Left Of Greg 080 The Monday Ater the 4th

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There we go. Now it's happening. Greg even says "live on." All right, it says there we go.

All right, Greg, so we'll go ahead and get started today. For those listening, we are live-streaming this over Facebook, so like I mentioned before, you can always go ahead and follow me on there and join in the conversation. But today, being recorded the 6th of July, Monday morning after the July 4th weekend, a whole bunch of stuff to talk about and get into. A number of things over the weekend occurred, most, if not all, could have been avoided in a number of different ways by conducting some very simple predictive analysis.

But people like following you, Brian, because when they follow me, they can't see what's coming up. I'm just too big.

That's perfect. So one of the things I noticed, and you've been brought up a story that you want to get into yet, but the one thing I was just talking about was the fireworks in Los Angeles. There was a cool, you know, UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) type feed where they showed everyone or all the fireworks being lit off all over the city. And my comment was like, "That was probably more fireworks this year than would have been had they— if the city were allowed to do the normal firework shows that every city does all over the U.S. for the 4th of July weekend." So it was just a comment. And then you brought up a number of different issues, including people who have been dying in large numbers trying to take a selfie and how this is all kind of connected. But it is.

So what I'm going to jump in there, I think it's a good kind of overarching theme, is the day after, right? Today's the morning after a long holiday weekend that's typically associated with high levels of partying and alcohol consumption and an explosion, which always is a recipe for good things. But I'll let you go ahead and kind of...

So many jokes on that right after we look in your luggage when you traveled. Yeah. So, Marren, when you called, all groggy and hungover...

A little groggy.

A little groggy, you know, like our CEO Shelley was off this weekend, which is a rarity, and therefore underfoot. And, you know, we were trying to get together with the kids and that just wasn't happening. Gunnison's very small town, but everything was open. Now, Brian, everybody's restriction is under their blue rather than green restriction, which means that everybody that came to visit Gunnison threw away their masks and said to hell with personal distancing. And so that led to a tremendous amount of... And you saw, Brian, I'm sure the news about Great Britain. London opened and the nudity and drunkenness and debauchery led to them going, "Yeah," and thinking about reclosing.

So, July 4th, around midnight, a middle-aged former soldier went kayaking on a local waterway and was never seen or heard from again. A few hours previous to that on the 4th, some folks that were in their 40s were driving up to see the new house that they had purchased in this area and were killed in an automobile accident. And most people when they see those headlines, Brian, they go, "Well, those are just things that happen," and, "You know, those are accidents and accidents will happen."

Mm-hmm.

I think it's a rarity. I think that one day you're going to walk outside and take a left instead of a right and you're going to get hit by a piece of a meteor and burned into a cinder. But those things are extremely rare. If you added it up and did sort of a cost-benefit analysis and said, "I'm on the road on July 4th, which is also a weekend, which is also a higher value than another day during the week, and that there may be other people that are drinking and partying and forgetting themselves because of the COVID-19 pandemic," I think you could make a score, Brian, and I think that score would determine that you were at a greater degree of risk.

I think the poor guy that decided to go out on his kayak at night alone, unknown if drinking was involved or if he had his safety equipment, but then falls into the water perhaps and is never seen from again, Brian, those are things that if you conduct even the most basic predictive analysis, you could say those are high-risk behaviors. And you being no stranger to high-risk areas, a guy who spends his life in and out of certain arenas, if we might add a very important death... But the idea is that, you know, it is life—a loss of life, loss of limb, having your loved ones die—is never fun.

So if we were going to create a continuum, on one side of the continuum, that's engaging in risky behavior even though you know better. On the other side of it is engaging in risky behavior because you're just doing something so stupid that it defies definition. And I think, Brian, that we think as humans that we're much more in control of our environment than we are. And I think that we think that we have skill sets that we know, we think we have mad ninja skills in a situation, and we don't. And we have to go back to being human and settle at a baseline, or we won't be able to determine that anomalous behavior could get us.

Okay. One, obviously, yes, I agree, especially when we often think we're much better than we are at pretty much everything in general, right? We're speaking in generalization, so a lot of this stuff is predictable, can be predicted, often is, and then people go, "Yep, look, told ya."

So, meaning, with the news, things that I gravitated towards or stuck in my head from going through everything: one, obviously, I talked about, you know, the fireworks in L.A. I mean, if you, I wish everyone could see it, just Google "Fourth of July fireworks in Los Angeles." It's pretty incredible. I mean, the whole city emits almost like it was practically planned. I mean, it's all around the same time anyway, but it almost looked like it was planned. Like, "Hey, at this time, everyone's going to go for it!" It was almost like a grand finale going on for like 30 minutes. You know, but you know, that kind of stuff is... I look at that situation and then I don't know what the final count of numbers of people shot and then killed in the city of Chicago over this past weekend, but it's in the dozens who were shot. I think almost 70 people were shot this weekend. There were 70 shootings, excuse me. Twelve people were shot. A couple young children were killed as well in, kind of, in the crossfire, which we see happen.

But here's the thing: every weekend before Memorial Day or July Fourth or a long holiday weekend, what does everyone say? They're like, "Well, this is going to be... Hey, this is typically what we see coming up this weekend." And then we see exactly that. So because of historical... This happens all the time. We've become used to it and say, "Hey, here's what's going to happen." Then why don't we ever... Nothing else is put into place to mitigate this? So just like you can predict all those shootings this weekend in Chicago, I was saying the same thing about fireworks in large cities. It's on the cards. It's still going to go. People are still going to do what they're going to do. In fact, maybe now this year, since they can't go do what they normally do, they're going to have to do it themselves, right?

So now there's... What was the increase of emergency room visits over the...?

Well, most likely services for police and EMS were overburdened because of COVID-19 and the pandemic.

Brian, that's exactly right. So each one of those things plays into each other. I was actually surprised that there wasn't something that came out over the weekend of some catastrophic thing where a city was unable to meet the demands of whatever occurred, right? Because this is, again, we're already in that perfect storm of high unemployment, a pandemic, social and civil unrest. Then you put the weekend and a long weekend and alcohol into that. So you're already primed for something catastrophic to occur. So I was actually kind of surprised because I was nervous over the weekend, right? Like, "Hey, this is one of those weekends where this could happen. Something could be big." Although, we're still early on a Monday, Brian, so we may learn more about that. It's all up to the journalistic, yellow journalistic narrative that they want to feed us a little at a time.

But I think you brought up something that's hugely important. Listen, if this was an extended weekend and it was Arbor Day, not as much risk calculated. Why? Because the Fourth of July is, you know, it means different things to different people. Certain people have expectations on the Fourth of July. Now you also say, "Hey, listen, we're living in an environment where it's been closed off for so long, and this is the first big open-air holiday that happens to coincide with us emerging from the pandemic." And what happens is now people are going to go back the other way because it doesn't have to be a pendulous swing.

And if you'll indulge me—and I think that the viewers and listeners will—I think what we should do is talk about a couple of the instances that we've seen. And I'll give you an example where predictive analysis was, and failed, because people elected to turn off those emergency mechanisms that our brain is already feeding us. You had the instincts that something catastrophic may occur on this time. I'm saying that it perhaps did, and I'm saying catastrophic might be all those deaths, and specifically the deaths of those two young kids.

I'd like to tell you about a time I worked with a guy named Mike Caruso. And Mike, if you're out there, loved brother, I hope you're doing great, I hope your continued safety and working with what was called the Charlie 50 mid-car. It was an interim car that was designed because there was a lot of bad stuff going on between shift change and they didn't have the strength out on the road to address these in-progress street crimes. And so we were running late and it was coming up on the bell on New Year's, and I was driving like an idiot. We stayed a little too long on a call and I was heading up to the Walter Reuther Freeway to get under an overpass. And so I'm telling Mike this, I said, "We've got to move, got to move!" And he's like, "Why are you so nervous?" He was very measured and very studious and a genius. And I said, "Man, it's going to rain hell, and people are going to be firing their weapons, and we've got to get under cover. We're a long way off."

And so as we're working through a subdivision to Eight Mile and Dequindre, all of a sudden the clock is ticking, and a guy steps out of the shadows in front of us with an AKM on full auto—a rifle, folks, a military-style rifle with a big clip—and is just blasting into the air. And he's, you know, his rounds per minute, Brian, are making the tracers just one line. You see what I'm saying? Like it's got an imaginary kite that he's swinging around and the brass is hitting our windscreen. And, you know, we're both like, "Yeah, you cops, you're expecting anything, you're looking for anything." But this guy's a meter away from us and, you know, kind of looks over his shoulder, notices it's the po (police officer), and gives us the "my bad" and then he's off, right? And so the question was still hanging in Mike Caruso's mouth: "Why are we in such a hurry for the overpass?" And I go, "Well, this is a perfect example of why we need to be up there."

So, Brian, we learned historically, historical perspective, that that's a night where people come out, and specifically in areas like Detroit, where they like to shoot. There's a Devil's Night in Detroit where they like to burn things down. If you know those and you still choose to be a part of it, to go out on the street, to be involved in that, Brian, your risk level increases. I mean, it's a non-essential activity for you to go out there. So you choose to go out there, you increase your risk of injury or death.

Well, not only... All right, so you're saying, "Hey, knowing this, I chose to do something anyway." Now that could be something simple, right? So we took out to the lagoon near us, met some friends out there, and we chose, "Oh, it's going to be busy, but, you know, we'll rent a little kayak and throw the cooler in there and we'll paddle over to them." Rather, so we don't... We're not driving anywhere, we literally walk over there, get in, and, you know, so we can go have some beers and some drinks and have less responsibility, right? I'm not driving, or that's going to be bad, right?

The same thing. We... then people forget that when you go, "All right, hey, I'm going to do this anyway, even though it's crazy, even though there's going to be a lot of people out, the beach is going to be packed, it's going to be this." Like, "Well, that means we're... We are partly responsible when something occurs to us now, just merely your attendance." But I... and I don't want anyone to really take that the wrong way, meaning, "Oh, you're telling me I shouldn't go out and do this." No, you should go out and enjoy your freedom to do and, you know, go enjoy what your community or state or this country provides, right? You should absolutely. But we forget that when we do those things, we are accepting, right? We are implicitly accepting some of the responsibility. But we don't often get held responsible for it, right? We always want to do the, "Oh, well, I didn't know. I was just down here with my family," or, "I was doing this," or, "I didn't know that this would turn into a shootout or an argument or an assault or whatever." It's like, "No, you've seen this before in your life. If you're not accounting for that, then you're part of the problem." But I don't think people want to hear it that way, do you understand?

Exactly. So let's, let's, let's put that into a broader context, Brian. The problem with the human brain—yes, there's a problem, folks! The problem with the human brain is each time that you survive an incident and that incident was fun, you have a certain amount of electrochemical neurotransmitters that are released that make you want to repeat that fun behavior. And so whether it's food-related, then you see a sign on the freeway when you're coming home advertising the food and you go, "Damn, I'm hungry," and now you want to go eat.

What happened is you and your lovely family when you went out there, you survived that incident, its lowest level of definition. And then you came back and said, "Wow, that was fun!" So you're more willing to repeat that behavior in the future, even if the risks are greater. The problem is that our neurons are telling us, "That was fun. We want to do it." So I'll give you a perfect example of that: people come to Colorado every year, get a rental sled and want to go skiing at Crested Butte or one of the other fine resorts that are around here. So they get the rental sled, they've never driven on icy pavement or in deep snow before, and they figure that four-wheel drive means I can drive and stop just as quickly because all four tires are turning and I've got that extra traction. No, it means none of that! And so these death sleds are whizzing by and off the road and upside down and people die. And they go, "Oh, well, that was unfortunate." No, it's not merely unfortunate, it's engaging in conduct and not predicting the likely outcome.

Now if you predict the outcome and you say there is a risk involved and you try to mitigate the risk, everything's fine, and that's what you did. So you're not telling people to lock yourself up and, you know, let me give you an example. Okay, I'm in North Warren and driving away from the Warren Police Department and heading down to the south end, and a call goes out for an industrial accident. So I drive over to the industrial accident and there's a gentleman who's in a pit up to about here. And the pit is slowly filling in with this water, murky cement mud mixture. And he's talking to the other guys and they can reach up and grab his arm and nobody can free him. And it's going a little bit, and the hole is not much, maybe here, it's a trench actually that he's standing in. And they have all the safety equipment and they had these things and numerous personnel. And I'm looking at it, I'm going, "Okay, well, not much of an industrial accident unless there's like a bear trap on his leg or he lost, you know, fingers or something." And all of a sudden the stuff keeps going up and the guy starts turning cyanotic, he starts turning blue, and he dies. He dies right there in front of me.

What happened is the immense pressure in that trench, even though it wasn't that deep, did not allow for his continued respiration and he died. He coded out. And I'm sitting there going, "This guy is dead." Now, now they were ultimately able to get all of them out of the hole, Brian, but they couldn't resurrect him. And here the guy was talking to everybody just moments before like everything was fine, "Hey listen, we need to expedite, it's getting harder for me." And I'm thinking, "Hey, most of it's stuff like, come on, the guy's already expired," or, "You know, one or two breaths." So it shocked me and surprised me. Now, do you think for a second, Brian, that when that guy got into that trench he was thinking that there was going to be an industrial accident that was going to lead to his death and it was only going to take moments and every single person standing around him was not going to be able to help him? That's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the critical thinking necessary for you to look at this and go, "Damn, maybe let's check the additional safety protocols," or, "Maybe today is not my day to get in the hole." Do you get what I'm trying to say? And people take risks like that all day long, Brian, and they measure them and they go, "Ah, what the hell, it's okay."

So that goes into... it's hard for us sometimes to see that and go, "Oh, what else should be?" I mean, I know you just wrote a lessons learned on, you give a bunch of examples of, you know, a kid falls in the pool, then the next family member jumps in there. You go, "Okay." And every family member jumps in, but they don't know how to swim, and they all end up dying. But the same thing, it goes to a construction site where, you know, the guy goes into, working on something, and soon finds the fumes or something or lack of oxygen take over, but it doesn't seem dangerous because we can't see any danger, right? So what happens? The next guy goes in, the next guy goes in. So what we see now, we see that happen, especially probably from your background, you have a ton of experience that where someone does something that ends up getting them seriously hurt or killed, but it didn't seem like a threat at the time.

Exactly.

But that's not unlike that. I mean, everything that's going on with COVID-19 right now, I mean, exactly. How is it different? We don't see it, so we underestimate its potential.

True, always.

So we don't see insider threats. We don't see the person, you know, abducting kids down the street.

So your suicide of my best friend or my child surprised me because I did not see any of the cues that were leading up to it.

Okay. Right.

Articles after that saying so we're no warning until instructed and see.

So connect... Connect those dots for me. Meaning, you have how people are acting, given the COVID-19 pandemic. How someone, you know, misses something where their family member commits suicide, or you have the person who gets into a fatal or nearly fatal car accident, trying to drive in conditions that they were not prepared for. So how are those three all related?

Well, let's break those down together, okay? And I'll add a fourth because, you know me, I love storytelling 101. Oh, that's... So, you know, Ohio, I believe it was, my memory's fading on this issue. Two kids went out with a .22 rifle, no parental supervision whatsoever. And they climbed up on a cement dome. At the top of this cement dome was a vent. They knocked the vent off and tipped the rifle up in a fashion so the rifle was aiming straight down, and manually fired the trigger on the .22 into the air vent. The explosion immolated both of the kids and much of the surrounding area because it was a firework storage facility that had black powder and ammo and everything else. Kids knew. Kids walked past the sign. And people say, "But kids will be kids, Your Honor." Okay, the kids had a gun. I don't care that it's a .22. Ask Ron how important a .22 is, as many of the people that we know, Brian, that have been shot at intentionally with a .22.

So here's the first part of the problem. Back here, mom and dad had to say at some point, "Listen, if you point that at something, you'll kill it, and it's an explosive gas forcing the bullet out there." But nobody said anything. And so things happen in stages, Brian. They don't happen all at once. So that day when those guys grabbed that gun and grabbed that box of ammo, they probably said to somebody before then, whether they did or not is inadmissible, but they may have said, "Hey, let's go back to that fireworks factory." They didn't find it by dead reckoning just on the morning and say, "Hey, here's a gun." Those little things add up, Brian. And what happens is it starts out as a clean little kid walking out of the house, and by the time he gets over here, it's Charles Schultz's Pigpen. You remember Pigpen from back in the day, and all those things are no lies and stuff. Yeah. But all those things that are swirling around, Brian, now are these ideas that humans are coming up with, "If this is good, this is better." You've seen it in skateboarding videos, haven't you, where the kids make the ramp, "Let's make the ramp higher! And if we're going to jump something, let's jump Uncle Tommy!"

What happens, Brian, is our brain doesn't know when to say, "Whoa, we've gone too far," because we've already passed those checks and balances. Our brain looks at a thing and it says, "Hey, I will tell you this vehicle is going to get me to the hotel where I'm going to sleep with my old lady or a girlfriend or whatever else, and I'm going to have a fine dinner." So the vehicle becomes the vehicle to get me to the thing that gives me those positive accolades in the wonderful brain chemistry. So therefore the vehicle is less now because I'm end-justifying. I'm already making that leap to where I'm going to have the party. So I don't consider the minutiae in here that can kill me.

So you're accepting... So, all right, so you're what you're saying is because I have too much weight, because I have some end state, some goal in mind, that I was willing to overlook something that maybe I even would have... I wouldn't have in a different circumstance because I'm focused on whatever that end state is.

So you're overriding your human survival system. So a mountain lion kills an animal. A mountain lion eats the sweetmeats and the back straps and all those other things, and then takes time to poop around in and urinate around and cover up the remainder of the animal. And sooner or later the bear comes by and goes, "Holy crap, you know, somebody left me lunch!" And so we have the circle of life brandishing the whole thing at the break. But the idea is that the smell of decomposition is essential not only to break down the cadaver, but to get all those different, you know, the blowfly and everything else that has to bring it back to nature. Yeah, but it's also there to protect us. So as we walk into an area and we go, "Oh, what's that horrible smell?" We don't even need our entire field of view at this point. We know that that smells bad. Bad smell stops us from not only putting it in our mouth, that's why our nose is here, but it also environmentally tells us, "Man, something's not right. Go away."

Now if we then see bones from previous, Brian, and we see some intestines and those other things from current, those are now visual cues. And now all of a sudden cognition kicks in and it's like, "Man, we're in a bad area." Now if we see the cave, now we have the geographic. Right. All of those things—atmospheric, the geographic, biometric, Brian—have come together to warn the human. What do we consistently do? We allow denial to come in. "Oh, no, they wouldn't get online in California!" Do you see what I'm trying to say? "Let's keep bicycling past this area." And so we don't balance that. Human beings have to understand baseline plus anomaly equals decision. It isn't just to find terrorists or criminals or internal threats. It's listening to the message my body is sending me in a timely fashion to empower away so I can avoid these catastrophic events.

So, in that, you know, you brought up denial and you brought up a number of different things, but I think this is at a base level. Some people can understand, "Okay, well, I get that. Like, if I saw mountain lion tracks, I'd be like, 'Hey, let's get out of here because there's a mountain lion near here.' It's, you know, dangerous." But that's a track. Yeah. The thing is that we can't... because we can't see certain things. But right, so that at a micro level, individually, everyone could say, "Oh, well, I plan for that," or, "I make sure I fill up my tank of gas before we hit the road," or, "I packed an extra food and water for the kids when we're going on here," right? So sometimes we can do that individually. People say, "Well, this is all I really need to do for that situation." And nine times out of ten, they're probably right, you know, just basic precautionary measures, right?

When we scale up and, you know, now we're making decisions for a community or a city or a country, a lot of that stuff tends to go out the window, right? And so we don't kick once again, because it comes down to, "I can't see it, touch it, taste it, smell it," right? Everyone's heard that line or used, "Hey, something smells fishy, smells funny," right? Here we are, I'm going to go ahead and skip right over the past. It takes us back to specifically our pandemic threat that we're dealing with right now that throws everything into this complete chaos. This doesn't need to, but because we don't understand it, we can't see it, that's why it makes everything so... "Hey, well, why do we have to do that because before they said this and well they have to stand over here now?" Because it's just lack of communication.

But, okay, let me, let me ask you in the scientific fashion, Brian, you're a subject-matter expert when it comes to IDIQ (Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity) and Global War on Terror money and those type of things, because you've been in the business a long time. Would it be a fair assessment, would it be a true statement that Global War on Terror money, when a lot of us and coalition forces were dying, that money and the funding came from everywhere and increased?

Yes.

Okay. Would it be a fair statement that when less Marines and soldiers and sailors and airmen were dying, that that money started drying up and it's not...?

Absolutely.

Have you ever... Well, I'm talking to... pardon my language... I'm talking to the guy that's panhandled and pandered in every public and dance that I've ever been on. My buddy in there and got it for a sandwich. So I want you to imagine, Brian, when we were going down into the basement of Penn Station or any of the other places recently, even in Denver, yeah, Denver. Yeah. Okay. So you remember the escalator that was going down and up, you know, the smooth center that separates you up from the down? Remember those little balustrades, those little... those little porcupine backs you saw there, the little things that stick up, right? Why were they there? Those are there for people like myself who look at that and go, "Well, prototypically looking down an escalator, this thing in the middle here, between the down and the up, looks like a little slide." You're honed, and people like me want to slide down it. So, yeah.

Add to that, add to that there are railings. When you see a railing, a railing generally separates something from something. So if you're on a roadway and you see a railing, they call them, like, you know, lane markers or whatever, the suggestions are, you know, it's to keep you in your lane because if you go in another lane, you might get killed. Yet the original story idea that you and I had circulated just a couple hours ago was people dying on selfies. Now so far, just in my vicinity here, we had one that was hiking, we had one that was skiing out of bounds. The person that was hiking hiked over that railing to take the shot. And I can't find my notes yet, but I'll find a third one, Brian. The idea that there are safety functions on the escalator, the idea that there are, you know, safety railings and guardrails on highways, yet we choose to go over them, is an important concept I want to leave our listeners and viewers with. We'll talk a lot more about that, but I want them right now to visualize those barriers. Because what happens is, they're railing or something. Yeah, and especially your scenic overlook where it's got the railing there and says, "Hey, that's where you're supposed to stop." First we learn, okay. The problem is then we test, and finally we push our boundaries. And every single time that we push our boundaries, it's like going out on thin ice. And guess what? It's going to be a roll of the dice and the dice aren't always going to end up in your favor. So you have to look at those things and I want you to see that. Why is God, Buddha, Vishnu, Allah telling me this morning, "Go in your visor on your slide when you're done with this call and you're headed out to lunch and tip it down," and it'll say right here that you shouldn't drive this vehicle like Joie Chitwood, because it can tip over? And it also says that, "Hey, listen, when you're in four-wheel drive, you know, you don't have the stopping radius." Everything's got a warning on it. Of course, those damn hand towels in the men's bathroom, you know, at the airport, say, "Don't stick your head in here because you could hang from it." I'm saying that we as humans have lived so long without dangerous surroundings that our ability to sense the danger around it has diminished.

Well, I mean, some would say, some might argue that because there are those warnings everywhere and we see that stuff and there are those precautions that we almost don't even pay attention to them anymore. So it becomes... There's so many that we can't... we aren't expected to. It's almost dumbed us down to the point like, "Remember that?" We're going to... I haven't seen one yet this year, but I haven't been watching as much news, but what happens during the summer time? You've seen it where the newscasts come on and go, "Hey, folks, remember the one we saw? I think we're out on the East Coast or something where it said, 'Hey, make sure if you have to, leave a note next to your steering wheel or on your dashboard to remind you to take your kids out of the backseat when you go in and shopping, so you don't lock them in a hot car.'" Okay, that's the... the fact that you would have to leave that note for yourself, I think, is telling right there, how far we have to dumb things down, that you would forget your own child in the car.

How many commercials have you and I seen just in the last two years where the family's truck is backing out of the driveway and a semi-truck is coming and the car stops itself and everybody laughs, "Oh, that was a close one!" Or the guy's driving through the rain in Dallas and there's a jogger and they're about to intersect and the car locks it up and the jogger goes by and they both give the thumbs up. Brian, we're giving the brain's chemistry the wrong message. And COVID-19 is so dangerous to us because we're not walking around in a zombie apocalypse with our neighbor. If we saw those and smelled those, clearly we would have a sense of the magnitude of the death. But sometimes it is going to hurt some of the people listening out there. Sometimes we put granny in a nursing home because we have to distance ourself. That used to be our mom and we can't look at mom anymore and mom's not making sense because she's got such bad Alzheimer's and bed sores and I can't take care of her.

And guess what happens in floods? Man, you remember how many people they couldn't get out in time in the flood and they died at the old folks' home. Yeah. And now with COVID-19, many people are dying because of the respiratory illness that they already have and then they're getting it, Brian. Can you imagine going to your mom or dad now and saying, "Hey, we've made the decision to move you to assisted living"? What I'm trying to say, they're going to be fighting, file charges, it had to do that, it's attempted homicide. The selfies show two things that all our listeners must know: one, your ego will make you do stupid things, and you're not going to tell your ego "no." That's one. And the second thing is you're looking, you go, "That's not so high, it's not so slippery. I can hang on to that rail." And then once you get out there, Brian, and your advanced critical thinking is hampered by norepinephrine, epinephrine, the adrenal cortex pumping and everything else because it's exciting and look at that beautiful view, all of a sudden it's just out of your reach or your feet slip and you don't have that third point of contact and then you're dead. And so, you know, what's the benefit of that? You've got the best photograph of your life. And we take photos of everything. I certainly do for training. But you know what, most of the photos that you mere mortals take when you go out there, there's a gift shop and there are a thousand photos of that same view, and guess what? They're all done safely and you don't have to die holding onto your phone. We see that much too often.

Do you remember back in the day, Brian, before social media was popular, the agent that came out and said, "Okay, I'm going to teach you how to safely use the weapon"? And what was the next thing he did? He shot himself. And then we all joke about that, laugh about it. We assigned the wrong chemical cocktail to that signal and now it becomes things that we joke about. But nobody really thinks those happen. Those become like the UFO or the Sasquatch.

Well, yeah. We then, of course, conflate any type of threat or thing that we don't understand, right? They then become something so outrageous that if we start going down the pathway of just making stuff up as we go along, urban legend. Right. That's where we had the caller keep watching the ghost shows and the Bigfoot shows, and they haven't shown him yet, they haven't caught him yet. How many seasons in are they? I did watch Return to Mayberry and they did catch Otis and somebody, I think it was Ernest T. Bass, that were doing the Loch Ness monster on the lake. It's the same thing, Brian. Everybody wants to believe that and you want to believe what your brain is telling you. You take a look at the roadway and you go, "It's not that bad." And these other vehicles are driving at this speed, yet you don't possess the skills. So your brain gives you the bravado, the confidence to tell you, "Hey, hit the gas! Come on, what's going on?"

You've driven with me and 99% of the time you're driving, you're an incredible driver. But a driver drives, passengers are looking at stuff, and I'm feeding you stuff like the road temperature, what's coming up, what day it is, right? And that goes into, you know, even driving is a perfect example of how we take, you know, a few thousand pounds vehicle driving 80, 90 miles an hour, just because you do it all the time, like it's nothing, that we don't ever get into that, that, you know, we forget that we're taking a risk. It's inherently dangerous what we're doing right there, and it actually, we are, you know, outperforming what we're wired to do so to speak.

No, overperforming.

Yeah, well that is in the context of overperforming, meaning we're good at going over those edges. No, what I mean is we're far beyond what the human performance... Yeah. What we can actually physiologically do. We weren't, you know, maybe, maybe a couple hundred thousand years, we'll actually be able to process information at 75 miles an hour, but we can't today, even though we drive that all the time. But that goes into, you know, with the situation that the nation and everyone is in right now and how there's some uncertainty, there's a pandemic going on, there's a bad economy, there's high unemployment, there's this. All right. So now it's, it's kind of now things are heating up literally because it's summer and things are heating up and we want to get outside, we want to go do things. So what does this continue to do to us, or is this now a reset to go, because we're learning, where humans have to go, "Oh, crap!" Like, we now have to take a little bit more care of ourselves, or we have to do a little bit more predictive analysis? I'm not sure. We're not there yet, but it's... What is the situation? Another one of those places like 100 years ago with the Spanish Influenza that came across and said, "All right, we have to now... this is something we're going to have to deal with again. How do we do this? What do we do? Figure it out as we go along." And I think it still falls back into all the precautions are very common sense type stuff, right?

It's been around for what, three or four million years, so it's not novel. This, this version of it is Spanish Flu, like you're saying, the influenza, it was novel. So it was H1N1. But we learned to either cope with it, live with it, or fight it. And Brian, we're not doing that. We went to pick up the dresser at IKEA, it came in a box, we went home and the very first thing we threw away was the directions. And then we're wondering why that catawampus thing scares us when we walk into the bedroom. How many times have we been lost, because... not meaning you and I, meaning all humans, and specifically male humans more than females, I think, because we didn't want to pull in somewhere and go, "Hey, where the hell are the directions?" You know, we'll, we'll follow there. There's a sign down the road, one of the ranchers has, "GPS is wrong. This is my property!" You know, big sign, and he's out there with the double-barrel shotgun.

Brian, what happens is we think that we know more than we do. We think that our human performance is more than it is. And we consistently look in nature and we say, "Well, it's not as important." Okay. So remember, flash the bank. Remember the first time we used to play with aluminum bats outside on the ball field all the time? Nobody said a word. We used to have metal skates and no mouthpieces, and there were no helmets to fit this big head when I was riding the Rackety Boom to school when I was a kid. And all of a sudden we learned that lightning strikes well in front of the storm and it kills a bunch of people. Okay, we can't wrap our head around that there's a link between smoking and lung cancer. So we're sometimes our own worst enemy. And now I see a person in the store that's not wearing a mask and I want to fight them, or I'm afraid to go up and tell them, "Hey, did you not see the sign?" And everywhere around us, the news for the first time is actually doing stuff, sometimes, right? And they're showing that, "Hey, we opened up and now the spike in the COVID-19 cases, we have to close back down." Don't we all want to form a partnership with other human beings to be safer now, when it counts the most? Because as this thing goes along gradually, the people most at risk will die off.

Yes.

Brian, they'll die off from the virus or they'll die off from age. Do you see what I'm trying to say? So the idea is like when we were talking that you're talking Spanish Influenza, Brian, it was pregnant women and babies. It's a different person. So now the target group is much, much older. And in a couple of generations that group will be gone. And you'll say, "Yeah, but the next will be filled in." Yeah, but the next better be smarter because if they're not smarter, if they don't look at their... therefore, for example, respiratory health, and they don't look at a mask... And the arguments, Brian, for not wearing a mask that I've seen just in the Crested Butte news or the Gunnison news, you know, "fake virus," "who are you," "and it's not going to help her." That is because there's a lot of factors at play. They've suddenly became a very political thing, unfortunately, like everything.

Like I do, everything seems to be very binary politically right now. It's a zero or one, which I... that's not how politics are. We kind of...

It's not how survival works, but survival is a harsh mistress and that is going to kill you if you don't pay attention. And your survival is largely your personal responsibility. And should you not choose that, a kid going to college, you tell the kid, "Don't drink, don't drink, don't drink, don't do hazing." And they go to college and they do it anyway. Those kids that elect to do that and die are the urban myths that we never see again. And the other kid that survived, the brain's chemistry is going, "See, I dodged that bullet!" We'll stop that.

Yeah. And the idea is too is it's not... What we've been talking about most through this time, there's a lot of the ancillary or second and third order effects of what's occurring. It's not the actual right word, although we now have, we have a really good understanding of how this works, only because of who we're partnered with now and the stuff we're working on and very, you know, very knowledgeable doctors explain it to us. But besides that, we've been talking about the second, third order effects of everything that's going on. So, what you're getting into with going to a place where masks... Like, you could now be out with your family and walk into, all of a sudden, an assault or an attack or someone, because over someone wearing a mask. So what do you think you're trying to do? Do the right thing or wrong thing, whatever you decide you're on, I don't care. It's you could walk into a situation where, "Oh, you don't feel like wearing a mask." And now that person is very ardent and very for it, and that's their establishment, and now you get shot or now you get beat up. Or the opposite, you know what I mean? Like, it doesn't matter which side it is, it's because of the high level of attention, because of the heat, because it's summer, because of the economic uncertainty, because you're walking into someone's business, it's their livelihood. Now what you think is, "I'm just going to run down to the store and pick up a few things for the kids." Now all of a sudden, you walk into a life-or-death decision. And you might make the wrong turn and come into protesters that are violent and burning things down. Not to scare anyone. It's learning to go, "You, right now, there is a high chance that things can escalate very quickly." So you have to take that into consideration in everything you do, so that you don't walk into it. Because, right, we... I see all the stuff out there, people like, "How to not get stuck in a protest or not get..." But it's like, if you're anywhere near that, then you now are assuming responsibility. Meaning, if you're going like, "Well, I just wanted to go check things out," guess what? You don't get to play the victim afterwards. I'm sorry, you don't. Like, you went there knowing what can happen in those situations, so you're responsible for your actions. And now you, you might not get a response when you hit 911 now because someone's... people have decided that, "Hey, we need less of that," and which doesn't make any sense, but hey, that might happen to you now. So additional factors you have to take into consideration that can happen. So when you're just trying to go visit your parents wherever, in whatever city, like, these are considerations. And then people want to go, "Oh, well, I'm not going to let this crowd dictate what I'm going to do! I have the right to do that!" Yeah, you do have the right to do that, that's right. But they chose something that you... it's not your fault for what they're doing, but you might want to avoid it, right? Is what I'm getting at. It's planning those things, taking the time to plan out what are likely outcomes of this event. And avoidance is the best thing ever. I mean, I don't get in there to know, "Hey, I should... it's okay now." But, you know, I should look for these few indicators for the crowd to get excited. It's like, "No, no, avoid it." Avoidance and precautionary measures.

For example, a couple years ago when Charlie and I still owned the Powderhorn Guest Ranch, there was a couple of wonderful brothers who worked there season after season for a while, named Acheson. And they were from Missouri, I believe it was. Yeah, St. Joe, Missouri, as a matter of fact. So one of the brothers, athletic, just wonderful to a fault, never made a mistake, ran every morning, healthy lifestyle, healthy eating. And the younger brother was learning that there was still a little more adventurous and went up on the mountain on a mountain bike, didn't wear any safety equipment, and came back down in the stretcher and had to have his jaw wired, his face reconstructed, was eaten out of a straw, just black-and-blue, horrible. So he chose to go mountain biking up in the mountain, but he also chose, Brian, not to wear the protective gear. So my thing is, in this environment now where there's a higher likelihood of disease transmission, virus transmission, you should wear a mask and you should keep your distance. Those are the two lowest calorie interventions and we have people fighting over them. That's what I'm talking about. There's no railing here. You don't have to break a lock. You don't have to drive your car backwards in the ice. We're talking about two low-calorie interventions. So if we think about that selfie, and we think about the selfie telling you, "Hey, listen, the further out I get on thin ice, the closer the cliff that I'm going to be walking, the danger is going to increase," maybe that's enough. Because here we're on a precipice with a virus as well, very close to the edge of the pandemic opening up, or rather closing down all the business again and everybody being in the same state, and then we all lose.

Yeah. And I think it speaks to all the stuff we've dealt with for a long time, meaning where people are dealing with a threat that they can't see. Well, that's what we do, right? We do it because it's not apparent, not right there, that this is how you deal with it. So it's really no different than some of the other things that we've worked on before, and now we're going to be getting involved in this. Hopefully, we'll tell the listeners more as it progresses. But, you know, I guess let's get into real quick because I think you have a good way of articulating this.

A different discussion... Yes. No, I want to... I want to hit up on something. It just hit me: what it was with... But you... We have different discussions when it comes to legal discussions, constitutional law, especially civil liberties, because that fits into what we do because it has to be legal, moral, and ethical, right? It has to be legally defensible. When we teach something, you have to be able to testify to that and why you did it, and it has to meet certain criteria, right? All right. So, being a constitutional law scholar, right, I'll give you the subject, you'll be the subject matter expert on this. Then what, what is the, what is when people say, "Well, you know, wearing a mask or this, you're infringing on my civil liberties and you can't make me do that. That's illegal for the government to do that or it's illegal for them to shut us down or to close businesses or force people to stay at home."

So, legally, there's this framework that's out there that's called the U.S. Constitution. And before you start making those, those, those just ridiculous remarks, you should look at those because every single part of our nation's solidarity also has exigent and emergency exceptions where rules have to be enacted for unforeseen circumstances that occur. You know, I'm not going to bring up the conspiracy theory, but there was a thing called Pearl Harbor, and Pearl Harbor created a situation where there were emergency rules that were in place. And some were really good, Brian, and some do still pay reparation to them now. And those come up when people aren't certain on what to do. And as much warning as we had, as much warning to develop CDC and WHO, this caught us with our pants down. Well, we have 9/11 and we had protocols that were in place and all of a sudden September 11th occurred, and after that there was a certain amount of medicine we had to choke down because of that.

So I would tell people that, why would we not want to err and demonstrate an abundance of caution in a situation that none of us are experts on? And that the minimal intrusion—that's the legal standard—this low-level minimal intrusion that will one day go away, of wearing a mask and keeping your distance, it's enforceable. There's people right now that are saying, "Hey, I couldn't get to my second and third property and you can't keep me out." Read the Constitution. We absolutely can keep you out. They can close, they can declare martial law if they want to and then enforce it. Now, people have opinions. There's a bunch of people, you know, that say, "Hey, I want to join this." And then they say, "Okay, time to be shipped forward for combat," and they go, "Hey, timeout, I didn't plan on that." Okay, but the rule, there in a rule of law, in a rule of order, Brian, takes everybody to submit. And people aren't. So for example, Brian, the people have the absolute right to protest, but they don't have the right to protest violently. And those are all laws that people forget. But nobody wants to take the time to read the law. Nobody wants to take the time to educate them on COVID-19. And I'll tell you one thing that you and I did just a couple of weeks ago is we went to the number one respiratory hospital in the world. And Brian, when we were walking around, even in the parking lot, people were wearing masks and keeping distance.

So I didn't need anything more than... I didn't need anything more.

Yeah, an expert facility. We're doing it. So that was enough for me. And you think that they were doing it because somebody was following him around with a stick? They were doing it because they knew something that we don't.

Yeah, it's the margin for me. It's like when you look over and the indigenous forces you're working with also start putting their kit on and grabbing their weapons. You're like, "No, no, that was the standard." The people who set the standard, you look at them and look at what they're doing and you're going, "Yeah, I should probably just get on board with what they're doing."

Exactly. And I think you're so right when you talk about the politicizing it. One, that does nobody any good. The other thing is fear-mongering, that does nobody any good. The only thing it's lessening it by saying, "Look, there's a fight because a business might be hanging by a thread and they may not survive this unless they're open." So why not form a partnership in your community? Think about it as your house, your street, your block, and your community, and saying, "Hey, we're going to help each other out." That's what, that's how every previous danger was overcome. Right.

Just... And despite what is probably pumped in a lot on the news and everyone's Facebook feed or whatever, is that does happen a lot. Like there are a lot of community...

Agreements all the time that...

Well, like what we saw in Denver last week, what would happen where we're like, "Hey, why is this street shut down?" "Oh, it's because they allowed these restaurants to literally move their tables into the street so they could open and get..." Those are the type of things. But it closed roads, increased security, increased the ambient lighting, and it was great. And everybody said, "We'll create this partnership so we can remain open." And you know what? It turned into a block party atmosphere. And it was... it was absolutely...

And not a bother.

But you'd be living on... no, we couldn't afford it. That's about as close as I get.

No, you're exactly right. So just like the woman that pooped in her hand and wiped it in the planter in front of us, what was her name? Lemmon Street! Exactly. I got a date with her Thursday. Yeah, but the idea is that there are choices that you make every day. And the root, the center focus of us talking about this, is that if you don't consider the likely consequences of your action, and you don't, like, for example, think of the weather. There's a great analogy for it. They spend billions, if not trillions of dollars, trying to predict the weather. Every once in a while, they've got that storm that came in and blindsided us, caught us unawares, Brian, and blew all the boats out of the harbor, or whatever. Like, we call them dormant volcanoes. Do you get what I'm trying to say? Mount St. Helens. Anyway. Yeah.

There are things in the environment that we can't calculate and that are going to come up and they're going to surprise us. But those don't have to be the norm. We don't have to walk around like a battered spouse, surprised by everything that comes around. Precautions. Not jumping over the railing to take your own photo. Not exceeding the speed limit on a curve. Not going out kayaking after you had a couple of drinks, Brian. Those are things that we can, we can embrace. And that avoidance and that preparation that we do with the safety gear can be a lifesaver, literally and figuratively.

Be a lifesaver, yeah. Well, I think we need to do it more at a municipal government level and state and local government level, kind of as well, to have that same idea. And I know I agree, it sucks because some are trying to put out good information or do the right thing, and then that gets filtered down into, "Well, no, that really means this," and, "What you're telling me..." It's like, "No, I just meant what they wrote on that piece of..."

What can't you do in the United States? You, you folks, sometimes are... We're all such idiots. Yeah. "I want the absolute right to do all of these things!" You've got more rights than anybody else on the face of the planet. Wear a flipping mask! Don't jump over the rail to take a selfie! Do you get what I'm saying? Kind of look before you leap, maybe?

Well, that's the... the look before you leap is always one that we don't always heed very well. And we don't always realize when we're in those situations because of risk assessment. That's kind of what I predicted analysis where they bring this one into, like, you know, you bring up the examples at the beginning that people falling off, you know, the side of a mountain in Colorado trying to take a selfie, and that happens all the time to the point now, I don't think it's even reported as much anymore. It's so... it was headline news, it's no longer happening because it happened so frequently. But that's the whole point is because... And you brought up boundaries. First, we learn our boundaries. Then we test our boundaries. Then we push our boundaries. Well, that's, that's all human behavior in general if we lack that critical thinking ability, you know, because that person had taken a selfie so many times, well, they never expected it. So I'm bringing back to not be fear-based, but because we have all the conditions going on right now for something to escalate from zero to one hundred very, very quickly. It is that extra time, it is that, "Hey, do we really need to go there? Are we really sure we want to do this? Or should I really have this many drinks? Or should I do like..." You know, it's just taking that extra bit is what if everyone just did that, these situations wouldn't happen, right?

You're exactly right. And remember the caveat to that, Brian: you do not have the right to dictate in my life and what's going to kill me. So you speeding and lane changing on the freeway in a reckless manner, you choosing to drink and drive, you risking everybody else's safety on that public and dance, you don't have that right. You know, a lot of rights, and this is a wonderful country and it's only going to get better and rebound stronger. You don't have the right to risk me. So step back, and not only if you're that egotistical, step back and consider some of the spirals of your behavior, and reach out to those explanatory storylines, and go, "Wow, I might not want to do that." But also consider me, consider my kid, consider, you know, the dog on the street. And you're saying, "Well, you know, people don't do that anymore." Yeah, you're exactly right. Social media has brought us closer together and pushed us further apart than we've ever been as a nation. And we have to stop, put down the phone, and look around, go, "Wow, I've been an ass, haven't I?" And we, we aren't going to do that anytime soon. Once we do that, I think that's the epiphany moment, Brian. I think the epiphany moment is that other humans are in this at the same time we are and we have to consider their stake as well. We're all in this at the same time. You've got to put that on a shirt.

But just remember...

No, and that's from our legal team, of course.

So, I think, you know, to sort of somewhat start to bring it in for a landing, it's, you know, the Monday after these weekends, you know, it's the, "So what? What did we learn? What, what did, what would we learn from this last weekend and what happened and what's going on right now?" And then how do we make personal choices, right? I'm not expecting anyone, right, you know, I, I'm not an elected official. I don't have any power. I don't... All right, I run the company with your smartness, but I can affect my life and my family's, and it's going to have change, Brian. Yeah.

And then plus, if you, I believe, you know, showing people what right looks like, if you do that, then guess what? People are going to start mimicking. They're going to start mimicking you. They're going to mimic good behavior.

Let me just explain a cautionary tale to you. At the beginning of this, we never understood how to manage Skype and whatever that one that I hate... Microsoft Teams! So many more options. Come help me. I'm an idiot, it's worse than LinkedIn, I don't understand. Well, listen, at the beginning of this, and for the first couple of months, we didn't understand it, we didn't utilize it to a capability. Then came the sweet spot. Everybody goes, "Holy crap, this isn't going away. This is the real thing." We used it all the time. We reached out for friends and family members we may not have talked to for years. As a member of a group, every Friday of the former Detroit clan, Brian, you know that I linked up with them, the German relatives. And all of a sudden, it was very, very detailed that we met with those people all the time. But now it's been a long time and it's kind of hard, and when I call in there's no new great stories. Everybody's saying the same thing about, "Yeah, we're locked out of the..." And it's going the other way again. I'm not going to forget about it. I would tell everybody, stop looking. Listen, those are the memories you're going to have for the rest of your life. Hold up the stuff instead of being on your fridge now. Hold it up during that Zoom, talk about the weather, talk about something. But that's what's going to get us through this. Is you sharing your human side and your human performance is going to increase and it's going to be therapeutic for your brain. Don't stop now. And that's what's happening. I'll tell you everywhere those people are going, "Oh, man, we met for four weeks, or nine or ten." Go back to that. That's what we need to do to get past this and keep our mental health and our humility and humanity intact.

All right. So that's a good, good Monday morning wrap-up, I guess, after the, after the long weekend. And I was, I was nervous over the weekend. I was thinking something was going to break out in a city and then they would get overwhelmed.

And then we were nervous it was going to break out your pants! You don't know. You've got to... You've got to keep that label, instructions, and do that stuff more routinely.

Oh, thank you for that, Greg. And I think on that note, we'll go ahead and bring it in for landing. Thanks everyone for watching, listening, everything. Check us out on Facebook Live. You can follow along. And you can either be my buddy Dan and just make sexual comments towards me, or you could engage, isn't it? Come for it! And you don't have my taxes, apparently. So thank you so much for listening. Don't forget, everyone, that training changes behavior.