RTE Roundtable Talk #4: What is Russia? (transcript)

Featuring Tessa Lena and Riley Waggaman

This is the transcript of RTE Roundtable Talk #4, video found here:

RTE Roundtable Talk #4: What is Russia?

[00:00:00] Liam Sturgess: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Rounding the Earth podcast. Rounding the Earth is a popular newsletter series published on Substack written by applied statistician and educator, Mathew Crawford. Topics of discussion range from critical analysis of conventional wisdom to Bitcoin and everything in between.

[00:00:19] And of course, more recently, the COVID 19 pandemic. Our goal is a careful examination of important topics and perspectives shaping the world that too few people talk. Subscribe to Rounding the Earth on Substack, Rumble and YouTube to join a burgeoning research community and to help us unflatten the earth.

[00:00:40] My name is Liam Sturgess. I am a musician music producer and writer slash editor coming at you live from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and I will be your host for today. And without further ado, please allow me to introduce the author of Rounding the Earth and my co-host for the podcast. Mathew Crawford, Mathew, how are you?

[00:00:59] Mathew Crawford: [00:01:00] Good, Liam. How are you?

[00:01:01] Liam Sturgess: I'm doing very well. Thank you. How has your last week been? ?

[00:01:06] Mathew Crawford: Last week has been a bit of a trial recovering from a back injury. So I've been a little bit on the down.

[00:01:13] Liam Sturgess: Okay, well, hopefully today will be a nice stimulating conversation, but only in the psychological sense.

[00:01:18] Hopefully you can stay seated for this. So let me introduce joining us for our round table discussion, please. Welcome Tessa Lena and Riley Waggaman. Hello!

[00:01:28] Tessa Lena: Hello, pleasure to be here.

[00:01:31] Riley Waggaman: Hey.

[00:01:32] Liam Sturgess: So would you guys like to introduce yourselves to the audience who many of which will be familiar with your work, some of which might be new to your work?

[00:01:41] Tessa, do you wanna introduce yourself?

[00:01:43] Tessa Lena: Oh, absolutely. So I am a musician and artist and writer, and some people call me journalist and I've been writing about the great reset and the COVID pandemic or quote unquote. Since almost the [00:02:00] beginning of the entire thing. So I started writing about in April, 2020, and prior to, to that, I did musicians activism, which brought me to research in transhumanism, which is why 2020 was kind of weird.

[00:02:13] And prior to that, I did many, many things in life and I write as Tessa Fights Robots on Substack and pleasure to be here.

[00:02:20] Liam Sturgess: Wonderful. Riley, how about yourself?

[00:02:24] Riley Waggaman: I'm the founder of the Tessa Lena fan club.

[00:02:29] Tessa Lena: *Laughs*

[00:02:30] Riley Waggaman: Well that, but also other things I write about, I write about Russia related issues with the focus on coronavirus and biosecurity at my Substack Edward Slavsquat, that's pretty much what I do. So it's thanks for having me guys. It's I know. I, well, I know Matt's work pretty well. I follow him on Substack and great to meet you, Liam. And. As Tessa knows, number one biggest fan. So it's [00:03:00] great to talk.

[00:03:01] Mathew Crawford: Yeah, I've enjoyed following both of you on Substack. Tessa's was actually the first Substack I found when I didn't know what Substack was.

[00:03:08] But somebody had shared one of her articles in a discussion group that I was in. But this is a, this is an interesting so Tessa, where were you born?

[00:03:20] Tessa Lena: I was born in Moscow. And before we go there, I just want to say that I am a fan of everybody here. So we are kind of, we have this little nepotistic club going on but jokes aside seriously?

[00:03:33] Beautiful work.

[00:03:34] Mathew Crawford: So well, this is, this is a really, you know, this is a really unique opportunity. I just wanna point this out for the audience. Our guests here today are a Russian living in the US and, and an American living in Russia.

[00:03:50] Riley Waggaman: And so I'm in, I'm in Georgia right now, technically, but yes.

[00:03:53] Mathew Crawford: Oh, are you?

[00:03:53] Riley Waggaman: That's true.

[00:03:54] Mathew Crawford: Okay.

[00:03:54] Riley Waggaman: Yeah, I'm I, we could talk about it later, but yeah.

[00:03:58] Mathew Crawford: Right on.

[00:03:58] Well, well, I, I [00:04:00] guess, I guess the point is people who have crossed the boundaries of experience and I I've been excited about today's conversation for a while. But yeah Riley, by the way, Riley writes under the name Edward Slavsquat for those who who may not know, I don't know if that's been said yet, but you know, check out his Substack as well.

[00:04:17] Tessa Tessa, her hers is right there under her name, "fights robots" is actually not her middle and last name.

[00:04:24] Liam Sturgess: What, no...

[00:04:28] Mathew Crawford: But -

[00:04:28] Tessa Lena: What are you doing, Mathew? I think, come on.

[00:04:31] Mathew Crawford: But you know, given the way the world is breaking down, I really, really desperately wanted to have this conversation, which is what is Russia, because I, I, I don't know how many people.

[00:04:42] Right. I mean, like, you know, people think Russia and they think this, you know, very large land mass that looks like, you know, the, the Northeastern, you know, I, I, I don't know what Eastern means in the context of a spin globe, but this, this Northeastern version of the us fused with with, with Canada except except that [00:05:00] there's something different.

[00:05:01] And so I wanted to start off the conversation by asking, you know, what planet on what planet did Russians originate?