 Welcome to episode number 17, our very last episode of what sex got to do with it, and we have my favorite 84-year-old grandmother in not just the universe, but the multiverse. Well, it's good there aren't any more chapters. As we've been doing, the title is Chapter 16, Evolutionary Insight into Social Problems. I think it's obvious, but tell us the basis of the name of this chapter. I was daydreaming. What is this last chapter? Evolutionary Insight into Social Problems. Well, hold on. What are we daydreaming about? I don't know. I'm a dreamer. I'm a daydreamer. I get caught by these pretty peacock feathers. I was just sort of thinking about the fact, gee, we really did... Len has a workhorse that's done 17 of these interviews. I was kind of impressed about that. Yes, what I'm trying to do here is to think of the social problems that we experience as a social spirit species, and how understanding what I think are species-specific behaviors that I've worked... I've hoped I've convinced my reader that these are evolved. They influence very strongly, but we can rise above them. We certainly have risen above many of them. But in this chapter, I look at some of the social problems and how, by applying the kinds of logic we've been talking about, like a collection of resource rents and so forth, we actually can correct for some of the social problems that plague us. So, just trying to give an example of that. Yeah, because the book ends, essentially, with the quote, by the cartoonist, you know, we have met... Walt Kelly. Walt Kelly is a little possible, though. We have met the enemy, and he is us, you know. I mean, it's funny, you know, because I had to give a speech on Memorial Day, and I pretty much started it off that way because you probably know Memorial Day. I mean, it started to celebrate, but to acknowledge, I mean, the Civil War. And that is certainly a case where his country, the enemy, was us, and then I said, but really now, instead of us being concerned so much about Russia attacking us, because of course the whole situation in Ukraine is still kind of top of mind. I said we had to really be concerned about the insurrection, you know. Interesting. And so then to see this here in your book is kind of reminded me of that. But also, I mean, in a certain way, it's kind of... I want to say depressing, but it makes it almost seem that the problem is intractable because while you're fighting against yourself, but at the same time, it almost makes it possible, I think, to kind of understand the enemy better and try to rise above it as you always say. You know, we have made progress. I mean, just in terms of the opportunities available to women. I say that just as Roe v. Wade has been overturned. And that may be a reaction to the advances in opportunities that are made available to women. But we are making progress. We can rise above many of these things. We've proven that we can. I think we've made incomplete progress, very incomplete progress in terms of some of our racial biases, our tribalism. I mean, how can anyone turn on the television and anything that they're talking about the war in Ukraine? The January 6th investigation, the pandemic and the reactions to it and the way we've kind of split into tribes and think that we're a pretty species. If this is the species, if you were given an assignment, I wish I were still a social studies teacher. I briefly taught middle school social studies in my past. It would be so much fun to give a class the assignment. Design a species. Design a species. What would the ideal species be for you? What would it look like? And I just think that would be fun to talk about. That's something to think about. And in a sense, I say that the way females chose their mates in a sense did shape us as a species, in a way designed us as a species. And what was initially absolutely very adaptive has become maladaptive when carried to excess. So if you were designing a species, could you put built-in checks for some of those excesses? Could you do away with the tribalism? Maybe because I'm female, but the idea of war, I look at the scenes of war and I definitely feel like am I an alien from another planet? I can't understand what makes someone want to pick up a gun and shoot another person. I mean, it's just how can we talk about these things as if they're just part of the day-to-day? There is shocking to me as if I've really been, you know, the species from another planet, not Mars, but maybe Venus, and come down. And so any time I turn on the TV, I kind of think, who are we? What are those creatures we are? Why are we all killing each other? The Russians and the Ukrainians are so genetically close. How can they now suddenly see themselves as in opposition? And so I just think, like, what kind of a species makes rules? And again, I'm going to sound so radical here and I could never run for public office and say anything like this, so it's good I did it. That's the good thing it's not in my plans. But how can we be a species who makes a rule that it's okay to go to war and devote so much of our economic resources to building a weaponry, which we do, our investment in the military-industrial congressional complex? No, no, Eisenhower in his original speech, Congressional, was in there. And he was asked to remove that because it would not fly with Congress if that was in there. So it became the military-industrial complex, but originally it was the military-industrial complex. The military congressional complex. I'm sorry, congressional Congress. But I'm thinking, what is this species that thinks all that war and all that weaponry and all that mass killing is okay, and yet in the case of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, most people, and I assume I fall into the camp of thinking this is probably true, that it's driven by one man's ego. That's Putin. So why are we allowed to kill all these other people, hundreds of thousands, and yet we have a rule that you can't assassinate ahead of state? That doesn't seem logical to me. If I were designing this species, I wouldn't put that rule in there. I wouldn't design a species that was capable of making that kind of rule when one person is responsible for the killing of thousands, and yet he's somehow off limits because he's ahead of state. So as I said, I feel like I'm an alien to my own species because I look at those things and they just don't make any sense to me. I'm not advocating the assassination of Putin. But most people wouldn't understand if I were running for public office and said something like that. And we are so good at denying the amount of environmental damage we're causing. And so how could I design a species that could do all the wonderful things we do and yet wouldn't create such an impact that would see itself as somehow so exceptional that the laws of nature that replied to all the other living creatures and plants on this planet somehow were exempt from. So, yeah, I went off on a little bit of a rift there. Wait until we understand genetics more, perhaps. And then see what the kids will design. So there's designing a species in a way, but we better understand the full genome before we do too much of that. Yes, and then you will have to be careful in your experiment or your excitement to your kids that they understand the difference between that and eugenics. Oh, absolutely. Because when I say designing a species, I'm not thinking of eugenics. Pretend you're God for a minute and you're creating a species. What would that successful species, what would it look like, what would you design? But it's ticking off of genetics. Yes, yeah. The code is going to be somewhere. Yeah, the code is going to be somewhere. But no, I'm not in favor of eugenics. Not at all. Because I think I've said before, I think one of the most valuable things about humans and one of the wonderful things about sexual reproduction as opposed to asexual reproduction, where there's such stability, is the number of genes that remain hidden but available to us in an emergency. You know, we have such variety, a genetic variety that can be recombined quickly in the case of challenges. I'll tell you what the asexual, especially when it's on the small scale, like the bacterial and viral scale is that even though it may have the recombination that you get in sexual reproduction, the generation time is so small. So short. So short, you know, and their genomes do seem to be, I won't say they are more susceptible to mutation, but they do have a mutation rate that allows them to change, which is why the coronavirus is doing what it's doing. I mean, that's why it's changing very rapidly. And yet the coronavirus doesn't have its own RNA. It has to hijack ours in order to reproduce. You know, there's some debate, are viruses actually alive or not since they don't have their own RNA? Yeah. You know, so all those things are interesting. I just love thinking about that stuff. Right. But anyhow. I think technically they're not. Yeah. We had the discussion earlier like what is life, really. Yeah. But anyhow, that's, but we do have social problems and I think we can solve them by applying some of the understandings that I hope I've developed and articulated in a way that people think, oh yeah, she might be right on that. Let me think about that. I don't need anyone to agree with me completely. I want people to do what you and I have done. Exchange ideas. Think about them. Think, would that work? Is that possible? Because basically I think we are a mix of perfectly wonderfulness and then I say we have a dark evolutionary underbelly that we need to explore and figure out how to to avoid listening to, you know who was it? Stephen Pinker, our better angels, I think was the book he wrote and he's very much the optimist who focuses on how good everything is in the world. I see, you know, we have an underbelly that's not so admirable and I think we have to learn how to control that and there are ways to control it and I think many of the controls are economic because we are, that's how we got ourselves in trouble by being so having such a elaborate economic system. Right. So you mentioned, you say given Mark Twain's reputed soundbite summarizing why buying land is a strategic move, you know, do you remember what that soundbite is? Yeah, by land they're not making any more of it. Okay. Oh, I didn't have it in there yet. No, you didn't have it in there. And now you say it. I remember it. Yeah, by land they're not making any more of it. I grew up hearing my father say that. Yeah. You know, and he was very, he was very admiring of people who were clever enough to invest in land. Yeah. But that's a scarce resource. I mean, there are some examples of land that's been created but not, I mean, the back bay apparently didn't used to be land that you could build on and certainly the Netherlands reclaimed land with their dikes from the sea. But mostly, you know, again, these finite resources, the commons in nature are finite resources. Right, right, right, I got you. Well, I like what you say in the chapter relating, you know, property taxes to schools and inequity. And I like how you emphasized that increasing, I mean, making your property better, I mean, and then taxing that is counterproductive. It's a disincentive. Yes, yes. I make the point, I think, that the property tax is actually two taxes, one of which I don't like calling a tax at all, but the tax on improvements I think is absolutely a horrible tax because it disincentivizes people from making repairs, improving, building affordable housing, all those things. If you're going to be taxed for doing just what the community wants you to do, you're going to tax, that's a punishment. But the other part of the property tax, the part that's based on the value in land, that's very good. You know, to me, that's just a collection of resource rents, collection of the commonwealth rent. And that stimulates all the best things that we want in the community. And it's also much easier to do assessments. If your assessment values are based on land rather than improvements, nobody has to enter a property, see, oh, did you put in a new furnace? Did you add a sunroom? You know, it's much easier to just assess what the land values are in the neighborhood. And as long as the assessments are consistent and can be justified on land from one property to the next, it's a much easier way to assess and charge a property tax. In that case, if it's only on the land value, to me, I don't like the term tax. But, you know, that's just quibbling over semantics. But in my dream world, people would never be taxed for improving their housing or the property that they own. And the land value is always going to be market-based? Yeah, pretty much. I mean, you can look at, yes, yeah, pretty much it's market-based. I mean, not entirely. I mean, there's some areas that are more desirable, and so they would have a higher market value. Like in, you know, near water, or of course now that the oceans are rising, properties near water may not be as valuable, but certainly properties in a developed area like Arlington are much higher because it's locational value. So a lot of land value is locational value. But again, you know, if you're selling it, it commands a higher price because, like, look how close Arlington is. You know I love Arlington. My daughter tells me, oh, mommy ought to be the head of the Chamber of Commerce. You love Arlington so much. I do. We're close to, you know, they're talking about a housing crash and a recession. A crash? Well, well. It's a crisis. You say they're probably going to have a housing crash. Well, yes. Oh, yeah. My George's friends think there's an 18-and-a-half year cycle in land values. Oh, so the prices. And then in 2026, real estate prices will crash. Right now, they're out of control. Rising. You know, people who need a home can't afford to buy one. The increase in the rate of it. The rate of increase is unsustainable. But Arlington is protected, not completely, but from the relative downside of a crash by things, investments, public investments in good public transit, excellent schools, our locational value. We're close to Boston and lots of job opportunities in the biotech area. You know, we, this is a, this is one, we have a lot of locational value. And also we've had good investments in schools and public transit, green space. Those things protect a little bit from the extreme of a real estate crash. Right. But we're talking about the property values or market-based, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, pretty much. I mean, but you know, again, in trying to assess, for example, commercial property I've been told, I have personally been told in Arlington, well, we don't have enough commercial property. It doesn't exchange, it doesn't change hands enough to be able to accurately assess the commercial land value. There are ways around that. Just because we don't have a lot of sales of commercial property, we've had some. And you can get, teardowns give you a very good sense of land value. You know, if someone pays $700,000 for a house and then tears it down, the land value of that lot is a little over $700,000. It's what they pay for the property plus the cost of teardown and removal. That gives you a very good idea. Teardowns give you an excellent idea of what land value is. So market values, though, because you were talking about how well land near the water will cost more. Because I was thinking of this in the last chapter. I mean, scarcity, you say that it's artificial. But it's not necessarily artificial because it's created by humans. Because the shoreline isn't created by humans. But it does create scarcity in that resource and people will want it. What's artificial about the scarcity of land is when someone is taking more than they need. That's an artificial scarcity to me, is land withheld from use in Arlington, for example. Land that's so underutilized, a parking lot, as the great parking lots are classic ways to be passive investors in land. You know, you don't have to do anything on them. The land value goes up because the improvements and the productivity around you, investment in schools drives up that land value. Those underutilized lands create artificial scarcity because they're being held withheld from use while waiting for the value to rise. That's simply what it is. So I just want to quickly go to the Alaska Permanent Fund because that seems to be a model for what you proposed as a solution. Do you know how that fund came into existence? I don't, and I should. I should know that, but I don't know it. Do you know if there are any other types of funds like that in the world? Well, certainly Norway, with its vast oil reserves, they use those reserves. They treat them like common property. It's publicly held the value from those oil reserves. So that's an example of it. It's a very large fund that they have from their oil reserves. Those oil reserves have been considered the property of all the citizens of Norway. So that's an example. That's a good one. It's a larger one than Alaska. Oh, yeah. A lot more. It's not distributed to the individuals, but it is used to fund public services in lieu of taxes. That's the way of getting to the individual. So you start off the taps in the early on, saying it's not enough to right past wrongs. We have to figure out how to make sure that they never happen again by addressing the root cause of growing inequality, not just in the United States, but worldwide. So I guess it should be obvious to me what you think is the root cause of inequality. But why don't you... Well, I think the root cause of inequality is the monopolization of the commons in nature. That's just as simple. And all the commons in nature, just the monopoly holdings of the commons in nature. It's the root cause of inequality, and it's also the root cause of climate damage. And the same solution could be applied, would correct for inequality, and also would address climate change. The same solution addresses both of those issues. And that's the collection of the economic rent that accrues to those who monopolize the commons in nature. Well, and with that, we're just going to hope that we can do that. And as you said, you pointed out some of the things that we have to do. And I think we just need to figure out how to do them. And so, as you said, democracy gives those who governs a powerful tool for righting past wrongs and ensuring that it lives up to its stated goals. We need to educate ourselves. We need to vote. We need to engage our politicians and study their policy positions, and we must make certain that our elections are publicly funded so that no one in any branch of government is more beholden to their personal dreams of economic gain and dictates of their donors than they are to the fundamental rights of those from whom they govern. We need to listen to each other and to make sure all voices are heard. Thank you. And thank you. Thanks, Brendan, on that, Len. I appreciate that. Yeah, no, it's been a really great experience. Yeah, and so I'll give you a little flash. There he is. And hey, a big shout out to Arlington Community Media, Incorporated, what a valuable resource. That is one of the fabulous things in Arlington. People think property taxes are high in Arlington. I have a daughter who I just love for saying, I never regret playing my property taxes in Arlington because we get so much for it. Well, thank you very much. So shout out to Arlington. Shout out to you. Thanks for doing this. And to Arlington Community Media. I had no idea that this fabulous resource was available to us. So it's good to know. Write another book, please. Well, thank you all for watching. And who knows, we may be back at some point. Bye.