WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.339 I have a confession to make, and it's honestly 00:00:03.339 --> 00:00:05.419 a bit embarrassing. Oh, I know exactly where 00:00:05.419 --> 00:00:07.299 this is going. You know those nights when you 00:00:07.299 --> 00:00:10.060 just can't sleep, and you've already doom -scrolled 00:00:10.060 --> 00:00:12.179 through literally every social media feed you 00:00:12.179 --> 00:00:14.380 have? Yeah, we've all been there. The 2 a .m. 00:00:14.560 --> 00:00:17.399 scroll. Exactly. So I end up on map apps, just 00:00:17.399 --> 00:00:20.300 kind of scrolling, aimlessly floating over the 00:00:20.300 --> 00:00:23.960 country. Just panning across the digital globe. 00:00:24.120 --> 00:00:26.359 Right. I'll start in my own neighborhood, I check 00:00:26.359 --> 00:00:28.760 if my roof looks okay from space, and then I 00:00:28.760 --> 00:00:31.570 just start drifting. over the Rockies and over 00:00:31.570 --> 00:00:34.350 the Plains. And that is when you start noticing 00:00:34.350 --> 00:00:37.350 them. The dots. The dots. These tiny little names 00:00:37.350 --> 00:00:39.429 that pop up in the middle of absolute nowhere. 00:00:40.649 --> 00:00:42.450 Places you have never heard of. Places that look 00:00:42.450 --> 00:00:44.609 like they honestly shouldn't even be there. And 00:00:44.609 --> 00:00:46.229 usually, I mean, I just keep scrolling, I assume 00:00:46.229 --> 00:00:48.409 it's a gas station or maybe a single farmhouse 00:00:48.409 --> 00:00:50.329 that just got lucky with Google's algorithm. 00:00:50.509 --> 00:00:52.270 But that's the mistake right there, isn't it? 00:00:52.490 --> 00:00:55.570 We assume the map is just a static picture. We 00:00:55.570 --> 00:00:58.740 assume those dots are simple. Exactly. And that 00:00:58.740 --> 00:01:00.799 is why we are here today. I really want to stop 00:01:00.799 --> 00:01:03.259 scrolling. I want to grab the virtual pin and 00:01:03.259 --> 00:01:05.420 drop it on one of these microscopic dots and 00:01:05.420 --> 00:01:08.019 just refuse to leave until we understand what 00:01:08.019 --> 00:01:09.659 is actually going on there. I love it. We're 00:01:09.659 --> 00:01:11.719 going to stress test the map. We are. So for 00:01:11.719 --> 00:01:13.519 this deep dive, we are looking at a place called 00:01:13.519 --> 00:01:16.659 Forty Mile Colony, Montana. Forty Mile Colony. 00:01:16.819 --> 00:01:18.900 I mean, even the name sounds like it belongs 00:01:18.900 --> 00:01:20.819 in a totally different era. It sounds like a 00:01:20.819 --> 00:01:23.140 way point for wagon trains or something. It really 00:01:23.140 --> 00:01:26.060 does. But. Looking at the data we've pulled for 00:01:26.060 --> 00:01:28.959 this deep dive, the census numbers, the geographical 00:01:28.959 --> 00:01:32.340 data, the administrative codes, this isn't history. 00:01:32.879 --> 00:01:35.939 This is a living, breathing anomaly. It's a puzzle 00:01:35.939 --> 00:01:39.000 piece that doesn't quite fit the way we think 00:01:39.000 --> 00:01:41.040 towns are supposed to work in America. That is 00:01:41.040 --> 00:01:43.319 the perfect way to frame it. Our mission today 00:01:43.319 --> 00:01:46.480 is to deconstruct this specific census designated 00:01:46.480 --> 00:01:49.140 place. We want to understand how a community 00:01:49.140 --> 00:01:52.400 of just a few dozen people, specifically a Hutterite 00:01:52.400 --> 00:01:54.959 colony sitting right inside a Native American 00:01:54.959 --> 00:01:58.939 reservation, navigates the modern world. So let's 00:01:58.939 --> 00:02:00.379 orient ourselves for the listener. I'm looking 00:02:00.379 --> 00:02:03.060 at the map right now, and it looks like a whole 00:02:03.060 --> 00:02:06.319 lot of empty space. Where exactly have we landed? 00:02:06.500 --> 00:02:08.400 Well, if you want to get super technical, we 00:02:08.400 --> 00:02:12.599 are at 45 degrees, 16 minutes, 56 seconds north, 00:02:13.120 --> 00:02:16.120 and 107 degrees, 21 minutes, 22 seconds west. 00:02:16.300 --> 00:02:18.629 OK, wow. But let's translate that into something 00:02:18.629 --> 00:02:21.930 human. We are in Big Horn County, Montana. Big 00:02:21.930 --> 00:02:24.110 Horn County. Got it. Specifically, we're in the 00:02:24.110 --> 00:02:26.370 valley of the Little Big Horn River. The Little 00:02:26.370 --> 00:02:28.810 Big Horn. I mean, you really can't say that name 00:02:28.810 --> 00:02:31.389 without feeling the weight of it. That is Custer's 00:02:31.389 --> 00:02:34.710 last stand. That is pivotal American history. 00:02:34.860 --> 00:02:37.879 Exactly. It is a landscape that is just heavy 00:02:37.879 --> 00:02:39.960 with history. And physically, it's high plains. 00:02:40.580 --> 00:02:44.120 The elevation is 3 ,438 feet, which is over 1 00:02:44.120 --> 00:02:45.960 ,000 meters up. So it's high up there. Yeah. 00:02:45.979 --> 00:02:48.159 This isn't a lush green lowland. This is big 00:02:48.159 --> 00:02:50.699 sky country. You've got rolling hills and scrubland 00:02:50.699 --> 00:02:53.500 and very harsh winters. And looking at the proximity 00:02:53.500 --> 00:02:56.139 to quote unquote civilization, it says here we 00:02:56.139 --> 00:02:58.199 are about three miles south of a town called 00:02:58.199 --> 00:03:01.419 Lodgegrass. Three miles, or about five kilometers. 00:03:01.759 --> 00:03:04.000 So it's not completely isolated in the sense 00:03:04.000 --> 00:03:06.539 that they're days away from help. But in terms 00:03:06.539 --> 00:03:09.319 of the landscape, three miles in Montana can 00:03:09.319 --> 00:03:11.960 feel like a very long distance. Right. OK, so 00:03:11.960 --> 00:03:14.879 we have the physical setting. High plains, river 00:03:14.879 --> 00:03:18.539 valley, near a small town. Yeah. But this is 00:03:18.539 --> 00:03:21.180 where the source data gets messy. And by messy, 00:03:21.259 --> 00:03:24.310 I mean fascinating. Because we aren't just in 00:03:24.310 --> 00:03:26.729 a county are we no we are not and this is the 00:03:26.729 --> 00:03:28.669 part that usually gets glossed over when people 00:03:28.669 --> 00:03:31.750 look at demographics We are dealing with what 00:03:31.750 --> 00:03:34.900 I like to call a jurisdictional layer cake. A 00:03:34.900 --> 00:03:36.840 layer cake. That makes it sound delicious. But 00:03:36.840 --> 00:03:38.840 this sounds a bit more like a headache for a 00:03:38.840 --> 00:03:41.120 lawyer. Oh, a massive headache. Look at the boundaries. 00:03:41.800 --> 00:03:44.139 Forty Mile Colony is in Big Horn County, yes. 00:03:44.400 --> 00:03:47.180 It is in the state of Montana, yes. But the source 00:03:47.180 --> 00:03:50.379 material explicitly notes that it is located 00:03:50.379 --> 00:03:52.939 within the boundaries of the Crow Indian Reservation. 00:03:53.360 --> 00:03:55.099 Let's just pause and really look at that for 00:03:55.099 --> 00:03:56.979 a second, because I think people hear the word 00:03:56.979 --> 00:03:59.330 reservation. And they have a monolithic idea 00:03:59.330 --> 00:04:01.009 of what that means. Right. They think it's just 00:04:01.009 --> 00:04:03.229 federal land. Exactly. But the Crow Reservation 00:04:03.229 --> 00:04:06.270 is a sovereign nation within a nation. It has 00:04:06.270 --> 00:04:09.210 its own government, its own police, its own laws 00:04:09.210 --> 00:04:12.189 regarding land use. And yet, sitting right there 00:04:12.189 --> 00:04:15.750 inside those legal boundaries, you have 40 -mile 00:04:15.750 --> 00:04:18.149 colony. Which brings us to the colony part of 00:04:18.149 --> 00:04:20.850 the name. Yeah. The source identifies this location 00:04:20.850 --> 00:04:24.199 specifically as a Hutterite colony. Now, for 00:04:24.199 --> 00:04:26.279 the listener who might not be familiar, or who 00:04:26.279 --> 00:04:28.980 maybe confuses them with the Amish, we really 00:04:28.980 --> 00:04:31.180 need to clarify what that means. Crucial point. 00:04:31.560 --> 00:04:33.800 The source actually points us to a document called 00:04:33.800 --> 00:04:36.180 Essential Understandings of Montana Hutterites. 00:04:36.639 --> 00:04:38.819 And that context changes everything about how 00:04:38.819 --> 00:04:40.800 we interpret the data we're about to see. How 00:04:40.800 --> 00:04:43.069 so? Well, Hutterites are an Anabaptist group. 00:04:43.269 --> 00:04:45.629 They're ethereal religious. Like the Amish, they 00:04:45.629 --> 00:04:47.670 do live separately from the English world to 00:04:47.670 --> 00:04:49.910 a degree. Right. But unlike the Amish, they actually 00:04:49.910 --> 00:04:52.610 embrace technology, especially for agriculture. 00:04:52.829 --> 00:04:54.509 So they aren't out there driving horse -drawn 00:04:54.509 --> 00:04:57.110 buggies. No, not at all. They are driving half 00:04:57.110 --> 00:04:59.990 million dollar combines with GPS guidance systems 00:04:59.990 --> 00:05:03.089 in the cabs. But, and this is the key for our 00:05:03.089 --> 00:05:06.250 map, they live communally. Colony isn't just 00:05:06.250 --> 00:05:09.529 a cool historical name here. It's a strict economic 00:05:09.529 --> 00:05:12.839 definition. They hold all goods in common. There 00:05:12.839 --> 00:05:15.579 are no personal bank accounts. Everyone works 00:05:15.579 --> 00:05:18.040 for the colony, and the colony provides for everyone. 00:05:18.360 --> 00:05:20.519 Okay, so go back to your layer cake analogy. 00:05:21.139 --> 00:05:26.060 You have a communal, Germanic -speaking, religious 00:05:26.060 --> 00:05:29.279 agricultural colony. Physically located on the 00:05:29.279 --> 00:05:31.699 sovereign land of the Crow Nation. Inside a U 00:05:31.699 --> 00:05:33.660 .S. county that is trying to count them for the 00:05:33.660 --> 00:05:37.180 census. Exactly. It is a Venn diagram of jurisdiction 00:05:37.180 --> 00:05:39.420 that feels like it shouldn't work, but somehow 00:05:39.420 --> 00:05:41.680 it does. Just think about the infrastructure 00:05:41.680 --> 00:05:43.819 for a second. If the road to the colony needs 00:05:43.819 --> 00:05:46.579 paving, who pays for it? Is it the turbo county? 00:05:46.740 --> 00:05:48.819 Is it the tribe? Is it the colony itself? It 00:05:48.819 --> 00:05:51.139 really makes you realize that a dot on a map 00:05:51.139 --> 00:05:54.259 isn't just a dot. It's this tight knot of legal 00:05:54.259 --> 00:05:56.439 agreements and boundaries. They're very tight 00:05:56.439 --> 00:05:58.779 knot. And that brings us to the label the federal 00:05:58.779 --> 00:06:01.279 government slapped on it. The census designated 00:06:01.279 --> 00:06:04.939 place or CDP. I see this term on Wikipedia all 00:06:04.939 --> 00:06:06.860 the time. Whenever I'm doing my late night scrolling, 00:06:07.259 --> 00:06:09.060 it always feels a bit fake to me. Like, is it 00:06:09.060 --> 00:06:11.829 a town or not? It's not a town, not legally speaking 00:06:11.829 --> 00:06:14.470 anyway. Forty Mile Colony doesn't have a mayor. 00:06:15.069 --> 00:06:17.370 It doesn't have a city council or a municipal 00:06:17.370 --> 00:06:19.889 charter. It's not incorporated. So why does the 00:06:19.889 --> 00:06:22.589 Census Bureau even care? Why not just count them 00:06:22.589 --> 00:06:25.509 as rural residents of Bighorn County and be done 00:06:25.509 --> 00:06:28.649 with it? Because if they did that. the data would 00:06:28.649 --> 00:06:30.870 lie to us. If you just scattered those people 00:06:30.870 --> 00:06:33.310 into the general county math, you would lose 00:06:33.310 --> 00:06:35.089 the reality of the community. What do you mean 00:06:35.089 --> 00:06:38.329 by lose the reality? Well, a CDP is basically 00:06:38.329 --> 00:06:41.209 a statistical lasso. The Census Bureau looks 00:06:41.209 --> 00:06:43.089 at a cluster of people and says, hey, this functions 00:06:43.089 --> 00:06:45.509 like a town. It acts like a community. So we 00:06:45.509 --> 00:06:47.790 are going to draw an imaginary line around it 00:06:47.790 --> 00:06:50.290 and count it as if it were a town. So it's almost 00:06:50.290 --> 00:06:52.290 like a ghost town that's actually alive. That 00:06:52.290 --> 00:06:54.170 is a great way to put it. It's the government 00:06:54.170 --> 00:06:56.910 acknowledging that human geography doesn't always 00:06:56.910 --> 00:06:59.920 perfect. match legal geography. But here is the 00:06:59.920 --> 00:07:02.420 real kicker from our source material. 40 Mile 00:07:02.420 --> 00:07:05.500 Colony was only listed as a CDP prior to the 00:07:05.500 --> 00:07:08.639 2020 census. Wait, really? That recently? Yes. 00:07:09.060 --> 00:07:12.699 2020. That means for decades this community likely 00:07:12.699 --> 00:07:14.779 existed. The buildings were there. The people 00:07:14.779 --> 00:07:17.439 were farming. They were doing their thing. But 00:07:17.439 --> 00:07:19.319 statistically speaking... They were invisible. 00:07:19.439 --> 00:07:21.660 They were just rural noise in the county data. 00:07:21.819 --> 00:07:25.519 And suddenly in 2020... the Eye of Sauron, or, 00:07:25.519 --> 00:07:28.079 well, the Census Bureau turned its gaze and said, 00:07:28.160 --> 00:07:31.439 I see you. And they gave them a box, a statistical 00:07:31.439 --> 00:07:35.160 box, which finally allows us to look inside that 00:07:35.160 --> 00:07:37.300 box. OK, let's look inside the box then, because 00:07:37.300 --> 00:07:39.439 this is the part that completely blew my mind 00:07:39.439 --> 00:07:42.199 when I first read the data sheet. We are talking 00:07:42.199 --> 00:07:45.819 about a place with a capital P -A, officially 00:07:45.819 --> 00:07:47.639 recognized community. So how many people are 00:07:47.639 --> 00:07:50.069 we actually talking about here? 500. A thousand. 00:07:50.529 --> 00:07:52.569 According to the 2020 census, the total population 00:07:52.569 --> 00:07:56.230 of 40 -mile colony is 28. 28 people. 28. I have 00:07:56.230 --> 00:07:58.230 to be honest here. My first reaction to reading 00:07:58.230 --> 00:08:00.290 that was, why are we even talking about this? 00:08:00.449 --> 00:08:02.769 I mean, 28 people is a large dinner party. It's 00:08:02.769 --> 00:08:04.910 a single kindergarten class. How is this a place? 00:08:05.329 --> 00:08:07.470 It completely challenges our definition of community, 00:08:07.610 --> 00:08:09.930 doesn't it? We are so used to thinking bigger 00:08:09.930 --> 00:08:11.889 is better, or at least bigger is more valid. 00:08:12.639 --> 00:08:15.060 But you have to look at the map to understand 00:08:15.060 --> 00:08:17.360 why this is fascinating. It's not just the number 00:08:17.360 --> 00:08:19.819 of people, it's where they are and how they are 00:08:19.819 --> 00:08:22.519 arranged. Right, because my assumption for rural 00:08:22.519 --> 00:08:26.019 Montana is that 28 people would be spread out 00:08:26.019 --> 00:08:29.879 over, I don't know, 50 miles. One ranch here 00:08:29.879 --> 00:08:32.059 and another ranch... 10 miles down the dirt road. 00:08:32.440 --> 00:08:34.919 Precisely. That is the standard rural model we 00:08:34.919 --> 00:08:37.440 all picture. But look at the area measurement 00:08:37.440 --> 00:08:39.879 provided in the source. The total area of the 00:08:39.879 --> 00:08:44.759 40 -mile colony CDP is 0 .19 square miles. 0 00:08:44.759 --> 00:08:46.860 .19. I can't even visualize that. Help me out 00:08:46.860 --> 00:08:49.820 here. OK. So 0 .19 square miles is about 120 00:08:49.820 --> 00:08:51.940 acres. And it's all land, by the way. Zero square 00:08:51.940 --> 00:08:54.019 miles of water. OK. But think of it this way. 00:08:54.299 --> 00:08:56.460 It's roughly the size of a medium shopping mall 00:08:56.460 --> 00:08:59.070 parking lot. or maybe two average city blocks 00:08:59.070 --> 00:09:00.970 in Manhattan. Two city blocks, so it's tiny. 00:09:01.269 --> 00:09:04.029 It is an absolute postage stamp on the map. Now 00:09:04.029 --> 00:09:06.490 put those 28 people inside that postage stamp. 00:09:06.710 --> 00:09:09.090 If you do the math, the population density works 00:09:09.090 --> 00:09:13.549 out to 146 .4 people per square mile. 146 people 00:09:13.549 --> 00:09:16.789 per square mile. Out in the Montana high plains. 00:09:17.090 --> 00:09:20.470 Exactly. And for context, the population density 00:09:20.470 --> 00:09:23.110 of Bighorn County as a whole is about two people 00:09:23.110 --> 00:09:26.590 per square mile. Whoa. So statistically speaking, 00:09:26.879 --> 00:09:30.679 40 -mile colony is incredibly dense. It is an 00:09:30.679 --> 00:09:33.559 island of density in a sea of emptiness. And 00:09:33.559 --> 00:09:35.240 this is where the Hutterite context we talked 00:09:35.240 --> 00:09:37.679 about earlier really proves itself in the numbers. 00:09:37.820 --> 00:09:40.639 The math confirms the lifestyle. Because they 00:09:40.639 --> 00:09:43.659 aren't living on separate 500 -acre family homesteads. 00:09:43.759 --> 00:09:45.700 No, they are not. They are heavily clustered. 00:09:46.000 --> 00:09:48.639 This density metric tells us, without us ever 00:09:48.639 --> 00:09:51.139 needing to see a satellite photo, that these 00:09:51.139 --> 00:09:53.879 28 people are living in a tight grouping of buildings. 00:09:54.080 --> 00:09:56.379 We're talking dormitories, communal kitchens. 00:09:56.269 --> 00:09:59.350 shared workshops. They're living village -style 00:09:59.350 --> 00:10:02.269 lives. Yes, village -style lives right in the 00:10:02.269 --> 00:10:04.230 middle of the open landscape. It really paints 00:10:04.230 --> 00:10:06.669 a vivid picture for you. You can imagine driving 00:10:06.669 --> 00:10:09.049 your car through that reservation land. You're 00:10:09.049 --> 00:10:11.690 seeing miles of grass and rolling hills, maybe 00:10:11.690 --> 00:10:13.789 a stray horse here or there, and then suddenly 00:10:13.789 --> 00:10:17.649 boom. A complex. Right, a complex. Lights, activity 00:10:17.649 --> 00:10:20.149 machinery. 28 people living shoulder to shoulder. 00:10:20.350 --> 00:10:22.570 It's a highly distinct node of civilization. 00:10:23.049 --> 00:10:26.230 And even though it is small, that density creates 00:10:26.230 --> 00:10:28.929 a center of gravity, it's enough to get plugged 00:10:28.929 --> 00:10:31.110 into the national system. It's enough to get 00:10:31.110 --> 00:10:33.509 a zip kind. Speaking of zip codes, let's talk 00:10:33.509 --> 00:10:36.429 about the digital tether. The source document 00:10:36.429 --> 00:10:39.710 goes deep into these government codes. FIPS, 00:10:39.830 --> 00:10:43.029 G -A -N -A -S. It honestly felt a bit like reading 00:10:43.029 --> 00:10:44.929 the Matrix code for a minute. I know it can be 00:10:44.929 --> 00:10:47.279 a bedrider read. But think of those codes as 00:10:47.279 --> 00:10:49.779 the invisible plumbing of the nation. Even a 00:10:49.779 --> 00:10:51.879 community of 28 people needs to be plugged into 00:10:51.879 --> 00:10:55.139 the grid. So they share the zip code 59050 with 00:10:55.139 --> 00:10:57.519 Lodgegrass, right? Correct, which makes total 00:10:57.519 --> 00:10:59.519 sense since they are neighbors. And the area 00:10:59.519 --> 00:11:02.840 code is the classic Montana 406. But the codes 00:11:02.840 --> 00:11:04.799 that really matter, the ones that prove this 00:11:04.799 --> 00:11:06.419 place exists to the government, are the ones 00:11:06.419 --> 00:11:08.299 you don't ever put on an envelope. You mean the 00:11:08.299 --> 00:11:10.580 FIPPES code? The FIPPES, Federal Information 00:11:10.580 --> 00:11:13.320 Processing Standards. The specific code for 40 00:11:13.320 --> 00:11:17.740 Mile Colony is 3828725. Now why does that matter? 00:11:18.179 --> 00:11:20.700 Why should the listener listening right now care 00:11:20.700 --> 00:11:23.480 about a random string of numbers? Because without 00:11:23.480 --> 00:11:25.759 that number to the federal government, this place 00:11:25.759 --> 00:11:29.340 straight up doesn't exist. That code is its digital 00:11:29.340 --> 00:11:31.659 DNA. Okay, give me an example. Let's say there 00:11:31.659 --> 00:11:35.110 is a massive blizzard. A real Montana whiteout. 00:11:35.830 --> 00:11:37.710 And the governor declares a state of emergency, 00:11:37.870 --> 00:11:40.769 so federal relief funds get released. How does 00:11:40.769 --> 00:11:42.789 the computer system know exactly where to send 00:11:42.789 --> 00:11:45.370 the money or track the aid? The FIPSB's code. 00:11:45.590 --> 00:11:47.610 Exactly. The database doesn't care about the 00:11:47.610 --> 00:11:53.490 name. It cares about 30 -28725. Or take the GNIS 00:11:53.490 --> 00:11:57.909 ID, which is 2806613. What does GNIS stand for 00:11:57.909 --> 00:12:00.389 again? It's the Geographic Names Information 00:12:00.389 --> 00:12:03.240 System. That is the ID tag in the master database 00:12:03.240 --> 00:12:06.139 of the U .S. Geological Survey. If you are a 00:12:06.139 --> 00:12:08.659 pilot flying a plane and using digital charts, 00:12:08.879 --> 00:12:10.960 or if you are using a GPS to route a delivery 00:12:10.960 --> 00:12:13.960 truck, that ID is what confirms that this specific 00:12:13.960 --> 00:12:16.480 point on Earth has an official name. It's weirdly 00:12:16.480 --> 00:12:18.100 philosophical when you think about it. You can 00:12:18.100 --> 00:12:19.940 have the people, you can have the communal buildings, 00:12:20.059 --> 00:12:22.179 you can have the history, but until you get the 00:12:22.179 --> 00:12:24.929 code, you aren't quote unquote official. We live 00:12:24.929 --> 00:12:27.710 in a world of databases. If you want in the database, 00:12:27.809 --> 00:12:30.610 you are effectively invisible. And that brings 00:12:30.610 --> 00:12:32.809 us right back to that 2020 date we discussed. 00:12:33.690 --> 00:12:35.789 Right. Before 2020, they didn't have the code. 00:12:35.970 --> 00:12:38.009 They likely didn't have the specific recognition 00:12:38.009 --> 00:12:40.190 as a census designated place. They were just 00:12:40.190 --> 00:12:42.570 counted as generic people in the county. Getting 00:12:42.570 --> 00:12:46.429 these specific codes, becoming a CDP, is a statistical 00:12:46.429 --> 00:12:49.490 rite of passage. It is the exact moment the system 00:12:49.490 --> 00:12:52.049 says you are distinct. It makes me really wonder 00:12:52.049 --> 00:12:55.529 about the why. Like, why draw the line now? Why 00:12:55.529 --> 00:12:58.269 in 2020? It could be any number of administrative 00:12:58.269 --> 00:13:01.149 reasons. Maybe the tribe needed better data on 00:13:01.149 --> 00:13:03.210 who exactly was living within the reservation 00:13:03.210 --> 00:13:05.629 boundaries. Makes sense. Or maybe the state needed 00:13:05.629 --> 00:13:08.190 better granularity for water rights or for school 00:13:08.190 --> 00:13:11.629 districting. Data isn't neutral. It is collected 00:13:11.629 --> 00:13:14.389 for a reason. Someone somewhere needed to count 00:13:14.389 --> 00:13:17.049 these 28 people separately. You know, we started 00:13:17.049 --> 00:13:19.769 this whole deep dive by talking about aimlessly 00:13:19.769 --> 00:13:23.259 scrolling map apps late at night. But I feel 00:13:23.259 --> 00:13:24.960 like I am never going to look at a random dot 00:13:24.960 --> 00:13:27.200 the same way again. That is exactly the goal. 00:13:27.440 --> 00:13:29.299 We took a dot that looked like absolutely nothing. 00:13:29.620 --> 00:13:32.320 And what did we find? We found a Hutterite colony 00:13:32.320 --> 00:13:35.120 living communally. We found a population density 00:13:35.120 --> 00:13:37.759 that rivals a suburb just sitting right in the 00:13:37.759 --> 00:13:39.960 middle of a sovereign Native American nation. 00:13:40.100 --> 00:13:42.279 And we found a community that was statistically 00:13:42.279 --> 00:13:45.120 invisible until just a few years ago. It is a 00:13:45.120 --> 00:13:48.259 massive reminder that the map is incredibly deep. 00:13:48.429 --> 00:13:50.909 Every single one of those names, even the ones 00:13:50.909 --> 00:13:53.669 in a tiny four point font that you almost scroll 00:13:53.669 --> 00:13:56.509 right past, has a complex story just like this 00:13:56.509 --> 00:13:59.110 one. It's the invisible city concept. It really 00:13:59.110 --> 00:14:01.490 is. And I want to leave the listener with a final 00:14:01.490 --> 00:14:04.049 thought here, something to chew on. We found 00:14:04.049 --> 00:14:06.529 40 Mile Colony today because it finally got a 00:14:06.529 --> 00:14:09.590 code in 2020. It popped up on the radar. So what 00:14:09.590 --> 00:14:13.750 is still off the radar? That is a very good question. 00:14:13.929 --> 00:14:17.470 How many other communities of 28 people or maybe 00:14:17.470 --> 00:14:20.970 50 or 100 people are out there right now functioning 00:14:20.970 --> 00:14:23.549 exactly like towns living their lives entirely 00:14:23.549 --> 00:14:25.269 under the radar because they haven't been drawn 00:14:25.269 --> 00:14:27.970 yet? How many 40 mile colonies are we scrolling 00:14:27.970 --> 00:14:29.789 past simply because they don't have a label? 00:14:29.950 --> 00:14:32.490 The map isn't finished. The map is never finished. 00:14:32.730 --> 00:14:35.090 We just stopped drawing for a while. Well, on 00:14:35.090 --> 00:14:37.549 that note, I think I am actually going to go 00:14:37.549 --> 00:14:40.379 back to my map app tonight. But I am definitely 00:14:40.379 --> 00:14:42.340 going to zoom in a little closer this time. Find 00:14:42.340 --> 00:14:45.139 us another dot to dive into. I definitely will. 00:14:45.480 --> 00:14:47.259 Thanks for taking this micro journey into the 00:14:47.259 --> 00:14:48.919 high plains with us. Always a pleasure.