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Politics is now a dating deal-breaker, according to new research
A massive Dating.com study reveals just how important politics are in the dating world right now.
12 June, 2020
Pixabay
- According to a new survey from a popular dating website, 84 percent of people currently looking for a relationship through dating apps won't even consider dating someone with opposite political views.
- Additionally, 67 percent of the dating site's users have admitted to previously ending a relationship due to opposing political views.
- Licensed marriage therapist Dr. Gary Brown says that there is more "venom and animosity" now than there was during the Vietnam War.
<ul class="ee-ul"></ul><div class="redactor-editor" dir="ltr" placeholder="Start writing..."><p>We are living in an extremely polarizing time in politics. With an American president that you either wildly support or vehemently oppose, and a world that's been pushed to the brink in more ways than one in the last few years, it's no surprise that conversations about politics could lead to make or break moments in budding new romances.</p>According to <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/datingcom-reveals-sharing-your-political-party-might-be-a-dating-deal-breaker-301073270.html" target="_blank">a new survey</a> from popular dating website Dating.com, 84 percent of people currently looking for a relationship through dating apps won't even consider dating someone with opposite political views, and 67 percent of users admitted to previously ending a relationship due to opposing political views.</div><ul class="ee-ul"></ul>
Exploring the connections between romance and politics
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzM4OTA0Ni9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxMDEyNDU2N30.PtZ8GeZv4bc8U0wTTwP_zPcmzZq2oul73sSsqDW06Tk/img.jpg?width=980" id="4245b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="6d5d17ac69c91176f0090f738a5badd5" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="vote pins concept of voter registration" />Sex and politics have been closely linked for a long time.
Photo by 3dfoto on Shutterstock
<p>From the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/14/us/politics/george-and-kellyanne-conway.html" target="_blank">extremely public disagreements</a> between White House advisor Kellyanne Conway and her husband, to the tense argument you and your partner had on voting day, politics can be a breaking point for any relationship.</p><p>Sex and intimacy provide a strong driving force for humans that reaches far beyond the confines of the bedroom. Our personal relationships influence our behaviors, our thoughts, our motivations, and our even our political opinions, to some extent.</p><p><strong>If your sexual preferences align, your political values might, too. </strong></p><p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886916310364" target="_blank">According to this 2017 study</a>, traditional behaviors in the bedroom (what some might deem to be <a href="https://sofiagray.com/vanilla-sex-gets-a-bad-wrap-heres-why-its-actually-great/" target="_blank">"vanilla" sex</a>) can be closely related to more conservative orientations, whereas more adventurous sexual endeavors can suggest more liberal ideas. </p><p>Whether you're swiping right or scrolling through, it can be hard to find a match who's values and opinions are in line with yours. While some minor disagreements and conflicts can actually <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/conscious-communication/201703/why-conflict-is-healthy-relationships" target="_blank">be healthy in a relationship</a>, pairing up with someone who has opposing political views might just mean you have two very different sets of morals that may not bring out the best in each other.</p><p><strong>Defining dating expectations allows you to see how important political views are in the beginning of a relationship. </strong></p><p><a href="https://www.itsjustlunch.com/do-politics-and-dating-make-a-match" target="_blank">According to a study</a> released by It's Just Lunch, 50 percent of single men and women stated that dating someone with opposing political views was fine for short-term relationships but would not be ideal for long-term commitments. </p><p>If you're looking for something casual and fun, perhaps politics doesn't need to play as big of a role as it would if you were swiping right to find a long-term relationship. </p><p><strong>Navigating politics and relationships is more difficult now than ever before.</strong></p><p>That same study by It's Just Lunch has around 40 percent of men and women claiming they believe it's "too risky" to bring up politics on a first date. </p><p>It's not just dating website studies - therapists around the world are struggling to defuse politically-charged landmines in relationships. <a href="https://drgarybrowntherapy.com/" target="_blank">Gary Brown</a>, Ph.D. and licensed marriage therapist explains to <a href="https://www.womenshealthmag.com/life/a19943112/relationship-therapists-politics-advice/" target="_blank">Women's Health Magazine</a> that now more than ever we are living in such an intense political climate that it is undoubtedly causing tension not just in romantic relationships but in friendships and among colleagues as well. </p><p>"It's everywhere," Brown explains. "I can't remember a time, not even during the Vietnam war, where there was as much venom and animosity as there is now. Even people who deeply love each other are falling victim to the 'politics of personal destruction', where it's not enough to disagree with someone but you have to destroy them and everything they stand for in the process." </p>How to (respectfully) broach the topic of politics with a potential match
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzM4OTA0NS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwOTU4NjY2M30.aP7RVtnmbxWyR8TvF2X4KkAOPGQzyj_yH1vSz9irjV0/img.jpg?width=1245&coordinates=0%2C52%2C0%2C52&height=700" id="25b1e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4dee3450c09733a0f67664f4896e2621" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="man and women disagreeing arguing on couch" />Polarizing political views can be a deal-breaker - here's how to navigate the topic of politics on a date.
Photo by fizkes on Shutterstock
<p>"During a time where we are surrounded by politics, it is important to look at the impact that it has on the online dating industry," Vice President of Dating.com, Maria Sullivan, explains. "We have seen a huge increase in political terms being added to user profiles."</p><p>According to the study, 72 percent of singles would rather you flaunt that you voted at all (rather than who specifically you voted for) in your bio. More than half the participants surveyed said that bringing up a discussion about politics too early can be a huge turn-off.</p><p>So how do you make sure you make your view known while not being too pushy about the subject too early on? </p><p><strong>Use non-confrontational language and keep things vague in the beginning. </strong>If voting is important to you, make that known and suggest that you're open to talking politics with anyone who is interested. </p><p><strong>Choose the right time.</strong> Perhaps the first words you say shouldn't be an accusatory statement about who they voted for and why. Bringing up political views is an important test to see if the match is right, but choose the right time to insert politics into the conversation. </p><p><strong>Be open-minded (or respectful, at the very least).</strong> While you may have a hard stance on your political views (as many people do), being respectful of other people's opinions is often the best approach and the thing that might open the conversation up in a healthy way.</p>
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Why are workers getting smaller pieces of the pie?
"Superstar" firms have been lowering labor's share of GDP in recent decades, a new study finds.
17 March, 2020
Oli Scarff/Getty Images
It's one of the biggest economic changes in recent decades: Workers get a smaller slice of company revenue, while a larger share is paid to capital owners and distributed as profits.
<p> Or, as economists like to say, there has been a fall in labor's share of gross domestic product, or GDP.</p><p>A new study co-authored by MIT economists uncovers a major reason for this trend: Big companies that spend more on capital and less on workers are gaining market share, while smaller firms that spend more on workers and less on capital are losing market share. That change, the researchers say, is a key reason why the labor share of GDP in the U.S. has dropped from around 67 percent in 1980 to 59 percent today, following decades of stability.</p><p>"To understand this phenomenon, you need to understand the reallocation of economic activity across firms," says MIT economist David Autor, co-author of the paper. "That's our key point."</p><p>To be sure, many economists have suggested other hypotheses, including new generations of software and machines that substitute directly for workers, the effects of international trade and outsourcing, and the decline of labor union power. The current study does not entirely rule out all of those explanations, but it does highlight the importance of what the researchers term "superstar firms" as a primary factor.</p><p>"We feel this is an incredibly important and robust fact pattern that you have to grapple with," adds Autor, the Ford Professor of Economics in MIT's Department of Economics.</p>
<p>The paper, "The Fall of the Labor Share and the Rise of Superstar Firms," appears in advance online form in the <em>Quarterly Journal of Economics</em>. In addition to Autor, the other authors are David Dorn, a professor of economics at the University of Zurich; Lawrence Katz, a professor of economics at Harvard University; Christina Patterson, PhD '19, a postdoc at Northwestern University who will join the faculty at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business in July; and John Van Reenen, the Gordon Y. Billard Professor of Management and Economics at MIT.</p><h3>An economic "miracle" vanishes</h3><p>For much of the 20th century, labor's share of GDP was notably consistent. As the authors note, John Maynard Keynes once called it "something of a miracle" in the face of economic changes, and the British economist Nicholas Kaldor included labor's steady portion of GDP as one of his often-cited six "stylized facts" of growth.</p><p>To conduct the study, the researchers scrutinized data for the U.S. and other countries in the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The scholars used U.S. Economic Census data from 1982 to 2012 to study six economic sectors that account for about 80 percent of employment and GDP: manufacturing, retail trade, wholesale trade, services, utilities and transportation, and finance. The data includes payroll, total output, and total employment.</p>
<p>The researchers also used information from the EU KLEMS database, housed at the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, to examine the other OECD countries.</p><p>The increase in market dominance for highly competitive top firms in many of those sectors is evident in the data. In the retail trade, for instance, the top four firms accounted for just under 15 percent of sales in 1981, but that grew to around 30 percent of sales in 2011. In utilities and transportation, those figures moved from 29 percent to 41 percent in the same time frame. In manufacturing, this top-four sales concentration grew from 39 percent in 1981 to almost 44 percent in 2011.</p><p>At the same time, the average payroll-to-sales ratio declined in five of those sectors — with finance being the one exception. In manufacturing, the payroll-to-sales ratio decreased from roughly 18 percent in 1981 to about 12 percent in 2011. On aggregate, the labor share of GDP declined at most times except the period from 1997 to 2002, the final years of an economic expansion with high employment.</p><p>But surprisingly, labor's share is not falling at the typical firm. Rather, reallocation of market share between firms is the key. In general, says Autor, the picture is of a "winner-take-most setting, where a smaller number of firms are accounting for a larger amount of economic activity, and those are firms where workers historically got a smaller share of the pie."</p>
<p>A key insight provided by the study is that the dynamics within industry sectors has powered the drop in the labor share of GDP. The overall change is not just the result of, say, an increase in the deployment of technology in manufacturing, which some economists have suggested. While manufacturing is important to the big picture, the same phenomenon is unfolding across and within many sectors of the economy.</p><p>As far as testing the remaining alternate hypotheses, the study found no special pattern within industries linked to changes in trade policy — a subject Autor has studied extensively in the past. And while the decline in union power cannot be ruled out as a cause, the drop in labor share of GDP occurs even in countries where unions remain relatively stronger than they do in the U.S.</p><h3>Deserved market power, or not?</h3><p>As Autor notes, there are nuances within the findings. Many "superstar" firms pay above-average wages to their employees; it is not that these firms are increasingly "squeezing" their workers, as he puts it. Rather, labor's share of the economic value added across the industrial sectors in the study is falling because market-leading "superstar" firms are now a bigger piece of all economic activity.</p><p>On a related note, Autor suggests that the growth in market power is related to technological investment by firms in many sectors.</p>
<p>"We shouldn't presume that just because a market is concentrated — with a few leading firms accounting for a large fraction of sales — it's a market with low productivity and high prices," Autor says. "It might be a market where you have some very productive leading firms." Today, he adds, "more competition is platform-based competition, as opposed to simple price competition. Walmart is a platform business. Amazon is a platform business. Many tech companies are platform businesses. Many financial services companies are platform businesses. You have to make some huge investment to create a sophisticated service or set of offerings. Once that's in place, it's hard for your competitors to replicate."</p><p>With this in mind, Autor says we may want to distinguish whether market concentration is "the bad kind, where lazy monopolists are jacking up prices, or the good kind, where the more competitive firms are getting a larger share. To the best we can distinguish, the rise of superstar firms appears more the latter than the former. These firms are in more innovative industries — their productivity growth has developed faster, they make more investment, they patent more. It looks like this is happening more in the frontier sectors than the laggard sectors."</p><p>Still Autor adds, the paper does contain policy implications for regulators.</p><p>"Once a firm is that far ahead, there's potential for abuse," he notes. "Maybe Facebook shouldn't be allowed to buy all its competitors. Maybe Amazon shouldn't be both the host of a market and a competitor in that market. This potentially creates regulatory issues we should be looking at. There's nothing in this paper that says everyone should just take a few years off and not worry about the issue."</p><p>"We don't think our paper is in any sense the last word on the topic," Autor notes. "We think it adds useful paragraphs to the conversation for everybody to listen to and grapple with. We've had too few facts chased by too many theories. We need more facts to allow us to adjudicate among theories."</p><p>Support for the research project was provided by Accenture LLC, the Economic and Social Research Council, the European Research Council, IBM Global Universities Programs, the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, the National Science Foundation, Schmidt Futures, the Sloan Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, and the Swiss National Science Foundation.</p><p><span></span>Reprinted with permission of <a href="http://news.mit.edu/" target="_blank">MIT News</a>. Read the <a href="http://news.mit.edu/2020/why-workers-smaller-share-GDP-0311" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
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Sexual harassment: Organizations must stop protecting ‘brilliant jerks’
More rules is not what's going to stop sexual harassment at work, says Johnny C. Taylor, Jr. Change the culture.
15 March, 2020
- "Too many organizations have tolerated the brilliant jerk. Too many organizations have tolerated the highly profitable sexual harasser or bully," says Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., CEO of the Society for Human Resource Management. At this point in time, more rules is not the answer. The workplace culture must reject harassers.
- When organizations do nothing to stop harassers and have one set of rules for the powerful and one for the powerless, productivity, workplace culture, and morale are affected in ways we can measure, and in insidious, destructive ways that we cannot.
- "Think about it, says Taylor. "Your star performer is known to flirt the line, if not cross the line, with respect to inappropriate workplace behavior. Are you prepared to fire that person, even if it means you may lose a major contract? That's when employees will judge who you are and what this company is really about. They're going to judge you on what you do, not what you say."
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Russia to replace Wikipedia with the 'Great Russian Encyclopaedia'
The encyclopedia offers more "reliable" information than Wikipedia, said Russian President Vladimir Putin.
04 December, 2019
Mikhail Svetlov / Contributor
- A government resolution said the measure will ensure that "reliable information that is constantly updated on the basis of scientifically verified sources of knowledge."
- The move is likely part of Russia's effort to crack down on citizens' internet access.
- Russia has centuries-old history of censorship, and state officials have even been observed to edit Wikipedia articles to serve Russian interests.
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<p>Wikipedia is full of unreliable information, Russian President Vladimir Putin said last month. The solution? Replace it with an electronic version of the Great Russian Encyclopaedia, an existing reference work whose content is possibly influenced by the Russian government.</p><p>"As for Wikipedia… it's better to replace it with the new Big Russian Encyclopaedia in electronic form," Russian news agency <em>RIA Novosti</em> <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20191105-putin-calls-for-russian-alternative-to-wikipedia" target="_blank">quoted</a> Putin as saying at a Kremlin meeting in November. "At least that will be reliable information, presented in a good, modern way."</p><p>A government resolution said the measure will ensure that "reliable information that is constantly updated on the basis of scientifically verified sources of knowledge."</p><p>But upon the launch of encyclopedia's latest iteration, in 2017, writer Nikolai Podosokorsky <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2017/0323/Russia-set-to-unveil-the-world-s-newest-print-encyclopedia-and-its-last" target="_blank">told</a> the <em>Christian Science Monitor </em>that while some of the pieces featured in the work were "excellent," others were shallow and biased.</p><p>"I've gone through several articles that pertain to my area of expertise, and found them quite superficial. The lists of references at the end were often extremely biased."</p><p>Of course, the new measure will also help Russia crack down even harder on citizens' internet access, a longstanding project of the Kremlin. In 2017, Russia said it plans to route 95 percent of internet traffic through its own servers by 2020. Earlier this year, <a href="https://bigthink.com/politics-current-affairs/russia-internet-disconnect-test?rebelltitem=2" target="_blank">Russia conducted an experiment</a> in which it briefly disconnected itself from global servers to test how well it functioned on its self-contained internet. The test seemed designed, in part, to bolster safeguard measures in the event that Russia was attacked in an act of cyber warfare. </p><p>But it's also possible that Russia is exploring new ways to make its internet even more censored, surveilled and isolated from outside influence. In March, for example, Russia passed legislation banning the publication of "unreliable socially significant information" and content that shows "clear disrespect" for the government. Under this law, multiple people were fined for sharing a video about the lack of schools in a province of Russia, according to a report from the Russian media freedom watchdog <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roskomsvoboda_(organization)" target="_blank">Roskomsvoboda</a>.</p>
Why Russia dislikes Wikipedia
<p>Maybe it's no wonder why Russia wants to axe Wikipedia, a crowd-sourced website that currently hosts entries like "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Russia" target="_blank">Internet censorship in Russia</a>", "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_Russia" target="_blank">List of journalists killed in Russia</a>" and "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_in_the_Russian_Federation" target="_blank">Propaganda in the Russian Federation</a>". Putin's own Wikipedia page mentions accusations that Putin had elections rigged and his critics tortured and murdered. It also has a section titled "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin" target="_blank">Comparison to Hitler.</a>"</p><p>There's also a Wikipedia entry for Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which was shot down over a part of Ukraine occupied by pro-Russian separatists in 2014. That same year, a Twitter bot that monitors edits made to Wikipedia pages found that an internet user affiliated with Russian state media <a href="https://mashable.com/2014/07/19/russian-government-edits-wikipedia-mh17/" target="_blank">changed the following sentence</a>:</p><p><em>The plane was shot down by terrorists of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic with Buk system missiles, which the terrorists received from the Russian Federation.</em></p><p>To:</p><p><em>The plane was shot down by Ukrainian soldiers.</em></p><p>This year, international investigators <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mh17-4-pro-russian-military-officers-accused-of-missile-attack-2019-6?r=US&IR=T" target="_blank">accused</a> four pro-Russian military officials of being involved in the attacks.</p>Centuries of censorship
<p>Russia's history of vying to maintain top-down information control at all costs dates back to the 18th century. And it makes sense, from the perspective of the few in control: The state would lose power if it's unable to control how citizens access and share information, as Niall Ferguson, MA, D.Phil., Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, told <em>Big Think.</em></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"[Stalin] understood that it doesn't take too many additional edges in the network to destroy the dominance of that central node. So one way of thinking about this is: imagine a pyramidal structure, imagine something kind of like a Christmas tree, and there's the big guy like the fairy on top of the Christmas tree. But imagine that on this Christmas tree the lights are just connected to the fairy, they're not connected to one another, and therefore the fairy decides if the lights go on or off. It's a peculiar kind of Christmas tree. That's essentially a hierarchical network.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">It wouldn't take too many connections, as it were—lateral or horizontal connections—between the lights to reduce the centrality of the fairy on the tree, and ultimately you could end up illuminating the tree without needing the fairy altogether."</p><span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7f464e645c4d42950c92cc428b73d9ab"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/s31VFwO-6u0?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
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"Cocaine of the sea" — the illegal fish trade of the Mexican cartel and Chinese mafia
"Sea of Shadows" is a documentary you can't afford to miss.
06 November, 2019
National Geographic
- "Sea of Shadows" tells the story of an illegal fish trade between the Mexican cartel and Chinese mafia.
- The fish bladders, bought for $5,000 from local fisherman, are sold in China for over $100,000 to make an unproven medicine.
- Director Richard Ladkani talks about the intensity and danger of making this film, as well as the hopeful ending.
<p>In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), the totoaba bladder is believed to cure arthritis. As with much of TCM, the claim is unproven and inevitably creates more harm than good. An entire ecosystem is on the verge of collapse thanks to the illegal bladder trade between the Mexican cartel and Chinese businessmen. </p><p>While the totoaba are rapidly declining in numbers—their only home is in the Sea of Cortez, the body of water that separates Baja California with mainland Mexico—the illegal fishing nets local fishermen use are killing everything else: turtles, sharks, and the focus of "Sea of Shadows," the vaquita. There are only believed to be 15 or so of these small porpoises left in existence. </p><p>As director and cinematographer, Richard Ladkani, <a href="https://soundcloud.com/derekberes/earthrise-podcast-71-sea-of-shadows-with-richard-ladkani" target="_blank">told me earlier this week</a>, there is hope as six vaquitas (including babies) were recently spotted. Since he filmed "Jane's Journey," an intimate portrait of English primatologist and anthropologist Jane Goodall, Ladkani has focused on environmentally relevant works. His last film, "The Ivory Game," helped make the ivory trade between Africa and China illegal. As you'll see while watching his incredible new National Geographic documentary, his film might help save an ecosystem "just five hours drive from Los Angeles." </p><p>But nothing is a given. At the end of our talk, Ladkani asked me to mention <a href="https://earthleagueinternational.org/" target="_blank">Earth League International</a> and <a href="https://seashepherd.org/" target="_blank">Sea Shepherd</a>, the two organizations driving the activism in the Sea of Cortez. "Sea of Shadows" is heartbreaking and inspiring, frightening and ambitious. Most importantly, it's a reminder that people care about the fate of this planet and all the animals that reside here. In a time when most environmental news informs us that we're another step closer to a precipice, this film reminds us of the necessity of banding together and fighting for what's best for all of us. </p>
Sea of Shadows Official Trailer | National Geographic
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="73bd68e6bb11a3c1b4fa6ac97991ee08"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QiFjJCUd9ro?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>Derek: Congratulations on "Sea of Shadows." And thank you for keeping me up all night.</p><p>Richard: I tell people to buckle up before the movie starts.</p><p>Derek: I would love to know how you became interested in this topic.</p><p>Richard: In general, I'm interested in films with impact and a mission behind them. That started with Jane Goodall, who I was lucky enough to follow around the world about 10 years ago while shooting a film called "Jane's Journey." She inspired me to look at the natural world in a different way and understand that our world is in peril and is really falling apart. </p><p>"The Ivory Game" was the first result of her inspiration. Then came "Sea of Shadows," which was brought to us by Leonardo DiCaprio, who was our executive producer on my previous film. He thought "The Ivory Game" was super successful on how we collaborated and how a movie can have such a huge impact, because it changed the law in China and made dealing with ivory illegal. </p><p>Two months after the movie came out, they invited us to China to screen the film at the Beijing Film Festival. That was such a big impact, that you can change the government's way of thinking about the world, even a Chinese government on top of that. We were thinking about the next story and Leonardo suggested something on the vaquita because he deeply cared about a small whale that nobody has ever heard about, including myself. He had just met with a Mexican president and was deeply involved in this rescue effort of scientists to save the vaquita. </p><p>Derek: While the film is focused on the totoaba and vaquita, you also mention that fishing them can collapse an entire ecosystem. Is that whole area going to be infertile if they continue this trade?</p><p>Richard: Absolutely. If the vaquita goes extinct, which we are trying everything in our power to impact, we'll feel we had a little part for not allowing that to happen. But if it happens, it will mean that the cartel is going to completely take over the area. The attention, the focus, the spotlight that it has right now is because of the vaquita; it is such a symbolic animal and it's been highly exposed. If the vaquita goes extinct, the NGOs will be removed from the area. They will move onto a new war somewhere, maybe in Peru or South Africa.</p><p>Then what will happen is the cartel is going to 100% take over the Sea of Cortez. All the fishermen are going to be pressured to go out for the totoaba. You've seen how they do it. They dropped thousands of gill nets, walls of death that kill everything just to get to that final totoaba. They will kill everything and it's all tossed away. All the sharks, the turtles, everything will disappear just because they're going for that totoaba.</p><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjA2MTU2NC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMTExMDg4N30.iZde9AfjCA35di17_LI-olOO6kWzgybsCEhNVMol7w4/img.jpg?width=980" id="c795d" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d61ccaf3270d6d367816a069e3f1603b" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Director Richard Ladkani attends the New York premiere of National Geographic Documentary Films, "Sea of Shadows," at the Metrograph on July 9, 2019.
Photo by Heidi Gutman/Walt Disney Television via Getty Images
<p>Derek: An ecosystem might collapse half a world away because of a fish bladder that supposedly cures arthritis, with no scientific proof whatsoever. Did you do any research on TCM for the film?</p><p>Richard: Yes, of course. We even filmed in China for a month. The reason we didn't include that in the film was because we realized that there was no demand; it is already illegal to trade totoaba there. Every scientist we talked to said it's not proven Western science. They couldn't find any proof that it has any power at all. But then we realized that it would take a whole generation or a campaign to change the minds of the Chinese. The vaquita maybe has 12 months to live. </p><p>It will never be solved in China. There is nothing we can do in China that will stop this trade in time. In other cases, like with the elephants, it was 10 years to extinction. We had the time to go there. But in this case, it just didn't make any sense. There was a whole half-hour worth of dramatic events in China, but we took it all out because we wanted people to focus on where the solution is, which is in Mexico.</p><p>Derek: Speaking of dramatic events, I love how you focus both on the media aspect of the trade and the race against the cartel. There were some failures too; I'm glad you highlighted them. How did your crew emotionally deal with making this film?</p><p>Richard: It was like a roller coaster ride. The dramatic scenes that happened with the vaquita were unthinkable. I was very close with the scientists, with Cynthia Smith; we became friends and she really trusted us. By the end they gave us full access. Living through that traumatic scenes as the moments unfold was just beyond belief. It was really tough for us to be there. I tried to be as invisible as possible and stay out of their way. </p><p>At the same time, this film became more and more dangerous every week that we were on location. It was a big responsibility to keep the team safe and to keep going and pushing. Our production company provided a full security budget for us. We had very professional bodyguards that know what they're doing, people that we can trust who are not bought by the cartel or corrupt police. It was like a big military operation to get this film made without anybody getting shot or kidnapped.</p><p>Derek: There was the scene when you were at the beach and the fisherman had taken over the Navy vessel. It reminded me a little bit of "Restrepo," from the camera crew perspective: You're in the middle of a war, you're getting rocks thrown at you, and you're getting shot at. Even though you had bodyguards, there was a lot of personal danger.</p><p>Richard: It was the most dangerous moment of the entire production. It was also the worst case scenario. In all the planning that went into the film, we always said this is what we need to avoid—a flash mob of people trying to come at us from all sides. We were just trying to get out of it alive and keep everyone safe, but at the same time it was also the challenge of actually capturing that moment and everything that came with it and not stop shooting. Even though I was running for my life, I kept the camera rolling on my shoulder and made sure that that red light was on. If you stop shooting, then you may also lose that one opportunity to really get the audience to understand what these people are going through.</p><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjA2MTU1Ny9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNzE0MTQ2NX0.5kOqqO72L26rRgjtiylPKU4yvprx01AE4VKiEtsOsTo/img.jpg?width=980" id="0c72f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="64999f91d0b6e49dd2825ed4744a68b0" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Riots break out in San Felipe as fishermen protest the arrests of totoaba poachers.
National Geographic
<p>Derek: You might not have been worried about framing, but when you see a rock fly by three feet from your feet, you know exactly what's happening.</p><p>Richard: Of course. We were hiding behind cars and everything, so I knew what was happening. There was fear, but there was also control in the way of staying focused. What scared me the most was when shots started to appear. We were hearing gunfire, and I didn't know who was shooting at who because we weren't able to see. Did the cartel open fire on us? Is it the Navy shooting at them or in the air? I heard bullets ricocheting off walls around us; that meant that they are firing not in the air but actually at us.</p><p>There's stuff that is not in the film, when we got threatened by the cartel right after because they had exposed our identities. They had photographed us, then they followed us home. Then we got direct threats from Oscar Parra. Actually, he requested a meeting with me the following night and said I had to come alone. And I was like, "No, I don't think so."</p><p>Derek: I wouldn't have taken that meeting either. There's also a moment where the drone gets shot down. I've known about Sea Shepherd for a long time; they do amazing work. When you see the crew members, they look like a bunch of young kids, but they have to be pretty tough to do that job.</p><p>Richard: They are amazing. The average age on ship was 22 and that was just insane, but they're all fired up. They're all activists and wanted to sign up for this battle of the Sea of Cortez. They're very inspiring people. It was always great to be on the ship. I really admire them.</p><p>Derek: One of the stories in the film involves the Mexican Navy and how they go from giving you platitudes, then later you're riding along with the Navy. Was it the media pressure that made them change?</p><p>Richard: It was actually Carlos Loret de Mola who kept pressuring them: "Show me how you're fighting this war, how you want to win." We were lucky because we were following Carlos; we were sort of his team so they didn't question who we are. We had access to all the operations. But as you see, you think there's something off here: There's all this presence but somehow they're always in the wrong place at the wrong time. They even release the prisoners in the end.</p><p>It was after the riots that I confronted the Vice Admiral and asked him, "What the hell is going on? How can you not get on top of that situation?" That's when he told me to stop filming. Then he told me, "Richard, they know where my daughter goes to school, they know where we live, they know the name of my wife, and they will first come for my daughter and kidnap her. Then they will kill her, my wife, and then they will come from me. That's why I'm not getting in their way." </p><p>Derek: Do you have any updates since the film has been completed? </p><p>Richard: Yes, we're constantly in touch with everybody. Earth League International has put together a new mission to go back in and monitor the situation. Because the totoaba season is just beginning, the cartel is moving in. They have sent out Mexican and Chinese investigators to monitor the trafficking. The good news is that they're dispatching an additional 600 troops to the area and they have committed 14 warships to protect the vaquita refuge.</p><p>The president visited the region and started talking about the vaquitas, that they need to save them and offer solutions for all the fishermen. So we are upbeat. Also, six vaquitas have been spotted in early October; some of them are babies, which is fantastic news. It shows us that they're still there and it's not too late.</p><p><span></span>--</p><p><em>Stay in touch with Derek on <a href="http://www.twitter.com/derekberes" target="_blank">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DerekBeresdotcom" target="_blank">Facebook</a>.</em></p>
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