TV Show: Inside Man

Just fired up Morgan Spurlock's 2013 series called "Inside Man," where he gets a job inside a different controversial industry every episode to explore the issue from the inside.  I was a huge fan of his previous "30 Days" and his movie "Supersize Me."  I'm still looking for a copy of "The Greatest Story Ever Sold."

Anyway, the first episode of "Inside Man" is about medical marijuana, and it makes clear something I always wondered about: why the federal government keeps fighting states who legalize it.  For instance, here in Washington State the voters decriminalized recreational marijuana so it is legal to buy and sell it -- but it's still illegal (federally) to grow it in any large quantity.  The grow warehouses all have to be "under the radar" which is difficult given the size of the market.

The answer, obviously, is Big Pharma.  They stand to lose a ton of money on prescription pain relievers.  They have the money to lobby Congress, and Congress is more concerned with campaign contributions than the Constitution.

Second episode is on gun violence.  Morgan spent a day working in a gun shop that specializes in "tactical" weapons -- automatics, high caliber, short barrel.  He talked to a lot of gun owners and victims of gun violence.

One guy who came in to buy his first gun -- no training, no shooting practice, no safety lecture -- said he wasn't sure what the threat would be but he wanted to be prepared.  "It could be the government, it could be a neighbor, it could be the Chinese."  He wanted to be able to protect himself and his family.  To him, the idea that the Chinese army would enter his home was entirely believable.

As was the narrative that he could defend himself against an army, foreign or domestic.

Of course, that's the narrative the NRA tells, but it isn't true. Far more people are killed in gun ACCIDENTS every year than defend themselves successfully using a gun.

The gun shop owner made some salient points, about how background checks and diligent shop owners keep weapons sales above board.  How good people owning guns is no threat to anybody but bad people.  How all of these mass shootings that have occurred have been with weapons illegally purchased, or borrowed from a legal gun owner.  Additional legal restrictions wouldn't have prevented the school shootings, or any of the one-on-one gun violence that takes far more lives than the highly-publicized school shootings.

All true.

During the production of Morgan's show the Newtown massacre took place, and Morgan talked to a lot of very distraught people about it.  He decided to go back to the gun shop where he worked to get their take on it.  The walls were mostly bare.  The shop owner said, after Newtown, he sold more weapons in two days than he'd normally sell in several months.  He said manufacturers were back-ordered 24 months.  Grandmas, soccer moms, a lot of first time gun owners were arming themselves in the wake of expected gun ownership restrictions.

Of course, subsequently the legislation was defeated by the NRA.

The NRA represents the interests of the gun manufacturers, not gun owners.  It's where they get the bulk of their money, it's where they get their lobbying philosophy.  Even the NRA membership believes in stronger background checks.  Only the gun manufacturers want the Wild Wild West.

It's a conundrum.  Restricting legal gun ownership is not likely to have any positive effect on gun violence.

Homo sapiens is not an endangered species.  I guess de facto we have decided they are not worth protecting.

Been slowly working my way through Morgan's episodes, half an episode each morning on the elliptical.  Some very good programs for sure.  I'm about halfway through season two now, and season three has just been released.

One notable episode was on life extension -- people who are trying to live a hundred years or more.  Enough to last until technology advances to the point where our personalities can be uploaded to a new body, or a robotic body, or a virtual reality avatar.

Some real nutjobs in that field.

Also some brilliant people like Ray Kurzweil and Jarod Lanier. Morgan visits the Grossman Wellness Center in CO, who do a complete fitness evaluation of him then prescribe something like 40 vitamins per day (bought from them, naturally).  I was surprised Morgan didn't have this regimen evaluated by a real doctor, because she would have told him it is all bunkum.

Also, surprised Morgan only MENTIONED the possibility that living forever might not be a lot of fun, instead of really exploring what that would do to a person's QOL.  He completely neglected to mention the effect on society of having people live forever.

In the last episode of season two, Morgan spends a week working in an animal rescue shelter. He gets to do intake on pets left overnight in an anonymous "drop off" center for people too embarrassed (or ashamed) to bring them to the front desk during business hours. Some very lovable, healthy pets (dogs, cats & others) dropped off by scumbags.

Morgan gets to work with a pitbull mix which is initially too scared and traumatized to be adoptable. Over the week he gets the dog to open up to him, initiate play, stop being aggressive, and he is moved from the "gray area" to the "adoptable" list.

Morgan also has to deal with, unfortunately, animals who remain in the "gray area" list -- too sick, too aggressive, too old to be adoptable. This shelter is not a no-kill shelter, and unfortunately each week they must euthanize a dozen or more animals to make room for incoming and adoptable drop-offs.

So here I am, puffing away on my elliptical, weeping over these poor guys who, through no fault of their own, are thrown away by their owners and too traumatized by the experience to start over with a new family. Horrific.

The episode I just watched was on "Sunday Assembly,", an atheist church.

For those who grew up in the church, getting together once a week to sing songs, hold hands, hear uplifting sermons, and be a part of a group of like-minded individuals is important, and something they miss if they lose their religion.  Sunday Assembly aims to fulfill this need for community without the god & jesus mumbo-jumbo.

I can see how some people might need that affirmation.  I'm not one of them*, fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your viewpoint), but it's an interesting idea.  I'd not heard of them before.




* - Unless you count UD....

First episode of season three is on the current state of robotics and telepresence and artificial intelligence. It was about as good a summary as I've ever seen, covering all the bases and making some very well-supported predictions.

Excellent episode.

An episode on medical tourism, where due to the fucked up nature of the US healthcare system, a patient can fly first class to Thailand, stay in a 5-star hotel, have a procedure done in a world class hospital, and fly home, all for less than having the procedure done at home.

One procedure Morgan gets done is a colostomy, using a new high tech procedure where he swallows a camera. This allows the doctors to view his entire GI tract, not just the last meter of his colon.

Gives a whole new meaning to the series title "Inside Man"!

Trash, and garbage, and recycling.

Morgan follows his trash from its pickup at his home in Brooklyn, to its ultimate disposal at a landfill in Pennsylvania. He bemoans the amount of trash produced by Americans every day.

He follows his electronic waste -- some old computers and cell phones -- as they are disassembled and dispersed in countries with laxer safety laws.

He follows his recycling and learns how cardboard is re-used (not much), aluminum cans are reused (more), plastic is reused (hardly at all). He talks to a Danish girl living in the States who is living a near-zero trash life by buying nothing with packaging, using nothing disposable, composting all food waste, etc. Her life, though extreme by American standards, reminded me a lot of our vacation to Amsterdam where you could not buy paper towels in the grocery store, the stores required you to use a reusable cloth bag, food was reusably packaged and single-serving, everyone biked or walked everywhere, and you saw no unshapely bottoms except on tourists.

It's a lifestyle.

American lifestyles are very far down a different road. Here, we get no exercise. Here, we eat unhealthy foods almost exclusively, then become lifelong customers for the big pharmaceutical companies. Here we watch sports on TV.

It's not sustainable.

Just watched an episode in the new season called "Seek and Disrupt" about how entrepreneurs find a business model that can be improved by technology, and proceed to destroy the existing paradigm.  Uber, Amazon, AirBnB and others are featured.  Morgan starts his own, Clect.com, for collectors to get together and share their collections, sell to each other, and converse.

I know a could people who need to be members.

"Game Changers" about professional video gaming.

I don't get it.