George Bruno with the 21 report. We are at the 21 summit in Orlando, Florida. The year is 2020 And I'm welcoming to the show. Mr. Michael Foster welcome. It's good to be here George. Yeah Well, you were on two stages this weekend. You were talking to the patriarchs the Fathers convention and you spoke to women at the 22 convention make women great again Give me a little rundown of what you said to both the stages They were really similar The heart of them are the same with the men I just wanted to encourage them to be fathers to see that the problems in our world is fatherlessness That's where most of them a spring from that's a Satanic sort of evil pressure to destroy men and to rise up against it and And to be the men that we need that I like to say that if men will be fathers boys will be men and the world needs men and more or less I was exhorting women to do the same thing to not believe the lies of feminism that says to be a mother and a housewife is somehow demeaning or below you But it's actually one the highest Collins you could ever have yeah, and to exhort them to embrace motherhood In both cases with some of the people there they're they're later in life and the idea of having kids is is hard So to mother or father where you're at, right? The people are around you start there work your way out So how was the gist of it? When I look at the messages of the different speakers over the weekend you have Jesse Lee Peterson Rebuilding the man you have Steve the Dean Williams you There's a difference between a man in the house and being the man of the house Coach Everett Overton says it all begins and starts with the man. There's a lot of that Man centric teaching going on it's like bringing Authority power and order back to the family again. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's good. It's great It's all been encouraging and and that's what we need it all starts with men You have to have a cornerstone. That's the cornerstone of the building that is the household and it's not just men That's what I like about this is that it's not Just centered on you know, we don't want to like overreact It's a feminism and then and then hate women. That's not it. This is about men getting their act together doing what they're made to do and Finding a wonderful helpmate to build something that lasts beyond their life and that's been the message I've heard over and over again. It's been very overwhelmingly positive everyone has different takes here and there but for the most part You know, it's like with cologne you get the initial spray and you smell that and then after that goes away There's that the smell that sticks with you. So if the 21 Summit was a cologne the thing that lasts the lasting scent is is very positive overwhelmingly positive and It's pretty shocking to be honest for someone who's never been here before yeah, and who's a Christian and a lot of folks here Christians with some significant theological differences, but the direction from a cultural standpoint is very encouraging. So yes, yeah Your Organization ministry, I don't know what you call it. It's called it's good to be a man. Yep Yeah, so it's good to be a man several years ago I was getting back in the shape that was jogging and my jog would always end at the Goodman's house So I was like yeah every time I got there I thought it is good to be a man and I was just thinking of Genesis where it says that God made a man in his image male and Female he created them and then dot dot dot it was good, right and in our society there is Not the good type of shame like when you step on a nail your body says ow, right and when you when you Sin you should feel guilt. That's a sort of shame of the soul But we're making people feel to feel ashamed for men for being masculine women for being feminine That I see evil so to have a positive message just to say yeah God made you to be a man embrace it. Love it.  It looks horrible on a man, doesn't it it does I am really bad at being a mother I am a pretty decent at being a father. So yeah, I Have one of your coffee mugs and the logo on the coffee mug is an axe in a log Is there a significance to that? Sure Well, there's there's a couple different one is a foster is a forester, right? So we cut down trees so that idea of an axe of of being connected to my family lines important to me But there's a one of my favorite drawings is this axe man and he's on top of a hill He's resting on his axe and he's looking over a forest And just the idea of the work to be done the harvest to be brought in and then we also like to pull from Ecclesiastes Where it talks about how you want to keep your axe sharp? And so we're calling men to keep their axe sharp to be committed to good work and building So that's that's where that whole idea came from. It's kind of cool You are a pastor correct in Cincinnati. Yes, okay And this is not a religious event. How did a Christian pastor a Reformed Presbyterian pastor Operate at a non-christian event You know the best part is I mean I've sat down with pickup artists and we've talked to I've talked to guys who told me that they've slept with over like a hundred women in the last couple years and And they've been very frank about how they don't think it's good They don't think it's good for them they don't think it's good for the women and they're wanting to go a different direction and It's pretty easy to operate as a Christian when you're surrounded by people. They're very honest about where they're at So it's easy to have a dialogue Where it's not there's no guile. There's very little show That's been the thing that was stuck with me that was a little surprising, you know You think of pickup artists you think of like The game and Neil Strauss and mystery and all that's this big show peacocking and that's that's what I thought and I thought That we'd have some guys walking around like that and there's not very many at all actually most guys are very open and That's we're at some sort of cultural moment right now where men are like is this it And I think that's what guys have found like to get a woman in bed Is not that hard right it seems hard to people that grew up fatherless and are really clueless But if those people apply themselves they find that they can do it and then it's not satisfying because that's not what man's made for right man is made for God to serve God to be in glory to God and that's that's realized through Building a family building a household have a legacy through the gifts and vocation God's Giving you and you see that hunger for it here And and I'm able to just be straight up with people and talk about as fornication as sin and all that and they're You know, they're very open so it's it has not been as hard as I imagined. It's been much easier Yeah, so yeah, who did you connect with as far as the speakers are concerned? Who who were you drawn to who did you have good conversation with who did you just naturally have good talks with? I like Socrates a whole lot. He's very thoughtful. He's very well read I met his lovely partner his wife. I think it's his wife. She's very sweet and So I like him. I like that. He's looking at things from kind of a bird's-eye view and is mature about it Tanner and I have a ton in common. It's like for everything that we don't have in common We have something else very much in common. Yes, and so his his keynote was really good And I'm just talking about loving his son and and I'm Zach Zach's passion for men So all three of those guys I've really enjoyed talking to I haven't had really a negative Experience here so far. You know, I keep texting my friends. Like this is really strange. This is a really strange experience It's not what I expected. I don't really know fully what I expected, but it wasn't this, you know you and I both have been to men's retreats and men's Bible studies and breakfasts and things like compare this to What you've experienced so what I think is going on what I think the key difference I've been chewing on this this past weekend is that People are coming here Wanting to grow and change or wanting to be exposed, right? So there's guys sitting through these different workshops wanting to know How can I get in better shape? How can I leave my wife? Like why why do I feel so disconnected all that? They're they're coming here with that mindset with a lot of Church conferences sadly people are coming there to display their mastery which they may or may not have and it creates a environment of almost dishonesty and it's so a scripture would call its fear of man and So it's here. There's guys that maybe they're not motivated to get better for God's glory But there's still is a baseline honesty about where they're at Yeah, I also think that Christianity has become overwhelmingly Gnostic by which I mean that it diminishes the importance of the material Gnostic thought the material is created by this lesser demiurge and and and so Christianity a lot of times It's a very practical at all and it doesn't care about the significance of the body Well, that's that's not true here. Everyone is trying to be very practical no matter what they're talking about They'll end with act steps of action. So everything's about moving forward and about growing. I'd like to see more of that At men's conference. We should Christians have the Bible we have God's truth and it's made to make us more like Jesus Christ And it should be very practical. So I think that's the difference. I'd like to see Men's conferences about not just weeping and moping and that sort of stuff But at a place where you can be honest about where you're at and that every year when you come back You've grown more to God's glory in different areas.  You've lost all this weight. Look how amazing you look Oh, you're looking sharp and you see that guys are wanting to grow and improve. That's really good You know really good in a culture that's just trying to keep men from having a good solid ambition Keep men Lazy and slothful that you don't find that here and that's that's been really encouraging when I think of missionaries, I think of People being called and going to countries Africa China South America, I don't think about Really specific demographics, but is there a possibility that you're a missionary to men? While you're doing this Well, I'm one of them, right?  And as I said in my my speech that we're often husbands and fathers before we've actually become mature men and so So in that sense, I belong to this this this moment in culture where there's a lot of us fatherless guys and Through God's grace. I've had a lot of men come into my life and help me grow And it's been all under the within a Christian worldview It's motivated by the gospel of Jesus Christ and so yeah I think I'm a missionary as much as I'm a brother culturally speaking I'm here and I want them to see that yeah, you can get a six-pack and yeah, you can Get a beautiful woman and a wife But ultimately to do the thing that will truly satisfy you is going to take God, right? It is going you need to have your soul dealt with and so I'm excited to be here I'm it's it's like, you know, usually when you're street preaching you have hecklers, right? I'll have a hecklers, right? Everyone's really respectful. It's all it's all being laid on the table. So it's a it's a wonderful opportunity to share the gospel with guys like this and and men that are So it's thirsty, right? It's everyone's thirsty right here. They're ready for some water and my Lord is Living water right the fount that if you drink from you'll never thirst again So I can I have that to offer, right? It's like Peter Said to you the the beggar is like silver and gold. I don't have but I do have I give to you rise up and stand Well, I don't have all this figured out. I'm leaving here wanting to get in better shape when I come back here next year I will look different. I will have improved But what I do have I will give these men and I know God's word And I'll share with them the hope that they'll find it and that's what I like hope here It's mostly about hope and there's a dark cynical time. It's a weekend of hope, isn't it?  Yeah So, yeah, let's shift gears. How does a guy get a girl? How's a guy get a girl? Yeah Well, I think the biggest thing is that if you look at scripture that God makes Adam gives Adam a mission And he sticks him in the garden and and there's all these animals and Adam looks at these animals he's like that's not gonna do it and Then he makes him a helpmate But the biggest thing that Adam had before he ever had a woman was a mission, right? A mission from God to be fruitful and multiply to rule rain and subdue the earth And so that's what we call the creation mandate or sometimes the cultural mandate I think that where guys need to start is they need to put the mission first and Proverbs it talks about before you build a house You prep your field and the guys are building their house without prepping their field Which means the foundation is not good And that's how someone can get married and within the first I had a good friend who married a woman a lot of us Warrant him, but he was divorced within a year very painful Experience to go through he hadn't prepped his field. He didn't have a clear mission He made the woman his mission and women are looking for a man that is worthy of their love And really the way they see that is a man has a worthy mission and so I'd start like hey guys Let's not start with the girl. That's how we get on a lot of trouble That's how you become a husband and a father without being a man Let's start with the mission and so I think that's what I would say is like what gifts have God given you that you can use To bring him glory to to bring his kingdom to bear, you know, you cut hair I've worked in sales and business development. There's so many those areas are our ministries unto the Lord And so I want to see a doctrine of vocation Come back this there's this idea that being a pastor is above all those things But when they're done for God's glory They're all a ministry to the Lord. So I think what are your gifts? Where are you going and then start going there? And then you you find a girl that you filter right you have these filters She has to have the same mission if you're a Christian that means she has to be a Christian or you're gonna be going different directions and You have introduced her to her friends because sometimes you're not the the brightest at filtering and what do you think about her? You know and one of the guys here that was looking to get out of that sort of pickup artistry lifestyle told me that He met this good girl and he was thinking about getting a little more serious And I had the privilege of meeting her and afterwards I told him I was like That's a lovely woman. Yeah, that's if that that sort of woman sent to you That's the direction you should go and so have some standards have some filters Don't get all cynical weird dread game stuff If you have a mission that's worthy a woman will come along you develop Gravitas the way that the Sun keeps the earth in place is that has greater weight greater glory greater Gravitas the way a man will lead a woman is to have that gravitas and too often the men are lazy And they haven't developed it and the woman has more pool than they do in the relationship. It doesn't work in 2017 Zach Small said you need to Invite her to be part of your mission. She is not your mission. That's right mission first brothers always Yeah, yeah, she just want to be your mission. Yeah, that's unfair to her.  It's just that he's going somewhere And he's going there with or without her and she's way to sick. That sounds like an adventure I want to be part of that women, you know This way you realize as a husband if you have a homekeeper like my wife is when you come home from work And she asks you about your day You often don't want to tell her about it because you just experienced it But what she's really asking is what did we do today? Because she makes it possible for me to go out there and do that and she's saying what did we accomplish, right? How'd you do and I learned to say yeah, here's what we did and I'm sharing with her the Accomplishments I have because they're not my accomplishments. There are accomplishments. It's our household And so it's not just enough to get the woman You actually have to keep that mission and you have to keep calling her back into it. So I would agree with Zach You spoke to a room of women. Yes at the 22 convention make women great again. Did you make women great again? I I I did my part. I did what you could do in a couple of minutes, but yeah, I think those women those particular women in that room they Were really warm and encouraging, you know when you when you're a speaker or a preacher You have to find the faces you're some faces that are not very encouraging Yeah, and sometimes people just don't know what they look like when they're listening They look like their map is their thinking face when I looked at into that crowd I mostly saw people shaking their head and I don't know if they got onto the audio audio But I heard a lot of women said yeah, that's right, you know, so So that's promising, right? Men are made to be masculine. It's natural like cats meow dogs bark women are made to be feminine this idea that The government and the feminine imperative all this stuff can stop nature is not true Water will find its level and and women are sick of being men sick of being brash and there's a Turning around there as well. And so I found a very receptive audience by and large Did you find any speakers challenging or? Did you learn something from anyone here? That Do you possess some knowledge now or did someone that you didn't have before you came here or did someone throw the gauntlet down for you? Well, I I was just in Phil Foster's talk and I definitely gonna have my Hormones checked after listening. I was like, yeah, I think I should probably I should do this and and be on top of it You know, it's irresponsible to have your wife always taking care of you need to go to the doctor Right, that's really your experience your body or you're not your experience your responsibility Your body is the tool right and if scripture tells us we're to keep the axe sharp Well, the thing that swings that axe needs to stay strong as well. Yeah, and so listening to those guys talk about health That was really helpful. I'd also say listening to Tanner talk about how they Build the kind of their family culture that was helpful. We've been working on that in our family, but they say we're the You know, what's that? You say guzzy, right? Yeah, I always oh, we're the guzzies. We have fun We do hard things they have these things that they say and and we've been working on that We always say, you know Foster is committed to workmanship strength and wisdom But just thinking through how can I disciple my kids better to have a stronger family culture that's that's centered on scripture and our mission So all those things stirred me up and I've taken a lot of notes and I know I'm gonna You know how inspiration is like when it hits you Tonight and tomorrow I'll be recording a bunch of podcasts for the different podcasts I do just because like I've got content. Yeah, so yeah, I've learned I've I'm leaving with things So and you have a minimum of a dozen guys that I think you could collab with somehow some way Yeah, this is cool. I think I was thinking about trailblazing This is kind of that at least for the reformed Presbyterian part of the world don't don't come here very much you I guess you you beat me but but There's risk you take and and mixing with people And I think what a lot of Christians forget like guys like Whitfield and Benjamin Franklin were close pretty close friends And then and then the respect that people would have for like Aristotle or Socrates and these these are pagans I don't I don't agree with their view of the world at all but The idea that we can't have these conversations with people that differ from us And Calvin himself had talked about hey look if the if the pagans have found something that's useful use it, right? and so That's how I've come here to learn from people use what I can because I think a lot of people are looking at God's world And they're seeing how God has designed and made it and they're deducing those things And they're sharing with the people and so in that sense they're sharing God's general revelation with people and so I can benefit from that and And I Intend to continue to do so, you know you keep mixed company.  I think yeah Overall was a good experience for you. Yeah. Yeah, it really has been a great experience I Got to talk to like Jack Donovan and to the late evening and his book the way of men was a excellent book one the better books and and I got to talk to him about Things that you know, I I never thought I'd ever have that conversation I've met some of the fraternity of excellent guys. Those guys are fantastic. It's a real brotherhood and so It's not just it's like it's like the best conferences. It's not just the talks Right, so everything happens in between it and in between it's been really good So yeah, have there been any business or ministry ideas?  I want to start something is running I would say just There's a lot of things so what's happened is With there's waves that come in that has stripped away Common knowledge and waves keeps doing that for the last several decades and you start to realize things that have been very helpful to me I'll share them not thinking that it's like some sort of helpful life lesson, and I'll watch someone's eyes light up Oh, that's so helpful. I never thought of that and You know, I might go if that's helpful to them. I want to be helpful to other people So there's like a when that's happened I've written that down. Yeah, and I like okay. I need to research that there's been a lot of talk very interesting about people's relationships with their mothers and a lot of guys have been you know, Jesse was pushing that issue hard and It provoked a pretty intense response in some of the men And so I've already started thinking about that more because I think about things Society does rise and fall with men But women are powerful too and what happens we remove fathers Well, then a woman's left in a place where she's gonna be something she probably ought not be and so I want to understand that better That's certainly a topic that I'll be exploring more just personally and I'll certainly turn into blog posts and podcasts and all that So yeah, you are writing a book. Tell us about that. I am me and my co-author Dominic non-tenant. He's writing it with me. It's gonna be published by cannon press in theory next year I've got I've got two months left to finish this thing We've got I don't know 35,000 40,000 words and just moving things around making sense So it is really kind of a summation of some of the stuff I talked about here or expansion Why are we at where we're at as a culture? What's the spiritual background? So how do we lose masculinity? How do we regain it? And it's all a very biblical view But written in such a way that I think just about anyone could enter into it and be blessed by us There's a lot of big ideas, but we also Try to translate it into things that can be applied into your life. So I'm excited about it I'm excited to have a publisher like cannon press that's willing to roll the dice on us if you were going to Write a review For the 21 convention, what would you say? What kind of blurb would you write? Hmm? That's a good one I would say stirring practical talks Good food and great fellowship. I mean it sounds corny, but that's what it is It's guys hanging out. How can I be a better man? Not? How can I be macho right like we can create a distinction between macho and truly manly? Yeah, these are guys that are trying to be excellent So if you want to be if you want to grow as a man in your finances and your physique and thankfully now also Spiritually, this is a place that you can start to do that. Did you see any toxic masculinity here this weekend? No, not not very much. There's some people that's kind of in the midtown stuff I don't have much patience for that. Yeah, but that's really again Like I said that the the after note. Yeah, it was very positive. Yeah, and in even those guys They're Migtal leaning it wasn't like hating on women. It was more practical and they're cheerful guys So I don't think anyone would think of that as like toxic masculinity as in this sort of the he-man Women-hater club sort of stuff. It's not like that at all. Yeah. Yeah, what is the opposite of toxic? I Natural right I Guess I haven't thought about it You know toxic is a word that we use that we really should just remove from Our our vocabulary you're either a man I would say you're a man or you're not right you're a man or you're a feminine and That's that's the words that scripture likes to use for it And a feminine is when a man takes on The posture and tendency of a woman of a woman and that's that's ugly, right? men are not good at being women and so I Think these women when they see healthy masculinity some of these women out in the world these women that have been Brainwashed and trained by feminism They are scared of that because they see the power right of a man and that scares him And they have to label it something because they don't understand it but it's really just natural masculinity and strong men strong dangerous men men that can be dangerous are The sort of men we need and we were talking about When you go through the airport you see how terribly out of shape America is not just a little bit, you know but like truly like crazy obese and Little arms and everything and that they can't defend their family Not physically and that's kind of a metaphor for their life a lot of times These are guys that are looking at pornography all the time. They're finances are a wreck That's that's toxic masculinity because that's a femicide in the sense that The core of masculinity is taking responsibilities for others to provide to protect to lead And if you won't lead yourself then how can you lead others? You can't give people something you don't have and so toxic masculine masculinity is this a femicide That's all it is If you can't lead yourself you can't lead others a great conversation with Michael Foster. Thank you, sir. Thank you


Lauren Lamasky is the, I'm going to do the introductions first here, is the Corey Professor of Political Philosophy Policy and Law and the Director of the Political Philosophy Policy and Law Program at University of Virginia. He's best known for his work person's rights and moral community. For those of us who are in the public choice vein, Lauren also is famous for writing a book called Democracy and Decision, which developed the notion of expressive voting in a serious way along with Jeff Brennan. Lauren, before teaching at University of Virginia, taught at Bowling Green University and before that at University of Minnesota Duluth. Michael Clemens is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development and he leads the Migration and Development Initiative. As many of you know, Michael's famous for identifying the trillion dollars line on the sidewalk and has been a major advocate for using migration as one of the great public policies for development and poverty alleviation that we haven't followed yet. And so we'll hear from Lauren. And then we have Jesse Kirkpatrick, who is the Assistant Director of the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy here at George Mason. Before that, joining us here at George Mason, he was an assistant professor at Radford University and also a postdoctoral fellow at the United States Naval Academy. So with that, I will turn it over to Lauren and then you have 15 minutes to present and then we'll go across the board there. And I guess since the way you're sitting, we'll go exactly the way that you're seated there, okay? All right, so let's get started. I probably shouldn't ask, but what would you do if I took 17 minutes? Charge you. What are the incentives? Well, all right, go. Say, I wouldn't ask that if I were in my usual environment. I'm a philosopher, a unusual beast in this particular zoo, but it's one that I always appreciate coming to. George Mason to me is one of the most interesting places that I ever get to visit. Of course, maybe if I had a life, it would be different. But I will tell you that I'm quite sure that on my visits here, I always derive more benefits than I am part of. philosopher might say that's unjust, your economists deal with it. So in order to make sure that this helps true, and I do get more benefit than you do, I'm going to try to be quite brave here normally, if I stand up, I don't stop talking for 15 minutes. I will keep within the 15 today, because you scared me. I want to say a little bit about the project of this book. It's to offer a theory of global justice. Has it that been done before you might ask? And the answer is yes. But my co author, Fernando Tezon, who I'm sure he wishes that he could be here. He's in Florida, and he's done talks in New Orleans and in Texas, whereas I've gotten the northern part of the country. I'm not sure why it worked out that way. But most of the literature in Fossum, and I can't speak to other fields, most of the literature on global justice has basically viewed the issue as, well, imagine a chessboard representing the countries of the world. And on some, you have a very high pile of gold coins. Let's make it gold in honor of the setting. And then on other squares, you have a low pile of maybe Tarnus Copper coins. And in those places in which the wealth is piled high, people tend to live longer, healthier, happier lives in which their prospects, that of their children, etc. is pretty enviable. On the others, there are most people who are scrambling for subsistence, if lucky, and often not even that. They die younger and sicker.  I mean, that's dead. But you understand what I mean. Along the way, not so. Plus, their ability to partake of some of life's good is less than anybody in this room.  Isn't this unfair? Doesn't it almost leap out and saying something ought to be done about this? And in the global justice literature, what is done here, what's advocated is you take some of the coins that are piled up high and comfortable and move them to those who have little. That is to say, the issue of global justice or rather global injustice is one wrongful distribution. So what's called for is redistribution. If there's lead you to think about John Rawls' story, well, yeah, that's part of what theorists have brought up. If it leads to the think of utilitarians like Peter Singer, that's another strand of that. But basically, the idea is from those who have much more to be taken to give to those who have little. Now I want to come back to this in a bit, but let me just say that this book does not proceed with that as the starting point. That's more like the concluding point. There's more to justice than just distributive or redistributive justice. We can talk about the difference if you'd like. But in the tradition of with some air and to some partial justice involves respect for individuals rights. What kind of rights? Well, my boss at UVA phrased it as life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. Probably those of you in economics program wish he had just followed John Locke and said property instead. But you know, he didn't. But he became president. Good luck for you trying to do that. So what we thought we ought to do is at least begin thinking about global justice in terms of whether individuals rise to the integrity of their bodies, their lives, their stuff is respected. And if it isn't, that's a signal injustice. That is to say to provide a genuinely liberal theory of global justice. Now, it might surprise you, but I think that before we wrote this, basically did not have a new in this particular litter. That's a philosophy literature. And I've been learning in my short time here today that economists have said other things that that are really useful in this regard. And that's part of what I mean by saying that I benefit more coming up here than I provide to others. But that's a, that's a digression. If it's the case that these vast disparities in well being are due to genuine rights violations, then there really is a strong case to be made that the uneven chessboard manifests great injustice across the globe. My co author and I, after examining this, come to the conclusion, yes, that's right. That glow that injustices of great disparities of wealth versus streams of poverty are unjust. And that these injustices can be identified not simply in terms of these outcomes, but the inputs to this, what brings it about and that the works poor have been hard done. Not however, by the usual conference who are hauled out in millennium conferences and in the pages of the social justice theories, but overwhelmingly by their own governments and institutions.  Some are obvious. How could North Korea say not be on such a list? But, but even in countries that are not quite so violent, violations of liberty and life are manifest. Now, we can go into details of this later if you want. But let me turn away from that to us do and by the way in this literature, when the first person plural is used, we have a duty always. It means citizen to governments of wealthy Western countries, especially of course, the United States. Are we complicit in injustices done across borders? And the answer I'm afraid is yes. Yes, we are. It is a gross mistake. We suppose we are the primary perpetrators, but we make bad situation worse than that the misery of the world's least well off at the margin. I love being around place where I could say the margin is enhanced by the policies of OECD countries and the like. In this book, we talk about several ways in which that's great. Let me just mention, maybe three of them, there are others that could go into also one concerns harms done by restrictive trade policies. We believe that capitalistic acts between consenting adults as Robert Nozick put it in his wonderful phrase involves a, a just liberty of all people. And that's true whether or not these acts cross borders.  And so, for example, to the extent that, that we hold up such barriers that, yep, this constitutes an injustice. Now, of course, as you know, just recently, a pretty significant trade pact was realized well, was agreed to whether it'll be signed off by all parties across the Pacific remains to be seen. I thought at the time this was probably a good thing to do. But then I saw that it was rejected by both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. And one of the chances that they could both be wrong about an important thing. I don't have to rethink this. But before that happened, my view was that this, this is the sort of the sort of increase of others that we ought to be kind of ashamed of. Okay. Second, talk about aid. Since the war, and I mean, since World War Two, large amounts of resources haven't even transferred from, from global haves to global have not. And I understand that among the experts in the field, there's significant debate as to whether unbalanced this has done good. Some say, yeah, it really has others and no more harm than good. Well, I'm not so interested in that. But the fact that even, you know, with these very large sums of ammunition, there's even a debate as to whether British value is the real salient point here. Note, though, that these sorts of transfers are not compassionate gifts from those who have to those who don't, but they too are coercively extracted from some to others. Maybe coercive extraction to avert genuine harm and to really provide notable goods, maybe it's justifiable. But in cases where even whether unbalanced it's a benefit, this too is illiberal in the old fashioned sense of this. Finally, let me mention two of people moving, not goods and services, but their bodies across barriers, restrictions on mobility. It's one of the great injustices that liberals from Locke to Adam Smith to people in this room have have criticized. And yet, we find that we take this routine that people crossing borders can be properly stopped by governmental officials from doing so based on their policy determination. Look, we would think that's outrageous if when you wanted anybody come here today for Maryland. No one.  I need another example. Anybody come here today. Well, you get the idea. If anybody here ever go to Maryland. Great. All right. When you cross that border, do they stop you, check your visa, ask you if what distance you're about. You know, we would find we would find state border. This is smaller state, I guess, that are used in this way to stop people from going to school, seeing the friends who've been taking a job. We would find it intolerable. Why it becomes more tolerable across national borders, kind of taken for granted, or maybe not so much taken for granted, but a prime occasion for demagoguery. Now, normally, that would be the case. Since this is now turning into a presidential year, public figures are more measured and prudent in their statements. And so would not dream of appealing to the basis to emotions of the citizenry. But if they did, they would. Did somebody really suggest a wall at the Mexican border would be a good idea? Or was I just Saturday Night Live skit? Yeah, well, you get the idea that that restrictions on the individual mobility are alive and well in our public discourse. And this too is something that we take issue with. I think events of recent weeks have fueled this issue, like taking a special late of the latest massacre in Paris. And unfortunately, one has to say the latest massacre, because you know, the Charlie Hebdo one for a while seemed to be pretty big stuff until it got displaced by the events of what is it now three weeks ago. But this has produced an enormous amount of meritorious comment. And I think that well, this would be an interesting thing to talk about. Let me just say one thing about this one. One, eventually, I find really negative is that it's very common now to distinguish between genuine asylum seekers, refugees, and mere economic migrants. Now, maybe I'm pretty good to acquire here. But why economic migrant would be a pejorative strikes may as bizarre after a refugee, you know, you shouldn't feel sorry for refugees, they're fleeing from something. But an economic migrant is somebody who who is moving to something to a valued outcome. And that this should be a second class form of activity, I think is pretty discouraging. But I think I've got many, many more things, like to say, but I think I'll stop here. So I can listen to my to the commenters and to all of you. Thank you.


a weird night for you in regard to the rain delay to start, then a hail to lay, just how does that kind of take you out of your routine if at all? Yeah, playing in the NL Central back in the day, like I got used to the rain delays, there was a lot of rain in that division, so I looked at the radar before the game and I saw that it looked like it was going to pass soon, so I just kind of stayed on my normal routine and kept walking on the treadmill, kept throwing medicine balls and stuff, and then during the rain delay I went out and played catch and threw in the bull pen and actually still felt pretty good, felt willing to go back out there, so definitely different than a normal night, but I felt like willing and capable to do it. Overall, how'd you feel? Fine, not my best stuff tonight, but that's probably one of those games maybe like last year I let it kind of get away and tonight I was kind of aware early in the game that it probably wasn't my best stuff. We found a way to get through it, curve balls are really in count, so we threw the sinker a little bit, we just kind of found a way to get through. He made one mistake in not being clear with Mullins, what happened in that situation?  I liked the matchup on deck, especially with what I had working tonight, the matchup on deck probably made more sense. So over 3-0 he called up and in and I just didn't get it there, but I was aware of the situation, I just didn't execute. It's a feeling like when you hand the ball over to the bullpen considering how well they've pitched this season. Yeah, we knew coming into the year that there were going to be a super strength for us and I mean they're nasty out there so it doesn't matter who you're turning it over to, you know they're going to be prepared and ready to go. So yeah, I have no problem turning it over to any of the 11 guys we have out there. So yeah, I mean my goal is just keep us in the game, go as deep as possible and then let those guys do their thing. What does it mean to you when you give up a home run because that's on me? Yeah, I mean it shows me that he's following along really closely with the game. I liked where his head was at on that at least. We didn't execute it the way we wanted but the fact that he was thinking along that in depth, I really enjoyed working with him tonight. That was our first time working in a game situation. I think he had caught one of my bullpens so for him to be working with me that closely and that in tune, that's solid for the pitcher-catcher relationship and it's something like I'm glad we won. I'm glad that didn't change the outcome of the game and it's a good lesson to learn this early in the year for us.


Good morning everyone. I know this is an incredibly difficult time with disruption that most of us have never experienced. And there's a lot of uncertainty, fear, and anxiety across the nation. I understand how tough things are right now and will continue to be. But what's really important is to focus on and complete our first mission. To work together is one community, is a slow the spread of COVID-19. Yesterday when we announced the death of two elderly Vermonters with COVID-19, we had a stark reminder of why the mitigation actions and efforts we're taking are absolutely necessary. We have to recognize that many of us will get this virus. And while many will have moderate symptoms, we must do all we can to protect our older Vermonters and those with underlying conditions who are at greater risk as severe outcomes like what we announced last night. The consequences are serious, but the response is literally in our hands. So I want to thank Vermonters for their flexibility and help in responding to this pandemic from folks picking up supplies for elderly neighbors to the grocery store crews, restocking shelves from our restaurant owners and workers, educators and school administrators who've met recent adversity with understanding and a sense of service. To our healthcare workers, nurses and doctors on the front line doing all they can to fight this virus and keep us healthy. To our Department of Health workers and those from other agencies, many of whom I visited last night at the call center working second and third shifts to answer questions and track responses that are needed. State employees, even former employees stepping up outside their daily jobs to help and do whatever they can. I want every Vermonter to know I fully understand the incredible economic and emotional toll coronavirus is having and will continue to have on each and every one of us. The measures we're implementing well disruptive are based on the best science we have from experts and we're committed to doing all we can to help people weather this storm. As we continue to work on this first mission to protect the health of Vermonters, we also know financial security is critical for us to recover from this pandemic as well. So we're here today to announce steps we've taken to support working Vermonters affected by COVID-19 and additional actions we're going to put into place. Let me be clear, my team and I are fully aware these initiatives are not enough. People are hurting and businesses are at risk, but let me assure you we will pull every lever and turn every dial we possibly can to support folks through this time and look towards economic recovery even while we're closing in on the eye of the storm. The initiatives we're outlining today are small steps, but they're just the beginning and we need people to know what resources are available to them right now. We've already taken several actions to provide some economic relief for Vermonters to start. We made unemployment available to all Vermonters who can't work because of coronavirus. We also waived the work search requirement for those who are laid off or had their hours reduced during this emergency. This of course means many more Vermonters calling the Department of Labor for help and we continue to expand capacity and have simplified the process for Vermonters. This includes an online form for initial claims and tripling the number of staff in our claims center, borrowing people from other agencies and departments to help out, including a generous offer of staff support from the auditor's office. With schools and daycares now closed, it's my hope we can extend these benefits to those who need to stay home to care for their kids and will work with the legislature to do so. To further protect workers, I'll also ask the legislature to expand and extend job protections for those employees of small businesses who cannot work due to the family and medical reasons. Knowing the burden of health care and how utility costs weigh heavily on many families, I've directed the Department of Financial Regulation and DEVA to help reduce financial pressure wherever we can and make sure Vermonters continue to have access to care and prescriptions. DFR acted quickly to ensure Vermonters didn't have to pay out of pocket for COVID-19 testing and directed insurers to allow for a 30-day supply of prescription medication available to patients. Commissioner Petschek is now working with MVP and Blue Cross Blue Shield to try to make sure no one loses their health care coverage during this time and I've directed DEVA to waive premiums for the Dr. Dinosaur program. DFR is also working with financial institutions to encourage flexibility for customers. Things like waiving fees and delaying loan repayments, which is just the start to providing relief. On the utility front, my team at the public service department has been working with other our utilities to ensure that folks are not disconnected during this emergency due to inability to pay. I'm happy to report that our utilities overwhelmingly stepped up to do the right thing and their good conduct and cooperation was acknowledged in the PUC's recent order to formalize this protection. I know the steps we've taken to slow this virus down are already taking an incredible toll on businesses and their employees, especially our bars and restaurants, which are so vital to our economy and our culture. Again, we will do everything we can to help these businesses and their employees, but my heart goes out to each and every one of them as they face the brunt of this right now. We've acted on some other opportunities to provide relief and we'll do more. For instance, I ease liquor laws to allow restaurants, which can only offer takeout and delivery to help mitigate the spread of the virus to sell alcoholic beverages as part of the takeout service. And while this may seem trivial, I wanted to allow as much flexibility as possible while their dine-in service is closed. We've also requested a disaster declaration from the Small Business Administration, which would make emergency loans available to Vermont small businesses. To supplement this, we'll be working with the legislature to create a business loan program through VEDA, similar to what we did in the immediate response to Tropical Storm Irene. As we work to expand UI benefits, we're also working with the legislature to make sure UI experience ratings are not negatively affected. ACCD is also providing resources to support businesses with technical assistance, regular guidance, and more. And they can go to acc.vermont.gov for other assistance. Again, we know this is not nearly enough, and there will be much, much more in the future to help our small businesses the backbone of our economy. While working to provide some economic relief, we're also working to ease the regulatory burden and simplify government services in ways that will help us better respond to this crisis. For example, the Department of Motor Vehicles shifted to online phone and mail services only. And to help take some of the stress off, I declared them or directed them to grant a 90-day extension for all licenses and registration renewals. We know two areas of tremendous need right now are in our health and communication systems. We've already expanded telehealth services, including for mental health needs. And we'll also work to give our healthcare providers more flexibility on licensing, staffing, and referrals, and ease in our procedural requirements to accommodate surge capacity at our healthcare facilities. And we're looking to ease on the barriers to communications infrastructure to make sure those systems aren't interrupted. Additionally, the Public Service Department is developing an interactive map of free Wi-Fi spots. Those Wi-Fi hotspots will support our students and workers now learning and working remotely. On the federal level, we continue to assess what's being passed and being considered in Washington, which will provide much more relief for workers and businesses. I want to thank the congressional delegation, Senators Leahy and Sanders and Congressman Welch, who have been so supportive in taking my numerous calls each and every time I make them. I also want to thank the legislature, particularly the leadership, who have been standing ready to act on our needs in this time of crisis and who will continue to work closely with on several of the proposals I outlined today. As I've already made clear, these are just the first steps of many to come that we think we can make a difference for Vermont, but we know, I know, that many more will be needed. And we'll take those steps together. We'll take each challenge as it comes, calmly, and with the best interests of all Vermonters in mind. Each and every decision we make will be informed by the best science and with information from subject matter experts to protect Vermonters. I want to close by again commenting on how proud I am of the people of our state and how encouraged I am with what I've seen as we pulled together. Little things like neighbors encouraging others to get takeout from our restaurants, businesses donating mass and personal protective gear to hospitals, bus drivers delivering meals and learning materials on the routes they used to pick up students on, and folks taking a moment to thank the custodians for working overtime to help keep our spaces clean and safe. Just like Irene or the Great Depression of the 30s or the flood of 1927, we will get through this and we'll get through it together. I'll now ask Dr. Levine to give a brief update on the current situation. Dr. Levine. Thank you, Governor. In my allotted time today, I'd like to focus on three areas. First is the situational update on numbers and on testing. Second is the outbreak at the long-term care facility in Burlington. And the third is on the lifestyle changes we're all experiencing. At this point in time, prior to any results coming in today, we have a total of 28 positive test results in Vermont. The perspective there is that there are about 800 negative test results. Yesterday brought seven new positives for them at the long-term care facility, three members of the community who are not hospitalized. And as you heard at last night's press conference, we noted the passing of two individuals very elderly with COVID-19. The health department continues to monitor several hundred Vermonters. With regards to testing, it's always been and will continue to be for the near future a mixed picture but far more balanced on the side of optimism. We are now having access to commercial lab capacity out of state, which will allow us to test a majority of what we term low priority test specimens, hopefully within a 48-hour turnaround time. We continue to do all the high priority testing here in state with a 24-hour turnaround time. We have an important affiliation we've developed with the University of Vermont Medical Center and the College of Medicine. And we are constantly in touch with our federal partners and agencies such as HHS and FDA. The ultimate solution to the problem is obviously making sure that there's adequate testing reagents, buffers, all of the components of what go into doing the test. I feel proud that we have adequate facilities to take specimens from patients. And though there are a few gaps in our geographic region, we know how to fill them and they will be filled effectively. Moving on to the long-term care facility in Burlington, as you noted, one of the deaths was indeed at that facility of the two deaths yesterday. And there are a total of five positive test results from that facility in the residents of the facility, including the individual who died. We have been rigorously working with the facility regarding their infection control procedures, the fact that they already had adequate policies in place, already had been certified and passed regulatory muster in October of 2019 with no deficiencies noted. And when we became involved very quickly after the first case, it was obvious that they were already pursuing appropriate infection control procedures. We are of course assisting with a lot of the contact tracing, making sure that we're aware of any other resident, any healthcare worker that might have had contact with a positive case and doing the appropriate surveillance that's necessary. We are also doing appropriate testing, needless to say, and working very closely with the facility on their supply of personal protection equipment, which has been forthcoming through the state and will continue as needed. As I mentioned, we've been connected from the outset, both on the telephone lines and as of yesterday within the facility, we are using guidance that often is very standardized, if I may use that word, from the Centers for Disease Control, but that is effective. We have been connected with the Centers for Disease Control throughout this. We have another call in today, really investigating with them if they could be sending a team to Vermont to assist us in the investigation. I have to be very frank here. This is not the only long-term care facility in the United States that is suffering from the COVID-19 epidemic. The CDC is probably as overwhelmed as everyone in every state is feeling at this time, so I don't know how feasible or realistic that is, but we will certainly enlist their ongoing assistance. Last thing I mentioned was the social distancing. So during this time of uncertainty, many Vermonters are feeling understandably anxious, worried, perhaps angry, perhaps scared. Social distancing can compound the feeling of isolation. We encourage all Vermonters to use this time of social distancing as an opportunity to reconnect with family, friends, and your community in responsible ways. Use technology to communicate. Enjoy the outdoors. Take time to learn a new skill. Follow up on long overdue projects. Volunteer to support those who are in need. This is a big transition from how we live our daily lives. We're all working together to adjust, change the way we express kindness, affection, embracing people, meeting them for the first time. Knowing this, all being in this together goes into all of the difficult decisions that the state is making. And I and the Health Department are not only understanding, but in the midst of everything else, training our focus on this. In coming press conferences, I will have more to say regarding innovative strategies that all Vermonters can begin to use to help cope in these challenging times. Thank you. Well now, open it up to questions. I believe there's a process. I believe the question was echoing a bit the shelter in place order. Obviously, everything is on the table at this point. Nothing we're considering in the short term, but watching what other states are doing and how it's advanced much further in those states than it is in Vermont. Everything's on the table and we'll consider everything we can based on the science and data that we have available. And then we'll make the proper moves and take the proper steps at that point in time. But not at this point. We're getting a lot of feedback and we figure this out. Next question is Pete Hirschfeld from VPR. Peter, if you need on mute. Sure. So I have to be honest, we're drawing up those numbers as we speak. We've had a consultant involved to work with us, which another may be able to talk to. But what we're talking with the hospitals on, as recently as 8.30 this morning, is the total number of beds they have available if and when there would be a need to stand up other facilities to add to that bed component. How many ICU beds might be necessary? How many ventilators might be necessary? We already have capacity to set up. The term, I guess, would be pop-up hospitals. We have invested in at least 80 new ventilators above and beyond the supply that the state already had. And maybe I'll turn this over for a second. Well, some of the modeling data that has just come in. Thank you, Dr. Levine, Mike Peechak from the Department of Financial Regulation. So the department has engaged internal experts as well as external experts to look at some of the modeling for best case and worst case scenarios in Vermont. When the numbers are below 100 of confirmed positive cases, the numbers are not as consistent in terms of the projections. So we're running a number of scenarios to try to get a best estimate on best case and worst case scenarios. We have those initial estimates internally, but we're working on getting them with more accuracy before disseminating them broader. Mike Smith, Secretary of Human Services. I just wanted to give an update on available beds in Vermont and elsewhere. We have a total of 500 available beds. The ICU beds have climbed significantly to 49. Surgical beds have climbed significantly to 204. And isolation beds have climbed as well. The numbers have gone up significantly since yesterday because of the governor's action dealing with elective and non-urgent procedures being postponed. Also, as Commissioner Levine had talked, we have 87 new ventilators coming and we're looking to increase that capacity as well. We have currently 153 with 87 coming and available today and with 87 coming and the promise of converting existing ventilators that are used for other procedures to this procedure on COVID-19, which will increase our capacity even more, more to come in a few days on that. I know it's pretty early, Governor, but is it becoming any more clear here, how long the shutdown, like with schools, restaurants, and cars, or last, if they'll have to go beyond able six? Yeah, too early to make that decision at this point, but suffice us to say we're still increasing the number of positives we're seeing. The exponential threat is still there and I would expect, I think, we, Vermonters, need to prepare for a much longer period of time, but at this point, not ready to declare that, but it certainly looks as though we're going to have to consider moving that date much further forward. We are, and this is Mike Smith again, we are identifying the county of resident for those individuals. We do gender, age range county resident or where they, what county they're from, whether, what hospital they're in, if they're hospitalized, or if they're home. The reason we do that is to maintain some patient privacy, according to HIPAA, but trying to get out as much information as possible. For example, last night, we identified the long-term care facility that has not been done in the past. We're trying to move as quickly and as, as transparently, as transparently as possible with these things while we try to give the patient some protection. So we're trying to do, we're trying to walk a really fine line here. And if you're, if you're talking, we're not hearing you. The question was whether the, the positive cases that were announced earlier in the week, will they be identified per county on the county-wide basis? Do you know that on a county-wide basis? Yeah, I, and I'm a little confused because we, we do account on a county-wide basis each time we, we send out a count each day. There was one day where we didn't do that because of some program issues, but every day we try to identify the county where the person is. We had a little bit of glitch in the first part of the week because what we didn't want to do, and the governor was absolutely right with this, we didn't want to split non-Vermaners and Vermonters out there to have that dichotomy between non-Vermaners and Vermonters. So we, we, one day we had 10 when we should have had a total of, I think it was 17, something along that line, but it's our intention to report as much as possible every time that we do report. Thank you Secretary Smith while you're there. If I could ask you, should daycare still be charging people when they're closed? I mean it'll be up to every individual for essential people. Right now we are paying daycare centers for those that are subsidized. We'll look into whether they should or whether they shouldn't as we move forward, but right now we are, whether you have a, what we're trying to do, Stuart, is to make sure that we don't collapse the daycare system. So when we come out of this, that we still have a daycare system. And what we're trying to do is provide payments to that daycare system, whether you have children or not. And these are the pre-K systems that I'm talking about right now, the private pre-K systems. We're paying the subsidy through the closure period that we announced. If I could just follow up with Dr. Levine, do you know, sir, if there are any healthcare workers, including physicians who were perhaps involved in the treatment of the woman who died yesterday in Burlington, who have now tested positive? Do we have any physicians in our state who have tested positive? So I don't have the answer to that yet. I suspect most of those tests are cooking right now. Mr. Levine, as testing capacity increases, what, as testing capacity increases, what symptoms exactly has the person have been reverse-detected, and has that guidance changed on what the threshold rate is and how the food should be tested and when and when? So our knowledge about symptoms is evolving, much as the knowledge about the epidemic is evolving. We have only used the word symptomatic so that we can leave that up to the discretion of the clinician and their judgment if that's an appropriate patient. Obviously, the key core symptoms that we've always been talking about still hold, fever, cough, shortness of breath. But we do understand now that there are those who may present with achiness syndromes like flu-like symptoms, headaches, things of that sort. And much like any other clinical decision, the clinician integrates all that information and makes a decision about the appropriateness of testing. So that's how that part will go. Stephen, are you on mute? Even with all these new efforts to support the economy, how long can Vermont sustain this level of economic suppression? Yeah, we'll sustain it as long as fees will be possible. I mean, we'll get to the end of this and we'll do it together. I have tremendous faith in our inner strength here in Vermont and the businesses that are working so hard to be creative. And the federal government and the state government and all of us working together, we'll get through this. As I said before, we've been through multiple challenges in our history. If you take the 1927 flood here in Vermont or you take the depression in the 30s, certainly, we've seen this in Irene. We got through it and we'll get through this as well. So I got the first part of the question, which is how many have been tested so far and that number is growing, so I can't give you a precise number, but I would definitely think we would have at least a half a dozen, if not more, but I can't give you a precise number because our investigation will help determine who needs to be tested. I'm going to need you to repeat the rest of the question because it didn't come through very well. Why everyone there is not being tested? That would probably not be an effective use of resources unless everyone there was symptomatic with the illness. The other question I think I answered in my comments earlier, which was the strategies we're using from a public health investigative and surveillance standpoint with the facility to understand their infection control practices and make sure that as we're there on the ground, they're being implemented and to continue to work with the CDC either remotely or with them sending a team to further enhance our efforts. Of course, you know, make people say there's a big risk there. Some people are calling for some low-risk inmates to be released. Is that on the table still and sort of what of those discussions have been there? Well, we've been looking at the inmate population on a daily basis. By the way, it has been decreasing as we speak and as we've moved forward. We're at about 1,500 inmates today. That's significantly lower than it has been and actually allows us now to spread inmates out for more social distancing in the correctional facilities. As I mentioned the other day, we're taking very stringent actions in terms of intake into those facilities, making sure there's a thorough medical examination as we intake various inmates. The other thing is we're working closely with the state's attorneys. I think Commissioner Baker the other day had a meeting with the state's attorneys and the judicial system as well, talking about the need to look at who is coming into our facilities. But at this time, at this very time, we have no plans to furlough anybody within our correctional facility. We'll see as this moves forward. But right now we have no plans to furlough anyone in our correctional facilities. I just want to add as well, not only are we doing that, we're also limiting access to the inmate population as well through video conferencing in terms of visitations and those other things we're doing. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Dan. The ventilators that are available today is 153. We have 87 additional ventilators coming. Plus Dan, I just want to tell you we are looking at how to convert other ventilators for the purpose of COVID-19. We're learning from other states on how to do that. And we think that will boost our numbers as well. So we'll continue to look for additional capacity in ventilators. But right now today we have 153 that's available for us, boosting it up to 87, boosting it up with these conversions that we're talking about and boosting it up because we're still out there searching for other ventilators as we move forward. I'm sorry, if you could repeat the question, we're getting a lot of feedback here. And if everyone on the line could just so that we could narrow this down, if you could just mute your phones, that would be very helpful. I think you made a very astute point. And if I could just digress to Italy's experience, which has not been good, part of the hypothesis about why it hasn't been good in addition to some differences in the healthcare system relate to the fact that their population is older and has a higher smoking rate. So I think the correlation between prior damage to lungs and then having an insult like COVID-19 is very clear. We're fortunate in Vermont that at least in the combustible cigarette smoking rate, we've had steady decrements for many, many years now and are probably at an all-time low, although you're right, the vaping epidemic has changed that for a certain part of our demographic. If there's some good news in that, the demographic that's really doing the most vaping are in the adolescent years and perhaps young adult, but those are the years that seem to be less unfavorably impacted by this virus. Nonetheless, I do agree with you that messaging can be a component of an effective public health strategy. We haven't actually turned off any of the messaging that we're doing with youth regarding vaping and I think we should continue to support that message regardless and specifically broaden it to any tobacco product message since we don't want our older adults who are more prone to have serious outcomes with COVID-19 forget that connection. And they're in state or they're out in state? Well, we tell them not to go into urgent care. It doesn't mean they can't go to urgent care. However, they can still communicate with the health care system and we tell people don't show up in urgent care, don't show up in an emergency room because you may walk in and nobody's prepared to realize that you could be a vector for this disease, but we don't tell them don't call ahead and we in fact encourage them to call ahead. So I would still give that same advice to someone who doesn't have a health care provider and they feel symptomatic. The last thing we want to do is have people decline the opportunity to get care and as you know we have such a low uninsured rate in Vermont and so many changes have been made at the level of paying for tests, paying for care with this virus in mind that are all geared to making sure that no one in the country never mind Vermont feels that access to care, access to testing cost is going to be a barrier to their getting the right treatment. So I would hope that no one would feel that way. Yeah, absolutely. We're looking at that as we speak. We want to make sure whatever we do doesn't have a ripple effect across those like those who own apartment houses for instance they have to pay a mortgage as well so we want to make sure we get this right but we are definitely going to look at this and make sure that we're protecting vulnerable Vermonters and making sure that people aren't evicted. So we'll be considering this in response to many, many different requests working with the legislature as well as what we can do with an executive order but we'll be taking this up as well. All right thank you very much everyone for coming and we'll have another update by Monday hopefully not before that.


Well, he did an update. I'll admit I'm a little bit worried, but not about the thing you guys might be worried about. Hey guys, for those of you who have been following this channel ever so oddly and very intermittently for any kind of post updates about the Undergrads movie that I did not stop talking about long ago. I had the outro from Knits provided by Pete Williams, the show creator, kind of giving as many updates as I could about the movie. Admittedly, I kind of fell out of doing it because Pete was not exactly the most forthcoming with updates. He was doing two jobs at the same time. He was working his full-time job and doing updates about the Undergrads movie. While he wasn't forthcoming with giving us updates, he was definitely doing stuff on the side as he would show when he did do his updates. And he just did one recently and this was the note that I had been worried about for quite some time. While the Kickstarter was technically speaking a success, it definitely was not enough money to warrant making a full movie. The idea was to make a pitch for investors, for stations like Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and whatever, whoever was willing to support it and sponsor it and produce it to make it into a full-length film. We're launching this Kickstarter campaign to fund the first phase of pre-production. We want to demonstrate the commitment of our fans and prove to potential investors that there truly is an audience to support the making of this project. And I was a little bit worried with every year that passed because animation just became less and less of a thing.  And lo and behold, Pete just did an update talking about it and he didn't exactly have the most positive update about it. Not so much in sense of he isn't not trying and it's not over, but it definitely has hit a wall. Alas, to date, our efforts in selling the movie and securing that additional funding have proven unsuccessful. It has become painfully obvious that our chances of someone like Netflix investing in this project anytime soon are looking slimmer and slimmer. Everything that they have tried in terms of trying to get a sponsor or trying to get a producer has not been successful. They do have a pretty good metric to rely on is how much money the Kickstarter made. The Kickstarter did make over $100,000, but the problem is it basically died right after we got up to that number. Once we got there, it was the, that was it. I in the background was still like, hey, the more money they get, the more likely this is to become a thing. And so that's why I just kept pushing it. And that's why I just kept on trying to drive up more and more traffic towards it. I quit my day job. He ain't working for the man no more.  I'm happy to say that as of January 1st of this year, the undergrads movie is now officially my full time job. I feel for the dude, not to say that this isn't possible. We've seen other animators do such things. There is the guy who made the fall of reach mini film and he's actually done a bunch of other ones. One's for stalker. He's doing one for fallout right now. While it wasn't a full length feature, these are pretty intense near on half hour long videos that have really good animation, very amazing production value. I just feel for the guy because he is committed to this, even though he has tried and I worry about him more than anything. That's my fear. I worry about his personal health or worry about his mental health. If anyone does have any kind of comments to give to him, please let it be positive because he has taken a huge elf on his own livelihood to make this movie happen. The fact that he quit his job, I was like, oh my gosh, he's in a good mood in his video and I'm very, very happy for him, but I do worry about him. Any of you guys who can, don't comment here. Go to that update video. I'll have it appear up here and I'll also have it at the end. Please go to his page and give him some positive feedback. I'm about to go and do that myself because he needs that. He's going to need every bit of positive attitude that he can get to make this be done. Any kind of big negative comment is going to put more stress on the man and he's already put a truckload on himself at this point. So let's support Pete. I'm very interested to see how this goes regardless. I know that some people won't be able to come back, I guess from budget-wise. There are some people he won't be able to get or he'll have to get an alternative for. I remember when we did our radio show interview ages back when I had a radio show.  That show's gone on for nearly two decades, so I don't know if he'll have enough money to hire him to come back to voice Stoner Dave with all people. Like I said, let's give Pete all the positive support he can. He's going to need it. He's taking a big risk for us to make this movie and I cannot emphasize how much I appreciate that, but I do hope that he himself is okay first and foremost. This can't happen without him, so let's give him all the positive support we can, guys. If you do like undergrads and you want to keep up to date, go check out the undergrads page. I'll have a link in the description and I'll probably have something at the end of this video as well and the thumbnails. So I'm happy that there's been an update. I am a little bit like, oh dear, I am overly worried for Pete because I want him to be well. I want him to be happy. I want him to keep his sanity in check because I know he's going to take a lot for doing this, but I hope everything's okay on his end. So let's give him the best support we can, guys. That's all from me. See you guys next time.


This is normally addressed by databases and luckily there's a lot of innovation and research in this field and the main problem that these innovations try to solve is how to add and modify and remove information from the database while keeping it in a consistent state and doing so at high performance, which normally means in parallel. Modern databases use a lot of tricks to achieve this. They have things like multi-version concurrency control and write ahead logging and shadow pages. These are all clever tricks to ensure consistency while also being very performant. Now, I would love to talk about these things, but the blockchain is different. We can forget about all that. To see why, we're going to look into what type of information software will need to store and retrieve and query. I have some blockchain facts like this hash is the hash of this transaction. This transaction is valid up to a certain rule set. This hash is the hash of a block header, et cetera, et cetera. The interesting thing about all these facts is that they have something interesting in common and what they have in common is that once they are established, they're all immutable and undisputable. They may be at some point no longer be interesting for the software, but they can never change. Now, this is very good news for our database architecture because that makes parallelization concurrent readers and concurrent writers really easy. We just have a bucket of facts that we add to. We don't have to worry about these facts being consistent with each other. We don't have to worry about the order in which the facts come in. We don't even have to worry about two processes trying to write the same key at the same time because we know that if they will do that, they will also be writing the same value at the same time. Well, is this common knowledge? Well, yes and no. Yes, the fact that immutable data is much easier to parallelize and to enable concurrency for. Well, this is well known. But no because the current software, the current implementations, don't utilize this. They introduce, in fact, they introduce a lot of mutable states, a lot of big mutable objects that need to be updated in a consistent way. It starts with the notion of the blockchain. A block has a parent, but two blocks can have the same parent if they're racing to become the longest. So programmers cause with structure a tree, not a chain.  Now what implementations do they ignore this? They maintain a main chain, and they keep the side branches separately. And whenever a side branch becomes the main chain, becomes the longest, then a complicated process called a reorg takes place. And this means that the blocks on the main chain have to be undone, and then these blocks on the side chain have to be reapplied onto the main chain to become the longest. This essentially turns the entire main chain into one big mutable object, which must be updated in a consistent way, and which destroys any chance of parallelization. Such a reorg procedure cannot be parallelized. Something related to this is the notion of a UTXO index, and this is an index that stores all the transaction outputs, which are currently unspent. Now in itself it's not a bad idea to index this, because it's what you frequently need, but this UTXO index also maintains exactly at the specific spot in the blockchain, which transaction outputs are unspent at that specific spot. And that means that this entire index has to be updated in a consistent way, again destroying any chance of parallelization. So I think we can do better. I think we can utilize this immutability instead of fighting it. And as we will see, we will have to introduce some mutable data, but the key to writing high-performance scalable software is to minimize the amount of mutable state. So let's start by taking these facts and putting these facts into key value stores. So we have one key value store that stores the transactions per hash, and stores for each transaction its validity state, which rules that it is valid to. We have one store that stores the headers, and for each header, again, its validity state, and we have one store that stores the content of blocks, or that is to say which transactions are in a block. And for this last key value store, we use an interesting format where we store each transaction as an index into our transaction database, and we store for each input of the transaction, we store an index to the output it spends. I will explain it later. This is going to be useful. But first let me note, all these are key value stores, but we certainly don't want to be using general key value stores for them. Because stores like LevelDB or RocksDB, they are designed specifically for immutability. And besides, they are designed to handle any type of data. They can handle like a few gigantic objects or billion tiny objects. And for our purpose, we know exactly our access pattern, how we access it, and how it's going to be immutable. But we also know exactly the type of data that's going to go in. In fact, for a large part, we know exactly which data is going to go in, which is a really awkward luxury to have when you're designing storage. Because normally, yeah, you have no clue what's going to go in if you write something generic. So we can use a much more simple approach than that these stores use. We can use a simple store with one concurrent, large concurrent hash table as root and append only the data. And it's a very simple design, but such a simple design will outperform any generic key value store. So what can we do if we have stored this this way? What can we query? What kind of questions can we ask our storage? Well, we can clearly ask for transactions or for the validity state, but we can also answer questions like, this transaction, is it currently unspent? And to do so, we load the block from the current tip, and then we start scanning backwards to see if we find the output that we're trying to spend. And if we find it, then we know we have a double spend. If we find the transaction that contains the output, then we know that it's currently an unspent output. So we just have to load the blocks, and if it's not in the block, we load the previous block and we scan backwards, and that way we can check if a transaction is unspent at the moment or if it's spent or if it doesn't exist at all. And it may seem slow to actually scan these blocks, but the thing is that we store them in a very compact form, just 64-bit indexes. So we just have to scan this sequentially, and scanning something 64-bit value sequentially is something that computers are really good at. It's just scanning cashlines, and we can do it for every input in parallel. So we can ask if a block comes in, we can ask for all the inputs in the block, are the outputs that are being spent here, are these currently unspent? Is this transaction valid at this block, valid at this point? So it looks that we have the basis already of a store that can handle all the queries and all the thing that we need for our software. But as promised, we do need to introduce some mutable states, some mutable data. And the first one is rather crucial, and that is because I already just said we need to find the current tip. We can find the current tip. The current tip is the block header with the most accumulated work. We call it the current tip. We can find it here, but we have to scan all our headers. So instead, we want to maintain at each time consistently an index pointer into our header table that represents the current tip. And this has to be updated at each block. For now, this one mutable variable also serves as a complete replacement for our reorg. So instead of having a chain and then having to undo all these blocks and redo all these blocks, the only thing we have to do if another side chain becomes the longest is just move our current tip. That's all. So now we have a fast implementation of a store. It can be used, but it's not yet fast enough. And this has to do with the scanning. I said the scanning is really fast. This is true. And most transactions spend recent outputs. This is just how it works in practice. In practice, most transactions are spending something recent, but some transactions are spending some output that already existed in the chain for many years. And using the scanning model, that would require scanning all these hundreds of thousands of blocks backwards to see if the order is right, if it's unspent at this point. So we have to speed that up. And for that, we're gonna introduce another index, another mutable data structure. And this is the spend index. And this is a very small bitwise index of all transactions and outputs, which maintains at each point in time exactly, or at one point in time exactly, which transactions are open at that moment and which outputs are spend or unspent. And what the trick that we use here is that this spend index, instead of maintaining it at the current tip, we let it trail by a few blocks. And the benefit of letting it trail is that you, well, we first start scanning blocks, and then when we hit this spend index, then we do a lookup. And the benefit of that is that we don't lose any of our concurrency. We can still do full concurrent writers and full concurrent readers, as long as we ensure that we always read from the spend index for a block that we already have completely written. So we don't lose any concurrency with this mutable structure. So now we have a full mode that is really fast and really low on resources, which we can use for all our queries and questions that we need, at least almost. We are still missing some queries. What we're missing here, it has to do with the mempool. This model doesn't have a mempool. When a transaction comes in, it is immediately written to disk as an unconfirmed transaction. And I think this is a pretty good idea because these transactions are actually quite bad candidates to keep in realm, your unconfirmed transactions. Because you're gonna have to write them anyway. You're no longer gonna need them and you're gonna have to write them anyway, unless you would opt for some kind of transaction auction model. But I think we can agree that would be silly. So we have to write them anyway. And so what it means is that they're written and you can always, that works for the note. You can look them up, you can see if they're unconfirmed. You can relay them. But the query that you cannot do is ask for the set of unconfirmed transactions. Because that you have to scan all your transactions to know which ones are unconfirmed, which is way too slow. So in order for minors to create blocks, they have to, well, they have to be able to, they need an index into this transaction database of everything that's unconfirmed. It's essentially just a map index, a map reduce index, which maps, I'll take it to there, yeah. Map reduce index just maps a transaction into a certain priority. So they can directly always have a mutable view of what at each point in time are the unconfirmed transactions that they could put in a block. And it's also actually not only used by minors because full nodes also need this index for fast block propagation.  So then also full nodes, they need to have an index, a priority map where they know this is going to be in a block. So now we have a model which does introduce some mutable data, but which keeps the mutable data to an absolute minimum. And that means that we have vastly reduced the amount of IO operations. Because with immutable data, you always have to write everything only once. And it also means that it makes it much easier to parallelize. With this model, you can easily parallelize two blocks that come in at the same time. Or you can parallel verify every transaction within a block. So I believe that a model like this is key to, well, to scalability and to, well, to larger blocks also. So this is the model that we're using with the BitCrust node software, which is full node software in development. We also, we have the storage layer done and we have working on a network layer. And it still work in progress. I wanted to share this nonetheless, not just to share what we're doing with BitCrust, but also because I believe that this idea or the individual parts of this idea are also very useful for other projects or other implementations or other developers. Thank you. Okay, wow, all right, that was huge. Okay, so did you just present us BitCrust? Yeah, the model of it. The model of it? Okay, you guys better look up BitCrust, I just Google that thing. I'm like, okay, it's written in Rust. All right, okay, yes, questions, let's go. All right, thank you. It better be good because that was great. All right, awesome. Hi, Tomas, you've had some pretty interesting ideas around doing UTXO commitments and fast syncs as well. And these sort of seem to be contradictory ideas. You could maybe give your viewpoint on how UTXO commitments work in this model or if they even matter, that'd be great. Yeah, I don't think they're contradictory per se. You still have to conceptually, of course, the idea of UTXO at a certain point. And the UTXO commitment that I've now developed and that we're now being reviewed, that is something that is maintained separately from your storage. And it can be used, that can be done here also because you can do it for a block and also the fast sync method that comes out of it can also be done because fast syncing in UTXO set is essentially nothing more than fast syncing the prune blockchain. You're essentially just fast syncing all the data from the blockchain except everything you don't need. So now that doesn't bite it. But I do want to comment that there are other ideas for next version UTXO commitments. Some of which are really maintained separately from the storage. But some of which are, and these may be the most efficient ones, they are really integrated into the storage. You can store the UTXO in a way that it directly gives you UTXO proofs. And I think, although those may be the most efficient, they would buy this model and they would, the drawback of inventing something like that is that it removes the flexibility of improving storage. So I think, yeah, for now we're good, but there are some ideas that would buy it, of course, yeah. As there are no solutions or only trade-offs, we've looked at many of the benefits of this approach. What do you feel are the main costs or vexing issues of the approach? I think that individual parts of this approach are just improvements that can be done. I think the difficulty of this approach is that it's quite a different model. And that means that it's going to be quite some time and difficulty to get it as stable. And it's not something that you can easily integrate into the existing code. So, yeah, it's not going to be easy to write a note with the same quality as we currently have, just because so many things have to be done differently. I think that's a big drawback. And yeah, there could be other drawbacks specifically with the model. Yeah, I don't think, I think these are just generic improvements. So I think it, I don't know what the drawbacks are specifically then. I think you spoke a little bit there about pruning, but I think I missed that bit. Can you speak a bit about how pruning works in this model? Or if it's possible? Yeah, pruning doesn't really change much. You can still prune everything. It's also if you have the UTXO set that you're basically which maintains only the unspent transaction. And you automatically prune every transaction output that is spent because it only maintains the transaction outputs that are unspent. And here, we maintain all the transaction outputs and you have to actually prune in the sense of having a process or threats running in the background and deleting everything that is too old. But then you end up with the same amount of information that you need to store. So it doesn't save any disk space. The model is generally the same, you prune all data. And yeah, you leave leftover with what you still need. The memory that's been of that prune data, I guess, can be overwritten or you don't need to rearrange, would it allow you? You don't need to rearrange it, no. There's two options, you can use a file. You can just use numbered files, which we're using. But you can also use one file, zero it out and then use a trick called truncate, which means that it's no longer taking disk space. This specialized key value database, it seems valuable to maybe more other projects. Is it very integrated into BitCrust or can it be reused for us, for example? No, yes, certainly. That one is separately built and it's a separate crate. It is in Rust, but it can also have a C interface. It's actually written with the individual modules of BitCrust are written with the idea in mind that they can be individually also integrated with the SSE interface. So yes, that's possible. I have a question, you did not mention any performance results. And on your site, you said the performance results were removed. Anything to show us on performance? No, last year I only had like the validation model for this with how the spend tree works. And then I saw like quite a good improvement over the existing data. And this is me. And this is an alarm that I have to go up. Okay, I don't have any new and that's unfortunate. I wanted to have full integrators network layer already ready, but yeah, I can't present it yet. So I don't know. Any other questions? All right, well let's go. Thomas, thank you very much.


I think the greatest challenge that Eri has is probably to define who it is and what kind of contributions it can make to the right world. Time has changed over the last 50 years or 47 years. Eri cannot do the things that it started to do before, was to improve race technology and to learn more about race science and things like that. Okay? I mean, we have come 47 years from that goal. What we have to define what it is now, your goal, who it is now that are your clients, what it is that they expect from you, and what it is that you will contribute to the right world. What does the right world need? See, like for me, I'm defining the role of the Thai Lai Foundation and the role in your patronage, for example, together with the people in Thailand. We have to sit down and say, what is our role? What can we do to make a difference? Should we help doing research? No, we said. Because the national system had a bundle of science and money. What can we do to do that? Then we look and we say, maybe what we should do is to worry about the fact that Thailand will not have more farmers anymore, because farmers are disappearing. It is not a very lucrative profession. It's not a very high-power profession, not going to support families of the farmers very well and things like that. In no time, and farmers don't want their children to be farmers. Everybody knows. Then we look in the future and we say, in 10, 20 years from now, there will be no more farmers. This guy's going to die already. The next generation will not become farmers. That's why these farmers borrow money to send their kids to school in big cities so that they remain there and don't come back to the farm and suffer like they do. Now, therefore, we at the Thai Rice Foundation were saying, oh, maybe one of the things we ought to do is look into this and see what we can do to help reverse the trend. How can we make rice farming a more lucrative business, something that people can take pride in, and not because they have nothing else better to do, which is what most people think of rice farmers, and many other things like that. So we define certain projects that come out of certain things. Now, this is from a very small organization in one country that we have to look and there are many other things we were thinking of doing. Now, Eri, I think we need to, like, it's easy for us to look because we are new organizations so we can start, you know, without packages. But having said that, Eri is an old institution. It's like old people. Okay? How do we revive it? Not easy, isn't it? We are aging. Eri is aging. I'm aging. And I think to revive it, to become as useful as it used to be, may not be easy. I don't think it's easy for me to be as useful as I was 50 years ago, for example, unless you reinvent something because the luck of our institution is that you can reinvent its new way. People cannot. We are having this capacity and it is going down. But old institution can be renewed, I think. And I think Eri should find its way. And I wish it luck. Why don't you try to accomplish this new strategic plan? Your elements there are quite exciting. I know Bob Ziegler is excited about the future. Trying to look at the new direction that the Institute might take. I think, yeah, but I think there are many... I think people look at that strategic plan differently, I think. Some people think that you patch up what you have. Little. You know, because when you have somebody there already, what can you do? This is what the old institution is difficult to renew because if you are not building the strategic plan from inside, people will say, this is top down, no good and so forth, right? But if you build it from inside, it carries too much baggage. It's heavy. Because who will find the strategy and work plan that make him out of job tomorrow? Nobody. I work in strategic plan, I know. It is a fight all the way between top down and bottom up. Neither one is the best solution. So I think that is what the Institute has always been struggling and I can see that in the strategic, the new strategic plan.