Dear students, in this module, we are going to talk about the different theories of migration that explain this important aspect of human life, that why do people tend to migrate from one place to another place. Migration is a very complex phenomenon and it is determined by the set of economic, political, social as well as environmental factors. So it is also determined by the perception and behavior of the individuals concerned. First of all, let's talk about the Ravenstein's laws of migration. Interestingly, there is an inverse relationship between the migration and distance. For example, the longer the distance, the minimum are the chances to migrate and majority of migrants move to the shorter distances only. The migration proceeds step by step. It is not usually being performed just in a one go and inhabitants of rural areas have the greater chances of mobility for migration because as you know, in urban areas, we have a lot of amenities and facilities of life available. So these can be a source of attraction for the people from rural areas. As soon as their economic situation gets better, they tend to migrate to the urban areas. And migration is highly age-selective. For example, younger people are more likely to migrate as compared to the older people. And migration occurs mainly due to the economic reasons. However, in the modern days, we do find that migration due to the education purposes is also pretty much prevalent among the youth. And then we have the gravity model. It means that the migration between any two interacting centers is the function of their population size. Underpopulation determines the immigration. If a certain area possesses the high population density, people would tend to migrate. Usually it occurs in the urban areas. Underpopulation determines the immigration. So this model was proposed by the exponents of social physics in the 19th century. Usually the gravity model has been considered applicable until the 20th century, but now since new innovations and new amenities of life are available in the urban area. So people usually tend to stick to these urban areas because they find attraction in these amenities of life. And they do not usually find the alternative sources which could compel them to go to the other areas. The Stufas theory of mobility suggests that there is no necessary relationship between mobility and distance. So he agrees with the theory that the distance and mobility are inversely relatable. Availability of opportunities determines the migration. Actually, where you find more opportunities, you tend to migrate. And economic factors and ideas of their fulfillment are very forceful motivation behind the migration. And also we have the Lee's theory of migration that says that migration is the natural result of interplay between pull and push factors. That's a very prevalent theory in the modern migration literature. And pull factors are the factors that attract a migrant to come to a certain destination such as the economic opportunities, health opportunities, business opportunities or maybe education opportunities. And then we have the push factors that are the factors that compel an individual to migrate to the new destination that might be a war or a natural catastrophe or a calamity or maybe the absence of certain life facilities. For example, if you are finding it difficult to find water or food in a certain area, so you tend to migrate to another area. The volume of migration varies with the degree of diversity in the area of destination that where there are more facilities, people tend to go over there. The volume of migration varies with the fluctuation of economy as well. So it is not always fixed that people would always be migrating to a certain area. It would depend on the circumstances as well as the situation of facilities available over there. So more the facilities are available and more people tend to migrate to that area. And migration also tends to take place within the well-defined streams. For example, where there is a lot of trend, as we have seen that during the 70s and 80s, there was a very current trend of that time to migrate to Europe or European countries or maybe in the Middle Eastern countries to go to search for the opportunities of livelihood. And migrants responding to the pull factors at the destination tend to be positively selected. And also we have the neoclassical theory. It assumes that the labor markets and economies move towards a state of equilibrium. It means that it considers the migrants as the rational actors. They are not just acting based on weather pusher pull factors. So they rationally decide about the possibilities of migration by calculating their chances of acquiring the benefits of migration on a certain place. And migrants move from societies where labor is abundant and wage is low. So as you have seen that there is a greater trend in the modern world to migrate to the developed countries as compared to the developing and underdeveloped countries because there are more opportunities, more economic opportunities available. So the decision to migrate are taken usually at an individual level as compared to what is reflected in the other theories. And also we have the migration systems and network theory that focuses on the nexus between people at the origin and at the destination. For example, if a person has gone to Europe, he is more likely to call his other relatives to Europe as well. So this creates a nexus of communities. And migratory movements are often connected to prior longstanding links between the sending and receiving territories. These connections give birth to the migration system and people move where they can rely on someone they already know. For example, people do migrate to other countries if they are usually being called by the people who are already there or maybe they are becoming the spouses to go over there. And finally, we have the word system theory that emphasizes on the migration from the peripheral to core countries. By peripheral countries, it means that those countries who are economically dependent or who are economically less stable as compared to the core countries which are economically developed and more modernized countries. So migrants move from periphery to core while the goals, capital and machinery flow from core to peripheral countries. So these countries are considered usually the economic hubs where most of the innovation is being produced where most of the innovative technology is available. So they are usually attracting more and more migrants because of having a lot more economic opportunities. And migration occurs due to the shortage of labor in those developed countries as well.


After age 65, you can withdraw funds for any purpose without penalty, but you'll still owe taxes if the withdrawal is not used for qualified medical expenses. So note this is a little bit different than like an IRA, right? You're putting the money in and then usually with an IRA, when you take the money out, you have to pay taxes on it, which means you've got a deferral, but not a complete removal of taxes. Here, if you take the money out and you pay for qualified medical expenses, then you might not have to pay taxes on it at all. And then if you're older than 65, you might still have money in there that you want to pull out. And in that case, you might be able to pull it out without paying for medical expenses, in which case you'd have to pay taxes on it, which means you would have had a deferral similar to an IRA, but if you pay for the qualified medical expenses, you might not have to pay any tax on it at all. Ownership and portability. An HSA is owned by an individual, which means it's portable. The account stays with you if you change employers or leave the workforce. Now this is one of the things that's been kind of a problem in the past as we've had changes, societal changes over time. It used to be that health care was often tied to a place of employment.  Those kind of benefits can be great because there's things that the employer can give, but there are also things that lock people into a particular job. It's difficult to go from one job to another if your entire pension and your health plan and everything is tied to that one job. That's a way that a job can kind of tie you into it as well. So there's pros and cons of it. So here they're saying the HSA is owned by the individual, which means it's portable, which means it might leave you still free to move to another job if you need to. Eligible individual. So to be eligible to have contributions made to your HSA, you must be covered under a high deductible health plan. So here's one of the things that I believe basically changed a bit when they were trying to do all that stuff to the health insurance. They tried to make this hardcore line definition of what it means to be a high deductible plan. So consequently, you should be able to determine the plans usually will be quite clear that it is or does not a high covered or classified as a high deductible health plan. And obviously if it is a high deductible health plan that you could think of it as bad or good, because it means, well, there's a high deductible that's usually bad. But then it qualifies for these benefits because they're trying to subsidize the bad plan because it's possible lower income individuals are going to have that plan.  So if you are an eligible individual, anyone can contribute to your health savings account. However, you cannot be eligible in Medicare or be another person's dependent. So it gets a little bit confusing. Our health system note that you're paying for insurance. But then when you reach eligibility for Medicare, then Medicare is basically going to be, you know, one of the primary kind of insurance. So you have that kind of interplay when someone's in their working years and whatnot. They're going to have their own health insurance, which might be a high deductible health plan. And then there could be differences or whatnot when they become subject or able to apply for Medicare. So an individual does not fail to be treated as an eligible individual for any period merely because the individual receives hospital care or medical services under any law administrative by the secretary of veterans affairs for a service connected disability. So you will not fail to be considered an eligible individual because you receive benefits from a health saving plan under surprise billing laws. You must be or must be or be considered an eligible individual on the first day of the month to take an HSA deduction for that month. See last month rule. So what's the last month rule? If you are an eligible individual on the first day of the last month of your tax year, December 1st for most taxpayers, you are considered to be an eligible individual for the entire year. So long as you remain an eligible individual during the testing period as discussed below. Okay. So what's the testing period? So you must remain an eligible individual during the testing period in order to take advantage of the last month rule. The testing period begins with the last month of your tax year and ends on the last day of the 12th month following that month. For example, December 1st, 2023 to December 31st, 2024. So if you fail to remain an eligible individual during this period other than because of death or becoming disabled, you will not have to include in income the total contributions.


Portland's Kochmore Organ is undergoing a two-year renovation. Kathleen Grammer, Executive Director of the Friends of the Kochmore Organ, gave us a behind-the-scenes look at the work that's being done in Merrill Auditorium to prepare for the organ's return. Kathleen, we're here in the wind chest, the lungs of the Kochmore Organ. Most of the organ is away and Connecticut being repaired, but there's still some parts of it that are here that are being worked on. What's going on? Well, Phil Carpenter, who's a clerk of the works here, is working on moving the new air box or wind chest walls around. They put the sprinkler system in the ceiling, and so they have to move the walls back, and so that's basically what they're doing here. Measuring and also painting the Echo Division, which is above the Auditorium audience portion, and getting that ready to put some things back in. But most of the organ is in Tallinn, Connecticut. And what's being done to it down there? A total professional renovation. They're washing and fixing and tuning all the pipes, and every piece of the organ has come apart and is being worked on. It's quite a job. When will it be done and when will it be back here in the Merrill Auditorium? We're told that it will be functional in September of 2014. So we have a little ways to go, but you're doing some other programs elsewhere throughout the community, throughout the state with Ray Isaac, right? That's right. We have a huge education program, and our next concert will be Meet the King of Instruments, our youth concert at Loranger School in Old Orchard Beach. They have a whirlitzer pipe organ on their stage in the gymnasium that Ray has used with our in-school program, Kochmore for Kids. Philip Carpenter, Director of Field Services for Foley Baker, talked about the repairs being done to the very heart of the organ. Phil, you're doing a lot of reconstruction here today on the wind chest, and what does the wind chest do? In the Austin organ, the universal wind chest is what it's called, and it holds all the air for the organ, and it allows you to virtually walk into the organ while it's playing, and you'll be when the organ is operating, this chest will be full of air, and you'll be able to watch the actions work above you, and if there's a problem, you can repair it. Whereas on most other organs, you have to take hundreds of screws out sometimes just to open it, try to fix something, put it back together and try it, and it may not work. So Austin organ just made it very easy to work on their instruments. Does the wind chest work like a lung, like a human lung? It really just fills with air behind us on the wall. There's these bellows, and that's the lungs. Those will expand, and they're all sprung load. There's 122 springs on each reservoir, and as you play the organ, the bellows will collapse and allow more air into the organ. It's what regulates the organ. And what are you doing here today? You're moving some walls around to make the wind chest bigger. What we've done is we've actually duplicated the original air chest. In the 1990s move, they cut 18 inches off the top of this box, and it was in such bad shape that we decided to just build a new one rather than try to repair the old one. And since we were doing that, we decided to go back up another 18 inches to make it to make it higher and easier to service and everything. So what you see here right now is most of the boxes in place. We've just got one to we've got five more wall sections to put in today. And I see there are some metal pipes here that still remain, but there are also some new wooden pipes that have been installed. Most people don't think of an organ as having wood pipes. They only see the metal ones, but what are the wood pipes for? The wood pipes are basically the subwoofers of the organ, at least these on the wall here. These are the 32 foot pitch. The organ does have wood pipes that they have tiny wood pipes. I mean, some of the wood pipes will be this big. The what most people see is the facade of the organ, which is the metal pipes that you see here. And they think that is the organ. They don't realize that there is a huge room behind that is filled with thousands of pipes made of all different types of materials. There's a zinc and spotted metal. Sometimes this copper, you've got wood and all kinds of variations of lead and combinations of lead. So the the pipe metal, the type of metal will affect the tone quality. And it's what gives you the color of the various stops of the organ. How do you keep track of all those little parts? It's all here. Well, the one thing that you have to remember is these organs, all of these organs were originally built in a factory. And they assemble them in the factory. Sometimes they played them Austin didn't, but some organ companies would actually play the organ in the factory. And then they would have to take it all apart and move it to its to its final resting place. And this one is no different. So when they built it in the factory, everything is everything is labeled, everything is numbered, it's really a big jigsaw puzzle. So if you have a basic understanding of what you're looking at, you can you can put them back all the pipes have their their note stamped on them. And just about everything, you kind of go off a map. There's a base a simple floor plan of the organ. And that tells you where the various ranks of pipes will go. And from there, all the pipes are labeled. And all these individual parts, if you start taking an organ apart, you will see labels all over the place as to what went where. So far, the repairers seem to be on track for the organs gallery turn in the fall of 2014. For more information about the organ, go to f o k o dot org


We are now in a time which I call half time and half times we have throughout our lives. We have it in politics, we have it as a company, we have it as people. Now what is the future is what you, what you, what I do, what each one of us does, that all these little, little, little mosaic stones will form the future. And if we are strong enough, if we, if we tend to say I'm too, too small, I cannot move anything, then nothing will happen.  But in our world, we can, we can do the best. And we cannot change the systems. The future will be the big picture is that under the leadership of China, emerging economies will gain importance. We will have to adapt to a new competition. We will have to adapt to all the digitalization in our working world. We will, we will have to deal with unpleasant and pleasant consequences of these developments. But at the ends, we are the creators of our world. We, we decide. Doris Nesbitt is my guest on this episode of Inside Ideas, brought to you by 1.5 Media and Innovators Magazine, Trend One, Trend Company, as we can see Niels here in the picture. We also see Doris Nesbitt right there live. So excited to have her here. I want to tell you a little bit about Doris. She's our special guest today. She is the co-author of Mastering Megatrends, which came out in November 2017. The co-author of Creating Megatrends, China's new Silk Road, came out in May 2017. Co-author of Global Game Change in 2015. China Megatrends, co-author in 2010. Co-author of the China Model in 2011. Co-author of Innovation in China, 2012. I hope you're getting the trend. There's not only a Megatrend, but there is a trend here in general. And we're fortunate and so lucky to have her on the show today to speak with us. She's also the author of How to Get Where You Want to Go in 2015. Mai Lin, Mai China in 2012, and has written columns for China Youth Daily, Youth Digest, Vietnam Black, Hong Fu Da Run Chao, China Business Focus, Cao Kung Pao, and Himalayan News. Nesbitt China Institute was founded as an independent non-for-profit organization in 2017, and it is its goal is to analyze China's economic, political, social, and cultural transformation with local teams in China cities and provinces. Now I could go on and on because Doris and her husband, John, have been doing this for a long time. They've seen and heard pretty much everything I would say. I've got the two books here that I really want to focus in today. Obviously, Megatrends is very famous. And then another one here, Mastering Megatrends. And I welcome you Doris to the show. Thank you for bearing with my long introduction, but it is an honor and pleasure to have you here. Thank you very much. And then I want to introduce Nils in just one second here. Thank you very much. And I'm very happy to be here with you. It is our pleasure. Nils Miller is also on the screen, as you can see. He is not only a good friend, but the CEO and founder of Friend One, a Humber company that is actually international. It's all around the world, I believe. And Nils can tell you better or not, but he is the trend expert for Germany and around the world. He releases papers every month with minimum 250 trends and speaks all over the world every single day. Just before we jumped on this podcast, he was on a call and doing an event online. So I welcome you and we are actually fortunate all to know each other and to be speaking about Megatrends. And we said, you know what, we need to have John or Doris on the show to have a deep dive discussion about things. And Nils was the one who brought it all together. So I really thank you. And we're not going to beat you up, Doris, I promise, but we really want to get into a deep dive dialogue with you and kind of pick your brain, because you've just been doing this so long and you've been there every step of the way with John. And we want to hear all about it. Thank you very much.  Also, for me, Nace, Doris and John are such a front runner in the future market and trend industry. I'm a big fan of the trend industry because my company is part of this trend industry. And I think you've been the first in the market publishing books around Megatrends. And I have one with an individual signature for me. So for me, it's a really great session here to meet you live. And also, please say hello to John. It's a really honor to be here with you. And thank you for, Mark, to organize everything. I'm glad that we're all here. So without getting past the introductions, we have a lot of questions for you, some thoughts and ideas that we would like to share. So both of us, we've used the phrase before with you in our first discussion, Doris, about futurists. And that we deal with a lot of people who use the phrase, take the phrase futurist into their mouth and claim to be futurists who are doing this. And during this time of pandemic, the true futurists really came out because some of those who had taken that into their mouth, they were all of a sudden disappearing or really panicking because all that future talk really didn't come out. Nothing happened. So they didn't apply it into their lives. They weren't prepared. The businesses have shut down. And so with what you and John have done over 40 plus years, probably, that I want to know, has that given you resilience? How have you weathered this pandemic? Has that helped you weather the storm or say, boy, we've been talking about some of these things for a while and we applied some of them in our lives. And we were, we had a little resilience and preparedness during this time. Well, you know, we have said not only once that we are in a way lucky to be in the age we are, that we are not young people who are just building up something who are just maybe opening a new entity, opening a new restaurant or store, and are really now in a very bad situation. Compared to that, we can sort of lean back comfortably, can read a lot, can can do whatever we want, except that, of course, like you, we are very much cut back in our travel activities, which we enjoyed very much. But apart from that, we belong to the lucky group of people who are not in a bad way, really hit by that pandemic. That is wonderful to hear. Were there any things where you said, wow, this is really unforeseen and aha moment where even some of the things that happened during the pandemic, like Black Lives Matters or maybe what happened in Belarus or with a U.S. election or anything with the drastic blame on Wuhan and China for different things? Were any of those things eye-openers or were you said, boy, that even caught us off guard? Or can you give us a little more insight on during this time what you've experienced? Well, let's begin with the end of last year. We were in China end of last year, 2019, and there was no sign. We were, in fact, we were traveling to Chinese provinces and everything was optimistic. Everything was positive. We have been to Wuhan. Actually, we were invited to do more studies on Wuhan, but, you know, it's not so easy because it takes, we did a study on Chengdu ones, and that took about two years to really understand what's going on there. So we didn't spend too much time in Wuhan, but we learned it is a very modern city. We had a lot of contact with the local government and not surprisingly, like most governments, local governments in China, they're very well educated. They can pray up and down the Viennese School of Economics. So it was a very, very, very interesting time also this last December in China.  And just like many others, you know, we, you know, we have been in China in a three city tour during SARS. And we remember that they offered to us to return immediately. We said, oh, no, we just stay and it will be fine. And I must say, despite any look into the future, we did not have to look into the future that told us this is going to be such a pandemic and in a way tragic for many, many people. So while we were like many thinking it would pass sooner or later, we were all surprised by how fast it really became the dimension we now know it has. Given the other things you mentioned, I mean, you cannot really be surprised what happens in America, except that maybe the polarization will lead to a positive polarization and a better and more thoughtful idea and understanding about what's the underlying thing behind Trump's success. And that is the polarization of the country that is the underlying racism that's still there. And one can only hope that we are at the doorstep to a better era now. And an era where the American people may be also under the sign of a pandemic that heats people of all kinds, all colors, all social levels. Maybe that's the time when Americans can really understand that it is what unites us that made the country big and not what separates us. Can you give us a little bit more, if you don't mind, a little bit more insight into your and John's background? And obviously, you're almost global citizens, so you travel a lot, but you're both speak English, and I don't know how many other languages, but German as well and where you live. But that, what kind of culminated that you've got this big future vision and this, not only thinking about the trends, but also aspects of all around the world, not just China, but things that are going on in the US. Is there any path or upbringing that kind of moved you in that direction? Oh, I tried to cut that a little short, because that's a long story. First of all, I met John when I was head of a publishing house. And one of our editors sort of passingly said when I was leaving to a Congress, oh, you just get John Mespit for the house. And I said, no problem. And then I had to deliver. So that was about 26 years ago, there was the Congress, John was the keynote speaker. And I tried to catch him, but he was nowhere around. Finally, just by coincidence, he was passing me, I dropped everything chased after him and told him I would like to publish his next book. That was the beginning of our story. And neither one of us you can, you may understand, if anybody would have told us, you just met your future husband and wife, we would have just left. But we started to negotiate. I flew to New York, he flew to Frankfurt, and then he flew to Vienna. And very quickly we found that we had a very good understanding and a very good sense of what's important. We sort of both big picture people. And John said yes. So we published his book, Megatron's Asia. And from that moment on, I arranged speeches for him. And we started to cooperate more and more. And then because we liked each other more and more, we got married in the year 2000. By that time, I was still head of a publishing house. But I decided that it's important to live our life together. And not, I had several offers of German houses and our house was already bought by a German house. I wouldn't have spent too much time with my husband. I would have been, you know, traveled for the house and working for the house. And he would have been traveling the world. So finally, we were just in Singapore, I decided that's it. We spend our life together. We work wonderfully together. That was in the year 2000. And from that moment on, we fully concentrate it on our work together. What's so important for my opinion is that to really get a picture of the world, you need to travel the world. And John and I, I cannot tell you how many round-the-world trips we did. First of all, we always had speeches all over the world. But in addition, we added to the travel to the cities where the talks, where the conferences are, and chose more remote places and needed time to really talk to the people on the ground. Because of course, we had the wonderful advantage that we were too. We were together 24 hours. We got up in the morning. We could talk about the things that were important to the world and to us. We could, we met people together. We could discuss our work together. So it's about the most wonderful life I can imagine one can have. Besides, of course, that when you have a very good marriage, it makes everything much easier. Yeah, it's always not that separation. You know, how was your day at work?  That's a much better way. In some respects, I almost want to say that it's also the precursor of a mega trend on the future of work. So to say, you know, there's books like The Business Romantic where Tim LaBerich talks about, you have to have this romance in the work you have to do. There's Frederick LaLue reinventing organizations where there's more and more these couples and people that really try to work together and have this lifestyle or romance in the way they do the work, that it's not separate that you're spending 40 hours a week, one place, and your partner's 40 hours elsewhere, and then you kind of meet in the evenings on the weekends, which is very minimal time and regurgitate how your days were. And so I love that, that progress and that future way of thinking. I know Nils has some real important questions for you as well on mega trends as well. It's such a wonderful story with you and John and for me it's interesting how do you see the futurist industry the last 26 years, like emerging and changing because it's a very young industry. I once met a guy in a Delta plane to New York and he said he's in the mining industry and his industry exists in 3,000 years. So 3,000 years ago they had the first industry associations and came together in the mining industry and he asked me what I'm doing and I said I'm in the trend mining industry. At my industry the first people did this was like face popcorn or the little card or you and John Naysbitt and this is like maybe 40 years ago or 30 years but not 3,000 years so we are in such a young industry. So for me it's very interesting to see the last 26 years from your perspective how did this change, how did the futurist and foresight industry emerge? You work a lot with governments, do they more and more on a professional way use the future insights, use the mega trends, also corporates. They just start to build up departments using foresight, using scenarios, pictures of the futures and how do you see the change in the last 26 years in our industry and are we becoming a real industry or are we part of consulting or keynote or market research or are we a known industry and how do you see the emergence of the industry and the future of the industry? Yeah I think you're asking a fish how he feels in the he or she feels in the water so we should consult with people who have an outside inlook but you know when I got to know John and as a publisher of course his brand was futurist and he always refused, he always said I'm not a futurist, I'm a nowist, I am monitoring what's going on in the world now and that allows me to make conclusions for the future. So basically this is what we both agreed on. If you want to anticipate what will be in the future what you have to do is like you said it nears very well mining. It's work, you have to on one hand read a lot, have different sources, on the other hand you have to be on the ground to check because the mood in the country can tell you something very different than what is written about the country or an organization and so forth. In general I would really like to make a difference between people who focus on the big developments on big trends or mega trends and the many who are actually concentrating on consumer trends because there's a big difference and I think there's a justification why so many concentrate on consumer trends because mega trends do not change every year. They don't come down like rain in spring and summer rain and autumn rain but you have a new mega trend that's not how it happens. The real mega trends that John was writing about in 1982 are still in place and there will be time before there will be such a big shift as we had it from industrial to information age so we have to be careful about the frame in which we operate. Are we focusing on global developments like geopolitical developments or are we focusing on what is happening within mega trends which are various consumer trends which of course are also influenced by mega trends but so I think there are two categories and we have probably not been very good in watching the market of futurists. We were much too much concentrating on what was interesting to us and we were both focusing I said a little earlier that we are both big picture people so very early on in 2000 it was also clear remember John wrote mega trends Asia in 1995 it was clear that Asia is going to becoming a very important player in the global community and I remember that as a publisher there was the Asian financial crisis and I had a report of an important magazine called and said see see last bit was wrong last bit was wrong we have the financial crisis Asia is out and that's you know you cannot you cannot see mega trends by looking at a short frame and then you know a bomb in the road throws you off and out is the mega trend and you are looking for the next one that's not how it goes that's why when you're really focusing on mega trends you need to have the big picture and that drove us more and more to China because that's where most of the happening was going on. When we take a look back into the 1980s we had even a bit earlier after the Second World War we had such an Americanization of the world so we have all over we have U.S. brands and U.S. products do you think we will have like an asiatization of our world more and more also with the Belt Road and seeing more and more Asian products in our markets Asian brands business models like WeChat coming into our market will this be like the same wave effect we had the Americanization and now having the asiatization the next years? You know it's very interesting because in the year 2000 no was it 2001 when China joined the WTO was it 2001 or 2002 you can correct me please we were talking to a lot of Chinese and they said will this mean Americanization for China but then came the year 2008 and the financial crisis in the West and all of a sudden China became aware that the West is not invulnerable and their self-confidence rose you could feel it you know every time you came there was a little more self-confidence a little more critical look today if we jump another 12 years there is a very strong self-confidence there is an awareness that China is going to be the number one economy in the world I mean by PPP it already is but you know in absolute figures that is there but the big question is how can culture I mean the question that is is for the Chinese can China become culturally as influential as the United States and our answer is it will take a long time because it's not only that our affinity to Chinese opera is not as strong as to you know Gershwin or so that's another hurdle but the American way of life is so different from the Chinese way of life you have a 5000 year old culture which is in the bones of the Chinese their look to the government their look to society their look to to social orders everything is is different but that is part of the Chinese way of life and that is very hard to export other things have been exported very quickly you know what's it called martial arts and other things that was picked up even calligraphy and Chinese paintings the art market has exploded so that yes but the the the aura of freedom the aura of fun the aura of just conquering the world in a in a in a cultural way that will take time and that would be certainly a goal that the Chinese would have but you can you can strategically probably and obviously become the economic leader of the world but you cannot strategically become the role model of the world that's not possible you you bring up an interesting point Doris that I want to touch on it or see if there's a little bit more to it when I read your books that comes out to me but I want to check I just had a professor doctor Matias Glaubrecht on my talk show last week and we spoke about his book the end of evolution he's an evolutionary biologist and he says you know for evolution to evolve it's millions of years to hundreds of thousands of years for for that type of evolution but there's this collective or cognitive cultural evolution that occurs it's it's much faster than normal evolution but it's still pretty slow and we're seeing that that's changing a lot and evolving a lot and in your books it's not these megatrends there is a strong aspect of cultural evolution or cultural trends that emerge can you go is this kind of what you're telling us and can you go a little bit deeper into that for us you know as you were asking this question I was just thinking that we have in a way a sad situation because we are losing the the cultural positive influence of the West this is sort of fading away and we don't have really a cultural strong positive influence that is replacing it so what are we going to merge I mean what about our values when you look at the United States today the admiration if you if you have a clear picture is not there anymore if you look at Europe you have 26 members who cannot find an agreement on relatively simple questions if you look at China well China has its own strategy China wants to be influential is influential but in a very different way so if we talk about cultural influence we can we can talk about music but the stream is still more west to east we can talk about art the stream was a lot for a while Asia to Europe so and then we can we cannot put all Asian countries in one pot you have so many different structures so many different ideas models personalities even though I have to say if you if it comes to our human needs we're all the same and if if it comes to talking and understanding and finding people with whom you can exchange you always find people with whom you have an easy understanding but I couldn't give an answer where the cultural direction will be in the future I think we just have to the responsibility to contribute as much as we can whether it's literature whether it's values whether it's other things that we can contribute or interesting podcasts people can listen to meals do you have something to ask I think the US culture was so easily to export because it's so explicit it's it's always very well explained very clear brand very clear value proposition the US culture is super explicit because they learn to be explicit because they they had so many different people in their country all coming together the whole world coming together so they learned how to explicit explain things and when you look back to the 3000 year old Chinese culture it's very implicit it's like all between the dots because they learned 3000 years how to communicate like the Japanese culture as well it's super super complex and very very implicit it's so much between the dots between the lines what you say in the air and this is American it's like not in the air it's like really explicit coming out just do it yeah and so it's difficult to to export like such an implicit asian chinese culture is super super difficult and now let me let me add I think it's nowadays we are in a world where we are not only in reality where culture happens when we when we look at our kids where they grow up like three four or five hours a day then they grow up in virtual reality so this is like a parallel reality like a digital parallel reality where where also culture and art happens where they meet in three-dimensional virtual rooms doing art like building blocks like Legos building universes doing we chat and instagrams and and and use youtube's and and all the content they publish is is in like in a parallel universe which is which leads us like to in hybrid reality and also the world now is much more connected so maybe maybe we go the next narrative of our culture will be like a real global hybrid reality culture where it's it's more mix and mingle you know it's not so easy anymore it's it's more like coming all together on a global scale because the whole world is connected via airplanes but now even through the virtual remote everything connectivity I think you know we have a diss we have an advantage and we have a disadvantage I'm talking about John and me uh we our children are grown up so we could do whatever we wanted to do the disadvantage is that we are far behind uh in our understanding of of the worlds in which kids are moving and you are absolutely right the Asia is exporting a lot of these games and there's a mix in this culture which is enormous and we have a friends whose son or two sons actually are totally in this culture and that mixes up even though to a high degree with an American influence still but that mixes up the two worlds so to say yes that's that's I think the wonderful example is esports esports is so popular in asia and it's clear that it's sports and you meet like 50 000 people in an arena in a sports stadium and watching other people gaming on esports and they are really like heroes and champions in in their in their society and in in in Europe and in the US we still talk about if this is really sports and they just do gaming and should be considered as a sport so I think there in in in asia things happen so so much faster and also so much more in the digital universe that for us is like sometimes complex to understand what what the culture of the future of will be and I think it would be really global and hybrid yeah but uh you know I'd be skeptical to not overestimate the digital world because at the end our needs and our our desires are still in the real world and when you are our personal needs and and I'm talking about and when you when you move in china it doesn't matter whether you use the subway whether you are sitting in a restaurant or whatever you do the people are glued to their phones and it's a very sad to watch a family sitting at a dining table four people playing games or uh uh reach out or do whatever with other people and losing uh the interaction with each other I mean after all as nice as it is to be on video if we could sit here together on a in a living room and see each other and and just be in the same room that would be an increase at least for my opinion so this game playing you know all all the parents of the children that I know they have to limit the time because the children are sitting alone focusing on their uh uh diverses whatever they have and and and the social contact to go out play games uh with their friend uh learn not how to solve a digital uh you know friction a digital fight but a real fight how do I find a common ground with a friend not with a digital friend whom I can turn off if I don't if I get too tired so I think we have to to balance these high tech uh possibilities with the human needs that we still have if we take a look at human needs like working and and sex and entertainment and all this is all happening virtual nowadays so you have I think more than 50% of the people in the US doing marrying marrying met online so more than 50% met online is online was a place so yeah and and this this is true to everything we have remote remote sports like people do sports fitness studios at home we have we have remote work we have remote entertainment we have remote sex we have remote work we have remote shopping I don't know about that but everything we have to take your we'll have to take your word on the remote so maybe 2020 is the year not for the pandemic but for remote everything yeah so when we look back in time and looking back to the year 2020 when we are in 2030 maybe we say this this was really the year where everything went remote right and this is a new reality also also my parents told me I mean when I grew up was like three hours a day the kids were watching telly and this was like oh no you telly is so bad you don't need to watch telly go out on the street and play football or something like this yeah and and now yeah now they do something else and I think every generation has this new new paradigms and ways to way to connect this this is the reality it's set from our perspective but it's it's the for for the kids growing up nowadays as it's their world yeah but it's it's it's a world that's not richer for my opinion because and and you know I'm in an age where you can say oh yeah the grandmothers have you know these old-fashioned ideas but let me just take one of the things that's reading now reading is not only that you can say I read this and that and classical literature modern literature it's because you learn how to express yourself and Wittgenstein wrote a sentence which I really love he said the borders of your words of your language define the borders of your world and if you are not able to express yourself because you are used to all these shortcuts on the various devices you use then how can you how can you convince somebody of somebody how can you present a project how can you how can you express your opinion how can you perform in whatever you do if you have not an education that teaches you how to express who you are and what you want to be when I look at tiktok they the kids express yourself and tiktoks in very very short videos and I think our brain not only works with text and books but also very well due to our 200 000 year evolution where there was not so much text in the last 200 000 years we work very well with pictures and moving images our brain functions like this and our kids learn to express themselves in five or ten seconds videos which is also very strong to really pitch what you want to do and it's maybe in I understand what you say that this is important to to to to to understand all this like big picture of the words but I think it's also a new way to express yourself with videos absolutely absolutely and let's be honest not everybody is interested in the big picture of the world because everybody is interested especially now what's happening to me and what's happening in to my environment what's happening with the my goals how can I realize my goals how can I do this and that so I I think the big picture you know whether which country is gaining or losing in the importance in the global community is a little further away when it comes to the problems of unemployment and health problems and so forth so you're absolutely right and also we have to admit that each generation has in a way its own language yeah and and our grandchildren communicate in a different way than than our children and I mean my age and in our and we ourselves so I think that that is something we have to consider in every age we had in the past so and so many years I want to pay the devil's advocate a little bit and get some more insights on China so I think a lot of the megatrends are moving from pushback from Asia and China to not let the United States or other others bully them as has been done in the past where we we just recently saw it as well last year where China had a strong pushback on taking the United States plastic trash and other trash that this isn't you know no you can take it again but there's also this trend from from China where um and I call it this and I don't I don't know if there's another term Niels or Doris you would probably know better than I do but it's I call it hacking the system so if if there's embargoes or problems put into place via trade where they're not allowed to to to do any kind of a trade trying to just hacks the system they'll take it and import it to Malaysia and then export it from Malaysia or take it to Thailand and then take it from there whether it's honey or food or whether it's computer parts or whatever else but there's also this big pushback that China is not only not anymore the cheapest place to get your products done it's one of quality it's one of high standards a good worker ethics in a lot of areas from coffee to computers you know whatever we look at and that there's now more pushback that if if if we're going to produce your products we're not going to be the cheapest because we're not going to take that total environmental impact here in China so that you can thrive and benefit from your iPhones or whatever technology whatever garbage you we're not going to be your world's garbage and so that's a big whether you call it planetary services mega trend that China is saying we're not going to play that game anymore i'd love to hear your thoughts or if your ideas are the same in that respect as well i think just to to be on the big picture which i think is very important in understanding China um in the year 1921 uh when the communist party of china was founded they made the 100 year plan to by the year 2021 have a country of modest wealth you know just think for a moment a hundred year plan none of the people who were sitting there uh making that decision in a country that was you know destroyed and and and just in a terrible situation um making a plan that in 100 year we want the the mass of our population to live in modest wealth this was the one frame the one frame that china put up the next frame that china put up was in 1949 when they said that in 2049 the final victory of the socialism with chinese characteristics will be in place and now what you have to do to understand the thinking is to have to put everything china is planning uh and doing into that frame because um no matter what setbacks china had through the first hundred years to 2021 they reached their goal and uh here we go to a very strong difference that we have experienced from the top top leaders to the the people on the street you know the street sweeper it's a learning society they are like sponges when they meet you whether you as a country you as a company you as a person they want to get anything they can learn from you out of you and then apply it into their life their uh company their country in a way that matches the frame in which they operate uh when you look back to 1980 when uh deng zhao ping was coming into power he made an absolute u-turn because he understood that the country couldn't get to the goal couldn't reach the goal if they continue the path so why there is one unshakable truth that is the the uh ruling of china's communist party they are willing to take the turns that are necessary to reach the goal and that brings me back to your question mark uh that uh of course china doesn't see itself in the year 2049 uh being just the workshop of the world or just uh getting the garbage of the world or whatever china sees itself as a country as a middle kingdom at once was and most of the the centuries if you look back it's a surprise how often china has been the largest economy in the world uh it sees itself in that position and they want to reach everything that's necessary to be in that position and have which will be difficult in my opinion and have the the acceptance in holding that position so uh whether it's an economic cultural social goal uh everything is within that frame and and and when you look at certain developments put it in that frame and ask yourself uh will that serve the overall goal despite that china is willing to make extra tours new tour new times everything that's a very it's very it's very cultural but i i sure as hell wish the united states would adopt that long term uh type of vision when policies are made uh multi-generational i mean there's so much short-termism in policies and politicians in the united states where it would be nice that that for the for the rest of the world but also for the us if some of the policies they made were also multi-generational of a hundred years and not this short-term quick fix things which which ties back into the cultural aspect of that but i really appreciate you touching on that uh doris i i wanted to kind of give you a little bit of a kudos in in combination with a question and there there is an author that i had on the podcast his name is thomas yuli he wrote a book called human business and um it just barely came out during the pandemic which is a whole another nightmare to go through when when you release a book in lockdown situations but he quoted john uh in his book he he gave a nice quote and a recognition to you where john says the most exciting breakthroughs of the 21st century will not come because of technology but because of an expanding concept of what it means to be human and that throughout all your books is something that i love that both of you really touch on that human aspect of trends and culture of where we need to go because there's not just that one aspect of a trend of technology or that there's a strong human factor to that a culture almost and um so i'm not sure if if we answered all neil's questions more because we really wanted to focus in on the china mega trends and whether whether you have any more insights for us what we can expect as major mega trends specifically for china and that's that's basically been your focus as well with the institute oh yes um what we did was uh uh we you know we started the institute in in tianjin and of course focusing on on china doesn't allow you to just be in one place so we moved around and wherever we were we had local people there to to help us understand different things for example something that's totally strange to us is the household registration system where you are bound with all the benefits social benefits to the city where you have your i can't think of it now the the name uh where you are registered as a person and when you move to another city then uh you have to pay more you have to pay more for doctors for schools you know these are certain things in the in the chinese social system which go way back which are a huge challenge for the local government and for the federal government to to overcome how do you solve that problem without overburdening other systems so that's one of the challenges that china for sure has to overcome this challenge of the the social system not to not to mix it up with what the system that they are now establishing in in not in the whole country but in in various places the social credit system which is a plan to improve the moral the ethics of the people and uh you know as a not very unwanted side effect to be in better control of the people but also when you look at china the people in china are receiving that in a very different way than we receive it they see it that it's also a protective frame we see such things just as controlling frames but in general you know the chinese are so eager to uh to become more global not not in a way of losing their chinese being chinese but in a way of spreading their chinese way to the globe they're very good in business um when you do business with the chinese uh don't try to put them in a too tight box because they hate to be put in in too tight boxes because things could change and then we need to make a turn and then we have every move is a single paragraph how can we move uh how can we make the most of it if we are in such a tight frame so um the the the past to china is certainly that it's uh going to do everything to become the leader and it already is a leader in in certain technologies it uh it is not interested in anymore in in all the technologies that hurt the environment it's a it's a building up of self-confidence it's a building up of let's educate our children more and better it's a but all under a we could say increasing strong influence of the government thank you so much there i mean there would be one last comment that i'd make to that and then i'll turn it over to neils and and uh i don't know if you'd have anything to say i in uh 2017 i hosted um uh conference of the party see the united nations a a plan area that was the launch and presentation of the global energy interconnection which is a chinese driven uh movement to create a renewable energy grid around the world not just china around the world and it's spearheaded by um a company called guide co and it's in partnership with this global energy interconnection that is really pushing that the world becomes not only global citizens regardless of chinese rule and regime but that we have a global infrastructure and that's you know what neils mentioned earlier with the the the new update of the silk road basically of what's coming there and what what affects long-term and big positive effects and maybe maybe some cultural effects as well on on society but those are um those are long-term infrastructural mega trends in my opinion that change the way we we have we we take care of the basics not only energy infrastructure but also how we feed each other and how how things are done and so um it's amazing to see those progresses in the world because of of china's long-term vision of the future um if you i mean china has already taken the lead in green energy and if you you know sadly if you come from china to the united states you think you're going back to the stone age of trains you know you go when when we were in in in uh december in in china just as an example we went to another province 450 kilometers away it took the train one and a half hours to be there you know you step on that high speed train you go with 325 kilometers per hour and you're there and and it's not complicated you don't have all the hassle you have in an airplane and china has such a large network of of of these high speed trains already the the transportation everything is so so much state of the art much more than if you look to the united states and that's something that that certainly is a result of how can we learn how can we not only learn from the achievements of other countries but how can we also learn from the mistakes to other of other countries and we've been to cities in china i could tell you it was terrible because you you you you could hardly see your hand in front of your face and this is changing because they understood that the the the communist party of china they can tell the people a lot about economics and global developments but they cannot tell you you have a blue sky when you can't see the next house so it is very much to their their own bone to clean the air and to have a clean environment for the chinese because if people died because the the the food is is so contaminated with all kind of medals and so forth you know you have the damage in your own country you got to clean your house first and that's something that they understood and it's to their own benefit and and then they're smart enough to want to export that you know it's it's i i i also think the past olympics that they that they had there where there was all the problems with the air pollution and and that was also a form of a black guy that they they don't want to ever relive and so they're they're really pushing hard and i've seen leaps and bounds of things occur all throughout all asia just to to fix that problem yeah go ahead sorry uh one of the things that's really significant um when we are when we were traveling in china no matter which city uh and we were invited to the governor to the to the mayor and to the party secretary who is always the most important person uh then they sit they ask you questions and they listen to you how many uh people or leaders in in in the west have invited chinese people to listen and learn from them you know uh mark you mentioned the books i wrote for china's youth we did a book tour uh and it was fascinating we were giving talks and had discussions with students two thousand nine hundred six hundred in many different parts many provinces of china we were never told what to say we were we sometimes asked is there any subject because you know it's not necessary that we make a a fuss about something no just say whatever you want and have a discussion whatever you like you know and then people come the the students came and they said you know just so that we have western people we have you here and we can discuss with you and our teachers our professors are enabling us and the same is we you know the party school is the the the that's a big compound in beijing where all the the leading politicians have to go periodically to be uh reeducated it's kind of a a government university to be to stay the state of the art well they invite westerners as well to speak there and we were invited to speak about democracy because you know in in in one of our books we had compared the democracy that china as china understands it as a vertical democracy where you have to keep the equilibrium between the top down forces and the bottom up forces and that's the balance that such an autocratic system has to keep the equilibrium between the force of the people and the directions the government gives while we have a vertical system where you have uh mark you said it where you have interruptions every four five years and you can have your terms every four five years because neils as you said there cannot be a consensus that let's have a 20 year plan for the united states to eliminate racism and we will all together work on it no that's not possible that's interesting yes if you look at this the three leadership models in the world then then you have the us model where they say everything is possible it's like grassroots you can be a startup you can you can become like a Elon musk yeah everything is possible like bottom up and and then you have the chinese model which you just explained which is like very very good top down alignment and bottom up power and which which is very very powerful because we have so many orientation from top down and so many people from the grass would really want to do something and and then you have the european model which is kind of like a middle management you know it's it's it's like it's a sandwich but it's all in between and we have to discuss and we have to involve thousands of people to do and this decision in our associations in the middle management so there's three different leadership models if you know you have so much experience like with mega trends and also what mark said in developing people and developing leaders uh what advice would you give and that's maybe my final question what advice would you give to to leaders uh how they how they can lead in in their business for society and for the planet for for the next 10 years for the next decade yeah yeah well you know i don't want to sound too grand um because it's difficult enough to be a leader one has to admit too but uh i think that uh one of the things is that we need leaders who are above average we have too many average people making a career in their political environment because they are good in whatever it takes to move up the ladder in their political party but not because they are good in what is good as a vision for their country yeah and i think this is very much a moral question what are the what are the what's the mission a person has is there a mission or is there just the goal i want to become whatever uh get into whatever position i uh there is i think those idealistic politicians that for example after the war when when the countries were really in a very bad situation and and the first idea was how can i serve my country it's it sounds very idealistic but at the end that's what the profession of a politician is about and politicians should be paid better if i run a country why would i have a lousy payment and and other people who run a company have 10 times 100 times what i made so we need politicians with a moral standing with a vision and i don't know how to get that that's so true thank you very much we need great visionary leaders with a mission such such a nice closing because this also mark comes back to our core human skills what the world economic forum said what are what are the core skills i like to be a creative inspiring imaginable leader with emotional intelligence and negotiation skills but but very much important is like this inspiration power visionary leadership yes yes one thing that i would add to that is we we need that visionary leadership but more than anything we need politicians to be diplomatic we need them based in the skills of what dora said earlier to listen to be diplomatic to to hear all sides and to have that instead of just to have politicians pushing their next term or their short term in office i mean there are so much i'm wasted in these processes where you know it's a year to get in the office then they get in the office and then there's another year wasted until they get up and do anything and it's such an inefficient as we're seeing worldwide and inefficient system i i actually have a couple more questions for you doris if you don't mind and the the the biggest one in my opinion is the the hardest question it's the burning question wtf and i do not mean the swear word i mean what's the future yeah the burning question is wtf and it's to you what's the future i i truly believe this can only be answered for each person for yourself uh we are now in a time which i call half time and half times we have throughout our lives we have it in politics we have it as a company we have it as people now what is the future is what you what uh you what i do what each one of us does that all these little little little mosaic stones will form the future and if we are strong enough if we if we tend to say i'm too too small i cannot move anything then nothing will happen and i'm not talking about big revolutions and and you know burning down something but in our world we can we can do the best and we cannot change the systems the the future will be the big picture is that uh under the leadership of china emerging economies will gain importance we will have to adapt to a new competition we will have to adapt to uh all the digitalization uh in our working world we will we will have to deal with uh unpleasant and pleasant consequences of these developments but at the ends we are the creators of our world we we decide when we're in a half time you know we are we are always uh either intentionally or it's it's imposed on us we get in these periods which which which i call half time and then we make a turn to this or that direction and uh uh you know when right now as uh john gets less mobile this is a half time we have to deal with we have to see how can we make the most out of the situation and entrepreneur who is now who's who's whose ground is taken away because of the condition the environment of a pandemic has to decide how am i uh reorganize reinvent my business and i think that's what we constantly have to do that these uh times in which we have to reinvent ourselves in which we have to try to be a positive influence in our small environment and then in bigger circles as much as we can into bigger environments this is uh the best contribution we can do and not just lean back and wait and see the the last question i have for you to wrap up our podcast is basically a sustainable takeaway for our listeners i would like you to depart one message to our listeners that has the power to change your life or influence them and the caveat to that is is a lot of supposed futurists or our business leaders are those looking to the future as well as trends as well a megatrends they're reading your books you are setting the course curriculum for a lot of people on the future of their movements and and how they do business and so if you had a message to depart to them the power to change our future their lives what would that message be you know when we tend when we look into the future or when we look at whatever is of interest we tend to seek uh and find something that confirms an opinion we already have so this is the big danger when you want to look into the future that you have to uh watch out how you make your judgments try to step back from your personal opinion try to look at things as they are and uh independent from your emotions you know that's very important we 80 percent of our decisions are driven by emotions try to to step back from your emotion and look into your business look into your environment look at yourself and try to cut down on pre on a preset mind and try to cut down on the emotion and the wish to get confirmation for what you are already doing be open be open and willing to make a change Neil Doris thank you so much I really appreciate it and that's all I have unless you have any words of wisdom final thoughts that's it thank you so much fantastic closing thank you thank you thank you so much Doris and we wish you and John a wonderful holiday season and that you arrive safely in 2021 and we see each other soon and maybe catch up again on some of of your other work I'll put in the show notes your new updated website and some of the links to your books so that people could come out and and check you up and support your your institute as well thank you so much Doris have a wonderful day


All right, now this pork, I want you to look, I mean, that's fork tender. It's real savory and good. With the raisins, with the sweet potato, with the pork rub, this is a really good combination to use with pork. You can use it with pork roast, you can use it with pork tenderloin, you can use it with pork chops. We're gonna make a one pot pork dish, and this is just an invention of mine. Okay, I'm gonna start out this dish with one and one half cups of uncooked parboiled rice. Okay, I like to use parboiled rice in all of my recipes. So take a note of that if you make a recipe that's with Color Valley Cooks and it's got rice, I use parboiled rice. All that means is it's gonna cook up a little quicker. Okay. Next thing we're gonna do is I've got a celery stalk, I halved it and then quartered it into four strips. And we're going to chop this up and this is gonna be chopped then and we're gonna put it in the rice. Also got just a little bit of fresh sage and I'm just gonna chop it up just a little bit. We're gonna throw that in the rice as well. If you don't have any fresh sage, you can use ground sage about a quarter teaspoon. Smells good already. We're gonna lay this entire rice, put that in the pot. And the next thing we're going to do is add a few raisins. Because sweet potatoes are gonna lay on the top and it's gonna have kind of a little bit of a sweet flavor. So I'm just gonna put in about a couple of tablespoons of raisins. You can put more in there if you want to. Now we're gonna stir up these ingredients before we add our water. Remember those raisins will soak up a little extra water? Three cups of hot water and I'm gonna put about a tablespoon of granulated bullion in here. If you don't like to use bullion, of course you can use some broth just by the broth at the store or if you have some in the refrigerator. So that's three cups. And we're gonna add this to the rice. And we're gonna mix that one too.  So we got some nice tenderloin pieces as well. This recipe is gonna serve four people easily. This is Chris's pork rub. And if you have a favorite blend that you like to use, of course you can use that as well.  So if you want that recipe, I'll put it, I'll post it at the bottom of this post as well. And so we're just going to sprinkle this on the top layer. And now we're gonna take three washed and cleaned good sweet potatoes with the skin on. Three will serve four people. And if you want, if everybody wants a whole one, of course you can add another one to that. All right, we're gonna place the lid on our instant pot. I'm gonna turn it on the ceiling. There's vending, ceiling, venting. So one's a slow vent, one's a higher vent. We're just gonna leave it on seal. And then it's closed. So we're gonna turn this on. And I'm actually gonna put it on meat and stew. I'm gonna put this on and open. Okay, let's take a look at our masterpiece. Open it up. The steam has finished. Let's see what we got. We've got rice and pork and sweet potatoes. So I'm gonna pick up a sweet potato, put it on the plate. All right, here's a piece of pork. And now let's get some rice down at the bottom. Let's get a little bit that shows the raisins.  Why not? It looks delicious. All right, Tammy has made me the taste tester for this. And of course these potatoes are gonna be good. Can't mess up a sweet potato. Those are some good sweet potatoes. They're yams from Sam's Club. Yeah, you can tell by how pretty and orange they are. All right, now this pork, I want you to look. I mean, that's fork tender. See what it tastes like with that rub poured over it. The pork is good. That's not mushy. It's good. The rice. I didn't know about it when she said she's gonna put raisins in it, but she usually knows what she's doing every once in a while. Celery and sage. Celery and sage, yeah. It's real savory and good. It's very savory. It's gonna be great. Let's see if I change a thing. This is an invented recipe. And y'all know that I've just got this instant pot. So I'm gonna be coming up with a lot of good stuff for y'all to make. That was a 30, what was it, 35 minutes crust? 35 minute pot meal. So yummy. That's really good. Yeah, the rice is what makes it. Amy might even eat this. She don't like pork very much, but I think she would like it in this rice. She loves rice. Now remember, Chris's pork rub has cayenne pepper in it. So this has got a little heat to it. If you do not want it to, then use a pork rub that does not. Or just make our pork rub without the cayenne pepper. But this is absolutely delicious.  I wouldn't do the raisins and the celery and the sage. You could do a sagey rice, but I'll just come up with another one for chicken because I really think this is true for pork. With the raisins, with the sweet potato, with the pork rub, this is a really good combination to use with pork. You can use it with pork roast. You can use it with pork tenderloin. You can use it with pork chops. And I think even ham would work. So this is just going to be a good pork pot meal. Now thanks for watching Colored Valley Cooks and please visit our website at www.coloredvalleycooks.com. Please hit that like and subscribe button as well. Love y'all.


Infectious diseases are caused by pathogens like viruses or bacteria that can jump from one person to the next. So how can we stop the cycle of transmission? Simple answer is immunity. Immunity is our body's ability to resist a pathogen via the immune system. Today we'll talk about herd immunity. Immunity zoomed out to the level of the population. To understand herd immunity, we first need to understand how we become immune to pathogens and how herd immunity works under ideal circumstances. Our bodies can gain immunity to pathogens in one of two ways, by getting and recovering from an infection, also known as natural immunity, or by receiving a vaccination. In both cases, our bodies generate a type of immunity called acquired immunity, which is like a protective shield for our bodies against outside invaders, similar to a moat around a castle. Acquired immunity can give us long lasting immune protection through antibodies, proteins that help our immune systems recognize and destroy pathogens. For infectious diseases, this not only protects you from getting sick when you're exposed to the pathogen for a second time, but can also prevent you from spreading the disease to other people. This is a great way to prevent the spread of disease because the more people in a population who become immune, the less that pathogen is able to jump from person to person, essentially breaking the cycle of transmission. When enough people in a population become immune, the rest of the population is protected by proxy, establishing herd immunity. This is particularly important for people whose immune systems are too fragile to develop natural immunity or get a vaccination, like the elderly, the very young, or those who are immunocompromised. Let's take a look at this idea visually, considering a viral infection. When a new virus enters a population with no immunity, it can spread unchecked because the people in that population don't have the protective antibodies. As more people gain immunity, the number of infected individuals diminishes. This decreases the likelihood that an infected person will transmit the disease to someone susceptible. What happens as this continues? At a certain point, the virus runs out of places to go, and the spread of the virus is under control. Even those who haven't been infected or vaccinated are protected. We have achieved herd immunity. Achieving herd immunity requires the number of immune individuals to reach a certain threshold. So what is that threshold? The herd immunity threshold is calculated based on a number called R0, which refers to the average number of people an infected person spreads the disease to in a completely susceptible population. Using the estimated R0 for a pathogen, we can estimate the number of people who need to become immune for herd immunity to take effect. So the higher the R0, the more people who need to develop immunity to block sustained transmission. Let's take a look at this visually. For a pathogen that spreads very easily or is highly communicable, say one with an R0 of 5, many more individuals need to become immune to reach the herd immunity threshold. For a pathogen that spreads relatively more slowly, one with an R0 of 2 for example, less people need to develop immunity before herd immunity becomes protective. For the COVID-19 pandemic, R0 is approximately 3. And our mathematical model to calculate the herd immunity threshold tells us that theoretically two-thirds of the population would have to become immune in order to slow down and eventually stop the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. In a population of 300 million, for example, 200 million people would need to be immune to reach the herd immunity threshold. So how infectious a pathogen is matters. Another important variable is time. Although immunity to some pathogens is long-lasting, and in some cases lifelong, immunity to other pathogens can wane over time, either because the pathogen mutates to avoid the antibodies or because the cells that make protective antibodies are lost. Short-lived immunity means that in some cases herd immunity cannot be achieved because there is always a large proportion of the population that is susceptible. What does this mean for COVID-19? We don't know yet. As we are still trying to understand how long natural immunity to SARS-CoV-2 lasts and whether we can elicit long-term immunity with a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, long-term immunity is key to determining if herd immunity will be protective for COVID-19. Let's recap. Heard immunity is the indirect protection from infection conferred to susceptible individuals when a sufficiently large proportion of immune individuals exist in a population. Achieving herd immunity is a complex and dynamic process. Dependent on multiple factors, including the nature of the infectious pathogen and the type of immunity it generates. Heard immunity cannot quell a disease outbreak, but it is a critical way to prevent the spread and damage of an infectious agent across the global community. For some pathogens, the herd immunity threshold can be gradually established via natural infection. But for most, effective vaccinations are critical to reach the numbers necessary to achieve herd immunity. You can learn more about herd immunity in the primer by Luis Berrero and Hailey Randolph in the journal Immunity. Thank you for joining us today. We are Eureka Science and this is a collaboration with Cell Press.