Solving the Opioid Crisis

Speaker 1 0:00

You got the orange mic cap. That's pretty sick, bedford. The rest of us just have the black cap.

Speaker 2 0:06

This one matches my breath it's orange. You got orange. Were you sucking down orange?

Speaker 3 0:12

fantas this morning.

Speaker 2 0:13

What's going on? Oh, you ate an orange. No, just needs the color. You're having some cinnesnes-thesia over there. That's dismayo, are you? Smelling colors and seeing, sounds and tripping on cinnesnes-thesia Do you believe that? I don't believe that crap.

Speaker 1 0:32

It's science. You're like oh, I smell this?

Speaker 2 0:34

No, you don't, you're just making that crap up, come on. Sounds like French fries Oliver.

Speaker 1 0:39

Sacks. Right, it isn't Oliver Sacks, the neurologist. He put it in his books One of his books, I don't know.

Speaker 3 0:44

The man who thought it was. That sounds like a name of a guy you shouldn't trust. So you think they're just saying?

Speaker 1 0:48

that yes.

Speaker 2 0:49

They're just like a little weird kind of disorder.

Speaker 1 0:51

I think they put him in functional MRI and it fires the wrong sort of the brain. I don't know. I think it's a true thing.

Speaker 3 0:58

Is it like you're like, I smell music, is that?

Speaker 1 1:02

Cynesthesia is when you have a sensory perception that crosses from one sense into the other. You're like is that you can't smell? Is?

Speaker 3 1:10

that hip hop? Is that no, oh no.

Speaker 2 1:13

No, that's jazz. Oh jazz, no jazz. This jazz is giving me gas. You know it can't be real, right? Yeah, it can't be real.

Speaker 3 1:31

Should we do a solution? Oh, have we not already Welcome to Solutions for the Multiverse everybody?

Speaker 1 1:36

I'm Adam Brouse, this is Scott Malpin, and we're visited again today by Bedford Williamson. Welcome, bedford.

Speaker 2 1:43

The only person Good morning, good afternoon and good night universe Bedford Truman, right now.

Speaker 1 1:49

The only person to be on the podcast three times? Well, I've been on it three times, well, ok, thanks a lot for diminishing me the only person besides the co-hosts Wow, ok.

Speaker 3 1:57

I guess I don't count, cool. So should we do a solution? You have one for me, ok?

Speaker 1 2:03

we're going to solve the opioid crisis.

Speaker 3 2:04

Oh great, I've been needing to. I've got a solution I've been wanting to solve that, ok, it is very sad.

Speaker 1 2:09

It is very sad and very bad, but a solution would be good and happy if we could solve it. Ok, so my solution is protected by claims.

Speaker 3 2:18

No, wait, I think you're reading from the wrong thing there.

Speaker 1 2:23

Protected by claims and public transportation is the solution to the opioid crisis. I will share some stats with you, the most common so. People get addicted to opioids because they get prescribed opioids Right.

Speaker 3 2:37

OK, and opioids are pill heroin?

Speaker 1 2:41

OK, yes, and so every year, 300 million Americans suffer from opioid use disorder, oud OK, 500,000 people in America are addicted to heroin. 80% of all new heroin users are to replace opioids. All of those are prescribed, so the opioids are all prescribed to start with. Ok, here's the issue Cars are causing the opioid crisis.

Speaker 3 3:10

I'm convinced of this now.

Speaker 1 3:11

Yes, well, not cars. I mean, if you drive your car perfectly, then you won't. But car accidents, which so far in our society we've made unable to eliminate, car accidents are causing basically a huge like. So much of the opioid crisis that it's a crisis If you eliminated. Adam hates cars. Yeah, I hate cars, but this is why you should hate cars. So here, 43% of car crashes lead to injury, like a significant injury. Right, ok, most of those are injuries to the neck, back and lower back.

Speaker 3 3:47

That's the main thing that gets hurt in a car crash Makes sense the middle part of your body, yeah, you get like wrenched right, you get bashed and then you get OK.

Speaker 1 3:56

So there's 5.2 million car accidents in America, which means if 43% of them lead to serious injury, then that means 2.3 million injuries a year happen. And even low impact car accidents can commonly be the cause of back, neck and headaches, especially to headaches, neck pain, back pain and lower back pain.

Speaker 3 4:18

Right.

Speaker 1 4:19

These are all. The most common prescription of opioids is for this type of pain. Ok, ok, so there hasn't been a study. This is why it's on solutions from the multiverse and not, I don't know, the New York Times or something. There hasn't been a study that directly asked these questions. So there hasn't been a study that says of the back pain and head pain, how much it becomes from car accidents. And then of the people who have opioids from a back pain and car pain car cause, back pain, neck pain how many of those people become opioid addicted? There hasn't been a study to show that this is a regression analysis. There is. We need that's what we need.

Speaker 2 4:55

I don't know what that means. This is a regression analysis algorithm. What it we're looking at? The Explain it to the me's in the world, though You're just looking at it.

Speaker 1 5:01

The dumb dumb's, as Scott likes to say. Ok, ok, wow, knocking you down this episode.

Speaker 3 5:07

What's a regression?

Speaker 2 5:08

analysis. Is that Cause we're looking back? Ok, at the data, ok.

Speaker 3 5:13

Well, that was easier than I thought it would be, and you?

Speaker 2 5:14

can do a simple one with this, with just two planes up and down, this and this, yeah, x and Y, yeah, yeah, it's just a line of best fit.

Speaker 1 5:23

That's what we call it in high school a line of best fit. So you do a bunch of data points and then you say is there a line, Is there a correlation, Gotcha? So yeah, but, there hasn't been, so the limitation. Use that for trends.

Speaker 2 5:33

You might use that for a trend and you might be able to find the. Do that by the year too. For the accidents, and you can see, oh, this part of the year had the most accidents to release. It correlates with the most opioid prescriptions, and then, when that prescription runs out after the accident, you might be able to find the point from accident to heroin addiction. Right Might be a gradient that your probability can discover.

Speaker 3 6:03

Do this, and you might even find that there's this whole section of where the Teslas just start crashing into each other over and over again, but with that you'll be able to pinpoint where you can focus your resources for help.

Speaker 1 6:15

Yes, right, because you know what the car accidents are, if you know, car accidents are a precursor then, you could say where there's more car accidents, and that could be a test of this theory too. You could say let's look at what parts of the country or what places have more car accidents, see if then there's more.

Speaker 3 6:29

Yeah, I call it regression analysis actually.

Speaker 1 6:32

I've been toying with this term.

Speaker 2 6:33

Yeah, but then you want to take that and do an ensemble modeling Right.

Speaker 3 6:37

Oh my god. And then you want to put a couple of these algorithms together and get a better picture, that's right.

Speaker 1 6:44

I did try to look up the data on why. What are the most common prescription causes for opioids? And it was back pain. Back pain is like the majority.

Speaker 3 6:56

It's like a huge number.

Speaker 1 6:57

And then headaches and neck pain is like up there like crazy. And then leg pain, which also car accidents can cause leg pain because your legs are right there and can get smashed in. But the problem was they didn't say what was the cause of the leg pain, back pain, neck pain, headaches. All we know right now, without someone actually going and doing this study, is car accidents are causing a huge amount of back pain and back pain is the most common cause of opioid prescription. That's all we know.

Speaker 3 7:29

So you're saying it's just like you know there's overlap. We don't know exactly the overlap You're saying to address the opioid problem.

Speaker 1 7:38

where are you going with this. So now, okay. So here's the thing. You actually you can't just like. I mean, we over prescribe opioids in America, for sure, and that was one of the main problems.

Speaker 3 7:49

Well, you got your license, not me, man, you can't be a doctor anymore. That's why I'm a podcast.

Speaker 1 7:54

The natural step. But so we can't. You know, if someone's in pain, it's not ethical to not give them some solution to their pain. Like you know. If you're lying in bed at night, you know, and you just have this, like you know, aching pain, like that's torture. I mean you're literally that's like torture. You need something, so you have to do something. Okay, so you can't really cut back too much on giving. I mean you can cut back reasonably. I mean we were over prescribing, so you can cut back, okay, but you can't cut back more than what would actually solve people's pain. Otherwise you're literally torturing people and that's unethical.

Speaker 1 8:31

So I was like, well, that kind of puts us between a rock and a hard place. Right, that's a dilemma. So I was like, well, what the hell is causing all the pain? And let's do a preventative thing. Let's say, let's get rid of all the causes of the pain. That they need the prescriptions. So, I said what the hell are the causes? And I, at last, I don't know. I got opioids, you know, for my wisdom teeth and I was like, is it wisdom?

Speaker 1 8:59

I mean, is it surgery? Is surgery? The main cause of opioids Is broken bones. You know the kids falling out of trees or something. And it turns out the main cause, I found, is back pain, neck pain and head pain and leg pain. That's the main cause. So then I started to think what the hell causes that. Turns out it's the five million car accidents a year. That's what causes that. And so I said, well, shit, if we did, if we got rid of the car centrism of our society, we wouldn't just be getting rid of car centrism, we'd be getting rid of the opioid crisis. And I thought that's a damn good solution.

Debate Over Cars and Bike Infrastructure

Speaker 1 9:37

That's a good solution on the rolls first, Because obviously very pro biking, very pro public transit very anti-monoculture car. I'm not against cars.

Speaker 3 9:47

I'm just against Banning cars. What's the no? No, no, no, no, no. Just we don't want to ban anything, nope. Banning accidents, ooh, that's good. Well, if you could Hold on, let's make accidents illegal.

Speaker 1 9:58

I was planning on an accident later though.

Speaker 2 10:00

I was planning on an accident, I mean it's hard to go full force on this to me, because you don't know what this means Taking all these cars off the road, all these people on bikes. What does that create? What do you mean? You already?

Speaker 3 10:13

know Bike gangs.

Speaker 1 10:15

Have you ever seen?

Speaker 2 10:17

what's that at the end of the month?

Speaker 3 10:19

while those bikers run around. What's that called Critical mass?

Speaker 2 10:22

That was last night, that is scary right you try to cross the street and watch it.

Speaker 3 10:26

all these bike errands Terrify them. They're like a mob.

Speaker 1 10:29

They're not scary of cars, you can see people's faces.

Speaker 2 10:31

If a car hits you, you'd like die, I think people in cars are more respectful than bike riders, because bike riders says I'm not going to do as much damage, Get out of my way, I'm going to like this.

Speaker 3 10:42

I have a teammate now. We're two against one on you. No, no.

Speaker 1 10:46

I agree. I don't like critical mass and I don't like that attitude. I do not like that attitude of bikers.

Speaker 2 10:52

Bicyclists are rough.

Speaker 1 10:53

They can be jerks.

Speaker 2 10:55

Yeah, they can be jerks. Bikers are got an attitude. When you see someone in a car you're like I don't really want to get out their car.

Speaker 1 11:02

No, but cars are really jerks. I mean cars, think about car car people like curse each other out constantly.

Speaker 2 11:09

They stay in their car. Yeah, a biker will touch you. Bikers will like to. Well, they'll bang on your car. Bikers will touch your person.

Speaker 1 11:16

Bikers. You can see them, you'll touch your car, they'll bang on your car if you cut them off or whatever.

Speaker 2 11:22

They'll hit your car, they'll kick your car.

Speaker 1 11:23

Yeah, they'll kick your car. They'll scream at you too. They'll scream at you, but that's because, if you did, something really.

Speaker 2 11:28

That's because they think they may get more hurt. Well, they will. A biker like kicks your car.

Speaker 3 11:33

But then if you like bump their bike with your car, then they get all mad about it, like you're trying to run me over or whatever, and they don't want to follow the rules of the street.

Speaker 1 11:41

Well, they follow them in a different way, but yeah.

Speaker 2 11:44

Well, they go through stop signs and lights because they're like hey, I'm on a bike.

Speaker 1 11:49

Well, their faces forward, so they can see.

Speaker 3 11:51

Yeah, this is a, this is a.

Speaker 1 11:53

Cars. Your back behind the hood of your car so you can't actually see. You need to stop and like see, but a bike, you're forward and so you can actually see around the corner.

Speaker 3 12:02

This is saying is a car, car, anti bike podcast, right Critical mass every day of the week.

Speaker 2 12:07

Yeah, critical mass every day of the week in the city, right, whoa Well, I don't like critical mass.

Speaker 1 12:13

I think critical mass goes against what we should be doing as a as a bike culture. I really actually feel it's sad that critical mass is like that.

Speaker 3 12:21

You want one long bike with like a bunch of seats on it.

Speaker 1 12:23

Yeah, like a big tandem bicycle, everybody's going.

Speaker 2 12:27

If we had no cars. How many people are on bikes? Just as?

Speaker 1 12:30

many right, I think you're, I think I, but the trick is not, you can't jump. The problem is what you're doing is you're jumping to, just like bikes. What I'm saying is put in bike infrastructure that disambiguates bikes from cars, and now you have fewer of what you're saying. You don't want interactions between bicyclists and cars.

Speaker 2 12:46

But is that really so? Build the infrastructure. That, of course, realistic. You have to have only bike, only streets. Then you can't have the bike in the car. That's where all the trouble starts.

Speaker 1 12:54

But you can Car cheers, but you can put the bike bikes together over on one side and a separator and then cars, and now you've disambiguated. That's called a protected bike lane.

Speaker 2 13:04

A protected bike lane is too small for the amount of people, let's just jump to. We have the infrastructure. It's all here. Is that realistic for no cars and all these people on bikes?

Speaker 1 13:16

I mean, that's what most of the rest of the world does. I mean, what are you talking about? America's a unique country in that it has like 80% car usage. Other countries have only like 40, 50% max car usage.

Speaker 2 13:28

But they have less people.

Speaker 1 13:30

No, the rest of the world has way more people than we do. America has 300 million people. The rest of the world has 5.87 billion.

Speaker 2 13:38

I was in Thailand and there was people on the motorcycles, motorcycles. It was like critical mass with motorcycles Cross the street was crazy.

Speaker 1 13:49

Yeah, I've been in India too, and the people on bikes and moped zipping in and out of lanes.

Speaker 3 13:54

It doesn't make it seem if it doesn't feel safer. But yeah, that's where I'm saying protected bike lanes, keeping separate for bicyclists.

Speaker 1 14:03

Yeah Well, there's no opioid crisis in these, in these not car centric cities Like Copenhagen doesn't have an opioid crisis, and it's not because, I mean sure, they don't prescribe opioids as much, but they also just don't have as much chronic pain. And the reason why is because they don't have, they don't submit.

Speaker 1 14:19

They don't submit 1% of their population to car accidents every year. Let's do it. Well, I'm not saying it's a, it's not black or white, it's not like do it or not do it, it's just should we install more bike infrastructure, or should we not? Should we pay more for transit, or should we not?

Speaker 2 14:35

Should we make?

Speaker 1 14:35

transit free, or should we not? I mean, these are just questions about what we should do in the very, very meantime. And if one of the things that goes into the calculation is there's all sorts of pros and cons, but what I'm suggesting that's a new pro is we're gonna reduce the opioid addiction because people are gonna have less chronic pain because of me, fewer car accidents. That's a huge deal.

Speaker 3 14:57

What about the people who want to? You're not limiting cars, right?

Speaker 1 15:01

No, there's no way.

Speaker 3 15:01

limits cars, you're just making more availability for bikes. Is there rebates?

Speaker 1 15:06

Safe bike infrastructure. How do we?

Speaker 2 15:08

get there.

Speaker 1 15:09

I love the bike rebates. You get a bike, you get 200 bucks from the city. That's great.

Speaker 2 15:12

No, not even that you turn in your car and you cash it out for bikes. Oh, that would be awesome For your whole family. Oh, I love that.

Speaker 3 15:18

Now, what if you have?

Speaker 2 15:19

to give up. That's a great idea. That's like a solution for the you give away the guns yeah they'll buy back the car and give you 500 bucks or 2000 bucks for a bike. You bike for your whole family, because you're like, hey, I got a family, we got a car.

Speaker 1 15:30

That's a great idea. The point is to be preventative. This is a prophylactic episode, right Solution. This is not like oh, you have opioid addiction, now you don't have opioid addiction.

Speaker 3 15:40

No, it's like you have it. You can't help those people. Yeah, fuck, you got chronic pain now.

Speaker 1 15:44

Your body's already been smashed into tin can.

Speaker 3 15:46

You're like we're about solutions, but not for you.

Speaker 1 15:49

Well, I mean we need to make them comfortable and functional society.

Speaker 3 15:54

Well, you know what makes them most comfortable.

Speaker 1 15:56

Opioids, more opioids.

Speaker 3 15:57

I mean it's opioids. The big problem with opioids is that you can't get enough of them.

Speaker 1 16:00

That's the problem. If you give everybody their opioid every day, then they'll be fine. You know that's-.

Speaker 3 16:06

The number one problem is you can't get enough of them. The number two problem is you get too much of it. Well, you go if you overdo it. That's the last problem.

Speaker 1 16:13

But generally you're only gonna overdose if, like, other problems in your life are bad. If you can be a high functioning drug user, you know, if you get your drugs every day and you get clean drugs and you can use exactly the right amount and then you have a good life, then you have what?

Speaker 3 16:27

are you endorsing here? I'm just saying yeah, are you advocating?

Speaker 1 16:31

I'm advocating for what's called a harm reduction policy with regards to drug usage. So, rather than a criminal policy, a harm reduction policy, so a medicalized policy. If someone is chemically dependent on a chemical, then you should provide them that chemical in a clean, safe way.

Speaker 1 16:48

Duh you know, but then if their life is total crap in other ways no job screwed up family, screwed up healthcare, screwed up everything yeah then they're gonna cope by taking too much of the drug and they'll overdose. But if they have a good life, they'll just do the drug every day because they're chemically dependent on it. This is what Portugal just showed with their. They legalized all drugs and made it like a medical issue. Right.

Speaker 2 17:13

I know I was happy when I went to Portugal.

Speaker 3 17:16

I was like, eh, it'll be cool here because people are just decriminalized.

Speaker 2 17:20

What is that like? On this.

Speaker 3 17:22

I walked around.

Speaker 2 17:23

I saw someone run up to me and say hey man. I was like whoa, whoa, what do you want? He's like hey, nothing man, I just got some cocaine, you want some? I was like no, get out of here. He was like hey, don't be upset, I was just suffering you some cocaine. I was like okay, dude, bye. But he was like what's your problem? He was like I'll be nice to you, I'm just standing out. Drugs, yeah, he's like hey man, I'm just being nice.

Speaker 3 17:47

This is Portugal, regular morning. Cocaine merchant. Geez, you don't have to.

Speaker 2 17:50

My wife was like you didn't have to be like that. I was like, oh geez, he right up on me.

Speaker 3 17:56

She's like we didn't even get to see what his prices were. Yeah right, no, he's free. This is just Angel.

Speaker 1 18:01

Dust Angel, dust Donnie, he's just handing it out. He's nice, this is like in Hawaii, you're greeted with a lei in Portugal.

Speaker 3 18:08

He's like I'm not doing anything wrong.

Speaker 2 18:10

You're at the drugs place.

Speaker 1 18:10

It's not illegal. You're at the drugs place.

Speaker 3 18:12

You're like let me get this straight. The first one is free. They're like yes, but they're like should I be asking?

Speaker 2 18:16

more questions. They're like nah, just go ahead and take the real one, but they don't have a problem there.

Speaker 1 18:22

No, they don't their drug users, although they did. I watched the whole thing on this. They said so Oregon tried to decriminalize a lot of drugs and then it kind of didn't work and they had to rewind that and criminalize a few back again. And the guy this Portugal guy who was one of these drug guys in Portugal who put this policy into place, he explained you have to have a lot of other things in place before the decriminalization.

Speaker 1 18:48

Like you have to have like free healthcare and you have to have like free access to all kinds of counseling and you have to have like a low crime state, like you can't have a ton of poverty and a ton of social contagion and pathologies and then decriminalize drugs Like no, it's gonna become crazy. People are gonna weigh, you know weigh, abuse it and so yeah. So just the idea of like, oh, decriminalization is a solution. It's like no, eliminating poverty, giving people the basis services they need If you have all of that in place, then you can decriminalize drugs.

Speaker 2 19:21

It's like yeah, it's like a late stage, but until then do harm prevention.

Speaker 1 19:26

Until then, police drug usage, but also do harm prevention for people whose lives are being damaged by it.

Speaker 3 19:33

I was editing a podcast for my work work and they were talking about this, about back pain specifically, and they were saying one of the interesting things is that in America it happens more because of our like one of the odd results of our healthcare system, where you can go and see a doctor very quickly, as opposed to somewhere like in Canada or England where you might have to wait a little bit is that a lot of back pain they've found where it will just kind of go away on its own.

Speaker 3 20:04

three or four weeks later and not have a real explanation and like doctors, will be able to run an MRI and look at it and be like, well, we see things and we could operate and people in America are feeling. If you're feeling the back pain, you're like, yes, operate or do whatever you can, and so there's a lot of unnecessary operations or prescribing of pain medications and stuff for things that if you just had to wait a little while and quote unquote, tough it through a few weeks, it might resolve itself.

Speaker 3 20:34

I'm not saying that people who have actual serious back pain.

Speaker 1 20:37

I'm not trying to cast like that. I'm thinking that you should just tough it through.

Healthcare, Cars, and Pain Management

Speaker 3 20:41

But you was saying like there's a large chunk of people where they think they would need something and then it kind of goes away. And I've had that with my body where, like I'll have aches and pains and I'll book a PT appointment, a physical therapy appointment, and I'm like five weeks away and by the time I get there I'm like, well, I booked it for my knee and it's not doing the thing anymore, but you know it's not squeaking.

Speaker 1 21:04

Yeah, it's kind of feeling embarrassed, but it's like, oh, it's a good thing. It's a good thing.

Speaker 3 21:08

But I don't know if that's connected to. I mean, it's all connected in our healthcare system and the failings of it are all connected to this whole like opioid crisis where it's became a profit thing and they're like, oh, this is very profitable. You're like, oh yeah, giving drugs to people is very profitable turns out.

Speaker 1 21:26

I mean, we definitely over prescribed, but we also we also, you know we also did, though. So here's the counterpoint, which doesn't get said much, but I think it is important. Before we had the opioid crisis, we had a pain crisis. I mean, people were just lying in bed in pain and weren't getting the help they needed. So the people who were prescribing a lot of opioids could argue back right at you and say no, you're the bad one ethically speaking, because you want to condemn people to lying in bed in pain all day long in this horrible chronic pain. So actually, we're the good ones, and the opioid crisis is sort of this other thing we need to deal with in some other way, not by giving out fewer opioids. So you can argue it both ways, but the real solution is to cut that argument off and just prevent the chronic pain from happening in the first place, and that's why we should get rid of cars.

Speaker 2 22:20

Could that also be a safer car standard? Even higher car standards? Anything you could do to make your car accidents, your cars don't get crushed.

Speaker 1 22:30

Yeah sure, but the problem is even I said the stat there even low speed, low impact accidents can cause very significant back and neck and head pain and leg pain and it'll still lead to that. So you know, like I agree with, yeah sure, cars should not be allowed to drive faster than 85 miles an hour, like literally the car, you should just hit the gas all the way to the ground and it just shouldn't go above 85, because why do you ever need to go faster than 85 miles an hour? But even in a 30 mile an hour crunch you can really screw your back and your neck and your legs, your head.

Speaker 3 23:05

You can screw up your legs stepping down when you don't realize that there's a step.

Speaker 1 23:09

Like you know, I feel like I did that yesterday.

Speaker 3 23:11

I was walking off a I didn't realize.

Speaker 1 23:14

Are you equivocating between that and a car accident?

Speaker 3 23:16

No, I'm saying I can. What to me is severely injure myself just by walking with no speed or motors involved.

Speaker 1 23:25

So yeah, I'm thinking about it, I'm saying it's, I'm saying that makes sense.

Speaker 3 23:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, like I can injure myself just doing nothing.

Speaker 1 23:31

Put me in a car and motorize me Right, right and get crunched from all different directions. You know, yeah, you can get hit from the side, you can get from the back.

Speaker 2 23:39

So you get these government rules on the car's reduction right that's federal and then you go to these cities.

Speaker 1 23:45

No, I'm not saying to do anything like that. I'm not saying I'm not saying to restrict anything. I'm just saying build more bike infrastructure, make public transportation free. If you do that, the research already shows People don't want to be in their cars, they want to be on their bikes and taking nice, clean fast.

Speaker 2 24:00

I'm saying people don't want to be in their cars, but sometimes it's a necessity.

Speaker 3 24:03

So you have regional You're in a cold area.

Speaker 1 24:08

Detroit.

Speaker 2 24:09

Detroit, Michigan.

Speaker 1 24:10

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 24:11

What are you going to do? Ride your bikes and die in the winter.

Speaker 1 24:14

So I'm from Wisconsin, madison, and Madison plows its bike lanes and there are cyclists out 24, seven, 360.

Speaker 3 24:23

No, is that safe? Don't let it totally safe. It's not totally safe. There's a lake in Madison where bikes fall in and people die every year. These are lies Terrible, and then think about this People living in rural areas.

Speaker 2 24:35

Maybe there's less cars, but they still have the same percentage probably of accidents and they have to ride their bikes further and further. I have to get up at 5 am to ride my bike to school Nobody's saying you have to ride a bicycle, son, get up and get on your bike.

Speaker 3 24:50

Adam says that you're not allowed to have a car. I'm saying that Because you're going to get addicted to drugs. Drugs are the reason why Adam says you have to bike in the rain. I'm saying, if it is mandated, because it's true.

Speaker 2 25:02

No, it can't be mandated.

Speaker 1 25:04

All you're trying to do is get rid of the meat of the move. You know you're trying to get rid of the. You know the main. You know the chunk, the big chunk.

Speaker 3 25:12

I think also, we live in a society where it's you're, the sales pitch is you should be able to solve whatever's wrong. You know what I mean. Like you should be able to fix it and there should be a solution for it, or and the idea that like no, you're just like this. People won't accept that. I think there was a time when people would accept that and they were just like you're just like, like you limp now You're just like all right, I limp now until until my days are done, Right, right.

Speaker 3 25:41

And like now we have a, there are means to do things that we couldn't do before. I think that gives people hope, but also that gives people expectations, Right right. Where they're like. I shouldn't have to. I shouldn't have to put up with any amount of pain. I should be able to eat my cake.

Speaker 1 25:54

I should have my cake, eat it too, and then take a Zempec and not be fat. Yes, right, right.

Speaker 3 26:00

Like you're. Like you're telling me the solution is eating right and exercising Well. There has to be a. There has to be an easier one. You know what I'm like? No, that's the classic one.

Speaker 2 26:07

Well, that's very hard to maintain.

Speaker 3 26:10

Yeah, of course, with life happening work. Of course.

Speaker 2 26:16

Demand on your personal time.

Speaker 1 26:18

Last time I went to Vegas I hung out with Tony Shea, who died recently. Oh whoa.

Speaker 3 26:25

You know Tony Shea, he was a billionaire.

Speaker 1 26:27

Who is Tony Shea? He made Zappos and he sold it to Amazon.

Speaker 2 26:30

Oh yeah, and he's a billionaire.

Speaker 1 26:31

And then he did this thing in Vegas called the the downtown project, where he invested $350 million in improving downtown, like building more housing, building more transit, but you know, bike transit. More they built like a shopping mall, the more grocery stores, because like the downtown of Vegas was like a total food desert, Like it was just horrible.

Speaker 1 26:52

So they basically trying to like build like an urban context in downtown Vegas and I went there and I was, we were kind of invited, like some people that I knew were kind of invited there, and I went along with them because, we're all entrepreneurs and they wanted us to come and move there, to like do our entrepreneurship there, nice, and we were like we're not gonna move to Vegas, but it was really fun because they kind of wind and dined us and, like Tony Shea, came to dinner with us.

Speaker 2 27:16

That was a mysterious passing.

Speaker 1 27:18

It was wild yeah Candles. He had a shed full of candles and the candle shed burned down. Wait, that's how he died, that's how he died. He was doing a lot of drugs and he just he like a lot of dissociative drugs and he kind of lost his mind. He got really obsessed with fire and so he had this shed where he put like thousands of candles and he would like sit in there and like commune with fire and then, burned down, died.

Speaker 2 27:44

Some say it could have been.

Speaker 3 27:46

That's a wild labor. That's a wild labor. What could it have been?

Speaker 2 27:49

Murder oh.

Speaker 3 27:52

By candle.

Speaker 2 27:53

There's a conspiracy out there, I bet. I mean when a billionaire dies, yeah, and this is a healthy bill.

Speaker 1 27:59

I mean, this guy's like 40 years old. I mean he was young billionaire.

Speaker 3 28:03

Yeah, His heirs were like I don't know. Tony, I think you should get more into the fire stuff.

Speaker 2 28:10

That's a good move, actually, I think there was something like he just changed his will or something, hey maybe I'm just adding we need help you.

Speaker 1 28:18

Wow, he's directed.

Speaker 3 28:21

He's like, if you consider, like a thousand candles in a shed.

Speaker 2 28:24

What would the house? Well, they're promoting that right now you can go to a symphesy. I've seen that. I'm scared the candlelit piano concerts.

Speaker 1 28:43

Have you seen that in the house?

Speaker 3 29:00

You know, I like and they're like stop, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 29:04

That's right.

Speaker 2 29:06

I'm a fire survivor.

Speaker 3 29:07

Really what? Your house Fire Island. Did you go to fire out the fire?

Speaker 2 29:10

Burned down. We lost everything.

Speaker 3 29:12

I was in the fire.

Speaker 2 29:13

I was moments away from death. What?

Speaker 1 29:16

What? How'd you get out what was?

Speaker 2 29:18

the broke out a window and climbed out the third what age was?

Speaker 1 29:21

when was this? Wait a second. How'd you get down from the third floor? That's a dangerous height.

Speaker 2 29:26

Basically, I blacked out, I jumped or something.

Speaker 1 29:29

Did you? Did anyone catch? You just landed on the ground.

Speaker 2 29:32

Slaying there on the ground.

Speaker 1 29:33

What age are you when someone?

Speaker 2 29:34

walked by and took your jacket off and put it over me, over like my charcoal body.

Speaker 1 29:41

But your family all survived.

Speaker 2 29:43

It was just me, and that's good, no one died.

Speaker 1 29:47

Did other people die?

Speaker 2 29:48

No one died.

Speaker 1 29:49

But when you?

Speaker 3 29:49

were like when you were a kid or was in my adult life. I lost everything.

Speaker 1 29:55

Did you have insurance? Oh, you had, almost, I didn't have fire insurance. Now I do. That was good.

Speaker 2 30:01

But I saw it was sad watching my neighbors lose all of their things too.

Speaker 3 30:05

Right, right, right, holy cow.

Speaker 2 30:08

And the whole place was on fire was crazy Banging on doors.

Speaker 1 30:11

It was like back draft.

Speaker 2 30:13

It was very.

Speaker 1 30:14

The fire was banging on doors like the movement of the air pressure.

Speaker 2 30:19

I don't talk about it too often, but the last time I had to talk about it I had jury duty.

Speaker 1 30:24

Oh.

Speaker 2 30:24

I was in the arson case. Whoa and while they were interviewing me, they started asking me questions and I was like I have to disclose that I am, you know fire survivor and they were like get along here.

Speaker 1 30:37

I was like I may have some bias and some people.

Speaker 2 30:41

The other person wanted me you know the other? Yeah, the prosecutor was like yeah, let's they start probing me about it, and then I just bawled out and start crying oh yeah awesome In front of all the juries. It was embarrassing.

Speaker 1 30:54

No, it's not embarrassing I couldn't control it, Wow sweetest shows you're a human.

Speaker 2 30:59

And then I was like hey, I can't do this. They were like well, you promise not to do this again during trial.

Speaker 1 31:05

Yeah, I was like oh my goodness, no, like I was, like I had You're like, I planned this one. I need to take a moment, you know. Yeah, yeah, well, we don't have to talk about it.

Speaker 2 31:14

Then I got kicked off the case. I was like so happy.

Speaker 1 31:17

Oh, they didn't like. Okay, All those acting classes paid off, I'm just like wow, Teach me how to burst into tears so I can get out of jail. No, I'm joking. Wow, that's wild.

Speaker 3 31:28

I was gonna say on the opioid thing, I do jiu-jitsu and so I encounter a lot of guys who get back injuries or neck injuries and then-. From jiu-jitsu or yeah, from just finding stuff and then start taking pain meds and then get hooked on them.

Speaker 1 31:46

And so.

Speaker 3 31:46

I've always, for a very long time, I've been scared of pain meds because I'm just like no, no, no, if I have a thing going on, I wanna know that it's there, I'll feel the pain. I am deathly afraid of getting hooked because I think I have an addictive personality and I'm like, oh, I would probably Love this, yeah.

Speaker 1 32:02

Too much.

Speaker 3 32:03

Yeah, I would be way too into it. So I'm like I need to keep that out of my life. Yeah, so I can feel that that's gotta be a huge challenge for people. And then, dealing with that, I don't know where I'm going with it, but it's just like, yeah, that's a monster of a thing to try and deal with oh, yeah, yeah and if-. Monkey on your back.

Speaker 1 32:22

yeah, I mean, these things are real chemical addiction. It seems hard to sell this isn't like oh, I like getting high, or like oh, I like you know.

Speaker 3 32:29

No, no, no.

Speaker 1 32:30

This is like yeah, now I have to the sweetest chemical dependence. Now I have to feel, I have to use this to feel normal, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 32:36

But like it does feel hard to sell the idea of like we're gonna attack that by making bike lanes, but if you could draw the that's what this episode's about. If you could connect those dots for people Right, right, right. I think you could definitely. I mean if you keep stack we've been talking about protected bike lanes before and if you keep stacking-.

Speaker 1 32:55

Pantasy of all social ills, of like All social ills.

Speaker 3 33:00

All we need to do is protect a couple bike lanes, All bike lanes. All social ills will be warped. War will end. Yeah, no war World peace.

Speaker 1 33:05

Climate change is over. Done Everything perfect. Yes, the circle back to the data.

Speaker 2 33:10

I agree, you gotta look at the data, and that's where you can find the areas or the times where you can help the most. Right, because you can only help so much and you gotta get your penetration to Right when people are most susceptible, or right before that predictive time for-.

Speaker 1 33:27

Yeah, kind of high leverage. What are those high leverage points you might have to?

Speaker 2 33:30

campaign, like they do the new car sales at the beginning of the year, Like, hey, we got the brand new next year car coming out. That might be the time to tackle this Like hey.

Speaker 1 33:40

You could also just take you could also find some natural experiments Like, for example, davis in California. Davis, california, is like a crazy bike city, it's like tons of bike lanes and stuff. So you could then say what's the? Opioid level here of addiction. Also, where do those opioid people come from? Did they emerge in Davis or did they migrate?

Speaker 2 34:03

into Davis. They biked in, they biked in.

Speaker 1 34:06

They actually rode on hot air balloons Very strange phenomenon, but the opioid hot air balloon economy is pretty powerful.

Speaker 2 34:14

I think it always goes back to education. So you gotta get them in high school. High school bike clubs Everyone in high school Bike clubs.

Speaker 1 34:22

Bike clubs Everyone has to take Don't talk about bike club. Bike fight club Everyone has to bike.

Speaker 2 34:28

I remember in high school you had to pass a swimming test.

Speaker 3 34:31

You had to run through the house to pass P you had to harsh high school.

Speaker 2 34:36

You had to pass those. You had to take a swimming test.

Speaker 1 34:39

I'll throw in something about cars and stuff. Okay. So here's something. Okay, where do you you guys are gonna know the answer already. So we have to wear bike helmets. You're supposed to wear a bike helmet because, like, you could hurt your head while you're biking, right, right, okay, Most head trauma actually happens in cars, so actually you should wear helmets when you're in your car.

Speaker 2 35:04

When you're driving.

Speaker 1 35:05

Everyone in cars should by law be required to wear a helmet, because that's actually where the most head trauma happens.

Speaker 3 35:10

Because they smash their head on. What do you smash your head on inside? I guess anything inside of the car, the inside of the car, yeah.

Speaker 1 35:17

Or you hit your head on the dash. So actually cars should wear helmets. I see your other plan.

Speaker 3 35:23

You're trying to make it so uncool to be in a car. Well, this is why they People just stopped driving. This is why they no one wants to pile into their car and put on their helmet.

Speaker 1 35:32

So helmet, helmet. This is like a conspiracy theory, but it's not. It's well documented. Car companies and car people supported bike helmets as a thing because they were trying to victim blame the bicyclists. When the car would mow them down and kill them and their head would splatter like a watermelon, they'd say that's the bicyclists fault because they don't wear helmets. And then they created all this. Like, you have to wear a bike helmet In Holland and in Denmark, where they have strong bikes, the bike culture nobody wears helmets.

Speaker 1 36:05

There's no helmets Because bikes are not dangerous if you're not gonna be hit by a car, you know. So yeah. So actually, bike helmets are like a Psyop against bicyclists. You can fall off a bike and hurt your head. Not chances are done Way more dangerous that you're in a car, you get in a car accident and you hit your head. That's actually way more common, and so actually you should wear car helmets. So I'm starting a new car helmet company.

Speaker 3 36:28

Solutions Car helmets.

Speaker 2 36:31

Hey, these are stylish during flatable.

Speaker 1 36:34

Oh, inflatable Flate on impact. They can deflate them again later.

Speaker 2 36:39

It would be easier.

Speaker 1 36:39

they come with the car, yeah they come with the car we buy a car. They come with two standards, driver side passenger.

Speaker 3 36:45

Yeah, mercedes helmets Build them into the roof of the car. They just come down onto your head. That would hurt your neck. Yeah, right, that way. You need to have free movement of your head.

Speaker 2 36:56

But they already have these helmets for their bike programs.

Speaker 3 36:59

You know their motorcycle programs they have helmets. And while you're doing helmets in the car, do VR helmets? Yeah, heads up display. You're driving on a regular road, no, no, no, now you're driving an Mario Rainbow Rainbow. Exactly, we went to the same place. Change your AR glasses to your in regular world, but it looks cool. You're not going to get people to wear a helmet for safety.

Speaker 1 37:19

That's not just called mushrooms.

Speaker 3 37:22

Yeah, but you're still safe to drive, that's right. See, adam, you're not going to get people to wear a helmet for safety and stars coming out of people's exhaust while you're driving across the Bay Bridge, even on bikes.

Speaker 1 37:34

You're just describing LSD. People in the 60s did this.

Speaker 2 37:39

AR making the world look better Just making people smile. You're looking at people like get out of my way.

Speaker 1 37:45

And they're like smiling, smiling faces. You're living in a delusional wonderland.

Speaker 2 37:49

Wow, I like that Every car needs four.

Speaker 3 37:53

Apple Vision pros. God damn it.

Speaker 1 37:56

I want just the medieval AR everywhere I go, everyone's in chain mail. Everything's like torches instead of lights.

Speaker 3 38:03

It's torches. They're all looking at you going. What is this car you are driving? What is this metal?

Speaker 1 38:08

horse, and every you look at a car it turns into a carriage. Everything's horses and carriages and stuff.

Speaker 2 38:13

It's safe. Still, it's the same proportion. You still see the same people. This is the simplest solution.

Speaker 1 38:20

You go to a steampunk.

Speaker 3 38:21

AR Everywhere you look, it's all just steampunk.

Speaker 1 38:23

You look in the sky. You just see airships. You look around.

Speaker 3 38:26

No, you do. Flintstones AR and you see underneath everybody's car. You see their feet running.

Speaker 2 38:34

Wow, this AR could have stop signs that are more pronounced.

Speaker 1 38:39

Yep, when you're going through Real big 10 foot tall stop signs.

Speaker 2 38:42

Yeah, it could be. Actually add more safety to the road you could see the bike lane with your AR glasses.

Speaker 3 38:49

Hey, this is the safety bike lane. Watch out, nice green barrier. Now I'm in. I wasn't in until.

Speaker 1 38:56

As long as it's protected bike lanes and fewer car accidents. Until we have AR elements, which means there would be fewer opioids. Your opiates glowing, your hand. Rainbow rainbow, a bike in. Well, this was fun, guys. I think we did it. We did another one.

Speaker 3 39:14

Thank you, bedford, for being here again, and thank you guys for joining us.

Speaker 1 39:18

Yeah, see you guys week.

Speaker 3 39:20

Bye, cheers, all right.