How Might We Get Companies To Be More Honest?

Modern Mantra Podcast

Oct 26 2022 • 57 mins

If aliens came to earth post-armageddon, they wouldn’t find much, but they would find a sh*t ton of plastic! Join Nick & Elijah for 1 hour as we explore possible tech solutions to environmentally destructive behavior by big business and the dishonest greenwashing that comes with it.

Companies these days make promises about producing less waste and pollution, but the reality is nobody is really holding them accountable. That’s one reason they can continue to pump out masses of single-use junk that ends up in the earth that we eat, drink, and live from.

Tune in to hear a number of cool ways that we could use (mostly web3) technology to stop corporate hoodwinking, give more power back to citizens, and create an honest capitalism that maximizes value to the environment and all humans, not just shareholder pockets. Featuring names like Nike, Adidas, Kanye West, Uber, and the government of Singapore.

In this episode we discuss:

  • 00:48 - How our collective behaviors are optimizing for a worse climate future, with origins in the industrial revolution
  • 03:22 - How the creation of capitalism has saved humanity from lots of war and bloodshed but is also at the root of our collective destruction of the planet
  • 04:54 - Evolving the capitalistic system to make it more in tune with the planet
  • 07:00 - Mass production of single use junk and the dirty truth about recycling
  • 12:14 - Plastic production is anonymous and how tech can be used to hold offenders accountable
  • 15:32 - Billionaires building doomsday bunkers vs helping to change collective practices for the better
  • 18:28 - Ideas for how we might bring more awareness to the consequences of our actions as consumers
  • 23:12 - Governments vs companies vs consumers - which is the highest impact area to focus? 25:29 - The need to wake up and rise above restrictions we've made as nations
  • 29:13 - How network state technology offers a viable path to citizen governance
  • 33:24 - Idea: Public scoreboard of corporate promises - Nike now issues NFTs for every sneaker produced & how the same tech can make companies stick to their CSR commitments
  • 36:54 - Idea: How to lead the way as a nation in the networked era e.g. Singapore
  • 39:27 - Idea: Corporate challenges where companies put money behind their CSR commitments and automatically pay out cash to a good cause if they fail
  • 46:26 - Idea: a DAO that compensates Yeezy to audit and verify the production of Nike sneakers
  • 51:45 - How it will soon be weird that a company doesn’t track production on-chain just like how it feels weird to use a taxi cab since Uber


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