Disney World: Celebrating Utopia

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From sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, all-in-one powerful platform, no messy integrations, no bouncing between tabs, and best of all, no spreadsheets. Stop managing software and start managing your business with one unified system. Try for free today at od.com/box. That's od.o.com/box. Okay, yes. This season is over, but here's one last thing about Utopia. We did a live event in New York City at the 92nd Street Y, with The New York Times' Katie Weaver. Katie has written, "I kid you not, some of my favorite articles of all time." Like her story about a trip to the glitter factory to see how glitter gets made, and her GQ profile of Dwayne Johnson is just my favorite piece of celebrity writing. Maybe ever? But, at our talk at the 92nd Street Y, Katie wanted to go over a very particular Utopia that she grew up going to. Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Ahead of our conversation, Katie and I both read a book called "Married to the Mouse" by Richard E. Fogelsong, which is full of just wild details about Disney's Utopian visions, which we may or may not have remembered incorrectly on stage, apologies if you're listening, Richard E. Fogelsong. But the themes present in the establishment of Disney World really reflected the other ideas that we've already covered in the series. This just kind of ties the room together, if you will. So, here's my conversation with Katie Weaver, just as a reminder of the discussion about Utopias, and the failures and successes inherent in them is an ongoing one. Hello! Welcome to our book club. We read a book for you. Thank you so much for coming. It's really exciting that so many people are interested in talking about Utopias and have maybe listened to the podcast. But I wanted, I don't know, there are a lot of podcasts up there. I wouldn't blame you if you just came without listening to the podcast. But I wanted to start out by sharing a little anecdote that didn't make it into the story of Onida. One of my favorite books that we read for this series was The Book About Onida by Ellen Wail and Smith. It's called Onida. And it's so beautiful because it not only talks about this one utopia, but it really puts it in context and talks about lots of different American utopias in the 1800s, which is kind of like a utopian heyday. And in one part she talks about the origin of the word con man, which comes from Confidence Man, who was a man, there was a guy, and his name was William Thompson, and he was arrested in New York City in 1849 because he would come up to strangers in New York City and like chat them up and walk with them a little bit. And then he would say, "Do you have the confidence to trust a stranger with your watch?" And everyone was like, "Oh, of court, you are not my friend." And so they would hand him their confidence and their watch, and he would just walk away, and that was his grift. But no, it's really interesting because in his arrest he became kind of this boogie man because everyone freaked out. They're like, "Who are these lone men roving around the city, undetached from family or community. They have no moral compass, and they have this hypnotic control over people." And then lo and behold, like in the late 1800s, only like 50 years later, that architect gets totally switched around, and he becomes the American salesman. He becomes like the influencer, and he was how to make friends and influence people. And I think the reason this came up in the Oneida book, and I think the reason that this is recurrent in talking about utopias is oftentimes they are led by not always men, but usually men. Extremely charismatic people who are bewitching, and you have interviewed and spent time with many people who I would follow to the ends of the earth, and I wonder what you think of the current state of influence. Oh my god. Well, confident people can truly do anything even if they are morons. That's the secret to life. I have a question about confidence men though in the story that you told. I thought it sounded legal. Why was he arrested? He told people to give them what they were watching they did. That's a crime now, New York City. That's true, it's true. It's kind of consensual. Don't trust me enough to give me their one. Well, definitely, I think you meet some people who are famous, and you can just tell like, I know why you're famous. They have that certain something that you just really can't take your eyes off them. Even when they are out of hair and makeup or like searching around in their homes or on set somewhere. I think I said this to you when we did a preliminary interview on the phone that I think we preferred extensible. I think bewitching is one of the kind of nicest compliments you can give to someone or say about someone that they have so impressed you that it's like they've cast a spell. So I feel like I'm absolutely susceptible to confidence men and women, and I aspire to be one. Do you think it's something that we can achieve or are these people that you've spent time with when I was a child, I always knew I was special? I think you can achieve it. I really think that you can do it. You probably have to have something a little bit wrong in your brain to want to, but I don't think it's harder than like learning to hit a baseball say. I think with enough time and dedication anyone can learn to be confident. You just fake it, and then you forget that you're faking it and you become a monster. And then you start a cult, and then you get on this podcast. Yeah, exactly. Well, that's been the interesting thing about all of these communities. And I think we'll get into this a little bit later too, but the idea of like for so many people when you really think about what Utopia is, it's often like an escape from government. Whether that means you are like a libertarian Utopia, or you want to live by your values and you don't think that the country you live in encapsulates those values. And a lot of the easiest way to do that is to just follow one guy. You make one decision, which is to follow this one person. And the rest of it comes like pretty easily, and then where it starts getting wherever Utopia trips up is like their leader goes crazy or dies or they're like, oh no, now we got to do everything by consensus. And then it's like not Utopia anymore, because then you have government, and then you have like eight hour long meetings to decide everything. And then, you know, that can still be communal living, but it's like, that's where it gets difficult, like government, pleasing people is hard, like living together is hard. I think it also relates to like introverts and extroverts, and it kind of makes me crazy how now it seems very invoked to identify as an introvert. And it's like extroverts really get things done, and there's a reason they're so popular. No offense to any introverts out there. I don't even know if I necessarily believe in introverts versus extroverts. You can agree with every single thing on the list. I like to spend time alone sometimes, but I don't know that that makes me introverted. But I think we should stop rebelling against our intro instincts to be engaging in popular and fun. There's nothing wrong with that. I know that's not happy when someone really cares about it, because I also like to be alone. It's like, because good, otherwise you'd be a psychopath, that's like, we all come into this world alone. It's fine. Should we talk about, yeah, the most extroverted man I've ever heard of. Well, Disney. Yeah. So, can I ask you another, so, Katie, assign me a book. Why did you want to talk about Disney? Well, as everyone can probably tell from the way I walked out here, my family and I are members of the Disney Vacation Club. We are, it's a higher class of people. So, I just, I don't, I wouldn't even say like, I love Disney. I'm not Disney Obsessive. My parents aren't Disney Obsessive. We became members of the DVC, because it's a time share program for Disney properties. Because my mom really hates to waste money, and so she knew she set up a system whereby she was paying for a vacation every year. she would never let herself not take that vacation. So she's like, "Okay, we'll do this, and then I know I'll have to take a vacation every year because I'm already paying for it." So we started going to Disney, I guess, every year, maybe every other year, like a week. Oh, no, no, it doesn't be so expensive. You can't afford to go there for a week for a couple of days. So I just have always been kind of fascinated by how well-rounded it is. And if you go to Disney, you know, over several years, you will see it kind of grow and improve. And I got to say, it never gets worse. You never go and think like, this isn't as good as it was last time. It's always a little bit better somehow. Like, they get better at managing lines. The rides are a little bit better. So it's very interested in that. And then on one of our trips, we went to the town called Celebration that is, I don't even know how to describe it. I guess it's like a kind of Disney company town, but you don't have to work for Disney to live there. It's a lot. And I heard about this book, "Married to the Mouse", from a friend of mine who is like a similarly kind of dwitched, if you will, by Disney. And he's just like, everything in this book is insane. You should read it. And we did. And it is truly insane. The founding of Disney world, specifically, how it came about will blow your mind and make you think that you can do anything. Well, okay. So you said you weren't a Disney fan, but like, spending all this time there throughout your childhood, did you become a Disney fan or are you like an all of it? I would say I like Disney probably about as much as the average person. I'm not, I don't have a Mickey Mouse shirt. Okay. But I love Coco. We all love Coco. I love to see Disney movie because I also like to play the hits. I like to bet on the favorite. I know that a Disney movie will probably be very well done, extremely calculated to make me laugh here, make me cry here. I like to see people do what they are good at. And that's what Disney world is, but it's to like a psychotic degree. So is it like, is it a utopia? I've been thinking about this a lot. And I think, 'cause I know the premise of the podcast is really that utopias don't exist, can't exist. So I was like, well, we've just disproven it because Disney is a utopia, but it's only a utopia for certain people. So I guess that by definition maybe makes it not a utopia because I actually didn't know this until reading this book. Maybe it's really obvious to people, but apparently a tourism based economy, most people will have extremely low wages and there's very little potential for growth. So the workers at Disney, when this book was written, I think three quarters of them maybe required some form of like state assistance, food stamps, subsidized housing, something with medical care. So it's definitely not a utopia for everyone, but I would say for maybe like eight Disney executives, they have absolutely created a utopia honor. (audience laughing) And so yeah, what about the story of the founding of Disney World is so crazy? Can we maybe just go back and forth and say a couple facts that jumped out at us? Sure. Okay, so welcome to our book class. (laughing) So there is a 1967 Florida law on the books, I believe to this day, that gives Disney the legal authority to open and run a nuclear reactor on Disney property. (audience laughing) But you know what, there's no one I would trust more to run a nuclear reactor. (audience laughing) If you've been to those parks, they run like work. (audience laughing) And they'd be guarded really well. Yeah, of course, my favorite thing was that, so, oh man, I feel like if you tell get one thread of it, I'm like, oh no, do I have to tell the whole story? Yeah, just talk for an hour. Okay, okay. (laughing) But so the interesting thing about Disney World was that originally in Walt Disney's mind, Epcot, the experimental prototype community of tomorrow was supposed to be a true community and like people were supposed to live there and there were gonna be schools and there were gonna be trams and it was gonna be a real community. And it's really interesting the time that he was dreaming about this and working on it. It was very much inspired by the 1964 New York World's Fair and also in the '60s there were all these major uprisings in American cities. So everyone was like, oh my God, American cities are in crisis. And so he hired these consultants to basically kind of do this podcast and like go back and look at all the planned communities throughout American history. And they had one of their takeaways was that they are all, they all fail because they look backwards, they don't look forwards and you see this a lot and like, for example, the United Community is like, we're all gonna be farmers and we're gonna grow our own food and we're gonna live off the land and then work. They had to engage with commerce and they had to make spoons and be modern people. So everyone like, and biosphere too. They were like, we can be like, live off the land. Like they used to. And so that like looking back is not necessarily the best foundation. And then the other thing that they suggested is kind of what we were talking about before. They were like, you need to find a way to circumvent government. And they absolutely did. - That is how they created the re-decreate improvement district. - Yeah. Yeah, so for those who don't know, Disney basically has its own private government that operates within floor. Oh, we should also say, I think I'm probably misremembering every single detail of this book. - Oh, yeah. - None of this is, it's a podcast about failure, y'all. - It's fine. - Don't take my word for it, Google it yourself. But basically, Disney has its own private government within Florida. And I think the only things that they have to kind of run by the state are they have to pay some form of taxes, property taxes, although they also have ways to try to get around that in elevator inspections. Which, okay. And everything else they do themselves. They have their own emergency services, fire department, roads, what else is there? - They don't have a private, they have like a legion of security guards that they have hired instead of a police force. They can also use eminent domain. Yeah, like it's crazy. It's completely, completely bananas. And the other thing about the security guards is they look exactly like regular cops, but they can't arrest people because they are not cops. But they have like cars with flashing lights, they wear what appears to be a cop's uniform. And there was a transcript from a court case, I think in the '90s, where someone was asking, "Okay, well, if you're not a cop, "why are you dressed like a cop?" And they were like, "There's a costume." Like, "You're a cop, you have a cop's radio on, "you're driving a cop car." - It's totally, and then the reason they were allowed to do all this is because Disney was like, we are building the experimental prototype city of the future, community of the future. We need the line was, we need to make sure we don't have legislation so we can keep this in a constant state of becoming, which is just like a crazy, like, goopy and mantra. And everyone was like, "Yes!" And then, the Epcot opens, and there's no residences. Like, no one, and yeah, they just like, didn't make it on their promise at all. And so of course, you know, I'm visiting from Oakland today and tech is taking over all of our cities, and you could just as easily replace Disney with like Amazon or Google or any other giant company that comes in and wants to make a deal with local government, it's just really interesting because at the end of the day, you don't really know, they can talk a big game and you don't really know what you're gonna get. And the whole theme of this, it's called "Married to the Mouse" and it's all kind of about like the marriage between Orlando and Walt Disney, and the chapters are serendipity, seduction, secrecy, marriage, growth, conflict, abuse, negotiation, therapy, which leads to a lot of questions about Richard E. Fogel's songs, "Personal Life." (audience laughing) It's like very much about these marriages that we're seeing or I guess these like courtships we're seeing all around us today. - Well, one thing that I think seems different at least on the surface and maybe that, you know, I don't know how it would manifest, but when Disney was scouting for this land, they chose Orlando because it was where a bunch of roads met, but it was very underdeveloped, it was pretty much just like citrus grows is my understanding. And so they were able to basically invent these laws out of thin air that said you can do whatever you want on this random orange grove land. And I think it's, Amazon has had troubles say in New York because they're trying to move into a city that is already very well established. And so maybe the secret to building a successful utopia for your executives is that you have to do it somewhere where not many people live already. And Disney definitely figured that out. And they also had a scheme where they were like, it has to straddle two counties so that we can play the county's off one another. I mean, like how long said it was okay? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But it's interesting. Well, it's funny that you say that because I feel like we're also seeing it not just necessarily in our cities with big companies moving in, but like with new smart cities that are developing. I was recently given this guide to songdo, new city songdo, which is one of these like smart cities that's popping up all over the world. This one is in Korea, I believe. Yeah, it's in South Korea, and it's supposed to be, basically, life. like an experimental prototype community of the future that was built from scratch and they're like, this will have all the amenities and it will have like businesses and shopping centers and it's like empty. Like no one is there right now. And so I think we're seeing this like I was a few years ago, I was lucky enough to go on a trip to Dubai where there's just like growth, growth, growth, growth and all these like empty buildings with no one in them. And they're like, there's nothing there before. Like we can just build there. But I guess the thing that is still, I mean it's literally awesome. Like it's so incredible that these cities can just get built. But it's also kind of scary when it's built by a singular vision of a for-profit company who is trying to be in a constant state of becoming. (laughing) - You know? - Totally. - So I guess like how did it feel for you on the ground of being in Disney World and celebration? Like did it feel uncanny? - Absolutely, it feels definitely like nowhere else you've ever been, but it is very relaxing. Now that I know I can't get arrested by a real cop there, it's gonna be even more relaxed. (laughing) You know, everything is hyper clean. Everything is power washed. In the book, they mentioned that Disney built pneumatic tubes under the ground that whisk all the trash away to behind Splash Mountain. So it's like the trash isn't even there. But it definitely doesn't feel real. So I think it boils down to are you the kind of person who can walk into a completely scrub, clean, empty town and think like, I love it. I wanna buy a hot dog here, which is me. More do you see that and think like, I think probably a lot of bad things had to happen for this town to be so nice. - I mean it's so interesting because as I was reading about celebration particularly when thinking about these new towns and thinking about places like all the new developments in Dubai, I was thinking about this idea of like the new Uncanny city. And it reminds me of the story of Shandogar that we told in the podcast that like it was built from the ground up, it was built from scratch and it was kind of like weird and empty in the beginning. But now it's extremely populous and by depending on your metric, very successful. And I think with, you know, you could look, I'm sure Europeans coming to America in like the 1800s are like, oh it's so weird, it's like fake Europe and like all their trees are so small. And you know, like our White House is a knockoff of, you know, the government building in Dublin. Like yeah, yeah, it's crazy. But like, and you know, all of our college campuses are ripping off like, you know, Cambridge and Oxford. Like we live in a land of knockoffs and just how long does it take, how long does it take for something to feel real? Especially because like the world population is growing all the time and we have to build new things. And it's so hard not to be like, it feels new. Like new things have to get built and I don't know what the right aesthetic is. But I guess the thing that struck me about celebration was everyone's like, oh, it's like a Truman show. It's so weird. And they were like working so hard to make it like as authentic as possible, you know, even dictating. They had these like draconian, well, what seems to us, these draconian covenants that are like, you can't paint your house XYZ color. And you know, it has to be XYZ style, which in some ways was a way to keep it like uniform and authentic. And I also had other like worst covenants. Like you can't put any political stickers on your house. You could have one sign. You had to take it down two days after the election. Exactly. You can have more than three people sleeping in a bedroom. Oh, yeah. What if you had quadruplets? Can't do it. So it's just like, you know, when I was talking with Michael Beirut, who might be here, who worked on the signage for celebration. And he was saying oftentimes you just need to wait for the trees to grow. Like it just is that when you go to a new place, the trees feel too short. And like everything that that entails everything is just like too shiny. And then it will become like the new authentic one day. Like that when God made the world. He was probably like, oh, weird, everything is so small. But now he's like, oh my god, it looks great. Running a business shouldn't feel like surviving a software group project. One after accounting, another for inventory, another for sales, and somehow none of them talk to each other. That's where Odo comes in. And all in one business management software that brings every part of your business together. From sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, all in one powerful platform. No messy integrations, no bouncing between tabs, and best of all, no spreadsheets. Try for free today at odu.com/vox. That's odl.o.com/vox. Join the 5 million customers worldwide using zero. That's x-e-r-o.com. I really think that this is like celebration is going to be the number one. It's going to be like the number one hipster tourist design destination. It has a great Cuban restaurant. Really? Yeah, or they did when I went. OK, so what did you see when you went to celebration? A great Cuban restaurant. So really the only other thing that kind of sticks in my head besides all the homes are sort of done. And I don't remember how many styles, but there's a set number of styles. And they didn't want it to be all the exact same kind of house. So it's like you can have one of these four kinds of houses. And they're not from the same time period. But they're very distinct architecture. So I remember seeing that. And I remember that, at least in my mind, a lot of the streets were named celebration. So it was like celebration road and celebration avenue and celebration lane. I hope I'm not misremembering that. Because I think it's very creepy. And if I invented it, then it's a lot less interesting. But you know, it honestly looked a lot like Disney World. But I kind of guess what they were sort of going for. Although technically, they had to sort of annex that from Disney property in some way. Because since there were going to be real people living there who were not Disney employees, Disney did not want to be involved with real residents who have opinions and who would like to have civil rights. And it's like, no, no, no, like that. So celebration is like kind of run separately. But it was imagined by Disney. So it still has that kind of slightly uncanny look about it. But like, you know, I like to go to a weird place. I don't really mind. I don't think I'd want to live there. Because I'm sure it's too expensive. But all that absolutely go have dinner there. But you'd have Katie found a list of notable residents of celebration. You'd have that from Wikipedia. So I think it was taken off Wikipedia because they weren't source. But I started to Google some and I believe them. Oh, I'm not going to remember any of them now. Do you remember any? It was an Atlanta Braves baseball player, yeah. A woman who designs for Disney and Hot Topic. And she makes sort of like Hot Topic sexy versions of Disney princesses. Two prominent Brazilians. Yes. Like a talk show host or something. Yeah, yeah. I feel like sporty people like this. But well, like here's the thing. So celebration was supposed to be kind of like-- so Michael Eisner, who had taken over the Disney Company, was like a genuine design buff. And he was investing in designer architecture before it was like cool-- before stark texture was a thing, before we all were like, oh, this is an important building. This is like a Michael Graves building. He kind of had the kind-- he had the-- it was a really prescient decision to spend the extra money, to hire really, really, really famous architects to come make amazing work in celebration. So celebration is like a postmodernist dream. There's like a Michael Graves post office and a Philip Johnson town hall and a Cesar Pelli movie theater and a Venturi Scott brown bank. And they're like, oh, right, next to each other. It's totally cool. And it was meant to attract hipster idiots like me. I was like, oh, I want to see the cool architecture. And it was meant to have like this kind of like, oh, upper crust clientele that was supposed to be like decidedly different than the people who were obsessed with Disney. And one of its flaws was that never managed to get out of that like, oh, it's a Disney property. And their school was supposed to be like really experimental with no grades and like, with like narrative reports. And the parents are like, what is this shit? Well, it's crazy. Like, half the parents were really into it. And that's why they moved there. And then the other half were like, my child doesn't have a grade. so they basically make it. a regular school band and it's just something. Anytime you do anything with the school, that's why you can't have a utopia because parents are going to complain about the school no matter what you do. It's true, it's always a problem indoctrinating the next generation because if you didn't come to it organically of your own volition, it's really hard to believe in this lifestyle that you have or the principles that have been adopted all around you. And in the course of working on this series, I thought a lot about Amish communities and they're the necessity of the Roomspring on being like let people make this decision themselves 'cause as soon as you're like, this is the way we do things, you don't have a choice. Man, do you think that you would be susceptible to moving into utopia to following someone into one or starting one yourself? Oh yeah, I'm like, every story I do, I'm like, this is amazing. This is like a great idea, I'm obsessed with this now. Yeah, totally, totally, totally. Although I feel like, I mean the dream of utopia is it's really, really, really, really, really compelling to think that you could live in a world that's better than the one that's around you. Like you have a choice. Like this nation that you've been born into, this world you've been born into that just feel, sometimes I think like where could I turn? Like where could I go that would feel like peaceful and right to be able to carve out your own space is like incredibly intriguing. And even though everything we're talking about with Disney sounds really nefarious and scary now, like I kind of want to believe it came originally from a good place. I don't know. Well, like the thing I keep thinking of all the time, no, no, no, no, okay, the thing I keep thinking of, like yes, it was a company and they wanted to make money and they wanted to sell property and like Disney movies weren't doing so great at a time and they like wanted to make money off the theme parks. But the thing, the comparison I think of all the time is Victor Guru and the creator of the shopping mall. Like he wanted to create this space that would be like pedestrian friendly and he also thought like people would live there and there would be schools and there would be a town square and he was Viennese and he was trying to recreate Vienna and give it to the American suburbs and then also in the '60s he started like engineering downtowns to be more like malls and it was his way of making peace and then he learned that downtown is not a mall and you can't just perfectly engineer it and he eventually grew to hate malls and like rage against some very, very, very, very public and he was like oh no, what have I done? And I keep comparing like the original vision for the mall, for the original vision for Epcot that everyone like dreams of these little like perfect enclosed spaces. It's so funny that you are looking for the good in it because I feel like when I read this book and everyone, pretty much everyone in this book, especially in the '60s is a white man. Many of them are named Bob. And I was thinking it's amazing what they managed to accomplish that they convinced Florida to just let them have their own separate government in Florida and it's like what if you didn't have to be a white man to do that, if they had had like the best minds from every different kind of person working it would have been so much bigger and scarier and better. Like I should ever to think what they would have invented if they had had like the smartest black woman into you know like they were really limiting it to this one population and they still accomplished a lot. So if they had opened it up, they probably would have all Florida by now would be Disney World. It would be, but it already was interesting. Thank heavens all happened so that like I could be, like my family could really have like our vacation time about bonding time together. Well I'm very impressed by what they did. I think it's probably ultimately bad but we're doing a lot of things that are bad. And at least this is you know really fun to go on a ride. You feel like you're in outer space. You can have dinner in Canada without going to Canada. (audience laughing) So nice. Fetties as a Canada has the best Epcot food. Yeah. La Salleier for dinner you do need a reservation. (laughing) But yeah I kept coming back to that point. Like wow I really wish we hadn't limited the brain power because I kind of, you know maybe it's a nihilistic point of view but it's like I wonder how truly freaking crazy we could have made this. Could have been really really really bad and insane. And now it's only like pretty bad and insane. What they've managed to pull off the scam they've got going. And do you think like I guess when we were talking about things that are uncanny in the beginning and then they like mature into something where used to you, I feel like now we've gotten to the point where like it's a tradition oh yeah like everyone goes to Disneyland. And it's like it is America. And do you think it's like still a scam that they're running? I think it's still a scam they're running because they still are operating by basically the same set of laws that they were given in 1967. I think if they, I mean I would be so curious if they said actually these laws were like unconstitutional. We are revoking all of them. I wonder what Disney would do because it would cost them so much more to run that park. What would happen to my family's Disney vacation club points? Would they drop in value? Would they skyrocket in value? Wait how did they work? How did they work? I don't know and my mom can't explain. (laughing) It's like I need her social security number to access anything related to the Disney vacation club points. They're tightly guarded. Whoa. It's nuts, yeah. But I also think speaking you know why people kind of keep trying to do these utopias I think that it's really appealing to think that we can start completely clean slate instead of civilization developing as it has for all of human history kind of haphazardly. Like okay what if we now take all that knowledge we have and apply it in a really logical way and you need a confidence man or an extroverted young lady to say like wait I don't exactly how we should do this and I think that their excitement will probably carry you pretty far if you really believe something that's the thing I think if you if you feel you're selling people alive it won't be as good but if you are crazy enough that you can convince yourself like I actually know how to run the perfect city then you could probably get some people to believe you and try to make that city and I don't think it will work. Well that's the thing like I want to believe that we've spent so long trying this and living together that we're learning lessons and that like we could maybe apply them and we could create homes and communities and cities that are better but people are terrible. I know you can do that. That's what I can come back to over and over again. It's just like it's hard to build community because people are I have a friend from the South who when I complain about things that are you know just mind or mind a complaint he says you will complain about a birthday cake and I feel like there are always people out there who will complain about a birthday cake and that's why we can't have a utopia. People like me. Well okay this brings you to like the other interesting thing that I wish we're going to talk about in the podcast from my other favorite book that I read for this series it's called Dreaming the Biosphere by Rebecca Ryder also like gorgeous because it zooms out and talks about the crazy story of Biosphere 2 and just like all of the societal trappings around it. Oh by the way the the thunder of Epcot was brothers with the thunder of Biosphere 2 they were both the bass family. Yeah. Yeah. There are so many crazy overlaps but the other thing was like people so after the Biosphere experiment was over some of the people who had participated in it went around to like NASA and scientists who had done polar expeditions and deep sea expeditions and other places where people had been in confined space with each other and they were like is what happened in the Biosphere all this infighting was it normal and everyone is like textbook they know it's going to happen it's called the three fourths phenomenon and it just means three fourths through any mission everyone just gets at each other's threats like no matter how well they get along they separate into groups and a lot of it has to do with like how they feel about mission control and where they feel like this mission is going but it's really really sad and even if they know it's coming and they can study it and like you just can't prepare for it we just fight that's not sad that is the real housewives of New York City going on a trip to Mexico to France and that's what happens it's that's incredible television that's not said you're like this is like yeah they're funny about now I also I I know that if I ever did anything like that I can convince myself of things so easily that I would absolutely be the one who's like I think mission control is doing something wrong like I don't want to speak out of the I really think they're doing something do you guys feel that way accidentally sewing just court I know I'd be the one totally and maybe I'd be right probably not you did just be the confidence you'd be confident about it does anyone have any questions I feel like were we supposed to get little cards we can you just keep talking about business world too yeah we can keep going we can have a little housewives thank you all right thank you by the way for asking questions favorite episode of the season do you have a favorite yeah what's your favorite my favorite but I think it was actually the first episode was that Jamestown I am just so interested in people who go somewhere where you know came over didn't really know what they'd find But we're confident enough that whatever they found, they'd be able to make a successful town out of it. And it's like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's really hard to make a town. And that's what they found out. I could listen to stories of people trying and failing to create towns all day long, especially when narrated by every solid voice. The Jamestown one was like so upsetting, so upsetting, and also just more upsetting that we don't talk about it. You know, I feel like, especially in the Bay Area, there's this like, fail culture, like, fail harder, fail better, like, keep failing, fail, fail until you make it. And then no one actually talks about when people start eating each other. [LAUGHTER] That's embarrassing. I think my favorite episode is Biosphere 2, just because, also, I went there for this bullshit conference. And it felt-- I kept calling it the Fire Festival conference, so it's like, what are we doing here? What are we studying? And they were like, here are your rooms. And they were like horrible. There was no heat. It was so-- but it was like so perfect to have that conference in the Biosphere. It's just this, like, monument to failure. And it's also, like, failure or not, it's gorgeous. It's like a really amazing structure that they built out there in the middle of the desert. And so, like, everyone should go see it if they have the chance to see it. And, like, enjoy the not-story they are telling you. Like, enjoy-- it's still owned by Ed Bass. Like, they're still protecting themselves. And, like, I don't blame them. They're, like, trying their dandruff to make it make sense and make it work. But that is certainly my favorite. They're all my-- they're all my-- I love them all. OK, here's a question. Is that hard? I'm going to ask you, oh, no. What would your utopia look like? Oh, my God. Sorry. OK, it's located in Orlando, Florida. [LAUGHTER] I really don't know. I have to say none of the utopias that were covered in the series necessarily appealed to me. I think that-- I guess, what's the difference between utopia and heaven? It seems to be that utopia is all about creating the perfect conditions for a society to thrive. And then maybe heaven is where everyone is actually happy. But I don't think you could get that on Earth. I don't-- even if you created the most perfect place, I don't think people would live perfect lives there. So I guess it would be like maybe on their beach, but it would also have snow. That's my utopia. Beach with snow. I mean, so when I was going around about this, there's a ship that's, I think, going to launch in 2021, called Utopia. And it's built by this development company. These developers-- and they're like, this is a completely new concept and luxury living. You can buy a condo on this boat. And it's like a normal condo except every morning you wake up in a new place. And it's full of shopping malls and restaurants. And you have a couple of million dollars burning on your bucket. The stuff goes. Let's take a press trip. No, no, I can't do this. I need to do that. But no, it's crazy. But it's really interesting because I feel like it gets-- like everyone should watch the video for this ship called Utopia. It's totally crazy because it's full of all these people with European accents being like, what is Utopia? Oh my god. Kind of shit. Yeah, community. But also, it's just like, what will-- I mean, yes, I know everyone on the boat is a billionaire, but how will they do their jobs? How will they work? How will they be in touch with their family? And I presume that they're just going to have to fly around and meet Utopia and fly back out to wherever they need to go. And I think it really addresses this idea of impermanence in Utopia. Like, of course, Disneyland is a Utopia. Because you go there for a little bit at a time before it gets boring and terrible when people start fighting. And when you have a limited-- when you can get it in little bits, that's what keeps it like-- not revelatory, that's what keeps it special. So I feel like it's a Utopia of limits. [MUSIC PLAYING] Thank you to Katie Weaver for joining me on this Utopian evening. And thank you to the 92nd Street Y for hosting us. This live event was produced by Jill Denner. Nice Tri's producer is Megan Kanane. Our associate producer is Diana Buds. Our editors are Audrey Dilling and Lisa Pollock, original music and sound design by Greg Pliska. Gautam's Shrekishan is our engineer. Our showrunners are Chung, our executive producers on a shot, Kerwa, and Kelsey Keith. Nice Tri Utopia is a production of Curved in the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Avery Truffleman, and Utopia's Do Not Exist. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] If you run a small business, you know that having a clear picture of your finances is invaluable. 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