00:00:08 Speaker 1: This is a me eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bote bitten in my case underwear. Listen, don't e podcast. You can't predict anything. So Greg Blaskovich just told a story, but he won't tell he wanted to tell a story for we turned the machine on. He might be abdible pulled out of me. It's like it was a family story. Yeah, I don't want to tell any more than that. I can crack right into it. Actually, I feel like I can share. You don't need to, Okay, I don't want you talking about you know, I don't everybody know what you tell about your your beautiful wife's family. And then we're commenting on how you're honest, um, how gray on he's getting. He was saying, it looks like if you took a picture of him, it'd be like it'd be like looking at pictures of Obama uh on the inauguration day and now, and that you guys have around parallel parallel hair pads, a lot of hair though. Yeah, I got more than hetty, but it makes you look like you look distinguished. Though, Man, you got like that George Clooney kind of thing I'm going for. Yeah, if I get when I started getting all gray, I just hope I got like a big old thick head of hair. But I already got my hairstyle playing out man when I go bald and everything on him? Dude? You know how dudes that are going bald, they just slicking back. That's not I have might be like like no, not like that, like long long, Yeah, I don't know anyways, Greg, I haven't thought this through all the way. Brought about a little prematurely, Greg Blast, Which is that Polish? What is that Croatian? Is that right? You're a croat I'm an American? But yeah, yeah, is it? Um? Do you feel it as bad? Are you still? You know, in in our changing um? You know, we're always changing the rules. Can you still ask people like if they're Polish? Or well? I'm certainly not the person. You didn't take about that? You know? I mean, would you did you? Were you just surprised that I would have asked you that? No? Not at all. People ask about my last name all the time. When I grew up. It was like what's that Russian? Yeah? Blast, And they're like, oh, you got Slavin. I was like, no, it's great. So the Croatians. How long has your family been in the US forever? Like, are you like an American mutt? Oh, My mom's side, half of her side has been here and since like I think before the Revolution. The other early from England. My dad's side was late mid to late eighteen nineties from Croatian Italy. Yeah, that's the thing is like you know, I'm Italian by name only now. My old man when he was born, he was raised up by his grandparents and they spoke Italian in the home. Did he's making he by the time he but no, I mean by the time he died, I mean he was it meant it was nothing. Yeah, I mean he he would like get like if you know, if he was eating some spaghetti or something, that might have like some nostalgic feeling or something. But but no, he it was like no, well used for it. But he carried with him, um a lot of strange stereotypes about other ethnicities that you would have that that he brought over, the biases that it felt like, yeah, like that felt quaint, Like he would have these ideas that um that the Hollanders who would call Hollanders like you would never go to a yard sale that the Hollander was throwing because Hollanders that tended to overvalue the shrewd Dutch. They tended to overvalue the things that they owned. So he had a lot of things that are like part like yeah, but biases against again people who had been in the who had been in the country for so long. But he was raising little Italy in Chicago, so he cared like he would talk about going and getting beat up by the Irish kids, you know what I mean. So he had like he had like a um he viewed American culture still like last name meant a lot to the guy. Yeah, that's what I'm getting at. Well, you know, I I spent a lot of time over in Croatia. I'm the first one of my family to have like gone back. You know. It wasn't really like a going back trip, but I always wanted to check it out because of my last name, and so I did in college and then I just kept go unpacked. Got a good base of friends over there, did a little bit of work for political party, that sort of thing. But like I can't speak it at one time, I could like get around it, get in and out of taxis in like order couldn't have conversations. It's an extremely odd language. But yeah, the Lavian lover here has never been to Laba. I would have thought you've been. There's more. There are more Latvians. There are more Labvians here in America then there are in Latvia. There are more Croats abroad than in Croatia. There's four point five million in Croatia and seven someone. It wouldn't surprise me maybe worldwide. That's how there's tons in Australia. All right, now, Greg said, scene for me to tell tell what you do? Now? Um, A PhD candidate studies political communication at Stanford. At Stanford, Yeah, now what labut you're in? What's the lab in the political communication lab? Yeah? That's why you want me to give a background on it. Yeah, but I want to ask this first. I think we might talk about this at some point in time. We're gonna talk about what we're gonna eventually get around and talk about. Here is is some of Greg's interesting work. And um, as far as public perception, public opinion, a hunting. But did you and I talked about years ago and there was a news story that came out. I feel like it came out of Stanford where they were pulling ahead of a gay rights initiative. It doesn't ring a bell, and they would have they would like pull neighborhoods to see how they felt about an initiative, and then they would have gay couples go and canvas the neighborhood. I know what you're talking about, but we didn't. We didn't talk. That was I thought. I asked about that. You know about that, yeah, just vaguely, but yeah, but that that wasn't United't that wasn't a Stanford thing. But we had we know, we haven't discussed that. Do you know that study? Well not well, I know of it, right, and it was people respond differently obviously when the when the canvassers are okay, yeah, so you'd like you'd call up a dude's house and be like, hey man, how do you feel about this? Uh, you know, the gay marriage bill coming up, and they'd be like hell with that? Yeah, And then you know, a gay couple go to the house and be like, hey man, just so happens this kind of thing affects us directly where your neighbors keep us in mind? Yeah, then you call that due to while back, you know, calling a while later and be like, hey, man, how are you feeling about this gay rights initiative? Oh? You know, I could see both sides of it, you know, what would change their like just like the smallest amount of exposure. Yeah, people get really excited about that. For some reason. I feel like I feel like it was discredited. Yeah, yeah, that's what That's what I want to ask what I'm I feel like I I heard the same thing because part of me is thinking, man, I feel like there's another side of this coin like I heard it. It didn't work out kind of yeah, it was build, it made it made the news. It was billed as this sort of breakthrough, and then some more details emerged and it wasn't his revolution. It was kind of too good to be true to begin with. I mean, if it retains some credibility. I don't want to like slander, but it would be amazing if you could change people's uh entrenched views simply by having them meet, you know, member of a certain community your door step for a couple of minutes. I mean, that would to have that effect linger for however long they had after the after the exposure, would be incredible. If it was like the two weeks you were talking about. Yeah, all right, so now breakdown what you're all about there, what's going on? So originally I was in a PhD program in political science down at UC Santa Barbara. And uh so, how traditional political science studies polarization, you know, like political polarization. How they've done that. They've never really been able to generate consensus on whether American society has polarized. To a lot of people who don't study politics, that elicits kind of raised eyebrows, right because it's like, what are you talking about, Like it's so divisive out there. But what they've done, um is or how they've defined polarization is whether or not people's ideological viewpoints are moving to the left and the right. Devoid of partisan labels, right, it's like, how do you feel about issue A, how do you feel about immigration? Here's seven possible responses, you know, pick your favorite. And when you don't have party labels, you know, everyone just answer is what they what they feel. Uh And it's not a bipolar distribution. It's a totally normal distribution where a center right country kind of always happened. We're all capitalists, um and ah. Essentially it was. You know, it's kind of grappling with this idea of like, well, it feels like it's certainly really heated out there, and it feels like it's polarized, but this isn't really capturing it. And so but back up, I don't understand how what do you mean by not capturing it? So, if you had polarization defined by people's ideological viewpoints going farther left and farther right, you would see a bipolar distribution of responses, right, you would have like those must be the Democrats. But we have a normal where intersted country in terms of just our policy positions. Like if you were to ask people, you give them, like, uh, one to ten, pick your favorite number. If half the country picked one and half the country picks ten, you'd be like, man, that's a bipolar distribution. But basically we still have a lot of fours, five, sixes. Yeah, that's where it centers around. Sure, Yeah, there's it's only the tales where it gets really like ideological fringe, you know, because I feel like that's the only story you've been hearing is about how polarized we are. Now, well, so this is so I think we are polarized, but we've been Um. I mean, I don't think that's a bad metric, but it certainly doesn't capture what a lot of us are feeling. So I got interested in the concept of what we now call affective polarization. I started studying this at UCSB, and it's basically taking a social psychological approach and saying, you know, I think what we're seeing out here in terms of kind of the heated politics is more how democrats and Republicans feel toward one another. How do I regard Republicans or how do I regard Democrats rather than like, well, what's my ideological aggregate score on all the issues? Um And at my now advisor at Stanford chantau Erongar has done a lot of good work on this and basically demonstrated that over the past fifty years, you know, this affective bias against our party opponents has skyrocketed. Yeah, and it it's now just you know, you can basically study it. Like social psychologists have studied race and ethnicity and religion, all these kind of in group outgroup differences that we we kind of think about classically. You can do the same with politics. UM. And, so I'm in the political communication lab and we're really focused around kind of this concept of affective polarization or it's called part as an affect, but it's basically, you know, the biases between in groups and outgroups. And I just happen to study folks who label themselves either Democrats or Republicans. You're only interested in people who labeled themselves that way. Well, the vast majority of the country does, right, and how we can oh yeah, in what's critical though, is you have to include the independent leaners. Right, So if I'm like, how do you identify Democrat, Republican? Independent? Won't say? You know, most people answer. A ton of people say independent. You know, like a lot of people who call themselves independent tend to lean towards one party or the other. Like if you had to choose, you know, which way do you lean? And we offer them leaning Republican, leaning Democrat, we offer we still offer like strict independent if they if they really don't want to say, but that question gets most people um to admit that they actually lean towards one another, because I mean, like, you know, we're all rational people. I think we look at the facts in front of us and just make like a. We have issues, specific positions, right, and then at the end of the day we make a judgment about like, Okay, well I tend to lean towards this party because I've added up all my positions or something like that. That's where I have a really hard time. It is hard. I've never made the jump. I've never made the lean like if you get if you if you threw things at me, right, yeah, I feel like i'd be split. But are you so? If I put the I said, Steve, you're deciding who's gonna win this next election. I don't know random election and uh in Washington state, right, I don't say you're just gonna pick the party, right, And I said pick up party. If I did that ten times, you're telling me five and five equal split something. I depend on the people. And but you don't understand how in depth I get about this stuff. I actually play because I like as a I want to get to the hunt part of this pretty quick here. But I want to say that I'm so averse to radical change. I am too. Then I actually will look at like the Tug of War. I'm like a guy that walks out to people playing Tech of War and they'd be like, oh man, those guys to get their ass kick. I want to jump and help them not get their ass kick because I'm always playing Like um, I'd like like, I know people would like to complain about gridlock, but I like I like pretty slow measured movement. I don't like radical herky jerky movement because like, if you're any kind of a student of history, you realize that radical um, when you take radical departure from courses, it tends to veer wildly and have a destructive period and then get corrected slowly back to the other direction. So to save all that, I kind of like things to move pretty and easy, and I have, but I always have my eye on on some issues that I'm inflexible about. Yeah, I think you're preaching to the choir there. I mean, I don't like you five governments, like a like a split legislator legislature. And yeah, I like change too, uh, come slowly. I think it's important, but I think I've changed gonna happen too quickly. That's where you get into you get into trouble. So I guess I'm establishment and that and that's sort of being an anti establishments cool as right, But I'm yeah, it's not fun to be it's not fun to describe yourself as established. It's certainly not at the moment. Yeah yeah, but I look at of out in the bay right now, the late establishment folks exactly. So now, okay, get us around of the park. To get us you can step a wavement, but approach the part, approach the hunt and stuff, and then pull back away if you want. Okay, just give a little teaser, the teaser of the hunting stuff, all right. So you know, as an academic researcher, I have a series of methodological skills, right. I tend to prefer the experimental method. And so I was like, well, let's run an experiment on uh pe Pull's perceptions of hunting. Specifically, I wanted to look at non hunters. And then this question that kept coming up in my mind was generated by things like, you know, hunters make up a tiny minority of the American public, but the vast majority of American public has generally positive feelings towards hunting in the United States. Lay some numbers of that five percent of five or six percent of Americans by a hunt license. Yes, Now, people always like to them point out like, oh yeah, but there's all this hunting like you could you know, you can go to never admit around me. I'm saying, I like hunt Man and if people are like funny because you never about a hunting license. And then someone point up that you can hunt varmints in Utah without she was like, yeah, yeah, but I hunt vironmout. That's wondering about. You could be a rabbit squirrel hunter in Montana. Never vi license, Brandon Williams, can you I feel like in Montana, I don't think you can hunt small game about a license, but it's not. It's a non it's non game. I think you had to be a license holder, but you had to have a conservation license. I argue about something easy, like there's like a right wrong be very easy to check out. Anyhow, he had found his people had found a way for him to sort of maintain despite his lack of hunting licenses. He did walk back the vironment thing, you know, because first he went like environment hunting people like really like a passionate environment hunter, strictly enviromint's uh, And then he was like, yeah, I only really went hunting twice once was on the campaign trail and once was when I was I was with my cousins. You know, it's fine, it's just you know, people are really desperate to show there. But that is a guy. Yeah, that plays into what you're saying. So five or six percent right of the American population buys a hunt license twice as many twice you know, about thirteen million or no, not about thirteen percent by efficient license. I think there's Yeah, there's certainly a larger population of anglers than hunters, and hunting. Hunting still enjoys such a big approval rating that it's a thing politicians do is trying to like establish some hunting credential. Which is weird is you're trying to like establish you're trying to forge a link between you and five or six percent of the American population. But it's a potent symbolism that goes beyond it. Becamember like John Kerry even did that hunt. Oh yeah, he did a goose hunt where he's trying to act like he's like Joe hunting, he's a goose hunt. But then they didn't want him to be filmed holding the gun too much, so he had a guy next to him carrying his gun, which then he already had a problem with Eladi is m. Yeah, then here he was He's already got like a big elitism problem, like being to pertreation, but then here he was some dude tote in his gun for him on a goose hunt. I mean, it's like ubiquitous, Like every candidate tries to demonstrate themselves as a as a hunter. I mean, Paul Ryan's secret Service code names bow Hunter. But he is a hunter. He is, He's and I'm not saying that Paul Ryan isn't. He has a passionate hunter, but I just mean, uh yeah, lots of lots of candidates try really hard to establish themselves. It's kind of the rule. Yeah, Paul Ryan's big hunter. There's the there's the right side of the aisle, Martin Heinrich's big hunter on the D side of the D side of It's good to see, but it is funny when there's the totally urban establishment candidates trying to pretend that so yeah, I like to shoot critters. Um all right, So there we are. Yeah, and I'm thinking about this divide and it's like, well, it's an interesting question, like why is this happening? So there was that there was that kind of aspect that made me start to wonder maybe I should when you were curious, why is it happening that so few people do it, but it has resonating with so many people who don't hunt. And then on the side of that, I think, you know, I've I've only been hunting for a few years. I mean, I guess you could say I started in college, although I kind of wandered around the Elk Woods a few times, not knowing anything about what I was doing. I don't even think I played the wind. It was just kind of like trampling truly with the rifle. Sometimes it sometimes works. It didn't for me unfortunately. Um. And then you know, when I would I got interested in hunting because well, I think it's always occupied kind of this nostalgic uh imagery in my head. You When I was young, I read books and like The Hatchet and you know, stories of survival, Western stuff, trapping stuff. I loved. It's funny. I was just trying to read The Hatchet to my kid, but he's not quite there yet, not there. I just gave a Hatchet plus the book The Hatchet to my nephew for Chris. He's yeah, I'd read it. I read my six year old right away. It's like talking about divorce and it's just like shoot too high with eleven or you think that's no, it's good, okay, but you know what the hills divorce. I like, well, we're trying to read about a kid getting lost and was not gonna explain like no, no, no, mom, daddy's wild tangents. Um. But yeah, So when I when I talk about, you know, as a new hunter, I kind of feel like there's or maybe it's just simply living near almost nobody hunts, you know, like an urban Bay area, but people are genuinely interested in it. Whenever I bring up the fact that I am a hunter, um. And I found that listening to other people talk about why they hunt with whatever audience they're speaking to versus um. You know, some arguments I may use. There tends to be different receptions sometimes, right. And so there is five that I tested the study that I've always been interested in or that I've kind of logged, and like, man, I wonder if that actually does anything right? And one is hunting is tradition. Okay, that was the teaser. All right, is this the main thing you work? On my dissertation. But the hunting thing is a side project. It's a passion project. Yes, okay, it's a passion project too. What I don't even know the answer to this. I just know you for the hunting thing. So you want so just like what I do in my day to day life, as I study this affect of bias between partisans and specifically, so my lab has shown that, Okay, there is this affective bias that exists between Democrats and Republicans. And how I'm kind of advancing the ball down the field, um is I'm wondering what happens to this level of bias when people are under various cognitive states. No not, I'm talking about like psychological max get a lot more confident about it. Uh yeah. I study a concept called group threat as well as self threat and self affirmation. I mean I don't want to get to like all right, So, um, I'll just lay on an experiment for you. Right, so let me stop you real quick the stuff you do with hunting, because that was the teaser I wanted to give, just make sure people didn't think they tuned into the wrong program. I can see that, so you dick and rail hunt but that's not the main thing you do. Know, it's a side it's a passion project project. Yea, So what a time consuming side project? Man? You know I love spending my time on it. Okay, So now in a nutshell, explain what you do do? So I study they So my dissertation is on the influence of various forms of cognitive threat on affective polarization. What's it? Hoggingtive threat? Like you think it's something's gonna happen to you. Yeah. So the two that I study are self threat and group threat. Self threat and a nutshell, uh cases you know you're feeling bad about yourself in some particular domain. And group threat is how you feel when when your group is being negatively evaluated. So if I was like, hunters are a bunch of that's group. That's if you say to me you're a red n know, if I'm like, you know, you lack integrity in some way, you know, like you're just you're a disloyal friend, Deanni, you know that's self threat? Really yeah, self threat? You know it's it's, uh, you're internalizing some judgment on yourself with you um, and I can run you through the dissertation, but it can get a bit walk and dance or just laying at me a little bit. I'd love to you're all about it, but it's in the interest of time. Okay. So when a nutshell, when people experience self threat, they lash out against political opponents in a totally unrelated domain. So so I think it'd be interesting to talk about the dependent measure that I'm using to measure affective bias is known. It's an economic game known as the trust game. Have you heard of it? All? Right, So there's a player one and a player to right. Like, let's say you and you are all right, your player one, your player too. I say, I'm gonna give you ten dollars, right, you can give some none or all. After you do that, I'm gonna take the amount you gave and I'm gonna triple it. Now he will have the opportunity to give some, none or all of that amount back to you. How much you're gonna give ni for real? Sure? Yeah, I have to like sit and think about five bucks five right now, you gave me ten and we're together, I'd be like, I'll give him five, yeah, but just guess no reason whatsoever. Well, the interesting thing about the trust game is so you have the opportunity to both make more than ten dollars, right, Like, if you're really generous, it's like, let's say you give ten, you know, and you triple he has thirty. You can each make fifteen. But you could just give this guy thirty bucks and you could come away with zero, right, you know, Yanni, he's a nice guy and you so you probably feel comfortable laying yourself out there with the ten dollars. But if you see some person who's like, okay, this player too. You've never met him, but you're getting into like that. Me and Yanni both know the rule, like you you you present this to us, well, I feel like I would. We would exchange a quick glance, realize we were onto something, and I would give him all the money. Yes, and this in the way that I'm doing it out and not bringing two buddies together and having him play it. Right, So you're taught me to do just coming down the road. Yes, I never see him again. And this one's over the computer, right, And there actually is no player too. We're only measuring the participants as player win, but they have to make judgments on how much money they're going to lay out, and they only have a little bit of information about player too to craft their judgments with. Right. And of course we put in a party queue. Um, so it's like age, race, annually, yearly income party and these are questions that the participants themselves have, uh have filled out. So it's not like inconceivable that we created a profile for a player too. Yeah. So it's like it's a gender studies professor on their way to yoga, right yeah. Yeah, I mean we actually get a little bit more heavy and and we're like forty one year old white male Republican who makes allars here, you know that sort of thing. Do you want to play with him? We're not like yeah, we're not like absent minded professor from Portland. Uh well not do you want to play with? How much money are you gonna get? Right? Because if you're like, man, I just don't trust this guy, You're not you know none, I'm just gonna keep it that box or like you know you're going to you're gonna head your bets a little bit. Um. And it's it's a tried and true method for kind of demonstrating the biases that people have, you know, when you're just flipping one que you can literally see how much more people are willing to give to, you know, whether it's a co part is in this party? Can I guess? Can I guess that people will tend to give more to someone who they're on the same team? Well of course, yeah, i'd game that stuff too. Yeah, but you can think about it if beat it for sure, But people don't write yeah, I feel like I wouldn't agree with that lady on anything, but I would give her some of the money and she might not give it back, you know. All right, So that's what you mean like to do. So that's that's the measure I used for bias and I and so remember like it's it's latent in our society, like there just is affective bias at all times. People are always preferencing the in party against the out party. So usually you know in social science, if or oftentimes in social science, when you're trying to measure whether or not there's some phenomenon occurring, it's like, you know, if I show people this picture, do they do some uh consequential action? Why? Right? And a little if I show them a will they do be And it's against like in a control group, or you're not showing them a um, you're you're usually measuring any effect against null, like nothing happening versus something happening. But because we are a biased uh community right now, there already is this affective bias when I'm studying the impact of threat and I'm talking about self threat increase his affective bias against party opponents. I'm talking about already like it's it's an increase in bias over and already biased um control group, right, which I think is remarkable that we can like we always think, um, it's as bad as it can get the political rhetoric, but we seem like incapable of of you know, not being able to or we we seem like we can quickly kind of turn up how much more angry will get, you know, feel bad about myself, I'm gonna lash out against this party opponent. And I also study like group threat, like what happens when people are you know, when the credible sources passing judgment on Republicans or Democrats and that sort of thing. Um. And then I also have a study. My third and final study of the dissertation is a real world examination of whether or not electoral loss constitutes group threat. So we're looking at Democrats versus Republicans responses to the presidential election. I haven't actually analyzed the data for that yet, so I can't say whether that's the case, but that's what I do on my day to day ah, my day to day pah study, I guess. Yeah. This is a tricky cycle, though, because the because the party is so redefined. The Republican Party just got so redefined. Yeah, and you have so you have a lot of people who are like just discovering the Republican Party under its new form and excited about it, and a lot of people who have been Republicans for a long time who are a little apprehensive about what the party's up to be tricky, and you've got Democrats who are pissed about the primaries on both sides. Um, so yeah, it is tricky. I agree with you there for sure. All right. So for the hunt and stuff, Yeah, so you knew about you isolated five arguments that dudes like me give Yes, I think you Steve get particularly good ones. Um, but you know, especially in like White Tail Country. Well, can we get back that because you're when you started this when you're laying it out, you were saying that arguments that guys like we give not ones that you give as kind of a new hunter, right, You're saying the ones that are on the out in the ether. I think I've presented that wrong because I don't want to say I've got this golden argument everyone should be making. But no, you just noticed that there was a difference in the reaction. Maybe it's even like the the you know, variety of arguments I give. Maybe I noticed that, like some people are responding to some better than that. Did you set out to be like I'm going to make a list of five or did you look and say, like, here's what's out there. Oh wow, it's five the ladder um and and some of it, you know, because it's not my my usual area of expertise. I don't have this like literature review that I'm able to draw on, so some of it was just kind of like my best judgment. Right. So I tend to see a lot of uh, if we want to get into the five, I tend to see a lot of hunting as tradition. Absolutely get into the five. Yeah, so hunting is tradition, you know, we hear a lot about like, Okay, my family has been hunting for generations, like a traditional use in the woods, and like it's our American heritage. What about how it's like, um, like about how humans hunted for so long? That is that role in the tradition too? It does, But I didn't that's not how I operationalized tradition for this particular experiment. I didn't get into you look more like family level in each level, um, which and I see a lot of marketing appeals around that certainly, and I well, I have my own it's used very heavily marketing And that's why what what That's why I was kind of surprised. What what you found about that? It surprised me a teeny bit. Yeah. Um, some of the other things you found in surprised me at all, but that one surprised me a little bit, just based on the fact that some people think it's such a good idea to approach it that way. Yeah, I mean there's caveats and like, how the hell can you hunt and kill a deer be like well my family, Yeah, yeah, it's a well let's talk about the results after, I guess because there are caveats, right, So, uh, first this tradition the second one one? Did I hear a ton especially in white tailed country? It's like, why do you hunt? Like hunting is important to control game populations full stop? Like I hear this one. This is the one I hear the most that has a zero elaboration on it, game population full stop me. And they don't say anything else, right, Yeah, and that that's like I gotta control game populations, Like man, I can think of plenty of species that are worthwhile of hunting and it's not necessary that we knocked down their numbers, right, Like, It's it's just a fundamentally fundamentally bad argument, I think, because yeah, I've always had it because it like implies that if you don't need to knock down a population you know that's overpopulated, that somehow hunting isn't viable or worthwhile. Yeah, that's the thing when that comes up. The thing I always point out is, uh, when people say like, oh, they're overpopulated, I always point out, but like there's someone making an estimation here based on based on something. So when someone says deer overpopulated, I'd be like, you know what, the guys I know that are hunting deer in that area don't feel that way. But I know that the automobile ensures in the area is certainly feel that way because they're paying out for a lot of deer car collisions. I know there's agricultural interests to definitely feel that way. Home gardeners, home gardeners feeah or not. Like fishing game, I only day um last year I saw. So that's the thing. I always that, that's the thing. I've always had a hard time with nothing. I have a hard time understanding it because you can say, like right now, there's many people who are saying snow geese are overpopulated. One might say, by what measure are they overpopulated? And then the ants would be by the measure of the carrying capacity of certain Arctic habitats where other birds have traditionally nested. By that measure, which affects you none. One might say snow geese are overpopulated. The guy hunting snow geese in eastern Montana might wish there was even more snow geese, or the same way like people are I say carp are overpopulated, but then they complain on the carp shooting sucks. You think they'd go out and be like, we had a great night, we couldn't find any carp So it's really tricky. Yeah. I think the concept of overpopulation is you bring up a lot of good points there, but like, uh, but it also implies this sense of like, Okay, whatever metric i'm gonna use. You tell me something's overpopulated. Whatever metric i'm gonna use, that's the benchmark i'm gonna use for weather or not. I think huntings because people know, people say it all the time without probably thinking about to the level we just discussed it. I grew up hearing that all the time. You need to hunt them or they become overpopulistic. We've all heard it, even though and it's just something you hear, and it's only later after you like think about these issues look at them all the time, you'd be like overpopulated about what measure by the measure of the man raising sweet corn? There are a lot of raccoons, but other people who go decades about laying eyes on a raccoon not yea, So alright, there's number two. Yeah. I mean we hear about it. We hear about it all the time, and Frankly, I was like, well, I certainly have an assumption about how I think this will impact or not impact attitude stores hunting. But you know, it's it's a superimental method, like maybe I'm wrong. Let's tell The third one was one that we hear all the time hunting for food consumption, where we just emphasize the like organic, clean nature of the food that we're harvesting to expected to expected it to work. I don't think any of us are surprised about that it's used quite heavily in hunting media. I think it's a good thing. It makes a lot of sense, but I just felt like I had to include it. Yeah, it's used more and more. Like ten years ago, people weren't talking about I mean, it's like a new No, they weren't tough body. But it's changed a lot. You know, there's a you know, you know the historian Randa Williams, Yeah, he's looked at that a lot. Yeah. Yeah, I guess it's like, you know, in some a lot of media outlets have tried to tie it into like this new type of hunter, you know, like what what describes the it's the whole new like the new hunter thing. It's always like people pushing like the new hunter is always people who uh I will be like, you know, like the conscientious Yeah, unlike all of you I grew up, who all the depraved individuals that I grew up those guys kind, you know, the new kind like me, we only just started care. They only just started eating the stuff they killed too. Oh yeah. But it's like it's like the same kind of people, you know. It's like when people found out you know, like uh, like how bacon became fashionable in the media for a long time. Oh bacon, So it's like yeah, no ship, I mean, you know, my grandpa or whatever. You know, people have been eating bacon since the beginning of time. But also like you discover it and you can't just have it be that you discover in the way that it's just like people eating like people. There's certain segments in the American population never like discovered bacon. It's been eating like religiously consuming bacon. But then there's like this new subset finds out about it and they want to act like their bacon trip is a way different than everyone else. It's like they're bacon trip is more inspired and like means more than the bacon trip that the rest of the has been on forever, Like oh yeah, yeah, you think you'd like bacon. I really like bacon. You don't like bacon shirt? Yeah, you know, no, I mean I totally agree. I mean that that gets me. I think I heard, uh some radio forum where they had representatives from They got someone from like a like a professional kitchen to give their viewpoints on cooking, and then they were like, oh, well, we gotta find someone from the country, and they got someone from the country to give their perspective on hunting. And they're like, but you know, there seems to be a rise and like really conscientious like ego hunters. He's like, yeah, that's like how we've all like, I don't understand what you're trying to Yeah. So um anyways, yeah, so so food had to be included. And then there were two that I hear among certain populations. I mean, you guys, you guys certainly have talked about this, but there are two kind of pro hunting perspectives that I was particularly interested in. In addition to testing whether like tradition, I was interested in seeing if it worked or not hunting it hunting his population control. I was like, I'm not sure if it works, but I'll included food. I had to include it. But then the regulatory structure and the revenue around hunting. I was interested in whether these arguments would change non hunters attitudes towards hunting, because when you I think a lot of non hunters, like urban non hunters, the majority of America, I think when you bring up hunting, a lot of them. Honestly, in my own conversations, I really think it's like, well, I guess just like it during the fall. It's tradition that you just like head into the woods with a gun, like just no concept that it's regulated whatsoever. And when I started talking about state wildlife agencies and uh, you know, population monitoring and then based on that data allocating tags and season length, et cetera, and carrying capacity YadA, YadA, YadA, and how the decisions are made and what the steps you have to go through the hunt, Uh, you know it, it completely opens up a new world for people. Oh my god, I had no idea that, Oh I had. I've had dinner with many many people when I was living in New York who had no idea. They thought it just they thought honestly, you just it was just like you go in the woods, bring a gun, and you just shoot what you see, and no idea that there was like a Bysantine network of regulatory measures employees and frankly, like, on the one hand, I'm like, wow, that's a bummer that that's how they're viewing hunting. But on the other hand, let's say someone who thinks that way has a negative perception of hunting. It's like, I can't be that mad at him, Like, yeah, I wish they knew more. But it's like, if they honestly think hunting is just like showing up in the woods and shooting the first thing that runs across me, it's like, all right, well, I can see how they may have come to that concluded, like certainly they're wrong, but but yeah, so I was. I wondered what the effect of of laying out um kind of in the simplest possible way, the regulatory structure of kind of state management would do to attitude starts hunting. And then the last concept was the revenue generated by hunting. And this I didn't use the like full economic impact analysis. It looks at outdoor you know, sportsman jobs and things like that. I was just looking at the sales from hunting licenses, tags and stamps as well as the Pittman Roberts Enact and kind of that cyclical form of revenue structure. Right, So these so the single largest source of revenue for state wildlife agencies is is hunting, right, It's a hunting licenses, tags and stamps to the tune of and this is a conservative estimate from a couple of years ago, eight million dollars annually their operating So so yet fifty we have fifty states. Obviously we have fifty state fish and wildlife agencies. They have different names, but you know, you can't like fishing, game, wildlife and parks wildlife, you know, associating not never association, but wildlife, Department of Natural Resources, all these different names. We get one for each state. So across the country, those departments derive sixty of their funding from um coming from hunting related sources. Not just like where the state government imposes taxes on the population and takes that tax revenue and distributes it around these different agencies. That's not how they're getting their money. Yeah, so yeah, it's it's kind of staggering. The figures really, but they're Yeah, they're generating most of their funding from tags, stamps, and licenses, right, and they use that money to do wildlife research, habitat improvement, access enhancement, enforcement of existing game laws. They do a lot of non game work. So this is they don't just like your Department Officient Game despite the name, doesn't just work on game. It works on non game species. If someone, you know, if there's a problem with a great horned owl, that's as much that person's jurisdiction as any other animals. So it's it's they do an enormous amount of work with this money. Yeah, And I think what's what I like about the structure so much is when you add in the Pitman Robertson Act, Right, So they have all this money to break that down to a billion dollars from the state level licenses, tags, and stamps. Seven, the Federal Aid and Wildlife Restoration Act gets put on the books, more commonly known as a Pitman Robertson Act, and this creates an excise tax on hunting equipment, right, So it's only going to impact hunters if you're purchasing hunting equipment ten to twelve percent of that depending on what you buy is going to get put in this federal fund, like like very select, a very select list of items. Yes, firearms, ammunition. It doesn't straight too far into like like if you're not hunting, you're probably not. And there's a similar thing with fishing, which is very specific fishing product products, rods, reels, line boarding, Johnson. Yeah, a great name myself back and chuckling right there. Um. Yeah, but this Pittock Robertson Act. You you have a federal fund that's uh, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars annually, right, let's call it like two to four hundred million dollars um. And the way that it works is your state can apply for some of that federal fund, but you have to adhere to several stipulations. One, and this is the most exciting one for me, is all that money that you generated from licenses, tags and stamps has to be used by your state wildlife agency, you know, whether it's Department of Phishing, Game or whatever it is. It would totally get it would totally get spread around the whole state. Um. So it's like, well, if you want some of this federal money, you know you can use it uh in many ways that you want to, but it has to stay within the domain of Department of ficiing game. Also the specific project that you're requested, so that's the state money, like you have to use that state money on wildlife. For the federal money that they're applying for, it has to be approved by the Secretary of the Interior, so it can't be like just some totally unrelated, non you know, non fish and wildlife or habitat related project, so it has to be approved. And then lastly, just to round out this, I really like this from a regulatory standpoint, to round it all out, if you don't use that money that you've been allocated by the federal government in two years, it goes to the migratory bird what is my Migratory Bird Conservation Act. Yeah, And so it's it's just a it's just a nicely functioning piece of regulation. It was so much bad regulation out there. It's a it's really nice to see. Oh yeah, the story I will not get into it now, but the story of how that that suite of legislation sort of came to pass, how quickly it went through, how much support it had in such dire times, yeah, the Affordable Care Act, I think was it took thirteen months. The Deformal Care Act took thirteen months to make its way through. I think that that, and and during the Great Depression made its way through an eighties some days. I mean, Affordable Care Act really took over a century if you think about it. So yeah, yeah, and people like the manufacturers who are gonna probably lose sales because the increase in prices of their goods supported it. The people who were going to be paying it, hunters supported it overwhelmingly. And I'll tell you something. Nineteen thirty seven, there wasn't shipped to hunt. People have a short memory where they think that like everything's gotten like progressively shittier. There wasn't like you'd have a whole there in seven you had states that you had states. There was no Turkey and deer season. Yeah, we were out of game, man, we were out of game. And people were like, but from that moment of despair came this sort of like great piece of legislation. So that you've run through all five. Now I want to just do something real quick. Just people who who are our friends out there, who don't who don't don't follow things real close. Greg tested five arguments that you can lay on a non hunter when you jump in here, there's a six which control group, the control group that you know, control group, you know, so we can compare to a non hunting baseline. They just got a message about like household appliances. Oh right, because it has no impact on hunting whatsoever. You have to have a control group otherwise it's like, how do we feel about hunting when you consider the atretes of this toaster? Like look at this sponge? So bad hunting again? Yeah, so it took five arguments that folks like to get. Correct me from all five arguments that you might give word to come to you and be like, you're such an asshole. How could you shoot a deer? You might say, hey, man, my family is always hunted. You might say that's what I eat. You might say, listen me, shooting a deer brings a lot of money to wildlife conservation. You might say, it's not like I'm just randomly going and shooting a deer. I mean, biologist have determined how many deer are out there, what the surplus is, what we're gonna wind up having. Anyways, and they set this whole season, and there's ten days and we only have tempercent success rates. And you might say, well, hey, if I don't shoot them, they're coming for you, for you, and they're gonna beat your door down and kill you with their deer hoofs, and then disease is gonna kill and then disease is gonna kill them all. Anyway, we won't have any So now which of these are gold, which of these are's gold? And which of these are garbage? But we got a series of nonresult like stuff that didn't work and stuff that did work, And I think they are interesting consequences for hunting as tradition. What I'm going to tradition argue, Yeah, me saying, hey man, my dad hunting didn't do anything not hunters do not care about it. I don't kind of makes sense, right. It's like, well, just because you guys been doing it for a long time doesn't make it worthwhile. Right. When I put that too, I put something similar to a I put something similar to an animal to an animal rights activist. I was actually interviewing an animal ethicist and I put that to him, and he his his well rehearsed takedown of that line was We've always done everything. I mean, humans have always raped, humans have always had war. So just because we've been doing something doesn't mean that that's good. Yeah. I agree with that assessment. Yeah, because I proceeded then rip holes an ash. But anyways, he had a well rehearsed reply to that, you know, that was fundamentally compelling in a short package, such as he would get in a conversation, not fundamentally compelling. Now, as part of a broader tapestry, of course, it could become interesting. Yeah. Yeah, I will give the caveat that. When we talk about what makes hunting resonates so well with the American pablic there are historical, sociological, lots of perspectives you can take that you would need to get a holistic picture right, And this first step by me was strictly isolating elements of various people weren't buying it and what worked and what didn't in this in this very isolated environment. Um. Yeah, So now why do you think that is that you take it because it's like because of what I'm saying, because like, well that's just the fact that you did it doesn't make it right. Yeah, I just yeah, I don't want to get I don't really want to get into why because the data don't speak to that. It just doesn't work. But but my assumptions are exactly what you're saying. Just because you've died for a long time doesn't make it an inherently good thing. Humans have been doing bad things for a long time, They've been doing good things for a long time, but the length has has no bearing on it. Right, how big was the group? Uh? The sample of six people? Did anybody be like, oh, okay, well did anybody I'm sure there's like one one is one of two people in that condition and who are like, yeah, I feel more positive forwards tonic, But statistically no, it was statically, which is the important part. That's because it can't be binary. Right, It's not like works don't work. It's worked on Steve. Yeah. But I'm saying like, okay, so whatever the sample size, I mean, like, how much didn't it work? Like it really doesn't work. Well, then you get into like a discussion of what significance values means, and that you get into mathom Okay, what is insignificant? What does that mean? Well, the conventional level of significance numerically is a key value of less than point zero five, which I guess has popularly been described as the relationship you found has less than a five percent chance of having happened just by coincidence, which I'm sure there's mathematicians and statisticians out there who are just losing it at the radio. But but listen, have them send their have them in their hatred my way way. These guys are deferred to meet then, because I'm putting you in an awkward position. I just did not meet. It didn't meet point of five, it didn't meet point one. I mean, it didn't meet the conventional levels and you and I want to help you out here because I feel bad because like your whole training right, Like I'm I'm asking you to do things that fall way outside your comfort zone and way outside your training. And I find that when I'm talking to researchers, you know, my brother's research and I'm time of research, and I'm like, what did your hope would happen? It's like, you can't happen. They're like, what are you talking about? I'm like, you know right, so yes, I'm pressing you too. I'm pressing Greg our guest. I'm pressing him to to to to to, you know, put a shine on some things that didn't fall outside so well. I mean I can admit to like I certainly had assumptions about what would wouldn't work right, and and hope is an interesting word. I didn't hope some would work and some wouldn't. But you know, I had my own guesses as were like I bet, I bet this one turns out right. But you know, if you use a scientific method, it should tell you the truth. And it's not doing well, Yeah, like, oh, I got an idea, I'm gonna make this tradition one work. In that way, it's probably almost good to be a little bit aware of your biases because then you can help make sure they're not running away with you. It's good scientific practice. Okay, so um, so you're not but you're not gonna spec You don't want to speculate just when you say, like, why significant difference in people's attitudes towards hunting from time one to time too? So the population. I think during time one, I sampled about a thousand people. I got their attitudes towards hunting using kind of conventional survey questions. I recontacted six hundred a couple of weeks later randomly assigned them to one of the six conditions the five perspectives in the control group, and then use the same question to reassess their views towards hunting. So it's within subject and that you can compare this person's uh, you know, these individuals answers at time to versus time one. It's see within the subject whether there was any change, right, and so for tradition, there was no statistically significant change. Is dead or dad? That's what put on your report. Oh yeah, it did nothing happen about it didn't go the other way, and they didn't get angry about hunting. It just you know, because we would have picked that up too, oh like because you could have measured and could measure. Yeah, they would be interesting. It doesn't back It doesn't backfire. It just does nothing, doesn't ship. Just keep your mouth shut. Well, it's a little bit of really to talk about this, but it's like, uh, I think using the tradition argument is good in certain contexts. Right, we're talking about perceptions of hunting from non hunters. If you're b h A you know, and you're your r m EF and that he's back anglers Rocky Mountain Foundation and you're trying to like generate donations or membership. Hell yeah, to talk about tradition like that might resonate. It was a number of conservation organizations, some which I'm involved in who when aquing internally. Yeah, for marketing, they push it very heavy because people that's because people, because people within the hunting world do care so much about that. I've talked about this with with Landed. I mean, I'm one of those hunters. He responds to it, you know, like, yeah, it works on me, But I'm not a non hunter. And the reason that I'm interested in not hunters. And so it's like if we are going to continue hunting and keep enjoying kind of the model we have in front of us, like, we are absolutely going to have to rely on non hunters. And it's really nice that they generally have a positive view of hunting right now, but but we've constantly got to be vigilant. That's why I'm always do you bring up my favorite subject are Like I've had someone recently who's like, dude, the antis can kick rocks. I'm like, that's a ludicrous position. Rocks They said, kick rocks. Yeah, Uh, I means go pick mushroom. I get what it means, but it's like it's like so old timing, pretty old, just like, yeah, I just now have our our privilege to hunt. Is it really at the whim of non hunters? Yeah, and that's my favorite subject. But that didn't work. But I'm not saying it's a bad argument to use with hunters. It resonates with me, you know, for sure, but I'm amongst non hunters in my sample. It didn't work. The next one population control. You know, we got a hunt. You know, wheny many hunters, when when polled, say that hunting is important because it controls game populations, didn't do anything that surprised me a little bit in that es much as we just talked about it. Because this, I think when people most people in the country living white tailed deer country most by far white tails account for like the most main hours of hunting time, right. Um, So I think when people say like game hunting, a lot of people are automatically jumping to a deer hunting Oh yeah, I think most people when you people do live in fear and deer heavy areas. It's a thing where you're like driving along night and you're hoping that you don't hit a deer, and everybody over over time in these areas, which is like the majority of the country, you were someone and you're very close to hits a deer, right, It's a thing. I'm surprised that people don't. It doesn't mean more to people assuming that what they're picturing when they hear the word game is deer, and what they're picturing when they hear the word over population is you hitting one of those deer with your car. I think it's a I think it's a valid perspective to have, and I mean, but it just doesn't It doesn't measure even looking at the sample like isolating to a white tail country, which is which it's difficult honestly, if you're thinking, like I'm not gonna do this by states, if you like, where am I going to draw the line? Really and frankly, there's a lot of If I run into people who don't hunt in the West, they're still thinking eastern white tail like tree stand white. If you pull heavy drinkers in rural Midwestern areas who are driving people who are driving home one two in the morning, I think you would are drinking gardeners in the Midwest. But yeah, I agree, And and this gets back to my last point, which is like, yeah, there are definitely populations out there for whom these arguments rest, you know, but this is a you know, kind of a wide sample. Um. Yeah, yeah, So yeah my point. I thought that, like I would have thought that that would have that that those things that have just been basically you're asking people about their feelings about white tailed deer and they would have answered based on their likelihood of crashing in the one. Yeah, I mean that might be just a reflection where I grew up, where hitting deer was like a daily part of light. Yeah. Man, I it's a yeah. You know. I wasn't sure about that one. Frankly, like I didn't. I didn't think it would work. But when I was actually doing the kind of geographical controlling that I'm talking about, I was like, I bet it works in the Midwest, right And I couldn't find it. Um, But you know, who knows, at least for our sample. It didn't change attitude storres hunting. It didn't make negative but it was just a flat like tradition. Another question ahead. I was just gonna say, can you explain what it sounds like when someone's attitude about hunting changed in this when you asked the question the second time, like what was the first answer? Then what was the second answer? Um, Well, so I'll give the I guess I'll give the structure of the experiment. So during time one, in addition to like several demographic questions, we asked how do you feel about hunting in the United States? And there was a sliding scale from one to seven, from like really support to like really oppose, and you could just pick a numerical value between one and seven. Uh. And then it's time two. You were exposed to one of six arguments. And this is actually interesting because you guys have seen them their animations instead of like they're not people aren't reading about this, they're seeing animations. And the reason that I did animations was, let's say you get the population control argument, which is an inherently short argument, right. I think the clip itself was like fifteen seconds, and it's something to the effect of, like many hunters, when pulled, say that hunting is important because it's necessary to control for game populations. And then the clip kind of ends. Right, But if we're talking about Pittman Robertson, and we're talking about state wildlife agencies like those are inherently longer arguments. And so I thought, if this is gonna be text, I'm gonna show people text passages. What we're gonna do is we're gonna have people's eyes glaze over. If you're Honey and you're reading about the Federal Aid and Wildlife Restoration Act, you're gonna be like, this is the worst experiment I've ever did. Then you're more like studying people reading conferdention skills, you know. And so I thought, how can I package these different length arguments in ways that will still be like standardized in terms of digestibility. And so I thought, oh, I'll make some animations. I have a buddy who's an animator, and so that's why i've kind of and they're really like clean cut and dry animations. They're not sort of meant to there's not like a b roll and look pretty. I mean, they're like they're straightforward. I mean it's for scientific purposes right there. Straightforward. They're clean, they're they're made to be there's like no no, I mean you know when you get right. They're not they're not trying to sell anything. Um. I guess you could make the argument that when you get into making something like an animation, you're going to have some kind of implicit bias. But I did my best as a scientist to make them as objective as possible and just reflect the text passages. I wanted them to reflect in the simil responssible way. Um. And then after they watched this, right, and remember it's been like two weeks since I asked him the first time, they get the same question, how do you feel about hunting the United States? From the one to seven scale? And so you can see like if they answered you know three, you know, slightly opposed, and now they answer five, that's an increase of two, right, and and how much they you know they have they are now they feel statistically different about hunting than they did at time one. And the reason we have the control group is because you know, something could have happened in the interim. You could have had Cecil, the lion happened, you know, one week after I asked him, And then it's like Cecil, Yeah, whomever the lion could have happened in the middle, and yeah, you know, you could have had some outside influence that is accountable for for whatever, ah kind of relationship you're finding, which is which of course the importance of the control group. So that's so that's generally what it looked like. Um so yeah, tradition, population control, just flat food, like we all expect. Statistically significant, I think it has I had that. I think it had the largest coefficient as well, and that it was the most impactful argument, which doesn't surprise me. I mean, I think we've talked about it kind of ad nauseum. So it's not like terribly interesting to me. But people generally are non hunters generally respond favorably to hunters talking about you know, going out and sustainably harvesting food and it's organic and you don't have to rely on factory ranching or farming, and you know, people are generally amountable to I think people too, are are generally kind of pragmatic, man. I mean, people don't like ship to go to waste. I think that that when you explain to them it does go a waste. In fact, it's it's it's good. It feels good to them, it feels better. Like I think there's this impression it's just like, uh, oh, you're like cutting their head off and you hang out a wall, and then I think rods in the ditch. I mean, when you explain you know, actually that's that's illegal, and people you know go to jail and lose are hunting rights for doing ship like that. I think sometimes people feel like they feel sort of relaxed about the issue knowing that that's the case. Well, I didn't talk about like game use regulations are like waste or anything like that. It was it was more about you know, many hunters when their hunting talk about how they're you know, they'd like to be able to come home give food to their family, and that they describe me recognizable terms such as like you know, sustainable, organic, free range, and they don't have to go to the grocery store any factor be produced, uh, you know, very straightforward. And again a lot of this is uh just you know, an artifact of me running an experiment, right Like I wanted to be able to isolate it. And if I joined that argument with the argument you're making about game waste laws, then it's like wow, well which is it? Um? Yeah, And and so that one worked. You know, I think it's a definitely a great tactic to use UM with with non hunters, and I think it's totally valid to it's not these Remember these aren't just like marketing strategies. I think a lot of them have validity, and certainly sustainably harvesting your own food UH is valid um. Now, the most interesting result in the whole experiment to me was the regulatory structure, so simply explaining the fact that hunting is regulated by state Fish and Wildlife commissions and that they have wildlife biologists whose job it is is to monitor populations and then make decisions about what that entails for the hunting season. So you know, theoretically, you could have a population that is so low that they determine eight, we're not gonna hunt, are so high that it's gonna be like, hey, these are over the counter tags. Were in the middle where it's like, Okay, we're gonna do a lot of you know, we're gonna do a draw for this, and that there is a feedback loop, a constant feedback loop on hey we're managing these populations oftentimes, that there's a mandate for longevity or perpetuity UH, and the actual biologists are out there making decisions about who can hunt, how many people can hunt, when they can hunt? Um, And that worked just explaining that no, like hunting is good because of A, B and C, just like, here's the regulation surrounding hunting. And we broke down basically state fish and wildlife agencies and we didn't say anything about the ESA or anything like that. This is just state level management and people's attitudes towards hunting improved. And I think that's really interesting and may I guess on a really abstract level level, it's like it's hardening, right, you know, I was struggling for what it was. I was struggling for the right word. It's hardening. So I think that it's easy to fall into this trap of being like, oh, anyone that doesn't agree with me, it's just the people are so dumb now and yeah, and I'd be like no, because you know, often times people have you don't know what you don't know? Yeah, people I have an opinion and maybe they're not totally married to it, and then you present them with some information and they're like, oh, yeah, you know I feel better about that now. Yeah. It's uh, yeah, it was definitely hardening to see if you just present people with with some facts. And you know, people can only make deductions about what they're exposed to if you present them with the facts, that they will in fact, you know ingest them and make a make a decision after that. And that it in fact does make people more positive about hunting was huge. Um. And and you can tell you, I tell you a quick story. Sure the already I was walking down the road near here and some guy was handing out flyers about how he wanted to get a four way stop put in somewhere where there wasn't a four way stop. I was initially resistant to the idea because I'm just you know, just general weariness about more rules. Remember talking about change. Dude, I have this people with clipboards on the streets. Then the dude told me this. He showed me a bunch of stuff saying, in fact, four way stop will probably speed things up at this intersection. Wow. I'm like, all right, I'll sign your thing. I didn't know that. I didn't know that that was true. I wonder if it is. I was swayed by I was swayed by data. I went from not one to I went I went from wanting to tear his clipboard up to sign him one of his pieces of paper. Well, it's compelling stuff and it's I'm happy to hear that. In my sample, a lot of people are like you right, like And it was also this was by far the densest possible perspective. It's why we had to create animations, right, And it still worked for sure, because yeah, you're dealing with and you're not making any emotional argument about like my attachment to hunting. It's like, yeah, I do have it because you like the food in language. Yeah. Yeah, it's just like here's the regulation. Yeah. So that was a really cool finding I think. Um, and that was probably without explain to him like how dance and how hard it is to understand those breaking regulations books, right, Yeah, we just laid it out. I mean we had little animations of like calendars and video licenses. Yeah, I think we might. Um, it's not manipulative, but it's it's a great video. I thought it's not. Man I would hope it's not manipulative, you know what I'm saying. It's like it again, it's like you did a good job. It's like you're not like, uh, like if if someone said to me, like make a video like that, I would have taken away different approach, and you're like you were able to sort of stick to the mandates of your job and be like, how can I I'm a just good experience. How can I just like explain it without waiting it in one way or the other, you know, because it would have been like these wonderful, really smart but yeah, it's uh. I think I might try to repurpose them and release some of them to the public, you know, because I think, like, honestly, it's thrilling just just explaining the regulation surrounding hunting is making people feel more positively towards it. I think it's huge, and it gives us another perspective aside from food. And like I was telling Steve, we really need non hunters. You know, hunters are at the whim of non hunters. We really rely on kind of their judgments to give us the privilege of hunting. Um. And so the last condition is the revenue surrounding hunting, right, And I broke it down earlier, and that was interesting and that it worked when moderated by people's self reported strength of environmental beliefs. So there was another question, right that was, like I had to ask it vaguely because I didn't want to go down rabbit holes of like trying to define what environmentalism is because it is a loaded term, right, I asked, um, you know how strong are your environmental beliefs? I don't remember the exact words, but it was something to the effected that on another sliding scale, and the higher your environmental beliefs, or the higher your concern for the environment, um, the less likely a revenue argument was to work for you. But if you yeah, so, but you told me about this, I thought you meant the opposite, the less likely it was gonna work. So for people who were like, like, I'm a hardist environmentalist. Yeah, but I'll tell you why. It's because I still feel like I'm getting you wrong. You're telling me that a hard hitting someone who identifies as a hard hitting environmentalist was less likely to be swayed by the by the financial impact of haunting and fishing licenses on wildlife conservation. Well, it's that last thing you said on wildlife conservation. In an effort to isolate the revenue argument, I tried to I mean, in some ways it's unavoidable to tie into conservation, but the emphasis in that particular audition was not like and all this money goes to conservation. I mean, I of course had to talk about it. When I had to talk about it, how do you say where the money goes? I did say, you know, this money has to be spent by the State Department of Fishing Game, but you don't get into what they do with it. I said things like habitat improvement. But I mean the bulk of the video was very much focused on just like here is the money generated. You know, you've got eight hundred million dollars in license at tax stamps. You've got additional a few hundred million dollars at the pivot Roberts and exercise tax and that's like one point two billion dollars. Showed a bunch of panda bears and lions and stuff drinking out of a water together. I think we had some trees and coupling animals at some point. But but yeah, like if I was if I was you know, if I took off my social scientists hat and I was trying to make a pitch around the revenue, I'd absolutely hammer the fact that, like, look, all this money is going into conservation. And I think that that's that that's a valid argument for sure, But I was just trying to isolate, like I wonder if just a strict money argument surrounding hunting you can actually can actually affect attitudes, and for people who did not self identify as an environmentalist or or say that they were high on the scale, it did work, which kind of makes sense. I know you don't do why why Well, all right, I'll get into this one. And I think it's because, like, if you really care about the environment, someone's telling you, like this activity generates three million allars, You're like, well, that's great, you know, but I but does that impact the environment? You know, like, is it actually good for the environment? I don't care how much money it's making. You know, that's um and so I think that's what's responsible for going on. I'm making assumptions about that. But that's my best guess, right, is if you really care about the environment, you're like, Okay, listen, all this money generated is great, but I'm not you know, you haven't told me about ah, you know why hunting is good for the environment. It's that's a really tricky word to just environment environmentalist because like in my own lifetime um. Early on, like an environmentalist was basically that means you didn't like litter, right, Like the earliest part of the environmental moment was like was was interpreted to people like don't throw fast food rappers out the end of your car, which is just aesthetics like you think a monkey ranch gang. Yeah, the guy those beer cans window because he hates the damn road. He's like, the road is the problem is that the beer can. I'm defiling the road, which I don't like. So that was one thing for a while. Then it was like, for while I interpreted the environmental movement as a young person to be that it was synonymous with animal rights, which is like my interpretation right now I think that someone says like are you environmentalists? Now it's becoming sort of saying like how do you feel about human cause climate change? It's almost like you know what I mean, Like the word is um, yeah, it moves around creepy ways. You know, I'm not the creepies out the right word, but this moves around. It attaches itself two things informs these sort of like a exting relationships with certain issues. But then and I used to always really like the word conservationist. But now it's almost like a battle there because conservations for a long time had a I feel that it was that it was tightly connected with basically like honey, Like honey and hunter fisherman based environmentalism would would go under conservation because they're stealing our word. There's stealing our word because they know that their word has a negative Their word has a negative feeling in the American mind. I think there is a negative connotation of the world. So now environmental groups are being like conservation has a more measured, practical, you know, things up and open on top of the table kind of feel to it, and environmentalism makes people feel a little prickly. Yeah, I totally hijacking our word. I mean I strategically use both drives people nuts, But I'm an environmentalist. How conservationists like? I think, I really think people don't like to say that it's the same thing. No, but I do it to message. I think the line is so arbitrted. I'm like, you know, I'm a hunter. You mean meaning I'm an environmentalist. Yeah, dude, I do the same thing. That division drives me crazy. I used a mess of people. Yeah, Oh, I do too. Absolutely. Um, I think honestly, it's like I think because I study politics, it's like environmentalists, Oh you're a liberal conservationist. Yeah, yeah, exactly, it's a it's a proxy for I like to just use both all the time and tell people the divisions. And I'm talking to lefties, but I'm talking to lefties. I do use I do try to speak of myself as an environmentalist as being like, I have way more in the game than you do as a hunter environmentalist. Yeah, but if I'm talking to like some old hardly adversarial tone. But if I'm talking to like some old timers who might not know what I'm getting at, then yeah, he's like we all played little games, you know. I mean, you've got to have source credibility with your audience whoever it is right, and I certainly do that. And that's what we're talking about. We're talking about how to wrestle with absolutely. Yeah. I mean, there's so many more things I would love to do in this domain, and I'm it'd be exciting to crack into more. So I wonder what the reception to this, So what will happen with your stuff? You're gonna put it out there. So what I'm gonna do? You think you should not put it out there? Just let's just leak it to the proper people so we know how to tailor our arguments to win, because once you put it out there, it's going to diffuse it, I don't think so. I mean, it's not like these aren't heavy handed marketing appeals. And I'm testing, right, It's not like I was doing these pitch videos. It's like, let's see which one works best. You know, they're just straightforward arguments, and I think people are reasonable enough to see that, Like all the arguments are actually they're all factually accurate, the population control one being in some specific instances it's actually accurate and others it's not. But they're all just like accurate assessments of pro hunting perspectives. And you're gonna publish this in a journal, but don't you want to do something like because you know it's something? When is it there? Whenever we get around to it. Okay, sometime within the next eight weeks anyways, all right, so I believe the time probably January, okay, perfect, So by the time this is aired, this the article will have been submitted to an academic journal within the realm of wildlife management. Oh, I'm going both routes, so and here's why. So I'm submitting it to an academic journal. So do They'll go through peer review and people see like, this is a legitimate study like this I have, like you know, I know what I'm doing. It can stand up to pure review and it'll get published. And then I would love to do a popular uh peace surrounding this. You know, no one's gonna go, oh, let me get on j store and look up some academic article about this, but they will read something and I don't know your New York Times WAPO. I mean, I'm probably shooting way too high, but but I'd love to do I'd love to do a popular cover of these findings and write that up and uh kind of a more holistic approach, because then we wouldn't have to be so kind of broken down into our like social side, like oh, well, I can't talk about that, you know, I can't make assumptions about why they felt that way. You know, you really can do these things if it's an op ed um. But I want people to know that when I'm referencing my results, it's not like I just did. Oh yeah, I did some study on my computer and write. I don't know that it's a legitimate study. I know. I know it's controversial in your community, in the academic, you know, in the scholar of the world. But I think there's great value in it in learning how to sort of like translate some findings and help people make sense out of stuff. It is controversial, and I agree with you for sure. I think people pop science, Yeah, but people like the lamb ast Like like if if a paleontologist or an archaeologist is working on something and then they come out and do a popular piece and and don't and don't stress all the caveats quite enough, and like and stress how subject to um, you know, how subject to error the radio carbon dating might be. That then they get raked through the coals for like overblowing their data. Yeah, it was like, what is the net? What's the like the net goal? I feel like you might say, like I feel my article made the public a little bit smarter. Now, sure we could have withheld all the information, you know, but isn't the end thing to sort of like enlighten people around you. I mean, I just I had this conversation some people that kind of drives me us and they have this aversion to being too people saying like, basically, here's what I'm getting at. Yeah, Yeah, I think you're right, And I mean I've witnessed tons of arguments surrounding this. I have a to agree with you completely that it's I mean, in a strict academic sense. You could say, I am only here to further on knowledge, you know, and it's like people want to read my stuff, they'll see that we have advanced human knowledge down the field, right, But I agree with you that, um, there's nothing inherently wrong, and I see a lot of good coming from covering this in a more accessible, popular manner, and that you can encapsulate your arguments and speculate maybe as to what that entails without you know, delegitimizing science socially, and someone's going to pick up on it anyway though. Yeah, like any kind of groundbreaking work, it winds up getting interpreted by journalists anyway. So if you could be in a little bit in the driver's seat, and how if you could see through the publication on your own and be a little bit of the driver's seat to help them avoid some of the pitfalls that are out there. All the better because if you have something earth shattering, people are gonna write about it, mess it all up anyhow. I agree. I mean, yeah, I totally agree. And I read archaeology piece recently where it's like someone interpreting something in a journal and I'm like, there's no way that the that the research you would agree with the way you encapsulated the findings. Yeah. I think the time like a little bit that that people are becoming kind of more friendly with the with op eds about their work. Um, I hear. What's funny is that isn't true that most of the time you don't get to pick the head line. That the editor picks the headline. Yeah, that's generally true. That one gets me, man, because it's like you can have people choose these like clickplate inflammatory headlines and well yeah, but different but different organizations have. Um, you know, some organizations really have they have a system in place that keeps things like somewhat neutral, right, and somethings just go for inflammatory bullshit. But some places, you know, you wouldn't be able to pick it because they would be afraid you'd oversell it. Yeah, and in some places wouldn't they would be horrified. I mean, I'm not the conversations I'm hearing ore from like click baity places, but it's probably people with their academic hats on being like, oh, he didn't quite capture the caveats I was talking about in that headlines. It's probably that in tendency. But but I certainly have no problem with going into the public domain. And I think that's my ultimate objective I think, which is as an academic, you know, it's that'll probably rub some people the wrong way that the peer reviewed piece isn't my ultimate objective. It's like a way to demon straight that what I've done is scientifically legitimate. And then I want, yeah, I want to talk about it with people. I want to get it out there. Um, And yeah, I hope the hunting community kind of looks at it and I don't know, maybe make some smart decisions with it. I don't know. I think they will, I hope. So, yeah, it seems to be resonating with a lot of people that I'm talking to, But I could be in our you know, the modern look of war green hunter who all the wildlife but not those last this year. They're the good ones. Um, I've told a coupe of people about it your stuff, and they how they react like surprised, very interested, anxiously awaiting to that's great to hear. You call people within who work in the world, you know, marketing worlds and things, and I told him did I'll be like, well, you know, I leaked a little bit, but I said, you have to have to check with him when he gets his stuff done. Yeah, I mean, I hope it's interesting. I think a lot of the organizations I naturally think of our marketing to mostly the hunters to retain membership or drive membership, so it might not be totally, um, you know, totally particular to them, but but yeah, I think more generally, man, we gotta we have to make sure that um, non hunters really understand that it's not a bad thing. I'm the real they support it, and like, here's why. There are legitimate reasons. It's not just marketing appeals like regulation itself. The more you know, m yeah, you got concluding thoughts. Yeah, well, yeah, it's on the heels of that. It's like we can't go around and patting ourselves on the back and sitting around and going yeah, we're gonna raise our kids hunting vision. It's gonna be great. Everybody's gonna keep doing it forever. We gotta get everybody else on board so we can look a clip. And you've always said that, you know, venice and diplomacy. Oh yeah, you know. I mean that's okay. I thought you meant something different. I thought you meant something different by your concluding thought. No, I was saying that it seems like hunters are real good hanging around bullshitting with each other, yeah, and being like, yeah, yeah, we have we kind of reach that we can't just talk. And then it's like, like you said, they're just like yep, no, we're just controlling deer populations. Yeah, and they have nothing more to add to that. Now. You know you can throw that one out, Yeah, adds something different and talk about food. But I'll point out to if you're gonna use the food one, don't be a bullshitter man. Take good care of your game meat. Don't just start talking about stuff you have no organic interest in, but you're just using it because you like the sounds or you know what works. What's riding your gears there? Who are you thinking about? You know what I'm just saying live, if you're gonna, if you're gonna, you know you're gonna talk talk. How's that saying? Go walk walk? No, I agree with you. There, there's a there's a little bit of that going on in hunting social media. I don't know if we can you know how how much. I'm not gonna slam anybody in particular, but there's definitely some of that that goes on where I feel like I see a lot of like this, like it's the only organic meat, it's all eat blah blah blah. I'm like, man like, I don't think you've even broken down your own animal once you know every animal you ever kill, went down to seeze meat market. I think I think it's I think man um. I recently was talking to someone who's talking about some person that you killed the elk can they were able to roll in the back of the truck. Later they're headed a butcher shop and or they're breaking down like a meat locker, and he took the leg out and put in his backpack and went back out to do the packout photos. I've been there. I've been there. I've driven a few mule deer around it. Back to the trucks. Different you know, precipicees and you know nice vistas, got out and you carried the deer up there and take a picture. Well, no, be a truck tuck, but's a different location. Was the truck do like them out gripping grids in various places? Yeah, I think that's common practice. It's that for the guys that are really into grips. But that's different than doing, like than going out to rolling in your truck and then later going out and doing your pack out shots. Yeah, that's just disingenuous. Oh pack out No, no, no, not gripping grind No, rolled it into your truck, took it into a meat processing place, grabbed the back leg, put it in the backpack, and then went out and did a photos series of packing the meat out. Nice. Yeah, it's like some of the folks packing out antlers in the magazines. I'm like, what in the world is this guy doing? Like, yeah, so dude on top of a high, high peak with just the set of antlers, Like you mean to tell me, Hold on a minute, you're telling me that marketing has lied to me me. Usually don't pack around antlers the whole time. You're hunting and bugling, you don't usually do the same. Yeah, yeah, that's another class. Because the dude with apparent antlers strapped on his back on a peak, ripping a bugle, He's like, I got one. I took the antlers off it. Now I'm going to get me another one. I have a concluding concluder, and just so I don't steal Greg's because he's gonna get the final glory with keeping public. I know I've got several, but I'm gonna I'm just gonna stick this in here right now so that I don't have to say anything later. I'll add to something later. But Greg's well aware of this, uh topic. But oh my god, I'm on this. I don't know how good they are. That is the jumping the fire. That is the exact perch on air to see if they would work. Now you can see. My daughter was helping me last night and she saw the pink calftail and she's like, well, you got a tap. Think it gonna work, dude, that's exactly now. I had a couple of guys, had a couple of extremely generous people send me a couple of perch flies, and they were good but these are the this is what my now here's the thing. This, this is what my old man type like. Like. The guy that invented this fly is a commercial bait fisherman named Ron Spring. Ron was my dad's fishing body. And Ron made his living when you went into bought live bait. Ron made his living catching live bait. No, no, all kind of ways. He supplied crayfish, he supplied wax worms, he supplied wigglers, He trapped leeches, he trapped shiners, minnows. He was a bait fisherman. He supplied live bait stars and this was his fa Now my old man fished with them. You know. These are guys that would fish two d two hundred fifty days a year. And this was there my old man and his friends, Alcohol Ron Spring. This was the fly they use through the ice for yellow perch exactly. Oh that's through the ice. That's not for open one. Not just that. This is the fly they would also use when the big white bellies were out in about a hundred feet of water in Lake Michigan. That fly interesting, Now that's calftail, and I couldn't tell by the picture. Now you know why you want to get you know what you want, the the shank naked, so you can put so you can string a bait up on her perchise or whatever. Like a lot of times we tip it with a perch eyeball. See that's bucktail. And I was having a hard time keeping it short, Trim. Trim knows, Yeah, you're not old to because people like the natural. And well, there you go. I left the barbs on for you after how many years? Now it's about too. I'm stunned, and it's like, I don't know what to say. It's not a complicated fly. He just never got around to it. I don't know what to say. I mean, I'm a listener too. I think we're all following this saga. No, he should see now my little workbench in the basement looks like I'm practicing fly tire again. Man, you know what's funny. I just gave my brother a giant bag of perch plase too, So I need to restop what other kind of conclude did that? How many more concluding thoughts you got? I got no more unless I add in on what you guys were I want to talk about. I was gonna read to you about the definition of a sportsman. We can say that for another time. Please is it long? Not too long? But this is this is what Grinnell wrote. Well, and then it just came to mind because I was reading this. Can we name this paper? They ain't. Can anybody go read it? Technical Review the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation, Wildlife Society. Very informative. Everybody study recall someone they can read this. Something you read you gotta day. Yeah, it's good, it's good. I'll call you back tomorrow. I'm gonna have some hunters come to your door. Oh you're looking for something right now? No, no, no, I was just saying that, Well, what there's like six points that define a sportsman and the final one was will not waste any game that is killed? Um the old Yeah, this is written in the that's that's Grenelle. Yeah, George, right, George, George Bird. Um. So yeah, don't be a bullshitars. You can talk about food. Yeah, I live it up, man, do it. People can smell bullshit. Um, My kids discover the word bullshit like they love it, but they like it's much for their age. All right, now, Greg, Yeah, I don't have a concluding thought, but I do want to ask so you you've started a group Keep It Public. So Keep it Public is basically dedicated to showcasing the diversity of individuals who support federal public lands, right, because I think it's all too easy if you look at rhetoric on either side that it's like, oh that's a liberal issue, or or oh that's a hunting issue, or oh that's only for backpackers, and it's like okay. On the one hand, we need to show that support for federal public lands is cross recreational right, everyone who recreates on it needs public land to kind of apply their pursuit, right. And then you've also got these political divisions I think we were talking about earlier, and I think you were talking about on a previous um previous podcast, that it's in the GOP platform right now that we should divest public federal lands. But of course there are plenty of Republicans. There are tons of Republicans who support federal public lands, including legislatures, legislators, and I think it's important to really showcase the bipartisan nature of the overwhelming support that the American public has for federal public lands. And I'm just because I study politics, I think i'm really wary of this issue getting pegged into a left right spectrum. That's just like but I think I know, and I remember one day when that was in there, and that made it into the that made it as a plank in the platform, and um, it was disheartening. Yeah, it was disheartened, absolutely, And uh and again as much as I try to not look at you know, I don't look at things in a real part isn't way. Um, it was disappoint to me that that made it in there, um, in the agenda of a party who I who I support a great deal of their work, But I just I have a real problem. I have a real problem with the fact that that's uh, part of the I do too, And I really don't like at all that it's been attached like it's because it's now just entered the partisan realm, right, and it's not like, well, you know, are you a bad Republican if you sport federal land system And that absolutely shouldn't be the case. I mean I have hunted with a hell of a lot of Republicans on public lands. Yeah, but they I mean there are Republicans of course who who really care about this issue and are every bit is passionate about. I mean, you don't have to be a Democrat to whoheartedly love federal public lands. And I think that's what we're trying to show. Yeah, those if you can battle to keep that from becoming like a knee jerk partners an issue. So our little niche is like, we've got all these great organizations that are marketing to a base. You've got Hook and Bullet marketing, hunters and anglers, you've got the ri I backpacking scene as I like to call them, market to your liberal hikers. Right, but those guys have been ship But we'll get into that. But what he did public is trying to do is we're not marketing. Job is to battle that sentiment, right to a degree, yes, And what we're really trying to do is so that Hey, the only official stance we have is that we support public lands under federal management, and we oppose any land transferred to You support federal things that are currently support the existing model, not the things would be transferred or somehow somehow seized and de privatized. You're saying the federal public lands that we have right now should stay that way, absolutely, And I think a land transferred to the States. We'll just absolutely need to a net major loss of public land access, whether it's sold outright or whether it's managed in a different way. And we're trying to show that this isn't just you know, liberal Bay Area hiking and biking. I want my public lands. This is everybody. And it's not just recreation either. I mean, we're planning on doing a piece with ranchers. There are plenty of ranchers who support federal land. I mean, right now in Montana, it's nine or ten times cheaper to graze your cattle on federal public land than it is the next private land. And a lot of them have no illusions about what will happen if federal land is transferred to the states. We've also got industrial perspectives. I have a friend who's a lawyer for an oil and gas company, and you know, the way the way they talk about, uh, federal lands is you know, you might think from an industrial perspective, they just they just hate it and they can't wait for it to be privatized. But you know a lot of them are fairly happy with just how dirt cheap federal leases are. You know, it's a mixed model right, We're not just a you know, we're a bipartisan coalition building group. And it's not just bipartisan coalition within recreation. We're also trying to involve ranchers and uh an industry. And part of that is, I got it's so fed up with like people looking at the Bundy's right and they'll be like cowboy hat wrangler jeans, Like, yeah, they might be a little bit extreme, but they must be the extreme side of the position that I feel, right, because like, look at me, I'm a rural Western Americans. So they're like, must be they're a little bit beyond the pale, but they must be on the right side of this coin. And no, I don't think that's the case. I don't think we should let these people kind of capture the imagery of the rural American West, because there are plenty of rural Westerners who support federal public lands. Yeah, but those guys staying for a lot more now, I mean, like I stand for um, paying what yo mm hmm, and not exploiting contracts and owning up to your responsibilities, and they definitely don't. Yeah, expand on that, well, I mean you've if you go out and run cattle on the American by the American people, and rack up a debt close to a million dollars and don't pay for what you did. That's just like being that's just called an asshole. Theft. Yeah, it's ridiculous. Yeah, But I mean at the same that's that becomes like heroic to sort of Also, it's like just like great American heroism to default on contracts. I think people are just like they're rejecting a tyrannical government. But I honestly think at people, yeah, in a way that benefit's you financially. Know, if you're rejecting a tyrannical government in a way that hinders you financially, that's a lot different than the way that being like I don't want to pay this money. How can I make it look like I'm on the right side of this? Yeah. I just think like personally, in this era of you know, judging issues and articles by basically headlines, I think it's real easy for people to uh see some que about like I'm rural. They're wearing some clothing or they're talking in a way that makes me think they're ural there for I must be with them. I think there's a lot of people who aren't just engaging with the policy or the issues, taking the easy way out, or maybe just aren't you know, it could might not be malicious, like frankly, I'm a nerd about this stuff, right, and like they might just not be as interested in federal land policy. I can't really blame them, but it's very easy to look at some simple, you know, interpersonal queue and be like there with my group, you know, their conservative Westerns, there with me, and it's like, no, plenty of Conservatives, plenty of Republican support federal public lands. And so we're going to basically market bipartisanship and market kind of cross perspective support for federal public lands. Um, because we don't have a membership base that we're trying to retain or drive. Uh, we're basically just trying to remain viable. So we sell hats, shirts, stickers, vinyl decals to just say keep it public and keep it public dot com and six percent of all these of all of our profits are split between three partners. So we've dosen to Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers in the Outdoor Alliance. The first two are of course, you know, I think the listeners will be familiar with those is kind of hooking bullet advocacy organizations. And then Outdoor Alliance is an umbrella group that has many I guess we could call them like non consumptive recreational inter under it. So you've got mountain biking and climbing and hiking and um, I'm not sure if bird watching is under there, but you've got kind of, you know, the non consumptive recreational interests and and so even when we're choosing our partners, we're trying to make sure that everyone is represented, right, We're trying to have a broad tapestry, so six percent of every purchase is going to go towards that. And we're not really looking at the company as a as really like an income generator, right, We just want to We're not under any illusion to just selling hats and shirts is gonna get us rich at all, but we hope we remain viable enough to keep doing things like Um, I'm working with the animator from my experiment to make a linear kind of historical overview of how federal lands came to be, because I think if you just look at how federal lands evolved, I mean from the thirteen columnies through uh, you know, purchasing Alaska and then how we've switched from a model of aggressive disposal to retention. If that's just laid out in a straightforward chronological history and of course of a couple of minutes, it's really hard to come to the uh, come to the position that's somehow federal lands are legitimate. Oh that's the thing people try though. It's like the guy, it's like the guy you're beating down there, like in a bar, who's like, you know, if you read the Constitution, don't actually have to pay tax I gotta talk about you always find guys like that, or guys who somehow like done this careful close reading of the Constitution. Guys the federal gro only own Washington, d C. Yeah, talk about that, right, Okay, thought, get into the constitution. Go ahead, get to the Constitution for a minute. Yeah. So so this is my pet peeve is uh land seizear Folks like the Bundy is mentioning the Constitution. Usually there is like legitimate gray area and debate about interpreting the Constitution. Federal lands is not one of those things, right, The Property Clause is unequivocal that like federal lands are constitutional. For over a hundred and seventy five years, the Supreme Court has never wavered in citing the property Clause as making federal lands legitimate. I mean that's a ton of different makeups of the Supreme Court. It's never wavered. They've never interpreted interpreted the property clauses meaning anything other than something that supports federal land. So just straight out federal land is legitimate constitutionally. Now they're not as revalent, but it kind of relevant, but uh, it kind of begs a response. These guys are always like the Bundies are talking about the enclave clause and the Tenth Amendment a lot. The enclave clause. It just it doesn't really make much sense to to talk about they're talking about these federal enclaves that are like military installations and things like that. Um, constitutional scholars kind of baffled about why they bring this up because it does nothing but really offer kind of like tangential support for federal lands. It's just not really that relevant. Actually, what what I think is happening, and this is really amusing, is that it Snopes did a piece on this. I think they actually believe there are a few sentences in the enclave clause. It's straight up don't exist, like there's in People like it's written in a way that looks constitutional, say like no state should you know without its const bogus stuff. It's just in ration that isn't in the Constitution, And they cite the enclave clause, and people like, why the hell it's citing the enclave clause, Like that doesn't make make sense. And as far as I can deduce, they're they're like literally citing information that's not in the Constitution. We have a link up on snouts on the website. Well, people bringing it up to almost more like like with with those boys, as were like, so if they didn't own it, what makes you think you don't it? Yeah, well this ten's like because if you're like, you're running cattle and you're you're you're a man. You guys are running cattle on BLM land. But like if it wasn't BLM land, it wouldn't just be like sitting there, come one, come all, it's some guy, I'd own it. Yeah, and you still wouldn't be running came. I guess everyone likes a dream of themselves being that private land up. Yeah, but to be like for me to be like, man, I wish my neighbors didn't exist, then I'd own their house. Be like, no, it's probably just some other thing would own their house. Perspective that. Yeah. Yeah. And then there's the Tenth Amendment, which basically anybody using that to talk about federal lands just ignoring the property class. I mean, it's not like there's healthy debate amongst the Supreme Court. It's like federal land is extremely constitutional. This ten mile thing that I've heard sometimes it's ludicrous. I mean, it's in the enclave clause. I believe that's like that they only on Washington enclip clause. I believe it's in the enclay clause. And it's talking about the seat of government. It's just talking about how big DC should be. It's I don't think that. I don't think that the I think that that's like such a fringe like that approach is a fringe approach. I think a lot of people look and they're like, sure, the federal government, like you know, legally owns its federal lands. But I just feel like it's too much. It's not administered in a way that's friendly to industry, and however it came to be is fine with me. I just think we should change what it is. Yeah, that's probably the dominant view. I totally agree. I'm just saying that the mind is these people holding read the thing. Yeah, it's horrible. It's horrible. It's like, it's just it's one of many things where it's annoying whatever side of it you're on, it's just annoying because if you just get where you just like, dislike misinformation because not perfectly comfortable. I'll debate. I'd love the debate him on it, but I'm perfectly comfortable with a guy who's like, no, I get it, it's all fair and square. I just think we should do it differently. And we're a country that changes all the time. We're always changing our rules, reassessing our priorities, and right now my priority is freeing up more of this land for extractive industries. I'm like, Okay, you're entitled of that opinion. Now hear me out. I'd love to have the conversation. But when a guy comes and says like, oh yeah, that they can't owner all anyway, I'm always like, like I don't even know where to begin, dude. I mean, it's like we're not even on the same planet. I agree. I mean the former that you're talking about. These these people who are engaging with it but just have a different belief It's not like keeping public is just straight up rhetoric, like this is what we believe, and like you're either with us or against us. We have a detailed policy statement up there right now, uh, and we talk about, you know, the three arguments we have is, you know, federal land is historically consistent, it's constitutionally protected, and it's fiscally advantageous. I think if you take a long term view of economics and industry, you will see that this mixed model that we have is is the most viable way forward economically. Like I always buck at the idea that it's like, but I totally agree with you, and you've said this on previous podcasts. I don't think that everything should have to justify itself in economic terms, and I think this land falls into that. It just so happens it does that too. And I buck against some people who are like, well, it's just industry versus this mixed model, you know, but a lot of states are not a lot. There's some states. It's a very conservative states will point out coming around saying they having looked at it, they're feeling that it's not advantageous for them to assume some of the financial responsibility of management of lands. Yeah, I believe that was a fiscal analysis that was mandated by some legislation that the that the big time land transfer had because it's advocates are pushing for and they're like, oh, I don't want that. States like yeah, because you could have had a ton of expense, you could have a cataclysmic wildfire bankrupt your state. And states don't have a lot of the fiscal elasticity of the federal government where they have to live within budgetary constraints, and they're like, we don't have like our citizenry doesn't want to take on the responsibility of property. Administering this land and administering it in these days comes down to fighting fires, like most of the Forest Service budget fights fires. Yeah, it's expensive, and I think some people now are looking at being like, as much as it's supposed to be a great selling point industry, that's happening on these public lands as it is is generating jobs and they're getting dirt cheap leases in our state. And it's like it's like we have a lot to gain and in uh, not a terrible lot to lose, and it's a good system for us. Yeah, And I mean, even if there isn't a wildfire, you know, it's expensive to manage this land. Plus the federal government gives each states whatever it's payments in lieu of taxes are pilt, so if you transfer lands, it's it's taxes that they would have made on revenue generated from the current industry on those lands. And yeah, I think the states are looking at it and like, wait, we now have to pay to manage the land we're not currently paying for. Plus we're giving up the payments that we're getting from the federal government. And I think there's an argument to be made that because some people would be like, well, I support public land, but you know, this is all just like fear mongering. It'll still stay public when it's in you know, when it's in state control. And I don't believe that's the case at all for them, that hasn't been borne out by history, right, and for them to keep let's say theoretically that this happens. For a state to keep the current level of public access, it would incur enormous expenses, and the only viable way to do it would be to jack up taxes on everybody. That's not gonna happen. Like, no politicians gonna be like I just like really jacked up for taxes because I want to keep all this public access, like like you know, is now paying much higher time. Like, it's not gonna happen. No, And I mean just if you just kind of generally pay attention state control of lands that they're not as they're not as uh, state lands just not as open generally as federal lands to camping, hunting, a TV use. There's a lot of restrictions out and they carry a lot of financial fiscal restrictions where they can't run deficits and oftentimes have to sell land. Look at I mean, Texas got liquidated virtually all their school trust lands over the years, yea, And I mean that's that's the land that actually stays in state control, I mean most of it. So it's I think a lot of people think that like the federal government is like increasing its land ownership, and that's not the case. It's it's been I mean, it's diminished by a few percents since right, like the tap is going in the direction of from the Feds to the states. Um and some of that's like land. You know, there's land swaps that happen and stuff. I'm not saying it's all like that that it's emblematic of a like of a larger land transfer. But what what what I'm what I'm encouraged by. But a lot of that land just gets privatized outright, you know, Like the state lands that are open have restrictions, but a lot of the federal land that's transferred to the states just gets sold out right. Yeah. And again, if people who want to talk about how state land doesn't go private, go look up Elliott State Park in Oregon selling a state park. Look at how much land has been sold from Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada. I mean, it's alarmed. It's staggering figures. Yeah. Now, one thing that gives me a little bit of hope. And I don't know because I think he's gonna be We brought this up a couple of times. Now he's gonna be under a lot of pressure from his adopted party. But uh. I heard Trump speak in January of last year, and Trump said he has no interest in dump in federal public lands. Yeah, I want to talk about that. I you know, we we've talked about it for I understand he's gonna be under a ton of pressure. I know that he also in a lot of ways doesn't have a lot of use for party orthodoxy. Um. He's been willing to butt heads with um, some of his fellow party members on a number of issues. I hope he can butt heads of them on this. Yeah. I mean it certainly our responsibility to make sure that he does. Um. Yeah. On another he didn't mince words, No, he didn't, but he's made more. The Trump campaign has made three statements about public lands in terms of if you separate their arguments. One has unequivocally been no interest in selling your your federal public lands, and we think it should remain understand that's the one I heard first. Two was the person that came out, I'm like, great, both candidates support federal land management. Like the debate over my pet issue is like, you know, at least I can focus on other things because that's not going to change. Then there was a messaging from his campaign said well, if it's under state management, we still support public lands. It's like, well it's understate management, you have nothing to do with land anymore. They give me a break. And then the third one was he did have a meeting with DeMar Doll, who's a big in Nevada, who's a big land transfer advocate, and spoke to a group there, and uh Doll was kind of effusive in his praise of of that meeting. So I'm not using that as ah like, I'm just because we're talking politics. I'm not using that in any way to say that's his true opinion and that these other things are just a charade. But it's just that he's he's an opportunist, right, and I think it behooves us to make sure that he hears the arguments in support of federal public land and that we hold him to the statements that he's made on our behalf right, Okay, but they have been. It's tough for me because some of the statements have been in direct opposition, right. Yeah, I'm not naive enough to think. I'm not naive enough to think to what anybody says. Yeah, during trying to win a one trying to at that point trying to win a not a party nomination. I'm not naive enough to think that that there's really that much blitting with anyone says, but um, it gives me something to hang on to. It gives me something to refer back to. Yeah, I mean, I I pray that because that it happened he supported federal lands so early in the process that I'm hoping the latter were just artifacts of going through the campaign is and I know that he has the ear of his son who's in Yeah, that's right. So yeah, I mean that's this is a big thing that we're focused on and keep it public because it's like we're not going to um, you know, tout one party over the other at all. It's like, listen, we the only official statement that we're gonna make is that we support public lands under federal management. You can't tell you can't tell one party because the parties are good part The parties don't do anything for us, right right, Yeah, Yeah, you have one party the grave for cleaning air and clean water, probably generally hostile the hunting fishing type. Dudes. Yeah, you got one party open, We'll welcome me with open arms. The hunting, fishing type stuff. You gotta keep an eye on them when it comes to cleaning air and clean water. Yep. It's like, we need our own party, you know. It's a hunting party, reappropriate bulls. We'll get five percent of the vote every year. Um. But to go back when I said, like earlier, I talked about how political science couldn't show that we were polarized the society. What they did show was that the elected officials are polarized in terms of their voting and their rhetoric. Yeah. And I think it's interesting because the party it uh, you know, promotes extremists. And I think it's our responsibility, is the population, to moderate the politicians we elected in office. Right. That's a frustrating about the party system. And it's like a thing you watch again and again, whether it be politicians you really admire, um, and then they go to try to secure a party nomination and you have to watch the very painful process of them morphing into of their beliefs, morphing into this like thing. We're like, oh, wow, all of a sudden, you mirror you magically, now mirror man. Some of it's just oh, it's so sad. Man, let's just end on that. It's so sad. I need to go back to never talk all this kind of stuff. Man, it's important, and I think there's a way to do it where we don't have to be inflammatory. Right, Like, we're all fully functional adults. We all have our own political leanings and our own thoughts on on on issues. There's no reason why we can't uh find out where our avenues of agreement are and say, okay, we can set aside our differences on completely irrelevant topics and at least have unified front you know, on federal lands or whatever other issue you might be looking at where we share consensus. Right, Yeah, yeah, I say yeah. But then I also realized that I'm in many ways trying to put a positive I'm in many ways like I'm I don't want to say I'm a single issue guy, but I'm focused. Uh, I'm focused very heavily on wildlife issues and issues that affect hunters and fishermen. And it's it's like a self fulfilling thing because those are the issues I'm I know most about and can speak to most competently, you know, And um, yeah, and I tend to view the world somewhat myopically or I stay on that stuff. And so I always talk about how like all this coming together kumbaya stuff, But by that I always mean I hope you come together to think what I think. Yeah, I mean I want, And it's like, I hope you come together with me on what I want. I mean. On the one hand, I look at it and as like, man, are we just like chasing like a utopia that doesn't exist with this keeping public stuff? But on another it's like if we're just up front, it's like, listen, the way that we're gonna do this is we're not going to advocate for anything except this one stance. You know. It's like we don't even have to debate any of the other stime. You know why we're gonna win because our guy is carved under the damn mountain. Yeah, I like that. Roosevelts on the mountain like that. Every politician wants to liken themselves to Roosevelt. That's what Roosevelt is popular in history. Gives the public land system. So it's like we're already winning. You put up a guy that's gonna piss on this whole system and flush it down the drain and make it the future Americans don't have access to public lands and national parks and refuges and national forest and then get your ass carved on the mountain. Ain't gonna happen. To think, ain't gonna happen. That's why I think we're gonna win. And I think the mountain speaks. I mean, there's a lot of people who are fired up about this, right, and I think sportsmen groups have been doing the heavy lifting for a long time, um, and I think it's time that the entire recreational spectrum gets its act together and targeting this federal land uh kind of avenue. Right. Like, I've noticed that a lot of non hunting outdoors groups their messaging seems to just revolve around the national parks. I'm like, the national parks percent of the public land, and they're like, come on, like they're not in danger. Oh yeah, it's all it's all part of the broader I don't want to get into it, okay, suid, Yeah, we are going squid jig tonight to concluding thoughts, two more, I'll do one. I'll do one, and that is because I'm one, alright, It's because Steve brought up this story we're talking about before the podcast and my in laws, and I feel like I just can't let that lie. There's a very funny your wife would listen to this? Oh yeah, why not? It's a funny story. I don't I don't mind telling it, Jerry. I'll get a kick out of it, as my father in law, Jerry. So when I early on in my wife and I relationship, I was we went to school in Colorado and we were down visiting my now in laws in southern Colorado and we were my now brother in law, my father in law, and UH and I were muzzle looader mule your hunting. And we went out in this truck, an old f two fifty with two gas tanks that we called Old Whitey, and it was bench seat. I was in the middle between my father in law and my brother in law, and we drove out to the National Forest we're hunting. And we got out there in Old Whitey and we're like crawling along pretty slow, and I fig like, all right, we're gonna get to the hunting spot. But he's just gonna like drive along pretty slowly. Maybe we don't want to spook anything. And I was a very new hunter at this time too, so I was like unsure of the procedure. Anyways, We're just crawling along and crawling along and just waiting to get to the spot. And that you know, I'm think you got this taken forever, like this take and a half day. It's taking prime hunting hours. And I turned to the left at some point because I've been talking to my brother in law and we noticed that as we're idling up this hill. I was actually about to say what it was, but I don't want to do that to their hunting spot. As we're idling up this hill, we notice that Jerry is just flat out snoring behind the wheel and it looks like I'm asleep for some time, man, And we just, uh, we're just about died and laughing. Man, we were how like, I mean, he was going like a half a mile an hour and uh yeah. So now I'm convinced when Jerry goes out there and hunts, like half the time, he's just taking a nap. You know. My dad's hunting stories, Um, as he's older, we're always like and there was like and there it was under my tree. Yeah. Yeah, because the reason your stories all start the way is because you periodically wake up and look around and which just all of a sudden see deer there, but they never like approached because you slept through the apro I mean, they're very good at napping. I feel like I have to up my napping game. Jeff Fox really has that great skit where he's in the tree and Buddy supposedly walks up learning there. He goes, hey, Jeff, what are you doing? You can sleep it up there, and Jeff like, no, no, I was praying, Oh that okay, what was your last one? That was your second last one? All right, if you want me to do it, I don't want to ramble and take your listeners too much time from your list quick. Yeah. So what I've noticed, you know, because I didn't grow up in a hunting family, Um, what I've noticed as I've started hunting, that's kind of irrelevant all the politics and stuff we've been talking about, is that I've gained much more appreciation for landscapes that I previously had. Like, you know, I think before it was very much in the line of like, yeah, I like the alpine landscape right like go backpack in this year, or the Trinity Alps, and I love going through Stage Brush and like Antelope Country, Like I just love it now, And I think I don't think I appreciated it as much before I started interacting with the landscape. I'm like, oh, well, this is how it functions, Like this is the utility of this landscape, Like this is what lives here, and this is how it lives and and it's really just increased my appreciation for the land in a dramatic way. Yeah, I hear you loud clear on that. Man. You learn to look at the land. Yeah, you read it. You learn how to look at it, like I love driving through Nevada. Barry Loe. Yeah, Barry Lopez, who, if anything, is uneasy with hunting, but he writes about he spends a lot of time with indigenous hunters and um, he has a beautiful piece he wrote where he they he's traveling with some asketball hunters and they come across a bear, a grizzly out on the tundra, and he gets into what he sees when he sees a grizzly, which is he sees the moment there's a bear right there. He says. His companions see the grizzly, and they see a long narrative that took place before their arrival, and they see a long narrative that will play out after their departure. It's like they see a timeline that they entered into. And I think that that's one of the things that that hunting teaches you, is that when you're looking at something, you're catching it in a moment, Even things like successional forests. When I look at a forest fire and they're and people like, oh, the anchors were destroyed. I look at a forest fire and I'm like, I'm already pictured sea bitch in ten years deer and elk, you know what I mean, Like like you learn to like see this thing that you know goes on and goes before ye and seeing elk out on your winter range, it's like somebody like there's nope, but you see this thing playing out, Like how that thing uses the landscape now where it probably came from, where it's going to go next. There are many ways to get there. Hunting you just the way that forces you to get there. There are many ways to learn to see the natural world that way, and we by no means have a monopoly on it um But hunting is the way that gets you there very quickly because because it makes it relevant, it makes it relevant to you. And um, earlier I said, we're pragmatic beings, were all full a little selfish. We like things to be relevant to us. That's true. Yeah, any concluding thoughts already gave him mine now that, but now that Yannie gave my perch flies. Um um. A lot of people write and frustrated they can't buy a meat Eat or T shirt. But you can go on to Hunt Eat. We have some. You guys are gonna have some. Are we gonna get more? So Yannie T Shirt company who we boycotted over the perch fly issue, um sold you. Hunt Eat sold us meat Eat your t shirts. Yeah, we made some people bought them all how long ago? How long ago is the last one sold? Year? Really? Wow? And you still got out some we've reprinted. It's just like the people that right in because the Meat Eater store is a mass. It's like, dude, you're right, I just trying to defend it, but it's just like a mass. Yeah. But right now I know that we have some actually add the printer cks. I know we're gonna have shirts for Wednesday, like you guys are making more. Remember we looked at the proofs. No, but no, I'm saying Hunt EAT's gonna make more than that order has not in place. There's gonna be more more meat Eater T shirts at theat you're still Hunt Eats, still selling the meat Eater Hunt Eats. Yeah right, all right? That was was that long? Was long? That was? It was good though it low attention. Thanks for the low attention to sons of bitches. I hope you've got through that.

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