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Hi, everyone. This is Pivot of New York magazine in the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swischer.

And I'm in Miami, Cara.

I'm in Michigan. I'm at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. It is quite freezing here. Wolverines. Wolverines. Go blue. I'm going blue because it's so cold here. I am having such a lovely time. My son is here, as you know, Alex, who you got to come here. You are the reason he is here.

It's a wonderful university. It is. It's actually one of the most applied to schools in the world. It's really shocking. I don't know if you read the most applied to schools, UC San Diego and UC Santa Barbara. Ucla is number one, which didn't surprise me, but Michigan is right up there.

I went to visit his frat. I went into the frat, Scott, and it was very sticky. The entire place was very sticky. He's in Alpha Delta Phi.

Kara Swisher in a fraternity. I know. Cats living with dogs. I know. The sun could have a full eclipse of the moon. I can't even imagine that.

It was sticky.

It was sticky. Especially Especially you walk in with white LeBron. It looks like Ricardo Monte Blonde and Herve Villache.

Yes, he does. You see that picture? I know. It was funny. Yeah, it's very nice. The whole thing. But it was sticky. I would say so. The frat and the frat Guys were fratting. They weren't fratting it up, but they were in there being guys. The whole place, they had just had a party for St. Patrick's Day. And literally, the stickiness is still sticking to my shoes right now of the place.

Yeah, it's beer. It's called beer.

And whatever. Well, anyway, It's really lovely here. I'm super excited. I did a student thing this morning, and they were great. So smart, as I said. But one of the favorite thing, and I have to do a call out to this woman, Shon from St. Joseph, Minnesota. She's the mother of a GM exec who came. I got to tell you, she's our biggest fan. I said, Do you mind Scott's Penis Jokes? She goes, I have three boys, and she's fantastic. She knows all the shows. She says she learns a lot. She's retired now, but she's fantastic. I have to give a call out to Shon of St. Joseph, Michigan. She loves Scott. She loves the Galloway.

It's an art form, and for any young person, especially a young, attractive person that wants to learn more about dick jokes, I'll help you on the hard parts.

Anyway, we have a lot to do today, though, besides talking about Fantastic Michigan. But the Supreme Court's latest social media ruling is a big change is coming to the real estate market, something you've talked about. We chat with a friend of Pivot, Dana R. Fisher, about her new book, Saving Ourselves: From Climate Shox to Climate Action. She'll tell us why she's an apocalyptic optimist. Oh, Oh, my goodness. Something young people brought up a lot on my tour so far is about climate change tech. We should get into it a lot. But first, Scott, we promised our listeners last week that we discuss your ketamine journey. Everyone is asking. They couldn't believe we waited last week. People have been asking me a lot. Give us your ketamine journey, and please roll it out for us.

Just to set it up, a friend of mine invested in ketamine clinics, and for me, it was like burning man. I always wanted to do it, and I was chickened out.

Many people are chicken.

Yeah. My friend invested in a clinic, and he set it up, and he made it seamless for me in Austin. You walk in, and everyone's got their shoes off. It's a very nice vibe. It was actually quite nice. You have a person in this love room with couches and pillows. It's very comfortable, and they give you a weighted blanket. Then the doctor who talked to me, they did a pre-screening to make sure you shouldn't do it if you have any schizophrenia in your family or if you're feeling especially anxious or paranoid. Which for me is called a Tuesday. I know, exactly.

I was like, Hold on. Stop sign. Stop sign.

We're going. I said, Red light. All those things, but it's nothing out of the normal. You go into a room that feels like the cool as a den where you'd hang out and smoke a lot of pot at home. It feels like a room in a rich person's house who's very into marijuana.

Soft things.

That's right. The thing that initially struck me was the doctor came in, we all held hands and prayed, which I actually found quite comforting.

Wow. To God?

I don't know exactly who was on the other end of that. I'm not sure if anyone was listening, but it was nice to be in the company of other people holding hands and hoping for good outcomes.

A little communion.

Then she gives you an injection and you get on an elevator up or out. The way I would describe it is that they use the term disassociated for these drugs, and that is you do, in fact, your consciousness, your thoughts, leave your body. Your body feels fine. It feels very heavy. You can't really move. You have trouble. I had trouble articulating words, but immediately your consciousness leaves your body.

Quickly? How quickly?

Within 30 or 60 seconds, you feel very relaxed. An initial sensation of relaxation. It does reduce your anxiety, but then you're elevator up pretty fast. You're Willy Wanka in the elevator going about the speed of light. Except I wouldn't describe it as you're traveling. I would describe it as your consciousness leaves your body and then space starts flying around you and surround. The things that are on your consciousness begin, I think the things that are important, or at least in your mind, start coming into what I'd call 4K, high definition, unavoidable, very visual view.

So me. It was just me. It was just me. Pictures of me everywhere. But go ahead.

That's right. That's right. And Walt Mossberg, unusual. But these things come into very crystal clear view. I'll give you what I'll call the downsides, and I'll give you the upsides. The downsides are some things I was anxious about in that moment kept popping up, and I knew, even in the moment, that they weren't that important.

Can you give me specifics or not? Or is that too personal?

I had been what I felt like less kind to somebody, or I said some stupid stuff and I felt bad about it, and it just kept popping up. I say a lot of dumb, unkind things on a regular basis and trying to be funny or provocative, and it just kept coming up. I waited till the ketamine wore off and I called them and apologize. But if I'd done my trip in two weeks, I don't think it would have come up. So your anxieties at the moment do come up, which is a bad thing. The other bad thing is that if you have a doctor who recommends it because of trauma or they feel it would help you with your depression, then by all means, I would suggest taking medical advice. But if you are not good at drugs, and what do I mean by that? I have done enough drugs that I have been way too high a couple of times, and it's a terrible experience to feel way too high and out of control. But you always get through it. But without that confidence of knowing you're going to get through it, I would absolutely not do this.

Oh, so mind fuck, if you don't take... I shouldn't do it, in other words, because I've never taken it.

Oh, I would not recommend it to any... I was thinking I was thinking about you. I was thinking about my wife, which is a little odd, but I would not recommend it for you because there are moments, and I'm not... I don't want to say there are moments that's terrifying, that's a strong... There are moments that are very scary that if you could, you'd be like, I want off this roller coaster. But your consciousness, your consciousness separates from you, and you're just looking at your consciousness and your perception of things, and the universe starts flying by you. And what I would say is that the The upside is it's very clarifying and cementing of things that are important to you. So I had these incredibly, incredibly crystal clear, unimaginably sharp images in 3D all around me of these two favorite pictures I have of my boys. You're thinking about your relationship with them and how deep it is, but it goes like exponentially deeper. I mean, a very obvious stuff. You know your purpose is to love your children, but you start recognizing that this is everything for me. This is who I am. To clarify It's important.

It came to the forefront.

Clarity or clarification and cementing is how I would describe the upside of it. I saw death, but in a good way, I think about death a lot, and I thought, okay. I'm very into this concept of surplus value than when a boy becomes a man, when he's now producing more than he's taking in. Some people never get to that point. People love you, people spend time on you, your school spends resources on you, the world spends resources on you. When you really become a man is when the output or the love, the care, the concern, the productivity you offer the world is greater than your inputs. For me, it was clarifying. I'm like, Okay, my opportunity here is to love my boys more than my parents love me.

That's what came to the forefront. Interesting. Not your work, not your work or other things.

That's really interesting. Not a single image, not a single thought about my work, about money, about success, about lack thereof, about professional success or disappointment. That occupies the majority of my waking hours.

Can I see? Was it hallucinogenic?

I've told you about the sphere being mind-blowing in Las Vegas? Mm-hmm. This is the sphere of the sphere. Oh. The walls are breathing. The universe is flying you in crystal clear clarity. But you are no longer in your body.

When you die, that feeling when they say when you die, you pull out of your body and then you're looking down on it.

That's how I imagine it. It's like, I am beaming towards the source. The source is comforting. And along the way, I don't have time for one of the billions of planets or the trillions of organisms that aren't important. It's just the two or three very important things in a recognition. And there was no discovery. There was nothing new. Actually, my wife came into it, but in a much different way. It was this shock. And the way I would describe the shock was, did you ever, when you were a kid, get a gift, you weren't expecting it, and it was something that was so unattainable for you that you could never even imagine owning it? I mean, you wanted it so much, but it was unattainable. For me, it was... When I was a kid, I was really into skateboarding. My skateboard cost $2. There was a skateboard called a Bane, B-A-H-N-N-E, which was the ultimate luxury item, the equivalent of a Bugatti or a Birken bag, but they were $45. And in a million years, my mom and I could never afford a $45 skateboard. And my mom's boyfriend came home one day with this real ragtag box, and he said, This is for you.

And I opened it and it was a Bane skateboard. And at that moment, that moment of just shock and joy that that was mine, when my My wife came into the picture, I remember feeling this like, who is this? Oh, my God, I get to hang out with this person.

That's correct. Thank you, Scott. We all know that. The rest of us know this because your wife is a hot ticket item in every single way.

But go ahead. But this notion of who is this? Oh, my God, I get to hang out with this person, partner with this person. I get to be physical with this person. I get to be effective. It was like this Bane skateboard a million. That was very nice and clarifying.

That's a big escape for it.

You know what I mean?

I know. Did you have any religious or spiritual? Not at all.

Not at all.

No, you didn't touch the face of God, did you?

The way I would describe it is it doesn't illuminate anything new or teach you anything new. It didn't for me. What it did was just clarify or cement the things that I know and that are very important to me.

No appearance is the pivot team or I just wish you were interesting. Go ahead.

Yeah, not a lot. But I mean, there's absolutely nothing about my work. The takeaway, I went in with the intention. I wanted to ask myself a question like, what is my purpose? How do I add value? I just came back to this notion that I've been fortunate enough to receive a lot of love, and my goal in life is to have surplus value in terms of the amount of love I give as opposed to the amount of love I've received. Also this weird recognition that I'm almost there, and that, quite frankly, gives me permission to leave. I don't want to say die because that sounds negative. Please don't. But I have permission to leave, and I've checked a box. You've done enough.

You've done No, Scott, you're a surplus person. You're a plus person.

I feel like, I always think in terms of masculinity, I think, I am a man. I have loved more than I've been loved, and that's the goal. But it was very clarifying. It was very positive. But let me circle back. This is not something to be done lightly. It would be terrifying if you weren't confident around your use of drugs. Having said that, if the doctor recommend it- So I shouldn't do it? I mean this, sincerely. I think of you as a good friend, and I would always advise you, I wouldn't do it if I were you. Everyone talks about it being a life-changing experience. There's no free lunch. There are moments... Imagine the scariest roller coaster you've ever been on and your friends talk you into doing it. In about 10 seconds into the roller coaster, you're like, I would pay almost anything to get off this thing. There are a couple moments where you're thinking about the intensity of your consciousness separated from your body and the life you've built for yourself and how range it is and all your emotions. It is so overwhelming. It gets, quite frankly, just very scary.

I'm recalling when I was a kid, I used to stare in the... When I was very sad about my dad and stuff, I would stare into the mirror and I would hypnotize myself. I would go, Who am I? What am I doing here? I'd repeat it over and over again, and then I would disassociate. It was amazing. I can't believe I did that as a kid, but I have a very deep, rough collection. If you stare into a mirror and say that, Who am I? What am I doing here? It freaked me out when I was a kid, and I still have memories of that.

I think some of that is good. I think some of it is bad. It was. If it gets too much.

It was because you can't get out of it. At one point, I couldn't pull myself out.

Imagine that times 100. That's a great That's a great example, but it was a scary downside, some anxiety that just shouldn't have been there because it was on my mind at the time.

How long did it last?

It's about an hour, but you can't really stand. I mean, you're woozy. But I immediately called my wife and told her she was a Bane skateboard, but she was removed by it.

I'm going to get you one of those now and put your wife's face on it. That's my new curse. That's my birthday present to you.

But the thing you'd want to give to people who have a nice relationship with their kids, the word that kept coming up with a feeling, and this I'll finish here, was impossible, but impossible in a good way. Impossible in the sense that my boys could never I never understand until they have their own boys, how deeply I feel about them and my commitment to them. It was this wonderful feeling that I have this secret that they just can't comprehend the depth of the commitment the connection I feel with them. The word was impossible, but in a very positive way. But it was all about my boys, a little bit about my partner in life, but nothing about work, nothing about health, and nothing about my parents, which shocked the shit out of me. It was very weird.

Good for you. Scott, that sounds fantastic. Now, I'm excited about your LSD trip and your IAALASA trip and everything else.

No, I'm done. That's my last experience with the listening gins or whatever you call.

Okay, all right. Well, speaking of ketamine, very briefly, Don Lemon's Elon Musk interview is officially out after lots of drama. Some highlights of the hour-long interview. Elon says he just happened to meet Trump in Florida because the former President came by a friend of Elon's while they were having breakfast. This was nonsense. When asked about what they discussed, Elon said Trump did most of the talking and then it had no details. Elon says, Ketamine is helpful for getting out of a negative frame of mind and suggests that people with depression should speak with their doctors about ketamine instead SSRIs. Nothing controversial there. Elon says that according to studies, he's seen hate speech has gone down on the platform in terms of views since he took over because he was looking at views, not where they're promoted, essentially, versus numbers. So whether it's seen or not. Elon doubles out on saying X will not censor on behalf of advertisers. He also said that everyone's been a slave at one point, which I found to be the weirdest part of the discussion, and so everybody should get over it about racism and things like that. Let's hear one clip about content moderation.

You can think of X as being... It's much like the internet. It's not some tiny publication with 20 articles today. It's 500 million. But everyone has the opportunity to read it, Elon. I think they wanted the opportunity to read the Internet. Are you suggesting we should shut down the Internet? No, but you don't own the Internet. I'm asking about you and your responsibility and your platform. I see how you feel now. You don't agree. We don't agree on this. Yes, You want censorship, and I don't. No, I don't want censorship at all. Yes, you do. No, I want responsibility. I think there's- You desperately want censorship. No, if I want a censorship- You want censorship so bad, you can taste it. No, that's not true. It's not true. I think that there's right and wrong.

Well, That's how it went, a lot of the interview. It was a perfectly fine interview. Why Elon flicked out? I have no idea. I thought it was a solid interview.

I didn't think Don was unfair.

At all, at all throughout the whole thing.

Just to think about Don Lemon. I got a text from him. This is a fucking dream for Don Lemon. Don Lemon has launched a podcast. This is probably the biggest launch of a podcast in history in terms of awareness. It's a global story, his first podcast. And all that, I think Don handled it. He was forceful yet dignified. I mean, this is just a... Whoever is Don's PR or comms person is literally just having their own really positive ketamine trip right That's Allison. I mean, this could not have worked out any better. Dawn looks great. Elon does not. It's like, here's a podcast launching where the star looks forcefully yet dignified, and the whole globe knows about it. You could not have bought this.

Here's what I would observe from knowing Elon. Two things he does. One is, I think he got bored in the middle of it. I think he got bored. He gets easily bored because he has sensory problems. Then he got annoyed that he had to pay this guy. You could see him being like, Why am I paying this guy for a regular interview? He wanted something. He'd rather have people be slavish to him, as many of the interviews are, or he can just go on and on. So he himself, I don't think it was boring, but he was bored. And then you could see him go, Why am I paying for this? And then he started to do his trick, which is like, I've got to go now. I've got to go now. Same thing that Linda did, which was at the Julia Borstein interview. I've got to go. I got better things to do. And then the other thing he does, which is so irritating, and now I saw it, really, having not done the interview to see it, it's the he just wants to bring any study into doubt. So all study, he doesn't care if he's right.

We'll see if I'm right based on the tweets that we get back. He slimes actual facts so that you're confused, which Trump does, too, which is interesting. And that's what I noticed him doing over and over again. We've all been slaves and get over it. Or, No, the numbers are not that. And then you don't have any ability to fight back because, of course, you can find any study to do it. But he slimes the truth and therefore makes it confusing, and therefore he's right. You know what I mean? Or maybe he's wrong. I don't know. But that's what happens. Legitimate people get slime is what he was doing rather effectively, I thought, or trying to do. Anyway, That's it.

But you said something that really struck me that I thought was very clever, and a twist on a concept or a turn of phrase, and that you said, Elon is addicted to a drug, but it's sycophentry. It just summarized it perfectly. You can see how it happens. I suffer from this. Every Monday morning, we do an editorial call where we pitch ideas for my Friday newsletter, No Mercy, No Malice, and for the Pods. I said something that I thought was, I'm writing about mammals and the importance of herding and how... I think the most dangerous threat to America is lonely young men, as we've talked about at Nassim. I wanted to do something on mammals. Actually, our editor-in-chief brought up this great idea about loneliness. I had a frame on it, and someone waved in and said, Yeah, but Scott, that doesn't really make any sense. I merely hated that person who wanted to fire them. Because I'm so used to people around me telling me how great I am or how they used to hate me, but now they love me, that you start to believe your own shit. You start to believe your own press.

Then when people push back on you and show you the same interaction and viewpoint that almost everyone gets every day, and it's important, men need guardrails, women need guardrails, but men, especially, especially young men, you get angry. When you have the level, and some of it is warranted, just pure unadult, adulterated, like adulation and praise 24 by 7, you become incredibly allergic. When so many sanitary wipes are used on your ego, you can't handle any virus of disagreement.

You got to watch it. You're like, Oh, for goodness' sake. You could see it in his eyes. He definitely was bored. He was bored because he wasn't being sucked up to. Then it wasn't interesting enough. It wasn't sassy enough to bother. He likes to fight, too, by the way. It was just a decent, well done, fair, tough interview, and he doesn't like that anymore. That's what happens to rich people. That's why Jeff Bezos used to call me all the time, and now doesn't. He doesn't want it. He doesn't want that anymore. He'd rather have whatever he has. Anyway, it's very typical, these things. Anyway, you should go listen to it. It's actually a very good interview. It's very long. I think, honestly, he lets him go on too long, but that's just me. I cut him off on some of his nonsense. There was one where he didn't push back, where he says, Trump just came for breakfast, and Don doesn't say, You're fucking lying. That's a fucking lie. You were totally meeting with him. In any case, moving on. Public officials, speaking of that, can block people on social media posts. It's not part of their official duties, the Supreme Court says.

I think this is a pretty fair ruling. However, the posting is part of official duties. They can be sued for doing so. The unanimous decision came from a case involving a city manager in Michigan who blocked a user for making COVID-19 comments he didn't agree with. The city manager's page was called Ambiguous in the decision given mix for public official and personal content. A similar case involving former President Trump was dismissed in 2021 after he had left office. I think this is your social media. If you're doing it in your job, you cannot cut people off as a politician or a public official. It's just not... Some of it's personal. Some of it is personal. If you have an interest in March Madness or something else, I thought this was an excellent decision.

Yeah, I feel like you've got a better take on this than me. But the thing that always bothers me is somewhat what Elon Musk said, Will you believe in censorship? I just thought that was such a bullshit. If you're a private company that's a media company, you have no choice but to censor every day. That's what you do. The reason people are drawn to the Atlantic is it has a different view than the Daily Standard. The reason people turn into Fox or CNN is because they censor. Cnn censors far-right views. Fox censors anything that's rational. I mean, they just Media means censorship. That's curation. That's what media is.

I don't even like to use that word. They just edit. It's called editing. It's editing.

Anyways, I thought your take made sense.

Yeah, this is a good decision. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we get back, the big change is coming to the real estate market, and we'll speak with a friend of Pivot, Dana R. Fisher, about motivating people to action on climate change.

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Scott, we're back. It looks like Apple and Google are teaming up for a major AI partnership. The two companies are reporting is literally in active negotiations to build Google's Gemini AI model into the iPhone. According to Bloomberg, Gemini would reportedly power new features coming to iPhone software later this year. Apple has also recently held discussion with OpenAI and considered using its model according to the Bloomberg report. This is important because Apple doesn't have a lot of data on you. They don't keep it. So they're going to be way behind in AI, and they have a very long-standing and long relationship with Google on mapping and search and so on different things. They've been working together for years. It'll be interesting to see if favoring one of these companies is a problem. Obviously, OpenAI, I would like this job because bringing AI to the phones is going to be a big frigging deal for someone. Very quick thoughts on this?

I just think they're so smart. I get the sense that Apple has two or three or one incredibly bright economist because Because what you have is you have a series of huge businesses, laptops, music, media or apps, if you will. They're in some very, very big businesses where they go vertical and try and control the whole experience. I think an economist says, All right, where should we go vertical? Where is there such a surplus of funding? Other people do it so well that the best move for us from a shareholder standpoint standpoint, would just to have a bidding war and outsource it fully to someone else and extract more value than we could if we tried to go in and compete. The ultimate example here is search. They said, I mean, it just makes sense for Apple, given its interface and its technological domain expertise, to launch a competitive search engine. Some economists said, I have an idea. If we just bid it out to the highest bidder, which will be Google, we can extract $28 billion in 98% margin revenue.

And not have to lift a finger.

And not have to do a fucking thing and get $28 billion a year that flows to the bottom line. I think they've done what it feels like. I think they've looked at the world of AI and said there are a small number, a finite number of players with near infinite capital who are very good. Imagine the 10 billion ton pounds of flesh we're going to be able to extract from these guys to be the AI in front of the billion wealthiest people. No, let's go search on this and let's just get a gigantic fucking check every year.

Yeah, that's it. That's why you just said it. This is what happened. This is what will happen. I think it's integral to this, and it will be important. They're an important customer for these AI companies, and they shouldn't spend money on this. They'll waste a lot of money, and they won't be as good as these companies. They don't have as much data expertise. They certainly need to know how to use AI in the products, how to use it and make it better. They will run that part of it. How it comes to you will be all Apple. It's just the back-end that they will use Google for. But how it approaches you, how your phone talks to you, et cetera, essentially replacing Siri. They're breaking up with Siri for a new wife, essentially. It's critically important. The more money they can get, you're right, more money can get out. So that's that. I think we'll see what happens. I think OpenAI should try to win this one if they can. I think if Google gets this, it'll give them a huge leg up. Microsoft should try to win this one, too. Also, let's shift in a really weird way.

Nicole Shana Khan, a lawyer and investor in Google co-founder, Serguey Brin's ex-wife, is reportedly the top contender for RFK Junior's running mate. I could not believe when I saw this. Shana Khan was a creative force and primary backer behind the $5 million RFK Super Bowl ad that everybody he hated. Other names that have been mentioned as VP candidates, it's all one more ridiculous than the other. Aaron Rodgers, the Village Idiot Super Bowl guy, and Jessie Venture, the Other Village Idiot guy. She's not stupid. This is Bank of Serge paying for this. I think he's picking her for the money. She's got a ton of money when she got divorced. I don't know what to say about this. I know I've heard quite a bit about her. I haven't done the reporting myself. But boy, talk about any of these choices are completely unqualified and ridiculous. It's laughable that he's running. Lastly, I love that the entire Kennedy family took a picture with Joe Biden yesterday on St. Patrick's Day just to show their support. I think each of them should go out wherever he is appearing and say, I'm a Kennedy, and this guy is terrible.

I think they should make sure that this guy doesn't win because he's terrible. Thoughts?

Well, there's a lot here because I've said that for a long time, I think something that would go a long way to solving our problems around minority rule and extremist policies that don't represent America is final five or ranked choice voting, such that we get more senators like Lisa Murkowski, which is why she's there. The reason there's a moderate Republican in Alaska is they have this rank choice or final five voting. We should also have it in the presidency because the reason that Bill Clinton, the reason that George Bush, our President, is not because they got the most votes. It's because Jill Stein, Ralph and Ross Farouh are malignant narcissists. That's the fear around these third-party candidates is RFK will probably decide who's President. He won't be President, but he will probably decide who is President, dependent on whether he draws more votes from Trump or he draws more votes from Biden. The other larger point here is that our economy, our world has been run on money for a long time, and it's moved from the most dominant feature of our economy was agrarian, then it went to industrialization, then it went to oil, then it went to information and services.

Now our economy essentially runs on attention. That's true of the presidential campaigns. It used to be who raised the most money. Now it's who gets the most attention. I will mock a disabled person or say people are from shithole countries, but as long as I'm in the news every day, that's as good as money. Essentially, what you have here is RFK Jr has decided he is going to float a new candidate every 48 hours just to stay in the news. The reason why RFK is being taken seriously is he's in the news every 48 hours, and his comms person has figured out, let's float a different VP candidate every 72 hours. Aaron Rodgers, that'll piss people off. Boom, front page. Then this individual, this woman, for For a lot of reasons, she's actually, in my opinion, from an issue standpoint, a decent pick. She's not qualified, but okay, bodily autonomy, right? Money, she has a ton of money. Youth, definitely, somebody's got to pick someone under the age of 120 here just to stand out. A woman, hey, I get it. She checks a lot of boxes, but all the commsperson is doing is picking people where the media will go, That's interesting.

I'm going to write it up. Oh, a Jets' quarterback that is anti-vax. That's interesting. I'll write it up. Expect in another 72 hours another VP candidate to be floated by RFK Jr. Such that he is in the news yet again.

Yeah, this one was out of... She's left.

She's left field.

It says left field to me. I mean, she gave an interview with People magazine. Of course, the big story was the Wall Street Journal report about having an affair with Elon Musk, and that's why But then, as Serge Brin filed for divorce. It was in July 2022. She has denied this, and the Wall Street Journal, she and Musk have both denied the affair. The Wall Street Journal told people, We are confident in our sourcing, and we stand by our reporting. She says no, so I don't know what to say. She's interesting. I've met her. Look, reporters should write about. If she runs, she should get the gauntlet that other candidates get. There's a lot. Reporters should get on it. A lot of people in Silicon Valley know her. She had said she simply talked to Musk because the daughter of Brin and her has autism. She was talking about the background of Neuralink, about what to do about it. Anyway, I don't know. Look, if she runs, she gets to be covered the way candidates get covered. Same thing with Rogers, same things with Ventura. Have at it, people. That's the thing. That's what happens when you want to run.

She's not qualified as a vice president to someone who's not qualified to be president.

That's correct. That is correct. Rogers is even worse. I would pick her. If I had to stack rank them, she'd be on the top of this sad list, but nonetheless.

Neither are going to be the VP. There's going to Until they literally, until finally the press goes, Okay, now you're just using us. They're going to... Trump's doing the same thing. Trump's doing the same thing, floating different VP candidates. We run on an attention economy, and this is a great way to get a front page. So and so being vetted.

She also has a lot of money. She has a lot of money from Serge. I call it Bank of Serge. From tech, right? Yeah, from Serge, from being married to tech. That's really what she... She didn't make her money. Sorry.

The way I see it almost is a transaction. In exchange for $5 million, she paid for his Super Bowl ad. It has raised her name to a global profile, and it adds... If someone just considers you for vice president, It adds some heft to your personal brand.

It does. Running for president now is a branding thing. Anyway, let's finish with the last one before we get our front of pivot. Finally, the way Americans buy or sell their homes could be changing in a big way. The National Association of Realtors has agreed to settle a group of lawsuits that accuse the organization of conspiring to keep agents commissions high. Anyone who's bought a house knows this. A federal judge still has to approve the settlement, but if it goes through the deal would slash realtor standard 6% commission fee, which has been inexplicable to me. The typical commission in the US is unusually high compared with Germany at at 2.5% in Great Britain at 1.3%. New rules will also make it easier for buyers to negotiate fees with their own agents or not use an agent at all. The NAR, which still denies wrongdoing, will also pay $418 million in damages over four years. Honestly, anyone who has bought a house, I never understood 6%. It should be whatever they're worth and whatever you want to negotiate. The fact that as a standard fee, it's very much like credit card fees. It just doesn't make any fucking sense.

Other than the NC2A and higher education, there is no mob that commands greater VIG unfairly, uneconomically than realtors. I can do right now a trade for a million dollars in stock for $19 of $95, but if I sell a million dollar house, I've got to pay a $60,000 commission. It just makes no fucking sense. The National Realtors Association has done a great job of convincing everyone that buying a home is the American dream, and they do this incredibly devious thing in order to get on the MLS, which is if you're not on the MLS- Explain what that is, Multi-Listing Service. The multiple listing service, I think it's what it is. But if you're not on there, no realtor or anyone representing a buyer knows you might as well be trying to sell your house on Mars. No one knows it's even there. They say they want to get as many realtors who are the gatekeeper to the buyers to come see your house. They have to say commission of 2% to 3% paid. What they're saying is very basic that the buyer and the seller get to negotiate their own deal with their agent. The bottom line is there's just too many real estate agents.

Half of them have sold zero or one house in the last year. It's an inefficace sufficient use of human capital. There's too many of them, and it's price fixing. This will bring down the price of homes over the next 3-5 years, 2-3%, which doesn't sound like a lot, but it is a lot.

This is stuck in my crop for so long. I'm like, what if they don't have to be good or not? They don't have to perform. Some of them are great, but why am I paying the other person's realtor? You know what I mean? Let them pay them. That's the whole thing. It gets split, and I've never met that person. In an hourly. Yeah, exactly.

Pay them hourly. How long do you work?

Pay them well. Make it what you want to pay them, but negotiate it. They'll probably get a good amount if they're good, but it's like tipping a waiter or anything. Actually, in waiters' cases, most of them are good. I do feel like they should get a little more money But it's just everyone else has to live and die by their performance, and these realtors don't. I'm sorry, they just don't. It's bullshit. It's just bullshit. Anyway, any VIG, even Apple with a 30% fee, are they giving you 30% value? It should just depend on how much service you get. That's the way it goes. Anyway, we'll see. We'll see if it shakes up the housing market. But good for people suing on this and good for the judge. Anyway, they should pay more money than $418 million, by the way. Anyway, let's bring in our friend of Pivot. Dana R. Fischer is the Director for the Center for Environment, Community, and Equity at American University. She's also the author of Saving Ourselves: From Climate Shox to Climate Action. Dana, welcome.

Thanks for having me.

First of all, what is climate shock? How do you define it?

I define a climate shock as a deviation from average extremes of average climate variability that is exacerbated by climate change. It's worth noting that nobody's ever actually defined it before, even though folks like the New York Times use it all the time. It is basically adding the climate change component to this natural variability that we see right now with El Niño.

So it's things that are surprising to the climate or surprising to people?

I think it's surprising to people. I mean, it actually is completely predicted. Many, many scientists, hundreds of scientists contributed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change many, many times, including the most recent AR6, which was the review that came out recently that specifically said that if we continue to contribute carbon to the atmosphere, we're going to see increased warming and increased climate shocks. They didn't call them climate shocks, but they were talking about these weather extremes like wildfire, which is caused by drought or extreme flooding or tornadoes or derachos like we've had here in the DC area. Other types of extreme events. We're seeing right now this crazy heatwave in South Sudan, which is currently 114 degrees. They had to close schools, things like that.

Wow. Right. With all these climate events, and there have been so many over the last few years, including, as you mentioned, major wildfires and hurricanes, and you can see it everywhere on social media. It's so much more prevalent. You're aware of them all over the world. Why hasn't that moved people to action from your perspective?

Well, so it's not people who need to act. As much as a lot of folks want to make us think that it's There are individual actions that matter, and they certainly matter some. But really, it's about systemic change. The reason that we haven't seen the systemic change that's needed is because there are these entrenched interests that are mostly funded and supported by fossil fuels that are maintaining the status quo. They have specific access to power. They have access to resources through subsidized access to public lands, for example, and they fund a whole bunch of political campaigns. As a result, as you might expect, elected officials vote in their favor whenever they're given those kinds of options. The type of changes that are needed are going to be relatively painful, and they're going to be big changes for all of us. But in order to get there, we need to push back against the fossil fuel interests that are controlling the power.

Right, which is not a new, fresh thing. This is not a new thing. You've seen millions of movies, the movie Chinatown was about that, right?

Sure. But note that while that's the case, the most recent IPCC that came out in 2022, we weren't allowed to say fossil fuel interest in the summary for policymakers. We wrote it to be vested interest. If you recall the most recent round of the climate negotiations last fall, well, like November, December, there was this push by EU and others to have a discussion about fossil fuel phase out that got completely diluted and weakened down.

Because they couldn't pass it. But in the book, you call yourself an apocalyptic optimist. What exactly does that mean? You write, My predictions will scare you, but they should also give you hope. Explain that.

What it means basically is that I do believe that we have the capacity to save ourselves, but I also believe that it is going to come with pain and suffering. I think that the only way to motivate the kinds of social changes that are needed is by personal experience with these climate shocks, which some people have already experienced. I mean, so many of us experienced the smoke from wildfires last summer, for example. But it's going It would take more than that for us to push for the political will that's needed to get our governments to push back against fossil fuel interests. I believe it's possible, but it's only when there is this real sense of losing power that the decision-makers will finally take the actions that are needed.

Dana, nice to meet you. Takera turned me on to this concept. Isn't the problem that we really aren't experiencing climate shock? We're experiencing climate by a thousand cuts, that there's two superfires, then three, then four. We're very adaptability. That, quite frankly, the best thing that could happen for us, it's like alcoholism. I'm convinced you don't treat it until you endure a certain amount of suffering. I realize this is being dramatic, but wouldn't it be the best thing if we really wanted to see a change? Would be some super fire, a real shock. Nothing feels shocking because everything's getting slightly worse every year.

It's the frog boiling.

Exactly. It's the frog boiling. But first of all, Scott, welcome. It sounds like you are also an apocalyptic optimist. So welcome to my small but growing group.

I'm half of those things, and one of them is not optimist. But anyways, go ahead.

But here's the situation is you're absolutely right. The way that the UN Secretary General said it last year is he said that we're going to need many... That there was Pakistan, which was flooding. A third of the whole country flooded. Many, many were affected, millions of people were affected. We're going to need many more of those before we see the action that's necessary. You may not have the optimistic side to it. You may just be an apocalyptic person. But I believe that that will motivate people to rise up. I've seen some evidence that that's starting, but obviously we need a whole lot more, and it's going to take a lot more pain and suffering to get us there.

I think it's also you can see. It's like you see violence in other cities, and they make a big deal of it, and then you think it's there, but it's not affecting you. When I'm talking to people who are, Oh, the city is violent, I'm like, When did you get mugged precisely? And none one has. It's a very smaller group of people. The shock factor is really important in terms of something you know. I was just noticing the cherry blossoms in DC are at peak blossom right now early, and the flooding is such. They have to add floodwalls now where the cherry blossoms are because the water is now over the pathways that you would walk to look at these beautiful blossoms. Systems, which shouldn't be out now at the same time. It's interesting, and everyone's like, Oh, what an inconvenience. I'm like, That is just an ad for what the hell is going on here. You know what I mean? These are going to be covered with water at some point.

What I say is it's delightful that we've had 70 degree weather starting in February, but that's going to be not so delightful when we hit August and we're 10 to 12 degrees above normal, because that's really uncomfortable. And that means that people who have to work outside, people who don't have access air conditioning, people who don't have access to clean water, are going to start to feel real pain from it. I think it's exactly right. We're going to have to see a lot more shocks, and those shocks are not going to hit us all equally. Those of us with more privilege will be inert. To some degree, but eventually, we'll all feel the effects.

Are there tactics that climate activists are using you think are effective? You note how Greta Thunberg has raised awareness with civil disobedience tactics. We saw an enormous amount of pushback on her, especially on social media, which is interesting. We saw a climate change protester disrupt a Broadway show last week. What do you think are effective? Because it doesn't seem to have an effect.

Well, it's actually a lot of these actions, the civil disobedience, It's effective, but it's effective in a way that we might not understand or might not think about it. It doesn't mean that Greta gets arrested or these activists disrupt the show last week, and all of a sudden the government We should really do something about climate change. Let's phase out fossil fuels. It's more that these activists are using civil disobedience to gain attention through the media, as well as to raise public awareness to expand those who are participating in activism. We see that with people who are disrupting shows. There was actually a really interesting post on Instagram by Michael Impérioli, who's one of the stars of the show last week, and he said that his character didn't support the activist, but he personally does. But these are some really classic examples of how what we call the radical flank, which is those are being more aggressive and confrontational in their activism, use this to get attention and also raise awareness to support more moderate components of the movement. We're seeing that more and more. We should expect that as people personally experience shocks, they'll start to think about what they should do about it.

What they're going to end up doing about it is they'll be turning towards these moderate flanks or moderate groups within the movement to start to support them and hopefully help to expand the movement more broadly.

That certainly happened with gay rights. There was a very activist group that a lot of people were shocked by, by the way. Then it moved into the mainstream.

Absolutely. Then you end up with a group like Human Rights Campaign that actually pushes through and helps to succeed with supporting same-sex marriage.

But at the same time, corporate America and companies should play a role in climate change. But a federal court just temporarily halted new rules from the SEC that were required public companies to disclose climate risks and greenhouse gas emissions. Two oil and gas companies have criticized the new requirements as costly and arbitrary. Again, they're by nature going to do this. Being angry at them for trying to survive is really not effective necessarily. There's a lot of pushback in terms of actual rules that would happen.

Sure. I mean, what we basically are going to see is those, again, in power are going... Those, particularly, who are funded by the fossil fuel interests, are going to continue to try to protect the status quo because the status quo is a fossil fuel extractive economy. That's what we are surviving on, and that is what we are benefiting from in some ways. All of us who will be able to use air conditioning this summer, all of us who drive fossil fuel-based cars, all of us who are turning on lights that are powered by natural gas, which is a fossil fuel or coal in some cases. It's a very, very large systemic change that's needed. Of course, people are going to... Fossil fuel companies are going to protect themselves. I mean, that said, many of them are rolling back their commitments with regard to emissions reductions and net zero plans. We saw it last week in a number of companies, and they're lobbying very hard to make sure that these kinds of measures, like the SEC's measure, will be stayed and then blocked. It's going to take a lot to get to the changes that are needed.

So, Dana, if you had a time machine and you were transported, say, 20 years into the future, and they said, Oh, climate change, we figured it out, or We've turned it back. Things are headed in the right direction. Then they asked you to guess what societal or technical change or advance was responsible for that. What would be your best guess as to the biggest hope right now where there's a long shot, long tail prospect of actually turning the tide back here?

Well, here's how I'm going to answer you, Scott. If we're looking at 20 years in the future and climate change has been solved, then it had to be some techno fix that was a silver bullet. There's There's a lot of investment, billions of dollars of investment right now going into carbon capture, carbon removal, which are tools that are being used and further developed by fossil fuel companies because they're the ones most suited with the infrastructure to be able to do it. If they figure it out, which currently they have not, and they've got billions of dollars right now in investment to try to figure it out, that could maybe save us in 20 years. Otherwise, 20 years from now, people are going to say, I can't believe you're flying on airplanes still because you're basically screwing us.

You think airplanes are the biggest culprit?

Airplanes are contributing for sure.

Yeah. You said some tech silver bullet. I do talk to a lot of technologists about climate change tech and the role it could play. Is that how you see it happening? Scott's talking about that, but talk about three or four really promising. We have a tech audience, obviously. Tech stuff that's happening besides carbon capture. I've heard that from a lot of tech billionaires are investing in that, obviously. But from your perspective, if you pick three things that are critically important for the tech industry to work on in climate change tech, what would it be?

I think that... That's a really good question. Nobody's asked me that before. I should have predicted it. Okay, so I'll say, number one is I think that tech companies need to work to help to expand distributed clean energy, particularly distributed solar, to make it more possible for people who cannot afford to invest the money that they still have to pay, even with the tax breaks, to put solar on their houses. Because there's so much clean energy capacity, and it's just not at scale yet. So we need to do that. There needs to be more investment in really distributing more investment in electric vehicles. And I don't mean electric vehicles like single-use vehicles. I'm talking electric busses. We're seeing some places, I live in Montgomery County, Maryland. Montgomery County, Maryland, we've got school busses that are going electric. There's so much technology there that has not been ramped up and taken advantage of. I would see that as much- Mass transportation. Yeah, mass transportation.

Yeah, not individual cars because that's not the solution.

But real quick, Dan, isn't it true that while we haven't found a technical solution to the climate crisis, we're definitely getting warmer?

Sure, we're getting warmer.

That was a joke. He just made a joke. That was dad climate humor. Climate humor, Dana.

We're getting to our point. We're getting to our point. But we're also starting to boil. I know a number of comedians who actually are bringing climate into their repertoires, and I think that that certainly could contribute That's change.

That's change. Laught about it. Laught, laugh, laugh all the way to the grave. Finish one more tech thing. If you had an ability to tell them what to invest in, pick one other thing.

Okay, so here's That's another one, is I think that we need to start thinking about building out and making it possible to build out more housing that is using clean energy and is transitioning quickly away from natural gas. This is not new technological innovation, but rather investments, because the technology is there now, but we need to stop leaning into single-family homes. But while we're building out more housing, needs to be cleaner, it needs to be greener, and I guess, Scott, it needs to be cooler.

Well, also, I could have swore you were going to say, and I just want a quick comment. I thought you were going to say nuclear.

No, I was not going to say nuclear. Here's the deal with nuclear nuclear is that I study activism around climate as well as climate policy making. If you want to see a place where we're going to see tons of pushback from the people who live in the areas as well as activists, nuclear power will be it. So that a lot of research says is that even if folks try to invest in nuclear, there's going to be so much pushback that it's going to be really problematic. I don't want to open up a can of worms for more activism.

You don't think it's a viable solution just practically?

I think it's going to have to be part of the solution, but I I didn't put my money there.

Yeah, I would agree because of everyone's feelings about it. But at the same time, a lot of tech people are investing in small nuclear devices that you'll have.

I think you will- More people have died in 10 Kennedy's car than a nuclear power plant, just saying.

All right, on that note.

As I say in my book, it's going to take all of us doing all sorts of things, including investing more in clean energy technology and the diffusion of those technologies to get us to the other side of the climate crisis. I agree. Thank you so much for having me.

If not, we're going to be living on Mars with Elon Musk as king. Anyway, Dana R. Fisher. Again, the book is Saving Ourselves: From Climate Shox to Climate Action. Thank you so much.

Thanks for having me.

Nice to meet you. Thanks for your good work.

All right, one more quick break. We'll be back for Wins and Fails.

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Okay, Scott, Let's hear some wins and fails. I'm going to go first, actually. I have to say meeting this woman who's a fan of ours, Sean. Her name is Sean from St. Joseph, Michigan. She likes it because we're funny, because we're funny and we get along and we try to disagree correctly. I think it really is a win to do that. I do. I was just thinking, Oh, he made a dad joke about climate change. But the fact about it is we need a lot more dad jokes about climate change. We need a lot. It's not going to solve the problem, progressives, but it certainly does. If you have an appealing way to get people to do what is important, it's okay to be appealing. You don't have to scare them because catastrophe makes people pull back. It absolutely does. Even if they know in their heart of hearts that's where it's headed, it's really important. I love fans like Sean, who really get what we're doing here, which is not just agreeing to disagree, because I don't ever understand that phrase, but disagreeing and learning and moving forward, I think, is really what it is rather than just, I think this, you think that, let's all have a beer.

That's not what this is about. I think that's a win when you start to think like that. I think that's the way the Democrats win in the future. For my fail, this bloodbath comment, that word that Trump used was just appalling, and he was trying to like, parse it, what he was referring to. But the word bloodbath is so loaded. It's fucking ridiculous. Same thing with Elon, everyone was a slave. They just are trying to bring us down to a level that we're arguing about really terrible things, and we cannot let them It's just they're using language to fuck with us in a way that's really... And then pretending and being cute about it. They're not really meaning what they're saying. We'll see in the end. It's designed to tear down really facts, really, pretty much. We have to stop allowing it and not losing our minds when he says it, but it's just crazy talk is what it is. I think we have to be very cognizant of how we're being manipulated into getting in the gutter with these people. Anyway, your win and fail?

Well, my fail is... 1.1 million people have completely exhausted their food supply in Gaza. It might be the most catastrophic hunger crisis. It might be the greatest number of people ever recorded facing a catastrophic hunger. I think anything that Netanyahu does to get in in a way of humanitarian aid is not only the wrong thing to do, it's just a stupid thing to do. I thought the image of Biden doing an air drop of food supplies not only made Netanyahu and Israel look bad, it made America quite frankly look good.

So to think that- Jose Andres, too, with his thing?

Out of his thing. To think of how justifiable a war is, and let me be clear, I think the only proportionate response to terrorism is disproportionate. So I do think that Netanyahu now who in Israel need to do everything they can to focus on the humanitarian aid of the people who really are innocent victims here, and there are a lot. Having said that, my actual fail is when the Senate Majority Leader calls for new elections. I think all he's doing, it's the definition of stupid. Because, and again, I constantly talk about this, I failed as a professional to discern the difference between being right and being effective. I think he's not only not Whether he's right or not here, the majority of Israelis agree with him. Netanyahu has a 70% disapproval rating. It's probably 65 today because democracies have no business telling other democracies if and when they have elections and who they elect. How would we respond to any other democracy saying, Biden shouldn't be President? It's not his place. And not only is it not his place, he's not effective when he does that. I don't know. I don't agree with you. He just actually takes Netanyahu up in the polls.

I don't think he does. I don't think he does. I think he's been the most staunch supporter of Israel of anybody there. I think it shows when someone falls off, just like these Trump officials who are... It maybe solidifies the Trump people for being even more rigid than they are, but they're already rigid, so it doesn't matter. The rigid supporters of Netanyahu. Netanyahu wants to kill these That is really pretty much the story. He doesn't want to help aid them. He wants them all dead. I think at some point, people of good conscience have to say so. I get your point that it might solidify it, but for this guy who's been a staunch supporter, he's a different Kitty cat than you or me or anybody else criticizing Netanyahu. Netanyahu has to go. I think saying it is okay. But go ahead. Make the counter argument.

That's not our decision. Also, I would just push back, and I apologize. Netanyahu oversees, and ultimately is the commander-in-chief of the IDF. As a ratio of civilian to enemy combatants, the IDF is actually killing fewer civilians for enemy combatant than we killed in Iraq, then the Allies killed in Japan or Germany. If Netanyahu's true goal was, to kill them all or genocide, he's not doing a very good job. There's evidence that's just not the case.

But these people are starving. It's just not a good... Anyway, go ahead. Sorry.

Again, we can both agree that Netanyahu, for a lot of reasons, should be cooperating with any international aid in the US around humanitarian aid. We can agree. I think all Senator Schumer did was give Netanyahu a pop in the polls. No country wants to be told by another country, a democratic country, when they should have their elections and who they should elect. And Israel is going to get there on their own. There's always a reckoning after the '67 war, generally speaking. I mean, deeply, deeply unpopular within Israel. His whole thing was, I have this crazy right-wing coalition that I assembled, including bigots on the Knesset, so I could stay in power. And in exchange, I will keep you safe. And he did not keep them safe. But we are doing ourselves no favor. If our objective is to get Netanyahu out of office, it's not to tell Israel if and when they should have elections. Anyways, my win is around India. It's really interesting. In Around 1970, check this out, about 60% of Indians lived in extreme poverty. Essentially, as of today, extreme poverty has been eliminated in India. While we talk a lot about come in a quality in the United States, if you take the perspective out and look at the world, it's actually been an era or a century of incredible equalization.

There really is some wonderful things going on globally because of vaccines, because of distribution, because of technology, because of global aid. But it's just amazing to think about. I've always been very intimidated. India is the most important or most populous country I've never been to. I've been intimidated by it because I don't have, I don't know what the term is. I don't want to come across as empathetic. I don't have the mental strength. When I see extreme poverty, it just rattles me and pumps me out. I've always been intimidated to go to India because I've heard about the extreme poverty just overwhelming there. But India, for all the problems they have and our concerns around Modi not being a real democracy and corruption there, in 60 years, they have eliminated, they've taken the majority of the population who suffered from this disease called extreme poverty to almost zero. It's a huge win for the most populous nation in the world. Anyways, my win is India's elimination of extreme poverty.

Okay. Well, of course, Modi is certainly controversial in terms of how he does it. But interesting. By controversial, I mean dictator-adjacent, like some of the things he's been doing. In any case, those are very good. I like that we disagree, but I think you're wrong about Netanyahu. He's going to be seen as a war criminal someday.

Let me be clear. I think the guy, there's a decent chance he should be convicted and go to jail.

Well, on other things, too, by the way. He was already well along that way. That's right. I don't know. We got to get help to these people. The food, it's an astonishing crisis that it exists at this moment in time in our world. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag. Com/pivot to submit a question for the show or call 8-5-5-5-1-pivot. Over the next three weeks, Pivot is taking an in-depth look about the future of work with extra bonus episodes dropping Wednesdays. Join us as we talk about AI, remote work, and our predictions for the trends that will shape your career. Okay, Scott, that's the show. Read us out.

Today's show is produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Ruttot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Emile Severio. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag. Com/pod. We'll be back later this week for another break down of all things tech and business. Have a moment of stillness. Think about the really meaningful things in your life and let them burn really, really bright.

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