The Trip for Life Episode 9: IPTV is begging to bring you a better future

ask us to babysit

bariatric surgery stupid tv everything

sucks

i'm aaron and i'm on a trip for life i

believe our future depends powerfully on

how well we understand this cosmos

in which we float

like a moon of dust

in the morning

our society finds itself at a bit of a

low today our media is failing us our

technology complex is building us a lot

of interesting shiny junk and

we generally need to find a way to to

rise out of that well i propose at least

as far as the media goes i think we can

do it ourselves i think that we can rise

out of this valley without any

external uh intervention whatsoever i

think this is something that is well

within our means now because we now have

the internet we have cheap uh high

definition video cameras that we can

carry anywhere with us and we have audio

equipment that's fairly cheap as well

with these three things and a computer

that's you know a couple years old you

can be a media superstar you can be

somebody who can report on things that

are relevant to you and your community

and you can do it on the cheap and the

cheapness is what's important because

the old way of doing things well it's

sort of like the dinosaurs it's giant it

eats a lot and has a tiny brain the way

that we can do it is more like a mammal

we can be mobile we can move through the

brush we can climb up that hill without

anything seeing us and by the time we

get up there the dinosaurs will already

be failing because there won't be enough

for them to eat soon

building a better future is a lot of

trouble no doubt about that but we

shouldn't underestimate our ability to

adapt

life has its way of surviving even the

harshest environments and we have the

benefit of cultural adaptation something

that no other creature on earth has at

its disposal at least not to the extent

that we do

so

how can we get out of this economic

morass that we're in

i don't know but i do know that there

are great examples of natural creatures

that are able to live within very

constrained environmental circumstances

take the lichen you see them all over

the place and they're still very very

common despite the fact that they're

very primitive and they are

so common and so successful because they

have actually learned how to make the

best use of their environment they they

can take

what little mineral nutrition there is

from the rock face and combine it with a

little bit of light a little bit of

water and survive

and in fact these are the first

organisms they'll move into any area but

there's a second thing to know about

lichens and that's that

it's not just the good use of the

of the stuff that's available in the

environment

that

allows for them to be successful it's

also the fact that they're in

cooperation because a lichen is not just

one creature it's actually two it's a

fungi and an algae and they're working

together to achieve a mutually

beneficial end

i think that if we as a

society take stock of what we've already

developed and what we've already made

and work together to build a better

future then like the lycan we'll thrive

despite the lack of

a very rich economic environment and

we'll do it to the envy of the rest of

the world but it will require a level of

cooperation and a level of ingenuity

that we have not well exhibited in the

last 20 or 30 years so

we can do it we're just gonna have to

look a little bit to the past in order

to build a better future

so how can we apply these principles of

cooperation and making do with what we

have to the media

let's compare the old way with the new

way

when you think about a traditional media

corporation what do you think about

you know i think of the old newspaper

newsroom it's stereotypical you've seen

it in a thousand movies and and what do

you got there you have an editor you

have a copy editor you have a

set of people that design the front

cover you have a whole host of

photographers you have all these people

they're there to deliver you the news

well that's expensive i mean not only is

all the people expensive

the the human resources in such a

project those people are professionals

they expect to be paid a couple hundred

thousand dollars a year perhaps and you

know they're expensive but you also have

to buy some place to actually hold the

newspaper and print out the newspapers

and whatever well what we've seen in

recent years is the rise of the blogs

and the blogs

kind of get rid of all of that

most of these people are people who are

operating on their homes and businesses

where they already exist they don't have

to pay for

an editor they're their own editor they

don't have a copy editor they don't have

a designer they're designing their own

sites etc etc it's basically drawing the

entire

news collection business down into a

single person now there are

inefficiencies in this it's not perfect

yet but it's a lot cheaper and because

it's cheaper it's winning cheaper wins

it's just natural in any sort of system

whether you're talking about energy in

an organism or you're talking about

money in an economy cheaper wins

what about video production well it's

much the same thing you have a director

you have a series of people who are

editing the video you have a variety of

people who are who are just holding up

lights and doing other things like that

once again really expensive

what if you could do the same thing to

video production

that has already been done to

text to

the newspapers

well you could do something a lot like

what i'm trying to do here you could

actually just pick up a camera and go

and edit your own video and post it

online and in this way you have your own

distribution you have your own

production you have your own uh

screenwriting you have your everything

that you need to actually produce the

show is within the reach of a normal

person now in the same way that blogs

have helped sort of open up the minds of

many people and

kill the sort of centralized control

over thought and discourse in the same

way we can get rid of the stranglehold

that major media companies have on video

production and actually communicate in

this most effective way with one another

but we need to have people who are

willing to get up and move because

unlike a blogger who can just do this

from their own homes if you want to do

video production you have to actually go

to where the cool stuff is happening

and that's where there's a bit of

difference bloggers can operate for free

and and i can't but that doesn't mean

that i can't operate for nearly free at

least compared to a traditional

television program

so television production is a very

expensive business in order to produce

even a very cheap television show you

need a lot of

infrastructure

and as a result

the cheapest television shows cost about

twenty to fifty thousand dollars per

episode to produce that's on average

there may be some that are a bit cheaper

than maybe some that are quite a bit

more expensive and these television

shows that i'm describing are reality

television shows they're by far the

cheapest to produce and consistent with

my theory about efficiency and energy

and also in money they're taking over

television let me compare my television

show and how much my show is costing so

far

now counting out the the basic living

expenses and how much it costs to pay my

car loan and things like that

my recent episode in detroit where i

broke some news by the way

that episode cost roughly 100

meaning that i'm about 200 times cheaper

than even the cheapest of of television

shows that are on tv nowadays and those

television shows are terrible they don't

tell you anything

well i'm trying to do something better

and i can do it for a lot cheaper and

that's the key i think that if we change

our methods just a little bit and get

rid of all of that that production cost

that comes with having a a band of

editors that are editing up the the uh

the film and and having all that talent

on scene and frankly the uh the reality

shows don't have much talent to begin

with that's part of the reason they're

so cheap

we could build a new television future

where we're talking to each other

instead of being talked down to and

where we can actually produce tv that is

worthwhile for very little money and the

very little money is key because it

means that i need less backing overall

quite a bit less you might be surprised

so there's something important that

being able to produce a show on just a

couple hundred dollars allows me to do

it allows me to have my complete support

for the show equal 50 60 000 a year i

can pull up minimum salary for myself

and the rest of it can go into keeping

me moving around the country

and

that changes things tremendously instead

of having to go to a bank and pay them

interest to you know finance my show

instead of having to go to a production

house and have them house all my

equipment and give me some studio space

instead of having to have agents go out

and shop around for people to to you

know get me talent and whatnot i can

travel around the country and i can find

out information that's good and useful

and worthwhile and i can give it to you

on the cheap

and the great thing about this and the

great thing about this concept is it

allows for sort of a a micro television

show to take hold

let me explain let's say that i went an

entirely sponsorship based route on my

website you'll find that you can

subscribe for five dollars a month it's

not much it's about the cost of going to

the coffee shop one day for you you know

forget about taking your kids

and if you subscribe for five dollars a

month

well that doesn't seem like much but

over the course of a year if i should

get a mere thousand people subscribing

then i'm making a pretty good amount of

money enough that i can pay myself a

minimum salary and keep myself moving

around and i can do this with just a few

thousand people i could do it with a few

hundred if people decide to give me more

and that's what's great about this if

you find value in this you know if you

sponsor me you're making a big impact on

this show and that's what's great about

this idea if you subscribe to the trip

for life you're making a big impact in

this show and you're going to have some

sort of a

say in it if you find something that you

think is important in your area i can

come to your area and i can cover it and

i can bring coverage and and hopefully

some investment money from outside into

your community with ideas and concepts

that are already there in existence and

like the lycan we can take what is

already there in place with a little bit

of cooperation and a little bit of

publicity hopefully we can put together

as some solutions for the future so that

we can have a better energy tomorrow so

we can be living in stronger and more

durable houses and so that we can have a

culture that supports the environment

and supports our our way of of life of

of of living

better than the culture and the society

that we have now

and if we can do this we can do

something great we can do it on a very

small scale and that's the other great

thing i don't have to be the only

television show doing things in this

fashion we can fill up we can fill up

those hundreds of channels and we can do

it cheaper cheaper than any of the

production that's on on the air today

and i tell you what we can do that and

make things that are better than

anything that's on the air today well

maybe not your procedural shows and your

shows require a lot of actors and stuff

they'll come a long in time i don't have

a model for that but as far as

informative programming that's real

actually real not reality

we can do this we can do it with a very

small number of people

all i'm asking for is for a little

support for a minimal amount of money

you can keep me tripping and you can

keep me

basically covering stories that'll help

you to build a better future might even

help you survive in the face of the

unfolding challenges that we have before

us

maybe the era of great television shows

like connections and cosmos really is

over because i don't have the budget for

big special effects but at least in this

this new era we have the freedom to do

what we want

i'm sure that

both burke and and

sagan at times would have liked to put

other things on those shows but you know

they didn't have total control i have

total control and if you want to do the

same thing you can have total control as

well now don't get me wrong if a good

environmentally conscious company wants

to sponsor me i'm open to that but

please people

give me some support i think that i can

do something worthwhile here and

i think i can do something that will

help you personally

and i can do this for cheap so i can

keep going with just a little bit of

support from my friends from my family

from those that are close to me and

maybe some of their friends as well

and

that's not all maybe if this works if

you can help me make this work we can

produce a future where we don't have to

be entertained by mindless drivel that's

selling us crap maybe we can build a

future where we're being entertained by

useful information and a little bit of

humor maybe we can build a future where

we're talking to each other instead of

being talked down to and that's what i

want

that's what i want for for my america i

want us to pick up what we have and i

want us to work together to build it

into something better because you know

what we're the fitter species between

the dinosaurs and the mammals we can

move faster we might be smaller we might

not be as glitzy we might not be as

awesome but

we can survive we can do that without

any help we can do that without any any

any gifts being showered down from above

we can do it with our meager resources

because it's all we need

so come with me people on this trip for

life and help me to keep moving

and if you do so maybe we can build a

better future we can build it together

thank you

just

the sky

calls to us if we do not destroy

ourselves

we will one day

venture to the stars