It is estimated that at some point this year, India’s population will surpass that of China’s. This means that India will not only be the biggest democracy, but also the most populous country. We get into how this change could alter the economic and political balance of the world. And, could unexplained flying objects be aliens? A senior Pentagon official has a theory. Plus, a round of Half-Full/Half-Empty that has us thinking deeply about Tupperware.
Here’s everything we talked about today:
“Ghana is the first country to approve Oxford’s malaria vaccine” from Popular Science
“New rule to block Missouri library funding set to go into effect May 30” from St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Alien motherships: Pentagon official floats a theory for unexplained sightings” from Politico
“India’s Population Surpasses China’s, Shifting the World’s ‘Center of Gravity’” from The Wall Street Journal
“How India will overtake China to become the most populous country” from Al Jazeera
“Pickleball’s popularity presents equity challenges for city governments” from Marketplace
“Is Substack Notes a ‘Twitter clone’? We asked CEO Chris Best” from The Verge
“Can ‘milk core’ get Gen Z to drink its liquid dairy?” from Marketplace
“What Tupperware’s money problems say about direct selling” from Marketplace
“A Nation Tries to Impose Cat Curfews. Fur Is Flying.” from The Wall Street Journal
“Make Me Smart” has been nominated for a Webby Award! We are honored, but we can’t win without your support. You can vote for “Make Me Smart” until April 20 by going to marketplace.org/votemms.
Make Me Smart April 14, 2023 Transcript
Note: Marketplace podcasts are meant to be heard, with emphasis, tone and audio elements a transcript can’t capture. Transcripts are generated using a combination of automated software and human transcribers, and may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting it.
Kai Ryssdal
Hey everybody I’m Kai Ryssdal. Welcome back to make me smart, where we make today make sense. Friday, the 14th of April is the date of this podcast.
Kimberly Adams
Indeed, and I am Kimberly Adams, thank you for joining us for our happy hour, economics on tap known around here. We’ve got our drinks, the news fix, we’re gonna take a quick break and then play a game of half full, half empty and before we dive into the news, Kai, what are you drinking?
Kai Ryssdal
Well, I’m kind of a loser today. I’m having a cup of coffee in my pewabic pottery mug from Detroit. Because we’ve got tickets to a show tonight, and I simply will not make it. I woke up stupid earlier this morning. I mean, stupid earlier than I usually wake up and I just I won’t make it if I have beer at 3:30 in the afternoon. So
Kimberly Adams
So why did you wake up at like three instead of four?
Kai Ryssdal
I woke up at 3:42 this morning? Yes. Yeah, yeah. And I was just up so I got out of bed and I went on about my day. But I’m gonna have to power through because it’s a three hour show. We’re going to see the revival of 1776 with a new cast at the Ahmanson.
Kimberly Adams
Oh, okay. I saw Angels in America last Saturday. And that was also quite a lengthy, lengthy show.
Kai Ryssdal
Exactly. What about you? I saw you’re pouring wine earlier. You’re going for glass of wine?
Kimberly Adams
Yes. I am pouring wine. My cousin brought me this bottle of… it’s actually… So I like the Seven Deadly Zins, Zinfandel. But this is a seven deadly cab, which is what I have not had before. But I’m sure it’s going to be delicious.
Kai Ryssdal
It does not roll as trippingly off the tongue. But you know, whatever.
Kimberly Adams
That’s true, but it does other nice things.
Kai Ryssdal
All right. Anyway, what’s your news? What’s your news? You go
Kimberly Adams
I got two of them today. Kind of all over the place. Really cool piece in Popular Science about gonna being the very first country to approve the new malaria vaccine that was designed by Oxford. And, you know, this is one of the leading causes of child deaths like globally, but particularly in Africa. And according to this article, Malaria kills over 1000 children every day. And now there’s a vaccine for it. And this has been a big initiative by a lot of philanthropic organizations over the year, years to come up with some sort of solution for malaria. And so the vaccine reportedly has an efficacy rate of like 77%. And it’s more effective than the previous malaria vaccine, which was like 30 to 60%. And it also says in this piece that late stage testing is underway in Burkina Faso, Kenya, Mali and Tanzania. So I think that’s very exciting and good news. Not so good news coming out of my beautiful home state of Missouri, which is not being so kind to our libraries. There is a rule that’s been introduced by the Secretary of State that would block funding for libraries if they allow minors to access books that are deemed to be pornographic or labeled obscene under state statutes. Which on its face sounds fine, but when it gets to sort of who gets to decide, and what happens when you run into a lot of identity things. So the St. Louis Post Dispatch reports “under the plan Missouri’s 160 local public libraries will have to adopt policies on the age appropriateness of literature. The original rule allowed anyone to be able to challenge access to books. A revised version says only a parent of a minor can challenge access.” Obviously, the Library Association’s think this is a terrible idea. There have been all these public comments against it. It seems that this rule has been kind of put pushed through without as much public debate as there should have been. So, yeah,
Kai Ryssdal
As it often happens. Oftentimes these days you hear about things being pushed through without as much debate as there should be. That’s just a generalized observation, you know? Definitely seems that way. Okay, I’ve got two. One of which is wild, the other one which is also wild, but in a totally different way. From Politico today, a story the first paragraph of which reads as this. “The official in charge of a secret of Pentagon effort to investigate unexplained aerial incursions has co-authored an academic paper that presents an out of this world theory. Recent objects could actually be alien probes, from a mothership sent to study Earth. In a draft paper dated March the seventh Shawn Kirkpatrick, head of the Pentagon’s all domain anomaly resolution office and Harvard professor Avi Loeb teamed up to write that the objects which appear to defy all physics could quote be probes from an extraterrestrial parent craft.” Number one, that’s amazingly cool. Number two, it’s remarkable that a senior Pentagon official is talking about this openly. And number three, oh my god, sweet meteoric death. They’re coming for us. I mean, right? I mean, come on.
Kimberly Adams
Maybe they’ll have a solution to our gun problem.
Kai Ryssdal
Maybe they will. Maybe they will
Kimberly Adams
I will literally take it anywhere at this point.
Kai Ryssdal
But look, the paper explains that the interstellar objects such as the cigar shaped, oh, mwah mwah, that scientists spotted flying through the galaxy in 2017, quote, “could potentially be apparent craft or at least as many small probes during your close passage to Earth.” I mean, we see movies about this stuff. It’s craziness. It’s wild. Also super cool. Anyway.
Kimberly Adams
If we’re the only ones out here, it’d be a waste.
Kai Ryssdal
That’s right. We are we are so not the only ones out there. Simply can’t be. Number two. Speaking of space and people and not space, but small, small letter S space. Story in The Wall Street Journal today pointing out that the United Nations figures that just about now, demographers say, India could be passing China to be the world’s most populous country. India’s population is expected to reach 1.429 billion by the end of the year. China will follow the second place with 1.426 billion people. That’s extraordinary for a whole lot of reasons, right? Balance of Power, economic power, pop culture power, you name it. Here’s the thing that struck me in this and I realized as a history geek, this appeals to me more than anybody else, probably. But China has been the most populous country in the world since 1750. 300 years.
Kimberly Adams
What was it before that?
Kai Ryssdal
And now… I don’t know. I don’t know. We can probably look that up.
Kimberly Adams
Maybe like Russia or something. Anyway
Kai Ryssdal
Yeah. Anyway. So that’s just cool. And it’s a story in The Wall Street Journal. And we’ll put on the Show page, because it’s really interesting. Also, China is going to top out, they figure at one… Sorry, India is going to top out they figure at 1.7 billion people in the year 2063.
Kimberly Adams
That’s a lot of people.
Kai Ryssdal
Yeah, but look, but here’s what this means. Right? This means that the geopolitical center of gravity, right, if you if you figure, the United States, and most of the West will, you know, certainly not rise as fast and may even stagnate a bit, right. The geopolitical locus shifts now to the Global South, it shifts to South Asia, right? And those countries become all the more important in the global dialogue. It’s really interesting and really significant…
Kimberly Adams
That’s what I was thinking. There’s so many interesting threads of that to explore in terms of what it means to be that that player on the global stage, you know? And it’ll also be fascinating, given the system of government that China has versus a system of government, which is technically a democracy in India, you know. And for so long, there’s been this like narrative that, you know, China maintains its position of power and controls this massive population with, you know, its form of authoritarian government, and that’s the only way you can do it. And India is not that.
Kai Ryssdal
No, no. Yeah, so anyway. That’s neat. Okie dokie. That does it for the news fix. We are going to take a break and when we come back from said break we’re going to play around have half full/half empty. Half full half empty is name of the game. We go through some news topics from the week we tell you how we are feeling about them. It is hosted by our very own Drew Jostad. Drew, you may begin.
Drew Jostad
Are you half full or half empty on the rise of pickleball?
Kai Ryssdal
Yes deep sigh.
Kimberly Adams
I’m a little afraid to answer this question. I know a lot of people who are very passionately in favor of pickleball. So I’m just gonna say half full for my own safety.
Kai Ryssdal
There you go. That’s fair. Look, I’m I’m half full because whatever gets people exercising, I think is a good thing. But as I think I talked about in the interview on marketplace, when this thing ran like 10 days ago or something, whatever. People feel really strongly about pickleball especially in my tiny little town in the Los Angeles foothills. People don’t… it’s not a subject for polite conversation. It is you’re with us or you’re against us. And so I’m I’m half full, I am half full. I don’t know if anybody in my little town listens to this podcast. But if you do, please don’t hate me.
Kimberly Adams
I feel like the pickleball versus the tennis player fights is similar to here in DC. They’re all of these childless people with dogs, who wants to let their dogs roam free. And like the parks and the playgrounds where kids are. And the people with children are like, don’t let your dogs go to the bathroom where our kids are playing. And the people with dogs are like we pay taxes too. And our furbabies our children. And it gets it gets nasty. It gets real nasty.
Kai Ryssdal
It gets ugly. It absolutely gets ugly.
Kimberly Adams
All right, what is next?
Drew Jostad
Half full or half empty on substack notes?
Kai Ryssdal
Oh, interesting.
Kimberly Adams
So this is like the version of Twitter for substack. Right?
Kai Ryssdal
Mhm. Have you checked it out?
Kimberly Adams
I have not. I never really got into substack. I’ve been trying to do more on Mastodon and be a bit more present there because Twitter is effectively useless for me now I can’t find anything. I spend all of my time sorting through like the trolly and spammy posts. I’m I’m all for experimentation by lots of different platforms. I’m a little bummed that there doesn’t seem to be a global townhall anymore. Although I guess I shouldn’t say that because it was never a truly global town hall. It was a town hall for some. I don’t think we’re going to be able to recreate that sense of discovery that Twitter used to be and I just need to like accept that. So I’m gonna go half full, all for experimentation on all the different platforms and for people finding their online communities that make them feel a sense of community and sure, why not?
Kai Ryssdal
Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. I haven’t checked out substack notes yet. I haven’t really messed around too much on Mastodon or Post or what’s the other one? Sprouter whatever, there’s a bunch of them. But Twitter is no longer useful. And and I could justify the time suck nature of it. Right? Because you get lost, you’re scrolling through your Twitter feed, provided I got some benefit out of it. And I don’t really get anything out of it anymore. So yeah.
Kimberly Adams
Yeah. I look at it to see if anybody’s like dm-ed me. But again, it’s usually spam. And that’s it.
Kai Ryssdal
Yeah, huge amounts of spam in my DMs now. Anyway, go ahead. Sorry. Yeah.
Drew Jostad
Okay, so the milk industry has a new campaign targeting Generation Z. Are you half full or half empty on milk core?
Kai Ryssdal
So this was this was an interview I did yesterday was Kim Severson from the New York Times who wrote a big piece on big milk’s new advertising campaign to get Gen Z, which really has not indulged in milk at all. They do other kinds of dairy. They do yogurt and they do cheese and stuff, but they don’t drink fluid fluid milk. It’s called liquid fluid. I forget. Anyway. Yeah, look, I as I said on the show, I enjoy a glass of milk with some chocolate chip cookies otherwise, meh, you know? I’m half full go to town, but I don’t think it’s gonna work. Just sorry. One more statistical thing. Milk use in this economy peaked in 1945. It’s been declining ever since. So I don’t think it’s gonna come back.
Kimberly Adams
Yeah, and I mean, as I think one of the articles about this pointed out, which I missed, but Ellen Rolfes helpfully pointed out to me is that, you know, younger generations are more diverse. And there’s a big chunk of us that are lactose intolerant, including myself. And so no, not not super interested in the consequences of me drinking a glass of milk and I doubt anybody around me is either so pass. Ha pass!! Anyway hehe. Nevermind.
Drew Jostad
All right. Are you done?
Kimberly Adams
I am 13 years old. Okay go ahead.
Drew Jostad
Given Tupperware’s struggles, are you half full or half empty on the future of direct selling?
Kimberly Adams
I was really surprised by the story that Tupperware is like basically on its last legs and not sure if they can keep their business going. Because it just feels like such a bastion of Americana. You know, like this is just part of the American identity is like your little Tupperware containers and who’s that person who has a nice Tupperware containers and who’s the person who takes a Tupperware container and doesn’t return it? Or like which Tupperware containers you can put in the microwave and which ones you can’t and who you’re willing to like take your good Tupperware over to because you know they’ll actually clean it properly and give back versus who you give your already burned and stained tupperware.
Kai Ryssdal
You’ve got some tupperware issues my friend. This very specific grievances about tupperware but please go on.
Kimberly Adams
Because there are some people who like if you’re going over to their house, you will bring your nice Tupperware Tupperware-esque containers because you know that they will wash them very nicely and give them back. But then there’s other people who you’re like I may never see this again.
Kai Ryssdal
Name some damn names Kimberly. Come on, call them out.
Kimberly Adams
I will not. And you might, you know, you know bring the dish in the Tupperware it’s a little bit stained and might have some of those little bubbles from putting in the microwave too long. But anyway. You get all that plastic leeching in there if you have don’t have the fancy glass ones.
Kai Ryssdal
I got nothing to add. We’re just gonna, we’re gonna let that we’re gonna let that rant about Kimberly Adams stand as the Make Me Smart position on Tupperware. That was a doozy/
Kimberly Adams
Direct selling, half empty I don’t think it’s it’s it’s a sustainable model in our current economy.
Kai Ryssdal
Totally. I agree with that. Oh my lord that was pretty funny.
Drew Jostad
All right, half full or half empty on cat curfews.
Kai Ryssdal
I don’t know what those are.
Kimberly Adams
Oh, I saw this story. Of course I did. Cuz I’m a cat person. I guess it’s in Australia. Right Drew?
Drew Jostad
Yeah.
Kimberly Adams
Okay, in Australia, I guess because cats are like nature’s apex predator. And feral cats and also house cats running wild they decimate songbirds and all sorts of other native species. In Australia, and in a lot of communities, they’re trying to convince people to keep their cats indoors or not to let them out without leashes so that they can you know, save their native animal population. And if you have ever tried to put a cat on a leash you will understand, unless it has been trained to be on a leash. And remember the little kitten I was babysitting, kitten sitting a while back. Yuki Yuki is trained to be on a leash now. Yuki is giant now by the way, and Yuki walks on a leash. Jasper does not walk on a leash. Most of the cats I’ve ever encountered do not love the leash. But yeah, it’s not an easy thing to do. So for this generation of cats, I’m gonna say half empty, and maybe future cats possibly.
Kai Ryssdal
Fair enough. I’ll go with that one too. Whatever Kimberly said goes.
Kimberly Adams
Do you not have cats at all?
Kai Ryssdal
Yeah, so you know what’s funny is I grew up as a cat person. We had cats in the house when I was growing up. And then I was college and got married and yada yada and probably when the big boys were like, eight or nine we got a dog and I’m a hard convert to dogs. Hard convert. Yeah, yeah.
Kimberly Adams
Hmmm. When I dogs left home for college and my other adventures afterwards, my dad encouraged me to get cats because I was not always staying in the nicest of places in my various travels throughout the New York and DC and the world and various places and you can really keep your rodent insect problem under control if you have a cat.
Kai Ryssdal
I did not see that going.
Kimberly Adams
Oh really? You didn’t know that’s where it was going? Yeah, he was just like yeah, if you’re going to be living in these not so nice places, get a cat. That will help. And it did.
Kai Ryssdal
Sensible, sensible dad.
Kimberly Adams
Yeah, yeah. All right. That is it for us today. We are going to be back next week. For those of us who missed us on the live stream. We will have today’s podcast posted on YouTube as a video. Yes, later on. And before you start your weekend, we would appreciate your help with our efforts to win a Webby Award in the business category. We are now in second place for the best business podcast and you can help us win by going to marketplace.org/votemms. We’ll also include a link in our show notes and as always, we would really appreciate your support.
Kai Ryssdal
Make me smart, which is the podcast you’re listening to is produced by Courtney Bergsieker. Today’s episode was engineered by Jayk Cherry. Drew Jostad wrote the theme music to Half-Full/Half-Empty. Antonio Barreras is our intern.
Kimberly Adams
The team behind our Friday game is Mel Rosenberg, Emily Macune and Antoinette Brock. Marissa Cabrera is our senior producer. Bridget Bodnar is the director of podcasts. And Francesca Levy is the executive director of Digital and On-Demand.
Kai Ryssdal
Perfect timing.
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