 Welcome to episode 16 of What Sex Got To Do With It, and I'm here with my favorite 84-year-old great-grandmother, but first I have to tell you something. I've gotten some information, meaning from our local cluster of galaxies that include Andromeda that there is another author, great-grandmother. Oh dear. Yeah, and initially we thought that she was older than 84-year-old, 84, but the revolution of that planet around the sun, it made it seem that she was older, but when he controlled me for the hour sun, actually she's younger than me, so it's still whole. Oh good, I'm glad, yeah. So this chapter is called It's a Bountiful World. And actually this chapter came from a colleague, one of my George's colleagues who was visiting from the west, and we had lunch together at Jimmy's, and I expressed my despair over the climate, and when given his wife were walking me back to my condo just across the street, he said, Heather, Heather, don't despair, you have to remember it's a bountiful world. Oh. It's a bountiful world. In fact, I credit him in the acknowledgments for reminding me that it's a bountiful world. He said, there's plenty for all of us, all species, humans, there's plenty for everyone who just have to correct the flaws in the distributive function of human economic systems. So he just said, remember it's a bountiful world. And I thought the last chapter, we were a little wonky talking about that. I have to save myself sometimes from despair because I can worry about the climate and inequality and injustice by taking a walk in the woods. And I'm just always reminded that it's a bountiful world, and my own life is a bountiful life. I feel I've often, not often, but I recently told someone, if you put something on my tombstone, just put love's been good to me because I've been lucky in having such warm relationships with so many people, and I'm very, very lucky. I feel the natural world return the love that I feel for it. So that is what the bountiful world title comes from. But it's directly in response to Gibbs saying, Heather, Heather, don't get down, remember it's a bountiful world. I'm glad. And I don't recall you mentioning him when we did acknowledgements, because we did acknowledgements first. And that's why we're on chapter 15 now, even though this is episode number 16. So when you talk about this, you open it up and you talk about the nature of the species. It's a wonderful species that can create places like New York City, which I love, but more so all the variety that's there, but yet has all these inequities. And I'm kind of curious, do you think that it's kind of the natural process that those two would kind of go hand in hand, that it would take me a certain degree of inequality? And I'm getting that inequality as opposed to inequity, because I think that we aren't necessarily going for their being poverty. Let me rephrase that. Of course we're not going for poverty. I think we're not going for that everyone has to have the same amount. We just want to make sure that everyone has enough to thrive. So do you think that it requires a society in which you do have a certain level of inequality, but still equity, or still to produce a place like New York? Well, Henry George's book, again, Progress and Poverty, he puzzled over how come the more material progress we make, and he quoted the big cities, the poverty in those cities is more extreme. As we create more wealth, the inequality becomes more extreme. I don't think we need the kind of inequality that makes it difficult for some people to live. I think we're a hierarchical species, as one of the wonderful things that I love us about us as a species and the individuals within a species. We all have different talents and abilities, different motivations. Some people aspire to own more things, to have more things, to work harder. Other people want leisure time to dream, to think, to paint, to write. So we're driven, we're different. We bring different skill sets. So I don't think that you need to have inequality in order to have achievement. Achievement happens. Again, we're so good at sharing skills, that's the upside of our language ability. I think I mentioned somewhere in the book, not in this chapter, but any other species, if you took the skills of each individual and combined it into one super animal, it wouldn't be much different than the individuals. Humans not so. You combine all our skills, essentially, if you look at the entire species, all the individuals, the super species that look at what we can do. I marvel. I wouldn't know how to manufacture a lead pencil. People are building or working on nuclear fusion. I read about that and I think, wow, the things that our combined talents can produce. But I don't think that it's necessary to have inequality in order to have achievement. Because people are driven by different things. Some people want to write symphonies. Some people want to build skyscrapers. That's the thing I too often say, oh, we're not a pretty species. But in that sense, in the extent of all the wonderful things we can produce, we are a pretty species. But what's not pretty about us is when greed and tribalism are two really human species-specific traits that we have to learn to rise above. And I think we are. I think individuals do it all the time. But I think we really want to have a sustainable and a just world. We have to really watch that we're not just indulging greed. When we were talking, again, I was in a science discussion about creating nuclear fusion, which that's not my field at all. I think, wow, wow, amazing that people know how to do this. And some of the people in the group actually have worked in the field. But at one point, they say, well, it's great, because we have a combination of public and private investment in building a sun. Of course, my reaction is, hello, there is already a sun up there. Isn't it a bit hubris to think that we need to build one here just so humans have this endless supply of energy so we can have all this excess of stuff that doesn't make sense to me? But one of them was talking about, well, you know, this is good, the fusion of public and private investment in the creation of a nuclear fusion as an energy source. And then they named some of the big investors, you know, some of the big tech guys. And I said, ooh, I don't want those guys being in charge of my future because they're very profit driven. You know, they are, I mean, they're also driven to discover and develop. But the profit motive is pretty strong there. And so whenever the development, the drive, a driving force behind the development is to earn a big profit, I become uneasy. But I guess one of the good things about fusion though is it would decrease our need to use fossil fuels. Yeah, and make people keep saying when it's going to happen. And the reply has been pretty standard for decades. Oh, maybe in the next 30 years, that's the same time frame that they quote. So I, rather than trying to create another sun, I think it would be better to educate people to control some of their consumption. That's, you know, I think that's a more reasonable way to get there in less than 30 years. You know, so in talking, there's something early on in this chapter, where you say that an economy that grants personhood to corporations but denies it to the more than human beings, this is a win the go economy. So I have two questions, you know. So what do you mean by a more than human being? I don't remember when I wrote that or at what point that fit, read it again to me. Sure. And you're talking about Marshall's solans, you know, and the market system artificially creates scarcity by blocking the flow between the source and the consumer, and then you end by saying an economy that grants personhood to corporations but denies it to the more than human beings. Okay. And again, I'm thinking of Citizens United, where we're saying that corporations are people. Okay. Those who are deprived, the very things they need to live, how can we say that corporations are humans and yet we consider some people almost less than human beings. So that is my meaning in that one. And I'm quoting, you know, Robin Wall Kimmerer, who wrote Gratings, Sweetgrass, and anyone who has not read that book should really read that book. I've been very moved by her writing and her sense that a sharing economy and sort of the kinds of reciprocity where when one of us thrives, we all thrive, and also living in balance with the natural world. She's very, very, very instructive. She's, I think her PhD is in, you know, trained botanist. She's, I think her PhD is in botany, but she's also a member of one of the native indigenous groups. And so she brings the two ways of knowing, both that kind of indigenous hunter-gatherer respect the environment way of knowing with a deep understanding of the science of plants and nature and so she, Gratings, Sweetgrass is just a really lovely book. It's a series of Gratings, Sweetgrass. And it's funny. It was published by a small publisher, maybe six or seven years ago, didn't get much of a fuss just by word of mouth. It's now consistently on the bestseller list, just by word of mouth. So I think people are hungry for that kind of knowledge, the sense that it is a bountiful world and we just have to treat it with respect and there will be plenty for everyone. There's enough bounty for all. So can you explain the when to go? That's her expression and that's like a mythical figure that just consumes greedily everything. It just ravishes the world and it's, you know, so in her culture, that's a mythical figure and I look at what we're doing right now and I think she may even say it's a when to go economy, I think that where we're just consuming without returning and just ravaging the natural world without giving back to it, you know, just like in some of her essays, she talks about, you thank the plant that you're harvesting twigs from, you express gratitude, you take care of it, you recognize you don't cut everything down, you know you need it in the future. And that way of viewing the world I find, as I say, other people must too because it's now consistently high on the best seller list. I think it was published as a paperback, so it's on the paperback best seller list but it consistently is and it makes me happy every time I see it there. So in this chapter you talk about me, the crow, Joe, and you talk about this photo that exists, I guess your granddaughter had? My daughter, that's pre-pandemic, I was always helping on the 77 bus and going to a lecture somewhere, Harvard, Radcliffe, MIT and this was at the Radcliffe Institute, someone was talking about new Caledonian crows and their tool use and my daughter Ingrid said, I'll go with you mom and so the two of us went and we got in there here, she pulled out a photograph that she'd had a 70-year-old photograph of me, I guess it was the first day Joe the Crow entered our lives and the story of Joe the Crow, my parents never had much money but they always liked nice real estate so they always rented properties that they never could afford to buy, they rented a sort of rundown but once elegant 10-acre property in Bucks County, Pennsylvania and my father was out one morning, he just despaired of his three daughters who were all late sleepers and he would get up at dawn and he was out wedged himself into a wild bramble of blackberry bushes and was picking blackberries into his hand and then eating them and while he was doing that suddenly a crow just dropped from the sky and landed on his forearm and started eating the blackberries that were in his palm so daddy walked back to the house balancing that crow with, the crow just balanced there like it was a falcon on his arm and he woke us up to come down the crow had obviously been hand raised by someone we never knew who but we played with him, we had a stone patio in the back of the house and my two sisters and I would bring things out to entertain him, we were blown away by his skill, his intelligence, his tool use. I say he invented either a musical instrument or a toy whatever and he was a thief, he was a scoundrel and once my father brought him home and the three of us had played with him, we much debated are we going to keep him whole because we wanted him, he was so magical, he was just so lovely a bunch of old cages in the barn we could have put him into but he seemed like he was making a gift of himself to us and it wouldn't be right to keep him in addition the whole time he was with us the wild crows are circling above calling him, mourning and telling him danger, danger and we didn't want to prove them right either so he would play with us for half an hour an hour, took my father's lens cap from his camera, flew up, hid it in a knothole in the walnut tree in the yard oh anything shiny up it went he would take it but he could give him a little hard rubber ball he could bounce it across the patio my sister Gail brought out one of those old-fashioned pencil sharpeners that used to be fastened to the teacher's desk she put it on the patio showed Joe how it worked with his beak he put a pencil in it stood on one leg and with the other leg tried to turn the handle was never able to actually sharpen the pencil he didn't have that kind of strength so we gave him stuff with moving parts that entertained him and in I mentioned in the book in hindsight with my fascination with the evolution of language I look back on what I think was the most amazing thing that Joe ever did because when I was in undergraduate school I had a psychology professor tell me that unless you can't hold something in mind unless you have language to name it so I kind of always believed that so we gave Joe an empty good and plenty box the old-fashioned you know with the flaps at either end there was a driveway in front of our house that had gravel in it when he's on the patio he can't see that gravel yet somehow he held in mind that that gravel was out there that in hindsight amazes me he picked that empty good and plenty box up flew low to the ground around the house obviously he wanted the three of us to follow him when he got to the driveway he closed one flap picked up put a half dozen pebbles or so into the good and plenty box closed the lid on it picked it up and shook it like a rattle or a music he was just amazing so for several weeks every morning he would come there the porch roof was right outside my bedroom window and a daybreak oh my father loved that crow he got us all up at daybreak he would come at daybreak land on the porch roof and peck peck peck on my window how he even knew that that was where to peck I have no idea but we get up and run outside and play with him and then and then yes read the book we're going to end up in tears when we talk about that yeah I will I'll cry right now yes it's true so definitely read the book but it gets a little rough but then you know there's a there's you know we we pulled through the rough part but you see there's a picture your daughter has a picture that picture still available oh yeah so so I'm not going to promise anything you know but but just maybe we'll be able to edit it in if you can get into oh oh if not if I have it I actually have a copy of it yeah I'm I'm crouched behind him like this just like I cannot believe the miracle of that crow because the picture is not in the book no no so then if the pictures in this series will be like yeah no and my older sister said he was three years older she's watching a little more relaxed about the whole thing I was just overcome with the miracle that crow that crow I still with that crow yeah well even you as your daughter I think said maybe your granddaughter says you're the the girl that cries wow the girl cries well yeah so even even since then so so um so he he I'm going to it right now I mean gonna do a little kind of housekeeping you know before we maybe come back to the last chapter to discuss you know um Alaska's system and you know politics of money but he I mean two episodes ago I mentioned Jennifer Lerner you know I'm in the context of um decision-making and the angry mind so I just wanted to say to folks that that is the name of the papers is portrait of an angry decision-maker but we were talking about how a strong emotion especially anger I mean can lead people to feel a sense of certainty you know especially about being the victim you know and and that sense of certainty kind of stops the thinking process you know I'm not saying necessarily your conclusion is wrong but that you stop thinking means so so it probably inhibits the ability to come to better conclusions even if your conclusions right and the other thing I had mentioned was from an earlier chapter where you talked about generosity and a loose collection of traits that you that you say you quote to quote you says that I code as control of social resources rank high on the list of characteristics that add luster to a man's sexual aura so so um what's that loose constellation of traits well you know I've talked so much about control of material resources because that's where the environmental damage comes from but there were other traits that were equally made a man equally attractive of not even more so and things like generosity I'm good with my kids uh uh admired by his friends you know so that's so control of social resources and I think in mentioning those where I was going with that was that much as I've talked about this this kind of greed more more more there's also we have these other kind generous giving wonderful traits that women have selected men for and that are in us they're part of our species and those are the traits we have to draw on if we're going to solve some of our problems and and I but control of social resources gives a man great aura you know you would you talk to me a few sessions ago about I think positive and negative leadership power power um and that's a positive power like the control of social resources where you've got friends that will do anything for you and that you'll do anything for and and that he's a positive leader he's a leader by virtue of people want to follow him and you know so those are the traits we have those really wonderful traits and they've all they're part of our species specific um arsenal and and we're going to need those to solve the some of the problems brought about by our greed and by our tribalism you know tribalism we have to rise up to so so yeah so we ended the last episode in uh talking about um money in politics and we said we'd pick it up here you know so I want to go back to it a little bit and so a question I have do you think it's possible for politicians to accept a lot of money and not be corrupted I don't I don't mean like a low frequency domain it's like do you think that it because of me a lot of politicians accept money yeah I mean so are you saying that they're all on some level I mean um word isn't corrupt I think overly influenced me by overly influenced me you know do you think it's okay it's hard not to because of the reciprocity we're talking about if someone gives you a gift you know that's an imbalance of reciprocity so you want to do something back you and I were talking about that earlier and so a donation of a large amount of money you there's now an imbalance in reciprocity and so there is sort of a need to want to do something for that person and so I think because reciprocity is important to us I think that does make it very very very difficult to ignore the influence of a large donation of money I I mean I I I don't think most people would acknowledge that they've been influenced but they'll think well you know he really has a good idea on that I should pay attention to that idea that's how our brain is so tricky you know well it would also mean so I hear you there I mean and I think one of the things that could work too to help people not focus so much on their next election which is often I think the the influence of the money because generally need the money for for your campaign meaning for for your next one is is if we gave people electives mean easy off-ramp means so that so that because we at a certain level they're earning a salary so their position is their livelihood mean and so it's kind of hard to to give up your source of income you know clearly mean people become attached to it because it becomes part of identity but also it's like their livelihood so that if we just say well you know what mean in your first year out mean you get like a certain percentage of your salary I mean enough to certainly live on because I'll tell you here in Arlington I mean the select board gets just a stipend of 250 a month I mean and on some levels you would think well it's nice to be nice to make more but the fact that the your income isn't coming from that it means that it's really easy to say you know what I mean I'm just going to make the best decision that I can because if I don't get elected again it's not like I'm losing my income yeah right right and so so as hard as it may be to essentially have two jobs it does make it easier to make decisions mean if for me it wouldn't be so now it's like a person can give me as much as they want it for the campaign but I'm not I'm not feeling that that tug in fact if anything I find that I have to be careful about not overcompensating for it and and that does is a service too you know to the person and the cause behind them so I'm totally on board with getting the money out of politics I mean but then us has said I mean making it easy for the person you know to exit and I'm actually in faith I mean our federal politicians you know they retire quite nicely I believe after they've spent so many years in office and I'm in favor of paying them a wage commensurate with what they would earn in the private sector so that there is not this temptation to accumulate money and power and I'm really putting those two together because very often they are together just like youth and beauty are often together um in the eyes of the holder yes that's definitely true yeah definitely true you know because because I think some people are attracted to older people you know so so I think some of that may be influenced by the person's gender but I could be wrong on that yeah yeah you know yeah oh men tend to be attracted general again that biology is not destiny it's statistical probability but in general men tend to be attracted to younger women and very often women are attracted to older men not so much because they like them all but they've accumulated more wealth at that point you know but that's again that that's the stereotype that I can't assume that that's true for everybody because it's definitely not but I mean I'm right but we're talking the averages mean the probability which is all I mean the basic population evolution so so with that we end and then we get ready for our final episode so thank you thank you