as is a political question. Dana Lewis / Host : (28:45) Right. Okay. So we we've, but that, that it does still exist. We think, Dr. Steven Quay: (28:50) Oh, I hope so. I hope so. Are we ever going to get to the bottom of this? Well, see, it's an interesting question because, um, with my analysis, all of my evidence is circumstantial, but I remind people that, you know, uh, there are many sort of murder trials in which all of the evidence is circumstantial. And yet we quite routinely can determine, uh, the guilt of, of someone with a proper process and adjudication and, and, and, and getting to beyond a reasonable doubt. So despite it being circumstantial, I believe it's, it's strong enough at this point in time to conclude, uh, again, beyond a reasonable doubt that it came from the laboratory that the, the key thing to remember with, with, uh, these coronavirus pandemics is there's three components. There's the intermediate is there's the host, the animal hosts, the humans and the virus. This is the only one in which it's a singularity that is, there seems to be only one animal because we can't find any in nature. So there's, there's one animal. Um, all the, all the human cases go back through one patient at the PLA hospital in muon. So when president Trump got it, you can follow the mutations to his virus back to the PLO hospitals. So there's a single area there. Um, and, and the, and the, and the sequences inside the virus. Uh, so, and I'm sorry, the, the patient there's absolutely no patients before December who had any hint of this, of this, uh, infection. So it is a true singularity, Dana Lewis / Host : (30:17) One animal, one patient, one virus, one animal, because normally it takes a virus time to become more and more transmissible. There should be a trail of patience. Dr. Steven Quay: (30:27) Oh yeah, exactly. And again, they, so in my basing analysis, I looked at, at, at stored specimens, uh, in Taiwan, in China, I had about 2000 of them in the public record. None of which had SARS COVID two. So the, who has actually updated that. So they, there are 10,000 specimens, um, in that they reported on their, in their report with zero, uh, serial conversion before the first date. So nobody out of 10,000 in an archive specimens had had SARS COVID two, what is the MERS or SARS Coby, one history they're one to 4%. So that means a hundred to 400 samples should have seen. It should be. There should be evidence of Cyrus. Kogi two in a hundred to 400 specimens out of two, out of a 10,000, there was zero. Dana Lewis / Host : (31:10) The reason why we just spent 30 minutes talking about this and why you're spending part of your career studying this and why so many other scientists are looking at it is because in order to understand the next pandemic, you have to, you need to trace back the origins of this one. Can I ask you something that occurs to me? And you can tell me whether it's ridiculous or not, but in trying to fight this pandemic and come to terms with what COVID-19 is, is it important that we understand it was created in the lab? Does it make it a very different pandemic and a very different fight? Dr. Steven Quay: (31:45) Uh, he has one, it seems to me it has one, um, one aspect of the design of a virus that escapes that causes a pandemic, uh, that I think is, is interesting and worth talking about. So the downside is that it is clearly pre adapted for humans. So when SARS Colby one first jumped into humans, it had only 17% of all the, the, the, the ch the mutation changes that needed to cause that initial epidemic 17%, uh, this one has 99.6% at the get-go. So the downside is it was very pre adapted. So it spread very quickly, very widely. And that was the first wave of it. There actually is an upside to that, which is, it has very little genetic runway, very little movement to improve. So in the spike protein, there are only five, uh, five positions that it could mutate at to get better at, uh, from, from it's from the initial case, it turns out what we called the UK strain that the British strain that was, you know, started in the fall and spread. That was one of the five. So, and now Dana Lewis / Host : (32:55) About the very end, that's Dr. Steven Quay: (32:57) Another one. So it's, so it's used up two of the five possible improvements, uh, in the spike protein in terms of binding. So, um, that's somehow to me, encouraging that, this thing, uh, that we've seen the worst of it, and these variants are not going to be able to, um, to have much impact. Uh, I did another analysis and theirs looked like there's, there's eight, uh, epitopes. So the, the human immune system sees eight separate things on the spike protein when it sees this virus. So it makes eight different kinds of antibodies. And at this point in time, the Indian strain has only gotten rid of two of those eight. So we still have 75% of the epitopes are the same. Uh, you know, when I was teaching at Stanford, 75 was a C, but in, but in immunology, that's a pass fail, and that's a strong pass. You probably have to get well below 50% to do have an issue Dana Lewis / Host : (33:49) There, roadmap on where we will be in a year or three from now, with this virus. Dr. Steven Quay: (33:55) No, I said a year ago now, unfortunately, 7 billion people have to either get the virus and get the vaccine. Um, and I'm afraid I haven't changed that tune yet. We're years away from that. That is unfortunately, that's the analysis, Steven, Dana Lewis / Host : (34:11) Last word to you. And I thank you for your time on, on all of this, just wrapping it together. Dr. Steven Quay: (34:17) Well, you know, I think that, uh, my belief is that as a gain of function research project, uh, my belief is that there is a way forward for gain of function research to be done on a different structure. Uh, I'm going to be pro proposing that publicly in the next few months, uh, when I put together a consortium around how that should be conducted. Um, but I think absent that we're just going to do this again with another virus in, uh, in another decade or another few years, Dana Lewis / Host : (34:45) Or just ban gain a functional together. Dr. Steven Quay: (34:48) We could, that, that would be the easiest. Uh, I'm willing to, to find a middle road if that, if that is, uh, is possible, Dana Lewis / Host : (34:57) Steven CUI from Taiwan, Steven, great to talk to you, thank you so much for taking all that science and trying to make it as digestible as possible. And I appreciate Dr. Steven Quay: (35:05) Very much thank you, Dana, for focusing on this. It's an important issue. Speaker 2: (35:14) So why was there a scientific split on using the term gain of function in the [inaudible] lab? Why do we hear Dr. Fowchee say there was no gain of function? Well, I'm no scientist, but Dr. Richard E. Bright, a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers university and a biosafety expert contested Dr. Anthony [inaudible] testimony before the committee saying that felt she's claim made during the exchange with ran poll that the national institutes of health has not ever, and does not now fund gain of function research in the Wu Han Institute of neurology is demonstrably false. According to Ebrary, at least some of the NIH funded research conducted in Wu Han equivocally qualifies as gain of function e-brake was quoted as saying he bride claims that the work being conducted at the Wu Han Institute using us funds a pit of Mises gain of function research, and is the exact kind of research that led the Obama administration to conclude that gain of function was too dangerous to continue domestically. Speaker 2: (36:28) And it was in fact banned in the U S in 2014, following a series of lab accidents. And after a petition signed by 300 scientists, demanded a moratorium on gain of function. The ban was later lifted after a review by a secret government panel in gain of function, experiments were allowed to go forward. The Obama administration's ban was lifted in 2017 under then president Trump. That's our backstory and the origins of COVID-19 subscribed to our newsletter. If you like Dana Lewis dot [inaudible] dot com, and please share this podcast so that others can listen. I'm Dana Lewis. Thanks for listening. And I'll talk to you again soon. 

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Marathon War/ Afghanistan podcast audio link:  https://www.buzzsprout.com/1016881/8376339

Sec. State Blinken: (00:00) The fact is this, uh, we went to Afghanistan 20 years ago and we went because we were attacked on nine 11. And we went to take on those who had attacked us on nine 11. Uh, and to make sure that Afghanistan would not again, become a Haven for terrorism directed at the United States or any of our allies and partners. And, uh, we achieved the objectives that we set out to achieve. Uh, Al Qaeda has been significantly degraded its capacity to conduct an attack against the United States. Now from Afghanistan is not there. Uh, and of course, Osama bin Laden was brought to justice 10 years ago. So the president felt that as we're looking at the world, now we have to look at it through the prism of 2021, not 2001. Dana Lewis - Host : (00:44) Hi everyone. And welcome to another edition of backstory. I'm Dana Lewis. That was us secretary of state Blinken, justifying a decision to pull out the last us troops from Afghanistan. And he's putting a good face on what may be a very bad decision. There are not many people I can see as a TV correspondent. I flew with them in a black Hawk helicopter across the mountains of Afghanistan to forward operating bases where American soldiers fought to capture or kill and  major general Jeffrey Schloesser was the commanding general in charge of the 101st  airborne in Eastern Afghanistan. And during our journey through a war zone, I think he was thoughtful, sincere, and completely Frank about combating a surge in  violence and the U S strategy. that was in 2008 and now in 2021, the year when Administration ends the American troop presence in Afghanistan general Schloesser has written a book in which he predicts abandoning Afghanistan. Now, Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (01:45) it won't end well for Afghans or for Americans, but he says the war, despite everything in the end was worth it. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (01:59) Jeff Schloesser is a retired major general who commanded the a hundred and first airborne, 15 months of that command was in Afghanistan and he is the author of a new book called marathon war. And he joins me now. Hi Jeff. (02:13) Hi Dana. How are you today? I'm very well. And thanks for talking to us about this. It's a great book. The curtain is closing on that war and you wrote it was worth it. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (02:23) really great question. And I know it's one that I think we're going to continue to, you know, grapple with over the next decade. Um, you know, we went in there to do a very specific thing in the first, first year, which was really to bring justice on those that attacked our country on nine 11. And what we found out is that as we pushed out, Al-Qaida neither captured or killed them or gave them a chance to reconcile that what we found there was a land that was a potential, not only was it a failed state, but it was a safe Haven. And so we had to stay longer. And the question of it is, is now as we withdraw, did we stay enough? Dana Lewis - Host : (03:00) You ended with a warning. If we let that country go back to those who would destroy us in our way of life, it will not be long, certainly not a generation before they come looking for us again. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (03:14) Yes. In marathon more I say, basically that, you know, we can turn them our back. We can forget Afghanistan, but Afghanistan will not forget us. And I truly still believe that, um, the area there is so important to our national interests. Uh, but it's also, as I said, it's, uh, it's now going to I in my mind be a failed state. And if that actually happens, they'll come to see us again. Dana Lewis - Host : (03:38) You think it's going to crumble that the Afghan army will not hold that the Afghan government will not stick like glue. Not that it has anyway, but you, you feel pretty dire about how this is going to unfold. Once us forces and NATO forces and other contributing countries are out of there. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (04:02) I think that, you know, the United States and NATO are allies there, as well as all the other countries that have participated over the last 20 years have been the backbone for Afghanistan. It is still a country that does not, it's not used to having a centralized government. It's a tribal country. Uh, the economy is still after literally trillions of years. It is not unified. And, uh, and there's a level of corruption there that is just incredibly difficult for most Westerners to understand the answer is, yes, I do believe that that, uh, there'll be a civil war. It may not be tomorrow or the next year or two years from now, before the country begins, uh, in a sense to crumble, as you said, but I believe within five years time, we will find ourselves with a completely failed state and a safe Haven. Again, for those that want to attack us Dana Lewis - Host : (04:55) Truly tragic. I mean, I'm kind of jumping ahead in the book a little bit, but I know you refer to some of these little school girls who were sprayed with acid, uh, when you were in command they're in and they, that took place in Kandahar. I think some of them blinded, some of them couldn't go back to school. And that was the intention of the attackers. Uh, I just said it kind of breaks my heart, that, I mean, along with the fight, American soldiers really struggled in those patrols that we were on to go into towns and villages and open schools and open roads and try to get healthcare clinics rolling. And part of that, the good news where kids flying kites, excuse my romanticism, but kids flying kites, which were abandoned of the Taliban kids being allowed to go to school, girls being educated, starting to take a part in that society and all of that now, potentially rules-based Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (05:53) I, uh, I am deeply concerned about the human rights that I think we were going to see over the next several years. And you're absolutely right. Dana, you know, when, when we first went to that country, very few children actually went to school. It's less than a million as we left it. It's more, uh, I think it's four times that now with, uh, more than half of them being women, uh, or females that potentially is all going to be lost. And, uh, you know, I had the last photo of that book. Uh, I specifically chose to be the last photo and it's a young soldier, uh, from C JTF one Oh one, one of our, uh, Al uh, one of our, um, assigned troops. But anyway, he is actually giving some food to some young children and they're laughing and it was some stage. This was totally caught on camera, uh, in the middle of a combat zone. And it's all about the children. And, uh, I am deeply worried about the children of Afghanistan. Dana Lewis - Host : (06:48) You, you talk about, you know, the goals of the strategic plan for the war on terrorism and you know, something about that, because you wrote in the book that you were, you were a part of the group to publish the, the nation's first operational strategic plan for the war on terrorism, and that you actually briefed president Bush on the plan. W what was the goal? What was the headline? Well, first Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (07:14) Was obviously to, you know, secure Afghanistan, so it will never attack us again. The rest of the story though, was, is to actually do that in those days. What we thought would be necessary is that you had to secure not only against the enemy, but you or the insurgents or the terrorist, but you had to secure the people, make them feel like they could actually get up in the morning work, uh, for a decent wage and send their kids to school. And then also to link them to their, um, uh, their government. So really three broad goals, security, basically economic development that, uh, uh, led to jobs, uh, and then education and medical, uh, improvements. And then finally Lincoln, all that back to a government that the Afghans could trust. Dana Lewis - Host : (07:58) That didn't go well, that last part definitely. But look, you draw some interesting parallels with Vietnam as well. And your father, uh, he served in Vietnam, he served three tours in Vietnam, and he never, you said in the book, never forgave politicians for walking away. Do you forgive politicians walking away today? You mentioned that the generals will be ultimately blamed, so you better have big, big shoulders. And you also talked about the fact that, you know, they, they made the mistake of trying to hold everything rather than what was achievable in Vietnam. Did we just do the same in Afghanistan? Sorry. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (08:34) That's a great question, Dana. And I think it's going to be explored over the next couple of years, but I, I, I think that if you look into the horizon, that's what it looks like. You know, I mean, in a sense, the parallels between, uh, Afghanistan and Vietnam are, are really, uh, um, close. I mean, in some cases, you know, there was a government that was fairly corrupt, um, unclear how much, you know, it had been elected how much it was supported by the people. Uh, there was a very strong insurgent group that was, you know, Pat or pushing them. And then you had, you know, the United States and our, our allies. We forget that we fought with many allies in Vietnam and when we left and then finally two to three years later, two years later, when we dropped all basically budget support of financial support, it was no longer possible for that South Vietnamese government to basically survive. And essentially what I hope does not happen, but it could. And unfortunately, I'm, I'm almost predicting that it might over, you know, five years, time is the same thing in Afghanistan. Dana Lewis - Host : (09:34) You were told in deployment, you had to succeed in two theaters of operations. I've got to Stan and Pakistan. The letter was very gray. Was it not? I mean, there were, were there clear, you know, orders to go forward into Pakistan, or you kind of had to flirt along the border with Pakistan sometimes carry out a drone strike in hot pursuit. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (09:56) Absolutely. A gray area. You know, the guidance that we received was, was fairly clear from my boss at the time, uh, general McKiernan and yet most of the U S structure did not exist. Uh, you know, I, I make a point in marathon war that I went to Pakistan with the, you know, my staff several times. And, uh, over a period of time, we started with a terrible relationship. You know, they were basically supporting a insurgent attacks across our border, and we had a very bad relationship military to military with them. I think over 15 months, as I write about marathon war, I felt at the end of it, that we had made huge progress. Obviously, you know, it was not enough. Dana Lewis - Host : (10:35) And you blame the ISI, the Pakistani intelligence agency is playing a double game. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (10:40) I absolutely do not. In fact, I mean, I often think that many of the senior military officers that I dealt with from Pakistan actually didn't know the level that this ISI directorate was playing within their own country, as well as within Afghanistan. So I can't point my finger to them, but it's very clearly it had support at the very highest levels of pocket. Dana Lewis - Host : (10:58) Yeah. And you make an interesting point in there because we often kind of say, Pakistan does this, or Pakistan didn't do this, or Pakistan is playing a double game, but in fact, you made the case that it was pretty tough on the military, probably on the front lines of the border in Pakistan, because they weren't quite sure, you know, who had their back-end and who had a knife in their back. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (11:19) Absolutely. I mean, you know, I think it's easy for us in the West and America to forget that this was actually a frontier, you know, Winston Churchill. I mentioned in a marathon war that one of my favorite books was the mouse can field force by Winston Churchill, you know, Lieutenant Linstedt, Winston Churchill who served in that area back in those days, it was just this as much a frontier, uh, in the Northwestern portions of Pakistan then as it is today, basically. And so they did not have all control as far as the U S or the Pakistani military, for sure. It was a, uh, there was several double games being played in that area. I dare say it so same right now. Dana Lewis - Host : (11:56) I was, you know, in Afghanistan a dozen different times, and I always used to hear it. And it became cliche to some extent that, you know, the spring comes the bad guys come over the mountains from Pakistan, the Taliban, they carry out their attacks. Winter comes the number of attacks go down again, and they retreat back into the frontier lands of Pakistan. But I remember flying in a helicopter with you over Afghanistan. And you said, you know, what's not quite clear to me that it quite operates that way. It's more complex than that. They smuggle weapons through the winter. They stock weapons ready for the spring. Some of them melt back into the local populations. And that is probably a much more realistic take on what was happening. And then you talk a lot, a lot about what happened in and forgive me for the pronunciation. Whatnot. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (12:42) Yes. Yeah. So for an example, one day on a first of all, I, you know, I treasure those times flying there with you. I mean, that was actually, it was, if you recall, it's a stunningly beautiful day and, uh, what a great way to see it by helicopter, you know, Afghanistan is in a contrast beautiful. And yet, uh, in many ways, it's, it can be horribly difficult to be able to survive in that country. Well, I tell you, you know, I mean, when you go, let's go to whatnot for an example, you know, uh, I mean, there are several lessons learned still one of the most, uh, studied stories, uh, in the U S military, for sure. You know, the lessons that most of us learned there is, is that, uh, that whether it was the winter, whether it was the late spring and the snows and stuff like that, but the enemy gets a vote and the, and they can fight well as well. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (13:26) And then they can figure out ways to get around. Most of the things that we regard as military advantages in the West or in the U S army. And, uh, they did so in that fight, I mean, and, uh, you know, I, I, every day I'll wake up and think about those soldiers that were killed and those that were horribly wounded, uh, they fought with a great honor, uh, but the enemy fought fairly well too. And it was just a, uh, it's just an example of, uh, how good that that unit was that they actually the U S uh, and, uh, uh, in the, the Afghans and the, um, few Marines that were over there, that they actually, uh, were able to fight that back in and, and, uh, overall hold that day, Dana Lewis - Host : (14:06) What makes that battle different? And this is July, 2008, nine us soldiers die in an attack by roughly a hundred Taliban. There are a couple of dozen more, I think, about 20 more us soldiers wounded. And you write it is, it is, there are few battles as bloody and heroic. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (14:24) Yeah. So, well, I mean, for Afghanistan, you know, I think that the 20 years of drudgery going out and patrolling, coming on back, getting on a rocket attack, maybe somebody else being hurt, uh, via that way, that can just lead to this idea that, uh, there was no great hair wasn't him in Afghanistan. I, in fact, there were several battles. This was the one most notable, uh, where, you know, these soldiers fought and fought and fought against almost all odds and certainly against, uh, you know, they were definitely outnumbered. And, uh, that's what makes that one, I think a little bit special. I mean, there's no doubt about it that, uh, you know, the amount of wards metals and things that came out of that for heroism is absolutely incredible for the 20 years of Afghanistan that we've seen. Dana Lewis - Host : (15:07) This was well-planned. And that the enemy was probably well entrenched in that village and that the village worked with them and assisted them. Um, th this wasn't just the case of insurgents coming across the mouth. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (15:21) That's correct. Yeah. I mean, and that's where we got it wrong. I mean, there's no doubt that we made the wrong decisions about what we thought work was possible in that village. We actually thought we were going to insert fallen counter-insurgency, um, doctrine at the time, get right inside the villagers and, uh, and help them, uh, do those three things. I mean, help secure them, help link them to the government and, and then help, uh, you know, economically, gosh, did we get wrong? Um, you know, and that caused me to Dana to take a hard look at everything else we were doing for the remainder of the 12 months that we stayed there. And Afghanistan looked very most of what they jaded view, uh, into every village and every site that we had to just be, see, didn't make any sense for us to be there Dana Lewis - Host : (16:06) Vietnam. And maybe this was the bellwether attack where kind of that coin approach, where you go in, you spend some money, you help the locals, you try to win hearts and minds, and eventually they'll turn and push the Taliban out. I mean, increasingly that wasn't the first village that became like that. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (16:29) No, I mean, in fact, I mean, it's, as you said, it, maybe I in the bellwether, maybe on one of the first, but it happened several times thereafter over the, you know, the following really the following 10 years up until now. And, uh, I think, you know, sometimes we can be accused and in fact, I talk about it in the marathon more about, did we fight this war one year at a time? You know, in other words, a unit would come in and spend 12 to 15 months there and then shift out and then you'd have to relearn everything and including the relationships with the locals, which, you know, sometimes could be very unclear. Um, I still wonder about that. I, you know, I, when I left there and when I wrote the book, I did not think that was the case. I think we tried very hard to study and learn from our predecessors, but you know, the more I think about it and the more I, you know, look at some of the errors that we made in the war of this nature, that could still be one of the things that are out there. Dana Lewis - Host : (17:23) You spoke to the enemy, running rat lines. Can you tell me what were rat lines through that area and why didn't you stay because as a commander, uh, and I know you've been asked this before, but I'll ask you again. I mean, in the end you closed down that base and you withdrew didn't that send the wrong message. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (17:37) Yeah, well, yes, absolutely. And, you know, I think I mentioned in marathon war, it was a strategic decision at the time. I thought it was the right thing to do. But what I did do is I, obviously I gave a, a media plan of strategic media, went into the Taliban and, or to the, Dana Lewis - Host : (17:54) And you knew, you knew that they were going to fire that you knew that they were going to Trump at that. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (17:59) I absolutely did. And, uh, and I think that, you know, over time I made that was not the decision I should have made. I mean, uh, you know, I mean, I, I think over time that it makes sense to stay in that village. No, that it makes sense to try to help those villagers who had basically, uh, you know, they left, gave that village on over to the insurgents and only later did they re uh, come back, didn't make any sense to me to be able to try to work on the, you know, our counter-terrorism strategy or a counter-insurgency, because I didn't think it would win. But when you make a choice of that nature, when you make a strategic choice, you really have got away, you know, what are the options? And then think, you know, a year in the future, think about two years in the future. And I, and I think, you know, it's funny when I was at Harvard, uh, you know, I took a course called thinking in time, great book out there, by the way, I probably didn't learn the lesson of thinking in time. I should've thought two to three years later and thought about how that would impact our strategic stance inside of Afghanistan. Dana Lewis - Host : (18:59) You think it was a mistake to leave? Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (19:01) It was a mistake. Yeah. I made a mistake there and, you know, it's probably one, you know, just in life, Dana, you learn things and, uh, you know, for three or four years, you think you made the right choice. A decade later, when you look at it, sometimes you make some choices that are almost strategic in your life, and this one was strategic. And you know, that, you know, stands for the United States and our allies and ganas Stan. Dana Lewis - Host : (19:23) Well, Jeff, you know what I mean? You're right. It'll be debated for years. And there's probably 50% class of commanders that would say, get the hell out, because it wasn't defendable. And given limited resources, you should have left and you made the right decision. And maybe, maybe there would have been another nine soldiers killed in another attack there. And then there are those that will take that longer view and say, well, we don't want to be seen to be giving up ground, but, you know, I like your book because you speak. And I like you more after reading it because you speak about heroism, which we always hear about soldiers holding ground and charging the Hill. And, and, and, and I don't mean to in any way, uh, underestimate those great acts of Valor, but you also speak of character and how important character is as a leader. Dana Lewis - Host : (20:09) And I think for any leader, this is a great book to read. Just, you know, whether you're a soldier or you're just any kind of a leader, even in corporate business about character. Um, but in the end, I didn't realize until I got to the end of your book, and it made me a bit sad today that you decided to leave the army, uh, over that attack at the end, because others were held responsible and you felt in the end, you were at the top of the chain of command and you should bear ultimate responsibility for what happened there. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (20:39) Yeah. I mean, I guess I'm glad you brought that up. I mean, you know, um, you know, one I met when I left and even went today, I wake up in the morning and I missed being a soldier and I missed, you know, leading soldiers. And I think I say in marathon more there that, uh, it was, you know, the remorse, most rewarding part of my entire professional career. I definitely felt though that as when I came back from Afghanistan and found out that, uh, you know, three subordinate commanders who were actually one of them was awarded a silver star for heroism that day, the company commander, but they were being held for dereliction of duty. And I felt that that was absolutely wrong. And, uh, I am a big believer in taking total responsibility, especially as a commander in combat, uh, for everything that happens below me, whether it's good, bad, or whatever, uh, you know, the good, I try to help, uh, make people feel good about themselves, push that to them, but the bad has to come to the commander. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (21:36) And I, I made that point so well different times to, uh, my, the senior leaders in the United States army, uh, as well as in, uh, at, uh, central command, uh, at the end of the day, I felt like as that pursued on, I had to actually make a statement. And the only way to really do that is, was to, was to choose to retire. And, uh, I still do not regret that decision at all. I do believe at the end of the day, that the most important part of being a leader is actually character. And, uh, and I felt I had to show some, uh, by doing that Dana Lewis - Host : (22:08) Well, you showed a lot. And, uh, I think it's important to know that you were cleared by those investigations and you would have probably gone on to be promoted and maybe be commanding in Europe, us forces. So, um, you didn't, you didn't talk character, you, you, you backed it up and showed it with, with ultimate decisions, but I wanted to ask you about general McKiernan who lost support of Washington and was replaced at one point. Do you think that it was fair that General's, again, we come back to this, the generals were blamed for the fight when there were, you know, they were constantly saying they were under-resourced and underfunded. Um, and then I'll, I'll ask you about that because a lot of people will debate that. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (22:50) Yeah. Well, so what I will say is that in my belief, and is, is that, you know, generals will be held responsible when almost every, uh, war or every kind of, um, incident like war even less for conflict and for, right. So rightly so this is our profession. And, uh, these are things that, uh, that we spend years and years, uh, learning about. We must though, you, you must always understand. I, I think that, you know, at, at very high levels, uh, it is politicians, uh, and our Congress that decides whether you're going to actually support a, a, uh, endeavor of this nature, whether it's war or whether it's a minor conflict and stuff like that. And so we go hand in hand and, uh, um, should generals be blind? Absolutely. Do I take responsibility for my portion? Absolutely. I sure do. Um, but just, as we see now, this is a political decision for us withdraw our troops. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (23:46) Um, and at the time when we serve, there was a political decision to under fund as far as resources, Afghanistan, so that the Iraq and the Iraqi surge could be supported. You know, it was my responsibility to call that out. And eventually I had to do it publicly. If you recall. I mean, I, I told you what I was saying as we would fly, you know, that, that I was going public as far as a need for more resources. And, uh, um, that takes also a little bit of character. It takes a little bit of moral court courage, which I talk about America marathon warts. It was not always popular to ask for more, uh, when your area is not regarded as the number one priority, Dana Lewis - Host : (24:27) The briefing, you just were talking to reporters. I mean, you were briefing a young Senator named Barack Obama, and then you were also briefing the president at the time, president Bush. And you write about that in the book, but, you know, in the end when you read, I, I went back and read it because sometimes Iraq and Afghanistan kind of melds together on some of these numbers, but 800 billion in us spent in Afghanistan at one point more than a hundred thousand troops deployed, is that really under-resourced Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (24:56) At the time when we were there, there weren't that many troops. And, uh, I will say that, and nor were the financial resources there over time, we did put that in, and then I think it's, it's it's right for American people and people that are interested in national security to say, well, at what point was that enough enough? Um, and, uh, I think somewhere along the line, there, there must have been enough troops. I think the biggest issue for that is if you look back in time is, is that we, we chose to make a different choice within about two years time. And we started to withdraw troops to a fairly significant level. We still continue to support, but financially for a very long time Afghanistan. And there's literally been now trillions put into Afghanistan. I think it's a really great question to sit there and look and say, when is enough enough in a conflict like this, where it's not our number one, uh, nation's priority, especially now. Uh, and yet it's still as important. It's a national security interest, you know, and, and what do you need, uh, to, Dana Lewis - Host : (25:56) And do you need to be at war and do you need to withdraw? And are those the two, the only choices that you have in your spectrum because general Patraeus, for instance, will tell you that, uh, you know, any place you leave a gap or a vacuum right now in the war of terror, it will be field filled by extremism, uh, and you will dangerously harvest the result of that down the road. So we keep troops in North Africa, we keep special forces all over the world. Why wouldn't we keep a minimal force in Afghanistan? There's only 2,500 soldiers there right now. So it's not like this big force contingent, nothing like what you commanded at the time, why wouldn't we keep 2,500 soldiers on the ground training, Afghan forces forward air controllers, you know, helping them at some point, carry out airstrikes if they have to defend the government. Well, I think that, that, Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (26:44) You know, a lot of people are asking that question right now, especially those that, uh, you know, have worked or been in Afghanistan and report in Afghanistan. I think you're absolutely right. I mean, look, uh, you know, for national security interest, we still have troops in Germany and Japan and Korea, uh, and in places that love much lesser truths, but in places that are still important to us, JTF Bravos in Honduras, how many Americans know that we have a couple thousand troops down there and have had for decades, we do this around the world when our national interests are actually considered important in that area of the world. I, you know, I, I would also say Danny, you know, people ought to take a hard look at Afghanistan and try to find it on a map. You know, uh, if, if China's a priority to us, what country do we have troops in right now that actually butts up to China on a land bank? It's Afghanistan, you know, I mean, uh, what country is located in between Iran, which is a national security priority for us. And then of course, you know, our pending or, uh, coming allies in India and a nuclear powered States like Afghanistan or Pakistan and India, it's Afghanistan, you know, I mean, uh, it is, it is a strategically important place and, uh, much less the counter-terrorism issues Dana Lewis - Host : (28:00) In the Iraq draw a parallel with Iraq because we left Iraq and then suddenly ISIS moved in, took over the North, took over Mosul where you were based earlier in your career in Iraq, established the caliphate. Um, and in the end, us forces are back and NATO forces had to go back in there and the, the, the British, the French bombing missions. And, uh, I mean, this may be very short term, this bringing American troops home from Afghanistan, Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (28:29) We'll see, you know, I mean, racks one example of what happens, you know, the attack on the second largest city. Mozel one that we know and it's, that is, you know, thousands and thousands of years old, um, or is the example. And we chose to come back in because of the nature of that, or could it be like Vietnam, where we just, you know, we, we basically shake our hands and said, uh, at the end of Vietnam, we said, okay, we're done. And, uh, you know, and two years later it was absolutely, uh, you know, it was invaded by a North Vietnamese, uh, conventional divisions. I don't know which parallel to fall. I don't know which example is going to happen. I do know though it's going to be important for America, Dana Lewis - Host : (29:07) Jeff, last word to you in Afghanistan. And you're in your book. I mean, I've, I've tried to lead you through it a little bit and, uh, it's, it's a good read. And, and I think you begin to understand, uh, as a reader, that conflict and how tricky it was. And I was moved by a lot of the moments in there such as ramp ceremonies, where your book is peppered with these, these moments where American soldiers, uh, are loaded, who have been killed in battle, or are honored at a ramp ceremony on an aircraft before flowing home with the American and with soldiers who served along with them, by the way, we were not allowed to cover those ramps ceremonies under the Bush administration, because they didn't want us to show American losses. And in the end, I think we showed a Canadian ramp ceremony because we, we had to talk about losses, but, um, you know, there was always this PR effort that was going on, uh, you know, are we winning? Are we losing and over-simplistic views on, on how the Afghan war was, was being fought in what was victory? And I think in the end, you know, it was going to be a 20 year counterinsurgency fight. And a lot of people knew that certainly in the military, I don't know if the politicians ever did, but last word to you. Sorry. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (30:22) You know, it's funny about the ramp ceremony is, is that those were some of the most memorable times in my life. And yet the most challenging to get through. I mean, we lost 180 soldiers and Marines, sailors and airmen. And while we were there, including also some civilians from our intelligence agencies and, uh, almost each and every day or night, we would have a ramp ceremony, uh, for those, uh, to honor them. And people would come out from all over with, most of them were at bogger Merrifield. They would come out and, uh, whether it was two o'clock in the morning, they'd lined the streets as a Humvee with a cough and would go by to take it to the ceremony itself. And, um, you know, war is not a bloodless effort, or if it's important enough for people to put their true national treasure on it, you're going to have some losses, but you have to honor the people that served there just like right now, as we, um, as we get ready to leave Afghanistan, let's not, uh, you know, leave all those people that actually gave their, uh, their time, their selfless service. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (31:22) In some cases, they gave the last full measure of their life. Let's not forget them. Dana Lewis - Host : (31:27) And there was not another attack on America while U S forces were on the ground. There, Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (31:32) There's not, there's about them. Just Dana Lewis - Host : (31:34) Flow, serve, retired major general commended, the a hundred and first airborne read the book, marathon war, and Jeff, thank you so much for your time. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (31:42) And then thanks for the time this morning. Dana Lewis - Host : (31:44) That's our backstory on Afghanistan. What a complex puzzle American commanders faced fighting and surgeons and corruption in the Afghan government and challenges of a drug trade linked to terrorist networks Dana Lewis - Host : (31:57) That hit and then ran Dana Lewis - Host : (31:58) And struck again, killing civilians and soldiers with no regard for lives lost. The Taliban carried out those attacks and Dana Lewis - Host : (32:06) Dana Lewis - Host : (32:06) alqaeda and ISIS t Dana Lewis - Host : (32:09) Were Lords all bide for power, but we're reluctant to disarm and work together in United Afghan government, stirring, Iran and Pakistan and others. And it's no wonder the war lasted 20 years. And as us and allied Western countries pull out the wheel, won't stop. The Taliban will try to dominate and rule the country as the Mujahideen did after the Russians left Afghanistan in 1989, chaos followed the Russian pull-up and I wish I was wrong, but it's sure to follow this American one, too. Thanks for listening to backstory. I'm Dana Lewis and I'll talk to you again soon. 

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#hatelab @mattlwilliams @toddmei @BackStorywithDanaLewispodcast hatecrime stopasianhate atlanta colorado

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Back Story with Dana Lewis on the Science of Hate Link: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1016881/8209054

Matt Williams: (00:00) Constantly asked the question. Is it more hateful now than ever before? Um, obviously it's a very difficult question to answer because you, you need to be able to measure these things. And it's actually quite hard to measure. In fact, uh, most countries across the planet, pretty bad measuring hate the UK is exceptional at it. Um, which makes us look terribly hateful on paper, but ultimately it's important, right? When you go in and start trying to break down where the hell does it come from? Absolutely. So, you know, we've got a hate crime rates, 10 times out of the U S Dana Lewis - Host : (00:33) Hi everyone. And welcome to backstory. I'm Dana Lewis, inland hate crimes are at record levels at scenes Asians attack, black Americans, victimized women. What on earth motivates someone to lash out at a person or their property in a school, on the street in the workplace, just because they have different skin color or a different accent or come from a different part of the country or the world is hatred hardwired into our brains, or is it learned? Prejudice is certainly instinctive dating back thousands of years. Why does the internet foster and spread hate? Did an American president help set the conditions for division and hatred? The FBI said in 2019 hate crimes in the United States Rose to their highest level among large American cities, New York city had the largest increase in reported hate crimes against Asians. Last year, according to the analysis of police data by the center of the California state university, San Bernardino, there were 28 such incidents in 2020, up from three in 2019, according to New York police department data on this backstory, we talked to the author of the science of hate and talk through the tipping point at the intersection of prejudice and hate traversing the globe and reaching back through time and a modern philosophers guide to understanding our prejudices and balancing our brain to steer away from hating anyone. Dana Lewis - Host : (02:08) Public discourse needs a recalibration. Dana Lewis - Host : (02:17) All right, professor Matt Williams has just written a book called the science of hate and he joins me now from, I believe you're in Cardiff Wales. Nice to meet you. I mean, let, let me give you a little better introduction. Um, because you're a professor of criminology at Cardiff university, you've conducted, you know, a lifetime of research on crime and speech, uh, the ethics of artificial intelligence and cyber crime. You've advised, uh, research on the, the UK home office, the ministry of justice, uh, Commonwealth and development office, the us department of justice and Google among others. And you also something called the hate lab, which I want to talk to you about a multi-million pound global hub for data and insight to monitor encounter online, hate speech and crime. And you've conducted the largest dedicated study of hate victimization in the UK. So how does it feel first of all, to be one of the foremost experts on hatred? I mean, it's, it's a pretty dark, Matt Williams: (03:21) It does. I feel exhausted after that long. I really done all that. Yes. Um, so thank you for that, that, that the introduction, um, that, that red light, my CV right there. Dana Lewis - Host : (03:34) Well, it's, it's important because it wasn't just some book that you decided to ride. I mean, this you've spent a career in this and you've probably decided, you know, I should put it together in between, uh, you know, I put some pages together and put it together in a book, but it's, it's important that it wasn't, uh, you know, you didn't write something about dogs and cats and then went on to the science of hatred. This has been a life's work. Right. So it's really worth listening to you. Matt Williams: (03:59) It has, yes. I mean, it, it it's been about 20 years, so at least, you know, hopefully a quarter of a lifetime. Um, and it's, it's been a lot of intensive sort of scientific, uh, sort of discoveries of my own work, but also reviewing other people's work. And it, I guess it stems from my victimization, um, as a young man who just finished his degree in sociology back in the late 1990s and to celebrate the, the, the, the end of the degree, I, I kind of went to London, celebrate, we pair up with friends, I should say. And, um, we were stepping out of a bar, um, and I was jumped by three young men. Um, I fell to the floor. I had a split lip. Um, wasn't entirely sure why that happened at the time, but as they were moving away from me, uh, one of them SPASS out a homophobic slip, and it became very clear to me then the bed Toms me because of the bar I was in, which was actually a gay bar. And I was a victim of a hate crime in that, in that very moment. First time it ever happened to me, I'd never had any kind of experience on that before up to that point. And it really stuck with me. I was going to become a journalist at that point. I was going to go on to do a master's in journalism. Um, Dana Lewis - Host : (05:12) So there's something positive in, in everything. And even if it was a terrible assault, at least you, you chose a wiser fee. Matt Williams: (05:18) Maybe it, maybe you could tell me, uh, but ultimately, you know, the, the nagging feeling I had in my mind, why did these three men target me in this way? What was it? Would they hate something about me? You know, was it, was it, was it my homosexuality that they, they hated so much that they felt like they had to seek me out, you know, and attack me. It was opportunity because, you know, you could tell that they had targeted that Bob, because then you can kinds of fantastic. Um, and ultimately that just kind of preoccupied my mind, it's such a long time. So how did you, how did you learn not to hate because out of that, one would think you were, you would have been gone from being a victim, to somebody being pretty angry yourself. That's a really good point. Uh, and it's some, sometimes the reactions you hate is, is the same attitude, emotion directed back at the perpetrator. Matt Williams: (06:11) Uh, we see that happen all the time we see with ISIS attack is terror attacks in the UK. We ended up, we ended up seeing lots of spikes in hate around the country because, uh, the individuals that feel targeted by the attack, it it's hackle, Western, Western ideals, et cetera, by ISIS. Um, is it direct, tack on their identity? And in turn, they go into the streets and attack people who look like the perpetrators, they got at the same kind of skin, they're possibly the same kind of dress. And they're taking their frustrations out on people who they think are like the attackers. So there's this part of weird cyclical process where hate, can breed more hate than it's kind of a cyclical. They call it a cyclical radicalization process sometimes. And you're seeing it now as far right. Attacks on mosques, for example, uh, but other kinds of attacks by the far right. Even down to the individual level, but I personally didn't hate, but I was angry. I was upset. Um, it was really destabilizing. I was anxious for a time. Sometimes I think the anxiety has never left me. I think I may have had a, of sort of PTSD like symptoms maybe, um, stemming from it. And it really did mess with my head for quite some time, so much so that I abandoned, wanted to become a journalist and then decided, Dana Lewis - Host : (07:29) So you've written this pretty incredible a book that I've spent the last couple of days, reading about learning, not to hate and how to fight hatred. So I thought maybe we could change the title of your book, but obviously I'm a journalist. I'm not very good at marketing. So I probably wouldn't sell as well. The question is, is hate hardwired or is it learned? And it, it seems to me, it's a bit of both. I would have said, it's just learned, but after flipping through your book, I mean, there are some chemical reactions. We have that hardwire to some extent prejudice, uh, which then can, if you fuel it, the wrong way becomes hatred. Matt Williams: (08:12) Yeah. Well, put it this way. When, when I was trying to figure out the difference between me as a victim and my perpetrators, I wanted there to be something concrete that explained the difference between me and them. Um, it w it would be what would've been comforting to me to have known that somehow there was something in their wiring that was fundamentally, uh, alien to me in some way. Uh, but what I found on that journey that trends are your journey of figuring out the science behind it all is in fact, there's, we have more in common than what separates us, you know, and what we have in common actually includes our, our biological wiring and our neurological wiring. So you're, you're correct in stating that there are elements to our biology and our neuro, uh, chemistry that, that prepare us to hate, but we aren't born hating. Matt Williams: (09:02) We do learn, Hey, we have to learn to hate, but when we're born, where were we born with the pizza base, if you like, and that pizza base essentially includes a predisposition to like people like ourselves, what that like ourselves is depends. It can be white and black can be straight or gay. It can be male or female, but it can also be fans of a certain kind of TV program goes as another, or it can be fans of a certain kind of pop star versus another, that grouping is arbitrary. And it entirely depends on the context, but whatever that group, it might be, be it race, sexual orientation, gender, or anything, uh, actually quite frivolous. We have a predisposition to liking people in, in those groups that we occupy it's called the, uh, the minimal group paradigm. It was designed by a psychologist called Henry Townsville. And ultimately you can be arbitrarily put into a group that's completely meaningless and still favor that group in terms of splitting resources between two Dana Lewis - Host : (10:04) It's, how you navigate safety. There's some situation, a very crude way of what journalists refer to a situational awareness, which has been passed onto us from security people that surround us, um, learning to see maybe a threat coming. Um, but it doesn't mean you hate no it's so that's, we got on the road until it poses a threat. Matt Williams: (10:30) So it's an evolved mechanism. You're right. It's an evolved mechanism. There's one reason why out of, out of, out of, so, out of how many species that were on the planet at any one point in time where the only human species, uh, in existence, right? So there are lots of species that didn't make it. Um, we made it and that's because we are expert threatened detectors. We, as homosapiens are threatened detecting machines, um, we needed that threat detection mechanism to survive. And that fact detection mechanism works best in groups. Groups allow you to cooperate, and they allow you to know who to trust. And when you are faced by a threat, that group bonding ensures that you don't get people fleeing and running away to save their own lives. They actually stay to fight for the group. So ultimately this sort of preference for the in-group is an innate characteristic, but it doesn't necessarily then mean that everybody who has this, which is everybody is hateful. We do have the capacity to hate. We all have the internal wiring, the pizza base, as I described the capacity to hate, but for it to get towards hatred, you need to add all those toppings on. And all those toppings come from media, parents, socialization, experiencing loss in life, uh, accelerating events like terror attacks all the way through to AI and the internet. And I call those in the book, the accelerants. Dana Lewis - Host : (11:57) And there's a lot, I mean, there's a lot in your book that, unfortunately, we're not going to have time to go into about the internet, but it's one of the, one of the reasons I wanted to interview with you because do an interview with you because it is driving so much of what sticking place. So here's one of the paragraphs in your book at the beginning, I think the current rate of the breakdown in social relations across the world is arresting. It is no coincidence that the storing hate crime figures are found in countries where the extreme right is rising. The trend is fueled by the internet revolution and its corruption by mass individuals, the far right and state actors, which is important because in your book, you talked about the fact that there are millions of tweets driven by Matt Williams: (12:42) States right now. Absolutely. And this is, this is the, the uniqueness of the situation, which we face. I'm constantly asked the question. Is it more hateful now than ever before? Um, obviously it's very difficult question to answer because you, you need to be able to measure these things. And it's actually quite hard to measure heat. In fact, um, most countries across the planet are pretty bad. Measuring hate. The UK is exceptional assets, um, which makes us look terribly hateful on paper, but ultimately we just Dana Lewis - Host : (13:12) It's important, right? When you go in and start trying to break down where the hell does it come from? Matt Williams: (13:16) Absolutely. So, you know, we've got a hate crime rate, 10 times out of the U S which is hard to believe given the differences in populations and the nature of division in those countries. Um, ultimately yes, accounting is, is, is, is a fool's errand in some ways, because you're never going to capture the true amount of hate. Why is that? Dana Lewis - Host : (13:34) I mean, I, and I understand the hate lab takes a look at a lot of this traffic on the, on the digital space, but why is the UK 10 times what the us is? I didn't, I didn't realize that Matt Williams: (13:44) Primarily because, uh, we've had a lot of legislation come in and since around 1998, um, which specifically recognizes certain forms of hate crime against, uh, uh, uh, for race, for sexual orientation, for disabilities, uh, transgender identity and so on. Um, what that's allowed us to do is record it, um, from relatively early on compared to some other countries. But the definition of it is particularly interesting. It's called a victim-centered definition, which means if a victim or a witness fields they've been targeted because of their identity, then ultimately it must be recorded as such, you know, the police can't come in and say, well, I don't think this is a hate crime because it's not up to them. Now that creates an interesting dilemma because let's say, say, uh, last year we had 106,000 hate crimes recorded in the UK compared to the U S is 7,300, which sounds crazy. Um, but over the 1,106,000, only around about 10% of those got to the crown prosecution service and got taken through to the courts. And only around 78% of those eventually got prosecuted for hate crime. So we've got like 5% of that, 106,000 actually get successfully prosecuted. And that's partly because we allow victims to say, they feel they've been attacked by hate boy when it comes to the evidence very often it might be lacking. So they may not be a verifiable evidence that, that, Dana Lewis - Host : (15:17) And in fact, most countries don't even have, they don't even defy defined crimes as hate crimes. They don't even attempt that legislation, right? Matt Williams: (15:25) Oh, Japan doesn't even bother, you know, so interestingly Japan thinks it's a relatively homogenous, uh, ethnically homogenous country, but it's not, it's actually quite diverse. And because of this, this, this strange insistence by, by their government, that it's a, it's a very relatively harmonious on the margin there's culture that they don't need hate crime legislation, um, which is a peculiar position to actually take. But ultimately, yeah, I mean, most countries do something, uh, but there's a lot left over that actually don't record a hate crime at all. Um, Dana Lewis - Host : (16:00) Record hate crime in terms of, I think it's important to record it because then you're able to deal with it. You're able to track it. You're able to understand the phenomenon that's taking place in your society, but is it important to prosecute it as hate crime? Matt Williams: (16:16) I think so. I mean, I mean, legislation, when it's introduced, it does more than just kind of the practical legal stuff. It, it communicates to your population that the state standards are this kind of behavior. It's a communication tool as well as a practical tool. So when a hate crime law comes into power, I mean, we've got the, we've got as agenda means being discussed in parliament currently. Um, and there's a reason to follow that. Um, ultimately what it's communicating though to women is that we will not tolerate this kind of behavior anymore as a state. And we recognized the finishes problem of, uh, sort of anti anti women rhetoric, uh, sexism, et cetera, as it permeates through society. So ultimately it's a communication tool as well as something that might actually be useful in a court of law. Now, if we do end up legislating for gender based hate crime, my suspicion is we won't have that many cases before the courts with our son, but we won't have that many because I dare say the, the, the bar that they'll introduce will be quite high as it is for most hate crimes, actually. Matt Williams: (17:27) And so what you're left wondering, well, what's the point in doing this? And very often it is, it is this communication device. It's going to say we won't stand for this anymore and we will actually legislate against it. But when it comes to, you know, does it have teeth, most take college station, doesn't have teeth. And, and only in the extreme cases of the acts of mass murder and terrorism, do we, do we see, uh, the hate crime legislation being used was full of fat. So in the U S for example, um, the big difference in numbers is mainly because the police don't record it as well. In certain States, they don't return their, their, their statistics to the FBI when they're asked to, um, and ultimately people don't report their cases to the police. We don't perceive maybe that they'd been a victim of fate, or they think it's a lost cause what's the point in reporting it because the police were a racist organization. Anyway, I'm just going to get secondary victimization. If I go to the cops and say, I've just been attacked because of the color of my skin. So there's other reasons behind why those numbers are lower and they do exist for the UK too. But the main reason is that the victim centered definition, Dana Lewis - Host : (18:30) I've been scrolling through my notes from your book. And I can't find what I wanted to find, but tell me if I got the wrong impression that even when you define it, even when you call it out, um, sometimes you will see more of it, not less of it Matt Williams: (18:46) In terms of reporting, or do you mean in terms of, uh, just, uh, me and you seeing something on the streets, and I'm saying something about it Dana Lewis - Host : (18:53) In terms of reporting it, I guess, and trying to fight it online as well. Matt Williams: (18:57) So, I mean, obviously if you, if you have a recording mechanisms in place, you're going to see more in the statistics. Ultimately there's, there's three ways in which this happens either you have an increased amount of perpetration, and sometimes if you legislate against a certain kind of activity that can actually frustrate people who have prejudices. So if you legislate against, uh, gender-based hate crime, you may find those with extreme attitudes towards women actually perpetrating more hate crimes. Dana Lewis - Host : (19:30) Those of us with a tolerant mindset can become more liberal when challenged by hate speech. And those of us within tolerant mindset can become more conservative when challenged by counter hate speech. Matt Williams: (19:43) Yes, yes. So ultimately it kind of builds on what I was just saying there. And ultimately what that essentially means is that when we call that out online, or we call it out on the street or in the pub, for example, wherever it may be, individuals can react in a relatively negative way. They, they're not going to change their minds immediately, unless they're, unless they're kind of escalating towards a more extreme position, when you might call them, you might call those individuals, you know, they haven't made up their mind yet whether or not to go down the dark path of, of the far right. And, and so they're vulnerable to intervention, but if you get somebody who's pretty entrenched in their beliefs, um, and you know, to be, to speak about this kind of stuff in public and online, potentially you have to be pretty much on that sort of way towards radicalization to some extent then, because you've invested so much in that belief. Matt Williams: (20:36) And because your in group now consists of a lot of people that share those same thoughts to have that challenge is actually quite destabilizing. So your first to that is defend my position, defend my moral standpoint, my viewpoint defend my fellow, my fellow in group, in a sense. So that initial kind of kind of speech can actually generate more hate speech as they tried to defend their position, but over time, and, and it being used potentially in ways that might undermine that, that process. For example, if it's, if it appears to be one of their own saying it to them, it can start to make them question their beliefs. So if they're white male, um, if another white male challenges them, that that can have a greater effect than if it's a black female challenging them, for example. So if so, if it's someone from their in-group telling them they're wrong, then they, they do tend to think twice. Matt Williams: (21:31) And this is, this is a really interesting finding in, in terms of terrorism. Uh, the best way to talk down a terrorist is not to get the, the negotiator from, from the local police service or whatever it might be to talking to donors to get one of their own, to talk them down. So it's to get somebody who is like them, who has maybe being a terrorist in the past to actually come onto the scene to try and talk them down. If you're in that situation, that's the only way really that's the only effective way you can kind of talk someone out of that position. Dana Lewis - Host : (22:00) That's complicated. Isn't it? When, when you, when you start getting into the white supremacy online, or, you know, trying to get people out of Q Anon, um, complicated analysis found according to your book that the 2016 election of Donald Trump was associated with one of the greatest increases in hate crimes in recent American history. Why is that because of his comments, like the China flu and, you know, white supremacist rallies saying they're all good people, and is it because of his rhetoric or, or was he feeding off something else that was larger than himself? Even? Matt Williams: (22:37) So the interesting thing about, about when Trump came to the presidency in 2016, during his presidency on average, Americans became more tolerant of immigrants, believe it or not. So if you were to measure across the whole of the state and were random sample, the findings suggested an increased, increased level of tolerance. So what we're talking about here is a particular pockets of Americans that are, I would call this activated by Trump's. So these are individuals who have prejudices already, um, and Trump allows them to release their prejudices for periods of time. He is saying, it's okay to feel how you feel. You may be frustrated because you've lost a job. You may be frustrated because you've lost your home. You maybe it's a straight too, because at the same time that happens, lots of immigrants have come into your town and cities, they have jobs and homes. Matt Williams: (23:30) You feel somehow that they are to blame, and I'm not telling you you're allowed to feel like that I'm the most powerful man in the world. So as soon as that toxic mix comes together, certain individuals feel like they can start releasing those frustrations to hate speech and potentially attacks on the ground. So the, the evidence suggests and there's, most of this research has been done by economists. So they, they, they, they actually control for a dizzying array of variables we're looking at, and they try to, they try to, they're trying to find reasons to explain it other than Trump, before going direct, but trying to prove the Trump was, was the blame. And so they try to try to disprove the hypothesis, you know, with, with all these various measures. But what they found in the final model was that they couldn't rule out the role of Trump and his ascendance, the white house, and to make it even more convincing, they actually tied, you know, almost week by week, every time he mentioned something anti-Muslim or anti Hispanic, there was a corresponding increase in hate crimes on the ground. Matt Williams: (24:34) And they introduced this really interesting, uh, control instrument, uh, which was, you know, when did he go golfing? Because when he's golfing, he doesn't tweet that often. So ultimately what they're saying is every time he goes golfing, actually we we've, we ended up finding the hate crimes actually going down. Uh, and so it was an interesting moving, but ultimately, yeah, I mean, we, we've also found the same with Brexit, um, and the effect that had to be UK, um, and it clearly had the determining role. It wasn't just more people reporting it. Wasn't just people, uh, are the police recording it better? There were people, the more people on the streets perpetrating, how do you feel about COVID Dana Lewis - Host : (25:14) Walk down and now time spent online feeding into, you know, this explosion of hatred online, because people are just getting drawn down these little rabbit holes and spending a heck of a lot more time. Matt Williams: (25:29) Absolutely. Well, as a criminologist, this was like some great global experiment for us in some ways, because in no, that period in history, have we had the opportunity to study a social phenomenon like crime and lock everyone in their homes for three months to see what happens. You know, it was actually an interesting opportunity for science acknowledging the horror of COVID and the deaths that have occurred across the planet, obviously. Um, but at the same time, it, it, it, it, we turned our attention to what other effects it was having beyond illness. Um, we did see crimes on the streets go down quite a bit. So burglary theft, the kinds of crimes you'd expect to go down, went down, people weren't coming into contact with offenders or their property. Wasn't coming into contact with offenders and people weren't leaving their home. So they will no homes to verbal, but conversely, we saw this great crime displacement. So instead of the great crime drop that we expected crime was displaced online. So instead of, uh, burglaries and thefts, we saw a massive hike in frauds, but also a significant increase in online hate speech. Dana Lewis - Host : (26:39) And what about now, suddenly people are coming out more, are you worried that that displacement, um, was, was kind of, you know, like the boiling pot that, that somebody tried to keep the lid on and suddenly now in Atlanta, you know, we see eight people shot in, in these massage parlors in less than a week later in Boulder, Colorado, um, the shooting in the supermarket of 10 people. And it seems like it's suddenly has exploded this violence certainly in America. Matt Williams: (27:11) Well, those two examples, obviously they, they, they may have happened anyway, but, um, we did see it the end of the first lockdown on the UK, an incredibly large spike in race, hate crimes on the streets. So it looks, if you look at the graph, it actually looks like a lockdown ends. And then we get a massive, significant spike in racing on the streets. Now it's hard to say if that was frustrations, we also have black lives matter. Don't forget, uh, during the end of lockdown, the first lockdown in the UK, which could have, uh, influenced that spike. But ultimately it does, there is a story to tell there potentially about frustrations that were, uh, being, being vented online and mental health yeah. And mental health. And then, and then it expanding onto the streets. So for example, we, we found a 650% increase in anti-Chinese, uh, tweets, uh, after Trump first used the term, the Chinese virus back last March, um, astonishing rise. I mean, some of the things we're saying were truly horrific. Dana Lewis - Host : (28:17) I mean, the assaults that have taken place on the streets. Matt Williams: (28:21) Absolutely. So it seems like what's been happening online, uh, during lockdown is now manifesting on the streets. And, you know, ultimately I hate crimes occur because of a perception of threat. Usually, as we talked about earlier on, so ultimately there are two kinds of threats. You've got your realistic threat, which is the economic fat potentially, and then symbolic threat, which is a threat to culture and identity. Um, COVID-19 like other kinds of threats as a health threat, but ultimately it's a health threat, uh, which has been weaponized and racialized by people like Donald Trump. Um, combining those two things together, results in this overall sense of anxiety and fear by some people on the only way they can vent dime-sized interference by targeting in this case, Chinese people. Dana Lewis - Host : (29:10) I want to talk to you about just before I let you go. Some of the solutions that you talk about in the book, because I mean, while you do lead us through a lot of dark corners of hatred, there are, you know, there is some light at the end where you talk about possible solutions, but the biggest problem thirsting for the largest solution, again comes back to digital media right now. And I'm struck by some of the studies that you present in there, some of the numbers, um, it it's, it's depressing how prevalent hate is, um, and how difficult with these bots that, you know, give us our echo chambers of, of what they think we might want to hear to engage us more, uh, for longer periods of time in the end, you know, PR dish out more hate and more hate. And, uh, th that's it's, it doesn't seem like there's a heck of a lot of good news right now about what's happening by the big tech companies to try and reign this in. Matt Williams: (30:13) I mean, Facebook tells us they removed 81 million, uh, hateful tweets last year, um, mostly by automated automated methods and moderation. Um, that, that is almost 10 times what they were moving four years ago. Um, so they use that probably a fraction of what's on there Dana Lewis - Host : (30:32) To the point that as you even note in the book members of Facebook that were assigned to curate some of this bad material, I mean, had to be treated for PTSD and in the ensuite Facebook and had an out of court settlement. I mean, it's that it's that it's a toilet. It is that bad. What people have to even professionals engaged in trying to monitor that and curate the nasty stuff off them. Matt Williams: (30:56) So I think, I think Facebook's kind of transparency reports and the other companies do this too, or an attempt to disarm the problem in a way and indicate to us that they're doing something, but they're not doing enough. As you said on Facebook, this will be over a billion posts every day, Twitter there's over 500 million tweets a day. Um, God knows how many YouTube posts that are in terms of comments and so on. Even though hate, it's a small fraction of all the communication, maybe 1%, but even 1% of 5 billion is too much to even comprehend. But ultimately the internet is the accelerant of hate that I think separates now for when I was attacked 20 years ago. Ultimately, what we're saying is, is hate on steroids. If you're kids being weaponized in some ways, uh, as you said, state actors are in the game of dividing us. Um, it's, it, it makes sense in a way to divide the population to distract them Dana Lewis - Host : (32:03) Reason, we'd better get a handle on this because it's, you know, democracies Matt Williams: (32:07) A hundred percent. I mean, the bot issue is quite separate in some ways from the alone sort of Wolf individuals spreading the bot stuff really does need to be tackled by Facebook, Twitter, and so on and so forth. They really have to tackle that themselves. It's really something that we can't, we can't do much about that's problem that can be solved, but it will take, uh, Facebook and Twitter to do that. They have removed a lot of accounts by the Russian internet research agency and, and some by China and some of the middle East. Uh, but they've got to keep on top of that. Um, I think, I think the election meddling scandal obviously sped things up in terms of dealing with interference from state actors, and that we're seeing a more coordinated response by Facebook and Twitter, but they could go further. But for me, um, it's not, we can't let Facebook and Twitter, the big tech giants Mark their own homework anymore. We've allowed them to grade their own homework for far too long. They tell us they're doing really well, but what's happening in society would say something quite different. So ultimately we need civil society responses to this. We need to actually become more responsible as citizens. And for example, become what I call hate crime or hate speech, uh, online first responders. Dana Lewis - Host : (33:28) No, you know, I'm just, I'm just looking at the, the end of the book where you talk about that, because that struck me in a very personal way, because I've covered as I was a crime reporter. And that's where I started my career in Toronto. And I covered the war, you know, uh, extradition of one of the, the first Nazi war criminals in Canada and, and the stories of, of Jews who had been locked in, in, uh, in, in those camps and had lost loved ones. And this whole idea that you become hate incident, first responders, when we see it, you have to call it out. And I tell my kids that it's like, you don't, you don't even giggle in an embarrassed way when somebody uses a certain word to describe a race or religion or an ethnic group, you call it out and say, I don't, I don't stand for that. And I don't accept that. Matt Williams: (34:18) Absolutely. And you know, if we were in, um, a pub, a bar and you heard someone say something, um, to another person because of their race or their, or their sexual orientation or their agenda, you call it out. I mean, in most situations I've been in people actually call that stuff out increasingly, um, maybe 20 years ago it would be, it would be ignored, but increasingly people do call it up. So we're no longer being these kind of, um, inactive bystanders we are now. So we take an active role in establishing around this, what the codes of decency are. You know, this is, this is the pub I come to and it's my local. And you don't say that in this park, you're not welcoming with those opinions. Why aren't we doing that on Facebook? Why aren't we doing that on social media, Twitter, et cetera. Matt Williams: (35:09) I think, I think some people do, man. I think some people do I do. I think some people do and ultimately we all need to be engaging more readily, you know, and I think I'm trying to think where where's the online space that I would look to see where this kind of self-governance actually works quite well. And there's not many of them, but one of them that does seem to come across to me that works quite well is Wikipedia. So if you think about Wikipedia is a self-governing system, um, you know, it doesn't work for profits. It relies on people like me and you for its success. Um, ultimately if we govern it, we have standards around what is acceptable and what is not on, on Wikipedia. If false information ends up being uploaded, it's removed within minutes. Usually, um, this disinformation doesn't stay up there for long, ultimately because we are policing it. We have this kind of virtual volunteer police service that kind of check on stuff on a regular basis to make sure that it's fact checking, correct. It's got a source. Why can't we use a similar kind of responsibility as similar kind of system to police Facebook and Twitter, et cetera. It works for Wikipedia and other digital comments, but why aren't we seeing unfold on, on, on social media and what generally, Dana Lewis - Host : (36:33) You also talk a little about conscious effort to manage yourself. You know, when you see somebody different from you, um, it can take the form of prejudice or hatred, and you have to be conscious of what, of how you're thinking about a particular person, uh, and then manage that. Matt Williams: (36:50) Absolutely. We, we are all prejudiced. I mean, even the most woke of us to use a term that's quite popular currently, even the most, most of us are still prejudiced in ways that we don't fully appreciate or understand, Oh, this is prejudice, not against, um, you know, things like race and sexual orientation. It can be things like age, alternative subcultures, uh, it can be anything. And we have a particular viewpoint stored away in our brains that we access when we need to access them. And usually that's fine frequently, but these are, these are often crude bits of information. There are bits of information that we've stored from childhood, et cetera, from exposure to culture, but also exposure to our peers and our parents and so on and so forth because our brains are not, they're marvelous, but they're not that great at processing all the information out there in the world, they create mental shortcuts and mental shortcuts. So what I want get us through the day, it's how we navigate the world around us. But the problem with mental shortcuts is that ultimately they fail us in terms of trying to understand other cultures as completely as we should. And the only way to get around that actually from, from my experience is to engage with people different from us. But when you, Dana Lewis - Host : (38:07) I find it difficult socially, I mean, not socially, but on social media, because I have to say there was a moment on social media where I just kind of, because I don't want to be surrounded by people who hate that. I purged a lot of my social media in terms of certain political group, um, that I thought was stirring hatred and was denying free vote and democracy. And so I kind of purged a lot of that out of my, because I just thought I didn't want to have that in my social circle at the same time, you know, I was trying to tell myself sometimes what you have, you know, you have to listen to why they think that way, and you have to try to understand how they got there. Uh, but it's hard work. Matt Williams: (38:54) What you, what you did though, is exactly what everyone else tends to do. So ultimately when you're exposed to all viewpoints, you kind of recoil in horror Dana Lewis - Host : (39:04) Depends how alternative they are. Right. I mean, I, it's just not somebody had a different political view, but I mean, if it's really like a hatred, uh, view or in any way smells of sexism or racism. Yeah. I mean, I'll, I'll push the unfriend unfriend button in a second. Matt Williams: (39:19) Absolutely. And, and that's a natural reaction. They might do the same to you. You know, anyone who was overly liberal, they might be, I can't listen to that stuff anymore. Experiments have shown every time we are exposed to these really alternative viewpoints, we get more entrenched in our own. Um, so, you know, bursting your filter bubble. Isn't as straightforward as we might like to think, right. Just being exposed to alternative viewpoints actually doesn't achieve much, certainly online. So when does that leave us? Well, I've spent the last Dana Lewis - Host : (39:48) Let's end with that, but I think that's really important because it does this just get a tighter and more vicious circle or tell me where you see some, some light at the end of the tunnel in the science of hate, which is which as I said, could be entitled learning, not to hate. Matt Williams: (40:07) Absolutely. I do have faith in humanity as a, as a, as a scientist. So even though I spend most of my time looking at the darkest parts of human behavior, um, I am quite an optimistic guy. So that says something right. I, you know, that's not my personality, I don't think, but ultimately Dana Lewis - Host : (40:25) It probably is your personal gain. Matt Williams: (40:28) You know, I spent 20 years trying to figure out why it was attacked that day. And at the end of the book, I say, do you know what? I've got more in common with the guys that attack me than what separates us? You know, there are things that happened to them that, that my experience diverges with, but ultimately had, I experienced some of the stuff that they had. I could be committing the hate act instead of researching hatred. And it's, it's all about the experiences that people go through. And once you understand that it's a deeply human experience, what the haters do and what the people who challenged the haters do, then you understand that there is capacity for change. And I think ultimately, um, as, as, as a human race, we get it right most of the time. And I believe in the wisdom of the crowd, I believe that, you know, when we see hate speech online, there's more people that attack it than support it usually. Matt Williams: (41:24) Um, and that's the really bad stuff. Um, but ultimately when it comes down to it, I think being encouraged to challenge your own preconceptions of other groups, and that includes other political groups who may disagree with being challenged, to think like them put yourselves in their shoes, truly understand where their frustrations come from, et cetera. It humanizes them in a way that we might otherwise not, not regularly do, but also helps us understand where their, their process is coming from. And ultimately, I think once you understand it, which is what I've been trying to do, you can start to challenge it in more nuanced ways. Dana Lewis - Host : (41:59) Yes. I mean the, but there are limitations, right? I mean, if you were talking about, if you were talking about Nazi Germany in the late thirties and forties, I mean that, that tolerance has its limitation, where at a certain point you have to reject them Matt Williams: (42:15) Egypt. You do. And I think we, we categorize sort of hate profiles. Um, so we have kind of the mission offenders, the ones you're talking about that these make it, their life's goal to hate. Um, they, they engage in what I call the pull behavior. They pull people towards them to attack an extremities. So that's kind of the higher end of the hate spectrum. If you like the others engage in what I call push behaviors, they push people away instead of pulling them towards to harm. And this push away, there's more kind of like a deep prejudice potentially, um, going right down to like prejudice. I mean, to be a retaliatory or defensive haters. So they, they retaliate against what they perceive as an attack on themselves or their group. All they defend in terms of, if someone invades that territory and they feel threatened by that they, they defend that territory. And these, these haters don't tend to be full-timers and part-timers, they've got other things to do with their lives and what they tend to be are the ones that you can actually change their minds, the mission haters, very difficult to change their minds. You see it happen, but not as often, Dana Lewis - Host : (43:26) Are you worried? And I don't mean to cut you off, but are you worried about the mission haters being pushed to new and fringe platforms rather than being called out on mainstream platforms as is now happening in America? Matt Williams: (43:40) Absolutely. Well, most of, most of our research five years ago was on Twitter, um, because it was all happening. So all the hates seem to be there. Uh, but he got his act together, introduced hate speech policies, um, started to reject people. Um, they've kind of been displaced. Um, they've gone to other platforms they've gone to parlor before we shut down. They'd gone to gab for CHAM, uh, bits you'd telegram. And so you've got these internet backwaters now where all this kind of murkiness is, is kind of going on and you've just got like-minded people around you. You've got anyone challenging your thoughts and you just, it's this kind of radicalization rabbit Warren, as you, as you said yourself earlier. So what we see is just a moving of the somewhere else, and it's not really addressing the problem on Twitter, Twitter, just though we'd rather not have these folks on our platform. Matt Williams: (44:38) Um, so let's just, let's just ban them instead. A more progressive, uh, solution would be let's deal with this issue by somehow engaging with these individuals to see where these frustrations are coming from. But of course it's not Twitter's responsibility to do that. Um, so they did the kind of thing that made most sense economically for them. But yeah, the one good thing about maybe a project for the heat lab, maybe. Yeah. Maybe, but one of the, one of the things that is done is really pushed them all into one place. So we now know where to look. We know where to look. We know where to look on telegram on pitch shoot and so on and so forth. They're all in one place. So ultimately you get this kind of sustained level of intolerance on these platforms on Twitter. It used to go up and down ebb and flow and flow around events and so on. Matt Williams: (45:25) But now on, on bit shoots and for channel, et cetera, it's a constant level of hates and it's pretty high. Um, and, and I did, it does worry me because the finishing schools for the mission haters, they, they tend to be these spaces where, you know, you can be radicalized in under 90 days and who knows how many other far-right terrorists are going to emerge from these sites. I know for a fact that, you know, uh, Twitter and Facebook are very, very quick to remove all ISIS terrorist, propaganda off their sites, a great success story, in fact, but they're not as being proactive as proactive. And certainly they're, the more fringe sites are not doing very little when it comes to this kind of radicalization. So it is a very one-sided, it seems in terms of what they're capable of doing and what they're willing to Dana Lewis - Host : (46:18) There were not very good on white supremacy is what you were trying to say. Matt Williams: (46:21) That's pretty much what I'm saying. Dana Lewis - Host : (46:23) All right, professor Matt Williams, um, and the author of science of hate and, uh, Matt, great to talk to you. And I, I think it's a really important book to understand your own prejudices and how you process them and rebalanced them. And, and then also even, you know, even how I talked, I was talking to my kids about hate and where we get these ideas from. And, uh, it's, it's well worth reading and, you know, better you than me spending my career learning about it. I think it's heavy lifting, but great job. Thank you very much. All right. Todd Mei is a professor of philosophy and he's been on backstory before and we welcome him back. Hi Todd. Hi Dana. Thank you for having me. So I, uh, just so people know you, I mean, you're very experienced and you've taught at Kent university and then now you're in the U S helping businesses make a difference with respect to their vision values, ethos, and culture. Um, and, uh, are you engaging with business lot right now Dana Lewis - Host : (47:30) Or is it difficult? Prof Todd Mei: (47:31) It's very difficult. Obviously businesses have other concerns, um, with respect to their own success and viability, uh, during the pandemic and with different kinds of economic constraints. I do have one client I'm working closely with that takes, uh, personal development of its employees very seriously. So that's been fun and I'm trying to roll out a new project with them. That's based on a kind of podcast type of interview, uh, for the employees to see where they are, how they're progressing to get a better sense of their life as a story that they can reflect on. So I'll see, Dana Lewis - Host : (48:01) Think businesses now as they're emerging, as they're emerging from lockdowns and from, you know, I mean, lockdowns, as we talked about just before we started this interview, that there are a lot different than the United States, depending on where you are in a different times, they've been stricter, but in general, people have had to work from home and they've been, you know, not, not able to socialize and not be part of the normal workplace fabric. So how do you advise businesses to bring people back into those kinds of corporate structures? Um, even if it's hard to do it physically. Prof Todd Mei: (48:40) Yeah. So if any kind of physical meetings precluded, then obviously everyone has heard of zoom fatigue. And if the only way to keep employees on the same page with one another is through a zoom meeting, the companies really have to change the, the fabric and the spirit of a zoom meeting, and often having an external moderator to introduce certain kinds of questions or exercises helps out quite a bit. And sometimes those exercises can be slightly related to work. Sometimes have nothing to do with work whatsoever. They can be tune building exercises, or they can be simple puzzle exercises such as, uh, what was your favorite film when you were a child and would you still like it today? If you had to watch it again, and that generates a discussion and co-workers get to see employees in a different way. And what's key to these kinds of exercises is not just the kind of water cooling exercise that's talked about, but also the visibility of employees with one another, making sure that when an individual worker is doing his or her own tasks, uh, the other coworkers are visible, not just in terms of being a coworker, but in terms of a safe, psychological space of having a open door, someone to go to if something's gone wrong, or there's a question. Prof Todd Mei: (49:50) So those, uh, external exercises or those externally facilitated exercises can help build that kind of that trust and comradery amongst a group Dana Lewis - Host : (49:59) Corporation I'd want to have taught me in there. So, especially now, I mean, people are spending so much time, um, isolated and on the internet. Um, and philosophically, do you have kind of a, a Bible for people, maybe a short one where you say, you know, this is how you balance your head when you're going on social, because you, you can't dive too deep in that pool without also coming to the surface, taking a big breath and stepping back from it. Prof Todd Mei: (50:36) Yes, I think what's key is identifying safe, psychological spaces and knowing what kind of communities you're engaging with. So you have to have those kinds of social media communities, communities where at issue is not going to be something political or potentially upsetting. It's going to be something you're interested in from, in terms of a sport or hobbies. So for example, I love wind surfing and the two wind surfing groups I belong to on Facebook are absolutely positive encouraging. Uh, and people are sharing their experiences and everyone's talking about different wind surfing conditions, uh, sharing advice and so forth. And then of course, if people want to engage with political discussions, especially on Twitter or Facebook, it's very important to remember that most people are just reacting as opposed to considering what's being said. So, for example, I wrote a recent blog on the issue of slavery reparation in the United States, which is a hot topic. Prof Todd Mei: (51:26) And I introduced the notion that there are different kinds of justice as we can speak about. So it's not just reparation the other ways of going about recognizing what's the harmful effects that have, that have resulted from slavery. And the threads on Facebook were very interesting. I think maybe one person, uh, by virtue of their comment showed evidence that they had read the blog. Everyone else was just weighing in on what they thought was good or bad. And that was it. And so I think one has to recognize when those are, those are the statements and just really divorce oneself from that, and try not to get emotionally attached to them. Dana Lewis - Host : (51:56) Philosophically, how do you look at hatred, um, in the workplace? It, it probably is more difficult to identify. Uh, how do you look at hatred online? How do you look at hatred on the street? I mean, they're all extensions of one another. Prof Todd Mei: (52:14) Yeah. So the, uh, there's no agreement amongst philosophers, of course. But one way of looking at hatred is kind of in a very neutral way. So hatred is just described as an effective orientation of the person. So a mood emotion, or a feeling, and that that orientation can be virtuous or vicious. So for example, if I have a hatred of bigotry or a hatred of misogyny, we would see that as a good thing, because we would be sensitive to those situations where somebody was being disadvantaged by the actions or words of another, when hatred becomes directed for the wrong reasons, then that's when it becomes problematic. And so philosophers are trying a lot of philosophies have different approaches. My own approach comes from within a branch of philosophy called hermeneutics, which is interested in the art of understanding and interpretation, dialogue, and texts. And what the hermeneutic philosophers like to do is isolate what it is that problematizes hatred or problem with ties is the, uh, emotional orientation of the person. Prof Todd Mei: (53:14) So in other words, something's coming in or interfering or intervening before the emotion is taking effect and directing that emotion in the wrong way, for whatever reasons, there might be good or bad reasons. And these philosophers talk about prejudice, not prejudice in a pejorative sense of being a bad bias, but prejudice as a cognitive or existential, uh, aspect of a person. So you have, uh, hate as an emotion and you have prejudice as a cognitive orientation. And what they mean by that is everyone has prejudice. Everyone has a particular way of understanding the world, which one's inherited through one's family, one's history when Colt one's culture. And there are certain prejudices that we're aware of and certain ones that we're not, but these prejudices are what allow us to have traction on the world. They provide the window or the Vista by which we can relate to others. And the issue for hermeneutics Speaker 6: (54:03) Is sometimes a very narrow window, unfortunately, Prof Todd Mei: (54:06) That's right. And so the issue is being able to have a method or a way to identify when a prejudice is vicious, and also to be aware of the fact that there are prejudices you will not be aware of, and you may never be aware of. And those, I think a lot of people know by now in terms of cognitive biases, those things are just operative. Um, and it takes a lot for us to recognize that, Speaker 6: (54:29) Like, what would be an example of like a real life example of that, Prof Todd Mei: (54:32) Of a cognitive biases, there's simple ones in which, um, if you go through cognitive bias training, they show you various slides, which seem like, uh, visual illusions, but your brain will want to make things look familiar to you. So you might see shapes, and you might think that all the shapes are the same size that they're showing you. And in fact, one's bigger than the other, but your brain is trying to make that scene look familiar. Now in, in a social context, what will happen is that, um, your brain will try to cope with what's unfamiliar. And this is the big problem with prejudice and hatred, and so wants to make things fit. And so you might just be having an interview with another person who might be of a different gender, race, or religion, whatever it might be, and you just block out or don't notice the differences. Prof Todd Mei: (55:14) And so you treat them, uh, in a way that you think you ought to treat them as the same kind of person, which could be good or bad. Uh, and I just saw a recent, uh, show, uh, the view where they had an, uh, an AI professor talking about how there can be prejudice within AI programs, where, uh, someone who's white might be programming, automatic cars, self-driving cars, and they don't, uh, they don't look at the program to make sure that it takes into account. People have darker colored skin. So when the car is driving around, it may not notice people have dark skin and may cause an accident, but it wouldn't be a good thing. Now, it wouldn't be a good thing. So the idea is recognizing that prejudices can be hidden. And then when you, when you encounter something unfamiliar, that is when a prejudice is going to be most active, because you're going to try to find a way to either accommodate what's unfamiliar or create a distance with what's unfamiliar. And so those are the moments where there can be a lot of misunderstanding on this reading of what the person is doing or what it, what an object is. And that's when you can get emotions that can exacerbate the situation. If you can't quite understand what's unfamiliar, that could emerge in terms of irritation or just because Dana Lewis - Host : (56:24) It's unfamiliar, it doesn't mean it should be a threat. You shouldn't necessarily process it as a threat, right? I mean, situational awareness might alert you to something that is different, but that doesn't mean that you should automatically put that in the threat file and then react with prejudice, react eventually with anger and maybe physical anchor Prof Todd Mei: (56:44) That's right. And there are different techniques, props self-help techniques that one can cultivate to help with that. But if you look at a lot of indigenous cultures, they actually have certain ethical practices or techniques to help with this. And if you look at just the Abrahamic phase, so, uh, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, one of their main tenants is the tenant of hospitality. And this, if you view it from the, from the perspective of what's unfamiliar, I know religion goes both ways, but if you look at the, if you look at the hospitality is a virtue, then you can see the way which if it's cultivated in the right way, when one encounters a stranger, or indeed in certain tales, the enemy, or the person with one with whom one doesn't get along with, then if hospitality comes first, one must admit them into the personal space or the house and treat them as a guest. And those are the kinds of things that are very interesting. If cultures can look into their own historical resources and maybe find ways in which they can bring this to the fore of how to cope with encounter and identify things that are unfamiliar and not push them aside, but find productive and constructive ways of engaging with them. I think we'd be a lot better off. Dana Lewis - Host : (57:50) How do you take that into a real life situation? Like on social media where, you know, maybe hospitality might be not excluding that person or deleting that person, but maybe including them in conversation or in your social group. Um, even if you're unsure exactly who they are or what they represent. But I mean, th the idea is just kind of being open, right. And not, and, and, and being curious about other people, is that it? Prof Todd Mei: (58:22) Yes. And I don't think social media is very good at cultivating that in its current form and it conceals it. So I think what we have to have regardless is a stronger foundation that stands outside is not connected to social media. And these are the things, everyday conversation and stories. There are two ways that come to mind. One is learning different ways of listening and engaging with people. And this often works best in person because in person you're accountable, you're face to face. I mean, that's very difficult right now in the pandemic, but, um, it's something I think that provides a good measure. And, um, it's something that a lot in negotiators and psychologists talk about. And so when one's engaged in one of these conversations that matters, uh, perhaps one can switch to this mode of, instead of offering a reaction or response where one tries to convince the other side that they're wrong, or that, that oneself is right to simply engage in the mode of listening and asking questions, as opposed to asserting of view or judgements. Prof Todd Mei: (59:23) And through those questions, they can be critical of course, but they should be constructive. The idea is that you don't come to the decision who's right or wrong. The aim is not to find out who's right or wrong, the aims to find some kind of common ground. And if you think about when negotiators, you very skilled negotiators that are the two parties are coming to opposite ends, skilled negotiators, won't come out and start arguing the other party down. They will try to figure out what exactly the other party's position is to ask questions, to see where they can actually meet up. And once they can meet up, then things can, then things can move forward. The other cultural, the other cultural resource there's of course are our positive constructive narratives. And, uh, the, uh, professor Richard Keirney who's at Boston college runs this thing called, um, I forgot the name now it's, it's not Facebook, but it's a pro it's. Prof Todd Mei: (01:00:13) It's, uh, it's a project where he has people from different groups, often at risk groups telling their stories. And through those stories, the idea is hopefully that they find some common ground and, um, he was giving a talk the other day. And he, he talked about this phrase. I think a lot of people know it's called the chance in arm. And it's a very interesting one, but it's comes from an historical incident. And I think it's around the 15 hundreds or the 15th century. And there's two, uh, families. I think it's the Fitzgeralds and the butlers are, may be wrong on that. But these two families absolutely hate each other. And, uh, one of the families pulls up inside of a, uh, farm or some kind of a building and they won't come out and the feed is continuing. And one person from the other side basically comes over and puts his arm through a hole in the wall to the other party and says, look, I'm putting my arm through. We can continue fighting if that's what you want to do, you can chop my arm off. If not, you can shake my hand. And so those kinds of stories are interesting. They provide a resource and of course Dana Lewis - Host : (01:01:14) She never told us the ending man Prof Todd Mei: (01:01:17) Piece, but not only as a narrative source, but also symbolic source, that if here's a story where you can possibly relate some kind of instance, you're in, and that might allow you to come up with your own symbolic gesture with another person. And it may even that symbolic gesture may just be being silent and listening to them. But so it'll depend on the context as you're describing, but if we can be aware of these kinds of resources and that we have to respond in a very dynamic way to the challenges and unfamiliar Terri unfamiliarity, is that present themselves to us. I think we'd be a much more capable and engaging with other people. And then hopefully that will have a knock on effect, a positive one with how we engage with people in social media. Dana Lewis - Host : (01:01:56) Yeah. And to understand reality, sometimes you just got to shut up. And the, you know, when I was a crime reporter, they used to do, I used to sit in courtrooms where the judge would charge the jury where they would instruct the jury. And the first thing that they would tell a jury is at the beginning of, you know, these are murder trial. Some of them that would last three and four months, don't say a word in the jury room about what you think, because you express your opinion. You actually close yourself to a lot of information and it becomes an exercise sometimes in your ego. Um, and you, you miss a lot of value and maybe that's what social media has become. And I'm sorry to keep taking you back to social media. But I mean, a lot of our discourse in the public square has migrated onto the internet. And that's what that is become. It's kind of like, you know, you need to say something, you need to have an opinion, otherwise, why are you tweeting? Or why are you expressing yourself? But actually you don't have to do you, you can ask questions on there and you can be open to other people and ask them why they feel a certain way. And you can actually, you can actually explore rather than draw borders on them. Prof Todd Mei: (01:03:05) That's right. And always be aware that most social media encourages reaction as opposed to consideration and deliberation. Um, and I think if one's aware of that, one will be a little bit more hesitant just to click the like or dislike button, and also be aware that there is social media is good for some things, and maybe it can be a conduit to more, uh, to healthier communities of discussion that occur offline or in online in some other form than just simply tweeting. Or Dana Lewis - Host : (01:03:33) Do you think that prejudice is growing? Do you think that hatred is growing in, in parallel with that, or as an offshoot of that? Prof Todd Mei: (01:03:41) I do my own perception of it is that it is, and I'm not sure how accurate it is because of course, whenever there's an incident involving hate, um, there's, uh, you know, it becomes a big issue. It becomes representative of the state of affair, but of a nation or a culture. And of course everyone cannot, but help reacting to it and re some reactions are very measured. Uh, some very considered make good points and some not. And I think, um, what can only really help the situation is some kind of education or self-education and about the resources and techniques, uh, about how to ask and listen. And I think that's the only way out of it, whether it comes through family education or whether universities really focus on the liberal arts side. I know I've mentioned this before in a previous interview, but focusing on, on civics and virtues, not not saying this is how you have to be, but introducing civics and virtues as a topic that students can study as a historical artifact and will never go to university, then there can be other for I'm. Prof Todd Mei: (01:04:44) This is I'm, I I'm really progressive minded and people can go to vocational schools or they can pursue a job which doesn't require university education, but it would be a wonderful world in which you had different layers or stratifications of free education. So, uh, and there'll be incentives wrapped up with it. There'll be different ways to teach things like philosophy and the arts that are embedded or engaged with a practical sewer. So if you're a mechanic or if you're, if you're a veterinary surgeon, or if you're a shoe cobbler, there'd be ways there are many creative ways where you can introduce different topics to people. And all it provides, all that's necessary is, is to have the education and provide the incentives for people to go out there and meet other people. And if they can meet other people from different walks of life in these courses, you have a much healthier, much more capable society because you already, you already overcome one, an enormous hurdle. And that is you've already started to meet other people who have similar interests. And there is a forum now for discussing these kinds of interests or even disagreements. And that is in the, in the classroom Dana Lewis - Host : (01:05:49) Last word to you on, on prejudicial behavior. Is that something that you obviously feel that that's the key building blocks in leading towards hatred? Do you confront a prejudice? Do you engage prejudice? Do you, how strongly do you speak out against it or how, you know, whether you're in the workplace or wherever, what, what do you think you have to do with it philosophically? Prof Todd Mei: (01:06:15) I think I, I think it's always situational. I think the, the regular, the ideal is to always be strong and stand out and speak against it. One has to assess to what extent that's putting oneself at risk. Uh, so I do think one has to be courageous and also very, uh, savvy or clever in terms of how to deal with the prejudice. Obviously, if you're in a crowd and you're putting yourself or others at risk, um, you know, my experience is if I've been the target of prejudice, usually it's my friends who feel the most offended, not me, and they're willing to stick the stick, their necks out. So there's always other, there's always things to consider. There are many different ways to tackle it, um, whether it's in the workplace, through human resource channels or EDI. Um, but I really do think if, if there were an array or diversity of education, levels of education provided that would already take away a lot of the hurdles and obstacles that we face today, Dana Lewis - Host : (01:07:08) Does this get personal Todd? Because I assume you have an Asian background. Yes. Right now in America. I mean, we are experiencing, you know, this horrible incident that just, uh, took place in Atlanta, the, the, the assaults on Asians because of COVID-19 and some of the comments that were traced to the former president, Donald Trump about the China virus. And I mean, there, there has been a real backlash, um, on Asian-Americans. And so, you know, it's, it's one thing to talk about hatred in a philosophical way in a classroom, but, you know, you you're, you probably think about it on the street there as well, and it becomes personal. Prof Todd Mei: (01:07:49) Yes, it does. And, um, I have to admit that, uh, here I am speaking as a philosopher, but certainly in personal situations I've reacted, um, differently than I thought or than I ought to have. I've often related when I teach ethics, often relate personal stories to my students. And, uh, there was one time where basically, um, I had to engage in some very aggressive self-defensive behavior because I was being targeted. Um, this was back in Britain, believe it or not at a train station at night. And, um, I D I just felt like I couldn't walk away, but I felt like there was a way I was gonna deal with this and it ended up working and it actually ended up promoting discussion at the end as opposed to fighting. And I was very surprised cause I thought, um, this is not going to end very well. And, um, and I'm very much aware of it in today's climate. Um, obviously as a Chinese and Japanese background, and I've always prepared myself mentally for some kind of confrontation, but hopefully it cooler heads prevail. And, um, it just depends how you can assess yourself in the situation and whether there's actually harm or danger, uh, that's imminent in that situation. But I think the best thing is to try and find other channels to deal with this directly and indirectly, uh, through communication as opposed to direct action. Dana Lewis - Host : (01:09:02) Well, thanks for sharing that. And, uh, you've got lots of really great ideas about sort of how to, how to approach hatred. Some of it, some of, some of that hatred, not always so overt, but you may sense it's there, but, um, you know, stop Asian hatred is a great hashtag in the last, in the last month, but in general, you know, the philosophy of, uh, being open and listening to people. I mean, I really think you're right. We are losing that in public discourse and that's, that's dangerous. And you made that point in another interview and you've touched on it again today. So thank you for that. Thank you, Todd. Great to talk to you. Dana Lewis - Host : (01:09:41) Thank you. And that's our backstory on the science of hate and hopefully by understanding what makes people hate. We understand how better to fight hatred. Please subscribe the backstory with Dana Lewis podcast and share this. And also my newsletter, Dana Lewis . sub stack.com. Thanks for listening. And I'll talk to you again.

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QAnon - Back Story with Dana Lewis podcast link;https://www.buzzsprout.com/1016881/8164453

Jason Blazakis: (00:00) Dealing with an ideology, which is what the que a non conspiracy theory really has become is exceedingly difficult to counter, as opposed to maybe one or two individuals bent on violent activity. The etiology allows for individuals to become radicalized, and that is more of a long term and enduring challenge that goes simply beyond the reach of the FBI. Dana Lewis: (00:26) Hi everyone. And welcome to this edition of backstory. I'm Dana Lewis in London, Q Anon. I first broadcast an in-depth story on Q Anon back in July of 2020. And I can tell you, I really didn't understand that much about the group until those interviews. And since then, a couple of Q Anon members were elected to Congress. It became front and center in the storming of the Capitol Kune on members, believe in some cabal of Satan worshipers existing in the democratic party, torturing and murdering children. It's a bizarre called whack dangerous in March Pew Anon prophesized. Trump would come back to the white house and be president with the passing of March 4th, a highly anticipated date for followers of the Q Anon conspiracy theory. Some remain characteristically delusional. They will adjust their conspiracy theories to some other date. Now much like the guy who holds a poster on the street corner saying the end is nigh, and he always changes the date, but Q Anon includes in its roster of the loony policemen and soldiers and politicians. And that's just scary on this backstory Q Anon. And does this international cult fall apart with Trump as its spiritual leader, or does it marry into evangelical religious followers who see parallels in their beliefs in Q and ons? End of days, prophecies in the summer long before the Capitol insurrection, I interviewed Jason [inaudible] from the sifan center who largely predicted violence from Q Anon, but probably not on that scale. And now Jason joins us again. Hi, Jason, how are you? Jason Blazakis: (02:20) Hey, Dana, great to be on the program again. I am doing well. I hope you are doing well as well. Dana Lewis: (02:25) Thank you so much. And you also teach at Middlebury Institute, uh, you teach terrorism, uh, is Q Anon, uh, an extension of that course or, or is that morphing more into kind of the radical right in America? Jason Blazakis: (02:41) So I teach a course on introduction to terrorism and there is a module in that course on cults where we discuss groups like [inaudible] and the Mujahideen costs. But of course, in, in that class, we are talking also about Q Anon in the context of Colts in, in terrorism. And in the course I'm developing for the Middlebury Institute. In fact, for the fall, there'll be a module related to cults in the American radical right. Of which, of course, Q Anon is very well postured, unfortunately. And we'll be talking a lot about [inaudible] in that class too. Dana Lewis: (03:17) I don't like to quote Fox news too much, but, uh, I know one of their evening program hosts, uh, has called Q Anon followers, gentle Patriots, waving flags. It was Tucker Carlson. I mean, do you think he's living on another planet or he's grouping Q and on in the category of terrorism, uh, too harsh. Jason Blazakis: (03:41) I don't think it's too harsh. I most certainly would disagree with Tucker Carlson's assessment that, you know, all QA, non adherence are gentle Patriots. I think we saw firsthand on the 6th of January that there are quite a few to a non-adherence who are anything but gentle. Um, Ashley Babbitt's stormed the capital. Of course she was killed, but she was, uh, uh, uh, [inaudible] um, you know, in, in that individual had a spear in the Capitol and he's behind bars. So there are quite a few individuals with [inaudible] who've carried out bios even before the 6th of January. And it is a, an extremist ideology. There's no two ways about it. And because it's an extremist ideology, I think it's a disservice to call these individuals just simply gentle Patriots. I would characterize the events of January 6th, like Christopher Ray did the director of the FBI. He called it an act of domestic terrorism. So there were certainly then thus individuals with enqueue and non who stormed the capital, who I think we should consider as domestic carriers. So I, I, we can't, we can't let them off like that. And the way Tucker Carlson described them, Dana Lewis: (04:54) Is there a link between white supremacists, some of the dangerous white supremacists in queue and on other links there, Jason Blazakis: (05:02) There, there is. Um, if you examine the queue drops from the so-called queue, um, who nobody knows exactly who Q is still to this day, but the individual purports to have a military level clearance that is inside the U S government working on defense intelligence issues, and Hugh's early messages, um, very early on, uh, he took a very anti-Semitic approach, um, to discussing, um, the so-called deep state being funded by the Rothschilds and the Soros is of the world. So there is an inherent antisemitism within the, uh, Q Anon movement that makes me really uncomfortable. And in that sense, there are some analogies that you can draw between some of the more hardcore white supremacists and their ideology, as well as the Q Anon theories that some subscribed to. That's not to say that all Q non adherence are certainly white supremacists. They are, they're a very diverse set of individuals, but some of those underlying theories of Q Anon are anti-Semitic and people need to understand that Dana Lewis: (06:12) Is the Q and a on that we talked about in the summer, um, you know, a bizarre, far right conspiracy group that thinks that the Democrats are holding children, hostages and drinking the blood of children. And, you know, it's, it's really almost, I shake my head every time I go through this stuff, but is, have they evolved from what they were in the summer to where we are now in terms of the, and on that, that is rooted in America. Jason Blazakis: (06:47) So Q Anon has under gone a shock to the system. Many of the adherence thought on January 20th, the United States military was going to in circle, um, president Biden and all his associates and take them out. Um, and that didn't happen. Um, president Biden was sworn in and he's running the government and, and that led for many members to a situation where they had this cognitive dissonance, where what they believed was illustrates would be patently false. So you had some individuals Dana Lewis: (07:25) Then again on March 4th, March, Jason Blazakis: (07:29) March 4th. Exactly. There was another conspiracy theory that, um, president Trump was going to be sworn in on, on the 4th of March, thinking back to some bizarre convoluted IEM, um, dating back to 1871, where the United States became a corporation instead of a country in that on March 4th, the United States would become a country. Again, led by Donald Trump, who would become the, Dana Lewis: (07:52) If you told me, if you told me that on March 3rd, lawmakers would sit longer to pass legislation so that they weren't going to be in Congress on the fourth, and that they would essentially some of them leave Washington on the fourth, I'd say, come on Jace. And that's exactly what happened. Jason Blazakis: (08:10) I think it was because there was also credible warnings by the U S law enforcement community, that there were individuals who were trying to take advantage of that date of March 4th, the carry out potentially attack against the United States Congress. And because of that, congressional deliberations were, were stalled. Um, so people took that date seriously in law enforcement because they learned from the 6th of January, that there are individuals who really are bent on destroying democracy in the United States. And some of those individuals inevitably are still part of the queue. And non-community, I said there are some individuals who certainly have walked away because they see that there have been just nothing but false prophecies associated with QS messages, but there are those that I've wrote an article recently in the Los Angeles time who are doubling down. And those are the most ardent supporters, um, within pulse, you know, Holtz historically have changed dates. Um, you know, whether it's the heaven Gates cult, um, from the 1970s to 1990s, when, you know, essentially they change the date and when this magical situation would occur when the UFO was going to pick them up, um, and you've seen it with other cults, um, they, they change the, they move the goalpost as it works, uh, in, in Q Anon, the individuals who stay within the movement are moving those goalposts to, to conform with their own worldviews. So that makes them really dangerous. Those that remain behind. Dana Lewis: (09:37) Okay, I'm glad I let you finish that point because that's really important. The surveys, some of the polling in America said that large groups of evangelical Christians, uh, are drawn into Q Anon and, and that a large number of Republican evangelical Christians belong to Q and on or follow-up and, and identify, uh, with its philosophy, whatever that happens to be. Jason Blazakis: (10:04) Absolutely. And there is this, this movement and it's been happening over this past year. And, um, there are some scholars out there who tracks to a non very closely like Mark Andre, Argentina. Who've spoken about this in, in some length, there is this, this natural, um, religious terminology, connect it to the Q and non movement. The idea that there's going to be a great awakening, for instance, that has very overt religious connotations. And that is the language of Q Anon that people will become enlightened to the truth. And then once they are enlightened, that will, um, allow for the precipitation of a quote storm, um, which will lead essentially to this bloodletting, um, of the, the secret cabal that you described earlier, Dana of, uh, Democrats, um, of, uh, of Jews like Soros, who are funding, the deep state who are abusing children, that bloodletting will occur and they will be destroyed and wiped off the face of the face of the earth. Jason Blazakis: (11:03) So there is kind of apocalyptical, um, millenarian, uh, aspects to, to this, uh, um, quasi, um, religious cult. Um, and it is very disturbing to see that there is increasing, um, interest within the evangelical community about what Q Anon is. That's very worrisome. We're also seeing in some of the research we're doing at the Soufan center, um, that there is a lot of anti-abortion rhetoric now associated with individuals who populate the Q Anon community. And that's worrisome because in terms of acts of violence perpetuated in the United States, um, by individuals, um, there have been a significant number of attacks, um, against things like the planned Parenthood, um, doctors who have provided abortions. So I do worry there could be a Q a non follower who is now avidly drinking up some of these anti abortion related conspiracies who could do real-world harm. Um, Dana Lewis: (12:04) CF is the FBI now, have they shifted philosophically and said, okay, we have, first of all, domestic terrorism is the greatest threat in America right now, more than ISIS or Al-Qaeda, or, I mean, we we've at least heard that from them testifying, uh, you know, before one of the congressional committees that the head of the FBI is Q and on now somebody, uh, a group that, um, is being taken very, very seriously by law enforcement officials. And do they need to classify them as a potential terror group in order to, to source funding in order to intercept communications, are they equipped as a law enforcement agency currently to deal with Q1 ons threat? Jason Blazakis: (12:48) So back in 2019, um, the Arizona, um, Phoenix FBI field office declared the Q Anon conspiracy theory to be a domestic terrorism threat. And in that sense, the FBI at least somewhat early on, probably not as early as they could have, start thinking about those who subscribed to that theory as being potentially dangerous individuals. And then you fast forward in time to January 6th. I think the writing became very clearly on the wall. Um, we know a couple of very specific cases of Q1 non-supporters were part of that insurrection. But if you look at the symbols of the day, um, you saw a lot of Q Anon shirts, Q Anon, um, regalia, um, even, even though the individuals who did not go into the Capitol building, who, who still protest it, which was, you know, their, their, their right to protest. Right. But once you cross the, that, that, you know, breach the barrier, that's another story is the FBI well postured to deal with, um, Q Anon and just the ethic, terrorism writ large, um, FBI director, Christopher Ray testified, I think it was last week. Jason Blazakis: (13:53) Um, I think it was the week of the first, uh, uh, March, March 2nd in that time period. And he said, um, in two years, there has been more than 100% growth in domestic terrorism investigations from 850 in 2019 to 2000 in 2021. I imagine of that subset, there are most certainly Q a non-related investigations that are ongoing with the FBI, but with such an explosion of cases, I do worry that the FBI may not have all the resources and FBI agents they could use to tackle this threat. And I think Christopher Ray said as much. So I don't think they're as well postured as they could be. And I think dealing with an ideology, which is what the que a non conspiracy theory really has become exceedingly difficult to counter, as opposed to maybe one or two individuals bent on violent activity, the etiology allows for individuals to become radicalized. And that is more of a long term and enduring challenge that goes simply beyond the reach of the FBI. Dana Lewis: (14:56) When you look at what president former president Trump said about Q Anon, you know, back in August, he said, you know, I've heard these people just love our country. Um, do you believe that with kind of a wink and a nod, he tapped into queue and on to, to bolster his support, to bolster support at the rallies and maybe to supercharge them on the way to the Capitol? Jason Blazakis: (15:23) Unfortunately, I do think either winning or unwittingly, it's hard to know president Trump certainly used buzzwords over a long period of time that motivated individuals within the Q Anon community. Um, he was always reluctant in the lead up to the election to condemn them, um, to, to chastise them for being, um, engaged in problematic behavior, which they were both online and in the real world in that sense, I think he unfortunately emboldened individuals within the queue and non-community, and if you look at, Dana Lewis: (15:58) So, which one is it wittingly or unwittingly? Jason Blazakis: (16:01) I, I'm not sure what the president president Trump, honestly, it's, it's hard to say what's going through that guy's mind. So it's hard for me to conjecture. Um, I will tell you this though, if you look at the individuals who have been arrested, um, whether they're Q Anon or there's something else, they all have said they were following the words and orders of president Donald J. Trump, and, and they actually felt they were fulfilling a mission on his behalf. Um, and there's no two ways about that. Um, so whether he's winning or unwitting to me, a president has to be very careful about the language that they use. And he was not Dana Lewis: (16:41) This guy in the summer told me, and I think he's very smart and he knows this topic. Some guy named Jason [inaudible] told me that he thinks that maybe there is state sponsored as in a, another state, maybe Russia, maybe somebody that could be toying with Q Anon followers and stirring the misled. Do you now, all these months later, what do you think, do you think that those intelligence agencies and state sponsors playing with this group? Jason Blazakis: (17:15) Absolutely. Um, and we have a report at the Soufan center. That's going to be issued very soon where we explore the issue of foreign influence with the Q Anon community. And it's more than one country, um, that is essentially stirring the pot online to amplify Q Anon messages. Um, and that includes Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, interestingly enough, with the Russian Federation and the Chinese actually stirring the pot the most. Um, so there's certainly an aspect in which foreign governments seek Q Anon, um, as community that can lead to, uh, societal discord within the United States and all those countries, I mentioned, they're inherently anti-democratic right. And anything that they can do to, to make a country like the United States, which tries to push forward throughout the world, democracy making the United States lives more difficult is in their national geo-strategic interests and in a lot of ways. So Dana Lewis: (18:13) Yeah, this whole information war and disinformation war. That's so interesting. What you're saying, do you think that the big internet, big tech companies are successful in pulling down the Q Anon accounts and countering disinformation, or it's just a drop in the bucket? Jason Blazakis: (18:30) It's a drop in the bucket. Unfortunately, they were slow to respond generally to toxic anti hate language online over these last few years. Um, it was only more recently, um, where we saw a Silicon Valley pick up a much more serious approach to trying to counter content online. So they're doing better on English language content, but we're still seeing, and this is one of the recommendations in our report, um, a heavy amount of foreign language, Q Anon associated content circulating online, uh, and in particular, they have made strides in countering, I think Russian language propaganda. Um, but they're not doing quite as well. Um, in terms of Chinese, uh, related language, propaganda related to the queue and non message Dana Lewis: (19:14) Now, right? I mean, there's huge followings in Europe and Q Anon. Jason Blazakis: (19:17) It is, it is it's gone global. Unfortunately it's spread like wildfire throughout Europe, Australia, Russia, Japan. Um, I was talking to a former student of mine, actually. She lives in Japan and she was showing me some of the Japanese Q and non-related posts. And CUNA is very popular in Japan. That's very worrisome cause Japan does have a history of poets, like the [inaudible] coat that carried out the 1995 subway, um, Tokyo subway attack with, with Sarah and chemical agents. So you have very worrisome to see that spread in places like Japan, for instance. So, um, I'm very concerned about the scope of this threat. Um, and I don't think it's localized to United States any longer. Dana Lewis: (19:58) And what is the next chapter in this Jason, before I let you go? And I appreciate your time. Do you think that, you know, Biden's approach to white supremacy to the radical, right? Which in Q includes Q Anon and America has generally just to take the rhetoric down, um, you know, stay off social media is deal with deal with trying to become a more normal administration than the Trump administration was. And just tried to, you know, try to try to turn off the, the hot switch is, is that's not going to deal with this completely though. Jason Blazakis: (20:34) It won't. Um, but the fact that we have a president in the United States that uses language very carefully, I find to be incredibly helpful. And I also find it Jason Blazakis: (20:48) He's acting like a, like an adult, which is, which is really helpful. Right? And the other thing that I think that this administration is doing much more seriously than the last is actually trying to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, pushing out vaccines, um, pushing out guidance about the importance of masks in ways that I find to be helpful because Q Anon exploded. Um, as a theory, turning into a belief system in 2020, because of COVID-19 people were trapped at home and they would be can, uh, more speed and the toxic theories of, of Q Anon. So the fact that the president Biden is trying to actually solve COVID-19 so people can get outside of their homes and they can socialize like normal people. Again, I think we'll be, um, hopefully the most important thing that we can do to deliver some kind of death knell to the Q a nominee. Dana Lewis: (21:39) And then you have members of Congress like Marjorie Taylor green, who she seems to be distancing herself from it somewhat. I mean, all these crazy videos have come out of her, you know, stocking students and denying the school shootings were real and saying they were red flag events. And, uh, you know, does that go away? Jason Blazakis: (22:01) Unfortunately, I don't think politicians, um, like Marjorie Taylor green will completely distanced themselves from the Q Anon theories because they, they see that there's a significant number of people that actually believe in it and it, it taps into their political base. So what they were to walk away from that it's walking away from votes. And the one thing I know about politicians is they love nothing more than, than votes, power and money. So I just don't see her completely distancing herself. And I think it's really unfortunate that we have somebody like that as a member of Congress, who does these things, um, you know, denying facts. And, and that is one of the hallmarks of, of Cunanan as a theory is this denial of, of objective fact. And that's problematic for a member of Congress who is representing nearly 800,000 people. It's really a stain, um, in, in Congress. Jason Blazakis: (22:53) And thankfully she was removed from her committee assignments. So her ability to exert true influence and power in terms of lawmaking is, is significantly hampered. Um, and I think that was the appropriate action by Congress, just when Congress took action against representative Stephen King from Iowa, who was essentially touting white supremacist ideology. He had those, uh, committees that he was on ripped out from his hands. And the same thing has happened to Marjorie Taylor green. And I think that shows, um, that we're considering conspiracy theories and truth, um, denial, um, associated with the Q and a movement along the same lines of toxic white supremacy related material and content. Dana Lewis: (23:34) Um, but unfortunately it's a, it's a, it's a cult that has a following and the dangers, the dangers loom, uh, and they're not going to go away that. And, uh, that's why I think you've got a course on the radical right to keep teaching Jason [inaudible] from the Soufan center. Thank you so much, Jason. Good to catch up with you again. Great to be on the program. Um, pleasure to be with you and take care. All right. My friend, Samantha North is the director of North cyber research and she specializes in countering disinformation and joins us from Lisbon Portugal. Hi Samantha. Samantha North: (24:17) It was good to be here. Thank you very much for having me on Dana Lewis: (24:20) Cyber research do exactly because, you know, countering disinformation sounds like a pretty big portfolio. Samantha North: (24:28) Yes. It can be, um, primarily election security. So I'm helping some of the social media platforms, for example, to kind of police there. Um, you know, that territory for signs of disinformation and coordinated inauthentic behavior. Um, that's probably my primary focus and then I can do similar things for a sorted other clients as well. Dana Lewis: (24:53) So when you talk about Q Anon and disinformation, what concerns you most about what you've seen, Samantha North: (25:01) What to start? Um, it's a, it's a huge topic and this, this year really we've seen it gonna come off the rails and explode into, into real life with the capital attack in Washington, DC. I think what really concerns me is kind of looking at it from a long-term perspective. Um, does this tribal as a now running deep in the U S and in the UK to a certain extent, because Q Anon has become a borderless conspiracy theory, but, but with this kind of tribal attitudes and this, this polarization, um, it can make it very challenging for societies to cooperate on matters that affect everyone and a good case in point would be the pandemic. So one thing was that, Dana Lewis: (25:45) I mean, when it, when it comes to vaccines, for instance, part of the disinformation campaign, I don't know if that ties into Q Anon, does it about, you know, the anti-vaxxers as well Samantha North: (25:57) Anti-vaxxer themes are overlapped with, do overlap with Q Anon. Absolutely. It's a very wide ranging conspiracy theory and it puts its tentacles into many different areas. So, yeah, Dana Lewis: (26:07) That's the key one on theory on vaccines? Samantha North: (26:10) Oh, well, um, bill Gates is a key figure in that he is, um, the, the evil conspire who is using the back, they're using the, to the pandemic and the vaccines as a reason to, uh, have us all microchipped by the vaccine so that we can then be tracked anywhere we go. Um, that's probably the one that's that Springs to mind. Dana Lewis: (26:31) So when, when they talked about kind of the things that I'm familiar with, where, you know, they've widely publicized this notion that Democrats, you know, drink the blood of murdered children, um, and then it progressed into an election theft and that maybe Trump is que, um, is, are those kinds of the building blocks of, you know, what a lot of people think is a cult? Samantha North: (26:59) Um, well, yeah, um, it has some features of Colts and a lot of people seem to be very brainwashed. Um, for example, I did some research on YouTube, uh, earlier on in 2020 and ordinary people are creating two hour long YouTube videos, dissecting every aspect of Q's latest message and with a real sort of frenzy in their, in their demeanor, in their eyes, you know, they really believe this stuff. So, so I guess in that sense, it's its way of brainwashing. People is akin to a cult. Yeah. Dana Lewis: (27:32) I mean, there been some pretty tragic stories from family members about somebody who, you know, starts down this rabbit hole of que and on a, a relative, uh, a mother. Um, and, and they cannot get them out of it. I mean, it is, it really becomes a trap and a, uh, you know, a trap into some sort of dimension that, you know, people just get further and further away from reality. Samantha North: (27:59) Absolutely. I think it has a lot of similarities with ISIS radicalization. It's a form of radicalization with just a different narrative with different cultural touchpoints, but this, the effect is the same. You know, these people have a framework that they can hang all aspects of their reality on. And in these uncertain times, amid a pandemic in particular, people really need some certainty. And I think that is very compelling and, and very addictive. Dana Lewis: (28:27) Do you think with a wink and a nod that president Trump was helping to drive it? Samantha North: (28:32) Yes, I think so. I I'm, I'm, I'm sure of that whether advertently or inadvertently, but, but his, his behavior on social media with his following, you know, the millions of people that follow him, um, being the president of the U S then how could he have not known what effect it would have? It's not feasible. Dana Lewis: (28:48) And with Trump removed from power now, at least temporarily let's see what happens. And in four years, is the temperature coming down at all on is, is, are people leaving Humana? Samantha North: (29:01) Yeah, I feel like we're in a, sort of a hiatus now. Um, obviously it was a big blow to their narrative when Biden won the election. Uh, I believe they received another blow recently. I think it was early March, which was supposed to be a, another key date in the queue calendar, something, I think March the fourth, perhaps something was supposed to happen. Um, Dana Lewis: (29:22) The Trump would be somehow he would be, you know, he would come back to power. He would be innocuous. Samantha North: (29:28) Well, whatever that, that was, we all know it didn't happen. So I, I think that, um, you know, some people are going to drift away from it and I I've already seen signs of this people saying we were lied to, we were deceived. Um, so they'll lose probably the outline that the weaker of believers, but they'll always be our heart of the true believers there. And that's very worrying for the Biden administration. Right. Because you know, so many of these people and I, I don't think they just going to disappear overnight just because Joe Biden is president. Dana Lewis: (29:59) Do you think that there are links and how tenuous do you think they are to groups like proud boys and white supremacy? Yeah. Samantha North: (30:08) There are, there are, there are links as to what exactly they look like in practice. I don't know, but there are certainly ideological links that they share and they're on the same end of the political spectrum. Um, and they share some of the same tactics, you know, that they're going to go to the streets and that they're likely to get involved in violent protests, like in the cup atop, I would expect there to be not only Q and non people, but probably people who sympathize with the proud boys and white supremacist groups in general. Dana Lewis: (30:38) I was reading a quote from you where you said that, uh, because Q Anon is sparked so many different sub conspiracy theories, that there's a lot of scope just to keep twisting into a new narrative. So Trump is gone, but they'll find something else to keep it going. Yeah, Samantha North: (30:58) Definitely. We don't know yet what that would look like. Um, it's probably going to go underground the que conspiracy theory, because I believe a lot of the major social media platforms are now banning it quite comprehensively, and Trump's also been booted off most of them. So, so I could envisage that going underground on to more alternative platforms like parlor or like garb, or like [inaudible], and then sort of proliferating there. And in that toxic kind of swamp and perhaps manifesting in violent, real life events from time to time, you know, like when some lone Wolf decides to take matters into their own hands, that's a risk, Dana Lewis: (31:39) An internal presentation from 2016 reviewed by the wall street journal, a company researcher, Monica Lee found that Facebook was not only hosting a large number of extremist groups, but also promoting them to the users in that 64%, she was quoted as saying 64% of all extremist groups, uh, joined are due to recommendation tools. These, uh, these AI algorithms that feed people kind of more and more what they, what the algorithms think will keep them hooked on the platform like Facebook. Do you think that's still going on or are the big texts slowly throttling back from that? I mean, a lot of people say Facebook has not dealt with it. Samantha North: (32:25) Yeah. That is difficult to evaluate. But I would say that until the fundamental architecture of the social media platforms changes, you know, that they rely on engagement for that, the value to advertisers, right. And engagement. It's hard to tell if it's negative or positive, if it's conspiracy theory or cat videos. So I believe until that model can be changed, it's going to be very difficult to really keep this stuff under control because the algorithms always going to lead the user to what the user likes, they're going to serve them up more of what they like and what they engage with. And by their very nature, these, these shocking conspiracy theories are more compelling and more engaging. Dana Lewis: (33:07) I was just going to say, I mean, those are what the studies tell us, right? The, the, uh, maximum engagement means controversy, misinformation, extremism. And when you start telling a social media company, don't have maximum engagement that doesn't ring, you know, very well with the, their dollar incense bottom line, because maximum engagement is where they make their advertising dollars. Samantha North: (33:31) Exactly. And that was an article as, um, just a few days ago. I think technology review or some such, maybe you saw it, it was a deep dive into what's going on behind the scenes of Facebook and the kind of discussions that they have when they try to tackle these problems. And that really, it supported what you said. And what I think is the case, you know, they don't want to cut engagement because they need him. Dana Lewis: (33:54) So how do you fight disinformation? I mean, I've led you through a lot of the disinformation that you're well aware of. Um, is there a way that we begin to dismantle this? Uh, because if we don't, we are seeing everything from the subversion of democracy, to the sparking of insurgencies and storming of democratic capitals, um, to civil war, to violent, extreme movements and extremists, um, both in the United States and around the world. I mean, this is an international issue now. Samantha North: (34:32) Yeah. It's, it's sobering really the extent to which, and, and the way you described it, you've you put it, put it perfectly. Um, I like to think that there's a way to go back to the public and to the, to the users and perhaps not all, not just media literacy, although that's also important, but kind of educating people about the psychological side of how they engage with these things on social media, you know, like disinformation and inauthentic behavior are deliberately designed to trigger certain biases in the minds of humans. And most people don't really know this. So for example, I can give you an example here. Um, I don't know if you've ever been drawn into a trolling argument on social media. I know I have when the person does, wants to keep arguing and arguing with you. Right. And it seems like they just don't want to stop. Dana Lewis: (35:26) I have regrettably gotten into a few counter punches and thought, why in, in, you know, why on earth did I ever engaged in the first one, Samantha North: (35:34) Precisely and me too many times. I mean, I had to consciously hold myself back, but, but, but I think, you know, in, in that situation, we get so kind of focused on beating the opponent on, on telling them our points of view that we, I think are more likely to be more susceptible to disinformation in those moments. You know, perhaps we'll share an article with them to prove our point to drive our point home, perhaps the article we won't take the time to critically assess it because we're so keen on getting one up on the enemy. And then that's the kind of tribalism as well. I think that this us versus them, um, in my research on Brexit from part of my doctoral research, um, I looked into how Brexit supporters and remain supporters go up one another on social media and how, how tribal they are. And, you know, that, that opens people up to, to this kind of toxic content. So, so the psychological biases are critical. And I would like to see more focus on understanding those and, um, finding ways to somehow integrate that into, into policy and, you know, educating the users themselves. Dana Lewis: (36:43) Are there parallels with Britain leaving the European union, the campaign that the leavers, the pro Brexit camp, um, you know, pushed out on the sides of buses and elsewhere, are there parallels with what's happened with Q1 on, in terms of disinformation and how they hooked into people? Samantha North: (37:05) Yes, there are well, Q and a is a lot more outrageous. I think that both of those campaigns had their own flavor kind of tailored to the populations and the cultural context within which they were operating. Right. So perhaps cured on would have been less successful in a British context because some of the things it's involved with are uniquely American, I think. And, but what they have in common is, is tribalism. That's setting two sides against each other's throats. So we've got Brexiteers and remainers in the UK, you know, and, um, the main is, are portrayed as the enemy and there's less patriotic. And as you know, subversive to the, to the European union with Q Anon, there's the Q followers who are the enlightened ones. And then the, the sheeple, everybody else who's not enlightened with Q and Q is going to fight this, this big enemy, these, these pedophile cabals from Hollywood elites. So I think there's lots of group identity theory at work there. Um, and, and it's, it's very interesting how that seems to really be a feature of, um, every disinformation campaign I'd ever seen. There's always an us versus them component Dana Lewis: (38:19) And fear that, uh, you know, your borders are being swarmed by, by immigrants or you're losing control of your justice system, your independence they're giving away the country. Samantha North: (38:36) Absolutely. Yep. Yeah, there was a, it's a powerful trigger. And, um, you know, for, for centuries really, um, dictators and populous leaders have, have leveraged fear and it's nothing new to use that tactic, but it always works. Dana Lewis: (38:50) I feel, I feel a bit dark at the end of this conversation in the sense that, you know, if you, you know, to tell people they need to read information better, they need to be more skeptical. Uh, they need to understand that algorithms are feeding them kind of, you know, more what more extremist information to keep them hooked. I don't think that's going to turn it around for a lot of people. So we need something a little more, you know, hands-on push the, push the red interrupt button to stop this because otherwise I don't see it ending. And probably, you know, let's say Trump decides to run again in 2024. I just see this, you know, getting swirled around again and supercharge. Samantha North: (39:37) Yeah. That's, uh, it's, it's a big worry. Um, perhaps regulation is the answer. I know that the European union, um, is taking some small steps in the direction of regulation of the platforms, but I don't know how that might work in the U S with the first amendment. I think it's a more difficult environment Dana Lewis: (39:54) Europe. How would they, how would they regulate it? I mean, simply by demanding removal of content. Samantha North: (40:00) I think that could be one of the components. I haven't, I haven't looked into it in great detail, but I know that the freedom of speech laws are not as loose as they are in the U S not as permissive. So I guess they could do that. They could, they can take down a lot more things. I think like the bar for what constitutes a violation of content, um, is it's different in your, um, it's lower. So that's one thing, but yeah, we need to take quite dramatic action. And I wish I had a really good solution to this because I, you know, maybe I could be president who knows, Dana Lewis: (40:34) Thank you so much for your time. I mean, it's good. Look, it's perplexing to a lot of people, how we go about this and the removal of some of the content for some of the big platforms, no doubt, uh, has helped. And you're right. I think generally Europe in given our history with, with Nazi Germany and the, you know, there, there is, yes, you have first amendment freedom of information, freedom of speech rights. But when it comes to the spreading of hatred, the red lines are drawn. It seems much more quickly. Um, and so, you know, I guess you're right. I mean, the us is going to have to adapt its to its system as it evaluates that this threat is no longer comical. Um, but I mean, it's a real threat to their, their, their Democrats, their democracy. Samantha North: (41:16) I have some hope for that, but that the Biden administration will take a more productive approach than the previous one did. So fingers crossed let's hope for a good outcome. Good to talk to you too. Thank you. Something to think about the combating Dana Lewis: (41:31) Terrorism center at West point Dana Lewis: (41:34) Concluded that there is significant overlap between Q Anon and extremist channels affiliated with groups like the proud boys, paramilitary groups in white supremacists, the same groups attract former military members to a 2019 military time survey found that 36% of active duty troops had seen evidence of white supremacists and racist ideologies in their ranks. There've been Q Anon postings in us military sites, including a brigade in the 82nd airborne. It is high time for the military to educate its members on the dangers of this cult. And police need to do the same. Don't drink the Kool-Aid. This information deserves re-education I'm Dana Lewis. Thanks for listening to backstory. I also do a daily newsletter, which can be found on substance it's free Dana Lewis dot sub stack.com. Have a look. Thanks for the listen. I'm Dana Lewis and I'll talk to you again. 

#@jason_blazakis @soufancentre @samanthaNorth @Qanon Qanoncult

[backstorywithdanalewis]

#@nigelnelson meghanandharry meghanmarkle princeharry royals piersmorgan

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Royal Firestorm  Back Story with Dana Lewis podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1016881/8113779

Nigel Nelson: (00:01) [inaudible] Dana Lewis - Host : (00:05) Hi everyone. And welcome to this special Royals edition of backstory. I'm Dana Lewis. What a scandal, Megan Markle tells Oprah. She was the victim of racism in the palace, and no one helped her with thoughts of suicide. She was no Diana, but her husband, Prince Harry says the British media is bigoted, and he moved to America to protect his family. The queen statement, the whole family is set and to learn the full extent of how challenging the last few years have been for Harry and Megan, the issues raised particularly that of race are concerning. While some recollections may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately on this backstory. Why did Megan and Harry try to take down the Royal family claiming they wanted privacy, but airing their grievances in the most public way possible. Nigel Nelson: (01:10) Dana Lewis - Host : (01:10) Nigel Nelson is fleet Street's longest serving political editor and now heads up politics for the Sunday mirror and Sunday people. He appears regularly on TV, reviewing newspapers and was remarkably and notably a Royal correspondent for the daily mail. I Nigel welcome. Nigel Nelson: (01:29) Hi Dana Dana Lewis - Host : (01:30) And Joe Phillips, uh, is a well-known commentator across Britain and appears on programs like the BBC. Nigel Nelson: (01:36) Hi Joe. Hi Dana. Dana Lewis - Host : (01:39) Look, first of all, just your initial blush on this story. I mean, it is created a firestorm Nigel. I can start with you, uh, in Britain and now the palace has said tonight that, um, they are going to handle this. Nigel Nelson: (01:56) Yes. And I'm not sure that's the best way of doing it because, um, um, there were two allegations from the opera Winfrey interview that really do need looking at carefully. One is the, is the allegation of racism within the Royal household. And the second one is, uh, in a sense, perhaps, um, even more serious is that, uh, Meghan, Claire, uh, when she asked for help for her mental health issue, that was refused because it wouldn't look good. Now I think those two are key. Um, I mean, if you go back a bit to, uh, princess Don, his bombshell interview, we didn't get anything like this. This was actually talking about what goes on in the Royal household and about somebody like Meghan, who felt completely an utterly unsupported and the idea of actually dealing with the whole thing internally, I'm not sure is really the answer. Um, I think there be investigation. It can't be a, a public one as such, but I do think that the results of it should be made now, Dana Lewis - Host : (03:06) Joe, you know, the statement from the policy says that they'll recollections may Berry, what do you read into that? Jo Phillips: (03:14) Well, I think they're trying to avoid getting into a, he said, she said, I mean, you know, it has always said that we are the Americans, um, you know, are divided by a common language. We don't know, we weren't there. Megan fit clearly feels upset, slighted. Um, she was very unhappy whether or not this is the right way to go about airing your grievances. So publicly is a different question. Um, but I think what the Royal family are trying to say is we, we take this seriously. We're going to investigate it. You know, it may not be, as she said, but they're not accusing her of lying. Um, but I think what they're trying to do is to close it down because in the end, although, as Nigel says, this raises very serious issues about, you know, the country's number one public family and its institution. It is fundamentally a family matter that has been given huge, great publicity, thanks to them. Dana Lewis - Host : (04:15) Well, it's not really a family matter, is it Nigel? I mean, the queen is the head of state and this is an institution that is supported by the British people. And if there is, if there is a lack of compassion towards somebody that may be suicidal. And indeed, if there is traction in this allegation, racist allegation that somebody asked her, uh, asked Harry, uh, about the color of the skin of the baby, how Brown it would be. Um, that's a matter affecting really all of Britain, is it not? Nigel Nelson: (04:51) Yes, I think it is because these, these are allegations, which I don't think can be swept under the carpet. And Joe's right. That really is what the palace would like to do. And again, you are right that the Royal family is funded by the British taxpayer, um, directly to the tune of 67 million pounds. But it may be up to about 340 billion pounds when you take in all the various other things like, uh, the protection that they need, the security surrounding them, uh, the cost of that, uh, the cost of some of their homes, which is born by the public purse. I'd also things like the land that they've inherited that the public could actually benefit from, which is the Duchy of Lancaster or the Duchy of Cornwall. And they bring in some, uh, something like 18 80 million pounds. So yes, I think that the, the British taxpayer has a stake in this and therefore, uh, that is why any investigation must be seen to be done properly. And the only way of what way that is going to happen is if the results of that are known, we're not asking them to start about private route. We're talking about centrally to particular allegations, which I think need to be dealt with properly. Dana Lewis - Host : (06:06) Is this the unfair part of that interview where, you know, she came out and didn't want to inherit wouldn't name, who made this comment about, you know, questioning the color of the skin of the baby yet to be born? Is it unfair in so far that it completely was a scatter gun on every single member of the Royal family, making the entire Royal family out, look racist aside from the fact that Oprah then clarified that it wasn't the, it wasn't the queen? Jo Phillips: (06:38) Well, I, I have to say that Oprah Winfrey, uh, I know she's got a huge following, but there were lots of questions she didn't ask. Um, and she didn't ask, you know, what was the context of that conversation? You know, if you're not going to say who it is, then why say it at all? Um, because as you say, all you're doing is you're, besmirching everybody. And you know, there's huge speculation about who might've said it, who could have said it, but we don't know whether it was somebody saying, gosh, I wonder if the baby is going to have ginger hair like hairy or, you know, dark hair like Megan. I mean, we, we weren't there, we've only got Megan's word for it. Harry's word for it. Nigel Nelson: (07:22) Yeah. I think, I, I think I, I agree with that, that, um, I think it would have made things worse. Had Harry named the individual who was involved, um, uh, as Joe says, you don't, you don't any have Meghan and Harry's word for it. And also one assumes that it was somebody actually close to Harry E but he didn't want to hurt. And bear in mind that the interview that they gave you has certainly heard every member of the Royal family or not. Dana Lewis - Host : (07:53) And what is the cost of that? I mean, somebody asked me today, you know, could this be, could this lead to the end of the Royals? I mean, I think that's ridiculous. Um, it will blow over probably not for years to come. Uh, they will weather this storm. Like they have many others, but is there a price here? I mean, this, this has been a devastating interview. Jo Phillips: (08:14) There is, there is a price in the same way there was after the Diana interview and then in the, the queen and the Royal family's reaction to Diana's death, which was broadly seen as not what the public expected. Um, but it will blow over eventually the problem is that by making it so very, very public, it's made it extremely difficult for, um, Harry and Megan, um, to come back into any other way, whether they come back for, um, I think they're coming back for something later this year, um, or their schedule he's definitely scheduled to come back for something led to this year. And, you know, they're all going to be state funerals to attend. There are going to be weddings and christenings and things like that. And you know, that they've created such a schism at the moment that it seems very difficult as to how they can mend that. Dana Lewis - Host : (09:10) I would like both your perspective on, you know, the, the Princeton and mega Mark, Meghan Markle of privacy. I mean, they, they talk about privacy, leave us alone. Uh, and yet they, they seek out press when it benefits them, benefits them financially as well. Um, and in this case they have erred more dirty laundry on Oprah than any Royal I think has ever talked about. So there's a, there's a huge cavernous contradiction Nigel. Nigel Nelson: (09:42) Yeah. So the, I think it probably is that, that they were complaining a lot during the interview about press intrusion and obviously, um, they were then opening their lives up to, to the whole world. Uh, they think they've got a great, and the only way that they can deal with that is to make it public. Um, as far as the damage goes, I mean, we'll have to see over the next few days, whether, uh, Meghan and Harry are more damaged by doing this than the Royal family, or maybe it will be, it will be both equally. I think I tend to think that in the long run, it will make no difference because, uh, those people who want, uh, the United Kingdom to become a Republic will still want it to become a Republic. And those who don't won't, uh, it gives, it gives sort of some ammunition to the Republican. Nigel Nelson: (10:30) I'm, I'm a, a monocast, but I'm not a royalist. And nothing about the interview with Oprah Winfrey has changed my position. What does that mean? It means that I believe that we should have the queen or the Monarch as head of state, because I think that it's constitutionally really important for this country. I'm no great fan of the Royal family as such. And so I wouldn't mind seeing say a slimmed down Royal family, one that cost a bit less. Um, but I do believe that it's really important for the stability of the United Kingdom to have the Monarch head of state. Now, our entire constitution has come about by evolution, unlike say, America, France, or Russia, which K, which came about by revolution. And as a result, we have a certain stupidity. Now, if you change all that, we'd end up with an elected president, which would sit really uncomfortably with a parliamentary democracy. You could go the Irish route and have a purely ceremonial president and still maintain your parliamentary democracy. But then in that sense, that's what the queen is. That's what we've got. We've got a ceremonial head of state. Dana Lewis - Host : (11:46) Is there any serious talk of this? I'm so sorry, Joel, I'm going to come back to you in a sec. Is there any serious talk of this? I mean, monarchists versus the royalist vision of, uh, of a, a new United Kingdom. I mean, do you, is this conversation in the context of this interview and these horrid lurid allegations by Megan D does it pave that road? Nigel Nelson: (12:13) Well, I don't think it does because as I was saying earlier, I think that if you're a Republican, uh, you will be you'll carry on being a Republican and it won't change your view just in the same sense. If you're a monarchist, it won't change your view. But yes, the truth is it does open up the debate. The debates been going on for years about whether or not we should have, um, have a monarchy and it kind of splits down by age and politics. So you're more likely to have Republican sympathy if you're younger. And if you are on the left rather than the right and the early opinion polls bring justice, what this does do is open up the whole debate. And it's one thing that the, um, the British establishment has always wanted to close down. This debate is opened up over a form of the house of Lords. You could argue that, uh, an unelected opera opera house doesn't sit well in it, but one of the reasons that reformed the house of Lords has never really happened is because if you did set that could in itself threaten the bond of cake. So there's a view amongst politicians that the status quo is the best thing to have, but yes, this debate will go on, Dana Lewis - Host : (13:29) Joe, why did she do it? And why did Harry do it? I mean, coming back to that question, people say that, you know, with, uh, a velvet knife, they, you know, they struck the heart of, of the, of the queen and the palace. Do you think she was trying to get even, or, I mean, is she a victim or is she a very, uh, very clever, um, and, and some would say nasty piece of work. Jo Phillips: (13:58) Um, I think if you put it in the context of here was a woman in her mid thirties who had been by all accounts, a fairly successful actress. She'd been married before she'd lived her own life. She'd run her own career quite successfully. She wasn't the sort of ingenue that princess Diana was. Um, so she came into it being one assumes a bit more worldly wise. I think part of the problem is the, you know, that she, she's not British. Um, and I think that is a bigger problem than anybody recognized, because I think, you know, there are things that we say, you know, you know, Nitel knows. Um, and as I said at the beginning, you know, we're divided by a common language. Americans don't always get Britain. They don't always get the way we behave in, of course, you've got an institution in the Royal family, which is absolutely rigid in things. So if we, it is true as we are led to believe that, you know, Megan thought it was acceptable to accept designer clothes as freebies and was then cross when she was told, no, it's not that to me shows a degree of misunderstanding and a lack of knowledge, um, that I would have thought in a woman of her age and her capabilities, frankly, beggars belief, you know, why did she do it? Dana Lewis - Host : (15:25) But why? I mean, people could understand maybe why she didn't have much long-term love for the Royals, but I mean, why didn't Harry step up? Jo Phillips: (15:35) Because I think Harry is, he's absolutely smitten with her. I mean, I think he's, you know, he is probably a troubled soul. Um, but you know, as you alluded to earlier, if he had said, I don't want to be part of this, I want to go away and grow the alarm. As on a Scottish Island, that's fine to go to the other side of the Atlantic and in a Californian mansion with all the trappings of that showbiz lifestyle and the money involved and the acolytes and the deals and the agents and the PR people and everything else just seems to me to sit very uneasily with his upbringing and his upbringing and his, uh, his time in the army. I mean, he was, you know, he apparently enjoyed his time in the, in the services. Um, and he's given that all away. I mean, he has really burned his bridges. I think Dana Lewis - Host : (16:31) This does come back to media, right? Because there was a settling of scores here with the tabloids, which they hate. And Prince Harry told Oprah that the UK media is bigoted and creates a toxic environment of control and fear. And a lot of Americans watching that, you know, asked me what is, what the British press and the tabloids and why won't they leave them alone? Nigel Nelson: (16:56) Well, the reason we do that, you don't leave them alone is they're the most famous family in the world. And given that the British taxpayer funds, the, um, the British taxpayer has every right to know what they're doing, the Royals would, would rather be seeing just going around and shaking hands and opening thing. Uh, then, uh, then, then being, being looked into, and when it comes to the, to the whole business of the press, whether it's the tabloid press or anything else that this is what the Royal family is there for. It was one of the things that I thought came out, um, starting from the interview from Prince Harry, where he said, how much attention the Royal family pay to what the press is saying about them. Now, this is their job. This is what they, they they've been brought up to do. When the queen talks about Judy, it is actually showing that duty. It's actually being out there and you can't then blame the press for taking an interest in them. Dana Lewis - Host : (17:52) But do you think that they were tougher on, on, on Megan than, than anybody else and that there is racism in UK tabloid media? Nigel Nelson: (18:02) No, I don't think there's racism at all. I think there are isolated examples where, um, whether someone for a unfortunate phrasiology and some of it came out in the interview, I don't think he says, but you haven't. Britain is a free press. And on the basis of that, the press is free to express an opinion about Royal couple, um, and the ones who are good at it, get a favorable press. And that would be Prince William and Kate, and the ones who are not good at it tend not to get a real press. I mean, years ago when I was. Dana Lewis - Host : (18:36) And where did the love affair break? Where did the love affair breakdown though? I mean, th there was this fairy tale wedding, which the world watched, um, and they welcomed the welcome Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's, you know, new love. Um, and I think that the country generally loves those two boys after what happened to Diana. Um, w where did it break down suddenly because of the father and the strange relationship? Jo Phillips: (19:01) I, I think it's because Megan thought that she could just come in and behave how she wanted to. And I think it all became, uh, you know, they had that they had a difficult relationship. I think they're using the media as a bit of a scapegoat because they don't, you know, they can't on the one hand say we hate the media whilst they're courting the media. Um, it doesn't sit with anybody easily. Um, and I think, you know, I was in Brixton in South London when they had just got engaged and they came on a, on a visit there. Um, and the streets were lined from early in the morning with huge numbers of people, all young men, women, nearly all of them black, because it's a very, very, um, black, ethnic, diverse, ethnically diverse area. But a lot of West Indian people live in that part of London, there was such an outpouring of genuine affection and genuine welcome. Jo Phillips: (20:02) And I think for those people, she's turned her back on them, um, which I think is a terrible shame. And I think, you know, the fact that the queen gave her own patronage of the national theater and passed it on to Megan, which is a huge gift. I think, you know, recognizing the fact that she's an actress, she could have actually used that to do something really good about creating better diversity in the arts and the theater world. There were lots and lots of things that they could have done to address these things, but unfortunately it has become so much about her, um, that it, it, it does, it just feels uncomfortable. Dana Lewis - Host : (20:42) Nigel, a lot of people will not see her as a victim here. And th th and, and those who do support the queen and, you know, I think the vast majority of the country, uh, feels protective of the queen feels that, you know, th they have slandered everybody in the Royal family, uh, and Megan will probably bear more of a brunt of that than, than Prince Harry. Would you agree? Nigel Nelson: (21:05) Yes, I think that's, I think that's probably true. Um, although again, we'll have to see how the polls go. Younger people will actually be supporting both her and Prince Harry. And I don't think at any point that the there's been a sudden breakdown in relations between the media and the Royal family. This is an ongoing thing. So for instance, when I was a Royal correspondent Prince, the son got a really bad press. And then she, she, um, came back from that because she's the hardest working Royal. She came back from that and nowadays gets a great press. I think the same thing would have happened to Megan. Harry I'd been knuckled down. I think the press press would have actually supported them. So a lot of it is actually stuck shots. It's what you see at the time. And that is what the British public have a right to know about. Dana Lewis - Host : (21:54) Last question to both of you. I just want to very quickly mention it to you that, uh, you know, the British press had been brawling the last two days amongst themselves, some of them, and some of that took place on television with piers Morgan. Who's a well-known host here and had hosted, you know, what was the success of the Larry King show at CNN? Um, and he basically went on television, being very protective of the Royal family and said, uh, that he didn't believe her, that it was a pathetic, um, uh, interview, um, that, that he essentially, you know, didn't believe her, even her, her statements about her suicidal thoughts and that she couldn't get help. He is now it looks like resigned, uh, and is moving on. Uh, I, I guess this is something that, uh, probably a lot of people were calling for, and they're saying that off calm, which is the media regulator had some 40,000 complaints today, one of the largest complaints they've ever had about any media. So this is a tremendously, um, you know, emotional reaction from the country. Uh, and some of them feeling very protective about making stuff. Jo Phillips: (23:07) Yeah. And if there's a contagion in that, because, you know, they're all very real issues as, as we all said, and we all agree about racism and particularly mental health. I mean, if somebody like Megan who has actively got involved in mental health charities and she, and Harry set up this scene with Kate and William in the beginning of their relationship, um, to talk about mental health. Dana Lewis - Host : (23:33) So Harry is basically a poster boy for mental health campaign and charity. So I mean, of all the people that would know who to reach out to it, certainly both of them, both of them were. Um, but I, Jo Phillips: (23:46) I think, you know, piers Morgan, he's not a, he's not a household name outside of Britain, I don't suppose. Um, and I'm sure he will go on to do other things, but I think, you know, it's, it's a warning to people, you know, everybody's got opinions, but sometimes you have to think very carefully about the audience and also about the thing, you know, regardless of your own personal feelings about the interview, about the couple involved, actually, when somebody says I had mental health issues, I felt suicidal and there was no one to turn to. No one has the right to say, I don't believe you. Nigel Nelson: (24:24) Yep. I absolutely agree with that. What peers said was totally and utterly unacceptable. If a young woman says she has mental health, health issues, you do not rubbish rubbish on national television. Dana Lewis - Host : (24:38) It's all about empathy and, and perception is reality. And if she felt that she was suffering, it's not for us to question that in the media, Nigel Nelson, uh, of the Sunday mirror and Sunday people and Joe Phillips television commentator, thank you both so much. And that's this backstory on one of the worst scandals about the Royal family and more than 80 years, I'm Dana Lewis. Please share this podcast. That's all we ask. Thanks for listening. And I'll talk to you again soon.

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Nuclear Hotlines Back Story w/Dana Lewis podcast https://www.buzzsprout.com/1016881/8067453

President Kennedy: (00:00) The whole office offensive buildup, a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba is being initiated all ships of any kind bounds to Cuba from whatever nation or port where they found to contain cargoes of offensive weapons be turned back, shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launch from Cuba against any nation in the Western hemisphere. As an attack by the Soviet union on the United States requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet union. I call upon chairman crucial to haul and eliminate this plan to Stein, reckless and provocative threat to world peace. Dana Lewis - Host : (00:52) Hi everyone. And welcome to another edition of backstory. I'm Dana Lewis. I've devoted a few segments here to nuclear arms control because it's a former correspondent. It was based in Moscow for American TV. I covered many of the strategic arms control negotiations and came, I think to understand how nuclear war is a larger risk than we realize that recording. You just heard a president Kennedy came about an October, 1962. The closest the world may have come to nuclear war. The Cuban missile crisis. When the us discovered Soviet nuclear missiles on Cuba, president Kennedy demanded their removal Dana Lewis - Host : (01:31) And announced a Naval blockade of the Island and the Soviet leader, Khrushchev exceeded to us demands a week later, but it wasn't as simple as that, there were tense moments, a lack of communication. Anything could have gone wrong, and it was decided to establish a hotline between the two nuclear superpowers in the wake of that to ensure if heightened tensions arose again, there would be communication to talk, but since then a lot has changed. Nuclear weapons are hypersonic and warheads appear on conventional delivery systems like cruise missiles. There are more nuclear nations. It's simply more complicated, more confusing. And as you're about to hear on this backstory, incredibly communications can be hacked and hijacked and are sorely lacking. And when decisions have to be made in seconds in a crisis, none of it is good. And then you system is being proposed a kind of nuclear crisis conference call. One that we hope will probably never have to happen. All right, joining me now from England is rear Admiral John Gower, who served until his retirement in 2014 as the assistant chief of defense staff, nuclear chemical biological in the UK ministry of defense. Hi John, thanks for joining me. Good to see you again. And Phillip Reiner from California is the chief executive officer of the Institute for security and technology. Phillip, thank you. Philip Reiner: (03:06) It's really great to be here. Thanks for having me, Dana Lewis - Host : (03:08) Phil. First of all, you are a podcast expert because I've listened to your podcast. What's it called again? Philip Reiner: (03:15) We have a podcast that's focused on a very niche set of issues in the nuclear domain. We call it the fourth leg. Dana Lewis - Host : (03:22) That's what I listened to and I thought you've got some great segments there. And, uh, so, and I've stolen all the questions from that. They were so good. Let's talk risk. First of all, before we talk about communication, I mean there are, are there nine countries, somebody said seven in one of your broadcasts, Russia, the United States, China, India, Israel, France, North Korea, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom. I hope somebody was counting. Do they communicate if there's a crisis like the Cuban missile crisis, do you want to take that first film? Philip Reiner: (03:54) There are historical precedents via which nations that maintain a nuclear weapons arsenal are able to potentially communicate with one another much of which actually Springs out of, of something you referred to to keep in missile crisis where the United States and the Soviet union found themselves in the lead up to what, uh, what could have been a disastrous nuclear exchange without said means for communication. And what it did was it established a historical precedent via which, uh, uh, the red phone was something that was deployed for leader level engagement in the lead up to an, uh, in order to avoid such a such a nuclear catastrophe. And what you found in that instance was this, uh, diplomatic and technical means of a hotline via which the two leaders could communicate with one another. And it is something that has evolved over time. And I'd love to invite John into, to talk about this a little bit as well. It's something that's, you can find in a number of different historical examples, really in, in a number of the different nuclear dyads around the world. Um, it is, it is not something however that has been revisited for quite some time, both from a political and a technical perspective, much less, uh, acknowledging how the nuclear really the nuclear world that we live in has evolved from kind of these dyadic relationships into a much more multipolar reality. Dana Lewis - Host : (05:23) John Gower, I not been in the white house, but I haven't been in the Kremlin and seeing these rickety old, uh, white and red telephones, uh, that, you know, our crisis lines and surely, um, it has evolved from that because the weapons themselves. And I would think that the time, uh, those precious minutes involved in being able to respond to a crisis, uh, that is also, you know, a moving target because the missiles are getting faster and the time is getting shorter. Well, I think that there are several, uh, John Gower: (05:58) I wish I could allay your, your concern about this catching up with the reality of the world, but, but the truth is apart from, with the possibility of, of Russia to America, um, one-to-one Moscow to Washington, and I don't have any specific knowledge, but I think given all the arms control and arms reduction activity, that's probably the hotline that is, uh, the most likely to be effective one-to-one, but the world has significantly changed and it is no longer a crisis. And a nuclear domain is not going to be just for the two guys head to head on that particular crisis, um, for a start and for a long time, NATO as an organization has three nuclear arms States in its membership, and they have needed a way to communicate with each other and with the rest of their allies in any crisis. So that is a separate thing. John Gower: (06:54) It's not a hotline, it's a series of abilities within the NATO infrastructure to communicate, but we have the de facto for, um, who have become nuclear arms States since, uh, the [inaudible] joined the nuclear nonproliferation treaty. We have India and Pakistan who have a history of going toe to toe over a whole load of things. We have the DPRK North Korea, um, and we have Israel who is reputed to, um, own nuclear weapons, but doesn't talk to anyone about that. So a crisis, and of course the [inaudible] China, Russia, and the three NATO allies, UK France, and the U S and any crisis that is approaching, uh, a level where nuclear weapons may be employed, involves every one of those. Dana Lewis - Host : (07:45) I want to ask you, but first I want to, will you give me an idea of a crisis? I mean, what, what would be, would it be a launch? Would it just be tensions on the border? Uh, probably all of the above. John Gower: (07:56) Well, the answer is all of the above, but what a significantly changed is that the things that people were feared of in the Cuban missile crisis, and for most of the cold war, where a strike from the blue, by the opposing super power who suddenly got up one morning and decided they could win a nuclear exchange and then tire politics, and, uh, an armaments of the, of the cold war that rush up to 60,000 warheads was based on, on that premise. That is still a possibility, but in my view, in the view of many others, that is really the outside risk. The risk is that nations colliding with each other over a whole host of things from the availability of water, the effects of climate change ambitions in the South China, sea injure, and Pakistan's enmity, and a whole host of other issues, we'll stumble into a crisis where through misinterpretation or miscalculation nuclear weapons will be employed. John Gower: (08:53) And this is not helped by having whole batch of nuclear weapons and the death of the inf treaty. They're all increasing the chances of these slightly easier to use mentally nuclear weapons being used. And so what is needed really is a proper way in the 21st century of communicating yourself away from the brink. And I think, uh, Philip and his team have used operations at the brink. And that's exactly what we're talking about, and you can't with any number of crises. And, and you can add to that if we fail to reinstate the JCPO, if we fail to deal with Iran in a grown-up way that acknowledges needs as a nation, but also the fear of her becoming nuclear. And in recent weeks, they've been very vocal about how effects got wrong. They will follow a nuclear path in a way that they've not been vocal over the years of the worry about them. That just adds you then have 10, Dana Lewis - Host : (09:52) This just not the old mutually assured destruction, uh, um, uh, you know, argument where one side, you know, wouldn't push the button because they know that the other side would destroy them as well. Uh, but now you have a lot of these weapons like hypersonic, uh, I don't want to use Trump's term, but, you know, hypersonic weapons and then, uh, cruise missile deployment with nuclear warheads, which suddenly one nation doesn't know what's in common. Is, is it nuclear or is it conventional? So the stakes as we talk about this, and I want to set this up properly because a lot of people think, well, you know, nuclear war is somewhere out there. And, uh, Saifai movie. I mean, John, you've spent your career on this, are you, are you worried that we are much closer to that brink than we've probably been in a long time? John Gower: (10:41) I think the brink is more difficult to identify and therefore we may be very close or a little bit further away, but I think it is fair to say that I am more concerned now in 2021 than I was at any time in the six years, between 2008 and 2014, when I was involved in this, Dana Lewis - Host : (11:00) That's really notable. It's Phillip, thank you for being patient. So what that brings us to, um, is how do you then have some kind of communication between nations, uh, that is able to, I think one of your guests on one of your podcasts said, you know, get the off ramp on the super highway heading to disaster, which I thought was a very good analogy. Philip Reiner: (11:24) Well, this is where, uh, some of the ingenuity and the, the depth of technical understanding within, uh, the communities that we're able to touch here in California in Silicon Valley, really come into play. And through some of the conversations that we've been able to engender, some of which you can hear in those podcasts and the papers that accompany them. There's the, the reminder that complexity is the enemy of security, where so many, the technical solutions that may be devised to address some of these real challenges go so far out in terms of, uh, the, the backend technical complexity that it actually, uh, increases, uh, the attack vector. It makes it something simpler to, for instance, through cyber means to, to go after. Um, how can we from a jumping off point actually build something from the firmware all the way up that can, through a very transparent, open source process, be collectively and collaboratively built that that these nuclear weapons States could turn to as a communications options. Dana Lewis - Host : (12:35) So tell me, take me, take me through the range of that. W one would be in the old days that rickety old phone, um, you know, a hotline, a bilateral hotline between the two nations that have detentions. Um, and now you're talking about CA cattle link. Is that that's, how am I saying it properly? And what is the name Philip Reiner: (12:55) That is right? So the, this, this capability that we've been talking about potentially building is if we call it Katelyn and Katelyn consists of essentially two different components, there is an endpoint device that is actually used somewhat similar to, uh, the, the telephone that one recognizes today. And then there is a system upon which that can actually ride, which we call the rocks. And so there's the puck device in the rocks network upon which the signal has to has to travel. Dana Lewis - Host : (13:25) You've completely lost me. I hope you weren't meaning to do that. Philip Reiner: (13:29) The, the intent and that's, that's somewhat ironic there because it's a, it's an attempt to, to simplify things, um, is to build a very basic communications device that you can open source the code for all the way up from the actual Silicon. You can show that it is something that's secure. And so what we have been able to do is we can talk to someone like Eric Gross, who is the former security chief at Google. You can talk to one of his counterparts who is also, uh, at Google, who is referred to as the high priest of core boot in the communities, in which he exists. These are folks who have thought for many, many years about how do you actually build software that is reliable, that is verifiably secure, and the intent here, and this gets back to some of what John was talking about. How do you then get that into the hands of not just the United States and Russia who may have very well developed capabilities, but you're talking about a much more diverse set of actors who need this sort of capability, uh, to, to potentially reduce the increasing, uh, tensions that are, that are building up to a potential nuclear exchange. Dana Lewis - Host : (14:44) Well, let me bring John in here, by the way you said puck, would you say that to a Canadian, you, you know, we get the wrong idea right away, but there's no ice in this one and there's, there's no hockey. So John, this is, um, something that would bring in all nations because I presume first of all, to set the scene for that, a launch somewhere, if that's what we're talking about, uh, people don't necessarily know what the target is and where it's headed, and suddenly everybody moves to a hair trigger, and you can have a very dangerous exchange maybe with people that nations that were not even part of the original conflict. Is that the idea? John Gower: (15:23) Well, I think I'd walk back a little bit from that. I mean, clearly it has a use when launch has happened, but its primary use is to prevent the transition to a nuclear weapon launch. And I think the significant things that there's open source based technology would bring is the critical issues which we've seen in Hollywood. Um, do you know who the guy or girl is at the other end of the phone? Can you be certain that they are the leader of that particular notion? Can you have a conversation with them with other leaders of directly involved nations? And I would say that is the nuclear arms States to start with. Um, and can you have such a conversation, uh, within all levels of disaster? So after launch as well, and in fact, after detonation, and I think the trick here is that this is in, in, in technological terms, it's relatively simple, but the trick is not to try and make another iPhone. This is about making it capable simply to conduct the sort of textual messaging that would need to be undertaken to identify what's going down to talk and to deconflict Dana Lewis - Host : (16:36) And kind of link the audio. Would it be strictly an audio telephone call that's encrypted since somebody couldn't hack in there? John Gower: (16:43) I think that that is for discussion, but at its primary level, it's like a text messaging service. And so it is about the identification and the cryptology of that through an open source algorithm that gives confidence and trust between the nuclear arms States who take this system up, that when they speak on it, the people they want to listen can listen at the right level and nobody else can get in the way or spoof it. And I think it is demonstrating that capability through the kind of open source technology. And one of the problems with people thinking about this is they're too used to a new thing, having all the bells and whistles they want, and largely it's the bells and whistles, the ability to send images or music or video like we're doing now with zoom, it's those bells and whistles that give, um, problems with security and with identity and with hacking. And if you shed all of that, if you bear bear it down to its barest elements, do you want the president to be able to talk to the Supreme leader, to be able to talk to the prime minister in a tripartite way and Dana Lewis - Host : (17:50) Get everybody that calm the hell down? That's exactly what this is going to be pulling out a, you know, a mobile launcher and somebody sees it on a satellite. This is the first thing that they're going to reach for and engage that region and engage the nuclear powers. So who's been involved in pushing this idea because it seems like the nations want to do the old do business, the old way with their plastic telephones, you know, kind of can I just before Phillip answers that question, because he's been driving the engagement with a multiple number of countries, every one of the new Kieron state says clearly that their weapons are last resort. They don't want to use them. They'd really rather not. It's all about security, well, not rushing anymore. They said that they would, they would use nuclear weapons well that they have, but the part of their declaratory policy, each of the nuclear arms States use the words of restraint, whatever you may believe about them. And, but this is the ultimate level of restraint. And so if they believe what they say, if they do what they say on the tin, they should have something like this. But I'll let Phillip answer your question. Phillip, try to try and reassure me a little bit because, uh, you know, when they, when they talk about restraint and we talk about some of the nations that are involved in this conversation, you know, it's not, it's not very consoling isn't Philip Reiner: (19:08) And I think there's one more piece on the technical element. And then I'll, you know, very specifically to that, you know, one, one may ask, why don't you just rely on WhatsApp in these scenarios, that's secure Indian, uh, encrypted communications cable. Why don't you just use signal? That is not something that these States could turn to in these very extremely sensitive scenarios, because they haven't seen it built from the bottom up. And the discussion that we're having is, so how do you actually do this with technically savvy individuals from each of these countries, um, within their industry, how do you get those people together so that they actually see it from the beginning? And you come up with a solution that is imbued with integrity from the outset, because they've been part of that technical build from the very beginning. So we continue to have conversations with people really all around the world on this very topic. Philip Reiner: (20:05) We have had conversations with folks who are based in, in Geneva, uh, folks who are based in Berlin, uh, those who are based in London, uh, as Lama bod new Delhi, the conversation really has attempted to make sure that we're reaching out to folks who are in Moscow and in Beijing, but then all of those who may be able to contribute to this as well, who bring a bit of a technical savvy or who understand what it is to actually work through the, what is known as the open source community of folks who can potentially help develop these things in an open, transparent way again, so that you imbue the outcome with a significant level of trust. And that gets to what John was talking about. And Dana, to a certain extent yourself, if these leaders are going to be able to use this, they have to know what it looks like from the inside out. And they have to be able to red team it. They have to be able to go after it and try to break it, find vulnerabilities in it. And the process that we've put in place, both from a political and a technical standpoint is built off of that. Very notion. How do you build it with integrity? Dana Lewis - Host : (21:08) I mean, I take a big breath because the very notion or idea that somebody would hack into a conversation or pretend to be somebody that they're not with a world leader whose finger is near a nuclear button or code or whatever, it's, it, it really takes you back. And I assume than some of the people that are really pushing this are like John Gower who has, uh, you know, deep knowledge and career in working with nuclear forces and understands, you know, this is not a, um, this is not a far-fetched idea that we have miscommunication that leads to nuclear war. John Gower: (21:49) No, I, in fact, I would class it and I have written recently, and I'm not alone in this and saying that misinterpretation of misdemeanor location is the single greatest risk for stumbling into a nuclear conflict. And, and, you know, Dana that I, that I write and work in many areas of risk reduction, um, in, uh, against nuclear cruise missiles against low yields against dual-purpose weapons, this doesn't supplant any of that work. All of that work remains important, but this is the fullback. This is the backstop, the linebacker, depending on what sport you're looking at, I don't know the, the ice hockey equivalent, but if you fail to make these changes, to remove the weapons that are most liable to misinterpretation and miscalculation, and you stumbled towards a crisis, what you really need at that point is the best way of communicating your way out of a crisis. Dana Lewis - Host : (22:43) It's not there. And I think a lot of people listening to this would, would be as well. What is the support Philip for the concept and John, what are the next steps? Why don't we start with Phillips? Philip Reiner: (22:54) I think we've seen a, a real positive set of responses from a number of the, of the folks that I mentioned just a moment ago. I think people realize that and, and directly to what you just said, Dana, I think it's incredibly important. There may be something for instance, that the United States can put forward right now that could potentially serve as this solution. But why would for by way of example, why would Pakistan want to adopt something that was developed by the United States without asking questions about what it was, what it actually could do, for example, they would have to plug it into their system. What does it give the United States access to the demand? Those are the exact trust issues that this would begin to address from the, from the bottom of this Dana Lewis - Host : (23:38) Conversation's already well underway. Philip Reiner: (23:41) So the, yes, those are the types of technical conversations have been having internally at the political level. We have engaged with counterparts, um, in each of the countries that I mentioned before and in a number of others as well, people see the inherent value to trying to build something like this, because it does, I think, provide that nuclear risk reduction potential that John was alluding to John Gower: (24:05) John next steps. I mean, you, you feel that this has some momentum now. Well, it has a certain degree of momentum in the non-governmental world in particular, although we have engaged with governments, uh, clearly we've been in a time of huge distracting crisis. We've gone through a major, uh, significant political change in the U S and elsewhere in the world. Um, and we're just coming to grips with the implications of the new administration in the U S and I think it's true to say that that coinciding with all of that change has probably led some of the governments, just, just Mark Pace two or three times, but Phillips mentioned the key word, and this is trust. Trust is both essential to take this forward, but I also believe this is a very vehicle upon which trust, which is lacking in other places could be built. And so, uh, I know there are organizations like European leadership network, which is highly significant in the Euro Atlantic area, and others who have endorsed this as a very positive step of it's taken forward. John Gower: (25:07) And one of the purposes of talking about it to you today is to, is to raise awareness of it and to seek an opportunity for governments to, to, to engage more proactively and, and together so that we can, we can take this beyond what is an extremely good idea with a lot of the, the foot work done on the technical side, um, to something that could be taken forward, not necessarily by a team led by a us centric think tank, as, as Phillip says, you know, you can have the idea, but you want to hand it on and you want to hand it on to a government or several governments who would be trusted to, to engage at the governmental level. This is only going to fly when the governments of the nuclear arms States, uh, engage with it. And that's what we're trying to do at the moment. John Gower: (25:56) And any involvement from them would be extremely, extremely positive because in the end is not very high tech, all of this is it, it really comes down to personalities and who's on the other end of the, whatever the communication device is. And whether they're going to pull the trigger on a nuclear launch and, you know, president Kennedy, um, his speech in front of the United nations talked about the ominous and omnipresent sword of Damocles that everybody lives under hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation, or as he rightly pointed out by madness. And that slender thread steel all these decades later is still in place. And you would have think that we we'd come further than where are now with assuring that there wouldn't be a nuclear exchange somewhere. I think something like this, they know, and I agree with all that you've said is, um, part of this reestablishment of trust. John Gower: (26:58) We, with the last time that we had a positive, uh, level of trust in my mind was around 2010. And if you look at the way in which NATO is writing about its relations with Russia, the direction of travel, uh, with, uh, star, the fact the I and half was still, uh, the intermediate nuclear forces treaty was still operating. All of the conventional armed forces treaties were operating in Europe. Um, things have gone seriously downhill since then. And what is really missing is co-operative trust. And if you don't have cooperative trust, then it really doesn't matter. Your, your chances of having a miscalculation or misinterpretation are hugely magnified. And so whilst this has a practical application in the reality, it is also a vehicle for trust. Philip Reiner: (27:46) Oh, I would just, I would reinforce what John was just talking about. There's so few instances in all of the dialogues around, around nuclear weapons, the nuclear enterprise writ large, where you can see a positive conversation around technical trends. And what we've we feel we've struck upon here is something that could add value, not only from a technical perspective and give people tools that they could build off of, but it would be something that a diplomatic level that they could use as potentially a way to create trusted discussions and collaborative endeavors. That's our intention here is to both address from a technical perspective, but maybe give people some political space to engage with one another as well. John Gower: (28:25) Let's do a quick, thank you so much to both of you. Former rear Admiral John Gower and Phil  Reiner Dana Lewis - Host : (28:31) The chief executive officer of the Institute for security and technology. Thank you so much. Thank you, Dana. Thank you, Dana. And that's our backstory, please subscribe and share this podcast. I also run a newsletter now to help people who complained. They simply can't navigate media anymore to try and understand what's important and steer people away from this information. It's Dana Lewis dot sub stack.com. Sign up. It's free. I'm Dana Lewis reporting from London. Thanks for listening. And I'll talk to you again soon.

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Climate Emergency on Back Story with Dana Lewis podcast. https://www.buzzsprout.com/1016881/8035226

Sir David Attenburough: (00:00) That today, there are threats to security of a new and unprecedented kind. These threats do not divide us. They are threats, which should unite us no matter from which parts of the world we come for the faces or they are rising global temperatures, the despoiling of the ocean that vast universal Lada on which people everywhere dependent for their food changes in the pattern of weather worldwide, the pay, no regard to national boundaries, but the concern forests into deserts, drown, great cities and lead to the extermination of huge numbers of the other creatures with which we share this planet. No matter what we do now, some of these threats will assuredly become reality within a few short years. Dana Lewis : (01:09) Hi everyone. And welcome to another edition of backstory. I'm Dana Lewis. That was sir David Attenborough, speaking to the UN security council. This week. The broadcaster in conservation has told the UN security conference regarding the impact of climate change that the world must unite against environmental threats. Sir, David Attenborough notes, consequences of climate change do not respect national boundaries, but instead will cause havoc worldwide. And it's happening in California. Forest fires in Texas winter storms this year alone has seen a series of devastating climate disasters in various parts of the world. Heat waves in India, Pakistan in Europe, flooding in Southeast Asia from Mozambique to Bangladesh, millions of people have already lost their homes, livelihoods and loved ones as a result of more dangerous and more frequent extreme weather events increases of air and water. Temperatures lead to rising sea levels, supercharged storms, and higher wind speeds, more intense and prolonged droughts and wildfire seasons heavier precipitation and flooding. Dana Lewis : (02:27) The evidence is overwhelming and results are devastating. Global warming is not a debate it's science. And if you're still wondering if it's occurring, then you're vastly uninformed and misled by fringe political leaders who place profit over environmental concerns. The number of climate related disasters has tripled in the last 30 years, get this between 2006 and 2016. The rate of global sea level rise was two and a half faster than it was for almost all of the 20th century. More than 20 million people are forced from their homes by climate change. The United nations environment program estimates that adapting to climate change and coping with damages will cost developing countries 140 to $300 billion per year. By 2030 on this backstory, we talked to an expert on national security and the environment and the world wildlife fund on how freshwater fish are now going extinct by the dozens. Dana Lewis : (03:44) All right, Jeff Opperman is the world wildlife federations freshwater lead scientist, and Jeff you're based in Ohio. Yes, that's correct. Thanks for doing this. I am shocked by the numbers. I mean your, the WWF and 16 conservation groups came up with this report and they're saying, uh, that a third, a third of freshwater fish species are threatened by extinction. Jeff Opperman WWF: (04:08) Yeah, it's, it's a pretty grim statistic and it really, there has been a raft of studies that have shown that, uh, freshwater ecosystems and freshwater species are more imperiled than their counterparts, uh, on land or in oceans. And it's really, it's something that most people are not aware of, um, in part, because freshwater species and ecosystems are literally literally hidden beneath the surface, so to speak. Um, but whenever scientists look into these kinds of patterns, uh, the, the greatest threats, the greatest risk of extinction, the greatest declines, all are happening in freshwater ecosystems like lakes and rivers. Dana Lewis : (04:49) How do we get to this idea of saying that they are threatened by extinction? Is there any kind of overstate in there, or do you believe that these are kind of, these are genuine, accurate numbers? Jeff Opperman WWF: (05:01) Well, scientists do have, uh, thresholds of population sizes that are, um, that they use to, to use tobacco expressions like threatened with extinction. So for example, I UCN as, um, what they call the red list and they have classifications of, of species. Um, and I'm forgetting the specific classifications, but essentially things like threatened at risk of extinction. Um, you know, different gradations, different levels. Dana Lewis : (05:29) They're not there, they're not endangered, they're saying threatened by extinction Jeff Opperman WWF: (05:35) Classification Dana Lewis : (05:35) Severe as it gets, right. Jeff Opperman WWF: (05:38) I mean, that's based on, um, trajectories it's based on total population sizes to be classified in that category is, is meaning you have moved beyond, uh, endangered that you, you know, moving into something where you truly at risk of extinction. Dana Lewis : (05:53) And as we say, this is just not a one conservation group just is 16, very reputable conservation groups around the world, talking about this. Why is it happening? Let's talk about it. Jeff Opperman WWF: (06:04) So there's a pretty diverse range of, of drivers and threats to freshwater ecosystems. Um, so most people instinctively think about water pollution. You know, they think that, well, if, if freshwater ecosystems are declining, it's because of, of dirty water and certainly water pollution is a major factor. Um, and in some parts of the world, more than others, but even in places that have really cleaned up their waters, you're still seeing, uh, ecosystems that aren't really recovering or, or, or, you know, species that are threatened because there are so many other threats, including the infrastructure that we use to manage our rivers. So that's the dams and levees. And we use this infrastructure generally to control where water goes. We, you know, we like to put water in certain places and keep water from going to other places, but ecosystems have always thrived on conductivity of water. Jeff Opperman WWF: (06:58) Being able to, uh, you know, move to, to connect from rivers, to wetlands or for fish to be able to swim up long distances on rivers and our infrastructure, our dams, and our levees, our flood walls, all of those are intended to fragment. Um, and so will ecosystems thrive on connectivity. Our infrastructure is intended to, to separate and pragmatic. And that that has, has, has major, uh, disruptions for how freshwater ecosystems function. So there's something you could have very clean water, but if you have a fragmented system, uh, species like fish are going to have a lot of problems. Dana Lewis : (07:34) I live on a farm North of Toronto, uh, what, I'm not in London, that's where I grew up. And we have a beautiful river that runs through there. And it's, it runs for miles it's North of Toronto and Ontario. And, um, you know, when I took my kids there, they were like, let's dam this, you know, and make a pie. Right. And then, um, put fish in it. And then the conservation people, I mean, they're really great. I think in Canada, generally, they came through and they walk those farms and they came through and said, can we walk across the farm? And we started talking about the river with my kids, which is a great education. And they were saying, don't it don't clear the grass away from it. Um, and then they started showing us all the species, a little fish in there that we didn't even realize w w were there and they're traveling, you know, dozens and dozens of miles. The best thing you can do with a river is let it run. Jeff Opperman WWF: (08:24) Yeah. It's funny. I mean, little kids have that instinct. Um, I think you, you see it anywhere. Um, small streams, if you're in a park, you'll see, you often see remnants of where somebody's, uh, piled up the stones. And so sure there is this instinct it's kind of, you know, beavers had the same instincts. They see running water, they want to dam it up. Um, but exactly, I mean, let the rivers flow and when they can connect different parts of the landscape, that's when ecosystems are at their most productive and diverse Dana Lewis : (08:52) Affiliations of large species weighing more than 60 of fallen, more than a catastrophic 94%. And then they talked about 80 freshwater species under pressure with 16 already disappearing in 2020. I mean, what are we doing? So the first, Jeff Opperman WWF: (09:13) The first that you cited was about, you know, what I called megafauna. So literally just big animals. Um, and, and for freshwater fish, megafauna are particularly hit hard. The 94% decline since 1970, you cited a lot of that has to do with what I was just talking about. Um, the fragmentation, so big animals in particular need room to roam, right? I mean, we think about, uh, the, the big carnivores, um, you know, you still have, um, well, North of Ontario, you still have wolves and such. Uh, but in most of the United States, the landscape is fragmented. And so we, we can't support wolves. Um, you know, tigers are being hemmed in the landscape, you know, tigers need vast space. Well, freshwater fish megaphone are the same thing. They need large areas and they need them to be connected. They need to move from one to the other, like the Mekong giant catfish. Dana Lewis : (10:06) They're obviously not going to be in rivers most of them. Right. I mean, we're talking about something that big, you're probably talking about the great lakes and Canada, for instance. No, we are talking to, sorry. Yeah. Jeff Opperman WWF: (10:19) We're talking to rivers about some of this megafauna. I mean, the, um, the, the Mekong giant catfish, it's a, it's an herbivore, it eats plants and algae in rivers, but it weighs as much as a grizzly bear. Uh, the Mekong freshwater stingray, uh, is this massive flat, you know, stingray shape that it could drape over a King size bed and be touching the floor. That's how massive they are. Um, the, the beluga sturgeon, um, it's mostly in the ocean, but it's an abdomen. So it swims up rivers to spawn. Um, and this, this was the size of a great white shark. So, so rivers, big rivers are capable of supporting, uh, huge, huge animals. Dana Lewis : (10:58) Yeah. Yeah. That's incredible. And I mean, there's so much going on and even big buddies too. I mean, as the rivers flow into the great lakes that, you know, they've been, they, the, the water levels have been, I've been falling. Um, there's a lot of fish farming going on, which adds to huge pollution inside the great lakes as well. Um, and, and overfishing, although, you know, some people saying in the pandemic, there's actually been some positive things and that is, there's been less tourism and less people putting pressure on the ecosystem. Jeff Opperman WWF: (11:30) Well, yeah, there's a lot of interesting stories that come out about how our presence, um, affects animals and their behavior. And this was, I think one of it is one of the interesting insights, um, uh, you know, just our presence, just the sounds that we make, uh, the boat noises, the movements, uh, species, adjust their behavior to avoid those things, realizing that, you know, our presence does influence and hopefully there's ways that we pick up important insights from that. Um, and you know, it's important that we're also, people are out enjoying lakes and rivers and fishing and taking advantage of all that because we need people to, to really be connected, another form of conductivity. We need people connected to their lakes and rivers. Uh, but if we have insights about how, you know, movements or, or people's behavior can be adjusted to make it better for, uh, for, uh, animals, that would be great. Dana Lewis : (12:24) Is there a way to just not talk about this, but if you were to press the button and give me your headline solution, um, that probably on the top of your list, what we need to do right now, like yesterday to save these species, what is it? Jeff Opperman WWF: (12:45) Um, let's see. We can have a, um, a headline that says, um, solar panels save migratory fish. And, you know, that might be a bit of an unexpected headline, but what I'm talking about here is, is, and I keep talking about is this idea of, of migratory fish and large fish. They need room to roam. They need the conductivity that he feel swim up rivers. Um, and the, the biggest source of fragmentation of big rivers has been hydro-power dams. Um, and there are still thousands of hydropower dams planned, uh, in represent around the world. So only about a third of long rivers are still considered free flowing, meaning they're not fragmented by dams. And many of them Dana Lewis : (13:30) Is that like over the last hundred years or so, or that we've, Jeff Opperman WWF: (13:35) Yes, I would say because I'm capable of fragmenting, a big river has only been possible, uh, since the early 19 hundreds, if we start thinking about, you know, Hoover dam at its time was the, this incredible engineering accomplishment for, cause it was a big dam on a big river. And so since then the 1920s, 1930s, um, there have been dams we've damned most of our major rivers, most of, you know, Daniel Bryan, most of Europe's major rivers. And so if you look at a map of the long pre flying rivers, those that remain are in the Amazon basin, they're in the Congo basin. There's a few in Asia. And then in the far North in Siberia and flowing towards the Arctic ocean where there really aren't people, but where there are people, uh, it's really the tropics that we have these long free-flowing rivers. That's exactly where the proposals for future hydro-power dams, the tributaries of the Amazon, the Mekong river, the Irrawaddy Burr. Jeff Opperman WWF: (14:31) These are also the rivers that still support huge migratory runs of fish. Uh, and, and, and the big freshwater megafauna, the giant catfish, um, and hydro-power is increasingly less competitive as a source of energy compared to wind and solar because their prices, their cost has dropping so precipitously. And there's been a range of battery storage and other storage options and grid management, it's call it the renewable revolution and this renewable revolution is making it so that countries don't have to make this really tough decision. Do we dam this river to get a lot of electricity, but we lose all the, so many of the values of this river often displacing, you know, big lots of communities and farmland, but fragmenting the river and losing the fisheries countries. Don't have to make that trade off anymore because we have a lot more, we have a lot more diverse sources of low carbon energy now. So that would be my headline. You know, solar panels saves the catfish or something like that. Dana Lewis : (15:30) I was just talking to a security expert this week, um, on the converging risks of, of, uh, of ecological disruption. And that's what the council of strategic risks in the, in the United States, I'm going to run that interview together with yours. But it's interesting that they're saying, you know, it shouldn't be a conservation conversation that takes place outside of all the other critical, uh, organizations of government now, because these big con conversations about conservation, because they're not being had in the right places. What you're seeing is threats to national security of all sorts of countries, because it goes beyond just what species you want to protect, but the displacement of people, the lack of water, um, it, I mean, it's, it's threatening the planet. Jeff Opperman WWF: (16:22) Well, this, this report, the forgotten Fisher's report does a really good job of highlighting the nutritional value. The food security value of rivers and dams often are built in one country and then affect food security value of a downstream country. Um, and, and all of that is directly related to stability security. So, yeah, it's exactly, I think we need to not just be trying to get the ministry of environment to be talking about these issues or making decisions, uh, we need to be talking to, you know, the minister is of, uh, of finance and planning and energy, um, and you know, agriculture or the people that oversee food security because the rivers and things like fisheries are fully integrated into the economies and security and stability of countries. So yeah, we need to, we need to not just think that this is about protecting species, which is important is it's central to the, uh, you know, functioning and stability of many countries. And we need to Dana Lewis : (17:21) Support conservation groups and organizations like the world wildlife Federation and, uh, and, and, uh, Jeff Offerman for his, his work in there. But, you know, one thing, a lot of people don't know about Jeff, which I've now learned about because of the person from the WWF told me that you have put together a history of beer through beer labels. And I actually, because I had a few minutes before, before the interview took a look at it, and, uh, your research has obviously flawed because I did see any Canadian Jeff Opperman WWF: (17:50) Beer in there. I have right above me here. I have my collection of, uh, of river and fish themed beer bottles. I do have a Canadian one. Um, I think it was a little complicated because it, it, it had a hydropower dam on the labels. So it's a river themed, but yeah, I wasn't sure if I could work into the conservation, you don't remember the name of the beer dude. It might take me a second to find it Dana Lewis : (18:19) Worry, don't worry. I know it's a long list. And then you have also on YouTube put together a list of river song. Jeff Opperman WWF: (18:27) Well, I think the, both the beer labels and the river songs, what they speak to is this incredible intertwining of culture and rivers from time immemorial. Uh, we are river species. We are river Valley species. That is where, uh, the first settlements occurred. That is, they've always been the areas of incredible productivity, whether it's fishing or, or waterfowl or, or during the dry season at transportation. Right. And, and so really we as civilizations grew up around rivers. And so I, you know, I sort of reflected, uh, we, we paint our oranges or origins. And so that's why we put it on our beer, our beer labels, it's, it's reminding us of where we come from. We come from, you know, uh, people settled along rivers to brew beer and we wrote songs about it. Yeah. So there's the, the, the number of songs about rivers is really quite amazing. Go sit on the road Dana Lewis : (19:18) Bank and have a beer and sing a song and don't build a bloody band. Jeff Opperman WWF: (19:24) Yeah. A lot of ways to connect to your river. And, uh, and if we can avoid disconnecting our rivers, that's, that's a bonus Jeff Dana Lewis : (19:31) Men from the world wildlife Federation. Great to talk to you. Thanks. Jeff Opperman WWF: (19:35) Yeah. Thank you. Great. Yeah. Great to talk with you. Dana Lewis : (19:42) Joining me now is rod Schoonover the author of the report, the security risk that binds us. Hi rod, you're in Washington, Rod Schoonover CSRisks: (19:49) I'm in Washington. Happy to be with you. Dana Lewis : (19:52) You were also the former director of environment and natural resources at the national intelligence council, right. Jeff Opperman WWF: (19:58) It really interests me that we now begin to look at ecological disruption, uh, and Dana Lewis : (20:07) Networks that you talk about fraying, eco ecological networks as security, risks, nation security risks, right? Why is that? Rod Schoonover CSRisks: (20:19) Well, I mean, it has to do with, uh, human's relationship with, uh, with the, with the planet that's changing under our feet. And so basically, uh, you know, the, the overarching concept is that humans, human activities are producing new and, and rapid and foundational changes across multiple art systems and the atmosphere, water the ocean, and in our biological systems as well, Dana Lewis : (20:53) You wrote the U S and international security communities need to treat ecological disruption and climate change as conduits of national security threats, rather than mere environmental concerns. We always looked at these as some kind of security threats in the sense that, you know, there have been tensions over water and between States and, uh, sure. In migration people displaced generally because of environmental issues. Rod Schoonover CSRisks: (21:21) Sure. So, I mean, certainly some parts of that, like water, uh, and, you know, some elements of, of climate change easily enter into the typical security doctrine, right? Like, uh, people can think about water security issues because they understand that people and nations have tensions over, uh, over water shortages or water stress. Um, so yeah, certainly water, uh, the water story is not new, but I think a lot of people don't look at, um, deforestation or fisheries declines, or, you know, extinction rates of organisms, uh, as being anything more than an unfortunate, uh, phenomenon happening that may or may not have an effect to people, uh, in this country and others. Dana Lewis : (22:19) And you're telling them, and you're telling governments, if you are not an environmental leaning government, you better wake up anyway, because this can affect the security of your nation. Rod Schoonover CSRisks: (22:31) Right. And not just be just to be clear. I mean, although it is easily discussed in a, in an environmental framework, I don't really see it that way. I see it as a, uh, a set of issues that said the stresses that are affecting people, societies and the systems that they're dependent on. And so, um, you know, in terms of economics and labor and food security, uh, these are all issues that, um, countries, national leaders not only should care about, uh, they do care about it, but they'd often don't tie these things together. And so, you know, you very, you know, if you're, if you've read news stories, um, you know, you can, you can see, you know, every couple of weeks a story about some bad ecological thing happened, and you see some report about just this morning about, uh, something like a third of freshwater fisheries are in jeopardy of extinction. Uh, the consequences to people are enormous. And so, you know, it's just about, uh, you know, helping security, uh, officials and policymakers and the general public make those connections. Uh, these are not just the purview of the, you know, um, headlines and national geographic or some other environmental press. These are things that will affect people Dana Lewis : (24:12) When you look at things like snow storms in Texas, or, you know, forest fires in California. Um, you know, you guys can't even agree on that in the United States and, and unite a country on those issues. Um, how in the world do you get kind of global consensus when these, these issues are often just politicized when somebody blames, you know, once Washington blames the state or, um, you know, they w one party, uh, blames the others, environmental, uh, you know, uh, promotion of, uh, of, of green power. Um, and it becomes really politicized, right? And, and there should be consensus, there needs to be dramatic consensus to move forward on some of this, Rod Schoonover CSRisks: (24:58) Right. I mean, it's, you're, you're putting your finger on an enormous problem that we have in terms of, uh, basic statements of fact, uh, being politicized. Now, I, I think there's probably some reasonable disagreement on, you know, the environmental underpinnings of the, you know, that we are Texas, uh, freeze out, but in terms of things like wildfires and, uh, you know, pandemic origins, things like that, I think the more that we Hugh to science and we need science in the, you know, the, the nonpartisan, uh, underpinning of science more than more than ever. And so, uh, but I agree it's a problem. Um, and whether it's, you know, disinformation or information balkanization, or, or what have you, uh, I think it's a great problem of the coming decades. If we can't agree on the, you know, the problem set, it's hard to move to a solution set. Dana Lewis : (26:08) That's a, that's a great way to put, uh, this perplexing and disturbing, you know, disinformation age, especially in the U S right now, when, when you try to talk about things like global warming, and the fact that, you know, Biden is reentering the Paris Accords. Uh, meanwhile, the Republican party to a large degree is still in denial of global warming and that, that, you know, more than probably any other lightening rod, and I should be asking you, I'm telling you, I would think that more than any other lightening rod has the ability to displace huge amounts of, uh, economies and cause great insecurity around the globe. Rod Schoonover CSRisks: (26:48) Right. I would just add to that, not just has the capacity, but, um, at least a certain amount of that, uh, is almost certain to transpire. And so you, we know, uh, you know, irrespective of which policies in terms of greenhouse gases and, you know, other things with climate change, we know that some fraction of that is going to transpire. And so it's really incumbent on security officials and policymakers to do something about the, the change that is coming. And one thing I will just add, um, you know, I spent a decade in the intelligence community and I did, um, more than my share of briefing of, uh, officials, uh, in both democratic and Republican administrations and also on, on, on the Hill. Um, there's a lot more common ground than I think people realize, um, especially younger, uh, people, uh, even when they're Republican, they very often, uh, embrace, uh, you know, the science and want to do something about it. And so I, I think that Dana Lewis : (28:10) There that cause a lot of us feel that, you know, people are living in denial and in Washington, some of them, Rod Schoonover CSRisks: (28:16) Some of them, I used to joke that, uh, I had never met a climate denier in Washington, uh, when the doors were closed. Um, uh, but when the doors were open and the cameras were on, it was a different story Dana Lewis : (28:32) And they did that because of industry and lobbying pressure. Rod Schoonover CSRisks: (28:36) Well, I mean, uh, presumably I mean, you never know what motivate motivates people to take one position, uh, you know, publicly and another one privately, but, uh, you know, certainly, uh, you know, the way that our politics are run in the United States and you know, how, uh, money fuels it. Uh, I suspect that's part of the, part of you Dana Lewis : (29:01) Alarmed at the pace at which we're seeing what you called biological annihilation, and there's a long chart in that report. Um, right. When you go through some of it, are you, are you alarmed at the, the pace, just not, you know, in, in the last 10 years, but even in the last few years, as we're getting better at charting, some of this it's some of the stuff that's pretty shocking, Rod Schoonover CSRisks: (29:26) Right? Well, so, uh, the term biological annihilation, isn't the one that I use. It's actually yours by some pretty preeminent ecologist. And, uh, when I read it, when I was still in government, I read the scientific paper. Uh, it just shook me. Um, you know, when you work in this space, you're aware of general global trends, um, and, and ecological trends. But, uh, when you read that kind of language, um, by people who have devoted their life to studying ecological systems, uh, it's very, uh, you know, for me it was, uh, very, uh, sobering. And so yes, I am alarmed, um, by extinction rates. Uh, you, you hear many, and you can read many scientists argue that we're entering our, you know, at the beginning of a sixth mass extinction, if that's true, we're in deep trouble, uh, and it will have more than just affects on societies and nations. Rod Schoonover CSRisks: (30:34) I mean, we're really creeping up on existential, uh, you know, crisis the thing about a night about, uh, extinctions of species and populations and, you know, buyer diversity loss, and a lot of those, uh, uh, issues as, uh, you know, the rebound, if we, you know, as societies quit doing some of these, these practices, the rebound is quite rapid, right. If, if we cut down on deforestation, cut down on the wildlife trade, cut down on overfishing and, uh, over logging, uh, nature does rebound. In fact, uh, I think we should see this kind of policy and these kinds of actions as a way to bolster our, um, resilience against, uh, you know, climate change, pandemic risk, uh, you know, et cetera, these other threats, uh, this is one that has a direct human, uh, fingerprint on it that, uh, you know, if you're looking for solutions, you just dial, dial that back Dana Lewis : (31:45) To you, talk to you about your recommendations in a second at the end of it, because we need to punch it in. But you also talked about, you know, there's a section in there and pandemics and large-scale epidemics becoming more frequent. And obviously you, you take the position that, you know, the, the, the movie we find ourselves in, uh, COVID-19 along with, um, you know, dingy, cholera, Ebola, uh, that these are all, um, how do you say zoo zoonotic spillover events from animals to humans because, uh, of, of these security threats of, of the environment? Rod Schoonover CSRisks: (32:24) Yeah, I mean, basically human activities are increasing the human wildlife interface, and there's a tremendous amount of microbial diversity and the natural systems as we, uh, as we, uh, cross into and lower that threshold between human wildlife and humans and wildlife and livestock. Um, then we expose ourselves to, I think scientists estimate something like 1.7 million under undiscovered viruses that animals and mammals and birds Harbor, and that cannot just pass to us directly, but pass through our, uh, you know, our, our livestock systems. Um, I think a report by the, uh, by IPUs the inter-governmental platform on biodiversity and ecosystem services said they estimated in a special report a couple of years ago that something like, uh, 850,000 viruses could infect humans only. And so, you know, I think it's really incumbent on policymakers and the public to see, to accurately see the, uh, the environment that we're living in, which is one of increasing infectious, uh, human diseases. Rod Schoonover CSRisks: (33:58) I mean, we should see COVID-19 as one in an increasing pattern of, of infectious disease risk. And, uh, there's another one looking around the corner. Um, and so we really need to get our act together and understand, uh, not understand the pathogen space, but also, uh, decrease our exposure. And, you know, there's some easy things to do. Uh, but you know, it takes countries talking to each other and it talks, and it takes, um, you know, leaders, uh, doing, doing those kinds of things. But, you know, I, you know, a lot of these issues like the wildlife trade, uh, pandemic risk in the United States are largely bipartisan and they are historically bi-partisan. And so there, there are, uh, opportunities for these, uh, you know, both sides of the aisle to work together if they decide to do so. Uh, but I have found over the years that, uh, the Republican party to be quite strong on, uh, conservation and wildlife and, uh, you know, these sorts of issues. Dana Lewis : (35:18) So some of the things you talk about as heightened action from the us Congress and the executive branch to combat ecological and national security disruptions, what does that mean? Can you translate that into something that a little more digestible you're saying that the government should do Rod Schoonover CSRisks: (35:35) Well? I mean, in terms of, um, you know, Congress, uh, the major function that, that Congress can play in this role is funding. Um, one of the, you know, I look at this issue, I don't see, uh, this as an environmental issue that we're just marketing as a national security issue to get more, uh, you know, eyes on it and get more attention to it. Uh, you know, I've looked at this issue for quite some time. It worries me deeply. I see it as a, uh, as a security risk as a societal risk. Um, but when you look at your marks and you look how budgets are drawn in, in the us Congress, um, you know, it's wa it's woefully low for, especially for the return on investment, right? So, you know, uh, things that, you know, like, uh, Marine protected areas or protected areas, which we can see as a completely, um, normally would view as an environmental preservation, uh, action, but the security payoffs are, are enormous, uh, in terms of what I just laid out in terms of pandemic risk and affects the human security and, uh, affects on political stability. Rod Schoonover CSRisks: (37:01) And so we need to increase funding for what has historically been considered environmental issues. I think we need something like a tenfold increase over 10 years, uh, in this space in terms of international conservation, uh, disease, ecology, and pandemic, uh, uh, prevention, and then the executive branch, uh they're they largely treat these issues as, as environmental issues. They, they, they don't typically rise to the level that you would involve the secretary of defense, the secretary of state, or the CIA director, but the effects on people and the effects on, uh, on the stability of nations, uh, argue is that it needs to be elevated in terms of, uh, executive branch action and task force and, uh, and ultimately action. Um, so internationally and domestically, Dana Lewis : (38:09) I mean, if you don't have their attention now on pandemic issues, you'll never get it right. And although some of them still living in denial and di and debate about what the cause of the pandemic was, I mean, it's, it's hard to make an, exactly an ecological ecological link because we still don't know the sources of the outbreak. Rod Schoonover CSRisks: (38:33) Yeah. I mean, the thing is that if you accept, um, you know, COVID 19 is a worst example of, you know, we've had SARS, we've had HIV, we've had chicken Guna, we've had Zika, we've had murders, uh, you know, these are well-established, you both sell anodic and Ebola, of course, two rounds of Ebola. Um, these are well known, established pandemic, uh, of zoonotic origin. And so for me, just, I think are evidence of some other explanation from, you know, uh, other than zoonotic spillover would have to be really, really compelling, uh, to, to, uh, pull us away from what I think is a much more obvious, uh, explanation. Uh, but in some ways it doesn't matter whether, you know, where it came from in terms of its effect on people. I think what it's shown, uh, is a, uh, is the power of, you know, a unseeable, uh, piece of genetic material to bring massive social and economic disruption. And, you know, in the intelligence community, you know, we, we warned about, uh, these events, we warned time and again about, uh, pandemic risk. Um, and so, uh, you know, I was in the intelligence community dealing with both, uh, avian flu, uh, mirror's middle Eastern respiratory syndrome, um, Zika, uh, I left before COVID 19 really? Uh bruited but, you know, I can tell you that, uh, it's, it seems to be a low level issue in the security world until it happens. And then it's the most important thing. Dana Lewis : (40:41) Yeah. It brings the economy to its knees there it's it's, uh, th th they just, they just didn't get even genome sequencing, uh, funding and in the U S I mean, the us is far behind other countries, even Rod Schoonover CSRisks: (40:55) It's crazy. It's crazy. Um, but, but one, and th and that's just it, I mean, uh, I predictive in a couple of years from now, there will be people in the security community who will have a hard time convincing senior, uh, policymakers, senior officials that pandemics are a national security issue. I mean, it just, I mean, yeah, uh, even the how disrupt, I mean, uh, as disruptive as this event has been the capacity for people to forget and move on. It's enormous. I, I I've seen this firsthand, of course, COVID-19, uh, is it's many times greater than what I experienced, but even people who were, uh, you know, watching, uh, the, um, just the churn, uh, inside of Africa, you know, a year later, uh, you know, I'm talking about the Ebola, um, uh, epidemic, you know, just a year later, they had moved onto something else. Dana Lewis : (42:02) Is it, um, I guess a hard reality that while people like you are warning that these are national security risks, um, and that you have to change your national security architecture, you have to have, uh, you know, security officials involved in planning for this, right. Um, is it a, is it a hard reality that probably things are going to have to get worse, uh, to drive the point home and, and that the environmental cost, unfortunately, um, in, in the ecological, uh, risks at the same time are, are, are so severe, uh, that we, we may not be able to do 180 degree turn on some of this. Rod Schoonover CSRisks: (42:48) Yeah. It's, uh, um, it's difficult. I think you pinned, uh, that, that's a really a great question, uh, because for whatever reason, uh, and I think it's especially bad in the United States, but, you know, organizations, uh, tend to not be very good at strategic planning and mapping out, uh, you know, scenarios and then acting on that information to steer their way through, you know, rough roads ahead, for whatever reason we seem to need to be in a reactive mode. Um, and, you know, with both climate change and ecological disruption, pandemic preparedness, uh, waiting until it's on you to react is the worst pathway through, Dana Lewis : (43:46) Is there a, is there a better answer, it does it a restructuring of government, um, or do we take it out of government and make climate emergency something different so that we're able to plan in and head it off because we're not going to, we're just going to, we're going to wait until somebody's thirsty before we talk about clean water. Rod Schoonover CSRisks: (44:06) Right. I mean, partially, I mean, there, there's a lot of ways to answer that question, but, uh, certainly, uh, the government is not going to be able to solve these problems by themselves. It will require, uh, other elements, uh, in the public, the private sector. Um, but without the government, uh, we will not, uh, being able to marshal the resources and, you know, the, you know, just the, the will to tackle some of these issues. And it really, I think something like this really has to come from on top. And so the, you know, not to get too wonky here, uh, but in the United States, uh, we have lost the capacity to do long-term strategic planning that, uh, response to climate change response to pandemics toxification of our oceans and, you know, uh, an ecological disruption Dana Lewis : (45:09) Or, Rod Schoonover CSRisks: (45:10) Uh, I think we have moved into, I think it's partly political paralysis, but I also think, uh, you know, that it has not been a priority since, uh, maybe, uh, maybe the Eisenhower years, um, you know, there used to be an office inside of the white house who, whose only functioned. And they lasted in between administrations who focused on long-term strategy, but the, but the government is almost purely reactive now and, and responds to the emergency in their inbox or on the front of the New York times or whatever. Um, and the, there are very few entities in the government who are looking at how the future is evolving. Dana Lewis : (46:03) Well, rod, you know, I mean, I guess maybe the only good news is that when you pull young people in Europe or you pull people in America or Canada for that matter, that these are big issues for younger people. So maybe we'll just throw these guys the hell out until they start understanding that the environment and ecology and what you talk about, the security risks that, that bind us will eventually get driven home with a new generation hope. Hopefully that fire is lit and it doesn't go. Rod Schoonover CSRisks: (46:31) Yeah, I'm, I'm varying, um, optimistic, uh, about, uh, how quickly the, uh, you know, these generations are taking these issues on. And seriously, I think they're seeing it a lot more holistically than I would have expected that they're not seeing it as climate only, or, uh, you know, uh, uh, inequality only there they're able to package a whole number of stresses and things that they see as problematic together. Uh, and, uh, I, I admire that and I, I I'm optimistic my, my three-year-old daughter, uh, uh, needs, uh, that kind of, um, you know, attention and, and, um, really a reprioritization of what's important to people, societies, Dana Lewis : (47:31) Environmental issues. I mean, young people can really relate to them. So rod schoonover, the author of the report, the security risk that binds this, uh, and also, uh, you know, writing that for the council on strategic risks. Great to talk. Thanks. Thank you. Dana Lewis : (47:47) Our backstory on our fragile world changing so fast. Now, we all have to be concerned by the way, it's the world wildlife fund, not Federation. I must've been thinking of the WWF, but this podcast was not about wrestling. Was it maybe next time that's backstory, please share this podcast and sign up for my daily newsletter. Dana Lewis dot [inaudible] dot com. Dana Lewis dot sub stack.com. I'm trying to give you an idea of what to read what's important, any, and all of that. I tried to list the individual source articles, so you can also read them yourself. Thanks for listening. I'm Dana Lewis reporting from London, and I'll talk to you again soon.

#@wwf #@csrisks @rodschoonover #@jeffopperman climateemergency climatecrisis environment globalwarming

[backstorywithdanalewis]

#covid19 covid variants schools schoolsreopening zerocovid @ericfeigal-ding @deeptigurdasani #@dgurdasani1

[backstorywithdanalewis]

Covid and variants and schools Back Story with Dana Lewis podcast https://www.buzzsprout.com/1016881/7945540

joe biden: (00:00) By the end of July, we'll have over 600 million doses enough to vaccinate every single American by next Christmas. I think we'll be in a very different circumstance. God willing than we are today. boris johnson: (00:13) Yeah, we must be both optimistic, but also patient about the root to normality. Uh, and, uh, even though some things are very uncertain because we want this lockdown to be the last Dana Lewis: (00:35) Hi everyone, and welcome to backstory. I'm Dana Lewis, political leaders from British prime minister, Boris Johnson to American president, Joe Biden are talking about vaccines and discussing how to reopen schools and businesses because of people now wearing masks more and keeping their social distancing and the lockdowns in Europe rates of COVID hospitalization and deaths are for the moment falling great news, but a huge number of scientists say, you can't talk school openings without changing classroom sizes. The way air is circulated mandatory masks for kids. And remember this is an aerosol or air borne virus. And before you think vaccines will be our road back to normal, think again, the mutations in the COVID-19 pandemic are in the thousands in increasing infrequency and spread and becoming more deadly. The vaccines can not be tweaked fast enough. And if we reopen society too quickly, we will keep having to return to lockdowns. So why aren't we talking about zero COVID before we reopened on this backstory to expert epidemiologist, Dr. Eric Feigel ding with the COVID action group in Washington and here in London, Deepti Gurdasani  from the queen Mary university, both outspoken and worth listening to, especially if you're a parent, Dana Lewis: (02:10) Right. Dana Lewis: (02:10) [Deepti Gurdasani is a senior lecturer on epidemiology and statistics genetics at queen Mary university of London. Hi BP. Hi, thanks for doing this. You know, I am struck by reading a lot of science, um, and following people like you, and then watching these government news conferences, for instance, in the United Kingdom where the prime minister and his scientists, because they say they're following the science, never talk about zero COVID. Why is there this deep chasm of disconnect in Europe when the discussion never even approaches zero COVID? Eric Feigal-Ding: (02:51) Yes. I mean, I actually don't fully understand why that is in the UK. It's broadly been taught to be impossible Deepti Gurdasani: (03:00) Or unachievable by many members of our scientific advisory group. Who've said this publicly, um, and unfortunately discussions around zero COVID never entered the mainstream despite well, zero COVID being highly successful in many regions. It was, um, sort of dismissed very early on as first when it was done in Southeast Asia as being culturally, not in line with what could be achieved in the UK and Europe, because we are freedom loving people. And when it was in New Zealand, Australia, which, you know, are more thought to be more culturally similar, uh, it was again dismissed as Oh, but Europe and the UK are more interconnected. Uh, they have high population density. So there are several regions to suggest reasons always to suggest that Europe or the UK are exceptional in some way to make this impossible more and more. Now we are hearing that New Zealand Australia managed to get on top of this because they acted early on. And since we haven't acted on cannot get on top of it Dana Lewis: (04:02) Acted early on, and then life went back to normal, largely because there wasn't there wasn't, COVID spreading rapidly. I mean, it was very few cases of it. Now they've had another outbreak between New Zealand and Australia. They're being very aggressive about the lockdown. They want to eliminate it, uh, with good track and trace systems. And then once they do that, they'll reopen again. And I, I was reading, um, one of the virologists at Northumbria university this morning saying that, you know, the Asia Pacific nations first contain the transmission, then they unlock their economies. They attempt to return to business as usual, uh, was a bit of firefighting, which will still end up burning your house down. In other words, if you just, you know, spray a little bit of containment on this, but let it burn, it will burn the house down. Deepti Gurdasani: (04:53) I think that's an excellent analogy. And we followed sort of almost a policy of halfway measures in the interest we thought of sort of protecting the economy, protecting people's jobs, uh, allowing education in schools, protecting our health services without realizing that all of these things are unfortunately completely tied in with controlling COVID. And unless you get on top of COVID, you can't protect your economy, you can't protect your health services and you can't provide undisrupted education for children. Um, and you know, I think the countries who understood that early on treated COVID as a threat, that it was rather than minimizing it and took aggressive action are the ones who went out and countries who minimize the risk posed by this competitive flu follow the policy of halfway measures, talking about suppression, flattening the curve, maintaining hospitalizations just below capacity. Well, that never worked because we've been in restrictions now for the longest time in the UK, we're now in our third lockdown and all of this as a result of paradoxically, trying to protect the economy and people's liberties, right? We've extended this Dana Lewis: (05:58) Revolving door of lockdowns. And now they're saying this is likely the last locked down. The newspapers are full of headlines today. Talking about prime minister, Boris Johnson's plans to reopen the economy in the next few months. Do you think that they're dreaming? Deepti Gurdasani: (06:16) I mean, I think socially with that rhetoric, they are dreaming. I mean, if you're talking about reopening now and talking about, uh, acceptable, that's living with the virus, then I think in the same breath, you can't be talking about this being the last lockdown, because essentially we've been here many times before, and it's very predictable. What happens from here? This is not rocket science. We know that if you start opening up early, you see sodas in cases, you see that all over Europe. Uh, and unfortunately after three lockdowns, to me, it's quite astonishing that the government still hasn't learned from this. And we're still applying to go ahead, open up, uh, against the advice, actually, even from the scientific advisory group at this point in time, for example, yesterday, it was a paper out in the London school of hygiene that clearly shows that almost in all scenarios, opening schools up, whether it's primary or secondary schools or both in the UK, we need to. So it is in cases are about one an exponential rises resuming, which obviously would mean very soon another lockdown, school closures and all the devastating impacts of that. Dana Lewis: (07:20) Well, there's a lot of debate in that conversation though. Isn't there because the, the science as quoted by the government at least seems to be that this spread is pretty minimal. Um, in certain age groups of children, I mean, I've got a 13 year old who's at home and in a 16 year old. So it's very different between the two of them and the bubbles in their schools and whether they wear masks or not. But, and as you know, they're at home right now. Um, but you're, you're interesting because I looked at one of your tweets and you said more misinformation on the BBC, on schools. No mention of databased on regular testing of asymptomatic children in households, which shows the opposite. When will the media get this right? So you're saying that the statistics on the, on minimizing the spread by children, between children and back into their households is misleading because it doesn't take into account asymptomatic cases and they are the majority of the cases. Deepti Gurdasani: (08:19) Yes. I mean, exactly. So it's not just that it underestimates cases and children. Um, the problem is when you only test symptomatic people, children are less likely to be represented. And often you're more likely to pick up the adults that they infect. So not only are you underestimating infection, children, you're miss identifying very likely an adult as an index case or as a source of infection. Whereas it's very likely to have been the child from the school. And there's a lot of evidence now to support this from many studies that have now looked at it, more asymptomatic transmission based on regular testing and, um, the community and in schools. So for example, if you look at the office for national statistics data, if you just look at the trends of, um, infection rates in children or infection positivity in children over time in the UK, you will see that infection rates in primary and secondary schools, children were some of the highest at the end of October and November and closely reflected school openings and closure. Deepti Gurdasani: (09:22) So we have a half-term that happens in October during which, you know, both of those sort of declined and then came up again. And it's hard to explain why the prevalence of infection would be the highest in those age groups. If it's just a reflection of, uh, you know, infections, the community, and to provide even more robust evidence for this, the office for national statistics is actually done household surveys of people who were, uh, detected to have infection based on random sampling of the population. So this is not a biased sampling as dependent on children having symptoms. Dana Lewis: (09:55) What's the answer? What is the answer? Because if you've got to go back to school, right? Deepti Gurdasani: (10:00) Oh yes, they do actually have to go back to school, but I think they have to go back to school in a way that we can maintain our below one. So transmission remains low within schools and from schools back to the community. I mean the current mitigation measures in the UK are very focused on things like for my transmission and hygiene, which is actually not the major mode of transmission of a Sr Scobey two. And there's very little attention given to aerosol transmission. There is early evidence from many parts of the world to suggest that mitigating measures in schools can, would use transmission and the impact of school openings. Um, and our measures are completely out of line with, for example, the CDC guidance and what many countries in Europe have adopted. So for example, we don't have in England mask wearing within classrooms, either in secondary or primary schools, we don't have any social distancing. Deepti Gurdasani: (10:51) We have essentially open windows as attention to ventilation, but no further than there's no monitoring of ventilation. And the class sizes in the UK are some of the largest in Europe. We have no cap on bubble sizes. So many schools have bubbles that are up to several hundred students, so up to 300 children and all of those things contribute to transmission. And I think, yes, it's very important that children have a level of, you know, face-to-face or in-person learning in schools because that's very important for children's wellbeing, but we need to have safety measures in place. And we also need to have options for parents who are clinically wonderful, or whose children are vulnerable, who may not want to send their children for in-person teaching. So we need to have that sort of option for parents. And we also need to have mitigation measures in place. Dana Lewis: (11:37) Is there, I mean, I work in the media, right? So, um, I, I find it hard to believe that there's media bias. Um, but you clearly think there is because you were invited on the BBC program, which tends to give the government, I think probably a pretty easy pass on some of these things. Um, and when you said that you want to talk about zero COVID, they kind of withdrew the invitation. I mean, why is there not a more robust discussion? Um, and again, that we kind of go back to where I started the interview with you. Why is there not a more robust discussion on, on, I don't want to call it state media, but it is state funded media, but why, you know, why do they not really call out the government and say, I mean, what the hell the UK is an Island? Dana Lewis: (12:26) Why didn't they shut it down? They allowed tens and tens of thousands of people to arrive through the airports day by day, through the summer, through the full, through even Christmas, when they had the new variants, starting only now have they, they, you know, shut down a lot of the air traffic. They still, I think have 20,000 people arriving a day. And you know, they're saying that they're going to put people from so-called red zone countries like South Africa in hotel quarantine for 10 days, we're a year into this. I mean, it, it just seems like Deepti Gurdasani: (13:00) Those policies don't even go far enough. Even their own scientific advisory group has said that those policies are not going to prevent the input of new variants or infections into the country because they need to be far more comprehensive. So yeah, those policies seem to be more of a PR exercise than anything that's actually going to contribute to reducing your variants coming into the County. Dana Lewis: (13:17) Right. What's the, I don't understand the PR exercise. I mean, is it just to make the government make it look like they're taking action when they really reluctantly don't want to take any action at all? Because why like, what do they win at the end of this? If they don't shut it down? Deepti Gurdasani: (13:32) I actually think that it's, it's a real lack of understanding that these short, this sort of short-term, um, the short-term, uh, prioritization of the economy, I think that's what's happening. They don't want to restrict, for example, travel restrictions from all over the world and have managed quarantine from all over the world because of, you know, the potential impact of the economy. But I think there's a complete lack of understanding that this is actually short-term thinking if you input a new variant, that for example, puts vaccine effectiveness at risks and vaccines are the major part of your pandemic strategy. Um, and you've invested billions in those vaccines, then actually that's false economy. And that's something that I think the government has never really understood this still a lot of pressure from within the government to open up, to balance everything with the economy. And I think that's, what's literally killing us and killing the economy, um, because if they took a slightly longer term view, we could actually protect the economy much better by following an elimination strategy and preventing sort of new variants coming in that would actually potentially devastate our society and economy. Dana Lewis: (14:40) I want to ask you about the new variants. Do you think, you know, the government keeps saying, they're, they're, they're vaccinating. They're going to have everybody vaccinated by the autumn. Then they're going to out maybe some new vaccines too, that will be massaged to deal with these new variants that are coming. I mean, it seems like we're in a race with the new variants and they, and the government doesn't, um, you know, believes the promises from the drug manufacturing companies that, yeah, no problem. We'll go back in the lab and, and we'll deal with this. Do you believe it's that easy? Deepti Gurdasani: (15:16) So I don't think it's as straightforward as it's made out to be. I think there's a huge amount of uncertainty. So I think one thing is why chemically manufacturing a new MRI, new vaccine might be relatively straightforward, uh, you know, testing it, validating it, getting it, you know, positive regulatory approvals, uh, you know, showing that proof of immunity, safety, et cetera, will take time. And, um, the problem right now is that with the level of transmission that we have and the sort of poor border restrictions we have, we are identifying one new variant in the UK every week. I think at last count, there are at least four new variants of concern that are circulating within the UK, including many whose properties we don't actually fully understand and why we might be trying, uh, making these vaccines now that you know, will be validated and tested over a period of time. Deepti Gurdasani: (16:03) Um, there's no guarantees that they're going to be effective against the strains that are out then whose properties we might understand much later and the importance of which you might understand much later. So as you say, it's between a race between vaccination and, uh, evolution. And we need to remember one thing, a lot of these variants have evolved against a background where the majority of the population wasn't immune to the virus as more and more of the population becomes immune to the virus with higher levels of vaccination. We should expect more adaptation because that's just what happens with viruses. Okay. Dana Lewis: (16:35) And when you would expect less, because there would be less circulation for longer in a, in a host, that's not correct. Deepti Gurdasani: (16:43) So there's, um, it's actually, um, the level of transmission that makes a difference. So yes, if vaccines rapidly bring down transmission, and if transmission is low, they will reduce the risk of ours adaptation. But that's not really what happens with vaccines, because for example, now we've vaccinated 20% of the population, which doesn't have a major impact on art and isn't having a major impact in our, and that's entirely expected. So if transmission is allowed to continue, side-by-side with vaccination, then as you see higher levels of evolution, because you have people who are, um, I, I guess, immune to a particular variant of virus, uh, so variants that escape are more likely to become dominant. So for example, you know, we have variants such as, uh, which carry mutations like the ones in the South Africa, variant that we are really concerned about in terms of efficacy. Deepti Gurdasani: (17:30) And we're hearing from, uh, you know, senior advisors to the government that these are not concerning because they're not likely to become dominant. But the problem is that when you create a different environment for viruses, with high levels of selection, pressure, it's very likely that these veins become dominant because vaccines just don't have the same impact on them. And more variants evolve that vaccines don't have the same level of impact on. So it's very likely that we will see more and more adaptation and possibly even at a higher rate than we're seeing now, if transmission remains high and that's a very important caveat. And one of the important reasons that many of us think it's very important to suppress transmission during vaccine rollout, because the only way to actually prevent adaptation is to eliminate the virus and really suppress transmission. There's no other way that we can control adaptation of the riders that prevent this happening. And the consequences of this are really uncertain. We cannot predict what's going to happen. So it's very important to actually reduce that uncertainty by driving towards elimination. Dana Lewis: (18:28) Is this the last lockdown? Deepti Gurdasani: (18:32) I really hope so, but the rhetoric from government doesn't give me a lot of hope. I really hope that the government changes its strategy in line with evidence and policy. And I think if they take a long-term strategy to this and really hold up just a little bit longer before easing restrictions fix it, as soon as I say, symptoms, that when cases come down, we can keep them down and have much better quality at borders so we can prevent important cases once they come down. I think if they put those three measures in place, we can potentially have this as a last lockdown, but I think it entirely depends on what the government is going to do at this point, Dana Lewis: (19:06) Deepti Gurdasani it's great to talk to you and thank you so much for all of the, this, you know, the science look at this, and obviously we should be following the science more than more than the business and the politics of it. So thank you so much. Deepti Gurdasani: (19:19) Well, thanks for having me. Speaker 5: (19:21) [inaudible] Dana Lewis: (19:31) I get to Washington now and Dr. Eric Feigel ding, uh, is a well known epidemiologist and a health economist. And, uh, you know, Eric, I didn't realize, cause I've talked to you before that you were one of the very first people who really rang the alarm bells back in January, when you realized what kind of scientific results we you're starting to see from China, and that you were very worried and you, you must be at this point a year into this incredibly frustrated about how bad we've been in the West and dealing with this. Eric Feigal-Ding: (20:03) Eric Feigal-Ding: (20:03) Yeah, it's been a very, very long year, um, now, Oh, well, over a year and we're still at this, we're still fighting this information. We still fighting people trying to downplay it. And by people I don't just mean, um, in political spectrum. I also mean a lot of, even some, you know, scientists who long dismissed at the beginning. There's no as asymptomatic transmission, come on. That's crazy. There's asymptomatic transmission. There's, there's no reinfection. That's not possible then within a year. So now we clearly know with the bearings, you can have reinfection or there's no, you know, air, it's not that airborne, just six feet, just keep your six feet. And you're good. But clearly we know that this is an aerosol airport environment. So it's been fighting against, you know, many, many denialism and downplaying aneurysm here. And here we are, you have the COVID action group, which is, Dana Lewis: (21:07) That's a group of how many scientists Dana Lewis: (21:09) Then, Oh, like a dozen or two scientists. Um, but we are trying to drive advocacy and  action group where we're a little more US-focused. But yeah, it's kind of like the independence sage, uh, that the UK has in which Dana Lewis: (21:27) Scientists who provide, Dana Lewis: (21:29) Which is also a government wise. Yeah. It's, you know, in certain ways like government scientists say the most, you know, conservative or the most absolute thing that they're sure about, but there are things, especially in this world where we're concerned on many fronts about the pandemic, which not all the evidence is in, but there is a precautionary principle. And then in certain ways I lean towards, you know, one side you could be wrong and there's no real bad outcome if you're wrong, but on the other side, you could be right. And if you are right, even if it's a smaller chance, it could have really, really deadly or large pandemic impacts. Give me a practical example. Well, I think like asymptomatic transmission people said, well, we're not sure we can't for certain know there's metric. We don't have enough data to, for sure know that that's true. And Dana Lewis: (22:35) In the end it turned out that most people turned Dana Lewis: (22:37) Out, you know, 30, 40, 50% of all transmissions and done by asymptomatic presymptomatic people. And, you know, it had, but if we took the precaution, let's just assume it's true. We could have stopped the pandemic way, way earlier or mitigated way, way more. And same with aerosol. People said, well, you know, six feet is enough. You don't have evidence that is air board and flowing through the whole world. And, you know, traveling, even when someone leaves the room, someone else enters in, there's no one it's not because the droplets fall to the ground. How do we take the precaution that it is airborne because it's a respiratory virus and like many other respiratory viruses, these aerosols float in the air for a long time, we would have protected people a lot better. If we had put in the guidelines from the beginning. Dana Lewis: (23:28) I mean the world health organization was one of those organizations that didn't take aerosol. I wouldn't say they didn't take it seriously, but they were very late. And there was that letter that went out, I think probably late summer from a, a number of scientists, et cetera. Dana Lewis: (23:39) Right. This is airborne. Dana Lewis: (23:43) Just, didn't quite latch onto it for weeks and weeks. Dana Lewis: (23:46) Yeah. And you know, Stacia's who was also CDC, there's many other virologist scientists. Um, in certain ways, you know, aerosol science, is it environmental science? It's actually from the science of air pollution, uh, particular matter. And they've studied aerosols and as well as viruses in these aerosols, traveling aerosols for a long, long time, well virologists, you're more molecular biologists and geneticists of viruses. So in certain ways, you know, they, this pandemic expertise is not defined to any single small domain. We need sociologists, uh, and public health communicators to help people understand about vaccines. We need, uh, aerosol scientists and these engineers to design better air cleaning systems and understand the air ventilation dynamics. Because when the thing we know environmental health, the solution to pollution is dilution and mental Alation. Is that dilution. Dana Lewis: (24:49) Yeah. I care about I'm sending my, I'm sending my kids back to school. They're in the UK. They're probably going to go back on March the eighth. I was talking to my, my 16 year old, 16 year old today. And he said, yeah, you know, originally when we went back just before Christmas, I mean, in September, all the windows were open and then they kind of, you know, started closing the windows cause it was too Chile. And then kind of, they closed all the windows and we were wearing masks, but then we weren't. And so the, you know, it started off, well probably in London schools and then, you know, just deteriorated because everybody got a false sense of security somehow. Dana Lewis: (25:23) No. Uh, and I think this false sense of security is oftentimes fomented by people who say, well, we don't know if there's truly risks. The risks are not actually there. Whenever what they actually mean is what we don't know for sure there could be risk, but they're not proven. And how do we take the precautionary side? What if, what if you're wrong? It's not airborne. You know what, no one's hurt by opening the windows. Uh, and that it turned out it's not airborne, but you could actually save and predict, prevent the pandemic so much more, you know, by taking this precaution and leaning towards precaution and who, you know, some, there are advocates who are much more let's you say, progressively or for great acknowledgement of these risks. And I think Dr. Mike, Ryan has WHR she, um, he's actually Irish. And he said, you know, if you cannot wait, if you try to wait until you're absolutely sure about something you will lose against the pandemic, you know, perfection is the enemy of good during the pandemic response. Dana Lewis: (26:30) And I think that is just so correct. And you know, that's has been my philosophy from the beginning, knew that this was infectious. And we knew that this had pandemic potential and people needed to repair, but we were talking about, it's just the flu in mass media all the way until March. And now we're still talking about, Oh, schools are safe whenever clearly there's so many evidence there, schools cannot just be Willy nilly safe. You can't have sweet little lies to yourselves that they're safe. You have to take precautions to make them safe and precautions. Dana Lewis: (27:04) And what do you say to a mother, a father, a mother or father listening to this, and they want to send their kids back to school because they've got to get back to school and they've got to, they have to get back to a social environment. They've got to get back to learning, but you know, we care about our kids' health. So what do you say to w I'm conformed to say this for a living in interviewing experts about Dana Lewis: (27:24) COVID-19? Yeah, so, uh, first of all, uh, you know, I have a kid he's seven he's rambunctious. He needs school. What I want to emphasize to people is I'm not against opening schools. There are radicals who are against opening schools and radicals for opening schools and ignoring all the risks and science, um, for safe, reopening and St. The opening means taking not just the precautions of mandatory masks, where some places it's not mandatory and that's very scary, wear them all day long in the classroom. Yeah, you should. You should. And also we should implement testing, uh, weekly, at least four teachers and preferably kids, if they can handle it. But you know, many other schools, there are schools in some countries that are doing mandatory testing, you know, once or twice a week for all students as well. So I think you should have testing weekly. Dana Lewis: (28:20) And I think you have to make sure that, you know, some of the CDC guidelines here in the USA, Oh, you know, just maintain six feet and then you can have indoor sports, no unique. You can't just say that is enough. You have to emphasize ventilation six feet is not enough. And you can't do six feet, for example, for wrestling, right? You can't do 60 for those. And you can try to think, well, six feet in basketball, but you know, that's not how the sport is run. You have to be honest with ourselves. And unless you put in the ventilation systems, the air cleaning systems by air cleaning. I mean, if a room has poor ventilation, you either put in a HEPA filter or for lawyers' gymnasiums, you put it upper air UV where you'd be lights shining on towards the ceiling, not down. And then you circulate the air up and down. Dana Lewis: (29:12) That's upper air UV. It's actually a very efficient system. Um, or there's even if for a school that has absolutely no money whatsoever for any of these, there's something called for example, a core seat box. And of course the box is take these air filters, these, um, you know, uh, 20 inch by 20 inch air filters that you put in your homes and you take a box fan and you simply create a cube out of this with the box stamping side and take a one, two, three, four, five additional of these, um, uh, filters. And you can create this, a HEPA filter equivalent box that can disinfect and remove viruses. Assuming you use the right filters. And it's been shown, it's been actually shown by aerosol scientists. This is actually quite efficient system cost nothing more than a box and a few filters Dana Lewis: (30:08) As we speak the British newspaper. It's cause you know, we've been under a lockdown since before Christmas. I mean, and I hate to use the term lockdown because while I've been at home and my kids have been at home, there's lots of construction workers that get on the tube every day and get on buses and go to work. And so so-called essential workers that are doing house renovations. You know, I, I don't think that's essential, but anyway, the lockdown, depending on where you are, but the numbers are falling now, but we're still above 10,000, uh, cases estimated per day. And now the big talk here is how to reopen everything. Do you, do you think that they're there being dangerously, um, soft in terms of the pressure is from business groups that want to get their pubs in there, their shops in their restaurants opening and that they shouldn't, they shouldn't open too soon. Dana Lewis: (31:01) Yeah. Um, I I'm in the zero COVID belief that it's better if we not have these yo-yoing up and down, rollercoasters are opening and closing and opening and closing because we've seen time and time again, it is not the right idea. And we've seen, you know, we kept, you know, the little analogy is if you eat bacon a lot and you have high cholesterol and you switch to eating vegetarian or vegan for a month, it's not like once you switch back to bacon, again, that the bacon doesn't harm you it's, we know that people spread right. Dana Lewis: (31:39) Also just to interrupt you. I also like this analogy that somebody wrote that said, you've opened your parachute on the way down and you've decreased the velocity of the fall. So it's okay to take your parachute off. Dana Lewis: (31:54) Yeah, of course we are on a downhill roll towards the natural velocity of this virus is just spread. What we need to do is truly, truly eliminate the virus so that it cannot keep pushing us down the Hill. And, and I know it's an uphill fight, but you know, it is possible zero. We are, you know, UK right now is approximately 0.8. The cases are dropping in a lockdown. And if we just resist longer, we can get it to zero. And once you're at near zero, where we can trace, you know, small outbreaks, very vigilantly and the, the, of a cropping up is so, so much lower. And UK is an Island Dana Lewis: (32:46) And that's, and new Zealand's done it. And Australia is done. Dana Lewis: (32:50) You know, many other important places that are not Vietnam is a very densely populated place. It's not an Island. It's not wealthy in any way, but they took the zero COVID approach. It's possible just it's the, when you're so close, don't give up because once you give up, it will allow the virus to spread again. But if you just get it down to zero, there is, you know, zero times 50,000 hundred thousand millions of people moving around means zero because you're at a zero Dana Lewis: (33:27) A little bit longer. That's not even being talked about in the U S isn't it Dana Lewis: (33:31) In the U S we have political issues that are obviously a lot more difficult to, you know, for example, masks, mandate, school closings, all these kinds of things are, you know, Joe Biden cannot mandate every single state to follow his rules. He can do it for, you know, federal, public transits kind of things, and federal buildings, but you can't mandate it on the local level, but UK has this, you know, hopefully more efficient or at least England, it can be more efficient and mandated. Uh, and this is in certain ways, you know, better central control is, has that advantage in governance, but you guys can do it. I know you guys can't and because you guys are relatively wealthy of an Island, it's, um, you know, has the resources to do that. It has the testing, you know, you guys found to be one 17 when I'm sure you sure there's many other strains, but it's just, you guys found it fast because you guys had the genomics of surveillance and the technical expertise UK has all the combinations in those how to manufacture vaccines, design vaccines, do genomic surveillance, do all these other testing and has the advantage of being wealthy and an Island. Dana Lewis: (34:43) So if, if anybody should be able to do it, UK should be able to do, Dana Lewis: (34:48) But they won't because, although they're talking about this being the last lockdown, so listen, you've mentioned mutations, and then you tweeted something. I think in the last few days that there's something going on with this mutation seven striking new converging variance with the same six, seven patients. What is that? Dana Lewis: (35:07) That's in the U S M D U S. They found some, several variants that all share the same mutation in the variants. There's other mutations too, but they all have this one in common. And it's just very striking how it's something called convergent evolution, where once you, if something's advantageous, uh, many others, uh, will also learn the same skill. And this is why owls and bats both learn to fly, even though owls and bats are not anywhere near the same evolutionary tree, but they all converged on a evolutionary adaptive adaptation. So the virus has also adapted and the U K B one 17 also has advantageously adapted. Uh, you know, there's the five Oh one Nelly, um, a mutation that many others also have and is also acquired that [inaudible] 4k in the, in the sub lineage in Wales and England, uh, that allows it to bade, um, antibodies, just like South Africa and Brazil, one done CV antibodies, evade vaccines, or, you know, something basically did the, this variance has acquired the [inaudible] nickname, EGFR mutation. Dana Lewis: (36:28) And this mutation has been shown in South Africa that people who were previously infected and should have immunity had almost no him very little and a large, large portion of people had no, uh, advantageous, uh, antibody recognition of the new variants with this E mutation. And for vaccines, it was highly attenuated instead of 80 90% or 75. It was 50 or 60% efficacy because of this. And this is most predominantly in a South Africa, Brazil, very, but the, the Kent's UK B one 17 variants for most part, don't have it, but there's a subtle lineage separately in Wales. And in England that they learned it. So this is what we call convergent evolution. Like these mutations, they will always adapt to something that makes them much more fit and rigorous and faster spreading and can penetrate them, uh, in immunity better. And so this is why the longer we let the virus circulate the more of these mutations we're going to accumulate. Dana Lewis: (37:39) So layman's, [inaudible] sorry, what was the last part, but what more, more, more searches, more lockdowns. And so I think it's crazy for them to say, Oh, this will be the last lockdown. They don't know what else could be coming. You know, B one 17 has already dominated UK, but, um, B one 17 is good for infecting Virgin fields of uninfected people, but the South Africa Barre or, or UK Sabir and the witness, each mutation can invade areas in which people have already been infected and think they're immune, but they're not. And it's also shown that the answer to AstraZeneca vaccine is pretty weak against this, um, the South Africa variant. So if anything, you see, and most of Europe is a reliance on the Oxford AstraZeneca, which is good for the older strains and the UK strain, but not against these mutated ones. This is where this is what you really come back to zero. Dana Lewis: (38:46) Yeah. Zero just so much. But you know, a virus cannot mutate if it can't replicate. That's the main thing I want people to remember, remember no more mutations, if there's no more virus and the virus cannot survive being muzzled, but the virus can adapt to in more and more people, if you just let it float around and seen it with many immunocompromised people, that one immunocompromised people, do you think that's how the Kentz Marriott Rose one immunocompromised person just allow 20 mutations to arise from their bodies because they couldn't defeat the virus and the virus learn how to defeat the person. Dana Lewis: (39:30) Is there ridiculous thinking to use my term, but you can massage that how you want in, in suggesting that well, okay, let's just get everybody vaccinated. We'll reopen. And then, you know, as the variants mutate, we can massage every vaccine. And, you know, we'll just give you another vaccination in the autumn or at Christmas time, a booster booster. Dana Lewis: (39:59) Yeah. Yeah. But by before now, and then boosters, not coming soon enough boosters still have to go through clinical trial testing. Unfortunately, it'll take quite a while unless the shortcut it somehow. Um, it w it will be quite a while before we have the booster. If we have a booster, now we can adapt, but this is not the last mutation. This is just the mutations that we're talking about now. And it's gonna be so many, many more mutations. The variety is the spice of life, right. And whenever it's challenged, it's the reason, oftentimes we see mutations is either someone compromised. And then, you know, they're, they're have very, very weak immune system, not able to fully suppress it, just like our lockdowns. You know, if it's not very strict and not long enough cancer suppress it, uh, we, these mutations will crop up and they'll actually do something. Dana Lewis: (40:57) Some folks are worried that, um, these mutations that can evade immunity will crop up whenever we hit her to me. So basically the closer we are to 80%, 90% vaccinated, then the virus is running out of Virgin fields of people to, in fact, who've never been infected before. So then it will evolve to try to evade. It's kind of like when adult walls are closing in, when a dog has cornered, it will get desperate and try to find ways to skip over this fence. And right now, our fence is not hiding. What you have to do is you have two backs, innate and locked down at the same time, very quickly to muzzle this out. And once he muzzled it out and it's gone, then you can basically live on with your normal lives again. And that's what people want. People want normal lives, not yo-yo uncertainty. Dana Lewis: (41:55) And I guarantee you, if we reopen too quickly, we're going to have this yo-yo uncertainty. This virus will come raging back, raging back. Once you reopen everything and schools, obviously it's a complicated issue schools. It does increase transmission, but if you take all the mitigations, it won't increase it as much. And if you mitigate other things, you can still allow, it's kind of like a buffer. You can still allow for some school transmission and still keep the art under one, right? Keeping the are under one is key. So if you lower everything else low enough, you can ha allow a little bit of school transmission and still have the overall trend go down. And, you know, obviously that's maybe the, perhaps the best, but you can't just swing open the doors cause school reopenings, it's very, very subjective thing. Are you swinging doors open without mass and any ventilation precaution, uh, or are you doing it with mass ventilation, HEPA filters or this course, the box approach and with testing and all these other things that can help protect the school and the community, if you reopened carefully. Yes, you can. But the fear is when you simply say it's safe to reopen, it becomes red as, Oh, it's okay. Kids are not at risk when, whenever that's clearly not the case. Anybody who says kids are not at risk or kids don't transmit in school, or just blindly, blindly naive, or just deceiving. Dana Lewis: (43:32) We really have a range in there. And I I'll let you go, because I know we've talked for a long time and I appreciate your insight. But, you know, from Asia where they really shut it down and they did zero COVID and then New Zealand and Australia, and then in Europe where it's been kind of allowed the perk along, but there have been some pretty serious lockdowns. And we're at the end of two months, now, two months now in the UK, and then to places like Florida, where I talked to somebody this week and they said, Oh, you know, we, we're not doing what you guys are doing over there. You know, we're w we're we've learned to live with this virus. And so it seems like we really go to an extreme Dana Lewis: (44:09) Florida. Yeah. Well, Florida is just different home, but it's, I think UK of all places can win. I think it has the resources. It has the expertise. It has the centralized government that if it, we want it to could achieve zero coded, they can bring it home if they want to. They can, they can just, you know, it's that last mile, that last kilometer of effort, you know, in running a marathon, that's hardest. But if you can reach the promise land by just persevering a little bit longer, right. You know, like U K from famously made the keep calm and carry on right now, we need to keep on the lockdown and carry on till we hit that zero or near zero level it's daunting, Dana Lewis: (45:07) But nobody wants to have wasted the last two months and return back and do this all again, three months from now, Dr. Eric [inaudible] Eric. Thanks so much. Thank you, Dana And that's our backstory on zero COVID. I'm publishing a newsletter on substack It's Dana Lewis.substack.com And there, I try to lead you through some of the big stories of the day and recommend what you can read on news of the day. Sign up if you like, it's free as is this podcast. All I ask is you subscribe and please share it. Thanks for listening to backstory. I'm Dana Lewis, and I'll talk to you again soon.

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