#LoveDigenous: Big Data Omix Conversations, Fictional Representation & the Myth of Civilizing

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Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the second installment of Genomic Conversations on Love Digenous.
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Uh, I am Joseph Irisheta, and these are my two friends here to talk about um tribal sovereignty and DNA.
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So the title of this is Those Who Control the Past, Control the Future, DNA Sovereignty and the Savior Myth uh here in the United States.
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Um, John Wayne once said it wasn't wrong to take America away from the indigenous people because they were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.
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For centuries, the world has used excuses like altruism and progress to rewrite native history, steal land, and today even claim ownership over native DNA.
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Uh, as I said, I'm Joey Rusheta.
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I'm an indigenous genomicist.
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I live and work on the Sharon River Sioux Reservation.
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In this episode, we are cutting through the academic polite talk.
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We are breaking down the mechanics of colonization, how Tussoans, or the United States of Americans, understand native rights, indigenous status sovereignty, and who actually owns indigenous history.
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Let's dive in.
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Uh, today we have with us uh my two friends, Kyle Sullivan and Briar Buckalter.
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I'm gonna let them introduce themselves and start the conversation.
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Go ahead, Kyle.
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Uh hello, I am Kyle Sullivan, uh filmmaker, director, YouTuber, and I don't know.
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I think that's it.
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That's all the appellations that I can think of.
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Um Yeah, what else do you want to know?
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So how did you uh how did you come to this conversation?
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Right.
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Um I've been interested in indigenous issues for quite a while.
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Uh I bumped into Joseph because I had made a video about Native American representation in Star Trek.
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Deep well of conversation that one.
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And it attracted his attention.
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And then you brought me out to Shine River and other places to film the mini adventures of the Native Biodata Consortium.
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And how about you, Mr.
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Buckholter?
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Hey, well, um, I usually just go by Briar and it's it's great to be here.
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Um we met online on a community where discussing social, political issues, the arts, all sorts of things.
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And I think we had a uh shared interest and concern in the rights for indigenous peoples and communities and um and what's hurting them and how that could be stopped.
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Uh my background's in education, so I've been teaching for well over 20 years.
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Um, I especially uh specialize in teaching philosophy, political issues, but really through a lens of academic speech and debate.
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So I've run organizations throughout the country, some national organizations, and coached at an elementary through university level.
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Um, and I think why we resonated on this was several years ago there was a topic area in academic debate would go through different subjects, and it was on uh genetic rights, both of Indigenous people and of the resources they had.
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And it was talking about um bioprospecting, which is a term I didn't even know at the time, going out to uh indigenous communities and trying to find what knowledge they have about traditional medicines and treatments, and then trying to patent them and lock them down in in uh large corporations or governments or universities to try and take that and then own that and then make resource off of it.
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Um and we shared a lot of you know back and forth on that.
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I think that's probably what brought me here, and uh, and it's something both of us I think care a great deal about.
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So I'm really glad to be a part of this.
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Yeah, and so for our for our audience, um, the first or the ignore inaugural episode of uh this podcast, um, I brought uh two other Eurodescendant uh folks.
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Um one was uh Jennifer, Dr.
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Jennifer Raff, who wrote the book Origins of the Peepulum of the Americas.
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She's an ancient DNA or archaeological or anthropological geneticist, and uh she has very little um little uh contact with uh biomedicine or big pharma or anything like that.
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And um, but she did talk about how um her and uh other archaeologists are being very careful because of past complaints and harms uh in this uh archaeological uh anthropological space.
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Uh Kenny Wickman is probably the best known.
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Other ones are Anzic, uh Hoyo Negro, which is the Naya skeleton in the Yucatan, uh Lagoa Santa is uh in Brazil, which is uh she's been named Luzia.
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All of these things have have angered a lot of uh native people and populations uh across space and time.
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And so she talked about how that's uh beginning to change.
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Um uh even Elizabeth Weiss, if you guys know who that is, she's uh she was a researcher at San Jose State who uh basically claimed that natives should not be allowed to uh claim or stop science uh through NAGPRA or any other means because she considered it a religious um a religious uh ban on doing the work uh and saying that because we're the United States and we have a separation of church and state, that uh she as a as a researcher should be able to do whatever she wants with the bones of uh Native American ancestors.
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In any case, um uh the United States is moving uh across and using these siloed policies and laws to get around tribal sovereignty or any tribal consultation or engagement they have currently up on the books, uh, an announcement scheduled for 2027 to take ancient DNA that's not protected by NAGPRA, resequence, curate, harmonize, and give it to the NIH in Big Pharma.
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Uh so that's where she was helpful.
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And then the other gentleman, uh Dr.
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Jim Tabory, uh is an ethicist at the University of Utah uh and does talk a lot about uh biomedicine, and he gave his contributions about how since the late 60s to the current era, uh, if you guys don't know, the Belmont Report in 1979 was not established in this country for informed consent until 1979.
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So any data that uh or samples that were collected before that point uh were kind of up for grabs.
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They're now called legacy samples and people are trying to figure out what to do with them.
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But that was an interesting conversation between the two of them.
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And similarly, I have uh Kyle and Briar here uh because I feel like they can help me explain to the public um why they should care about indigenous sovereignty issues, especially over genetics, uh, because eventually it's gonna come for them as well.
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Uh, and then subsequent episodes of this podcast, I will have uh Native scholars and and uh grassroots people talking about similar issues, but I wanted to start uh putting the best foot forward with um my friends here um who can explain uh to outsiders why this is such important.
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And so with that, I'm gonna go back to Briar.
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Briar um just recently uh helped describe to a physicist friend that we have, uh, and I'd been talking to this physicist friend for at least three years, and he wasn't quite getting it, but Briar was able to turn that little key in his brain and make him understand.
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Yeah, um that was an interesting conversation.
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I think one of the challenges, and and frankly, I face this as well, is a lot of times we view indigenous issues as a narrow thing that's very consequential for a small population.
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And unfortunately, there's a there's a strong history, especially in the Americas, of ignoring that or putting it as a special case that we deal with in a very limited way.
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Um so several years ago, when I was first exposed to this issue, I think it's really important to acknowledge what we don't know and what we could know.
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And when I first heard of the idea of tribal genetic sovereignty, um, tribal biodiversity, indigenous rights on property, especially intellectual, I really didn't think it was going to be this massive thing for the farm industry.
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And then when I started looking into it, uh the stats started to blow me away.
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Um, so when I was talking to this physicist, he's very bright and I think he's a good person, really cares, but it seemed like one of those issues where this is solved by the government writing or wrong or something.
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It the systemic nature didn't come out.
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So one of the things I explained to him was that um one of the original traditions of modern medicine was something called bioprospecting, which, like I mentioned earlier, is going into areas with a lot of biodiversity, which just means a lot of natural life.
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So think a rainforest or something like that, or parts of the coastal regions that are really full of different types of animals and plants and different resources.
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And indigenous people have been using that for millennia, not just centuries, but millennia to develop complex treatments for, I mean, everything from uh diabetes and food suppression to agriculture and pest prevention to lowering blood pressure to treating heart swelling.
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Um, and what happened was scientists for a long time kind of almost fetishized this and wanted to go out into these natural environments and come back with the miracle cure that the indigenous mind had.
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And over time, as things became more modern, that became a tool that big pharma universities and powerful nation states used to go into these indigenous communities and extract what they could.
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And so explaining to him why it mattered, I think what was useful is explaining that 25%, most estimates put it around 25% of all modern pharmaceuticals were developed in this way.
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So it's not a small thing.
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And when you think about 25% of all pharmaceuticals, that's not uh billions with a B, that's trillions with a T in revenue that comes from doing this.
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Um, it looks at things like some of the first, you know, the the first one of the first treatments that was most effective at treating um leukemia in children came from investigating a plant in Madagascar that the indigenous people had been using and different examples like this.
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And so the utility of this is so high.
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And then I also had to explain to him that, you know, well, why is this different from other types of learning?
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Because these cultures didn't patent things.
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They shared through oral, mostly oral, not written tradition, they shared what medicine worked and it was considered an abundant resource.
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Then these companies go and do a little bit of uh patenting the process of how to extract these chemicals, and then they go on to make billions and trillions of dollars and in some instances don't compensate the indigenous at all or minimally.
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And so think of the the amount of money if we took you know this trillion dollar industry and we gave it back to Indigenous peoples, the amount of development would be phenomenal.
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And then also talking about why are people targeting, and this one I was really unaware of until semi-recently is the genetic data of Indigenous peoples is really valuable.
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So what happens over time is when people are sequestered by time and space, you have both epigenetics, so the expression of genes, which we're finding about between generations, but also actual natural mutations to live with their survival, the surroundings.
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So um, I don't know about your communities, Joseph, but when I was a young man, I was um exposed a lot to the Arapaho community.
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And it was very influential in my upbringing.
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And like some cultures say, amen, when they're done with lost ceremony, they say that the translation would be all my relations.
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So they view the physical earth, the waters, the sky, plants, animals, even history and ancestors as intimately related to them.
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And as these groups evolved with their environment, their genetics evolved.
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So a classic example that's almost become a cliche in some circles is studying Inuit communities in the far north that live on mammal diets and how have they evolved to uh survive on those diets, but not have high rates of cardiovascular disease.
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That's the number one killer of Americans, right?
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So if we can extract something from photogenetic and biomarkers and figure out how they've evolved, that's one of the most valuable discoveries we can make.
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And I think it just clicked with him seeing the value and the exploitation, you know.
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Um, and so I think for a lot of people, they just need to hear about that.
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It makes sense when you do.
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Yeah, and so for the audience, the term is mitakoy oyasi, at least for the Lakota, it means all my relations.
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And I was just in New Zealand and the Maori, this guy had um he had made a 3D replica of a conch shell that they used to blow in, right?
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And uh he he said, This is great because we don't have to use the real one because it has sacred meaning, it has uh uh a cultural patrimony where people don't want it to be out in public all the time.
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So they found a solution by making a fake resin one with this 3D printer, and it sounds almost the same, it feels the same.
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And then I'm like, Yes, but does it and I can't remember what the word if it's mana, but they does it have any spirit, does it have any essence?
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And most of the people in the room said no, and I and both he and I answered exactly the same, like, yes, it does, because it came from the earth, didn't come from outer space, they used to be dinosaurs, and now they're this plastic resin that is making up this artificial gong shell.
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Uh, but yeah, um, so now to Kyle, um similarly, you know, what what kind of white whisper techniques do you have?
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Because when I met you, um, or when I found you on YouTube, you were talking about how Star Trek is something we should aspire to, like Gene Roddenberry was a visionary, especially at the time, right?
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Because they didn't want to see uh Mr.
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Spock, they didn't want to see Uhura, they didn't want to see any of these people on TV, right?
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And so we we moved forward, they had some native representation, um and then they went to Chicote, which kind of messed everything up.
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Um, and and even now, um, with Starfleet Academy and Strange New Worlds, they've kind of moved away from the whole native thing together.
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They have a lot of representation of of ethnicities in the future, but like for the proxy for natives is Latinos, which is Ortega and uh a couple of other characters, but there's no actual defined Native Americans.
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Yeah.
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Um I I consider it an imperial bellwether.
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It's sixty years old this year.
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Trapped inside of that is all the mythologies of the United States, good and ill.
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A continuing conversation about what it means to be the empire that we are, who gets to be in the room, who doesn't, you know.
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Like a Wharf to me is more of an indigenous character, like you say, Klingons.
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He gets to be on the bridge and he wants to express himself, but he can only do it so much, you know.
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He can't be fooled, he can't go around killing people Wharfy.
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Yeah, we'll let you wear the sash, but but speak English, you know.
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And um I it is sort of like an optimistic sort of thing, but don't eat those weird foods like ah.
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Gah, yeah.
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Worms.
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Live worms.
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Uh it it's I don't really think I would consider it totally optimistic anymore.
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Like I I grew up that way, watching Star Trek that way.
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I think it's more of like an idealized version of what the Imperial United States is wants to do with itself and and who's driving that bus is usually the ruling ethnic group, aka European Americans.
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But I think sci-fi in general is really great for having conversations about these exact kind of thorny topics.
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Like I don't know if you guys ever saw Gattaca back in the 90s, like a brilliant, weird science fiction movie of uh kind of about genetics and you know who gets to be in the master race and who doesn't.
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And um Star Trek can have those conversations if it wanted to, but sci-fi in general is having them, and I think you know it's a valuable space to for the public to fight about these ideas.
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Yeah, it's weird how because like I was watching West Wing and how prescient they were for this moment in time.
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Like they predicted this way back when West Wing was on TV, so is William Gibson, so is Star Trek, so like a whole bunch of science fiction uh writers or or themes and movies predicted where we are now.
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It's just it's kind of scary.
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Yeah.
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And that's the rule that I mean you like the prime directive video, like that's the rule.
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That's the reason they have that in Star Trek is because of the colonial history in real life, you know.
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Like you were talking about indigenous uh medicines uh earlier and about uh exploitation, like that started from day one, like the the Aztec pharmacopia uh was massive, and like Europeans benefited from just getting to know it, you know, and tale as old as time.
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Yeah, and and Briar brought it up a little bit.
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Um I'm really focused on human DNA, but like for plant medicines or agricultural crops, like we fed the world.
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I can't remember what it was.
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We're like in the top 20.
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There's seven native crops in the top 20.
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Uh, if you exclude cotton, tobacco, and rubber, which are, you know, those are all from the Americas, but if you just can't count food, it's corn, tomatoes, peppers, peanuts, potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassava, chocolate, vanilla, those are all from here, and no native gets any money for those things.
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Yeah.
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Charles C-Man said something like 60 to 70 percent of the foods the world eats is American in origin, which is crazy.
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I I was blown away because when I try and think of Italian cuisine, like even as a young person, when I heard this, I thought I misunderstood it.
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Think of Italian cuisine, what we experiment experience, especially in America's, without any pepper or tomato.
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You know, picture, picture a lot of like Asian cuisine without those peppers.
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And uh, indigenous people aren't just, you know, we've been talking about the United States, but like there's South Asian indigenous, there's all sorts of different in indigenous communities that were colonized in different ways.
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And so much of that food came from, you know, development over millennia.
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It a great thing to do if anybody wants to Google this, is like look what the original watermelons or potatoes or corn, they were nearly inedible.
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Like it's it's a miracle that these people spent centuries developing them and breeding them.
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And I think that's one of the things that uh when I think about indigenous rights and and development, you know, we're talking about data, right?
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There's this idea that um indigenous people have no data, it's all just kind of oral traditions, and now we have computers and record keeping, it's valuable.
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Um, there's a uh professor, uh Dr.
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Stephanie Carroll, and she has a great uh TED talk where she talks about this and the different ways that people store data.
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And there's, you know, everything from Wampum and the the Inc, Inca had this, I think it's called um uh a capu, if I'm not saying it wrong.
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And they would keep yeah, they would tie knots and dye threads to keep complex records that were way ahead.
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Um, when the Spanish came to to look at the mine and Incan empires, they didn't look at them as backwards.
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They actually thought they were so incredibly civilized, having really complex like dietary structure, formal meal settings.
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I mean, the fact that they bathed multiple times a week and had etiquette for how to eat food, they looked at them as not ancient.
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They were extremely progressive.
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They were like this society that had norms and culture and you know, advanced aquaculture.
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And so I think uh one one thing I'm always afraid of is thinking that there was little value.
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The indigenous like just figured out how to eat some plants.
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No, they were breeding and selecting, and and so it's not a dead culture, an ancient culture, it's really bad because it was really what helped push, think of like potato families, all these things.
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Those couldn't have even happened if they hadn't been benefiting off these American indigenous developments.
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So, yeah, so to that point, so I I like I said, I was just in New Zealand, and um and and to use you guys as the majority culture whisperers for me, um the the way of uh ocean finding, uh the the Polynesians had a version of a sextant that they used to map the stars, and they actually did better at night getting through the ocean than they did during the day.
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Um, and you know, people like assumed they couldn't do this because they were starving on the ocean.
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They accidentally found these islands and they didn't have any way to find their way.
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Plus, their boats would couldn't tack that much into the wind, you know, because like modern sailboats can tack 30 degrees into the wind.
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They thought maybe the double-hulled canoes might be able to do a little bit uh less than 90, but now we find out it was you know probably 45 degrees or even less um that they could tack into the wind.
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So all of these assumptions they had about Polynesians and getting around um getting around the Pacific, and now they're science, genomics, a whole bunch of other things, testing out sailboats and wind patterns shows they were very sophisticated.
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Yet, yet in racist popular culture, they are still think of they're still thought of as violent, as alcoholics, uh, as primitive, as uh troublemakers, whatever you want to say, the Polynesians are still thought of that way, even though science has said no, to Breyer's point, they've already been shown to do all these things, and to Kyle's uh Directive, he has a really good example how the Europeans in Australia learned something about a certain kind of root, but they didn't learn everything, uh, and then they accidentally off themselves.
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Yeah, the the Burks and Wills expedition.
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Nardoo bread, the Nardo seed, it's toxic if you eat it.
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And Aboriginal Australians figured out a long time ago how to make it into a bread that didn't kill you.
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And uh this expedition was wandering around the outback starving to death, and like they found the Nardoo bread and found found enough, were taught enough to make it, but not to detoxify it, scared off the original people.
00:22:39.440 --> 00:22:40.960
It's like we'll we'll take it from here.
00:22:41.200 --> 00:22:42.880
And then they ate they starved to death.
00:22:43.200 --> 00:22:48.480
They poisoned themselves to death uh solely over a couple of weeks, and it's a doomed expedition.
00:22:48.880 --> 00:22:50.559
And they're gonna go into Australia for it.
00:22:50.960 --> 00:23:01.680
Maybe you memorized it, but I like the end of that video because you talked about the United States as one of the largest, most successful empires in the history of humans.
00:23:01.920 --> 00:23:06.640
They should be teaching everybody from a young age how to be global citizens.
00:23:06.799 --> 00:23:15.519
If you could say that again for Briar, because it's exactly what the point he was trying to make, is like we're we're all differently abled.
00:23:16.079 --> 00:23:16.480
Right.
00:23:17.599 --> 00:23:27.599
So like like Briar was pointing out earlier, when the Europeans first got to the Americas, they found incredible nations and societies and doing all kinds all kinds of stuff.
00:23:27.680 --> 00:23:31.599
Like they it was not a monolith of cultures, it was highly diverse.
00:23:31.839 --> 00:23:40.000
And a c in a couple places in particular, like there were these massive cities, and like there was these they saw that first brush, and they're like, These people are really something.
00:23:40.240 --> 00:23:41.200
There's a lot here.
00:23:41.359 --> 00:24:12.240
There's a lot to exploit here, but there's a lot here that we don't have back home in Europe, you know, and and that got buried real quickly under a power dynamic, like of exploitation, and and nation-state building, and it and European empires you know, brushing shoulders at each other, and then the rise of the United States, and like it became a myth, this master race stuff, this racism, this Nazism stuff for generations, as the United States was just becoming a thought in someone's eye, which by the way was partly an indigenous idea.
00:24:12.799 --> 00:24:28.880
And you know, the United States of America has made its greatest exploitations off of populations where it it cast a super wide net of all kinds of different thought patterns and peoples, and that is where like our greatest success comes from.
00:24:28.960 --> 00:24:41.039
And anytime you boil a population of people down to just a couple of important of what you think are an important ingredient and you ignore everything else, you're gonna lose economically, the vitality of your culture is gonna dwindle.
00:24:41.200 --> 00:24:54.960
And like to me, the the prime directive of the United States should be like you have to really if you want to be the most powerful strident empire on the planet, I mean ethics aside, you need to lean into that diversity.
00:24:55.119 --> 00:24:59.440
You need to open every book that even authored by indigenous people or not.
00:24:59.599 --> 00:25:01.200
You you've got to cast a white net.
00:25:01.279 --> 00:25:07.839
And like one of the reasons we're so militarily successful is that we have access to all kinds of different terrain.
00:25:07.920 --> 00:25:15.279
Like we can train our soldiers in the Arctic, in the desert, and the rainforest, because we own all these p uh places in the empire.
00:25:15.359 --> 00:25:21.839
So if we have to go fight a war with some Middle Eastern country, we can take our guys out to the southwest and practice in the desert.
00:25:21.920 --> 00:25:24.400
Like, not every country has that capability.
00:25:24.799 --> 00:25:34.000
You know, it just militarily speaking, battles have been won and lost on so on really tiny technicalities like how hot people get and the uniforms are handed.
00:25:34.240 --> 00:25:38.480
Or, you know, weapon systems that are adapted to certain areas and certain and not to other areas.
00:25:38.640 --> 00:25:44.880
Like the Europeans came rolling in 500 years ago with uh matchlock pistols that barely worked.
00:25:44.960 --> 00:25:46.880
They got rained on, they didn't work.
00:25:47.119 --> 00:25:50.559
Um they didn't have the weapon systems that the local populations had.
00:25:50.640 --> 00:26:06.480
The Inca, for example, had these really gnarly sling type things where they'd take a rounded stone, drop it into hot, like boiling oil, put it into a cotton sling and sling, and as they were slinging, it would catch fire in the air and rain fire down their enemies, and like the Europeans were like, What?
00:26:07.200 --> 00:26:11.920
And you know, they had tools adapted to Europe, but they didn't have they weren't adapted to those tools.
00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:12.480
So I don't know.
00:26:12.720 --> 00:26:17.119
If you're gonna be a successful empire like the United States, it's not just enough to put flags on the moon.
00:26:17.359 --> 00:26:24.559
You gotta pay attention to everybody in in your realm equally, because you don't know where the really great ideas are gonna come from.
00:26:24.640 --> 00:26:27.680
And the case in point is the United States itself.
00:26:28.480 --> 00:26:47.680
The whole idea that democracy was invented by a bunch of white guys on on the north on the eastern coast of America, like in a vacuum, uh, descendants of Europe, which was like two thousand years of theocratic kingdoms, is laughable when you start reading the things they actually wrote about where some of those ideas came from.
00:26:47.759 --> 00:26:55.759
You know, like this Iroquoian Hodanoshone idea of democracy, and you're like, holy crap, what does it even mean to be an American?
00:26:55.920 --> 00:27:02.559
Like it is based in part in some slice of indigeneity, or those ideas came from indigenous people.
00:27:02.640 --> 00:27:04.640
So now we're suddenly gonna look the other way.
00:27:04.880 --> 00:27:06.960
Not if you want to be the king of the world.
00:27:07.440 --> 00:27:15.039
Yeah, I I I think that's one of the tough things whenever you're talking about this sort of subject matter is um people want to look good.
00:27:15.359 --> 00:27:26.319
Like our culture is really focused on appearances and social media and status and economic, a lot of different things have pressed us to appear as if we are good people.
00:27:26.480 --> 00:27:34.079
And a lot of times I think people fight more to look good than to do good because sometimes doing good doesn't look great on the surface.
00:27:34.319 --> 00:27:41.759
So I think a lot of times acknowledging the messiness and the challenges of what's there, it's not a nice, easy conversation and you're gonna stumble through it.
00:27:41.920 --> 00:27:46.319
And I think that a lot of people when we talk about the history of the Americas, they want to look good.
00:27:46.400 --> 00:27:49.200
So they want to be like, I'm gonna do a land acknowledgement.
00:27:49.359 --> 00:27:49.839
We're good.
00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:52.720
I've acknowledged that this land, we're sitting on stolen land.
00:27:52.880 --> 00:27:54.880
And then other people like just give land back.
00:27:55.039 --> 00:28:01.920
A lot of the indigenous thinkers that look and say, no, there's there's more basic things we could do that might be more pragmatic.
00:28:02.079 --> 00:28:06.240
You know, I mean, if we gave land back, we'd have to cede the United States.
00:28:06.400 --> 00:28:10.880
Now you have 340 some odd million refugees, a bigger number ever in history.
00:28:11.039 --> 00:28:12.559
And what happens with all those refugees?
00:28:12.640 --> 00:28:13.759
What country is going to take them in?
00:28:13.920 --> 00:28:14.640
Nowhere could.
00:28:14.880 --> 00:28:16.079
So what are they probably gonna do?
00:28:16.240 --> 00:28:23.759
Well, whatever land we give back, there'll probably be a violent rebellion and they take it back once again, which might just induce greater cycles of violence.
00:28:23.839 --> 00:28:25.839
So, and that's an awkward conversation to have.
00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:27.599
Like, what do you authentically do?
00:28:27.759 --> 00:28:41.039
So I think that keeps us from looking at some pragmatic steps, like honoring uh tribal treaties and giving legitimate sovereignty, uh, allowing for direct financial compensation for exploitation.
00:28:41.200 --> 00:28:43.359
Um, I mean, there's so much that would change.
00:28:43.519 --> 00:28:49.839
I think it wasn't that long ago when they looked at treaties and said functionally the state of Oklahoma should go back to a tribe.
00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:55.599
Uh, how do you handle that when our own courts are saying, yeah, Oklahoma doesn't belong to the United States, it's tribal land.
00:28:55.920 --> 00:29:02.480
So I think looking at this stuff honestly and having those tough conversations, and and there's a paradox.
00:29:02.640 --> 00:29:08.000
I think, you know, sometimes Joseph, you asked me, like, how could you translate this to somebody?
00:29:08.319 --> 00:29:12.400
And this is the tough part, I think, when it comes to like racism and oppression.
00:29:13.200 --> 00:29:18.079
When you have a group that's oppressing or committing a literal genocide, like in the United States, right?
00:29:18.240 --> 00:29:27.359
Somewhere between, you know, 20 to 40 million and 170 to 250 million, we don't even know the exact numbers, right?
00:29:27.440 --> 00:29:30.799
Because there wasn't record keeping of how many people were killed for the most part.
00:29:30.960 --> 00:29:34.640
So when you're looking at that level of slaughter, it's it's hard to even accept.
00:29:34.799 --> 00:29:38.559
You know, we really get upset about genocides that are in six to eight million.
00:29:38.640 --> 00:29:41.440
You're looking at potentially over 100 million.
00:29:41.839 --> 00:29:43.519
You can't really make that right.
00:29:43.599 --> 00:29:44.960
There's not a walking that back.
00:29:45.039 --> 00:29:46.799
That's a sin that's been created that's so big.
00:29:46.960 --> 00:29:57.440
So you've got to kind of look at where we're at now, acknowledge it, have those conversations, and then see like what might make things work today and what are we willing to sacrifice.
00:29:57.519 --> 00:30:07.920
And the myth is that this would mean everybody who's not indigenous suffering and you know, to make up for the previous suffering.
00:30:08.240 --> 00:30:12.799
But the point is when you oppress one group, it costs something of the humanity.
00:30:12.960 --> 00:30:16.160
Our value in our life isn't from us being human and alive.
00:30:16.400 --> 00:30:26.720
So the same way that keeps Indigenous people from not getting access to good health care, land rights, clean water, keep people in Flint, Michigan, keep white people in the rural south.
00:30:26.960 --> 00:30:34.559
It divides everybody up and keeps us from realizing this kind of collective resource that we could all share and be doing well with.
00:30:34.720 --> 00:30:43.759
And so in the end, I think the only way we're gonna have salvation for the majority of people struggling in America is to acknowledge all the people struggling.
00:30:43.920 --> 00:30:46.960
And that means going back to the indigenous and how those countries worked.
00:30:47.039 --> 00:30:53.839
And we're not gonna solve these medical issues and inequality without looking at the genetic exploitation of indigenous people as well.
00:30:54.400 --> 00:30:59.279
Yeah, so um it takes me back to again Star Trek.
00:30:59.359 --> 00:31:11.680
So, and I won't spend too much time on it, but um Mexicans have been reclaiming their indigenous uh ancestry for 25 years or more, right?
00:31:11.759 --> 00:31:18.640
So the Spanish caste system in in most of Latin America made everybody embarrassed to be black or or native.
00:31:18.720 --> 00:31:26.720
They all would claim either Spanish ancestry, even if they were black as night or you know, had a big indigenous face, right?
00:31:26.880 --> 00:31:28.640
They were still somehow Spanish, right?
00:31:28.720 --> 00:31:31.920
And that mestizaje has been slowly going away.
00:31:32.160 --> 00:31:39.279
And uh, but now it's getting a lot of pushback from First Nations and American Indians, even though they might look like you and Kyle, right?
00:31:39.440 --> 00:31:44.000
Because they have some federally recognized sovereignty that says they're indigenous.
00:31:44.160 --> 00:31:51.440
But people in Mexico who look like me are no longer indigenous because we don't have recognition from the empire that we are indigenous.
00:31:51.599 --> 00:31:59.839
So, like there's all this pushback, and that's been sort of a uh very subtle theme in Star Trek, uh, like Kyle had said with the Klingons.
00:32:00.079 --> 00:32:09.920
Uh, definitely with Bolana Torres, because she was half Klingon, her dad was Mexican from Earth, and she didn't want to be either, she didn't want to be Mexican from Earth, she didn't want to be Klingon.
00:32:10.319 --> 00:32:15.759
Um, she remembered she didn't like her dad because her dad whatever divorced her mom.
00:32:15.920 --> 00:32:32.240
Uh, and then Chicote, Chicote was uh he was a Mexican indigenous person, didn't want to learn his grandfather's ways, he just wanted to be modern and and go out into the spaceship and all that kind of stuff, and then we have Cardassians who get adopted by Bajorans and all this kind of stuff.
00:32:32.640 --> 00:32:34.880
It's all in there, it's all in there.
00:32:35.039 --> 00:32:41.759
This this idea of being assimilated, being mestizo, being white aspirationalist, it's all in there.
00:32:42.079 --> 00:32:52.559
And um uh to your point, I I think that we have to face all of that history and and talk about how we're related to each other.
00:32:53.839 --> 00:32:54.079
Uh-huh.
00:32:54.400 --> 00:33:03.200
Whether that's through genetics or some some history, uh, because if you can't describe it, then you can't believe that it's true.
00:33:03.279 --> 00:33:09.839
So, like you said, and I've been using AI and uh before AI, I've been using uh NGO figures.
00:33:10.079 --> 00:33:23.839
So, right now, if you notice that since 2000, the population of American Indians went from about 1.7 million to almost 10 million between 2000 and the 2020 census, and there's a reason for that.
00:33:24.079 --> 00:33:34.880
There's a reason, at least in my mind, is because they want people who don't live on reservations to have more of a say-so than people who live on reservations.
00:33:35.039 --> 00:33:46.559
So if you notice for the the Washington Redskins debate about the mascot, they were like, Well, we have all these natives over here who don't care and think it's okay to have the mascot.
00:33:46.720 --> 00:33:54.160
And they were using them to shout down the people who were more traditional that were opposed to the mascot issue, right?
00:33:54.319 --> 00:33:59.599
And like, well, when we look at those people who claim that they're native, they might not actually be native.
00:33:59.680 --> 00:34:04.559
And if they are, they don't have any connection to their indigenous roots, right?
00:34:04.720 --> 00:34:21.840
And then if you go to Latin America and you try to count uh Mexico, so my people are the pure betcha, from 2000 to 2020, they went from about 450,000 people to about 120,000 people, and they're like, we didn't go anywhere, we're still here.
00:34:22.000 --> 00:34:24.159
Like, how did the count go down?
00:34:24.400 --> 00:34:31.679
And in Latin American countries, especially like Colombia, where there used to be 4 million natives and now there's maybe 20,000.
00:34:31.920 --> 00:34:42.239
It's it's the outsiders that say, if you count your native people, we're not gonna give you a loan because the World Bank says you have to protect those indigenous spaces like the Amazon.
00:34:42.320 --> 00:34:46.000
And if there's a bunch of Indians in the Amazon, you can't cut down the trees.
00:34:46.239 --> 00:34:49.599
So they're like, Well, we don't have any natives anymore, they're mostly gone.
00:34:49.760 --> 00:34:55.679
So, like these these numbers games, these definitional games always serve the colonizer, right?
00:34:55.840 --> 00:35:05.039
And then to your last point about how this is all of our stuff, and it's just indigenous peoples are the canary in the coal mines.
00:35:05.360 --> 00:35:13.280
Data regulation for data and technology has not kept up with the actual data and technologies, right?
00:35:13.440 --> 00:35:17.199
So data is ubiquitous, it's promiscuous, it goes everywhere.
00:35:17.440 --> 00:35:20.880
These big companies have data plantations, patent plantations.
00:35:21.119 --> 00:35:25.760
So right now we're the obvious target, we're the obvious example, but it's gonna hit everybody.
00:35:25.840 --> 00:35:28.639
It's gonna hit African Americans, it's gonna hit white Americans.
00:35:28.800 --> 00:35:35.440
Like this idea of ownership, it should be, like you said, in the commons, it should be like a utility, but it's not.
00:35:35.519 --> 00:35:40.320
It's all going to be privatized to somebody who can afford to develop it into a product.
00:35:40.719 --> 00:35:44.320
I mean, I think if you look at something like 23andMe, it's a great example.
00:35:44.480 --> 00:35:54.239
Um, you know, a private company buries in the terms that, hey, can you give us your genetic data so that we can uh give you profile data?
00:35:54.320 --> 00:35:56.480
And everybody loved to go online on social media.
00:35:56.639 --> 00:36:07.440
They would intentionally use these tools of all these people, like, I didn't know I was 2% Iroquois, or I didn't know I was like, you know, uh I had, I don't know, French ancestry or something.
00:36:07.519 --> 00:36:09.199
Everybody's shocked and excited.
00:36:09.440 --> 00:36:18.079
And it has has real utility, you know, they catch the golden state killer, they identify certain genetic traits, they were able to help people get um organ transplants.
00:36:18.320 --> 00:36:21.360
So there's there's utility behind this, but who owns it?
00:36:21.599 --> 00:36:25.440
So then the company goes default and we don't have modern mechanisms.
00:36:25.519 --> 00:36:28.960
So it's a HIPAA violation if you try and sell that data, right?
00:36:29.119 --> 00:36:31.199
You can't just sell it without the consent.
00:36:31.440 --> 00:36:37.920
But if you buy the company that owns it and it's a subsidiary, then that data hasn't even changed hands.
00:36:38.000 --> 00:36:42.079
And that's where the courts had to get involved because we don't even have a preparation for that.
00:36:42.239 --> 00:36:51.599
So what happens when companies are allowed to buy entire companies, we're not enforcing antitrust laws, we're not enforcing data protection under this deregulation.
00:36:51.760 --> 00:36:53.280
Well, that doesn't hurt just anybody.
00:36:53.519 --> 00:37:03.199
But I don't think I think one thing that's important is when you do point out how this is our shared concern to not show ignore the disproportionate harm that happens on certain groups.
00:37:03.360 --> 00:37:08.800
So, like for example, when because we committed this massive genocide throughout our entire nation, right?
00:37:08.880 --> 00:37:11.119
And I'd like it if that was just a fact.
00:37:11.280 --> 00:37:14.159
You know, it'd be nice if we lived in a world where we could say that happened.
00:37:14.320 --> 00:37:15.280
What do we do with that now?
00:37:15.440 --> 00:37:19.840
So now there are some places that do acknowledge that and they say, look, if you find bones in the ground, you have to test them.
00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:21.599
And then here's what's even sicker.
00:37:21.679 --> 00:37:23.679
Well, once you test them, nobody owns that.
00:37:23.760 --> 00:37:24.960
It was bones in the ground.
00:37:25.119 --> 00:37:27.280
Now they get to go into a genetic database.
00:37:27.440 --> 00:37:32.880
And now who owns that genetic database when you're doing arbitrary testing of samples in the earth?
00:37:33.039 --> 00:37:35.679
Some of them don't have very much genetic material, some do.
00:37:36.239 --> 00:37:43.360
And when you're looking at health disparities, a lot of our treaties that we signed with tribes promised health care.
00:37:43.760 --> 00:37:50.159
That was part of the treatment, that was part of what enticed them to agree was that we'll give you advanced health care.
00:37:50.559 --> 00:37:52.559
And a lot of times that hasn't followed through.
00:37:52.639 --> 00:37:56.639
You know, our Supreme Courts ruled this, states have ruled this, and and not much happened.
00:37:56.719 --> 00:37:57.280
So you come to these.
00:37:58.159 --> 00:38:00.880
Do you know why, though, that particular instance?
00:38:01.280 --> 00:38:09.280
It's because we we have this schizophrenia in the United States where economy and capitalism is the most important thing.
00:38:09.440 --> 00:38:10.480
We saw that during COVID.
00:38:10.719 --> 00:38:11.920
We can't stop trade.
00:38:12.079 --> 00:38:16.400
We have to keep doing things because that's the lifeblood of the United States, right?
00:38:16.480 --> 00:38:17.920
And that's all private.
00:38:18.159 --> 00:38:26.800
But on the other side, when we collect tax dollars to build roads, to fund schools, all that kind of stuff, and to do research, that is all very social.
00:38:27.199 --> 00:38:30.719
That's very uh, it's a version of socialism, right?
00:38:30.880 --> 00:38:36.000
You are taking tax dollars from the people to fund all of this stuff you need to build.
00:38:36.159 --> 00:38:40.400
And research, science fails 99% of the time.
00:38:40.639 --> 00:38:43.280
A private company is not going to take that liability.
00:38:43.440 --> 00:38:44.719
They're not gonna do that, right?
00:38:44.880 --> 00:38:52.800
So they rely on the social part, the half of the United States, like we're doing this for the public good, and then turning it into private capital, right?
00:38:52.960 --> 00:38:54.400
And people don't understand that.
00:38:54.480 --> 00:38:56.880
Like we're we are divided in this way, right?
00:38:57.039 --> 00:39:05.280
And so this thing that you said, they they promised tribal groups or vulnerable populations like African Americans or whoever, some sort of benefit.
00:39:05.440 --> 00:39:10.239
There's no way to deliver it because you can only deliver the money for the research on one side.
00:39:10.400 --> 00:39:14.320
There is no money for public development on the other side.
00:39:14.400 --> 00:39:16.480
The last one was vaccines.
00:39:16.960 --> 00:39:25.679
No pharma company wanted to invest in vaccines when the United States was giving it away for free, not only to Americans, but all over the world.
00:39:25.920 --> 00:39:27.280
So guess who made those?
00:39:27.519 --> 00:39:29.599
The US military made those.
00:39:29.760 --> 00:39:41.039
So this is the thing that we have to solve is how do we get the promise of research and altruism through tax-funded research into the marketplace so that it actually does benefit everybody.
00:39:41.360 --> 00:39:44.960
Well, I think there's there's some economists that talk about solutions, right?
00:39:45.119 --> 00:39:49.039
Because I when you invite me here, it's both communicating the problem but looking at solutions.
00:39:49.360 --> 00:39:55.199
Alaska, for example, isn't a very uh, it's not thought of as the most progressive blue state, certainly, right?
00:39:55.360 --> 00:39:58.239
Overwhelmingly, it's a conservative red stronghold.
00:39:58.400 --> 00:40:01.360
And you have this narrative about social shared goods or not.
00:40:01.519 --> 00:40:07.760
Well, here's the thing a group of people that evolved the land over millennia did work, but then there's the land itself.
00:40:08.000 --> 00:40:11.519
And there's things that existed before Homo sapiens were on this planet.
00:40:11.760 --> 00:40:16.960
Oil was formed, how coal was compressed, rare earth minerals, we did nothing.
00:40:17.039 --> 00:40:18.159
That's like a cosmic force.
00:40:18.239 --> 00:40:19.920
That's the development of a planet.
00:40:20.159 --> 00:40:26.800
And so the move to privatize is to take what is collective and then create somebody's owners to ship.
00:40:26.880 --> 00:40:33.920
And to be fair, the theory is well, somebody's going to be able to exploit that, but we'll all benefit from the exploitation.
00:40:34.079 --> 00:40:38.559
It's this, you know, I benefit from the exploitation and quoted trickles down, right?
00:40:38.719 --> 00:40:42.159
My company gets to extract the oil, we all get to drive our cars.
00:40:42.800 --> 00:40:46.800
What Alaska looks and says is fine, maybe there's some truth to that.
00:40:46.960 --> 00:40:49.840
So what we can do is we can set up sovereign wealth funds.
00:40:50.000 --> 00:40:52.719
We can give people compensation for our shared resources.
00:40:52.880 --> 00:41:01.599
So if you live in Alaska, you get a check from oil companies and oil development because that's a shared resource that everybody should get a little part of.
00:41:01.679 --> 00:41:04.320
And some years it's really high and some years it's lower.
00:41:04.480 --> 00:41:18.480
But the amount of collective development, I mean, there's this uh when I was in college, I had a great professor out of Harvard and he was teaching this course, and he was talking about um all the developments that came out of the space programming.
00:41:18.639 --> 00:41:28.239
I mean, these cliches like Velcro, but there were things from improvements to microtransistors to to cathode ray tubes to insulation to new ceramics.
00:41:28.400 --> 00:41:29.519
And what did we do?
00:41:29.760 --> 00:41:32.079
Well, some of that we gave to a company to develop.
00:41:32.159 --> 00:41:35.119
We took public funds, developed it, and a private company got to make it.
00:41:35.280 --> 00:41:37.599
Some of it we did put into the public sphere.
00:41:37.840 --> 00:41:49.440
And there's so many things that came out of the space program that we benefit from in day-to-day, silly materials, paints, you know, ways TVs used to work, like all that comes out of development on this public good.
00:41:49.519 --> 00:41:56.239
And we get to the moon in this moment that brings collective inspiration and hope, and we take it back and we have these shared resources.
00:41:56.400 --> 00:42:11.920
But I think there's a movement away by taking the public resources, giving them to a company to develop and look at things like Palantir and others that are taking all of our data, conglomerating it together, putting it through the real thing that changes in society.
00:42:12.000 --> 00:42:16.159
There are movements up, down, technology moves, and we don't really usually go back.
00:42:16.400 --> 00:42:23.280
And there's these technological advancements on how efficient we can be at collecting huge amounts of data and storing it, genomic data, right?
00:42:23.360 --> 00:42:25.360
A genetic test used to take a year.
00:42:25.519 --> 00:42:26.639
It was a moonshot.
00:42:26.719 --> 00:42:29.599
The GNSA to sequence one genome.
00:42:29.760 --> 00:42:32.159
Now you can do it in what, a week, maybe or less.
00:42:32.320 --> 00:42:35.039
Some in a few days, we can do simple genetic markers.
00:42:35.119 --> 00:42:35.199
Yeah.
00:42:35.440 --> 00:42:45.519
So you can take all this data, fast, efficient, shove it together in databases and have systems that can read through them like lightning in a way no human could.
00:42:45.840 --> 00:42:47.440
We have all this advanced technology.
00:42:47.599 --> 00:42:49.280
What are we going to do with that shared data?
00:42:49.440 --> 00:42:50.880
And there's two models we can do.
00:42:51.039 --> 00:42:56.079
We can say, okay, the one who can exploit it the most and control it, they get all the data and all the benefit.
00:42:56.239 --> 00:42:59.360
And we hope we get some spillover on what they'll release to us.
00:42:59.519 --> 00:43:07.519
Or we can make this a shared good, because you can't have massive databases of genetic data without masses of people.
00:43:07.760 --> 00:43:11.840
And so the question is, is the one who exploits it or the one that has it, the one where it occurs?
00:43:11.920 --> 00:43:12.480
Where's the value?
00:43:12.719 --> 00:43:14.960
I think it's actually there's actually a middle way.
00:43:15.119 --> 00:43:21.840
And I think that if you look at indigenous sovereignty as it's been treated, like that that is the third way, right?
00:43:22.000 --> 00:43:26.639
So like we you you touched on this a little earlier about like an all or nothing.
00:43:26.719 --> 00:43:32.239
Like we've got to either exploit everything practically with corporations like on the ground.
00:43:32.400 --> 00:43:40.079
We gotta cut indigenous people away from their land and get to the land directly so it can we can make it productive, and like there's no social ownership of anything.
00:43:40.400 --> 00:43:50.559
And we have this you know, this debate in the United States about capitalism versus socialism, but like there is a large groupings of socialist activities in the US.
00:43:51.119 --> 00:43:56.000
The military is a whole like the most perfect socialist institution, most successful on the planet, right?
00:43:56.480 --> 00:43:59.760
And like the way to solve the data software.
00:44:00.559 --> 00:44:01.360
The Omics issue.
00:44:01.519 --> 00:44:07.840
The way to respect indigenous sovereignty in general is by mediation between groups.
00:44:08.079 --> 00:44:17.280
Like if the Cherokee Nation, for example, wants to protect the genome of its citizens, and you as a scientist want access to that, you have to go through the nation.
00:44:17.599 --> 00:44:23.440
And like, we have to have, and I think we are kind of having this conversation publicly, we just haven't labeled it like this.
00:44:23.840 --> 00:44:32.400
We have to have a conversation as a culture, but that's how you respect different groups of people in the empire if you lean into the sovereignty they naturally have.
00:44:32.639 --> 00:44:36.400
And I think Joseph is definitely working in this direction.
00:44:36.559 --> 00:44:49.519
Like these layers of approvals and uh protections, and you know, if we're if we have if we're protecting a certain data set for a certain group, you know, you can't access that without the correct permissions, and everyone has to be in agreement.
00:44:49.760 --> 00:44:53.039
That consensus building has to be part of the conversation.
00:44:53.119 --> 00:45:02.639
And like we're just now in the culture, despite all the nonsense of the last 10 or 25 years of our politics, like just now starting to have that kind of conversation.
00:45:02.719 --> 00:45:14.480
And as usual, the indigenous experience is there first because fighting for sovereignty has legal laid the legal groundwork for most of this stuff, which is why native bio is in Cheyenne River, right?
00:45:15.760 --> 00:45:25.039
Yeah, it's funny because um and I got pushed back about three or four weeks ago uh from somebody at the at a federal department.
00:45:25.440 --> 00:45:31.679
But I'm like, you know, we've been talking about data sovereignty since at least 2007, right?
00:45:31.840 --> 00:45:33.360
And the United States didn't care.
00:45:33.440 --> 00:45:54.880
They've just had this whole open data, open access, open science framework, which got uh really uh debated at the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and uh math or medicine back in 2013, and then it got codified by the Biden administration in 2023 to have everything open, right?
00:45:54.960 --> 00:46:10.880
And I'm like, we've been talking about data sovereignty for a long time, but then in 2022, there's a bunch of language in the America Competes Act that says um they have to protect all this American data from China, right, or Iran or Russia, right?
00:46:11.360 --> 00:46:17.679
Like all the data that that is being generated from any kind of science with public tax dollars has to be protected.
00:46:17.760 --> 00:46:28.159
And just recently in December, the Department of Justice said that they want anything that has over a thousand data points has to be centralized and controlled by Homeland Security, right?
00:46:28.880 --> 00:46:33.199
And um they they again they cite China, right?
00:46:33.280 --> 00:46:48.159
And so one of the reasons why 23andMe didn't get sold to Regeneron was because uh Dick Durbin from Illinois, the senator from Illinois, said, Hey, don't we have a law that we passed in 2022 that we have to protect our data from China?
00:46:48.320 --> 00:46:59.920
And Regeneron, along with Illumina, has contacts with um with China and China's uh genomic um venture capital fund.
00:47:00.320 --> 00:47:07.039
Like we can't sell it to Regeneron because this is all American data, and and so that's why the Regeneron backed off, right?
00:47:07.119 --> 00:47:16.159
And so now the lady from 23andMe uh turned it into a nonprofit, but she's still selling that data, like it's a nonprofit, but she's still selling that data.
00:47:16.239 --> 00:47:25.119
But anyway, my comment to them was like, you guys didn't even care about data sovereignty until like the last three years, and they're like, Oh no, we always cared about it.
00:47:25.199 --> 00:47:28.239
I'm like, then why did you make all data and science open?
00:47:28.400 --> 00:47:30.639
Like, how can you put those two things together?
00:47:30.719 --> 00:47:53.679
You're not talking the same language where you want to have data open, as Briar is talking about, so that it is a common resource, it is something that everybody can draw from the well, but at the same time, you're like, if you don't prove that you don't have either graduate students or partners that somehow have a connection to China, we are not going to give you any federal money.
00:47:53.840 --> 00:47:54.480
It doesn't matter.
00:47:54.639 --> 00:47:59.760
I think I think I think it can be even more pernicious in a way because if you look at like 23andMe, for example, right?
00:47:59.840 --> 00:48:02.400
It's a private company doing this service that people want, right?
00:48:02.480 --> 00:48:03.760
They've consented to.
00:48:04.320 --> 00:48:10.079
But nowadays we're so flooded with consent that it's it's there's this idea like FPIC, right?
00:48:10.320 --> 00:48:12.639
Free, prior, informed consent.
00:48:12.880 --> 00:48:15.360
And there's a couple of key words there.
00:48:15.440 --> 00:48:16.400
One is free.
00:48:16.559 --> 00:48:26.719
So if I'm in duress, like what will happen with these indigenous communities, and Joe said, you probably have some examples of this, is they'll come in and they'll have these communities that don't have access to healthcare clinics.
00:48:26.960 --> 00:48:35.519
So what they'll say is, look, we will test you, we will give you blood tests, we'll screen cholesterol, diabetes, all these health issues that you you don't have access to.
00:48:35.840 --> 00:48:38.559
And in exchange for that, like we're gonna need to run those tests.
00:48:38.639 --> 00:48:40.239
So you're gonna have to sign waivers.
00:48:40.480 --> 00:48:47.599
Well, in those waivers, a lot of times what they're saying is it's pretty standard, but you're giving up the rights to your blood for testing.
00:48:47.760 --> 00:48:50.159
And buried in there, they say this will be for research.
00:48:50.239 --> 00:48:51.280
It says through a university.
00:48:51.360 --> 00:48:58.159
So all these people didn't know they were signing away one of their most intimate things, their genetic profiles.
00:48:58.400 --> 00:49:01.280
And so then those genetic profiles are sold.
00:49:01.440 --> 00:49:08.400
So one of the ideas of a true, free, prior, and informed consent is you can't be coerced into it.
00:49:09.440 --> 00:49:11.440
You have to have done this in advance.
00:49:11.519 --> 00:49:14.159
It's not on them to retroactively get it or to make amends.
00:49:14.320 --> 00:49:17.119
You have to give prior consent and it has to be informed.
00:49:17.760 --> 00:49:30.400
So when they're signing away their blood, to simply say, we've given away fine, you've signed it, but not all people think like imagine if 10 years from now somebody hears, we've cloned your cells, like Henrietta Lacks, right?
00:49:30.559 --> 00:49:38.400
Uh a woman of color who had a unique tumor who was used hugely influential in cancer samples, but her genetic material is taken without her.
00:49:38.559 --> 00:49:42.320
Her cells were taken and used without her ability to know in her family.
00:49:42.480 --> 00:49:43.679
It comes up later.
00:49:43.920 --> 00:49:48.960
And so imagine that one of those people finds out, let's say something we're talking about, fictional things.
00:49:49.119 --> 00:49:52.320
Somebody's genetic information is really useful, an algorithm finds it.
00:49:52.400 --> 00:49:54.239
So they decide to clone that person.
00:49:54.559 --> 00:50:00.239
I don't think anybody who says, okay, you can test my data thinks they're submitting for cloning.
00:50:00.639 --> 00:50:05.280
So the idea of free prior informed consent is also that you have to be informed of whatever's happening.
00:50:05.440 --> 00:50:11.280
So you'd have to get a little card saying, do I want to let my data well, maybe I have a family member who's going through Parkinson's, right?
00:50:11.440 --> 00:50:13.760
Maybe they're really comfortable with releasing their data.
00:50:13.920 --> 00:50:23.280
I have another one who just went through cancer, cutting-edge targeted treatment and a specific test made for her unique, unidentifiable tumor.
00:50:23.440 --> 00:50:28.000
So out there, there's a little test, a her test, and it might be useful for somebody in the future.
00:50:28.239 --> 00:50:33.280
She had the opportunity to be explained, like when you give this up, we're gonna make this test, but that company owns the test.
00:50:33.440 --> 00:50:40.000
They own you, they own your tumor that have it in your body, your genetic profile associated with it, and they might use it on other people.
00:50:40.480 --> 00:50:43.599
And and the idea of being informed on this, that's work.
00:50:44.079 --> 00:50:46.400
And I think it's the impossible nowadays.
00:50:46.559 --> 00:50:48.320
It's too much, it's too much.
00:50:48.480 --> 00:51:02.639
So, to your point, um, I wanted to point out that FPIC is an UNDRIP concept, the United Nations of Declaration of Rights of Indigenous People, that's different from the Belmont Report and the common rule, which is just informed consent, right?
00:51:02.800 --> 00:51:07.039
And they don't match because one is dynamic, it's ever changing.
00:51:07.199 --> 00:51:09.199
You're always supposed to let people know.
00:51:09.360 --> 00:51:13.280
And you can't do that in the modern technology because data is now permanent in AI.
00:51:13.360 --> 00:51:19.119
You can't, like in the old days, you could pull your data, you were supposed to pull data from dead or deceased participants.
00:51:19.280 --> 00:51:19.920
You can't do that.
00:51:20.079 --> 00:51:21.360
Data's permanent now.
00:51:21.519 --> 00:51:25.519
Like you, and then, like you said, nobody understands cloning.
00:51:25.840 --> 00:51:31.280
Now they take your cells and they'll take them backwards to make them pluripotent stem cells.
00:51:31.440 --> 00:51:32.719
They don't explain that to you.
00:51:32.880 --> 00:51:57.199
I mean, it might be somewhere kind of in there tangentially, but like you don't understand that not only is your data going to be used for all of these things outside the original consent through secondary data use, but you are gonna be made permanent by the AI platform, and you're gonna be made permanent by taking these cell cultures and turning them backwards to like when you are an embryo.
00:51:57.360 --> 00:52:00.800
So then they can move them forwards, backwards, sideways, whatever they want.
00:52:01.039 --> 00:52:08.480
It's still you, just like Henrietta Lax, but it's not anything that you can conceive of or understand for the future.
00:52:08.639 --> 00:52:13.119
And that that's the problem where FPIC and the common rule are different, right?
00:52:13.360 --> 00:52:16.639
And like I said, one is dynamic consent, right?
00:52:16.960 --> 00:52:22.079
The other one is in the United States, because we're capitalists, is a one-and-done contract.
00:52:22.239 --> 00:52:24.880
It's not dynamic.
00:52:25.199 --> 00:52:28.079
I think it's important when you're like, this can't happen.
00:52:28.400 --> 00:52:32.480
It could, but some types of exploitation wouldn't survive it.
00:52:32.639 --> 00:52:41.840
So, for example, if your genetic material is really valuable, you might say, I'm not willing like to just have my genetic data floating out there.
00:52:42.000 --> 00:52:45.360
If some company came to you and said, Look, I'm gonna offer you$10 million.
00:52:45.760 --> 00:52:47.280
We think this is invaluable.
00:52:47.440 --> 00:53:00.239
You might look and have to do that calculus of having my genetic material out there or having those resources to make myself secure, to make material changes in the world, to donate to my community, to buy a yacht, whatever you know you want to do with that money.
00:53:00.480 --> 00:53:04.320
And it puts more work on the people with power.
00:53:04.800 --> 00:53:09.599
One and done consent is really easy because I can trick you, coerce you, do whatever.
00:53:09.760 --> 00:53:11.840
And it's a it's a legalistic framework.
00:53:11.920 --> 00:53:13.440
You've signed it, I owe nothing to you.
00:53:13.519 --> 00:53:14.800
We've signed the contract.
00:53:14.960 --> 00:53:19.280
It's this traditional, like, you know, I tell you, I teach philosophy, it's this contractual view, right?
00:53:19.440 --> 00:53:23.440
As long as you're consenting to agreements, private property ownership, that's all that matters.
00:53:23.679 --> 00:53:30.639
It really ignores the legitimate ignorance that most of us have about the world, the conditions or the humanity.
00:53:30.800 --> 00:53:34.639
Like that's not that's not how human groups are supposed to act, right?
00:53:34.800 --> 00:53:40.960
That's uh it's just like you're not, they make you property and they make you the arbiter of that property, right?
00:53:41.039 --> 00:53:45.280
And so people don't understand that genetics, like you said, the Golden State Killer.
00:53:45.440 --> 00:53:49.119
They couldn't, because of legal reasons, they could not do a lot of things with that data.
00:53:49.199 --> 00:54:03.840
So what they did was they went to amateur genealogists in third-party platforms like JEDMatch, and then tried to match the sample that they had from the toilet because the Golden State Killing Golden State Killer took a shit.
00:54:04.000 --> 00:54:20.559
They took his poop and then they tried to match it to these third-party algorithms, and they had these amateur genealogists who never get any attention, all of a sudden getting all of this attention from law enforcement, and then they went through and they matched it up to like six or seven possibilities, and that's how they caught him, right?
00:54:20.719 --> 00:54:26.960
People don't understand that you, as one person who gives permission, are giving permission for your whole family group.
00:54:27.119 --> 00:54:36.239
And in places like Native America, where we're more similar to each other than you guys are similar to each other, those statistics are even more threatening.
00:54:36.400 --> 00:54:39.840
So, like my friend did a study in uh the Southwest.
00:54:40.000 --> 00:54:45.280
So usually for forensics with the 13 biomarkers, now it's like 32 biomarkers.
00:54:45.519 --> 00:54:49.760
That's supposed to be a one in million chance that you got the wrong person.
00:54:50.320 --> 00:54:58.719
But in a lot of places, like native groups, it's more like one in a thousand chance you're going to make a stake mistake and pick the wrong person.
00:54:59.599 --> 00:55:02.719
So, but it works the other way where you're highly identifiable.
00:55:02.800 --> 00:55:11.599
So, like if I gave permission for my family, I'm probably giving permission for a million people to so that they know what we have inside of us.
00:55:11.760 --> 00:55:24.239
And so with AI and the way that AI can breadcrumb, if they get my sample and say I have some immune resistance to HIV, they're gonna say, where can we find more of that?
00:55:24.400 --> 00:55:25.760
Oh, we can go to Mexico.
00:55:25.920 --> 00:55:27.039
We know where he came from.
00:55:27.199 --> 00:55:32.079
We're gonna sample all of those people and figure out how to uh stop HIV.
00:55:32.559 --> 00:55:34.880
And there's a world in which that's beneficial.
00:55:35.119 --> 00:55:41.519
If if you're consenting and aware, like I we've all probably had to get a lab done, right?
00:55:41.599 --> 00:55:46.480
Or at least everybody in the world should have access to labs and get their health checked out.
00:55:46.719 --> 00:55:59.840
If one day I took a lab and let's say somehow it comes out, look, you have this unique thing that could save people's lives with HIV, I would absolutely be like, I'm willing to give up some of my privacy to have that good in the world.
00:56:00.639 --> 00:56:05.199
But I wouldn't, I probably what you're about to say, I wouldn't sell it to a private company that could sell it.
00:56:05.360 --> 00:56:07.199
I'd want to control how it was used.
00:56:07.280 --> 00:56:12.639
I'd want to make sure it wasn't sold for not one of these drugs that they mark up by 10,000%.
00:56:13.199 --> 00:56:18.719
I'd want to make sure it was accessible, it was, it was democratic, that it got to people that needed it.
00:56:18.880 --> 00:56:27.199
And I think that's one of the challenges in is it the person that can utilize the data that should have the rights, or is it the person whose data it is?
00:56:27.360 --> 00:56:32.239
And to be really honest, I think we'd all agree this is starting to sound like sci-fi.
00:56:32.639 --> 00:56:34.000
We're cloning your cells.
00:56:34.159 --> 00:56:35.440
What are we gonna do with you?
00:56:35.519 --> 00:56:39.760
What about the dead, dead cultures when we're digging up the dead and we're recreating them?
00:56:39.920 --> 00:56:44.320
Uh, common genealogy and how can we fight disease, identifying family and friends?
00:56:44.480 --> 00:56:47.039
It starts to sound so like surreal.
00:56:47.360 --> 00:56:56.559
Don't even bring up George Church because like right now in New Zealand, everybody is like against George Church and Colossal because they're like, we don't want to de-instinct, de-extinct any of these people.
00:56:56.719 --> 00:57:02.559
We don't need a direwolf, we don't need a mammoth, like we don't need a MOA, just leave them alone, leave them extinct, blah, blah, blah.
00:57:02.719 --> 00:57:07.440
But to your point, I wasn't gonna say uh not sell it to a private company.
00:57:07.519 --> 00:57:13.760
What I was gonna say is I wouldn't disempower my group just because it benefited me or a few other people, right?
00:57:13.920 --> 00:57:17.920
Because this makes permanent our disempowerment as native people.
00:57:18.079 --> 00:57:34.800
If we want to fight for land back or tribal identity or anything else, by giving away one DNA sample, I allow all of these races to say, you guys are not from here, you're immigrants from Siberia, and we're gonna take away all your stuff because now we have the money to do so.
00:57:34.960 --> 00:57:36.320
Like you don't own it anymore.
00:57:36.400 --> 00:57:41.360
You don't own your land, you don't own your DNA, you don't own your children because we own it, right?
00:57:41.440 --> 00:57:49.440
And that's that's the problem with with genetics is like you can disempower a whole group of people by taking away one sample.
00:57:49.519 --> 00:57:54.159
And that's that's to me is something that people don't understand.
00:57:54.960 --> 00:57:58.320
That's why I like the the idea of the sovereignty layer as a middleman.
00:57:58.880 --> 00:58:04.239
It's a lot like the f the old fight which is still going on between uh capital and labor.
00:58:04.800 --> 00:58:12.239
You know, it wasn't the union was really a godsend to hold back some of those rights for the collective group.
00:58:12.800 --> 00:58:15.360
You know, the genomics issue right now.
00:58:15.840 --> 00:58:25.519
There's gotta be a collective group legally identified that can actually do damage in this arena, or else like everybody, every group loses.
00:58:25.920 --> 00:58:30.239
Yeah, so you and I, Kyle, have talked about this because you like Ursula Kaeligwin.
00:58:30.400 --> 00:58:39.119
I like Ursula Kaleguin, uh, my friend Jenny Reardon, who's an ethicist at uh UC Santa Cruz, um, we all say the same thing.
00:58:39.199 --> 00:58:50.239
It's like what kind of society do we want to live in if like Briar is saying, everybody in those who walk away from Omelus are benefiting.
00:58:50.400 --> 00:58:56.400
It's a perfect society, it's utopic, it's great, but there's one little kid suffering in that closet.
00:58:57.280 --> 00:58:58.639
That's Native American.
00:58:58.800 --> 00:59:09.280
So yeah, we can solve a lot of the world's uh medical problems with a couple of samples of DNA, but then the rest of us that are still surviving might go extinct.
00:59:09.840 --> 00:59:20.559
And that's the other myth, is like, so I I do talk to uh indigenous groups who are hopelessly mixed with African or or or Native uh sorry, with Europeans, right?
00:59:20.800 --> 00:59:30.480
And they're less like we're in this situation where we in order to get something, we have to give something, and we can't claim any sort of uniqueness anymore.
00:59:30.880 --> 00:59:49.920
But they try to say that for Native Americans that we're all mixed, but there's plenty of places, like just Arizona has full bloods, Alaska has full bloods, Canada has full bloods, and if you go further into Latin America and Amazon and Bolivia and Peru and Ecuador, there's still full bloods, so there is still something, and then we have to fight.
00:59:50.000 --> 00:59:53.679
And I think uh uh Briar brought it up earlier.
00:59:53.920 --> 00:59:56.239
How do you fight racialization?
00:59:56.719 --> 01:00:09.679
We don't want to be racialized, but we also want to protect our unique geography and adaptational history to this place, like they're they're related, but they're not the same, and you can abuse one for the other's purpose.
01:00:10.000 --> 01:00:21.760
Yeah, that'd be my uh my one hot take that all your indigenous friends would hate me for is that the way indigenous nations reckon their citizenship is mostly based on a white supremacy system.
01:00:22.000 --> 01:00:25.119
And like, how do you do it another way?
01:00:25.199 --> 01:01:04.960
And there are other ways, like modern nation states that aren't patently Native American nations, like you know Spain or whatever, India, like they don't genetically test you to become a citizen, but they they do other mechanisms and I don't know how to solve that in the nations of Native America, but like you can determine group membership by other metrics, and you should, and like honestly, the genes are deeply important, but they're being separated out for exploitation, so the people who want to oppose that also have to treat it differently, and it isn't the same marker of lineage that it always once was and still is, but like if you're a citizen of Cherokee Nation, like you're in the group already, man.
01:01:05.039 --> 01:01:06.480
I don't you don't need to blood test me.
01:01:06.719 --> 01:01:08.960
Let's move move together on this or something.
01:01:09.199 --> 01:01:20.800
And then and I've had this conversation with some indigenous people, uh friends of Joseph's, and they they don't know what to think of me, but but it's true, like that it's white supremacy is based on those in the modern era.
01:01:21.039 --> 01:01:22.800
So how do you divorce yourself of it?
01:01:22.960 --> 01:01:23.280
I don't know.
01:01:23.599 --> 01:01:42.880
Most of the academics I know that are part of the indigenous community point out that blood quantum was literally designed by white supremacists, genocidal colonizers that we're coming here to take through manifest destiny, you know, we're gonna take coast to coast, slaughter you all, and hope history looks at us if we're successful as great champions.
01:01:43.199 --> 01:01:45.199
And they come up with this blood quantum.
01:01:45.280 --> 01:01:49.920
And to be fair, the the in my experience, that's the other thing about the flattening, right?
01:01:50.079 --> 01:01:55.519
If you make indigenous people like a race, like we're all kind of indigenous somewhere.
01:01:55.760 --> 01:01:59.599
And and even me, I'm a mixture of a lot of different types of descent.
01:01:59.920 --> 01:02:06.239
You know, those those were very different cultures, like Greek and Norwegian, like really different cultures.
01:02:06.400 --> 01:02:11.199
They had some interaction and they didn't for I don't know how long, probably millennia, have much interaction.
01:02:11.440 --> 01:02:17.599
Uh a lot of what I think we want to do, and this is a broader philosophical question.
01:02:17.840 --> 01:02:20.320
I think it's we want to be efficient, right?
01:02:20.400 --> 01:02:21.280
Think of algorithms.
01:02:21.360 --> 01:02:30.000
We want efficient, we want efficient use of data, economics, and efficiency usually breeds a kind of monstrosity almost always, because it so focuses on one thing.
01:02:30.159 --> 01:02:33.199
That's what axiomatically efficiency means, right?
01:02:33.519 --> 01:02:42.559
So for being efficient about identifying people, let's get some quick categories race, gender, age, and think of things that that give bigotry.
01:02:42.800 --> 01:02:55.599
There's a great philosopher out of Utah who talks a lot about games, and he's using literal video games and stuff, and he makes this point on how you score things shapes entirely how you play.
01:02:55.920 --> 01:02:59.599
And eventually that goes beyond games to how we live in society.
01:02:59.840 --> 01:03:08.320
So if we want to be efficient and make profit, reducing people to simple metrics, we can, you know, it's called flattening and smoothening the complexity of a person.
01:03:08.480 --> 01:03:11.039
So we take all indigenous and flatten and smooth it.
01:03:11.199 --> 01:03:14.559
You know, the Inuit are the same as the Cherokee, are the same as the Arapaho.
01:03:14.719 --> 01:03:15.840
You're all you're all the same.
01:03:16.079 --> 01:03:18.000
And what does it mean to be Arapaho?
01:03:18.239 --> 01:03:29.679
Well, we we can't have it, it it used to be by family tie and genetic and tradition around religion and the building of facilities and sweat lodge and tepee and the type of person you are in the community.
01:03:29.840 --> 01:03:30.639
That's complicated.
01:03:30.800 --> 01:03:31.440
We have different rules.
01:03:31.519 --> 01:03:32.480
How do we integrate?
01:03:32.719 --> 01:03:33.199
Blood.
01:03:33.360 --> 01:03:34.239
It's genetic.
01:03:34.400 --> 01:03:39.119
And yet to be an American, this is one of the fights we're having right now that ties to racism bigotry.
01:03:39.199 --> 01:03:41.840
It's it's not genetic what makes you American, right?
01:03:42.000 --> 01:03:43.519
That's where we have a fight over birthright.
01:03:43.599 --> 01:03:45.760
Is it because you're born on the soil?
01:03:45.920 --> 01:03:46.559
Is that it?
01:03:46.719 --> 01:03:50.960
Is it because your ancestors came here on a boat when they were still like signing quick documents?
01:03:51.119 --> 01:03:58.239
That's how most of my family came here, you know, five dollars from Greece, came on a ship, thought they'd see gold on the streets and was blown away looking at New York.
01:03:58.320 --> 01:03:58.800
What is this?
01:03:58.880 --> 01:04:01.360
Where's all the marble and the beautiful stuff like I had back home?
01:04:01.519 --> 01:04:02.079
Oh no.
01:04:02.239 --> 01:04:08.000
So, you know, there's this history of what makes a person a person and their identity, and that's hard.
01:04:08.239 --> 01:04:15.360
And tribes might have different, like uh I'd imagine that both of you, your experience, tribes have different standards for what makes somebody a tribe.
01:04:15.519 --> 01:04:21.440
Tribes used to have exchanges of families and lineage and adoption and types of slavery.
01:04:21.519 --> 01:04:25.599
Like there's there's a whole history of indigenous peoples in different places.
01:04:25.760 --> 01:04:27.920
And so we flattened it to genetic.
01:04:28.000 --> 01:04:40.000
And if the government were to look at these groups as sovereign nations, as individuals, you know, give them freedom and agency to existentially define themselves, that would be a lot of work and create gray areas.
01:04:40.239 --> 01:04:45.199
Like, you know, there are people in my family that would be considered part of Arapaho that are not genetically Arapaho.
01:04:45.280 --> 01:04:49.760
And there's other groups of Arapaho that might say, we actually know we don't want you included in our group.
01:04:49.840 --> 01:04:53.360
So which group gets to define what what's a member of the tribe?
01:04:53.599 --> 01:05:00.639
And uh I think under the altar of efficiency, we're willing to sacrifice a lot because it can be profitable.
01:05:00.960 --> 01:05:02.639
So we're we're running up on time.
01:05:02.719 --> 01:05:08.400
It's we've got probably about six minutes left, but um, go ahead, Kyle, real quick, and then I'm gonna Oh no, go ahead.
01:05:08.559 --> 01:05:08.800
Go ahead.
01:05:08.960 --> 01:05:16.960
Oh, I was just gonna say this this idea, and we kind of touched on it earlier, of a lack of nuance, right?
01:05:17.039 --> 01:05:25.440
So this efficiency concept just I we were talking about it in New Zealand because it was a genomic standards conference, and I just saw an article on LinkedIn that said the same thing.
01:05:25.599 --> 01:05:41.519
By having data open and trying to standardize for efficiency actually makes science worse because you don't realize that the technologies change over time, your um new conclusions that you get from the data changes over time.
01:05:41.679 --> 01:05:47.760
So if you try to standardize too much, you lose all of that fine grain nuance that you're trying to capture.
01:05:47.920 --> 01:05:51.440
Like this group over here is doing it that way, that group's doing it over there that way.
01:05:51.519 --> 01:05:54.079
They're doing it different ways because they're asking different questions.
01:05:54.239 --> 01:05:57.440
If you standardize, then all the questions get flattened, right?
01:05:57.599 --> 01:05:59.760
And so it says open data is actually.
01:06:00.239 --> 01:06:08.159
Probably hurting science because you're trying to be efficient, like you said, especially with such huge, huge data sets and our minds can't do it, right?
01:06:08.559 --> 01:06:14.400
Um, and that same thing um applies to the to this question.
01:06:14.639 --> 01:06:21.440
So this notion of altruism and that we're gonna raise all boats doesn't really work in the Americas, right?
01:06:21.679 --> 01:06:23.360
Because we are very, very different.
01:06:23.519 --> 01:06:38.719
There was a study that was done in 2012 or 13 where it said the people from Western Mexico compared to the people from eastern Mexico are five times more different than a European is from a Chinese person.
01:06:39.039 --> 01:06:50.079
Because of the way of the the selective sweeps have happened, but the genetic drift has happened, the uh isolation from across mountain ranges has happened in the Americas.
01:06:50.320 --> 01:06:55.199
We didn't have this big uh homogenizing event like you did in Africa or Europe.
01:06:55.360 --> 01:06:57.599
We're still very different, distinct peoples.
01:06:57.920 --> 01:07:09.440
So while you are pitching funding and research in this flattening way in order to get your way, the smart people like me say, I know where to go.
01:07:09.519 --> 01:07:18.239
I'm gonna go to the Navajo, or I'm gonna go to this group because I know that they're different and I'm gonna find something unique in them because I, as a geneticist, know that they're different.
01:07:18.320 --> 01:07:22.320
And that's that's the that's that's the shell game, that's the lie, right?
01:07:22.480 --> 01:07:32.559
And so then we have um that same sort of issue, which is what I wanted you guys to both talk about at the beginning, is you're stuck in a catch 22.
01:07:32.719 --> 01:07:33.840
Natives cannot win.
01:07:34.000 --> 01:07:40.800
If it's the prime directive and you're saying you're protecting us from ourselves because you don't want to give us technology, right?
01:07:40.880 --> 01:07:44.159
You're you're protecting them, you're letting us evolve unnaturally.
01:07:44.239 --> 01:07:45.119
We're screwed.
01:07:45.280 --> 01:07:58.639
If it's the other thing, like John Wayne, that says, you're not using the land, you're not digging copper out of the ground, you're not cutting down the trees, let us show you how to do it, and then still not give us anything, you just take the land, we're screwed that way too.
01:07:58.800 --> 01:08:00.400
So we're screwed coming or going.
01:08:00.480 --> 01:08:06.239
If you flatten it and say, Yes, we're gonna we're gonna treat all natives the same and help them, you get screwed.
01:08:06.400 --> 01:08:12.719
If you say, Oh no, I'm gonna attend to your differences and treat you special, you're screwed.
01:08:13.599 --> 01:08:21.760
I I think um, I'm sure Kyle has something, but um a lot of different cultures have come up with this idea of like a middle path.
01:08:22.640 --> 01:08:30.720
And I think it's it's going back to using efficiency just because we've already touched on this, it's very efficient to go all or nothing, right?
01:08:30.800 --> 01:08:33.920
Because then I don't have to think about it, I don't have to deal with nuance.
01:08:34.319 --> 01:08:43.520
So I think there's a there's a way that we can look at something like um how do we advance and say, look, we're gonna deal with you as people.
01:08:43.760 --> 01:08:47.279
Uh, we're gonna engage with you, like you mentioned, dynamic over time.
01:08:47.600 --> 01:08:51.680
If we try and flatten it all down to like, here you're on your own, we're just gonna leave you.
01:08:51.760 --> 01:08:52.640
Well, then they're stuck.
01:08:52.800 --> 01:08:54.880
They're stuck because I'm gonna use the United States.
01:08:54.960 --> 01:08:56.159
We've been using this metaphor a lot.
01:08:56.319 --> 01:09:04.239
You're stuck as nations within a nation without full sovereignty, but partial sovereignty, with a lot of history of inequity that you're suffering from.
01:09:04.479 --> 01:09:08.479
Um, and there's there's not there's not this full independence, right?
01:09:08.560 --> 01:09:15.840
They can't sign treaties, they can't, you know, arm themselves in a certain way, they can't tap into their own natural resources and have full water rights, right?
01:09:16.000 --> 01:09:16.640
They can't do that.
01:09:16.720 --> 01:09:18.560
They can't sell off the Colorado River.
01:09:18.640 --> 01:09:23.600
And a lot of them, you know, I think a lot of tribes wouldn't want to, from my experience in engaging with them.
01:09:23.760 --> 01:09:25.520
And of course, they need to speak for themselves, right?
01:09:25.600 --> 01:09:28.159
I'm not trying to speak for anybody, but there's diversity here.
01:09:28.319 --> 01:09:32.720
So I think what's hard is we need some degree of both.
01:09:32.960 --> 01:09:37.199
The right thing to do is if I come up to somebody and I hit them with my car, right?
01:09:37.279 --> 01:09:40.880
Because I'm not paying attention or something, I should owe them recompense.
01:09:41.039 --> 01:09:42.319
I should make them whole.
01:09:42.560 --> 01:09:45.039
But I also should be decent and help them right away.
01:09:45.199 --> 01:09:47.760
I should jump out of the car, I should see if they're okay.
01:09:48.000 --> 01:09:50.560
I might sacrifice my day, my flow.
01:09:50.720 --> 01:09:52.960
It might be easy for me to hit and run and go about it.
01:09:53.119 --> 01:09:54.640
And we legally even recognize that.
01:09:54.720 --> 01:09:56.640
Like you have a duty to be decent.
01:09:56.880 --> 01:10:01.359
But I think we often other the other so much.
01:10:01.520 --> 01:10:06.960
We want to atomize people, separate the tribes, separate the identities, make it all about these different groups.
01:10:07.119 --> 01:10:15.600
So it allows a powerful thing like a company or a government or even a university system to exploit every little group that's chalked up and they can't come together.
01:10:15.760 --> 01:10:18.960
So it's important to bring people together to the table to talk about this.
01:10:19.119 --> 01:10:25.520
And at the same time, it's it might it might feel paradoxical or counterintuitive, but to recognize they're all individuals.
01:10:25.680 --> 01:10:27.920
So they have unique views and perspectives.
01:10:28.079 --> 01:10:29.199
And what does that mean?
01:10:29.359 --> 01:10:30.640
It's messy work.
01:10:30.880 --> 01:10:35.279
And I I, if that were my big takeaway, it's to say these are living groups of people that are still here.
01:10:35.439 --> 01:10:37.520
They're also historical groups that have been killed.
01:10:37.680 --> 01:10:40.880
It's also nations within nations that are and aren't recognized.
01:10:41.119 --> 01:10:47.920
It's research that a lot of tribes want to take part in and could benefit themselves and others and they want to, but also don't want to be exploited.
01:10:48.079 --> 01:10:51.840
So it's it's maybe a cry that we're experiencing everybody.
01:10:52.000 --> 01:10:54.880
You hear this from all populations all across America and the world.
01:10:55.119 --> 01:11:07.920
Slow down, be deliberate, be conscious, and we're less depressed, stressed, anxious, and pressured if we have the time to be more human and alive versus dead digital data points.
01:11:08.079 --> 01:11:09.920
Living things are not just data points.
01:11:10.000 --> 01:11:11.439
That would be my takeaway.
01:11:13.920 --> 01:11:15.760
Yeah, there's nothing wrong with the middle way.
01:11:15.840 --> 01:11:18.800
Uh it reminds me a little bit of interfaith chapels you see in airports.
01:11:18.880 --> 01:11:20.319
It's like there's no reason to build those rooms.
01:11:20.399 --> 01:11:22.800
It's not there's not a tangible practical reason for that.
01:11:23.119 --> 01:11:24.239
People just feel it.
01:11:24.560 --> 01:11:32.720
And you know, we take the time, we spend however much money it takes to build those spaces for people to enjoy for spiritual reasons, and that's okay.
01:11:32.960 --> 01:11:39.039
We it's a little bit of bureaucracy, it makes people who enjoy those spaces happy, and what's wrong with that?
01:11:40.560 --> 01:11:43.039
A little bit of going slower is the right.
01:11:43.279 --> 01:11:44.479
I like the way you put that.
01:11:45.920 --> 01:12:00.880
Yeah, and that's the thing, is um so I just wrote a Substack post where there's this assumption that we're all Malthusian, we're all Darwinian, all this these really crappy, shallow philosophical takes.
01:12:01.039 --> 01:12:08.000
Um, that society is inherently greedy, that there's one human nature, we're competitive and we're violent, right?
01:12:08.319 --> 01:12:09.439
I don't agree with that.
01:12:09.520 --> 01:12:10.880
I don't think that's true, right?
01:12:11.439 --> 01:12:16.960
But right now we are because everybody is not trusting each other.
01:12:17.439 --> 01:12:22.000
Canada, the United States, China, uh, Russia, Iran, nobody trusts each other, right?
01:12:22.159 --> 01:12:25.920
So they're all trying to get as much data as possible, as fast as possible.
01:12:26.239 --> 01:12:31.279
So I was talking to an NIH rep a few years ago, and I said, look, do you want to do this right?
01:12:31.520 --> 01:12:32.640
Or do you just want the data?
01:12:32.800 --> 01:12:34.399
He's like, I just want the data.
01:12:37.520 --> 01:12:39.039
Honesty is also a virtue.
01:12:42.159 --> 01:12:47.039
You know, I I think in the end that's the point, is is sometimes when we need something, we just want it.
01:12:47.199 --> 01:12:50.880
And sometimes when we want something, we confuse our that that's what we need.
01:12:51.199 --> 01:13:08.800
Um, and this is one of those situations where I think being conscious and aware, using basic ideas like consent and and information and equity over time and justice, and they're they're messy ideas, but all of us win when we do that.
01:13:09.039 --> 01:13:10.640
Like there's actually no losers.
01:13:10.720 --> 01:13:13.600
I think this might be a controversial take if you want one.
01:13:13.840 --> 01:13:25.279
I think even the the rich exploiters that are trying to do this, the billionaire people that are at the tops of these companies that are willing to make these sacrifices of others for profit, the nation states that want to be dominant.
01:13:25.439 --> 01:13:27.840
I think there's an internal cost to living that way.
01:13:28.079 --> 01:13:31.439
So I do think there's a way that's a win-win for everybody for shifting this.
01:13:31.680 --> 01:13:36.960
But our society actually encourages us to recognize and care more about those.
01:13:37.119 --> 01:13:39.199
There's a term called perverse incentives, right?
01:13:39.359 --> 01:13:41.920
I want to be the richest of all possible, so I should exploit everything.
01:13:42.000 --> 01:13:43.199
I want to be the dominant nation.
01:13:43.279 --> 01:13:46.560
So I should kill others and oppress my own people to be efficient at that.
01:13:46.800 --> 01:13:50.239
It creates these perverse systems that we all see are bad.
01:13:50.399 --> 01:13:56.159
But if those systems get big enough and run unchecked, then as individuals, we start to internalize that.
01:13:56.399 --> 01:14:03.920
And I think right now that's the big fight we're seeing globally with the rise of all these different extremist movements trying to shift the current world order.
01:14:04.079 --> 01:14:05.600
It's not working for most humans.
01:14:05.760 --> 01:14:10.319
We're more depressed, we're more anxious, we have more healthcare, more resource, but we're not doing better.
01:14:10.479 --> 01:14:11.920
A lot of people don't feel that.
01:14:12.079 --> 01:14:13.760
And so what are we fighting for in the end?
01:14:13.920 --> 01:14:19.039
To just die with more money in our pockets or have giant corporations with the greatest wealth ever in our nation?
01:14:19.359 --> 01:14:21.279
If we're not feeling better, what's it for?
01:14:21.439 --> 01:14:24.960
And we're not giving something sustainable for future generations to feel better.
01:14:25.119 --> 01:14:28.159
So that's that's my call is I think there's a way to make this all better.
01:14:28.399 --> 01:14:33.920
Nobody loses, but we're encouraging people to think somebody would lose and live that way.
01:14:34.319 --> 01:14:35.520
Yeah, and I think so.
01:14:35.600 --> 01:14:45.439
There is this paper called Consent is an Out of Contract, and they're using the metaphor of a sorority girl being stuck in a room with a bunch of fraternity guys.
01:14:45.600 --> 01:14:53.359
She might at one point want to be with those guys, but at some point when she sobers up, she's like, I don't want to be with those guys anymore.
01:14:53.600 --> 01:14:56.399
And that's the way consent for research should work.
01:14:56.560 --> 01:14:58.000
I changed my mind.
01:14:58.239 --> 01:15:01.760
At some point, I like this, I wanted to do it, but I don't want to do it anymore.
01:15:01.840 --> 01:15:04.000
And that can happen at any point in time.
01:15:04.239 --> 01:15:12.560
You can change your mind because you are human, you don't have to participate in this system or this research or this relationship.
01:15:12.720 --> 01:15:14.319
Like people don't understand that.
01:15:14.399 --> 01:15:22.000
And I think that us, everybody, uh, over and above the government, over and above corporations, have to say that.
01:15:22.079 --> 01:15:23.199
Like we're human.
01:15:23.840 --> 01:15:28.880
These things belong to all of us, and we don't have to participate in your messed up game.
01:15:28.960 --> 01:15:30.640
You're like you said, perverse incentives.
01:15:30.720 --> 01:15:33.199
We don't have to participate in that program.
01:15:38.479 --> 01:15:45.199
Yeah, I think there's um there's something beautiful about acknowledging what it is to be alive in the world.
01:15:45.520 --> 01:15:51.520
And I I've recently been using this term necronomics, which is like it's an economics of death.
01:15:52.159 --> 01:16:06.560
And and the opposite is like uh uh it's not bionomics, it's not just an economics of life, but it's like uh bio-thriving, you know, it's biogenesis, it's like let's give power to life and what it means to be alive.
01:16:06.880 --> 01:16:19.520
And in my experience, a lot of indigenous cultures, because they're so tied to the land, they're tied to the life, they're tied to the earth, they're tied to the environment, and they view it as a stewardship because they see life over time.
01:16:19.600 --> 01:16:29.199
Like there's all these, um, I'm gonna use a cliche that's overused, but there's the seventh generation idea and all these things that get turned into a group of products that you can buy near where I live.
01:16:29.439 --> 01:16:33.920
But the idea is that that we're part of a living system that goes over time and is dynamic.
01:16:34.079 --> 01:16:41.199
And I think there's a desire, and this bleeds through, and the economics affects science and affects military and nation states.
01:16:41.520 --> 01:16:53.039
We're more in love with like the dead data, the objective point, the metric, the system that isn't alive, and we ignore what it is to actually be alive.
01:16:53.199 --> 01:17:00.000
So I'm constantly trying to point out to people when we're taking this necronomic view that it's dead data that's owned by a company that produces a product.
01:17:00.239 --> 01:17:02.800
What does that product do if every human dies on Earth?
01:17:02.960 --> 01:17:05.039
Like it's not like it has some existential value.
01:17:05.119 --> 01:17:07.760
It's only of utility to the things that are alive.
01:17:07.920 --> 01:17:11.920
So don't lose the living quote to the service of the living.
01:17:12.079 --> 01:17:22.720
Don't embrace these dead data points, dead ideas, flatten a human out to their genetic profile only and one sign form, make everything about a currency that isn't alive itself, right?
01:17:22.880 --> 01:17:30.720
I mean, if everybody, you know, the last thing I'll say is in preparing for this, I had a conversation with a woman who was doing a really interesting study.
01:17:30.880 --> 01:17:45.039
Um, and it was actually with a group, John, the same friend you're talking about, some of us were getting together, and she was representing a European biopharma company, and she was going to places with uncontacted tribes for a very interesting reason, because they don't have soap.
01:17:45.439 --> 01:17:48.560
They don't have lots of skin disease, they don't have all these problems.
01:17:48.800 --> 01:18:18.560
So their skin microbiome was so valuable that these companies were spending millions of dollars to fly people to nearly uncontacted tribes, talk to intermediary tribes that could speak their language and engage with them and try and go and get skin samples, not like cutting off skin, but swabs and stuff, from these people that had never been exposed to soap in their life to see what type of thing would live and how they would live to try and treat things like antibiotic-resistant infections and things.
01:18:18.720 --> 01:18:20.720
And she gave this example of rings.
01:18:20.880 --> 01:18:22.159
You know, it's like life.
01:18:22.319 --> 01:18:23.600
There's an outer ring.
01:18:23.680 --> 01:18:26.479
And she said when she talked to them, what did they want?
01:18:26.800 --> 01:18:33.520
They wanted clothing and money because they had trouble getting clothing there and they knew money could buy them anything.
01:18:33.680 --> 01:18:35.840
These people had cars and cell phones and knew.
01:18:36.000 --> 01:18:37.680
Then there was a middle ring, right?
01:18:37.920 --> 01:18:41.840
And what they wanted was food and medicine because they knew about Western medicine.
01:18:41.920 --> 01:18:48.800
They could understand things like diabetes, they could get their friend with a cell phone, but they might live in a more indigenous way in a forest or something like that.
01:18:48.960 --> 01:18:53.680
Then there's an inner ring, and she realized that these groups were signing consent forms.
01:18:53.920 --> 01:18:58.560
When she got to the inner ring, her translator was trying to explain how she came there to meet them.
01:18:58.800 --> 01:19:10.479
And she said this thing that stuck with me the only word they could use for plane was insect, because they didn't have a concept for what metal or engines or fuels or planes would be.
01:19:10.640 --> 01:19:12.960
And it wasn't like a bird because the wings weren't moving.
01:19:13.039 --> 01:19:20.399
So they'd seen a few planes over time, and conceptually, all they could imagine were these were insects very high up, large insects.
01:19:20.640 --> 01:19:27.359
So she had to talk with these people saying she came in on an insect in the sky, you know, almost like something out of a mythological story.
01:19:27.520 --> 01:19:31.439
And it's not to infantilize, like this is what these people didn't have the language, they didn't have the experience.
01:19:31.600 --> 01:19:34.720
And then she was getting consent to them to take their samples.
01:19:34.800 --> 01:19:38.159
And at one point, she realized these people don't understand any of these terms.
01:19:40.640 --> 01:19:42.560
And so she did something very controversial.
01:19:42.640 --> 01:19:46.479
She she chose to destroy and burn a lot of those samples.
01:19:46.640 --> 01:19:53.760
And she asked me not to use her name because, you know, like the millions of dollars were spent on sending her to do this, and she realized these people didn't know.
01:19:53.920 --> 01:20:00.800
She had near life situations, these people protected her where she was under threat from others and all this stuff, and she had this rich experience.
01:20:00.960 --> 01:20:10.000
But she realized, like, even within this tribal group, there were these, she used this example, and I'm gonna share it, these rings, and the concerns were different.
01:20:10.159 --> 01:20:13.439
And the people on the outside ring might want the money in compensation.
01:20:13.520 --> 01:20:14.319
That's great for them.
01:20:14.560 --> 01:20:18.159
The people in the middle, she said literally they they showed money and talked about it.
01:20:18.720 --> 01:20:24.239
They didn't want to engage with the money at all because to them they they literally couldn't conceive of that system.
01:20:24.479 --> 01:20:26.239
It was they looked at it as fuel.
01:20:26.399 --> 01:20:35.680
But what was valuable to the people in the middle, they'd seen enough metal to think metal was this magic material because it could go in a fire and not burn, because the knife could be sharpened.
01:20:35.840 --> 01:20:41.600
So if they were to trade their genetic data, they would offer like all their samples for a couple of pots.
01:20:41.840 --> 01:20:46.960
And how do you explain to them, no, you want a million dollars, you could buy million, you could be set for pots for life.
01:20:47.119 --> 01:20:48.399
There wasn't even a way to communicate.
01:20:48.479 --> 01:20:51.279
And that's the free price form consent.
01:20:51.520 --> 01:20:57.039
But it's also how valuable, it's such a great story because it illustrates how valuable something we've never thought of.
01:20:57.199 --> 01:21:02.079
These people that just have never used soap and survive and thrive without infection, how do they do it?
01:21:02.239 --> 01:21:04.880
And that's why I say, is this a serious issue or not?
01:21:05.039 --> 01:21:18.159
These people that these companies know they're willing to spend tens of millions of dollars to fly somebody around the world and do research because they know those indigenous people, their skin, their genetics, their environment, it's really valuable.
01:21:18.319 --> 01:21:30.239
And I think there's a very tough way where we think about how we can engage there and do something truly benefit mutually beneficial without exploitative, without just a legal framework that flattens them down.
01:21:30.399 --> 01:21:33.119
You sign the consent form like they didn't have written signature.
01:21:33.279 --> 01:21:34.079
Do you give a thumbprint?
01:21:34.159 --> 01:21:35.119
How do you even do that?
01:21:35.359 --> 01:21:45.039
So that's that's my my I guess takeaway in this is this is something that will help us all and could help those people in a way they could consent to and understand, but it just takes work and time.
01:21:45.199 --> 01:21:50.399
And that's what I hope we're all willing to do is spend a little more time and work and make a little sacrifice.
01:21:50.560 --> 01:21:53.520
And in the end, there's nobody that has to lose.
01:21:53.760 --> 01:21:56.479
We could have a mutually beneficial pact.
01:21:56.560 --> 01:21:59.520
Um, but if it has to be efficient, somebody's gonna lose out.
01:21:59.600 --> 01:22:01.439
It's gonna be a zero-sum game.
01:22:02.000 --> 01:22:05.279
So I'm gonna let Kyle have the last word here, Kyle.
01:22:05.840 --> 01:22:10.720
Make it good! It was no no brilliant insight.
01:22:10.960 --> 01:22:13.279
Just I I agree with what you're saying, Briar.
01:22:13.439 --> 01:22:14.720
I I like that example.
01:22:14.960 --> 01:22:28.319
I love the insect in the sky and the concentric circles, and I mean if there is a way to do all of this like you're saying, can be can make everybody happy, everybody can win.
01:22:28.479 --> 01:22:32.079
Even if we move a little bit slower, it's probably for the best.
01:22:32.800 --> 01:22:36.239
We're moving too fast or breaking too many things, including people.
01:22:38.640 --> 01:22:51.279
Yeah, so I I would uh sum up my experience anyway with all of this stuff since 2007, is everybody keeps telling me don't let perfection be a barrier to the good.
01:22:51.439 --> 01:23:03.279
And according to what Briar just said, I'm like, how about we don't let the possibility, the speculation of some future good be a barrier to being good right now?
01:23:07.039 --> 01:23:08.000
I love that idea.
01:23:08.640 --> 01:23:18.479
And I I I I've it's a mantra somebody else gave me through philosophy, and it's are we more concerned today with seeming good or doing good?
01:23:18.800 --> 01:23:22.319
Because sometimes doing good doesn't look good to everybody and it's hard work.
01:23:22.880 --> 01:23:26.000
And I strive to live up to that standard.
01:23:26.079 --> 01:23:33.439
I'm constantly working out because I was raised in a culture where looking good, having everybody say you're good, giving you recognition, that's what's valuable.
01:23:33.680 --> 01:23:48.319
And sometimes, you know, the person, the janitor who's doing the good work of keeping a space clean for the kids that are learning is doing work that often isn't recognized by society, but is invaluable in the same way the principle that organizes all the teachers.
01:23:48.560 --> 01:23:53.600
So sometimes doing good doesn't get recognized and might even have a cost on us.
01:23:53.920 --> 01:24:05.199
And I hope we can shift to a world where we do good for more and don't live into this false frame of a zero-sum game where one culture has to dominate another and hurt.
01:24:05.279 --> 01:24:07.680
That's that colonial exploitation mindset.
01:24:07.840 --> 01:24:17.600
So shifting from this necronomic mutual exploitation for dead things to a thriving biosphere, an environmental view of living and thriving together.
01:24:17.840 --> 01:24:19.199
So yeah, I appreciate that.
01:24:19.520 --> 01:24:24.239
And by the way, for the audience, go look up uh Joseph Aquile Mabembe from Africa.
01:24:24.319 --> 01:24:31.359
He's still alive, he's still putting out YouTube videos about necropolitics, um, to to what Briar was alluding to.
01:24:31.520 --> 01:24:33.920
But this has been Kyle Sullivan, Briar Buckwalter.
01:24:34.000 --> 01:24:35.199
I'm Joseph Rusheta.
01:24:35.520 --> 01:24:42.640
This has been Genomic Discussions uh for uh the channel Love Digenous, and thank you guys very much for watching.