E42: China's tech crackdown, CRISPR breakthrough, practical climate change solutions & more

Hello?

Sachs.

Yeah, I'll be ready in like two minutes. Okay.

I'm sorry.

Let's go splash some water on your face. Take a couple of whatever you need some and let's go. We're waiting.

Okay, I'll be there in two minutes.

Okay.

Hurry up is your chance to get Max airtime.

Are we really going to record that?

You listen. Freeberg's out. That means you're going to get, by default, 33.3% of airtime. It's going to be your biggest week ever.

Let your winners ride.

Rain Man David Sack.

And instead we open sources to the fans and they've just gone crazy with it.

Love you, Wes. Queen of Kinwa. Hey, everybody. Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the all in podcast. With us today, the dictator himself, Chamath Palihapatiya.

And the Rain man, David Sachs. I'm Jay Cal.

And the queen of Quinoa quit the show.

Where is that?

Here.

He quit the show, I think. I think he quit. So we're looking for a science person. If you know anybody, email scienceguy@theallinpodcast.com. If you want to apply for the science position here. No, he couldn't make it.

He was moving. He's moving.

He's moving. I guess we can say that without invading his privacy, but he's not going to be able to do a show.

Anyway because there's so much going on.

And I think we should start with this. Do we want to start with the COVID stuff again for the third episode in a row, or do we want to start with China and then back into Covid?

Fuck Covid.

I think we should just do Covid quickly because, you know, as much as the audience complained about it, we got a lot of comments saying, why are you talking about COVID so much? We were ahead of the curve on predicting this whole new delta wave. We told people what was coming. I think it was a useful service, so people might not want to hear it, but it was. I think. I would say we're probably two weeks ahead of the.

I think that we've gotten a couple of things actually right. A couple of weeks ahead of other people.

Yeah, I mean, it was pretty obvious that this was going to race through the places that had low vaccination.

And having the breakthrough cases is, I.

Don'T think anybody anticipated that.

And the thing we didn't.

Yeah. Over the last week on Twitter, I'm seeing this big debate on whether vaccinated people can spread the delta variant and I'm like, guys, didn't you see the show two weeks ago? We covered this. I got it. I was vaccinated. I got it from someone who is vaccinated. This is known delta variant has slipped the vaccine. It still prevents the most serious cases. Generally speaking, we need to see it as a spectrum of protection rather than completely binary. But yeah, absolutely. You can get it and pass it on if you're vaccinated. Like, we know that. And we told the audience that three weeks ago.

The other thing we predicted was that.

This is going to be incredibly disruptive and it's going to create another debate of lock and potential lockdowns and mask mandates.

And most of all, we discussed and.

We had, I think, a pretty vibrant debate between all of us about under what circumstances does your decision to not get vaccinated impact everybody else? Visa vis the petri dish of the.

Next variant that's coming, hopefully that'll be.

Less deadly, less contagious, which tends to.

Be how these things go.

But we also predicted some people are just going to start requiring vaccines, vaccine cards. And we mentioned what's happening in France.

And I don't know what examples you've seen this week.

I thought last week when you made vaccine passports the main issue. Well, let's put it this way. I think that was actually turned out to be great moderation because what has been the big issue all over the world since the last episode, vaccine passports. You saw it with Naftali Bennett in Israel. They are not taking any of this vaccine hesitancy. There's 9 million people in that country, 8 million are vaccinated. They're telling the last million, you got to go get vaccinated. He has laid down the law saying enough is enough. A billion people have gotten vaccinated. It works. And for the last million of you who haven't gotten vaccinated, if you want to attend any function with more than 100 people, if you want to go to synagogue, if you want to go to a sports game, if you want to go to the mall, you have to be vaccinated or you are going to get tested that day at your own expense, everywhere you go. So they're going to make it a real pain in the ass until you get vaccinated. You then separately had Roger Goodell basically doing the same thing in the NFL, saying to players, well, first of all, all the coaches have to get vaccinated. There was an anti vaxx coach who got fired, and then they don't have as much power at the players because the players have a union. But Goodell said to them, listen, if you don't get vaccinated, you're going to get tested every day that you go to work. And if the team, if there's an outbreak on the team and you guys miss a game, you're going to lose all of your salary. We're not going to put up with. Apparently there's a game last year during COVID where I think it was a Ravens Steelers game, and half of one of those teams, I think it was the Ravens, half of the first string was out with COVID or they were in isolation protocol because they're around players. Obviously, if you're in a locker room, one player gets it, everyone's going to be exposed. Right? So it turned out to be like one of the worst games that the NFL put on last year. And Goodell saying, we're not going to put out product like that anymore. If you are the reason why the team misses a game, guess what? You and all of your teammates are going to lose your salary. And since there's only 17 games in an NFL season, you're talking about real money. So you had Goodell doing that, and now you have Facebook and Google basically coming out saying in order to go back to the office, you have to be vaccinated. Now it's a little bit of the soft. It's sort of more of the iron fist beneath the velvet glove because they are offering testing. So if you don't get vaccinated, you can get a test every time you go to the office. Unlike Israel, which is making you pay for, know, Facebook and Google are so rich they're going to pay for it. So basically what you're seeing here is that government is not in the Biden's.

Going to mandate federal workers.

Otherwise you have to get tested weekly.

This is beyond now. Debatable. I think the funny thing is the Republicans, I think somewhere along the way realized, oh, my God, we're going to lose the midterm elections. They have found a way to find a single modality and behavior to steal defeat from the jaws of victory. I think that the Republicans were probably.

Trending to basically win back the House and now I don't think that's the case.

And you have a bunch of these red state governors who are literally flipping their shit right now trying to figure.

Out how to get their folks vaccinated. Many of these people may not even.

Be able to vote come midterms because they're either going to be dead or still sick.

I mean, we've learned a lot.

And at this point you're being left with folks again. There are people who do it for religious reasons.

I get it.

There are people that, you know, are going to sort of like live off the grid and live by themselves.

I get them too. But the folks that want to be.

Attacks on the system or use public resources, I don't understand.

And they're basically going to get singled.

Out and discriminated against.

The carrot and the stick method here, I think is going to work because we saw a bunch of people sign up to get vaccinated in France once. They said, listen, you can't go to.

A cafe or a bar.

And I think that a lot of the people who are not vaccinated are probably enjoying going out and having a life. Danny Meyer, the restauranteur in New York from Union Square Cafe and Gramercy Tavern, one of the most famous restaurant tours of all time, announced on CNBC this morning that he'll be requiring vaccines for all staff and customers. What do we think of that restaurant saying, you've got to show a vax card on the way in?

I love it. Listen to me.

If I'm going to go in and I'm going to spend 2000, $3,000 on wine and then a couple thousand bucks on a tip, I don't want some asshole who's going to get me sick there. It's bad enough that I still may get sick. And by the way, Danny Meyer's restaurants.

Are not like fucking Red Robin.

These are extremely high end places.

The idea that you can get a.

Communical respiratory disease and spend $5,000 is bullshit. Untenable, non starter sachs.

I mean, listen, it's very interesting.

Last episode, I felt like you were.

Really trying to balance your belief in freedom and people being able to make.

Decisions themselves with the reality that we.

Can'T be close forever. How has the last week changed your thinking?

And what do you think of the Danny Meyer?

I like what Danny Meyer did in this sense. He wants to create a certain experience for his clientele, and he knows that his clientele are more likely to go dine in his restaurants if there's a vaccine policy at his restaurants. He's not setting a policy for the whole country. He's setting it for his establishment. He has every right to be able to do that, and he believes that will help his bottom line, and he's probably right about that. Similarly, Roger Goodell, same thing. I mean, he took a tough line because he knows that if he wants the NFL to put out a great product every week. They can't be canceling games because of, you know, they can't have the first string players out with COVID So he made a smart business decision. I think people should have the freedom and the right to do that. Now I still have, let's call it a reservation about government requiring it. Not because I don't see the benefit, I definitely see the health benefit, but just because I don't like giving government the power. A stick, a needle in your arm if you're a government employee.