On the Fringe

This week, Gav and Dave talk about a major issue facing Japan, rampaging bears. Wild bears are causing whole areas of Japan to be declared no-go zones for civilians, and even the Japanese Self-Defense Forces are being called into assist in keeping people and bears at a safe distance. We’re diving into why exactly this is becoming an issue and why Japan’s ongoing struggle with a rapidly aging and d...

Timestamps: Intro — 0:22 Part 1: The Thai King in China — 0:50 How China can likely snuff out the fighting between Thailand and Cambodia — 05:05 Part 2: Al-Sharaa in Washington — 06:40 Hey all! This week, the Thai King visited Xi Jinping in Beijing, and Ahmed Al-Sharaa, the President of Syria, visited the White House. In BOTH meetings, the media is not including key details that you have to recogn...

Two shadowy Russians flew to the United Arab Emirates to free Horatiu Potra, a Romanian security expert and ex-French Foreign Legionnaire, out of a Dubai jail after he was arrested in September. Rather than fly to Russia—as he almost did—Potra has decided to go back to Romania to face trial along with former Romanian Presidential candidate Calin Georgescu, who was charged with attempting to stage...

Hey all! This week, we are taking you back to West Africa and building on our last episode about a growing jihadist influence in this corner of the world. Bamako is a city running out of time. With little fuel, the city is entering an existential crisis as neighboring countries and major powers realize the ruling military junta’s days may be numbered, as does Gavin. Whatever comes after though wil...

Our map can be found here, courtesy of julesdhl on Reddit. Thank you, Stuart! We’ve got a short, spontaneous (and timely!) bonus episode! This time, Gav and Dave yak and spitball about a map comparing different foreign ministry’s threat assessments of Burkina Faso, a small but critically important country in West Africa. They all bear bad news, but they’re all just a little bit different. We talk...

On this episode, Gavin takes a stroll down memory lane and talks in depth about Niger, a key country in the Sahel region of West Africa. Since October 21, Niger has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. Just 100 yards from the Presidential Palace in Niamey, the country’s capital, Kevin Rideout, an American missionary and bush pilot was kidnapped by jihadist terrorists and is currently being...

This week, Gav and Dave dive into the Gen Z protests/revolutions/unrest that are currently unfolding across the world and analyze some of the driving factors to this transformative moment that the mainstream media may be missing out on. We also look into how the death of traditional political and economic institutions (accelerated by the emergence of AI, amongst other things) is creating a social...

Approximate Timestamps: 0:21 — Episode Starts 1:15 — Sherman’s Intro and his Podcast, Friends and Fellow Citizens 4:37 — The context of George Washington’s 6 core values, then vs. now 10:15 — Institutional flexibility as a core to America’s foundation 13:50 — Personal identity in America 24:00 — Is technology cryptonite when put to institutions? 26:40 — Where does the battle to save institutions s...

Hey all! We have another episode piggybacking off our last episode. Season 3, Episode 10: How Scam farms are crippling Thailand’s tourism industry . In this episode, Dave and Gav return to the Golden Triangle to talk about an unlucky (crime) family. In the last week, members of the Ming Organized Crime Group have been sentenced to death in the People’s Republic of China. Among the long list of cri...

Hey all! On this episode we look at Thailand, the former juggernaut of tourism in Southeast Asia. Thailand is a country much loved here on On the Fringe, but lately it has struggled with a key sector in its economy, tourism. Whether it’s because of COVID, being in a rough neighborhood, or mixed messaging on key legislation, Thailand has been having a rough time staying competitive in the cut-throa...

This episode is subscribers only. To listen and get access to an exclusive series, type your email below. Hey all! In this episode, you get a laugh at our expense, and hopefully some helpful advice on how to manage getting your haircut in a foreign country, especially when you have to navigate doing it a foreign language. Listen to how you can avoid getting one of the worst haircuts of your life (...

Hey all! Apologies for taking a couple of extra days to get this one out—it’s worth the wait, though! We cover the recent protests in Nepal, and dive into what is really going on behind the scenes in the heart of South Asia. Nepal might be far off the radar for most people, but for On the Fringe, it’s front and center. Listen to hear what Nepali youth in Kathmandu are fighting for, what drove them...

Hey all! This week we’re tackling a BIG issue that you do not want to miss—the use of AI as a counseling service in public schools in the United States. If you are or know an educator, policy maker, or work with schools, share this episode with them. Both of us (Gavin and Dave) have years of experience as educators in different countries and share our genuine fears and concerns with news that U.S....

This week, we’re back at it with another wide-ranging conversation on AI and its effects in our lives. John Otwell returns to the pod, and he’s joined by Kevin Wong, a seasoned educator and an old friend from Peace Corps. Together, they bring different perspectives to the discussion, balancing curiosity and skepticism as we unpack what more AI integration means for education, society, and how we n...

Scroll down for a link to part 1. Here is part 2 of the episode. We curl up next to our Ouija boards and slap on our thinking caps (we will never tell you if they’re made out of tin foil though!) and dive into the implications of giving aid, the unique moral hazard in this situation of coming to the aid of local Afghans when they need it most, and what might come out of this messy situation. If yo...

Hey all! We have broken up this episode into two parts. We are doubling down on Afghanistan this week. Last week, we talked about a $540 million Chinese investment into Afghanistan gone wrong. Have a listen to it if you haven’t to get up to speed. If you’ve watched what is happening in the news you have maybe seen the words “commitment” “disbursement” “multilateral” and “bilateral” in the news whe...

First and foremost, we feel dearly for the poor Afghanis who are now recovering after a 6.0 earthquake that hit east of Jalalabad. Thousands have died and more have been displaced, and from what we can see, help is very slow or nonexistent. We recorded this before the earthquake struck, and we will definitely be keeping the country on our radar, even though it’s gone off the front pages. This quic...

OMG! There’s been a TON going on lately. Taylor Swift is getting married!! Some jerk stole a hat that was supposed to be given to a kid at the US Open. Arch Manning had a rough first half against Ohio State. There’s also something that you’ve likely missed, even if you’ve been reading the news every day—it hasn’t been covered really ANYWHERE except for local social media. That’s why we’re here. In...

This week, we’re talking to another old friend, John Otwell, a software engineer and fellow RPCV, (Returned Peace Corps Volunteer) about AI. We thought this was going to be a talk about physical infrastructure and geopolitical struggle and instead it got quite metaphysical quite fast. John knows his stuff and clearly explains what a GPT is and what it does using the human brain as a basis. If you...

This episode covers a recent “run-in” (of sorts) around the Spratly Islands, some of the most contested (and lonely) islands in the world. In this part of the world, “sharing is caring” has as much bearing as “if wishes were fishes.” Then again, this could be a red herring. Listen in to get an overview about what happened last week, and potentially what’s to come. If you enjoyed the episode, don’t...

Don’t miss this fascinating and educational conversation about a country that doesn’t get enough time in the spotlight. This week, our special guest this week is Joseph Bouchard, a Canadian journalist and academic who specializes in Latin America. Joseph has been covering and researching Bolivia and Latin America for several years and has been published in The Diplomat, the Brazilian Report, Monga...

If you have any interest in this most interesting of regions, lying along the historical Silk Road trade route, this episode is well worth a listen. This week we have a special guest, journalist and author Joe Barnes, currently based in Kazakhstan, who chats with us about the significance of Central Asia, it’s geopolitical evolution since the collapse of the USSR and his upcoming book. Joe, who ha...

Hey all! We are kicking off Season 3 with an episode about the Democratic Republic of the Congo, (the DRC) a country that not only is at the heart of Africa, it may be at the heart of our AI future. Last season, (Season 2, Episode 38) we made a prediction about ongoing events in the DRC involving the Congolese government, the US government, the Rwandan government, M23 (a rebel group), and rare ear...

Here is a preview of our first episode dropping soon in season 3. We’ve revamped and touched up a few parts of the podcast to make it both more entertaining—and more informative. All content is 100% by us and for you, and don’t forget to pass it on!! Dave + Gavin The DRC Map in the corner is by FunafutiTuvalu, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons Accessed here . This is a public episode. If you'd...

Hey all! Before we get into it, we’d like to say thank you to ALL of our listeners, subscribers, and fans in the On the Fringe community on Substack and across the world. We started season 2 with a brand new channel, 0 listens and 0 subscribers; now we’ve had over 2,000 downloads across all Podcasting platforms. Our numbers are going up every single week, and they wouldn’t be without YOUR support....