0:10

We have to find you, deport you, and

0:12

prosecute you. You have a bar place in

0:15

at you, and you don't connect this country.

0:17

You won't be able to come back on

0:19

a business visa, a tourist visa. You have

0:21

U.S. citizen child. Can't petition for you. If

0:23

you're in this country where you get your

0:25

fares in order and work with us, and

0:27

get yourself removed in this country. That's what

0:29

all required, and we're going to force that

0:32

law. Borders, Tom Holman at a White House

0:34

press briefing yesterday, urging undocumented immigrants immigrants

0:36

to self-to self-deport. To mark

0:38

the first 100 days of

0:40

Trump's presidency, Homan touted the

0:42

administration's, quote, unprecedented success at

0:44

curbing immigration. And yes, the

0:46

border has been awfully quiet

0:49

lately. In March, Border Patrol

0:51

officers in San Diego were

0:53

making a couple of dozen

0:55

arrests per day, and that's

0:57

down from 1,200 a year

0:59

ago. Trump has signed a

1:01

Blitz of immigration-related executive order

1:03

since taking office. He declared

1:05

a national emergency at the border. He

1:07

halted the admission of refugees, effectively ended

1:10

asylum, and proposed an end to birthright

1:12

citizenship. In doing so, he has reshaped

1:14

the conversation around immigration in the US,

1:16

once seen as a proud melting pot

1:18

of immigrants and cultures. We're going to

1:21

talk about this now with Jonathan Blitzer.

1:23

He covers immigration for the New Yorker

1:25

and is author of the recent book

1:27

on immigration called Everyone who is gone

1:29

is here. Jonathan, welcome back to Press

1:32

Play. Thanks for having me. Well, we

1:34

hear stories every day of how

1:36

Trump has released this shock and

1:38

awe campaign against undocumented immigrants, of

1:40

course, rounding up Venezuela and others

1:43

and sending them to a gulag

1:45

in El Salvador, and then lately

1:47

the latest news deporting a

1:50

two-year-old American citizen. What is

1:52

your reaction to these first 100

1:54

days of Trump's immigration policies?

1:56

I think those of us who covered

1:58

the first Trump administration who followed

2:01

his pronouncements and promises on the

2:03

campaign trail last year expected an

2:05

extremely dire situation at the start

2:08

of the second term and in

2:10

many ways the direness of the

2:12

current situation. surpasses even my worst

2:15

expectations. I do not think it's

2:17

an exaggeration to say that what

2:19

this administration is attempting to do

2:21

is really nothing short of in

2:24

many ways trying to suspend the

2:26

rule of law in certain aspects

2:28

of the immigration system to prosecute

2:31

this campaign of, you know, not

2:33

only enforcing immigration laws, but trying

2:35

to terrorize immigrant populations across the

2:37

country. And so, you know, in

2:39

some ways for me, the sum

2:42

total of arrests. and projections for

2:44

future deportations, all of which are

2:46

stark and striking, which we can

2:48

analyze in different ways, are in

2:51

some ways less significant to me

2:53

than the specific ways in which

2:55

the current administration has ignored federal

2:57

judges, attacked people who were here

2:59

lawfully, and simply stripped them of

3:02

their status, has essentially acted unilaterally

3:04

without really any regard for due

3:06

process or the rule of law

3:08

to kind of make their own

3:11

determinations about what it means for

3:13

the federal government to enforce immigration

3:15

policy. And so I think we're

3:17

really in uncharted territory. And I've

3:19

been shocked by it. Yeah, yeah. And

3:22

which I guess is the point, as

3:24

you say, the point is to terrorize

3:26

some people. is to send a message

3:28

I guess as Tom Homan said at

3:30

the outset to people who are thinking

3:32

of coming not to come to quote

3:35

and and those who are here to

3:37

self-deport. So I guess there

3:39

are two lines of what's

3:41

happening here there's the trying

3:44

to round up undocumented immigrants

3:46

and kick them out there's

3:48

also kicking out people who

3:51

are here on visas and

3:53

most notably that have received a

3:55

lot of attention. Students who maybe

3:58

were protesters or maybe not. maybe

4:00

wrote an op-ed or co-signed

4:02

an op-ed, or maybe we're

4:04

just here on some kind

4:06

of student visa from another

4:09

country rounded up and deported.

4:11

That part of it was not

4:13

advertised on the campaign trail. And I'm

4:15

just wondering if you could get into

4:17

that part of it as to what

4:20

the point is there, because this is

4:22

not going to reduce the overall population

4:24

of undocumented immigrants when you go after

4:26

people who are here on a student

4:29

visa, for example, or a work visa. No, I

4:31

think that's right. You know, I

4:33

think there are a few ways of

4:35

thinking about what the administration is doing

4:37

in that regard. You know, the first

4:40

is... The administration says it's going to

4:42

enforce the immigration laws and then it's

4:44

going to arrest people who are here

4:46

unlawfully or who have so-called final orders

4:49

of removal to be deported. But in

4:51

fact, what the administration has done pretty

4:53

systematically is it's actually worked to make

4:55

people undocumented in the first place. So

4:58

during the previous administration, there were a

5:00

few million people who entered the country

5:02

lawfully and availed themselves of... legal

5:04

parole pathways created by the Biden

5:07

administration or who had some form

5:09

of provisional status which allowed them

5:11

to work legally called temporary protected

5:13

status and What the current administration

5:15

has done first and foremost has

5:17

been not only to strip those

5:20

people of those legal statuses but

5:22

to immediately go after them So

5:24

there's that for for one thing

5:26

going after students You know the

5:28

government claims that it has the

5:30

kind of legal prerogative to determine

5:33

who is or isn't eligible

5:35

for student visas, but to

5:37

make that conditional on what

5:39

someone's particular political beliefs are

5:41

is absolutely shocking. And so

5:43

what we've seen is not

5:45

only have they targeted people

5:47

who are here on student

5:49

visas based on nothing more

5:52

than the basic exercise of

5:54

these students' rights to free

5:56

speech, but they have actually

5:58

gone even farther than that.

6:00

terrorized and arrested and are currently

6:02

trying to deport students who have

6:04

green cards, which you know typically

6:06

for someone like me who covers

6:08

this and for my colleagues, that's

6:10

territory that I have not really

6:12

seen in my reporting life before,

6:14

a kind of systematic crackdown on

6:16

those who actually have Greencard's lawful

6:18

illegal permanent residency, who are just

6:20

one step away from citizenship. I

6:22

mean, there was one student at

6:24

Columbia University who was actually arrested.

6:26

He had a green card. He's

6:28

had a green card. He's had

6:30

a green card for 10 years.

6:32

And he was arrested at his

6:34

interview, his citizenship interview, based on

6:36

the fact that the government didn't

6:38

like his student activism on the issue

6:40

of Israel Palestine. So in that

6:42

regard, we're in territory that I

6:44

think it's extraordinarily dangerous. And the

6:46

last thing I'll say, and it's

6:48

important to note. And it's important

6:50

to note. A large number of

6:52

people who have been arrested and

6:54

deported, including those who have been

6:56

arrested and deported to El Salvador, which

6:59

we can talk more about, are

7:01

people actually who are in the

7:03

middle of open immigration cases before

7:05

immigration judges. So, you know, what

7:07

we're seeing is people are getting

7:09

arrested and deported regardless of the

7:11

fact that they have pending appointments

7:13

before immigration judges. So, you know,

7:15

you have these strange circumstances in

7:17

which immigration judges are finding that the...

7:19

people whose cases they're supposed to

7:21

be hearing aren't showing up because

7:23

they've already been removed. So you

7:25

have this kind of wholesale attack

7:27

on immigrants writ large regardless of

7:29

what their legal standing is. It's

7:31

all done in the name of

7:33

you know, securing the border or

7:35

trying to clean up our broken immigration

7:38

system, but in point of fact,

7:40

it actually does the very opposite

7:42

of all of that. It's destabilizing,

7:44

it's senseless, there's no actual order

7:46

or kind of logic to it.

7:48

And so I think the kind

7:50

of net effect over and above

7:52

just completely uprooting people disrupting their

7:54

lives, terrorizing them is actually to bring

7:56

more chaos to the system, not

7:58

less. So I can imagine the

8:00

fallout would be with people who

8:02

decide to not self-deport because they

8:04

have lives here and they don't

8:06

want to go back to a

8:08

country where, you know, who knows

8:10

what could happen to them, that

8:12

they will go underground, that they

8:14

won't go to their appointments

8:16

before immigration judges or they

8:18

won't pay their taxes because

8:20

they're afraid that the information

8:23

will be gathered by the IRS

8:25

and sent to immigration officials. So

8:27

where does this lead to in

8:29

terms of a... the underground undocumented immigrant

8:31

economy and B the taxes

8:33

I guess billions of taxes

8:36

a year the United States

8:38

gets from undocumented immigrants. Yeah

8:40

I mean you're pointing out very

8:42

logical things that you'd think the

8:44

current administration would consider I

8:46

mean even if they weren't

8:48

motivated by any sort of

8:50

humanitarian logic or rationale you'd think

8:52

at least there'd be a kind

8:55

of baseline pragmatism in all of

8:57

this and there isn't any of

8:59

that. I mean you mentioned For

9:01

example, what the administration has done

9:03

in trying to get the IRS

9:06

to turn over taxpayer information, something

9:08

that really has not happened in

9:10

recent memory, and for which there

9:12

are very specific protections in place

9:15

protecting taxpayer privacy. And that will

9:17

almost certainly lead to fewer undocumented

9:19

immigrants paying taxes. Many of them

9:21

do. I mean, each year, you

9:24

know, almost around $100 billion in

9:26

state federal and local taxes come

9:28

from undocumented immigrants. you know, what

9:30

the future economic fallout of that.

9:32

looks like obviously remains to be

9:35

seen but will be substantial and

9:37

some analysts have projected you know

9:39

losses in terms of annual tax

9:41

revenue of you know up to

9:44

300 billion dollars over the next

9:46

decade that's to say nothing of

9:48

you know social security that Medicare

9:50

system which depend on some of

9:53

this tax money is to say

9:55

nothing of what it does to

9:57

the economy writ large driving people

9:59

underground disrupting the workforce, again, a

10:01

lot of people had work authorization and

10:03

are being targeted anyway. So I don't

10:05

know what incentive that sends to people

10:08

to try to work in quote unquote

10:10

a legal way when it doesn't matter

10:12

what your legal status is. And I

10:15

will say, you know, one of the

10:17

scariest prospects to my mind when you

10:19

talk about self-deportation, because again, right-wing ideologues

10:21

have always sort of fantasized about the

10:24

idea that an administration could be so

10:26

unfettered and so harsh in its enforcement

10:28

policy that it would motivate large numbers

10:31

of people to quote unquote self-deport and

10:33

leave the country. One of the most

10:35

upsetting aspects of what's happened with the

10:37

administration's invocation of the Alien Enemies Act

10:39

for Venezuelans who were here is that

10:41

many of them were told they were

10:43

being deported to Venezuela and many of

10:45

them actually at least after extended periods

10:48

in detention or after being convinced that

10:50

there was sort of no hope to

10:52

try to fight their case legally, they

10:54

at least threw in the towel and

10:56

said, fine, just send us home, send

10:58

us to Venezuela, only for them to

11:00

realize that they were being sent to

11:02

a maximum security prison in El Salvador

11:05

from which there's no clear escape anytime

11:07

soon. And they learned about this on

11:09

the flights to El Salvador. So, you

11:11

know, even for people who want to

11:13

leave, and this is actually a very

11:15

real question that I think journalists and

11:17

advocates are going to be exploring in

11:19

greater detail in the coming weeks and

11:21

months. You know, even people who just

11:23

want to leave the country now because

11:25

of the hostility of the federal government,

11:27

it's not even clear what would happen

11:29

if you turn yourself in. Because one

11:31

thing that's become abundantly clear is this

11:33

administration isn't really interested in sending people

11:36

to their home countries. They're interested in

11:38

this absolutely macabre theater of sending people

11:40

to... you know, legal black holes in

11:42

countries like El Salvador. So

11:44

it's a really jumbled and

11:46

quite terrifying landscape. Yeah, absolutely.

11:48

And so there's no way that they're

11:51

digging their heels in in terms of

11:53

bringing any of these guys back from

11:55

that gulag in El Salvador, right?

11:57

I mean, they're there for the foreseeable.

12:00

future. That's right and and you

12:02

know the there's a sort of parallel

12:04

case that's playing out alongside the cases

12:06

of these you know 200 plus Venezuelans

12:08

who have been sent to El Salvador

12:10

without any due process or any opportunity

12:13

to even see the charges against them

12:15

which by the way you know we

12:17

only know the sort of rough numbers

12:19

of people who are in El Salvador

12:21

because of media reports. The U.S. government

12:24

has refused to disclose any of this

12:26

information, including in federal courts. And so

12:28

we really are in many ways flying

12:30

blind. But alongside all of that

12:32

is a kind of parallel case

12:34

that's obviously gotten a lot of

12:36

attention, as it should, involving a

12:39

Salvadoran man named Kilmar Abrego Garcia,

12:41

who has lived in the United

12:43

States for nearly 15 years, has

12:45

an American... citizen wife and children

12:47

who was deported to El Salvador

12:49

in error. The U.S. government itself

12:52

in court, in federal court, acknowledged

12:54

as much. You had multiple U.S.

12:56

officials, DOJ lawyer, someone from DHS,

12:58

acknowledging that Abrego Garcia had mistakenly

13:00

been deported to El Salvador. Wrongfully

13:03

deported was the language they

13:05

used. And yet... Now, despite the fact

13:07

that a first a federal judge and

13:09

now the Supreme Court has essentially instructed

13:11

the administration to get... Mr. Abrega Garcia

13:14

back to the United States for entirely

13:16

political reasons, the White House has dug

13:18

in its heels and is basically now

13:21

branding this guy retroactively a gangster, a

13:23

terrorist, a criminal, and so on, simply

13:25

because they don't want to lose the

13:27

political battle of acknowledging that they've made

13:30

a mistake. So the government lawyers who

13:32

admitted this in open court have been

13:34

fired, and the current administration now is

13:37

fighting this fight in open defiance of federal

13:39

judges orders. Right, right. Okay, so this

13:41

is the first hundred days. I mean.

13:43

many many more days ahead of us

13:45

what like 1300 or so well I

13:48

mean you said that this was this

13:50

already surpasses your worst expectations what are

13:52

you thinking is going to happen next

13:54

well I think I mean there are

13:56

a lot of nightmarish scenarios that that

13:59

you kind of can't help but think

14:01

about right now. There are sort

14:03

of two broad things I think

14:05

that most immediately catch my attention.

14:07

One is, again, what's going to

14:09

happen now in this very

14:11

obvious, now full -blown showdown between

14:13

the president and the judiciary? You

14:16

now have, in unambiguous terms,

14:18

multiple judges being very specific in

14:20

their orders to the federal

14:22

government about different aspects of the

14:24

administration's immigration agenda, most specifically,

14:26

again, related to the Alien Enemies

14:29

Act, but also the disposition

14:31

of this case involving Kilmahar, Berego

14:33

Garcia. As it

14:35

stands right now, we're on

14:37

a very clear collision course. I

14:39

don't even think it makes sense to

14:41

say we're on a collision course.

14:43

There's already been the collision between a

14:45

president refusing to carry out an

14:47

order and the judges and justices of

14:49

the Supreme Court insisting that there

14:51

are certain basic due process rights and

14:53

legal and moral obligations for this

14:55

government to act. So what happens with

14:57

all of that, I think, is

14:59

hard to say. And I'm obviously following

15:01

that pretty keenly. So we'll see

15:03

because, you know, once that damn breaks,

15:06

once the administration feels that it

15:08

is wholly unaccountable to

15:10

the courts, it's hard to

15:12

understand really what any actual

15:14

legal guardrails remain, which leads

15:16

me to the second big thing,

15:18

which is Congress. I mean,

15:20

it is utterly shocking that Congress

15:22

has played as minimal a role in

15:24

all of these policies as we've

15:26

seen. You know, you could be forgiven

15:28

for thinking that that just is

15:30

a branch that no longer really matters

15:32

in American public life. We've

15:35

begun to see Democrats, small numbers

15:37

of them starting to speak out a

15:39

bit more forcefully following Senator Chris

15:41

Van Hollen's lead on the Berego Garcia

15:43

case. I think by and large,

15:45

Democrats are pretty cowed by this administration

15:47

and by the immigration issue generally,

15:49

which I think is a political and

15:51

moral catastrophe for Democrats to be

15:53

flat footed on this. But one

15:55

of the things we're going to

15:58

start to see are appropriations bills. in

16:00

which Republicans in Congress are advancing

16:02

the different agenda items of the

16:04

current administration and we're now going

16:06

to see a fight in Congress

16:08

about whether or not it appropriates

16:10

money for the various purposes the

16:12

administration wants and one of those

16:15

areas which is really significant in

16:17

terms of immigration is of course

16:19

something like you know 45 plus

16:21

billion dollars that the administration wants

16:23

to use to expand attention increase

16:25

enforcement resources and that so far

16:27

really more than anything else has been

16:29

the limiting factor of the of the

16:32

administration's so-called mass deportation agenda is just

16:34

the fact that resources are scarce. Yeah.

16:36

And so if the if Congress appropriates

16:38

more money and allows the administration to

16:41

carry out this crackdown on a larger

16:43

scale I think we're going to see

16:45

even more horrifying things and so that's

16:48

going to be one zone of a

16:50

political and legislative battle that I think

16:52

is quite important to follow in the

16:54

days ahead. Well we'll be reading you.

16:57

and you following it, we'll be following it,

16:59

and thank you so much for coming on

17:01

the show today. Oh, thanks for having.

17:03

Jonathan Blitzer, staff writer for The New

17:06

Yorker, where he covers immigration and author

17:08

of the book, Everyone Who is Gone

17:10

is here. Come

17:15

up. How the Silicon Valley Company Palantir

17:17

is helping the federal government find

17:19

people to deport. It's collecting information

17:22

from various federal agencies to amass

17:24

a giant database. And later on,

17:27

scientists have discovered a new color.

17:29

We'll tell you about that next on

17:31

press play. This

17:42

is press play on 89.9 KCRW, a

17:44

medal and brand. As we just heard,

17:46

deportations are a top priority in this

17:48

second Trump presidency. So far,

17:51

the Department of Homeland Security

17:53

reports the administration has arrested

17:56

more than 150,000 immigrants and

17:58

deported over 100 30,000 of

18:00

them. According to my next

18:02

guest, the data analytics company

18:04

Palentir is playing a critical

18:07

role behind the scenes in

18:09

Trump's deportation blitz. The company

18:11

has built a database for

18:13

immigration and customs enforcement designed

18:15

to help ICE agents find

18:17

people to deport. Joseph Cox

18:19

is a reporter and co-founder

18:21

of 404 Media, which investigates

18:23

big tech and societal issues

18:25

around technology. He obtained internal

18:27

communications at Palentir that offer

18:29

a glimpse into how it

18:31

is. deportation database works. Joseph

18:33

Cox, welcome to press play.

18:35

Thank you so much for having me.

18:38

What is Palantir and what has

18:40

it been doing for the government?

18:42

Sure, so Palantir is a

18:44

data analytics firm and the way

18:46

I think about it is that

18:49

it connects data that would

18:51

usually be in different places or

18:53

would be very hard to

18:55

interpret for government officials and it

18:58

makes that much, much easier. They

19:00

don't. gather the data in the

19:02

first place. The government or other

19:04

private companies has to give it

19:06

to them, but they make it

19:08

so much easier for government agencies

19:10

to navigate, analyze, and ultimately act

19:12

on that data as well. And

19:14

they have been working with ICE

19:17

for some time, but as the

19:19

internal... communications I got show that

19:21

work is really really ramped up

19:23

in the past few weeks working

19:25

on a ice system called ICM

19:27

basically a database to connect

19:29

somebody's social security number, the

19:32

phone number, the physical address,

19:34

and it would allow ICE

19:36

to keep track of people

19:38

around the country. But this

19:40

latest work is now improving

19:42

that even more so ICE

19:44

can deport people more efficiently

19:47

or effectively. And how is

19:49

it doing that? So the

19:51

documents I got from Saipalanter,

19:53

they say that HSI Homeland

19:55

Security Investigations, which is part of

19:57

ICE, they were using the... own

20:00

system and then for whatever reason that

20:02

wasn't good enough for the Trump

20:04

administration. So Ice came to Palantir

20:06

and asked them, can you help

20:08

us out? And in the documents

20:10

it says Palantir did something like

20:12

a free day sprint where you

20:14

bring all of these coders and

20:16

developers together. and you figure out

20:18

how can we make this system

20:21

better or replace it with an

20:23

improved one and according to the

20:26

documents that was a success and

20:28

it doesn't exactly lay out entirely

20:30

what data is involved or the

20:33

end result but it says that

20:35

it's going to be used to

20:38

more efficiently physically locate people who

20:40

have been marked for deportation. In

20:42

other words it is making ICE's

20:45

mandate much more efficient.

20:47

So already the government

20:49

knows. a lot about these migrants, right?

20:51

So now in this latest push,

20:54

they're actually trying to

20:56

pinpoint their locations. So

20:58

we don't know the exact granularity

21:00

of the location data. What we

21:03

do know is that ICE, Palantir,

21:05

and Doge, you know, the so-called

21:07

Department of Government Efficiency, effectively headed

21:10

by Elon Musk, they are trying

21:12

to bring data from lots

21:14

of different government agencies together, which

21:17

wouldn't ordinarily be involved in immigration

21:19

enforcement. And one of those, of

21:21

course, is IRS. They're now

21:23

going to start sharing data with

21:26

ICE. I have obtained another document

21:28

which says that also includes the

21:30

Department of Labor, the Department of

21:32

Housing and Urban Development, Health and

21:34

Human Services as well, and Wired,

21:36

and now confirmed by CNN, have

21:39

reported that Doge and Ballenteer, at

21:41

building this so-called master database. So

21:43

almost these reporters have come to

21:45

it from different angles. and we're

21:47

building this picture where we may

21:49

not know exactly how it works

21:51

but this tool however you want

21:53

to describe it is going to

21:56

be bringing data from all of

21:58

these different government agents. Whereas

22:00

before they were all separate. I see.

22:02

Let's say you want to find

22:05

somebody who's marked for deportation

22:07

their physical address. Maybe they've

22:09

provided it to one agency,

22:11

such as IRS, but they

22:14

hadn't provided it to another

22:16

one. If ICE and Palantir

22:18

and Doge were able to

22:20

get this sort of omnipotent

22:23

view into everything that's going

22:25

on across these agencies, they're

22:27

not going to miss... those opportunities

22:29

and in their rise they're going

22:32

to be able to do this

22:34

much more effectively. And I should

22:36

say that is Palantir's argument for

22:38

doing this as well. The internal

22:40

documents and communications I got don't

22:42

just say what they're doing. Palantir

22:45

sort of describes why it is

22:47

doing this and in their eyes

22:49

is going to make it more

22:51

efficient, potentially fair, transparent, and with

22:53

more accountability as well, although they

22:56

do recognize and acknowledge and acknowledge

22:58

that Mistakes are going to happen, you

23:00

know, and we've already seen that, of

23:02

course, where people who've been marked not

23:04

for deportation have now ended up in

23:07

a prison in El Salvador. Aren't there

23:09

any firewalls built into the establishment

23:11

of these agencies that they're not

23:13

allowed to share this data? There

23:16

was. There was this traditional

23:18

and historical firewall between IRS

23:20

and ICE, and now they

23:22

seem to have entered some

23:24

sort of agreement or memorandum

23:26

of understanding, and that just

23:28

is a constant when it comes

23:31

to Doge and Palantir. I assume

23:33

this is being challenged in court in

23:35

some fashion. The Palantir stuff has

23:37

not been challenged in court as

23:40

of yet, when it comes to

23:42

the court cases about... deportations is

23:44

much more about the legality of

23:46

those deportations in the first place

23:48

and the laws that underpin them.

23:50

From my reading, at least what

23:52

I've seen in court dockets, Palantir

23:55

hasn't come up there at the

23:57

moment because that's much more on

23:59

the test. technical infrastructure side,

24:01

which isn't to say that

24:03

shouldn't do without this

24:05

technical infrastructure in place, ICE would not be

24:07

able to do what it is doing

24:10

and what it plans to do. So I'm

24:12

sure that activists or people who

24:14

oppose this technology and these deportations,

24:16

I'm sure they will start

24:18

to file some sorts of lawsuits

24:20

in the near future. Tell

24:23

us more about Palantir because it was co

24:25

-founded by Peter Thiel, who is a

24:27

big Trump supporter and an ally

24:29

of Elon Musk's, but the guy who

24:31

runs it is a big Democratic party donor,

24:34

Alex Karp. So I

24:36

guess ideologically, where

24:38

is Palantir? Yeah,

24:41

Palantir is an interesting

24:43

company because they have these

24:45

quite open, ethical discussions

24:47

inside the company. And you know, I've

24:49

covered tech companies for a very,

24:51

very long time, though I've never quite

24:53

seen it like Palantir. They will

24:56

have these ethical discussions and FAQs where

24:58

they seem to take that sort

25:00

of thing very, very seriously. And it's

25:02

not like some companies which will

25:04

just say, yes, we're going to work

25:06

with this customer or no, we're

25:09

not going to work with this customer.

25:11

There seems to be real debate

25:13

inside Palantir. Now, whether leadership would really

25:15

listen to employee concerns. I'm not

25:17

so sure of that, but people

25:19

I've spoken to, you know, some

25:21

of them believe that Palantir's CEO

25:23

sort of sees himself as a

25:25

philosopher as well as a CEO.

25:27

And, you know, I've never interacted

25:29

with Karp personally, but you can

25:31

see some of that in the

25:33

company culture and in the way

25:35

they approach these issues. So

25:38

how does he explain this

25:40

if this is something

25:42

that most Democratic officials oppose

25:45

Trump's immigration policies?

25:47

How does he justify it?

25:50

So in these internal

25:52

Palantir documents, there's a

25:54

few things that the

25:56

company says has shifted

25:58

and one of those

26:00

is simply the debate

26:02

on it. immigration inside the United States.

26:04

And it's really telling that in this document,

26:06

Palantir says that, you know, border

26:08

security and immigration was a very

26:10

important issue from both parties, both

26:13

the Republicans and the Democrats. And

26:15

they use that as a justification

26:17

to say, you know, this is

26:20

part of the reason why we are

26:22

building this capability with ICE.

26:24

And how much money are they getting

26:26

from the government? to work on

26:29

the ICM system was around $95

26:31

million and then we at 404

26:33

Media were first to report that

26:35

this new edition is $30 million.

26:37

The documents I got said a

26:40

free day sprint and this is

26:42

a six-month deployment now but it

26:44

very much leaves it open to

26:47

potentially there being more work. There

26:49

is absolutely space for it to

26:51

be extended as well. And

26:54

would other countries also use

26:56

its technology if they wanted

26:58

to enact a similar crackdown?

27:01

I think this is a very

27:03

custom tool from everything I've read

27:05

specifically to the US and to

27:08

its own agencies. Now could a

27:10

country overseas take inspiration from what's

27:12

happening in the United States? Absolutely,

27:15

but I think it's very much

27:17

a bespoke tool which goes to

27:19

show just how invested... Palantir isn't

27:22

this. It's not developing a tool

27:24

it can then sell to other

27:27

countries. It is doing it purely

27:29

for the United States, at least

27:31

based on what I've read from these

27:33

internal documents. Joseph Cox is

27:35

a reporter and co-founder of

27:37

404 Media, which investigates big

27:39

tech and societal issues around

27:41

technology. Joseph, thank you. Thank you

27:43

so much. Coming

27:50

up, we'll talk to the director

27:52

and star of the docket series

27:54

100-foot wave. Garrett McNamara now chases

27:56

big waves, but he started out

27:58

as a regular... surfer until a friend

28:01

basically forced him to try bigger waves.

28:03

And I was literally kicking and screaming

28:05

going, no, no. And he said, don't worry, I'm

28:07

going to give you the perfect board. And I'm

28:09

going to show you where to paddle out. And

28:12

I'll show you where to catch the wave. And

28:14

you're going to be safe. You're going to have

28:16

fun. Sure enough, all of that happened. And it

28:18

was the best day of my life. But

28:20

he has had some intense wipeouts since then.

28:22

We'll talk to him about that next. This

28:41

is press play on 89.9

28:43

KCRW, I'm metal and brand.

28:45

Surfers in LA start getting

28:47

excited when the waves are

28:49

over five feet. That's not

28:51

even a ripple for surfers

28:53

who chase much bigger waves.

28:55

The waves at places like

28:57

Mavericks in Northern California, Jaws

28:59

in Maui and Nazare in

29:01

Portugal, can reach up to

29:03

100 feet tall. Surfing these

29:05

waves is extremely dangerous. Even

29:07

professionals can get seriously injured.

29:09

or worse. Two years ago, Brazilian surfer,

29:12

Marcio Frery died after getting

29:14

sucked into a giant wave

29:16

at Nazare. Big wave surfers,

29:18

though, are undeterred by these

29:20

risks, and they are the

29:22

subject of HBO's documentary series,

29:24

100-foot wave, now in its

29:26

third season. Chris Smith is

29:28

the filmmaker behind the series.

29:30

Hi Chris. Hello. And also joining

29:33

us is Garrett McNamara, the star

29:35

of the series, and a world

29:37

record holder for the biggest wave

29:40

ever served. Hi Garrett. Aloha. How

29:42

did you first get into Big

29:44

Wave surfing, Garrett? I was

29:46

16 years old and a friend

29:48

of mine literally grabbed me by

29:50

the neck and he said, Punky,

29:52

you're coming with me and I

29:54

was terrified of big waves at

29:56

that point in my life. And

29:58

I was literally kicking in. screaming

30:00

going no, no, no. And he said, don't

30:02

worry, I'm going to give you the perfect

30:04

board and I'm going to show you where

30:06

to paddle out and I'll show you where

30:08

to catch the wave and you're going

30:10

to be safe, you're going to have

30:12

fun. Sure enough, all of that happened

30:15

and it was the best day of my life

30:17

and I lived for big wave from that

30:19

day forward. Bigger and bigger and bigger.

30:21

What is the lure of the big? I don't

30:24

jump out of planes, I won't

30:26

ride horses. I said I'd never

30:28

swim a shark somehow, my wife

30:30

talked me into that. But, you

30:32

know, it was always where I

30:34

felt comfortable and where I felt

30:36

alive and where I felt I belonged

30:38

in the ocean and when the

30:40

waves were big. Small waves weren't

30:43

very appealing to me, it just

30:45

didn't have that rush factor, but

30:47

the big waves just... came naturally

30:50

and that's what I live for

30:52

and love and still do today

30:54

but I'm you know getting a

30:57

little more comfortable with being on

30:59

the land. And Chris tell

31:01

us about why you wanted

31:03

to do this series and

31:05

position Garrett as your main

31:07

character. Yeah I just meeting

31:09

Garrett you know for me a

31:12

lot of these projects are instinct-based and

31:14

just you know I never had a

31:16

particular interest in surfing or big wave

31:18

surfing it was really somebody asked me

31:21

if I was interested in it and

31:23

I said not particularly but I'm always

31:25

open-minded and I got on a zoom

31:27

with Garrett and Nicole's wife and their

31:30

kids and and Garrett in my mind just

31:32

had something that was interesting to

31:34

me and that I wanted to

31:36

explore and learn more about and

31:38

I didn't know it at the

31:40

time, but it really opened a

31:42

door to a community of people,

31:44

a town, a world, a lifestyle,

31:46

and you know, that has continued

31:48

to unfold through today. So you don't

31:51

serve at all? No. Garrett, have you

31:53

tried to get him on a board?

31:55

You know, I didn't know that he's

31:57

never served or I didn't choose

31:59

to... listen good enough when he

32:02

said that in the past I

32:04

am gonna get him surfing that's

32:06

my new goal so Garrett you

32:08

have had these waves these huge

32:10

waves collapse on you many times

32:13

right like How many times? Can he

32:15

count? Hundreds of 50 to 60 foot

32:17

waves. I'd say 40 foot waves, thousands.

32:19

Every wipeout's different. Each wave hits you

32:22

differently and either gives you some kisses

32:24

and takes you down for a little

32:26

while and spits you out the back

32:28

without any challenges at all. and other

32:31

ones hit you so hard and so

32:33

violent that it feels like Mike Tyson's

32:35

punching you and then he stuck you

32:37

in a washing machine on spin cycle

32:40

and then King Kong grabbed it and

32:42

shook it up all different directions so

32:44

you're just so beat up and

32:46

discombobulated by the time you get

32:48

to the surface and you barely

32:50

get your lips out and then you

32:53

barely get a breath and another one

32:55

and it's all over again. That sounds

32:57

unfun fun to me. You know it's

32:59

the ride. that you have no control

33:01

of, which is actually, if you choose to

33:03

enjoy it, it's the most exhilarating,

33:05

fun experience you can have in

33:07

surfing the wipeout, the underwater ride.

33:09

The ones where we make it,

33:11

there's not that much of a

33:13

rush as you can get when

33:15

you're getting pounded and you don't

33:17

know what's gonna happen. Because you're

33:20

that close to death? Is that what

33:22

the rush is? I think just because you

33:24

have no control. like when you're riding a

33:26

wave you have some control you can turn

33:28

left you can turn right you can get

33:30

in the barrel you can run from the

33:32

barrel but once that wave's got a whole

33:35

of you you have to release all control

33:37

and just relax and go with it accept

33:39

it and and if you're really having

33:41

a good time you're choosing to enjoy it

33:43

oh my gosh What was the

33:46

story with Marcio Freirey

33:48

and his death? He

33:50

was a professional, an

33:52

expert, big wave surfer, and

33:54

he died at Nazarei. How

33:56

did this happen? He was

33:58

a legend. first guy to

34:01

paddle out at Jaws. I wasn't there

34:03

so I can't say what happened but

34:05

he had Lucas Chumbo and he

34:07

had Lucas Fink and he had

34:09

the best of the best. If

34:11

I was gonna say anything that

34:14

could have caused it was

34:16

I think he didn't have

34:18

the inflation vest under his

34:20

small flotation vest. This is

34:22

their second session so they're

34:24

already kind of tired. I don't

34:26

know if he was always in the

34:28

shape that he was in, but he

34:30

looked a little bit out of shape.

34:32

So it was just sad. It's the

34:35

first toe surfer that we've ever

34:37

lost, toe surfing. Yeah, and toe

34:39

surfing is when you have a partner

34:41

who has a jet ski, who's tows

34:43

you out. Yes. And when this happened,

34:46

you just mentioned Lucas

34:48

Chumbo, he was driving the

34:50

jet ski. So he was

34:52

his partner. The episode itself

34:54

is focused on... Marcia was a

34:56

person more than getting into the details.

34:58

It was a fluke thing. I mean,

35:00

you have the best of the best

35:03

out there, like spending a lot of

35:05

time on trying to get it right

35:07

in terms of the way that we

35:09

handled this in the episode. It was

35:12

like we were trying to be very

35:14

sensitive to everything that happened. The way

35:16

that we handled it or tried to

35:18

handle it was just with the grace

35:21

and dignity that I think his family

35:23

would want for his life. but there's

35:25

a possibility a stroke or heart attack

35:27

which we don't know because of the

35:30

the artosa was never released and it

35:32

would be nice to have some closure

35:34

on that but I don't know just

35:37

so that we can figure out what

35:39

we could do better next time as

35:41

a you know big waterman and share

35:43

with people what we can do better

35:46

to prevent something like this. How

35:48

has that affected you Garrett and

35:50

surfing and what kind of risks

35:52

you want to take now? The

35:54

tragedy didn't affect me personally

35:56

as far as my pursuit

35:59

and how in... why I do things in

36:01

the water. But personally, I've been diving

36:03

deep on what's actually important.

36:06

And last year, I wrote a lot

36:08

of waves, and I was really fired

36:10

up, and I was feeling good. Who

36:12

knows what this year is going to

36:14

bring? But right now, I'd rather just

36:16

be hanging out with my family. And

36:18

definitely, I always told myself, when

36:20

I didn't have kids, I didn't mind

36:22

dying surfing big waves, because it's what

36:24

I love more than anything. Once I

36:26

had children, I told myself

36:29

I'd never die surfing, so

36:31

make sure that never happens

36:33

by preparing or not

36:35

going out if I'm not prepared.

36:37

Let me play a clip of

36:40

your wife Nicole from the series,

36:42

and this is her talking after

36:44

you have been injured surfing

36:47

at Nazare. Another injury.

36:49

Another freaking injury. I'm

36:51

over him just not

36:53

being intentional with his

36:55

life. So this is

36:57

after the first episode

36:59

where you see a

37:01

neurologist who has diagnosed

37:03

some brain damage after

37:05

you've suffered many concussions,

37:07

more than 100 I

37:09

think you say. So can you

37:12

talk about that about the

37:14

fact that you have actually

37:16

been injured and your wife

37:18

wants you to take it

37:21

easy? Well if I get cut and

37:23

stitches there don't really even slow me

37:25

down I might stay out of the

37:27

water for a few hours When it comes

37:29

to strains and sprains and breaks they

37:32

are way on me and I'm out

37:34

of the water But didn't really realize

37:36

that I had had so many concussions

37:38

and that they could have possibly taken

37:41

a toll on me and yeah, there's

37:43

a lot of fun stuff that we

37:45

did there and it was actually very

37:48

challenging and nerve-wracking and the little scary

37:50

to all these tests and you're trying

37:52

to nail these things and you don't

37:54

feel like you're doing that well and

37:56

then when it came out on the

37:58

other end she said yeah you're okay

38:00

as long as you take care

38:03

of yourself now take care of

38:05

yourself as moving forward and

38:07

I went to Abu Dhabi and

38:09

got another hit on the head

38:11

you laugh but that's really scary

38:13

that you could have permanent brain

38:16

damage I'm pretty sure I

38:18

don't but if I do at

38:20

least I got a good excuse for

38:22

how I act Chris can you weigh

38:24

in on this How typical is Garrett

38:26

when it comes to taking these personal

38:29

risks? You know, he's always had a

38:31

really mind over matter approach to his

38:33

life, and I think that he's... I

38:35

just don't think he's going to allow

38:37

it to affect him. My impression with

38:39

Garrett from meeting him is that he

38:42

is going to... will things into existence in

38:44

the way that he wants him to

38:46

be. But Nicole also goes back and

38:48

forth. I mean, she has days where

38:50

she's really fed up and then, you

38:52

know, we were filming a contest and

38:54

she was like, I wish Garrett was

38:56

out there and it was really dangerous.

38:58

So like, she appreciates what he does,

39:00

but she's also very concerned for him

39:02

and for the family. So it's a

39:04

hard sport in a hard life. There is

39:07

something transcendent about it as you've talked

39:09

about, Garrett, but there's also the I

39:11

have something to prove part of it.

39:14

Chris, how much of that is part

39:16

of this world, the I need to

39:18

surf the biggest wave there is and

39:20

prove to everyone that I can survive

39:22

this? Since we've started the project,

39:24

I rarely hear people talking about

39:26

that. I think all the people

39:28

that we've found were the people

39:30

that we find most interesting. just

39:32

need to be in the ocean need to

39:35

be in the water need to be surfing

39:37

because it's in their DNA and I think

39:39

there's an aspect of the biggest way that

39:41

you know I feel like even since we

39:43

started filming it has dissipated to some

39:45

degree I felt like at the beginning

39:47

when we started that there was this

39:50

idea of you know everyone's trying to

39:52

survive and get sponsorship and that that's

39:54

a good way to get recognized but

39:57

I feel like this last season is the

39:59

most human and about people's relationship

40:01

with the people that they love

40:03

and the ocean, less about trying

40:05

to get the biggest wave. But I

40:07

think that's a good thing. I think

40:10

that's the reason that the show

40:12

has survived for three seasons, because

40:14

I think the other one is

40:16

actually quite superficial and not that

40:18

interesting, and that was sort of

40:20

one of the things that I

40:22

gravitated towards Garrett and Nicole when

40:24

I first met them. Except that the title

40:26

of it is 100-foot wave. So. That is

40:29

the title. It's a good title. It gets

40:31

you in the door, you know, that's what

40:33

we want. That's always there. I think it's

40:35

like the four minute mile or whatever you

40:37

want to say. I think all these people

40:39

are the best in their sport. They're great

40:41

elite athletes, right? So they're, yes, they would

40:43

like to serve the biggest way, but I

40:46

feel like from a lot of them, yes,

40:48

it's part the recognition, but it's also. They

40:50

could do it without cameras and

40:52

they would be happy, you know?

40:54

Like they really want to have

40:56

that experience as much as they

40:58

want it to be documented and

41:00

get everything that comes along with

41:02

it. Chris, it's not just men.

41:04

You highlight a woman in your

41:07

series named Justine DuPont, a French

41:09

woman. And can you talk about

41:11

her and her position in this world

41:13

of big wave surfers? I mean, Justin's

41:15

amazing. I don't think anyone looks at

41:17

her as a woman in the sport.

41:20

They just look at her as another

41:22

athlete. She's just like out there for

41:24

all the right reasons and is

41:26

hard charging as any of the other

41:28

guys. I mean, I think that's one

41:30

of the things that I love about

41:33

the show is just the disparate backgrounds

41:35

of the characters that we're focused on

41:37

and following. We have Kati, who's from,

41:39

you know, the UK, and Surs a

41:42

lot in Ireland, a people from Brazil.

41:44

Garrett Nicole who are you know

41:46

kind of world travelers varied group of

41:48

people that all have come at it for

41:50

different reasons and have found it's like

41:53

the island of misfit toys it's like

41:55

they've all ended up in this you

41:57

know small town in Portugal and You

42:00

know, it was something that we

42:02

didn't really expect when we started,

42:04

but it was something that we

42:07

discovered and have sort of stuck

42:09

with for that reason. All right, well,

42:11

your goal is to get in the water

42:13

with them. Yes. I'll go in the

42:15

summer. Garrett, you're going to get them

42:17

in there in the summer? Well, get them

42:19

on the jet ski at least, right? Well,

42:22

thank you both so much for coming

42:24

in today. Appreciate it. Thanks for

42:26

having us. Garrett McNamara, a

42:29

big wave surfer, and

42:31

Chris Smith, documentary filmmaker,

42:33

season three of their

42:36

documentary's 100-foot wave, premieres

42:38

May 1st on Max. Coming

42:40

up, scientists at U.C. Berkeley

42:42

have discovered a new color. They

42:45

named it Olo. We'll talk to

42:47

one of the scientists on the

42:49

team next on press play. This

42:56

is press play on 89.9 KCRW, I'm

42:58

Madeline Brand. Scientists at UC Berkeley have

43:00

managed to discover a new color, one

43:02

never seen by human eyes, until now.

43:05

They call it Olo. It will likely

43:07

take a very long time before any

43:09

of us can see it because it

43:12

requires a special machine, laser beams, and

43:14

all types of sciencey things to see

43:16

it. The human eye processes color using

43:19

three types of cone cells in the

43:21

retina. The cones are S short, M

43:23

medium and L loss. They help us

43:26

process blue, green, red, and all

43:28

the colors in between. The new

43:30

color Ollo cannot be seen naturally

43:32

combining those. Helping us, unwrap our

43:34

minds, our eyes, and our ears

43:36

around this is Austin, Rorda, professor

43:39

of optometry and vision science at

43:41

UC Berkeley, and one of the

43:43

researchers behind the discovery of Ollo.

43:45

Welcome. Hi, it's a pleasure to be here.

43:47

Pleasure to have you. Well, you have seen

43:49

this color. What is it? Can you describe

43:52

it for us? Okay, well, as you

43:54

said, it can only be generated

43:56

in the system that we have

43:58

in the lab. As a subject

44:01

and I sit in, the display,

44:03

the display that presents, although is

44:05

small, it's only about the size

44:07

of two full moons or a

44:10

fingernail viewed at arm's length. And

44:12

when everything works the way we

44:14

want to work, in other words,

44:17

when the system is stimulating only

44:19

the M cones that you so

44:21

nicely described, or a turquoise. So

44:23

has it been a blue-green that

44:26

you've seen before or a turquoise

44:28

you've seen before or something that,

44:30

I don't know, you haven't and

44:33

you can't really describe? Yeah, well,

44:35

that's a good question. We can

44:37

describe it. We could describe the

44:39

appearance of it. Everyone agreed on

44:42

the description. So how do you

44:44

know it's beyond the normal limits

44:46

of human color vision? Well, the

44:49

way we do it is we

44:51

can pit that color against the

44:53

most saturated natural color. come up

44:55

with. And we do that just

44:58

by using a second laser, we

45:00

can dial up its wavelength, and

45:02

light from a laser in the

45:05

natural world is the most saturated

45:07

appearing color you can see. But

45:09

when we pit that up against

45:11

Ollo, which we generate in the

45:14

instrument, that what would normally have

45:16

been the naturally most saturated color,

45:18

just pales by comparison. That must

45:21

have been, just describe it, what

45:23

it was like to see, that

45:25

must have been really an amazing

45:27

moment to finally see this color.

45:30

Well, it was a moment, and

45:32

as a scientist, it was a

45:34

moment because we've been talking about

45:37

this, Rennung, my collaborator, came to

45:39

me about six years ago with

45:41

this idea to stimulate just the

45:43

emcones, and we worked hard with

45:46

students and postdocs and other folks

45:48

in the lab. And so to

45:50

actually be in the system as

45:53

one of the scientists and experience

45:55

this effect, it was. It was

45:57

quite profound. Yeah, in a philosophical

45:59

sense, profound because people experience color

46:02

differently and there are people who

46:04

have some form of color blindness,

46:06

right? And so it's such a

46:09

personal experience, how you see the

46:11

world. Yeah, absolutely. In fact, so

46:13

that's what makes color science interesting,

46:15

but also what makes it difficult.

46:18

There's so many ways to measure

46:20

so many factors that that go

46:22

into how one perceives color. And

46:25

so we were very careful to

46:27

quantify this experience, and it was

46:29

not just me saying it looked

46:31

more saturated than anything. It was

46:34

not just us describing the color,

46:36

but in order to really quantify

46:38

this experience, we what we had

46:41

to do is like I mentioned

46:43

the olo color. was so much

46:45

more saturated than what would have

46:47

normally been a saturated color that

46:50

in order to do what we

46:52

call a color match to quantify

46:54

that experience, we actually had to

46:57

dilute. Sadly, we had to dilute

46:59

the olo color to make it

47:01

look like the most saturated color

47:03

in the natural world. And that's

47:06

how we could measure it in

47:08

all the subjects we tested, the

47:10

five in the paper, all basically...

47:13

had to dial up the same

47:15

amount of dilution to bring that

47:17

extraordinary color back into the ordinary,

47:19

what would be an ordinary experience.

47:22

Yeah. Why is it called Olo?

47:24

Okay, James Fong, he's an engineer,

47:26

a computer scientist, who actually wrote

47:29

a lot of the software to

47:31

do this experiment. And so it

47:33

derives from the binary representation of

47:35

L, M, and S. So when

47:38

we do an experiment, James is

47:40

able to type in what type

47:42

of stimulation we're going to do,

47:45

and when he decides we're going

47:47

to put zero into the M

47:49

cone, or L-cones, one, all the

47:51

light, 100% into the M-cones, and

47:54

none into the S-cones, then that

47:56

looks like on the computer screen,

47:58

is 0-1-0, which looks like the

48:01

word O-0. It's very scientific. Okay,

48:03

so I guess, you know, aside

48:05

from the pure joy of having

48:07

discovered this and seeing it from

48:10

just a pure scientific joy standpoint,

48:12

what is the utility of this?

48:14

Why are you doing it?

48:16

Well, we're broadly interested in

48:19

manipulating the sensory experience

48:21

by targeting and sending

48:24

light to cones directly. which is

48:26

what we do to elicit Ollo.

48:28

We're interested in it for a

48:31

number of reasons. From a basic

48:33

science standpoint, we're very interested in

48:35

how a human brain, whether the

48:37

human brain is able to

48:40

generate new percepts to attribute

48:42

to novel sensory inputs. So we're

48:44

sending sensory signals to the

48:46

brain that it's never experienced

48:48

before. So there's a very

48:50

basic question about perception. Is

48:52

the brain able to... invent

48:54

new percepts to attribute to

48:56

those. And so, Ollo is

48:58

one example. More broadly, we're

49:01

interested in seeing if

49:03

we can expand the color

49:05

experience of individuals who are

49:07

color blind. So, for example,

49:09

there's a subset of men in

49:12

the world who only have two

49:14

cone types, not three, and they

49:16

have an inability to differentiate red

49:18

from green. But we may be

49:20

able to trick their brain by

49:22

tickling their cone photoreceptors. We may

49:24

be able to trick their brain

49:26

into thinking they have three cone

49:28

types. And the question is, if

49:30

we do that, will that person,

49:32

who's been color blind their whole

49:35

life, suddenly be able to differentiate

49:37

red from green? And nobody knows

49:39

the answer to the question. So

49:41

we're interested in trying that out.

49:43

Just a side question, why is

49:45

it that only men have that

49:47

form of color blindness? women. So

49:50

men are much more susceptible to

49:52

certain types of genetic mutations. Okay.

49:54

So this is the one color. Are

49:56

you thinking you may try to stimulate

49:58

a different kind of or are we

50:01

just going to be satisfied with

50:03

olo for now? Oh no, we have

50:05

plans to, so beyond even making

50:07

a dichromat, it's color

50:10

blind individual trichromatic, we're

50:12

interested in even expanding

50:15

the color experience of

50:17

normal, people with normal

50:19

color vision. And so consider this,

50:21

there's light toward the red end of

50:24

the spectrum that. our retina consents. It's

50:26

called near infrared light. But to us,

50:28

to me and to you, if I

50:30

showed it to you, it looked just

50:32

red. And the reason is because we

50:35

have no photoreceptor up there to tell

50:37

us anything different. But in our

50:39

system, we can potentially trick the brain

50:41

again into thinking that there's a photoreceptor

50:43

up in the near infrared. And if

50:46

the brain wanted to make sense of

50:48

that, they would have to invent an

50:50

entirely new color to attribute to that

50:52

new... experience. And so we don't know

50:54

what that color will be. We can't

50:57

even conceive of what a new color

50:59

dimension would look like to us because

51:01

we're constrained by the three cone types

51:03

that we have. But we're interested in

51:06

finding out whether that's even possible.

51:08

Wow. Well, good luck to you. Well, thank

51:10

you. I hope we can see a

51:12

whole bunch of new colors. Austin Ward,

51:15

Professor of Optometry and Vision Science at

51:17

UC Berkeley. Thanks for joining us. Thank

51:19

you. And

51:21

thank you for joining

51:24

us today on Press

51:27

Play. I'm Madeline Brand.

51:29

I'll be back with

51:32

you again tomorrow.

52:04

You