#there's something about children who are born in post apocalyptic environments that get the best of me

[filledmouth]

weight of a dead world

[crimeculturepodcast]

Hispanic/Latino horror movies

In honor of Hispanic Heritage month, this week we talked about horror movies out of Latin American and Spanish speaking countries. There were some we couldn’t get to so here is the full list:

Spain

The Devil’s Backbone (2001)

Rotten Tomatoes: 92%

Audience Score: 89%

Google Score: 85%

IMDb: 7.4/10

Critics Consensus: Creepily atmospheric and haunting, The Devil's Backbone is both a potent ghost story and an intelligent political allegory.

Description: “Set during the last years of the Spanish Civil War, The Devil's Backbone is a Spanish gothic horror movie that follows Carlos, a young orphan boy who is deposited at Santa Lucia School among several other children who have been displaced by the conflict. Though he finds friends in the professor and the head mistress, he is plagued by a wandering spirit with a link to the violent caretaker's secret past.”

Trivia: The movie, which he wrote in college and was in development for 16 years, is strongly inspired by Del Toro’s personal memories, especially his relationship with his uncle, who supposedly came back as a ghost. It is also included among the "1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" edited by Steven Schneider. Although filmmaker Guillermo del Toro is Mexican, this film is set in the Spanish countryside (largely filmed in Madrid) that’s why it’s on the Spanish list. The Devil’s Backbone has all of the impactful elements of spirituality, horror, and the supernatural that come up again and again in Del Toro’s work. This film has been referred to as the “brother film” of one of Del Toro’s best known works, Pan’s Labyrinth. 

[REC] (2007)

Rotten Tomatoes: 89%

Audience Score: 82%

Google Score: 85%

IMDb: 7.4/10

Critics Consensus: Plunging viewers into the nightmarish hellscape of an apartment complex under siege, [Rec] proves that found footage can still be used as an effective delivery mechanism for sparse, economic horror.

Description: “Late-night TV host Angela and her cinematographer are following the fire service on a call to an apartment building, but the Spanish police seal off the building after an old woman is infected by a virus which gives her inhuman strength.”

Trivia: The movie was filmed chronologically in real locations (no sets were built for the movie). The actor’s were never given the script in its entirety and didn’t know what was going to happen to their characters until the day of filming. The movie is also a big inspiration for the horror survival game Outlast.

Considered The Blair Witch Project of zombie movies, REC had a lot of competition in the found footage style (it came out the same year as George Romero’s Diary of the Dead and the first Paranormal Activity movie). It more than holds its own among them, so much so that an American remake called Quarantine came out the next year. Director Jaume Balagueró keeps the movie disturbingly real and doesn’t fall prey to jump scare after jump scare.

Veronica (2017)

Rotten Tomatoes: 88%

Audience Score: 49%

Google Score: 80%

IMDb: 6.2/10

Critics Consensus: A scarily effective horror outing, Veronica proves it doesn't take fancy or exotic ingredients to craft skin-crawling genre thrills. 

Description: “During a solar eclipse, a teenage girl and her friends want to summon the spirit of the girl's father using an Ouija board. However, during the session she loses consciousness and soon it becomes clear that evil demons have arrived.”

Trivia: Based on the true story of 18-year-old Estefanía Gutiérrez Lázaro. I won’t go too far into it because we may do an episode on it in the future but if you want spoilers, watch the movie (if you dare).

Directed by Paco Plaza (same as REC), the possession theme is done over and over again in horror but this movie is a terrifying and fresh take. 

The Bar (2017)

Rotten Tomatoes: 88%

Audience Score: 55%

Google Score: 75%

IMDb: 6.3/10

Description: “In bustling downtown Madrid, a loud gunshot and two mysterious deaths trap a motley assortment of common urbanites in a decrepit central bar, while paranoia and suspicion force the terrified regulars to turn on each other.”

Directed by Álex de la Iglesia, it’s labeled as a horror-comedy. You can watch it on Netflix.

Who Can Kill A Child? (1976) - Tells the story of a happy couple, two English tourists who decide to vacation on a secluded island in the Mediterranean. There they discover – almost too late- that the island has been taken over by a group of murderous children.

The Baby’s Room (2006) - Featured on Six Films to Keep You Awake at Night. A new family renovates and moves into a grand old house. Nervous first-time mom installs a baby monitor but hears mysterious sounds on the other side. Once they install a high-tech video baby monitor, what they see chills them to the bone.

Sleep Tight (2011) - Apartment concierge Cesar is a miserable person who believes he was born without the ability to be happy. His self-appointed task is to make life hell for everyone around him, a mission in which he has great success. It has big home invasion/stalker vibes. 

Timecrimes (2007) - A man accidentally gets into a time machine and travels back in time nearly an hour. Finding himself will be the first of a series of disasters of unforeseeable consequences. It sounds like a “Happy Death Day” type of plot (but proceeding it by a decade).

Thesis (1996) - Angela is doing her thesis on the effect of violence in the media when she discovers a snuff film. This discovery leads her down a dark path where she must confront her greatest fears and question everybody around her.

Witching and Bitching (2013) - One article I read said it perfectly, “What Shaun of the Dead did for zombies and What We Do in the Shadows did for vampires, Witching & Bitching essentially did for the cinematic depiction of witches, albeit on a less visible scale.” Great pick if you’re looking for something a bit more lighthearted.

Mexico

Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)

Rotten Tomatoes: 95%

Audience Score: 91%

Google Score: 90%

IMDb: 8.2/10

Critics Consensus: Pan's Labyrinth is Alice in Wonderland for grown-ups, with the horrors of both reality and fantasy blended together into an extraordinary, spellbinding fable. 

Description: After the Allies invade Nazi-occupied Europe, a sadistic captain sends a troop of Spanish soldiers to flush out rebels,bringing his new wife and her daughter along on his exploits. While his family resides in the countryside, he leads his men on a murderous rampage, much of which is witnessed by his step daughter. In an effort to escape her reality she plunges into Pan's Labyrinth, a mystical world at the border of her own.

Trivia: Guillermo del Toro is famous for compiling books full of notes and drawings about his ideas before turning them into films, something he regards as essential to the process. He left years worth of notes for this film in the back of a cab, and when he discovered them missing, he thought it was the end of the project. However, the cab driver found them and, realizing their importance, tracked him down and returned them at great personal difficulty and expense. Del Toro was convinced that this was a blessing and it made him ever more determined to complete the film. Del Toro also repeatedly refused offers from Hollywood producers, in spite of being offered double the budget, provided the film was made in English. He didn't want any compromise in the storyline to suit the "market needs" (he even did the English subtitles himself). The film received 22 minutes of applause at the Cannes Film Festival and in 2007, it became one of the few fantasy films ever nominated in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the Oscars. It’s another on the list "1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" edited by Steven Schneider with The Devil’s Backbone. It was on more than 130 top 10 lists in 2006. It is also the 5th highest grossing foreign language film in the US.

The Similars (2016)

Rotten Tomatoes: 95%

Audience Score: 49%

Google Score: 75%

IMDb: 5.9/10

Critics Consensus: A smart homage to genre filmmaking, The Similars is a fun and frightening film that balances socio-political issues with aplomb.

Description: A monstrous, once-in-a-lifetime thunderstorm strands passengers in a remote bus station outside Mexico City in 1968. As they listen to the radio, they realized that the storm has spread all over the world. As they look at each other, they also realize that everyone’s faces are slowly changing, and not for the better. 

Trivia: The film used make-up and special effects techniques never before done in Mexico. Director Isaac Ezban was influenced by B-movies of the 50s and 60s as well as TV shows and movies like “The Twilight Zone”, “The Thing”, and “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”.

We Are What We Are (2010)

Rotten Tomatoes: 72%

Audience Score: 48%

Google Score: 77%

IMDb: 5.7/10

Critics Consensus: We Are What We Are is elevated horror that combines family drama and social politics, with plenty of gore on top.

Description: After a family patriarch dies, his survivors are tasked with continuing the rigid family rituals that involve hunting meat, preparing it for consumption, and eating it. The “meat” in question is human flesh, since they’re a family of cannibals. With two detectives hot on their tail, the family of cannibals strains to maintain their family traditions in a modern urban environment.

There was an English language remake in 2013 (86% on Rotten Tomatoes) with Wyatt Russell and Odeya Rush (Lady Bird, Dumplin’, and Goosebumps)

We Are The Flesh (2016) - A joint French-Mexican production released in Spanish as Somos la carne, this post-apocalyptic nightmare involves a brother and sister who roam the land desperately seeking food until a kindly old man takes them in under the condition that they help him renovate an abandoned building. Oh, and they also have to have sex with one another while he watches. And after he breaks their will by getting them to do that, he makes them do all sorts of other things. This film was one of only four in Mexico to receive a “D” rating—which is reserved for subject matter that is considered extremely disturbing and/or pornographic.

The Witch’s Mirror (1962) - An abusive and cheating husband kills his wife so that he can be with his mistress. The woman’s godmother was a witch who originally tried casting a spell on a mirror to protect her from domestic violence, but the spell failed. Still, she is able to bring the woman back from the grave, and the two witches set out to destroy the evil woman-beater.

Here Comes The Devil (2012) - A married couple lose their children while on a family trip near some caves in Tijuana. The kids eventually reappear without explanation, but it becomes clear that they are not who they used to be, that something terrifying has changed them.

Chile

Downhill (2016)

Rotten Tomatoes: 60%

Audience Score: 22%

Google Score: 43%

IMDb: 3.5/10

Description: Deeply upset by the passing of his best friend, a professional BMX rider accepts to partake in a race in Chile. Everything goes as planned until he stumbles upon a man who is infected by a mysterious virus and becomes the target of local assassins.

Trivia: Filmed in 13 days

Post Mortem (2010)

Rotten Tomatoes: 88%

Audience Score: 61%

Google Score: 70%

IMDb: 6.5/10

Description: In Chile, 1973, during the last days of Salvador Allende’s presidency, an employee at a Morgue’s recording office falls for a burlesque dancer who mysteriously disappears.

Aftershock (2012)

Rotten Tomatoes: 39%

Audience Score: 24%

Google Score: 61%

IMDb: 4.8/10

Critics Consensus: Aftershock hints at an inventive twist on horror tropes, but ultimately settles for another round of mind-numbing depravity that may alternately bore and revolt all but the most ardent gore enthusiasts.

Description: In Chile, a group of travelers who are in an underground nightclub when a massive earthquake hits quickly learn that reaching the surface is just the beginning of their nightmare.

Trivia: Horror icon Eli Roth wrote and stars in this film.

To Kill A Man (2014) - An attack on his daughter leads a mild-mannered family man to take revenge on the vicious street thugs who have tormented him and his family for a long time.

Columbia

Out Of The Dark (2014) This is in English

Rotten Tomatoes: 24%

Audience Score: 22%

Google Score: 77%

IMDb: 4.8/10

Description: A family moves to Colombia to take over the operation of a manufacturing plant, soon they learn their new home is haunted.

Trivia: Starring Julia Stiles (10 Things I Hate About You, Dexter) and Scott Speedman (The Strangers, You) 

The Squad (2011)

Audience Score: 53%

Google Score: 82%

IMDb: 5.3/10

Description: After a secret military base ceases all communications, an anti-guerrilla commando unit is sent to the mountainous location to discover what exactly happened. The squad expects to discover that the base was attacked and taken over by guerrilla units, but instead find only a lone woman wrapped in chains.

Trivia: In one scene where the actors are shooting guns, one actor accidentally picked up a real gun instead of the prop and fired a real shot (no one was hurt).

Cord (2015) - On a post-apocalyptic world of never-ending winter, a sparse cast of outsiders live underground. Due to their unsanitary conditions, sexual contact has become dangerous. Masturbation has become the paradigm of sexual experience and an array of low-tech devices with this purpose has come into existence. In this bleak reality, a dealer of such machines a sex addict make a deal: she will allow him to experiment new devices on her body in exchange of pleasure. Soon however, their relationship goes out of control.

The Hidden Face (2011)

Rotten Tomatoes: 80%

Audience Score: 72%

Google Score: 86%

IMDb: 7.4/10

Description: Shattered by the unexpected news of their irreversible break-up, an aspiring orchestra conductor is puzzled by his girlfriend's mysterious and seemingly inexplicable case of disappearance. But, can he look beyond the facts?

Trivia: There is a Turkish version of this movie and a 2013 remake out of India called “Murder 3”

At The End Of The Spectra (2006)

Google Score: 83%

IMDb: 6/10

Description: A young woman who has become agoraphobic due to a traumatic incident is holed up in her apartment, she begins to suffer from hallucinations, paranoia and an obsessive neighbour.

Trivia: There is a Mexican remake called “Devil Inside” and there were once rumors of an American remake starring Nicole Kidman but that’s the end of that.

Uruguay

The Silent House (La Casa Muda) (2010) 

Rotten Tomatoes: 68%

Audience Score: 37%

Google Score: 63%

IMDb: 5.4/10

Critics Consensus: Shot in a single take, The Silent House may be a gimmick movie, but it's one that's enough to sustain dread and tension throughout. 

Description: A girl becomes trapped inside a house and becomes unable to contact the outside world as supernatural forces haunt it.

Trivia: The plot is supposedly based on a true story that occurred in the 1940s in a small village in Uruguay. With a budget of just six thousand dollars, it was filmed using a handheld high-definition digital single-lens reflex camera (the Canon EOS 5D Mark II), 2 handheld lamps, and a couple of lightbulbs over a time period of just four days. The claim that the movie was filmed in one continuous take are suspect. The Mark II camera can only record up to 15 minutes of continuous video at a time. Uruguay's official submission to the Best Foreign Language Film category of the 84th Academy Awards 2012.

Monos (2019)

Rotten Tomatoes: 92% 

Audience Score: 85%

Google Score: 69%

IMDb: 6.9/10

Critics Consensus: As visually splendid as it is thought-provoking, Monos takes an unsettling look at human nature whose grim insights leave a lingering impact.

Description: On a faraway mountaintop, eight teenaged guerillas with guns watch over a hostage and a conscripted milk cow. Playing games and initiating cult-like rituals, the children run amok in the jungle and disaster strikes when the hostage tries to escape.

Trivia: Moises Arias (Hannah Montana) and Julianne Nicholson (I, Tonya, August: Osage County) most of the other actors had never acted before. The movie draws inspiration from Lord of the Flies. Included among the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", edited by Steven Schneider. It was selected as the official Colombian entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards.

Peru

The Entity (2015)

Google Score: 66%

IMDb: 4.3/10

Description: A group of students decide to study 'reaction videos' and are led toward an old film, hidden in the archive room of a cemetery. It appears that everybody who has witnessed the film has met an untimely demise under suspicious circumstances. When the students view the footage, they discover first hand, what the demonic spirit is capable of. Fulfilling the ancient curse of a woman cruelly killed during the Spanish Inquisition.

Trivia: The Entity has been billed as Peru's first 3D horror film and to have been loosely based on true stories. Review websites Flickering Myth and Nerdly commented that the movie suffered from being too overly familiar to pre-existing works (Blair Witch, The Ring).

The Vanished Elephant (2014)

Rotten Tomatoes: 89%

Audience Score: 72%

Google Score: 88%

IMDb: 6.5/10

Description: Crime novelist Edo remains obsessed with what happened to his fiancee Celia after she disappeared during an earthquake. When an enigmatic woman brings him photos that may help him solve the mystery, he senses he is being drawn into a dangerous game.

The Secret Of Evil (2014)

Google Score: 65%

IMDb: 5/10

Description: Video footage depicting a supernatural encounter is all that remains of a filmmaker and his crew who disappeared while exploring a haunted house.

When Two Worlds Collide (2016)

Rotten Tomatoes: 91%

Audience Score: 69%

Google Score: 93%

IMDb: 7.6/10

Description: An indigenous environmental activist takes on the large businesses that are destroying the Amazon.

El Vientre (2014)

Google Score: 81%

IMDb: 6.1/10

Description: Silvia, a beautiful 45-year-old widow, is obsessed with having a child and finds in attractive but naive Mercedes the perfect candidate to bear it. Silvia kindly offers her a job and a room in her house, and then manipulates her into seducing a young man named Jaime. They soon fall in love and Mercedes becomes pregnant. Silvia will do anything in her power to keep the baby, even if it means leaving a couple of bodies behind.

Argentina

Terrified (2018)

Rotten Tomatoes: 77% 

Audience Score: 65%

Google Score: 82%

IMDb: 6.5/10

Description: Paranormal researchers investigate strange events in a neighbourhood in Buenos Aires.

Luciferina (2018)

Rotten Tomatoes: 83%

Audience Score: 25%

Google Score: 69%

IMDb: 4.6/10

Description: Natalia is a nineteen-year-old novice who reluctantly returns home to say goodbye to her dying father. However, when she meets up with her sister and her friends, she decides instead to travel the jungle in search of mystical plant.

Francesca (2015)

Audience Score: 67%

Google Score: 73%

IMDb: 5.3/10

Description: Two detectives track a serial killer who has been targeting the impure. To catch him, they'll have to solve the case of a girl who went missing 15 years ago.

Cold Sweat (2010)

Rotten Tomatoes: 75%

Audience Score: 

Google Score: 58%

IMDb: 4.8/10

Description: The movie follows Román, who stumbles upon his ex-girlfriend Jackie, who has somehow gotten caught up in a torture cult run by two sadistic, old men. The aging political radicals have managed to put Jackie’s life in incredible danger. But when Román and his friend try to help Jackie out of her confines, the elderly psychos prove to be more than meets the eye.

Penumbra (2011)

Rotten Tomatoes: 50%

Audience Score: 26%

Google Score: 75%

IMDb: 5.5/10

Description: A woman desperate to find a tenant for her decrepit apartment apparently finds the perfect candidate, unaware of a sinister plot involving an imminent eclipse.

Venezuela

The House At The End of Time (2013)

Rotten Tomatoes: None 

Audience Score: 72%

Google Score: 91%

IMDb: 6.8/10

Description: Dulce encounters apparitions in her house and unleashes a terrible prophecy. Thirty years later, Dulce, now an old woman, returns to unravel the mystery that has terrorized her for years.

Trivia: Winner of the Audience Award at Gävle Horror Film Festival 2016 (Sweden). Not only is it Venezuela’s highest-grossing horror film, it’s also the most distributed film from the country. By August 2016 it was announced that the American studio New Line Cinema acquired the rights of the film to make a remake for the American public. Hidalgo is still at the wheel so its chances of success are high.

Ecuador

Cronicas (2004)

Rotten Tomatoes: 71%

Audience Score: 77%

Google Score: 80%

IMDb: 6.9/10

Critics Consensus: An unsettling and absorbing cautionary tale with John Leguizamo playing an unscrupulous TV reporter who uses the medium to further his own goals.

Description: Reporter Manolo Bonilla (John Leguizamo) goes to a jail in Ecuador to interview Vinicio Cepeda (Damián Alcázar, Narcos, Narnia), a hit-and-run driver whose crime incited a riot. After Cepeda tells him he knows where a murderer called the Monster of Babahoyo buried a young female victim, Bonilla posts bail in the hopes that he'll learn more about the crime. Bonilla finds the girl's body, but, as he nears the scoop of his career, it looks as if Cepeda might be withholding some key details.

Trivia: Inspired by a true story? As well as being both a Cannes and TIFF favourite, Cronicas is the official submission of Ecuador for the 'Best Foreign Language Film' category of the 77th Academy Awards in 2005, it was produced by Guillermo del Toro and Alfonso Cuarón (Children of Men, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban) This is John Leguizamo’s first film in Spanish. He said he felt awkward talking in Spanish while acting, like he didn't know the language. 

English Language Horror

The Silent House (2011) This is in English

Rotten Tomatoes: 43%

Audience Score: 

Google Score: 72%

IMDb: 5.3/10

Critics Consensus: Silent House is more technically proficient and ambitious than most fright-fests, but it also suffers from a disappointing payoff.

Description: Sarah is working with her father and uncle to renovate an old family home to prepare it for sale. Long vacant, the house has no utilities, forcing the trio to rely on battery-operated lanterns to light their way. Sarah becomes separated from her relatives and soon finds she is trapped inside the cabin, with no contact with the outside world. Panic turns to real terror as the young woman experiences events that become increasingly ominous.

Trivia: Elizabeth Olsen (Wandavision) The plot is based on a true story that occurred in the 1940s in a small village in Uruguay. Contrary to the marketing's claim that the film was shot in one uninterrupted take, the entire movie was actually shot to mimic one continuous real-time take, with no cuts from start to finish, as a result the time span of the film's plot is exactly 86 minutes. It was shot in roughly 10 minute segments then carefully edited to hide the cuts.

Night of the Living Dead (1968) - This along with the rest of the Dead series are the work of George A. Romero, whose father is from Cuba.

Ash vs. Evil Dead - I love the Evil Dead movies and although this series wasn’t perfect (I’m sure die-hard fans will say it's far from it), I still think it kept to the heart of the main story. Bruce Campbell is obviously perfect and the addition of Lucy Lawless is amazing, it’s really Puerto Rican actor Ray Santiago that steals the show.

The Others (2001) - Directed by globally renowned Spanish director Alejandro Amenábar, The Others starring Nicole Kidman is a Spanish gothic horror movie that combines elements of the supernatural, psychological, and mystical. It focuses on the strange events that occur at the estate of a woman and her young children, plagued by spirits in the aftermath of WWII. It has the distinction of being the only English-language Spanish movie to be given the Best Film Award at Spain's national film awards, the Goyas. In total, the movie has seven Goya Awards, including for Best Director. Although it might not read as particularly “Spanish,” it was produced, written and filmed all in Spain, shooting in Cantabria, Northern Spain and Madrid.

[writterings]

hey fam you got any comic recs for my dying soul tapastic doesnt sate my webseries needs

*crackles knuckles* oh boy do i. (though the majority of them aren’t webcomics, my bad). also sorry for how long this got lmfaooo. 

Marvel

Literally Any Thor Comic

Here’s my 80 Slide powerpoint I did on his character if you want some ideas: X

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl!

Description: Part girl, part squirrel, full time hero and also computer science student! And she’s unbeatable!

My Review: Literally one of the best Marvel comics I have ever read. Genuinely funny, heartwarming, and clever. It even makes you care about characters you’d never even consider thinking about before. It also has a subtle way of incorporating social commentary without it being overbearing. The art is a bit off-putting at first, but you learn to love it. I love this series so much. 10/10.

Iceman

Description: Bobby Drake AKA the X-man Iceman is a gay mutant and he just can’t catch a break. He struggles with his homophobic parents, the fact that he literally just realized he was gay due to a younger version of himself from the past coming out to him, and also Wolverine’s evil son stealing one of his students. Oh, and also he’s trying to enter in a relationship with a guy who seems perfect in every way. Typical X-men solo-series story. Or not. 

My Review: The series was cancelled early due to how it was “unpopular” so the ending is kinda rushed and a lot of the loose ends aren’t tied up, but otherwise it’s a really good story. It deals with a lot of serious topics such as what it’s actually like being gay, realizing you’re gay later in life, and dealing with less-than-supportive parents. Basically, it’s kinda a story that only gay people would get (though anyone could enjoy it). I also met the writer, Sina Grace, too, at the Philly Comic Con and he was so nice! Anyways, the series is a solid 7/10 but had the potential to be 10/10 if it had been allowed to continue. 

Exiles

Description: Blink from X-men, an older and jaded Ms Marvel, Valkyrie from Thor Ragnarok, Iron Lad from Young Avengers (who is also the younger version of Kang the Conqueror), and a chibi-fied version of Wolverine team up to save the multiverse. ‘Nuff said. Also features Peggy Carter as Captain America.

My Review: It’s only three issues but so far this is one of the most fun series I’ve ever read! I can’t wait to see where it goes, and I’m loving how they’re developing the team’s relationships with one another. 10/10.

Boom! Studios

Loki: Ragnarok and Roll

Description: When the god Loki is wrongly banished to earth…what’s he supposed to do? Start a rock band, of course. 

My Review: I literally just finished reading this series and I’m totally in love! It has no relation to Marvel’s Loki at all, but follows similar ideas about his character and somewhat feels like a disgruntled Loki fan’s fix-it fic about his treatment in the comics. 8/10, my only complaints are how short it is and how I wished certain aspects were more fleshed out. 

Judas

Description: The story of Jesus Christ and his crucifixion through Judas’ point of view. 

My Review: Beautifully written, with beautiful artwork. I think I actually cried the first time I read it. 10/10, and again my only complaint is that I wish it was longer. 

Image

Nailbiter

Description: Sixteen of the world’s worst serial killers all came from the same town. When a rag-tag group of “friends”, including an FBI agent, local cop, a serial killer, and the local goth teen, try to investigate why this town produces killers….the answers aren’t pretty. WARNING: This comic is intended for mature audiences only. 

My Review: Honestly, intriguing and scratches the mind-itch Netflix’s Mindhunter leaves in your brain. The ending was really rushed and the ultimate reveal at the end fell pretty flat but otherwise it’s a gorey, gross, horrifying, and fun comic. 7/10.

Vertigo

Sweet Tooth

Description: A pandemic wiped out most of the world’s population ten years ago. Also around ten years ago, children started being born with animal-like features. Gus, a boy with deer antlers, must now try to survive both the post-apocalyptic environment he’s been thrust into while simultaneously avoid the government who thinks kids like him are the cause of the disease. WARNING: This comic is intended for older audiences. Much blood and cursing. 

My Review: One of my all-time favorites. Not much to say, really. I hated the ending, for the same reasons I hated the ending of Harry Potter but otherwise it was amazing. 9/10.

Skybound

Birthright

Description: When the Rhodes’ family loses their 10-year-old son, their lives fall apart. And then when he returns a year later, as a 20-something-year-old monster-fighting warrior from a Lord of the Rings fantasy land, that’s when their lives really go to shit. 

My Review: GOD, this is also one of my all-time favorite comics. It is a bit predictable at times and I wished a few things were played out differently, but all that is made up for with the interesting plot, the amazing artwork, and the characters themselves. 9/10.

Kill the Minotaur

Description: The story of the Greek hero Theseus, but with a few very drastic twists. WARNING: This comic is intend for older audiences. There is sex, blood, and much cursing. 

My Review: Honestly, you need to read this comic in one sitting otherwise the magic is lost. The ending isn’t surprising, but the way it’s dropped on you make it feel like it is. 9/10.

Webcomics

Evan Dahm Comics

Description/Review: I honestly don’t know how to describe this. Let’s just say this is nearly some Tolkien-level of world building, mixed with an ATLA-type of vibe in regards to the in-universe politics and interweaving stories. Start with Rice Boy, then Order of Tales, then Vattu. Solid 7/10, but that’s just due to a lot of little things and nitpicks that’ll become obvious if you read it.

[thecoroutfitters]

Prepping has always been about the worst-case scenario. Maybe that’s because those really scary disasters motivate us more or maybe it’s just that in preparing for a true “the end of the world as we know it” (aka TEOTWAWKI) event make us ready for anything else we might encounter.

Regardless of the reason, there are enough of these major catastrophes in the world’s history to show us that they really can happen.

While most people who have lived on the face of this earth haven’t had to deal with anything more than a regional natural disaster, some have had to deal with much worse. To the people of Europe who survived World War II, that was a life-changing event. The same can be said for those who lived through the Great Depression or the Black Plague.

Real disasters happen. What skills would help you survive?

When I was growing up, the biggest risk we faced was that of thermonuclear war. The Cuban Missile Crisis, in 1962, was probably the closest we came to total annihilation back then. I was as glad as anyone when the Berlin Wall came down and the Cold War ended.

But we are now in another cold war and it is looking much more like it’s going to turn into a hot war that that one ever did. Should that happen, or even worse, turn out to be an EMP attack, we could easily find ourselves living in a post-apocalyptic world; a world in which we’re going to have to do everything without the benefit of electric power.

Here’s Why We Can Never Win Against North Korea!

  In such a case, people will be scrambling to learn the necessary skills to survive. But even more than that, they’ll have to learn how to do the things necessary to rebuild society. We are too accustomed to our technology and our comforts to just give up on them. People will be wanting things the way they are used to, or at least as close to that as they can get them.

With that in mind, it only makes sense to learn the necessary skills for living in a world without electricity. This doesn’t just mean surviving for ourselves, but helping others to survive as well; something that is normally outside of our plans as preppers.

I realize that most of us live and operate under the philosophy of taking care of ourselves, our families and our survival team. If all we’re concerned about is survival, that makes sense. But if we want our children to have a better life than that, enjoying some of the benefits we have today, we’re going to have to do more than just survive. We’re going to have to be ready to rebuild our world and as much of the technology that drives it as we can.

That job will probably fall to us, rather than to others, simply because we are the ones who are going to survive. So, we not only should be learning survival skills, but others which will help us to make things work.

Native American Doctor

Medicine is going to be one of the biggest problems in a post-apocalyptic world. While most people would die of starvation, many will also die for lack of medicine.

Today’s pharmaceutical industry depends on supplies that come from all over. Without transportation, they won’t have the materials they need to make the medicines that modern society depends on. Even if they could, without transportation those medicines wouldn’t get to you and me.

When the medicines that are locally stocked in hospitals and pharmacies are used up, there will be no more. The only medicines that will exist will be those that nature provides. The doctors of the American Indians knew those medicines and some still use them. If you can find one of them, and learn their craft, you’ll have one of the most useful skills that exist.

Even if you can’t find a Native American doctor, you could still learn about their medicine. There is a growing movement of people who believe in herbal medicine, which is based to a large part of the same roots as those Native American doctors’ medicine.

While you probably wouldn’t learn everything that a Native American Doctor could teach you, you’ll end up a whole lot better off, with a whole lot more information, than what you have now.

Chemist/Pharmacist

Pharmacists are actually trained for much more than just counting out pills, they are highly trained chemists. More than doctors, they know how different medicines interact and how they react once in our bodies.

Some pharmacists even know how to make medicines. That’s what you’re looking for: a pharmacist who can show you how to make your own penicillin, ether and chloroform will be giving you information that can save lives.

In addition to medical chemistry, there are probably other things you can learn from these people, such as how to make biofuel and other useful chemical substances.

Midwife

Everyone knows what the “world’s oldest profession” is; but I’ve never heard agreement on what the second and third oldest are.

Personally, I think that the midwife has to be pretty high on that list, as the “oldest” would necessitate midwifery. So even if something like farming or shepherding would beat it out (Able was a shepherd and Cain a farmer), midwives have been around for a long, long time.

As long as babies are being born, there will be a need for midwives. This will be especially true in times when there aren’t enough doctors to help women through childbirth. In a post-apocalyptic world, there’s a much greater possibility of women using midwives, than doctors.

Amish Farmer

Modern farming has become industrialized, with massive corporate farms and lots of expensive equipment. Even smaller farms depend heavily on equipment, with the tractor long ago having replaced the horse or oxen.

But the Amish never made that transition. Today’s Amish farmers largely do things the way their ancestors did them, still using horses as the main source of power on the farm. This gives them an incredible advantage over the rest of us, who don’t have the slightest idea of how to do things without gas engines and electric power.

Should we find ourselves on the receiving end of an EMP, the Amish will be less affected by it than any other group of people in our country. That’s basically because they don’t depend on electricity or the modern electronics that the rest of us use.

Their communities will thrive, while the rest of the country is dying. Spending time with one of these farmers and learning the methods and tools they use, would prepare you to be able to feed your family and many more, once the brown stuff hits the rotary air movement device.

Rancher

Ranching and farming aren’t the same thing. Throughout the time of the Old West, these two groups of people fought for the use of the land. That’s because the best farmland was also the best land for raising cattle, or should I say the best ranchland was often the best land for farming.

Of all the animals that mankind has domesticated through the years, cattle give us the most meat per animal.

Another way of putting that is that cattle give us the most meat for effort expended. That makes them the perfect sort of animal to raise for meat, assuming you’ve got enough land to raise them.

Snake-Eater

In the military, all “special action groups” are collectively known as “snake eaters.” It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about the Navy’s SEALs, the Army’s Special Forces or any other group, they all fall into the same general category.

Snake eaters are the best of the best. In the Army, Special Forces is not only the group that is called upon for unconventional warfare (guerrilla warfare), but they are the ones who are sent to other countries, in order to train their militaries. In fact, Special Forces got their start that way, first as the Jedburgh Teams in World War II and then as advisors in Greece and elsewhere.

Many people think of these snake eaters as expert survivalists. But that depends largely upon the environment you are talking of. They aren’t experts in the sense that you and I are trying to be, but rather in surviving any combat action. Their superior training makes them the best soldiers to have on your side, should things become violent.

Spending time with any snake eaters, learning their combat skills, will greatly increase your chances of not falling prey to the two-legged predators that will be out in force after a disaster strikes.

Hunting Guide

Hunting may not be the most efficient way of finding food after a collapse, but it may still be a very necessary part of our survival. But what most people consider hunting today is sitting in a deer blind, waiting for deer to start munching on the seed corn they put out.

While this may be an efficient way of hunting, it’s highly dependent on having the right equipment and the right place. I don’t think that’s something that any of us can count on in a post-apocalyptic world. Rather, we’re going to have to go hunting the old-fashioned way, tracking animals, learning their habits and then laying wait for one alongside a trail.

Skills like that aren’t something you can learn from just any hunter, as they probably don’t know them either. Rather, you’re going to need someone who started hunting before people used corn and deer blinds to hunt.

That’s why I recommend a hunting guide, rather than just any hunter. They’re more likely to know the skills you’ll need.

Blacksmith

If you’ve ever read any of my other post-apocalyptic articles, you know that I believe strongly in the profession of blacksmithing.

Before the dawn of the industrial age, the blacksmith made just about anything that could be made out of metal. From armor and weapons to shoeing farmer’s horses, the blacksmith was the man to see.

There are few blacksmiths in the world today; mostly because modern industry has replaced them. But when industry is taken away, then what? Who will be able to make the tools and other things that we need? It will have to be blacksmiths, or someone with very similar skills.

My father learned how to be a blacksmith, once he retired; apprenticing with a lifelong blacksmith who was a true artist of the trade. Unfortunately, I only learned a little of it from him, and don’t have a forge and anvil to practice on. If I could find one around where I live, I’d love to spend some time in his shop, learning what I could.

Mr. Fix-It

You probably know someone who can fix just about anything; a Mr. Fix-It (or perhaps a Mrs. Fix-It). These are some of the world’s most useful people and will probably be the true leaders of rebuilding society after a major disaster.

What makes these people so special is that they aren’t limited to just one trade, like many people are. Rather, they’re comfortable with any number of trades and even with fixing things that don’t fall within any particular trade. Whatever you need designed, built or repaired, they can find a way to do it; often a rather imaginative way.

I consider myself to be one of these people. Earlier in my career, I was a manufacturing engineer. Rather than just working in one engineering discipline, this forced me to do both mechanical and electrical engineering. I also took the time to learn how to be a machinist, mechanic and made many of my own prototypes.

On the side, I had a small construction company, along with a buddy of mine. So I’ve learned how to do a wide variety of things; becoming what we used to call, a jack of all trades.

Today I build a lot of my own survival gear. You can find countless examples of my work around my house. My garage hasn’t had a car in it since I painted one of them. Rather than being a garage, it’s actually my workshop. I figure that will serve me well in a post-apocalyptic world.

The Old Survivalist

Survivalism has changed since I got started in my youth. Back then we weren’t so focused on equipment, as methods. There just wasn’t that much equipment available; at least not compared to what we have available to us today.

So, you had to know how to do things yourself, rather than depending on having some sort of gadget to do it for you.

What this means is that those old survivalists were often trained much better than we are today, simply because they had to be. So they’re a fountain of useful information, if you can find them and get them talking.

Fortunately, most are willing to share what they know; so the real problem is finding them.

  This article has been written by Bill White for Survivopedia.

from Survivopedia Don't forget to visit the store and pick up some gear at The COR Outfitters. How prepared are you for emergencies? #SurvivalFirestarter #SurvivalBugOutBackpack #PrepperSurvivalPack #SHTFGear #SHTFBag

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Two (Totally Opposite) Ways to Save the Planet (Ep. 346)

Can technology solve the challenges of food, water, energy, and climate change that come with a growing global population? (Photo: Oast House Archive/geograph)

Our latest Freakonomics Radio episode is called “Two (Totally Opposite) Ways to Save the Planet.” (You can subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or elsewhere, get the RSS feed, or listen via the media player above.)

The environmentalists say we’re doomed if we don’t drastically reduce consumption. The technologists say that human ingenuity can solve just about any problem. A debate that’s been around for decades has become a shouting match. Is anyone right?

Below is a transcript of the episode, modified for your reading pleasure. For more information on the people and ideas in the episode, see the links at the bottom of this post.

*      *      *

Charles MANN: At one point I was going to call the book Toblerone For Ten Billion. That was vetoed by my editor, for some reason.

Charles C. Mann is a journalist who writes big books about the history of science. His current interest is:

MANN: The modern environmental movement, which I would argue is the only successful ideology to emerge from the 20th century.

By the middle of the twenty-first century, the global population is expected to reach 10 billion.

MANN: And the question is, are we going to be able to satisfy all their demands for food, water, energy.

Also: Toblerone.

MANN: Because in addition to food and water and the basics, they’re going to want occasional treats.

And there’s one more big concern.

MANN: How are we going to deal with climate change? Those are the big challenges.

The future of food, water, energy, and climate change — big challenges indeed. How will those challenges be met?

MANN: There have been two ways that have been suggested, overarching ways, that represent, if you like, poles on a continuum. And they’ve been fighting with each other for decades.

That fight, and those two worldviews, are the subject of Charles Mann’s latest book, which he wound up calling The Wizard and the Prophet. The prophet sounds the alarm and wants us all to cut back. The wizard urges us to charge forward, confident that technology will solve our problems. Surely you’ve heard these prophets and wizards, speaking to us — and usually speaking past each other.

Al GORE: The next generation would be justified in looking back at us and asking, “What were you thinking? Couldn’t you hear what the scientists were saying? Couldn’t you hear what mother nature was screaming at you?”

Nathan MYHRVOLD: The way to have a dramatic message is to say we’re all going to die.

The prophet encourages a return to nature.

Mary ROBINSON: We need to replant and save rainforests.

The wizard finds the prophet’s suggestions naïve.

MYHRVOLD: Well, that argument is so absurd on so many levels that the miracle is that there are people who can say it with a straight face.

The prophet sees grave danger in the immediate future:

ROBINSON: We’re going to be into tipping points. The Arctic is going to go. We’re going to see a sea-level rise that will wipe out islands.

The wizard is more optimistic:

MYHRVOLD: I think that if we put our heads together, we will come up with ways to cope. But that’s no fun compared to saying we’re all going to die next Thursday.

Today on Freakonomics Radio: are you more prophet or wizard? Why? And: is anyone right?

*     *     *

When Charles Mann was in college, there was a book that showed up on the reading list in several classes.

MANN: Ecology, you know, political science, demography.

So he had the chance to read it several times. It was called The Population Bomb. There was a warning on the cover. “While you are reading these words,” it said, “four people will have died from starvation. Most of them children.”

MANN: And it really hit home, and I thought, oh my gosh. The edition I read, which is the first edition, said there would be massive famines in the 1970’s. Basically, it said we are in deep, deep trouble.

And then, in the 1980’s:

MANN: In the 1980’s, I sort of noticed this hadn’t happened.

So were the famine predictions simply wrong? Or: was the doomsaying a calculated strategy, designed to shrink the Earth’s population before it was too late? Environmentalists were saying humankind was pushing the Earth’s limits; technologists, meanwhile, said those limits were nowhere in sight.

MANN: The world is finite, obviously, and the real question is not whether there are limits, but whether the limits are relevant. At some point, we do run out of planet. But what exactly that limit is and when we’re going to hit it — I think it’s much less well-known than either side says it is.

DUBNER: So did you come to feel then that both camps — rather than wizards and prophets, we can call them techno-optimists and environmentalists — do you feel that both camps to some degree intentionally misrepresent their strengths in order to engender support, when in fact the reality — and indeed, most solutions — is probably much more nuanced than that?

MANN: I think so. I’m not sure about intentionally, because people get convinced. I think that neither side truly appreciates how much of a leap in the dark jumping into the future is. They’re both overly confident that we know what we’re doing. Take energy for instance. The best solution for the prophets is this whole sort of neighborhood solar thing. But that depends on there being innovations in computer technology and innovations in energy storage, in energy transmission, that simply aren’t here yet. Maybe they can be done, but do we actually know how to do it? No.

Similarly, the wizards, they typically imagine very large numbers of next-generation nuclear plants. And they argue, totally rationally and totally correctly, that these have the smallest environmental footprint of any form of energy generation. They’re completely right about this. But I’m not actually seeing that happening. Nobody seems to be building these things. Next-generation nuclear plants have been around for 30 or 40 years, at least on the drawing board, and only a few of them have actually ever been tried. So you wonder, how is that going to happen? Both of these: how is this going to happen?

While wrestling with the best ways to move forward when it comes to energy, food, water, and climate change, Charles Mann found himself looking backward. Specifically, to two men — the wizard and the prophet who make up the title of his new book. Its subtitle is: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow’s World.

DUBNER: Let’s start with your prophet, William Vogt. So tell us briefly about him, and why he was the one who qualified to become the prophet in your book.

MANN: Well, he is, more than anyone else, the progenitor of the modern environmental movement. And the basic idea of it is one of limits. He called it carrying capacity. And this is that the Earth, the environment — another idea he invented, the environment — is governed by these ecological processes and we transgress them at our peril. And therefore we have to hunker down. We have to put on our cardigan sweaters and turn down the thermostat and eat lower in the food chain and all that sort of stuff. And he put this all together in a book. It’s now forgotten, but it was hugely influential, called Road to Survival. It was published in 1948, and it’s the first modern “we’re all going to hell” book, if you know what I mean.

DUBNER: As apocalyptic as his beliefs and predictions were, the title itself connotes at least survival, if not prosperity. Was the road to survival, basically, hope that a lot more people don’t get born and/or a lot of people die, and we have enough to go around, and we get small?

MANN: Much of the book is a passionate screed for population control, sometimes written in language that makes you cringe. Another big chunk of the book is about how we should do things in a way that fits better within nature, and that’s things like stop farming within marginal land. It’s paying attention to erosion. It’s not overusing fertilizer.

DUBNER: So when you say that his discussion about population growth makes you cringe, was it from a classist perspective, the cringing comes from, or racist — how would you describe it?

MANN: I would say yes, both. He was, basically, pretty misanthropic. And it’s hard to avoid noticing that although he was very, very hard on rich, white people and overconsumption and being wasteful and destructive and so forth, that the brunt of the population-reduction stuff he’s talking about are on poor, brown people in other parts of the world. And he sometimes described them in language that is really kind of appalling — he talks about Indians breeding with the irresponsibility of codfish, and so forth. In this he was very much a man of that time, unfortunately. And this is something that environmentalists today should be aware of and think about. Their movement has some pretty deep roots in some pretty bad places.

William Vogt’s work inspired the first best-selling environmental book: Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson. Here’s Carson:

Rachel CARSON : Can anyone believe that it is possible to lay down such a barrage of poisons on the surface of the earth without making it unfit for all life?

MANN: And books like The Population Bomb; Al Gore’s first book, Earth in the Balance; The Limits to Growth. All these great environmental classics all stem directly from his work. That’s why I picked him.

William Vogt was born in 1902 on Long Island, New York, back when it was largely bucolic.

MANN: And then it was just engulfed by suburbanization. So he tried to find nature, he ends up in a Brooklyn slum, and is plucked from that and goes to one of those schools they have in New York where the deserving poor are given special education.

He becomes the first college graduate in his family — with a degree in French literature.

MANN: And a degree in French literature was probably as useful in career building then as it is now. And he turned to ornithology. He was a passionate birdwatcher. I should mention that he had polio, as well, and he went all over the place despite finding great difficulty in walking and having canes and braces and having to be hauled around and so forth. He was a gutsy guy. And through a whole series of unlikely circumstances — he ends up becoming the official ornithologist of the Peruvian government on these guano islands off the coast of Peru. And these islands have had seabirds roosting on them for millennia upon millennia. And the seabirds do what they do, which is to eat fish nearby and excrete huge quantities of bird poop. I’m allowed to say that on your podcast?

DUBNER: Sure are. Absolutely.

MANN: You guys are just, you know, hang loose, right?

DUBNER: We’re very pro-poop.

MANN: Okay. And this, in the 1850’s, became the origin of today’s hugely important fertilizer industry, these vast heaps of bird poop that were on these islands off the coast of Peru. And they became very important to the Peruvian government. To maintain the supply of poop, you need to maintain the supply of birds. In the 1930’s, the supply of birds started declining, and they brought him in, as he said, “to augment the increment of excrement.” And he spent three years there, and he actually did a remarkable piece of ecological science, a foundational piece.

He realized that there is an oscillation of the currents there, it’s called today, El Niño, La Niña. And he argued that when the warm water came in, when the El Niño phase came in, the anchovetas, which were the fish that the birds ate on these islands, swam far out into the Pacific to avoid the warm water. They like cold water. And the birds couldn’t reach them. And this recurring phenomenon put a cap on the number of birds that you could have on these islands. And you could not augment the increment of excrement — that nature set these bounds. And if he did increase the bird supply, it would just mean that things would be worse when the next El Niño came in. And this was this powerful insight for him. This is the way nature worked. And he put it together.

And then he made two big steps, which I think are enormously important. One is that he said, this kind of phenomenon, which is called a carrying capacity — means that only so much can be produced because of these natural limits — could be stretched like taffy to cover the entire world. The world can be thought of as a single environment with a single carrying capacity. And the second, he said, is that we’re exceeding it. Or we’re about to exceed it, and that’s going to bring us into trouble.

DUBNER: William Vogt predicted, specifically, personally, he predicted famine, which as you write, hasn’t come true. So in the 1940’s, the global famine death rate was about 785 people per 100,000 — so, call 800 per 100,000. It’s now 3 per 100,000. So let me ask you this: as a prophet, do you need to be right? Or is it enough to sound the alarm? Because obviously on that dimension at least, a prediction of famine and population wipeout, Vogt was wildly wrong.

MANN: Now, I think there are two responses to it. The first is, “Okay, you’re right, it didn’t happen, but it will happen eventually. We just got the timing wrong.” And the second response, which, to my way of thinking at least, is more nuanced, is, “You’re right, we didn’t get that right, but a lot of the other things they predicted, we did get right.” And that is true. Nitrogen pollution is a huge issue. I mean, about 40 percent of the fertilizer that’s been used didn’t get absorbed by plants, and it got — either went up in the air, where it interferes with the ozone layer, not a good idea, or it becomes nitrous oxide, closer to the ground, in the air, which has caused all kinds of health problems. Or even worse, it goes into the streams, which goes into the rivers, which goes into the ocean, causes these enormous blooms of algae and other aquatic plants. These die, they fall down to the bottom. Microorganisms consume them, it’s sort of an orgy of breakfast, and they metabolize so quickly they suck all the oxygen out of the air and you get these huge dead zones in coastal areas around the world. And you can go on and on. All that stuff, if you point to that, they’re looking better.

At the same time as William Vogt, the prophet, was sounding the alarm on overpopulation and what he saw as the resultant famine, there was another scientist whose discoveries would lead to a dramatic growth of the global population. This is the wizard in Charles Mann’s book; his name: Norman Borlaug.

MANN: He was born in a very poor family in Iowa, poor soil, terrible, hardscrabble farm, worked like a dog. He was determined to get off of that, he really hated it, clearly. He thought his way to do it, because he didn’t think he was very smart, was athletics. To do that, he needed to go to college, which he was able to do, really, thanks to the fact that Henry Ford had invented the cheap tractor.

DUBNER: Which let his family free him up from the labor, yes?

MANN: Right, freed him up from the labor. And even more important, when you have horses, and oxen and so forth doing the labor for you, you have to grow food for them, and you have to tend to them. And they’re just huge time sinks, and they’re land sinks. And a typical small farmer in those days, about 40 percent of the family’s land was devoted to growing the food for the animals.

DUBNER: That was one of my favorite statistics in your book. I mean, it’s one of those things that, the minute you see it, it makes perfect sense. But I never would have imagined it.

MANN: Exactly. It’s almost like doubling your land. And of course your land becomes more productive. A tractor is a huge, huge deal.

DUBNER: On two dimensions at least, right? In terms of making more available land and, obviously, increasing the pace of the labor.

MANN: Right, and making people’s lives better, and also being able to accomplish more, just, — it’s vastly better.

Thanks to that tractor, Borlaug did go to college; he studied forestry and eventually got a Ph.D. in plant pathology and genetics. During World War II, he worked at DuPont, trying to make water-proof ration boxes and mold-proof condom wrappers. Then he got a job with the Rockefeller Foundation, trying to boost the production of wheat in Mexico.

MANN: And the remarkable thing is, he succeeded, despite not knowing Spanish, never having been out of the country, never having bred wheat before, hardly having worked with wheat before. And the wheat genome is terrifically complicated, it’s five times as many genes as there are human genes. And because plants can do weird things that mammals can’t, there’s three copies of each genome in every cell. There’s six different versions of each gene. It’s just a mess.

DUBNER: So his breakthrough came about from what you described as shuttle breeding. Can you describe A, why that was unusual, why more people didn’t try that; and B, why it worked?

MANN: More people didn’t try it because it was literally written in the textbooks that it wouldn’t work. And the thing is, he was so ignorant — very occasionally, ignorance is good. And what he thought to do was — plant breeding is very slow, because in most places there’s only one crop of wheat that you grow a year. It’s either called winter or spring wheat, and you have to wait an entire year to grow the next. And there had been a dogma that you have to breed the crop in the area in which it’s going to be grown. And he thought, “Wait a minute. What if I grow one crop in the south of Mexico and one crop in the north of Mexico, where it’s warmer? And that way, I can do two a year and make things go twice as fast.”

DUBNER: Well, Borlaug found a way through, as you said, grit and luck, and a handful of other things, to make wheat a much, much, much more productive and more flexible crop. And this gave way to what we came to call the Green Revolution, and Borlaug went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize. So talk to me about the consequences of, really, this one man and what he helped produce, good and bad consequences.

MANN: Well, the good consequences are really striking. If you look at the data, shortly after the Green Revolution, wheat production in Mexico just soars. It basically quadruples. The same techniques come to the American middle west, and that’s when the American middle west becomes a huge agricultural powerhouse. Our yields just increase enormously. It goes to India and Pakistan. Same thing. Then, the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations are excited by what they’re seeing in wheat, and they set up the International Rice Research Institute outside the Philippines, and they resolve to do the same thing with rice. And yields triple there. And the world just grows enormously more food. And sometime in the 1980’s, for the first time in recorded history, the average person on earth has enough food year-round. And famine — except for famine induced by war — basically ends. It’s a huge moment. And I sort of think this should be taught in all the schools. So that’s the good part, and it’s a huge good part.

DUBNER: Okay, so let’s talk about the downsides of the Green Revolution. One of them, you write, is that it essentially fueled income inequality. Land became more valuable. It just created a lot of leverage. On the other hand, the alternative would be that everyone gets to be poor and hungry, other than maybe, warlords and kings, right? So how much credence should we give inequality as a downside of the Green Revolution?

MANN: I think you should give quite a bit of credence to it, because when we say, “inequality,” it sort of minimizes the actual experience, just as we are talking about, when a small holder’s farm is able to grow four times as much food, the land becomes four times as much valuable, and it becomes worth stealing. And in countries with very weak institutions, which is unfortunately most of the world, it was stolen, often with the active support of the elites in the government. And huge numbers of people were pushed off the farms and forced into slums, and communities were broken up.

DUBNER: And what about the environmental costs of the Green Revolution?

MANN: The big environmental costs of this are nitrogen pollution. What we talked about before.

DUBNER: So did Borlaug, later in life, acknowledge the costs of the growth that he helped produce?

MANN: Kind of. There’s a way that, when you’ve accomplished something, and somebody is carping, that you say, “Well yes, but,” and you acknowledge what they do and then you brush past it. He said, “Wait a minute, the work that we’ve done has saved hundreds of millions of people from starvation. That’s a big deal. And there’s no upside without a downside. So yeah, there’s a downside, but holy cow.” And I think that’s pretty easy to understand.

I should tell you that I talked briefly with Borlaug before his death. An article had just come out that was trying to estimate the impact of the Green Revolution, and said that Borlaug and his people, if you looked carefully, had saved 600 million lives. So I put this to him, and he was an exceptionally modest guy, a very personally attractive guy. And he said, “Oh, I think that number is exaggerated, and it was a whole bunch of people, and it wasn’t just me,” and all the things you’d expect him to say. And I said, “Look, suppose that they’re off by an order of magnitude, and you yourself are only responsible for saving 60 million lives. How does that feel?” There’s a long pause. “You know what? It feels pretty good.”

Norman Borlaug died in 2009. But the legacy of his wizardry lives on, in force — not only in the modern-day miracle of global agriculture, but in the belief that science and technology can save lives.

MYHRVOLD: You know, there was no golden age of mankind that was better than today. That’s the first point.

William Vogt died way back in 1968. His legacy also roars on, with countless prophets warning us of the coming dangers.

ROBINSON: How could we be mad enough, cruel enough, insane enough to have a world for our children and grandchildren which will be unlivable? And that is what we’re headed toward at the moment.

*      *      *

DUBNER: So, you called your book The Wizard and The Prophet, not The Wizard Versus The Prophet. But in some ways, it is asking us as readers to judge the two men and the movements that they helped create against each other. It strikes me a little bit as an unfair fight, in that wizards actually do stuff — they invent things and they push new ideas and systems and products, whereas prophets, it seems at least to me, primarily shake their fist against the sky and urge people to stop doing things.

MANN: Well, I failed if I have completely convinced you that the prophets don’t do anything, because I don’t think that’s really true. I think there is certainly a lot of decrying and fist-shaking going on. That’s absolutely right. But they are arguing for, really, a different way of life. And, if you like it, a different kind of technology. So there is this clash, but it really represents a preference for different kinds of technology — which need to be invented and supported — rather than an idea of a technology versus decrying technology. Although you’re absolutely right, there is that overtone.

It’s time now to hear from a modern-day prophet. One with impressive credentials:

ROBINSON: My name is Mary Robinson. I’m president now of the Mary Robinson Foundation: Climate Justice, former president of Ireland, former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.

DUBNER: Let’s talk for a moment about what you’ve been doing between the U.N. position and now you’ve just written a book called Climate Justice. I’d love to know about the road in politics that led you to this topic.

ROBINSON: Well, in a way I’m quite late coming to the importance of climate change in undermining and negating human rights. When I finished my seven years as president of Ireland in 1997, I became high commissioner for human rights. I don’t remember making any significant speech because another part of the U.N. was dealing with climate change. It was when I started work in Africa on behalf of a small N.G.O. and everywhere I went in Africa people kept saying, “things are so much worse.” And it was the unpredictability of the weather. People didn’t know when to sow and then their harvest would be destroyed, and the rainy seasons wouldn’t come. And I realized, my goodness, I missed this. This is a huge issue of human rights, and it’s so unjust, so unfair, and that’s why I don’t talk about climate change. I talk about climate justice.

DUBNER: You argue that our environmental problems are at heart human-rights injustices, largely committed by big rich countries like the U.S. against small and poor countries. And that’s an argument I’m sure resonates for many, many people. On the other hand, the technology and resources from rich countries also have a lot of benefits — food production, just to take one. How do you find the middle ground to have conversations that are not so accusatory toward the big, rich, polluting countries?

ROBINSON: I think that “climate justice” finds a very good balance in this, because we do acknowledge the injustice of the fact that the emissions have been caused, historically particularly, by the richer countries and now also by the emerging, the Chinas and the Indias and Russias, etc. And that has a big negative impact on food security, on life security, on health, on so many things for poorer developing countries who are not responsible for the emissions.

But we also say that we want — when we move to this renewable-energy world, which would be so much better for health, for jobs, etc. — that there is a fairness in ensuring that the poorer countries, and particularly the poorer people in those poorer countries, get the benefit. We need to get to those one billion people who never switch the switch for electricity. We’ve now got off-grid solutions. We need to get to the women, in particular, who cook on open fires with animal dung, coal, wood and ingest and die in very large numbers from that inhalation, and we need to make this an engagement of people in solidarity with other people.

DUBNER: It’s a really interesting — not a conflict, quite, you raise, but a two-headed problem, I guess. Technologists — and I guess you could include economists in there — they often advocate for a different set of solutions to problems, whether it’s famine or pollution or so on, than environmentalists do. And I think it mirrors political partisanship, whereby there’s very little middle ground and very little collaboration. Trying to convert people who are using animal dung as fuel — obviously that would require a technological solution that may require more energy from the grid. So can you talk about the two camps — if we consider it truly to be two camps, let’s say environmentalists on one side and real technologists on the other — what are some ways to accomplish a middle ground that you’ve seen in action, that you think are scalable?

ROBINSON: I’m not so sure, as you put the issue that way, that we have the kind of middle ground you’re talking about. We have to get out of coal rapidly, period. We have to get out of oil and gas pretty quickly, and be out of all three by 2050 to have that safe world. And what is happening and, I have to say this quite unequivocally, the fossil-fuel world is using the tactics of the tobacco industry. It’s using these tactics to muddy the science, delay things, and deny that there is a real problem. And unfortunately, as we know, President Trump has put in quite a number of climate deniers. How do we understand that the new economy is the renewable energy economy? Solar and wind are becoming so much cheaper. They’re very competitive, far more competitive than coal. We need to have that shift.

DUBNER: So you’re calling for the global community, however that can be created or defined, to come together to carry out climate justice. Talk to me about what you see as big previous successes in the global community coming together to solve problems.

ROBINSON: Well, one example is when we knew there was a threat to the ozone layer, we came together with the Montreal Convention to make sure that what was causing that problem with the ozone would be completely banned. We need to have exactly the same attitude to climate change. I mean, it has been said, and said very eloquently, we’re the first generation to really understand the dangers of climate change and that’s why we have the Paris commitment to stay well below 2 degrees of warming and work for 1.5 degrees and be carbon neutral by 2050, meaning out of greenhouse gases: coal, oil, gas, etc.

And we’re the first generation to understand all of this and the last generation with time and opportunity to make sure we do get out of it. We’re going to be into tipping points. The Arctic is going to go. We’re going to see a sea-level rise that will wipe out the islands. How could we be mad enough, cruel enough, insane enough to have a world for our children and grandchildren which would be unlivable? And that is what we’re headed toward at the moment.

MYHRVOLD: The way to have a dramatic message is to say we’re all going to die.

That’s Nathan Myhrvold, the former chief technology officer of Microsoft and now C.E.O. of an invention-and-technology firm called Intellectual Ventures.

MYHRVOLD: If you said, “Oh my God, the changes in the food system mean we’re all going to die,” is a lot worse than saying, “Changes in the food system mean we’re all going to be at least five pounds heavier than we would ideally like to be.” I mean, you don’t get any oomph out of that.

DUBNER: If you had to declare yourself, let’s say, x percent wizard and y percent prophet, with “prophet” representing environmentalist and concerned about population and the environment, and “wizard” representing technology and maybe techno-optimist, what are those numbers for you, Nathan Myhrvold?

MYHRVOLD: Oh, probably 90-10. And if you push me it might be 98-2. The part where I would differ from many environmentalists is I understand that technology is not just a bad thing that got us in this terrible situation. Technology is also our salvation. And the notion that we have caused problems in our society which we have to fix, in least in part through technology, that is the story of mankind.

DUBNER: So, The Economist has said that you have “an unshakeable belief that human ingenuity will sort everything out.” What’s that belief based on? Other than history?

MYHRVOLD: Well, historical experience. What do you mean, “other than history?” Our species has faced many, many great challenges. And when we face a great challenge, one of the things that we fall back on is technology. And frankly, that is what distinguishes us from other creatures. Most animals have to undergo biological evolution. They can’t learn and undergo a cultural evolution. When we went from being hunters and gatherers to being agriculturalists, that wasn’t because we evolved new kinds of limbs meant for agriculture. What it meant was we learned how to sow crops and harvest them and build a civilization that could stay in one place because we had a regular food supply.

Every time we have a really powerful technology that really changes the world, well of course there’s problems that come up. And you can blame technology, but I think the constant in that equation is humans. So, of course we will over-exploit things, of course we will do a set of things that is very much human nature, but for most problems, we wind up realizing it eventually and we fix it.

DUBNER: But a prophet might say, “Well, just because technology or technologies were the solution to one set of problems doesn’t mean it will be the solution to the next set of problems.” And, indeed, if one makes the argument, as many prophets do, that these problems are actually the result of technologies, then, indeed, the most natural solution would be the opposite of that, which is some kind of reversion, some kind of return to a more natural state, a smaller population. So what do you say to that argument?

MYHRVOLD: Well, that argument is so absurd on so many levels that the miracle is that there are people who can say it with a straight face. There was no golden age of mankind that was better than today. That’s the first point. There’s a lot of, “Oh, let’s hearken back to those wonderful old days. You know, when the feudal lord oppressed us, when the number-one killer of women was childbirth, when infant mortality was 50 percent.” Oh yeah, I really want those days back. In order to worship the past, you have to have a very bizarre filter on to filter out those aspects of the past that you don’t like.

Look, the single biggest thing that would help world population is to get a higher standard of living in the parts of the world where it’s still crushingly bad. If the bottom two billion people in the world had a better lifestyle, ironically, that’s what would lower their population and help them have a better lifestyle going forward.

This is a point on which Myhrvold and Mary Robinson, wizard and prophet, happen to agree.

ROBINSON: We know exactly what will reduce population. It’s educating girls and women, and it’s having a health system that works — universal access to good health care. And we’ve seen in countries all over the world that the population comes down very rapidly when you educate girls and women and have a health system that functions.

On the issue of carbon emissions and climate change, meanwhile? Not much agreement between wizard and prophet there.

MYHRVOLD: I am not saying that global warming is a solved problem, I think is an incredibly hard problem to solve. So, I’m not saying all of our problems are trivial. Far from it. I think that if we put our heads together we will come up with ways to cope and maybe eliminate. And that is a really important thing.

Myhrvold has spent some time thinking about technological solutions to the climate-change problem.

MYHRVOLD: So, climate change is a 1-percent effect. Now all we have to do is make the sun 1 percent dimmer. Now I don’t literally mean changing the sun. But there are a variety of things that bounce sunlight back into space. Clouds are one of those things: white clouds bounce white light back up into space. It turns out that volcanoes throw ash and particles, if it’s a big volcano, very high in the atmosphere. That reflects some of that light. And in fact this happened in 1991 when Mount Pinatubo went off. It cooled worldwide temperatures by a degree, degree-and-a-half-Fahrenheit for 12 to 18 months. Well, my company has come up with some very practical and cost-effective ways of deliberately putting particles into the upper atmosphere. And on paper, it works out that you could nullify all of global warming that way.

These geoengineering ideas are, in many quarters, quite poorly received.

MYHRVOLD: People get extreme, some people anyway, get extremely angry, and they say, “Oh, technology got us in this problem, why are using technology to get us out?” And that’s where I come to think of saying, “Well, okay so are you sincere about worrying about global warming? Or are you using global warming as a stalking horse for your political agenda?” If you’re sincere about the harm of global warming, you say, “I don’t want my environment screwed up. I don’t want millions of people to die.��� So, if you take that problem-oriented view, if we can stop that problem, that’s good right?

This is one characteristic of the wizard’s solution: a large-scale, top-down fix. Many prophets, meanwhile, think about small-scale, bottom-up.

ROBINSON: Well there’s a lovely story of this woman that I was very impressed by. She’s an anthropologist. Mrs. Tong, she was a professor who moved from Vietnam to Australia and could have had a very good living in Sydney, and came back to her country because she wanted to work with poor people in her region. She introduced me to the regional officer, she introduced me to the elders, she introduced me to the women, etc. They had broken down the level at which women could be involved comfortably. She said, “If we did it at the district level, women would feel disempowered.”

So we broke down to eight families coming together and forming a co-operative, and we now have a number of co-operatives who are in charge of a certain part of the forestry to maintain that forest. And the regional officer, at her persuasion, had given them the right to the fruits of the forest as they say. The first fruits were medicinal and actual fruits. And then they said, “Next year, we’ll be able to cull some of the trees, but we will plant new trees. We will maintain the forest.”

And this for me was a wonderful example, which I know is happening in indigenous communities all around the world. They actually save forests. And if we’d only listen to indigenous peoples, we would save far more forests. And we need to replant and save rainforests, and if we listen to those who really understand their neighborhood and their forests, we’ll do it much more quickly and more effectively.

DUBNER: A lot of the solutions that you praise and suggest that we scale up are reliant, to some degree at least, on behavior change, on people deciding to make a different kind of consumption decision or whatnot. And as most of us know, even if just from our own personal experience — whether it’s a diet or exercise or spending/saving money, and so on — behavior change and self-discipline can be very difficult. And I’m curious whether you truly believe that relying on humans to “do the right thing” on a large scale will be successful enough to have the kind of effect in the climate realm that you hope for.

ROBINSON: Well, I certainly think it is important that we change our behavior to a significant extent, and it is happening. People are recycling more. More young people are vegetarian or even vegan. There is a real acknowledgement that we need to do this, and actually women, in the home and in their community, are more likely to be leaders on changing behavior. That’s what we’re good at in the family.

You may not always be successful, and I’m not the best myself. I’m more vegetarian than I was, but I’m not pure vegetarian, yet. I aspire to be. I love some West Ireland lamb, that sort of thing. But the point really is that we need to understand the health and the economic benefits that come from a change in vision about where we want to see the world, and that’s the most important thing.

MYHRVOLD: I am skeptical that we will solve it by just doing the right thing. And I mean that somewhat facetiously. To give an example, there was a little book that was popular a few years ago called 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth. Well, those are 50 simple things that you can do to feel self-righteous and none of them are going to save the world. And I think that approach, and that attitude, fundamentally mistakes what the problem is, and it creates a situation where people can feel good about themselves. “Oh, I unplugged my iPhone charger while I was away today.” And yet, no matter, even if all of us did that, it would not materially change what’s going to happen to global warming. We have to make actually very painful cuts, which our society isn’t very good at doing.

ROBINSON: We need to be careful about how we will move rapidly to having renewable energy in developing countries. Developing countries have become very ambitious to get renewable energy. We’re learning that there are human-rights abuses occurring where clean energy is being put into a country in the wrong way. And the wrong way tends to be mega projects that don’t have any concern for land rights or water rights or indigenous people’s rights to consent locally.

An example that I’m aware of was a big wind farm in Kenya, and it was on pastoral land belonging to Maasai pastoralists. Nobody thought they had land rights, but they had always brought their animals on this land. And these big, 365 wind turbines were being built, and they wouldn’t have even benefited from the energy, from the clean energy, the electricity. So they took a case in court in Kenya and blocked the whole thing until their rights were being properly recognized.

MYHRVOLD: Well, then there’s nuclear power. So, nuclear power is a carbon-free energy source that absolutely works. The United States got scared of nuclear starting in the 1970’s and through the 1990’s. Then-Vice President Gore presided over the announcement of killing the last nuclear plant in the United States because we were going to build safe coal plants. Now we realize, inconveniently, that global warming is a threat.

ROBINSON: Well, I’m not an expert on the nuclear issue, I have to admit that. The way I see it, nuclear energy has its own problems. We saw that in Japan when the nuclear power plants were flooded. What incredible problems, and they’re lifelong problems for the Japanese. There are problems at the end of the lifecycle that make it very expensive. There are problems in building nuclear power stations that make it very expensive.

And meanwhile we have the much cheaper renewable energy coming on stream, and that I understand much better. So I’m not making a whole statement. I think it’s true that nuclear power does not produce greenhouse gas emissions and that’s important. France has nuclear energy and has benefited from it but also has the problems now of aging nuclear power stations and the cost to the economy of getting rid of those.

I went back to Charles Mann, author of The Wizard and the Prophet, about the nuclear-power conundrum.

DUBNER: Nuclear power is one of these things that a lot of environmentalists have come around to embrace as —

MANN: At least, some.

DUBNER: — and what’s interesting is that I look to that as an example of how the standoff between the wizards and the prophets can turn into inertia. Because if there had seen more collaboration and less grandstanding, rather than inventing a technology that then got old and got exported to Japan and France, we probably would have kept building a better technology that by now would be — whether universally accepted or not, who knows — but it seems that the environmentalist protest against nuclear was so strong that it really stymied invention or innovation. So that strikes me as one of the potentially worst paths of having wizards and prophets, or technologists and environmentalists, not sharing a language, sharing a middle ground. And I’m curious where you see this can go, or should go.

MANN: Well, the present that we have, as you say, I think quite accurately is the worst of the many worlds, right, in which people are at loggerheads. I suspect that one of the underlying issues is that much of these discussions, the debates, the arguments, are couched in, I think what the philosophers call “prudential terms.” So the people who don’t like nuclear power say, “Well, we don’t like it because it’s unsafe. We don’t like it because of the waste. We don’t like it because of proliferation and so forth.” And those are all true. But they’re mainly pretexts. They don’t like it because they don’t like the path that takes you down, which they see as giant centralized facilities under state control, and further and further away from democracy. They don’t like it for the same reason they just don’t like big corporations.

The fundamental arguments are really about values. And we typically argue them on the basis of practical things, as if that is actually what is fueling the debate. I’ve never seen, to my knowledge, a nuclear power person saying, “What if we built compact nukes with smaller scale and shorter life spans that can be used as a bridge fuel in the way that people talk about natural gas?” and say, “Okay, we’ll have this nuclear power plant for 30 years and that will buy us time so that the renewable stuff can kick in.”

DUBNER: Why do you think that conversation isn’t happening? Is that a failure of one camp, or is it this construct that has been set up by people like William Vogt, and maybe by Borlaug as well, that we can’t escape?

MANN: Well, there is a tendency for people to get really entrenched in their own walls. Our society is now so large that even advocacy groups have become an industry of their own. They have to protect their credibility and they start acting like the corporations that they decry. And it becomes more and more difficult for, not even it’s just a middle ground, but a creativity, to happen. And I think some of that is just a consequence of scale.

DUBNER: Let me ask you one last question, I want to know what you think is the prophet’s view and the wizard’s view on colonizing Mars. Right? So I can see that appealing, maybe not equally, but quite robustly to each camp. Obviously it requires a great deal of technology, but for the prophets it’s a chance to start anew with a planet we haven’t screwed up yet.

MANN: It’s interesting. I should say that I am — and ever, since I was a child, have been a space enthusiast. I think the kind of tradeoff there is — do you know the science-fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy?

DUBNER: No.

MANN: It’s a fascinating look at exactly colonizing Mars, and, in a certain way it’s all about the clash between the wizards and the prophets, because it’s about how we should live on this new planet. And yes, we need all kinds of technological development. But what is the life that we’re going to have here? And also, how are we going to terraform it? How are we going to make it more habitable? And I think there’s a rich room for disagreement and argument there. You could put it inside a dome city, which would in a certain way be the most efficient way, or else you could really take the challenge of trying to transform the whole planet and make it breathable.

DUBNER: If you were going to bring one science adviser with you on that establishment of a human colony there, would it be William Vogt, or would it be Norman Borlaug?

MANN: Well, I hadn’t thought about this. What I’m thinking is, which person would I like to be locked up with a small vessel for several years? And Borlaug, I think had a better sense of humor.

DUBNER: Yeah, that seems an easy answer. But forget about being locked up. So let’s say that personal confinement was not the one metric that you had to choose your scientist on, but would you rather have the guy who figured out a new dimension of botany? Or a guy who understood that resources are finite and carrying capacity is a concept that should be applied to the environment, and so on?

MANN: You know, it’s funny. I think I would choose Vogt. And here’s the reason: that is a hostile environment. Mistakes will kill you. I’m starting out. I want somebody who’s hyper-aware of potential mistakes. I think I would probably have a chance of coming up with some of the innovations and so forth, I’d really want somebody who would point out how I might be on a path to killing myself. So if I could have Borlaug on the way over and transform him to Vogt when I’m there.

Charles Mann’s book is called The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow’s World. Thanks to him, and also to Mary Robinson and Nathan Myhrvold.

Freakonomics Radio is produced by Stitcher and Dubner Productions. This episode was produced by Harry Huggins. Our staff also includes Alison Craiglow, Greg Rosalsky, Greg Rippin, Alvin Melathe, Zack Lapinski, and Andy Meisenheimer. The music you hear throughout the episode was composed by Luis Guerra. You can subscribe to Freakonomics Radio on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Here’s where you can learn more about the people and ideas in this episode:

SOURCES

Charles C. Mann, journalist and author.

Mary Robinson, president of the Mary Robinson Foundation: Climate Justice, former president of Ireland, former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, and co-host of the podcast Mothers of Invention.

Nathan Myhrvold, co-founder of Intellectual Ventures, former chief technology officer at Microsoft.

RESOURCES

The Wizard and the Prophet by Charles C. Mann (Knopf 2018).

Climate Justice by Mary Robinson (Bloomsbury Publishing 2018).

EXTRA

Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson (Spectra 1992, 1993, and 1996).

“Nathen Myhrvold, Myth Buster” Alex Renton, The Economist 1843 (January/February 2015 Issue).

The post Two (Totally Opposite) Ways to Save the Planet (Ep. 346) appeared first on Freakonomics.

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