Joe Rogan Experience #1500 - Barbara Freese

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   And we're rolling. How…

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:01

      And we're rolling. How are you, Barbara? (clapperboard snaps) What's happening?

   2. BFBarbara Freese0:03

      I'm good, Joe. How are you?

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:04

      Pleasure to meet you.

   4. BFBarbara Freese0:05

      Pleasure to meet you.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      How did you get started on this, and how did, how did you get interested in the subject?

   6. BFBarbara Freese0:12

      I got interested in this subject through climate change, uh, climate denial specifically. I'm an environmental attorney, and back in the 1990s I worked for the State of Minnesota. And we found ourselves very briefly sort of on the front lines of the scientific debate over climate change. And the way that happened was the, the state had passed a law saying that utilities regulators should try to estimate the cost to the environment of generating electricity. We get most of our power from coal, or we did then. Um, and so we looked at coal emissions. We looked at the traditional pollutants that we had regulated for a long time. And, and my client was the Pollution Control Agency, so I was familiar with those. What we also looked at, though, and, and I wasn't familiar with, was CO2 and its effect on climate change, because, uh, while that was a big issue globally, there was already a, a global treaty signed, um, to fight climate change. States had not taken a look at that. And what happened was we, uh, struck a nerve with the coal industry, and they sent to Minnesota a, a bunch of witnesses, a bunch of scientists, uh, to testify that we did not have to worry about climate change, and it wasn't going to happen. Uh, or if it did, it would be just, just a little, and we'd like it. And that all of those scientists, the, the IPCC, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, uh, those scientists, uh, that the rest of the world, including the US government in the treaty signed by George H.W. Bush, uh, the ones that they were relying on, those scientists were basically biased. They were biased because t- they, they were in it for the money somehow. They wanted research grants or they had some political agenda. It was kind of vague. Um, but, but it was clear they did not want us worrying about this issue at all.

   7. JRJoe Rogan2:09

      They, they told you that it would be just a little and that you would like it? What did, what did they-

   8. BFBarbara Freese2:13

      Oh, yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan2:13

      ... mean by that?

   10. BFBarbara Freese2:14

       Well, uh, a couple of things. One of the arguments, and you will still hear this sometimes, is that CO2 is a plant fertilizer, which is true. Um, and therefore more CO2 makes the world a, a happier place for plants and, and therefore better for everybody else. And to the, to the point where one of the coal interests who were i- in that, uh, who were parties had put out a video saying that the earth was deficient in CO2, and by digging up the coal and burning it, we were, we were correcting that.

   11. JRJoe Rogan2:46

       (laughs)

   12. BFBarbara Freese2:46

       Um, yeah. Uh, so that was-

   13. JRJoe Rogan2:48

       Wow.

   14. BFBarbara Freese2:48

       ... one of the arguments. The other was, "You know, it'll be mild. It'll be warm. The winters won't be as cold. And, and hey, this is Minnesota, so, you know, you guys are gonna appreciate those warmer winters." Um, so yeah. There was a lot of crazy stuff that, that hasn't gone away. In fact, many, in many ways it's gotten a lot worse. But there was certainly enough to leave me shocked, and-

   15. JRJoe Rogan3:10

       Was that the first time you were ever aware that corporations do send in people to try to diffuse arguments or could pollute the waters?

   16. BFBarbara Freese3:19

       I, I don't think I was quite that naive, but I'd certainly never seen anything like this. I mean, these were people under oath, you know?

   17. JRJoe Rogan3:26

       Mm-hmm.

   18. BFBarbara Freese3:26

       And, and they were saying things that were pretty extreme, uh, and, and many of which would just get a lot more extreme.

   19. JRJoe Rogan3:34

       And they were scientists.

   20. BFBarbara Freese3:35

       The many... Yes, th- the ones I cross-examined were mainly the scientists. They s- also sent in some other witnesses as well. So they didn't, they didn't actually work, you know, in a coal company.

   21. JRJoe Rogan3:44

       Mm-hmm.

   22. BFBarbara Freese3:44

       They were hired by the coal industry to come in and testify.

   23. JRJoe Rogan3:47

       And these scientists, th- presumably they were paid to do this.

   24. BFBarbara Freese3:52

       Yes.

   25. JRJoe Rogan3:52

       So is that... I mean, how do you track that? Like if you-

   26. BFBarbara Freese3:56

       Mm-hmm.

   27. JRJoe Rogan3:56

       ... if you have scientists and they come in and they say things that you know are not accurate or deceptive, how do you find out what their motivation is? Uh, did you, did you ask them if they'd been paid? And-

   28. BFBarbara Freese4:08

       We were able to put some things in the record re- regarding how much money they had gotten from different fossil fuel interests over the years. So we definitely did, uh, point to that, argue about that. W- we didn't realize some of the witnesses had a, a much deeper history than we understood in science denial. One of the witnesses was a, a, a pretty prominent scientist, uh, named Frederick Seitz, who has since died. But, um, what we didn't know, uh, what I didn't know when I cross-examined him, I mean, this was a, a shoestring operation, was that he had spent a lot of time actually consulting for the tobacco industry.

   29. JRJoe Rogan4:44

       Mm.

   30. BFBarbara Freese4:44

       Um, so that would have been nice to, to bring up, but no.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   So, uh, how well…

   1. BFBarbara Freese15:00

      Uh, it means, in the sugar islands, that the slaves will massacre the, the whites, exterminate the whites, and, and... or maybe make the whites slaves." Um, so they basically, you know, just created this incredible slippery slope that every, that any kind of reform or certainly abolition of this industry would, would be disastrous for the entire kingdom.

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:19

      So, uh, how well documented is this in terms of like the influencers, like who, who started this? Like how... And did... Is it... Was there, there, like open discussions about how to spin this in a way that it's going to get people to think that slavery is a good thing?

   3. BFBarbara Freese15:33

      Well, I don't know about internal discussions within the industry. What we do have are, uh, lots and lots of books and pamphlets, because this was all done in writing.

   4. JRJoe Rogan15:42

      Mm-hmm.

   5. BFBarbara Freese15:43

      We also have some hearings, and we have, uh, parliamentary debates. They were recorded, not, you know, verbatim, but people tried to write (laughs) them down. And so we have some version of what was actually said in these debates and the various hearings. There were parliamentary hearings. So there's actually quite a lot of evidence of the arguments being made in their own words.

   6. JRJoe Rogan16:03

      So, and then this was primarily in Britain, right?

   7. BFBarbara Freese16:07

      Right. This is... Well, that's what I'm talking about here. Obviously, there was the... We had our own abolition movement here-

   8. JRJoe Rogan16:12

      Right.

   9. BFBarbara Freese16:12

      ... and our own debate.

   10. JRJoe Rogan16:13

       That's what I was gonna ask you. Did those same arguments, um, did they actually get presented in the United States?

   11. BFBarbara Freese16:18

       Some of them did. Uh, in the United States, it was different, because, of course, you had an entire society, uh, built around slavery. And it... I read one, one reference, one historian saying that about half of the defenses of slavery came from the clergy. It wasn't quite the same sort of clearly, "Here's an industry and, and here's an audience that they're talking to." Um, so that's one of the reasons I didn't focus quite, uh, at all really on the, on the American debate.

   12. JRJoe Rogan16:47

       Half of it was from clergy?

   13. BFBarbara Freese16:48

       That's what this, this, uh, historian said. I, I didn't dig into those. I did, by the way, though, find one, uh, source. And now I don't remember if, if he was a plantation owner or something else who described, um, the... They called slavery, you know, basically a way to make people as happy as can be, and, and called it the ideal of communism, which was funny, because you don't even think of communism, uh, of that debate as existing. This was... would have been in the 1800s now. Um, but he, he was saying that, "The North is exploiting these workers, not taking care of them. But in the South, we, we take care of them, we make them happy as slaves."

   14. JRJoe Rogan17:26

       Jesus.

   15. BFBarbara Freese17:27

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan17:29

       Whew. So, th- is this a pattern that existed before that? Like, is this... is there... I mean, is there any-

   17. BFBarbara Freese17:36

       Well-

   18. JRJoe Rogan17:36

       ... evidence that there was something... I mean, it seems like whenever people start to make money doing something, whenever a corporation, particularly a corporation, right? Because there's this diffusion of responsibility in a large group of folks, and they have this, you know, this obligation to earn money for all the people that are involved in the corporation. So they start rationalizing their decisions and then twisting things around. But is this, uh, is this something that can be traced back before then? Is this a, a natural human trait, this kind of deception?

   19. BFBarbara Freese18:06

       Well, I can't specifically answer whether it can be traced before then b- because I didn't try to trace it. And, um-

   20. JRJoe Rogan18:11

       Right.

   21. BFBarbara Freese18:12

       But I would not be at all surprised, uh, because I do think it's a natural human trait. Um-I mean, I, uh, one of the issues that I, I started to struggle with on this book was deciding to what extent are people lying and when are they actually deceiving themselves?

   22. JRJoe Rogan18:27

       Mm-hmm.

   23. BFBarbara Freese18:27

       And I realized early on, there was just no way to write this book if I was gonna try to parse that out, and I also decided it doesn't matter that much, because I think these are really m- very much intertwined, um, and, uh, they're both equally destructive and they're both, I think, equally responsive to these kind of external circumstances that we create in corporations when we form corporations and we put them into a, into a marketplace. So, I, I do think it's part of human nature. Um, I do think we've created this system that brings this out in people, and really encourages it in, in so many ways. I mean, you mentioned the diffusion of responsibility, and that is huge, because we do know, and, and I dip into the social psychology in here, not a ton of it, because that science is still relatively new and, and kind of, you know, a little bit thin-

   24. JRJoe Rogan19:17

       Mm-hmm.

   25. BFBarbara Freese19:17

       ... compared to the environmental science that I, that I talk about, which is very, very deep. But, um, we do know that when you, when you diffuse responsibility, it makes it very easy for people not to feel responsible for the harm that's done. So, if you've got a corporation, of course you have division of labor. You also have division of management from ownership, so if you're a lower worker and you're told to lie about something or cause some harm, well, you're minding your own business, and you bl- and, and you let the, your boss take responsibility. If you're the boss, uh, you're focused maybe on y- y- your employees and, and certainly on your shareholders, so if you're lying about something or causing harm, it doesn't necessarily feel like a personal, selfish act of deception. It probably feels like an act of loyalty and responsibility-

   26. JRJoe Rogan20:05

       Mm-hmm.

   27. BFBarbara Freese20:05

       ... to your sharehol- shareholders. Your shareholders aren't going to care or know, because first of all, they're far away usually. Uh, they, they don't really know what's going on. They have maybe just a temporary transactional interest in what's going on. They just bought the stock. They want to sell it quickly and make some money, so, so you don't really have anybody there who feels really responsible for this. Th- there was a definition of a, of the corporation from the early 20th century in something called The Cynic's Dictionary as, "An ingenious device for obtaining personal profit without personal responsibility."

   28. JRJoe Rogan20:41

       Mm-hmm.

   29. BFBarbara Freese20:41

       And, and of course, that is exactly what we intend from corporations, because they are, we, we grant limited liability to the shareholders.

   30. JRJoe Rogan20:50

       Mm-hmm.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Mm. …

   1. BFBarbara Freese30:00

      advantage of it, and- and making a lot of money and- and changing social norms along the way, then problems are emerging, uh, obviously with slavery they were inherent, but problems will emerge. Other people outside the industry discover those problems and pay attention to them, draw attention, and then eventually you get to a law. Now, that's kind of an artificial ending because you have to make sure that law gets enforced, but- but in almost all of these chapters you get to some sort- form of government action where they say, "No, you can't do that anymore. We- we stop this industry, we ban this product or at least we're gonna try to-"... tweak your behavior. Um, but that process, first of all, it takes a long, long time and enormous damage can be done in the meantime.

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:45

      Mm.

   3. BFBarbara Freese30:45

      Um, but that process doesn't work. You don't even get your, your somewhat happy ending if the industry has become so powerful that, that it determines whether it gets regulated or not, and it blocks those regulations.

   4. JRJoe Rogan31:00

      Well, that's what I was getting to is 'cause that kinda seems where we're at now with corporations like Facebook. Like, they have an insane amount of power and that power is actually being used to dictate who becomes president.

   5. BFBarbara Freese31:15

      Mm.

   6. JRJoe Rogan31:15

      And that's what's really strange. Like, there's never been a corporation that... I mean, other corporations did their best to influence the market and influence regulations in a way that they can continue to profit, but this is a different thing, where they're literally influence- in- influencing directly who becomes the person who runs the country-

   7. BFBarbara Freese31:37

      (laughs)

   8. JRJoe Rogan31:37

      ... which is a new thing.

   9. BFBarbara Freese31:38

      Well, it, it's a new thing when they do it through information.

   10. JRJoe Rogan31:42

       Yes.

   11. BFBarbara Freese31:43

       Um, it's not a new thing when they do it through money.

   12. JRJoe Rogan31:45

       Right, of course.

   13. BFBarbara Freese31:45

       Um, that's, that's pretty well established, but, but yeah. I mean, you know, uh, somebody, probably not me because I don't know this, this industry well enough, but, but the pattern is so clear that, that it's clear where we're, where we're heading, right?

   14. JRJoe Rogan32:02

       Mm-hmm.

   15. BFBarbara Freese32:02

       I mean, the problems will get worse and worse. Other people will talk about them. The problems are very new, I think, because we are talking about problems related to information and, and that, you know, and social media, how does social media affect social animals? I mean, this gets-

   16. JRJoe Rogan32:17

       Hm.

   17. BFBarbara Freese32:17

       ... really complicated. It's gonna be hard to figure this out. Um, but in addition to ha- having their own denial about what harms they inadvertently unleash, uh, they are vectors for the denial of other industries, right?

   18. JRJoe Rogan32:33

       Mm.

   19. BFBarbara Freese32:33

       And so that's one of the reasons climate denial, for example, is still going to be out there and deeply rooted for a long time even though the oil industry, which played a huge role in, in building it up, has basically said, "Uh, we, we accept the climate science. We know this is happening." In fact, the, you know, Exxon Mobil even says it, it accepts the Paris Agreement, which says that we have to limit warming to well below two degrees, um, centigrade. And th- and that sounds small. That's actually a, a, a pretty dangerous amount of warming, but th- that's the target of this Paris Agreement, although it also says we're gonna try to limit it to 1.5 degrees. Now, what that means is dramatically reducing our emissions s- first over the next 10 years. I mean, if you want to limit to 1.5 degrees, we're talking about cutting our emissions by 50%. That means pretty much in- cutting s- f- 50% of our, of our fossil fuel use.

   20. JRJoe Rogan33:29

       Mm.

   21. BFBarbara Freese33:29

       Um, that, that's a simplification, but then you have to go for that more aggressive target to zero, net zero emissions by 2050. So, we're talking essentially about this huge industry having to either completely transform itself or go away within 30 years, and then, by the way, after that, you have to go into negative emissions, which means building a new industry that sucks carbon out of the air and buries it. We haven't even really begun to talk about that, but, but that's assumed what we're gonna have to do because we have now delayed for 30 years thanks in large part to fossil fuel denial. So, so you got Exxon saying, "Yeah, yeah, we, we understand Paris and all that," but if you, if you look at their own projections about what they think is gonna happen, they put out these formal projections of how much oil will be consumed in the whole world and what our emissions are going to be. They still project emissions going up and then sort of leveling off until, like, 2040 by which time, in fact (laughs) , they need to be very, very low. So, it's kind of like the tobacco companies. The big tobacco companies are no longer denying the basic facts. They admit this product is addictive, and I've got a quote in the book from one executive saying, "Yeah, kills about half of our, uh, of our lifetime smoking customers, our most loyal customers."

   22. JRJoe Rogan34:49

       Oof.

   23. BFBarbara Freese34:49

       So... but, uh, you know, and, but despite having for decades said, "If we really believed this was harmful, we wouldn't sell it," um, they're obviously continuing to sell it quite enthusiastically, and that's kind of where we are, I think, with the major oil companies. Coal is still in denial. Oth- others are still denying it, but, but the major oil companies are saying, "Yep, yep, that's a problem," um, but they are still planning on selling more and more of their product, and, and so that is sort of the kernel of denial that that industry has yet to grapple with.

   24. JRJoe Rogan35:22

       But isn't it right now, at least temporarily inseparable in terms of, of our ability to move around, tr- distribute goods? We kinda have to have oil. We have to have gasoline-

   25. BFBarbara Freese35:34

       Mm-hmm.

   26. JRJoe Rogan35:34

       ... and petroleum products.

   27. BFBarbara Freese35:36

       You, you do-

   28. JRJoe Rogan35:37

       Right now.

   29. BFBarbara Freese35:37

       ... at the moment. Right.

   30. JRJoe Rogan35:38

       At the moment, yeah.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Mm-hmm. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan45:00

      or, or any kind of company that's involved in any some- anything that would be s- con- considered sketchy environmentally would ... I don't, I don't know how many manipulating sites they run-

   2. BFBarbara Freese45:10

      Mm-hmm.

   3. JRJoe Rogan45:10

      ... or manipulative, uh, social media accounts they run. But I would imagine that's gotta be part of the game plan, because online discourse, it's so easy to throw monkey wrenches into the gears, it's throw easy- so- to throw sand into the gas tank. It's so easy-

   4. BFBarbara Freese45:26

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan45:26

      ... to sort of monkey with the, the numbers and change the ideas that are being discussed, and change the narratives, that it's, uh, it's a, it's a turn- it's just a way that you can sort of, uh, shift the public's interests and opinions on things.

   6. BFBarbara Freese45:42

      Yeah. I mean, and if you're willing to lie and manipulate, then you act- you have a- obviously a huge advantage. But there's also just the basic human tendency that when we talk to people we already agree with, we tend to then become stronger in our opinions. And so we, we, we get polarized, basically. And that's even before social media. So then you sort of weaponize that polarization, that tendency, and, and you've got an algorithm that says, "Well, if you liked that video, how about this video?" And suddenly people are getting, you know, totally radicalized, (laughs) you know, on, on climate change or on other issues. And so yeah, I mean, it is, it is a huge problem. How do we overcome the social divisions, the social distrust? How do we overcome the denial? Um, and, you know, I, I think if, if the patterns in, in the book come to the fore, we will, society will find ways to build trust again. It'll probably have a lot to do with maintaining long-term accountability and not just a flash reaction to what you hear. But it could very well take decades, and we will have a lot of damage done in the meantime.

   7. JRJoe Rogan46:47

      I wonder if there's going to be a time where there are laws against social media manipulation like that. 'Cause right now there are not, and-

   8. BFBarbara Freese46:56

      There will be.

   9. JRJoe Rogan46:56

      ... it's, yeah, it seems like there has to be. 'Cause if, if you ... I, I can't imag- I'm not naive enough to imagine that what's happening with the internet research agencies in Russia is not happening here.

   10. BFBarbara Freese47:07

       (laughs)

   11. JRJoe Rogan47:07

       It has to be. They understand the effectiveness of it. It's been d- well-documented. The idea that, that corporations are gonna step back and go, "Well, that's not our business."

   12. BFBarbara Freese47:14

       (laughs)

   13. JRJoe Rogan47:15

       "That's not what we do." I mean, that's a, an incredibly effective tool. And if you were gonna use it to manipulate opinions on whether it's climate change or, you know, anything, you know, pharmaceutical, uh, drug overdoses. Like, whatever, whatever it is-

   14. BFBarbara Freese47:29

       Mm-hmm.

   15. JRJoe Rogan47:29

       ... that you want to manipulate people with, I would imagine that that's a, a gigantic issue, but it's not something that really gets discussed in terms of, uh, in, in terms of passing legislation to prevent that stuff.

   16. BFBarbara Freese47:41

       Mm-hmm. Yeah. And, and hopefully it gets more and more discussed, because it is very scary. I mean-

   17. JRJoe Rogan47:47

       Right.

   18. BFBarbara Freese47:47

       ... it turns out we ... Humans are easily manipulated, and were easily manipulated even before social media. But now there is this incredibly sophisticated engine to drive us apart, to, to drive us, uh, in the direction that those best at manipulating us want us to go.

   19. JRJoe Rogan48:03

       Yes. And it's addictive, which is even crazier.

   20. BFBarbara Freese48:06

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan48:07

       It's a completely addictive mechanism.

   22. BFBarbara Freese48:10

       Yeah, it really is.

   23. JRJoe Rogan48:11

       Like, people are lost in their phones and lost in their computers. Like, when they're checking their social media stuff. And that's one of the, the, more interesting things about these social media algorithms, that, um, it's been determined that when people are upset about things and when they're angry about things, they post more, so it's more valuable.

   24. BFBarbara Freese48:31

       Hm.

   25. JRJoe Rogan48:31

       So the algorithms favor people being upset. So they'll send-

   26. BFBarbara Freese48:35

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan48:35

       ... you, if you, if you, uh, find, uh, abortion a hot topic or environmental issues, they'll start sending you those. That's what's gonna show up in your feed.

   28. BFBarbara Freese48:43

       Hm.

   29. JRJoe Rogan48:43

       You're gonna get more of it, 'cause this is what you engage in. And, uh, it's, what's fascinating is it's, it's not even really malicious, in that it's just pragmatic. Because I have a friend who did an experiment. My friend Ari, uh, wanted to find out what would happen if he just looked up puppies. So he just looked up puppies on YouTube and looked up puppies everywhere, and his feed was overwhelmed by puppies.

   30. BFBarbara Freese49:08

       (laughs)
5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   And then you add…

   1. BFBarbara Freese1:00:00

      it'll, it'll fail and maybe some people won't get to retire, but you don't know who they are, and maybe that won't happen. I mean, the more abstract it is, and of course the more globalized our economy becomes, the more distant the impacts, the harder to imagine they are, and the easier to ignore and deny.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:17

      And then you add in the fact that they're able to manipulate politicians.

   3. BFBarbara Freese1:00:22

      Exactly.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:23

      They fund their campaigns. They ... The, the really creepy one is when they give them money to speak, like enormous-

   5. BFBarbara Freese1:00:30

      Oh.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:30

      ... sums of money after they get out of office, like what-

   7. BFBarbara Freese1:00:33

      That can be a little, uh, corrupting, huh?

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:00:35

      But it's just so gross and obvious.

   9. BFBarbara Freese1:00:37

      Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:00:37

       I mean, when you're giving a former president or a former secretary of state a quarter of a million dollars to talk for an hour-

   11. BFBarbara Freese1:00:44

       (laughs)

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:00:45

       ... like, why? What is, what is that person saying?

   13. BFBarbara Freese1:00:48

       That's a, that's-

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:00:49

       It's so fascinating.

   15. BFBarbara Freese1:00:50

       That's a very high rate of return for-

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:00:52

       Yeah.

   17. BFBarbara Freese1:00:52

       ... a quarter or a half an hour of work. That's true.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:00:54

       Well, when Bernie Sanders was upset at Hillary Clinton, it was like, "Release the transcripts. Let me hear what you said." And there's not a chance in hell she's gonna do that.

   19. BFBarbara Freese1:01:01

       No.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:01:02

       I mean, what do they say during those things that warrants a quarter of a million dollars or more? It's a-

   21. BFBarbara Freese1:01:08

       Mm-hmm.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:01:08

       It's a shady system, and there's no motivation to, to shift it, change it.

   23. BFBarbara Freese1:01:15

       Well, there's, there's no mo- motivation for, uh, those who are benefiting from it, certainly those who have the most money and, and are able to manipulate it. I do think there's ... I mean, if you were a politician-... and you are constantly raising money. I mean, I think many of them hate that and would love a system that didn't require them to be constantly doing that. Um, a- a- and it isn't like those poli- the politicians who are raising money for the campaigns, they don't get to walk away with it. They- they're using that for their campaign, so-

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:01:43

       Mm-hmm.

   25. BFBarbara Freese1:01:43

       ... so I think there is motivation a- among the elected people not to have to keep doing this. But i- in the meantime, those who are benefiting from this and w- who can manipulate the system are gonna resist any efforts to try to change it. So, that's a huge problem.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:01:59

       There might be motivation, but there's no tangible alternative. There's nothing like where you can say, "Look, we've got a clear path. You don't have to raise money anymore."

   27. BFBarbara Freese1:02:07

       Well, there is ... there are ways to whittle away at this, an- and, you know, it didn't used to be quite this bad.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:02:12

       Mm-hmm.

   29. BFBarbara Freese1:02:12

       And- and certainly you can provide some additional public funding or- or require- require networks to give politicians time on the air, uh, things that allow them to speak to the- to the public, which is, of course, what this money is supposed to give them a chance to do without having to go to other people who have money to give them the money so that they can get access to the public. I mean, I think there are ways to do this. I- I wouldn't pretend to be an expert at all in campaign finance reform, but I think it is a field, and I think that the reforms of the past have been, you know, blocked or undone, and- and we can- we can try to put some of those back in place.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:02:50

       What you're doing with this book is essentially you have a magnifying glass on some of the worst aspects of human behavior.
6. 1:15:00 – 1:18:36

   (groans) …

   1. BFBarbara Freese1:15:00

      the '30s. Um, they, the, uh, w- when they began, they taught these women, uh, young women, they might have been 15 when they got hired, they taught them to make a nice sharp point on their paintbrush with their lips and tongue.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:15:12

      (groans)

   3. BFBarbara Freese1:15:13

      And because there was this health fad around radium, they told them that this would, would put a glow in their cheeks. And you've seen these pictures, that they really had some, some change in their cheeks, but it wasn't a glow. They... And it...

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:15:26

      (groans)

   5. BFBarbara Freese1:15:26

      They told them it was good for them. Um, and so a lot of them, not all of them, I mean, so, uh, you know, not everybody died, which made it easier for the industry to actually blame them. And, and later (laughs) the industry would say that these people with these horrendous disfiguring diseases, that they were suffering from a preexisting condition, that this was somehow not the fault of radium, that they had hired, uh, cripples and, and other, uh, people who, who weren't super strong because this was easy work. And when they got sick, everybody blamed them and they were being punished for their generosity of hiring these folks in the first place. And, and, uh, and by the way, these women had radioactive breath at this point, when they were working.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:16:09

      Ugh.

   7. BFBarbara Freese1:16:09

      So it's not like there was any doubt that they had radium lodged in their bones.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:16:14

      What is radioactive breath, exactly?

   9. BFBarbara Freese1:16:15

      It means they're exhaling radon.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:16:18

       So this was measurable?

   11. BFBarbara Freese1:16:19

       Yeah.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:16:20

       Oh, Christ.

   13. BFBarbara Freese1:16:20

       Even, even by the standards of the time.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:16:23

       Oh my God.

   15. BFBarbara Freese1:16:23

       Yeah. Now, now one thing about the radium industry is, i- you know, denials like that, blaming the victim, are appalling. But, uh, one of the things we did see is that the leaders of that industry, including the guy who invented that radioactive paint and including Joseph Flannery, uh, died and, and c- certainly the, the radia- dir- the inventor of the paint died because of radium exposure. His teeth had fallen out. I- uh, according to Time Magazine, his fingers had been removed. Uh, nobody else covered that particularly gruesome detail, but then he died of anemia. These are all radium-induced ailments. Joseph Flannery, the guy who launched Standard Chemical, well he had this great idea that he had all this radioactive waste, right? So he hired a botanist to find out if it could be a fertilizer. And then they published a report that you should, yeah, spread radioactive waste on your food crops because it's great. Um, he actually had him spread waste on his own garden, uh, and then six years later Flannery died. And the, the industry didn't mention this, but his birth certificate, which I managed to dig up, mentioned that he had a contributing factor in his death of anemia, which is something that radium exposure causes.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:17:33

       You mean death certificate? Is that what you meant?

   17. BFBarbara Freese1:17:35

       Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, death certificate.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:17:36

       You said birth certificate.

   19. BFBarbara Freese1:17:36

       (laughs) Did I bad... Yeah. Right.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:17:38

       Yes.

   21. BFBarbara Freese1:17:38

       His death certif- thank you. Um, so yeah, he had, uh, anemia. And, and if he believed his own clinic, his own, his own sales pitch, he probably drank more radium to treat his anemia.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:17:51

       Oh God.

   23. BFBarbara Freese1:17:51

       Um, so, so he did die. So, so in these two characters, at least we have people believing what they said enough to actually kill themselves as well as other people.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:18:00

       So it seems, again, that this is, there's this human characteristic that this, this tendency when you start making money, you start justifying, you want to keep that money coming in, so you start justifying your actions, manipulating the facts, and just continuing to push out whatever it is that you're doing-

   25. BFBarbara Freese1:18:17

       Mm-hmm.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:18:17

       ... that's allowing you to earn this profit.

   27. BFBarbara Freese1:18:19

       Yeah. Well, and, you know, one of the reasons I talk about Joe Flannery is that he's, he's a, I think a really good example of a certain kind of person that we celebrate, um, because they invent things and they make things happen and they build businesses, the founders of industry.

Episode duration: 1:50:10