Sam Barkley: Full Podcast Transcript
- beyondhorizon965
- Aug 2
- 63 min read
Host: Maximiliano Fabres
Guest: Sam Barkley
Location: Bristol, UK
-
Maximiliano: Hello guys, welcome back to Beyond the Horizon podcast. The podcast where you expand your horizons of knowledge. Today with me, Sam Barkclays. Sam is a student at Bristol University.
Sam: Oh, UWE.
Maximiliano: My bad.
Sam: Here in Bristol, well, he studies geography.
Maximiliano: Yeah. Basically, he's a rock guy.
Sam: Not a rock guy. Um...
Maximiliano: That's what they all say.
Sam: Yeah. No, it's like with rivers in the ocean. And that's what I'm more into. But yeah.
Maximiliano: So, mate, who are you?
Sam: Um... Wait a second. Sorry. I always forget this.
Maximiliano: Yeah, there we go.
Sam: It's just... it smells nice.
Maximiliano: Yeah, that's true.
Sam: Put that back down there so I don't start fiddling with it.
Maximiliano: We'll do otherwise. Do not touch the mic. If not, the producer is going to kill you.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: So, now Sam, who are you, mate?
Sam: Um, so I am a second-year geography student at University of the West of England doing BSc geography. So that's like the more physical science-like physical geography. So like earth processes like plate tectonics, volcanoes. Really like volcanoes. So yeah, you can't say like, "Oh, he's a rock guy," but volcanoes are cool.
Maximiliano: He is a rock guy.
Sam: He basically is.
Maximiliano: I'm not a geologist though, at least. And then um yeah and I do um I'm very interested in sort of um mostly the ocean, sort of like any like sort of coastal processes, coastal management, something I'm quite sort of looking into career-wise. I like to do that.
Maximiliano: I got to say, since you've told me that you're a geologist and you're interested in the ocean, I've been dying to ask you a couple questions about it. Yeah. Especially towards ecology.
Sam: Ecology, and all of that.
Maximiliano: All of that.
Sam: I mean, all of that crap.
Maximiliano: Yeah. Sorry, producer. Um, yeah. No, it's it's basically towards... So, the thing is, we all know climate change is a thing.
Sam: Mhm.
Maximiliano: Yeah. Well, at least some of us know.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: Um, at least the ones that are not in power know that.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: The ones that are, apparently, they don't. Well, they just all have too many stocks in oil, and that's the problem really.
Sam: Well, I got to say, um, I used to study economics.
Maximiliano: Yeah.
Sam: Uh, Munich University.
Maximiliano: Oh, okay. Well, not really, but yeah, let's say that. And um I I did read a good point, which is if climate change was real, then mortgages for coastlines would be higher because it's higher risk, and there aren't. They're actually lower. So I do understand where they're coming from, like just looking at the stats of banks and stuff like that.
Sam: But what do you think? There's the thing though, because... well, that's looking at sea level rise. The sea level rise is a weird one because you'll sort of say like... like it's not sea level rise that's really a problem. It might say um mortgages, that's all that's all risk assessment. Yeah. And so they're looking at... you might say like, "Oh, are the mortgages higher?" But then you've got... it's not really mortgages. It's like it's cost of insurance. Um, flood insurance for one, co... like coastal flooding, fl... that's that's like that's um that's going up.
Maximiliano: That is going up. Okay.
Sam: Is it... is very high the um... so very, I didn't know that. The east co... east coast of England um... that loses about, I believe it's... I want to say 30... I mean, sorry for my old geography teachers if they ever see this, but I want to say about 30 centimeters of co... going to rent you Monday. It's around 30 cm... centimeters to a meter of coastline at certain points is lost every year.
Maximiliano: Every year?
Sam: Yeah. Yeah. 30 like centimeters.
Maximiliano: Yeah.
Sam: Can be the... the Holderness coast. Um, it's the like east like Yorkshire east coast and lots of Norfolk, because it's...
Maximiliano: 30 cm per year.
Sam: Yeah. Because it's all to do with um like the underlying like the bedrock and like the what the beaches are made of. So, um, and it's the North Sea as well. Climate change doesn't um necessarily like just make the sea level like go up all over the globe. What it does is um right, like more like a lot climate change is causing a lot of land ice to melt. So, say for like Greenland is one. Um, there's a lot of cold melt water coming off of... coming... um coming from Greenland into the North Atlantic.
Maximiliano: M.
Sam: And what that's doing is that's cooling the Atlantic down, which is interrupting... which is interrupting like hot like warm water jet streams in the ocean. So, you you might have heard of the Gulf Stream.
Maximiliano: I don't know much. I'm Chilean, so I know everything about the southern bit. I don't know much about the...
Sam: That's what I studied in geography, you know.
Maximiliano: Okay, fair enough.
Sam: We studied the southern bit. You studied the north. Yes, mostly like a lot of focus on the Atlantic...
Maximiliano: And so...
Sam: ...on Pacific. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. Like Yeah. Um, so...
Maximiliano: What's happening with the Gulf Stream is...
Sam: ...the Gulf Stream is cooling and... like North Atlantic's cooling from me water. That's... so that interrupts. No, what that does is that... um this cold water is cooling the... cooling the jetstream, cooling the Gulf Stream, which is causing that water to basically lose... lose energy, and it's energy like the the heat that's carried across and that carries... that carries winds. And so, that's what like um keeps like a stable like um like stable weather conditions and things like that. Um...
Maximiliano: So, wait, the sea... sorry, let let me let me see if I understood correctly. So the temperature of different currents...
Sam: Mhm.
Maximiliano: ...affects movement of water in the ocean.
Sam: Yeah. And that affects...
Maximiliano: ...that affects... that affects weather.
Sam: Weather. So, re... like last sort of 20 years is like have constantly been sort of high like increasing frequency of like severe weather event, extreme weather. Um, so like things like hurricanes and that sort of stuff. Um, what we're see... what's obviously, I'm like... I'm a second-year student, so I'm not going to pretend to be an expert from what my... from what I learned from my lectures. Um, so more extreme weather events, and that's going to cause... that's like that's just going to cause like more economic damage, interrupts that... like that'll interrupt things like trade and stuff like that.
Maximiliano: Yeah, I'm all about that.
Sam: Because that... like that's my focus.
Maximiliano: Yeah.
Sam: How will that interrupt trade? Because that's...
Maximiliano: So, this is this is my opinion. I know I know many people are against this type of... but like like in my opinion for everything there's a market. Okay.
Sam: Yeah. No, that's true. I agree.
Maximiliano: Very typical economics student.
Sam: Yeah. No, I agree with that as well.
Maximiliano: But the markets move people. So, that's that's... or markets are people.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: So, when we talk about a movement in the market, it's a move in the interest of the people.
Sam: Mhm.
Maximiliano: Okay. So, when you say it's going to interrupt markets, you're saying it's going to interrupt the regular wants and and needs from people. That's how an economist would would see that. So, when you're saying, yeah, okay, this current is going to u... I don't know, let's say international trade...
Sam: For some reason.
Maximiliano: ...then that disrupts everything between Europe and America. Yeah. You know, because it disrupts the market, and therefore...
Sam: It won't obviously won't be like directly because, oh, the war... it's not like, oh, the water's too warm, we can't drive our ship through it. Um, there's like going to be knock-on effects. So, I think what a lot of you have to look at is like how will this weather event affect... like you might have to look at how would it affect people. So, what's going on in with the like the north... like north co... north northwest coast, northeast, sorry, in like east coast...
Maximiliano: I'm guessing this is what happens economically.
Sam: Maybe, maybe. I'm I'm wrong, but you can you can jump in at any point.
Maximiliano: So, uh, basically, the waters get colder, then fish don't want to stay there.
Sam: No, this is... I'm not... I'm not... I'm not talking about because what I'm... the cooling, this is affects weather. So, you know how like we've had what like the UK's had like two um summers where we've reached had a 40° degree... 40° degree like day in the summer.
Maximiliano: Yeah.
Sam: What that is is that's interruption of this thing called the polar vortex, which is cold air that sort of circulates around the north pole, and then under it should be um like under it should be like like the sort of w... like warm... like warmer layers as it goes to further close to the equator.
Maximiliano: Yeah.
Sam: Um, what this like the the ocean cooling is doing is it stop... stops like hot air... like hot air rising into the atmosphere as much. And so this is like in break... like breaking the polar vortex, and so that's causing like... um hot air to... some years, hot air to re... go f... much further north in the summers. And so... but it's not... it's not regular, it's irregular. And so this causes like... like weather... like causes anomalies in weather. This is going... I mean, this is more going into like meteorology, which is what I'm not so... in... like don't know much about...
Maximiliano: But...
Sam: ...that's crazy, man.
Maximiliano: Yeah. So, where I sort of look at it more is because I want to do like sort of coastal management. I did um my like independent project at A-level was based off of coastal management, and so it was like...
Sam: What does that entail?
Maximiliano: So coastal management is effectively... I mean, this is sort of where you might be a bit more interested. It's effectively um just protecting economic interest on the coastline.
Sam: I... so... um what I did was I looked at how...
Maximiliano: I think I think I like you right now. So I when I...
Sam: Stay in touch. So what I did was... um I did a project basically... it was investigating how the construction of the brigh... the marina in Brighton on the south coast of England um interrupts... interrupts the movement of sediment down the coastline and how that has built up the beach in front of Brighton, but has then starved the coastline of sediment further like further down the coast. Um, but what this is... but um it's quite... quite crazy actually. Like basically, I... on the... to the west of the marina, there's all the urban development of Brighton.
Maximiliano: Okay. Wait, wait, wait, wait. You got to you got to speak in plain English for for a...
Sam: Okay. Sorry.
Maximiliano: ...for a guy who didn't pass biology. Okay. Like I'm not...
Sam: To make it very simple.
Maximiliano: Yeah.
Sam: What's... what's a marina in order?
Maximiliano: Uh...
Sam: To make basic, a harbor. Harbor. But they built a harbor. But um let's put very simply, to the west, because of where the marina's been constructed, the... like this has caught... like all the sand and pebbles that get moved up and down the coast by the sea, and so they've all built up on the beach in front of Brighton. So, this is a great natural um coastal defense that will basically just stop Brighton from falling into the sea effectively. Means that all the economic interests there like they're protected. But to the east of the marina, because all of the sand and the pebbles and the rocks have been... have been held up and built up on the beach there because they can't get past the marina, the other side to the east, there's... there's no sediment. The beach can be 200... like by the marina, the beach is probably about 200 from from the shore to up to the cliff. It's about 200 meters wide. Um, go fire... like 200 meters down the coast, other side of the marina, it can be 10 meters wide, and so because there's just no sediment.
Maximiliano: So, wait, something like what happens in Weston-super-Mare, where like the beach is like unending?
Sam: Yeah, Weston... it just never ends. Well, that's... that's one of our case studies, and so because um it's a Severn estuary. It's like that... it's like the third highest tidal range in the world, which means that high tide it's like the rate... like the difference between the water level high tide to low tide. At Weston-super-Mare it's about 10 meters. So, the water level at high tide when it's right up at the top of the beach is 10 meters higher than it is at low tide when it's like a mile away, because the water... because so much water just drains out of the Severn estuary. But um...
Maximiliano: But...
Sam: ...that's because of the sediment basically.
Maximiliano: No, this is... this is just like the tidal range. But what...
Sam: But that's... that's basically what happens.
Maximiliano: Yeah. Um, so what's sort of... so what's happened at Weston-super-Mare is because there's like the Severn estuary and then like there's loads of energy coming in and out of that channel. But because Weston-super-Mare is around the side, there's no energy over here, which has caused all of the sediment that's sort of... that's floating in the water to sort of trick around and then settle on the beach there. And so, that's why when you go really far out and like when you like Weston, it's quite a muddy beach. It's not like nice fine sand. This is because all... because there's such little energy that all the tiny little... like the bits of mud, like the... the like the microscopic particles... like there's such little energy that these particles are able to settle. Whereas if you go a mile north to Hope Cove, which is... you got Weston-super-Mare, Sand Bay, and then like there's like the point... there's like the... the Headland just on the other side of the headlands, this tiny little beach called Hope Cove, and that's all like large rocks, like big pebbles, and that's because all the sediment... there's... there's so much energy in the Severn estuary that the sediment can't settle. And so it gets carried by the water and out into the sea. And a lot of it... like is then sort of dropped round to the side, and it's all... like all settles down. And so you got very... like tiny sediment around where there's no energy, and you've only got the really big rocks around where there's the high energy, because those are the only bits that are heavy enough to sit down... to settle on the beach, because otherwise they get carried away.
Maximiliano: I can tell that you like this.
Sam: I do. Yeah.
Maximiliano: Yeah, you love it. You...
Sam: Coast. That's like... coast is the like the stuff I really like.
Maximiliano: So...
Sam: This guy... this guy like...
Maximiliano: You guys are just listening the podcast. You're...
Sam: I'm like a big nerd about...
Maximiliano: ...missing a lot of stuff, because like when I've been...
Sam: This guy be like talking with like eyes open.
Maximiliano: Yeah.
Sam: Yeah, but I've been... like I've been... um when I've surfed like the last 10 years of my life, so I've always like been really... like just the sea's just always been a really big part of my life. I've always been very interested in it.
Maximiliano: Me too. Me too. Well, not... not for so long, though, but I did a trip only for surfing. So, yeah. No, it was good. Yeah, it was a month. So, it was lovely.
Sam: Where'd you go?
Maximiliano: Uh, Peru.
Sam: Oh, that would have been...
Maximiliano: Northern... northern coast, because I went like at the end of the of the season. So, I had to like chase it.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: To like go for 15 days. I surfed and then...
Sam: Oh, that's sick.
Maximiliano: ...I entered to the jungle of Peru.
Sam: Oh, really? What is that? Is that like the Amazon, or is that? Yeah.
Maximiliano: Yeah. That's... that's cool. Yeah. I went to the capital of the Amazon region.
Sam: Oh, really?
Maximiliano: Stayed there for three months because COVID hit when I was there.
Sam: Well, I mean, that's better than what I had. I was just stuck in my room in... back in...
Maximiliano: Slight. I don't know. I don't know. I think... you you're away from home, though, aren't you? Different things teach you different stuff.
Sam: Yeah, I guess so. So, for example, in my opinion, something that you guys had to do, had to deal with... that... people stayed in the rooms... is how to be alone and...
Maximiliano: Yeah.
Sam: ...how to be okay while being alone, or how to manage yourself.
Maximiliano: I'd say it's probably the other way around. I think people my age who were at school during lockdown, it's not learning how to be alone, it's coming back and learning how to be around people. That was such... that was so difficult for so many people.
Sam: Both... the thing is in... in my opinion, this is what I see. So like when I see my... my brother is four years younger, so he was in lockdown.
Maximiliano: Yeah. Okay.
Sam: How old are you?
Maximiliano: Uh, 20.
Sam: Yeah. Just around your age.
Maximiliano: Okay. Yeah.
Sam: So, um, what I see in him is that he has a huge capacity of being alone and doing his own thing. Who's... he's completely okay with like literally doing his own thing. Now the skill that you guys have to develop, which is the most difficult skill in my opinion to... to develop anyway... is how to deal with people.
Maximiliano: Yeah. That's a learnable ability. Like, it's an ability.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Maximiliano: But you already learned what you should learn at 30 or like what other generations used to learn when they were 30, 40... when they had the midlife crisis.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: You know, "Oh my god, I suddenly wake up in this mess where I'm married, have three children, I don't know how to be with myself."
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: And you don't know what you want.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: You probably won't have that problem. Your generation won't.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: Just because you already learned what you like, what you don't like.
Sam: Yeah. I guess probably might... that regulation you already have.
Maximiliano: Have... just have some experience of just like...
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: ...yeah. Just doing it already, I guess.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: So, so don't worry about it. Like you... you'll get along very, very easily. But how? So, yeah. And going back to the topic, how do you... so I know you love the ocean because you were surfing the whole time, but like what's the... what made you go from, okay, I like surfing... to I want to pursue this in a theoretical manner?
Sam: It wasn't... well no, this is where I've got... this is where I've got... this is where I've got to come clean. Like my mom is a geography teacher... and then... and my dad also did do a geography degree.
Maximiliano: Your life.
Sam: So... no, but... but I was never... I was never like... I was never told like, "Oh, this is what you've got to do."
Maximiliano: This guy does not care about this biology, this...
Sam: This... I was brought... but I was brought up with it like...
Maximiliano: You do not care about your degree, man.
Sam: No, no. I actually do. Like, honestly, I do get... so like the ocean, like the... like coastal process, I get... I do find it absolutely fascinating. I'm so interested in it. But yeah, like I was...
Maximiliano: When I see you talking, you're like very passionate about... you really like it.
Sam: Yeah, I can actually get... I mean, if you want to talk to me about like I don't know, like socioeconomics, I just... I'll turn off, mate. But like... but like... um like sort of physical geography, coastal processes, like I just... I just find it really fascinating. But I mean, I've just always been like one... like I've just always been taught about it. Like, I sort of just like... we could just be out and about, like on a hike, and my parents would like... we... like they'd point something out and explain it. So, they'd be like, we might... might be like sort of hiking in like wherever I might... I think say like went to like Snowdonia when I like... man, Snowdon when I was little, and they'll say like... um oh, see that over there or that cliff that's just got loads of rubble going down the side? They'll be like, oh, that's a scree slope. And then like what a scree slope is is it's basically... cracks... loads of little cracks in a cliff. Water gets into those cracks. In the winter, it freezes, it expands the cracks. The rocks break off. Big load of like cliff face break... it breaks off, and then you've just got this like slope of shattered rubble down the side of a mountain. And like... but like they sort of like... I might have been like six years old, and they'd point out and explain it to me. So, I think...
Maximiliano: I'm guessing then you had like a very good childhood.
Sam: Yeah. I know. I mean...
Maximiliano: Sounds like an incredible childhood. Like all your questions were answered.
Sam: Yeah. And I mean, anything to do with like, oh, what... what's that? Why has that happened? Like my mom... my mom and my dad would know.
Maximiliano: So your mom and your dad are rock guys.
Sam: Uh, my dad's... my... my dad is a rock guy. He's a rock... I went... I did...
Maximiliano: Oh, we did like a field trip to Sicily like two years ago of school to go to go...
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: ...to go like basically was for volcanoes, to go like see volcanoes. So went to Mount Etna, and like I like we went up Mount Etna and I like picked up I got a rock and I brought it back for my dad like I pulled it out for him when I got home and he literally like jumped and he was like oh no way that's so sick. Like, oh my god, that's so lame.
Sam: No, it's not. But like... like it's like the... like I think honestly think like probably one of the best gifts I've got him was like... was like a piece of volcanic... off of a volcano. He was so excited by it.
Maximiliano: This is for all the girls that don't know what to... uh gift their boyfriends. Okay, there we go. This is... this is literally it. Either a rock, a sword, or a cake.
Sam: That's kind of true, actually. I can't even lie. I was about to sort of sit and be like, "Nah." But he said rock and sword, and I'd be like, "Ah, to be fair."
Maximiliano: If you think about it, look, think about it. If I got given a cool rock... if I'd given a cool... like if someone... like a cool rock, like some say someone wants like... I don't know, some obsidian or some...
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: ...like what dude wouldn't like that?
Sam: Yeah. 'Cuz it's like you've had to have like sort of gone a bit... gone out of your way to find that as well and think like, oh, he'd find this cool.
Maximiliano: Now, next present, a sword.
Sam: Or...
Maximiliano: Metal sword, like a heavy one.
Sam: I had a mate who...
Maximiliano: Double... double-handed.
Sam: Yeah. I had a mate um who... he know he bought... he got one. What the? He... um for his like for his like I think it was his 18th, he got one commissioned... like like he went to a blacksmith and got a... got a like broadsword commissioned for him.
Maximiliano: You know what's really funny? I would have been a blacksmith.
Sam: Really?
Maximiliano: I would have been a blacksmith, but...
Sam: That... like to be fair, like blacksmith sort of just like... it's kind of like the...
Maximiliano: I would have been a blacksmith.
Sam: It's like the sort of like peak like male like fantasy of like, oh, what can I do that's like the coolest thing ever? Make swords and like...
Maximiliano: This is this is not a joke. I actually applied for it.
Sam: Really?
Maximiliano: I actually applied for one. I went... so, uh, in Santiago, in Chile...
Sam: Yeah. Yeah.
Maximiliano: This is like uh South of Santiago, that...
Sam: Are you from Santiago?
Maximiliano: Yeah.
Sam: Oh, okay. It's the capital, isn't it?
Maximiliano: Yeah.
Sam: Say geography guy.
Maximiliano: Yeah. There you go. So, I'm actually pretty good at... at... at naming countries in a map. So, like... we can we can compete in that. Okay.
Sam: Yeah, we can we can do that. Um...
Maximiliano: So, uh yeah, basically, this is a zone where it's like all the hippie guys and like so on, but there's also like cool things like blacksmiths and like people who do things by hand and...
Sam: Like all the hippie guys plus a blacksmith. That's kind of sounds like Bristol. I can't lie.
Maximiliano: A little bit. Yeah. Yeah. It's like the thing is, Santiago is such a huge city.
Sam: Yeah. Like so much bigger than...
Maximiliano: It's five times London. So, really, in... Yeah. Uh, five times... uh, inner London or like the first ring or like the actual city of London.
Sam: Not all the... regions that... do you mean like sort of like you talking just like the bar... the bars or just the city? Because the city of London's like a thousand people, like the... the little like the... because the...
Maximiliano: Oh, no, no, no, no. What I mean is like the... the actual region where the houses are.
Sam: Oh, so like the... the urban sprawl.
Maximiliano: Yeah, the urban sprawl.
Sam: The urban sprawl. Yeah. So, that's just like where... where there's development. So, from like the towns that come with... and they say that, oh, yeah, I'm from London. Yeah. That's like... that's like me and Isaac, like, ah yeah, bro, from London. No, from like... and Haract... like if I meet... if I meet someone from Australia, I'll just be like, yeah, I'm from London, mate, don't even worry about it. But like if I'm... if I meet someone like... someone in England, I'll sort of say, oh, I'm like I live in a town like just not for London, cuz if they say, oh, right, we're in London, I'll be like, yeah, not actually, bro. So, you know, but yeah, okay, sorry.
Maximiliano: No, no. So, basically, it's like five times something. So, it's huge. It's a huge city... big big-ass city, and like it just goes on end and on end and on end. So, there's this area that let's call it Bristol area.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: Um, where there's like this blacksmith, and I used to go to a hippie school. Yeah.
Sam: My last two years.
Maximiliano: Okay. So, I actually said, you know what? Let me see what... like what would happen if I would just like check it out, you know, just check it out. And... and I asked, and there were political issues at that time in Chile.
Sam: Okay.
Maximiliano: There were a lot of protests and so on. It was like the biggest protest in the world apparently.
Sam: Okay.
Maximiliano: Like a million people on the streets, right?
Sam: Yeah. It was crazy.
Maximiliano: Oh, okay. Um...
Sam: What's the population of Santiago?
Maximiliano: About 7 million.
Sam: Okay. So, it's like... sort of like 15% of the city was out on the streets.
Maximiliano: Literally. Oh, my god. I never thought about that. But yeah, it was... it was a big-ass demonstration. Anyways, so... and apparently for... to be a blacksmith, you have to come up with a test yourself. So, you want to... when you apply, you want to say, okay, I want to apply and then I want my senior project, so to say, to be this. And then you become that, a blacksmith, within a year or two years or whatever. They tell you to... you know, I don't... I don't remember. It's about one or two years, and you work for them basically for free.
Sam: Yeah. Okay.
Maximiliano: And...
Sam: Is it like an apprenticeship?
Maximiliano: Yeah, it's literally an apprenticeship, but less... uh less structured, right?
Sam: Okay.
Maximiliano: Because there's no more... just like...
Sam: Yeah. Can you do it?
Maximiliano: Yeah. Can you... like can you actually forge or not? Like that's basically it. Nobody cares.
Sam: But then, like bro, but I'm here to learn how to do that.
Maximiliano: Yeah, literally.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: So... so the guy told me, I'm sorry, but to create uh swords and so on, you got to get another permit.
Sam: Oh, cuz it's weapons.
Maximiliano: Because it's weapons. And... currently, they're probably not going to give you one for like two years.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: Because there was a state of... there was a military state. Oh. Um... exception state at that time. So the military were on the streets, and they were like...
Sam: Oh, it's just like martial law.
Maximiliano: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. It was like a bad situation.
Sam: Yeah. It wasn't like... not not like, oh yeah, we're just like a little bit angry, going to go and like... like say our prime minister's fat. Like no, like this is like near civil war sort of thing. Uh I think there wasn't a civil war only because there was like... uh there was no leader to the movement, to say.
Maximiliano: Oh, okay. Anyways, so that's why I didn't became a... a blacksmith. Anyways, going back to the present now. What about a homemade cake?
Sam: The thing with a homemade cake as well is it's like the... think about it. I mean, like you've got... like that's like... just making food for someone in general. That's just like... there's not really like a way that you... a better way to sort of just like express that you actually care about someone and feel like you're... like I mean...
Maximiliano: Hey, a sword.
Sam: True.
Maximiliano: Wait, wait, wait a second. Yeah, but I mean just from like... but from a perspective, just like showing someone that you like really... like truly care about them, like the best thing that you can do is give... is feed them, because it's like I'm providing you sustenance. Like, I'm doing something for you. Like they're going there... like I mean, my mom like makes me a cake for my birthday every year, and she like homemakes it. So, for like my 20th, drove down to Bristol the day before my birthday and brought it to me. And it was just like... it's like... but it's like the... there's like no... I don't even sort of like... think like, oh, she's going to do that, like sort of forget, and then she sort of turns up with it, and it's just like, oh my god, it's just like someone showing you how much they care about you, because it's like they've got to go through such time and effort to not only make the cake, but make sure that it's good, and makes... make... sorry, make... so that it's something that they want to be satisfied with the quality of it, because they... they want to show you how much they care about you... and like the effort that they've put in.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: So, yeah. So that's my... that's my thing that... that's in my opinion those three things.
Sam: Sword's pretty cool, though. What can I say?
Maximiliano: Yeah.
Sam: And a... and a cool rock. Yeah.
Maximiliano: And a cool rock, mate.
Sam: Well, I mean, like best birthday would be like block of obsidian, like a big sword, and a homemade cake. Like that would actually be...
Maximiliano: Oh, my god. That would be like the perfect present, mate.
Sam: That would be so good.
Maximiliano: That would be such a... Oh, my god. Imagine. Oh, imagine having...
Sam: Imagine being able to say to your mates, "Oh, what'd you get for your birthday?" "Oh, my girlfriend got me a cool rock. My dad got me a sword. My mom made me a homemade cake."
Maximiliano: Mate, that's I think that's like the biggest flex.
Sam: That would be like... that's like...
Maximiliano: That would be like the biggest flex ever. Like... like you are in that moment, you are the richest man in the world.
Sam: Amen to that.
Maximiliano: Yeah.
Sam: Amen to that.
Maximiliano: Oh, yeah, but just imagine that you would get that for like... I mean, I would feel like a... first of all, I would feel like a gladiator.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: Then I would feel like an emperor holding the rock.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: Because it's kind of like the... the king, like the orb and the...
Sam: Oh, my god. It would be the same thing, man.
Maximiliano: Yeah.
Sam: And then, I don't know, you feel loved.
Maximiliano: Yeah. Exactly. It was just like someone just like... like the...
Sam: Respect, power, and love.
Maximiliano: Yeah. All in the same.
Sam: That is like...
Maximiliano: So that's how you got into liking geography, basically loving what your parents taught you.
Sam: Yeah. Well, it's what I've been brought up with, really. I mean, um, and it's like them sort of having so much like... like they... like like and them... that's like in a... in a way is them like expressing love for me and my sister as their children is by like ensuring that... like just like giving us knowledge, basically, and like giving us a foundation, like, and it's like sort of a mental foundation to sort of build off of for our life. Like, where... like wherever you go with that. I mean, like even if I never did like a geography degree, at least I'd know, like, oh, don't buy a house on the east coast, cuz it's going to fall into the sea in five years.
Maximiliano: So, yeah, them two things, man. I mean, I got to say, are you a believer... in... God?
Sam: In in God? Um, that's a difficult question. I'm about to quote the Bible, so that's... that's fine. Yeah, that's totally fine.
Maximiliano: Oh, no, no, I know. It's fine. It's my...
Sam: Yeah, obviously. Yeah. Sorry. I don't want to impose it.
Maximiliano: No, no, no. But yeah, I mean, I was sort of like... I don't... I sort of just don't really know, but I'm not... I'm not going to be a person who sits here and says, like, "Oh, I think it's nothing." I think sort of being like adamantly atheist is almost a bit of a sort of... it's very pessimistic. I don't... I don't understand, like, oh, the best the best uh thing that that I would say is I just wouldn't want to live in a world where God doesn't exist.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah.
Maximiliano: It's just... imagine there's nothing, and nothing created nothing, which is already weird.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: So... there's got... there's a cause for everything. You mean like... I don't... I think...
Sam: Yeah. But there was nothing from the beginning. So nothing made something, and then from then onwards.
Maximiliano: Yeah. Yeah. Anyways...
Sam: But I sort of agree with that, like the... I think um to look at it as like, oh, there's absolutely nothing out there, it's just like... I think it's a bit depressing, really. It's kind of like... because then it's... if you look at life that way, it's very easy to then fall into, oh, like nothing matters to the point of like why she's like doing a thing. I think... I wouldn't ne... I'm not going to necessarily like say like, oh, like I'm a Christian. I wouldn't... I don't... I think that would probably be like fairly disingenuous and dis... I wouldn't... I feel like it would probably be disrespectful to people who are like dedicated to... to their faith. But um I think that... like... like there's something. I don't know what it is, but you know...
Maximiliano: Yeah. I mean, I I encourage everybody to study a holy book. It doesn't matter which one.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: Um you end up knowing which one is the true...
Sam: Yeah. Yeah.
Maximiliano: ...at the end. Uh I mean, if if if it actually... if it's actually real... or Christianity and so on, let's say Christianity, then you will know once you once you actually study it. So like that's that's my... you learn even if you don't like believe it like as the word is like the stories in the... I mean, I've read like bits... have you read the Bible?
Sam: I've not read the whole thing, but I've read little bits of it, and like you still like every... like every story in the Bible, it's not... it's not what this sort of what my mom tells me, because she's... she was brought up Catholic, and so she's like... I don't think she doesn't say... she wouldn't say that she believes in it, but what she told me is that... um every story in the Bible is the purpose of every story is to teach you something. There's a... there's like a moral to every story. I mean, like a really... like a really easy one to look at is the Good Samaritan. The whole point of it is like it's literally just a... you like you hate someone because they're from another country. Don't do that. Like and then it's like there's someone who is in...
Maximiliano: Yeah.
Sam: ...need. They've been attacked, and it's... but it's like it's the person who like is supposedly to... I know it's like obviously the Samaritan, but I don't... I don't know where the other bloke was from, but I do know that they were from like two... like nations or whatever that were enemies, or but it was the man who was supposedly the enemy that helped the man in need, and the man in need was left by three of his own like sort of his countrymen per se. And so it is just to say like it's sort of just like a... like just don't judge a book by its cover effectively, of just like that.
Maximiliano: Yeah. And just treat people how you want to be treated, and just like... it's effectively just... oh, I think it's like just teaching you to be a good person.
Sam: A good... uh studier from the Bible said... the reason why you should uh treat people how you want to be treated, it's not because you have to treat people with respect, but it's because you have to learn how you want to be treated.
Maximiliano: How would you like to be treated?
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: Which is more difficult than treating the other person just as you wish.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah. So, so that's that's actually... I've never thought about that way, but that is that is true. Yeah. You have to learn how do you want to be treat, and then you treat people like that.
Maximiliano: Oh, my goodness. That is the best advice I've had. And it's the best advice on leadership, actually, that I've heard.
Sam: It wasn't on leadership, but that's, you know...
Maximiliano: ...yeah, but it sort of feed into the same style.
Sam: It just feel... yeah.
Maximiliano: Oh, my goodness. So good. Well, uh I don't remember which code I was going to... to to do, but yeah. Well, anyways, um so I really want to go into one particular topic, which is very a very specific one. So I know I know if you don't know how to answer then just please say so.
Sam: Mhm.
Maximiliano: But so I've heard about different things about the environment, okay, and how to uh how to help the environment in different areas, you know. Uh I've heard about the project of the Green Wall, uh which is a great project. They're underfunded, so please if you guys could go to uh the Green Wall project and donate a little bit of money, please do. Great project.
Sam: What is the Green Wall?
Maximiliano: Oh, um it's basically the... train to the Sahara is expanding.
Sam: The...
Maximiliano: Sahara Desert.
Sam: Sahara Desert is expanding.
Maximiliano: It's expanding.
Sam: Mhm.
Maximiliano: And what they're doing is creating a green... literally a green wall through Africa.
Sam: Oh, okay.
Maximiliano: West to east... to west... to stop... to prevent the spread of Sahara.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: So they create... they put basically trees and like... trees, plants, and like they dug... dig earth in a particular way...
Sam: Mhm.
Maximiliano: ...which they want create soil... half-moons or something like that, so that when the rain comes, then it stays within that bit... in that half-moons, and then therefore the desert doesn't expand southwards.
Sam: Well, that the Sahara is... well, I guess it's the... the largest physical example of... um dune succession, and if the Sahara is expanding, that... what about dune succession? Which is... I mean, I would look at it in a... like a coastal context, but it'll be the same thing.
Maximiliano: What... what would... what would that mean?
Sam: Well, so from what you've explained about the green wall, what that... what it sounds like they're doing is... well, you're saying like... chain... like working with the earth, that sounds like it's to... like make fertile soil, because vegetation...
Maximiliano: Create...
Sam: Yeah. Like vegetation, um... it like... it... it's very good.
Maximiliano: It's humid.
Sam: Yeah. Like... it holds sediment in play. I'm just sort of looking at this as very like physical geography, but yeah. Sorry, sorry. I can't look... I can't really like explain it in like a hum... sort of like a... like human economic context.
Maximiliano: Don't worry, mate. Don't worry, mate. It's...
Sam: Yeah, but um yeah, it's just... it... it sounds like um... sorry, you're going to have to remind me the question. I've just got on moan. It's like trainer for a lost. No, go on.
Maximiliano: So you said something about dunes and... dune succession. What does that mean?
Sam: Well, that's like... that's just... um it's growth of sand dunes effectively, is... like... like sand from source, it sort of spreads further out. Um, if... like the S... if the Sahara is expanding, that's like winds blowing... the sand towards the equator. So if they're trying to make a green wall, that is just... ba... that's just be a band of vegetation that's going to capture that sediment.
Maximiliano: Okay.
Sam: Um, and like sort of... and that... that capture sediment, stop it spreading any further, which you know... but um I like... but that's... this is like what vegetation does, because it's like it's... it's like it's sort of increasing surface area, surface tension, and that's what allows that sort of... like allow the dune to build up at where that vegetation is and stop it from going further back. So like what happens with dune succession is you get... like you have a beach and then you'll get right at the front you get what are called pioneer species. So they're very tiny, very... like... like small plant species. Um, what that does is that will... like this vegetation, it's what it does is it... it like... uh blocks the... blocks wind... and so it... um like absorbs the energy of the wind, and so reducing the energy of the wind allows sediment that's being carried by... like by the air... called aeolian processes is like the specific term... but this sediment... slows the air down, allows sediment to settle. Little sand particles will gather around these plants. That slows down the air, allowing bigger plants to grow behind, and then the same process is sort of... ex... kind of exponential, but it develops, and so gradually, bigger plants can grow further back, which... which collect more sand. Um like this... traps more sand... creates bigger... like the dunes get bigger, bigger plants can then settle in... um catches more sediment.
Maximiliano: I remember seeing uh a whole video about it, an hour-and-a-half video. So, I I just investigate... because uh well, I like to give to charity. So whenever... whenever I can, I I just try to give to charity or to a good project.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah.
Maximiliano: And... and I thought that was a very... very good environmental project. That does make sense also because if the... rainforests are... it's like central Africa and the Amazon...
Sam: Um, if we lose those... I mean, what's... is like, are you too fussed about swearing on this podcast, or is it not like...
Maximiliano: It's all right, no.
Sam: Yeah, basically, to put in layman's terms, if we lose like the rainforest, especially in central Africa and the Amazon...
Maximiliano: Why? Cuz I remember I remember hearing when I was growing up and like in school hearing... the Amazon... the Amazon, the rainforest are the lungs of the earth. But it's not right. It's more like the central system.
Sam: That's what I heard in a documentary. So the... the ocean is the actual lungs of the earth... and the... in the uh the... the rainforest like the central system...
Maximiliano: So, it regulate the rhythm actually.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's what's happening now with... um that's why deforestation is actually such a huge issue. People look at it and...
Maximiliano: What is it then? What is it that the rainforest does?
Sam: The... rainforest... um it's the water cycle. So, because the rain... because there's so much vegetation...
Maximiliano: Contain English, please.
Sam: Sorry. Sorry. So, it's... it's basically like it's just like water effectively, like movement of water supply.
Maximiliano: Are we... what does that contain? What... what does that mean for...
Sam: ...um what happen? So, what happens with the rainforest is every day, like... um the sun like heats the ground, heats the plants, heats the vegetation. This causes water to evaporate... um becomes um...
Maximiliano: clouds...
Sam: ...like it becomes clouds in the air, and then it rains. But because this is... because like... because there's so much vegetation, this happens daily. There's a constant supply of rain. But then, what's happening in the Amazon is because so much is being deforested, we're now... um like the... this... this cycle of evaporation and rain daily is becoming interrupted. So, less water is evaporating, and so there's like each day there's going to be less water evaporating and less raining.
Maximiliano: Why is that a problem? I don't... I don't understand how that actually affects us, because, well, we're in England.
Sam: Well...
Maximiliano: Aren't the oceans a little bit bigger? So that the... the...
Sam: I mean, this is where you'd have to ask one of my lecturers. Like it's sort of... um why is it important? Why the Amazon is important in partic... or why any rainforest is important... um... why do you reckon, at least?
Maximiliano: Well, it's just you know, it's the sort of like the... the life of the earth is like... it's... everything is connected in the system of the earth. It's... we have individual ecosystems, but the whole planet is one... is one... is one ecosystem. And every... the one thing what I can say is that... every stage of every earth process is connected to some point. And so if one stage is in... is heavily impacted, that's going to interrupt... that's going to interrupt the cycle... and that's going to... it's going to change the cycle. It's going to cause irregularities. I don't... I... if I'm business, I can't specifically tell you why... like like sorry, Richard, like I probably should know this or told my... to my lectures, but they won't be very happy...
Sam: Going to rent you.
Maximiliano: ...they are going to... they won't be very happy with youing... kill you right now.
Sam: Yeah. But like, you know, like everything's interconnected, so if like... if one huge... just sink of and like... like extreme concentration of like... of species and just life... like deforest... like we're losing the forest, there's going to be everything. Yeah. But because... because we're having... because the... the cycle is being interrupted and they're getting less rain, there's less water like going through the Amazon daily, and so like there's now not enough water. So, it's... it's causing a positive feedback loop where there's now not enough supply for the vegetation. So, more vegetation is going to die off. We lose more... then there's going to be less again... less rain, because less evaporation, less water supply, and then that's leading into like savannorization, and it's becoming... it's becoming grassland. And so, now... right, it's just... it's like we lo... like losing biodiversity, which you know it's just...
Maximiliano: A huge problem. Yeah. It's so... I mean, this is like... if you didn't... I'm not... like I've just... I don't want to say like I'm not the person who should be like... don't get me up on a stage and campaign, like all I can say is it's just like...
Sam: You better prepare for that. Don't worry.
Maximiliano: Yeah. Yeah. But it's...
Sam: They all prepare for it.
Maximiliano: Yeah, I know. But... I think it's all just knowledge that you have on top of the top of your head. So I'm asking as well, so don't worry. But... um this is what I'm... uh this is what I'm thinking. This is how I explain it to myself, okay?
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: So, do you know the gravity... the gravity plane? Have you seen that in like physics?
Sam: Uh, what is that?
Maximiliano: Studying physics. Do you remember, like in... in school?
Sam: No.
Maximiliano: You studied physics and they did like...
Sam: My physics lessons mostly involved of like getting filament light bulbs really hot and then burning each other with them. So, fair enough.
Maximiliano: Yeah. Didn't do a lot of work, and I gave up when I was 16. So... look, I mean, I didn't pass a single class in physics, and I had six years...
Sam: Oh, fair enough.
Maximiliano: ...physics. So, don't worry, mate.
Sam: Fair enough.
Maximiliano: But what I remember is... um probably from this not even... from school, mate. This is from like videos afterwards. But basically, you got to imagine uh gravity as like a net, okay? Mhm. And then you put like centers of gravity, like the sun.
Sam: Yeah. And is this a thing where then that creates like a... it's a dip in the net, and things circle around that?
Maximiliano: So, what I'm imagining, which is cutting... cutting uh things like the rainforest... would be like cutting the sun in two... and just taking half of it. Yeah. And it's just... it deregulates a whole rhythm, and therefore, like I don't know, the... probably the earth would like... just like shoot into another galaxy.
Sam: Yeah, that's probably the best way to put it.
Maximiliano: That's how I'm... thinking of. Or in the case of economics... Mhm. ...would be something like... I don't know, some country like the... corporation slashing half of their staff, and then expecting it to run in exactly the same way. A corporation would be too small for the... for the purpose of the... I think... it would be like, I don't know, some random country... printing a lot of dollars to... I don't know, bail out the banks... that lend too much mortgages, like in 2008... leading to a financial crisis that almost wiped out a third of the jobs in the world.
Sam: In the world. Yeah.
Maximiliano: But anyway, so like that could be a thing, or... something like... I don't know. Yeah. Or somebody just... stopped trading.
Sam: It's a stock market... like...
Maximiliano: ...like Trump is trying to do now. Um... no, no, nothing against Trump though, actually. No, no, no, no. Nothing against... nothing against Trump, because he's saying... do you remember what this is? Something that I got to say to... to Trump. He's actually doing what he said that he was going to do.
Sam: Right.
Maximiliano: He said he wanted to create more jobs in the US market. Yeah. Right? He's imposing tariffs everywhere.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: Therefore, everything is more expensive in the US.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: So every imported good...
Sam: ...is more expensive.
Maximiliano: But what he's not doing is he's not uh putting tariffs on primary goods... which is basically like petrol, or like cotton, or like stuff that you do things with... you know, so like nylon, and then you create that into a t-shirt. He's imposing tariffs on t-shirts... but not on...
Sam: ...not on the raw materials.
Maximiliano: Not on the raw materials. Therefore, he is going to start creating jobs on the long run...
Sam: Mhm.
Maximiliano: ...for the US. So although he's a dick...
Sam: Yeah. I mean that's the thing that...
Maximiliano: ...and he started a war in Iran to crank up the prices of...
Sam: ...oil.
Maximiliano: ...of oil... which actually uh make all imported goods to the US... costlier, which is good for what he's pursuing. But the problem is that the... the issue with that, the whole world, the problem with that is that's in an effort to enrich himself, or the campaign was proposed as beneficial to the American people. I mean, it is beneficial in the long run for the American people.
Sam: But his campaign was... was... was like his campaign was suggesting, oh, this is going to be... this is like it's going to take immediate effect. The immediate effect is that it's like effectively made the life of every... like will have made the life of like every American citizen more difficult. The... like the... the amount that it's made each person's life more difficult is gonna... is going to be different, and there are going to be... like there is a small minority that would have benefited, but that's the problem. That's a minority, and this campaign was for the majority.
Maximiliano: This is the problem uh for with economics. Any policy that you make...
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: ...takes at least at least four years to actually make an impact, a visual impact.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: So, for example... but I also specifically with him don't believe that that was like his primary motivator was to improve the lives. I feel like... I feel like for...
Sam: He's making everything possible to make the life of American people over the long run. I'm not... I'm not saying over the short period. For the short period, he's... messing up the world, first of all. He's making... yeah, he's... he's... he's... he's very dodgy in the way he does things. I'm not going to lie. But on... over the long term, and this is what Thatcher did as well in the UK... she's also... pro... like the most hated prime minister.
Maximiliano: Why?
Sam: Because over the short period is a very... very difficult political... is the same as what... what is good for economics. This is the thing that the... um... is political murder, the... after the things you like... the UK economy is better, but like... the damage...
Maximiliano: It's the fifth in the world.
Sam: ...it's the fifth in the world.
Maximiliano: ...is the fifth in the world, but the... only because of Thatcher's policy.
Sam: But there's a very small number of people who actually hold the majority of that wealth if you look... question...
Maximiliano: ...yeah, but I do disagree with that. Like, I'm going to say you have to look at the... I mean, my... my mom's... my mom's from Yorkshire. Like... like there's... like there's the... the north... the industrial northern industry was killed by that course. Completely killed. And the... like the lives... like I mean, this was like my mom... like grew up in the north under that. She saw like the amount of people lost their jobs. She... she still tells me a story of... this was during the indus... the de-industrialization of the north. She told me, in her town, there was like a textiles factory. There was like... I mean, most people in her school had at least one family member who worked there. Yeah. But there was one... there was like one family where like the mom, the dad, and like all... like all the adult adult kids, like were... and like aunts and uncles all worked in that factory, and they all lost their job when that factory closed. And that factory closed because of that... the economic policy. So it's like, yeah, like we are... I am... I am not saying, yeah... that it was an easy decision.
Sam: No, I don't... I... I'm not saying... I'm not saying it's an easy transition at all.
Maximiliano: Yeah.
Sam: I'm not saying that...
Maximiliano: In the... I understand what you're saying, and I also understand, I'm looking at it... thanks to that policy, the UK is the fifth economy in the world today. The minimum salary is £25,000. In Chile, in Chile, there's... it's four times less.
Sam: 5,000.
Maximiliano: Yeah, I guess so.
Sam: Yeah, it's 6,000. It's about... actually, four... it's about 400. 400 a month. That's the minimum salary, really.
Maximiliano: So, that's... I mean, that's probably what I earn, but I work eight hours a week.
Sam: Huh? I say like that's why I'm buying eight hours a week and that's them working for what, 40? Possibly more than that.
Maximiliano: Likely more than that. Yeah.
Sam: There we go. Like that's like... that is the... although it was a harsh transition... Mhm. ...not going to lie, it was one... it laid... it laid the... the road for the UK to be one of the top economies in the world.
Maximiliano: Yeah, that's true. And and that's... and that's a problem economically, and this is something that uh Keynes theorize about. Economically, doing the thing that is good is political murder. So, whatever the economy is doing, the government should do the opposite. So, when the economy is booming, you should tax a lot.
Sam: Nobody wants to get taxed.
Maximiliano: Yeah. When the economy is going down, you should tax very little.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: Everybody... all these down people want public service.
Sam: Public service. Yeah.
Maximiliano: And well, and that's what you should give as...
Sam: Yeah. But everybody wants people to get taxed more. People are working.
Maximiliano: Yeah.
Sam: So that's the problem. And that's what Thatcher did... tax a lot when the economy was up, and tax nothing when the economy was down. And but then uh the whole industry... and then I love...
Maximiliano: She did have like poll tax, though, which was just a per capita tax per head. Yeah. That wasn't... that didn't matter, like wasn't completely unaffected by the income. It was the same for everybody. And so like that was like, obviously, that was yet again super unpopular, because like why am I being taxed X, Y, Z, but I only earn at the time might have been like... might only earn back in the 80s maybe like 10 grand a year. Don't know, don't know, but say so and so. He was earning 20 grand a year... earning...
Sam: 15, 18. Yeah. I mean, like working in a factory in the 80s wouldn't... wouldn't have been a lot, but like... um yeah, so like I'm earning five grand a year, they're earning 10 grand a year, getting... getting the same... same on this tax, having to pay the same amount, because because of poll tax, like...
Maximiliano: No, that's...
Sam: ...but that's... that's the thing. Like doing the right thing...
Maximiliano: Yeah.
Sam: ...is the is political murder. It's completely unpopular.
Maximiliano: It's not unpopular, you will get killed and hated.
Sam: I mean, she is... I mean, yeah. I mean... look at what Trump is doing. He's laying up for, so to say, for the next generations, not for now. I'm not saying anything for now.
Maximiliano: Yeah.
Sam: And he also started a war, which is... messing other problem. Okay. I'm not... and he's supporting Israel, and he's... binging... bombing... thing like... look, nothing against... okay, I'm not going to get into geopolitics of the Middle East. I thought that's...
Maximiliano: But what he's doing, yeah, what he's doing, he's laying down the economy of the US currently.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: So that future generations have actual jobs, and that's completely unpopular. What is the US economy right now doing? It's booming. What is he doing? Getting tolls, getting taxes, taxing everything that's coming in.
Sam: Mhm.
Maximiliano: People don't like that.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: What would he do when the... the economy is down, like he did when he assumed office? He did in tax. He took money. He reduced gas tax.
Sam: He's one of the most hated presidents.
Maximiliano: Yeah. True.
Sam: But why? Because he lowered down the tax when the economy needed boom... needed to be booming.
Maximiliano: Yeah.
Sam: And higher the tax when it was booming.
Maximiliano: Yeah. In my mind. So, if you want to ignore the... like sort of humanitarian side, like objectively, economically, that's fine.
Sam: I'm not... I'm not saying... I'm not denying anything the humanitarian side...
Maximiliano: But this is what I'm saying.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: Anyways, back to... back to uh the... Oh, my goodness. Uh geography. My goodness. Geography. No, geography. Yeah. Too. Yeah. Why am I okay? I don't know why I tripped like... okay, fair.
Sam: That's right.
Maximiliano: I got a question that I've had regarding this type of systems, actually, which is... so the green wall would make sense.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: For what you know.
Sam: Yeah. From from what you've told me and what I know about dune succession, green wall would like would be a very good thing.
Maximiliano: Would it be good... and this is going to be a radical one...
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: ...to dump iron, oxidized iron in the beaches... in beaches? So that... because... okay, yeah, I'll explain more. Yeah, I have to explain... so that algae can grow. I've heard of... so I know economically it makes a lot of sense, okay? Uh uh algae farms and so on... reduce the amount of carbon dioxide that... if you feed them to cows, reduce in 30% the amount of car... carbon dioxide that they produce...
Sam: That they produce.
Maximiliano: Oh, okay. Uh on... they they produce less methane as well. It doesn't matter. Okay. There's like a lot of good things for that industry... reduction in um...
Sam: Mhm.
Maximiliano: ...but I want to know if that could be a good idea to basically create farms of algae so we get more oxygen, because algae is the plant that produces more oxygen... sorry... in the world, for what I know again.
Sam: Um, yeah.
Maximiliano: Well, I've never even heard about that to be for... before, to be fair. So...
Sam: Really?
Maximiliano: Yeah. It's the first time I've... I've learned about this. Um...
Sam: What do you reckon is... is the next steps then?
Maximiliano: Well, how can we improve the world? I mean, not stop it from dying, because I hate that. I hate that mentality. People are trying to stop. They're always trying to make you panic.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: I hate that. Also, it's like it's not... with the end of the day, it's the like... uh what good project could it... could it be made today? So, some a billionaire would like to do a great project, where should they dump their money on and why? I think...
Sam: Ocean matters.
Maximiliano: Yeah.
Sam: Yeah. I mean, the... the ocean is like the key. That's like... I mean, that's where sort of life on earth began as well. That is the source of it. So, um I'm not... I couldn't... I couldn't tell you if I... I just I wouldn't know, because I'm not... cuz I don't... I also don't want to like... I don't know enough about how each thing's going to... how... how it would affect... like I can't answer, like, oh, would putting a load of iron oxide on beaches be good for the environment? Because I didn't... I didn't even know that that was a thing in the first place that anyone was proposing.
Maximiliano: I know they tried it. I know they tried it in a small scale, though, but...
Sam: And did it... did it improve the... do you know if it had positive effects where they did do it, or do you know if it just didn't... was sort of null?
Maximiliano: The thing is, it had an... an improvement because they were trying to preserve a coral... coral...
Sam: Coral reefs.
Maximiliano: Coral reefs. Yeah. Well, that's...
Sam: That's um rising corresp... what... what would happen if you would do it in every coast, for example, which would be crazy to do?
Maximiliano: Yeah. I mean, I'm not, but it could be good.
Sam: I think the thing with coral reefs... for coral reefs, they are a natural coastal defense. So putting lots of iron on the beaches around coral reefs, that would... if you're saying that would encourage...
Maximiliano: Fertilizer, doesn't it?
Sam: Yeah. Yeah. Well, if that's going to encourage growth of algae, then that's going to... that's... then like that's... that's like a basically a source of nutrients for a dying ecosystem, because... um rising global temperatures is killing... is killing coral. And what that's doing is that's... um coral like protects a lot of coastlines, because it absorbs wave energy. And so by the time water reaches the beaches, like where there's coral, the wave energy has been dissipated. And so that like would have stopped... that stopped coastal erosion. So like going back to like what I was saying earlier with like the east coast in England, is there's no natural coastal defense, which is why there... there's nothing to break down that wave... like the... that wave energy. And so that's causing... that's causing the erosion of the coastline um because the high... it's high energy coast. It's the North Sea. So there's lots of storms, lots of energy in that... in that sea.
Maximiliano: Could you create a coral, then? Coral... coral...
Sam: Coral, you need... it needs... you need tropical water. It needs to be... coral needs to...
Maximiliano: ...but you couldn't create like a specific environment for...
Sam: You... that's what coastal defenses are. But the problem is that because... um like if you defend one area of a coastline, that's going to... like the objective that's always going to be like... build... like put something in to like basically promote... like help the beach build up in that area, build up sediment. But it just...
Maximiliano: Problem is, yeah, somewhere else there's going to be... there's going to be like... it's... there's a... there's always a positive, a negative, like for as much as something's going to be benefited, you got more sediment here, but now there's no sediment over there. So that... that bit of beach is... or... or wherever that bit of coastline is going to be... become loads worse. Um what do you think about terraforming, then? So what is terraforming for the audience, and then you can... you can actually look at the camera or explain what's terraforming.
Sam: Well, I mean, in one... what do you mean, like with Elon Musk saying he wants to terraform Mars, or...
Maximiliano: Well, Earth, because we're basically talking about terraforming the whole time.
Sam: Yeah, I guess so. Um... what is it? I mean, well, terra just means earth. So, terraforming, it's just like... having... I get... or sort of uh...
Maximiliano: Engineer the earth.
Sam: Yeah, I guess that... that's a good way to put it. Like I... don't... we like... we wouldn't look at... I think terraforming, that sounds to me like a very... what that would... sounds like that would be a blanket term for... I mean, I guess you could say... you could argue coastal management might be a form of terraforming. But terraforming, like I think that more... that's more in reference to like making a... like creating a livable environment...
Maximiliano: Like a planetary...
Sam: Yeah, so terraforming... that's like when you hear people talk about terraforming, that's like Elon Musk saying he wants to like... um sort of like grow trees on Mars and that sort of thing. So...
Maximiliano: I've actually heard it when I... when I was investigating this thing about... um algae and coastlines.
Sam: Okay.
Maximiliano: So, I heard it because it will have a global impact. So the question is like... so for example, if you...
Sam: I just... I just don't know. Like we don't cover that in my course or anything in school. So I just couldn't answer that properly, I don't think.
Maximiliano: So, yeah, I don't... I don't know. But I imagine... um it's sort of like if it's had a positive effect they've seen on a small scale, it's something that probably likely have a beneficial effect on a high scale. The issue is with anything is it's just getting funding for that.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: So, like same with that green... the green wall you're talking about, but it does sound like a very good project, but it's just...
Sam: It's just is there enough money to do that? Do enough people in the world care about it to make it happen?
Maximiliano: Wow.
Sam: And that's the issue.
Maximiliano: That's... that's the reason why I want to be rich to do all this like random projects. That would be like very beneficial.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: Just to try them out, really.
Sam: Just see what happens. If you're interested in it, that's quite a good thing, to be fair. I think... like something... something that I've... I've always wanted to do, because Chile has such a long coastline of coast... um I know there's a lot of... well, is I think the University of... University of Viña... it's one of the top... uh ocean biologist... bio... ocean biology... schools in the world. Something like that. So, I know they do like a lot of these type of projects.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: I've always been interested, therefore, in like the ocean.
Sam: That's... that's the thing with like... um with sort of... Cory's that gets into marine biology. That's like my... like physical geography. That's just like, oh, where does... that's basically, like, oh, there isn't any sand here. Where did it go? That's like... it's a bit like treasure hunt, but instead of finding the... instead of finding the chest in the sand, you're just finding the sand. That's sort of what it's like, and like explaining, like, oh, what's caused this to happen? So, um yeah, like what when I was telling about like Sam Bear... Weston-super-Mare, there's a huge salt marsh there that wasn't there 90 years ago, because... because the... the... um the positive feedback loop of... um deposition of sand, gradual... gradual deposition of growing up of those... the beaches on that coastline, is that they've now grown... they've grown so much that the beach is now so big that it can dissipate so much wave energy to the point that there's like... the... like literally, like we're talking about... we're talking about microns, not like... like millimeters or whatever.
Maximiliano: No waves.
Sam: No, we're... we're talking about... like sediment that's like... yeah, that's like the... like in microns, not in like millimeters or whatever. Like literally, like...
Maximiliano: Can't... like you can't see it with a plain eye. Yeah.
Sam: This is the stuff that because... because it's like this positive feedback loop has been going on for so long that now these particles can build up, and this basically a landform has just appeared out of nowhere in a hundred years. And so, yeah, like we had to do... um it was just a pro... like a little mapping project we had to do, just like to show the change in the coastlines, but like they gave us like a map from 1930, a map from 1970, and then one from like 2020. And so like Sand Bay sort of goes like... I'll sort of do it for the camera, but I'll show it for you. So it sort of goes out of the point... the point comes back. In 1930, it came back and then went straight down. So sort of...
Maximiliano: Can you show to the camera?
Sam: Yeah. So sort of... it goes across, like the 1930 map sort of like over here to the edge of the point, the headland comes back, and then it's just a straight beach all the way down, like Weston-super... but the 2020 map... um '93 looks like Weston-super sort of does now, but 2020 you've got... go to the end of the point, and then about halfway in, you've done... this is where you re... reach this salt marsh that's just appeared out of nowhere, and then it's just this like block, basically, just huge block of like mud, but like because it's like... no, there... it's covering grass now. It's like grass, and now that's just sort of just like come out into the ocean. It's just built up because of so much deposition, and so now, like the map goes across, and it's like... it's sort of like down... like down there, and then to the beach, and then all the way around. And so... sort of just like reclaiming land, sort of like this... like land's been reclaimed, but it's not like this isn't like a human process. This is just like natural process. It's something that's just happened because of... because of like gradual... a gradual process, and it's just really interesting that for me, of just like this has just come out of nowhere.
Maximiliano: Maybe a last question that I would like to ask you would be, what has the... like what's the difference between your perspective on life... before you started the course, and how is... how has it changed you? Um, like what do you see now that you didn't see before? And maybe like what are you aware... like very aware now?
Sam: The... um when I was in school, it was very sort of... they take... because they take so long in school to like... because it does exam boards. It's quite na... it's quite... it's like standardized nationally. Takes a long time for sort of information really to catch up to like how it is in the present day. So before uni, I never realized like how constant... um like sort of geological like geographical processes are... and like how quickly.
Maximiliano: Yeah.
Sam: I never... like it never occur... like it's sort of like they sort of... you learn about like plate tectonics, and so like the Himalayas is how... like... like the the Indian subcontinent plate coming in, like um sort of crashing into like the Eurasian plate over like literally millions of years. I'm saying like, oh, over millions of years they've come together, and they've built up this range of mountains as... like as the two plates have crashed together. And so until uni, geography sort of was like a process that happened over millennia. But now, like doing this course, especially with coasts, this is why I find coasts so interesting, is... is how quick those processes are.
Maximiliano: So, what... what can happen in what period?
Sam: Yeah. Just like... yeah, just just how like... um yeah, just sort of how dynamic it is. Mhm. Um, and I think sort of it just like... just made... just so I just made me a load more interested. I was, you know...
Maximiliano: So, instead of millennia, what are the coastal...
Sam: I mean, it's still... we are like we're still talking years... but... but it's more like... it's like it's talking like decades, and...
Maximiliano: Which...
Sam: So within a lifetime. But... but this is like... yeah, but... but this is... but you can't look at human perspective, cuz like Earth's what, like 4 million years old? And so in like... in like the... the time that Earth's been like existed as a planet, like that's like... I don't know, that's like having like a million frames slow-mo, and then on this bit of coastline, one frame nothing, and the next frame, boom, like big block of grass in the middle of the beach, like... and it's just like the fact that... like from on that scale, like on...
Maximiliano: I'm just trying to sort of like... yeah, make say in a way that makes sense. But... um yeah, like in... in sort of that amount of time, it's like that... I just find... I do just find it fascinating. It's really interesting. So, yeah, I think... um geography at UWE is really good as well. The course is really good. Mhm. Um like I did watch Zach's podcast, and he was sort of like ragging on his course a bit, which I was like, oh, fair enough. I think it... it varies course-to-course, but like my course as well, I can tell that the people who teach it really enjoy it. And I think...
Maximiliano: I got to say, what I've learned by meeting university students is that the course only gives you what you take from it.
Sam: Yeah, that's definitely true.
Maximiliano: And Zach is somebody in my opinion... who shouldn't be doing uni... because he's not interested at all. I don't... yeah.
Sam: He's not interested in becoming a scholar, which is the reason why people used to go to uni.
Maximiliano: Yeah. And that's the reason why uni was invented. You went to uni to become a scholar for one specific topic. And so... and it was for the... you are the student in that case. Why? Because you really...
Sam: I'm not. The thing is...
Maximiliano: You're really passionate about...
Sam: ...sediment. But I'm re... I'm really I'm really bad at the bits that don't interest me. I can be really bad at them.
Maximiliano: You don't have to be good at everything. There's a... there's a good thing about uni, like your master's degree is going to be so precise, and if if you pursue masters... and if you pursue a doctorate degree, it will be even more precise. Therefore, you don't have to do anything that you don't care about. So that's a progression. You have to be very, very specific, and so on. Mhm. Well, if you're very broad, like Zach is, which is not bad, by the way. It's not bad. I'm just saying it's just not meant for uni, because that wasn't the intention of uni at the first place. The idea of... of university is to specialize you in a very specific...
Sam: Yeah, I think... um uni also, like you should... I don't think that going to uni purely for like... purely for the sake of going to uni and then picking a course that you hate just to go to uni, I think that's a bad idea. But I do think that... I do think that... I do genuinely believe that uni, like and the experience of going off to uni and like leaving home and going to uni for like the soft skill... like the so like sort of social and like just interpersonal like skills, communication, and just like learn... like and just like life really, and who you... and like meeting people as well. There's so much that I've got back from like the... the person that I am now is like I'm so much like happier in who I am because I went to uni... like um like and sort of... and like finding people... finding people in Bristol that like I feel like I belong with. I don't... my like my hometown is like... for a lot of people, I think a lot of people quite like it, and... there's a lot of people that are very similar. I know my people might... and I've got... I do have a lot of good... good friends at home who I do like really sort of like appreciate that like I have them as like as my mates. But for... just like... like sort of growing... sort of growing as a person and just sort of like finding out like who I am and what actually... like what actually interests me, like that's what uni was nec... like is... has been so necessary for me, I think.
Maximiliano: So, I... I haven't been to uni properly. I only went for a year, and it wasn't uni, so doesn't matter. And I've traveled to different countries, and I think that has taught me a lot about socializing, because when you go into a country and you have to learn not only the language, but also...
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: ...people.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah.
Maximiliano: With no way, basically. Had to like go in so many different countries, having to learn to sort of communicate and deal with people in so many different ways, because like... because like I mean that's the reason that people say, oh, French people are this, English people are that. Yeah, well, yeah...
Sam: I'm not kidding, but that they are like that.
Maximiliano: There is a cultural... persona that that starts... starts with the language in my opinion... and then... is rewarded with different acts that are good in that country. So, for example, in Poland...
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: ...it's great to be a Christian. Yeah. Well, if you go to, I don't know, uh Saudi Arabia... not so great to be a Christian. Not so great, you know. Uh I mean, so and the personas that... that were... that would be like a Muslim has... has very different... character... like a very devoted Muslim has a very different character than a very devoted Christian.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: And you can tell when... when you see them on the street. Yeah. So... that's why, and then you got language on top of it. Mhm. So... yeah. Arabic language is a very sociable uh language, a very poetic, very emotional language. Well, Polish is very straightforward, very... very direct to the point. No, not so many descriptive emotions.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: Spanish, in comparison, both Christian countries... let's take Colombia. Colombia, still Spanish, so sorry, very Christian as well... but very... very different. Why? Because the language is different... but they still have the same values.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah.
Maximiliano: So... so it's it's a bit weird, but there are personas. When Spain had... um Spanish, and Spain because had... will have had sort of Arab influence from the... the early... the first half of the last millennia...
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: ...um and so like that's I guess sort of a bit what I like, there's a bit more sort of... emo... emotive language with with Spanish than you would get with...
Sam: I think Latin language in general are very emotional. Mhm.
Maximiliano: So, yeah, is... is a very emotional world, sort of... Germanic isn't, is very descriptive.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: It's very like unattached.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: Now, uh what I was saying is basically...
Sam: Yeah. Yeah.
Maximiliano: What I was saying is that... most people, and this is something that I now have to do once I get to a city...
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: I'm okay with being by myself, by the way. So, like... this is when I'm... when I only when I first start going to a city, I always go and go to a church...
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: ...because then you know people.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: You go with, whether it's church, whether it's a mosque, whether it... it doesn't matter, it has to be weekly.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: So it doesn't matter if you like them as well.
Sam: See them again.
Maximiliano: You see people again and again and again, weekly. This is from the first week onwards.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: You go into a... I lived in different... like I've lived in...
Sam: Where have you lived?
Maximiliano: Cologne, Munich, um Berlin, spent a lot of time in Germany...
Sam: Frankfurt.
Maximiliano: ...Frankfurt. Yeah. Yeah. Um, Tatan and Wiskum.
Sam: Yeah. Tatan and Wiskum.
Maximiliano: Well, in Devon.
Sam: Toronaton. In Devon.
Maximiliano: It's not in Devon. But I mean, yeah, it is in Devon. Burn to Taton, that's quite a bit.
Sam: Don't... don't judge it. Okay.
Maximiliano: No, I'm not. I'm just... I'm not judging you. I'm just like, well, that must be a bit of a culture shock. Lima for a bit. Uh, Santiago...
Sam: Chachapoyas, which is a city.
Maximiliano: Lima, that's Peru. Was that when you were in lockdown?
Sam: That was Chachapoyas. But yeah, in lockdown as well in Lima. Mhm.
Maximiliano: Uh, what else? Um, yeah. And I think that was... that was about it. But the thing is, I firstly... when I firstly go into a city, I get myself things to do, whether it's like going to... not a gym. I I go to the gym regularly, but that's once I've instated myself in a sense.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah.
Maximiliano: I go to a class of some random thing. I like martial arts. I've been doing them for years. I go to a martial art academy and then train with them for a couple weeks, maybe a month, maybe two, three... and then I stop, and then I go back to my what I like, which is the gym. Uh then... uh I go to a church. You meet new people and more people. Then you take anything that is... a... like a weekly activity, you take...
Sam: Mhm.
Maximiliano: ...and that's how you socialize without going to uni.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: Okay. So you have to be very... um proactive about it.
Sam: I wouldn't say proactive. You just have to go and do it once a week.
Maximiliano: Yeah.
Sam: Like sort of just like... it's not discipline, just building habits, really, I guess. Positive habit. Yeah.
Maximiliano: Yeah, basically. So that's why I wouldn't... I wouldn't say uni is that great.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: You can even go to like a book club and socialize.
Sam: That is true. But I think... like Zach...
Maximiliano: No, that's that's true.
Sam: That's true. But I found... never go to lectures, socialize.
Maximiliano: That is true. But I mean, that's why I do... I do think that's my sort of socializ... but no idea he does it.
Sam: Yeah. Well, I just... cuz I sort of... a big part of like... I don't even necessarily... um like see really any of my coursemates outside of uni. But I... like, but I like going in to speak to them and like having a conversation, just even just been asking, was like, oh, you mate, how you been? Doing anything interesting recently? Like same when I go to work, like I might not see... see any of them outside the work, but I like the... like, oh, what... what have you been up to? Just like having a bit of...
Maximiliano: Yeah, just like a little bit...
Sam: Yeah, just a bit of chat. Yeah.
Maximiliano: Okay. Yeah, fair enough. So, yeah. No, fair. Um, so you would say that the thing that you have learned in your perspective changes how quickly things change... in a geographical sense.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah. Well, what do you mean? Uh well, like how am I respected towards like how geography or...
Maximiliano: No, it was just... uh the question at the beginning was um how has your perspective actually changed? So, what do you see differently?
Sam: Yeah, I was...
Maximiliano: You said you... you were socializing more, and you think that uh geography was a thing of like millennia, but now you see them like change in...
Sam: Yeah, it was sort of like...
Maximiliano: What other thing... what other change have you noticed, if at all? Do you live alone, for example?
Sam: Do I live alone? Yeah. No, I live with... um I currently live with a... couple of... three of my flatmates from first year.
Maximiliano: How is it to... how is it to live alone now? Well, live without your parents.
Sam: I really enjoy it.
Maximiliano: You really enjoy it?
Sam: Enjoy it.
Maximiliano: Oh, my god. I hated it at the beginning.
Sam: Well, I think like the first week...
Maximiliano: I didn't choose it at the beginning. So, yeah, I guess that's the other thing. It's like it was... it was that thing was a choice. It was like I sort of want to go off to uni, but I was always sort of like... I think that was sort of the thing... sort of been brought up. It was kind of like the... there was always... there was always kind of like the, "Oh, when you go off to uni," there was like... it was a bit of an expectation, I think, and not like a, "Oh, if you don't do this, you're going to be a disappointment." It's kind of just like... this is sort of just like what I guess kind of like my parents did that, and so they're kind of like I guess sort of just like... and everyone around me did it. But I didn't do it because... um I didn't do it like thinking like, "Oh, I'm going to go and do this cuz everyone else is doing it." Because if I was going to do that, I would have gone somewhere where everyone else is going... like... I came... I like... I was interested in geography. I always liked it in school. I was good at it in school. I knew it was something I wanted to continue doing further. Um I came to like... I came and looked at the course at UWE. It was really good. Like was really impressed by it. Um, but I think just like I've learn... uni... like I sort of just like... I guess sort of just like... learn a bit about you, I think. You just sort of learn about yourself a bit more, because I think when you're... when you're at home, um it's kind of like there's sort of the whole like, oh, you have to like go back into... when I go home, I sort of have to sort of almost revert a bit back to how I was before... just to like...
Sam: It's weird, isn't it?
Maximiliano: Yeah.
Sam: When you first... the first time you go back.
Maximiliano: Oh, my god, it's so weird. It was... it was really weird. Like it's fine, but it's kind of... like what the... like did I used to do this all the time?
Sam: Yeah. Yeah. It's just really like... oh, I'm not... I think most people I knew my age sort of went back to uni. I think there's like the few people that stayed... like the the very small amount of people that stayed home as well.
Maximiliano: Yeah.
Sam: All of them... most of them... most... mo... like the... the ones who stayed, they just... they just hate... they just hate it most of the time. There's like...
Maximiliano: Well, I guess that's also the ones who like aren't really doing anything. Um I've got one friend who... he's doing... um he's doing like a cybersecurity apprenticeship.
Sam: Okay.
Maximiliano: So he... like his... like whenever I do talks about... talk to about it, it's like really interesting. He's telling me how he's like having like apply for like security clearances so that... so that he can like handle data centers with more like with... um like sensitive like sensitive information for... like government stuff. I'm like, "Wow, bro." Like...
Sam: Oh, I don't... I don't want to know.
Maximiliano: "Don't tell me, bro. Like, CIA might come and get me. Not interested." But um yeah. But I think um... like I wanted to... I wasn't like... I... I sort of needed to like have a fresh start, and I think obviously what... it was... well, it was... it was a good thing. So, for me, like for me, uni was the right decision.
Sam: Okay, that's good.
Maximiliano: And I... and I think that's the... like whatever comes out of it, I think I can... I can sit myself down, and I can say for me this was the right thing. I'm glad that I made this choice.
Sam: I got to say... I got last two questions.
Maximiliano: Okay, cool.
Sam: Uh firstly is... so you... the thing is you are now learning to see things in decades and like in years and so on, how that works towards the outer world, you know.
Maximiliano: Yeah. It's also like how... sorry, it's just... but it's like also like... just sort of connecting the dots. I think a lot of it is... very much like... yeah, seeing how the... like some... like how something affects something else. But also teaching me to... like... but they sort of... they really teach you how to... like... they want to... they want us to question... like to question something, and sort of look at like... um really like look at anything and really think, like, why is that happening? Even with like practical work, when we're doing like our software stuff, and like, oh, we've something's messed up, it's like, do this to do this to do this, and then we like, oh, we've messed something up, and then really being like, right, go through and like dig through each stage and look and find like, what did you do that you didn't do... that you didn't do right, and that's caused this to now not work, and now go and like... like really sort of trying to... like sort of trying to identify a root cause. Whereas before uni, geography in school was just like... like in school there is very much just like they just sort of throw information at you. You've just got to absorb it, memorize it, not really understand it, write it down on a piece of paper. But... they're like... they're not... they're not... I wouldn't even say they're teaching us geography. They're teaching us it, like it's sort of like you... like they... they just want to teach... it's like it's problem solving is what they want to... in... but in geography, and like identifying the... identifying the cause and then like finding the solution that's going to have like the most positive impact or like what's going to like... what's going to have like say like... you need to do something, but every option is going to cause problems. Terms like finding out like what... what can we do to... what... what can we do to minimize the... and mitigate, and like that sort of thing.
Maximiliano: So, I got two questions uh towards that. So taking that into consideration. So, the pattern recognition, basically.
Sam: Yeah.
Maximiliano: And also the decades, and what... what decades can do to... a land... a mass land of mass...
Sam: Landform.
Maximiliano: ...landform.
Sam: Yeah. Land mass.
Maximiliano: Land mass. Yeah. Um... how do you see your life now? So like 10 years ago, a decade ago... when you look at you today, how's... how's the landmass shifted, basically?
Sam: Yeah. Um I mean obviously like 10 years ago I was 10, so I was like... I was like got an Xbox for my birthday, so I was like... sorry, that's just... but you know, it's kind of like that. It's weird. I think...
Maximiliano: You never thought about it, I'm guessing.
Sam: Yeah. Like what concerns you... what concerns me when I was 10 10 years ago, compared to what... what concerns me now?
Maximiliano: Do you reckon that 10-year-old would have been proud of you now?
Sam: I think I... I don't know. I feel like if I met... if I was 10, and I sort of like saw what I was... s... I was like now, I'd feel like... I think I'll probably be excited...
Maximiliano: That's good.
Sam: ...just for... just for like the next 10 years.
Maximiliano: Oh, you lived well then.
Sam: Well, no, I just... no, I just...
Maximiliano: You've lived well.
Sam: Yeah. No, I will... like happily say like, no, like very lucky. I've had two parents that have like really worked in their... like sort of really put in... really put in the effort to guide me and my sister.
Maximiliano: That's good.
Sam: And I think...
Maximiliano: You got good parents.
Sam: Yeah. And I really do. I've got... I was really lucky with the parents I've got. I think...
Maximiliano: And what do you see then in your next 10... 10 years? What's going to happen in the next decade? What would you like to be? What... what do you reckon?
Sam: I couldn't even... like I mean, I want to... I want to do something... like if I had to pick... pick a geography-related career, be coastal management, but it would be... but it... I don't want to like do it or... like... like sort of coastal... like assessment. I don't want to do... but I don't want to do that for like some... I don't want to like sell my soul and work for a law firm, like do you know what I mean? Oh, like or like an insurance company. I want it... I want it to... well, like you were saying with things like the... like the green wall and something like that. Anything, as long as I could... like anything geography-related, I want to do something like that.
Maximiliano: I don't... my question...
Sam: I want to be doing something like that. And I want to... in 10 years, I want to have... I want to have like...
Maximiliano: ...my question is not what, but who.
Sam: Okay.
Maximiliano: Who do you want to be? Not... not what do you want to be, or what do you want to be?
Sam: I want to be...
Maximiliano: Who?
Sam: ...someone who... I want to be someone who makes other people's lives better...
Maximiliano: Hm.
Sam: ...by the 9-to-5 job.
Maximiliano: By the 9-to-5 job. If that's work, if that's working towards something, if that's working in something that does improve people's lives and like... and the 9-to-5 job, if that's where that takes me, then that's where that takes me. But I don't... like I could... I could end up doing that, because I don't know what that person, the 30-year-old me, that person will be doing. I just know that I want to be like the person... who... I want to be a person who... like benefits the lives of... just I want to like benefit the lives of people. But yeah...
Maximiliano: Fair enough. Thank you very much, Sam.
Sam: That's right.
Maximiliano: Guys, thank you very much for listening. Um it was a very interesting conversation, right? We went everywhere.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah. Geopolitics, geography.
Maximiliano: I lose my train of thought and I can go on a... I can go off on a tangent. So...
Sam: No, no. All good, man. All good, all good, all good. That's why I'm here, mate.
Maximiliano: Oh, thank you very much for having me.
Sam: Yeah. No, no worries, mate. Thank you very much for being here.
Maximiliano: Yeah, I really enjoyed it. It's great. Um, so guys, if you want to follow Sam in his social medias, hold on.
Sam: Um...
Maximiliano: Or not, you maybe want to see...
Sam: Yeah, I'll leave it be. But yeah...
Maximiliano: Leave it be. Okay, now fair enough. But yeah, I'm just sort of like, yeah, thought podcast be an interesting thing to do. Why not? Let's give it a go. So, yeah, I'm glad... I'm very glad that I came. Yeah.
Sam: Yeah. Has it been interesting?
Maximiliano: It has been interesting. Yeah.
Sam: Hopefully.
Maximiliano: Yeah. Yeah. Uh hopefully for you too, guys. Uh so uh thank you very much again for listening to this week's episode, episode number 15, I think. Uh and well uh please follow us on all social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, all of that. And see you next week.
Comments