Today, Taylor talks us through the story of Grafton, NH, and the "Free Town Project." Grafton, like much of New England, has been home to Black Bears for thousands of years (maybe longer? We're not Bear Historians). The Abenaki people hunted them and lived with them. The Europeans almost hunted them to extinction, but with some new regulations, the population revived! Join us now in Grafton, where a gaggle of Libertarians moved in the early 2000s, looking for a life of freedom from taxation and government meddling; Live Free or Die is the state motto, after all! The folks in Grafton, however, took it a smidge too far; there was no fire department, no public works, and especially no rules on what you could do with your trash or how many bears you could feed. A utopia, it was not.
Today, Taylor talks us through the story of Grafton, NH, and the "Free Town Project." Grafton, like much of New England, has been home to Black Bears for thousands of years (maybe longer? We're not Bear Historians). The Abenaki people hunted them and lived with them. The Europeans almost hunted them to extinction, but with some new regulations, the population revived
Join us now in Grafton, where a gaggle of Libertarians moved in the early 2000s, looking for a life of freedom from taxation and government meddling; Live Free or Die is the state motto, after all! The folks in Grafton, however, took it a smidge too far; there was no fire department, no public works, and especially no rules on what you could do with your trash or how many bears you could feed.
A utopia, it was not.
Sources:
https://www.fsp.org/move-to-nh
How a New Hampshire libertarian utopia was foiled by bears - https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21534416/free-state-project-new-hampshire-libertarians-matthew-hongoltz-hetling
Libertarians Took Control of This Small Town. It Didn’t End Well. - https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/08/30/libertarians-took-control-of-this-small-town-it-didnt-end-well/
A Libertarian walks into a bear by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling -
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Hi Friends! Our transcripts aren't perfect, but I wanted to make sure you had something - if you'd like an edited transcript, I'd be happy to prioritize one for you - please email doomedtofailpod@gmail.com - Thanks! - Taylor
Taylor: I got seasick on a boat trip up in California
>> Taylor: In the matter of the people of the State of California vs. Orenthal James Simpson, case number BA097. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your.
>> Farz: Alrighty, Taylor, we are recording. My energy is a little bit lower than usual. It's been a long travel couple of days. How are you feeling? How are you doing?
>> Taylor: Good? Yeah, I'm doing fine. I just got back from spring break and it was fun. It was cold. And we went to Ventura and, like, the Channel Islands, like, up in California. Took a boat to a very beautiful island and went on a hike, and the boat ride was an hour long, and I threw up the entire time. I almost died.
>> Farz: That's. You told me that. And I was like, I don't know why you do this yourself.
>> Taylor: It was the worst. Like, I. On the way back was better, but, man, well, I took a Dramamine. Like, I know that, like, I'm not good on boats, but I didn't know it was going to be that bad.
>> Farz: Yeah, I hear you. Remember that one time I tried to book the ferry from LA to Catalina Island?
>> Taylor: That was the funniest day of my life. Guys, for us is on the phone with this customer service person, and he was like, I want two tickets. Why are they $30 each, but $100 for two? And it was like a hour and a half long conversation, and it was so funny. And I don't know what the answer was. But you were not happy.
>> Farz: Was not happy. But I did get to Catalina island, and I also got seasick. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's like the choppiness of, like, that part of the ocean. I mean. Yeah, because I used to do. I used to go out on the water in the Atlantic Ocean when I lived in Miami, and I didn't have that problem. I think it's Pacific, maybe.
>> Taylor: I think so, too. It feels different. Yeah.
>> Farz: So very cool.
Congratulations to Jay and Beth on their new baby boy, Jeff
Welcome back. And also, we got to say congratulations to our really good friends Jay and Beth for welcoming their new baby boy.
>> Taylor: Yay. And we have an awesome picture of Jeff in the hospital. Jay does it. Jeff.
>> Farz: You said Jeff.
>> Taylor: That. Is that Jay and Beth's couple name? Yeah.
>> Farz: I like it.
>> Taylor: I saw Jay a picture of Jay in the hospital wearing his Doomed to Fail T shirt, which is a hilarious thing for a new dad to wear. It's very cool. Thank you for that.
>> Farz: Yep. Yep. Cool.
Doomed to fail brings you history's most notorious disasters and failures
So do you want to go ahead and introduce us?
>> Taylor: Oh, yes. I'm so sorry. Hello. Welcome to Doomed to fail, we bring you history's most notorious disasters and failures. I am Taylor, joined by Fars, and.
>> Farz: Yes, I am here. And today we're going to hear a story by you, Taylor.
>> Taylor: Yes, I am ready. So, bars. Do you remember that joke about the libertarian town that was taken over by bears?
>> Farz: I did not. Is that a joke or a real thing?
>> Taylor: It's a real thing, but you just like hear that and you laugh like you just did.
>> Farz: Yeah. That's insane if that's true.
>> Taylor: So I was like, there has to be more to the story than that. And there is, but also there isn't. It's sort of just like there was a libertarian town taken over by bears because no one would take out the trash. I want to tell you about it.
>> Farz: It kind of makes sense. If you're libertarian, you don't believe in any government, so, like, why not let the bears rule everything?
>> Taylor: Exactly. And that's what happened. So today I'm going to tell you about Grafton, New Hampshire and the Freetown Project.
>> Farz: This does. Yeah, New Hampshire sounds right for this.
>> Taylor: Exactly. I'll tell you more about New Hampshire as well. So they're. I read a book called A Libertarian Walks into a Bear by Matthew Hongloets Hetling and I'll link to it as well. And I have some other. A couple other websites that I went to. But I also had said when I did the story about Munster and the Anabaptist, like a while ago that I wanted to do a follow up. And I feel like this is a follow up and then it is kind of, because it's like people who want to take over a town where people already live, you know, and then like change into what they want. Whether it's Anabaptists being like, you need to be our particular form of Christianity, or it's libertarians being like, you need to be our particular form of government. In both cases, they kind of invaded a town and tried to take over and it did not end well.
>> Farz: Sweet.
>> Taylor: Also in the Libertarian Looks into a Bear, one of the characters was reading a book about the Anabaptists and Munster. So I feel like I wasn't totally wrong there. It's mentioned in there, like they were thinking about this, like, know, taking over a town and like making it into like a utopia, which, by the way, never works. So.
I'm going to talk about New Hampshire libertarians and then Grafton, New Hampshire
So I'm going to talk about New Hampshire libertarians and then Grafton, New Hampshire, and specifically bears and the Freetown Project.
>> Farz: I love that we're gonna have an episode that covers bears.
>> Taylor: Yeah, Bears are bears. The Best. So New Hampshire, the state it is in New England, as you know, I probably could point it out.
>> Farz: That's why it's called New Hampshire, because there's a Hampshire.
>> Taylor: No, I know, but I feel like I could probably point it out, but, like, maybe not. That's a Vermont. It's this way. So the area that is New England, that is New Hampshire, was originally. The Abenaki people lived there for thousands of years. They lived in long houses, they farmed, and they hunted and gathered. They spoke a dialect of the Algonquin language. I think we talked about a little bit when we talked about the Niagara Falls, which makes sense because that's like, the same area, like, up in New England. And currently the Abenaki Nation headquarters is in Quebec. So it's like part of Canada, where you just were. Not that part of Canada, but it's in Canada, and it's like that area of North America. The state of New Hampshire currently does not recognize the Abenaki people. And there was a bill in 2021 to allow communities to rename their towns to the traditional Abenaki names, and it failed. So New Hampshire does not recognize them. But there is a New Hampshire Commission on Native American affairs. It started in 2010. But they're not, like. It's like, a huge deal in that area now for the Abenaki people, bears were obviously considered very powerful because they're scary. They were. If you were going to kill a bear for its meat and its fur, you would go through a ceremony during and before and after the hunt to honor the spirit of the bear, which totally makes sense. It's like, a lot of, like, things that we imagine Native Americans doing. Right.
>> Farz: Wait, I think that you didn't.
>> Taylor: You.
>> Farz: I think you might have even covered this group, because it looks like the French and Indian War was when they were displaced. Did you cover that?
>> Taylor: I think I did when I did Niagara Falls.
>> Farz: Yeah, I thought so, too. Okay. Okay.
>> Taylor: Yeah. So it's those people that, you know, they. So they were involved in the Niagara Falls as well. I think in the Niagara Falls episode, we learned that there were, like, those kind of stylized myths that, like, the French made of, like, you know, Native Americans used to, like, sacrifice people over the Niagara Falls, blah, blah, blah. And that was not true. But they would, like, make stuff up like that.
>> Farz: Right.
>> Taylor: Kind of thing. So. So those people lived there before, and then people came from Europe, obviously. So New Hampshire was established as an English colony in 1623. So it was one of the first settlements in. In the United States, it received a royal charter. It was separate from Massachusetts, so it's really close to Massachuset. Sometimes they were, like, merged together, but they were separate. And New Hampshire has always been a, like, very independent leaning place. They were actually the first colony to establish an independent government and create its own Constitution in January 1776, six months before the Declaration of. Of Independence. So they're ready to do it, like, sooner than everybody else. And do you remember the. The state motto of New Hampshire is on the license plates.
>> Farz: The Free. Is this being free?
>> Taylor: Yes. Live free or die.
>> Farz: Yeah, there you go.
>> Taylor: So in New Hampshire, they don't want to pay taxes. They never did. That was also part of the reason that they left. They tried to leave Britain earlier as they were just even more sick of paying taxes than the rest of us. And sometimes they just didn't pay their taxes. Even after the Revolutionary War and they became part of the United States, there were times when the government would have to, like, go into New Hampshire to try to get state taxes, and they would just not pay them. Like, what if we just don't? And they just wouldn't. In New Hampshire right now, the has no sales tax, a flat 3% income tax. The corporate tax rate is 7.5%, and the property tax rate is 1.61%. So extraordinarily low for America.
>> Farz: I wonder why everybody incorporates in Delaware. It's gotta be lower than that for corporate taxes on. Right.
>> Taylor: Yeah, it must be. Yeah. I don't know. Good question. So New Hampshire is also the home of the Free State Project, which is basically a call for people who want limited government to move there. So if you feel like you want limited government, you don't want to pay a lot of taxes, you don't want government involved in your life. New Hampshire is a good place for you. And the Free State Project still exists. I'll tell you a little bit more about them later. So that's New Hampshire. Have you ever been there?
>> Farz: No. No, it's never been. There's never been a reason to go.
>> Taylor: And brand Wayne's World when they go, hi, I'm in Delaware. Remember that?
>> Farz: I don't. I don't.
>> Taylor: In Wayne's World, they have, like, a thing and they're like. It's like a green screen.
Libertarians believe in very, very limited government
Like, it's like the Eiffel Tower. And they're like, oh, I'm in France. We. We have a cigarette, and then it's like, oh, I'm in New York. Get out of here. I'm walking here. And then it says it's Delaware. And they go, hi, I'm in Delaware. I thought that's how I feel about New Hampshire. I don't. I don't think about it often, but there you go. Now, let's talk about libertarians. So libertarian is a very small third party party in the United States. They're the things that they want are, you know, personal liberty and individual rights. You can make your own decisions as long as you don't hurt other people. They believe in very, very limited government. The government should only exist to, you know, basically like to be able to sue people, to enforce contracts and do, like, national defense, but nothing, nothing that they don't want. They don't want to intervene in, like, foreign things. They just want to kind of like, be left alone to do what they want to do. They also support, like, privacy rights and protection of civil liberties. So they oppose surveillance programs. They want to be left alone, and no one should really, like, know what they're doing. They also want more power given to local governments, but, like, extreme power in local governments, in communities rather than the federal government, and then very, very low taxes. So, you know, libertarians, basically, they're like, I want to be able to do whatever I want as long as I don't hurt anybody. Why is it anybody's business?
>> Farz: You know, I kind of get that sentiment.
>> Taylor: I do, too. Sure. But then it also, you know, I think some of the problems that you run into is they want to do things like have a duel if they're mad at someone and they want to sleep with their cousins. Not all of them, but some of them are like, why can't I sleep with my cousin? You know? And they also think that children can consent to sexual acts in some cases, which is not good. So a couple of things that aren't great, for sure. And then there's also things that the government does that I personally enjoy, like having roads and libraries and firefighters and having people pick up the garbage and things like that. And if you're not. If the government isn't there to pay for it, people aren't going to want to pay for it.
>> Farz: Right.
>> Taylor: Which is what we're going to learn. No one's going to do it, you know?
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: So Grafton, New Hampshire, is a tiny town, about 1500 people. Like, really, really tiny. There's things like a firehouse and a church and a normal amount of bears for the Northeast. So, like, there are definitely bears there, and it has the same amount of bears as any other town in New Hampshire. If you live in The Northeast, you're probably used to this. And also other parts of America.
>> Farz: California.
>> Taylor: There's bridge here. So I was actually in the car with my kids yesterday, and we were passing a store for guns and ammo, and Florence was like, why is there a gun. A gun store? And I was like, well, people have the right to have guns. And I was talking about the Second Amendment. And then I was like, well, in the beginning of America, you really needed a gun because there were bears and you were, like, moving west and there were. You were going to run into native people and, like, all the things that, you know, not great, but it made sense to have a gun and you don't need them as much anymore. And then Florence, like, sighed, and she was like, yeah. And then we killed all the California grizzly bears. And I was like, d***, you're right. So I know there are bears in California, but the California grizzly bear, specifically has been extinct since 1924.
>> Farz: Seriously?
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: So we just. Oh, not we. I don't live there anymore. But you. Y'all just have black bears now?
>> Taylor: I guess. I don't know. And other kinds of bears. But the grizzly bear, the California grizzly bear is gone.
>> Farz: I mean, Taylor, like, realistically, you probably want them gone. A grizzly bear. I heard if you get. If you shoot a grizzly bear that's charging at you in the head, it'll still keep coming at you.
>> Taylor: No, no, no. I don't want a bear anywhere near me. Do you also see that bear movie by Werner Herzog? Have you seen that one? The guy gets eaten by a bear.
>> Farz: Treadwell something. Treadwell. Yeah. It was horrific. Yeah. Those were grizzly bears. That's what happened. Yeah.
>> Taylor: Yeah. And he was like, I'm gonna be friends with them. And it's like, no, you're not their bears.
>> Farz: Yeah, that's when you're. Somebody should have put him on meds. Like, the guy was obviously not well.
>> Taylor: Yeah, no good. But. But there are.
In New Hampshire, there are estimated to be 8,000 black bears
There have been bears in this area forever. In the Northeast, all over. All over the United States and North America. And as soon as Europeans came, they started hunting the bear, like, more, you know, than the Native Americans had been hunting them in the. In prefer and food and all those things. And in the 19th century, the black bear. So I'm talking about black bears specifically in this case. So they're kind of smaller than grizzly bears, but, like a black bear. So in the 19th century, black bears were near extinction in this area. And they put up some regulations, so the government was like, you can only hunt during certain times and. And et cetera. And they were able to recover the population. So in New Hampshire right now, there is estimated to be anywhere from 6 to 8,000 bears, which is a lot of bears for such a small area.
>> Farz: Yeah, small, right.
>> Taylor: Yeah. And there are some interactions with people that bears have that aren't great. Like they want food and sometimes they want pets. You know, like if you have a chicken or a little dog in your backyard, you might want to watch them because there could be a bear in the area. And did you also another thing. Have you heard of that quote from a Yosemite park ranger about the bear proof garbage bins? Have you ever heard this?
>> Farz: No.
>> Taylor: So somebody asked him, like, why is it so hard to figure out a garbage can that bears can't get into? And he said, quote, there is considerable overlap between the intelligence of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists. I believe that it totally makes sense.
>> Farz: I've actually also been one of those tourists who've been like, frantically trying to open a thing and not being able to figure it out for like a few minutes.
>> Taylor: So, yeah, I think I have. I think I have as well. So I don't. I don't blame you or anyone for that. So Grafton, New Hampshire exists in New Hampshire with all that context. There are bears there. They've been bears for a while and all of that. So now they are in. We're talking about specifically Grafton, and there is a thing called the Freetown Project that turns into the Free State Project. And it started in 2003, and it was libertarians wanting to concentrate their political power, which is a good idea because there aren't a lot of libertarians in the federal government right now. There's only been one libertarian congressman named just Justin Amash from Michigan. And he was elected as a Republican and then became a Libertarian. So, yeah, he was a big deal. And he's a Republican again now. So he just became. He wasn't elected as libertarian, he became one and then went back to being Republican. So mostly they're just Republicans, but sometimes they say that they are libertarians.
>> Farz: It's like you just caucus with whatever gives you the most likelihood of passing any sort of legislation.
>> Taylor: Absolutely.
>> Farz: Bernie's not a Democrat, but.
>> Taylor: Right.
>> Farz: Caucuses with them, it's the same.
>> Taylor: But third party is just like, unless you start a movement where they grow in all of this. Of state elected officials, about 1.3% are third party at all. So very small percent are libertarians. There's like four in like any state government. So some, like, prominent libertarians wanted to find a place, and they started talking to each other, and there's some people who had, like, worked in the government before, and they were like, well, now we really want to have this place where we can really be free. Let's go to New Hampshire. So they drive around New Hampshire and they find the town of Grafton, and there's a guy that lives there named John Babaritz, and he lived there, and he loved. He loved this idea. He had been living in that place in Grafton for a long time. He has, like, well water, and he made his own solar panels, and he's just, like, as off the grid as he can be. And he had actually ran for governor of New Hampshire a few times, and he liked the idea of a free town. So he invited the libertarians to come to Grafton. He didn't have any, like, official inviting power. He just was like, yeah, this makes sense. Why don't you guys come here?
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: So a bunch of people start moving to Grafton, and it might surprise you that they're mostly men. So it's also a problem because there weren't many, many women in Grafton. But they wanted, like, you know, the same things that. That the Libertarian Party wants. Minimal government, personal liberty. They wanted experiment with our social experiment to be like, can we really build a town that's like, just libertarians? Can we make it? Great, because we're going to, you know, decide on not having a lot of rules. So we did things like join the town council so they could, like, change things and be able to. To. To do things in Grafton. And by the way, people still live there. Like, there's regular people that are not libertarians that live there, and they're kind of getting invaded by these libertarians, and they're like, okay, just, you know, don't mess things up. But they kind of start to do things almost immediately that start to mess things up. They decrease the town budget by a lot. So right away, things like the. The roads started to fall into disrepair. Like, buildings started to fall down because there were no more regulations on what buildings you could live in. There was also no fire department because they were like, they cut the budget for the fire department, and they were like, we'll just have volunteers do it. But. But you also need things to be a volunteer firefighter. You know, like, if your house is on fire, I could come over, but I have, like, a bucket and a hose. Like, I can't. I don't have a fire truck, you know, so there's Several times when people's houses burned down because it took like 45 minutes for a fire truck to come from another town that was paying for a fire department.
>> Farz: Right.
>> Taylor: And after that would happen, they would have a town council meeting and every time they would vote to still not have a fire department, they. The risk was worth not having to pay for a fire department. But like, you're just borrowing someone else's fire department, you still need a fire department, you know. So one person who like was really into it, his name was John Connell. He ended up buying a church, this like beautiful 200 year old historic building. And he like made it into his own church.
Grafton had more bear sightings and attacks than anywhere else in New Hampshire
And he had like no qualifications as a pastor of any kind, but he would like preach and like hold meetings and do things. And his church ended up burning down in 2016 and he died inside of it. And no one could help him and no one could save him because there were no firefighters to go to go and help him and save him. So they lost this work building, which is also not being maintained because there were no zoning laws and no restrictions on the building. So you could live in a 200 year old dilapidated building that was a fire trap with no firemen to come and save you. Yeah, because you're free to do that, which is great, I guess, you know, like, so a lot of the people who had lived in Grafton for a long time were obviously upset by this. Like this affected their life. The public safety was a huge issue and there's a lot of tension. And then there were a lot of legal battles because libertarians still believe that you can have legal battles. So they're like suing each other a lot over, like, you know, we need a fire department, we need to have these services to people being like, we're absolutely not paying these taxes no matter what, even though these services, like, are essential. So they also, since there was no zoning and no like building laws, they could live wherever they wanted. So they would live in big shanty towns in the middle of the woods and they wouldn't take out the trash. They wouldn't take it anywhere because there's nowhere to take it. Because they weren't paying for like the local, like landfills and things to be maintained. So the trash would just build up and that would attract the bears.
>> Farz: I see what I was feeling.
>> Taylor: And some people would feed the bears. So Grafton has more. Had more sightings of bears and bear attacks than anywhere else in New Hampshire, despite having like proportionately the same amount of bears. Because there was nobody who would like People would feed the bears because they wanted to, and no one could tell on them. No one would call the, like, police and be like, listen, my neighbor's leaving out food for bears. Because they had the right to leave out food for bears. So there would just be more bears.
>> Farz: Never feed the bears.
>> Taylor: This one woman in the book, they just called her donut lady because she didn't want to say her name because she's embarrassed. But she would leave donuts out for the bears every day. And she had kind of, like, trained them in a way. So the bears would start coming to her house, and she would leave this food out for them, and they would know, and they would come every day. So she would go out and buy donuts every day, come home and go put it in the backyard. But she'd step out into her yard, and the bears would be in, like, the edge of the forest, and they would be, like, coming toward her, and she would go, hold on. Just wait a second. Back up, back up. And then she would go and put. Put the donuts out, and then she'd go back up, hold on. And go back into her house, and then they go and eat the donuts. They knew that when she was doing that, the donuts were coming. So when the bears went to other people's houses who didn't know this, they would say, naturally, whoa, back up. And they would back up, but the bears wouldn't leave because they were like, that's the sign that donuts are coming, you know? So it just got, like, worse and worse.
>> Farz: I remember living in la and I would get, like, so angry. It would almost, like, ruin my day. I didn't hear my sauce when feeding pigeons. Yeah, stop feeding them.
>> Taylor: Stop it. Even, like in New York, where we lived in Queens, people would feed the feral cats. I'll be like, this isn't helping them. Like, yeah, I don't know. Like, don't do that. Like, we could, you know, get them adopted and do that would be better for them than to, like, live out here, just have a thousand cat babies, you know?
>> Farz: Yeah, just adopt a bunch of feral cats. That's way better.
>> Taylor: I mean, some people like doing that. I mean, I don't, but some people do. So for 150 years in New Hampshire, there were no bear attacks on people. And in 2012 was the first wild bear attack on a human in this part of New Hampshire, because. And then there were two more, like, after that. So just because the bears felt so comfortable being there, they would, like, show up on people's porches they'd break into their houses. And just like I said, there's not. There weren't more bears there. They had just let the bears do whatever they want. And the bears were attracted to all the food that was everywhere because the whole town was, like, falling apart because there were no more essential services.
>> Farz: Yeah. They were acting rationally.
>> Taylor: Yeah. So eventually the local government and the people who had lived there before were like, we can't do this anymore. Like, this is enough. Like, we have to have these services back. And in 2016, the Freetown project officially came to an end. Many of the people left because they didn't want to live in a place that had the government, which is like, sure, but you're the ones who ruined this place. So they just kind of, like, left their shanty towns and moved on. New Hampshire itself considers the Free State Project to be a success. So the Free State Project people, you can go to their website. It is fsp.org it says, come to New Hampshire. Move. Here we have limited government. You can be free. So when in 2016, when the free Town itself was kind of deteriorating, the whole state was like, we're successful. So more libertarians were like, well, let's all move to New Hampshire. But why would I move to Grafton? Grafton is a shithole. So they didn't move back to Grafton or to Grafton because Grafton was full of, like, shantytowns. And then they also, as they fixed it up and fixed it, they went back to having, obviously, government services. Yeah, it's a nice website.
>> Farz: I mean, it's better put together than a lot of campaign websites. I will say that.
>> Taylor: I agree. I think it looks nice. Oh. So, I mean, I was like, so the success in the Free State Project is that you can move anywhere in New Hampshire. But I'm like, you could. You could always have done that. But okay. If you guys want to, like, live together, if you. I was on their website, and they have a calendar. Oh.
There are some cute things happening in New Hampshire right now
Literally right now is the Liberty and Cigars meetup. It's happening right now. There is a. There's some. There's a firearms meeting tomorrow. Oh, there's a Japanese club later tonight. There is a cryptocurrency meetup on Saturday if you wanted to attend that. The cute things, like, there's a clothing swap. That totally makes sense. There's a macrame plant hanging workshop. Awesome. These are just, like, things that are happening in different parts of New Hampshire that you can go to. There's a potluck in Grafton you could go to on Saturday. So there's some things in there that are cute and there's like, I don't know, I don't know what else they're doing over there, but they do have a lot of the plant swap next week. So the idea of having this like community where everybody helps each other, it's cute and these meetups are cute. But I do think that there's a case for a little bit of taxation for things that are like, you need like garbage pickup.
>> Farz: Yeah, it goes, it cuts both ways. It was like my episode with Ezra Klein's abundance concept about how you can have too much of something or too little of it. I also tend to think like, this isn't, this probably doesn't need to be a political movement. It just, it can be a philosophy on life. Like I generally think that like you should try to take as care of the stuff that you can take care of yourself and not be relying on others. Like, but I don't. It just grow vegetable garden. Like, don't depend on the grocery store to give you your vegetables. Like, you don't have to then extend that theory into we don't need hospitals. Like, you know, I mean, like, right.
>> Taylor: I'm gonna wash your house burn down because I don't want to spend an extra.
>> Farz: You know, which is also why these things tend not to gain any sort of political traction and political movement. Why someone like Justin Amash has to go back and forth between parties affiliations. Because this isn't a united coalition. It's a fact. It's like very factional. Actually. It's a little bit what the Democratic Party is right now.
>> Taylor: That's what I was. When you said that, I was thinking that I'm like, the Republicans are super united and no one else is.
>> Farz: Yes, yeah, yeah. And I think that's also, I mean, listen, if you bring up a bunch of people together who are all like, we are going to be told what to do. We're going to be free spirited and free thinkers. You're not going to get them all to be like, vote this way.
>> Taylor: Right.
>> Farz: It's never going to work.
>> Taylor: Totally. They're going to be like, oh, I'm doing whatever I want. I'm not hurting anyone. And then you're like, okay, well you just had a duel in town square.
>> Farz: And getting working, like, we got to address it. Like, you can't keep burning your driver's license, Social Security card.
>> Taylor: Exactly, exactly. You can't, you can't have, you know, a thousand guns in your house and then also set your house on fire. Yeah, please don't do that. You know, and someone is paying for everything because, like, the town next to them is gonna, like, let it burn down, you know, so they're gonna come over and. And help, because that's what you're supposed to do, you know, Which I think.
>> Farz: Now, a place like Alaska tends to attract a lot of those folks who are like, leave me alone. Because, like, who is gonna care what you do in Alaska? You're in the middle of nowhere, like. Yeah, so there's a. There's a place for that. It's just. I don't know if it needs to be a political movement.
>> Taylor: Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like you can be, like, in my community, I want to have, like. Yeah, like you said, like, a place like, I'll grow potatoes, you grow tomatoes, and we'll. We'll swap them. We'll swap clothes. We have, like a. Like, the buy nothing groups on Facebook. You know, like, all that stuff feels. You know, you don't have to buy anything. You don't have to depend. You can just. You can live in a community and take care of each other. But you. I think, you know. You know me. I think that there's a good. Good case for the government.
>> Farz: I think there's a good case for 70% of government.
>> Taylor: Yeah. Yeah. Especially the essential services part, which I feel like we learned. I mean, we say that a lot more since COVID but, like, what's essential and what isn't? But, like, you know, we need to have the fire department, we need to have hospitals and even talk about hospitals. Who knows how they got any, like, medical care in this area as well. And you need to be able to tell people that they're being stupid. Like, you can't feed the bears like this.
>> Farz: That is.
>> Taylor: You're affecting everybody else. You know? Like, it's. It's not just like, oh, oh, in my yard, bears are allowed. And you're like, they're bears. They can go everywhere. You know, like, you having.
You have neighbors who train their bears to do certain things
Being like, oh, my. My yard is a bear safe zone. Well, okay, great. But you have neighbors, you know, and, like, you're just teaching the bears to. To do these things, and that's not good. I remember my dad told me, I don't know if this is true. I'll look it up later. But that when he was. He used to live next to a zoo in Chicago, and there was. Used to be able to feed marshmallows to the bears. And then one time there was a flood, and the bears got out of their Enclosure because they, like, swam over the moat and they attacked. Not attacked in the middle of the night, but they, like, opened up the mushroom, the marshmallow stand, and ate all of them.
>> Farz: That's so cute.
>> Taylor: And then they were like, well, you can't do that anymore because you just trained a bunch of bears to see marshmallows.
>> Farz: That is so adorable.
>> Taylor: Because they're smart. So you just teach them how to do these things. They're like, no, but they're still bears. Yeah, I guess I want to hug one, but like, no.
A Dallas company is trying to clone dire wolves using frog DNA
>> Farz: You talking about the extinction thing? Did you hear about this direwolf situation?
>> Taylor: No.
>> Farz: Okay, so apparently dire wolves have been extinct for, like, I forgot. It was like thousands and thousands of years. And there's this company based out of Dallas called Colossal Laboratories and Biosciences. And their entire goal is the instinction de extinction of animals.
>> Taylor: We talked about that with. With passenger pigeon, like, a long, long time ago.
>> Farz: Yeah, yeah. And apparently they successfully were able to. It's interesting. It's. It's not an actual direwolf derived from, like, direwolf DNA. They're gray wolves who had their DNA genetically modified to match that of a direwolf. And so I don't know if they're legally considered direwolves, but they just had their cubs recently. And so like, now the world has two of these dire cup things and they're working on, like, woolly mammoths and they're working on a lot of stuff.
>> Taylor: I've. I've seen dress all the Jurassic park so many times because we love them over here at my house. But I love the one where Dr. Wu is like, yeah, of course we had to use, like, frog DNA because we don't know. We don't have all the DNA. And they're supposed to. It looked like the way you wanted them to look like, you know? Yeah, he's not like, this is what dinosaurs. This is what you wanted them to look like. And then also the new Jurassic park, like, the brand new one. We just watched the trailer for it and it's like, by the way, there's a super secret island with even worse dinosaurs on it.
>> Farz: And you're like, they're kind of milky at this point. I mean, come on. Like.
>> Taylor: But I kind of believe that people would do that, you know? Like, I think if Jurassic park was open, people would go, I would go.
>> Farz: Wolves are stupid cute if you go, they are cute. Oh, my God. They're little puppies. Six month old. Oh, my God. His name's Romulus. The Other one's Khaleesi and then Remus.
>> Taylor: Nothing good will come of this.
>> Farz: I mean, they're not that dangerous, right?
>> Taylor: I don't know, dude. As soon as there's a brontosaurus in my backyard, I will. I'll eat my tree. I have one tree. It'll eat my tree. I don't know, but I feel like that's also the least of my worries. I welcome woolly mammoths.
>> Farz: Yeah. Yeah. Let's come back. Let's have a. Dude, this. They're saying that, like, there's some crazy number. I mean, I haven't fact checked any of this stuff. They're saying that 30,000 species per year on average are being. Are going extinct. That's 6 per hour and 150 per day. Is that crazy? That seems almost impossible.
>> Taylor: It does, but I feel like it's a. It's like very, very specific on what a species is.
>> Farz: I know. It's like, yeah, this one. Pond scum that, like, is.
>> Taylor: Yes.
>> Farz: That, like, you've never heard of. It's like.
>> Taylor: I mean, it's not. Probably not good, you know, but I feel like also, it's probably their time.
>> Farz: All right. Very, very libertarian of you.
>> Taylor: But, yes, I know. Like, if someone in the house next to me was cloning dinosaurs, I'd be like, can I please call someone? Can I call the police who can regulate what kind of dinosaurs you can make in your backyard? That will actually be a problem. That's why it says. See also George R.R. martin. I see that one of them is named Khaleesi. They couldn't find a real name to name the girl anyway.
>> Farz: This is a great name.
>> Taylor: I know, but. Oh, they're doing Remus are from Rome. Oh, they're doing. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, that's nice. They didn't hurt anyone.
>> Farz: They hurt anyone. I mean, they're only extinct because their crime was trusting humans.
>> Taylor: I mean, same with a lot of these things.
>> Farz: It's true.
>> Taylor: Like, the passenger pigeon. Like, any of these animals, like, when people got to, like, Australia not that long ago had just, like, gigantic animals. Now it doesn't anymore.
>> Farz: Yeah, well, hopefully these guys will bring them back.
New Hampshire is also the state where Family Guy takes place
Any who fun story. We never, never heard of Grafton. Never thought of Grafton. Actually don't even really think about New Hampshire very much.
>> Taylor: I don't either. I was thinking about that when I was doing this. I was like, I guess I never think about New Hampshire. Like, I knew the live for your die part. And then I had like. Like I said in the beginning, like, kind of heard the story, like libertarians took over a town and then there were too many bears because I'm gonna take up the trash. And like, that's pretty much.
>> Farz: Is also the state where Family Guy takes place. So that's the only time I ever thought about it.
>> Taylor: Is it?
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: I thought they were like Massachusetts, but I guess Cohog's in Nameshare. Wait, they're Rhode Island. They're in Rhode Island.
>> Farz: Are they?
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: What state is Family Guy based in? I saw. I saw the.
>> Taylor: They're in Rhode Island.
>> Farz: Is it? Okay, all right, well, disregard.
>> Taylor: But like I said, it's all very close together up there.
>> Farz: Same. Same.
>> Taylor: Shout out to all of our listeners in New Hampshire, capital of Dover. Nope, no idea.
>> Farz: Love you. Sweet. Do we have anything to share?
>> Taylor: Concord? No, but thank you everyone for listening. If you have any ideas, please let us know. Doom to failpod gmail.com and we are all the socials at Doomed to Fail pod and on Patreon, a Doomed to Fail plot as well. So you can support us and help us grow, which we are doing. So we appreciate.
>> Farz: Very, very appreciated. Sweet. Okay, we can go ahead and cut things off. Give nothing else. Taylor.
>> Taylor: That's it. Thank you. Sweet.