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Brainstorming New Research Outputs & Rankings
Recorded: May 28, 2025 Duration: 1:06:09Space Recording
Short Summary
In a recent discussion, participants explored the evolving landscape of academic research and public health, highlighting trends in COVID-19 research, the importance of transparency in scientific institutions, and the potential for new funding models that prioritize public good. The conversation underscored the need for grassroots engagement to foster growth and innovation in the DSI ecosystem.
Full Transcription
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right, let's kick things off for this week of the design mic.
A topic this week is centered around brainstorming new research outputs and rankings.
Pin up above here some of the, like, inspiration for the topic this week.
a lot of challenges thrown their way in terms of not allowing different international students
to continue studying or conducting research there, as well as major funding cuts from
the federal level.
And then just looking at kind of this more global perspective of different, mostly Nature's ranking of different publications and different outputs and commentary on how Harvard is currently ranked as number one.
But then most of the following universities after that are all based in China.
And then the next U.S. universities after that are Stanford and MIT.
And just kind of a larger discussion around different leaders continuing to push science forward. Oxford is up there as well,
and University of Tokyo, when we're looking at the, like a list of the top 20 institutions. So
that's some of the foundation for this conversation. I think another topic we might be able to touch on this week as well is the increased postings of a new COVID strain and just the rising rates of that transmission in different areas and how different regions are responding to that so far.
mission in different areas and how different regions are responding to that so far.
So those are two kind of pieces of news or trending topics and themes top of mind on
my side right now.
This is Erin McGinnis behind the account.
So I want to kind of chat through this and if nature's rankings are still a good way of measuring that, if there might be opportunity to create other types of research outputs that could signify larger impact, and also what role DSI might be able to play in that as well.
and also what role DSI might be able to play in that as well.
I see you're up here as well.
Would love to welcome you to share any thoughts you might have on these topics.
Yeah, this is a good one.
I don't know what's happened to universities and colleges,
but I guess it's been a long progression, the ivory tower.
And I guess what I've seen, I've sort of studied higher education.
Back in the 80s, I did a lot of research on it.
And the biggest thing now I find is that it just can't keep up.
The whole system is now a problem because to get a PhD, it takes years.
So anything, and once you're in and you get tenure or whatever,
or whatever, there's little reason to create a paradigm shift in whatever your area is.
And that's a problem because we know now, probably in the last 10 or so years, that
science advances so fast now that these academic institutions just can't keep up with it.
It's hard when you have a paradigm shift happen to be able to shift if you're a leading PhD in what was in the past now, especially when it's a significant change.
now, especially when it's a significant change. And I mean, there's so many Walter Willett at
Harvard that's been nutrition, epidemiology. I mean, he's just been so slow to change.
And it's understandable why, because it's pretty hard to stand up there and say, you know, what I've been teaching for the last 20 or 30 years
probably was all wrong. And I had a great experience back in 2015. I think it was MIT,
because I'm in Massachusetts. So a lot of the education system here and open ag at MIT started this project called the food computer and they set
up actually a forum to so people from the outside could communicate on the project and
I started attending it when it started out and realized this is a crazy idea i mean it has no potential of success and yet i don't know how
much money went into it but it was ridiculous amount it just had no potential i mean just none
and it eventually was found out to be a corrupt project and you know it was a big controversy over it you can
look up food computer mit and it was just another example of what happens now in some of these
institutions that are a problem um my own i live in a town in Massachusetts where University of Massachusetts is, and for a long time I connected with them on agriculture issues.
interested in sort of micromanaging the university a bit and trying to get better projects on campus
and open up things a bit and it was a real struggle um eventually he got pushed out because
of politics because billy bolger who was a major politician in boston decided for just for the fun of it, he wanted to be president of UMass before he died. So
he, he became president. And so, yeah, it's a, it's a big problem. And I don't know how we're
going to open it up. I mean, that was the original intent with our land grant universities, our state
universities. They were supposed to be two-way streets. They were supposed
to focus, you know, mostly on your state, but then be collaborative. They had to, they were,
by the original charter, had to share all the research information they produced each year
with all the other state land grants. It was a great idea, idea great concept really made a difference in the 1800s early 1900s and
eventually it became corrupted the whole system and and now we have you know it's back to that
sort of ivory tower situation in fact i was just at a meeting recently you know with our ag extension and we try to keep them trying to do something good and so
they took five hundred thousand dollars gave five projects laid out the projects to our
we had to start a board of overseers to sort of monitor what was happening and every one of them has been done long time ago um we don't have enough money to get
to have people working with farmers and yet they spent money where why this the faculty and
agents are already up on this knowledge i don't know well i know, but that's been sort of the problem. So those are just a few points from my experience. I'll land it.
within especially universities and how much of an impact that can end up having, especially at that
presidential type of level, kind of relating back to what happened at Stanford with a lot of
different fraud or data manipulation cases coming out of Stanford under a particular president,
just due to the culture that was created there,
and how much of this is also people considerations in addition to just like data or funding
considerations as well. Are there any conversations that you might be hearing in in the Boston area that maybe isn't getting as picked up for those of us outside of the Boston
area? Any things that might be interesting to kind of emphasize or reiterate that is being discussed
or in different conversations or different news sources in that region?
Or is it kind of similar to the broader conversation?
I'm actually out more in Western Mass, where UMass is.
Originally, they wanted our land grant to be part of, I think it was MIT and Harvard was interested in too,
but we knew that, or the people back then knew that that wasn't going to really solve the problem.
They needed to separate it a bit from that system because the original was actually farmers
and a couple of politicians and a professor from Amherst College, which was a very old, old, one of the earliest colleges.
And he was actually a geologist.
And as population grew, they needed to grow more food.
So, and there wasn't really any science in ag.
And there wasn't really any science in ag.
So he actually went over to Europe and checked out a bunch of their ag schools to try to get good ideas and sort of the pitfalls.
And that's when they came back.
And originally the idea was just to do it in Massachusetts.
And then it caught on to be a national system under, you know,
that was basically the same year that USDA was developed and all that.
It was mostly focused around engineering and agriculture in the beginning,
but now there are complete universities.
So, I mean, I just haven't.
I try to follow as much as I can the major institutes in Massachusetts to see if there's any hope for opening up a little more.
How they're going to deal with the rate of speed of change nowadays.
I just haven't heard anything. We actually had a group, oh, maybe four or five years ago,
of extension people.
I wasn't part of it.
I just work outside the system.
But I worked with, we had an online thing here on Twitter every week.
here on Twitter and every week and with extension agents, which is the connection between a state
land grant and the public, sort of what creates a two-way street.
In other words, an agent is somebody who brings ideas back and forth, which worked pretty
good.
I mean, even when I was young, there was some of that i was able to do but that's
really changed recently so um and i think you know we've always had invention has pretty much
come from the outside world the old idea of an idea created in a garage um and then institutions
had to sort out those good ideas and take them in and work them and then be part of the education system.
But, but that's changed so dramatically.
It's just really hard to get a good idea in there anymore.
Um, UMass is ranked, they've been around number four, number five in the world in agricultural science.
And that's because about 10 or so years ago, we built, the state built two really nice labs that were cutting edge labs.
And so, you know, immediately it was just filled with corporate funding.
And immediately it was just filled with corporate funding.
And so people don't think of UMass as a big ag school.
But when it comes to food and ag science, as I said, they've been in the top five.
I think they got as low as number three one time.
as low as number three one time and that's above you know Cornell, Stanford, all the other big
schools that do that kind of research so I'll land it again. From a agriculture perspective are
there additional hits being kind of sent that direction or for different research
kind of that might be under kind of the,
the broader umbrellas of where different cuts are happening.
Is it, is it equally affecting the agriculture space or are you guys faring a
are you guys faring a little bit better?
little bit better?
Well, we do a little bit with labs.
I mean, the regen ag movement,
which is also connected to nutrition and medicine
because it's in the environment.
It's a whole encompassing project.
It's been farmer driven for the last 50 farmer-driven for the last 50 years,
and especially in the last 10 years when we've been able to occasionally attract scientists
to either build a lab outside of an institution,
and we've had a few people in institutions that we've been able to get enough funding
to support the lab work that
we need done and some of the technology work. But the good thing is we're not really affected by
research money. In fact, we kind of benefit when some of these fundings get pulled from academia because, you know, they just still are back in the world of, nope, it's all about chemistry and synthetic biology and it's all about the, you know, the 20th century science still.
the you know the 20th century science still and they mix a little bit of ai and whatever in but
again they're just so stuck in the paradigm that they've been in that they just can't shift so
and we try we mostly focus on students because our concern in agriculture has always been young people,
whether it's young people to work on the farm or young people to learn and be an academic and
advance the science. And so what we've had to do is pretty much because young people that are
interested in the environment or the future of food or nutrition or medicine. They hear about, you know, soil health
and regenerative agriculture and that soil is so important. It's not just dirt. And so,
you know, we encourage them to, when they go to a university, demand that they're taught what they want to learn instead of just being told what they need
to learn and that's sort of the way we look at a shift that's why i as an old guy you know
attend a lot of these things with young people and say it's really up to you in to to steer academia to your benefit for your the future.
So, and it used to happen more.
Demand advisory groups, you know,
where the public and practitioners in any field actually have a say.
We actually at ARC1 back in, I think it was 1998, we were losing our advisory
ability, let alone our actual, and of course, we're just talking advisory, not like, no,
we demand that we have a say in what is done here, especially with the finances. And so
here and especially with the finances and so we had to do that and put it through the legislature
so that they had to speak to us or had to listen to us whether they did anything or not
at least we felt like if at least if we you hear it we can hold you somewhat accountable
but then they fight back you know as i've seen over the years, any of these institutions, they just have eliminated so many events, you know, where they brought people in whatever topic together from the real world or advisory groups or that sort of thing.
I can't even, it's hard to even get them to
honor the open meeting laws
on these meetings.
So they don't even want, I mean, I've got an email
saying we just as soon
not have the public
come to our,
come on Zoom or something to listen to the
meetings or go in person.
When we were
first started, before it was really online as an option
you know we people in the peanut gallery so to speak it was hard to even get them a chance to
be able to say something so i mean it's a pretty serious problem and of course you as you've stated
in this too the rankings and then the journal problem is
is just adds on top of that there's so much wasted science now that gets in journals that
nobody has access to that really are the practitioners that need to implement this
science just gets buried and plus scientists you know we we joke about it, you know, it's a lot easier just get a grant to count the amount of spots on a lady beetle than do something that challenges the system.
You get paid the same and have a lot less pressure.
So it's a pretty complex issue.
Definitely. I guess tying it back to the theme of or the title of the space of brainstorming new research outputs and rankings.
Do you have any initial ideas of other things, whether it's some type of a ranking system or way to compare or be able to measure impact of research? Do you have any ideas of what this might look like,
maybe in fields specifically that you're involved with
or at broader skills as well?
Boy, that's a tough one.
I mean, I think public accountability is just, again,
something we're so busy just trying to survive nowadays
that public collaboration, public groups really paying attention to this.
It just isn't happening enough, and there isn't enough transparency.
You know, we used to have local media i guess
more newspapers that would do articles about projects universities have you know in your area
whether it be in a city like boston with all their stuff or in any area and
you know that that doesn't happen anymore so um people just don't know what's going on.
And, of course, they're not encouraged to have any power in it.
I mean, I think you could take that all the way down to the school systems.
I mean, they're trying to drop the Department of Education
and, you know, the old PTAs or volunteerism to do projects or people coming in to speak from the community or something like that at school systems.
That's a lot of that's gone away.
I don't know.
It's just and it just I mean, I think the bottom line is it's the whole education system
is no longer about learning it's being fed information and being steered information and
we get the same thing and and it's very specialized too they i guess one of the biggest changes i've
seen in academia is there's no holistic understanding anymore.
I meet grad students and they're working on some specific area of microbiology or soil
or nutrition or whatever.
And when we start talking and I start bringing in other areas that are related to it, they're fascinated.
And they're like, they don't let me understand the big system,
the big picture of what I'm trying to do,
so I can really understand how I need to collaborate.
I'm just studying a particular protein in some organic matter or something,
and that's it. And that's what they want me to
focus on and and i i miss out in that why am i even doing this what is it going to benefit you
know what is it part of and that's a big in fact back you know, it was really kind of a famous thing.
Our president of our UMass about 1905, I think he came in, Kenyon Butterfield, and he realized that it happened.
He realized that there was, you know, all these, when it became, instead of a college, these places became universities.
They went well beyond just ag and engineering.
And he's like, his whole idea was, I need to tie a thread through,
I need to tie some threads through our university
so that people in different departments,
so in other words, the nutrition, the medical, the agriculture,
the, you know, resource, state resource management,
all those areas are tied together and these people
meet and talk together and realize it more in a you know in creating systems more and that's just
i've all but disappeared um over my time so that's that's pretty crucial too because if you don't
understand anything at a systems level then it's pretty hard to give an opinion about things and
i think that's probably our biggest problem we just nothing's ever presented in a system it's
the same as like you know it's the Democrats or the Republicans, or it's the
this side or that side. It's, and it's so hard to get together across spectrums. That's why,
you know, me coming in and talking about the importance of agriculture with a lot of people
who are in medical research. And, you know, early on, I had to say to say you know you realize your job's impossible unless we
look at the roots of the health which is in the soil of the food that we eat
and beyond the just the chemical problems so and you know doctors aren't taught, aren't taught any about that. Nutrition is very minimal in their thing.
They just have a sheet.
Somebody comes in, what's the symptoms?
They got a sheet.
It has pills next to it.
Okay, try this.
If it doesn't work, call me in a week and we'll do it again.
So let's say that the education system and like doctors education like that, that's not going to change. Let's just say that for the purpose of this convo or thought experiment right now.
What else do you think would need to exist or supplement or kind of be in parallel to fill in some of those gaps and fill some of those needs?
Well, I think the DeSci movement is an example, even though it's trying to figure it out.
I mean, that's what regenerative agriculture was. It was a DeSci movement.
That's what regenerative agriculture was.
It was a Desai movement.
And so it was just individuals who are especially practitioners getting together and sharing ideas and the Internet and a cheaper way to talk instead of a long distance phone call.
phone call um we used to have to travel you know i have to put i used to have to put on thousands
We used to have to travel.
and thousands of miles every year going around meeting different farmers going to farmer events
collecting ideas bringing it back to institutions now we can communicate just like we are on spaces
we can do it with people all over the world um we can you know then the problem becomes funding and of course what
we didn't regen ag was we shared the load um got a lot of people involved and each people with
their own little curiosity and little niche and they did their thing they tested this they tested that they tried
you know then we got together and and again in a holistic way tied all these things together
if you're doing that and i learned this then that means we can do this and and it worked
because we've created a probably the biggest paradigm shift in
since the industrial revolution at least um that nobody's aware of i mean they're aware of
you know people have heard regenerative agriculture you know of course it gets
talked about oh it's just old ways and you know it's going back and of course
if we go back everybody's going to starve and so you know it's it's it's a battle like any paradigm
shift is going to be but um it can work i think regen ag is a proof of that because it's now known
globally and some of the biggest corporations are trying to foe embrace it.
You know, Bayer, Syngenta, Cargill, all those, McDonald's, Kellogg's,
we're all into regenerative ag.
We're getting the details.
It's not really.
It's kind of pseudo.
They're not really getting into it.
In fact, I was on a space with a bunch of scientists.
They're all into that industry, including somebody from Bayer,
and they were looking for a topic.
And I said, well, you've started a regenerative ag program.
You've got 100,000 employees at Bayer.
Why don't you get one of them on and talk to us about it?
And then I got i got well you know
it's really hard to find these people and it's really hard to get them to come on or whatever
it's yeah because they really don't exist and i mean they're kind of there but that's not what
they're focusing on they use it in their advertising i mean kellogg's you know they
like to say that they're into regenerative ag so does mcdonald's but they're still producing
fruit loops so it's really not but we do say that if we can get the base ingredients in our food to
the nutritional level it really should be instead of what it's at where it's just
basically cardboard that's going to be a huge start but even that information doesn't get out
there so i said it's it's it's networking and having a purpose and if there's one thing i like
about dsi mike and what erin has done in this, is it's about the foundation of things that we need to discuss.
What's the foundation issues?
How do we really make science work?
How do we make it work for the people?
How do we get it to be respected again?
But not saying it's, you know, like a lot of the people in the institution say, trust in science.
That's not science.
You've got to be humble.
You've got to, you know, in Regen Ag, we try just as hard to prove what we're doing wrong as we do to prove it's right.
do to prove it's right that's what science needs to be again because if right now it's like well
That's what science needs to be again.
how am i going to get another million dollar grant if my idea doesn't really make billions of dollars
and that's really not science that's just money so i don't know there's some more thoughts definitely
yeah
I mean that's the intention
for these spaces to try
and create space to have these larger
conversations
because I think
there's a lot of good things happening
as well as different
people and organizations making
trying to make good progress, but
making sure it's actually like implementable is a key part of it, I think as well.
And connected to the people who will actually be interacting with it, which I think is one
challenge that some projects in the DSi space has faced.
They've built out some really cool tech,
but nobody's really using it at scale,
which is also part of building out good solutions.
So hopefully these convos will keep it top of mind
of what should be focused on and getting people to actually
focus on those things.
That's one thing we've been thinking a lot about at MuseMATRIX, just launching some more
very focused cohorts on different themes to try and have a bit more targeted approach of addressing different gaps in like
either sub-scientific fields or that might be unique to a certain time period or possibly a
geographic region depending on if there is a cohort of people just from one area. So
depending on if there is a cohort of people just from one area.
So hopefully all of this is able to make some of that progress.
I guess from an agriculture perspective,
are there any key, like, big gaps in that space that might be holding back kind of that overall sector from progressing forward?
Like, what are some of the biggest blockers, in your opinion?
Probably the biggest is,
other than industries that can't go away,
you know, if you're making chemicals,
for an industry,
and you're making billions and close to trillions of dollars globally,
and all of a sudden, science comes out,
you don't need this.
Same as in the medical world.
I mean,
and when you find out it's something as simple as maybe our food sucks um and and we now understand why um
that's a problem because that's again that's a paradigm shift and it's a problem for the students
because they can't learn it and i think you know i often
wonder why you have such great topics on here but for a lot of people that are at an institution
to come on and actually talk about these things isn't necessarily a safe thing to do because it challenges these institutions that it's,
you know, getting harder and harder to understand how they're going to be able to survive in
the future with the way information and data can be managed.
I think there's a lot of good reason to have a brick and mortar institution like these for young people to go.
And, you know, certainly you need some lab capabilities and some facilities that, you know, are advantageous.
And I think young people getting together and working and learning together and sharing ideas is always going
in an institutional level is very important but unfortunately the bureaucracy and the establishment
within those institutions you know it's hard for them to change as i said i've said all along and
i think that's the biggest problem and if they don't change, they don't keep up with changes because we have a lot of problems in the world, certainly around health.
I mean, that's what, you know, regenerative ag isn't just about how we're going to make money to grow more food or anything.
is the reason why I got into it and many of my friends got into it back 50 years ago was
we just didn't feel comfortable with what was happening to people's health and we felt
incredibly irresponsible because other than pollution back in the time that was really
raising havoc um we knew that you know as a farmer when you turn over that food and they say is this healthy
nutritious and safe for me to eat we just didn't feel comfortable with that and we thought it could
be better and so i mean it was in the environment and the sustainability of our soil. We saw erosion. We had the dust bowl.
We saw, you know, we're kind of at the,
literally at the roots of survival.
I mean, you got to eat three times a day
or something you have to eat every day, period.
So without that, we don't have anything.
We don't have health.
We can't work. We're not happy we're depressed
food becomes creates many times wars it's a it's a real foundational issue and and yet we always
felt like we had there are better ideas you know we just got to keep learning and use technology we embrace
technology to the max we're into metabolomics we're into metagenomics we're into the you know
trying to create an ai that is actually functional um and isn't controlled We're into all that stuff.
But it's hard because, again, everything happens so fast nowadays, and it really needs to be decentralized for the power
because you never know where some 14-year-old in who knows where
might have an idea and might have actually put it out there and
we need to hear it because you never know where it might come from.
So many of the most famous people in history, some of our greatest scientists and philosophers
avoided academia in the beginning.
Eventually, because they actually created cool things,
academia got interested,
but they realized that it was really hard to do something completely new
and think outside the box
when you're in an ivory tower.
And that needs to be respected again.
I think that's going to be the key.
If you're in an institution, it's going to be a bit of a problem.
How we're going to get past that,
how we deal with the fact that what you knew is no longer relevant.
I mean, it's good for history to understand why we did that, what we didn't
understand, why we didn't understand it, why we understand it now. I think there's value to that,
but you can become obsolete. So, and how do we deal with that for people who did their best even if they were going in the
wrong direction because that was what science we had like we don't blame chemical ag we're like
that was the only thing that we could really test very well we couldn't test microbiology we couldn't
we didn't have the ability to do metagenomics or metabolomics or any
of that stuff until the science advanced and so and we're we're striving to create new sciences
it is we now have one of our farmer that has a company and regen ag is now got got a tool to be able to, in the field, measure minerals in our soil, in our plant, in our seeds.
That's groundbreaking in technology.
We have another one that created the meter so that when you go in a supermarket,
or the supermarket itself could shine it on their choices of carrots,
and it'll tell you which one is the most nutrient-dense.
It'll give you a score from 1 to 100.
So you'll shine it on one carrot, and it'll come up a 20,
and you shine it on another, and it'll come up an 80,
and it's an early ability to sort out what's going to actually be healthy for you.
to sort out what's going to actually be healthy for you so you know but but how we're going to
get as they say something where you build years and years of status and then all of a sudden
there's a paradigm shift and how these people are going to adjust that's something that I guess young people
are going to have to figure out in this
rapidly changing
world
definitely
I think
kind of as the world
and different sectors continue evolving
and newer technologies
come into the scene, different
also just like social or cultural elements also emerge. There's new opportunities to
try and address this. So hopefully it plays out in good directions and I'm sure some type of system will emerge.
Just even like looking back at the publication system overall, like things go through different cycles and eras.
And I think it'll be interesting to see how that also evolves over time too.
Any other thoughts on what the DSI ecosystem could be doing better overall or different gaps that you think should be filled in within the DSI kind of approach?
Yeah. that you think should be filled in within the DSI kind of approach? I think it needs, probably needs some kind of form of principles
because it doesn't, you know, if you support DSI,
is that really supporting public good?
Which I think is at the root of a lot of what we do.
It's public good.
It's not just that somebody's going to make a bunch of rich people a bunch of money or something like that. You know, in regenerative, what we had to do over the years was, you know, we developed the principles behind how nature works, which we developed the five principles of soil health as a basic foundation.
And then we added context because for every nature works the same all over the world, but everybody lives in a different context.
So that needs to be considered.
And by those guidelines, it does eliminate some of the synthetic sort of human control over nature or the environment by those principles
um so in other words we don't know we haven't known hardly anything about microbiology whether
it be in the soil or our gut biome or any of this or epigenetics or any of this kind of stuff until just recently.
And so that's been a major factor.
So our thing is, let's understand nature.
is let's understand nature.
And of course, once we had that ability
to start understanding nature,
industries said, okay, let's make it synthetic now.
You know, with the CRISPRs and the, you know,
GMOs and all that kind of stuff.
And our thing is, yeah, maybe in the future
there might be some benefits of that,
but we've got these companies creating synthetics without understanding the natural.
And that's a problem if we don't understand how, because nature is pretty incredible. I i mean one thing i've learned over my
years we used to think all these things like well maybe there's some good stuff that happens in the
soil because back 40 30 40 even up to today you know most of the thing was nature's competitive it's against us you know humans have to rise above it
you know it really it's just a bunch of pathogens and viruses and diseases and so
best thing probably do just kill them all and you know we just of course we didn't
couldn't study it much but we went from knowing nothing about it to
instantly thinking human again competition and let's just make it all synthetic it's like
of course then that became the gmos the crispers and that's much more money and for the practitioners and why, you know, it became about money again. And let's understand true nature of our, you know,
both socially and scientifically before we think that we need to synthesize,
you know, turn everything into synthetics.
As soon as they created protein isolates out of plants, you know, I said, well, we don't need cows anymore.
Not understanding the benefits of cows in the ecosystem, the nutrition ability, the omega to six to three ratios in those protein isolates, the control of industries being able to control, the lack of ability to actually steward our environment through agriculture
and land stewardship just throws all that out the window.
So, you know, and that's where a lot of the, you know, biotech now that's in D-Sci,
you know, all that knowledge is is important but it's in the implement
but not it's a part of it's in the implementation that becomes the problem and you know what about
nature's biotech what do you know about that and that's where it becomes pretty limited and
that and that's where it becomes pretty limited and we just i don't know we just don't appreciate
nature enough and and understand how you know incredibly complex and what we can learn from it
and how we've done so wrong in so many ways to destroy our environment and our food and everything and our health and the health of the planet and
so you got guys like elon thinking the only way we have out is to have a place to go like mars
or something it's like you know and spending millions and billions of dollars and it's like
you know i don't know.
We got to get back to some fundamentals, I guess, understanding and knowledge. And even though there can't be, you know, it's the whole thing about regenerative agriculture.
You can't make a billion dollars getting into it.
And that's a good thing, we think.
Let's just produce healthy food.
Make it so that instead of putting all our money into the healthcare system or sick care system, we put money into being healthy.
It's a hell of a lot cheaper and a hell of a lot more fun.
That's why we say we live shorter and we die longer now.
That's not a good thing.
We've got kids that can't even be happy anymore because they're so sick and they're so troubled, so depressed.
It's not a good thing.
Again, I'm just rambling.
I'll land it.
Brought up a whole bunch of good points, as always.
Recognizing we're coming up to the top of the hour.
So if there are any last thoughts, kind of recent different things you've shared or other things top of mind for you, I'd love to hear some of that as well we do we have we have two other speakers up here do we have any thoughts from them
uh no those are kind of just uh to have wider reach if people are speakers then
it usually shows up on other people's feeds better
okay well i guess my big thing is we need to promote these grassroots discussions somehow
we need to get somehow so people can feel i mean i'm concerned that some people don't feel safe about them because of we're
talking change fundamental change paradigm shifts but we need to do them um you know you got us
we got to get people willing to work on these changes because if we don't change, I mean, we're not,
there's plenty of great stuff happening across the board and that stuff just
isn't getting out,
isn't getting talked about.
We don't have a system to talk about it.
D-Sai isn't getting any,
you know,
there isn't a,
like in Regen,
we had to like get movies out there you know um common ground kiss the ground with movie stars that'll attract people to watch it because they know the movie
stars in the movie but within that embed are what we're trying to do and get that message out there to people and i think that's probably
something disai has to think about doing is you know needs to be a documentary needs to be something
that can get on some even if it's just public television or something gets out even into the
small world i mean that's what we did in Regen.
We started movies that got on those, you know,
those small sort of non-big theater platforms
and without the movie stars.
And then, you know, we started to attract more movie stars into it
because they realized it was something.
And, you know, d site has to go mainstream
a bit if it's really going to be what we're all trying to accomplish in it and
um you know you have to work on it at all different levels but um it's just not known
about enough i mean if i go to probably probably walk in any university and as you're walking down
the path, ask a student, you know, what do you know about DSI?
I don't think you'd find many that know about it.
You know, are we getting into these schools and talking about it?
Can we get into these schools and talking about it can we get into these schools and talk about it
would they promote us talking about it um us just doing retreats like in desai you know all these
retreat conferences everything are great for getting that core group together and talking
but i think we're at a point now where it's got to start
reaching out into the greater community and especially in academia um or in academic
areas that are you know where you have a lot of public also involved with academia and institutions and organizations and start talking about it, especially with,
I mean, as I keep saying, I always say, I've always said, it's young people.
You got to get to the young people.
You got to give them wisdom from what we've learned, what's been wrong in the past what's the potential what's been right
in the past you know get them interested i mean it's it's your it's your future um and all we can
do is share our experiences what we've learned over the years the trends we've seen and that's where it's good to work together that's why i enjoy working
and communicating with young people and i but i need feedback too they've got to build opinions
and get their messages out and work together and look back at the 70s and the 60s, whether it be Woodstock or, you know, the Vietnam War, civil rights issues, young people not just complaining, but actually spreading optimism about things.
You know, we can have peace and love and health and a clean environment and safe food and many things like this.
and a clean environment and safe food and many things like this.
But you can't just, you're not going to vote that in.
You're not going to, you can't sit around and just, it's going to just happen.
You got to be part of the movement and it's not work.
It's fun.
It's what makes life meaningful.
And that's been taken away from young people, I think.
We're separated.
Just do what's good for you.
Well, what goes around comes around.
So spread the...
Got to work together.
Got to spread.
Got to have meaningful events.
Have a concert over it with people singing, sing about it, create songs about it.
Use the arts.
All of it.
All in it.
Definitely hoping that some of the things happening at the different network state pop-up city movement will be able to make some progress on connecting all these different dots.
And I was just at Zwitserland and there's definitely a conversation on food supply and kind of that whole part of it.
And kind of that whole part of it.
I know that's been a big part of the conversation down at Infinita and Prospera, also at Edge Esmeralda.
And at Edge Esmeralda, they do a connect more of these dots, especially for younger folks emerging
into some of these different spheres as well.
So eager to see how all of this keeps evolving
and how we'll be part of making that all evolve as well.
So I guess with that, we're at the top of the hour.
So I'll close out this space. We'll be back here same time next week with another DSAT-related topic.
And if you have a theme or some exciting news that you'd like to discuss or kind of be a focal point for it, definitely reach out and we can get that scheduled in, whether that's next week or an upcoming week.
Thank you to everyone who tuned in.
I'd really like to promote, like I, you know, checked your feed earlier,
and, you know, you just posted about what this event was going to be about and
if we could get it you know scheduled a little sooner and try to network out a little bit to
build these discussions challenge people to come and talk about maybe recognize that you know
somehow the importance of some of these fundamental
discussions for the future of dsai are important um because we need more people and the other
thing is kind of interesting dsai world does a talk on their discord channel at noon the same time that you do this every week and so last week i was on that discussion and
so sometimes there was another one too i noticed in spaces another design they were all three of
them were at noon time today and so some kind of if we you knowyc could coordinate a little bit to make it so that we can know what's going on
and schedule things well and be able to promote them better so that we can,
I mean, I think it's gotten a little stagnant.
I think maybe a year and a half, two years ago, it was maybe the most active.
It seems to be a little bit stagnant
now, and I think it needs another
shot in the arm.
A little healthy one.
If we're going to keep this movement
going and really grow it to
its potential.
That's one of my thoughts.
Thanks for doing it.
As I say,
you come up with some great
fundamental
titles of these spaces.
Just got to keep it going.
Yeah, I appreciate that.
Yeah, I definitely need to post it out
earlier.
Posting it at the last minute doesn't do any favors. So that's a good prompt reminder.
Yeah, and then in terms of coordination, I don't know.
I've been hosting it at this time for a year and a half.
So I like, and I've also had all of those other people on different spaces.
But, yeah, there's been different efforts over the course of Desai's evolution to try and map out different events.
Desai Global from, like, about two, three years ago.
And then the Muse Matrix calendar.
And then the Muse Matrix calendar.
Haven't added as many virtual events on there recently.
But, yeah, there could definitely be more coordination.
And for how much we talk about coordination tooling, you think we'd be better.
So that's the hardest thing. I mean, that's our biggest thing in regen right now. We just had a research scientist that originally from Poland, but now in Finland. And I'll go, I'll call Dr. Anna K. I can't pronounce her last name. Social scientist. And she got really interested in regenerative ag and the movement around the world.
That's the hardest thing.
I mean, that's our biggest thing in regen right now.
regenerative ag and the movement around the world and she said it's amazing how it's advancing
but it's gotten to the point where it's so big now and the problem is it's decentralized
so at a certain level a certain point you know it needs to keep that decentralized spirit, but also have some kind of organization
at a larger level.
I think that's
what Desai is going to have to recognize
at some point. How do you
stay decentralized
yet well
organized
as a movement?
So, because it is movement under desai same as we were soil health
we were regenerative ag we were sustainable ag we were we didn't want to call ourselves anything
we're just trying to advance basically understanding of soil and plant health and all that sort of thing but of course everybody likes to have a
brand and a name and and so that's why when regen kind of came the more recent version of it
um it did fit did sort of make sense we're trying to regenerate um so it's a good word and of course now there's regenerative finance there's regenerative
everything and yet it's just a wild west of once that branding becomes you know you don't want to
control it but you gotta it's got to have some integrity and i think that's we're battling that in regen ag and regen you know and bringing it to nutrition
and environment and all that and i think de-size is the same thing how do you make it how do you
really attract the support of it you know through the integrity of it and that it's actually going to do something better,
that it's advancing the system.
So, all right.
Thanks for the day.
Yes.
Thanks so much for joining, as always, Ed.
And we'll be back here again next week.
Thanks.
Bye.
