0:00
/
0:00
Transcript

Incompetence by Design in Los Angeles

Interview with Matthew Spradlin, director of "American Forest Fires: The Untold Story"

Please watch my interview with Matthew Spradlin, director of the documentary film, American Forest Fires.

Matthew has spent most of his adult life in Los Angeles and had to flee from a fire in his Topanga Canyon neighborhood in 2018.

For two years he investigated the engineered incompetence of what he calls the California “Fire Industrial Complex” that is perversely incentivized NOT to manage fire risk.

As he sees it, California’s failure to manage fire risk has, in recent years, been just one of many examples of broader institutional and infrastructural breakdown in the Golden State. The state has also experienced breakdowns in sewage treatment, transportation, law enforcement, and the management of homelessness, mental health, and drug abuse. Is California’s civilization being undermined by ineptitude or by design?

Curious listeners may wish to learn more about the following points we discuss in our conversation:

Massive Santa Monica Bay Sewage Spill in 2021.

Komodo Fire Repellent

A High Speed Rail company that lost patience with California’s bureaucratic dysfunction

Share