WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 11 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:02.600 Hey, everybody, Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let 0:00:02.600 --> 0:00:06.279 you know this is a compiletion episode. So every episode 0:00:06.400 --> 0:00:09.480 of the week that just happened is here in one 0:00:09.600 --> 0:00:13.360 convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to 0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:15.880 listen to in a long stretch if you want. If 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:17.840 you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, 0:00:17.880 --> 0:00:20.040 there's gonna be nothing new here for you, but you 0:00:20.079 --> 0:00:30.720 can make your own decisions. Hey, every buddy, America, Hey Americans, America, 0:00:31.200 --> 0:00:35.960 How is American? That is the podcast? And that was 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:37.920 that was a horrible is ship. That was maybe your 0:00:37.920 --> 0:00:41.440 talk ten worst. This is it could happen here a 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:47.200 podcast where an incompetent Rube Fox up starting the show 0:00:47.800 --> 0:00:50.720 and then we talk about how things are falling apart 0:00:50.960 --> 0:00:54.440 or how to make things not fall apart, or some 0:00:54.640 --> 0:00:59.760 version of things in between those two facts. Yep, yep. 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:03.360 That's a kind of kind of not great time going 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:06.080 on right now. A lot of people are That was 0:01:06.120 --> 0:01:08.320 our second That was our b pitch for the name. 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:13.280 Kind of time going on right now? Actually not that 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:21.080 far from what was. Yeah, I mean, it's like, especially 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:23.760 especially right now, there's there's a lot of a lot 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:26.959 of trials going on, m feet on stuff, and the 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:32.440 ad Our Very trial is happening, the one about you know, 0:01:32.280 --> 0:01:34.720 Unit Unite the Right is going on, and of course 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:37.000 the kind ofn't have his trial as of as of 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:42.400 recording is um. People, the jury is still in deliberation. UM, 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:44.440 So no idea what's going to be the result by 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:47.840 the time this episode up. I've actually been like not 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:50.880 commenting on it or neither to think about it. There's 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:52.360 nothing we can do about it. There's nothing you can do. 0:01:52.800 --> 0:01:56.560 And like a lot of people, there's been discussion about 0:01:56.640 --> 0:01:59.000 how much civil unrest there's going to be depending on 0:01:59.040 --> 0:02:01.640 the result of the trial. I know there's been a 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:04.360 lot of like National guards sent to Wisconsin. It's been 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:07.040 you know, FBI door Knox and activists tombs trying to 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:08.960 scare people so they don't you know, go out and 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:11.799 ride or whatever. Discussion online the people you know planning 0:02:11.840 --> 0:02:16.079 protests in response to in response to whatever the result is. Um. 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:18.640 I know just today there was a post from I 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:21.800 think the Ohio Proud Boys claiming that they be sending 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:25.120 like like, uh, was it hundreds or thousands of like 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:28.960 people armed with like a RS to Wisconsin or yeah, 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:31.760 there's there's a fucking post. People are saying, like, you 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:33.919 should take it seriously because it's from a Proud Boys 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:36.919 internal chat, and it's like, we've got three hundred guys 0:02:36.919 --> 0:02:40.320 heavily armed heading to and there's already X number of 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:43.720 guys there, and we're gonna kill a lot more Communists 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:46.600 than Kyle Rittenhouse did. And YadA, YadA, YadA, and ya. 0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:49.560 If I could give you one piece of advice now, 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:51.480 and who knows where the world is at the point 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:54.120 of which this episode drops, it's when people talk about, 0:02:54.240 --> 0:02:56.640 say when if you are at a protest and someone 0:02:56.680 --> 0:02:59.040 starts talking about the Proud Boys and the Proud Boys 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:01.160 are coming or the Proud Boys you're here, if you 0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:05.760 don't immediately see uncontrovertible visual proof that they have access 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:10.840 to showing it, assume it's nonsense. Okay, Yeah, that is 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:14.400 my advice as someone who has heard a thousand times 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:16.840 people say versions of the Proud Boys are coming. Okay, 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:20.760 insist on evidence or ignore it. But you know, whenever, 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:23.920 whenever these big civil you know, unrests and types of 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:27.120 stuff happens, there's always an increased chance that there will 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:31.320 be some kind of protest related shooting. Especially people are 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:35.480 definitely absolutely it may happened by the time this episode dropped. 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:38.520 Especially people are bringing guns, people people bring firearms under 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:40.400 there's been a lot of there's you know, for the 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:42.880 demonstrations outside the courthouse, there's been you know, guns there. 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:46.440 Um there's been you know, an increasing uh in the 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:49.840 rate of shootings at protests on the West Coast throughout 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:52.920 the past few months. Um. So I'm gonna be kind 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:55.440 of talking about, you know, some things that you can 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:57.720 do if you're at home and you feel competent enough 0:03:57.800 --> 0:04:00.800 in the aftermath of one of one of these shootings. 0:04:00.800 --> 0:04:03.560 You know, if if if you know, if a proud 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:05.880 boy does bring a bring a gun and shoot somebody, 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:09.000 what you can actually do a video if you're in 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:13.520 a situation where you've been following something happening all day, 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:16.760 there's a shooting and like low quality footage starts coming 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:20.560 out of somebody killing someone or someone's else, here's what 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:22.640 to do next if you want to maybe be a 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:26.640 positive part of that, of that process, well not of 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:30.479 that process, but of like the aftermath of it. You know. 0:04:30.600 --> 0:04:34.280 And and because because the universe is cruel, I I 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:39.080 originally wrote this road right up about the written house shooting. UM, 0:04:39.160 --> 0:04:42.680 because the universe is a cruel place and it's gonna, 0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:45.800 you know, continue to This particular incident is going to 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:48.080 continue to be impactful. Even though it's not the first, 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:50.200 it's not gonna be the last one of these. It 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:52.120 is still impactful because of how much of a symbol 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:54.919 has been turned into. So I think a lot of 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:58.800 people forget about how how chaotic the night on the 0:04:58.839 --> 0:05:02.760 internet was the day of Kenosha shooting. UM like it was. 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:07.720 It was wild being online as that was going on. 0:05:08.400 --> 0:05:10.800 Uh No, one had no idea what was going on. 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:14.120 People could not agree on who the shooter was beforehand. 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:16.240 There was a lot of pictures floating around. It was. 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:19.599 It was, it was. It was a nightmare. Uh we know, 0:05:19.760 --> 0:05:21.880 we knew that people were shot, we couldn't know how 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:23.720 many or who. Like it was, it was pretty bad 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:26.479 and chaotic, And it is always that way in the 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:29.839 wake of a shooting. UM, And it is the in 0:05:30.040 --> 0:05:32.880 any given shooting. Always keep in mind when you're when 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:35.520 you're online or in person and there has been a 0:05:35.560 --> 0:05:38.560 shooting and people are saying things about said shooting other 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:41.520 than we should take cover from the shooting. If they're 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:44.960 saying anything else about it, Um, you have to assume 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:48.640 they're probably not either wrong or not entirely accurate. Um, 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:52.240 because it's hard to be. It happens constantly. I mean, 0:05:52.240 --> 0:05:54.320 that's not it's something against any of them. I can 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:55.880 remember a moment when you and I were out last 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:58.040 year Garrison and there was a shooting I don't know, 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:01.640 like forty ft away, um if nobody hurt, thankfully, but 0:06:01.720 --> 0:06:04.440 like the the immediate report from it was some guy 0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:06.880 had gotten pulled an a R fifteen out of his 0:06:06.960 --> 0:06:10.360 car and uh. And I think the thing I said 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:12.360 to you was, I'll bet you right now it's a 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:15.880 nine millimeter handgun. And sure enough, within minutes there was 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:18.440 a photo. Yeah. It's and it's not that those people 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:22.680 were like dumb or bad. It's that, like shootings are scary, 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:26.360 guns getting pulled is scary, and people funk up um 0:06:26.400 --> 0:06:30.000 in in their recollections. Um. It's the same way in which, 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:33.799 like if a bear comes after you, uh, you may 0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:36.440 exaggerate the size of that bear in your head because 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:39.640 you're scared as ship because it's a bear. Yeah. So 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:44.160 so I was home on AUGUSTUM just and I I 0:06:44.200 --> 0:06:46.680 was I was actually about to go out to to 0:06:46.960 --> 0:06:49.120 uh a cover a purchase in Portland, but then I 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:51.120 saw this happened on my phone on Twitter. It was 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:53.839 like I cannot go out. I will be more useful 0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:57.000 at home. UM. So, with with some so much uncertainty 0:06:57.080 --> 0:06:59.760 online or the details of the actual shooting, it was 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:02.320 it was clear that trying to provide concrete information would 0:07:02.360 --> 0:07:05.640 be crucial in the hours to come. So I spowed 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:07.560 it up my computer and started to try to begin 0:07:07.640 --> 0:07:11.560 to search for you know, information and verifiable stuff. Um. 0:07:11.640 --> 0:07:13.880 So I spent I spent all night looking looking for 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:17.800 details about the shooter you know, um, uncovering his supposed 0:07:18.080 --> 0:07:22.760 identity um. Ultimately about an hour before the police announced 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:26.200 their investigation even started um and and twelve hours before 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:30.160 the police announced the shooters arrest um And also to 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:33.040 my surprise at the time, I discovered that the shooter 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:39.440 was the same age as me. Um. Yeah that was that. 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:43.480 That was That was a night so um Because because 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:45.360 I mainly use Twitter and most of the video of 0:07:45.360 --> 0:07:48.280 the instant was on Twitter, I started, uh my my 0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:51.520 investigation by looking at Twitter. Uh. My first goal was 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:54.440 to find as as many videos of of the shooting 0:07:55.080 --> 0:07:57.240 that I could and collect pictures of all of the 0:07:57.240 --> 0:08:00.320 alleged suspects, all all the people who were claiming this, 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:01.680 this is this is the shooter. I think I think 0:08:01.680 --> 0:08:03.320 I got a picture of the shooter. Who's here's what 0:08:03.400 --> 0:08:06.960 he is? Um. So, I I kept my eye on 0:08:07.000 --> 0:08:10.200 trending terms. Uh. So, I searched under the hashtags like Kenosha, 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:16.560 Kenosha shootings, Knosha shooting, Kenosha protests, boogaloo was trending a lot, 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:18.920 A lot of people thought the shooter was a boogloo boy. 0:08:19.440 --> 0:08:24.679 Um was not um and also uh hashtag militia. So 0:08:25.000 --> 0:08:27.080 the search has brought up a lot, a lot of 0:08:27.120 --> 0:08:30.160 photos of of multiple young men, most of whom were 0:08:30.160 --> 0:08:34.000 carrying long guns, and a lot of unconfirmed reports that 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:36.360 the shooter was a Boogaloo boy was trending on Twitter. 0:08:36.480 --> 0:08:38.960 This was the main the main thing that night was 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:41.880 boogloo boy shot. All this stuff that that was the main, 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:44.880 the main trending topic. A lot of a lot of 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:46.880 confucting details, and I did not want to kind of 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:49.080 add the misinformation, so I decided to not make any 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:51.679 posts but whatsoever about the end of the of the 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:54.400 shooter until I was one percent confident um that I 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:56.520 had the correct idea, which takes a while. It's it's 0:08:56.559 --> 0:08:59.120 not you know, Twitter wants you to post stuff quickly 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:01.240 as soon as you find it out out, and it's 0:09:01.320 --> 0:09:04.160 way better to hold off your information and wait until 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:06.319 you are absolutely sure it's the right time to post 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:10.280 it and because it's the correct, correct stuff. Because mismismisidentifying 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:13.480 a suspect, you can have a serious, serious consequences for 0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:17.600 any individual um involved. It's when when the worst things 0:09:17.640 --> 0:09:20.440 you can do is is mis misidentifying any any suspect. 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:23.960 So I was looking through all the videos that I 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:27.800 collected for kind of unique um or identifying clothing that 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:30.280 that the shooter may have been wearing. The first video 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:33.559 I found useful was from a right wing videographer named 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:38.360 Drew hernandez Um who a few months later called from 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:41.480 Bloodshed at the Capitol. He also testified at the Written 0:09:41.520 --> 0:09:44.320 House trial. This video did not actually show any any 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:47.480 actual shooting. It had a wounded person on the ground 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:50.520 being treated by a medic and a man standing over 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:53.880 the scene with with with a gun um and wearing 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:57.000 a green shirt, a tan baseball cat jeans and like 0:09:57.120 --> 0:10:00.320 purple latex gloves, he had, he had a he had 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:02.719 a black and orange bag. Um. The person in the 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:05.240 green shirt then runs towards the camera while talking on 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:08.200 the phone, and he says into the phone, UM, I 0:10:08.360 --> 0:10:11.520 just shot somebody or I just killed somebody. It's hard 0:10:11.559 --> 0:10:14.080 to tell where he's actually saying if it's it's one 0:10:14.120 --> 0:10:15.439 of those things where if you think about it, you 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:19.120 can hear both ones. Yeh. But but he he says 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:21.760 something like I just killed somebody on the phone and 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:25.240 he runs past the camera. So this this this, this 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:27.720 was the first kind of really important piece of information 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:31.280 personal that was brought up in the trial too. And 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:33.679 he he was like, I don't remember what I said. 0:10:34.400 --> 0:10:37.360 Oh interesting, okay, Yeah. And to be honest, like, even 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:39.680 if if this was I don't think any of us 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:42.679 believe this was legitimate self defense. But like, even if 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:46.040 it was, either of those things would be perfectly acceptable 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:50.880 things to say. It's a surprising moment, and you probably 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:53.319 wouldn't remember what you said. I don't necessarily think he's 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:55.280 lying about that. It turns out he he was. He 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:58.240 was on the phone with the person who bought him 0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:02.280 the gun of a en of his um. So, but 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:05.240 but that this was my first important piece of information, 0:11:05.720 --> 0:11:08.199 you know, the the night of Right, this is before 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:10.200 anyone's analyzed any of this stuff. So this is the 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:12.320 first video that I can find. It's like, okay, here's 0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:15.480 a person admitting on camera that they shot somebody. Um, 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:18.880 and we're wearing a few potential identifiers, namely the green shirt, 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:21.840 baseball cap, and bag. Um. So now I can search 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:23.800 for all of those items together and the rest of 0:11:23.800 --> 0:11:27.440 the footage collected throughout the night. Looking over the top 0:11:27.640 --> 0:11:31.480 viral videos of the night showing multiple people getting shot. Uh, 0:11:31.520 --> 0:11:34.160 this is from this is from later on after the 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:36.679 first person gets killed, we can see someone in a 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:38.640 baseball cap, black and raunch bag and what could be 0:11:39.520 --> 0:11:43.400 a green shirt running through a street. Um. Somebody runs 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:45.160 over to the individual with the gun and kind of 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:47.400 punches them in the head, not knocking his hat off. 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:49.840 So now the person running with the gun does not 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:53.080 have a hat. Individual with the gun he keeps running, 0:11:53.120 --> 0:11:55.520 but trips and falls on the ground before people try 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:58.560 to disarm him. Uh. Four more shots are fired from 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:02.520 the suspect, and uh. One more person dies as a 0:12:02.520 --> 0:12:06.439 result of this. Other person gets their arm nearly blown off. Uh. 0:12:06.520 --> 0:12:09.120 There is one continuous video of all of this happening. 0:12:09.120 --> 0:12:14.800 Extremely useful having having one video of this whole shot. Yeah. Um, 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:18.200 so the shooter, who appears to be the same person 0:12:18.440 --> 0:12:20.400 is the other video because of the green shirt and 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:22.920 the hat at the beginning, continues to get onto his 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:28.480 feet and runs off again. Uh and the orange orangine orangine, 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:31.000 a black bag swings in front of him as he's running, 0:12:31.240 --> 0:12:35.240 and a purple glove is also visible. Um. Multiple vehicles 0:12:35.320 --> 0:12:39.120 drive past, like police vehicles. Um. The shooter then walks 0:12:39.200 --> 0:12:42.200 up pretty close to police vehicle and he just he 0:12:42.280 --> 0:12:45.360 just he just with with with the rifle and nothing, 0:12:45.440 --> 0:12:47.520 nothing happens. He he like he wait, he waves to 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:50.160 the cops and they just keep driving and he walks away. 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:53.400 So after finding watching these videos, I had, you know, 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:56.880 I had no reason to believe the shooter was in custody. Um, 0:12:56.920 --> 0:12:59.000 and I had a good idea of his clothing and attire. 0:12:59.200 --> 0:13:01.880 So now it's time to compare this information that I gathered, 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:06.319 uh two pictures of the supposed you know suspects circulating 0:13:06.360 --> 0:13:10.160 on Twitter. Um. But but first I think now it's 0:13:10.160 --> 0:13:14.400 it's the time to listen to people selling new stuff, 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:18.840 you know who doesn't oh boy trampled to another state 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:22.360 to show up armed in a community to threaten people. 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:27.960 They don't do it. I'm saying they don't. That's good, Okay. 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:33.960 The products and services who supports Hello Fresh Black Coffee Patrol? 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:39.240 What do you actually? A number of our sponsors will 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:42.000 show up unwanted in your community armed. I forgot the 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:45.520 Washington State Highway and the FBI have both dropped dads. 0:13:45.600 --> 0:13:50.199 Now we also highway patrol to forget about those motherfuckers 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:53.080 like Kyle Rittenhouse. A number of our sponsors may show 0:13:53.200 --> 0:13:56.240 up in your home neighborhood with another one also Black 0:13:56.320 --> 0:13:58.960 Liffle Coffee, Kyle's favorite brand of coffee. Remember, well it 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:06.080 was until they disavowed him. But here's here we're bad. 0:14:10.120 --> 0:14:12.240 So there was there was a lot of pictures of 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:16.120 suspects on Twitter, some of them who look nothing like 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:19.200 the person we now know who shot those people. Um, 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:22.240 funny how that happens. It's uh, well it's not funny. 0:14:22.240 --> 0:14:27.680 It's it's pretty pretty, pretty pretty bad. Yeah, yeah, it's 0:14:27.760 --> 0:14:30.360 it's not great just to share stuff like like that 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:33.400 when these things happened. Um, which is why I said 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:36.720 I'm not gonna share anything until no, um, I know 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:40.760 that it's it's it's actually worth posting about. So in uh, 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:43.040 I'm gonna go through go through all some some some 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:46.280 of the pictures and stuff of of I'm going through 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:47.840 at least one of the pictures of one of the 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:51.560 people people claimed to be the shooter. So in one 0:14:51.800 --> 0:14:54.680 picture circulating, you see someone in a green shirt, a 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:58.200 baseball cap, and big, big, big black rifle. But this 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:01.640 man's also wearing shorts, a black hat, not a tan. 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:04.800 One has no bag, appears to be wearing like a 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:09.000 tactile vest that is also green. So not the guy, 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:11.160 even though he's wearing a green shirt and hat. Not 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:14.040 the same dude. Was be pretty easy to check. Not 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:15.560 you don't. You really don't need to share that kind 0:15:15.560 --> 0:15:17.960 of stuff. Pretty sure, Pretty sure a lot of people 0:15:18.040 --> 0:15:22.800 own green shirts. Yea. So two other photos that were circulating, 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:25.760 they're claiming to be the guy. We had a green shirt, 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:30.040 a tan baseball cap put on backwards, jeans um one 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:32.680 of the one of the pictures has a bag in 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:34.880 front of which is an orange and black one where 0:15:34.880 --> 0:15:39.000 one of them doesn't. One picture has purple gloves, other 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:43.400 picture doesn't. But these dudes look pretty similar despite the 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:45.560 same differences. I'm pretty sure this is this, this is this, 0:15:45.560 --> 0:15:47.200 this is the same guy. But you know, I'm a 0:15:47.240 --> 0:15:49.520 decision at the night, so this is probably the same dude. 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:52.160 Um And he does appear to match the shooter a 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:55.160 lot better. And there was a few few clear fixed 0:15:55.240 --> 0:15:59.120 pictures of his face um here, but honestly, the face 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:01.360 of if if you look at all the pictures of 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:04.120 the Connection shooting that night, the pictures of the suspect 0:16:04.160 --> 0:16:06.920 are really unclear because the way that the light hit 0:16:06.960 --> 0:16:10.000 his face, he looks like an incredibly generic white boy. 0:16:10.120 --> 0:16:14.360 Um like, extremely generic. It is hard to tell any 0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:17.920 any I identifying features from his face because they look 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:22.120 like he looks like every every white every white boy. 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:25.520 It's really hard to say everyone you went to high 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:30.360 school with, who I don't know sniffed a girl's chair 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:37.880 when he likes that's that's Kyle rittenhouse visual. Now that 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:39.560 I decided that I have, like I have a decent 0:16:39.600 --> 0:16:42.520 collection of pictures of who I believe the actual actual suspect, 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:45.600 is time time time to figure out who the suspects 0:16:45.640 --> 0:16:47.880 like name actually is. And this is this is one 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:50.040 of the one of the harder things but often you 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:51.720 can have a lot of help in ways that you 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:56.200 might not expect. Um Often, once you can get a 0:16:56.240 --> 0:16:58.760 good picture of someone you know, it'd be like, yes, yes, 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:01.440 this this is actually the dude. Once it gets shared enough, 0:17:01.880 --> 0:17:04.080 often somebody knows who this is already. You know, the 0:17:04.080 --> 0:17:06.960 internet is a pretty big place. I believe the first 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:10.080 I believe the first person to actually like like I 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:12.560 was the I was the person to like prove online 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:15.200 who who Kyle written that kind right knows was the shooter. 0:17:15.440 --> 0:17:18.280 The first person to actually tie Kyle's name to the 0:17:18.280 --> 0:17:23.560 shooter UM was a neighbor of his on Facebook. Um. 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:27.960 They they saw pictures of the shooter on on Facebook 0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:30.360 and said, hey, I think this I think I recognized 0:17:30.400 --> 0:17:33.440 this guy. I think I think this is my neighbor. UM. 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:35.600 So often, once you start, once you have like enough 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:38.480 pictures and those can spread, people will feel to find names. 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:40.919 It isn't as hard as you would think that. The 0:17:40.960 --> 0:17:45.160 hard part is is finding out what personal connections are 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:47.920 making those links and finding out where where where those are. 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:50.560 But stuff, stuff spreads in a weird way, and right 0:17:50.920 --> 0:17:53.200 for this, you know, I find I was able to 0:17:53.240 --> 0:17:56.399 prove that it was Kyle pretty quickly. Um, for a 0:17:56.440 --> 0:18:00.560 few reasons. So after I was doing my my my 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:03.560 clothing comparisons to figure out this is to prove, like 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:06.400 he said, this is the actual person who who did 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:09.960 these things. Um. The other thing I I found that 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:13.320 was not it was not viral at all, um, but 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:16.480 just because I was digging through so much stuff, was 0:18:16.680 --> 0:18:22.080 this meme shared by uh I by some like small 0:18:22.119 --> 0:18:25.760 boogaloo account. Um. It was a picture of the shooter. 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:31.359 UH compare right beside a collection of Blue Lives Matter 0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:35.000 pictures of someone who looks kind of similar, linking to 0:18:35.040 --> 0:18:38.399 a Facebook page or no, not not linking it was 0:18:38.440 --> 0:18:40.480 it was it was screenshot from the Facebook page. And 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:42.560 I can tell because of the font and it was, 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:46.320 like I said, like a written house's photos. So this 0:18:46.359 --> 0:18:48.040 was the first This is the first thing I saw 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:52.439 on the like buried deep inside like Twitter's, Twitter's, Twitter's images. 0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:55.080 But by using all of like these a hashtag terms 0:18:55.320 --> 0:18:56.840 was this meme and and and and then the meme 0:18:56.880 --> 0:18:59.840 said so y'all think he's still a boogaloo. No, no 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:01.919 he wasn't. But because because of all of the pro 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:05.479 police stuff, because Google is generally are not not that 0:19:05.520 --> 0:19:15.040 fond fond of police. Yeah so so yeah, um, given given. 0:19:15.240 --> 0:19:16.959 So you know, if someone was to look at this, 0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:19.720 you know, look at this meme itself, he's like, okay, 0:19:19.760 --> 0:19:22.560 you know, the job was done. You know, information, This 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:27.600 dude looks vaguely similar ish to the guy on this 0:19:27.760 --> 0:19:32.200 written house Facebook. Um, the gun looks kind of similar 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:34.439 because one of the pictures of the Facebook was was 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:38.320 a guy holding was a guy holding in a r um. 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:41.399 But you know, just something looking similar or even holding 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:44.159 a similar gun in one picture from a Facebook account. 0:19:44.240 --> 0:19:47.600 That's not enough to be sure about publishing a positive 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:50.320 I d that there's's there's there's no actual really, there's 0:19:50.320 --> 0:19:53.320 no like definitive proof there because honestly, if I was 0:19:53.359 --> 0:19:55.000 to look at these two guys faces, they don't look 0:19:55.000 --> 0:19:57.840 incredibly similar because faces can distore it with lighting and 0:19:58.000 --> 0:20:01.400 compression that it's it's it's. It can be really difficult. 0:20:02.119 --> 0:20:04.200 And this is where you know, trying to idea shooter 0:20:04.440 --> 0:20:07.720 is hard and requires complex judgment calls and posting inaccurate 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:11.239 information or like incomplete information um can have you know, 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:13.399 extremely harmful effects. And there's there's a lot a lot 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:15.879 of examples of this happening in the past. You know, 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:19.439 probably the biggest example, or the most notorious one of 0:20:19.480 --> 0:20:24.240 false identification is the Boston bombing incident. Um. So, you know, 0:20:24.400 --> 0:20:27.280 right after the right after thirteen bombing, you know, thousands 0:20:27.320 --> 0:20:29.800 of users on sites like Reddit and four chan became 0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:33.520 combing through footage to try to identify potential suspects. Screen 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:36.960 Caps of the people they deemed suspicious went viral online 0:20:37.359 --> 0:20:40.879 on on various social media sites. Unfortunately, the slew thing 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:43.920 work done on four Chan and Reddit was incredibly shoddy 0:20:44.160 --> 0:20:46.080 um and seemingly had way more to do with like 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:50.119 racial paranoia than actual detective work and evidence gathering. The 0:20:50.880 --> 0:20:54.719 New York Post subsequently published a picture on front page 0:20:55.040 --> 0:20:58.960 that that originated on Reddit that users had declared that 0:20:58.960 --> 0:21:01.280 that was showing the two suspects with without doing any 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:05.040 further verification. So it's it's it's real bad how stuff 0:21:05.040 --> 0:21:07.159 can spread from me out like this that's completely unverified 0:21:07.200 --> 0:21:10.280 to you know, a newspaper, even as one as unreputable 0:21:10.320 --> 0:21:13.040 as the Post, that's still a very popular paper. The 0:21:13.320 --> 0:21:16.240 Post also claimed that the law enforcement we're looking for 0:21:16.280 --> 0:21:21.400 those two to uh two individuals in that picture, um. 0:21:21.480 --> 0:21:23.359 One of the one of the people identified by the 0:21:23.440 --> 0:21:27.480 post was harassed online. UM police police later told him 0:21:27.520 --> 0:21:30.119 just to delete his social media accounts entirely because there 0:21:30.200 --> 0:21:33.119 was no use at that point. UM. When the FBI 0:21:33.200 --> 0:21:36.800 did officially release photos of the unnamed suspects, Reddit users 0:21:36.880 --> 0:21:39.960 again false he identified these people? What one of the 0:21:39.960 --> 0:21:42.560 people they false he identified went went missing for weeks 0:21:42.600 --> 0:21:46.840 prior UM his his family received media inquiries about the false, 0:21:46.880 --> 0:21:50.640 unverified rumors of their son's involvement. UM, and rumors of 0:21:50.640 --> 0:21:54.040 of of involvement were spread by reporters from Politico News, 0:21:54.080 --> 0:21:58.800 Squeak Newsweek, NBC News, and BuzzFeed. UM. Eight days after 0:21:58.840 --> 0:22:02.000 the bombing, this guy was actual does have the bombing. 0:22:02.000 --> 0:22:03.720 This guy was actually found dead and his family said 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:06.680 it was a suicide. UM. It was not not one 0:22:06.680 --> 0:22:10.119 of the shooters, not one of the bombers. UM. Again 0:22:10.240 --> 0:22:13.520 why even more than the tactics you could use to 0:22:13.640 --> 0:22:17.359 try and you know, verify things online, the most useful 0:22:17.400 --> 0:22:19.760 thing you can take out of this is if there 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:22.560 is a mass shooting or other active violence and people 0:22:22.600 --> 0:22:25.480 on social media are saying it is this person, don't 0:22:25.480 --> 0:22:28.159 share it. Don't just don't share it. Just wait, especially 0:22:28.720 --> 0:22:30.840 in sharing it if they have don't have anything to 0:22:30.920 --> 0:22:32.320 verify this at all. So yeah, like I'm not gonna 0:22:32.520 --> 0:22:36.600 I'm not gonna don't again, that is the overwhelming thing. 0:22:36.640 --> 0:22:39.160 We were not gonna you know. That's why you know 0:22:39.440 --> 0:22:45.200 I'm not gonna share this Kyle rittenhouse um boogloomy because 0:22:45.240 --> 0:22:48.520 there's no proof for it. It's it's not there now. Eventually, 0:22:48.520 --> 0:22:52.240 after digging, I would realize that this meme comes from 0:22:52.320 --> 0:22:55.600 his neighbor saying that she thinks the suspect is him. 0:22:55.840 --> 0:22:59.439 So that's that's what this meme was created. Um but 0:22:59.600 --> 0:23:02.639 still there there there was no no proof for it, 0:23:02.760 --> 0:23:05.240 so I don't I didn't share it. So all the 0:23:05.280 --> 0:23:07.479 Boston bombing stuff was like going through my mind as 0:23:07.520 --> 0:23:09.879 I know found this and was trying to dig for 0:23:10.240 --> 0:23:12.280 dig from my details. So yeah, I knew that I 0:23:12.320 --> 0:23:14.879 could not post a name on the social media um 0:23:15.240 --> 0:23:17.560 or any info until I until I could prove it 0:23:17.640 --> 0:23:19.399 like without a shadow but doubt that this is the 0:23:19.440 --> 0:23:22.199 same person because a lot a lot of times it 0:23:22.240 --> 0:23:24.560 is possible. It just requires work in time, you know, 0:23:24.600 --> 0:23:26.320 And a big part of doing this on Twitter is 0:23:26.359 --> 0:23:28.120 like you want to get it out fast, so you're 0:23:28.160 --> 0:23:29.679 the first person to do it. So that you know 0:23:29.920 --> 0:23:32.920 you can go vital on your thread of identifying this killer, 0:23:32.960 --> 0:23:36.439 and like, no, that's not the reason to do image verification. 0:23:36.640 --> 0:23:39.199 It's not to go viral on a thread. It's because 0:23:39.240 --> 0:23:41.679 whenever that's your goal you're gonna do, you're gonna do 0:23:41.720 --> 0:23:45.240 shitty fast work that is gonna end up causing some 0:23:45.359 --> 0:23:48.560 kind of horrible consequence, like in the case the Boston bombing. 0:23:48.800 --> 0:23:51.000 And to be even extra clear, the primary use for 0:23:51.040 --> 0:23:53.639 this that kind of what you're teaching people image verification, 0:23:53.680 --> 0:23:56.840 which is something that like like Belling Cat, which is 0:23:56.960 --> 0:23:59.720 has been like kind of a part time employer of mine. 0:24:00.080 --> 0:24:04.399 Um is an open source journalism collective that's broken some 0:24:04.440 --> 0:24:06.359 of the biggest stories in the last couple of years. 0:24:06.760 --> 0:24:09.640 And in the classes we teach a class on image verification. 0:24:09.720 --> 0:24:13.159 And the point is just whenever someone is sharing a 0:24:13.320 --> 0:24:16.399 piece of what is like supposedly breaking news based on 0:24:16.600 --> 0:24:18.720 video or images that have been taken at the side 0:24:18.760 --> 0:24:22.320 of a whatever, image verification tactics can help you to 0:24:22.400 --> 0:24:25.520 know whether or not it's whether or not either it's 0:24:25.520 --> 0:24:27.320 true or false, but also just whether or not the 0:24:27.359 --> 0:24:30.199 image the information they're presenting gives you any reason to 0:24:30.280 --> 0:24:36.000 believe it, like it's you might be full of shit, 0:24:36.280 --> 0:24:40.199 like that's super important. Yeah, Like there's there's a thing 0:24:40.240 --> 0:24:42.720 that happens like and any time there's something that looks 0:24:42.720 --> 0:24:45.320 like a war starting. There's like this video of a 0:24:45.359 --> 0:24:47.600 bombing from two thousand fourteen in Gaza that goes around 0:24:48.400 --> 0:24:53.960 it's like every time. Yeah, um, there's there's actually five 0:24:54.080 --> 0:24:56.879 or six different kinds of things that are like that Chris, 0:24:56.880 --> 0:24:59.480 that are like, oh this is There's actually footage from 0:24:59.480 --> 0:25:02.359 like a rush in video game that people keep keeps 0:25:02.520 --> 0:25:05.800 getting like mistaken for action combat footage and it's like, no, 0:25:05.920 --> 0:25:08.159 it's fucking from a video game. This has been on, 0:25:08.280 --> 0:25:11.680 this has been three wars now. There's this famous footage 0:25:11.680 --> 0:25:14.879 of like a fucking um an air soft battle at 0:25:15.000 --> 0:25:18.560 night with glowing with soft pets with the glowing pellets 0:25:18.720 --> 0:25:20.840 and it it kind of it kind of looks because 0:25:20.880 --> 0:25:22.399 it's black and white and not a great camera, it 0:25:22.480 --> 0:25:24.840 kind of looks like tracer fire. And it's there's like 0:25:24.880 --> 0:25:26.840 three Wars that people have said like, look, this is 0:25:26.920 --> 0:25:30.359 still combat footage from it happens all the time. And 0:25:30.440 --> 0:25:34.119 again grant account to follow is a hoax I on Twitter. 0:25:34.440 --> 0:25:37.120 They do really good work pointing out just like kind 0:25:37.119 --> 0:25:40.280 of more like more like less high stakes kind of 0:25:40.480 --> 0:25:44.560 image image verification stuff. Um So, but before I get 0:25:44.600 --> 0:25:47.560 into the actual like verification work of like proving, Hey, 0:25:47.680 --> 0:25:50.840 I can actually prove that that by by not just 0:25:50.920 --> 0:25:52.920 someone's face, I can prove that this shooter is the 0:25:52.960 --> 0:25:55.320 same guy from from from the Facebook page. Um, I'll 0:25:55.320 --> 0:25:58.520 explain that next first short short ad break and then 0:25:58.560 --> 0:26:01.440 we will fit finish up with this actually will proving section. 0:26:02.119 --> 0:26:13.360 Yeah you know who is not Kyle? Oh wow, you 0:26:13.480 --> 0:26:17.000 have really dropped the ball out all of the transitions today. Yeah. 0:26:17.040 --> 0:26:20.600 I am not proud of myself or my place in 0:26:20.840 --> 0:26:26.520 society at the moment. Um. Here's ads, We're back. I 0:26:27.000 --> 0:26:32.480 feel terrible. Garrison. And So, even even though the booloo 0:26:32.520 --> 0:26:35.280 meme was not hard evidence, uh it did. It did 0:26:35.280 --> 0:26:38.200 provide a lead. So after seeing the meme, I did 0:26:38.200 --> 0:26:41.080 the first most obvious thing that I could see was 0:26:41.240 --> 0:26:44.040 compare the gun in in the two frames. Uh they 0:26:44.040 --> 0:26:47.480 do look similar. Uh they're not. They're not identical. Uh 0:26:47.520 --> 0:26:52.000 the optics are different for each rifle. Um. But the 0:26:52.000 --> 0:26:55.840 rest of it, but the stock, the grip um and 0:26:56.160 --> 0:26:58.679 the barrel do do seem do seem to be do 0:26:58.760 --> 0:27:01.360 seem to be, if not, if not identical, at least 0:27:01.400 --> 0:27:04.000 extremely similar. Again, still not enough to make a positive 0:27:04.040 --> 0:27:07.159 idea on an individual basis, Like this person is its person, 0:27:07.640 --> 0:27:09.640 So that the next step is to scour the actual 0:27:09.800 --> 0:27:13.520 Facebook account itself that is alluded to in this meme 0:27:13.960 --> 0:27:17.560 and see what I can find there. The goal obviously 0:27:17.800 --> 0:27:21.560 being to find statements or pictures that will tie this 0:27:21.640 --> 0:27:25.080 person in the images of the shooter to the person 0:27:25.200 --> 0:27:29.399 on the account. So that's you know, clothing, location, intention, 0:27:29.800 --> 0:27:31.320 you know, all these types of things that could tie 0:27:31.400 --> 0:27:33.520 the pictures of the shooter to the pictures of person 0:27:33.560 --> 0:27:36.840 on on on this account. Um So Kyra no houses 0:27:36.880 --> 0:27:40.760 old public Facebook profile was mainly made up of Blue 0:27:40.800 --> 0:27:43.719 Lives Matter and pro police images going back as far 0:27:43.760 --> 0:27:48.320 as um with a few uh then recent pictures of 0:27:48.400 --> 0:27:51.720 him holding his Air fifteen style rifle. Uh those the 0:27:51.920 --> 0:27:54.679 the the rifle pictures were like from June. The shooting 0:27:54.680 --> 0:27:57.960 happened in late August. Um it appears I think it 0:27:58.040 --> 0:27:59.960 came out in the trial that he got his rifle 0:28:00.040 --> 0:28:04.720 around like may um So, yeah, a lot of a 0:28:04.760 --> 0:28:06.560 lot of a lot of pro police stuff, a lot 0:28:06.600 --> 0:28:10.320 of them blue lining blue lives, matters type things UM. 0:28:10.359 --> 0:28:13.360 His public his his public page is is relatively sparse 0:28:13.840 --> 0:28:17.440 UM and there was no public friends list to look through. UM. 0:28:17.560 --> 0:28:19.840 One one noteworthy piece of information was that he did 0:28:19.920 --> 0:28:23.040 he did list another name for himself as Kyle Lewis 0:28:23.960 --> 0:28:28.480 believe his mother's maiden name. Sure but uh but even so, 0:28:28.560 --> 0:28:30.400 even though I wasn't able to view a friends list 0:28:30.520 --> 0:28:33.399 and there wasn't many public posts, uh, this is his 0:28:33.440 --> 0:28:35.480 page is by no means a dead end. I could 0:28:35.520 --> 0:28:39.440 still see everyone that has commented on, shared, or liked 0:28:39.520 --> 0:28:42.120 his public posts because like so, he did not have 0:28:42.200 --> 0:28:44.720 he he did not many have any pictures himself on 0:28:44.760 --> 0:28:47.320 his page that that I could use for verification. He 0:28:47.360 --> 0:28:50.240 didn't have like not nothing that I could tie to 0:28:50.480 --> 0:28:53.520 the shooting besides the actual guns. So not not tons 0:28:53.520 --> 0:28:57.240 of useful not tons of useful stuff. But there's perhaps 0:28:57.280 --> 0:28:59.960 there's still other other leads to look through. Like every 0:29:00.040 --> 0:29:03.560 one who's liked, shared, or uh commented on his posts, 0:29:03.880 --> 0:29:06.640 So I opened up new tabs for every single person 0:29:06.680 --> 0:29:10.000 that interacted with Kyle's posts. While looking over their pages, 0:29:10.080 --> 0:29:11.840 I was searching to see if any of them had 0:29:11.920 --> 0:29:15.280 listed Kyle as a relative with a focus on anyone 0:29:15.320 --> 0:29:17.920 with the last name of written House or Lewis um 0:29:17.960 --> 0:29:20.520 and and you know, ideally was looking forward to see 0:29:20.560 --> 0:29:23.360 if anyone had pictures of Kyle or someone who seems 0:29:23.400 --> 0:29:28.280 to be Kyle. Uh. One post from May eighteen eventually 0:29:28.360 --> 0:29:33.280 eventually proved useful. One comment read, Kyle, you sure do 0:29:33.320 --> 0:29:36.000 look like a Louis. So there's the alternate last name. 0:29:36.400 --> 0:29:40.280 And two people had liked that comment, Kyle himself and 0:29:40.280 --> 0:29:44.760 and uh and someone who is his mom which or 0:29:44.840 --> 0:29:49.320 would would later find out is his mom. Um. Uh. 0:29:49.360 --> 0:29:52.520 So she said that lived. She said that she lived 0:29:52.560 --> 0:29:59.280 in uh is it anatok Illinois? Probably Antioch, Illinois, which 0:29:59.320 --> 0:30:05.440 matches uh with Kyle's uh Illinois based pro police posts. 0:30:05.600 --> 0:30:09.560 He made a lot of like Chicago Blue Lives Matter posts, 0:30:09.560 --> 0:30:13.720 so I assumed that Kyle was from Illinois. And also, um, 0:30:14.280 --> 0:30:19.560 uh Antioch is that you said whatever Antioch to to 0:30:19.600 --> 0:30:23.560 Wiscon's Antioch to Kenosha is only like three minute drive, 0:30:23.720 --> 0:30:26.680 so that is also like, okay, that's that's that's that's 0:30:26.680 --> 0:30:30.640 pretty close. That is that is doable? Um. So it 0:30:30.760 --> 0:30:33.840 was the next I went. I went through a lot 0:30:33.880 --> 0:30:36.680 of the relatives pages, but I'm gonna focus just on 0:30:36.720 --> 0:30:39.600 the person who I found out who was, um, Kyle's mom, 0:30:39.720 --> 0:30:41.920 because they're the one that had the most useful information, right. 0:30:42.120 --> 0:30:44.360 A lot of other information I looked through just didn't 0:30:44.440 --> 0:30:46.239 turn out to be useful, right, So I'm not not 0:30:46.280 --> 0:30:50.640 including all of that here. Um uh. One post from 0:30:50.680 --> 0:30:56.040 from uh Wendy's mom uh featured a younger Kyle wearing 0:30:56.080 --> 0:30:59.719 a police outfit. Um. I'm sure people have seen this 0:31:00.080 --> 0:31:02.680 sure online before. I think I was probably I was. 0:31:02.760 --> 0:31:04.680 I was probably the first person to share this photo 0:31:05.200 --> 0:31:08.520 of Kyle in this in this younger Kyle wearing this 0:31:08.520 --> 0:31:12.360 this police this police costume, an unbelievably cringe e photo, 0:31:12.560 --> 0:31:15.360 like the side of the fact that he took two lives, 0:31:15.400 --> 0:31:19.520 Like just yeah, I mean we all have photos we 0:31:19.560 --> 0:31:23.400 took when while an r OTC. Like so yeah, ideally 0:31:24.160 --> 0:31:26.760 we would we would give There's actually there's actually a 0:31:26.800 --> 0:31:29.680 lot more of these photos. There's photos of him touring 0:31:30.000 --> 0:31:32.120 so this is this stuff. I also found that night 0:31:32.520 --> 0:31:35.440 photos of him like touring a target with police as 0:31:35.480 --> 0:31:37.520 he's in a police uniform. He was part of like 0:31:37.680 --> 0:31:42.440 a police Young Cadets program. He was he was like twelve. Um, 0:31:42.640 --> 0:31:44.520 so that's where he got this outfit, and he like 0:31:44.760 --> 0:31:46.760 tagged around with police for like a day or something, 0:31:46.760 --> 0:31:48.960 and this photos of him like in a target with police. 0:31:49.720 --> 0:31:52.560 Even when I was like a shitty right wing kid, 0:31:52.720 --> 0:31:57.520 that sounded like a nightmare. So so yeah, so Kyle's 0:31:57.680 --> 0:32:00.600 the person who I figured out was Kyle's mom posted 0:32:00.640 --> 0:32:05.000 this this photo of of her and Kyle, which which 0:32:05.120 --> 0:32:10.200 Kyle liked, and then in another picture of another picture 0:32:10.320 --> 0:32:14.640 from from Kyle's mom, I found, uh, it's a family 0:32:14.680 --> 0:32:18.600 picture including Kyle wearing what I would say is like 0:32:18.640 --> 0:32:22.360 an army green shirt kind of similar, but it's a 0:32:22.400 --> 0:32:25.080 green shirt like I have. I have shirts that are 0:32:25.080 --> 0:32:27.080 pretty similar to that. I'm not gonna that's not gonna 0:32:27.120 --> 0:32:31.480 be anything so super definitive until we got there's one 0:32:31.640 --> 0:32:34.960 one picture that that proved to be much much more, 0:32:35.080 --> 0:32:39.200 much more useful U of Kyle on or someone who 0:32:39.280 --> 0:32:41.320 assumed was Kyle. You don't, you don't you don't actually 0:32:41.320 --> 0:32:45.040 see his face, but he is wearing horribly cringe e 0:32:45.200 --> 0:32:53.440 American flag crocs, which which Kyle, which which so and 0:32:53.600 --> 0:32:57.080 and and on. On Kyle's page, there was also pictures 0:32:57.120 --> 0:32:59.239 of him wearing those same crocks. So like even even 0:32:59.240 --> 0:33:01.760 though I can't see the face, the crocs the same 0:33:01.880 --> 0:33:07.000 probably the same guy. He's also wearing a tan baseball cap. Um. 0:33:07.040 --> 0:33:09.000 And on this I can actually see that it has 0:33:09.040 --> 0:33:11.800 an American flag on the front of the cap, which 0:33:11.840 --> 0:33:15.280 I did not notice on anything else before. So that's, 0:33:15.320 --> 0:33:18.120 you know, that's something different. But again not that that's 0:33:18.120 --> 0:33:20.000 that's not that's not that's not like a red flag. 0:33:20.040 --> 0:33:22.720 That's just you know, a thing to a thing of note. 0:33:23.400 --> 0:33:26.920 Um because the bay the baseball cap is tan um 0:33:26.960 --> 0:33:30.320 and it has like white mesh on the sides. Um. 0:33:30.400 --> 0:33:33.040 The one. The one thing I did, I did make 0:33:33.080 --> 0:33:35.760 one post before I actually did any kind of I 0:33:36.440 --> 0:33:39.360 claiming to do I identity stuff. I did ask my 0:33:39.480 --> 0:33:42.800 Twitter followers if there's any pictures of the back of 0:33:42.840 --> 0:33:46.200 the Shooters cap um, and I got them to to 0:33:46.280 --> 0:33:49.440 send me those, and then I got one picture of 0:33:49.440 --> 0:33:53.120 of the back that actually has uh. I couldn't see, like, Okay, 0:33:53.160 --> 0:33:55.479 the back of the Shooters cap also has the flag 0:33:55.520 --> 0:33:58.720 on it, so I was able to actually show that. Okay, 0:33:58.760 --> 0:34:02.520 so the baseball cap on the back of it, uh. 0:34:02.560 --> 0:34:04.640 But they're both tann baseball caps. They both have whitemush 0:34:04.640 --> 0:34:06.760 on the side they both have to have an American flag. 0:34:07.080 --> 0:34:09.680 And then I got another picture that was even closer 0:34:10.040 --> 0:34:14.080 that showed a tear on the brim of the hat. 0:34:14.719 --> 0:34:17.040 And if you zoom in on one of the beach pictures, 0:34:17.040 --> 0:34:19.480 you could also see a tear on the same position 0:34:19.600 --> 0:34:23.840 on the hat. So this is this hat? Is the 0:34:23.880 --> 0:34:26.520 hat is the same hat? The hat was definitely it 0:34:26.600 --> 0:34:30.840 was definitely in both locations. So at this point, based 0:34:30.880 --> 0:34:34.000 on the gun, based on the hat, based on the 0:34:34.040 --> 0:34:37.600 location being very close to kenosha um and being closed 0:34:37.600 --> 0:34:42.120 on the rough facial similarities, um, there was there was 0:34:42.320 --> 0:34:47.319 enough enough to enough to to um enough to put 0:34:47.360 --> 0:34:50.120 put stuff together to be like, Okay, I I think 0:34:50.160 --> 0:34:53.880 I think this is this is probably this is probably 0:34:53.920 --> 0:34:57.960 fine in saying I think this is probably the dude. Um, 0:34:58.000 --> 0:35:01.040 So at this point I wasn't wasn't again, I'm not 0:35:01.040 --> 0:35:03.279 gonna post this immediately, and I'm not going to post 0:35:03.320 --> 0:35:05.360 something by saying this is who it is without providing 0:35:05.360 --> 0:35:07.760 the evidence. So instead of like running a thread tweet 0:35:07.760 --> 0:35:09.839 by tweet, I read the whole thread out and then 0:35:09.840 --> 0:35:11.960 tweet the whole thread at the same time. UM. So, 0:35:12.280 --> 0:35:16.200 so I I put to the thread documenting my relevant stuff. Um. 0:35:16.680 --> 0:35:19.239 I I wrote the first eight posts the same time 0:35:19.239 --> 0:35:21.920 and posted them together with all the evidence of uploaded 0:35:22.120 --> 0:35:25.040 um and then and then uh, as I was writing 0:35:25.080 --> 0:35:27.399 the threat, I came across another piece of evidence. There 0:35:27.480 --> 0:35:30.240 was one I was going through one of the live 0:35:30.320 --> 0:35:33.160 streams of of that night from a channel called the 0:35:33.239 --> 0:35:37.400 Rundown Live, which I've not heard anything of before or since. Then. Um, 0:35:37.440 --> 0:35:39.200 but you know one of the many streamers that were 0:35:39.200 --> 0:35:43.720 out um, and you can see you can see Kyle 0:35:43.840 --> 0:35:46.560 inside the frame and then like pans away, but the 0:35:46.560 --> 0:35:49.960 people are still talking. Um. So so Kyle, Kyle is 0:35:49.960 --> 0:35:53.640 actually off camera now, um, but he I think someone 0:35:53.680 --> 0:35:55.920 like asks him his name and he and the person 0:35:56.000 --> 0:35:58.480 who I think is Kyle replies Kyle. Now, of course 0:35:58.520 --> 0:36:01.360 it's off camera, so it's not you can't be totally sure. 0:36:01.560 --> 0:36:05.120 There's there's enough context clues and that plus only other evidence. 0:36:05.120 --> 0:36:07.719 I'm like, Okay, this is enough to add to the 0:36:07.719 --> 0:36:10.560 thread because it again it's it's not enough proof by itself, 0:36:10.719 --> 0:36:14.240 but it combined with everything else, completes a much fuller picture. 0:36:14.920 --> 0:36:19.120 So I posted my like niner yeah, like eight or 0:36:19.200 --> 0:36:23.040 nine thing thread on being able to prove its Kyle 0:36:23.160 --> 0:36:26.839 via you know, comparing stuff like the gun, uh, the hat, 0:36:27.160 --> 0:36:31.000 the shirt and demonstrating my work tracking across Facebook and 0:36:31.000 --> 0:36:33.920 how it's able to like link these two people together. Um. 0:36:34.080 --> 0:36:37.080 Twenty two minutes after I posted the threat identifying Kyle Kosha, 0:36:37.120 --> 0:36:39.719 police announced that they were that they were starting an 0:36:39.719 --> 0:36:43.920 active investigation. UM. I soon added a court document to 0:36:43.960 --> 0:36:48.719 my thread about a traffic violation by someone named cow 0:36:48.719 --> 0:36:51.480 written house, filed a few days before the shooting. The 0:36:51.480 --> 0:36:55.520 traffic violation thing also included stuff like a dress, which 0:36:55.600 --> 0:36:57.720 I I blacked out the addressed for that just because 0:36:58.000 --> 0:37:02.360 sharing the sharing for reasons I'll soon explain. Because again, 0:37:02.440 --> 0:37:04.200 if it's if it's a it's a track of violation, 0:37:04.320 --> 0:37:06.320 if people really want it, they can find it themselves, 0:37:06.400 --> 0:37:09.160 right It's it's not making impossible to find it. And 0:37:09.200 --> 0:37:10.719 this was able to confirm it. It was in the 0:37:10.760 --> 0:37:15.240 same location um antioch Um. And also this this proved 0:37:15.280 --> 0:37:18.840 that Kyle was seventeen at the time. Uh. This is 0:37:18.840 --> 0:37:22.120 how we knew that he was seventeen years old at 0:37:22.120 --> 0:37:24.000 the time of the shooting was because of this traffic 0:37:24.040 --> 0:37:30.120 violation document found online. So the the address on the 0:37:30.200 --> 0:37:33.239 violation document was the same one I had linked to 0:37:33.760 --> 0:37:36.880 Kyle's mom by doing other like ocean address work, I 0:37:36.920 --> 0:37:41.560 was able to find out where what what her address was. Um, 0:37:41.600 --> 0:37:44.560 so so yeah, that was That was most of my 0:37:44.600 --> 0:37:49.359 work that night. Uh. It took about I don't know, 0:37:49.480 --> 0:37:53.680 like tooh maybe you know it. It's hard. It's hard 0:37:53.719 --> 0:37:57.200 to break up. Uh, it's timing it. It took about 0:37:57.200 --> 0:38:00.400 half an hour to get from the boogaloom me to 0:38:00.480 --> 0:38:04.680 finding the matching baseball cap on on Kyle's mom's Facebook page, 0:38:05.120 --> 0:38:07.560 about another half hour to write out the thread, and 0:38:07.640 --> 0:38:09.600 you know, about an hour of work previous to that 0:38:09.640 --> 0:38:11.640 about you know, trying to find out the actual you know, 0:38:11.719 --> 0:38:14.920 footage and categorize it. And Okay, this is the clothing 0:38:14.960 --> 0:38:16.759 he's wearing. Here's the clothes I I need to look 0:38:16.800 --> 0:38:19.000 for on social media right see see see see if 0:38:19.000 --> 0:38:21.680 I can find these shoes, these pants, this, this shirt, 0:38:21.840 --> 0:38:24.400 this hat, this bag, that kind of stuff. Um and 0:38:24.440 --> 0:38:26.440 I was able to find enough of those items to 0:38:26.560 --> 0:38:29.520 make it pretty pretty clear that it was it was 0:38:29.600 --> 0:38:33.799 you know linked. Um and that makes you Garrison, one 0:38:33.840 --> 0:38:36.560 of the first people in the world to get to 0:38:37.600 --> 0:38:41.400 no way more about kyle rittenhouse than you ever wanted 0:38:41.400 --> 0:38:44.480 to know. A lot more. This nightmare has been going 0:38:44.520 --> 0:38:53.399 on longer for you. Yeah, and so, and I want 0:38:53.400 --> 0:38:55.640 to know a few other ways to do image verifications, 0:38:55.640 --> 0:38:57.960 specifically on Kyle that that I didn't do, but other 0:38:57.960 --> 0:39:00.759 people did after after I had after I said, hey, 0:39:00.920 --> 0:39:04.040 this is part of the guy. So afterwards people found 0:39:04.160 --> 0:39:08.239 other kind of evidence on Kyle's TikTok um and snapchat. 0:39:08.560 --> 0:39:13.400 So it turns out Kyle was snapchatting his night in Wisconsin, um, 0:39:13.520 --> 0:39:16.239 which we would find out later. So he was that 0:39:16.600 --> 0:39:20.800 he was snapchatting from kenosha Um and Garrison. First off, 0:39:20.920 --> 0:39:24.000 I do feel as the representative of zoomers in in 0:39:24.080 --> 0:39:26.839 this call. Why are you Why are you guys all 0:39:26.920 --> 0:39:29.560 using the snapchats? Huh? I don't use I don't use 0:39:29.600 --> 0:39:32.600 the snapchats. Um. Well, I'm making you answer for the 0:39:32.640 --> 0:39:38.640 crimes of your generation, the crimes like the snap Now. Well, 0:39:39.040 --> 0:39:41.799 technically speaking, I have one friend who I only talked 0:39:41.800 --> 0:39:43.799 to you through Snapchat, and we both only use it 0:39:43.840 --> 0:39:46.240 for that and we don't know why we use snapchat. Yeah, 0:39:46.280 --> 0:39:48.399 there's a few people who are like snapchat, people who 0:39:48.440 --> 0:39:50.839 only text or snapchat, and I don't. I don't get it. Yeah, 0:39:51.080 --> 0:39:54.319 except neither of us are like that. We just specifically 0:39:54.320 --> 0:39:57.759 there's got a signal anyway, So yeah, the Snapchat, there's 0:39:57.800 --> 0:40:02.160 also uh TikTok Um. There was a footage of of 0:40:02.239 --> 0:40:06.279 Kyle attending a Trump rally at TikTok Also him like 0:40:06.400 --> 0:40:10.880 assembling and testing out his gun was on a Snapchat. 0:40:10.960 --> 0:40:13.680 I believe eclips that it were also shared on TikTok 0:40:13.800 --> 0:40:16.120 so I could have got a lot more closer details 0:40:16.160 --> 0:40:19.040 of the gun if if I looked on if if 0:40:19.520 --> 0:40:23.080 on Snapchat or or TikTok Um, and I think, if 0:40:23.120 --> 0:40:24.880 this is this is a good advice that I've taken 0:40:24.960 --> 0:40:27.360 since then, and for other people looking to do this stuff. 0:40:27.440 --> 0:40:30.239 If if a suspect looks as young, um, you know, 0:40:30.360 --> 0:40:32.920 Snapchat and TikTok might be or and and Instagram might 0:40:32.920 --> 0:40:35.400 be apps that are worth we are worth checking out 0:40:35.440 --> 0:40:39.200 for information as opposed to like Facebook. Right. I lucky, 0:40:39.280 --> 0:40:41.360 lucky enough there was enough stuff on Facebook on this 0:40:41.400 --> 0:40:44.680 instance typically probably because you know, Kyle's family was conservative 0:40:44.880 --> 0:40:47.319 so and he was conservative, so higher chance of being 0:40:47.320 --> 0:40:49.920 on Facebook there. But you know, in general, if someone's 0:40:49.960 --> 0:40:55.320 younger and maybe look on younger apps. Um. But yeah, 0:40:56.120 --> 0:40:58.120 so you know, good thing to think about you know, 0:40:58.160 --> 0:41:02.440 whenever these like chaotic panic moments happen, you know, missifforation 0:41:02.440 --> 0:41:05.640 can spread very very quickly. UM. Cannot stress enough how 0:41:05.719 --> 0:41:08.279 dangerous and I responsible it is when a suspect is 0:41:08.360 --> 0:41:12.960 named without proper verification. UM. You know. Uh, last last September, 0:41:13.480 --> 0:41:17.600 uh Ian Miles Chung falsely identified a suspect in the 0:41:17.600 --> 0:41:20.800 shooting of two l A Police officers. Of this resulted 0:41:20.840 --> 0:41:23.439 in the falsely accused got a man and receiving many 0:41:23.480 --> 0:41:26.360 death threats online. I think emails chalnging to this like 0:41:26.400 --> 0:41:29.480 again a few months later. He he was doing this 0:41:29.560 --> 0:41:31.000 a lot. Last year he was doing it. He was 0:41:31.040 --> 0:41:34.960 really bad about trying to identify people. Um. But you know, 0:41:35.040 --> 0:41:38.520 doing solid solidarification work is possible, but extreme caution needs 0:41:38.520 --> 0:41:40.680 to be taken. UM. I need to be very mindful 0:41:40.719 --> 0:41:43.000 of the consequences of your actions when when you're doing 0:41:43.000 --> 0:41:45.319 this work. Yeah. I also want to put out Garrison 0:41:45.480 --> 0:41:47.520 is very good at this. That that's why it took 0:41:47.840 --> 0:41:49.600 two hours and a half hours. It's going to take 0:41:50.000 --> 0:41:52.160 it takes a lot longer. Yeah, Like honestly, like I 0:41:52.280 --> 0:41:55.359 was like it. Finding Kyle was just the right mix 0:41:55.440 --> 0:41:58.480 of things in one moment. Often it doesn't often it 0:41:58.719 --> 0:42:00.680 doesn't go that fast, and it doesn't need to be 0:42:00.840 --> 0:42:03.440 right like a big The problem is that if people 0:42:03.480 --> 0:42:05.359 think about it needing to be like a fast paced thing, 0:42:05.600 --> 0:42:08.440 that's where that's where the mistakes happen. I was just 0:42:08.520 --> 0:42:10.880 lucky to have enough like dominoes fall in the right 0:42:10.920 --> 0:42:14.080 place too. I identify how the night of having having 0:42:14.120 --> 0:42:17.440 his neighbor say, hey, this guy looks similar to my neighbor, 0:42:17.640 --> 0:42:20.480 extremely useful in in in in the long run, right 0:42:20.480 --> 0:42:22.200 like that that happened faster than that happens in a 0:42:22.200 --> 0:42:25.960 lot of cases, and so that really accelerated things. Sometimes 0:42:25.960 --> 0:42:28.440 it will be easy sometimes like a good example of 0:42:28.600 --> 0:42:31.160 when it's harder. We have a decent amount of footage 0:42:31.160 --> 0:42:34.280 about the individual who placed bombs outside of the Capital 0:42:34.320 --> 0:42:38.160 bomber before the sixth um. That person has not been 0:42:38.200 --> 0:42:41.279 identified and the FBI seems to have no goddamn cluse. 0:42:41.360 --> 0:42:44.680 But also what they were way more intentional, and they 0:42:44.760 --> 0:42:48.440 were smart. Whoever they are, they're very capable. They were 0:42:48.320 --> 0:42:51.560 the only thing that we have on them is their shoes. Basically, 0:42:51.560 --> 0:42:53.480 those are those are kind of the polls of this 0:42:53.640 --> 0:42:56.279 right on one like that with with Rittenhouse, you've got 0:42:56.280 --> 0:42:58.719 this situation where it's like all of the information you 0:42:58.800 --> 0:43:03.040 need to identify the is there openly online. UM. And 0:43:03.120 --> 0:43:05.920 part of ops sex if you're doing things that are 0:43:06.000 --> 0:43:09.120 crimes UM is to make sure that is to limit 0:43:09.160 --> 0:43:12.360 that that that whatever it is you are going to 0:43:12.360 --> 0:43:15.880 to the to the crimes in UM. There nothing exists 0:43:15.920 --> 0:43:18.279 on the Internet that connects that to your name and face, 0:43:18.360 --> 0:43:20.879 and that that doesn't That doesn't always mean black block. 0:43:21.000 --> 0:43:24.360 That can mean other clothing, especially if you've been photographed 0:43:24.360 --> 0:43:26.880 in black block a book. I think like if you 0:43:26.920 --> 0:43:29.000 look at if you look at UM, the guy who 0:43:29.040 --> 0:43:31.600 dropped off bombs at January six, he's not wearing black 0:43:31.600 --> 0:43:34.360 block because black block draws attention. He's wearing like grays. 0:43:35.440 --> 0:43:40.520 He's he's wearing that guy that well, that individual person 0:43:40.680 --> 0:43:44.680 is either a former FED or former Special Forces. They 0:43:44.719 --> 0:43:49.120 were very capable, leaning towards FED who showed up in 0:43:49.200 --> 0:43:52.000 clothing they had never weren't worn before and paid for 0:43:52.239 --> 0:43:55.879 used in cash, probably from a variety of places. UM. 0:43:55.960 --> 0:43:59.280 That clothing was burned as soon as they got away. 0:43:59.320 --> 0:44:02.319 They were of the state as early as it was 0:44:02.360 --> 0:44:04.759 possible to do so, plant them and then immediately get 0:44:04.800 --> 0:44:07.840 out like, um. And you know, by the time the Capitol, 0:44:07.960 --> 0:44:09.560 right by the time their bombs had been found, they 0:44:09.560 --> 0:44:12.319 were they were if they were smartly gone, you know, 0:44:12.719 --> 0:44:18.640 like that's how anyway whatever, Like Like oftentimes it can 0:44:18.680 --> 0:44:20.800 be if someone knows what they're doing, this, this process 0:44:20.840 --> 0:44:22.799 can be a lot harder, like in the case of 0:44:22.840 --> 0:44:24.960 the people of of the guy who left the bombs 0:44:24.960 --> 0:44:28.359 at the capitol. Um. You know, Kyle, it was not 0:44:28.440 --> 0:44:31.040 you know, wasn't wearing much identified clothing, wasn't even wearing 0:44:31.040 --> 0:44:34.799 a mask because COVID was for cox. Um. So you know, 0:44:34.840 --> 0:44:38.520 there's a lot of these things that that made this process, um, 0:44:38.560 --> 0:44:40.520 you know, easier than a lot of a lot of 0:44:40.520 --> 0:44:42.600 other verifications. But like I said, there still was a 0:44:42.680 --> 0:44:45.759 lot of false ideas going around that night. UM, and 0:44:46.000 --> 0:44:48.440 so it kind of still happens. I'm kind of on 0:44:48.480 --> 0:44:50.600 the fence myself as to whether or not it would 0:44:50.600 --> 0:44:54.480 have been safer like for our country or the society 0:44:54.520 --> 0:44:56.719 or whatever you want to call it. If um, like, 0:44:56.840 --> 0:44:59.000 how much more damage or less damage would have been 0:44:59.000 --> 0:45:02.200 done if Kyle Rittenhouse had been someone who showed up 0:45:02.239 --> 0:45:06.799 in impeccable like clothing that he could not be identified 0:45:06.880 --> 0:45:09.480 from fucking ran off and was never caught, and we 0:45:09.560 --> 0:45:12.160 just knew there was the shooting of protesters in Kenosha 0:45:12.840 --> 0:45:16.279 um by somebody. UM Like, I don't know how much 0:45:16.320 --> 0:45:18.760 better or worse that is for society if that happens. 0:45:18.760 --> 0:45:23.640 I don't know. I'm thinking about terrible things. But sorry, 0:45:23.800 --> 0:45:26.360 first off, I want to apologize. Sometimes talking about this 0:45:26.400 --> 0:45:29.640 stuff winds up seeming like advice for how to commit crimes. 0:45:30.080 --> 0:45:32.120 That's not the intent. It's just when you talk about 0:45:32.120 --> 0:45:35.200 what makes something difficult to identify, your kind of by 0:45:35.200 --> 0:45:37.680 default talking about like here's how to here's how to 0:45:37.719 --> 0:45:41.400 get commit a crime and get away with it, um. 0:45:41.400 --> 0:45:42.919 And it's the kind of thing like if you're doing 0:45:43.000 --> 0:45:45.360 verification work, one of the things that helps is to 0:45:45.440 --> 0:45:48.680 kind of put yourself in the mindset of somebody who, Okay, 0:45:48.719 --> 0:45:51.319 if I'm in this situation and I do this, um, 0:45:51.400 --> 0:45:54.520 what are the decisions that I might make afterwards? Um? 0:45:54.560 --> 0:45:57.959 And you can kind of try to uh think through 0:45:58.239 --> 0:46:00.319 this person. Like it can be helpful, especially if you're 0:46:00.320 --> 0:46:02.840 trying to like track someone through a day. So you know, 0:46:02.960 --> 0:46:05.160 someone was at this point at a protest at X 0:46:05.239 --> 0:46:09.480 hour because they shot somebody, Um, you know, think through. Okay, 0:46:09.480 --> 0:46:11.600 what else happened that day? Where their other protests? Where 0:46:11.600 --> 0:46:14.279 their other gatherings like or is this one in a 0:46:14.360 --> 0:46:16.759 series of events? Can I go look for you know, 0:46:17.200 --> 0:46:20.200 videos from other things in the area that this person 0:46:20.280 --> 0:46:22.000 might have also been at and might have worn the 0:46:22.000 --> 0:46:26.839 same clothing. Um, there's anyway. Image verification is fun, catch 0:46:26.880 --> 0:46:29.560 the fever. It is. It is a fun thing to do. 0:46:29.640 --> 0:46:31.320 It's good to if if if you're not able to 0:46:31.360 --> 0:46:34.520 attend in person demos for like like physical reasons or whatever, 0:46:34.600 --> 0:46:37.000 or like mental reasons, doing the stuff from home is 0:46:37.160 --> 0:46:40.320 is another way of getting involved, especially already out tracking 0:46:40.320 --> 0:46:44.480 down bad people after they after they do bad things. Yeah, 0:46:46.600 --> 0:46:49.560 so you can, you know, if you want to learn 0:46:49.640 --> 0:46:52.320 more about this with you know, the benefit of also 0:46:53.800 --> 0:46:56.959 visual aids um belling cat has if you just type 0:46:57.000 --> 0:47:03.520 image verification belling Cat. There's gunners and advanced guides to verification. Um. 0:47:03.560 --> 0:47:06.759 There's talk about like manual reverse image search tools and 0:47:06.840 --> 0:47:10.799 like how well they work. There's quizzes, So go go 0:47:10.880 --> 0:47:14.560 there if you if you find this interesting, Um, it 0:47:14.920 --> 0:47:18.520 can be quite a hoot. Um. But you know what 0:47:18.560 --> 0:47:21.640 else is quite a hoot? Ending a goddamn podcast which 0:47:21.640 --> 0:47:38.200 I'm doing. Now we're done, goodbye. Welcome to America. It's 0:47:38.280 --> 0:47:42.640 not great. Here's a podcast, right, this is this is 0:47:42.680 --> 0:47:46.480 it could happen here the podcast Welcome it is. If 0:47:46.480 --> 0:47:49.200 you're an international listener and you're not American, that was 0:47:49.320 --> 0:47:52.160 really get the fuck off of our podcast, just like 0:47:52.600 --> 0:47:54.920 left people all like, are you going to do one 0:47:54.960 --> 0:47:57.560 for every other country? I think they're being rude for 0:47:57.600 --> 0:48:00.959 barging in the internet is clearly American soil. I would 0:48:01.000 --> 0:48:04.320 pay good money for a wacko things. But with Roberts 0:48:04.320 --> 0:48:09.800 saying all the all the countries of the world, well, 0:48:10.360 --> 0:48:12.040 you know what you need to do in order to 0:48:12.040 --> 0:48:14.640 be able to pay good money for something Garrison, you 0:48:14.680 --> 0:48:16.520 need to you need to. You need to get money 0:48:16.640 --> 0:48:20.160 by by working well to be born rich. But if 0:48:20.160 --> 0:48:22.880 you're not born rich, you have to work. And a 0:48:22.880 --> 0:48:26.040 lot of people are saying what if we did, what 0:48:26.120 --> 0:48:29.040 if we didn't? And now they have a subreddit and 0:48:29.080 --> 0:48:32.000 that's what we're talking about today anti work. Uh, not 0:48:32.080 --> 0:48:35.200 just the subreddit, but that's why we're talking about it 0:48:35.239 --> 0:48:39.160 today because the anti work subreddit has grown hugely um 0:48:39.200 --> 0:48:41.040 and it's got like a milli it's or it's it's 0:48:41.040 --> 0:48:44.040 like doubled. It's been around for years. It's more than doubled. 0:48:44.120 --> 0:48:48.359 It's it's almost. It's almost. Yeah, it's it's it's well, 0:48:48.400 --> 0:48:51.160 well I'll have the numbers for later. Yeah, yeah, okay, great. 0:48:51.239 --> 0:48:53.399 Um So, Garrison, why don't you kick us off? Now 0:48:53.440 --> 0:48:56.120 that I've let everyone know what to expect, I will 0:48:56.160 --> 0:48:59.760 stop working um in solidarity with the anti work movement. 0:49:00.080 --> 0:49:04.640 Thanks Robert um. So. Yeah, if the past few months, 0:49:04.719 --> 0:49:07.160 if you're anything like us um and and if you're 0:49:07.280 --> 0:49:09.879 online in the same ways that we are, you've you've 0:49:09.880 --> 0:49:13.920 probably seen like a flurry of posts and screenshots depicting 0:49:14.040 --> 0:49:18.360 text conversations between like an employee and their boss. Typically, 0:49:18.400 --> 0:49:20.640 the boss like asks them to come in when they 0:49:20.640 --> 0:49:21.840 said they were going to have to have to be 0:49:21.920 --> 0:49:23.600 have to have having to have time off or something. 0:49:23.960 --> 0:49:27.600 The employee objects, the bosston gets mad and makes threats 0:49:27.600 --> 0:49:30.239 and demands the employee be a better team player or 0:49:30.239 --> 0:49:33.040 some bullshit like that. Um and and then like the 0:49:33.080 --> 0:49:36.279 employee said something like, well you know what, actually I quit, 0:49:36.320 --> 0:49:39.239 good luck filling the shift now by and then the 0:49:39.280 --> 0:49:42.080 boss like pleads that the now former employee comes back 0:49:42.120 --> 0:49:45.680 and offers like concessions and end of screenshots. So pretty 0:49:45.680 --> 0:49:49.319 soon this type of like screenshotted text conversation became like 0:49:49.400 --> 0:49:53.000 a meme format with with people joking and obviously like 0:49:53.040 --> 0:49:55.920 staging fake ones as well. Uh, you know, similar to 0:49:55.960 --> 0:49:59.400 the scene I just described. But but but by all accounts, 0:49:59.440 --> 0:50:03.360 this trend started incredibly like sincerely with with genuine text 0:50:03.360 --> 0:50:07.680 conversations showcasing like worker abuse um and and uh you know, 0:50:07.880 --> 0:50:11.760 bosses being unreasonable and cruel um and some people putting 0:50:11.800 --> 0:50:14.720 their jobs just to stand up for themselves and um, 0:50:14.760 --> 0:50:16.400 all the stuff is kind of tied up in the 0:50:16.440 --> 0:50:20.240 worker shortage kind of miss the great resignation as as 0:50:20.280 --> 0:50:24.160 a lot of pundit yes, yeah, people of people resigning. 0:50:24.160 --> 0:50:25.800 And then you know a lot of like big companies 0:50:25.840 --> 0:50:29.880 complaining about worker shortages um and and. Central to this 0:50:29.960 --> 0:50:34.040 like text conversation online kind of meme trend thing and 0:50:34.200 --> 0:50:38.720 and and employee resignations is a sub credit called anti work. 0:50:39.520 --> 0:50:41.959 So the antiwork subredit has has been a growing place 0:50:41.960 --> 0:50:46.880 specifically the past year. Um. Their motto is unemployment for all, 0:50:46.920 --> 0:50:49.920 not just for the rich. Uh. It's a it's a 0:50:49.960 --> 0:50:52.560 good good it is it is a solid it's a 0:50:52.560 --> 0:50:56.880 solid botto of their their their own like a description 0:50:57.440 --> 0:51:00.279 is uh a subredit for those who want to end work, 0:51:00.320 --> 0:51:02.560 are curious about ending work, want to get the most 0:51:02.560 --> 0:51:04.759 out of a work free life, want more information on 0:51:04.800 --> 0:51:07.919 anti work ideas, and want personal help with their own 0:51:08.040 --> 0:51:12.440 jobs slash work related struggles. So back in back in February, 0:51:12.880 --> 0:51:17.359 um it only the subur it's been around. But back 0:51:17.360 --> 0:51:20.360 in February it had like two hundred and thirty five 0:51:20.440 --> 0:51:24.040 thousand UM subs, and now it has over one point 0:51:24.040 --> 0:51:27.120 one million UM It's grown. Most of that growth has 0:51:27.120 --> 0:51:29.719 been in the past two months. Uh it's it has 0:51:29.800 --> 0:51:33.040 kind of kind of exploded in popularity. Um And actually 0:51:33.080 --> 0:51:36.520 it got it got so big, and there's so many 0:51:36.560 --> 0:51:38.680 posts on it that they have to they have they 0:51:38.680 --> 0:51:41.440 have now they have to like restrict text message conversation 0:51:41.480 --> 0:51:44.319 screenshots to only being allowed to be posted like on 0:51:44.320 --> 0:51:47.400 one day a week, just because of the intense influx 0:51:47.480 --> 0:51:50.520 of of these posts, you know, some of them genuine, 0:51:50.560 --> 0:51:53.960 others maybe not so much. Um And And even though 0:51:54.000 --> 0:51:56.720 the suburn it may not be the biggest in terms 0:51:56.719 --> 0:52:01.280 of like subscribers, um it's it has more like daily 0:52:01.400 --> 0:52:04.960 posts than something like the Wall Street BET's suborb it 0:52:05.000 --> 0:52:07.640 has so even though it doesn't have as many subscribers, 0:52:07.760 --> 0:52:11.280 the amount of actual like posting on it is higher 0:52:11.280 --> 0:52:13.080 than a lot of other suborates as well. So it 0:52:13.200 --> 0:52:18.879 is it is growing in popularity, like in in multiple ways. 0:52:18.520 --> 0:52:21.640 It feels a little bit right now, like the social 0:52:21.640 --> 0:52:24.040 media equivalent of a of a sort of damolea. It's 0:52:24.080 --> 0:52:28.680 like Wall Street Bets made a not insignificant uh splash 0:52:28.719 --> 0:52:30.759 earlier this year. It was it was quite a thing 0:52:30.840 --> 0:52:34.799 for the national economy for a little while there. Um 0:52:34.840 --> 0:52:37.480 and Anti Work hasn't had that moment, but I kind 0:52:37.520 --> 0:52:39.880 of feel like it might be getting close to critical mass, 0:52:39.960 --> 0:52:43.240 Like something, something might come out of this um which 0:52:43.320 --> 0:52:45.799 I think would be rad. For for the record, I 0:52:45.800 --> 0:52:49.359 think would be rad absolutely. And you know, it may 0:52:49.400 --> 0:52:52.360 not be one big thing, but it could be a 0:52:52.360 --> 0:52:55.280 lot of smaller things, right. You know, sometimes it's harder 0:52:55.320 --> 0:52:59.440 to see bigger change when you're like having more anarchist 0:52:59.440 --> 0:53:01.959 adjacent I is and and and the and the Anti 0:53:02.000 --> 0:53:04.840 works that when it does does try to keep itself 0:53:05.040 --> 0:53:07.560 being a radical subred and does trying to fight off 0:53:08.239 --> 0:53:11.799 neoliberal sentiments and stuff. And there have been there have 0:53:11.840 --> 0:53:13.960 been some complaints. I've seen a people being like, ah, 0:53:13.960 --> 0:53:16.360 the liberals have gotten in and and people are talking 0:53:16.360 --> 0:53:18.879 about like, well, I just really want a life that's 0:53:18.880 --> 0:53:20.640 like I'm not stressed all the time and I have 0:53:20.800 --> 0:53:23.120 enough money for for bills and stuff. Really, people have 0:53:23.160 --> 0:53:25.759 been talking about like, oh, this job, Like I I 0:53:25.880 --> 0:53:28.000 left my old job and I got into a better situation. 0:53:28.080 --> 0:53:31.080 That's good. And there's complaints about that. And I think 0:53:31.280 --> 0:53:35.400 it is important to like push against de radicalizing the subredit, 0:53:35.400 --> 0:53:37.799 But I don't think it's bad that you're getting a 0:53:37.800 --> 0:53:40.560 lot of liberals in there who are not turned off 0:53:40.600 --> 0:53:44.200 by the name anti work um, and I think that's 0:53:44.600 --> 0:53:47.560 I think it's positive that that they're even if they're 0:53:47.600 --> 0:53:49.840 you know, they're not coming at it from kind of 0:53:49.880 --> 0:53:53.880 a revolutionary perspective. But hey, it's okay to quit my 0:53:53.960 --> 0:53:56.239 job if if the conditions are shipped and try to 0:53:56.280 --> 0:53:58.160 find a place where I'm treated better. If that's their 0:53:58.200 --> 0:54:00.520 in road to this kind of thought, I still think 0:54:00.560 --> 0:54:04.920 that's pretty pretty awesome. Yeah, absolutely, yeah, because I mean 0:54:05.280 --> 0:54:09.400 it's not realistic for every single person. Well and actually 0:54:09.480 --> 0:54:12.120 it is realistic for every single person to quit their job, 0:54:12.400 --> 0:54:14.840 but it's it's not realistic for only a few people 0:54:14.880 --> 0:54:17.880 to write and sometimes if if not, if if everyone's 0:54:17.920 --> 0:54:19.879 not gonna do it, like literally everyone, then he knows 0:54:20.000 --> 0:54:22.440 some people can't can't afford to quit their job um 0:54:22.560 --> 0:54:24.440 right now because they have like kids, defeat or whatever 0:54:24.760 --> 0:54:27.600 um for themselves or you know, there's a lot there's 0:54:27.760 --> 0:54:29.440 a lot of reasons, which I'll kind of talk a 0:54:29.480 --> 0:54:33.160 little bit more about later. So and so the term 0:54:33.160 --> 0:54:35.680 anti work just does not does not come from the 0:54:35.719 --> 0:54:38.799 sub credit UM and anti work has been like a 0:54:38.920 --> 0:54:41.440 post left term for a while now, and it kind 0:54:41.440 --> 0:54:45.759 of kind of applies to a broad spectrum of like 0:54:45.960 --> 0:54:50.680 anarchist adjacent kind of thought around Hey, if we're gonna 0:54:50.719 --> 0:54:54.200 if we're gonna question like capitalism, uh and the state, 0:54:54.480 --> 0:54:56.840 we should probably also question just the idea of work 0:54:56.880 --> 0:54:59.440 itself and how it functions and how the state kind 0:54:59.440 --> 0:55:03.400 of works only possible with the state. And it's that 0:55:03.440 --> 0:55:07.560 specific line line of thinking. UM. A few examples of 0:55:07.600 --> 0:55:12.160 like of like you know, seminal anti work books UM is. 0:55:12.320 --> 0:55:17.360 One of them is Bob Blacks The Abolition of Work. UM. 0:55:17.560 --> 0:55:19.800 Crime Think has a really good book just called work, 0:55:19.840 --> 0:55:22.040 which is another another one that gets referenced a lot, 0:55:22.080 --> 0:55:25.480 even even in the subredit And also Bullshit Jobs by 0:55:25.560 --> 0:55:28.279 David Graber, and uh, bullshit Jobs was also kind of 0:55:28.280 --> 0:55:32.720 partially inspired by Bob Blacks The Abolition of Work. Um, 0:55:32.760 --> 0:55:36.160 all of those are are great resources and uh specifically 0:55:36.160 --> 0:55:38.200 like bullshit Jobs is great and like a in like 0:55:38.280 --> 0:55:41.240 a for a modern outlook on this, like Bob Black's 0:55:41.239 --> 0:55:43.520 book was written, was written a while ago, and the 0:55:43.600 --> 0:55:47.080 Bullshit Jobs is definitely very timely and even even even 0:55:47.160 --> 0:55:50.480 crimes thinks work book also also addresses stuff or even 0:55:50.520 --> 0:55:53.839 though it wasn't not written within the past. I think 0:55:53.880 --> 0:55:56.520 it is maybe slightly older than than a decade, but 0:55:56.760 --> 0:55:58.920 I think that they are updating it with more information 0:55:58.920 --> 0:56:01.200 about like the gig economy and stuff like that. Yeah, 0:56:01.280 --> 0:56:06.480 and it's it's not as it's characterized as as anti 0:56:06.480 --> 0:56:08.759 work is often characterised by critics. It's not saying like 0:56:09.080 --> 0:56:11.680 nobody should have to do anything in a way. It's 0:56:11.719 --> 0:56:15.480 not actually we'll talk about Diogenes later. Um, but it's 0:56:15.520 --> 0:56:18.160 not everyone should just like lay around and do nothing. 0:56:18.239 --> 0:56:21.040 It's people shouldn't have to do the thing that we 0:56:21.160 --> 0:56:25.200 call work, which is destroy your body or your mind 0:56:25.400 --> 0:56:29.359 or both. Uh, most of your waking hours, most of 0:56:29.400 --> 0:56:31.879 your life in the hope that you'll get ten years 0:56:31.920 --> 0:56:35.160 as an old person to not do that, like and 0:56:35.160 --> 0:56:37.080 and and and a little bit that that that's bad. 0:56:37.200 --> 0:56:38.960 That's a bad way to be a person, like a 0:56:39.000 --> 0:56:40.480 bad way to have to be And it's not bad 0:56:40.560 --> 0:56:42.719 to do that, it's it's bad that you have to 0:56:42.760 --> 0:56:45.120 do that. Yeah, yeah, and I mean and and there 0:56:45.200 --> 0:56:46.520 is a there is a little bit of it that 0:56:46.680 --> 0:56:50.799 is about finding time to chill out. It was going 0:56:50.880 --> 0:56:52.279 to apply a lot of you know, a lot of 0:56:52.280 --> 0:56:54.560 the ways if you have to keep a job, you know, 0:56:54.680 --> 0:56:56.319 the different ways you can you can go about that 0:56:56.440 --> 0:56:58.719 job that does that makes it so doesn't like kill you. 0:56:59.000 --> 0:57:01.360 One of my favorite ways of about anti works just 0:57:01.400 --> 0:57:04.400 like anti capitalism put into actual practice. So it's sort 0:57:04.440 --> 0:57:06.960 of you know, just debating online about anti capitalism as 0:57:07.000 --> 0:57:09.319 some you know, future things like no, like what can 0:57:09.320 --> 0:57:13.520 you do to actually you know, make capitalism less important 0:57:13.520 --> 0:57:15.600 part of how you live your life every day, which 0:57:15.640 --> 0:57:18.240 means you know, not obsessing over careers and all these 0:57:18.320 --> 0:57:20.320 kind of other things. So I think I think first 0:57:20.320 --> 0:57:22.720 of all, it might be useful to kind of think 0:57:22.720 --> 0:57:24.840 about like what do we actually mean by work, because 0:57:24.880 --> 0:57:27.400 works kind of a works like a it's it has 0:57:27.440 --> 0:57:29.880 a lot of definitions, depend depending on what like you 0:57:30.160 --> 0:57:32.640 depend depending on like what you mean by it, right? 0:57:32.960 --> 0:57:36.280 Is it just like wage labor? Is it just forced labor? Um? 0:57:36.320 --> 0:57:39.200 You know, is cooking for yourself or your family considered work? 0:57:39.320 --> 0:57:42.960 But not always? But you know, like at times when 0:57:43.000 --> 0:57:44.480 I when when I when I'm like relaxed, I can 0:57:44.560 --> 0:57:47.520 I quite enjoy cooking for friends and family. But but certainly, 0:57:47.560 --> 0:57:50.080 but certainly it can feel like work sometimes, especially if 0:57:50.080 --> 0:57:51.960 you especially if you just got home from like a 0:57:52.000 --> 0:57:57.040 work shift. So in a way, like work creates more work. Um, 0:57:57.080 --> 0:57:58.960 And it's it's not it's it's it kind of it's 0:57:58.960 --> 0:58:01.959 doesn't It isn't just it isn't just about like wage 0:58:02.040 --> 0:58:03.720 labor or something. It can kind of apply to a 0:58:03.760 --> 0:58:07.560 lot of ways about how you live your life. There's 0:58:07.560 --> 0:58:11.120 a lot of looking laying down wood chips or sad. 0:58:11.400 --> 0:58:13.520 If that's like your job, every day can be like 0:58:13.560 --> 0:58:16.959 a miserable, backbreaking process. If you actually have a huge 0:58:17.040 --> 0:58:18.720 yard or like own a little bit of land and 0:58:18.760 --> 0:58:21.520 you're making your own garden, that can be an intensely 0:58:21.680 --> 0:58:25.400 like the best part of your week. It can be Yeah, yeah, 0:58:25.480 --> 0:58:30.320 it's it's not. The problem is not the individual tasks necessarily, 0:58:30.400 --> 0:58:34.200 it's what work is as a as a a platonic 0:58:34.280 --> 0:58:37.800 kind of concept in our society. Yeah. Not and and 0:58:37.840 --> 0:58:39.400 again one of the things, and I think this is 0:58:39.400 --> 0:58:41.439 one of the things speaking of you talked about David 0:58:41.480 --> 0:58:45.560 Graber earlier, who's an anarchist anthropologist and widely seen to 0:58:45.600 --> 0:58:48.880 be like one of the most brilliant anthropologists of his generation. 0:58:48.920 --> 0:58:52.800 He recently deceased, but a book that he wrote before 0:58:52.880 --> 0:58:56.560 he died with another and another fellow, came out recently 0:58:56.640 --> 0:58:59.080 called The Dawn of Everything that talks a lot about 0:58:59.120 --> 0:59:04.360 how yeah, these ideas, that kind of capitalism has a 0:59:04.440 --> 0:59:08.480 vested interest in you believing that the world was always 0:59:08.560 --> 0:59:11.280 hard in the way that it's hard, by which I 0:59:11.280 --> 0:59:14.200 mean like, in order to get basic necessities you have 0:59:14.320 --> 0:59:17.920 to make somebody else rich um or find some grift 0:59:17.960 --> 0:59:20.919 of your own. And as opposed to like, yeah, life 0:59:21.000 --> 0:59:24.360 is always hard, but life wasn't didn't always involve labor 0:59:24.520 --> 0:59:27.160 the way we think about it. Labor has not been 0:59:27.200 --> 0:59:30.080 a constant in human civilization. In fact, most of human 0:59:30.080 --> 0:59:32.760 civilization people have not done a thing that we would 0:59:32.760 --> 0:59:36.040 recognize as labor. And I think also even if you 0:59:36.080 --> 0:59:39.040 go towards things that like look more like labor to us, right, 0:59:39.080 --> 0:59:40.240 Like I don't know, like look look like if you 0:59:40.240 --> 0:59:42.840 look at like feudal levies, right, you're a peasant. You 0:59:42.880 --> 0:59:45.360 have to get some amount of grain to your lord. 0:59:45.440 --> 0:59:49.640 But like, okay, we work way longer than medieval peasist did. 0:59:49.960 --> 0:59:52.160 And not only do we work longer, is something greater 0:59:52.240 --> 0:59:54.120 and David Beno talk about in that book is like yeah, 0:59:54.160 --> 0:59:56.120 like not only do we work much longer, like the 0:59:56.160 --> 0:59:59.320 amount that we work would have been considered absolutely, like 0:59:59.360 --> 1:00:02.000 even even if feudal lord would look at that much 1:00:02.000 --> 1:00:05.040 work and go no, like this is this is this 1:00:05.120 --> 1:00:07.480 is like and you know, and I think there's there's 1:00:07.480 --> 1:00:10.880 another grip hasn't. As another point um he wrote a 1:00:10.920 --> 1:00:14.480 piece called Turning Modes of Production inside Out, where he 1:00:14.520 --> 1:00:16.560 has his argument that like, okay, so if if you 1:00:16.640 --> 1:00:20.240 take you know, if you take like Plato, right, you're like, 1:00:20.280 --> 1:00:22.439 you take any of the Greek philosophers, even the conservative ones, 1:00:23.200 --> 1:00:27.400 and you show them this the thing, the thing that 1:00:27.440 --> 1:00:29.440 we do every day. Right, you're you know, you have 1:00:29.600 --> 1:00:33.280 you're you're completely under the command of another person for 1:00:33.720 --> 1:00:36.960 like at least a third, probably more of your day yeah, 1:00:36.960 --> 1:00:40.680 I monitor you and Garrison's bathroom breaks. I look at 1:00:40.720 --> 1:00:43.840 your texts with family and friends. Um, it's it's really 1:00:44.400 --> 1:00:50.040 it's an incredibly strict surveillance state. From Robert Evans. Yeah. Yeah, 1:00:50.120 --> 1:00:51.680 this is like like you know, if you show a 1:00:51.680 --> 1:00:55.000 Greek person that this is like this is the apocalypse 1:00:55.000 --> 1:00:56.440 to them, this is this is the worst thing that 1:00:56.480 --> 1:01:00.920 could possibly happens. Every single person in society has like 1:01:01.040 --> 1:01:06.640 essentially been reduced to a slave, and you know that's 1:01:06.800 --> 1:01:09.520 bad and it doesn't have to be like it's not 1:01:09.560 --> 1:01:11.680 that they've been because I want to push back on 1:01:11.680 --> 1:01:14.200 that terminology because it can go to some uncomfortable places. 1:01:14.240 --> 1:01:17.320 It's not that they are treated as a slave. It's 1:01:17.440 --> 1:01:20.920 that in the hours in which they are expected to labor, 1:01:21.000 --> 1:01:25.560 there's a societal expectation that they act as the property 1:01:25.680 --> 1:01:28.400 of whoever owns the business or manages them. Right. The 1:01:28.400 --> 1:01:31.400 idea of like if it if it like that attitude 1:01:31.440 --> 1:01:33.880 from like like working in a kitchen or or working 1:01:33.880 --> 1:01:35.920 at a fast food restaurant, like if you lean, if 1:01:35.920 --> 1:01:38.240 you're if you can lean, you can clean, Like that 1:01:38.280 --> 1:01:42.280 attitude is saying you do not have any autonomy when 1:01:42.280 --> 1:01:44.480 you are at work. You are the property of the 1:01:44.600 --> 1:01:48.240 of the employer while you are at work. Um, I think, yeah, 1:01:48.240 --> 1:01:49.600 and and I think and I think, you know, but 1:01:49.680 --> 1:01:51.440 I think there's a specific thing with Greece is that, like, 1:01:51.640 --> 1:01:53.280 you know, you the only way you could do that 1:01:53.360 --> 1:01:55.960 to someone in Greece is if you owned them. Yeah, 1:01:56.080 --> 1:01:58.040 Like you know, I'm like, the grease has wage labor, right, 1:01:58.040 --> 1:02:00.640 but the only people who like has wege labor, but 1:02:00.680 --> 1:02:04.000 it has wage labor for slaves. And that's like it right, 1:02:04.080 --> 1:02:06.400 like this, you know, and this is this is not 1:02:06.480 --> 1:02:08.800 like obviously not to say that, like you know, we're 1:02:08.880 --> 1:02:11.120 like having a job is the same thing as slavery, 1:02:11.200 --> 1:02:14.280 but it's it's to say that, like the kinds of 1:02:14.320 --> 1:02:17.640 things that we think of as normal, like are things 1:02:17.680 --> 1:02:20.480 that like the people who you know, the people who 1:02:20.600 --> 1:02:23.240 run the system and the people who you know get 1:02:23.280 --> 1:02:25.640 cited all the time to justify stuff would have looked 1:02:25.640 --> 1:02:27.880 at as like the worst thing that could possibly have 1:02:28.000 --> 1:02:32.760 happened to a society. Yeah, sure, like daily life for 1:02:32.840 --> 1:02:36.920 a very substantial chunk of of the American workforce is 1:02:36.960 --> 1:02:40.400 that would be a nightmare to large percentages of the 1:02:40.960 --> 1:02:46.720 human population prior to the modern period. Like it's it's 1:02:47.480 --> 1:02:50.520 and and if you think about it that way, like 1:02:50.560 --> 1:02:52.600 one of the things Graber does a good job of 1:02:52.640 --> 1:02:57.400 going into UM is like the way in which uh 1:02:57.520 --> 1:02:59.160 and this is also something that comes up in in 1:02:59.160 --> 1:03:00.960 in tribe by you or the way in which, like 1:03:01.120 --> 1:03:05.560 during the early period of colonization of North America, UM, 1:03:05.600 --> 1:03:09.640 it was very common for you know, Europeans to leave 1:03:10.120 --> 1:03:14.440 the cities and in towns being established behind um and 1:03:14.440 --> 1:03:17.200 and join up with indigenals, with the tribes. The reverse 1:03:17.280 --> 1:03:21.360 never happened, like like, not willingly, not without kidnapping being 1:03:21.360 --> 1:03:23.880 a part of it. UM. And it's because like their 1:03:23.920 --> 1:03:26.640 attitude was, they were looking at the lives these people 1:03:26.640 --> 1:03:29.280 were living in these cities and like, well, why would 1:03:29.280 --> 1:03:34.400 you agree to do that? And um, this is turning anyway, Garrison, 1:03:34.480 --> 1:03:36.520 you should you should take us back on the rails. 1:03:36.520 --> 1:03:41.160 This is getting more but first products. You know what 1:03:41.280 --> 1:03:44.800 has nothing to do with the fact that human beings 1:03:45.760 --> 1:03:49.320 are forced to labor for basic necessities in order to 1:03:49.400 --> 1:03:52.360 keep up a system that steals the freedom of the 1:03:52.400 --> 1:03:55.680 many in order to provide impossible liberty to the few. 1:03:55.920 --> 1:04:00.400 You know what isn't related to that. The advertising lutely 1:04:00.520 --> 1:04:04.400 industrial complex not has nothing to do with it, totally unrelated. 1:04:04.640 --> 1:04:07.480 Why would you say that? Garrison? By the way, did 1:04:07.520 --> 1:04:10.080 you know that McDonald's muffin is turning fifty years old 1:04:10.080 --> 1:04:14.720 and it's giving the breakfast they're they're they're they're selling 1:04:14.720 --> 1:04:16.760 it for its original price of sixty three cents during 1:04:16.800 --> 1:04:19.960 breakfast hour six a m. To ten thirty am, exclusively 1:04:19.960 --> 1:04:23.320 on the McDonald's app. That I can't, I can't do 1:04:23.320 --> 1:04:25.280 you guys? Do you guys want egg mcmuffins for sixty 1:04:25.320 --> 1:04:27.560 three cents? That's the original price. I wonder what else 1:04:27.640 --> 1:04:30.400 the McDonald's app is looking at on my phone? Anyway, 1:04:30.520 --> 1:04:35.880 here's some mats. Oh, we're back and we're talking about 1:04:36.680 --> 1:04:39.280 anti work. We're talking about how works kind of bullshit 1:04:39.480 --> 1:04:43.840 for our jobs. Um yeah, yeah, we sure are, We 1:04:43.960 --> 1:04:49.200 sure are. So you know, like there is there there's 1:04:49.200 --> 1:04:53.080 a lot of people who like enjoy stuff like gardening, fishing, carpentry, cooking, 1:04:53.120 --> 1:04:56.240 and even like you know, just fighting, fighting computer programming 1:04:56.440 --> 1:04:58.320 just for their own sake. Like a lot of the 1:04:58.320 --> 1:05:02.320 stuff that we like quote quote needs need for uh 1:05:02.640 --> 1:05:04.400 society to function. A lot a lot of those things 1:05:04.440 --> 1:05:07.640 people like doing as hobbies in their spirits. For example, 1:05:07.680 --> 1:05:10.440 if you're a police officer, gunning down a man in 1:05:10.480 --> 1:05:12.680 cold blood might be kind of like your day job 1:05:12.720 --> 1:05:14.680 and like frustrating, and there's a lot of ship you 1:05:14.720 --> 1:05:16.720 have to deal with. If you're a mash shooter, though, 1:05:16.880 --> 1:05:20.680 you just love it. You know, you're just doing it. 1:05:22.280 --> 1:05:24.680 That is that That is exactly what the cow writtenhouse 1:05:24.680 --> 1:05:26.720 thing is though like like like like like actually like 1:05:27.240 --> 1:05:30.240 literally that that that is what that is. This is 1:05:30.600 --> 1:05:32.400 we I mean, we're not going to get the verdict today. 1:05:32.400 --> 1:05:35.440 It doesn't look like not today, which by the by 1:05:35.440 --> 1:05:38.360 the time this airs, it may already be done. Um. 1:05:38.400 --> 1:05:40.040 But anyway, like a lot of a lot of people 1:05:40.080 --> 1:05:42.720 like doing those things without getting paid, and sometimes you know, 1:05:42.800 --> 1:05:45.880 often like costing themselves money, right, A lot of these 1:05:45.880 --> 1:05:48.760 hobbies are you know, are costly in their own in 1:05:48.800 --> 1:05:51.600 their own right, um. And I think it's interesting to 1:05:51.680 --> 1:05:54.160 you know, think, think of a society where you're well, 1:05:54.160 --> 1:05:56.840 you're free to do those things when you feel like it, 1:05:57.200 --> 1:05:58.800 and you don't need to drag yourself out of bed 1:05:58.800 --> 1:06:00.720 at you know, earlyer than wanting to work to work 1:06:00.720 --> 1:06:02.760 a ten hour shift as like a cash register. And 1:06:02.800 --> 1:06:04.880 it's not just even when you feel like it. Because 1:06:04.920 --> 1:06:06.880 there will be things that you have to do. Even 1:06:06.880 --> 1:06:09.000 if I will discuss this like toget yeah, yeah, yeah, 1:06:09.000 --> 1:06:12.160 in any but like yeah, but it's not it's it's 1:06:12.200 --> 1:06:15.040 not work if you're if you're going out and harvesting 1:06:15.120 --> 1:06:18.560 food that feeds you in your community, that's not like 1:06:18.720 --> 1:06:20.840 work in the sense that we talk about modern work. 1:06:20.920 --> 1:06:23.520 The amount of extra energy we have by not having 1:06:23.600 --> 1:06:26.880 ten hour horrible shifts that drain ourselves mentally and physically 1:06:27.320 --> 1:06:29.800 and more in with you know, the amount of most 1:06:29.840 --> 1:06:32.760 of the work that we people do, as shown in 1:06:32.840 --> 1:06:36.160 David Graper's bull bullshit Jobs, is like not necessary. Like 1:06:36.280 --> 1:06:38.040 a lot of like a lot of the work that 1:06:38.080 --> 1:06:42.040 we do as a whole is not There's there's some 1:06:42.200 --> 1:06:44.880 squibbling about because the book was based off of a study, 1:06:45.160 --> 1:06:47.080 like a survey that kind of showed a lot of 1:06:47.400 --> 1:06:49.920 very significant chunk of the workforce thinks their job is 1:06:49.960 --> 1:06:52.800 like pointless and doesn't do anything. And there's been some 1:06:52.840 --> 1:06:55.320 criticisms of that, but it is undoubted that a very 1:06:55.320 --> 1:06:58.520 significant amount of total labor time spent is stuff that 1:06:58.640 --> 1:07:03.560 isn't necessary ry for really like reason of like making 1:07:03.840 --> 1:07:06.840 people's lives better. And another part of like anti work 1:07:06.880 --> 1:07:09.600 theories is looking is looking at our society as it's built, 1:07:09.600 --> 1:07:11.040 you know, because it is it is HyG to anarchism 1:07:11.080 --> 1:07:14.000 and be like how much of this is actually necessary? 1:07:14.040 --> 1:07:16.960 Like how do we do we really need a mac rib? 1:07:17.280 --> 1:07:21.240 Like do we do we go? What do you? What 1:07:21.320 --> 1:07:23.760 do you? What do you? Garrison? Do we do not 1:07:25.960 --> 1:07:31.600 need a macrib? We do not? Did the company training? 1:07:31.680 --> 1:07:36.600 And they the company training says you can't attack someone 1:07:36.640 --> 1:07:39.320 for their religion, and Garrison just attacked the McRib, So 1:07:40.240 --> 1:07:42.200 that actually is you know, it is a religion for 1:07:42.240 --> 1:07:44.240 a lot of people. Did you just see that there? There? 1:07:44.320 --> 1:07:47.240 They they did sell a macribb n FT a few 1:07:47.240 --> 1:07:50.520 weeks ago. Um and tell me that ship that is 1:07:50.600 --> 1:07:56.920 so upsetting, thank god damn it. Yeah yeah, just saying 1:07:56.960 --> 1:07:59.520 society with no money would not have n f T s. Yeah, 1:08:00.640 --> 1:08:04.320 so gosh. But you know, think thinking of like anti 1:08:04.400 --> 1:08:06.960 work as as the theory. You know, it's about cutting 1:08:06.960 --> 1:08:10.520 down those those unnecessary things that fill people's time. Um. 1:08:10.600 --> 1:08:14.200 And you know and for a more you know, forward 1:08:14.560 --> 1:08:17.519 forward looking sense. It's it's a general kind of like 1:08:17.240 --> 1:08:21.519 a like abolition of the producer and consumer based society. Um. 1:08:21.560 --> 1:08:24.120 So you know, life is not dedicated to the production 1:08:24.120 --> 1:08:26.880 and consumption of of goods and commodities. So you know 1:08:27.080 --> 1:08:30.200 this this applies not not just a capitalism but also 1:08:30.240 --> 1:08:33.040 to you know, like state socialism um where you know, 1:08:33.120 --> 1:08:35.080 work is still you know a big part of state 1:08:35.120 --> 1:08:39.759 socialism UM. And you think, you know it's humans, it's 1:08:39.760 --> 1:08:42.280 it's it posits the future that humans can be way, way, 1:08:42.320 --> 1:08:45.040 way more free when they you know, can reclaim their 1:08:45.080 --> 1:08:48.080 time from jobs and employment um, instead of you know, 1:08:48.800 --> 1:08:50.759 spending a lot of their time doing that and spending 1:08:50.800 --> 1:08:52.400 spending a lot of like not just time, but also 1:08:52.439 --> 1:08:54.599 just like their energy. Right because even if you work, 1:08:54.640 --> 1:08:56.080 you know, eight hours a day, you still have a 1:08:56.160 --> 1:08:59.160 majority of the day to yourself. But you're exhausted. You 1:08:59.240 --> 1:09:01.960 can't doom it, you can't do much right it. It 1:09:02.040 --> 1:09:06.360 drains you of everything. So you know, the main point 1:09:06.560 --> 1:09:08.000 one of the main points of like of the abolition 1:09:08.040 --> 1:09:09.760 of work, I say by Bob Black is but like 1:09:10.000 --> 1:09:14.439 there's no one should work because because work is as 1:09:14.479 --> 1:09:17.080 defined as like as like as like a forced labor 1:09:17.160 --> 1:09:21.200 practice um. Is. You can kind of track this to 1:09:21.280 --> 1:09:23.479 being the source of most of the mystery in the 1:09:23.520 --> 1:09:27.880 world from you know, in in individual people, um, who 1:09:27.880 --> 1:09:29.160 are forced to do this. So like this is where 1:09:29.160 --> 1:09:32.400 a lot of a lot of their pain comes from. 1:09:32.560 --> 1:09:37.000 Um is this I is this is this forced labor concept? Um? 1:09:37.240 --> 1:09:39.600 I think I think a good a good way. You know, 1:09:39.760 --> 1:09:41.479 there is you know the point that Robert brought up 1:09:41.479 --> 1:09:44.240 earlier is like you know, what about the tasks that 1:09:44.280 --> 1:09:46.320 aren't fun? You know what about what about the stuff 1:09:46.360 --> 1:09:50.439 that isn't isn't maybe as as enjoyable. Um, you know, 1:09:50.560 --> 1:09:52.519 there's there's there's there's a list of list of things 1:09:52.560 --> 1:09:56.760 that the standard rep. Who's going to clean up the poop? Right? 1:09:56.880 --> 1:09:59.320 That's that's the thing. So you know I I kind 1:09:59.320 --> 1:10:01.160 of I I kind I kind of look at this 1:10:02.360 --> 1:10:04.000 as like the I kind of kind of look at 1:10:04.040 --> 1:10:06.320 this as like whenever I have to turn the compost, 1:10:06.840 --> 1:10:08.880 which is not my favorite thing to do. I I 1:10:08.960 --> 1:10:13.520 don't look forward to having to turn over our massive, shitty, 1:10:13.800 --> 1:10:21.439 rotting compost bile not not my favorite thing. Um. But no, 1:10:23.439 --> 1:10:25.840 but now like if there's if if there's like friends 1:10:25.840 --> 1:10:28.240 around and we're playing music and we're all we have 1:10:28.360 --> 1:10:30.800 like some like have I have have like an iced 1:10:30.800 --> 1:10:33.479 tea or a dr pepper and we're like talking as 1:10:33.520 --> 1:10:36.640 we're turning the compost. It's a lot more doable. You know, 1:10:36.760 --> 1:10:39.320 it's there's there's because it's it's it's one task that's 1:10:39.320 --> 1:10:42.920 going to help all of us in the future. Um 1:10:42.960 --> 1:10:45.640 and I'm not getting watched over by a boss to 1:10:45.680 --> 1:10:47.760 fill a certain quote so I can pay my rent, right, 1:10:47.760 --> 1:10:49.920 It's it's this, it's this. It's this thing that helps 1:10:50.000 --> 1:10:54.840 everybody and I and I do it because I want 1:10:55.600 --> 1:10:59.280 I want the goal of it to succeed. So there's there's, 1:10:59.280 --> 1:11:01.360 there's gonna there's is gonna be tasks that are less 1:11:01.360 --> 1:11:04.040 pleasant than others. You know, what we can do is, 1:11:04.160 --> 1:11:05.840 you know, imagine a world where the amount of work 1:11:05.840 --> 1:11:08.080 actually needed to be done is greatly reduced so that 1:11:08.200 --> 1:11:11.160 the tasks that are necessary and some of them unpleasant, 1:11:11.280 --> 1:11:15.200 can be spread out, um and among more people, because 1:11:15.280 --> 1:11:17.439 less people will be wasting upwards of eight hours a day, 1:11:17.560 --> 1:11:21.080 five days a week doing mostly pointless time filling work. 1:11:21.800 --> 1:11:24.960 Because yeah, there's there's gonna be things that sucked, and 1:11:25.439 --> 1:11:27.920 we'll be able to do those a lot better if 1:11:27.920 --> 1:11:30.599 there's more people and we don't have to waste our 1:11:30.600 --> 1:11:34.639 times doing stuff that is is honestly a lot more 1:11:34.680 --> 1:11:38.840 bullshit than actually scooping bullshit. Wow, what a good joke. 1:11:39.040 --> 1:11:47.760 Speaking it's time. It's time to scoop up some more ads. Wait, really, 1:11:47.920 --> 1:11:51.960 haven't we done too? No, we only only one. Alright, 1:11:52.040 --> 1:11:55.800 we went a while without doing one. Guys, listen to 1:11:56.160 --> 1:12:00.960 the products because everyone loves a service. It's not like 1:12:01.040 --> 1:12:03.840 the thing we're talking about is bad. It's different than that. 1:12:04.000 --> 1:12:07.320 So it's fine. Yeah, we're back and we're still still 1:12:07.320 --> 1:12:10.280 talking about anti work. Um, I do. This is something 1:12:10.280 --> 1:12:13.439 that the Crime Think workbook points out, and you know 1:12:13.479 --> 1:12:15.519 it is a pretty it's pretty obvious thing I've I've 1:12:15.520 --> 1:12:17.679 certainly thought of this before is that, you know, we've 1:12:17.720 --> 1:12:21.599 been told that the like technological progress will soon liberate 1:12:21.680 --> 1:12:23.920 humanity from the need to do work or from you know, 1:12:23.960 --> 1:12:26.680 having to do work as much um. And today we 1:12:26.720 --> 1:12:29.600 have the capabilities that you know, our ancestors couldn't have 1:12:29.840 --> 1:12:31.600 even imagined for free, the amount of work that we 1:12:31.640 --> 1:12:34.679 could get done. Um. But these predictions still like aren't true. 1:12:34.720 --> 1:12:37.000 We're still working more than ever. Even though we have 1:12:37.160 --> 1:12:41.479 developed so much um technologically, we're still working more than ever. 1:12:41.520 --> 1:12:43.240 And if I think it's silly to think that we'll 1:12:43.320 --> 1:12:46.559 we'll we'll reach like a magic threshold where somehow now 1:12:46.640 --> 1:12:49.200 we have less work to do because we'll have like 1:12:49.200 --> 1:12:51.479 I don't know, like robots being a server at Adam 1:12:51.560 --> 1:12:55.799 Adam McDonald's or whatever. Right, we're there's still there's still 1:12:55.880 --> 1:12:58.080 is forcing people into this thing because this is the 1:12:58.120 --> 1:13:00.599 only way that we can live. Right this. We've we've 1:13:00.640 --> 1:13:03.840 built our whole society around getting work for money, So 1:13:04.240 --> 1:13:08.400 this is the only the only thing that we can do. Yeah, 1:13:08.760 --> 1:13:11.320 David Creeper. One of the things he's arguing in Bullshit 1:13:11.400 --> 1:13:14.800 Jobs is that basically, you know, okay, so so if 1:13:14.880 --> 1:13:18.080 if you have like you have the Soviet economy, right, okay, 1:13:18.080 --> 1:13:20.240 so the Soviet economy has has a policy of of 1:13:20.280 --> 1:13:23.160 full employment. And for a little bit they were like, okay, 1:13:23.160 --> 1:13:24.880 what if we make everyone work less? And then they 1:13:24.880 --> 1:13:29.000 stopped and then like everything went to ship, So you know, okay, 1:13:29.040 --> 1:13:30.800 but if if if you can't make people work less 1:13:30.840 --> 1:13:32.400 hours and everyone has to work, what do you do? 1:13:32.439 --> 1:13:33.600 It was like, okay, well you pay a bunch of 1:13:33.600 --> 1:13:38.559 people to like stand in a doorway. Right now, we 1:13:38.680 --> 1:13:41.479 also do this And then one of the graps, like 1:13:42.000 --> 1:13:43.680 the funniest points that he brings up is that the 1:13:44.040 --> 1:13:46.120 total number of bureaucrats in the x U s s 1:13:46.160 --> 1:13:50.400 are like increased dramatically after the us R fell, which 1:13:50.439 --> 1:13:53.880 is incredible, and you know what what it points to 1:13:54.000 --> 1:13:56.080 is that like, yeah, you know, Greverer called this total 1:13:56.080 --> 1:13:58.680 beer auctratization, which is that, you know what, what we did, 1:13:58.760 --> 1:14:01.080 instead of like giving our seals more free time, is 1:14:01.120 --> 1:14:05.280 created this just like endless, enormous, incredibly violent bureaucracy that 1:14:05.320 --> 1:14:06.920 all of us have to spend all of our time, 1:14:07.360 --> 1:14:11.000 like dealing with bullshit from our insurance companies, and like 1:14:11.479 --> 1:14:15.040 fighting with like the Comcast service person and all of 1:14:15.080 --> 1:14:19.080 this just like you know, incredibly violent, de humanizing stuff 1:14:19.520 --> 1:14:23.280 that you know, it's it's it's a make work program, right, 1:14:23.320 --> 1:14:26.680 it's but it's a make work program that just the 1:14:26.720 --> 1:14:29.799 work that it makes everyone is making everyone's lives miserable. 1:14:30.280 --> 1:14:35.360 And we could just not do this. Mh yeah, I 1:14:35.400 --> 1:14:39.720 mean we could. It's always more complicated than that, right, 1:14:39.760 --> 1:14:43.320 because the thing that is when we talk about anti work, 1:14:43.320 --> 1:14:45.320 I think that's on the other side of this is like, Okay, well, 1:14:45.360 --> 1:14:47.120 what if you get a kid, how are you going 1:14:47.160 --> 1:14:49.400 to feed that kid? Like what if like, yeah, how 1:14:49.439 --> 1:14:50.640 are you going to keep him in a house, Like 1:14:50.680 --> 1:14:53.760 how are not just if you have a kid, But like, yeah, 1:14:53.880 --> 1:14:56.920 you people die in our society when they do not 1:14:57.040 --> 1:15:00.280 have access to adequate resources. And the only way to 1:15:00.280 --> 1:15:02.920 have access to adequate resources is to be born rich 1:15:03.040 --> 1:15:05.600 or to work. Those are your options. Yeah, that is 1:15:05.600 --> 1:15:08.800 why without without robust mutual aid and the commitment by 1:15:08.840 --> 1:15:10.200 a lot of people to try to make sure that 1:15:10.240 --> 1:15:13.880 a lifestyle is sustainable outside of you know, this system, 1:15:13.960 --> 1:15:17.240 Like it's not impossible, but it's somewhere along the line 1:15:17.240 --> 1:15:19.120 there has to be input. I mean, yeah, like we've 1:15:19.120 --> 1:15:22.960 we've been talking about Yeah, we were talking about antiwork 1:15:22.960 --> 1:15:25.439 as like as kind of like a broad hopeful like 1:15:25.600 --> 1:15:29.439 future goal in some other you know, post scarcity, well 1:15:29.439 --> 1:15:31.600 not not post scarcity, but like it's post like a 1:15:31.680 --> 1:15:35.240 post crumbling, post kind of collapse future. But I think 1:15:35.280 --> 1:15:38.880 you know, for us now, as you know, the antiworks 1:15:39.320 --> 1:15:41.920 is about people now, right, the antiworks it is not 1:15:42.000 --> 1:15:45.519 about a future world. I think the anti work now 1:15:46.240 --> 1:15:48.800 is like an alternative to the obsession with living your 1:15:48.840 --> 1:15:52.000 life with the goal of a career. Yes, it's about 1:15:52.040 --> 1:15:54.240 trend you know, it's it's like a project to radically 1:15:54.360 --> 1:15:58.080 reframe the how we think of work and leisure. Um, 1:15:58.120 --> 1:16:01.519 it's like like like like a cognitive antidote to like 1:16:01.640 --> 1:16:04.880 the like this culture of like hustle and hard work, 1:16:04.880 --> 1:16:07.439 which is like taken over our minds and and and 1:16:07.520 --> 1:16:10.160 our time. So it's like for for those who can't 1:16:10.200 --> 1:16:13.240 just resign from their job for whatever reason, whatever moment, 1:16:13.600 --> 1:16:16.599 the anti work is about like thinking of this movement 1:16:16.680 --> 1:16:20.519 as like the antithesis to the mainstream capitalist hustle culture. 1:16:20.720 --> 1:16:23.280 You know that that includes like slacking off more, finding 1:16:23.320 --> 1:16:26.800 ways to waste time, possibly even finding ways to steal 1:16:26.920 --> 1:16:29.679 or scam your boss. I I've I've read certain certain 1:16:29.840 --> 1:16:34.800 alleged ways of doing this inside the antiwork Garrison car 1:16:34.880 --> 1:16:38.960 for Days where they got it from. But yeah, no, 1:16:39.080 --> 1:16:40.519 but like you know, like there is you know, like 1:16:40.600 --> 1:16:42.760 ways to like scam scam whatever corporation you work for, 1:16:42.880 --> 1:16:45.559 right that There's been examples shared in the anti right 1:16:45.800 --> 1:16:47.680 in in the Anti Works I brut it. So you know, 1:16:47.720 --> 1:16:50.080 it's about actually like finding, you know, making sure that 1:16:50.120 --> 1:16:52.559 you hate your work because you should, and then figuring 1:16:52.560 --> 1:16:54.479 out how to live your life with that in mind. 1:16:54.680 --> 1:16:56.439 And I think what one of the really hard parts 1:16:56.439 --> 1:16:58.720 about this is for people who like kind of like 1:16:58.800 --> 1:17:01.360 their job? Who who? Who? People who are like you 1:17:01.400 --> 1:17:03.560 think like either like their job or think it's like 1:17:03.640 --> 1:17:05.840 kind of important or like they're special to have it, right, 1:17:05.880 --> 1:17:08.160 It's like, oh, you're like, I'm lucky to have such 1:17:08.200 --> 1:17:10.639 a good job, because like, when you're stuck in that mindset, 1:17:11.040 --> 1:17:13.360 you can often put in like a lot of extra 1:17:13.520 --> 1:17:16.800 unpaid labor because you think it's important because you're like, oh, no, 1:17:16.880 --> 1:17:18.760 this is worth doing because it's gonna have some like 1:17:18.880 --> 1:17:21.040 benefits to the world. So you end up like putting 1:17:21.040 --> 1:17:23.400 in actually more work that you don't actually get paid for. 1:17:23.760 --> 1:17:26.439 And like it's about trying to kill that instinct as well. 1:17:26.600 --> 1:17:28.679 So that's a whole, a whole way to think about 1:17:28.720 --> 1:17:30.840 like working, because like we're gonna be stuck. A lot 1:17:30.840 --> 1:17:33.160 of people are gonna be start doing it for for 1:17:33.160 --> 1:17:35.559 for a while. So how can you kind of reframe 1:17:35.760 --> 1:17:38.000 what we do on the job and how kind of 1:17:38.120 --> 1:17:40.599 jobs live in our minds when we are at home. 1:17:41.240 --> 1:17:43.800 And I think the best thing about what you've said, 1:17:43.800 --> 1:17:46.479 in my opinion, is the idea that like this is 1:17:46.600 --> 1:17:51.200 not the importance is not on whether or not this 1:17:51.200 --> 1:17:54.560 this it causes everyone to stop having to work immediately 1:17:54.600 --> 1:17:57.800 like whether or not it leads to you know, directly 1:17:57.880 --> 1:18:00.639 to Like, the measure of success of this movement isn't 1:18:00.680 --> 1:18:03.080 that nobody ever has to work again. That's a that's 1:18:03.080 --> 1:18:05.600 a long term goal. The measure of the success of 1:18:05.640 --> 1:18:08.560 this movement is that people accept in mass that no, 1:18:09.280 --> 1:18:12.080 the American dream as it's sold to people is not 1:18:12.320 --> 1:18:14.400 a good thing too. It's not a thing. To aspire 1:18:14.439 --> 1:18:17.120 to work is bullshit, and we should aspire to a 1:18:17.160 --> 1:18:20.519 society that doesn't do it. It's getting back, honestly, like 1:18:20.560 --> 1:18:22.360 it's getting back to some of the ship that people 1:18:22.400 --> 1:18:25.120 were talking about in like when The Jetsons was on TV, 1:18:25.240 --> 1:18:27.519 the idea that like, well, with labor saving devices, the 1:18:27.800 --> 1:18:29.840 like a hard work week will be four hours and 1:18:29.880 --> 1:18:31.840 like that's the way life will be for everybody, and 1:18:31.880 --> 1:18:35.720 like um, and the it's the acceptance that like, no, 1:18:35.920 --> 1:18:39.439 a better future involves me not having it. No one 1:18:39.760 --> 1:18:42.759 having to spend forty hours a week of their limited 1:18:42.840 --> 1:18:46.040 human life working at a fucking sonic or like listening 1:18:46.080 --> 1:18:49.599 to some middle manager brate them for not answering phones 1:18:49.680 --> 1:18:53.559 fast enough. Um, that doesn't exist for any human being 1:18:53.720 --> 1:18:56.360 in a world that is achievable and better than the 1:18:56.360 --> 1:18:58.720 one that we live in, like convincing people of that 1:18:58.800 --> 1:19:01.719 and getting that to be whyly accepted. Is I think 1:19:01.840 --> 1:19:04.320 what I think what is what I would consider the 1:19:04.400 --> 1:19:08.120 terms of victory in in this particular struggle. Yeah, kind 1:19:08.120 --> 1:19:11.280 of moving on from this side of things into like 1:19:11.320 --> 1:19:13.320 the great resignation and the other kind of things that 1:19:13.320 --> 1:19:16.760 people are doing. So um, in August alone, four point 1:19:16.760 --> 1:19:20.360 three million Americans voluntarily left their jobs um and the 1:19:20.439 --> 1:19:26.000 rate of people quitting increased to a a decent, a 1:19:26.080 --> 1:19:29.599 decent record high of like a two point nine percent, 1:19:29.640 --> 1:19:33.080 according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. So and 1:19:33.360 --> 1:19:35.280 this this, this, this has been a growing trend. You 1:19:35.280 --> 1:19:37.439 can look at like I think June was like a 1:19:37.520 --> 1:19:40.519 like a little under four million. August was four point three. 1:19:40.520 --> 1:19:42.560 It's like it was you know, it's it's ramping. I 1:19:42.960 --> 1:19:44.519 don't know what if. I don't know if we have 1:19:44.640 --> 1:19:47.439 data for September or October. Yet this was the most 1:19:47.479 --> 1:19:51.160 recent one I could find. Um. So yeah, like it's stuff, 1:19:51.240 --> 1:19:53.599 stuff is stuff is going up. People are because because 1:19:53.600 --> 1:19:56.080 people are like a big part of the antibo. And 1:19:56.080 --> 1:19:58.320 it's like, yeah, if your job sucks, you can quit 1:19:58.400 --> 1:20:00.960 it and probably find another one that pays better in 1:20:01.120 --> 1:20:05.040 decent time, especially especially especially right now, Like right now, 1:20:05.120 --> 1:20:07.320 if your job was really terrible, you have a decent 1:20:07.400 --> 1:20:09.880 chance of finding a better one. Um. This wasn't the 1:20:09.880 --> 1:20:12.320 case like two years ago. Um, it is the case 1:20:12.360 --> 1:20:14.519 that at this moment, so a lot of the antiquos 1:20:14.520 --> 1:20:16.760 spa and it's like, yeah, quit your job, like say 1:20:16.800 --> 1:20:19.800 fun you to your boss and leave because if they're 1:20:19.800 --> 1:20:22.600 being shitty then they don't deserve to have you. Um. 1:20:23.400 --> 1:20:25.400 So resigning has been been a big part of this, 1:20:25.760 --> 1:20:29.360 and there has there has been attempts at other kind 1:20:29.360 --> 1:20:32.200 of organized stuff and this kind of falls into in 1:20:32.240 --> 1:20:34.240 my opinion, this kind of falls into the same kind 1:20:34.240 --> 1:20:38.400 of traps as sole internet organizing kind of always does. 1:20:38.760 --> 1:20:41.759 So the big thing that they're organizing for is called 1:20:42.040 --> 1:20:44.640 Black Friday Blackout, which is about kind of trying to 1:20:44.640 --> 1:20:47.640 get everyone to as many people as possible to not 1:20:47.680 --> 1:20:51.559 work Black Friday, um and not buy anything on Black Friday. Um. So, 1:20:51.720 --> 1:20:54.400 like a post from the subrendt here is like spread 1:20:54.400 --> 1:20:56.679 the word call sick if you're forced to work black 1:20:56.720 --> 1:20:59.160 on Black Friday, spend time with your family instead, remain 1:20:59.240 --> 1:21:02.000 at home and participate in your favorite activity on Friday. November, 1:21:02.960 --> 1:21:04.760 talk to your family and friends about about your work 1:21:04.760 --> 1:21:09.760 life struggles. Pass up flyers, join our slash anti work. Um, 1:21:09.800 --> 1:21:11.680 So this is you know, I think this kind of 1:21:11.680 --> 1:21:14.559 falls into the same like you know, general strike organized 1:21:14.600 --> 1:21:16.960 online stuff that we talked about before. How kind of 1:21:17.000 --> 1:21:19.120 like a lack of like real like in person solidarity 1:21:19.160 --> 1:21:22.519 and like non internet you know, networking and organizing results 1:21:22.520 --> 1:21:24.200 and stuff like this just you know, like proposed like 1:21:24.280 --> 1:21:27.240 one day strikes or actions that are ultimately kind of 1:21:27.600 --> 1:21:30.360 non effectual, right, Like they can be like a good 1:21:30.400 --> 1:21:33.040 symbol sometimes, but like you know, they're not. It's it's 1:21:33.040 --> 1:21:35.519 it's not. It's not really gonna matter that much even 1:21:35.520 --> 1:21:37.559 even if it works. Well, what I think it'd be 1:21:37.560 --> 1:21:39.840 cool if literally no store was open on Black Friday 1:21:39.840 --> 1:21:42.320 because everyone quit. Yeah, that would be rad. But that's 1:21:42.360 --> 1:21:45.440 that's not I don't that's not gonna really happen. Um, 1:21:45.680 --> 1:21:48.000 it would be fun if it did, but like, realistically, 1:21:48.040 --> 1:21:49.760 it's it's not, it's not gonna happen. And there is 1:21:49.760 --> 1:21:51.800 people on the subward who also point this out there 1:21:51.800 --> 1:21:54.559 there there was there was a reply to this post 1:21:54.640 --> 1:21:56.880 that was like, oh look, another online call for a 1:21:56.880 --> 1:21:59.800 general strike with no union support whatsoever. Don't worry y'all 1:22:00.000 --> 1:22:02.360 this one, this one is definitely gonna work. Um. So 1:22:02.400 --> 1:22:04.640 it's like, yeah, like there's a lot of people in 1:22:04.640 --> 1:22:07.519 the sub also recognize that like without like actual like 1:22:07.600 --> 1:22:10.600 organizing support um and in person stuff and you know 1:22:10.760 --> 1:22:13.960 networks to support people on like you know, lengthy strikes. 1:22:14.000 --> 1:22:17.160 These types of things are kind of are mostly symbolic 1:22:17.200 --> 1:22:21.280 actions that will have, you know, in the end, little 1:22:21.479 --> 1:22:26.000 little impact. Um. They may make you feel powerful as 1:22:26.040 --> 1:22:27.920 you're doing them, which is you know, which is good. 1:22:27.960 --> 1:22:30.200 That is a lot of activism is actually just just 1:22:30.280 --> 1:22:34.800 about you feeling powerful in that moment um. But you know, 1:22:35.040 --> 1:22:37.040 as as an end goals, remember it's important to be 1:22:37.360 --> 1:22:39.639 remember to think like it's not it's that this isn't 1:22:39.680 --> 1:22:42.880 you know, this isn't gonna reach whatever anti work utopia, 1:22:42.920 --> 1:22:46.240 which and I know people people organizing it aren't thinking that, 1:22:46.600 --> 1:22:48.880 but you know, it's it's it's important to keep this 1:22:48.920 --> 1:22:52.919 within context of like the limits of of of online organizing. 1:22:53.160 --> 1:22:54.800 You know. So a lot a lot of people like 1:22:54.800 --> 1:22:59.040 recommend you know, focusing on organizing your own workplace and community, um, 1:22:59.040 --> 1:23:03.280 discussing you know, discussing having discussions with with unions kind 1:23:03.280 --> 1:23:08.120 of in in your area. Um, and yeah, a part of, 1:23:08.120 --> 1:23:10.000 part of, part of kind of the part of the 1:23:10.040 --> 1:23:13.240 reply to to this original like a black Friday blackout 1:23:13.280 --> 1:23:18.639 post that that someone that someone wrote was was Seriously though, 1:23:18.800 --> 1:23:20.519 I would love for an actual gent general strike to 1:23:20.560 --> 1:23:22.679 kick off. But these online calls for gen general strikes, 1:23:22.680 --> 1:23:25.639 it's no union involvement, no demands, no supports for strikers 1:23:25.640 --> 1:23:29.000 of any kind, no nothing whatsoever beyond social media hashtags 1:23:29.040 --> 1:23:32.000 don't do anything. Focus on organizing or workplace and community 1:23:32.040 --> 1:23:35.799 discussed with unions which might be sympathetic to what criteria, uh, 1:23:35.880 --> 1:23:38.519 what criteria they might need from such a drastic action. 1:23:38.840 --> 1:23:40.960 There's a lot of unions on strike right now, so 1:23:41.000 --> 1:23:42.320 if there ever was a time to kick one off, 1:23:42.360 --> 1:23:44.760 it's now. Most general strikes in the past started off 1:23:44.800 --> 1:23:47.599 with specific strikes that started pulling in other union unions 1:23:47.720 --> 1:23:51.360 and solidarity than anything else. Focus on that and we 1:23:51.439 --> 1:23:53.439 might get somewhere. I think. Is it's a decent Is 1:23:53.479 --> 1:23:56.200 a decent advice for the people who are really dedicated 1:23:56.240 --> 1:23:58.920 onto this kind of like general strike thing is Yeah? 1:23:58.960 --> 1:24:01.599 That is that is? That is um, pretty pretty good 1:24:01.600 --> 1:24:05.720 advice in my opinion. I want to say something kind 1:24:05.760 --> 1:24:09.160 of briefly just in general about general strikes, because I 1:24:09.160 --> 1:24:12.920 think we've talked about it a lot on here, but 1:24:13.400 --> 1:24:15.920 they're really really hard. I mean, there there, there's there's 1:24:15.960 --> 1:24:18.120 an example, like and like just to just to get 1:24:18.160 --> 1:24:20.200 a picture of like how how actually hard it is 1:24:20.200 --> 1:24:22.559 to pull off. There was there was one in Sudan 1:24:22.680 --> 1:24:25.600 in in summer nineteen and you know, I mean this 1:24:25.640 --> 1:24:27.439 is this is in the middle of the revolution, right 1:24:28.000 --> 1:24:32.519 the the Sudan is incredibly highly organized, as incredibly militant. 1:24:32.600 --> 1:24:35.080 People have been like you know, I mean people like 1:24:35.439 --> 1:24:38.920 the like the chance in the street is like you 1:24:38.960 --> 1:24:42.559 cannot kill us. We already dead, like you know they 1:24:42.600 --> 1:24:45.160 and you know, and and it's the whole revolution is 1:24:45.200 --> 1:24:47.800 being led by the Student Professional Association, which is an 1:24:47.840 --> 1:24:51.280 association of like seventeen trade unions. Right, so this this 1:24:51.320 --> 1:24:55.479 is a population that is enormously better organized than like 1:24:55.600 --> 1:24:59.040 anything really that exists in the US. And you know, 1:24:59.160 --> 1:25:00.720 in in the middle of the summer at the army 1:25:00.760 --> 1:25:03.680 opens fire and starts killing protesters, and so they call 1:25:03.760 --> 1:25:06.640 general strike and you know, the turnout is massive, right, 1:25:06.640 --> 1:25:08.720 they have millions, millions upon millions of people show up 1:25:08.720 --> 1:25:12.760 to the strike, and on day one is successful, and 1:25:12.800 --> 1:25:14.840 then on day two of the strike, people start having 1:25:14.880 --> 1:25:16.960 to pull out, especially people the informal sector, because even 1:25:17.000 --> 1:25:19.080 with the level of organization they have, they can't support everyone. 1:25:19.600 --> 1:25:22.040 And by about day three, most of the strike is 1:25:22.040 --> 1:25:25.639 collapsed because even even with levels organization they had, even 1:25:25.720 --> 1:25:28.240 with you know, the coordination, even with the fact that 1:25:28.240 --> 1:25:31.160 they're in the middle of revolution, they just they couldn't 1:25:31.200 --> 1:25:34.120 support particularly people in the informal sector. So this stuff 1:25:34.200 --> 1:25:39.200 is really really really hard, and yeah, it is even 1:25:39.280 --> 1:25:42.960 it is definitely hard. Yeah, like even even highly organized, 1:25:43.040 --> 1:25:46.880 highly motivated people who are you know, like literally willing 1:25:46.920 --> 1:25:50.760 to fight to the death will lose. And that's that's 1:25:50.800 --> 1:25:52.840 something that you have to sort of keep in minds 1:25:53.040 --> 1:25:55.200 think when you're talking about this, because a lot of 1:25:55.240 --> 1:25:58.240 people are more focused on the kind of their individual resignations, 1:25:58.320 --> 1:26:00.519 finding other ways of making money, and just slacking off 1:26:00.560 --> 1:26:02.600 at work in general, because those are a lot a 1:26:02.600 --> 1:26:04.960 lot easier than trying to organize a general, a mass 1:26:05.080 --> 1:26:07.200 at general strike right now. And I think one of 1:26:07.200 --> 1:26:09.880 the really optimistic things about this whole anti work thing 1:26:09.920 --> 1:26:13.360 in including including the suburn, is that it has made 1:26:13.400 --> 1:26:16.559 some big executives kind of nervous. Um. There was a 1:26:16.600 --> 1:26:20.439 fantastic article by Yahoo Finance that by fantastic I mean 1:26:20.520 --> 1:26:23.720 funny for me. You know, they did not think it 1:26:23.760 --> 1:26:26.920 was as funny. Um about they talked with like the 1:26:27.280 --> 1:26:32.760 Golden Sacks CEO of and uh and they pointed to 1:26:33.240 --> 1:26:36.760 the anti work subarate it of being what was the 1:26:36.760 --> 1:26:41.760 what was the phrase, um, a long run risk to 1:26:42.000 --> 1:26:47.080 to labor force participation? Good? This is see that that 1:26:47.080 --> 1:26:49.479 When I first read that in the article, I just 1:26:49.560 --> 1:26:52.519 like flashed to my head in my head to that 1:26:52.600 --> 1:26:56.880 scene from Starship Troopers where Neil Patrick Harris puts his 1:26:56.920 --> 1:27:02.280 hand on the brain bug. It goes, it's afraid some raid. Yeah. Yeah, 1:27:02.360 --> 1:27:06.360 he said, uh, we see some risk that workers were 1:27:06.400 --> 1:27:09.320 elected will elect to maintain out of the workforce for longer, 1:27:09.520 --> 1:27:13.200 provided they can afford to do so. Of pretty pretty 1:27:13.280 --> 1:27:16.799 good stuff. And I think and everything that's worth mentioning 1:27:16.800 --> 1:27:19.120 that hasn't been talked about very much is that so 1:27:19.320 --> 1:27:21.439 this is actually kind of working in some sense, Like 1:27:21.479 --> 1:27:26.240 the last few months in general, last few months particular 1:27:26.400 --> 1:27:29.280 have seen basically like the highest levels of wage increases 1:27:29.320 --> 1:27:32.960 that we've seen in decades. So you know, like, yeah, 1:27:32.960 --> 1:27:36.120 we haven't overthrown capitalism yet. But like, if you can 1:27:36.200 --> 1:27:38.559 keep quitting your job, keep quitting your job at at 1:27:38.600 --> 1:27:42.959 your regular job, work less, keep doing it, it's working. Yeah, 1:27:43.000 --> 1:27:46.639 this is stuff I wish we need to in the future. 1:27:46.800 --> 1:27:49.160 I would like us to be focusing more on stuff 1:27:49.200 --> 1:27:51.759 like that, like this that is legitimately, as you point out, Chris, 1:27:51.800 --> 1:27:54.160 there's a lot of reasons to be very optimistic about 1:27:54.200 --> 1:27:57.360 about some of the numbers that we're getting from what 1:27:57.560 --> 1:28:01.519 is happening to labor right now. Um, and it is 1:28:01.560 --> 1:28:04.439 important as we all like right now we're all miserable 1:28:04.439 --> 1:28:06.880 because we're sweating through the rittenhouse case, it is important 1:28:06.920 --> 1:28:09.240 to talk about stuff like that that like, yeah, some 1:28:09.320 --> 1:28:12.800 ship people is doing is hitting home. Some motherfucker's have 1:28:12.840 --> 1:28:16.960 found the glowy vulnerable spot on the Boss Monster and 1:28:17.000 --> 1:28:22.160 it's yeah, it's just not working. Yeah. Like again, as 1:28:22.200 --> 1:28:25.240 we started the series with, like yeah, general strike is 1:28:25.240 --> 1:28:29.040 is kind of the best available solution, um or a 1:28:29.080 --> 1:28:33.839 path to a solution that I can find. Um But anyway, 1:28:34.200 --> 1:28:36.640 uh what what what what what? What? I think I 1:28:36.640 --> 1:28:38.720 think that that does it for us today. I know 1:28:42.720 --> 1:28:47.920 special special like sequel stuff happening. Uh so tune in 1:28:48.200 --> 1:28:52.360 tomorrow for our list, and like like all of the 1:28:52.400 --> 1:28:56.759 best sequels, this one will be directed by James Cameron. UM. 1:28:56.840 --> 1:28:59.760 So we're all very excited to bring our pal j 1:29:00.120 --> 1:29:02.519 sch the pod, to bring our pal James and the 1:29:02.560 --> 1:29:06.400 reanimated corpse of Stan Winston. Um. It's going to be amazing. 1:29:06.720 --> 1:29:26.040 So check it out by everybody. Fuck work, Hey, hey, hey, hey, 1:29:26.880 --> 1:29:30.120 good introduction. I'm Robert Evans. This is it could happen here. 1:29:30.280 --> 1:29:34.000 That was Chris Garrison's also here, so is Sophie, who 1:29:34.080 --> 1:29:36.720 is changing her name to Sophie. What is your new name? 1:29:37.240 --> 1:29:40.559 Sophie dot Com Arena, Sophie dot Com Arena. She's doing 1:29:40.560 --> 1:29:42.080 this to deal with the trauma of the fact that 1:29:42.160 --> 1:29:44.360 Los Angeles just agreed to change the name of the 1:29:44.479 --> 1:29:49.200 Chase Bank Arena to the Crypto dot Com Center. Oh, 1:29:49.240 --> 1:29:52.840 Staples Center, Sorry, I'm getting my arena's named after Veno 1:29:53.000 --> 1:30:00.519 Brand's mixed up Nay. Speaking of the pointlessness of work, 1:30:01.120 --> 1:30:05.200 there are people laboring right now who worked at Staples 1:30:05.320 --> 1:30:07.439 so that Staples would have enough money to name a 1:30:07.439 --> 1:30:10.040 place where people go do sports after a place where 1:30:10.040 --> 1:30:15.840 people get fucking pencils. Um. And now Staples has declined 1:30:15.960 --> 1:30:20.799 enough that it's just crypto dot com. Fucking Crypto dot Com, 1:30:20.800 --> 1:30:26.719 book Upon, Look Upon the Worst Cryptocurrency e formerly Mighty 1:30:26.840 --> 1:30:32.280 Staples in despair, fucking the osman dius of the Office 1:30:32.280 --> 1:30:35.599 supply World. I don't know, whatever, what are we talking about? 1:30:36.040 --> 1:30:41.160 We're going to no that comes in the middle, but 1:30:41.479 --> 1:30:43.759 right now we're gonna go to a place where they 1:30:43.960 --> 1:30:46.960 banned crypto mining for the most part. So and that 1:30:46.960 --> 1:30:50.240 that place is China. And I wanted to talk about 1:30:50.840 --> 1:30:53.040 specifically a lot of us been going on the Chinese Internet, 1:30:53.120 --> 1:30:57.519 what's been going on Chinese labor because so Garrison Garrison 1:30:57.520 --> 1:30:59.559 told me we're doing the Atgework episode, and I went, oh, yeah, 1:30:59.600 --> 1:31:02.559 there's a there's you know, there's a version of this 1:31:02.600 --> 1:31:05.759 in China. And then I realized that like a almost 1:31:05.760 --> 1:31:08.559 no one has heard of lying flat and be it 1:31:08.800 --> 1:31:11.760 rules and see that nobody really know in the US 1:31:11.880 --> 1:31:14.040 knows what's going on in the Chinese Internet because it's 1:31:14.840 --> 1:31:17.360 effectively siloed. And I mean, you know, there's there's there's 1:31:17.360 --> 1:31:18.960 there's there's lots of different way to silo. I mean 1:31:18.960 --> 1:31:21.679 there's there's literally the Great Firewall, there's factors in different languages, 1:31:21.720 --> 1:31:23.400 people use different apps, and you know, the Internet has 1:31:23.400 --> 1:31:25.680 become this sort of like you know, it's it's it's 1:31:25.720 --> 1:31:27.800 it's a bunch of bubbles that don't interact with each other. Yeah, 1:31:27.800 --> 1:31:30.599 the wald Garden thing, and it's you know, the sort 1:31:30.600 --> 1:31:34.320 of national level wald Garden stuff is I think in 1:31:34.360 --> 1:31:37.519 a lot of ways, way more dangerous than the stuff 1:31:37.560 --> 1:31:39.400 you know that like people complaining about if what sucond 1:31:39.400 --> 1:31:41.400 Audie logical bubble and like that's bad. But the fact 1:31:41.400 --> 1:31:45.760 that we have bubbles like this where it's like you know, 1:31:46.120 --> 1:31:49.519 the like with with like actual they basically borders but 1:31:49.640 --> 1:31:54.120 online Yeah, yeah, because they're enforced by governments with forces. Yeah. Yeah, 1:31:54.200 --> 1:31:57.280 the place it was always going to go. Um, once 1:31:57.320 --> 1:32:00.240 we decided not to be rad with the internet, which 1:32:00.240 --> 1:32:07.560 everyone collectively decided in I'm going to say one thousand four. Yeah, 1:32:07.760 --> 1:32:09.640 do you think do you think do do you think? 1:32:09.680 --> 1:32:13.479 Do you think that was nine eleven fault? Nine eleven 1:32:13.479 --> 1:32:16.360 played a role. Nine eleven did play a role. Um, 1:32:16.520 --> 1:32:19.519 the dot com boom played another role. Um, there were 1:32:19.520 --> 1:32:23.519 there there there were a number of factors. Um, but 1:32:24.080 --> 1:32:27.080 we can all blame it on let's blame it on 1:32:27.120 --> 1:32:31.240 low tax and continue so anti work in China before 1:32:31.240 --> 1:32:34.400 we get into lying flat, which is China's version of 1:32:34.400 --> 1:32:37.400 anti work. Isn't the right word because this actually started 1:32:37.400 --> 1:32:40.880 a few months before sort of anti work blew up 1:32:40.880 --> 1:32:43.479 in the US. But before we fully get into that, 1:32:44.680 --> 1:32:46.280 to understand what's going on here, we need to talk 1:32:46.280 --> 1:32:49.840 about something called involution. And did you say that again? 1:32:49.880 --> 1:32:56.640 Like inval involution in involution? Yeah, so this this, this 1:32:56.680 --> 1:32:59.840 is this is originally this is a very obscure anthropological 1:33:00.240 --> 1:33:04.120 developed by my old nemesis, Clifford Geertz, who's one of 1:33:04.240 --> 1:33:07.080 the most famous and most important anthropologists in history, who 1:33:07.120 --> 1:33:09.840 also sucks ass and I hate him. I thought your 1:33:09.920 --> 1:33:14.480 nemesis was Noam Chomsky. Yes, also, but for different reasons. 1:33:14.600 --> 1:33:19.400 Should I cancel the hit sub sub nemesis something I 1:33:19.840 --> 1:33:22.080 have many? I have many nemesses that I have been 1:33:22.200 --> 1:33:27.679 on the side God here, Jodi Dean episode at some point. Now, 1:33:28.600 --> 1:33:32.960 thank you. I appreciate allies in my one person intellectual wars, 1:33:34.040 --> 1:33:36.519 although this does seem to be a pretty boring intellectual war. 1:33:37.880 --> 1:33:43.800 Yeah said most of them. Yeah yeah, but what what 1:33:43.800 --> 1:33:46.200 what Gears was describing? Basically, so she doesn't feel work 1:33:46.200 --> 1:33:49.599 in Java? And what are you describing what what involution means. 1:33:49.640 --> 1:33:51.880 It's the system where people keep working harder and harder 1:33:51.920 --> 1:33:54.200 for there's no increase in output, and so that there's 1:33:54.200 --> 1:33:56.960 no there's no rewards for working harder. And so you know, 1:33:57.120 --> 1:33:59.400 in Java, you'd have these plantations, right, and the plantations 1:33:59.360 --> 1:34:01.479 would get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. But 1:34:01.760 --> 1:34:04.439 because each new person was only like harvesting just enough 1:34:04.479 --> 1:34:08.160 to feed themselves, you never actually got any productivity increases. 1:34:08.160 --> 1:34:10.920 And so you know, yeah, there's no there's no output 1:34:10.960 --> 1:34:15.200 increases and in really the case in America in a 1:34:15.200 --> 1:34:19.200 lot of ways. Yeah, and what's interesting, Well, okay, so 1:34:19.640 --> 1:34:21.400 the reason I want to talk about this also is 1:34:21.439 --> 1:34:25.320 because basically everyone who's been writing about this sormation news 1:34:25.320 --> 1:34:27.840 outlets has missed about half of the story of how 1:34:28.000 --> 1:34:31.600 how this like incredibly obscure anthropological term that like I 1:34:31.640 --> 1:34:33.599 don't like again, I was an anthropology major. I don't 1:34:33.640 --> 1:34:35.439 think I ever ran into involution while like while I 1:34:35.479 --> 1:34:39.120 was studying anthropology. Yeah, and no one has ever heard 1:34:39.120 --> 1:34:42.960 of this, Like fucking everyone in China has like it's 1:34:43.000 --> 1:34:47.719 like a treatise they can spout at you about this now. Um. Yeah, 1:34:47.760 --> 1:34:49.160 and and you know I want to talk a bit 1:34:49.160 --> 1:34:52.400 about how to emerge. And part of this is because 1:34:53.439 --> 1:34:56.080 you know, in the last about two years, people be 1:34:56.080 --> 1:34:59.080 getting increasingly piste off at you know, just the sort 1:34:59.080 --> 1:35:02.320 of incredibly comp editive nature of Chinese society and particularly work. 1:35:02.520 --> 1:35:05.280 And you know a lot of this is because everyone's 1:35:05.320 --> 1:35:08.719 working what's what's called, which is nine am to nine pm, 1:35:08.760 --> 1:35:11.120 six days a week. And as actually do you make 1:35:11.120 --> 1:35:13.599 this good? When I say everyone, that's like an average schedule. 1:35:13.640 --> 1:35:15.920 The schedules get a lot worse than that, but the 1:35:16.040 --> 1:35:17.680 nine six is the one that sort of gets the 1:35:17.680 --> 1:35:20.040 attention because a lot of people work in especially the 1:35:20.080 --> 1:35:22.519 tech industry. This is you know, as we do. But 1:35:22.640 --> 1:35:24.679 you know, everyone focused on the tech industry, everyone ignores 1:35:24.760 --> 1:35:27.120 a bunch of market workers who also do this and worse. 1:35:28.040 --> 1:35:30.519 And you know, there's just a normal societal pressure to 1:35:30.560 --> 1:35:32.920 sort of keep moving and keep competing and keep working. 1:35:33.040 --> 1:35:36.280 And simultaneously, you know, people in China today are working 1:35:36.840 --> 1:35:40.360 like basically as hard as anyone's worked in China since 1:35:40.439 --> 1:35:43.000 like people would literally collapse a bostion in the fields 1:35:43.000 --> 1:35:46.080 and the great leap forward, like that's a lot of 1:35:46.080 --> 1:35:49.960 people are working this hard. And but but instead of 1:35:50.040 --> 1:35:52.360 you know, getting rewards for this. Chinese growth rates have 1:35:52.400 --> 1:35:56.559 been collapsing for a decade, and yeah, this is you know, 1:35:56.600 --> 1:35:57.800 this is this is the thing that you get. In 1:35:57.840 --> 1:35:59.479 the U s too, was like well okay, people were like, well, 1:35:59.479 --> 1:36:01.280 if you work out to get into the middle class, 1:36:01.320 --> 1:36:04.760 but then you know everyone's working nine six, No one's 1:36:04.760 --> 1:36:08.040 getting into the middle class. The like, China has incredibly 1:36:08.080 --> 1:36:12.400 low rates of social ability, and you know it into 1:36:12.479 --> 1:36:16.040 this comes involution. But the weird part of what what's 1:36:16.040 --> 1:36:22.440 happening here is that involution doesn't enter the Chinese discourse 1:36:23.040 --> 1:36:26.240 through like people complaining about work. It's it's actually a 1:36:26.240 --> 1:36:28.760 product of a bunch of middle class people complaining about 1:36:28.800 --> 1:36:31.320 Chinese industrial policy. And this is the hardest story that 1:36:31.320 --> 1:36:33.400 nobody really talks about, even though I think it's it's 1:36:33.400 --> 1:36:37.240 really interesting because again, like this, you know, anti anti 1:36:37.240 --> 1:36:40.920 work in in the US stars and the left right involution, 1:36:41.000 --> 1:36:42.599 which is the thing that's going to bring about sort 1:36:42.600 --> 1:36:45.080 of the Chinese version of anti work is the right 1:36:45.080 --> 1:36:48.840 way is originally right wing discourse, um and and it's interesting, 1:36:48.880 --> 1:36:51.640 it's it's it's a right wing, very nationalist discourse that 1:36:51.680 --> 1:36:53.559 gets you know, the right wing part of it gets 1:36:53.640 --> 1:36:57.880 essentially expunged and it gets pulled left. So originally, you know, 1:36:58.400 --> 1:37:02.160 China is h I don't have a more elegant way 1:37:02.200 --> 1:37:05.439 of saying this than China's leaders and more online than ours, 1:37:06.280 --> 1:37:09.639 like significantly more like they actually that's right, that's hard 1:37:09.680 --> 1:37:15.759 to abash it. It's people people like like local government 1:37:15.880 --> 1:37:19.799 offices right have like they have these like internal sites 1:37:20.160 --> 1:37:22.720 that like show them what people are posting. And this 1:37:22.720 --> 1:37:24.000 this goes from the from the bottom levels, it goes 1:37:24.040 --> 1:37:27.719 away to the top. Like people actually listen to bloggers, 1:37:27.720 --> 1:37:29.360 like like they're there, you know some of them, some 1:37:29.400 --> 1:37:31.680 of the people I'm about to talk about it are 1:37:31.720 --> 1:37:34.080 incredibly influential. And there's a bunch of arguments in the 1:37:34.080 --> 1:37:36.640 early two thousands about how China is gonna industrialize and 1:37:36.680 --> 1:37:41.479 these are basically online arguments. Um and the guys who 1:37:41.479 --> 1:37:45.879 win that argument, right, she Shanping basically takes their industrial 1:37:45.880 --> 1:37:48.519 policy and implements it, which is you know, which is 1:37:48.520 --> 1:37:50.519 which is scales? Like how online these people are that Like, yeah, 1:37:50.520 --> 1:37:53.080 people are taking acont policy from like literally, I mean, 1:37:53.120 --> 1:37:54.639 you know, it's it's not solely that I don't take 1:37:54.640 --> 1:37:57.439 a policy. People arguing on the internet. This is this 1:37:57.479 --> 1:38:00.400 is an incredibly online society and it you know, but 1:38:00.640 --> 1:38:02.840 the worst part is that for a while it works. 1:38:04.080 --> 1:38:05.920 You know that the ECHINAR policy basically is they're getting 1:38:05.920 --> 1:38:07.880 increased the size of the Chinese economy by investing in 1:38:07.920 --> 1:38:09.960 sort of high tech industry and moving up the value chain. 1:38:10.000 --> 1:38:11.760 This this has been very standards or Chinese second on 1:38:11.800 --> 1:38:14.479 policy for a while. Um, the problem is in the 1:38:14.520 --> 1:38:18.680 last about decade, it's it's it's stopped working. And you know, 1:38:18.720 --> 1:38:21.200 the CCPs response was to do more financialization, and this 1:38:21.280 --> 1:38:23.960 piste off the like the the online they were they 1:38:23.960 --> 1:38:25.720 were called like the industrial Party. This this is off 1:38:25.720 --> 1:38:28.760 those guys because you know, the whole thing was don't financialize, 1:38:28.840 --> 1:38:32.040 just keep investing in like building airplanes and stuff, and 1:38:32.040 --> 1:38:36.160 the Chinese economies will work itself out. And but eventually 1:38:36.200 --> 1:38:39.160 even they can't keep making this argument because you know, 1:38:39.240 --> 1:38:41.160 I mean like like he doesn't tend right, Like the 1:38:41.479 --> 1:38:44.639 Chinese GDP growth rate was ten percent and now it's 1:38:44.680 --> 1:38:47.519 like maybe five and last year, I mean last year twenties, 1:38:47.600 --> 1:38:49.120 so you know it was really low. But I mean 1:38:49.160 --> 1:38:53.720 the Chinese growth rate has been imploding. And so what 1:38:54.000 --> 1:38:55.280 you get out of this is is this group of 1:38:55.320 --> 1:38:59.679 people called the Cooists based on this guy named Cow. Okay, 1:38:59.680 --> 1:39:02.600 so how is the guy who who who essentially introduces 1:39:03.000 --> 1:39:07.880 the concept of involution and he's arguing that this is 1:39:07.920 --> 1:39:12.320 happening because I'm gonna quote him here, people can't get 1:39:12.400 --> 1:39:15.160 quote a peaceful life, get a pretty girl, live in 1:39:15.160 --> 1:39:18.360 a big house because of the US. And so there's 1:39:18.400 --> 1:39:20.800 the solution to this, basically is is to deal with 1:39:20.880 --> 1:39:23.240 but to destroy America as a hedgemon. And then once 1:39:23.320 --> 1:39:26.040 you do that, you know you can get all of 1:39:26.080 --> 1:39:27.800 these things. And as you can tell, like, you know, okay, 1:39:28.240 --> 1:39:30.280 peaceful life, get a pretty girl, live in a big house. 1:39:30.320 --> 1:39:33.840 This this is like a very conservative framing of this. Yeah, yeah, 1:39:33.840 --> 1:39:35.479 I mean this is this is the Chinese equivalent of 1:39:35.560 --> 1:39:37.280 two point five kids in a white picket fence. And 1:39:37.360 --> 1:39:39.439 it has all of this sort of associated gender politics 1:39:39.439 --> 1:39:42.439 and class politics to go along with that. And you know, 1:39:42.560 --> 1:39:44.919 and when when Cow and the Cows you're talking about involution, 1:39:44.920 --> 1:39:47.439 what they're talking about is they're literally they literally mean 1:39:47.520 --> 1:39:50.240 Chinese diegnated economy, right, so that they're talking about, okay, 1:39:50.240 --> 1:39:52.200 that you have more inputs, you have labor, technology inputs, 1:39:52.240 --> 1:39:54.000 but the output for input is declining, and the only 1:39:54.040 --> 1:39:57.120 way to restore economic growth the chief prosperity is by 1:39:57.160 --> 1:40:01.599 solving a decline output by defeating the Americans. But you know, 1:40:01.720 --> 1:40:03.680 and this this is kind of a big deal. And 1:40:03.760 --> 1:40:06.280 for a while in sort of like twenty this this is, 1:40:06.360 --> 1:40:10.559 this is going places, but very quickly people are like, 1:40:10.960 --> 1:40:13.760 my life fucking sucks, Like I don't care about this 1:40:13.800 --> 1:40:16.760 econ ship or this like grand national struggle against the 1:40:16.760 --> 1:40:19.160 world hedgemon, Like I care about the fact that, like 1:40:19.320 --> 1:40:22.360 my life is this incredibly pointless, ever escalating rat race 1:40:22.400 --> 1:40:25.439 with like literally no rewards. Yeah, that would that would 1:40:25.439 --> 1:40:27.760 concern me too, if that were a thing that we 1:40:27.760 --> 1:40:31.200 were capable of feeling in our country. Yeah, it's why 1:40:31.479 --> 1:40:33.840 there there's been some really funny stuff with involution, where 1:40:33.840 --> 1:40:37.439 like you read accounts of it and you'll get like 1:40:37.680 --> 1:40:39.720 anthropologists going like, oh, yeah, this is this is the 1:40:39.760 --> 1:40:41.519 thing that this is the thing that's unique to China, 1:40:41.560 --> 1:40:45.400 and it's like have have you worked a job in 1:40:45.400 --> 1:40:51.240 in the US? Like, but you know involution, you know 1:40:51.520 --> 1:40:53.360 what happens to it over over the course of sort 1:40:53.360 --> 1:40:56.640 of it goes from being the general you know, it 1:40:56.760 --> 1:40:58.360 goes it goes from being this thing that's about like 1:40:59.000 --> 1:41:02.799 very specific like technical industrial arguments about industrial policy too 1:41:03.880 --> 1:41:06.880 is when one anthropologists put it, quote the experience of 1:41:06.920 --> 1:41:10.120 being locked in competition that one ultimately knows as meaningless. 1:41:11.760 --> 1:41:15.640 And so people are, yeah, we couldn't, we couldn't imagine that. 1:41:15.720 --> 1:41:19.519 This is yeah, and it's you know, and people people 1:41:19.520 --> 1:41:23.200 start talking about finding individual solutions to this, and so 1:41:23.320 --> 1:41:25.120 you know, then this is things like working last, moving 1:41:25.160 --> 1:41:29.800 to lower tier cities, getting less protgious jobs. Um, but 1:41:29.880 --> 1:41:31.559 you know, and I want to think about this again 1:41:31.600 --> 1:41:36.120 because this this is a really interesting thing where you 1:41:36.200 --> 1:41:40.760 have a very incredibly right wing, nationalistic and sort of 1:41:40.800 --> 1:41:45.040 like like middle class like nostalgia kind of like you know, 1:41:46.000 --> 1:41:50.880 like Milt aggressive foreign policy thing and then it just 1:41:51.280 --> 1:41:54.800 flips and and part of how it flips and this 1:41:54.840 --> 1:41:58.639 is a part of the story that is almost completely ignored, 1:41:58.720 --> 1:42:00.880 but I think it's really important. Did you guys know 1:42:00.880 --> 1:42:04.080 about There's the YouTuber named leads It. She she's the 1:42:04.120 --> 1:42:07.599 biggest Chinese YouTuber. She has sixteen million followers, and most 1:42:07.600 --> 1:42:09.800 of her followers are not on YouTube because you know, 1:42:09.840 --> 1:42:12.920 YouTube like blocked by the firewall, but she has she 1:42:12.960 --> 1:42:17.479 has fifty five million followers on the sort of Chinese 1:42:17.560 --> 1:42:20.519 version of TikTok, and yeah, she has across the world. 1:42:20.520 --> 1:42:23.040 She has a hundred million followers, right she she's she's 1:42:23.080 --> 1:42:25.080 one of the biggest media stars in the world. And 1:42:25.800 --> 1:42:28.720 her origins are kind of unclear. The like official biography 1:42:29.040 --> 1:42:31.040 basically says that like when she was twelve, instead of 1:42:31.040 --> 1:42:33.200 going to high school, she's being a waitress, and then 1:42:33.240 --> 1:42:34.800 she had to like you know, but she she she'd 1:42:34.800 --> 1:42:36.080 gone to the city and then she had to return 1:42:36.120 --> 1:42:38.360 to Revels to take care of her grandma. And she 1:42:38.439 --> 1:42:41.920 makes his videos that are these like very soft and 1:42:42.040 --> 1:42:44.720 calming videos or like calming music of her going into 1:42:44.760 --> 1:42:47.559 the woods and like harvesting materials and making fires out 1:42:47.560 --> 1:42:51.720 of logs and like cooking things. Okay, and it's it's 1:42:51.760 --> 1:42:53.240 it's just like it's you know, it's it's very much 1:42:53.280 --> 1:42:57.599 this this really utopianism. There's there's basically no industrial technology 1:42:57.880 --> 1:43:02.240 like cottage coor returned to nature. Yeah. Yeah, I know 1:43:02.280 --> 1:43:03.840 a lot of people who watched it like that just 1:43:03.880 --> 1:43:05.880 to like soothe them after a day of work. Like 1:43:06.000 --> 1:43:08.800 see somebody like dig a cave and turn it into 1:43:08.920 --> 1:43:12.519 like a bath or something. Using just hand tools or whatever. Yeah, 1:43:12.560 --> 1:43:14.519 and there's it's interesting this kind of almost like turned 1:43:14.520 --> 1:43:19.360 into a sub genre. But she's by far the biggest 1:43:19.760 --> 1:43:22.880 like version of this. And you know, so she she 1:43:22.880 --> 1:43:26.360 gets picked up by a media company and from goes 1:43:26.439 --> 1:43:30.160 viral and you know, and interesting because so she's doing 1:43:30.200 --> 1:43:32.599 this because so she she has to go back to 1:43:32.760 --> 1:43:34.519 take care of her grandma, and so she like opens 1:43:34.520 --> 1:43:37.000 a store and she's trying to support herself but and 1:43:37.080 --> 1:43:38.760 like her grandma by opening a store, and so the 1:43:38.840 --> 1:43:41.360 videos were like a way to promote the store. And 1:43:41.400 --> 1:43:43.600 then you know, now she has a hundred million followers 1:43:43.640 --> 1:43:45.559 and she she gets adopted as this kind of like 1:43:45.560 --> 1:43:49.800 like national culture ambassador, I guess by the state. Sure, 1:43:50.320 --> 1:43:51.960 And and it's justestly you know, so there's nothing overtly 1:43:52.000 --> 1:43:54.639 political about these videos at all, right, which is especially 1:43:54.720 --> 1:43:56.880 offering and like trying to sell is this you know, 1:43:56.920 --> 1:43:59.840 this like fantasy of retreat from industrial majority into world life. 1:44:00.080 --> 1:44:02.040 And I think it's really easy to look at that 1:44:02.120 --> 1:44:04.519 esthetic can go like this is basically fascist, Like this 1:44:04.560 --> 1:44:07.200 is reject majority embraced tre it issues. Some people online 1:44:07.479 --> 1:44:10.240 when they see that immediately sees after I was like, oh, no, 1:44:10.280 --> 1:44:13.920 it's eco fascist. Um, yes, I think that. Yeah, And 1:44:13.960 --> 1:44:16.400 I think, you know, and I think like that interpretation, 1:44:16.439 --> 1:44:18.240 I think is actually a lot of y I got 1:44:18.280 --> 1:44:20.160 picked up by the Chinese, by Chinese media companies and 1:44:20.160 --> 1:44:23.000 then like sort of by the Chinese state because you know, 1:44:23.120 --> 1:44:26.559 like having an actual positive utopian image of rural life 1:44:26.600 --> 1:44:28.160 is politically useul with them and something that's like not 1:44:28.760 --> 1:44:32.519 hasn't been true since like we've had this for a 1:44:32.560 --> 1:44:35.639 long time. Yeah, well no, and I think I would 1:44:35.640 --> 1:44:37.080 say this. I think this is the thing that's different 1:44:37.080 --> 1:44:39.080 in China is that there hasn't been like a positive 1:44:39.080 --> 1:44:43.880 conception of rural life really since I guess the Great 1:44:43.960 --> 1:44:46.200 le Forwards and then are like there were some people 1:44:46.200 --> 1:44:47.760 in the Cultural Revolution, but then they actually went there 1:44:47.760 --> 1:44:50.720 and we're like, oh god, this sucks, and so you know, 1:44:50.800 --> 1:44:52.280 so they didn't even a new one they come up 1:44:52.280 --> 1:44:55.799 with this. But you know, the thing that's different about 1:44:55.920 --> 1:44:59.559 China than the US is that China's might get worker 1:44:59.600 --> 1:45:02.320 population should like is almost the entire size of the 1:45:02.360 --> 1:45:04.760 population of the US. I mean it's it's like twenty 1:45:04.800 --> 1:45:07.040 million people, right, I mean it's it's enormous and a 1:45:07.120 --> 1:45:09.040 huge number of these people. You know, I'm some of 1:45:09.040 --> 1:45:10.960 these people are going from like city to city. You're 1:45:11.000 --> 1:45:12.120 like town of town, but a lot of these people 1:45:12.160 --> 1:45:15.680 are coming from from rural villages into cities. And you know, 1:45:15.760 --> 1:45:17.160 I mean these are this is this is the background 1:45:17.160 --> 1:45:18.880 of the Chinese workforce. And like these people like they 1:45:19.080 --> 1:45:22.559 see their family once a year because you know, like 1:45:22.600 --> 1:45:24.760 they can't afford to go home, so they go home 1:45:24.880 --> 1:45:26.519 once a year for New Year's because they get some time. 1:45:26.560 --> 1:45:29.880 Often they come back and and this is where you know, 1:45:30.400 --> 1:45:33.640 like these videos are an obvious fantasy, but you know, 1:45:33.680 --> 1:45:36.040 they suggest an alternative to work in the capitalist city 1:45:36.080 --> 1:45:37.680 that's sort of plausible, you know, especially if you come 1:45:37.720 --> 1:45:40.800 from rural village. And this is where this whole thing 1:45:41.160 --> 1:45:45.439 completely backfires on the Chinese ruling class. And you know, 1:45:45.479 --> 1:45:48.519 because this this, this this cowisted involution discourse is about 1:45:48.520 --> 1:45:52.680 diffuse with this style of rural rural utopianism into a 1:45:52.720 --> 1:45:54.960 movement that is going to shake the foundation of work itself. 1:45:55.479 --> 1:46:00.400 But first, but first, ads again all sudden not connecting 1:46:00.439 --> 1:46:04.760 to anything we're talking. Why Garrison don't even bring that up. 1:46:04.840 --> 1:46:07.400 There's no needs, there's no reason for people to think 1:46:07.520 --> 1:46:11.160 about about the fact that about that. Don't think anyway, 1:46:11.280 --> 1:46:16.240 here's about ads. Yeah, think about the Washington State Highway 1:46:16.240 --> 1:46:19.880 Patrol primary sponsors. If it could happen here, if it 1:46:19.920 --> 1:46:25.639 happens to you, you'll want the Washington State Highway Patrol 1:46:27.040 --> 1:46:31.200 the border. It's so funny. Anyway, we're trying to but 1:46:31.479 --> 1:46:34.200 I think it's we're working on it. People. I think 1:46:34.240 --> 1:46:39.080 it's hilarious. Yeah, please don't, please don't join the Washington 1:46:39.160 --> 1:46:44.240 State Highway Patrol. We're back. And I don't know about y'all, 1:46:44.280 --> 1:46:46.920 but I thought I knew what I was talking about, 1:46:47.000 --> 1:46:50.160 and I after those ads, I am fully Washington State 1:46:50.240 --> 1:46:53.839 Highway Patrol build. I'm on board. Let's do it. Yeah. 1:46:54.000 --> 1:46:57.080 In April of a guy in Chinese social media makes 1:46:57.120 --> 1:47:02.960 a post and I'm just gonna started. So, yeah, I'm 1:47:02.960 --> 1:47:04.559 just gonna read this post because it's kind of short 1:47:04.560 --> 1:47:07.639 and it rules. I haven't been working for two years. 1:47:07.880 --> 1:47:09.720 I have just been hanging around, and I don't see 1:47:09.720 --> 1:47:12.639 anything wrong with This pressure mainly comes from the generation 1:47:12.680 --> 1:47:14.799 with your peers and the values of the older generation. 1:47:15.200 --> 1:47:18.080 These pressures keep popping up, but we don't have to 1:47:18.080 --> 1:47:20.680 abide by these norms. I can live like Diogenes and 1:47:20.720 --> 1:47:24.680 sleep in a wooden bucket. I can live like Heracletus 1:47:24.720 --> 1:47:27.519 in a cave thinking about logos. Since this land has 1:47:27.560 --> 1:47:30.160 never had a school thought that upholds human subjectivity, I 1:47:30.200 --> 1:47:32.560 can develop one of my own. Lying down is my 1:47:32.600 --> 1:47:35.800 philosophical movements. Only through lying flat can humans become the 1:47:35.840 --> 1:47:40.639 measure of all things based. Oh my god, that's the best. 1:47:40.920 --> 1:47:45.519 I love that. Can I talk about Diogenes now? So 1:47:46.120 --> 1:47:50.040 my my man Diogenes is he's from this trennd in 1:47:50.160 --> 1:47:53.200 Greek philosophical thought during kind of the high period of 1:47:53.920 --> 1:47:57.640 Greek civilization where a bunch of things come out of it. 1:47:57.680 --> 1:48:00.519 You kind of get anarchism, Western anarchism out of it, 1:48:00.840 --> 1:48:04.040 you kind of get you get elements of like Puritan 1:48:04.240 --> 1:48:05.960 culture from it, because there are a lot of them 1:48:05.960 --> 1:48:08.640 are very much anti like the pleasures of sex and 1:48:08.680 --> 1:48:11.080 like anything pleasing, and like you don't you don't do 1:48:11.160 --> 1:48:13.400 anything that feels good because then you become dependent on it. 1:48:13.400 --> 1:48:15.840 Like there's whole bunch of ship going on um. And 1:48:15.880 --> 1:48:18.120 Diogenes was like one of the one of the first 1:48:18.160 --> 1:48:21.040 motherfucker's who were kind of playing around in this in 1:48:21.120 --> 1:48:25.280 this philosophical space. And when he gets into so his 1:48:25.400 --> 1:48:30.360 early life is his dad is uh kind of a grifter. 1:48:30.520 --> 1:48:33.599 It sounds like we know that he got in trouble. 1:48:33.640 --> 1:48:37.479 He and his dad got exiled for debasing currency, which 1:48:37.560 --> 1:48:40.680 could be as simple as they were watering down for 1:48:40.760 --> 1:48:42.679 lack of a better term, like the gold or silver 1:48:42.800 --> 1:48:45.400 and currency with less precious metals and hiding it in 1:48:45.520 --> 1:48:47.600 order to make a profit, right and like keep the 1:48:47.640 --> 1:48:50.000 extra gold. That could be what they were doing. It 1:48:50.040 --> 1:48:52.400 also could have been like it could have been political 1:48:52.439 --> 1:48:55.160 because some people who were doing this in Sinope, I 1:48:55.160 --> 1:48:57.439 think is the city which is now in Turkey. We're 1:48:57.439 --> 1:48:59.679 doing it for political reasons. We don't really know why. 1:49:00.080 --> 1:49:03.240 But there's actual documented archaeological evidence of this, including right 1:49:03.240 --> 1:49:05.080 around the time he would have been a child. We 1:49:05.200 --> 1:49:09.439 found from that period a cash of debased gold and 1:49:09.479 --> 1:49:11.920 silver coins that had been destroyed, so someone had like 1:49:11.960 --> 1:49:14.719 realized they've been debased and destroyed them so they couldn't 1:49:14.760 --> 1:49:16.720 be used. So there's evidence. Anyway, he and his dad 1:49:16.720 --> 1:49:19.040 get exiled, which means from an early stage he goes 1:49:19.080 --> 1:49:22.560 from being someone of means, if your dad's making the currency, 1:49:22.640 --> 1:49:27.200 you're not probably not like a poor family um. And 1:49:27.240 --> 1:49:29.040 then they get kicked out of their city state and 1:49:29.080 --> 1:49:33.800 they're like kind of stateless. And so Diogenes evolves over 1:49:33.880 --> 1:49:36.559 time and like gets into philosophy. He tries to there's 1:49:36.600 --> 1:49:38.280 this I always forget the name of the guy that 1:49:38.360 --> 1:49:41.320 he he loved it first. But there's this philosopher who's like, 1:49:41.439 --> 1:49:44.240 you know this cynical like that's the school of thought 1:49:44.240 --> 1:49:46.600 he comes from. He's like a cynic um that Diogenes 1:49:46.640 --> 1:49:48.760 really wants to study from. And the guy like assaults 1:49:48.840 --> 1:49:51.080 him as as Diogenes is like, hey, man, I want 1:49:51.080 --> 1:49:53.400 to learn from you, Like he like hits him or something. 1:49:53.680 --> 1:49:56.920 This keeps happening, and eventually he's like this guy is 1:49:56.960 --> 1:49:59.240 like why do you keep doing this? And Diogenes is like, 1:49:59.640 --> 1:50:02.240 you have something I can learn from, uh, And so 1:50:02.280 --> 1:50:03.720 I don't really care what you do to me. I'm 1:50:03.760 --> 1:50:05.640 gonna I'm gonna keep persisting. And so he becomes this 1:50:05.680 --> 1:50:08.360 guy's student, YadA YadA. And the guy who he becomes 1:50:08.400 --> 1:50:10.519 the student of is like kind of a poser because 1:50:10.560 --> 1:50:12.720 he's talking about like we need to give up you know, 1:50:12.800 --> 1:50:15.960 these kind of like pleasures of of like civilized life 1:50:15.960 --> 1:50:18.639 and and return to a more simple time and like 1:50:18.920 --> 1:50:21.280 not enjoy all of these, you know, the benefits of wealth, 1:50:21.320 --> 1:50:23.000 but he like he's also a rich guy and he 1:50:23.040 --> 1:50:26.040 doesn't give up his money. And Diogenes is like poor 1:50:26.080 --> 1:50:29.240 as hell um and stays that way. Um. And so 1:50:29.280 --> 1:50:31.160 he becomes famous for he goes to Athens and he 1:50:31.160 --> 1:50:33.640 becomes famous for a bunch of like troll ship. We 1:50:33.680 --> 1:50:36.400 don't actually have He wrote like ten books, we don't 1:50:36.439 --> 1:50:38.720 have any of them, so we don't actually like know 1:50:39.040 --> 1:50:41.840 what he actually wrote in his philosophy. We just have 1:50:42.040 --> 1:50:44.920 stories from other philosophers and it's all Diogenes being a 1:50:44.960 --> 1:50:49.960 fucking troll. So like um. On one occasion. He one 1:50:50.040 --> 1:50:52.880 of his big things was he believed that people that 1:50:52.960 --> 1:50:55.640 if if something was an acceptable behavior, it was an 1:50:55.640 --> 1:50:58.720 acceptable behavior everywhere, right. And so the start of this 1:50:58.920 --> 1:51:01.000 was in an ath you were supposed to go buy 1:51:01.040 --> 1:51:03.240 your food in the market, but you weren't supposed to 1:51:03.280 --> 1:51:06.240 eat it there. That was like considered rude, like like 1:51:06.240 --> 1:51:09.559 like like kind of obscene almost, And Diogenes would like 1:51:09.680 --> 1:51:12.120 get food and then usually by begging, because he was 1:51:12.160 --> 1:51:14.080 that was the way he got everything. He had no money, 1:51:14.320 --> 1:51:15.800 he would like get food and he would eat it 1:51:15.880 --> 1:51:17.479 right in the middle of the market. And everybody was like, 1:51:17.520 --> 1:51:20.040 that's disgusting, and Diogenes would be like, well, if it's 1:51:20.040 --> 1:51:21.880 okay for me to eat, it must be okay for 1:51:21.880 --> 1:51:25.120 me to eat here. That's great. Diogenes took it a 1:51:25.160 --> 1:51:27.599 little bit further than that, because yeah, yeah, I can 1:51:27.640 --> 1:51:30.040 see a few ways you can take this. He extended 1:51:30.080 --> 1:51:32.360 that too. If it's fine for me to urinator ship, 1:51:32.439 --> 1:51:36.839 it's fine for me to do anywhere. And he defended 1:51:36.920 --> 1:51:40.200 himself masturbating it. We can get people in public as 1:51:40.840 --> 1:51:43.280 if this is okay for me to do in my bedroom, 1:51:43.280 --> 1:51:47.280 why can't I do this here? Right? Um, it's very 1:51:47.439 --> 1:51:50.519 like he's he's he's a troll um Diogenes, And he's 1:51:50.520 --> 1:51:53.559 also like again, the stories we have him is he 1:51:53.680 --> 1:51:56.840 is like uber an aesthetic, so like, at one point, 1:51:57.000 --> 1:51:59.360 for a long time, the only thing he owns is 1:51:59.400 --> 1:52:02.320 a wooden ole that's his cup and and for his food. 1:52:02.680 --> 1:52:05.840 And then, according to you know legend, he sees this 1:52:05.920 --> 1:52:08.920 poor peasant child drinking from like cupped hands and he 1:52:08.960 --> 1:52:11.840 throws away his bowl and he's really angry and he's like, god, 1:52:11.920 --> 1:52:14.599 damn it, I spent all this effort carrying around something useless, 1:52:14.600 --> 1:52:18.840 Like I said, ship, in my hands. He's he's a 1:52:18.960 --> 1:52:24.280 very entertaining character and a very like yeah, yeah, he's 1:52:24.320 --> 1:52:28.160 absolutely an eugle um and he's yeah, he's just kind 1:52:28.160 --> 1:52:31.160 of like an endearing piece of ship. Is like his 1:52:31.960 --> 1:52:35.280 the the idea you get, but also like smarter than 1:52:35.520 --> 1:52:38.840 I mean, because because fundamentally, what Diagenes is doing is 1:52:38.840 --> 1:52:41.000 he's he's saying, like, hey, all this stuff that we 1:52:41.040 --> 1:52:43.519 think is important and good about our culture and and 1:52:43.560 --> 1:52:46.640 like valuable, what if it wasn't, what if none of 1:52:46.640 --> 1:52:49.679 it matters. He's like he's provoking the thick and he's 1:52:49.760 --> 1:52:52.200 he's big into like one of his his Like the 1:52:52.240 --> 1:52:53.920 things he comes back to a lot is that like 1:52:54.479 --> 1:52:57.439 dogs are clearly happier than us and like better creatures 1:52:57.439 --> 1:53:00.680 than us, so we should just seek to be like dogs. Um. 1:53:00.720 --> 1:53:02.680 And one of the ways he might have died is 1:53:02.720 --> 1:53:05.080 getting bitten by a dog and his bike getting infected. 1:53:05.120 --> 1:53:07.360 We don't really know how he died. Um. The ever 1:53:07.400 --> 1:53:11.400 thing about Diogenes, this guy fucking hates rich people. Oh 1:53:11.439 --> 1:53:17.520 he's he's and he's very funny about it. So Alexander 1:53:17.600 --> 1:53:20.559 the Great apocryphal Lee, maybe this probably never happened, But 1:53:20.600 --> 1:53:24.160 the story is that Alexander the Great comes to Athens, 1:53:24.200 --> 1:53:27.240 you know, while he's on his his blitz through conquering 1:53:27.280 --> 1:53:30.680 the known world, and finds Diogenes. Alexander the Great was 1:53:30.680 --> 1:53:33.840 like raised by Aristotle, right, so he knows his philosophy. Guys, 1:53:33.920 --> 1:53:37.400 like he's he's he's seeking Diogenes out because he's a 1:53:37.400 --> 1:53:40.160 fan of this dude, probably through stories that were told 1:53:40.200 --> 1:53:42.400 to him in the same way that like I'm telling 1:53:42.439 --> 1:53:44.720 them to you now. So he comes up to Diogenes 1:53:44.760 --> 1:53:46.840 and he's like, oh my god, I'm Alexander the Great. 1:53:47.000 --> 1:53:49.720 I'm a big fan. If I couldn't be Alexander the Great, 1:53:49.760 --> 1:53:53.200 I would want to be Diogenes um. And Diogenes response, well, 1:53:53.200 --> 1:53:55.600 if I couldn't be Diogenes, I would just want to 1:53:55.640 --> 1:53:59.759 be Diogenes, which is a fucking flex again but probably 1:53:59.800 --> 1:54:02.720 never happened. But like, I want to, I want to 1:54:02.760 --> 1:54:07.920 read this meme that Garrison sent me, because it happens. 1:54:07.760 --> 1:54:10.320 It's absolutely a perfect encription to what what this whole 1:54:10.400 --> 1:54:12.920 thing is sort of about. So, okay, this is me. 1:54:13.080 --> 1:54:16.080 The philosopher Diogenes was eating bread and lentils for supper. 1:54:16.280 --> 1:54:18.320 He was seen by the philosopher It or not a process. 1:54:18.320 --> 1:54:22.479 Guest name Aristippus, who is living matter some dead ass Greek, 1:54:22.920 --> 1:54:26.360 some guy who's about to get absolutely destroyed. He's living 1:54:26.400 --> 1:54:31.360 comfortably like flattering the king. Aristipis says, if you would 1:54:31.400 --> 1:54:33.160 learn to be subservient to the king, you would not 1:54:33.240 --> 1:54:36.720 have to live on lentils. Theogenus supplied, learn to live 1:54:36.760 --> 1:54:38.880 on lentils, and you will not have to be subservient 1:54:38.920 --> 1:54:43.760 to the king. Oh, sorts of based ship like that 1:54:43.840 --> 1:54:49.080 my favorite. But know our Plato is like, is like 1:54:49.200 --> 1:54:51.680 trying to determine, trying to define like a human in 1:54:51.720 --> 1:54:55.320 the simplest way possible. Yes, yeah, like the Platonic idea. 1:54:55.360 --> 1:54:57.680 And he was, so he comes to the conclusion that like, well, 1:54:57.800 --> 1:55:01.240 it's a it's a it's a it's an unwing biped um. 1:55:01.360 --> 1:55:04.880 And Diogenes supposedly goes grabs a plucked chicken and says, 1:55:05.320 --> 1:55:12.160 behold a man, Like I found a dude, rules um. 1:55:12.240 --> 1:55:14.800 He would he would famously walk around town in broad 1:55:14.880 --> 1:55:17.520 daylight with like a what do you call it, like 1:55:17.560 --> 1:55:20.120 a lantern, like looking around and people like, what are 1:55:20.120 --> 1:55:21.720 you looking for? It's like I'm looking for a man. 1:55:21.840 --> 1:55:23.080 He would like, look at a dude and you're like 1:55:23.120 --> 1:55:26.040 I'm looking for a man. And as it is to say, 1:55:26.080 --> 1:55:28.240 like none of you motherfucker's are people like you all 1:55:28.280 --> 1:55:30.360 think that you're human beings, but you're really just pieces 1:55:30.360 --> 1:55:33.800 of ship. It's just an amazing asshole. Sorry that that 1:55:34.040 --> 1:55:39.080 we should move back to anti work, but that's what yeah, yeah, 1:55:39.120 --> 1:55:40.680 but and this is this is the funny that both 1:55:40.800 --> 1:55:43.760 both both American and Chinese like anti work people both 1:55:43.800 --> 1:55:50.160 fucking love Diogenestely. Yeah, you know, very popular on our 1:55:50.200 --> 1:55:54.160 slash anti work. Yeah, and you know, and the thing 1:55:54.200 --> 1:55:55.920 I was reading about the like you know, learned to 1:55:55.960 --> 1:55:58.920 live on lentils and you'll never like after such a 1:55:58.960 --> 1:56:02.160 game by King that that's a lot of what lying 1:56:02.200 --> 1:56:07.320 down becomes. So very rapidly, this whole thing spreads into 1:56:08.600 --> 1:56:12.640 this like really it's a sort of astounding, you know, 1:56:12.760 --> 1:56:15.120 it starts out of the meme and it spreads incredibly quickly, 1:56:15.280 --> 1:56:19.680 and the CCP gets like really really mad about this. 1:56:20.560 --> 1:56:23.240 Um so, so it's like so this this starts in April, right, 1:56:23.280 --> 1:56:25.960 and in May there's they have this like enormous media 1:56:26.040 --> 1:56:30.680 blitz where like like the party is like outlet basically 1:56:30.760 --> 1:56:33.560 and Guandong publishes like a four page long attack on 1:56:33.600 --> 1:56:36.200 the concept of lying down, like the cc the end 1:56:36.200 --> 1:56:38.560 of the newspapers everywhere published this stuff like the CCP 1:56:38.720 --> 1:56:42.760 like bands flat weed yet yeah, and it's funny becase 1:56:42.760 --> 1:56:44.200 it's like if they do this, but it's too late, 1:56:44.240 --> 1:56:50.200 Like it's yeah and you know so, so part part 1:56:50.240 --> 1:56:51.840 of the lying down is is about, you know, you 1:56:51.880 --> 1:56:54.840 have this incredibly fast paced, intense work culture, you have involution, 1:56:54.920 --> 1:56:56.720 You're working more and more and you're getting nothing out 1:56:56.720 --> 1:56:59.440 of it. Lying flat is just going no, like you 1:56:59.560 --> 1:57:02.600 just lie down down, you refuse to work. But it's 1:57:02.600 --> 1:57:04.120 it's it's also it's more than that. And I think 1:57:04.120 --> 1:57:05.560 this is this goes back to the sort of broader 1:57:05.600 --> 1:57:08.880 conception of anti work. So on one of the slogans 1:57:08.920 --> 1:57:12.240 of this movement is don't bribe property, don't buy a car, 1:57:12.440 --> 1:57:16.720 don't get married, don't have children, and don't consume. And 1:57:16.760 --> 1:57:18.200 you know that the last part of this is implied 1:57:18.280 --> 1:57:21.000 is don't work. And you know there's a lot of 1:57:21.040 --> 1:57:23.440 sort of going on here. I mean, you have you know, 1:57:24.040 --> 1:57:26.520 it's not just sort of a critique of like we 1:57:26.640 --> 1:57:28.720 work too hard. It's about you know, it's about the 1:57:28.720 --> 1:57:30.720 sort of fall system. It's about the sort of patriarchy 1:57:30.800 --> 1:57:32.680 involved in this. It's about this sort of like force 1:57:32.760 --> 1:57:37.160 capitalist consumption. It's about like, you know, the fact that 1:57:37.240 --> 1:57:40.520 like literally a quarter of Chinese of China's economy or 1:57:40.600 --> 1:57:44.520 Chinese GDP is like all this real estate bullshit that 1:57:44.600 --> 1:57:46.840 everyone knows is going to collapse and even when it 1:57:46.840 --> 1:57:49.520 gets built like sucks. Thank god we don't have anything 1:57:49.560 --> 1:57:51.840 like that here. Yeah, I know, it's great. It's one 1:57:51.840 --> 1:57:53.400 of one of the fun things about larding histories. You 1:57:53.400 --> 1:57:56.120 could just watch every country do exactly the same thing 1:57:56.120 --> 1:57:59.480 with their housing market, like Japan do. It's like, it's 1:57:59.520 --> 1:58:03.440 greats like you also think this will work? What what? 1:58:03.440 --> 1:58:05.520 What extra fun thing is you get to watch every 1:58:05.520 --> 1:58:07.880 country do the same thing with farms and it always 1:58:07.960 --> 1:58:14.480 ended the same anyway. Yea. So there's there's a lot 1:58:14.520 --> 1:58:18.320 of you know, in order to sort of like facilitate this, 1:58:18.560 --> 1:58:20.320 you know, you get back to the Diogenes, so a 1:58:20.360 --> 1:58:23.400 lot of it what's happening is people sharing tips about 1:58:23.440 --> 1:58:26.240 how to make the cheapest food you can possibly survive 1:58:26.320 --> 1:58:29.160 on so you don't have to work, and so you know, 1:58:29.160 --> 1:58:33.920 and people the guy who wrote the Diogenes post like 1:58:34.040 --> 1:58:36.600 he spends thirty dollars a month. And he does this 1:58:36.680 --> 1:58:42.400 by only eating dried ramen and eggs and like rice. Yeah, yeah, 1:58:42.680 --> 1:58:47.240 one way to do it. This is like the most 1:58:47.240 --> 1:58:49.440 extreme example. I actually don't even think it's the most 1:58:49.440 --> 1:58:53.640 extreme example. A lot of people. One of the things 1:58:53.640 --> 1:58:54.880 that happens a lot is a bunch of people just 1:58:54.920 --> 1:58:57.640 like have left their jobs to become monks. This, this 1:58:57.680 --> 1:59:00.200 is like a whole thing. Yeah. I got to be 1:59:00.200 --> 1:59:06.680 a Buddhist, like honestly, like absolutely like, and I used 1:59:06.680 --> 1:59:09.800 to live in a place in the middle of fucking nowhere, 1:59:09.840 --> 1:59:13.000 one of the most like isolated places I've ever lived 1:59:13.160 --> 1:59:16.840 that like had power um and one of the people 1:59:16.880 --> 1:59:19.400 who was like by neighbor they were within several miles 1:59:19.440 --> 1:59:22.440 of us, was a monastery. This is in the United States, 1:59:22.800 --> 1:59:24.960 And like I went there once because I heard they 1:59:24.960 --> 1:59:26.760 made good wine to try and get some of their wine, 1:59:26.920 --> 1:59:28.520 and like, none of them would answer the door. I 1:59:28.560 --> 1:59:31.600 could see them inside all staring at me. They didn't 1:59:31.600 --> 1:59:34.720 do ship, And my my overwhelming thought was like, yeah, 1:59:34.800 --> 1:59:37.960 that seems like a pretty good way to do it. Yeah, 1:59:38.320 --> 1:59:40.960 I see why you guys have picked this life. It 1:59:41.000 --> 1:59:45.400 was also during the election back from the r N 1:59:45.520 --> 1:59:47.640 C and the d n C and was like, yeah, 1:59:47.640 --> 1:59:52.080 that seems smarter than what I'm doing. Yeah, so there's 1:59:52.080 --> 1:59:54.200 a lot of you know, yeah, that'd mean the stream example, 1:59:54.240 --> 1:59:55.840 like if people going to become monks. But like one 1:59:55.840 --> 1:59:57.960 of the things that's happening a lot is again you know, 1:59:58.040 --> 2:00:01.320 China hasn't known with micro worker population, and people are 2:00:01.400 --> 2:00:04.640 just like fuck this, I'm going back to my village 2:00:05.720 --> 2:00:06.960 and so and you know, and this is you know 2:00:07.000 --> 2:00:08.840 this this this, this is where they really screwed up 2:00:08.840 --> 2:00:11.480 with the YouTube stuff because you know, people were people, 2:00:11.640 --> 2:00:14.520 you know, they were gambling that that you know, you 2:00:14.520 --> 2:00:16.280 could just sell this as an aesthetic, and you know, 2:00:16.360 --> 2:00:19.320 you can sell it as an aesthetic like Chinese TikTok 2:00:19.360 --> 2:00:21.760 has this integrated thing in it where like if if 2:00:21.760 --> 2:00:25.360 you if you if you plug like something to buy it, 2:00:25.680 --> 2:00:27.920 like you can like click it and it'll just it'll 2:00:27.960 --> 2:00:30.200 take you like to a link like to to to 2:00:30.200 --> 2:00:32.960 to the thing it's selling, you know. And so yeah, 2:00:32.960 --> 2:00:34.320 they don't make a norse amount of money on this, 2:00:34.400 --> 2:00:36.640 but you know, the the the other side of that 2:00:36.680 --> 2:00:38.920 sword is a bunch of people were like I don't 2:00:38.960 --> 2:00:41.720 have to work this, Like I don't have to work 2:00:42.680 --> 2:00:46.960 in a city, I can just go home. Yeah, and 2:00:47.040 --> 2:00:48.640 you know, and you know and you know, so you know, 2:00:48.760 --> 2:00:50.680 as as you're talking about the antiwork stuff, it's not 2:00:50.760 --> 2:00:54.320 actually possible for a lot of people to leave their jobs. 2:00:55.000 --> 2:00:59.760 So the solution to this was there there's a culture 2:00:59.800 --> 2:01:03.320 that to fell up called petting fish, which and but 2:01:03.120 --> 2:01:05.920 but before you talk about petting fish, you said something about, 2:01:06.400 --> 2:01:09.320 uh plugging things on TikTok and you know who, you know, 2:01:09.680 --> 2:01:12.400 you know, like plugging like advertisements, and you know who 2:01:12.440 --> 2:01:16.120 also plugs plugs advertisements? Chris, Oh, no, is it us 2:01:16.160 --> 2:01:20.680 to Joe Rogan. But our new sponsor is the Joe 2:01:20.760 --> 2:01:26.120 Rogan Experience, brought to you by Honda. Honda drive a car, 2:01:27.040 --> 2:01:32.400 do fascism? Honda? Really yeah, Honda Garrison. Look, we don't 2:01:32.480 --> 2:01:35.000 We're not nearly a big enough podcast to get fucking 2:01:35.840 --> 2:01:38.880 to get a Toyota ad. Are you crazy? Yeah? That's 2:01:39.000 --> 2:01:41.960 what we can dream big, Yeah, I mean that is 2:01:42.000 --> 2:01:46.760 the dream to sell Toyota's. I mean we could become 2:01:46.960 --> 2:01:50.320 used car salesmen in the valley. All right, here's that 2:01:51.800 --> 2:02:00.360 AhR back cut that head and fish monk, Chris, handle it, 2:02:02.880 --> 2:02:06.840 keep it all in baby, Yeah, so there's there's all 2:02:06.880 --> 2:02:08.920 this thing called the petting fish, which is like Chinese 2:02:08.920 --> 2:02:10.640 slack off culture, and it's you know, somet of people 2:02:10.680 --> 2:02:12.520 sharing tips how to slack off at work, and it's 2:02:12.520 --> 2:02:15.520 it's kind of the equivalent like I love that it's 2:02:15.520 --> 2:02:18.600 called petting fish. And then also like, yeah, it's it's 2:02:18.640 --> 2:02:20.800 kind of the Chinese equivalent of like boss makes a dollar, 2:02:20.840 --> 2:02:22.720 I make a dime. That's why I shoot on company time. 2:02:23.320 --> 2:02:25.760 So people do just a lot of like they have 2:02:25.760 --> 2:02:27.640 a lot of like genuinely fun things they do. Like 2:02:27.640 --> 2:02:31.040 people people started putting like fake beatings on their calendars 2:02:31.040 --> 2:02:33.720 and people wouldn't bother them. They like they just like 2:02:33.800 --> 2:02:36.440 people like that. That is also that's that's that's also 2:02:36.480 --> 2:02:39.080 what I do. Yeah, yeah, I mean the if you 2:02:39.120 --> 2:02:41.400 want to make I love the term petting fish as well, 2:02:41.440 --> 2:02:43.400 but if you want to like make it sound cool. 2:02:43.680 --> 2:02:48.040 They're waging an insurgency from within capitalism by by by 2:02:48.080 --> 2:02:52.839 trying to take resources away from their employers, um without 2:02:52.880 --> 2:02:55.640 being spotted. Yeah, there's a there's a thing in Volume 2:02:55.640 --> 2:02:58.440 one of Capital about this that I was like, oh, 2:02:58.480 --> 2:03:00.200 I could pull this up, and then I was that 2:03:00.280 --> 2:03:01.800 is too much work. I'm not going to do it, 2:03:01.840 --> 2:03:03.400 so I don't have the thing in volume one where 2:03:03.440 --> 2:03:07.000 talks about struggling between about labor time. But instead you 2:03:07.000 --> 2:03:08.839 get a bunch of people like the Smike, smuggling whiskey 2:03:08.840 --> 2:03:11.480 into work, taking through our lunch breaks. My favorite one, 2:03:11.920 --> 2:03:19.600 absolutely favorite drink at work, especially if your nurse, Oh boy, 2:03:20.080 --> 2:03:23.760 you probably killed about fifty people. This is gonna be crossed. 2:03:24.120 --> 2:03:27.280 Fingers crossed. So you know how like companies all have 2:03:27.360 --> 2:03:32.000 these like these really annoying like mindfulness fitness things. So 2:03:32.080 --> 2:03:33.840 one of these people started doing was okay, so you 2:03:33.880 --> 2:03:35.200 know the thing like you have to drink eight hour, 2:03:35.440 --> 2:03:38.320 eight times a day. So they would set these alarms 2:03:38.640 --> 2:03:40.000 that's like, oh, I have to go drink my water. 2:03:40.040 --> 2:03:42.720 And so like every like every like fifty minutes or something, 2:03:42.720 --> 2:03:44.640 they just go up and like spend twenty minutes getting 2:03:44.640 --> 2:03:48.040 water and they sit back down. It's like you've just 2:03:48.080 --> 2:03:51.080 eviscerated enormous part of your work day. And and the 2:03:51.200 --> 2:03:53.800 product of this, you know, this CP is really piste 2:03:53.840 --> 2:03:55.440 off about this. And you know you get these giant 2:03:55.440 --> 2:03:58.360 billboards to say no lying flat, no petting fish on 2:03:58.440 --> 2:04:01.200 them or something. It would have been liter really incomprehensible 2:04:01.280 --> 2:04:07.280 like a year ago. It's amazing. And you know, and 2:04:07.560 --> 2:04:09.560 I think this is something you know in the U 2:04:09.680 --> 2:04:12.800 s anti work, like the actual political class kind of 2:04:12.800 --> 2:04:14.240 has been ignoring it. I mean, you see a couple 2:04:14.240 --> 2:04:18.520 of acial antists in China, Chesing Ping like made a speech. 2:04:18.600 --> 2:04:20.480 It was like, you know, he have a private speech 2:04:20.480 --> 2:04:23.200 a bunch of hog people in the party, and so 2:04:23.320 --> 2:04:26.160 a part of it a printage like a month ago 2:04:26.360 --> 2:04:28.360 or something I've I've lost track of all time. But 2:04:28.400 --> 2:04:31.080 like like like specifically in this speech that Esping is 2:04:31.080 --> 2:04:34.280 making that is published in the official like theoretical journal, 2:04:34.600 --> 2:04:38.040 he's like explicitly saying like don't lie flat and saying 2:04:38.120 --> 2:04:42.720 quote happy life is earned through heart, hard work. And yeah, 2:04:42.720 --> 2:04:44.200 and he also has this, he has his ranch, but 2:04:44.280 --> 2:04:49.240 like denouncing welfare ism, which is great the the communist 2:04:49.360 --> 2:04:55.640 vanguard there. Yeah, yeah, preaching the immortal science. Yeah, socialism 2:04:55.720 --> 2:04:59.920 with Chinese characteristics. Motherfucker's don't be a welfare queen follows. 2:05:00.040 --> 2:05:03.640 Even thought it's great, you know, but it's interesting people, 2:05:03.840 --> 2:05:05.680 this is the one people are really freaked out about. 2:05:05.680 --> 2:05:07.920 Like I saw, I saw like an American writer about this, 2:05:08.200 --> 2:05:10.120 who you know, they wrote like an article about this 2:05:10.120 --> 2:05:12.320 whole thing, and then they were like, this is gonna 2:05:12.440 --> 2:05:15.960 this is gonna cause inflation. It's like, this is gonna 2:05:15.960 --> 2:05:19.800 be the driver of like what people just use the 2:05:19.800 --> 2:05:23.160 word inflation to mean whatever scary thing they want. Yeah, 2:05:23.200 --> 2:05:24.880 well they're they're like, oh, this will this will increase 2:05:24.920 --> 2:05:26.560 wages and that will lead to inflation and we'll get 2:05:26.560 --> 2:05:31.800 the seventies again. And I'm like, God, maybe, but a 2:05:31.840 --> 2:05:34.200 tallow disco again? Did you ever think of that guy 2:05:35.160 --> 2:05:37.839 that we that were are reserves of a tallow disco 2:05:37.920 --> 2:05:42.520 are critically low? Do you wonder what a tallow disco is? 2:05:42.600 --> 2:05:45.760 No idea? That's a shame. All right, let's continue what 2:05:45.560 --> 2:05:47.240 what what type of like is there is there like 2:05:47.280 --> 2:05:49.440 any like you said this kind of stuff started to 2:05:49.600 --> 2:05:51.440 like move left words. Is there any like actual like 2:05:51.520 --> 2:05:54.320 leftist organizing in these types of places? So so this 2:05:54.360 --> 2:05:56.000 is the thing I was getting to, which is that, like, 2:05:56.040 --> 2:05:57.720 you know, people are starting to do reading groups. But 2:05:57.720 --> 2:06:00.440 the problem, the problem with leftist organizing and China is that, 2:06:01.320 --> 2:06:03.320 you know, so state policy in the past three years 2:06:03.360 --> 2:06:05.520 has been like if you poke your head above ground, 2:06:05.520 --> 2:06:09.080 you get arrested. So you know, I mean, for example, 2:06:09.120 --> 2:06:11.880 there was there was a strike at Jasick and you know, 2:06:11.920 --> 2:06:14.200 a bunch of student groups who've been organizing for a 2:06:14.240 --> 2:06:16.000 long time like tried to do all drety with it, 2:06:16.000 --> 2:06:18.320 and they all got arrested. The people who are people 2:06:18.320 --> 2:06:20.120 who let the strike got arrested. All the students who 2:06:20.120 --> 2:06:22.640 are doing so ald Aretay got arrested. People like people 2:06:22.640 --> 2:06:26.400 got arrested for like like dancing with like university students 2:06:26.400 --> 2:06:28.560 got arrested for like dancing with the people who were 2:06:28.560 --> 2:06:38.320 like cleaning the floors. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like the yeah, 2:06:38.440 --> 2:06:41.680 like it's it's incredible and like you know, and the 2:06:41.760 --> 2:06:43.480 other thing that you can see about this was so so. 2:06:43.560 --> 2:06:45.080 For example, there was there was a guy doing like 2:06:45.200 --> 2:06:48.000 delivery driver organizing. It was kind of weird. He was 2:06:48.000 --> 2:06:51.560 like kind of an entrepreneur kind of doing delivery driver organizing. 2:06:51.600 --> 2:06:53.960 Like he got arrested, and then you know, like a 2:06:53.960 --> 2:06:55.640 couple of weeks later, this is people like, oh, we're 2:06:55.640 --> 2:06:58.560 gonna like do things to improve the conditions of of 2:06:58.560 --> 2:07:01.600 of delivery drivers and know who knows if that's going 2:07:01.640 --> 2:07:05.000 to happen, but like you know, basically like any anyone 2:07:05.480 --> 2:07:07.760 out for some reason that the people in the tech 2:07:07.800 --> 2:07:10.760 sector have been able to get away with more for 2:07:11.560 --> 2:07:13.880 reasons that are probably class based, and I think this 2:07:14.080 --> 2:07:15.960 doesn't take them seriously in the way they do with 2:07:16.080 --> 2:07:19.960 students factory workers. But you know, and actually I mean 2:07:19.960 --> 2:07:22.120 the fact that the tech workers like kind of recently 2:07:22.240 --> 2:07:24.320 like that there's a tech worker thing calling for like 2:07:24.320 --> 2:07:27.960 like democratic control of production, which is wild. But other 2:07:28.040 --> 2:07:30.400 than those guys like you can't you know, you can't 2:07:30.440 --> 2:07:33.560 stick your head up, you get flattened. So this has 2:07:33.560 --> 2:07:35.400 sort of been the result of this, which is this 2:07:35.480 --> 2:07:38.720 like you know, the sort of the like lying flat 2:07:38.840 --> 2:07:41.160 is this, you know, it's this mass to centralized movements 2:07:41.800 --> 2:07:43.640 that you know, there's there's no one to hit with 2:07:43.640 --> 2:07:47.560 a hammer, and you know, and and I think, like, okay, 2:07:47.560 --> 2:07:49.040 so one of one of the other quotes that's that's 2:07:49.080 --> 2:07:51.440 been going around about lying flat is it's it's a poem. 2:07:51.560 --> 2:07:56.240 It doesn't poem as well in English, but this, this 2:07:56.280 --> 2:07:58.760 is the best we've got. Lying flat is to not 2:07:58.880 --> 2:08:02.040 bow down. Lying flat is to not kneel. Lying flat 2:08:02.120 --> 2:08:05.560 is to stand up horizontally. Lying flat is a straight spine. 2:08:06.280 --> 2:08:08.800 And so you know, what was basically happening here is 2:08:08.800 --> 2:08:12.040 is it's a combination of the tendencies you see in 2:08:12.080 --> 2:08:15.280 the US, where you know, a bunch of people terrible jobs, 2:08:15.560 --> 2:08:18.480 realizing that everything is pointless. And then also, this is 2:08:18.520 --> 2:08:21.360 a way you can, like, this is the way you 2:08:21.400 --> 2:08:25.360 can like fight your boss without like the police showing up. 2:08:26.400 --> 2:08:30.960 And so there's there's some interesting like political stuff. So there, 2:08:31.000 --> 2:08:32.840 there's there, there's there's there's if if you look at that, 2:08:33.000 --> 2:08:35.080 there's there's a bunch of memes here because they're great. 2:08:35.640 --> 2:08:37.880 So there's there's been a thing with these people talking 2:08:37.920 --> 2:08:40.200 about how people are leaks, which are like their leaks, 2:08:40.200 --> 2:08:43.240 they're harvested over and over again and they're being exploited 2:08:43.320 --> 2:08:47.120 and like the plants, yeah, like leaks like yeah, you eat. 2:08:47.440 --> 2:08:49.320 And so they have this thing that's leaks that life 2:08:49.360 --> 2:08:51.480 flat cannot be so easily harvested. It's just like a 2:08:51.560 --> 2:08:54.040 knife go like try like a machete, like trying to 2:08:54.080 --> 2:08:56.000 swing out a bunch of leaks, but leaks are flats, 2:08:56.000 --> 2:08:59.760 so they can't hit them. And what I like, I 2:08:59.840 --> 2:09:02.839 like all of this. Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's it's 2:09:02.920 --> 2:09:06.080 you know, and so and so what the product of 2:09:06.120 --> 2:09:07.800 this is that yeah, like this this this this has 2:09:07.920 --> 2:09:11.880 this stuff has actually been effective enough that the CCP, like, 2:09:11.960 --> 2:09:14.120 you know, I mean, the CCP is is taking it seriously, 2:09:14.160 --> 2:09:16.120 but you know, there's not much they can do about it, 2:09:16.200 --> 2:09:19.920 because like if someone's just like, oh, I'm going to 2:09:20.000 --> 2:09:22.840 go from a job that's really high stressed to one 2:09:22.840 --> 2:09:24.720 that's less high stress, like what are you're gonna are 2:09:24.720 --> 2:09:26.280 you just gonna arrest them? Like what what are you 2:09:26.280 --> 2:09:30.240 gonna do? And so this, yeah, this, this has been 2:09:31.080 --> 2:09:34.520 building for a while now and I don't know who 2:09:34.560 --> 2:09:38.840 who knows exactly like where it's going to go, but 2:09:39.040 --> 2:09:42.880 it's it's it's already you know, it's something that people 2:09:42.920 --> 2:09:45.839 can do as an individual in a place where organized 2:09:45.880 --> 2:09:48.760 political action is impossible in a way such that you 2:09:48.760 --> 2:09:51.840 know that their individual actions have a collective effect, but 2:09:52.080 --> 2:09:56.240 one that can't be just you know, pounded down. Yeah, 2:09:56.400 --> 2:09:59.960 I mean, it is certainly interesting to see two completely separate, 2:10:00.160 --> 2:10:03.040 like anti work style movements around basically around the same 2:10:03.200 --> 2:10:07.280 same exact time, with the same exact points. If you're different, 2:10:08.080 --> 2:10:12.320 if you're someone who's interested in massive global revolutionary change, 2:10:12.640 --> 2:10:15.200 this should probably be a thing that you are looking 2:10:15.240 --> 2:10:18.440 at and studying and thinking a lot about, because perhaps 2:10:19.240 --> 2:10:22.400 while we're arguing about ship that people started talking about 2:10:22.480 --> 2:10:26.240 in the eighteen seventies. This, this might be a better 2:10:26.320 --> 2:10:30.440 thing to do than than that, because because it's it 2:10:30.440 --> 2:10:33.560 seems like there's some potential here. Yeah, and I think, yeah, 2:10:33.560 --> 2:10:35.240 I mean, you know, if if if you if you 2:10:35.280 --> 2:10:38.360 know any any any any actual revolutionary project that makes 2:10:38.360 --> 2:10:40.240 the world better is going to have to be international. 2:10:40.920 --> 2:10:43.720 And that's been you know, that that that that that's 2:10:43.760 --> 2:10:48.880 been the bane of all revolutionary movements forever. But you know, okay, 2:10:48.880 --> 2:10:51.000 so we have you know that we we have something 2:10:51.080 --> 2:10:53.880 to change the American working class agrees on, which is 2:10:54.120 --> 2:10:59.280 Diologenes is based in work sucks. Yeah. So as you 2:10:59.320 --> 2:11:03.120 go forward into your life this week, um, take a 2:11:03.160 --> 2:11:08.720 page from Diogenes as his book and the people ship 2:11:09.120 --> 2:11:12.800 on the floor of a free people or yeah, free 2:11:12.800 --> 2:11:15.040 people are in h and M. Go walk into one 2:11:15.160 --> 2:11:21.240 and just just just go absolutely ruin that tile. I mean, 2:11:21.720 --> 2:11:25.440 fuck it. This is why my my my biggest political 2:11:25.480 --> 2:11:29.400 advice to friends who has always been learned to run fast, 2:11:29.800 --> 2:11:32.240 because if you learn to run fast, you can do 2:11:32.360 --> 2:11:36.240 so many more fun things in a store and then 2:11:36.320 --> 2:11:39.040 run fast that it's done right. The problem is that 2:11:39.080 --> 2:11:41.120 a lot of people like, who who want to do 2:11:41.200 --> 2:11:44.240 this can't run fast enough? So learn to run fast 2:11:44.280 --> 2:11:47.280 to do this there, It's like Moose said, all political 2:11:47.320 --> 2:11:49.920 power comes from being able to ship really fast and 2:11:50.600 --> 2:11:52.960 from the doors of a free people. Just get that 2:11:53.200 --> 2:11:57.320 out of there. The immortal side, look, I think I 2:11:57.600 --> 2:12:00.040 think I think we should leave with with the the 2:12:01.160 --> 2:12:05.600 real immortal science, the the immortal words of a skeleton 2:12:06.560 --> 2:12:10.480 from the share zone. Just walk out. You can leave work, 2:12:10.800 --> 2:12:16.879 social things, movie, home, class, dentist, clothes shops, to fancy 2:12:16.920 --> 2:12:20.400 weed store cops if you're quick, friendships if it sucks. 2:12:20.680 --> 2:12:25.400 Hit the bricks yeah yeah, As as some comedian who 2:12:25.400 --> 2:12:28.480 I can't remember now said, always have an exit plan 2:12:29.160 --> 2:12:31.760 like that that that should be your thought for everything 2:12:32.080 --> 2:12:37.160 everything in the world. Hit the fucking bricks. Get out anyway, 2:12:37.440 --> 2:12:49.640 Get out of this podcast episode now, Welcome to it 2:12:49.720 --> 2:12:53.160 could happen here podcast about things falling apart from what 2:12:53.200 --> 2:12:55.960 you can do about it. My name is Christopher Wong, 2:12:56.120 --> 2:12:58.960 and today I'm gonna be talking about sabotage. But this 2:12:59.040 --> 2:13:02.520 is not the episode on abotage that you expect. I 2:13:02.560 --> 2:13:06.320 will not be discussing, for example, the destruction of machinery 2:13:06.680 --> 2:13:10.000 throwing monkey wrenches, slow down strikes, or the myriad of 2:13:10.040 --> 2:13:12.760 other tactics that workers have used since time immemorium to 2:13:12.800 --> 2:13:16.160 strike back at their bosses. No, instead, I'm going to 2:13:16.200 --> 2:13:19.280 be talking about a four more common and infinitely more 2:13:19.360 --> 2:13:25.320 dangerous form of sabotage, corporate sabotage. Now, the most conficuous 2:13:25.320 --> 2:13:27.880 form of corporate sabotage is the mass destruction of a 2:13:27.920 --> 2:13:32.320 corporation zone products. The fashion company Burberry, for example, destroyed 2:13:32.320 --> 2:13:34.960 three hundred and seventy million dollars of its own product 2:13:34.960 --> 2:13:38.960 in one year alone. Louis Vutton and Chanel also systematically 2:13:39.000 --> 2:13:42.000 destroy their own sold stock every year, joining H and 2:13:42.160 --> 2:13:44.480 M and literally lighting their own sold products on fire 2:13:44.480 --> 2:13:47.960 in order to prevent anyone from using them. Quote business 2:13:48.040 --> 2:13:52.400 insider Rischemont, the owner of Cadalier BoNT Blanc, destroyed more 2:13:52.440 --> 2:13:55.000 than four hundred million pounds of watches over a two 2:13:55.040 --> 2:13:58.040 year period after an excess in goods in the Asian markets. 2:13:58.640 --> 2:14:01.520 Nike has also admitted at a New York store slashed 2:14:01.600 --> 2:14:04.920 unsold trainers before throwing them away, and last year, an 2:14:05.000 --> 2:14:07.800 Urban Outfits employee said he was instructed to pour green 2:14:07.920 --> 2:14:11.360 paints on the unsold stock. These of course, are only 2:14:11.400 --> 2:14:13.800 the stories that have made it into the press, and 2:14:13.880 --> 2:14:16.560 this behavior is by no means limited to high fashion. 2:14:17.080 --> 2:14:20.720 Grocery Stores routinely throw away normous quantities of unsold goods, 2:14:21.600 --> 2:14:23.960 and when communities realized they could feed people in need 2:14:24.040 --> 2:14:27.360 by taking the still good products from grocery store dumpstairs, 2:14:27.640 --> 2:14:31.040 the stories began to destroy their food intentionally. But these 2:14:31.080 --> 2:14:34.760 acts of destruction, as callous and horrifically greedy as they are, 2:14:35.080 --> 2:14:39.560 are by no means the extent of corporate sabotage. To explain, 2:14:40.080 --> 2:14:42.879 I turned to the work of the economist Thorston Veblen. 2:14:44.040 --> 2:14:46.600 Feblen is perhaps best known today for the theory of 2:14:46.600 --> 2:14:52.640 conspicuous consumption, but he wrote extensively on corporate sabotage in 2:14:52.720 --> 2:14:55.200 the first part of The Engineers and the Price System, 2:14:55.240 --> 2:14:57.840 a work that is broadly ignored even by his followers. 2:14:58.200 --> 2:15:01.360 Feblen wrote a section call on the Nature and Uses 2:15:01.360 --> 2:15:06.200 of Sabotage from that work. Writers and speakers who dilate 2:15:06.240 --> 2:15:09.800 on the militarious exploits of the nation's businessmen will not 2:15:09.920 --> 2:15:14.120 commonly allude to this voluminous running administration of sabotage, This 2:15:14.240 --> 2:15:18.640 conscientious withdrawal of efficiency that goes into their ordinary day's work. 2:15:19.120 --> 2:15:21.440 We are not used to thinking of the ordinary work 2:15:21.920 --> 2:15:26.400 of a corporation being sabotage. But for Veblen there was 2:15:26.440 --> 2:15:29.280 no other explanation for what he was seeing. In the 2:15:29.280 --> 2:15:31.800 wake of World War One, there was an enormous explosion 2:15:31.800 --> 2:15:35.160 and unemployment, an enormous need on half of the population. 2:15:35.880 --> 2:15:38.440 But even as the unemployed begged to be let in 2:15:38.520 --> 2:15:40.560 to create the products that could build the needs of 2:15:40.560 --> 2:15:44.800 their fellow humans, business owners steadfastly refused to open their factories. 2:15:45.320 --> 2:15:49.320 As Veblen explained, but for reasons of business expediency, it 2:15:49.400 --> 2:15:51.960 is impossible to let these idle plants and idle workmen 2:15:52.000 --> 2:15:54.400 go to work, that is to say, for reasons of 2:15:54.440 --> 2:15:58.000 insufficient profit to the businessmen interested, or in other words, 2:15:58.440 --> 2:16:01.240 for reasons of insufficient income to the vested interest which 2:16:01.280 --> 2:16:04.959 controlled the staple industries and so regulate the output of product. 2:16:05.960 --> 2:16:08.920 Feblen was not alone in observing these are similar conditions. 2:16:09.400 --> 2:16:13.400 John Maynard Keynes, writing during the depression, observed newly precisely 2:16:13.440 --> 2:16:17.360 the same thing. For Canes, the solution simply was to 2:16:17.400 --> 2:16:21.480 have the government step into increased demand. But for Veblen, 2:16:21.680 --> 2:16:23.960 dismissed the core of the problem. The real problem was 2:16:24.000 --> 2:16:26.600 at a core of absentee owners had the ability to 2:16:26.600 --> 2:16:28.640 shut down the factories in the first place by simple 2:16:28.760 --> 2:16:32.920 virtue of their ownership, Feblin argued, was simply sabotage, no 2:16:33.080 --> 2:16:35.400 different from the hated strikes of the I w W 2:16:35.640 --> 2:16:39.080 that's so racked and perturbed the capitalist ruling class of 2:16:39.160 --> 2:16:41.760 his time. At least, the workers could argue that they 2:16:41.760 --> 2:16:44.640 were simply fighting for a better share of what they 2:16:44.640 --> 2:16:47.760 had created. Absentee owners, on the other hand, who had 2:16:47.800 --> 2:16:52.240 no actual involvement in the production process whatsoever, simply carried 2:16:52.280 --> 2:16:55.320 out sabotage on an enormous scale in order to secure 2:16:55.360 --> 2:16:58.760 their own returns, and this was true even in times 2:16:58.800 --> 2:17:01.600 they weren't marked by mass depressions. In order to make 2:17:01.680 --> 2:17:05.320 payments to capitalists, Feblin argued, who expect a certain rate 2:17:05.360 --> 2:17:08.800 of return on their investment, corporations must maintain prices at 2:17:08.800 --> 2:17:11.000 such a level that they can meet their returns, and 2:17:11.040 --> 2:17:13.560 the only way they can do this is sabotage. For 2:17:13.600 --> 2:17:16.280 the good of business, it is necessary to curtail production 2:17:16.320 --> 2:17:19.360 of the means of life on pain of unprofitable prices 2:17:19.720 --> 2:17:22.520 at the same time, that the increasing need of all 2:17:22.520 --> 2:17:24.960 sorts of necessities of life must be met in some 2:17:25.480 --> 2:17:29.680 passable fashion on pain of popular disturbances, as it will 2:17:29.720 --> 2:17:32.119 always come of popular distrust when they passed a limit 2:17:32.160 --> 2:17:36.160 of tolerance, the sabotage Febran argue was simply a product 2:17:36.200 --> 2:17:38.560 of the price system. Any production that was too efficient 2:17:38.600 --> 2:17:42.480 would simply and inevitably be sabotaged for private gain, because 2:17:42.520 --> 2:17:45.760 in order to maintain prices that would maintain the returns 2:17:45.760 --> 2:17:49.000 of investors, it was necessary when sure that production never 2:17:49.120 --> 2:17:52.840 became too efficient to produce too many goods. Feblen used 2:17:52.840 --> 2:17:55.560 as his example the twentieth century post office, but we 2:17:55.600 --> 2:17:58.560 could just easily point to Trump sabotaging the post office 2:17:58.560 --> 2:18:01.959 in due a bid to privatize the service by causing 2:18:02.000 --> 2:18:04.480 it to collapse and prevent mail and votes from being 2:18:04.520 --> 2:18:06.360 counted as part of his attempt to win the two 2:18:06.400 --> 2:18:10.480 thousand twenty election. In their book Capitalist Power, Condition, Shaan 2:18:10.560 --> 2:18:14.760 Bickler and Jonathan Needson take Feplin's argument and expand on it, 2:18:15.640 --> 2:18:20.560 noting that capitalism, far from encouraging productivity at large, makes 2:18:20.600 --> 2:18:25.040 things inefficient on purpose. They used the example of public transportation, 2:18:25.600 --> 2:18:28.400 which is by bay, essentially any measure a significantly more 2:18:28.400 --> 2:18:32.359 efficient way of moving people around the US. As an example, 2:18:33.200 --> 2:18:36.039 in the US and the nineteen forties, a hundred electric 2:18:36.080 --> 2:18:38.400 rail lines were brought up and destroyed by car companies. 2:18:39.680 --> 2:18:44.240 Those same companies likewise twice destroyed incredibly efficient and popular 2:18:44.280 --> 2:18:47.200 electric cars, once in the nineteen thirties and again in 2:18:47.240 --> 2:18:50.000 the nineteen eighties because the profit rate was lower than 2:18:50.040 --> 2:18:53.119 that of gas cars. They then set out to cause 2:18:53.160 --> 2:18:55.560 everyone to forget that they had actually done this until 2:18:55.600 --> 2:18:57.840 Elon Musk figured out a way to sell electric cars 2:18:57.840 --> 2:19:00.879 that was profitable, namely by selling himself as a brand 2:19:00.920 --> 2:19:03.920 and not the cars themselves. Now, if capitalism was simply 2:19:03.959 --> 2:19:07.279 destroying its own products in order to create Elon Musks, 2:19:07.320 --> 2:19:10.000 you could argue that the system at least produced advancements 2:19:10.040 --> 2:19:12.600 before it stopped them. But the most violent forms of 2:19:12.640 --> 2:19:18.119 sabotage are reserved for productive systems that are simultaneously efficient 2:19:18.160 --> 2:19:22.280 and outside of capitalist control together. Perhaps the best known 2:19:22.280 --> 2:19:25.080 example of this is the East British East India companies. 2:19:25.120 --> 2:19:28.400 The industrialization of the Indian textile industry, not to be 2:19:28.440 --> 2:19:33.120 outmatched by their British forebearers, American settlers and their allies 2:19:33.120 --> 2:19:36.560 in the American military sterminated the buffalo herds of the 2:19:36.600 --> 2:19:40.440 Great Plains in an attempt to starve out the indigenous 2:19:40.440 --> 2:19:43.640 tribes that lived there. In doing so, they destroyed an 2:19:43.720 --> 2:19:47.520 enormously productive and sustainable agricultural system. They did so precisely 2:19:47.600 --> 2:19:51.360 because the system was efficient, so efficient, in fact, that 2:19:51.400 --> 2:19:56.440 it allowed indigenous tribes to repeatedly defeat the American army 2:19:56.440 --> 2:19:59.160 and defence of their lands. We are used to thinking 2:19:59.160 --> 2:20:03.520 of capitalists as the system of production, but here, amidst 2:20:03.600 --> 2:20:08.480 the fields of buffalo corpses something else, entirely capitalism appearing 2:20:08.480 --> 2:20:12.800 in its true form, a system of organized sabotage. To 2:20:12.920 --> 2:20:15.959 fully untangle what this means, let us return to Veblin. 2:20:16.480 --> 2:20:21.320 Feblin divided capitalism into two separate processes. The first he 2:20:21.400 --> 2:20:26.920 called industry. Industry, Feblin argued, has existed long before capitalism 2:20:26.959 --> 2:20:29.320 and will continue to exist long after. It has a 2:20:29.320 --> 2:20:33.160 bit clear and nietzs and put it quote when considered 2:20:33.160 --> 2:20:37.880 an isolation from contemporary business institutions. The principal goal of industry. 2:20:38.240 --> 2:20:42.560 It's reason, according to Veeblin, is the efficient production of 2:20:42.640 --> 2:20:45.360 quality goods and services for the betterment of human life. 2:20:45.879 --> 2:20:50.599 Industry is an inherently collective undertaking. The basis is cooperation 2:20:50.640 --> 2:20:54.600 and integration, the creation of communo knowledge that allows production 2:20:54.640 --> 2:20:58.720 and scientific advance to occur, and coordination and cooperation between 2:20:58.760 --> 2:21:01.760 people to create things for each other. Left to its 2:21:01.760 --> 2:21:04.800 own devices, industry would simply produce goods for people. It 2:21:04.879 --> 2:21:10.199 has no concern for profitability, rates of returns, or capitalization. Unfortunately, 2:21:10.400 --> 2:21:13.640 capitalism is defined by private ownership. This is what Veblen 2:21:13.640 --> 2:21:17.240 calls business. Business is a system of power that extracts 2:21:17.400 --> 2:21:20.920 wealth from industry by means of sabotage production to serve 2:21:21.040 --> 2:21:25.039 human need. The basis of industry is useless to business 2:21:25.120 --> 2:21:27.520 unless it can be turned into a revenue stream. It 2:21:27.560 --> 2:21:30.560 does this by taking control of industry and its products 2:21:30.560 --> 2:21:33.480 and the restricting access to it particular and NICHS input it. 2:21:34.040 --> 2:21:37.520 The most important feature of private ownership is not that 2:21:37.600 --> 2:21:40.560 it enables those who own, but that it disables those 2:21:40.560 --> 2:21:44.520 who do not. Technically, anyone can get in someone else's 2:21:44.560 --> 2:21:47.200 car and drive away, or given order to sell all 2:21:47.240 --> 2:21:51.400 of Warren Buffett shares in Berkshire hathaway. The purpose of 2:21:51.440 --> 2:21:55.240 private ownership is wholly and only an institution of exclusion. 2:21:55.920 --> 2:22:00.520 An institutional exclusion is a matter of organized power. As 2:22:00.560 --> 2:22:02.959 we can see from the genocide on the plains. This 2:22:03.160 --> 2:22:06.120 power is no abstract force. Beblin tends to focus on 2:22:06.160 --> 2:22:09.400 the power of absentee owners to stop production, and for 2:22:09.480 --> 2:22:12.560 good reason, but business stands in the way of industry 2:22:13.040 --> 2:22:16.320 in more immediate ways too. After all, the purpose of 2:22:16.360 --> 2:22:19.560 cooperative industry is to make goods to improve our lives. 2:22:19.879 --> 2:22:22.920 And yet in between us and the proceeds that industry 2:22:23.000 --> 2:22:26.240 creates to serve our needs, there is a cash register 2:22:26.320 --> 2:22:30.000 in a cop Even the creators of a Louis Vetton bag, 2:22:30.520 --> 2:22:34.039 or for that matter, a tomato, have no claim on 2:22:34.080 --> 2:22:36.880 it once business takes over, and business would rather destroy 2:22:36.920 --> 2:22:39.400 it than see it fall into their hands. The famous 2:22:39.480 --> 2:22:43.600 Russian anarchist theorist Peter Kirpotkin was writing along similar lines 2:22:43.640 --> 2:22:46.680 to Feblyn just a few years before Feblen, it seems, 2:22:46.680 --> 2:22:49.440 have been exposed to anarchist ideas through its association with 2:22:49.480 --> 2:22:53.120 the industrial workers of the world. In early nineteen hundreds, 2:22:53.120 --> 2:22:55.960 it was not altogether unusual for economists to move in 2:22:56.080 --> 2:23:00.560 radical circles. The great Italian economist Piero's rap for smuggled 2:23:00.600 --> 2:23:03.920 pens and papers to Antonio Gramsey, while Grumsey, the head 2:23:03.920 --> 2:23:07.080 of the Italian Communist Party, was a prisoner with the 2:23:07.120 --> 2:23:10.720 Italian Fascist regime. Grapha would later extract the writings that 2:23:12.040 --> 2:23:16.680 Crumpsy had written in prison, unleashing Gramsey's prison notebooks onto 2:23:16.720 --> 2:23:19.600 the world. But Feblin was unique even among these economists 2:23:19.600 --> 2:23:22.400 for the extent that he incorporated radical theories directly into 2:23:22.440 --> 2:23:26.360 his work. As you've seen, was his adoption of sabotage 2:23:27.720 --> 2:23:30.520 as a way of thinking about capitalism. This led Veblin 2:23:30.600 --> 2:23:32.800 to call the end of the system of what he 2:23:32.840 --> 2:23:38.360 described as vested interests and absentee owners. Feblin solution, however, 2:23:38.840 --> 2:23:42.440 which he described as a quote Soviet If technicians would 2:23:42.440 --> 2:23:45.760 manage production for all, society leaves a lot to be 2:23:45.800 --> 2:23:49.200 desired for. So let us return to the source, her 2:23:49.280 --> 2:23:53.600 spotkin and the conquest of bread. The minds, so they 2:23:53.640 --> 2:23:57.160 represent the labor of several generations and derive their sole 2:23:57.280 --> 2:24:00.600 value from the requirements of the industry of a nation 2:24:00.800 --> 2:24:05.240 and the density of the population. The minds also belonged 2:24:05.280 --> 2:24:08.039 to the few, and these few restrict the output of 2:24:08.080 --> 2:24:11.480 coal are prevented entirely if they find a more profitable 2:24:11.520 --> 2:24:15.400 investments for their capital. Machinery, too, has become the exclusive 2:24:15.400 --> 2:24:19.760 property of the few, and even when a machine and 2:24:19.840 --> 2:24:24.440 contestedly represents an improvements added to the original rough invention 2:24:24.520 --> 2:24:29.360 by three or four generations of workers, and nonetheless belongs 2:24:29.400 --> 2:24:31.920 to a few owners. And if the descendants of the 2:24:32.040 --> 2:24:35.800 very inventor who constructed the first machine for lace building 2:24:36.000 --> 2:24:39.160 a century ago were to present themselves today at a 2:24:39.240 --> 2:24:42.920 lace factory and bail or Nottingham and demand their rights, 2:24:43.000 --> 2:24:46.560 they would be told hands off, this machine is not yours, 2:24:46.680 --> 2:24:48.440 and they would be shot down if they attempted to 2:24:48.480 --> 2:24:52.400 take possession of it. Here we see the competition between 2:24:52.400 --> 2:24:55.240 two different kinds of rights. On the one hand, the 2:24:55.360 --> 2:24:59.080 right of industry, the right of creativity, the right of 2:24:59.080 --> 2:25:02.560 those who produce and care for each other to be 2:25:02.640 --> 2:25:05.840 able to determine where the proceeds of their labor go. 2:25:06.320 --> 2:25:09.040 From industry's point of view, this is to each other, 2:25:09.800 --> 2:25:13.560 to those in need, into society as a whole. On 2:25:13.600 --> 2:25:15.680 the other hand, there is the right of property, the 2:25:15.800 --> 2:25:17.920 right of men with guns to throw oysters into the 2:25:17.959 --> 2:25:20.720 ocean because it's not profitable for anyone to eat them. 2:25:21.120 --> 2:25:25.040 Capitalism has developed a myriad of iterations precisely the same principle, 2:25:26.120 --> 2:25:30.480 and the world is now infested by them. Patent trolls haunt. 2:25:30.520 --> 2:25:34.640 They already fraught waters of intellectual property, buying up patents 2:25:34.640 --> 2:25:38.039 for cheap or on rare occasions, creating something themselves for 2:25:38.120 --> 2:25:41.800 the sole purpose, or preventing anyone else from using it, 2:25:41.920 --> 2:25:45.240 making money by suing anyone who dares try. Large corporations, 2:25:45.280 --> 2:25:48.439 of course, stu precisely the same thing, see for example, 2:25:48.840 --> 2:25:52.360 Disney's War and the concept of anything, anything at all, 2:25:52.879 --> 2:25:56.480 falling into the public domain, the sabotage, and on this 2:25:56.720 --> 2:26:01.640 all four of our interlocutors, Veblen, Popkin clear needs and 2:26:01.720 --> 2:26:05.920 degree as long as private ownership exists, because sabotage is 2:26:06.000 --> 2:26:09.840 all private ownership really is. But it is not simply 2:26:09.959 --> 2:26:13.360 enough to answer corporate sabotage with their own sabotage. As 2:26:13.480 --> 2:26:16.440 Veblen pointed out, this is simply the ordinary state of 2:26:16.440 --> 2:26:21.160 affairs enter capitalism. For Capotkin, the answer was simple. This 2:26:21.360 --> 2:26:26.640 rich endowments, painfully one builded, fashioned, or invented by our ancestors, 2:26:27.120 --> 2:26:29.800 must become common property so that the collective interests of 2:26:29.840 --> 2:26:33.000 men may gain from it. The greatest good for all, 2:26:33.160 --> 2:26:36.200 There must be appropriation the well being of all, the 2:26:36.400 --> 2:26:41.199 end expropriation. The means how precisely to go about doing 2:26:41.240 --> 2:26:43.160 such a thing as been the subject of endless debate 2:26:43.200 --> 2:26:45.680 for nearly two hundred years. And I am not arrogant 2:26:45.760 --> 2:26:49.240 enough to propose to solve the problem here. But a 2:26:49.320 --> 2:26:52.720 system where a company can prevent even the US government 2:26:52.760 --> 2:26:56.280 from attempting to produce ventilators by simply buying up the 2:26:56.320 --> 2:26:59.280 company that won the contract and refusing to fill the 2:26:59.400 --> 2:27:02.120 order to maintain the value of the ventilators it was 2:27:02.160 --> 2:27:05.280 already producing. Is a system based on nothing less than 2:27:05.360 --> 2:27:08.280 ensuring that people will die for or five percent rate 2:27:08.320 --> 2:27:11.840 of return. If we are to have any hope of 2:27:12.000 --> 2:27:15.840 stopping the ravages that climate change promises for our future, 2:27:16.400 --> 2:27:23.760 we cannot afford to be sabotaged at every stop. Hey, 2:27:23.840 --> 2:27:26.959 We'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from 2:27:27.000 --> 2:27:30.360 now until the heat death of the universe. It could happen. 2:27:30.400 --> 2:27:32.680 Here is a production of cool Zone Media. For more 2:27:32.760 --> 2:27:35.520 podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone 2:27:35.560 --> 2:27:37.400 media dot com, or check us out on the I 2:27:37.520 --> 2:27:40.120 Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to 2:27:40.200 --> 2:27:43.000 podcasts you can find sources for It could happen here. 2:27:43.120 --> 2:27:46.520 Updated monthly at cool Zone media dot com slash sources. 2:27:46.760 --> 2:27:47.520 Thanks for listening.