Hey folks, it's Quinn. Since we recorded this conversation, we've renamed the podcast. It used to be called important non-important, which is what you'll hear in the episode, and it's still the name of the company. But now the podcast is called, The Most Important Question.
That is, what can I do? It's the question we get the most from all of you, and it turns out it's the question I've really been asking guests for almost 200 episodes now. So here we are, the most important question. Please enjoy this old conversation.
Thanks for listening, and thanks for giving us shit. Welcome to important non-important. My name is Teddy Ballgame. Teddy Ballgame.
That's Teddy's name, well that was Teddy Williams' nickname. Oh right. I'm after Teddy Williams, a great decider of all time. Your name is Quinn Emmett.
Well, I'm Brian Colberg, Kennedy, and Teddy Ballgame is also here. He's on the floor. He is like, quick question. When am I going for a wall?
So cute. This is episode 35, I believe? 35. Here's a question, Brian.
Can scientists save Congress? Can they do it? I feel like maybe they can. Maybe, maybe not even just scientists.
Maybe other people who use rational decision-making and empirical data to make their decisions. Yeah, and everything. People, representatives who are more representative of the makeup of this country, as a case of our educated workforce. Not just a bunch of old white people.
Right, and not just lawyers and fake doctors. Right. Our guest today, pretty awesome, Shauna C. Naughton.
She is the president, founder of 314, 314 Action. Either of those. Their mission, they're found by members of the STEM community. Grassroots supporters and political activists who believe in, what's that word?
It's not, I hate that sentence. Believe in science. It's not something that you can believe in, I believe in it, it's just facts. Yeah, what's the, there's a great article that Dr.
Marvel wrote on her new blog. Oh yeah. That just said, why don't argue facts or science? Yeah, yeah, because it's science.
We can argue about other things, not that. All kinds of stuff. Let's start with that. Anyways, 314, they are committed to electing more STEM candidates to office of every level, advocating for evidence-based policy solutions, issues like climate change, and fighting the Trump administration's attacks on science.
Repeated relentless attacks. Yeah, so we have two dogs on the podcast today, which always makes for good ones. Two dogs and no cats, everybody wins. Nope, that's not very nice to say.
Yep, so we have Teddy and- I love you Stevie, she's home. Clementine, Clementine. Clementine, yeah. I like it, yeah, why not throw any on the end?
I do. She had one little growl got fired up at one point. Teddy, not much. Quiet, that's me.
By the way, again, to follow up, you know that earthquake we had last night? Little like 4.4? No. Sound asleep on the couch.
I felt nothing. So you're basically Teddy, just dad inside. Just call Ted Bogey. They're like dogs can hear him from miles away.
Either he can't, or he's just, he's over it. He's like, call me when it's over sad. Yeah, it was too small for him. Right, yeah, just not interested.
He's not like, get the children, get under death. Right. He's just like, yeah, I'm out. Well, see everything was fine.
Put stranger things back on. You know, Brian, the intent of this podcast, our newsletter is a weekly recap of the most important news you missed. Right? The newsletter for people who give a shit about the future.
Right? We're going to be more evergreen. You know, podcast episodes, you could listen to it at any point, start in any order. They're not serialized.
It's not serial. It's not the news. Plenty of people do a great job with that. Things you could tune into because these are existential ish topics that are going to come up over and over again.
But we are barreling towards November 6. We're getting real close. So these are a little more timely. We're going to keep going with our series of chats with candidates across the country who are endorsed by 3.14.
Yep. Pretty awesome. Trying to get people aware of them on every level. Support them, knock on doors, phone bank donate to get these people into office and see what happens.
So, you know, I think they'll be evergreen in maybe a time caps away. Either something, look at, hey, these were the people before they were in office and had a big impact. Yeah. Or in an actual time caps away of these are the last time we heard from any of these people before it all ended.
Oh my god. Anyways, on that note, so if we want to stay timely for a second, 538, I got emailed their election update. Democrats still have a five and seven chance of taking control of the chamber. Average gain is 33 seats.
We'll take it. Needs to be better. Obviously, not all polling is correct everywhere. Everybody, including 538, blue in 2016, just had that incredible Democratic nominee for Governor in Florida.
Yeah, yeah, Gillum. Gillum, guys, fucking awesome. Ran on a straight up aggressive platform. Was polling in fourth the day before the election.
Yeah, day before, fourth. So, that is just our disclaimer that not everything is, yeah, I love that too, because he, they spent almost no money. Right, it's crazy. It's amazing.
And like, I don't know, just makes you go like, okay, well, wait, maybe I don't have that a billion dollars and I can still hope so. Hope so. As much as I hate money in politics, it's like hopefully he does get some support now. Because now they get to go and throw a bunch of money into him.
And as candidate, immediately, went straight racist. Yeah. Immediately. Everyone's like, how long is it?
Nope, right away. Before we could even get the question. Yep, called him articulate. What was something about Monkey?
And some people were like, but that's not necessarily, yes it is. Sure is. So anyways, five and seven chance. People donate, knock on doors, phone bank is 2018.
You can do it from your computer for anybody in the country. And vote, vote, vote, vote, vote, vote. That's my update there. Hey, Brian.
Yeah. We talked to a lot of folks who I'm pretty proud of. We don't agree on everything, right? Except for the most important things.
The memes justify the end. Yeah. We had a chat with an awesome dude, Jose Aguto. Yeah.
And about what his group does to support climate action, clean energy action. Jose is awesome. We titled the podcast something along the lines of the pope has decided to fix climate change with his own bare hands. Yes.
His actions have been pretty awesome. Pope in the news a little bit this week for not so great stuff. Possibly. Possibly.
It's only been accused so far, right? Yep. Catholic Church has been a, what is the right word for it? Well, watch Spotlight.
It's not great. And it's been getting worse again in Pennsylvania and other places. And one of the archbishops claimed that the pope has known about this stuff for a long time and true Joe Paterno style covered it up while maintaining his grandfatherly image. So I just wanted to say clearly, if that is true in any way, we obviously don't condone it in any fashion.
We got a lot of the episode hit just as all this news hit this week to online people were like, hey, cool, he's self climate change, but quite a lot of little boys got the adult and that's not okay. And that is 100% fucking true. So appreciate his climate change efforts. Hopefully these accusations are not true.
If they are, fuck them. Let it burn. Yeah, I really hope they're not. I really hope they're not.
People are fired up about this guy, but now in a lot of different ways. So anyways, just wanted to put that out there because we got some flak for the time together, which we clearly couldn't fucking control. Yeah, yeah. They had the same moment, but it is what it is.
Yeah, I hope that's not true because it would be great to be great that if you could go down in our, you know, memories as a really great poker. Be great if one person from this specific couple of years didn't go down in fucking flames, but again, if it is true, then let the mother fucker burn. So anyways, that's where we are, man. Great chat today.
We're going to keep these going, this series with 314 and Shaughnessy is the one who got it all started at all. It's pretty fucking rad. So let's go chat. Our guest today is Shaughnessy and together we're going to ask, can scientists actually save Congress?
Shaughnessy, welcome. Hi, great to be here. Very great to have you. Why don't you let us know who you are and what you do?
Sure. I am the founder and president of 314 Action, an organization that's dedicated to getting scientists to go beyond just advocacy and get involved in electoral politics, whether it's run for office themselves or support fellow scientists and STEM professionals that are stepping up to run for office. Awesome. And you want to just give us a little background on how all that got started?
Sure. My background is I'm a chemist by training. I worked in breast cancer research and drug discovery and then actually stepped out and ran a business for over a decade. And in 2013, 2014, I was increasingly concerned and frustrated with Congress.
Why? I just don't get it. Well, as much as I love and believe in the promise and deliveries of science, what became obvious was that science can't solve every problem. When we have a Congress that is in blatant denial of the very real effects of climate change, that's voted 50 times to take away healthcare rather than fix or try to fix the problem.
What I realized was that sometimes solutions need a political or policy answer. And so I decided to step up and run for Congress. And thank you. Yeah.
Well, I did not know what I was getting into, which probably is what allowed me to do it. But what I learned was that there's a real lack of people with scientific backgrounds in elected office. And I think we see the, you know, the effects of that reflected in both the policy and the process. Yeah.
That again, it feels like a complete understatement. But yeah, I mean, we're definitely going to dig into that for sure. Good news sounds like because of folks like you and organizations like you, there's quite a wave of those similar minded folks who have essentially said, well, fucking, I'll run myself. So hopefully that works out and we'll dig into that more.
So, so how did that go for you? Well, I actually ended up running twice being the stubborn Irish person I am. And so I did not make it through the democratic primary, but I, you know, I learned a lot about the process and how hard it is to break into politics when you don't come from a traditional political background. I mean, right now there are more talk radio show hosts, although valuable, but there are more talk radio show hosts in Congress and there are chemists and physicists.
And so I founded this organization to help give scientists a peek behind the curtain as to what is actually involved and to continue to unite and engage the scientific community to support these candidates. That's so incredible and important, now more than ever. Yeah, I mean, you know, the attacks on science didn't start with the Trump administration, but they've taken what felt like a war on science and turned it into an all out war on facts. And that should have everyone concerned.
Yeah, all right. All right. So let's get, let's get this going. We, we love asking questions here and specifically questions that are going to elicit some answers that are action oriented answers.
So we're going to set up a little context for the conversation today, ask you a bunch of questions. So we start trying to fix the problems that are happening because of the times now. And that's it. And then we're going to say goodbye for that.
Yep. Pretty pretty neat. And then all the problems are fixed. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Pretty sure that's how this works. Yep. Yep. That's what we're going for.
So, Sean, see, we do like to start with one more question about you. And we do feel like it sets a tone in a number of ways. Yeah. Instead of saying, tell us your life story, we like to ask Sean, see, why are you vital to the survival of the species?
Well, God help us if I am, but I, you know, you are, you are, you are, we all have a responsibility to step up and get involved. And you know, I think one of the good things to come out of the Trump election is that it has made a lot of people realize that they have a part to play in our democracy. And it's not just, it's not okay to just leave it for other people to take care of because it's not taking care of itself. Yeah, very true.
Yeah. That sounds about right to me. I'm into it, man. So let's, we're going to establish a little context for today's question because we know our listeners are sitting stuck on the New York subway, which doesn't work anymore, or they're driving or they're walking the dog or something and they might not have time to educate themselves on this topic as much as we do.
And we try to get everybody on the same page. And then we can really dig into it when everyone is working from the same draft. So I'll go over some things, Brian, I'll ask some questions. Sean, as you can either correct us or you can just run away.
We'll see what happens. Hopefully we'll hold on here. Hopefully you stay. So here's some facts.
Actual facts. Actual facts. Oh, not that good. Yeah.
So there are 100 senators in the US Congress. There are 435 members of the House of Representatives. There are currently two senators with PhDs out of 100, one in human services and one in history. So it's two of 100.
None of these. Neither based in science. I mean that needs to change. Yeah, fun story.
Last time there was a PhD in science in the Senate, OK? 1983, Brian, were you alive? Yeah, I was born that year. Oh, great.
So great. That's dating us. Republican Harrison Schmidt in geology. He served one term.
Do you know why else he was special, Brian? No, but I wanted to tell me. He landed on the fucking moon. Yeah.
He supposedly took the blue marble photo of Earth. He was also second to last person to walk on the moon, but that's just because we suck. And that was a long time ago. On the other hand, unfortunately, he thinks climate change is bullshit and is a fan of Alex Jones.
In this 1983, last science PhD in the Senate. So of the current representatives, 435, we got one PhD in math, one in physics and one in public health. Of course, that guy voted against Obamacare. So, you know, that piece of paper only means so much.
Of all the state senators and state representatives across the entire country, which is so many, I just didn't even bother counting. There are three humans with degrees in chemical engineering, math and physics. That's three. Sean, is this something I'm barking up the right tree here?
It is they are grossly underrepresented. That is wild. So this is all in an area where climate change and clean energy and disease outbreaks, yes, they threaten the plan in the species we just talked about, but also they're both their causes and their effects are much of the time hyper local to regional and we desperately need decision makers in those areas. And then of course, on the federal level and international level, who can speak the language?
So continuing, there's 20 doctors and retired doctors across Congress. But of course, heavy out that includes Rand Paul, which is complete bullshit. So look, I'm a science and techner. If that wasn't true, we wouldn't have this little podcast.
We wouldn't have operated our microphones. I'm also a liberal arts graduate who firmly believes, you know, every tech company, any company needs to have at least two chief liberal arts major offices who can argue the ethics of every decision. So the move fast and break things nerds don't keep breaking society. And that applies to Congress too, right?
STEM isn't everything. Neither is philosophy though, or peace and conflict studies. They need each other and quite desperately in some situations like these. And to me, that's especially true in 2018 when we are uncovering and parsing huge amounts of data and theoretically trying to use it to make major decisions, right?
Health care theoretically, hopefully. We still don't know really what we're doing with a lot of that, right? We talk about the black box in AI. We don't know why a lot of these things are making decisions when it comes to machine learning, or we're not usually utilizing it, right?
Because the people in charge are unqualified or they're 85 and they don't have a fucking clue what any of the things I said was in second evening, right? So we need way more folks across the demographics, across perspectives, understand first principles that can grasp empirical data, they can find the signal and the noise and how to build policies founded on real evidence. Because again, just getting specific, the EPA and the Department of Interior have been kidnapped essentially. It feels like we're watching, what was the Nicholas Cage, the rock, right?
It's been kidnapped and ransacked just by these fucking warrants with evil agendas who don't care about you or your children. So great news. I'm shonk honoring you. There is great news though, because of people like Shonnessy, there is a shitload of scientists who have had enough and are running for office.
So the question is, again, can scientists save Congress and save the world? Shonnessy. First question for you. How do you guys choose candidates to endorse?
For Congress, there's a number of factors. I mean, early in 2017, we looked at the map of our country and how districts voted in the 2016 presidential race. There were a number of congressmen, believe it or not, that when uncontested, even with pretty ridiculous views and stances on things that the scientific consensus is clear on, like climate. Just because nobody wanted to run against them, nobody got their shit together to do it?
Yeah, I mean, I can't say what the reason was in 2016, but two often incumbents go unchallenged. And so there were districts that the Republican incumbent was reelected and Hillary quinted one in the same district. And so that was part of what goes into is the demographics of the districts, how it voted, where we think it's trending. Also what the incumbent looks like.
Early in 2017, we put some incumbents on notice that we were going to be recruiting a strong candidate in their district to challenge them. And Lamar Smith, who is the Republican chair of the House Science and Technology. Oh, that's okay. Lamar, he says he's 21.
That's right. We just said our number of people are cops. We are very excited about cops. He is doing a tremendous job.
I think the fact that Smith decided to retire rather than face a credible challenger speaks volumes as to what cops are is bringing to that race and the discussion. And then we look at the candidates. It's not good enough just to have a STEM background. We want people that are independent thinking and rooted in facts and evidence and willing to base policy decisions on that.
And that match their district. It's a big country and every district is different. Yeah, it definitely is. It's easy to say.
We need people to understand climate science. If you represent Norfolk or New Orleans or Manhattan, you better be thinking about flooding and understand how the fuck sea level rise. And you better be talking to the Dutch about what they do with sea level rise, etcetera, etcetera. If you represent Mendocino County, you better be thinking about fires.
It is. It is important. We can't just say they need science stuff, but people who get that and get their district. Just like cops are, his grasp of clean energy is so important in a state that is just barreling towards huge revenue from wind energy.
Yeah. I mean, going back to what you had started off saying is that we do benefit by having diversity of experience. And whether it's election security or automation or privacy or climate change, who better to be tackling these issues than people trained in the sciences? Yeah.
And it just seems like, yes, we need a thousand different things, right? It's a little bigger as can't be choosers. But to me, it's like we have to start with the lowest common denominator of just at least having people that agree to found their decisions on empirical data, whatever their specialization is. Yeah.
I couldn't agree more. That just seems so obvious. How is that not? Unfortunately, it's not.
I mean, there are too many politicians that look to party platforms or ideologues to force solutions rather than actually looking at the data and evidence. So this can be overwhelming, especially to just a regular Joe voter like me. What's the specific focus most needed in Congress if you could put one at the top to help care or clean energy, atmospheric science, chemistry, is there something for sure on top that we're missing that we need to? Well, I mean, we only talked about our congressional candidates, but I do just want to note that we endorse and support candidates from school board and local municipal offices through the legislature and federal.
And I spent some time earlier this summer calling through some of our endorsed candidates for both the federal and state races. And the number one issue that I heard from and that they're hearing from folks when they're out campaigning is health care. It is really a travesty of what the Trump administration, frankly, this Congress is doing as far as chipping away at consumer protections that were provided to Americans under the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare. And it's largely going under the radar until it becomes your problem when you can't get health insurance or something covered.
That is an issue. I mean, we've seen a lot of physicians step up this year to run because of what the repeal of or the chipping away of the ACA would do to their patients. And so I think that is a very valuable voice to have. Even some of the candidates that we have that aren't medical doctors have really made that a focus of their campaigns.
And there are, I guess I would say, patches that we could be putting into the Affordable Care Act that would reduce costs and increase access. And it's just the fact that there are so many ideologues in Congress that things like that aren't happening that would better health care for a lot of people. Well, ideologues is such a kind way of putting it. You're much more gentle about this.
Who that just one second? When you are saying that you're supporting candidates, what does that mean exactly? Is it just fundraising or what else? Yeah, you're making tools or?
Yeah. So we hold candidate trainings throughout the year. Our last one was in San Francisco where it's basically a two day boot camp for scientists and STEM professionals that are interested in running for office. Obviously the one we held last month was not for candidates for 2018.
It's for people looking at 2019 and beyond. But we go over everything from front-movies and communication strategies, putting together a campaign team, just everything that would be involved in running for office and can be applied to any level of office. And then we give the most personal attention to the federal candidates just because we are a small staff and that's what we can do. How big are you guys?
We are eight. Oh, holy shit. Holy shit. Wow.
That's impressive. Yes, that is small. We also helped to fundraise for our candidates. You know, one thing that really jumped out to me is that we have over 135,000 contributors who have given $20 or less.
And I think that really speaks to the strength of our message and the fact that Americans are waking up and realizing that where the country is is not where it needs to be. Yeah, and I really love it. I'd love to hear your perspective a little bit on some of these other amazing organizations that I think are so, and I said this before and it's a little heretical, but I don't think any of these things and organizations and folks honestly would have stepped up had Hillary 1, but everything from 3, 14 to flippable to swing left to five calls to town hall project to run for something. We needed this to happen and it has seemingly been going really well.
I'm curious your perspective on all of these organizations and how they're helping push forward to November 6. Oh, I think it's really important and great that so many people are stepping up. I was talking to an engineer at Twitter a few weeks ago and he said to me, I just need our government to go back to a level of competency so I can go back to not paying attention. And I said, you know, that's how we got here.
Yeah, and by the way, I don't think that guy's alone. I think there's a lot of people are going to be fired up for life, which is awesome. But of course, there's always going to be a segment. It's like, all right, fine.
I promise you, I will pay attention until November 6. I will vote. I will bring one friend to vote. I will do the thing.
I will donate and then please just make it better because this is too much and I get it is fucking overwhelming. It is relentless. It is terrifying. But like you said, man, that's how we got here, dude.
You know? Yes. You know, one thing that is encouraging as well as the young people that are getting involved, whether it's over climate or control issues. And I think for them, this isn't going to be a one off voting.
We know that if you start voting young, you're going to probably continue voting. And that's, you know, that's really encouraging to see them so civically minded and engaged at such a young age. We've had 17 and 18 year old guests on this podcast that are just blowing my mind without with how impassioned they are. Yeah.
I mean, teenagers are generally exasperated by their parents and older generations. Throughout the years, it feels like it feels like this is sort of the apex of that where they're just like, you guys ruined everything. Please get out of the way and we will fix it. Let me ask you this.
So aside from their scientific qualifications, right, or medical, whatever, what makes these, what else makes these folks good candidates? Because I imagine, and you can tell me if I'm wrong here, you're not just out there endorsing everybody who's got a degree. Right. Because just because you got a degree, cough, Rand Paul doesn't mean you'll help lead us in the right direction.
So talk to me about how you, I guess, filter to make these sure these are well-rounded humans. Sure. Well, I mean, first and foremost, I do very much believe that we benefit by having diversity of experience. And, you know, I mean, just looking back to the Facebook hearings that happened in the house and Senate a few months ago, it was a national embarrassment.
I mean, they were so, I mean, they were embarrassing, creepy, the whole thing. And it's a significant part of our economy. And the fact that so many of our legislators don't even understand the basic business model, remind the technology or the implications is pretty terrifying. Part of what we want to do is bring technologists in, bring physicists and physicians and climatologists and nurses and geologists.
Yes, yes, yes. You know, we've seen a number of math and science teachers elected to state legislatures in the last year and a half. So I do think that that brings a different perspective, certainly one more grounded in facts and evidence, as well as a different set of priorities. I mean, first and foremost, scientists are problem-solvers.
And I don't think it requires much of a case to say we could use more problem solvers. People who can literally just, I mean, and you learn this in seventh grade, who can say what the scientific method is? And use it. Right.
I don't care if it's even your profession, just that you remember what it is or you remember how to look it up, you know, and think like, I don't know, maybe this is a good idea. Maybe you try this. I remember reading years ago that part of what contributed to harsh drug sentences were that, you know, legislators that were deciding the policy didn't understand the difference between a gram and a kilogram. Perfect.
Great. And then I think that makes you go like, oh, we just get a little whole thing up. Right. Well, and I guess I would say that is the, that is, you know, also part of it.
I mean, these are largely political outsiders and they bring a different approach to governing, again, less ideological, but, you know, one that is going to look clear-eyed at what the problems are and find ways to fix it. Yeah. And, you know, it's funny. I've got one of my best friends is working to literally save healthcare on the ground level and sort of the analytics fund.
And his job is, he's been basically tasked with, he works in a not rural but rural-ish area in actually a great research hospital. And his, his job is to basically make people stop coming to the emergency room so much. You know, in that specific area, there's a lot of things that are transferable across our regions in America, like obesity and diabetes and such. But in his particular area, it's a lot of these people just don't take their medicine.
They don't exercise. They smoke, et cetera, et cetera. So you can send them out an emergency room every time they have pain in their chest, but they're not going to follow the directions that you tell them to do with the medicine or to do check up care or they don't have healthcare because we broke that. But if you can make them not come to the emergency room every time they don't feel well, A, it frees up the emergency room to deal with re-emergencies too.
It costs our system so much less money because it's not as reactive. And three, the people are just healthier because they're getting checkups and scans and getting their blood pressure taken and things like that. And just having someone like him, he will never run for office. But having someone like him in there to say like, look, this is how it works.
Or even further, you know, you said a word earlier, which would be incredibly like a nurse, having an emergency room nurse say, I'm going to stop helping people with my hands and I will run for office. And let me tell you what that's like and why it's broken and why are emergent, why you have to wait three hours for the emergency room and why the bills cost so much, et cetera, et cetera. It would be so instrumental and just indicative of a surge of intelligence and context that could change the whole direction of the house. I don't know, it's mind-blowing to me.
Compassion, I mean, you know, for healthcare providers, access to healthcare is again, is in a political issue. It's a real life or death issue. And I think too many politicians on the other side have forgotten that, you know, just on that note of nurses, we have a slew of nurses running this year. We have one running for Congress, Lauren Underwood in Illinois, who is a tremendous candidate.
And I know we have two right here in Pennsylvania running for the State House and State Senate, which are in very winnable districts, which would be amazing. Amazing. Could get them elected. She's from, Lauren Underwood's from Naperville.
That's like two towns over from mine. Yeah. It's right grew up. Do you know her?
I don't, I'm not sure if I know her, but we were neighbors at one point, so what I'm saying? Yes, okay. Are you one of those people that says like, I'm from Chicago, but you're not really from Chicago. You're from a nearby area.
So let me get this straight. What you want me to say when somebody asks me where I'm from is name the tiny town that I'm from 20 miles outside of Chicago that they never heard of. I'm just saying that's a little more specific and accurate. That is stupid.
I'm from Chicago. Okay. Anyways, sorry about that, Johnson. So we get distracted.
Let me ask you this. So one of the failings of the Obama area from, from President Obama, who I love with all of my heart, he's not coming back. Can you come back to me? He's not coming back.
We also have the Beyonce dancing video. They're not coming back for us. From him on down through the DNC is that we just totally failed on the state level, right? From from judges to filling state houses.
So I love that you guys are focused, not just on the federal, not just on the Senate, but also the House and also state races down to school boards. That's amazing. It's something we fail to do for literally 10 years. So and that is going to have such an effect.
Maybe 40 years. Yeah. I'm trying to be the gentle one here. You know, for one.
It's not great. Right? It's if you look at the numbers, I mean, from governorships on down, it is so bad. And that's why you see shit like what's going on in West Virginia, North Carolina.
And you're just like, what? It's insane. So let's say I argue that state races are even more important than federal ones, right? Earth systems are all or weather and climate systems are all connected, but the effects and the best way to fight back and see progress seem to be city and statewide.
I don't know. I just agree. But I would love to talk about that a little bit. I think that's true because of the makeup of Congress.
I mean, Congress could be doing actionable things to mitigate the effects of climate change, but they choose not to. So I think we are going to see the greatest results coming out of cities and states. And you know, the reality is it's a big country, but most of the people live in a few, a few states. And so, you know, and those are states that are most likely are producing the most metacarbon, but also the most likely to act on reducing it.
And I mean, it feels like it's even more. Yes. Do we need like a federal carbon fee? We're sure, right?
That is necessary. But to me, obviously in the moment, Trump's not going anywhere anytime soon, right? So he's going to veto whatever happens. And you see things like this new mayor's alliance and the we are still in alliance.
Hyperlocal is so vital, you know, getting your city council, like you said, your school board to your city council to state legislatures on states and it's pointed in the right direction. So important because they can have a big effect. You know, they can join us. They can go to the climate summit in San Francisco and things like that and say we are still in and we are still taking these measures.
That to me is why, you know, at least right now, it's like, boy, we really got a focus on that. And it feels like that's been, oh, I mean, it's always been a failure from American politics as nobody turns out in the midterms, not even just Democrats, but it seems to be so important. But also it's where you can see the most bang for your buck. Oh, absolutely.
I mean, that's the thing is congressional races now are millions and millions of dollars, whereas a school board race, I mean, a couple thousand dollars could make a difference. Depending on the states, I mean, again, it's a huge country and state legislatures vary pretty dramatically depending on how the states are set up. But you can make a very big difference by just paying attention and mobilizing people. And I just have to make a plug for the Philadelphia suburbs where I am speaking to you from.
We not only are going to pick up a number of congressional seats in the Philadelphia suburbs this year, but we have an opportunity to really change the makeup of the folks we're sending to Harrisburg in both the state house and state Senate. A lot of the moderate Republicans that represented this area in Harrisburg retired this year. These are open seats in districts that Clinton may have won by as much as seven points. So for your listeners, if they are looking to help in a big way look to the Philadelphia suburbs.
Yeah, that works. I mean, it makes sense. It's like, hey, were you shocked when Pennsylvania didn't go our way in 2016? Here's a direct place you can have.
Right. You know, let's build it from the ground backup. Yeah, I mean, you think there are towns where there's a town in Virginia where 95% of their emissions are coming from a canning factory. And yes, that canning factory brings jobs and has historically brought a lot to the economy in that area.
But you have to look at where the trade off is and you got to ask your city council those big questions of what is the trade off now in 2018 and going forward. And holy shit, if we got rid of that canning factory and found some way to help out those workers, you're saying we could wipe out 95% of our emissions and literally just make the air cleaner where we are. Like where we live, where we bring it. Yeah.
That like what a huge impact you can make. You know, while we're waiting on fucking Congress to get it together, like you can start to fix things right there. You know, don't be afraid to ask those hard questions. Yeah, exactly.
All right. I have a question. Mostly from 80s action movies. Um, where, like, how can this go bad?
Where, where can scientists lead us wrong? Well, I mean, science isn't, isn't perfect. And scientists certainly aren't perfect. But, you know, I, I don't see a downside to having civically minded scientists engaged in electoral politics.
You know, I think they're, they're motivations come through, you know, in, in, in when I speak to them, I mean, there's a clarity of vision. There's an ability to articulate why they're running and what they want to accomplish, even for a township supervisor role. And I think that that's often missing from career politicians that are just seeing it as a stepping stone. You know, we do benefit by bringing in outsiders.
And I think that was part of the conclusion, you know, I drew from 2016 of how Trump won was people are sick of the system. But I thought, wait, I thought he'd drain the swamp. He has definitely not drained the swamp. But, um, but I would, I would argue that scientists represent outsiders in a much more productive and benevolent way.
Uh, yeah, to me, I guess I can see where you're mean, like you're talking about, like scientists, 80s action, like the scientists who starts to work for the bad guys. Yeah, like an evil genius. Got it. You know, right.
Got it. So just make sure not to go. I mean, you're doing this as a strong. But by the way, like the other side of that, and again, I hate to keep coming back to it, but it's true.
It's like someone like Rand Paul who's like, yeah, I'm a doctor. You should listen to me on medical stuff and that can influence voters in one particular direction who might not take the time or the effort to look up and be like, is he right, right, is he? But he is shown that his loyalty is to his career and not to his constituents are the truth. But I'm sure, but my argument would be every vote matters.
I mean, you look at what happened in Virginia, right? It came down to one, the house of delegates came down to, and I care about this. I'm from Virginia, one vote in literally one voting one district swung that, gave him even seats and now 400,000 people have have health care that didn't have it last year, right? And to me, there's still somebody out there who is voting or has an opinion is influencing people on, like you said, the chipping away to Obamacare because they're like, well, Rand Paul's a doctor and he's in my district and he obviously knows what to do, but he knows the right thing to do.
And to me, it's like, you got to get those fucking quacks out and we got to make sure there's there's betting. And so, you know, I think it's 2018 people get, like you said, I think you could get away with effort a little bit longer now and it's very clear that's not true. And I think of vetting as much easier now. And you can't do anything these days without the social calamity, exposing your bullshit, which is good and bad.
So here's a question. I'd look at someone like cops are right. Where am I to scientifically inclined entrepreneur, be a better fit than an academic? Well, I think it's really hard to go from academia to running for Congress.
It's not impossible. And I think for law professors, there's generally more of a path there. But again, I think there's generally more of a path for lawyers in general, not every we have over 500,000 elected positions in this country. And not all of them require you putting your job or putting your career on hold.
Things like school board and city council, township supervisor races, even some state legislative positions are part time. So I think that is an easier fit for academics that can't afford and don't really want to give up their careers, but still want to serve their communities. Where, you know, I mean, running for Congress is a full-time job. You can't, you can't do that and continue to teach and research and run for office.
Right, which is too bad because Congress has never intended to be a full-time job. But, you know, things are obviously changing. And the degree with what you do have to educate yourself on the topics that are ever-changing and growing more complex requires that. But I guess then the antidote is people who are educated and are proud to base their decision-making on their education, on their ability.
Maybe they don't comprehend an issue, but they're, they're eager to take it on to understand it for themselves and for their constituents, right? That is exactly it. Is there a not afraid to tackle topics and issues that they maybe previously weren't familiar with but are important to their constituents? This is a ridiculous comparison.
But it's a little bit, no, it's just, it's a little bit how I see this podcast, which is we try to stand in for, for these folks that don't have time to, that are excited and actionable and fired up, but don't have time to educate themselves on every one of these things. So we try to learn as much, well, I guess I try to learn as much as I can. And then Brian asks questions. Live learning.
Live learning. It's a beautiful thing to watch. It's like watching Animal Planet. We try to give context, ask questions and then dial it down to specific.
So you can, at the end of it go like, got it, I got that thing. I know how to act. You do these things. And you hope that's what your representative is doing in Congress, which is, should they actually have a fucking town hall, come back and be able to answer your questions and point you in the right direction of why that's important for America and also for your specific district.
But of course, we've discovered a lot of folks aren't having town halls, which is great. So you should either call them on it or if they have one, you should go town hall project. Very important. Let me ask you a question here.
We're pivoting a little more towards action, narrowing our focus here towards what folks can do. And this has been awesome and very instructive so far. So thank you, Sean, as see, do you know what the great filter is? I love the great filter.
Do you know what this is, Sean, as see this theory? Very familiar. Okay. Get ready for it.
You didn't do it. So the idea is, so do you know what the Fermi paradox is? I'll just take it. It's all good.
You're such a nerd. So scientists Fermi one day, I don't know, the 20, 30, 40 years ago, sit with his French at lunch table and says, Hey, guys, question, where are all the other intelligent species? And they're like, Oh, well, there's all these planets out and he goes, that's great. But why haven't we seen them yet if the universe is ex old?
And so the question is, why isn't anybody out there? And so, and why haven't we seen them or heard from them, right? And some of the answers are like, Oh, our species is pretty young. Our, you know, Earth has only been around six million years humans or 300,000.
We could only work a fucking radio for the last 40, et cetera, et cetera. But the bigger question is, is the great filter, which is, does a maybe part of the reason we haven't heard from them is because there is a theoretical filter where civilization gets to a certain point and it gets snuffed out. And either that's, they don't make this jump from single to multi-cell your beings like humans did, or they can't handle nuclear technology, see also human beings, potentially, or climate change or a pandemic. What's the point is, these civilizations don't make it past a certain threshold to be able to develop interstellar travel, right?
And of course, the question for humanity is, is have we passed our great filter, which could be on the cellular level, or was getting past the Cold War it, or are we barreling towards ours with climate change and antibiotics and things like that? Anyways, let's say November 6, 2018 is like our great filter. The thing we might escape to show and then we can keep flourishing and become robots, or maybe not, it's not gonna be a robot. Let's say I've got a degree or I'm working on a degree, or I'm even science minded too late for 2018.
How should I best apply myself looking towards 2020? Well, one is you better read registered to vote. You know, a lot of states have restrictive voting registration deadlines, so don't wait. A lot of them are 30 days out or even more.
That's one too. Educate yourself on who's running. There are, of course, the congressional midterms, but we also have a lot of state legislative races. Those are important and you need to vote in them.
And then, you know, looking ahead, we'll be holding our next candidate training in Philadelphia this time in early, early next year. And that's open to anybody with a STEM background who is thinking about running for office, wants to know more, you know, you don't have to have declared a race to participate in that. You know, one of the things that I really try to emphasize is that even the most anti-science politicians know how to count. And they count the calls that come into their office.
So make your voice heard. When your representative is doing something you don't like, let them know when they're doing something that you do like, let them know it makes a difference. And a lot of people don't appreciate the difference that it can make. Yeah, absolutely.
And I think that's one of the, I've advised the five calls.org a little bit, and that's one of their big pushes is like, look, and it's right built in the app. You literally click, you make the phone call to give you the script, they plug in, it's like Mad Libs, they plug in everything you need, you just mash your fat finger against the button to make the phone call. And then you say, I talked to them, I lost a message, they didn't pick up because they have to count every one of these things and they do, even the evil people, you're right. And we've seen it make a difference on shit, like healthcare.
Right. It makes a difference. It absolutely makes a difference. And if you're nervous, do in the middle of the night, leave a message, they still have to count it.
You don't even have to talk to another human, right? It's super duper easy. Do it when your shit can't. I wonder if people know that.
We've said it so many times, but over the next few months, it's important. I mean, obviously that's not really the voting thing right now, that's for people who are in office, but there's always something going on. I sure they actually do their jobs, I guess they've been on recess a little bit now. So I guess actually we're looking at two questions.
Let's do 2018 first. What are the ways our listeners can take to arms to help get these folks that you're endorsing into office? Give us some specific steps here. Sure.
We'll go to our website, 314-Action.org and sign up. We'll keep you informed on how their races are going and what local or federal candidates that we are endorsing and asking them to support the Koch brothers and the fossil fuel industry are going to invest heavily in these midterm elections. And every dollar on our side counts and needs to go towards helping people who are going to put a pro-science agenda, bring a pro-science agenda with them. And so that is important.
Those five requests for funds do make a difference. And so get involved that way. Volunteer, you can make phone calls, you can knock on doors, you can send, they have text messaging banking now. Everyone is needed in this effort because the other side is probably going to have more money, but the votes are and the people are on our side.
Is the volunteering, is that the people that can sign up to volunteer, is that through the website as well? Yep, you can sign up to volunteer, you can see more about our candidates, see about our trainings and upcoming events, you know, and how to get involved. Awesome. Awesome.
So all right, everybody, 314 action. Go there, put a scientist or someone who is scientifically inclined or medically inclined into office at a number of different levels, your school district might be there. But let's make a difference. Let's put a nurse in the Congress and just watch what happens, you know, watch what a fundamental shift that could be.
All right. So I have two questions. You mentioned before your next training in Pennsylvania early next year, you said anybody can call this? For 2020, 2020?
Yeah, for 2020. What you said anybody with a STEM background can come? What does that mean exactly? Like, do they need a degree?
Yeah, I mean, you know, our organization is focused on people with science, technology, engineering and math backgrounds, usually that somebody with a degree in one of those fields. Okay, okay. So hopefully I have to not even right. Sorry, God, it's fine.
You could get a degree in the meantime. That is true. I could write a value or a half. Right.
Okay. And then what else can I what else can I be doing? Well, no, we've narrowed it down to not being you. Well, not me.
I'm saying I as in the formal, the wei. Sure. Oh, really? Yeah.
What can we, those with some degrees and backgrounds, you know, be doing to prepare to run besides, you know, coming to your training, but you know, let's just think like rocky style. Like what what do I do? Wait a minute. She said the training is in Philadelphia.
Yeah, perfect. So run up the steps, get your science degree. This is amazing. So what seriously, whether whether November 6 is a shit show or not, we're still going to need even more folks.
What else can these people be actively doing to put themselves in the best position? Well, it's getting involved now, get involved with, you know, your local indivisible group or party or local officials and indivisible, that's another great group that's out there. Yeah, they're doing amazing work. And this is a unique opportunity to get people's attention who haven't necessarily paid attention to politics before.
And so take advantage of it and work to engage your local community and make sure that your representatives are hearing what you have to say about issues. And yeah, man, get in touch with us. If you're thinking about it, we would love to hear from you and we can help connect you to some of these folks. If you're too shy to click on the websites yourself, we need you.
That should be more evidence than ever. And by the way, it's, you know, you look at some of these countries that have either mandatory civic or mandatory military service, there's post college or before college or there is something to that. There's a lot of arguments, but rational folks can make you the way for them. But hey, man, let's say you're getting a degree and you're like, yeah, you know what, I will go serve my country in a civic duty for the next two to four years, serve my state house, and then I'll go and be an academic or be an entrepreneur or something.
Fuck it. Why not? You know, make your impact and then get out there and you can take that experience somewhere else. So if you're a young kid, preferably if you're a female person of color who's working on your degree or either undergraduate or graduate, you know, go make it count on that way too for a couple of years.
And don't you think, I mean, the whole system would work better if people took that attitude that they're going to serve for X number of terms and then go back and limp under the lens that they helped create. That's the way the system is supposed to work. It sounds wonderful. Yeah, it does sound wonderful, doesn't it?
Don't get your fucking hopes up right now. Yeah, I know. All right, well, we just have a few more questions and stuff for you, but this has been so fantastic. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Anybody else that you think we should talk to?
Anybody else who like we like to say who's kicking ass on the ground like you are? Yeah, again, we've talked to a couple more a couple of your candidates. We've got a couple more lined up, which is awesome. I'd love to get even more from you.
We're pretty excited to be featuring all these folks running up to the election. But also, again, these existential-ish topics, whether it's antibiotics or cancer or CRISPR or space or climate or clean energy or the ocean, we like to attack them from different perspectives. So people really get a comprehensive understanding of them and how they can support them or defeat them. So anybody out there that's doing awesome, awesome work that you think would be a fascinating chat would be awesome.