Rob Dietz: 00:01

I'm Rob Dietz.

Jason Bradford: 00:02

I'm Jason Bradford.

Asher Miller: 00:04

And I'm Asher Miller. Welcome to Crazy Town, where the city council is funded by the sale of fart jars on OnlyFans.

Rob Dietz: 00:13

Maximize profits, exploit nature, hoard money, and, like Buzz Lightyear, grow the economy to infinity and beyond. That's the modern economic playbook. But for decades, one renegade country has taken a contrarian stance that actually cares about people's wellbeing and environmental health, the Himalayan nation of Bhutan. When Bhutan embraced Gross National Happiness and a sane notion of progress, environmentalists and social reformers rejoiced. They spotlighted Bhutan as an example of how we can build a better economy. But now it seems that no one can escape the gravity field of techno-capitalism's black hole of cryptocurrency and bullshit investments. In today's episode, we explore Bhutan's dark turn and go on the hunt for other examples of nations doing things to curb overexploitation of people and the planet.

Rob Dietz: 01:14

Years ago, when I was a fresh faced grad student, just after that, I got to take this professional development course at the venerable Smithsonian Institution.

Jason Bradford: 01:25

I love that.

Asher Miller: 01:26

Is that still... did they shut that one down yet?

Rob Dietz: 01:29

They're working on it. But this course was in environmental leadership, which is why I'm such an environmental leader today.

Asher Miller: 01:38

I was gonna say...

Rob Dietz: 01:40

It was kind of cool though. They brought in people from all over the world, and we learned how to do effective presentations, speak in public, manage conflict. I can't remember if there was a subsection on sarcastic podcasting.

Asher Miller: 01:53

Yeah, I was gonna say, "Fart jokes." Is that one of the workshops that they did?

Jason Bradford: 01:56

This was in the 90s?

Rob Dietz: 01:57

No, no, no. This was, this was like 2000 to 2005, around then,

Jason Bradford: 02:03

So podcasting might have just been like a twinkle in the eyes of people.

Rob Dietz: 02:07

Probably wasn't really a thing, okay, but one of the cool things about this course is three of my classmates were from the Himalayan nation of Bhutan. And all three of them were kind of like national park managers and I became friends with a guy named Sonam.

Jason Bradford: 02:24

Did he have snow leopards as pets and stuff like that?

Rob Dietz: 02:27

Well, he did introduce me to this yak cheese. It's like the Bhutanese version of a Jolly Rancher.

Jason Bradford: 02:37

What? It like squeezed all the liquid out, or whatever?

Rob Dietz: 02:39

It was so dry and hard that it was like a jawbreaker. You sort of chew on it for a day. Or if you get tired, you stop chewing and wrap it up and put it away.

Jason Bradford: 02:49

Yeah, all right, can I do this with, like, sheep milk? I don't have any yaks, but I got sheep.

Asher Miller: 02:56

Did he react the way I react to leaf blowers, or was his reaction more like in awe?

Rob Dietz: 02:56

I think he was more in awe. But yeah, I think you know, if he had lived with it the way we do, he probably would have, would have come around here.

Rob Dietz: 02:56

He claimed that it made for really strong teeth. I probably broke several of mine. But anyway, Sonam told me a lot about the culture of Bhutan, how they de-emphasize consumption, consumerism, and he said they limited the number of tourists in an attempt to preserve the cultural identity of the nation. And I just thought that was really cool. He said there was only one plane a day that would bring people to the capital city of Thimphu. And during the course, we actually had a weekend off, and I brought him home with me to DC, and we were walking around the Georgetown neighborhood. And you could see and hear all the planes flying into Reagan National Airport. And he was just blown away by this, like, "Oh my God, there's so many planes.

Rob Dietz: 03:11

I think Vegas should do this too, yeah, just limit the number of flights into Vegas, so the culture is preserved.

Asher Miller: 04:10

What culture?

Rob Dietz: 04:12

I agree preserve the strip, just the way it is.

Asher Miller: 04:18

Just the way it's been for millennia.

Rob Dietz: 04:20

Well, one of the most memorable ideas that Sonam shared was Bhutan's adoption of gross national happiness, and this is in lieu of of gross national product, or gross domestic product, which tracks how much money a nation spends in a year. And I just remember that concept instantly resonating. And this was way back before I even had waded into the waters of ecological economics or read the Limits to Growth.

Jason Bradford: 04:47

It like primed you.

Rob Dietz: 04:48

Yeah, I was like, "Cool, that's a cool concept."

Asher Miller: 04:49

Maybe we have Sonam to thank for you being here today - or that yak cheese.

Jason Bradford: 04:55

I wonder if he's on Facebook or something like that. We could try to find him or something like that. Yeah, he's probably got a yak cheese export, import business. Well, I think a lot of people resonated with that concept. I remember it kind of taking off, like, I don't know, 15 years ago or something like that. And there was a lot of discussion. This emphasis of focusing on wellbeing is not necessarily related to the volume of economic activity. But you should actually include things that are directly related to wellbeing okay, because economic activity could be, you know, a war or cancer or treatments.

Rob Dietz: 05:32

So yeah, I always, when I give talks about alternative economics, I tell students the best way to pump up GDP is just to have a big crash, or a wreck or some hospital emergency, because a lot of money changes hands during those, but what was cool is, you know, the concept Gross National Happiness. It resonates with me, but the government actually did something with this. They created a measurement tool to try to influence policy. They looked at things like, how healthy are people? How are we doing with ecological diversity? What about psychological wellbeing? And they use that to try to prioritize the policies they're creating and what activities and projects the government's undertaking.

Jason Bradford: 06:15

So this is how Bhutan became known for more than just snow leopards and yak cheese, right? In other countries and the United Nations ended up adopting some of these views of the world and trying to come up with their own kind of ways of looking at things.

Asher Miller: 06:29

15 or 20 years.

Asher Miller: 06:29

There's, like, a whole network of those focused around Gross National Happiness. Yeah, yeah. Well, guys, all good things have to come to an end. There's a nice little run there for Bhutan with Gross National Happiness.

Asher Miller: 06:36

At a certain point they're like, don't, don't do this.

Rob Dietz: 06:46

Can we just revel in some gross national happiness for a few days?

Asher Miller: 06:50

We could. Can we revel in some grossness? We just do the gross part because I have some news to share with you guys.

Rob Dietz: 06:59

You shouldn't look at the news. I hate this podcast.

Asher Miller: 07:02

Actually, I wasn't even trying to look at the news. Okay, so we use the software, you know, at PCI, kind of a team productivity software called Monday.com, I don't know why they would name it after, like, the day of the week that everyone was, like, dreading the most.

Asher Miller: 07:06

Because you show up for work, and this is, like, a work productivity thing. It's brilliant.

Rob Dietz: 07:21

We also have to always call it "Monday dot com" so we don't get confused by Monday.

Asher Miller: 07:26

That's right. Anyways, Monday.com. Apparently, I get newsletters from them and of course, the title of one of the pieces in their newsletter got my attention, so I need to share with you guys. Okay, ready? The title is "Small Nations Are Using Bitcoin to Fund Government Payrolls." Now here's where our favorite little, tiny Himalayan nation comes in. I'm going to read directly from this newsletter. Okay, quote, The tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan has quietly amassed $1.3 billion in Bitcoin reserves through government-run mining operations, representing roughly 40% of the country's entire GDP. The initiative began when King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck asked for technology-led growth ideas, prompting Druk Holding & Investments CEO Ujjwal Deep Dahal to explore bitcoin mining using the country's abundant hydropower in 2020. The strategy proved remarkably successful as bitcoin prices surged, allowing the government to fund a 65% pay raise for all civil servants in 2023 using $100 million from its reserves. As traditional revenue streams face disruption, economic analysts suggest that resource-rich smaller nations may increasingly turn to cryptocurrency mining as a way to diversify their economies and fund essential government operations.

Rob Dietz: 09:09

No!

Jason Bradford: 09:12

Bhutan. Well...

Asher Miller: 09:14

Et Tu, Bhutan?

Jason Bradford: 09:15

That's disappointing. So let's think so you've damned a river, right? Probably some amazing river.

Asher Miller: 09:22

I mean, they, I think they've been already exporting energy, is my sense. They've been exporting energy from...

Rob Dietz: 09:29

Sonam told me that they were energy-independent and sold energy to India. Now that was a while back.

Jason Bradford: 09:37

So, well, here's the thing, okay? You say, "Okay, it's our, right, it's our it's our native energy. It's all right to do what we want with it." And so they're taking hydroelectricity, and instead of selling it to India, which would make some money, they figured out that somehow you make more money mining Bitcoin, which means that India then has less electricity from hydroelectric power, so they have to run more coal plants. And so then those coal emissions lead to CO2 problems, which then lead to like the glaciers melting in Bhutan and it's for a fake currency.

Asher Miller: 10:13

Right, a fake currency, exactly right, which is very volatile, so they're consuming a ton of electricity and other resources to run these computers, to harvest, to mine, quote/unquote, something fake for a coin that's fake.

Jason Bradford: 10:28

They're trying to figure out a random number. They're trying to essentially guess around.

Asher Miller: 10:32

They just made this up, though, as the only way to, like, make this currency, basically create a unit of currency.

Rob Dietz: 10:38

I don't know what you're harping about. I mean, they're turning a real stream into a revenue stream. It's brilliant.

Asher Miller: 10:44

That's a great slogan.

Rob Dietz: 10:45

Also, I think that you're wrong, Jason, about India having to burn more coal. They're now burning tigers for electricity. They just put them right in the oven.

Jason Bradford: 10:56

What the hell?

Rob Dietz: 10:59

Look. I feel terrible about this. I had such idealism around Bhutan. I never got to go there, but it was always at the top of my list. I mean, I love mountains anyway. So Bhutan has lowland forests and mountains. I was like, what incredible geography. And then there's this sort of Buddhist culture. And yeah, like you said, Asher, it feels like at "Et Tu, Bhutan?" You know, like from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar play, where Julius learns that his his best buddy, Brutus, is one of the conspirators who's stabbing him. That's kind of how I feel about Bhutan. It almost reminds me, Jason, that time I came out to the farm and I saw you with one of those bucket wheel excavators just tearing the land up, just slaughtering the soil.

Jason Bradford: 11:46

Like the time that I was, like, flying that plane and just, like, dropping Agent Orange.

Rob Dietz: 11:53

Yeah, it's exactly like that.

Asher Miller: 11:55

You're digging to open up a fast food restaurant, right?

Rob Dietz: 11:58

Yeah, there's a Chick-fil-A opening up on the lower field tomorrow.

Asher Miller: 12:03

I think part of why this hit so hard is, we know the problems of cryptocurrencies, right? The demand for them has gone up exponentially in terms of the electricity consumption, to the point where a few years ago, even they were already, you know, consuming more energy than many countries.

Jason Bradford: 12:22

I think in five years they're going to use all energy, right?

Rob Dietz: 12:24

Oh, yeah, every bit of energy. Tiger power plants are going to be all gone by then.

Asher Miller: 12:30

So obviously, we know that this is crazy, because what the fuck is Bitcoin used for?

Rob Dietz: 12:36

Illegal things on the dark web.

Asher Miller: 12:38

There's this romantic initiation story, origin story behind it, and that people got into. But it's really just become a place for people to either do illicit transactions or try to do transactions that are not visible or independent. But really it's just another casino, former casino.

Jason Bradford: 13:00

It's like another one of these hype things where people are getting into Bitcoin because everyone else has gotten the Bitcoin, and they're just, they're trying to ride a wave up.

Asher Miller: 13:09

Right, and and for a lot of people, when they can't find a path in the traditional economy, they're like, "I'm being left behind, so I need to take risks." It's just sad, because I think for a lot of us, you know, we've talked a lot about Gross National Happiness and promoted it. Richard Heinberg, our senior fellow, was one of the advisors for the project. And I think I'll be honest, for me, a lot of it was, was holding up Bhutan, maybe in an idealistic way, in an unfairly idealistic way. It's like, here's this nation that's holding against the worst forms of industrialization and development.

Jason Bradford: 13:49

and maybe you have to be some kingdom in the Himalayas to do this. But at least there's a place, a Shangri La.

Asher Miller: 13:56

They won't let us go there.

Jason Bradford: 13:57

A Buddhist Shangri La, you know?

Rob Dietz: 14:00

Yeah, I feel the same, I loved it.

Asher Miller: 14:03

And so for the King to be like, let's figure out how to... and I'm sure the motivation is, let's just give the benefit of the doubt. The benefit of the doubt is a motivation of trying to provide more for his people, for the people who work for the government. I would be surprised if, when they started this, I think we said it was like five years ago. Maybe that was when covid was happening, and tourism, which I do think a lot of people were going to Bhutan for tourism. I know my dad and his wife went to Bhutan, you know. And so maybe they were like, "Look, we need to turn to alternative sources." But it's just sad that even this tiny little country has to, like, succumb to late-stage capitalism.

Rob Dietz: 14:51

I just want one hero. I just want one, and let's say something nice, because at least they used the proceeds from their Bitcoin mining to kick up the pay of their government employees. What do you suppose, Asher, Trump would do if he had a Bitcoin mining operation?

Asher Miller: 15:11

He already has a fake coin thing. He's not raising that money for the government. He's really raising it for himself.

Rob Dietz: 15:18

But imagine he got 40% of US GDP off of Bitcoin mining, like, what kind of shenanigans would we...

Asher Miller: 15:24

We'd get a lot of gold statues everywhere. A lot of them, yes, most of them of him.

Jason Bradford: 15:29

They would add Trump to Mount Rushmore. But then they would also remake everybody else to be Trump, just in different angles.

Asher Miller: 15:38

Or maybe he they would get some lights that would shine just on his. The other ones would be shadowed in the dark, you know. Or maybe he would just say, "Let's replace some of these." He's a big fan of Jackson, yeah, so let's get rid of, I don't know, Roosevelt up there or something, and put Jackson in.

Rob Dietz: 15:58

First of all, that's you're way out of line. Because, remember, before he was President, everything had his name on it. He's not going to do a Jackson. He's going to do a Trump. I agree with you. Jason, many angles of Trump.

Jason Bradford: 16:09

Think about what you could do with El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. Think of how big that could be.

Asher Miller: 16:16

I kind of want this to happen now.

Rob Dietz: 16:21

So I just wanted to say something nice, but now I'm going to turn to something that's deeply disturbing. I in researching this episode, I looked up Gross National Happiness, of course, and there used to be a website for it. And I was going to maybe grab some history and some stats. I want you guys to click on this link, grossnationalhappiness.com, and see what it is.

Jason Bradford: 16:47

Now it redirects to a casino game pop ups, cock fighting.

Rob Dietz: 16:56

Cock fighting. Yeah, it's poker eSports, cock fighting. Basically, it's one of these places where you probably got to have Bitcoin, but you put in your account and you can wager on..

Rob Dietz: 17:02

It redirects, so it's a real!

Asher Miller: 17:11

So there's live casino with, you know, it's Indonesian.

Rob Dietz: 17:18

But this is what we get. Instead of Gross National Happiness, we get a casino. It's very fitting for the time.

Jason Bradford: 17:23

So that used to be a real website, grossnationalhappiness.com that Bhutan had?

Rob Dietz: 17:29

Yeah, it was all about this index and how they...

Jason Bradford: 17:34

Well, they had all this money. They could have kept paying the fee to keep the website up.

Asher Miller: 17:39

Well, I guess when they decided to go away from Gross National Happiness, they really went away.

Rob Dietz: 17:44

Yeah, I think the three of us need to start a Gross National Sadness website.

Asher Miller: 17:50

Join us all there.

Rob Dietz: 17:56

Here in Crazy Town, we like to support kindred spirit podcasts that can help us make sense of the world. I recently learned about the Cited podcast through a friendly exchange with the host and producer, Gordon Katic. Cited, that's C, I, T, E, D, tells stories about how experts shape our world, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. They have a new season called "Green Dreams," where each episode documents a radical environmental thinker and their dreams for our green future. Cited asks, "Should we make their dreams a reality, or are they actually a nightmare?" And the last season was about the uses and abuses of economic expertise. So there's some shared DNA with the topics we cover here in Crazy Town, especially our fifth season on phalse prophets. To listen to Cited go to citedpodcast.com that's C, I, T, E, D podcast.com

Jason Bradford: 19:02

the AI companion industry is growing fast. By 2027 80% of adults 18 or over will have at least one and likely multiple AI romantic partners. Also by 2027, revenue in the AI scam and malware industry is expected to surpass the GDP of China. Putting these trends together strongly suggests that every AI girlfriend or boyfriend will have a 73% probability of being kidnapped in 2027. Now imagine the pain and suffering of having your AI lover held hostage and how much you would pay to get them back. That's right, the AI ransom industry is expected to surpass the oil industry in value in 2027 and you don't want your meager meat brain to be negotiating with the AI kidnappers of 2027 who will be smarter than 7 billion Einsteins combined, working without sleep and at the speed of light. This is why everyone with an artificial life partner will need a subscription to Artificial Hostage Negotiation Services, the only company working now to train models for the tsunami of artificial kidnappings that are coming in the next 18 months. If you are a savvy, qualified investor, get in on the action with our B Series notes, joining our team of prestigious founders, including Andreessen Horowitz, Coinbase, Waste Management, DraftKings, and the nation of Bhutan sovereign wealth fund. Artificial Hostage Negotiation Services, harvesting the power of AI before AI harvests your AI lover.

Asher Miller: 20:30

Well, I'm glad we we had that little ad break, because it gave me a chance to reflect, guys. And I gotta be honest, I'm feeling like a bit of a hypocrite here. Here we are talking about how disappointed we are that Bhutan, you know, decided to sell the URL, the domain for grossnationalhappiness.com to some online fucking casino or whatever. But, you know, look at us, right.

Jason Bradford: 20:54

You're no Mother Teresa.

Asher Miller: 20:56

No, well, Mother Teresa's got some.

Jason Bradford: 20:59

Et tu, Mother Teresa?

Asher Miller: 21:05

So here we are talking about this from the United States, right? Okay, among the highest GDP per capita in the world. And look how we're spending, you know, our wealth in this country, right? We're not making sure that we take care of basic services, meets our needs.

Rob Dietz: 21:25

Yeah, I mean, I've got three kids in in college, and I can't tell you how awesome it is that that's available for free.

Asher Miller: 21:32

And we've had the benefit of being the world's reserve currency. So people buy our debt. We've been racking up a debt. I think it's now $36 trillion -- it's about $107,000 per person the United States. And our Congress just passed legislation to raise that a significant amount, to give tax cuts.

Jason Bradford: 21:58

And I think we'll make it cryptocurrency.

Asher Miller: 22:02

Plus, we're cutting basic services for people, you know,

Rob Dietz: 22:05

And we have incredible clothes dryers and really awesome plastic crap that we can buy off of Amazon. So, yeah, don't, don't forget that.

Asher Miller: 22:15

So I'm just pointing out, like, you know, we got to look at our own..

Jason Bradford: 22:19

We're pretty good at crapping on ourselves.

Asher Miller: 22:22

Yeah, we are pretty good at it. It's not fair of us to basically be asking this poor, tiny, little kingdom in the Himalayas, to, like, be the shining light on the hill.

Rob Dietz: 22:33

Yeah, get to work ourselves here. I think it's worth doing a little mea culpa here, because we have this billionaire ethos in this country, right? And we're the greediest, most profit driven, most consumptive country of all time. And I think I don't know which of the three of us needs to graduate from being the president of the Wet Blanket Society to being president of the Hypocrites R Us society. But you know, maybe, maybe we can...

Rob Dietz: 22:39

Well, one wears a hat. The other wears a point blanket. We can do both.

Jason Bradford: 23:03

I walk around in a state of disappointment almost all the time.

Asher Miller: 23:07

You are a state of disappointment.

Rob Dietz: 23:09

I have to agree. You know, like we've talked about, the kind of texts that we send on a daily basis.

Asher Miller: 23:15

We do it to each other all the time.

Rob Dietz: 23:17

Yeah, you think, you think a Crazy Town episode expresses our levels of insanity. Wait till you see a text from Jason Bradford, PhD. Someone will release those files.

Jason Bradford: 23:27

Well, this weekend, for example, you got my text. I sent pictures of this. So I go to the Oregon Coast Aquarium. It's in Newport, Oregon, which is only like an hour to the west. We spent the weekend with the family there.

Rob Dietz: 23:42

A really nice aquarium with some beautiful exhibits.

Jason Bradford: 23:45

I mean, I am just in awe, right? You're like, walking through these tunnels with these incredible fish all around, and they they recreate different habitats, and you just can't believe these oceanic creatures are right there behind that thick glass. And the docents there were great. I was talking to them about the birds. They had auks.

Rob Dietz: 24:07

Puffins. Were there any puffins?

Jason Bradford: 24:09

Yeah, puffins are type of auk.

Asher Miller: 24:10

Oh, I thought you were saying O, X, ox. I was like, they're oxen. Like, swimming around in the aquarium.

Rob Dietz: 24:17

Yeah, the walruses evolved back into oxen.

Jason Bradford: 24:20

Okay, well, it's great. There's these birds that evolved to be like penguins, but in the northern hemisphere, and this is the family of auks, not as famous as penguins. Anyway. I'm just geeking out this whole thing. I'm just going great. And then at the end, we finally wind back towards the entrance/exit gate, we walked through this exhibit that's about plastics and oceanic plastics. And, yeah, of course, we do a whole, we're doing a whole episode.

Rob Dietz: 24:56

Yeah, we just covered this in a in a previous episode, and it's damn depressing,

Jason Bradford: 25:01

So I knew about our episode, and then I'm like, "Oh my gosh." Now I'm seeing this exhibit. I'm so glad they're at least educating about this, but this is depressing. So then I walked past the gift shop, and I looked to my left, and I go, "Are you fucking kidding me?" Because inside the gift shop are these plushies of sea creatures. Yeah, you can get a plushie that looks like a lobster or a crab, a plushie that looks like a jellyfish. Plushies that look like sharks. I mean, there's a giant shark plushie, like four feet long. I didn't see an auk one. There probably was a puffin, yeah, which is on the in the family. So I like, Oh, should I do this? I walked out and I grabbed a plushie gently, and I flipped it over to look at its underside, which has a tag, okay? And the tag was like, "eco planet creatures." And it was sort of advertising itself as if it was this eco-toy. And it was, love the planet, not plastics. It had a little phrasing on this, right, but it's 100% made of polyester. I'm like, "What? Wha?" From China.

Asher Miller: 26:26

But wait, hold on a second. Haven't you already gone through this? You've talked before about taking your kids to go see Wall-E, that movie. And then you walk out and they're basically selling Wall-E, plastic shit or whatever.

Jason Bradford: 26:40

Okay, so my kids were, like, nine at the time, and they cried when they saw this. And I'm thinking...

Rob Dietz: 26:46

Because Wall-E is about the destruction of Earth, the pollution...

Jason Bradford: 26:49

The junk, the consumerism, and my kids could see: what are they doing giving us this plastic kitsch as we walk out of this movie? Yeah. And like, what are any reasonably bright kids gonna think? Some 10-year-old looking at a plushie made in China that's 100% polyester gonna think?

Rob Dietz: 27:08

You were on the wrong aisle. The last time I was there, you could get a plushie, a stuffed animal of a sea lion, and it had, like the plastic fishing stuff wrapped around its throat. It's pre-wrapped. And then you could get a gray whale with its blow hole stuffed with all these mylar balloons and plastic bags.

Asher Miller: 27:27

Oh my god, it's getting dark even for me. Can we talk about something a little bit more positive? Can we have some inspiration here?

Rob Dietz: 27:37

Let's do this, because if Bhutan is not our example. Let's find another example that can disappoint us later.

Asher Miller: 27:45

We just keep kicking the can.

Rob Dietz: 27:48

Well, something happened to me recently that was inspiring to me. Somebody asked if I could name the Canadian provinces, and most Americans probably can't, right? It's our neighbor to the north.

Asher Miller: 28:02

We're solving this. Canada is going to become part of the United States. They will become states. Therefore all the provinces don't matter anymore, right? Why are we having this conversation?

Rob Dietz: 28:14

Yeah, because I'm trying to get somewhere. So I could name some of the biggies, right? Like Ontario or British Columbia or Alberta

Jason Bradford: 28:24

Yeah, Sasquatch.

Rob Dietz: 28:27

Sasquatch? (laughing)

Asher Miller: 28:28

Newfoundland.

Rob Dietz: 28:31

Saskatchewan is maybe what you... So I had forgotten some of them, though, like New Brunswick or Prince Edward Island. So I had to go to a map. I had to consult the map to see, and for the first time ever, I saw a territory called Nunavut. I had literally not heard of this place. So not none of it, but Nun-a-vut. Yeah, I don't know if I'm pronouncing it right, but it's n u n, a v, u t, Nunavut. So I was like, "What is that?" And I felt kind of stupid, because it turns out that in April of 1999 the map of Canada was redrawn. So the Northwest Territories, which was, I guess, not quite a province, a territory, but huge, it was divided into two, and that was to create this place, Nunavut, which is still a territory, right? But just geographically, this is the largest and northern most territory of Canada. It's just freaking massive. Like the western part of the state is due north of Washington State, but the eastern part of it almost touches Greenland.

Asher Miller: 29:40

Which is also going to be United States, yeah, just pointing out, yeah.

Rob Dietz: 29:43

And size, it's almost as big as Mexico. We're going to build a really big wall. It's not densely populated anyway. The idea of Nunavut was to take this land back from the Northwest Territories and provide it as territory for the Inuit for self governance. Finally, let's have land back to Indigenous people that was taken away.

Asher Miller: 30:17

In 50 years, when the global temperatures will be over three degrees Celsius higher, we'll all have moved there.

Rob Dietz: 30:25

Granted, this was not exactly a capitalist wet dream.

Jason Bradford: 30:29

I'll need a visa, ports all over the place, there in the Arctic.

Rob Dietz: 30:34

But I do want to point out, it took years of activism and hard work behind the scenes for this to happen, and also just kind of a little pat on the back, good on Canada for agreeing. And even if it's land that's far north, it's not like the United States has given back northern Alaska. You know, we were like, oh, there's oil there. Fuck you guys.

Jason Bradford: 30:55

Well, I don't think you should feel bad about not knowing this. I think 71% of the US people can't recognize the Pacific Ocean on a map.

Rob Dietz: 31:05

Well, at least that's that's a smaller number than the 73% probability of AI girlfriends and boyfriends being kidnapped in 2027.

Jason Bradford: 31:14

Yes, yes, that's right. Well, okay, the other kind of goodish news was we covered this in Episode 37 of Crazy Town, "Discounting the Future and Climate Chaos." We had an interview between Vicki Robin and Jane Davidson of Wales, and this is about the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act, and Jane Davidson was instrumental in getting that act passed, and was speaking about what that means. And it's a way for people to essentially inhabit the countryside in Wales in ways that both generate a livelihood for them in a manner that's considered sustainable, and essentially be able to subdivide these larger properties while doing so.

Rob Dietz: 32:08

Is this like your dream, Jason, of neo-peasanting?

Jason Bradford: 32:11

They kind of have to become a peasants. And so I think that's great. This is like the example of a modern society, sort of saying it is okay if you want to go out and become peasants, we will allow you. The administrative state will give you permission to go do that. But the only downside, I think, I've learned since then, there was a big report that came out about how this is going, and the report indicated that the administrative burden for those who are doing this is very high. Not that many people have gone through this. I mean, it's in the dozens.

Asher Miller: 32:45

They put the administrative burden on the people who are making this transition.

Jason Bradford: 32:50

Yes, It's an incredible, detailed plan of action they have to do. Like, you think it's hard to get a building permit, but you have to, like, sort of get pre approved to show that you have a plan for living within certain ecological tolerances of your consumption and your livelihood has to be in this place by a certain amount, but then you have to track it. So apparently there's reporting about how much of your food did you grow. And it becomes very difficult, apparently, and a lot of people are just sort of scared off by that, it sounds like.

Rob Dietz: 33:17

Yeah, but there's the growth of the administrative state to look over those folks and make sure that they aren't going to die in their first year out in the country.

Jason Bradford: 33:26

So what's crazy is, like, you know, if you live in a house that's obviously ridiculously polluting, you don't have to report this. But the people who are trying to do the right thing are supposed to fill out all these complex forms to prove that they're doing the right thing. So it's a little annoying. But this always happens in bureaucracies. It seems like whatever's new has to prove itself, even though, of course, this is more like, let's live like our ancestors did, kind of in place.

Asher Miller: 33:57

Well, yeah, I think we're gonna see lots of people making these kinds of transitions with or without government programs behind it. If I try to take a more positive spin on this whole Bhutan story, which is, look, Bhutan did a great thing. They put out this idea of happiness over just GDP, right? It did change the narrative a little bit. It led to a lot of other institutions and groups looking and questioning the idea of just GDP as being the measure of health of an economy, and now what you see a lot are organizations, alliances, networks like the Wellbeing Economy Alliance is really pushing this idea of wellbeing. There are others who I think are looking at the absurdity of the economy, of the economy that is just driving itself straight over a cliff. You know, it's like one of those self driving cars that Tesla has in Austin. And people see that, and they're like, "This is just churning up everybody."

Jason Bradford: 35:05

So Bhutan sort of like handed over the baton, passed the baton.

Asher Miller: 35:10

Bhutan, baton (sigh). We did this whole episode, sp you could get to that Bhutan baton joke.

Jason Bradford: 35:16

Is that that's a good dad joke?

Asher Miller: 35:18

Oh so good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but all I'm saying is we don't need governments, we don't need these large institutions to tell us that we can prioritize different things.

Jason Bradford: 35:27

We can take it across the finish line ourselves.

Asher Miller: 35:30

Stop it.

Melody Allison: 35:36

That's our show. Thanks for listening. If you like what you heard and you want others to consider these issues, then please share crazy town with your friends. Hit that share button in your podcast app, or just tell them face to face, maybe you can start some much needed conversations and do some things together to get us out of crazy town. Thanks again for listening and sharing.